TM Issue 29

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

How focus, frame and flow can bring about freedom p30

Where do teens get their energy from? p40

How to use environmental change to manage behaviour p42

The role of sleep and learning p50 NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 29

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editor’s note

W

elcome back,

I hope you are recharged and rested after your break – if you managed to squeeze one in – and that your term has started with a bang!

This issue of Teachers Matter includes stacks of fabulous articles that I’m sure will provide you much food for thought, and opportunities to reflect on your classroom practices. I have been back in the classroom this year – which has been fantastic - and I know that there are ideas in here that I am planning to use in the coming weeks.

Alan Cooper and Lauren Rivers have both continued the conversation about differentiation and why it is so important in today’s classrooms.

Alan’s ver y practical ‘Traffic Light’ system is a simple idea that has great outcomes for both students and teachers, and is one that I have had positive feedback from those teachers who I have passed it on to. The data gleaned from using this system, is also transferable into Lauren’s strategies where the focus moves on to developing students cognitive connections.

and inspire learners, and talk about the need for change. I was so happy to read that one of the fundamental changes teachers made was to adapt their classroom environments to invoke curiosity, embrace beauty and joy, and ensure that students felt valued and safe. In the ‘Last Wo r d ’ , K a r e n B o y e s d i s c u s s e s modern learning environments and outlines 5 important considerations to address to ensure your environment is a s u c c e s s f u l o n e . Wi t h t h e s e and other articles addressing ideas about both learning and behaviour environments, I can see many changes being made in learning spaces around the globe!

Close to the heart of us here at Teachers Matter is the well-being of staff in schools. From how to create a positive new habit in your life, how your clothes reflect your true self, how to avoid emotional anorexia in workplaces, some quick brain puzzles to keep you sharp, eating mindfully to a sure-fire stress buster - in this issue there are many, many ideas to help you look after yourself and others.

We wish you a marvellous term!

In part one of their article, Trudy Francis and colleagues discuss ways to motivate

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CONTENTS

In this issue

p8 - Why punishment doesn't teach children accountability 3

Editor’s note

Sarah Linehan

6 Avoiding emotional

anorexia in your school dr bill sommers

8

Why punishment doesn’t teach children accountability

10

Teachers Matter Conference 2015

12

Why we need to prioritise social and emotional learning

15

Quote

dr laura markham

megan gallagher

Teachers Matter

dr helen street

4

paulo coelho

16 Real Learning in

action at Murrays Bay School

fleur knight

18

Considering the advantages and disadvantages of homework

maggie hos-mcgrane

p27 - The TEDDY BEAR process

p34 - Know the birth order of your students

20

Moving beyond differentiation into developing cognitive connections

23

The biggest leadership challenge

Stephen Lethbridge

michael grose

24

Using ‘emotional hooks’ to motivate and inspire young writers

36 A to Z of effective teaching

lauren rivers

Sonya Carey, Fallon Braithwaite,

Hailey Cundall and

Trudy Francis

27

Using the TEDDY BEAR process to develop confidence kanuka simpson

28 Formative assessment,

peer teaching and

differentiation

alan cooper

30

How focus, frame and flow can bring about freedom

glenn capelli

32

3 powerful ways to positively influence your students

34

How knowing the birth order of your students can make your life easier

christina harvey

karen boyes

38 Five more steps to

create powerfully

positive playtimes therese hoyle

40

Where does your teen get their energy from?

42

How to use environmental change to manage challenging class behaviours

44

5 minute brain exercises

kate mason

kate southcombe

kim chamberlain

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MAGAZINE CONTACTS

To receive your own copy of the next issue, send an e-mail to magazine@spectrumeducation.com

Teachers Matter Magazine Team Publisher, Sales and Advertising Karen Boyes Editor Sarah Linehan Art Director Mary Hester / 2ndFloorDesign Printer Spectrum Print, Christchurch

Subscriptions Toll free (NZ) 0800 373 377 Toll free (Australia) 1800 249 727 Thanks to the educators, speakers and authors who contributed interviews, articles, photographs and letters.

Teachers Matter magazine is registered with the National Library: ISSN 1178-6825 © Spectrum Education 2015 All rights reserved.

p60 - The Cuckoo 47

Use your voice and body language to your advantage

maaike christie-beekman

48 Giving effective feedback

Michael Grinder and Mary Yenik

50

Study Skills

Karen Boyes

52 Parenting style traps

and how to

overcome them

yvonne godfrey

55

Quote

56

How to meet your deadlines!

Dr seuss

robyn pearce

p74 - Wacky World Records 62

Eat mindfully, not mindlessly!

Catrina Bengree

How your clothes can reflect your true self

chryssie russell

All Enquiries

66

Healthy snacks for teachers on the go

Spectrum Education Ltd

Irma Cooke

Street Address: 19 Rondane Place, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

68

Using robotics in your classroom

Postal Address: PO Box 30818, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

jenny barrett

Phone: (NZ) +64 4 528 9969

70

How to successfully embed a new practice in your life

Fax: (NZ) +64 4 528 0969

72

Quote

Lioncrest Education Postal Address: PO Box 340 Cessnock NSW 2325, Australia

kara-leah grant

scott fitzgerald

74

Wacky World Records

60 Promoting picture books

The Cuckoo

76

The Last Word: Modern Learning Environments

Barbara griffith

& tricia kenyon

The opinions expressed in Teachers Matter are those of the contributors and we love them!

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58 A ‘sure-fire’ stress buster terry small

Parts of this publication may be reproduced for use within a school environment. To reproduce any part within another publication (or in any other format) permission from the publisher must be obtained.

karen boyes

magazine@spectrumeducation.com www.spectrumeducation.com

Phone: 61 2 4991 2874 or 1800 249 727 info@lioncrest.com.au www.lioncrest.com.au

5

dr bill sommers

Avoiding emotional anorexia in your school Share your gratitude with others

G

reat teachers are emotionally intelligent, connect with their students and colleagues and they understand that positive relationships are the bedrock of successful schools. Keeping up these positive relationships can be emotionally draining and if we do not replenish regularly then it can lead to what I call emotional anorexia.

The emotionally anorexic lose the capacity to maintain meaningful working relationships and everyone suffers. Schools full of emotional anorexics look like the zombie apocalypse! As leaders we can avoid this depressing outcome by starting with a little appreciation.

Teachers Matter

In one school where I was an interim principal, some staff wanted to come in during the summer to meet me. They told me what they liked and didn’t like how their programme was the most important

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“ Notice the good and say it out loud. Share your appreciation.”

in the school, and what they wanted me to do as a principal. I asked each one, “Who are the best teachers or staff members you work with at this school?” Invariably one or two people’s names surfaced (I found it interesting that those named were not the ones coming in to my office to talk to me).

When school started I visited the classrooms of those named and it was easy to see why they had been singled out by their colleagues. In these classrooms students were engaged and they knew the teacher cared about them and was ready to help

any individual student understand more fully. I was impressed and left a note in their mailboxes thanking them for what they were doing for our kids.

The next day one of these teachers appeared with tears in her eyes and said that my note was better than a box of chocolates or a bottle of booze. She had not heard a kind word from an administrator for years.

Another staff member came in, sat down, and started to weep. I told him how many people had told me how good he was and

dr bill sommers

photo: Brian Jackson

that I agreed. He said no other staff member had ever told him they thought he was a good teacher. What I found troubling was that although he was good and everyone else believed he was good - nobody said it out loud.

This is where you can step up and start making a difference. Notice the good and say it out loud. Share your appreciation.

The research on gratitude is clear. Those who express their appreciation make a big difference in other people’s lives, and when

delivering the message also get a large dose of dopamine. Barbara Fredrickson, in her book “Positivity” says that it takes a 3:1 ratio of good comments to every negative comment to stay even. How about we go for 4:1 plus? Let’s get the energy in schools positive and do our part in assisting others.

You will get more back than you give.

Make someone’s day. They deserve it, AND SO DO YOU.

William (Bill) A. Sommers, Ph.D. has over 40 years of experience in education. June 2014 was the 5th time coming out of retirement to be a principal. Bill has co-authored seven books on leadership, reflective practice, PLCs, and Habits of Mind.

He has served on several university faculties and is a former president of National Staff Development Council.

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dr laura markham

Why punishment doesn’t teach children accountability And can lead to more bad behaviour

Teachers Matter

What does it mean, to hold our children accountable for their behaviour? My definition would be that children assume responsibility for their actions, including

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making amends and avoiding a repeat, whether the authority figure is present or not. So, really, it isn’t about “holding our children accountable.” What we want is for our children to step into responsibility, to hold THEMSELVES accountable. Once someone takes responsibility, we don’t have to “hold them accountable.”

Essentially, we’re talking about raising moral children who want to do the right thing. Most people assume that punishment is what helps humans decide to do the right thing, so if we aren’t punishing our children, they’ll grow up doing the wrong thing.

That’s a bleak view of human nature. And it turns out to be dead wrong.

photo: Jaimie Duplass

“I

recently read a quote from a Finnish education minister: “There’s no word for accountability in Finnish...

Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.” - Teacher Tom

dr laura markham

T h e r e ’s n o w a w e a l t h o f r e s e a r c h demonstrating that kids who are punished are LESS likely to make positive moral choices. That’s because: Punishment focuses a child on the “consequences” he is suffering, rather than on the consequences of his behaviour to someone else.

Punishment makes a child feel like he’s a bad person, which is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, so he’s more likely to repeat the bad behaviour.

The most salient lesson of punishment is to avoid it in the future by sneaking and lying to escape detection, so punishment fosters dishonesty.

Because kids invariably consider punishment unfair, it teaches kids that might makes right and abuse of power is ok -- which makes kids less likely to make moral choices.

Punishment--yes, even timeouts--erode our relationship with our child, so that he isn’t as invested in pleasing us. And the more disconnected he feels from us, the worse his behaviour. Punishment increases defiance.

Because punishment doesn’t help a child with the emotions that drove her to act out to begin with, those emotions just get stuffed down, only to pop up again later and cause a repeat of the misbehaviour.

Punishment makes a child feel wronged, and creates a “chip on the shoulder” so she’s likely to resent making amends.

“ There’s no word for accountability in Finnish...

Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”

- Teacher Tom

Not surprisingly, these studies also show that children who are punished (yes, including with time outs and consequences) exhibit MORE bad behaviour, not less. Not because kids who behave badly are punished more often, but because kids who are punished behave badly more often.

So if punishment teaches our child all the wrong lessons, what DOES help raise children who want to do the right thing?

Loving guidance. Which includes limits, set with empathy. Connection. Modeling. And a whole lot of love – from everyone involved in their lives.

Punishment makes kids look out only for themselves and blame others, rather than caring about how their behaviour affects others.

Punishment creates an external locus of control -- the authority figure. The child actually comes to see the parent as responsible for making her behave, rather than taking responsibility for her behaviour as her own choice.

One study showed that Year 8 students whose parents raised them using punishment, including consequences and timeouts, were less morally developed than their peers. “Having learned to do exactly what they’re told in order to avoid losing their parents’ love, they tended to just apply rules in a rigid, one-size-fits-all fashion,” says Alfie Kohn.

L a u r a i s t h e f o u n d e r o f w w w.

AhaParenting.com and author of Peaceful parent, happy Kids: How to stop yelling and start connecting. Laura trained as a psychologist, but she’s also a Mum, so she translates proven science into practical solutions.

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megan gallagher

Teachers Matter Conference 2015

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Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano Global citizen, global teacher Digital diva, connected leader Sharing with us, some of the new rules That we need to consider for the kids in our schools.

Embracing the MOST IMPORTANT skill Learning how to learn, so we will…

Teach for the NOW Learning anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Steve Gurney

Teachers Matter

2

Michael McQueen

3 10

Inspirational goal setter who breaks *some/ most* of the rules Steve has asked us to take risks so we don’t become fools.

Learning through your stories will stay with us heaps And we’ll pass on what we have learned with our peeps.

Success comes from belief and determination in pursuit Of your dreams and desires with the attitude you choose.

Check in on your beliefs and the changes you have made Be curious and keep trying. You could just amaze.

Failure, Risk and Mistakes are part of the trip So get out there, have a go, try again and let rip!

You started us with a trip down memory lane And illustrated some key shifts with generational change.

Truth, Resilience, Affirmation and Risk have moved

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So this sets post modern challenges for us in classrooms.

Storytelling to offer guidance and share lessons for living Build confidence, allow risk and let go of esteem giving.

Our kids are different; they’re switched on and know heaps But keep in mind that it’s wide and not deep.

They’re also plugged in, grown up and empowered young peeps Changing climate of classrooms and parenting too.

Teachers are changing so embrace colleagues older and new For helping us build empathy across generations we thank you.

5

Chic Foote Thank you Chic for helping us to see That we need to look ahead and at our own history.

Overwhelmed is a work many of us are likely to feel Thanks for acknowledging this and keeping it real.

Thank you for sharing your stories with us Reinforcing that relationships and empathy build trust.

We’ve celebrated where we have got to and reflected on where we’ve come Then we will take action so we grow and have more fun.

ONE THING you said, take action we will With ONE THING for a start up this challenging hill.

Embracing the future one step at a time One step is a start so we will all shine!

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1. Steve Gurney in action 2. Michael McQueen: Gen Y 3. Developing resilience with Megan Gallagher 4. Math strategies with Libby Slaughter 5. Silvia Tolisano slide 6/7. Delegates in breakout workshops

7 11

photo: michael jung

dr helen street

Why we need to prioritise social and emotional learning As a foundation for academic achievement and life success

Teachers Matter

T

12

ake a moment to envisage yourself in a ‘normal’, healthy and welladjusted state of mind.

For some of you this may come easily, others of us may need to use a bit of imagination… Now once you have a vision of ‘healthy and normal’ clearly in your head, try standing up and sitting down in a normal and well-adjusted way.

If you have just carried out the above request, you may well have found yourself feeling and acting anything but ‘normal’.

Yo u m a y h a v e f e l t a b i t a w k w a r d o r contrived in your behaviour, perhaps

even a bit self-conscious or even a bit ‘abnormal’…whatever that might mean. If you did, then you are certainly not alone.

Healthy, normal behaviour is, by definition, not something we give much attention to on a day-to-day basis. Ironically, when we do start to ponder on the normality of our behaviour, it immediately seems to lose its normal status.

As problem solving beings, we generally focus our attention on the task of problem solving — on finding solutions for our problems or unwanted thoughts, feelings and behaviours. When things are going

well, we are too busy getting on with life to be analysing or reflecting on how we are presenting ourselves.

This means that it is not only difficult to accurately and objectively define ‘normal’ or healthy states of mind, but that it can be incredibly difficult to know how to achieve them when they are not forthcoming. As such, the study of positive psychology and its application to positive education is fraught with early challenges. How can we best support a flourishing education community if we are not totally sure what ‘flourishing’ looks or feels like? Moreover, how do we

www.PositiveSchools.com.au

Body of Evidence 2015

Professor Corey Keyes

based programmes designed to nurture social and emotional competencies in young people are at best ineffective, and sometimes detrimental to wellbeing.

Katherine cites both a lack of robust research and misconceptions about how best to nurture wellbeing as reasons for her argument. She suggests that we may well be creating unnecessary anxiety in students by relentlessly encouraging them to talk about every unwanted thought or upsetting feeling. She also suggests that contrary to many other research findings, mental health issues may actually not be worse for young people than they were ten or 20 years ago.

The professor has also commendably alerted us to the need to question not just what we do, but how we do it. It is not simply enough to adopt a ‘motivation’ programme because we want our classroom to be motivated. We do need to have theoretical evidence that the programme will work or at least make sure we proceed with great caution. For example, there are many rewards-based programmes that claim to increase motivation but in reality decrease it. A great body of solid research tells us that extrinsic rewards demotivate students because they encourage them to turn their attentions away from

Attend keynote talks ranging from classroom humour to engaging students. Choose from twenty sessions in five parallel streams. Visit a living library of positive education.

Discover the power of rhythm with DRUMBEAT. Be immersed in a Master Class, which lifts us ‘out of our minds’ into a ‘Body of Evidence’ for health, wellbeing & effective education.

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E SCHOOL IV

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AS 15 M TER 20

When I first read Katherine’s article I was infuriated at her sweeping statements damming school wellbeing initiatives.

However, now I have calmed down and am once again feeling relatively ‘normal’ myself, I consider that it is a good, and in fact necessary thing, to challenge what we want to teach kids and how we want to teach them.

groups of kids who do not receive support in any study that offers much-needed benefits. Katherine’s claims about the lack of robust research are also testament to the fact that positive education is still a very new field. We are only just starting to see evidence of effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) of school-based programmes.

This does not mean that these programmes are valueless, but rather that they are still in their infancy.

What can every teacher in every school do to improve the health and wellbeing of young Australia?

IT

“ The absence of mental illness does not equate to the presence of mental health”.

POS

In fact, we could say that wellbeing is such an important topic that it is incredibly hard to be ethical about including control groups in our studies. It can be argued that it is unfair to insist on including comparative

NS IO

In a recent article in the UK Conversation, Professor Katherine Ecclestone from The University of Sheffield proposes that positive education may be a waste of time and resources. She suggests that school-

From body obsession to better health, from bullying to building cohesive c l a s s ro o m s.

Tony Jones Host Tony Jones joins Positive Schools 2015. An essential two days of positive education for all Australian primary & secondary school educators.

SS SOLUT

I believe that Katherine is right in stating that many studies concerning the effectiveness of wellbeing programmes are based on small samples of kids and are often without matched comparisons.

However, the fact that there is a need for more rigorous research does not mean that the research conducted to date is not of great value.

DAY 2

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best support others in their journey to flourish if we are unsure how best to do this or indeed unsure if supporting others is even possible? These are big, important questions that constantly need addressing and challenging. To ignore them is to assume that supporting wellbeing in schools is either unnecessary or, simply, all too hard to do.

www.PositiveSchools.com.au

dr helen street the benefits of what they are doing, and instead focus on the judgments of others.

Katherine is also right in alerting us to regularly consider the overall need for

photo: michael jung

Similarly, we have to be careful not to simplify the components of wellbeing to such a degree that they become something else altogether. For example, it is a great idea to encourage kids to find and embrace their passions in life (rather than focusing all their time on trying to address their weaknesses). However, to simplify our

not when the teachers were stressed or inexperienced. For example, the social and emotional development program, PATHS which is very popular in the US and now in the UK, has been found to be significantly effective if, and only if, the teachers delivering the programme are socially and emotionally competent themselves.

Teachers Matter

skills and passions to a list of four or five strengths is immediately limiting our potential and taking away our flexibility.

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The pursuit of positive education is not simply a matter of caring about wellbeing.

Neither is it a matter of simply talking about our feelings more frequently or adopting a five point plan. Just as we would spurn a Readers Digest version of a great novel when studying literature, so too must we be careful not to jump on the ‘Readers Digest’ approach to mental health. Having said that, this does not mean that the potted version of knowledge cannot raise much-needed awareness of the importance of social and emotional learning.

