My Learning Space

Blog task for February:
Create a photo or video tour of your classroom/learning space. 

Why have I got things set up this way?
I love the range of working areas within the class. There are ares for groups to work together, either around the large low table for large groups, on the couches, or in smaller groups at the high tables. We have screens for presentations and also for smaller group presentations.



Students can sit comfortably on a couch, with feet up, or stand to work if they prefer. It gives room for them to move freely around the room and I have found that students do change from one area to another depending on what they are working on.

Having had this class for a year now, I don't think I would change anything! I love the possibilities within it and it seems to work well for all we do.

Have a look at our newsletter for more photos and information.
  
 

Schools within schools

Over the last five years that I have been teaching at Hagley College I have been lucky to have been heavily involved in setting up and running two "Schools within Schools". These were both developed to improve student retention, engagement, learning and achievement.

My first project was the School of Music. Hagley was already running fulltime schools of Fashion, Dance, Cuisine, Early Childhood and the Theatre Company so it wasn't a totally new idea, but these were mainly aimed at students who had finished school and were looking for the next step, whereas the School of Music was to be based at Year 12, then hopefully following on to Year 13 the next year if it was successful. The School of Music was intended to be a separate, self-contained community with a unique ethos, organisation and a distinct curriculum with qualifications based around a student’s passion or interest, and grounded in their world.

The course was designed to cover numeracy at NCEA Level 1, if students did not have it already, and literacy in the form of English and History at Level 2. However, it was with a difference, all of these

were to be taught with music as the basis. Mathematics using tasks such as your budget for your CD or tour, or dimensions of drums relative to pitch - all things that were relevant to music students. English and History covered songwriting, protest songs, large musical events and biographies of musicians as well as music research topics. We were lucky enough to have staff at school in those departments who were also keen musicians and were motivated to give this idea a go. A lot of work went into designing these tasks and assessments and the staff have done an amazing job.

The students have 12-16 hours of music each week, as well as 4-8 of Literacy and Numeracy. The music time is split between 4 music staff who all have their own area of expertise. The students get the benefit of a range of teaching and knowledge and feel they are part of a family, even to the extent of me having been called Mum a few times. Students are given instruction on the work required then
work as individuals at their own pace. Students can be working on a range of standards at any one

time and have the flexibility to work in depth on one then return to another at a later date. A general pattern is followed but most students are flexible in the order in which they finish work.The teacher sometimes acts as an advisor, sometimes a facilitator and sometimes we have transmission based learning.
Not often are staff in front of the class as a whole and when we are it is only for a short time to impart information on how to start the next unit of work, or on a specific piece of knowledge we need to get across.

One of the strengths of the course has been the pastoral care and the communication with home. All students are interviewed with their parents before they start the course and parents are kept informed of all events and notices via email. We have been very clear to parents, who are a big part of our community, that taking the School of Music narrows students tremendously. The feedback we have had is that students and their parents feel that if it had not been for the School of Music, the students would have left school, or been very unhappy.

These are students who live only for their music and struggle with anything else. It is amazing how they manage to achieve Literacy and Numeracy, when in some cases, they have been told they are not capable of doing so.

This went on to Level 3 in it's second year and we are, 4 years on, in a good place to enable our students to gain UE, NCEA Level 2 and 3 and a National Certificate in Music over the 2 years they study with us. The majority go on to tertiary study and those that don't are helped into the workforce, generally with a music focus.

My next project was the School of Apps. This started up just this year so is still in it's early stage of development. The idea for this was thought up by Brent Ingram and Andy Gorton when they were at a conference in 2014. There were many seminars and discussions there about needing more creative skills, especially around digital technology. When they came back to school a small group of us then took the idea and worked out how we could combine it with the School within School idea. Andy and I then worked on the content and I am now teaching this course for 14 hours a week (and teaching the other 6 hours in the School of Music).

The School of Apps is aimed at Yr 13 students who are keen on developing apps and have creative ideas. The idea is to study, design and create mobile apps within a business environment. It is based on 5 guiding principles:

• Creativity
• Critical Thinking
• Self-Management
• Collaboration
• Communication

The students work on projects both as an individual and in groups using these 5 principles. We use Scrum which is an Agile Project Management framework which enables us to have good teamwork and a structure for projects.The students also do English, through their report writing, and Business Studies, working on marketing their apps.

The outcome is for the students to have a portfolio of skills and designed apps, as well as the opportunity to gain Level 3 NCEA and UE if they wish to. This year, the students have ranged from age 17 to 70ish and not all have wanted NCEA credits.

We have the most amazing work environment in which students feel very comfortable and are keen to be in all day.

As this is the first year, I am still in the learning process and I know I will be changing things for next year to make it even more responsive to student needs. I have been continually reviewing the course and am looking forward to 2016.

I am a strong believer in the Schools within Schools idea. I have seen the change it has made to people's lives. So many students have been re-engaged with learning and are now fully focused and enjoying school. What more could you ask for?

