A Story of Agency, Music, Collaboration and Love

A STORY of AGENCY, MUSIC, COLLABORATION and LOVE.

From Ginnie Thorner, Performing Arts Teacher, St Andrews College

From:  Student

To:      Teacher

Subject:  Random Idea

Question:  May I write a musical for the year 9/10 students for 2014? 

From: Teacher

To: Student

Subject: Random idea

Reply:  Go for it. 

Above is a true story. This was the beginning of a story of agency, of music, of collaboration and of love. It is the story of what happens when students have the space and permission to act on their initiative and create something meaningful in their world. This is the power of agency in education. 

Let me introduce you to Isaac - a talented year 13 student who had an idea to create something meaningful, both to him, and to our performance and school communities. Isaac has a passion for composition and has written a full length book musical, scored and arranged for a fourteen piece orchestra. This is a huge achievement for anyone - let alone someone who is still in high school. This is a story of music that has been written not as an exercise to pass NCEA or an exam, but as a meaningful creative work.

Agency does not mean a student has an idea and then goes it alone. Great ideas from anyone need support to come to fruition. We should not underestimate how hard it is to open your creative projects to hard critique. This is essential to the creative process.

I admire Isaac’s bravery and tenacity for gathering a team together to collaborate with. 

The teacher in the email conversation above is St Andrew’s College HOD Music, Duncan Ferguson. He is an extraordinary teacher who actively supports students in many musical endeavors. Duncan worked with Isaac providing mentoring in composition, arranging and recording. He then arranged other professional connections so that Isaac might develop his music further.

Isaac absorbed all feedback. He held his own creative line when he needed to, but had the maturity and the creative understanding to know when to weave in something new or when to let something go.

Isaac invited me to help out with the story. With my background in devised theatre that honours student voice, I was excited by the project. He gathered a group of students he thought might help and together we used one of my devising processes to create the story and characters to support the music that Isaac was writing. This is a risky business as collaboration means a great deal of negotiating. Creativity requires the power of collaboration. The group of writers met every week for a term and as long as I remembered to feed them, we created for hours! The group approached the critique and decision debates with maturity. Sometimes we abandoned a great idea, sometimes a moment of brilliance would come from our laughter and essentially “playing.” 

The Role of the Teacher in Agency

As teachers, supporting this project meant extra hours - many extra hours. But this is teaching isn’t it? Supporting the success of another person who is creating something meaningful. Because of this - it doesn’t feel like work. It’s in the ‘zone’ or ‘flow’ … but more than that, I think it is the most important reason we teach – to help someone else realise their strengths. This is the love of teaching. The love of learning. The love of collaborating on something important. Something well beyond National Standards, NCEA or passing exams. Creating meaning and beauty in our world is what makes us human. 

For me, spent hours were spent writing up and editing a script, meeting the creative team to design the on-stage aspects of the show. Duncan spent hours editing and printing musical scores, meeting to discuss musical ideas, rehearsing the orchestra and cast and then creating a professional recording. These are the sorts of teacher hours that illustrate a ‘love’ of the work. I’m sure those of you reading this have stories like this – going the extra mile because you believe in the students.

This doesn’t feel like work.

This is creative.

This is a meaningful project.

This is teaching.

What did I learn? 

Regardless of working in devised theatre for *mumble*  twenty-something years I still learned new things from this project.  In fact, I learned and re-learned a lot. Sometimes I had to step back, be quiet (hard for me), or put something on hold, I had to give space to the students but still know when to push them and be a bit more demanding. I didn’t always get that right – but that is the nature of teaching. That is what it means to develop our craft as educators.  

This project reminded me that this is the learning to focus on – the learning that feels like happiness and joy, not hard slog.  As soon as teaching feels like a chore, I think that means the learning I am working in isn’t genuine or passion-based for anyone. I think that agency and collaboration reminds us of the love of teaching. That is the ‘music’ of teaching that inspires me.