Let’s make sure that we do not throw out the gift with the wrapping paper. All too often, the details of a programme are not the issue, but rather, it is the method of programme delivery that needs consideration. Many established programmes have been found to have good results when delivered by socially and emotionally competent teachers, but

supporting wellbeing in young people.

H o w e v e r, h e r e o u r b e l i e f s d i v e r g e significantly. Whether or not wellbeing levels have altered in young people over the past decade seems immaterial to me.

The important fact is, we can be confident is stating that an alarming one in five young people in Australia today need help for a significant mental health issue. That means that in an average classroom of 25 kids, four will be unacceptably distressed.

It also means that many of the other kids in the class are vulnerable to mental health issues and not doing as well as they could be. As Professor Corey Keyes so eloquently states, “The absence of mental illness does not equate to the presence of mental health”.

Serious mental health issues are chronically disabling and can be life threatening. There is no way that an average Australian parent would let their child participate in something that had a one in five chance of giving them a life threatening disease; yet we seem so content to let them participate in a social

and educational system that is associated with alarmingly high rates of distress.

It is also well known that the biggest predictor of adult mental illness is childhood mental illness. I am confident that every adult I know has friends and family members who suffer from mental illness or psychological distress. I would bet that all of us also know many more people, perhaps themselves, who are simply not as happy as they would like to be.

We r e a l l y d o n e e d t o b e c a u t i o u s i n ensuring that we consider how and what we deliver to nurture wellbeing in our schools and colleges. We also need to ensure that we acknowledge the need to constantly strive to do more. It is vital that we prioritise social and emotional learning as a foundation for academic achievement and for life success. It is simply not enough for kids to be OK or ‘getting by’. All young people deserve every opportunity to learn how to flourish in life. School-based interventions are not a replacement for a healthy home environment but they certainly need to provide the continuation of one. As I stated in my 2004 work on nurturing classroom environments, happy ‘normal’, well-adjusted kids need to be in an environment that fosters emotional s a f e t y, a s e n s e o f c o m m u n i t y a n d unconditional acceptance.

Helen is an applied social psychologist with a passion for education. She presents her work in books, articles and in seminars and workshops for schools. Helen is also passionately involved in the ongoing development of The Positive Schools conferences running in four cities across Australia and now open for registrations. www.positiveschools.com.au

A child can teach us three things: 1) To be happy for no reason 2) To always be curious 3) To fight tirelessly for something

photo: Konstantin Yuganov

- Paulo Coelho

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fleur knight

Real Learning in action at Murrays Bay School School students partner up with Starship Children’s Hospital

T

he Ye a r 5 s t u d e n t s f r o m M u r r a y s B a y School have worked alongside staff at Starship Children’s Heart Ward to create 3 dimensional sculptures for their Treatment Room to distract patients when they are having painful procedures performed.

This partnership started in 2010 when students designed and created a mural for the treatment room. In 2014, Starship contacted Murrays Bay School and asked students to create 3 dimensional sea creatures that could be hung from the ceiling.

that met both physical and functional criteria.

To meet costing criteria set by Starship Hospital, the students created the hanging sea creatures from recycled materials. The process involved testing glues, and joining materials to form shapes to create sea creatures that were then covered in paper maché. The students then sanded and painted their sea creatures, adding patterns and tesserae from recycled wallpaper books. All of these techniques were used to make the hanging sea creatures as appealing as possible to patients lying on beds below them.

Teachers Matter

“This is an excellent example of our young people participating and contributing in a positive way to the wider community. ”

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The proc e s s w a s p a r t of Real Learning in the year 5 team at Murrays Bay School.

Real Learning focuses on making learning as real as possible for students. This involves students working with the community to meet community needs. Real Learning at Murrays Bay School is facilitated

by Fleur Knight. Fleur works alongside teachers and students to help them meet criteria set by the community.

Creating 3 dimensional sea creatures involved integrating the New Zealand Curriculum to include scientific experimentation, and technological planning and brief development to meet specific criteria. Students worked on developing models

While constructing and decorating these sea creatures, the students continually tested them from “a patient’s point of view” by hanging the creature above them as they lay on t h e c l a s s r o o m f l o o r. T h i s enabled the students to focus their design on the “patient’s perspective”, which enabled them to meet the specific purpose of these sculptures.

Students found this process challenging, but rewarding.

Many even named their sea creature and were very proud to see their sculptures in the videos and photos sent from the treatment room at Starship Hospital.

“It is great to see students applying their learning to make a difference to others; especially to the children in the heart ward at Starship Hospital. This is an excellent example of our young people participating and

fleur knight

contributing in a positive way to the wider community. Along with science, technology and art skills, this work has also taught the students how to have empathy for others” said Fleur.

Murrays Bay School intends to continue to build their relationship with Starship Hospital by involving their students in meeting needs for the children in their care because as one patient said, “This is awesome.”

Fleur Knight is an experienced teacher who has taught at Primary, Intermediate, Secondary and Tertiary Levels in New Zealand. She has been the Real Learning Facilitator at Murrays Bay School for the last five years. Her role involves making learning relevant, engaging, authentic and lifelong for students. Fleur has done this by working alongside teachers, integrating CPTED (Crime Prevention through Environmental Design) into the senior school curriculum at Murrays Bay School. Fleur Knight has presented at the National CPTED Association Conference in Nelson (2012), International CPTED Association Conference in Calgary in 2013.

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maggie hos-mcgrane

Considering the advantages and disadvantages of homework The debate goes on!

O

n Tw i t t e r a n d v a r i o u s o t h e r social networks there are often conversations occurring about home learning. While I haven’t assigned any homework for the past 15 years, I’ve always been at schools where homework (or home learning) has been part of the culture of the school. I do think that it is interesting to reconsider the advantages and disadvantages of home lear ning from time to time, especially in the light of what research has to tell us about the impact of homework on student learning.

Teachers Matter

Actually there is very little evidence that shows such a link. Professor John Hattie studied the effect of various factors on learning by analysing metadata from over 800 million students over a 15 year period and found that homework has very little effect on achievement. Of course there is research that shows homework does have benefits and other research that shows it has little or no impact on learning. There is some variance depending on the age of the students, the time spent on homework, the content of the assignment and the quality of the feedback.

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When I was an upper primar y school homeroom teacher I assigned quite a lot of homework - an hour a day for Monday through Thursday that involved math, writing and reading. Most of the time I collected in the work the next day or else, in the case of maths, spent time in class checking it - time that could have been better spent by both myself and my students in doing other things that would have extended their learning. I also spent a lot of time chasing up students who hadn’t done their homework, often making them stay in at recess time to complete it (as this was the school’s policy at that time). In fact, when I think back, quite a large part of my day was spent on explaining the homework, checking to see it was done, staying in with some students at recess times to make sure they “caught up”, and then taking a large amount of the work home to grade in the evening

and add comments that I hoped would be encouraging and helpful. Sometimes I spent so long on the homework in class that I didn’t manage to finish everything that I’d planned to do in class, and again I would ask the students to “finish it off at home”. This was typical of my first 15 years or so as a teacher. I had very little time to reflect on what I was doing, but if I had I would probably have seen that giving less (or no) homework would have given me much more time to focus on personalising the learning for each of my students - something I just didn’t have enough hours in the day for.

• It can be used for formative assessments - so students can continue to work on the skills they are in the process of learning. Again teachers can use this to make decisions about the next steps they need to make.

• It can be used for summative assessments - so students can work on projects that provide evidence of their understanding.

Recently, as I’ve been thinking about home learning for the online chat I’m involved in, I’ve been doing some reading about it and realising that there is much more to it that I’d imagined. In her book Bringing Homework into Focus Eileen Depka writes about the 4 purposes of giving homework:

As I look back at these 4 purposes of homework, it occurs to me that none of these (except the flipped learning) need to happen at home. All too often students see homework as something that is being done for the teacher, not necessarily something that will benefit them. Often they don’t see the connection between the homework and the learning goals because the homework simply isn’t connected to realworld learning. And as a teacher, I think a lot of the homework that I gave was “busy work” because I knew the students needed an hour a day - which of course then had to be marked by me! And if truth be told, there were days when I simply checked that the students had completed the homework rather than checking to see what they had learned, giving feedback and then adjusting the upcoming lessons to better meet the students’ needs.

• It can be diagnostic - teachers can use the responses to this type of homework as a pre-assessment to find out how much background knowledge and skills students have. A pre-assessment might show up certain students’ strengths and weaknesses and may help the teacher in designing a unit of inquiry that will better meet the students’ needs.

Some of the positive aspects of home learning are that it can promote a positive home-school connection and it also can give parents an opportunity to work on something together with their child (I notice a lot of positive parent-child interactions in our Maker Saturdays, for example - could the same be true of some types of home learning?)

• It can be used as part of the flipped learning model - students can be introduced to new information through viewing, reading or listening to various resources to build their background knowledge. The idea behind flipped learning is that students then apply their learning to the activities that are being done in class.

Maybe it’s time to reconsider how you use homework, and whether it is actually providing an advantage for your students.

For me, as a young teacher, homework was just something I took for granted. It was something I did when I was at school, so I just assumed it was something I needed to give as a teacher. I don’t remember even discussing it when I trained to become a teacher. At that time I never questioned what the purpose of giving homework was.

photo: Joshua Resnick

maggie hos-mcgrane

M a g g i e H o s - M c G ra n e h a s b e e n teaching for 30 years, 24 of these in international schools. Originally from the UK, Maggie is currently the Elementary Tech Coordinator at the American School of Bombay and is a member of ASB’s Research and Development Core Team. Maggie is a Google Certified Teacher and has presented at conferences in Europe, Asia, North and South America. www.maggiehosmcgrane.com

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photo: Petro Feketa

lauren rivers

Moving beyond differentiation into developing cognitive connections Diagnostic and prescriptive teaching

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n the last decade the big buzz words in education have been differentiation and its overbearing partner, assessment.

Administrators across the nation are asking their teachers “What can you do to differentiate instruction in your classroom?” Recently, educators have seen this metamorphosis into productive group work and universal design for learning. Everyone is dis-aggregating data

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from county, state, and national assessments to create data driven instruction. However, data driven instruction should be an integral part of the everyday assessments teachers give in their classrooms.

Differentiated instruction is a tiered approach to educating students in the mixed ability classroom. How else do you teach a group of third graders long division when one-

third doesn’t have basic multiplication and division facts memorised, another third has their basic facts mastered, and the last third is so far beyond anyone in the class that they often spend math class peer tutoring their classmates? The three group rotation method just is not enough in our standards based classrooms when many students have yet to achieve the basics. Here, I will challenge you

lauren rivers

to elevate your use of differentiated instruction so that it includes the student in the dialogue with the goal of providing specific feedback, meaningful tiered instruction, and developing a classroom that is cognitively connected to the academic skills being mastered.

So now you are saying, “Well I know that, but what do I do about it?” There are simple ways to incorporate common instructional practices into the classroom environment that have a high yield return on investment. At the end of your work day, you should feel that you raised the bar for all students from your below grade level learners to your above grade level learners. This feeling of accomplishment is the teacher’s return on investment. Knowledge increase is the student’s return on investment.

With any investment portfolio you first have to know what you have; “How much money do I have to invest?” In the classroom we are asking, “What does little Jamie already know?” Assessment is the only way to decipher what a person knows. Whether it’s through observation, last night’s homework, or a test, all forms of assessment should be assigned with one goal in mind - to move the child forward in their academic growth and acquisition of skills.

As we look at these strategies, remember that the goal is to grow students academically from where they are to the next step. It’s a process of constantly raising the bar so that students do not experience a plateau in their educational experience. Including students in the conversation about where they are at academically and where the desired level of achievement is will create an environment where students are stretched to think and engage in cognitive connections. Learning is a process in which educators must constantly endeavor to increase the knowledge, skill and ability of their students. In other words, take the baseline data and use it to make informed decisions about how to pace and present instruction. Dialogue is critical in the process.

question, essay, math problem or drawing can be an assessment tool. Pre-assessments need to serve two purposes - to give a snap shot of what a student knows, and to provide feedback to the teacher on what next steps can be taken.

When the teacher shares the results of the preassessment and opens it up to dialogue with individual students or the class, they take a step that moves everyone in the direction of making cognitive connections.

For instance, in my Year 5 class, I would routinely give the students specific questions from the first page in the math chapter that held the pre-requisite skills for the chapter’s content. Based on what pre-requisite skills they had, I was able to score these assessments and start to fill in skill gaps before attempting to teach them how to do an even harder skill. I mean, why teach someone who cannot really divide 2 digit by 1 digit numbers how to long

“Including students in the conversation about where they are at academically and where the desired level of achievement is will create an environment where students are stretched to think and engage in cognitive connections."

Diagnostic Pre-Assessment Diagnosis of student knowledge should take place fairly frequently through a variety of pre-assessment tools. All assessments should have the same goal - to assess what a student knows right now and to use that data to develop lessons that increase their knowledge in a measurable content or skill over time.

Therefore any work sample, selected response

divide? They just don’t have the prerequisite skills yet. And ‘yet’ is what it is all about. Every day, you are teaching students who just do not have the desired skill set - YET. When teachers keep this in mind – the theory of “yet” - and

convey this same message to their classes, they are setting the stage for a higher level of dialogue about learning in the classroom and create an environment where students are engaged, where their academic ability grows and cognitive connections are fostered.

Types of pre-assessments vary, but what is easiest to quickly put into place is an exit or entrance slip. When students enter, have a half sheet of paper with no more than 5 questions on the topic or skill you are targeting that day and have them answer the questions as your warm-up. Score them quickly (that day or within 24 hours) and set-up groups for leveled or tiered instruction. This form of assessment is quick, accurate, and yields immediate feedback to the teacher and the student. It also signals to your students that you genuinely care where they are academically and desire to assist them to build the skills they need to reach the next level.

Moving beyond the pre-assessment is giving students the opportunity to discuss their errors with peers or the teacher after the assessment is scored and given back. This step enhances learning and creates cognitive connections for the child. The dialogue helps the student and the teacher to learn the causal effect of the errors whether it stems from 1. Lack of background knowledge, or 2. A silly mistake or misunderstanding that can be quickly addressed. Dialogue between peers can help clarify for the student where they currently are and accept that the next steps are designed to move them forward and elevate their academic achievement.

Prescriptive REGROUPING: Once you have your groups, have skill-specific assignments for each group to complete. This should always be work that is meaningful and something that your students can understand how it is going to help them as learners. This creates a classroom environment where everyone is informed of their individual progress, understand the steps they need to attain to reach the next level, and is accepting of the academic diversity of the learners in the classroom.

Work is teacher lead, data driven, but student centered. Therefore students are in a situation

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lauren rivers where they understand: 1. Where they are starting today?

2. What they will end up learning today? and

Instructionally, a teacher who supplies students with a handy formula for writing an essay does equip them for some success in the future, however, if the student is never stretched to develop their writing beyond the formula the bar never raises and they never become accustomed to their own writing style. This type of teaching truncates the learning process.

The educator’s goal is to grow the students academically.

For example, in my classroom I have 5 groups of students in Year 5 learning division: 2 groups above, 1 group right on target, 2 groups with skill gaps. I, as the teacher, rotate from group to group. It is my presence that keeps the classroom focused. My presence is physical, but also subliminal because I have specifically selected learning activities and assignments that will meet students where they are and equip them to achieve at the next level. Students understand where they are, are connected to their learning at a cognitive level of awareness, and desire to master the current skill so they can move on to the next level.

Prescriptive Flex Grouping

Teachers Matter

“Will I ever get out of the slow group?” Inevitably you have students in the room moaning and groaning about their group - it’s too easy, it’s too hard. Moving beyond grouping based on the pre-assessment results, teachers need to include students in the dialogue as to why they are in a particular group and what skill(s) they need to master. A clear picture of what the next level looks like needs to be depicted to each student as they are human beings and human beings all have motives that guide their behaviour. In the classroom, there are 2 motives:

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1. I want to be around the teacher or 2. I want to hang out with my friends.

It’s really that simple.

Keep groups flexible - no group should be meeting and assigned the same level of work for more than 4 days. There’s an expiration on leveled groups for many reasons: 1. Some students will exhibit mastery of that level and will need to move on,

photo: Petro Feketa

3. How the acquired knowledge will impact their success in school tomorrow, but moreover in life?

2. Some students will need additional repetition, and 3. Some will need more attention so they can ‘feel’ confident in their own ability.

Remember to continue to give specific feedback to individuals and groups to help students grow their academic ability throughout this process.

In math, my groups may change daily; whereas in reading they change when the skill changes for the story, poem, expository text (i.e. groups for main idea are not going to be the same for making inferences or character analysis); social studies may be based on student interest; science may be based on background knowledge of concepts.

Prescriptive Peer Partnerships Having two students work together can be a powerful tool, however it can be just as detrimental as it is empowering. Students who are paired together need to be placed into partnerships where both individuals bring something to the desk. Peer mentoring or peer tutoring puts too much pressure on the student who has the stronger academic skill set and can make the student who needs help feel co-dependent (like they cannot do it on their own). This format should be used sparingly and with forethought. Create cognitive connections by including the peer partners on the reasons they were grouped together. Do they have similar skill sets? Does one person need to help the other? Or do they have common interests that will help them understand and accomplish the assessment with more success?

It’s quick, easy and initially fun for the kids when the teacher says “Annie can you help Billy out with addition with regrouping?” However, there has to be a balance in the group dynamic so that Billy is a contributor and active team player.

In conclusion, student assessment should always enlighten both the teacher and student about the knowledge, skills and abilities a student has before, during and after instruction. Diversifying grouping to reflect student knowledge keeps the classroom active and promotes not only student engagement, but fosters cognitive connections where students are stakeholders who dialogue about their academic growth in an honest and accepting classroom environment. In these cooperative small groups it is essential that every member is empowered to be an active team player and who knows their own personal goals for academic growth.

Lauren is a veteran teacher of 17 years. Having studied Elementary Education at the University of Mar yland and completed her Master’s Degree in Administration at McDaniel College, she has a true passion for providing students with instruction that is up to date and pushes them to the next level.

Currently, Lauren teaches English Language Arts to 8th graders in the state of Maryland. She has 2 children, a husband, a chihuahua named Bernie and is also an artist.

Stephen Lethbridge

The biggest leadership challenge Staying true to your schools vision

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f there is one thing that teachers can all agree on, it is that daily life in our schools is incredibly busy! We have demands from a wide range of sources.

There are initiatives a plenty out there tempting us. There are the flyers that come across our desks advertising a programme or a one off course. There are mandated changes at a department or system wide level that have an impact upon the way we live and learn in all our schools. A strong vision takes care of these temptations.

We ask do these opportunities align with where we are going. If they do we jump on them if not, we stay true to the direction we have set.

There needs to be a discipline of assessing, monitoring and managing potential threats to the realisation of our educational vision. As leaders we need to manage this risk and we are the gatekeepers who can deflect a lot of the distractions from the classrooms. We need to be wary of the temptations of all these offers and how they will play out in our schools, for what we as leaders do in the face of these external temptations acts as a cue for our teachers. If our staff sees that we are true to the vision, goals and plans we have set for the school then teachers will be more steadfast in their resolve to fulfil the vision at an operational level. Regular ongoing review with an iterative, action oriented

approach enables us as leaders to look at our capacity to fulfil our goals.

