Week 7 Term 2 - TOD: Manaiakalani Cluster Teacher Only Day (June 6 - June 9)

The Manaiakalani Cluster Teacher Only day took place at the end of Week 6 Term 2. The primary focus of the TOD was 'CREATE' specifically 'Creativity Empowers Learning' - For Manaiakalani Create/Hanga is built on engagement and empowerment. How are we harnessing Create to motivate our learners to ENGAGE with reading to learn and learning to read? Here is a break down on what we covered in our TOD: 

• Session 1: Research + Data Analysis: We spent the first part of the TOD looking at the data for our akonga across the cluster (specifically Year 1 - Year 10) in writing, reading and math data. This was a deep dive presentation where we were able to analyze and reflect on our cluster and school achievement data. 
• Session 2: Quality Learning Circles: In the second session, we broke off into smaller groups within our own schools (Quality Learning Circles) where we were able to share effective practice that meets one of the new literacy and communication curriculum progress steps. 
• Session 3: Create Workshops: In the last session we went to different workshops that focused on how to harness creativity and how to use this to motivate our learners to engage with reading. 

Manaiakalani Cluster Teacher Only Day 02/06/23

In this post I am going to reflect on my take away from Session 2: Quality Learning Circles and Session 3: Create Workshop. 

Session 2: Quality Learning Circles

Quality Learning Circle session 2 (TOD 02/06/23)

The focus of this session was for kaiako to share effective practice that meets one of the new literacy and communication curriculum progress steps. The group that I was in was made up of my colleagues across the different learning areas. We looked specifically at our Year 11, 12 and 13 students in relation to literacy (reading and writing). We were able to share the strategies that we use and that we think we are effective for reading and writing in our learning area. I shared the literacy strategies that I have used with my Year 9 English class that links to my inquiry for 2023 (see Alby's Blog Post Entry - 02/04/23 - for what my inquiry focus is). It was awesome to hear the different strategies that my colleagues are using with their junior and senior classes, specifically what is working for them but also what challenges that are currently facing and the next steps that they want to take to address these challenges. 

Feedback from session 2 (TOD: 02/06/23)

There is good practice going on across the learning areas when it comes to effective practice of literacy. Some of the practice that we find to be effective with literacy (with reading and writing) is understanding the data and helping our akonga to understand their data. This is something that we want to do better in our teaching practice so that our students know where they are at and what their next steps to move onto the next level in their reading and writing journey. Teaching vocabulary specific to the subject area and exploring this language is another strategy that is effective specifically in Science, English and PE. Deep dive in certain words that are linked to a text study or to a topic can help build vocabulary banks for our students. Robust and positive feedback is an effective strategy that we all agreed on. Our students and in particular our senior students need and appreciate our feedback. I wrote a post on this (see Alby's Blog Post Entry - 15/03/22) on meaningful feedback and why it is important for our akonga. Setting high expectations is an effective strategy across all subject areas, believing that our students can and affirming the strengths that they bring to the classroom. I enjoyed this session as we were able to share and reflect on what we are doing but also learn from each other. I appreciated everyone's journey and the reality that we are working in. 

Session 3: Create Workshops

The focus for this session was to see how CREATE in our cluster is all about engagement and empowerment. The purpose of the Create worships is to see how we as kaiako can harness Create to motivate our learners to ENGAGE with reading. The workshop that I went to was 'Create with A.I' which was an introduction to a range of of AI options that could be used by akonga or kaiako to create as part of the learning process. I really enjoyed this workshop (led by Mrs Dorothy Burt), we were introduced to a range of AI options that we could use with our students to help encourage and engage them with reading. Some of the options that I really liked were: 

Click on the image to access the site: CRAIYON

CRAIYON: I really liked this AI option. It is an online AI image generator where you can type anything that you want and it will produce an image. What I like about this is that Craiyon is able to generate an image that is a result of what you type in the draw engine. It could be a good tool for students who like a visual component to their reading. They could type in descriptions of the setting or pull quotes from the text and it can help students visual the text that they are reading. If they are creating a visual text, this AI option can help bring the text that they have crafted to life. The advertisements on the landing page could be overwhelming but there is no sign in required so that is a plus. 

Click on the image to access the site: MUZIFY

MUZIFY: This AI option enables users to create a playlist for a text. You can type in the title of your studied text or chapter and Muzify will generate a playlist for the text. This is a great way for students to connect the studied text to other texts (something that we do across all year levels specifically in Level 1, 2 and 3 NCEA English). Also after reading the text, students can pull a character's name or an important quote and generate a playlist on this. It is relatively easy to use and does not require a sign in. 

I look forward to sharing this with the English Department and also hearing about the workshops that they attended!