Come and see our story of Agency, Music, Collaboration and Love

This musical is a must-see. I am so proud of the students’ achievements that I suggest that if you are in Christchurch you spend 2 hours with us and see this extraordinary work. Tickets can be bought here:  http://goo.gl/yVVgys

Elmwood Goes Google

The Benefits of "Going Google"

From Simon Lean-Massey (Y4) and Ben Cording (Y3) from Elmwood School 

Connected – 

Being only three years into primary teaching, I thought I would spend a bit of time consolidating what I had learnt on placements, prepare more resources so that I could better differentiate, and develop those killer spelling and handwriting programmes (not).

It was all going well. I liked my school, my class, and my colleagues. I felt like I was getting better at meeting needs, but still there was this nagging feeling that I didn’t quite know how I was going to get the students to take control of their own learning as much as I had hoped. Surely, I could add better value as more of a guide and less of a director.

 And there were those reluctant writers, the ones who found it hard to take pride in their written work because it looked like a centipede had walked through a bunch of iron filings and then gone ballistic on their page. There were also those books to deal with: books left at home or lost; finding the work to give feedback; and trying to ignore all the surface features, which were barriers to the ideas that dwelt inside the scrawl. I had always been super tech-savvy, but didn’t get terribly enthused by the thought of having a class of 30 with six devices, producing the occasional Powerpoint, I-Movie or Storybird.

Serendipitously, we had just got a BYOD network layer running and the SNUpgrade. Little by little, we increased the number of devices in the class; half a dozen children started bringing a variety from home, I gave out my personal laptop and my work laptop, and we went out on raiding parties each morning, borrowing devices from generous and tolerant colleagues (sincere thanks and apologies). Over the space of a term or so, we have almost got to the point where we can get 1:1 device coverage for a large part of the morning.

We began a transition to a fully digital literacy programme. We now plan our writing on mind-mapping apps, draft on Google Docs, and often publish on Google Slides. I make all our reading activities as GDocs, which the children can access on any device and from any connected location. Parents can see exactly what their children are working on, and can see my feedback and next steps through the comments feature in GDocs. I can see children working on their writing at home. Many a Sunday afternoon, I log on to find children working on independent research or other literacy tasks.   

 Perhaps the most obvious change has been in our writing programme. If a writer is struggling for ideas or feedback, it is easy to assemble a team of quick experts who can open the “struggler’s” writing and type suggestions directly in. Within a few minutes, the writer can have four or five, or even 10 suggestions to help them over the particular roadblock. What is more, previously reluctant writers now find themselves part of expert groups. The initial surprise on one boy’s face was priceless – his ideas creative, spelling atrocious, grammar very average, and handwriting almost illegible, he was not accustomed to being asked to contribute to and comment on the work of his classmates as an expert.    

I now have a class of year four children whose overall engagement has skyrocketed and who are more (and more-productively) interactive than previously. For those concerned that 1:1 devices will lessen interaction and collaboration, my experience has been the complete opposite. The previously engaged are now better enabled and the less engaged are now more so.

But, perhaps the greatest personal reward was unanticipated. As the class has become more accustomed to automated feedback on some of the surface features, and has started using digital tools for research, my role has changed markedly. I’ve never been busier, but it’s a fulfilling busy and the reason I got into teaching: I have gradually removed myself as a source of support for inquiries that the children have the tools to resolve themselves. I now feel that I am adding value by putting a far greater proportion of my time into helping children develop questioning skills and deeper thinking. I am trying to build a more personalised pathway by using varied life skills and broad general knowledge to give students gentle suggestion and guidance for further inquiry so that they can continue to follow their own curiosity.

Although it is taking me time to build my own literacy resources, for those who are daunted by the idea of creating their own, there is a great community of digital teachers who share. A move to digital learning doesn’t require teachers to provide screes of self-generated digital content to teach a whole bunch of unfamiliar skills. It just requires that we find quality resources to teach those same information filtering and processing skills that we have always taught.

By Simon

Coming into 2014 I was convinced that the future of my year three teaching practice lay in the fancy short-throw projector that sat proudly above my whiteboard. I had spent the previous year coming to grips with Activinspire, playing around with what the software could do, and now felt like I had it down. Video clips at a click, instant and permanent records of classroom discussions, shared examples of student work that we could modify as a class - this was the future of education. 