But how do we check that our vision is being realised each and every day? Are we agile enough to make changes if our plans and methods are not meeting the outcomes we hope for? These are the threats that can sneak up on us and stop us from making the progress that we desire. As our schools are about student achievement (I mean this in the broadest sense) it is really important to have a finger on the pulse. This relies on good systems for gathering data.

In our place we track our priority learners (students we have identified as needing to make shifts in achievement as a matter of urgency) on a regular basis. Teachers meet in their teams to discuss where the children are at and their plans for how to take these students to the next level. Teachers identify barriers and additional strategies or support that may be required. These plans are shared in their online ‘teaching as inquiry’ reflective journals. The leadership team look at data trends and identify areas of effective practice so that we can learn from success and spread the knowledge to other areas of the school. The Board of Trustees have also adopted a Governance as Inquiry approach in order to stay true to the intent of our vision (Read more in Paula Hogg’s blog paula.h4.co.nz).

“ Our leadership challenge is to create more time and opportunity for teachers to reflect on what they do to meet the goals of the school each and every day.”

Whilst this approach is aimed at priority learners it has an impact on all students in the school as our teachers are becoming more reflective about their impact on student learning. Our leadership challenge is to create more time and opportunity for teachers to reflect on what they do to meet the goals of the school each and every day.

Stephen is a Dad, Husband, Principal, sport mad, gadget man. He is all about learning and growing leaders of the future. He is moving into his ninth year of school principalship at Taupaki School and believes in growing leadership capacity at all levels in school. He has value his involvement in the OUR Education Network for the past seven years, learning from amazing leaders from around the world.

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Sonya Carey, Fallon Braithwaite, Hailey Cundall and Trudy Francis

Using ‘emotional hooks’ to motivate and inspire young writers Part one: Write who we are!

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e are sha r i n g w i t h y o u o u r story so far, from a variety of perspectives (principal, lead teachers, teachers, C21 Learning Ltd and children) and have included some examples of what we did and what is happening for the children as a result of the changes we are making. We know it is early days, but we are feeling excited! We have already noticed positive changes as children and teachers start viewing themselves as writers.

We hope our story encourages others to not give up or give in to what others might say or what the Standards may infer when looking at decontextualised data. We hope that by sharing our story we open doors to collaborating with colleagues in schools around New Zealand.

Teachers Matter

WHY CHANGE? Sonya Carey

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Our school had been through many changes which came into being as part of a network review. Due to decisions made elsewhere, two communities joined together and were required to work together as a learning community to build a sense of who we were. As this grew, so did our awareness that what we were working on were the key competencies. Our teachers had been involved in Ministry of Education professional learning that focused on building pedagogical practice in literacy and some shifts were seen in student achievement, but we knew that if we were going to see the change we aspired to, we needed to have the courage to ‘dream big’, be bold, and go for a cultural shift in the school. Cultural shifts are built on vision and relationships. We were looking for someone who could work alongside us as a coach; challenging us, motivating us and supporting our belief in the change.

We talked about what we were looking for and decided we needed someone who shared our vision for what learning could be like for our children, who had intellectual rigour and who had the ability to connect with our teaching team. We talked with other schools, we read, and we attended conferences - looking for the right person - until one day, Jane Garland, Deputy Principal at the time and I looked at each other during a workshop at a conference and said, “This could be the person!”

The focus of the workshop was on the key competency ‘Managing Self’ and was using a case study approach to explore how this concept was being made visible for children in a learning environment. The workshop was a challenging setting with educators from all of the sectors - early childhood, primary and secondary. There was uncomfortableness as people grappled with new ideas and hard questions, yet each challenge was met with openness and a willingness to engage. There were links to best practice and research and there was humour. Real teachers working together to think about and evolve their practice – just what we were looking for.

Trudy Francis joined us in 2013 with a focus on the key competencies of ‘Thinking and Using Language Symbols and Texts’ and ‘Managing Self’ through the context of ‘Visual Language.’ The work we did with Trudy in 2013provided us with a strong foundation to move onto the writing focus in 2014.

IDENTIFYING CHALLENGES AND G O A L S . Tr u d y F r a n c i s a n d F a l l o n Braithwaite Like many teachers, we are concerned with the progress and achievement of our children in literacy. At Newfield Park School there is a large cohort of boys and many children who come to school with limited opportunities to develop their pre-literacy skills (e.g., oral language, concepts about print and fine motor skills). For some of the children they have yet to develop a love for: books, drawing, writing, cutting and pasting.

We wondered how we could address these concerns and promote a love of all things literacy, especially in a time when striving for higher standards in literacy is ‘hot’ on the political landscape as well.

Lewis and Kappan hit the nail on the head when they stated the following…

Simply Simple-Minded (or, Simply Good Sense?)

The maddening thing is that the proponents of higher academic standards ... are out of touch with reality. Let me put it in the simplest language possible: children differ by socioeconomic background, by development rate, by interest in given subject matter, and by motivation to master it. Teachers can teach until they are blue in the face, but students will learn only when they are ready, willing, and able to do so. And, in this nation that celebrates (or at least pays lip service to) diversity, every child does not need to learn the same things at the same time or to the same degree.

Getting Specific - Starting with the Data?

Our data shows that the children in their first 12 months were having difficulty in reaching the National Literacy Standard.

The data shows our children leave this school as Year 6 students who are achieving at levels similar to the national averages, yet this is not reflected in our ‘whole school’ data. This is a pattern that we have identified over time. What can we do to change this pattern? What can we do to close the gap in our achievement?

We want higher standards, but not at the cost of the child; we want to avoid the ‘lip service’ and find ways for our children to be who they are, share their stories and feel proud.

photo: Alistair Cotton

“Every child has something to say, our job as the teacher is to help each student find what it is that he or she has to say and how best to say it.”

- Gail Loane

Therefore, we needed to think about children, understand how they learn best, and what motivates them. We needed to change our approach so we could ‘hook’ the children into learning, providing opportunities to build oral language in the classroom and inspiring and providing opportunities for risk taking without fear of failure. Writing about their weekends every Monday morning did not inspire them to write, in fact it only created anxiety and worry over whether their weekend activities were good enough to write about. Our kids need to be able to find the wonder in the ‘everyday’ and know that what they have to share is valued and important.

identify what we could adapt in order to achieve the goals we had in mind.

Our Goals. Trudy Francis

Our number one priority was to ensure that all children developed a love of literacy and in particular writing. We wondered how we could ‘emotionally hook’ (Francis) the children so that they wanted to write.

Gail Loane talks about people being joyfully literate, and this resonated with us because we felt that if we were able to create conditions whereby children saw themselves as writers, they would develop an understanding of the power of language to enrich and shape their lives and the lives of others (New Zealand Curriculum). The emotional hook, hooked everyone including the teachers.

As we reflected on the challenges we faced we realised that we needed to clarify our perspective and our aspirations, and trust ourselves to find our own way. To trust ourselves to find our way, we needed to analyse what we were doing well, and

I notice the things around me now; I see things that might motivate the children to write. The emotional hook is giving the children many more ideas, thoughts and wonderful words that they use in their writing. Writing use to be a chore for me, worrying at night and on the

way to work… what are we going to write about today? I am finding teaching writing easier now.

I feel proud of the children’s writing and they are very proud too. Julie (teacher of NE).

We developed teaching strategies that engaged children’s curiosity; we cultivated their sensor y pathways so they could discover things they may not have noticed before; we used multi-media, artefacts and the arts to promote motivation and, as Loane says, to help children to find personal significance and feel they have something to say.

Our second priority was to make thinking as a writer more visible. To achieve this goal we needed to deepen our understanding of the two intellectual key competencies, ‘Thinking and Using Language Symbols and Texts’ and find ways to teach relevant aspects of the key competencies explicitly and contextually.

Our planning and teaching strategies were adapted to include a focus on this, for example, children as young as 5 years old

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Sonya Carey, Fallon Braithwaite, Hailey Cundall and Trudy Francis learnt that they could use metacognition to help them write interesting stories. They asked themselves three questions as they created their piece, ‘what do I need to do first?’ I need to draw a picture plan that will describe my wolf. ‘How am I going?’ Which words describe my wolf the best? And, ‘How did I go?’ Do my describing words match my picture? There is an example of this writing below.

We discovered that the children were, and are, fascinated with how their brains work, and how writers think and work in the real world. As we make our thinking more visible we discover what we are capable of. The changes we have observed in the children suggest to us that they feel empowered, and emboldened, viewing themselves as capable writers and capable learners.

The third priority was for teachers to develop their own capacity to write. As they wrote they felt first-hand what it is like, and what it is most likely like for the children when we expect them to write. The insights we have made have helped us be more sensitive to the children’s emotional needs and it has also helped us improve our practice as we are literally practising what we preach.

Our fourth priority is for children to develop stamina and pride in their pieces of writing, developing their awareness of audience and viewing their own writing from the perspective of the reader. We are currently exploring how to do this. We are learning more about the key competencies ‘Managing Self and Relating to Others’, and just as we did with the intellectual key competencies we are making space and time available for explicit and contextual teaching to promote desired behaviours.

IMPLICATIONS

Teachers Matter

Building a Professional Community

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To achieve our goals we knew we would need to focus on our relationships with each other and provide teachers with opportunities to feel creative, energised, challenged and committed to making significant and lasting changes in their practice. We have developed a coaching ethos and approach to support each other. Fundamental to this approach is the view that people are naturally creative, resourceful and whole (Newnham-Kanas, Morrow & Irwin). We have communicated this to people so they might feel passionate about writing and

enjoy want they are doing with the children and for themselves.

Environment Matters. Hailey Cundall Previously, we knew that the way our junior school was working was not targeting the specific needs of our children. Sonya had an interest in the principles of Reggio Emilia and was keen to explore how the foundations of communicating using the ‘100 languages’ could be used within our school to increase student engagement After attending a course at Bromley School in October 2013 we saw how a ‘Reggio Inspired’ approach was being used to increase student achievement. During our two days there we saw how the teaching and learning we were exploring with Trudy, through making thinking visible, was an integral part of this approach. We saw how Bromley targeted the literacy and key competency needs of the children in their school; who were starting school at very similar stage to ours.

At the beginning of 2014 our Year 0-1, 1-2 teachers adapted their classroom environments to invoke curiosity, embrace beauty and joy, and ensure that students felt valued and safe. During Literacy and Numeracy time these classrooms have stations that are targeting specific needs in these areas. Arts, communication, fine motor skill needs, passions and interests, kinesthetic learning, key competency needs and discussions are woven throughout the students literacy and numeracy needs, and personal voice is embraced and valued.

The process is being valued, not just the product, and motivation to teach and learn is high. This all fits so naturally alongside the way we are viewing our children and ourselves as writers. We are all given the chance to be the teachers of writing as we all have something to say, which is valued.

We are building the image of the child and of the teacher to be successful, proud and persistent communicators. Many of these ideals are now filtering up through the school as teachers at other levels strive to emotionally hook their children.

Find out what they did in Issue 30!

Trudy is recognised in New Zealand as a leader in Curriculum Integration, Holistic Literacy Approaches, Visible Thinking, Empowering forms of Assessment, the Key Competencies and Habits of Mind.

She is in demand as an in-school coach, conference speaker and workshop facilitator. Trudy is dedicated to collaborating with teachers in the effort to improve outcomes for all students.

She is focused on how to transform teaching and learning within school communities and to genuinely innovate the curriculum to achieve challenging goals. Trudy is the Director of C21 Learning Ltd and you can reach her through www.c21learning.com, or you can be linked by http://www.linkedin. com/pub/trudy-francis/67/a11/b37 Sonya has been Principal at Newfield Park School for five years. She leads a passionate team who work alongside families and the community to support their children’s learning. Sonya’s leadership is informed by her belief in the capabilities of children and the power of school communities to find creative solutions to the challenges they face.

Fallon is a passionate teacher who devotes her time to problem-solving children’s difficulties in Literacy. She works as a Classroom Teacher, Literacy Leader and Deputy Principal at Newfield Park School in Invercargill. Fallon is focused on improving student achievement for all students and has a particular interest in changing current traditional teacher practice to accommodate the needs of all learners. She is driven and excited by children’s learning and is motivated by children’s success.

Hailey has been a Primary School Teacher for 10 years, with the last six spent teaching in junior rooms at Newfield Park School, Invercargill.

She is passionate about teaching and learning across the curriculum, with a particular interest in Reggio Emilia and Key Competency approaches to teaching and learning. She is dedicated to giving students the strategies and skills for success and to become effective lifelong learners.

kanuka simpson

photo: Peggy Boegner

Here is my RID method to do so:

Using the TEDDY BEAR process to develop confidence Surviving the classroom warzone

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nder the eastern windows are the cool kids: not very clever, but cool. Under the western windows are the clever kids: not very cool, but clever. As per any other day, the cool kids are bombarding the good kids with everything they’ve got and the good kids are fighting back with everything they’ve got. Ammunition of every kind is flying back and forth in the classroom and out.

I’m 9 and stuck in the trenches in the middle, with a tiny white flag, taking hits from both sides and desperately (but not very effectively) trying to survive this new school: number 10 of the 13 I would attend in 3 different continents by the time I turned 12.

Then someone gives me an olive branch.

Another boy who, like me, is holding a white flag and is stuck in the middle of a bloody battle between the eastern block and the western front.

We talk, become friends and form our own coalition of two against the world; a very weak alliance in the current warzone of the classroom, but one that gives me hope - the single thing that keeps me going (and one I would lose as soon as I changed schools again).

Fast track a few years and I am now 17, sitting in the 2nd violin section of a summer camp orchestra making a flautist smile - not very helpful when one is trying to control oneself.

During the break we talk and laugh together, along with the group of other friends I have.

Not only do I now have several friends, but I

no longer care about being labeled “weird”, “strange” or “different”.

So how did I go from being alone against the world to being part of a group of friends, able to smile at girls I didn’t know? Confidence.

That big word that means so much and yet so little. But understanding what confidence is, how much it means, and how easy it is to develop, allowed me to survive those years in the warzone of the classroom and break out of my shell of solitude and shyness.

There are many ways to develop confidence, but here I would like to describe what I call the Teddy BEAR process. It goes like this: our Thoughts influence our Beliefs, which influence our Emotions, which influence our Actions, which influence our Results.

So to change the results, we need to change our thoughts and beliefs. Here is a quick example in action: I think, “I don’t answer quickly enough.” That leads to the belief, “I am stupid because I don’t answer quickly”.

That leads to an emotion of fear at being asked questions, starting a conversation, or speaking to a girl. That leads to the action of avoiding any situation in which I might be asked something: interviews, approaching people etc. That leads to the result of me being a shy, reserved person who doesn’t step outside my comfort zone.

So what can you do about this? How can you break out?

1) Recognise that there is a problem. The first sentence people say when they join AA is, “Hi, my name is... and I am an alcoholic.” Why is that? Because the first step to overcoming a problem is recognising that there is a problem.

Most shy people know they are shy, so this step is usually not so hard.

2) Identify what the faulty thinking is. What are the thoughts and beliefs that are causing the shyness? Eg: Is it a belief that they are stupid? This is probably the hardest step and often needs to be done with a trusted someone who is willing to ask the necessary questions to delve deeper. It will also require the person to accept that they will need to do some soul searching to find the answers.

3) Deal with the problem. Once the faulty thinking has been identified, change it. Change the thoughts; change the beliefs to more useful ones. It is difficult to give examples, as there are many ways to deal with the large number of beliefs that lead to people becoming shy.

Now practice the new thoughts - road-test them.

Put yourself into situations where you would normally have been shy and, with those new glasses investigate whether things are still like they were. Just remember that this is a new YOU; one who has nothing to do with the YOU before you went through the process. So be prepared for something to be different.

With enough practice, this method can become second nature and you can beat shyness.

For further resources that didn’t fit into this article, go to TheConfidenceGuy.com/ shyness.

Attending 13 schools by the age of 12 forced Kanuka to develop confidence at an early age and he has been building up and refining the tools he uses for over 20 years. After managing 2 businesses for 2 years without any prior experience or training, then retiring at 35, The Confidence Guy decided to do something about the lack of confidence in today’s youth. He now specialises in helping 16-25 year olds control fear so they become more confident, successful, happy and relaxed. This involves dealing with fear of inter views, exams, speaking in public and bullies. www.KanukaSimpson.com

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alan cooper

Formative assessment, peer teaching and differentiation Living in the moment

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ormative assessments are only good if they are used to alter ways we teach or for students to adjust their learning. In regards to student learning, unless there is an in the moment response, learning may well be compromised as where students are at in their learning and understanding during a lesson is completely unknown to teachers (Graham Nuthall).

Assessments can be either teacher centred or learner centred. Traffic Lights is an example of being learner centred and thus gives teachers first-hand, in the moment, knowledge of where the learner is at.

Charting is a blunter teacher centred tool given after the activity to gain an outsider’s view of what the student is thinking. Both have their place - especially if used in unison – and are described below.

Traffic Lights “What a blast,” is the comment of an experienced teacher after using the Traffic Light technique for the first time.

Teachers Matter

This tool, as the name suggests, uses colour coding to signify where each student is at throughout the lesson. There are many ways to provide the tools to accomplish this but plastic or paper cups are the most suitable.

Each student is issued with a set of three of these cups – green, yellow and red - hence Traffic Lights.

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Initially at the beginning of the lesson green is the top cup, with the others stacked in traffic light order. As the lesson progresses, the students display for the teacher their level of understanding.

Green indicates complete understanding including a belief that they can teach the lesson to someone else.

Yellow indicates that they are not sure so extra explanation may be needed BUT watch if the signal changes back to green or into red before jumping in.

Red signals danger: stop the lesson and provide first aid!

The crucial aspect of this method is that as the lesson progresses, students have personal control over the cups. So the formative feedback is not only in the moment, but also includes self-learning skills such as selfassessment.

As students may take several days or even longer to adjust to using Traffic Lights, they need to be used with every lesson so that they become an integral part of the classroom rituals – part of the classroom culture.

Quality control is needed. Those who mostly have green cups showing can be asked from time to time to explain a concept or lesson segment to the class. Otherwise, especially if they are a fixed mindset student, they may

be using the green cup in order hide their confusion and appear smart.

As can be seen from the quotation above, the teacher was satisfied but what about the students? As also reported by the teacher, “I have asked students what they think about using Traffic Lights for teaching and they are all in favour as it means I spot misunderstandings and confusion early on.”

Action when the green light changes Data on its own is absolutely useless. It’s what is done with it that matters; the action the teacher and the students take. One practical action to take is peer tutoring.

Peer tutoring is strongly supported by research and as Hattie describes, “peer tutoring has many academic and social benefits for both those tutoring and those doing the tutoring...it is most effective when used as a supplement to, rather than a substitute for, teacher role...Thus, when students become teachers of others, they learn as much as those they are teaching.”