This blog is also posted on the Christchurch Connected Educators site http://chched.blogspot.co.nz/

A piece of music or art that inspired me

Earlier this month the Connected Educator Challenge gave us a task to blog about a piece of music or art or poem that inspired me for teaching. Although this isn't directly about a piece of art or music, the task made me think more about the students that inspire me by their work.

The first thing that came to mind was the work of a student who I had in our full time School of Music course. This student was an interesting lad as he had struggled hugely in year 9 and 10, spending most of his time outside the Principal's office or being stood down. He struggled to write and he had dyslexia. He hated any form of authority and frequently told teachers where to go. He was frustrated, disengaged and didn't want to do anything for anyone. One day, one of our music staff suggested he learn the bass guitar. His eyes lit up and he became motivated to do music. After a struggle in Year 11, we took him into the School of Music (I will do another post on this amazing course). This seriously changed his life, but that's another story.

While he was in the School of Music he had to complete a research project on a topic of his own choosing. His research question was "Why and how are Mark Rothko's paintings so similar to the music of Joy Division?" He wanted to compare the art of Rothko with the music of Joy Division and see if there was a relationship between how art and music can affect people. He felt there was a strong link between the Rothko Chapel painting with Joy Division's song Decades.
He did a survey which presented people with a range of different paintings by different artists and they picked which painting suited the song. Interestingly, almost all of the survey answers chose the Rothko painting out of the 6 they were presented with.

It was the most amazing piece of work for two reasons:

• It was a research project written by a student who could hardly write a sentence just a few years before.
• To look at the relationship between art and music is such an interesting topic for a modern day student to pick and he really did a lot of in depth research about this.

This inspired me to really encourage students to pursue areas of interest to them. It showed me how much could be accomplished by someone who is interested in a topic and is prepared to find out more. The passion he had for this really shone through.

The other thing that came to mind was a group of musicians I had the pleasure of working with this year. These year 13 students have shown me what amazing musicians can do - without me. Just by being given an opportunity to work together, these young lads reached a very high standard. They entered Smokefree Rock Quest as the band Forlorn Bloom and got through to second place in the Regional Final. This was outstanding because they didn't have a vocalist. I think it was the first time I have seen an instrumental group get so far through the Rock Quest process. They managed to make it to the top 20 bands in New Zealand with their original music.

My students always inspire me, and I am lucky enough to teach music which is inspiration itself.

NCEA and Term 4

It is that time of the year when madness reigns. Students frantically dash to finish work, teachers are overloaded with marking and moderating results. We are trying to get students prepared for external exams. Term 4 is a busy one.
My reflection for this week - a Connected Educator Challenge - is about this assessment process and about learning.

One of the things I believe in, and our school supports, is assessing students when they are ready. I have seen many students miss out on gaining standards by not having the opportunity to be assessed when they are ready. Obviously there are some standards that you don't have a choice about when you do your assessment - a practical assessment in Science, a field trip or something that relies on external providers, but in general we work hard to give students plenty of opportunities to present their work.

In Music, we have a number of standards that rely on students making a portfolio of work. Performances can be collected during the year and compositions completed at various times. Along with having checkpoints for these to keep students on track, we have a number of students who finish them early, or struggle to finish them at all - hence the last minute rush in Term 4.

 I know of many staff and schools who would say "it's due this date and after that it won't be marked". I find this quite difficult to align myself with, as I believe that it's hard to push that creative process of composition, and also the physical performance skills. I know how difficult it is to write a piece and have it right, getting frustrated with a chord, or a passage that just doesn't work. Sometimes you have to be in the right head-space or it just won't happen. Perhaps you just haven't quite mastered the technical skill to enable you to play a piece until later in the year. For these reasons, I believe strongly in giving students as many opportunities as we can to get these standards finished. We have numerous concerts during the year that they can use for assessment, as well as performances they do outside of school with their own bands. This, however, leads to a busy Term 4! It's good that students have a focus and for some, it's probably the hardest they have worked all year, but it leads to busy marking and feedback sessions.

 My students at the moment are all very credit focused. What happened to the learning that I felt I had earlier in the year? In fact, I have just had a class where one of the students has copied his pie-chart of credits and made it into wallpaper for his desktop. He wanted to remind himself to get Excellence as much as possible. A nice idea, but I want him to learn as much as possible...

One thing I implemented into my music classes this year was a listening exercise to try and encourage them to expand their listening and give them work that was NOT assessed, but still contributed to their learning. Student felt it helped with all aspects of music, expanding their knowledge. I really enjoyed teaching this, as there was less emphasis on assessment and more on learning new things just for the sake of gaining knowledge.


There was a great tweet by Brett Phipps ‏@Phippsb53 on Sep 19

"If we called assessments "checks for understanding," our conversations would change drastically".

 I believe this is a really good idea - are we far too assessment obsessed? What are we trying to achieve?