Then Simon and Google Drive came and interrupted my best laid plans….

After seeing what Simon and his class had accomplished in a very short period of time by going Google, I knew that I wanted in on the action. I loved the idea of instant feedback, of effortless collaboration, and of marking work in a way that students would actually see and care about. But most of all, I loved the idea of a fluid classwork structure, where students learned to manage their time productively in order to complete tasks both at school and at home. I knew that I liked all of these things, what I didn’t know was how my year three students would take to them. 

I had a ton of questions. Do year three children need to still be writing in pencil, or do we go fully digital? Are we pushing this too early? Is too much ‘screen time’ something that I should be worried about? Did my students even have the basic computer literacy skills necessary to go down this path? I talked to colleagues and to parents of students in my room to try to find answers to these and other related questions. With (mostly) positive responses backing me up, I arrived at what I think to be a good transitional stepping stone that guides the students from pencil and paper to digital literacy. 

Every week exactly half of the students in the class work with 1:1 devices during writing sessions

(Google Docs and Google Slides predominantly). The following week, the other half of the class use devices for their writing. The writing topic stays the same for both computer and pencil/paper groups, as does the success criteria. Our literacy programme is conducted in a similar hybrid fashion with the reading texts given out to the students as normal (journals, StoryBytes etc), but with follow up tasks prepared on the drive for the students to complete in a given timeframe (normally a week). Tasks are divided into mandatory and optional categories, and students are encouraged to organise themselves effectively so that they can complete what they need to in the time given. Other curriculum areas see opportunities for the students to collaborate on the drive, researching topics and creating links from shared documents to information on the web.

So has it worked? Absolutely. We began this programme toward the beginning of term three and I can certainly say that I completely underestimated how quickly the students would pick this stuff up. We had a week or so of confusion and the picking up of basic computer skills, but after that the rate at which these year three children learned the ins and outs of the system was very quick indeed. Quite apart from the things that I suspected would be huge advantages of this system (peer/teacher feedback, student engagement, fluid classwork structure etc), it is the unexpected benefits that really provide the greatest joy for me. Things like children and parents working closely together on a piece of writing, not because it’s homework and it must be done, but because a child really wanted to work on it at home and Mum or Dad came over to see what they were up to; or when I log in randomly during the weekend to find that several children have decided to get together in the drive and work collaboratively on a document they have decided to create for themselves - just for the sheer joy of creating. 

Like Simon above, while I am certainly busy creating learning tasks and managing the drive, the benefits are already very apparent after only a short amount of time. I look forward to seeing how this approach will shape the classroom in the weeks to come. 

by Ben 

3 Reasons to allow your students to plan the Unit of Inquiry

3 Reasons to allow your students to plan the Unit of Inquiry
From Dr Lyn Bird, Principal, Selwyn House 

Teachers spend many hours planning units of inquiry in order to help their students learn new knowledge and to develop new skills and attitudes. Some teachers collaboratively develop the unit before ascertaining student prior knowledge. Some teachers develop a skeleton unit plan and finish the rest of the unit plan informed by student prior knowledge, questions and interests. A few teachers carry out a true form of democratic inquiry and co-construct the unit with their students.

What is your practice? Does your unit planning start from what the students know and build from there? Do your students have a clear and strong voice in planning the activities, visits and action to be taken in the unit? Or do you ‘do’ the inquiry unit as planned with little revision to suit the learners?

Fraser (2000, p.35) comments:

…teachers are in fact planning the units in advance, and consulting with the students only on a few minor details. The core elements, activities and direction of the units, as decided by the teacher, remain unchanged.

1. We know the power of incorporating student voice at all levels of learning.
2. We know gathering prior knowledge is a very important first step.
3. We know student choice is a powerful engagement tool. 