The assumption is often made that peer tutoring needs to be done on a one on one basis. Small group teaching is a better option. Not only does this bring all the green light students into taking an active part, and therefore gaining those self-managing attributes that peer teaching requires, but it also means that the class organisation is straight forward, not requiring the teacher to plan and organise alternative activities for the green lighters.

In contrast, if the grouping is random the tutoring may be compromised by personalities. If the class teacher has constructed a sociogram (see my article in Teachers Matter issue 13) and makes it available to other teachers taking the class, the social relationships within the class are clearly shown to guide the composition of compatible groups.

alan cooper

There also needs to be a clear understanding of group members roles (see my article on this in Teachers Matter issue 22). The progression from the teacher control of process and procedure at the novice stage through to the absence of teacher direction at the expert stage will need mindful coaching and mentoring. It won’t just happen.

Taking time to pause and allow for peer re-teaching and consolidation provides the quality learning that leads to full class mastery. In the coverage of the curriculum it is not the quantity that matters but the quality of the coverage. Get the quality right and the quantity will look after itself.

Charting Charting provides simple, easily collected data for teachers to provide themselves with personal formative feedback which provides data for them to continuously learn about their own strengths and weaknesses.

The best of this potential data will come from the simple day to day observations of an ordinary classroom day. There are many things that can be observed, but initially select one or two. Once having decided on what to observe, design a simple chart that is not time consuming to record on and interpret.

An example, associated with the Traffic Light system would be to keep an observation of when it is that the green cups start to change to orange or red.

Student names

For example, if there is a cluster of students shifting from green to yellow or red in the first part of the lesson the data perhaps points to future lesson planning reviewing prior knowledge as an introductory whole class discussion. Then those who know can spread their knowledge to those who do not. Likewise, if there are a number turning yellow or red in the last segment, consider if the lesson plan requires a break here to allow for some gentle anaerobic exercise in order to induce an increased blood flow to re-charge the working parts of the brain.

Many other simple observational charts can be devised and developed. One could be a simple tick the box indicating who is asking the questions. Another could be who is answering the questions. Still another could be to put a tick beside each student spoken to each day. Areas for action from these charts could include a careful look to see if some students are being left out? Is the teaching to only part of the class? This can be quite salutary!

As personal practical knowledge of this charting is developed, much more sophisticated data can be gathered, but even then the simple, as detailed here, is still important.

The Charts also provide data for differentiation, where teachers can use higher level thinking to analyse, evaluate and then create a solution in their future planning. An example would be to scrutinise the mindset of red lighters who signal early in the lesson, checking to see if the vocabulary they use shows a fixed mindset. If so they may expect to fail and at the first hint of difficulty give up.

If this is so, to remedy it the teacher will need to craft a careful use of vocabulary to change to a growth mindset, perhaps starting with yet. “I see you haven’t got it yet,” thus implying that they will get it in the future. The teacher vocabulary, as always, is most important.

Paramount in ever y school, in ever y classroom, is the quality of the teaching. By implementing any or all of what has been discussed above the quality of teaching will grow and student success will grow with it.

Quality drives quantity.

Differentiation S t a r t i n g w i t h t h e Tr a f f i c L i g h t s , differentiation is an important ingredient all through this article. The first step is taken when the Traffic Lights differentiate

Monday First part of lesson

individual class members is built up, it may well become obvious that some green lighters seem to get a better response than others to red lighters who have particular characteristics, so they can be matched accordingly.

Other days Second Part of lesson

Chinese teachers are taught at their Colleges of Education to identify at every stage of their lesson plan areas of difficulty or areas where misconceptions may occur and to plan accordingly. Teacher analysis of the above chart would follow this and would highlight where the breakdowns occur. This then allows for future planning to avoid these pitfalls.

Third part of lesson

between who understands the lesson and who does not. A further step then occurs when the peer tutoring provides individual instruction for the red light students. By using tools such as sociograms to promote compatible groups, more differentiation i s a d d e d . A s t h e t e a c h e r ’s p r a c t i c a l knowledge of formative assessment grows, and the overall knowledge of the

Alan Cooper is an educational consultant based in New Zealnd. As a principal, he was known for his leadership role in thinking skills, including Habits of Mind, learning styles and multiple intelligences, information technology, and the development of the school as a learning community. acooper@clear.net.nz

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glenn capelli

focus

How focus, frame and flow can bring about freedom Pay attention to your ‘F’ factors!

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here is an old Psychology task that simply asks for us to read the following paragraph and count how many times the letter F appears in the paragraph. You have probably done this many times before, but give it another go.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS How many did you count?

Of course, the letter F appears 6 times in the paragraph. If you missed some, look again.

If you keep missing some, then pay particular attention to how many times the word ‘of’ appears.

Most people miss reading an ‘OF’ or two (or three!). The explanation is that we read the word OF phonetically as OV and miss the visual OF. It is referred to as a scotoma of thought – a mental blind spot. If we re-read the paragraph with a strict editor’s mind we will examine it letter by letter (or read it backwards) and see all six of the letter F.

The F Factors Sometimes we miss seeing the F Factors in life and they might just be the most important F’s of all: Focus

Teachers Matter

Nobel Prize laureate, Psychologist Herbert Simon, warned us in 1977 that the coming information rich world would ‘create a wealth of information that would create a poverty of attention.’

To focus we need a good aperture: a mental operation like a camera. One we can use to zoom in and focus on detail and zoom out to focus on the bigger picture. Over focussing (only seeing the pockets of the saint) and under focussing (not reading the medium print, let alone the fine) can limit our mental capacity.

Perhaps the story of our time, the focal point we need to return to, is what we can learn from The Three Bears story: too hot, too cold, just right. (Too hard, too soft, just right.)

To find the ‘just right’ in any situation we need to utilise our mental and emotional aperture.

Students (in deed learners at all levels) will benefit from the ability to be adept at the aperture. We all need to have attention flexibility: the ability and agility to expand and contract our focus.

Schools will also need the ability to create environments of shared focus – a mindfulness of the tasks ahead and a mindfulness of the shared values that help power the group’s attention.

Flow.

In deed the author of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, describes focus – our aperture ability - as the driver of excellence.

Focus

Frame

There is an old Indian wisdom that says ‘When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are the pockets.’

Our mental aperture helps us to zoom in and zoom out and thereby help us to see things from different perspectives:

• • • •

• Long range • Mid range • Close up

Frame and

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are vital for us in how we go about life and learning.

How we focus What we focus on What we miss if our focus is too pinpointed What we miss if our focus is only a wide gaze…

The photo we take of life also requires us to choose the angle we take the shot from and the way we interpret the ‘shot’ (the event, the meeting, the outcome, the porridge we’ve just eaten, the bed we have made for ourselves). Choosing our angles, deciding our interpretations, is how we Frame.

Our ability to interpret things from different points of view – our ability to see things from different angles – is our ability to Frame.

Get the frame wrong and it can be limiting, even dangerous.

Gotta love an old gag: A wife rings her husband who is driving to work.

‘Be careful honey’ she says ‘I’ve just heard on the news that there is some maniac driving the wrong way on the freeway’. ‘One maniac’ he replies ‘there are hundreds of them.’

We design a better product or system when we see things from the: • • • • •

Customer’s point of view Artist’s point of view Salesperson’s point of view User’s point of view Factory worker’s point of view…

We b e c o m e b e t t e r t e a c h e r s w h e n w e understand things from the: • • • • •

Student’s point of view Dyslexic student’s point of view Employer’s point of view Scientist’s point of view Artist’s point of view…

glenn capelli

Flow

Failing Forwards

When we are humming, when we are at our very best, we are in flow.

I’m sure there are many other F words you can think of (or at least one) but for me ‘F’ just doesn’t stand for Fail – it stands for how we pass by keeping on learning and how well we live for the good of self, others and the planet.

Our abilities to focus, defocus, refocus; our abilities to frame, un-frame and reframe are important ingredients in getting us to flow.

F l o w i s a m i x , a b r e w. T h e r e s e a r c h behind it comes from Psychologist Mihayli Csikzentmihalyi who I had the good fortune to first encounter in the late 1980s. Flow can occur when the following ingredients are in the brew:

photo: tarczas

When we face a ‘problem’ in our life how we see it becomes vital. It can be: • • • • • • • • • • •

An insurmountable tragedy An opportunity A chance to learn and grow A hurdle A wall A doorway A pain in the bum A pain in the neck A pain in the brain A game for the brain A gain for the brain

My wife Lindy and I lived for some years in a small studio apartment. It seemed to be a law at the time that every third apartment must house a little white dog. Two units away we had our little white dog – it liked to bark whenever anyone walked passed its front door. Lindy likes dogs but doesn’t like little, white, barking dogs that live two units away.

As we walked passed one day, the dog started its yelping and I said,”Ah, there goes Ronnie again.” Lindy had been married to me long enough to roll her eyes and ask, “So, why do you call it Ronnie?”

“Ronnie,” I replied, “Ronnie Barker.” Now perhaps it is not my finest moment of comedy gold but Lindy loved the old comic Ronnie Barker as she used to watch the television show The Two Ronnies (Barker and Corbett) with her Dad. From then on the little yelping dog became known as Ronnie and we would joke, “Oh there goes Ronnie again.” Somehow, framing the dog as Ronnie helped us accept the yelps.

• When people are doing what they are excellent at doing • When people are engaged in what really engages them • When people are engaged in something that engages their ethics and • When people are working on what they believe matters Richard Florida, author of The Creative Class, says that “the dollar will attract a person but it won’t keep them.” People will stay when they love what they do – working with good and exciting people on good and exciting tasks.

The best of folk have not always been a singular success story. The best of folk have: • • • • •

Tried often Failed much Got back on board and Kept on learning B e e n e x c i t e d a b o u t a p p l y ing their learning

To be in flow they have been the kind of folk who: • • • •

Fail forwards Improve the skill of their apertures Become agile with their framing and Love the adventure

Focus, frame, flow… freedom!

However, there is more to flow than this too.

Some people are not working on seemingly exciting tasks and may not be working with good and exciting people, yet they somehow bring flow to what they do.

There is an old Crowded House song that says ‘everywhere you go, you take the weather with you’. It’s the same for some folk and flow. Whatever they do, they bring flow to it. They do this by being: • Interested and passionate about learning • Interested and passionate about getting better all the time • Interested and passionate about upping the challenge and • Interested and passionate about upping their skill levels… constantly In many ways flow is a foundation for a good organisation, a good school and a good team. Folk with a shared passion and shared values doing their very best and being absorbed. When a leader, principal, t e a c h e r, s t u d e n t o r w o r k e r … i s f u l l y absorbed, they feel good and pleasure is the emotional marker for flow.

An author, songwriter, radio and television presenter and creator of the Dynamic Thinking course for Leadership, Glenn delivers a message of creativity, innovation and thinking smarter. He teaches people how to be a learner and thinker in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world through the use of creative thinking, humour, enthusiasm and attitude.

Glenn’s new book, Thinking Caps, is available from Spectrum. www.glenncapelli.com.

Glenn runs workshops and presents Keynote speeches on the research, applications and factors involved with Focus, Frame and Flow.

Info@glenncapelli.com

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christina harvey

3 powerful ways to positively influence your students To maximise their engagement, performance and achievement

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ltimately, motivation is largely intrinsic and learning is the r e s p o n s i b i l i t y o f t h e l e a r n e r.

However, there are many factors that influence the level of engagement, performance and achievement of a student, including the quality of his or her home life at any given time, the quality of the student’s relationships with peers, the quality of the teacher’s personal life at any given time and the quality of the teacherstudent relationship. Given that “long term student engagement is a predictor of student learning and achievement, retention and graduation from high school...and success in college (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris), as well as a “protective factor that buffers students from a host of risky behaviours in adolescence, including truancy, gang involvement, delinquency, and risky sexual behaviour.”(Li and Lerner), this topic warrants discussion far beyond the scope of this article. However, I will offer some thoughts on how, all other things being equal, classroom teachers can positively influence each student to maximise their level of engagement, performance and achievement.

Teachers Matter

Become a nurturer and create a nurturing environment where your standards and behaviour are consistent.

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Make your classroom a place where young people feel safe to share whatever they think and feel, without fear of being belittled or laughed at. Make it a place where each feels valued. Make it a rule in your classroom to only say positive things about each other.

Any necessary negative feedback should be done in private and in a way that maintains respect for the individual. Have

an expectation and a belief that each young person will do her best and will succeed, and communicate that belief. Most will go to extraordinary lengths to live up to your faith in them. Teachers are people too and perhaps the most difficult thing of all is to be consistent regardless of our personal circumstances or mood.

Recognise your own personality type and how that relates to the different personalities in the classroom so you can work together effectively.

Allison Mooney in her book, Pressing the Right Buttons, talks about four personality types: Playful, Powerful, Peaceful and Precise, and gives a formula for ascertaining who belongs in each quadrant and offering strategies for getting the best out of each personality type, even those who are completely opposite to the personality of the teacher. The student who is a “Precise” is not trying to annoy the “Powerful” teacher by endlessly questioning. It is simply who she is. “People are normal until you get to know them through their personalities, and when we start relating to them from how they view their world, they become extraordinary.”

Perhaps peer to peer relationships would be enhanced if we gave young people the tools to recognise and work with the different personality groups.

Be a “Positive Influencer” in the lives of the young people you teach.

The very position of ‘teacher’ affords you a certain degree of trust and credibility with the young people you teach. However, your subsequent actions determine whether this influence grows or declines. John Maxwell in “How to Influence People”, talks about the four levels of Influence: Modelling, Motivating, Mentoring and Multiplying.

At the ‘Modelling’ level, your influence is ‘borrowed’ from your position and your organisation, the school. It is your subsequent actions that determine whether you grow or lose that influence. At this level, young people follow you because they have to. “You become a motivational influencer when you encourage people and communicate with them on an emotional level.” At this level, young people follow you because they want to, not because they have to and you are afforded the opportunity to make them feel included and to build their sense of self worth and confidence. Given that self esteem impacts every area of an individual’s life, perhaps there is no greater gift that we as educators can give the young people we teach than to instil a strong sense of self worth. The third of John Maxwell’s levels of Influence is Mentoring. At this level, the student follows us because of what we have done for her and we have her respect.

She recognises that we are helping her reach her potential and to be the best version of herself. The highest level is achieved by very few but is, arguably, the goal of every teacher. This level is called ‘Multiplying’.

This occurs when the young people you teach become “positive influencers in the lives of others and pass on, not only what they have received from you, but also what they have gleaned on their own.”

The few thoughts offered above are equally relevant to the members of a family, the manager of a business team or anywhere else where a group of people gather together for a common purpose.

photo:highwaystarz

christina harvey

Christina is a former teacher and has a passion for education and continuous learning. She has a particular interest in the field of Influence and how we can use influence to improve all our relationships whether personal or business. w w w. c h r i s t i n a h a r v e y. n z C h r i s t i n a . h a r v e y @ m e. c o m

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michael grose

How knowing the birth order of your students can make your life easier And why knowing matters

Fortunately, your brain is on your side.

When you meet someone for the first time your brain subconsciously sifts through hundreds of cues, assessing them in an instant before sending you a quick summary of what this person may be like.

As a result, you’ll address that person accordingly.

Teachers Matter

If you are socially skilled, you’ll address a professionally dressed middle-aged male

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far differently than a fifteen-year-old girl dressed as a Goth! You’ll then adjust your communication and your thinking when you become more familiar.

Your brain is wired to take in cues from other people. Most of these cues are visual.

A person’s race, age and gender all have visual dimensions making it easy dealing with those cues.

But a person’s family background is very different as there are no visual cues available. And the most significant piece of information about family background

photo: macky_ch

I

t’s tricky working with people because we are all so different.

is their position in their family, commonly known as BIRTH ORDER. This data then needs to be collected either informally through conversation, or in formal ways such as being collected at interviews.

Birth order information about students, and, if possible, parents and your colleagues, will make your life as a teacher and school leader easier. Here’s how:

“ Collecting data about children’s birth order will provide you with vital data to help you more effective as a teacher and administrator.”

michael grose

1. Birth order gives you greater understanding of children Got a class full of risk-takers? Maybe you’ve got too many perfectionists for your liking?

If so, there is a good chance that you have a large proportion of first born children in your class. Eldest children, by nature are generally risk-adverse when it comes to learning and going into new situations.

They are also more likely to be perfectionists.

Similarly, they are more likely to be anxious, particularly if their parents are anxious about raising them, as they are more likely to be influenced by their parents than children in any other birth order position.

What does it mean if you have a preponderance of youngests, or middle children in your class or year? Youngest children are often more creative, and more likely to take risks as learners. Those middle children may well be the social glue that holds the class together as middle children usually have more friends and are more sociable than eldest children.

2. Birth order tells you how much assistance parents need Parents of eldest children need a lot more handholding by teachers than parents of youngest children who have had some previous school experience. Everything is new for a parents of first borns – school is new; each year level is new; each developmental stage is new. Also parents are stricter and give first borns less freedom than youngest children, which has ramifications for you as a teacher.

As a rule of thumb, parents of first borns will take more teacher attention and energy than parents of children in other positions. This is not something taken into account when allocating children to classes at the start of the year. Be aware also that parents of youngest children have more experience of

the school system, and can sometimes take less interest in their children’s education.

3. Birth order explains why kids are different in a family Ever had a parent come to you scratching her head in dismay that her children are so different? They may have two children that share the same gender; have grown up in the same family and go to the same school, but they are different as chalk and cheese.

That’s the birth order factor.

Children, like niche marketers, play to their differences to be noticed. If the first born has responsibility sewn up, then there is a good chance the second will be a pest. At least his parents know he is around. It makes sense when you put yourself in children’s shoes.

Birth order tells you a lot about children’s differences within a family.

4. Birth order gives you a clearer picture of your personal drivers Ever wondered why you are motivated by different forces than your sibling? Maybe you are easy going, but your closest sibling is hard-driven and focused.

Perhaps, you’re a perfectionist who dots ever y i and crosses ever y t, but your closest sibling is laidback, perhaps even lazy compared to you. It’s not necessarily genetics or parenting – it’s more than likely the birth order effect. Generally, the longer that first borns and second live together the more diverse they become.

5. Birth order knowledge makes you more effective with your colleagues

Are you wondering why the person at the front desk of your school is so affable and so good with people? What’s her secret?

My guess is that she is a middle or second born child. Those born in this position are more sociable than those in other positions.

They have wider friendship groups than children born in other birth order positions and are often the social glue of any group.

Wondering what youngests are like? Well, for start they are more likely to take risks and be less control-oriented in their thinking.

There’s no doubt that an understanding of your colleagues’ birth order positions will give vital information to help you be more effective when interacting with them.

Similarly, collecting data about children’s birth order will provide you with vital data to help you more effective as a teacher and administrator.

Birth order knowledge is powerful, yet often under-estimated, particularly by teachers who work so closely with children, colleagues and parents every day.

Author, columnist and presenter Michael Grose currently supports over 1,100 schools in Australia, New Zealand and England in engaging and supporting their parent communities. He is also the director of Parentingideas, Australia’s leader in parenting education resources and support for schools. In 2010 Michael spoke at the prestigious Headmaster’s Conference in England, the British International Schools Conference in Madrid, and the Heads of Independent Schools Conference in Australia, showing school leadership teams how to move beyond partnership-building to create real parent-school communities.

For bookings, parenting resources for schools and Michael’s famous Free Chores & Responsibilities Guide for Kids, go to www.parentingideas.com.au.

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ABCDEFGHIJKLMN karen boyes

A to Z of effective teaching A by-the-letter guide Neo-Cortex

The neo-cortex is the newest and most developed part of the cerebral cortex of your brain. It is made up of 6 layers and is responsible for higher order functions including sensory perception, motor command, spacial reasoning, conscious thought, and language.

It is highly influential in the role of sleep, memory and the learning process. While there is still much to learn about the neo-cortex, scientists do know it is where semantic memory is housed.

Neuroscience

Teachers Matter

Neuroscience deals with the structure and or function of the nervous system. It also focuses on the brain and its impact on behaviour and cognitive functions.

More recently, Neuroscientists have begun working in broader fields including cellular, functional, evolutionar y, computational, molecular and medical aspects of the nervous system.

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Non-Verbal Communication

This is the process of communicating by sending and receiving wordless clues between people. It encompasses the use of voice (tone, pitch, volume, voice quality, rhythm, speed and intonation). Non-verbals also include the use of touch, distance, physical environment and the use of informal space. Eye contact is often associated with giving and receiving non-verbal communications. More specifically it is the actions while listening and talking, the frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation and blink rates that are often picked up subconsciously as communication tools.

Babies have ‘mirror-neurons’ which cause them to mimic and copy the non-verbal behaviour around them, enhancing the learning process. For example, while a parent is spoon-feeding an infant, the parent will often open their mouth as a non-verbal signal for the child to follow.

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Nutrition

The brain requires certain substances to be healthy. Just as you would not put diesel into a petrol car, the food you eat affects your brain and the quality of your learning. The brain uses more energy than any other organ and therefore is more vulnerable to the effects of poor nutrition. Most importantly, the brain requires glucose, vitamins, minerals and other chemicals for optimal health. The brain must also manufacture the correct amount of protein and fats to add neural pathways ready for new learning.

Here are ten brain foods recommended by brain experts:

1. B l u e b e r r i e s c o n t a i n antioxidants and supports memory.

2. Nuts, containing Vitamin E, proteins and helpful fats which supports memory.

3. Fish contains protein and helpful fats that support memory and problem solving.

4. Broccoli contains potassium to help repair the brain and helps improve circulation.

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NOPQRSTUVWXYZ karen boyes

5. Bananas contain vitamins and minerals (including potassium and tryptophan) that help improve mood, clear thinking and promote calmness.

6. Yoghurt contains vitamins and minerals (including calcium) and probiotics, which help to reduce anxiety and improve mood.

7. Wholegrain bread contains carbohydrates to provide energy for thinking and learning.

Open to continual learning

Being open to continuous learning means having the humility and pride to admit you do not know and being able to resist complacency. It requires a personal confidence and inquisitiveness to be able to constantly look for ways to improve, modify and learn. People with this disposition tend to seize problems, situations, tensions, conflicts and circumstances as valuable opportunities to learn from.

Occipital lobe

The occipital lobe is the region at the back of each cerebral hemisphere that contains the centres of vision and reading ability. It is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The occipital lobe is divided into several functional visual areas.

Each visual area contains a full map of the visual world.

8. Olive oil contains healthy fats and antioxidants that support memory and thinking.

9. Spinach contains vitamins and minerals (including folate) which help with thinking and learning.

10. T o m a t o e s c o n t a i n antioxidants that protect brain cells.

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Karen is an expert in effective teaching and learning, study skills, motivation a n d p o s i t i v e t h i n k i n g. S h e wa s awarded the NSANZ Educator of the Year 2014 award and works in schools throughout Australasia teaching students how to Study Smart and teachers how to raise achievement. www.karentuiboyes.com

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therese hoyle

Five more steps to create powerfully positive playtimes Children’s brains develop outside of the classroom when you give them the right tools.

1

Step 1: Develop a child’s seeking system and brain power through play.

Playing games activates a child’s brain, in particular the mammalian, lower brain, which contains a “seeking” system.

Teachers Matter

When seeking is activated in mammals, they explore and investigate their environment with curiosity and motivation. In humans, the seeking system can activate an appetite for life, energy to explore the new and an eagerness to seek out whatever the world has to offer. According to Margot Sunderland, when the seeking system is working in a well coordinated way with the frontal lobes/ upper brain, dopamine (the motivation chemical) gets released which enables us to sustain motivation and sense of purpose, and helps us attain our goals.

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In infants and toddlers, the seeking system must be activated by stimulation; if not, low levels of arousal will follow your child into adulthood, and result in low levels of energy, drive, and a sense of “is that all there is?” The same system that enables a child to build and create dens and sandcastles is the one that enables the adult to turn a dream into a successful business accomplishment.

This seeking system in our brain is like a muscle: The more you use it, the more curious and creative you become. Providing an enriched learning and play environment for a child helps them develop in numerous ways: self-confidence,

increased stress adaption, improved social skills, more brain cells in the memory and learning regions. Sunderland states that, “The benefits of creative play are many.

Research with both humans and other mammals demonstrates that play can lower stress chemicals, enabling us to deal better with stressful situations.”

Research also hints that play actually appears to make children smarter. In one fascinating study, rats were given an enriched environment with climbing tubes, novel food and lots of social interaction. Two months later, the rats had an extra 50,000 brain cells in each side of the hippocampus, one of the key memory centres of the brain.

Look today at the opportunities for creative play in your playground and school.

Key ideas • Provide: • Imaginative play area • Dressing up box • Tea set • Small world play equipment

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Step 2: Rules and responsibilities

Since playground injuries are the leading cause of injuries to children aged 5 – 14 in the school environment and 75 percent of school bullying happens in the school playground, rules that keep children physically and emotionally safe are essential.

School rules also provide clarity and consistency to all concerned. In many schools, you will see rules displayed inside the school, but not outside in the playground. We encourage schools to think through with students the rules or values that need to be in place. We then get these put onto Perspex and displayed in various areas of the playground.

The 4R’s for school and the playground: Some basic rules that we find work well are…

• Respect for self • Respect for others • Respect for property and the environment.

• R e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r a l l y o u r a c t i o n s

• Sandpit and water play • Games area Older children can develop the seeking system through playing games and imaginative play/drama, outdoor adventures and more. Look at the Forest schools web site, www.forestschools.com, for some great ideas.

When playing games, I often find that children are good at adapting and creating their own rules, often through common consent.

therese hoyle

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Step 3: Rewards

Step 4: Consequences

Step 5: Playground

At playtime, the reward is always that they get to play and have fun.

Consequences vary from school to school. Most schools agree that there needs to be some sort of restorative consequence, such as time for the student to think through how they could have acted and how they could choose to behave differently next time, time to restore relationships that may have broken down. In the first instance with low level incidences, a verbal warning is often all that is needed. However, if the child breaks the rule again, a five to 10-minute ‘time out to think’ is a good consequence.

The child usually has to sit in a solitary place, on a bench, in the hall or classroom away from other children, thinking through which rule they have broken and which rule they need to be keeping, and who they need to apologise to.

Activity Leaders (PALS)

Additional incentives such as the following can be used: “The Great Play Award” (see 101 Playground Games appendix for the certificate) is a special certificate that is given out in assembly to a specific child who has followed the rules/values of the school; alternatively it can be a plaque, or just a sticker. Teachers choose criteria for selection from week to week and ideally choose different children each week.

“Star Player,” “Star Child,” “Caught Being Good” slips (see 101 Games appendix for the slips). These are reward systems for you to choose between or you may choose to use them all. When children are seen playing cooperatively, being kind and keeping the rules, they get a paper slip.

These incentives can then link back into the teacher’s classroom rewards or children can collect their slips each week and every class can give a certificate to the child or children who get the most slips. Alternatively the school can give a certificate to the class with the most slips. Many teachers also like to do drum roles. When a child receives a slip, his name is put on it and then it is put into a “drum” box. At the end of the week, the drum roll takes place in a dramatic fashion with someone beating a drum and the box being turned over a few times. Then two to six names are drawn out, and the teacher awards those children a prize.

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Children can join in the game or activity once they have had time out and as long as relationships have been restored. You may know some children who are hugely reactive at playtime. Danger, stress and anxiety trigger the release of adrenalin and cortisol, which often leads to the fight or flight response.

These children do not have the stress regulating brain chemicals to calm themselves and need soothing, calming adults to help regulate the chemicals that have flooded their brains. Positive play experiences and positive social interaction for these children lead to positive emotions and a cocktail of good chemicals, such as opioids and oxytocin, which make them feel calm, content, secure and safe.

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PALS consist of a group of children whose job it is to play games in the playground. When considering adopting this system in your school, please give consideration to: • How many PALS you need, given the size of your playground and number of children in your school.

• How many times a week would be suitable for them to be out on games duty.

• How the PALS would be chosen.

• What support will they need?

For further information about the Playground PALS system, see Therese’s article in Issue 23 of Teachers Matter Magazine.

Therese Hoyle is bestselling author of 101 Playground Games and 101 Wet Playtime Games and Activities.

She runs Positive Playtime and whole school social, emotional and behavioural skills programmes nationally and internationally. If you wish to develop her ideas further please read her books, available from Spectrum Education, or contact her direct for in depth advice on designing and developing your playground. www.theresehoyle.com

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kate mason

Where does your teen get their energy from?

Introvert or extravert?

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photo: Marcel De Grijs

s we well know, the teen years can be fraught with many issues.

Adolescent hormones bring about both physical and emotional changes.

The need to make “responsible” decisions, cope with their evolving feelings towards parents, family and friends, all create turmoil. For teens good friends can be like their own support group. The knowledge that others are sharing the challenge of establishing their independence and dealing with the same situations brings a sense of comfort and belonging. Never is there a better time for them to have an understanding of people’s personalities including their own. The more knowledge they have about the ways that they gain energy, make decisions, view and structure their world, the greater their confidence in understanding themselves and handling different people. Both parents and teachers would also benefit from this information, as it is their job to support the teen through these years.

Teachers Matter

The preferences of Extraversion and Introversion, which tell us where a person’s energy is found, are particularly important at this stage when friendship groups are becoming the focus of the teen’s personal development.

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Extraverted teens might find it hard to successfully balance their increasing need for energising in the ‘outer’ world of friends with the time necessary for escalating study demands and essential home life. Setting practical personality expectations in these areas is very important for teens, parents and teacher. For example, allowing time for social interaction with friends throughout the lesson/study time and family time is stimulating for the Extravert and can make the prospect of study/being home a reasonable expectation. Remember that the Extravert needs to talk whilst working as well, as that is how they think things out.

Locking them away in a quiet room for too

long will be de-motivating and depressing for them as is preventing them from not only going out and socialising with their friends, but discussing their work with others which is paramount to helping their comprehension of the topics being studied.

If they understand this about themselves they can manage their situation. My daughter will intersperse her study and time at home with either quick visits to a friend, out for a coffee or organising a study time with people. Once she has had this interaction to energise herself she is ready to put in a few more hours of study until the

“Too often we have perceptions about what we think is good for teenagers rather than asking them what they think. "

next ‘energy’ break is needed. She is also happy to spend time with the family if she has spent time with her friends.

However, for the Introvert the teen years can be different, as they are energised by time alone or in quiet environments.

Unfortunately this means they may be viewed as friendless or needing more friends by well meaning peers, teachers and parents. This pressure is overwhelming for them as they try to follow the need for socialisation. If the teen, parents and teachers know their preference they can

accept that the socialisation process will be different. The Introvert may seem less social but will still enjoy time spent with a few or one special friend. They may not wish to have lots of friends around or go out with them. My son informed me, the extraverted mother, “Mum I see people at school and sport, and I really do not need to see them on the week end or have them back to my place. I do not need people like you do. I am perfectly happy”. What more could I say?

He has a great understanding of his needs.

Introverts are often happy to spend quite long periods of time in isolation studying and may need the occasional reminder to ‘come up for air’ or just take a break doing something that they enjoy, which may be another quiet activity. If this is your child or one in your classroom you can always ask the question, “What suits you best?”

Too often we have perceptions about what we think is good for teenagers rather than asking them what they think. If they know and understand themselves they then also have the skills to validate their own feelings and ideas with greater self-confidence. If you as the parent/teacher are also aware of their preferences and your own, then you can alter and adapt your expectations of the teen and use your knowledge to help them on their exciting but challenging journey into adulthood.

Based in Adelaide, Kate has been a successful businesswoman for over 25 years. She has experience of diverse sectors such as teaching, food and fitness. Kate is trained in personality profiling, specialising in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. She is highly experienced in the relationship b e t w e e n p e r s o n a l i t y, p e o p l e and performance.

kate mason

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kate southcombe

How to use environmental change to manage challenging class behaviours Understanding the impact of antecedents and consequences

Teachers Matter

It made me stop and think about how we can improve things by making simple changes to our environment. This grew into how to make simple behavioural changes.

We often find the New Year brings about amazing, mind blowing resolutions that we are convinced will change our lives - what’s more, this time we will stick to it, not like last year! Yet these adamant resolutions are often shattered by week 3 or 4, sometimes even earlier, because we over estimated our enthusiasm and under estimated the power of our environment to control our behaviour.

For example with a new eating regime, instead of considering the environment, we focus on our will power and fortitude. Many of us attempt to control our eating by a mixture of stoicism and martyrdom.

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I have found that making some simple environmental changes can make all the difference between success and failure.

By removing the foods we wish to avoid from our environment and restricting access to them by avoiding the aisles in the supermarket, we set ourselves up to be successful. This helps us to establish new habits and gradually we test ourselves as time goes by. The same goes for any behaviour you wish to change – consider the environmental influences and how you might modify these to create a successful start. We all know this really. After all, how many of us moan when invited to dinner during a slim challenge knowing that temptation will surely draw us down the slippery slope. However, instead of seeing it as temptation, acknowledging the

very real behavioural factors present might allow us to be more systematic and less dramatic as we navigate our way through any change programme. Initially it may be asking too much to eat out in a ‘tempting’ environment. However once we have established the routine at home, maybe we are ready to start the process of generalising this new routine to other areas such as work and then restaurants.

This generalisation process is how behaviour analysts help people achieve simple and radical changes that impact on their life and last for longer than most quick fixes that focus on will power. Understanding how environmental changes such as antecedents and consequences impact on behaviour can help us when it comes to handling classroom behaviour.

As teachers, many of us are either excited or anxious about the new school year. What behavioural challenges lie in wait? After almost 6 weeks of free living many students will be reluctantly returning to what they perceive as the confines of a restricted and limiting environment. How can we tackle the year head on with enthusiasm and have evidence based strategies at the ready to handle any mishaps? Two fundamentals to tackling behaviour are the antecedents and consequences associated with the behaviour. However a third is the function of the behaviour and this is the focus when designing and implementing successful behavioural change programmes.

For example, if you have a student that frequently calls out in class and disrupts others during a lesson, knowing what the function of this behaviour is will help you plan how to deal with it in the future. If it’s to gain attention from both you and the class, reprimanding them in front of everyone is probably not going to work, and only serve to reinforce the calling out behaviour. Consequences such as removing

“ Focusing on what happens just before and after the behaviour enables you to be active in the process "

them from the class or, if possible, ignoring them and focusing on another student may well help.

If however, the behaviour occurs prior to a maths activity (antecedent) maybe the function of the behaviour is to avoid maths?

If the student gets sent out of the room (consequence), you may have only served to assist them in avoiding mathematics! The challenge for any teacher in a full classroom is being able to assess what is really going on. Taking the time to explore the function of the behaviour, asking for support and making a commitment to follow through will pay dividends. Once you have an idea of the function of the behaviour, by noting what happens just before (antecedent) and after (consequences), you can manipulate either the antecedents or consequences.

With our attention seeking, interrupting student we can provide attention for other appropriate behaviour prior to the whole class session, or we can plan a reward based system, talk one on one with them and challenge them to restrict their calling out.

If it’s to avoid a subject, we can adapt the material (why this isn’t done more often I don’t know!), check for learning issues, and provide additional help. Focusing on what happens just before and after the behaviour

photo: saied shahinkiya

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t’s the start to a brand new year and I thought what better way to kick start it than to do a mini makeover on the house – this translated into a quick clean up, but the results were great. The house looked fabulous. It didn’t take long and involved moving a few things around and tidying a few clutter spots.

kate southcombe

The A-B-C of Behavioural Learning

antecedents

and gaining attention. Too often we assume that a behaviour’s topography, or what it looks like, is important in problem solving but this may be misleading. For example we may wrongly assume that a child with out of seat behaviour simply needs to learn to work at their desk. However if the function is to avoid another child or a subject they don’t like, we will not be successful no matter how long we spend trying to keep them in their seat. Three questions to ask that may help determine the function of a behaviour are: What happens just before the behaviour?

(Antecedents – change, add or remove) What is the result of the behaviour for the child? (Consequences – change, add or remove) Are there times when the behaviour doesn’t occur and what is happening then? (Teach a replacement behaviour or plan a way to alter the environment)

consequences

enables you to be active in the process rather than seeing the student as some nemesis sent to haunt you! Obviously depending on the age and ability of the student, involve them as much as possible in how to solve the problem. There’s a useful strategy that involves separating the behaviour from the student – for example stating ‘this calling out behaviour disrupts the class’ rather than saying ‘you disrupt the class’. It may seem like a matter of semantics but it has a subtle effect of bringing the student on side with you as you both discuss how to control this ‘separate behaviour’.

Many people see the process of talking about disruptive behaviour and ‘negotiating’ with students as giving in to, or pandering to the student. It may help to think in terms of basic behavioural principles. If you want to see more of any behaviour you have to reinforce it – it’s that simple! If you want

behavioUr

to be in control of someone’s behaviour, control your own behaviour first, and find out what they find reinforcing and then control these reinforcers!

Science provides us with rational, workable behavioural principles that enable us to avoid the pitfalls of complicated and circular reasoning as to why a student challenges us. Determining the function of a behaviour is an essential element in problem solving for lasting success. It is worth noting that different behaviours can serve the same function and the same behaviour can serve different functions!

For example calling out, hitting another student, or constantly being out of their seat may all serve the same function for some students - seeking teacher attention.

Alternatively the same behaviour, calling out, may ser ve two functions for two different students - avoidance of a subject

With our disruptive student, alter the consequences so they no longer get to avoid or escape the demand, and combine this with positive reinforcement for correct behaviour such as responding to all teacher requests and remaining in their seat. This could be a timely reminder to reinforce all correct behaviour from all students at least some of the time. Never take ‘correct’ behaviour for granted or expect students to do things because they are supposed to do them. Remember it’s really simple although not always very easy to do - reinforce all behaviour you wish to see more of and ignore as much as possible all behaviour you wish to see less of in your classroom.