So, prior knowledge step number one is:

1.            Start with what they know.

I have worked with groups of students for many years facilitating the planning of units of inquiry using the same steps and approach as teachers use. Teachers are astonished when they receive the planning and often choose to use the plan with minor modifications. Why? Because the planning is authentic, starts from “what the students know” and engagement is instant.

2.             Students know how they like to learn best.

Students have the capability to design the learning activities and are very aware which skills they need to develop. Senior students have had many years of learning through exposure to many different types of inquiry learning activities and they know best which ones engage and suit the learning need. Planning assessment activities and an understanding of the learning journey leads to self-direction and metacognition.

3.             Students feel empowered when they carry out the planning and engagement is assured.

Students I have worked with feel proud that they have developed the unit and are very excited to begin learning. Incorporating student voice and choice to such a degree encourages student agency and ownership of their learning.

The following link is a unit of inquiry planned entirely by a group of Year 8 girls at Selwyn House.

I am sure they would love you to trial the unit.

Makerspaces- for all those who like making

Makerspaces – for all of those who like making

By Jill Pears, Associate Principal, Years 7 and 8, Linwood College 

 I believe pretty much all children had fun learning when they were little – before the constraints of formal education – when they could make things, things that were dreamed up only in their heads, out of stuff – nobody else’s vision but their own and using bits and pieces that adults readily consigned to the junk heap. It is this mindset that is celebrated as part of the Maker movement, supported by Makerspaces popping up around the world – and in the oddest of places – libraries!! No longer are libraries only spaces for those who like to read quietly in the corner.

Robotics- a stunning addition to the
Makerspace if the budget allows

Makerspaces are an essential part of the Maker movement - a subculture that has sprung up, arguably as a way to balance our increasing digital world. The Maker culture itself combines traditional D.I.Y., an essential part of New Zealand culture, with the added possibilities made available through technological advances such as 3D printing, Robotics, CNC tools and electronic developments such as eTextiles. There is no doubt that hands-on learning, or learning by doing, is essential for children to develop their understandings about how the world around them works as well as for developing their creativity and problem-solving skills.

 Makerspaces have over the past few years begun to spring up in schools and libraries, at first in the United States but now this is spreading across the world and Makerspaces are appearing in New Zealand schools, libraries and communities as spaces where there are a range of tools, equipment and materials available to users so people can, driven by their own interests, create, innovate and collaborate on projects they are passionate about.

 The Maker movement believes in learning by doing or learning by making. Arguably this is even
more important as our world becomes increasingly digital and many children could be living lives devoid of hands on exploration and creation. Yet, the digital world is an essential part of Makerspaces due to the increasing range of possibilities enabled through digital tools CNC routers and 3D printing.

 Within the school environment Makerspaces are places where students are busy, actively engaged in what they are doing, maybe working on more than one project at the same time, or setting their project aside for a while to collaborate with someone else, experimenting, taking things apart and putting them together again and learning through exploring, making and learning.

In the same space, teachers work alongside the students. The authoritarian role that most teachers have already relinquished has no place in a Makerspace. Yet, for many teachers, while they would love the have this type of environment in which to work with their students the beginning of how to set it up seems very daunting.

 The advice I would give to those of us who are likely to see all the pitfalls of a new adventure is to start small. When you consider that the Maker movement and along with it the Makerspace is a state of mind or a philosophy you realise that this can happen in the smallest of spaces and with the smallest of budgets. Remember that the emphasis is on creativity and as such there is no reason why the corner of a classroom, or an alcove in the library cannot be converted into a Makerspace area.

Learning the skills of soldering

While I am fortunate to have a space that is dedicated to being a Makerspace this area is not exactly how I want it yet (and probably never will be considering I would love a space where there is a home for all the different categories of bits and pieces and students all put things away in the correct space) but what is more important than that, is how the space is used and whether or not there is true student ownership of the projects that are being created in the space.

There is no doubt that a Makerspace evolves over time through the shared ownership of all the people who make, tinker and create in there. This, I believe is the benefit of starting small. The space develops, over many iterations, into a space that works for all who inhabit it. Being a school that has been impacted by the school closures and mergers that are prevalent in Christchurch, while there was a dedicated space I quickly began to realise that the actual space was one of the least important factors.