Yo u m a y f i n d y o u s t a r t s e e i n g m o r e opportunities for reinforcement and more opportunities to bring about behaviour change.

Kate provides individually tailored professional development for Early C h i l d h o o d C e n t re s a n d s ch o o l s on evidence-based behaviour management. She also consults for parents of children with specific behaviour concerns. kate@eprtraining.co.nz

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Kim chamberlain

Downwords Word Search: Jobs There are 10 words to find, each the name of a job. The word starts with a letter at the top and works its way down in a continuous line to the bottom.

5 minute brain exercises Keep your brain active with these short word and number exercises.

Game or puzzle? A puzzle has a definite answer, while a game will have a number of suitable answers and can be done more than once.

Puzzles give you the discipline of working out the ‘correct’

answer, while you can develop your creativity by finding a several answers for a game.

Four of the exercises are puzzles and one is a game.

ASTRONOMER

SPORT SCOUT

ACCOUNTANT

SALES CLERK

POLITICIAN

TECHNICIAN

BIOCHEMIST

PARK RANGER

DOG BREEDER

CONSULTANT

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Begins With Think of words that begin with the letter on the left and fit the categories.

Begins with

Teachers Matter

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B C D

Food

Girl’s name

Animal

3 kim chamberlain

Number Route

Number Route - harder

Start at the top circle, follow the arrows and do the calculations to work out the final answer.

Start at the top circle, follow the arrows and work out which of the little circles the symbols +, — and x go in

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=

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= 6

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Time to Find a Rhyme Number Route - harder

Find a word that rhymes with the word on the left, and fits the category in the Start topfive circle, followwords the end arrows middle.atInthe the first the rhyming in the and same work letters; out the last ones end in the slightly different letters. which of the little circles symbols +, — and x go in

Rhymes with Is a ...

Been

Colour

Horn

Vegetable

Marrow

Bird

Nose

Flower

Dance

Country

Course Thumb

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Animal Fruit

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= 6

Label

Piece of furniture

Rocky

Sport

Leak

Part of the body

Note

Item of clothing

Snail Numbers Colour in 6 snails yellow, 5 snails blue and 4 snails red.

How many are left? _________

Rhyming word GREEN

3 How many snails are facing left? _________

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Time to Find a Rhyme CORN, SPARROW, ROSE, FRANCE, HORSE, PLUM, TABLE, HOCKEY, CHEEK, COAT. There may be more than one answer

Taking care of your brain is just as beneficial as taking care of the rest of your body. Research has shown that training games help improve memory, concentration, problem-solving skills, processing speed, creativity, and reasoning.

The key to such exercise is to constantly learn and regularly challenge your brain’s capabilities with new tasks. Regularly doing series of short, varied tasks will keep your thinking faculties focused and flexible.

Each of these book's contents can be used in any number of ways: to challenge yourself or simply have fun or as a competition against time or other people.

These exercises work in many settings: home, work, schoolrooms, training and therapy sessions, and as an icebreaker at social gatherings.

Find details about these books and others at www.kimchamberlain.com

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Begins With There are several suitable answers including: APPLE, ANNE, ALLIGATOR BREAD, BARBARA, BEAR CHEESE, CAROL, CHEETAH DOUGHNUT, DOREEN, DEER Snail Numbers How many are left? 6 How many are facing left? 10 How many are facing right? 11 Number Route 3 x 7 + 9 -3 = 27 Number Route - harder 4x2-5+3=6

Kim Chamberlain is an author and speaker n a range of personal and professional development topics. She is a strong beliver that a lot can be achieved by undertaking activities that take a short amount of time. Details of her books and e-books, can be found on k i m c h a m b e r l a i n . c o m

maaike christie-beekman

Use your voice and body language to your advantage Enlarge your presence and influence your students

question - make sure you turn your entire body, head to toe, and meet your students on their level. It expresses to the other person that he or she has your undivided attention. Ever heard of the expression ‘giving somebody the cold shoulder’? This actually has a major impact on how others perceive you and how well they listen.

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voice. People with high pitched voices can be perceived as baby-ish and lacking intelligence.

And if you speak too quickly, you may be perceived as panicky and stressed.

Make Eye Contact Count Eye contact establishes relationships, expresses trustworthiness and confidence, can help to engage the whole group, and sometimes can be used to intimidate your observers.

When you speak using the lower range of your voice, you can feel the power. If you need to raise your voice (up the volume), make sure you keep your pitch low too.

You know that if you look at only one part of the class while you’re talking, the other members will stop listening and feel left out. That’s why we include everybody while speaking.

Optimise your Pace If you speak too slowly, you might lull your class to sleep. When you speak too fast, your class might switch off because they can’t process the information. The most effective speaking rate is between 120 to 160 words per minute.

However, if you feel you need to stamp your authority on one person in particular, hold your gaze on this person. And if something else grabs your attention, a sound, movement or question, make sure you don’t immediately break eye contact - keep it for two or more seconds before you look away.

’ve been a lecturer - I know how hard it is to keep students attentive. So it didn’t help when someone chastised me saying, “If your students are slouching during your lecture, you can only blame yourself!”

There is truth in that statement.

Okay, some topics are easier to get excited about than others, but it really does rest on the shoulders of the messenger when it comes to communicating information effectively. Non verbal communication - your body language and use of voice - can be the key to informing, inspiring and motivating students.

Before I was a lecturer in communication skills, I was a performing artist. My job was to stand on stage and try to captivate my audience by singing and acting. It taught me how to convey meaning and context in subtle ways that I now use to teach others to communicate and present with confidence.

Actors call this subtext.

Think of it like this: when we communicate, we communicate through two channels.

“Channel 1” is the words that we use and “Channel 2” is the expression of the meaning of those words - your subtext.

When you tell your class to be quiet, think about what your Channel 2 might be expressing:

“Oh please, I can’t take it any more”; “I am in command and know that you will do what I say” or “The next person who opens his/her mouth will find out what the real meaning of the word ‘mad’ is”.

Once you switch on your awareness about what you are communicating through your “Channel 2”, it can help you to win over your class, demand attention, create a safe environment, project your message, and more easily explain complicated information.

So here are a few tips to help you command attention in the classroom: Lower your pitch Our brain processes information better when something is explained in a low pitched

When you find your right pace, make sure you bring variety in your speaking rate. It helps to emphasise critical points and reflect the context.

Powerful Gestures Your gestures are a powerful tool to express the meaning of the words. They also can express your emotional state: welcoming, warm, authoritative, commanding, and trustworthy.

We all have our own gesturing habits; you could even call it your gesture fingerprint.

Some people gesture mainly with their palms open, which expresses welcoming and openness. However, when you raise your palms up to around shoulder height, it expresses panic.

Others gesture more with their palms down, which is a more authoritative and commanding way of moving. However, if you make these gestures too emphatically, it expresses aggression.

Ask yourself what you want to express and think of gestures that match this emotion.

Posture Perfect Without wanting to sound like a nagging mother, don’t slouch! It is tiring to stand in a classroom all day but standing tall and sitting up straight express most effectively that you are ready for action, in control and committed.

When your students come up to you to ask a

Finally, the best advice I can give you is this: make a video recording while you are teaching and watch it without sound, just looking at your body language to analyse what you are expressing on your “Channel 2”. Then, just listen - don’t watch - and analyse your tone of voice and what it is expressing.

Talk about instant feedback!

Look at the elements in your non verbal communication that you don’t like and brainstorm ways to change what you do.

Make sure you don’t just focus on the negative, but note the positive too. You are a teacher, standing in front of a group on a daily basis using skills a lot of people don’t have and don’t realise you have. Celebrate the things you do well, and amplify them.

Personal Branz Director and performance & communications consultant, Maaike is a former professional Opera singer and actor. Now a lecturer and consultant, she draws on her expertise on voice, body language and performance to coach public speakers, leaders, stage performers and anyone who wants to communicate with clarity, authority and authenticity and perform under pressure.

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Michael Grinder and Mary Yenik

Giving effective feedback Combating defensiveness non-verbally

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s all children do, my daughter would test her limits from time to time.

When we tried to correct certain behaviours, she would get defensive. It didn’t take me long to notice that reasoning with her when she was defensive was a near impossible task. I had to wait for her to be in the right state to receive feedback. The same is true for students, fellow teachers, and parents who need feedback in order to grow professionally.

However, feedback can cause defensiveness in the recipient if it seems critical, negative, or volatile. Luckily, there is a way to give accurate, straight-forward feedback on even the most sensitive issues without the danger that the student or adult will shut down emotionally and intellectually, thus missing the value of our feedback.

The secret is to separate our “position” from our “person” by representing volatile information visually. By being systematic with our eye contact—eyes on visual feedback to communicate from our position, eyes on the person’s face for the relationship, we make the separation clear to the recipient.

Here are specifics of the process for giving feedback effectively.

Teachers Matter

1. Have the paper in front of the recipient.

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Put the paper in front of the recipient so it is easier for the recipient to read.

2. Sit with your dominant hand closest to the recipient.

With the hand closest to the recipient, point to the paper.

3. Co-ordinate your eyes and hand when transitioning from eye contact to looking at the paper.

Since the recipient will follow your eyes, keep your eyes and hand in sync as you gesture towards the paper to encourage the recipient to look at it.

4. When looking at the recipient, use a friendly, approachable voice to elicit input and collaboration.

Yo u r v o i c e w i l l h a v e m o r e l i l t a n d friendliness if you move your head up and down as you speak and gesture with your palms up.

5. When looking at the paper, use a more business-like, credible voice to show that the information is not open to negotiation.

Your voice will have quiet authority if you keep your head still and gesture with your palms down.

"Separate our 'position' from our 'person' by representing volatile information visually.”

6. Pause when looking at the paper.

When communicating volatile information, t h e p a u s e i n c r e a s e s t h e importance, vehemence and seriousness of the message.

7. Offer assistance.

Continue to look at the paper until the recipient grasps the need to change. Then you have the option of shifting back to eye contact and offering assistance. For example, “How can I assist you…? What resources do you need as you make these [look back at the paper as you finish this sentence] required changes?”

When we give feedback effectively, the recipient will gain the full value of our information without the defensiveness that can come with sensitive topics. They will understand when you are communicating from your position versus communicating from your relationship through the subtle changes in your non-verbal language.

Michael is the United Sates national director of NLP in Education. He has pioneered the practice of using nonverbals to manage classrooms and create a safe learning environment based on influence instead of power.

Michael Grinder and Mary Yenik

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karen boyes

Study Skills The role of sleep and learning e science of hope

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etting a great night sleep is essential for brain health, and especially important when learning and studying. Researcher Chris Evans believes the most important function of sleep is to allow your brain to consider the new things that have been learned that day. He suggests new learnings are filed and consolidated in the memory system during sleep.

Teachers Matter

Teenagers usually need more sleep than adults as their brains and bodies are going through significant growth and change. It is recommended that teenagers get around 9 ¼ hours of sleep to be their best. Lack of sleep affects brain function including mood, concentration, memory, and problem solving ability.

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“It can be tempting to burn the candle at both ends while studying however if you get adequate sleep it can maximise the learning you do while you are studying. ”

To get a great night’s sleep here are four tips:

2. Avoid TV or screens before bed

1. Make your bedroom a haven for sleeping

The effect of screens on the brain before bed is well documented. While checking your phone or reading on a devise just before bed might seem natural enough, it is not for your brain. A stream of phonons from the screen tells your brain it is not time to go to sleep and in turn, this prevents the secretion of Melatonin; the chemical responsible for sleep timing and blood pressure regulation. Even just the small glow of the phone screen when you check the time at night can be enough to interrupt sleep patterns. The suggestion from the experts is to shut all electronic devises off at around 9pm or an hour before you go to bed.

It is essential to make your bedroom space calming and comfortable. The brain loves neat and tidy. Sleeping in an over-busy and messy room can often stimulate the brain making it harder to relax, so tidy up unfinished work and clear the floor.

Another tip is to turn your digital clock around so you cannot see the time. This is for two reasons. Firstly, the light shining in your room can stop the natural sleep process and secondly, you do not want to be continually checking the time and cause yourself stress because you are not sleeping. Ensure your room is on the cool side rather than the hot - studies show that rooms 5-10 degrees lower than the average daytime temperature can help with sleep.

3. Be aware of what you eat or drink before bed.

Certain food can stimulate or diminish your ability to sleep. Foods to avoid before bed include spicy foods, caffeine

and high fat foods. Instead choose foods that contain tryptophan such as turkey, eggs and milk which can help promote sleep. Nutritionist Jessica Redmond suggests it is best to avoid eating large meals in the hours leading up to bedtime.

If you have to eat right before bed, eat a small meal or pre-portioned snack.

4. Start a bedtime routine Dim the lights while you get ready for bed, or turn off bright overhead lamps and switch to a soft, bedside lamp. Your body is programmed to sleep when it’s dark. Attempt to go to bed at the same time ever y night and choose a time when you normally feel tired, so that you don’t toss and turn. Try not to break this routine on weekends when it may be tempting to stay up late. If you want to change your bedtime, help your body adjust by making the change in small daily increments, such as 15 minutes earlier or later each day.

It can be tempting to burn the candle at both ends while studying however if you get adequate sleep it can maximise the learning you do while you are studying.

Karen is an expert in effective teaching and learning, study skills, motivation a n d p o s i t i v e t h i n k i n g. S h e wa s awarded the NSANZ Educator of the Year 2014 award and works in schools throughout Australasia teaching students how to Study Smart and teachers how to raise achievement. www.karentuiboyes.com

www.spectrumeducation.com 51

yvonne godfrey

Parenting style traps and how to overcome them Part one

B

roken down to the essentials, there are two methods we use to grow our children. One is nurturing and the other is empowering.

If you plant a seed, water it each day, give it lots of light, and nurture it until i t ’s m a t u r e e n o u g h ; i t c a n t h e n b e transplanted outside. Likewise, when you nurture your children, you love them, care for them and help them grow until they are ready to go out into the big wide world – that’s what nurturing means.

Empower means ‘give power or authority to’, and refers to helping someone realise his or her abilities and potential.

So, in parenting, nurturing is about the preparation phase and empowering is about the releasing phase. Setting up and releasing your yadult into independence takes years, and parents are continually discovering that what worked yesterday isn’t as effective or applicable today.

Parents sometimes struggle with knowing when to ease off and let their yadults experience the realities of life.

Teachers Matter

Here are two styles of problematic parenting brilliantly told by the parents themselves. You can read about the other four styles in Part two which will be in the next edition of Teachers Matter magazine.

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Style 1 - Indulgent parent The indulgent parent is a servant and a banker. They run around after their yadults as well as financially bankrolling them. Additionally, this type of parent protects their child from the consequences of mistakes. Because they feel responsible for keeping them from all suffering, a codependent relationship is formed where the parent over-provides (making the parent feel needed or important) and the yadult willingly takes, developing a huge sense of entitlement with little or no understanding of the value of people or things.

“ Parents sometimes struggle with knowing when to ease off and let their yadults experience the realities of life.”

Vicky’s story Vicky tells the honest story of how she diagnosed and ramped up her parenting style: I often lavished and overindulged my kids with buying them things, paying for what they wanted, and bailing them out of their debt. The children took me for granted and disrespected me because they thought, ‘Mum will help me out.’ It was almost as if I owed it to them! I tended to be a rescuer and couldn’t bear to see my kids unhappy.

I felt mean when I said no, so to please them and gain favour, I would always give in. Unfortunately that caused a negative downward spiral as they just kept wanting and expecting more. My husband got frustrated with me for pandering to the kids, and this caused stress in our relationship.

Naturally, the kids knew I was a soft touch, and always came to me for the things they wanted. As a result, I was spending money hand over fist – and eventually I started hiding the amounts from my husband.

It took my son going on Miomo (www. miomo.com) for me to realise how dysfunctional our family had become. I connected the dots and understood that the more I gave, the more disrespectful he became. At first I felt affronted by hearing that I was ‘killing my kids with kindness’. It took me a while to fully appreciate what was going on and to understand what ‘normal’ looked like. I began to watch my responses to my son’s demands and this gave me the strength to say no. I told him that it was time he learned to stand on his own two feet and that I would no longer pay his way. He had a huge cell phone debt, which I had allowed him to clock up because I had pretty much given him free rein and was paying his cell phone bill. I made him pay it back.

photo: Scott Sanders

yvonne godfrey

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yvonne godfrey

On the Miomo programme he learned about responsibility, and he started to see that he needed to change his attitude and behaviour if he was going to make it in the real world. After he came home from Miomo, I stopped doing his washing and cooking his meals (he is vegetarian and it’s a hassle to cook two meals each day).

He didn’t like the ‘new rules’ at first and the transition was difficult, but he pretty much looks after himself now. I can see that he actually feels good about taking more control over his life. Sometimes I buy him clothes or a meal, but it’s no longer expected – it’s my choice and a pleasure to do. I applied the same principles to my daughter, who also learned to accept ‘the new deal’.

Teachers Matter

In the past, I showered my kids with whatever they wanted because I loved to see them happy, but I now realise that that kind of happiness doesn’t last. I was harming them by giving them a false understanding of the real world. Our whole family dynamic has changed for the better.

The kids respect my husband and me a lot more as a result of us laying down firmer boundaries and guidelines and making the expectations clear.

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Yvonne Godfrey is the founder of Miomo (Making it on my Own), a 10-day, live-in experience to equip 17- to 24-year-olds for a responsible, independent and successful adult life. www.miomo.co.nz

Compensating parent The compensating parent feels a deep need to make up for some kind of loss or trauma that either the parent or the child has experienced.

Robyn’s story Robyn suffered neglect and abandonment as a child and she wanted to provide a different life for her two boys. She tells her story: My mother had me when she was 16 and due to the stigma associated with being an unmarried mum in the 1960s, I lived with my grandparents until I was six. Mum suffered from severe depression and was a heavy drinker. My father avoided the house at all costs, choosing to work rather than be part of our lives. Those first years with my grandparents were idyllic and I was resentful and sad at the thought of having to return to live with a mother and father I hardly knew.

Not long after I moved back home, when my brother was six months old, my father left.

At first this was a relief as the screaming, fighting and chaos came to an end.

Within a year of meeting my stepfather, my mother was pregnant again and my second brother was born. After that, life became unbearable. Suffering from severe postnatal depression and drinking heavily, my mother would fluctuate between states of anger, violence and self-harm, twice attempting suicide. She hated her new baby and I resented him too.

This pattern continued for the next six years. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me – in fact the opposite. My childhood taught me amazing life skills, gave me incredible strength and resilience, and the drive to succeed – but it robbed me of spontaneity, passion and fun. I paid a high price for having to grow up so quickly. I was never able to be a child – to experience carefree days or have wonderful times and memories to look back on.

My childhood shaped my parenting, both good and bad. I have two amazing boys, and they are my world. I made a promise when my eldest was born: ‘I will never allow my children to face the challenges and hardships I faced, I will ensure that they live a carefree life, filled

with joy, laughter, abundance and fun, they will feel safe and loved and nurtured, they will want for nothing and they will never know physical or mental cruelty.’

A noble promise, but one I now realise I cannot and should not keep. I have succeeded in ensuring that my boys have lived a sheltered life. They have never had to deal with real hardships, they have been indulged, have never had to shoulder responsibility, do chores or want for anything. But, in keeping this promise I have deprived them of all that was good about my childhood. I have failed to teach them the life skills they need to transition from child to adult. At 17 my son is a good boy, but he is not yet a man. He can’t yet cook, clean a home, budget, or plan; he can’t take responsibility for his future. I haven’t prepared him for real life. He’s been living in a bubble where life is always fair, good and kind. He hasn’t faced hardships or learnt the difficult lessons, and he hasn’t yet had the opportunity to triumph over those adversities that mature us into successful adults and good parents.

I’ve reached a turning point in my life. I realise that I need to make a new promise to myself and to my sons: ‘I promise to expose you to the challenges of real life, to educate and equip you with the skills you are going to need to grow and transition into amazing men, fathers, husbands and leaders of your generation. I am sure I will continue to indulge you with love but you will have to put in more sweat and tears to earn those allowances. I will hold you accountable for your decisions and your behaviour and together we will work as a family to overcome the challenges we face.’

Footnote to this story: In the two years that followed, Robyn applied the principles she learned about how to parent yadults.

Her eldest son is now in his second year at university and is living independently in a flat. He has a part time job tutoring and takes care of all his personal expenses, including transport, clothing, entertainment and the running of his car. He is fortunate to have his rent and food paid for from a trust that was left to him by his late father.

Louiza Hebhardt

back to school wisdom

No 01

"you're off to great places. today is your day! your mountain is waiting, so get on your way!"

Dr. Seuss

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robyn pearce

How to meet your deadlines!

Master the ‘overwhelm’ quickly and easily

A

t a conference, we’d been talking about how to do daily planning and ‘to do’ lists. Martin, one of the delegates, made a great contribution.

‘Robyn, you gave us some great advice about writing a list of all the things to do for the day, identifying just the top five, and working on them. The action of writing down definitely takes away some of the stress, but sometimes, especially if there’s pressing deadlines and you can feel a panic attack coming on, the list of ‘absolute must-do’s’ seems too long.’

I recommend you also quickly jot down beside each item an estimate of how long it will take. This has several benefits: • Clears the mind clutter.

Teachers Matter

• Helps you be more realistic about what you really can do, instead of pushing ahead blindly, maybe on things that you’ve got no chance to achieve.

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• A n d p r o b a b l y t h e m o s t important – helps you realise that, almost always, the issue is what’s in your head, rather than what’s on the list. Our m i n d p l a y s f u n n y t r i c k s ! I t ’s amazing how quickly you get through the work once you push the anxiety away, and there’s almost always enough time.’

illustrations: Seamartini Graphics & Mary Hester

• Focuses your attention on what’s really important.

robyn pearce

Overwhelm of Information Whenever I’ve got a particularly large project on where there’s a lot of data to capture and manage, such as writing a book, creating a complex new product or redesigning my website, this is what I do.

(It’s more a project management and data capture tool than a prioritising tool.)

If you’re very visual you’ll want a large space – flipchart pages are best, or a large whiteboard works well; as long as you can leave it there until you’re finished. If you’re more minimalist and have small tidy writing, use a large piece of paper.

On the first page identify the broad categories within the project. (You may choose to use a mind map, or a linear bullet list works well too).

On subsequent pages, break each category out into key activities.

Expand each item with as many details as possible.

Identify the critical items for fastest results.

With a different coloured pen, give yourself any important target date.

Extra tip: Leave your lists in sight while the work is in progress – on the flipchart stand, the whiteboard, or pinned on the wall. Even if you’re not actively looking at them every day, your subconscious keeps working.

You’ll be delighted how many of the target dates are met, and how effective you feel. It takes away the feeling of overwhelm.

The key to all three strategies is in writing things down – it unclutters the brain.

Transfer any time-critical matters into your regular planning tool or diary.

Robyn is known around the world as the Time Queen, helping people discover new angles on time. Her website, www.gettingagrip.com, offers many resources. She is a CSP (Certified Speaking Professional)

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terry small

A ‘sure-fire’ stress buster

T

oo much stress is bad for your brain.

Stress normally comes and goes and like the tides, fears and anxieties subside shortly after their onset. But what happens when they don’t? Neuroscience points to 4 things: 1. Chronic stress produces sustained high levels of cortisol in your brain.

2. Your hippocampus shrinks as a result.

3. Your brain is unable to produce new neurons.

4. Your memory starts to worsen and you can’t concentrate as well.

None of this is a good thing!

Here is an idea that may help keep your stress at a healthy level. Cut someone else some “slack”! Many of us in our hurried, harried world are too quick to criticise and find fault with others. Like most thinking patterns this is born of habits of mind.

Pay attention to your habits. Pay attention to your thinking. This is called metacognition (thinking about your thinking).

I was stunned to read recently that 50% of the population never engages in metacognition. Is it any wonder we’re stressed?!

If you are constantly critical of co-workers, your spouse, the kids, bad drivers, or strangers...guess what...you teach yourself to be critical of you! Stress is the result.

Teachers Matter

See if you can catch a glimpse of yourself in this letter. It has been reprinted for many decades in newspapers and publications all around the world. Oddly enough even in college student newspapers.

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Livingstone Learned (adapted and updated a bit): “Listen, son, I’m saying this as you lie asleep, one hand crumpled under your cheek. I’ve stolen in your room alone. A few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. I had been cross with you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you only dabbed your face with a towel.

I chewed on you for not cleaning your shoes. I spoke angrily when you threw some things on the floor. I found fault at breakfast too. You spilled things, gulped your food, put your elbows on the table and put too much butter on your toast. As I left for work you waved and called, “Good-bye, Daddy!” and I told you to straighten your shoulders.

The same thing happened in the afternoon. As I came up the road I saw you, down on your knees playing marbles. There were holes in your socks.

I humiliated you in front of your friends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Socks were expensive - “If you had to buy them, you’d be more careful.” Imagine that from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading my paper, how you came in - a bit timidly? I impatiently asked you, “What do you want?”

You didn’t say a thing. You threw your arms around my neck and kissed me. And you held me with an affection that God has set in your heart and which even neglect hasn’t withered.

Then you were gone, pattering upstairs to bed.

It was shortly after that I felt the guilt and sickening fear. I’ve gotten into the habit of finding fault, regimenting, rebuking. This is my reward to you for being a child! It wasn’t that I didn’t love you; it’s that I expected too much of a little boy. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. But there is so much in you that is good and fine and true like your enormous heart, which showed itself in your coming to kiss me goodnight in spite of everything.

Nothing else matters tonight, son. I’m here kneeling by your bed, ashamed. You wouldn’t understand any of this if I told you about it. But

“The best way to lower your own stress is to lower someone else’s.”

tomorrow I’ll be a real daddy. I’ll be your chum, suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I’ll bite my tongue when impatient words come. I’ll keep saying, “He’s nothing but a little boy - a little boy!”

I’m afraid I visualised you as a man. But looking at you now, crumpled and weary in your bed, I see you’re only a little boy. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms. I’ve asked too much, too much.”

I think most of us ask too much - of others and ourselves. Most people I know up close need a break. The funny thing is...when you give someone a break...someone else gets a break...YOU! The best way to lower your own stress is to lower someone else’s. When you make a positive and sustained effort to praise more and criticise less, you have developed one of the most powerful and healthy habits of mind. This is good for your brain!

Te r r y i s a m a s t e r t e a c h e r a n d learning skills specialist. He has presented on the brain for over 30 years and has a wealth of teaching experience and extensive involvement in applied neuroscience. www.terrysmall.com

Announcing the Study Smarter Board Game ... passing exams just became easier…

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STUDY SMARTER BOARD GAME: $79 + p&p PLUS we will add a copy of Karen Boyes’ 27 Study Tips for Success Book for FREE UPGRADE PACK: $150 + p&p You’ll receive the Board Game plus exclusive access to 5 hours of prerecorded webinars, lead by Karen, covering memory. learning styles, study environment, success strategies and exam tips. Package value is $168 TEACHER PACK: $750 + p&p 5 Study Smart Board Games and the Ultimate Study Smart Pack with the new 31 Study Smart Flip book (one per game), 6 pdf Teacher Guides with 31 x 10 minute Study Smart Lesson plans and 6 pdf printable copies of the Student Workbooks. Package value is $933 NZ PREMIUM PACK: $5000 An exclusive day with the Study Queen, Karen Boyes. This includes Karen presenting to students on Study Smart Tips PLUS Karen will personally deliver 10 Study Smart Board games and 10 Ultimate Study Smart Packs.

Package value is $5777. Travel and accommodation are included.

Contact us at info@spectrumeducation.com or call +64 45289969

**Offer finishes June 10th Please note the target delivery date is September 2015

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Barbara griffith & tricia kenyon

Promoting picture books

The Cuckoo Author Illustrator Publisher ISBN

Gary Crew Naomi Turvey Ford Street Publishing 9781925000184

T

he Cuckoo is a sophisticated picture book that is much more appropriate for older readers, due to the themes and concepts introduced. This book offers an abundance of scope for critical thinking.

Martin, at 12 years old, was the runt of his family; he was abandoned by his mother and was scorned and rejected by his father and brothers. He found his place in the natural world surrounding him and befriended the birds. He watched a pair of eagles tend their young in a nearby eyrie and envied their freedom and ability to soar and fly.

Bush fires raged through the valley and the eagle’s normal food source was destroyed. As the eagles searched for food to feed their young, they found Martin’s brothers, tore them limb from limb and fed them to their offspring. This event changed Martin’s life forever.

He left home and sought solace in the bush. He came across the remains of an eagle fallen from the nest above. He cloaked himself in the feathers and, like the cuckoo, made his way up to the eyrie to begin a new life as an eagle. He underwent metamorphosis into an eagle and, despite everything, rescues his father.

This is a tale of loss, guilt, acceptance, survival and much more.

Activities 1 Title • What do you know about cuckoos and their habits?

• Is this an appropriate title, or can you think of a better one?

2 Poem A. Share with students and discuss. does it mean to you?

Teachers Matter

1700s

1900s

today

Behaviour

Worked and did as told

Seen and not heard

Children’s behaviour is influenced by media

Manners What

B. Written in 1697, this poem offers insights into adult’s attitudes towards children at that time.

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Adult’s attitudes

Do some research and compare attitudes towards children for these eras.

Morals

3. Vocabulary This story has an abundance of similes, metaphors, clichés and descriptive phrases.

5. Life Lessons This book offers the opportunity to explore many aspects of family and personal life.

A. Select some for more in depth discussion about their effectiveness.

We offer the following topics for discussion, for their impact on the story, and their place in the lives of your students.

For example, read the description of the brothers on the first page - can they make a picture in their heads of the brothers, and so offer more information on how they look?

B. Search for the words that describe the father and the brothers.

C. Search for the words that show the attitude of father and the brothers towards Martin.

A. Negative emotions • Bullying, ridicule, rejection, guilt, abandonment, loneliness.

• We know the saying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.’ Discuss the reality of this saying.

B. F a m i l y relationships.

d y n a m i c s

a n d

C. Coping with death in a family.

D. Forgiveness and acceptance.

E. Survival at all costs or survival of fittest?

4. Illustrations These are surreal and highly detailed black and white sketch with pale colour wash to create the mood.

A. Why is this style of illustration used?

Would another style have been better?

What is your opinion?

B. In several illustrations there appears to be a size mismatch.

6. F a b l e , A n a l o g y a n d / o r Precautionary tale?

With reference to this book, do you consider it to be one, two, or all of the above options?

Be prepared to justify and give reasons.

Why is this size mismatch used and how effective is it?

C. Metamorphosis of Martin to eagle.

Using sketching, show the metamorphosis of a child to an animal or bird. This could be individually, or in a group, with discussion at each stage of the changes.

For example, in 4 steps with emphasis on process and not on artistic skills.

Barbara has been a primary school teacher for 36 years.

She has specialised in the teaching of literacy for more than 20 years and recently retired a position as a Resource Teacher: Literacy, which she held for the last 16 years.

Tricia has been involved in the field of literacy for 17 years, firstly as a Resource Teacher: Reading, then as a Resource Teacher: Literacy. She is passionate about books and reading and feels privileged to be in a position where she can share that passion with students, their parents, and fellow teachers.

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Catrina Bengree

Eat mindfully, not mindlessly!

And change your eating habits

F

or a lot of us, food is the first thing we think about when we wake up and the last thing we think about before we go to sleep. It has become an obsession as we strive to have the perfect body, stay fit and healthy and be as thin as we can possibly be. Unfortunately this obsession often spills over into other parts of our lives to the detriment of everything else. Food is just food.

We don’t have to be “good” or worry about being “bad”.

Food ought to be used to nourish our bodies in a positive way and that should be the end of it. Yes it’s important to eat healthily, but not in a way that deprives us of our favourite foods. This is because deprivation only serves to make us crave what we are missing out on. Ironically, once you allow yourself to eat the so-called unhealthy food, you actually won’t want it; as it is no longer forbidden, it doesn’t have the same appeal as it had previously.

Teachers Matter

The key is to learn to eat “naturally”. This is a mindful way of eating wh i c h s i m p l y enables you to listen to your own body while eating, based on the following four principles:

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• Eat only when you are hungry • Eat exactly what you want • Stop when you are satisfied • Move onto something else after eating

These principles take great mindfulness and mean you have to be totally present when eating. When you are truly listening you will find your body doesn’t actually want too much sugar, fat or salt and it will crave the healthy nutritious foods instead. Accordingly, you will eat these foods most of the time.

However, when you really need an unhealthy option to fulfil you emotionally, you will be satisfied with a small portion, because now you are listening when your body tells you to stop.

Eating “naturally” gives you the best of both worlds enabling you to eat in a positive and empowering way, and put food in perspective. Mindfully eating however takes conscious thought and will not happen overnight.

Often we have spent years eating in negative ways without even realising it. We have got into little habits, which are very difficult to change until we focus on what we are doing every time we eat.

Once we start to eat mindfully instead of mindlessly it is possible to change, and as your brain is no longer solely focussed on food, weight loss and body image, you can make positive change in other areas of your life too.

If dieting and food obsession is holding you back, learn to eat naturally, so you can be the best that you can be.

photo marilyn barbone

Catrina Bengree

Catrina formed her company “Nourish ‘N Nurture Ltd” after recovering from 20 years of food and weight related issues including depression and bulimia. In 2009 she attended a 10 week Personal Development course and discovered she wanted to share Natural Eating with as many people as possible. She has a free e-book available on her website: www.nourishnnurture.co.nz

63

chryssie russell

How your clothes can reflect your true self

My 28 years experience has shown me that people inherently want to express who they are in their dress. To feel excitement each time they create an outfit that says ‘this is who I am’. Therefore, what influences your garment choices comes from the complexities of your personality. It is these traits that are reflected in the types of style, fabric and colour combinations that you prefer.

Four ways of dressing

There are four core personality traits, and because we are complex beings you will find that you will relate to more than one.

Therefore your objective is to combine two of these to create a unique style of your own.

Have a look at the following four dressing styles and see which two reflect your unique combination. The key is to combine these specific traits in each garment you purchase.

H

ave you ever wondered why you have so many clothes in your wardrobe and still nothing to wear?

Have some of these clothes been bought on impulse, or when you swayed because it was a ‘good price’ or you felt like something different and the latest fashion trend beckoned you; and now find you do not like them, or can’t even remember why you bought them in the first place? These items hang in your wardrobe, passed by for one of your favourites. Of course you cannot do away with them because that would be a reminder that you spent money on them, and you just might have made a bad choice.

Maybe there are clothes that you have not worn for the past 5 years but hope that fashion will bring them back to the limelight again, knowing deep down that it is probably not likely to happen.

Teachers Matter

Our clothes are visible symbols of who we are and who we want to be! Our personalities are drawn to certain looks. Nearly every piece of your wardrobe can speak volumes about you.

Fashion makes us strive to attain more, but it also makes us think about everything we don’t have. Thanks to these contradictions, most of us harbour a love-hate attitude toward clothing. We love how a nice outfit can brighten our mood one day, but hate the frustration of having ‘nothing to wear’ the next.

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We are so busy trying to follow trends that we never develop our own personal style, of having that inner knowledge of self so we can express who we truly are in our dress.

Some people naturally have a sense of their own style while for others it is a journey of discovery over time.

How does one go about consciously creating a style of their own?

outfits; however you can get tired of that one combination easily and will buy another one to fulfil the need for variety. Natural fabrics are important and your overall look is to be practical and relaxed.

Feminine dressers: Like soft fluid type fabrics, which reflect your care for others and the community. When you shop you will feel the fabric. Garments have to be comfortable on your body. You will be drawn to things that are pretty, like hearts, butterflies, flowers and lace. Your overall look uses curving shapes, patterns and fabrics, and you can be just a little bit feminine - or a lot. You are a great communicator and enjoy being in service industries as you like to help people and make a difference.

Natural dressers: Are likely to have interests in sports and outdoor pursuits, environmental concerns, love of animals and/or people, being in service to the community, enjoy working with their hands /manual activities. Because of these casual activities, you do tend to like being casual most of the time. You see things through your imagination and have a need to be able to build the picture in your head of how garments will work together. You are the one who will buy the whole outfit that you see on the mannequin as you can see how it physically goes together. You buy in

Classic dressers: Prefer to be in structured environments, and can work with systems easily. You are task oriented and time bound - it is important for you to finish a task. Because you like to get to the point quickly, simplicity is best Structured patterns (stripes, checks, and plaids); fabrics and straight style lines compliment you perfectly. Because things for you are either ‘black or white’, you like to use lots of neutral colours and then add a splash of colour with accessories. You will be the ones that make a list when shopping and stick to it!

Want to have fun shopping?

Chryssie’s ‘4 Principle Shopping System’ promises to teach you how to shop with confidence!

How to critique so you never take any garment to the dressing room that is not 100% right for you!

Creative dressers: Are idealistic, expressive, creative, artistic, and imaginative, not time bound, like new challenges and are open to opportunities. You are best when you have variety and flexibility.

You have a need to express their personality in your dress and like to create unusual combinations. You do not consider what others might think as you do not look to others for approval. You prefer to wear more than one colour. When shopping you will be looking for something with a point of difference and your outgoing nature and progressive thinking will make for some interesting ensembles. It is a reminder that variety is needed in whatever pursuits that you are in, or aspire to, or else you will get bored and lack energy.

SHOP LIKE A

The combinations are just as important as the degrees to which they are portrayed, and that is what makes you unique! Being who you are and being comfortable with that is reflected in your dress. Joy and confidence is created within yourself when you know that you reflect your true self rather than what you think you should do or be.