With students coming from a variety of schools, and school closures no doubt having a large impact on their sense of belonging, the process of developing the shared culture that is present in schools that have not been through closures and mergers required a greater focus than the development of the space. Yet, while I am eternally grateful for having the available space, I was strongly reminded that school and education is not about the space it is about the learners (students and teachers) who inhabit it.

 So, once you have your space for the Makerspace, your next question is what do you put in it (aside from the people that is)? Again, I would like to recommend that in the early stages you don’t need a wide range of expensive materials. It is fully acceptable to start with basic materials – cardboard, scissors, pipe cleaners wooden sticks, glue, felt and fabric, wools, duct tape, clay, play doh, ‘junk’ for taking apart or recycling and a range of Lego for building. Also important are some sort of containers for students to keep their inventions in. Developing the ‘tidy’ habits from an early stage will make the life of the teacher so much easier, and students won’t lose or have someone else take apart their precious creations.

 In these early stages it is vital to remember that it is not what the students make, it is the process of how they make it that is important. Ideally students will be (even though they may be unaware of it) using an iterative design process where they keep on refining their inventions until they are happy with them. The role of the teacher in this is to work alongside students modelling this approach and use questioning to ensure a cyclic process rather than a linear one. Develop a culture of experimentation where creativity, tinkering, design thinking, and multiple iterations are celebrated rather than having something that succeeds perfectly the first time round. This does not mean there is not a place for specific teaching in a Makerspace. As the space develops and tools are purchased that need to be used in a specific way direct teaching sessions will be required. In these sessions, students can be taught how to use the tools, and when and why they would choose to use this tool. These lessons are not necessarily a time for creating; rather they are skills sessions to help students develop the skills necessary to enable them to become effective makers and creators. Without having the basic skills to use the available tools students can quickly become frustrated and lose confidence in their own ability to make and create. Being able to use a small range of tools, such as soldering irons, drill, a scroll saw or a sewing machine will greatly broaden the scope of students’ creations. Through TKI/Technology Online there is detailed advice and information about how to manage safety within technology education. This can help support many of the decisions with regard to the tools one should have available to students in a Makerspace.

 Even though the philosophy of a Makerspace is for people to create out of their own imaginations I

Using instructions from howtoons.com to begin
developing ideas for mini marshmallow guns

believe there is also a place for instruction sheets. These can be available to students, but, rather than having to be slavishly followed, can be used both as a way to help students develop confidence in using the materials and as a way to help students begin to adapt and develop their own ideas. Here teachers can play a role in disrupting the following of instructions by encouraging students to explore how they could do things a different way, or how they could alter the final product slightly. A natural disruption for students who like to follow instructions, or who may lack the confidence to believe in their own ideas, is to make sure you don’t have all the materials necessary. Having slightly different materials will force the students to be creative, and use their own ideas to help them invent and create.

 For teachers, as new ideas arise there is always that feeling of pressure of how this can be fitted into an already crowded curriculum. We are fortunate in New Zealand that our curriculum is flexible enough so that Makerspace ideas can be included across the curriculum. Give students hands on opportunities to demonstrate their learning and create things that show their understanding. And, if possible, have the Makerspace area open at lunchtime so it is available to students at non-timetabled times. Create a new lunch-time duty responsibility if necessary so the Makerspace is available to as many students as possible, across a wide range of times. There is nothing like the pride on a student’s face when they have created something out of their own ideas. This is true engagement. I have seen students walk around for days, they might forget their books their pencil case or their lunch, but they will still proudly be carrying something they have made through their own endeavours in the Makerspace.

'Invent to Learn' is regarded by many as the definitive
guide to starting a Makerspace

 And, as a postscript, there is a wide range of resources available to get you started on your very own Makerspace.

Try the Makerspace Playbook as a starter
http://makered.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Makerspace-Playbook-Feb-2013.pdf or explore the many posts about Makerspaces on sites such as Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org or simply google the word Makerspace and you will find a wealth of shared knowledge to help you get started.