What two main personalities are you in your dressing style? Once you know your ‘look’, you can then consider what is appropriate for work with your style in mind. What are the garments that are most suited to being on the floor with children or out in the playground?

Practicality will prevail; however choose the garments that still reflect your look.

Your wardrobe develops through time, and like life cycles, fashion trends are a reminder to us to enjoy our clothes. Be alert to how you feel and what you want to look like. The one thing that you all have to do every day is to decide on what to wear, so opening your wardrobe should be a pleasure. Knowing your look goes a long way to feeling fabulous in your clothes!

Chryssie Russell A proven four-principle shopping system that will have you creating your own unique fashion style and feeling fabulous everyday!

PRINCIPLE SHOPPING

SYSTEM Shop Smart Book 2014-Artwork.indd 1

Chryssie (of Unique Style Ltd) has been in the Colour, Style, Wardrobe Planning and Image Industry for the past 28 years.

She travels New Zealand speaking to business and community groups on how to create their unique style. She has a stylist training programme and is passionate about helping people unleash their creativity. Her book ‘Shop like a Style Expert’ is written like a workbook so you can personalise her 4 principle shopping system.

12/03/14 10:45 AM

Purchase her book from www.uniquestyle.co.nz

Take it a step further & have Chryssie present her principles in person, at a social/business event, fundraiser or style workshop.

chryssie.russell@uniquestyle.co.nz 0274 407 499

chryssierussell

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Irma Cooke

Healthy snacks for teachers on the go Beat your afternoon cravings!

Protein Balls

Makes approx 15 balls.

Makes approx 15 balls.

Ingredients

Ingredients

2 cups shredded coconut Coconut - extra for rolling 3/4 cup almonds 3 tbsp honey 2 tbsp coconut oil Zest and juice of 1 lemon

¾ cup mix of dates, sultanas and currants Zest of 1 orange ½ cup mixed brazil, unsalted cashew and almond nuts 1 cup shredded coconut 2 tbsp coconut oil 2 tbsp cacao powder 4 tbsp water 4 scoops of protein powder Coconut – extra for rolling Optional – dried cranberries.

Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend for 1 minute.

Roll into small balls around the size of a 10c piece.

Roll in extra coconut.

Place on a lined tray and chill in the fridge until firm.

Teachers Matter

These easy, no bake homemade bliss balls are perfect for lunch boxes or an after school snack. We’re talking super healthy and super delicious!

Coconut Lemon Bliss Balls

Method

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Do you get afternoon cravings? Feel like a sweet treat but something healthy that’s easy to store and eat?

Berkley Normal Middle School teachers in Hamilton got together one afternoon to make some healthy lemon bliss and protein balls full of calcium, protein and good fats.

Method Place all ingredients (not including the water and rolling coconut) into a food processor and blend for 1 minute.

While processor is running add the water to form a dough.

Roll into small balls around the size of a 10c piece.

Roll in extra coconut.

Place on a lined tray and chill in the fridge until firm. We bagged the ‘combo’ of balls in small sealable bags and popped most in the freezer and some in the fridge for the next couple of afternoons!

Change these recipes by swapping in orange or lime juice and zest, adding chia seeds or chopped apricots.

We found that you must use a small food processor for these amounts, or triple them for a larger processor. We bagged the ‘combo’ of balls in small sealable bags and popped most in the freezer and some in the fridge for the next couple of afternoons!

Irma Cooke

Irma Cooke, a former Chef and now puts to good use her skills and passion for food as the Food Technology teacher for Berkley Normal Middle School.

When she isn’t judging Waikato’s restaurants or working with students teachers for Waikato University, she’s having fun planning her next project for her middle school students at Berkley Normal Middle School.

6767

jenny barrett

Using robotics in your classroom Everyday I’m Swivling!

A

s many schools wake up to how incredible control, programming and robotics can be as a subject area, it is also exciting to see robots themselves revolutionising how other technologies are used in education. “Swivl” is a robot that has been developed to hold your video camera of choice and then track you as you move around a room and interact with students. It does this by following a Bluetooth lanyard which you can carry or wear. The lanyard has a builtin microphone to pick up high quality audio and cut out all the background noise that you usually get when recording in a classroom environment. The video camera can be an iPhone, iPad, iPod - any device running iOS7 or later, or any Android device, and it can adapt to take most smartphones, tablets or video cameras.

Students at Pakuranga College are definitely “Swivling”. This ground breaking technology arrived in New Zealand in mid-2014 but Allistair Williamson, the e-learning coordinator and his staff and

students pre-empted its arrival on these shores. Allistair first spotted the Swivl during a visit by six Pakuranga College staff to Monte Vista Christian School in California.

This school was the first 1:1 iPad school in the world and has continued exploring new technologies with the appointment of a Research and Development Co-ordinator on staff. The Pakuranga College staff bought two Swivls back to Auckland and set about investigating their potential.

The College initially focused on supporting the staff continuous professional development programme. Allistair explains, “We have a weekly PD programme, with students starting an hour later every Friday, to reflect on our practice using an inquiry cycle. Analysis of video is an important part of this inquiry.” Swivl brought two benefits to video reflection. Firstly, the quality of the audio improved dramatically because of the mic built into the lanyard. Now they could easily analyse discourse to measure how often they used open ended as opposed to closed questions. Critical moments were not drowned out by chairs scraping or discussion taking place elsewhere in the room. Secondly, the ability of Swivl to follow the teacher as they moved around the room made the whole exercise much more meaningful then when done previously when for much of the video the teacher might be out of shot.

Once teachers started to use Swivl for their own development, they soon realised the potential for students to reflect on their own presentations. Teachers in the English department began to record their students.

Allistair describes how now almost every department has seen the potential. “My own department, Physical Education, have been piloting using it to capture speed tests. Students can then analyse their biomechanical movements and techniques. This is being rolled out further this academic year.”

Pakuranga College are using the iPod with Swivl to capture the video because they wanted something that was easy for tutors

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to extract the content from. The Swivl and the accompanying iPod are kept in the library and the school uses a booking system. Just as with the Flipcams of old, they expect demand to grow and the numbers of Swivls to increase.

This year they really want to explore using Swivl for creating records of learning for students, and for creating content to support flipped classrooms. The one barrier that Allistair sees is the reluctance of some staff to have video of them teaching in the public domain. The College is now using Google Classroom and this provides a more closed environment in which to share video.

He hopes this will help with some staff reluctance. Such is the quality of the audio recording he also thinks that teachers will utilise the Swivl solely for its audio recording capabilities and map the “soundtrack” to slideshows for student use.

Pakuranga College, following the lead of Monte Vista Christian School, has also developed a R&D role within the school.

Some “out of the box” thinking has already materialised. The College is using AirServer, an app that lets you wirelessly beam your iPad display to your Mac or PC and from there to your projector or HDTV. When

jenny barrett

this is combined with Swivl it means that a presenter in the hall for example, can be tracked and the live feed displayed on the projector so that even students at the back can see and hear.

Perhaps the most positive aspect of the integration of Swivl has been the interest of staff that may once have been described as ‘Old Skool’. Once they saw the new way that they can reflect on their teaching practice they were willing to give it a go. So for once it is not just the ‘early adopters’ who are getting to play with the new robot!

Other examples of how this simple robot is having a positive impact on education are being seen in the USA. The company Swivl’s mission is “to improve education through video”. To support this objective they ran a Swivl Pioneer’s programme and gave Swivls to teachers who had creative uses for video content.

A teacher, who had originally intended to use her Swivl with new teachers wishing to reflect on their own teaching practise, took the whole concept of unobtrusive obser vation a step further. She had a student who was unaware of the effect that his disruptive behaviour in class was having on other students. With consent from the parents and principal she captured and analysed examples of the student’s disruptive behaviour. In a three way conference, the parents, student and the teacher reviewed the footage. This removed any value judgements from the discussion and allowed the student to begin to develop an awareness of the impact of his behaviour. The parent-teacher conference

could then focus on a plan to improve the student and his classmates’ learning.

Another example (also from the United States) is of Swivl being used to support teachers working in remote outposts. A specialist team working for the Special Education Service Agency was tasked to provide case consultation and technical assistance to teachers across Alaska. The description of working across Alaska is not that dissimilar to issues facing those in similar roles in New Zealand: “Trips can be time-consuming and cost thousands of dollars to travel to the farthest locations: weather problems, rough roads or small planes do not make the laborious trips any easier for him.” Well, maybe on a slightly smaller scale…!

However these specialists now capture all their case consultations using Swivl and share parts that maybe of interest to others.

They also use Swivl to create example videos such as modelling how to redirect a student with challenging behaviour. Plus they use Swivl to effortlessly capture all their workshops and conference presentations to share with all those teachers who would never be able to attend such events. By using Swivl they ensure that not only the speakers’ contributions are captured but input from the audience can easily be recorded too.

Finally, teachers in the USA are using Swivl to support flipping the classroom. The lanyard not only has a built-in mic but also a clicker to forward any presentation slides that you may be using. It actually time stamps the video when the slides are forwarded. Thus when your session is

finished and you upload your video for the students, it will map the video content exactly to the slide.

Swivl is a powerful tool for learning made possible by the integration of robots into the classroom. Rather than replacing the teachers as some have feared, robots are actually helping humanoid teachers improve their practice!

Jenny is a Freelance Writer with almost twenty years’ experience in the educational technology sector.

She has worked with ICT, educational technology, Web 2.0, AV - whatever you want to call it since 1996 when thrown in the deep end teaching languages at a Taiwanese Institute of Technology.

S h e h a s i n t e g ra t e d i t i n t o h e r classroom teaching, studied it, used it as a vehicle to study, project managed it, developed it, researched it, trained other teachers to use it, used it to train other teachers, sold it, marketed it, used it to market and to people manage. Today she writes about it.

69

kara-leah grant

How to successfully embed a new practice in your life It’s not about the what...

N

ever before in history have we had access to so much information about so many topics. At the click of a mouse we can call up almost everything humanity has ever discovered, learned, written, or created. As a result, all of us know exactly what we could be doing to live the healthiest, most supportive and nourishing life possible.

Yet how many of us do that? Why is it that even as we drown in all this information about how to live better lives we’re often not able to make it happen?

I used to wonder exactly that - why, despite the vast number of yoga websites, books, DVDs and online classes that are out there, so very few people were able to create and maintain a home yoga practice.

Over time, working with my own practice, my students and the people who read my website, I realised it was because while people knew exactly what to do, they didn’t know how to put it into action. They’d start practicing yoga at home, and three days later, miss a day, and then miss a week, and before they knew it, months had gone by since they last unrolled their yoga mat.

Yet even in the most difficult of times through working full-time while running a yoga website, teaching six classes a week and renovating a house, through newborn blur and sleepless nights, through the heartache and chaos of relationship break-up and the relentless grind of single parenthood - I maintained my home yoga practice.

Not because I was a saint, nor because I had iron discipline and will, but because I knew how to work with both the practical difficulties of a modern life and I knew how to work with the psyche. I knew how to work with resistance, avoidance, self-sabotage and the impact of our environment and our social connections on our life.

70

This is the how of positive habit creation.

This is the difference between dabbling in a new lifestyle change for a week or so, and actually embedding that lifestyle change over the course of a few months into your life until it becomes part of who you are.

• Identify the people who are preventing you making that change

It’s not rocket science though - it’s just good teaching. When we teach our kids maths, we don’t just give them the information to learn by rote. We teach them how to work with the numbers to discover the answers for themselves so they can apply the underlying how to any equations.

• Gather any resources or support that may help you make that change

Using this method I have embedded daily yoga, a practice of getting up at 5:30am at least five days a week, a practice of morning green smoothies, a practice of apple cider vinegar daily and a practice of writing thousands of words a week in to my life.

These practices are now the foundation of my life and they nourish and support everything else I do. This means that even though I’m a self-employed single parent running a website, publishing books, teaching workshops and classes, writing articles and giving speaking presentations, I rarely feel stressed or overwhelmed.

So how do you do this in your life? What is the HOW of successfully embedding new habits in your life?

Here’s the bare bones of the process: • Identify the change you want to make in your life and who you need to become in order to make it happen.

• Identify why you want to make that change • Write out your previous history with making that change • Identify all the obstacles preventing you from make that change • Create strategies to deal with each of those obstacles.

• Identify the people who will support you in that change • Write out your previous success in life

• Identify how and when you will take daily actions necessary to support that change. Get specific.

• Write out your commitment to your Forty Day practice • Do your practice every single day for Forty Days

kara-leah grant

• Use your strategies when obstacles arise • Missed a day? Start again on Day 1 and repeat until you get to Day 40 • Celebrate your success This process can take a few weeks to work through in-depth and it requires that we dive below the surface of our psyche and really find out why we do what we do, and why we DON’T do what we want to do. In the end, you’ll discover that embedding a new habit is really about shaping a new you. That’s where the power lies. As we change, so to do our lives.

Kara-Leah is the author of two books, Forty Days of Yoga and The No-MoreExcuses Guide to Yoga and publisher of New Zealand’s most popular yoga website, The Yoga Lunchbox, KaraLeah knows how to make things happen. She’s used the process she developed in Forty Days of Yoga to take control of her life and become the person she always dreamed of being.

Now she helps other people do the same. klgrant@fastmail.f

71

Teachers Matter 72

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Finally a book for parents that explains and demonstrates the Habits of Mind in the home ...

Raising Caring, Capable Kids with Habits of Mind is all about ensuring that children leave home with the wider skills they will need to thrive throughout their lives.

The Habits of Mind movement created by Art Costa and Bena Kallick in the US is tried and tested in schools. But this book breaks new ground in taking the Habits of Mind out of the classroom and into the home.

Clearly explained theory and research is complemented by really practical and useful examples for parents to try out.

This book offers wonderful support for parents across the world who want to help their children succeed and thrive. Parents who adopt these methods can help their children become powerful learners, well-equipped for the 21st century world in which we are raising them.

Raising Caring, Capable Kids with Habits of Mind provides many engaging stories and examples for parents to their help children succeed and thrive in school as well as in life. There are practical tips that apply to daily life with children _ for issues big and small _ everything from managing homework to resolving arguments between siblings to encouraging the reluctant child.

To order please contact Spectrum Education www.spectrumeducation.com

This is essential reading for every parent and a must on every schools resource library shelf...

73

Antarctica is the driest place on the planet.

Humidity is even lower than the Gobi Desert.

Wacky The tallest tree in the world, a Redwood, is 112m.

The longest time standing on one foot is 76 hours, 40 minutes.

The record for holding one’s breath underwater is 7.5 minutes.

Golf is the only sport that has been played on the moon.

Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.

The lightest person weighed 6kg on her twentieth birthday.

The world’s smallest tree is the Dwarf Willow. It grows to 5cm.

The largest pearl found was the size of a tennis ball

More baked beans are eaten in Great Britain than any other country.

The fastest wind speed was 508km per hour in Oklahoma on May 3rd 1999.

The longest trip in a pedal boat was 7456km.

74

world records The largest crater on the moon measures 2100km across.

The longest nose, belonging to Thomas Wedders, measures 19cm.

The state of the Vatican The longest City has a population recorded of less flight of a than 100 chicken is 13 people, making it seconds. the smallest sovereign The Guinness book of records holds state in the record for being the book most the world. often stolen from public libraries.

In Great Britain the most dangerous sport is gardening.

20% of accidents there occur in the garden.

The youngest graduate received his bachelor’s degree in 1994 at the age of 10 years, 5 months.

The biggest pumpkin weighed 449kg.

The oldest cockroach fossil is about 280 million years old, meaning that the cockroach lived 80 million years before the first dinosaurs.

The world record for continuous pogo-stick jumping is 41 hours.

75

the last word: karen boyes

Modern Learning Environments The underlying philosophy for success

“ MLE’s are so much more than the bright new furniture and technology.”

• How do you know when something has been learned?

M

Teachers Matter

odern Learning Environments (MLE) are all the talk in educational circles right now.

Schools around the world are knocking out walls and creating bright stimulating classrooms with multi-purpose furniture and access to technology. On the surface it looks fantastic, however I am concerned that without a big pedagogy shift, students will simply be learning in the same way they are now - just in bigger classrooms with new furniture.

76

M L E ’s a r e s o m u c h m o r e t h a n t h e bright new furniture and technology.

What makes an MLE work, and in fact ANY successful classroom work, is the relationship between the teacher and student and the underlying ethos of learning to learn.

When moving from a structured and often heavily teacher-dominated classroom, to a less formal student-led environment, it is paramount that students understand their role and responsibilities as the

learner and indeed the learning process.

It is totally unrealistic to say to students, “Here are your tasks, now go do them.”

Teaching students to be independent and self directed learners needs to be at the centre of a successful MLE and this does not happen overnight. It requires scaffolding, stepping-stones and a safe environment.

Here are five considerations that are vital to address for success.

1. Be clear on your underlying philosophy of learning.

In a busy, over-crowded curriculum, taking time to consider what you and your students believe about learning is important. Here are some questions to consider: • Do you believe all students can learn?

• Do you like learning?

Is learning always a simple process?

• What happens when learning is hard?

• How do you define learning?

These questions apply equally to teachers as well as students. I believe it is important to understand that learning is finding out what you don’t know. Learning what you don’t know is often hard and I often use the mantra “Everything is hard before it is easy”. This fundamental thought is key to successful learning. What do your students do when the task gets hard? How do they handle situations when the answer is not immediately apparent?

An important step here is to understand and discuss with students the work of Carol Dweck and the role of Mindset. Do you and your students fully understand that intelligence is not fixed and can be developed?

Explain to your students that your job is to cause learning to happen and this will not occur if you give them easy work.

However you must also give them the skills to cope with the hard. Can your students persist, think flexibly, be creative and take responsible risks?

I personally like the metaphor of the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. It is the struggle that makes the wings strong

karen boyes

enough to fly and if you help the butterfly emerge from the chrysalis it will die. I belief this is true in the classroom. Allow students to have time to work out their own challenges rather than jumping in and rescuing. Now, I am not suggesting we allow our students to drown, however in an encouraging way, explicitly teach them how to solve their problems effectively.

A victim chooses to blame others for their mistakes and failings, or make excuses.

Common phrases of a victim include “She made me do it” or “He’s doing it too.”

They might also often choose to put their head in the sand and pretend the result did not happen or choose not to see the consequences of their actions – the “I don’t care” attitude.

2. Create a safe environment by redefining mistakes and failure Part of this learning philosophy is also about creating a space where students are free to give new ideas a whirl, make mistakes, fail, and use what they know.

In contrast, the victor is able to take ownership and admit they have it wrong and go about working out how to fix the problem or remedy the result. A key to hearing this is the victor will use the word “I” in their explanation demonstrating they are taking responsibility.

Redefining mistakes and failure is crucial.

If students are fearful of making a mistake, or scared of being wrong, then they are less likely to push themselves to their learning limit and more likely to stay within what is conformable and known. A great metaphor is to talk to students about learning to walk or ride a bike. To learn both these activities you have to ‘fall over’ or ‘fall off’ and get back up.

Once students understand the learning process - what to do when they are stuck, how to deal with failure - and have a big picture view of learning, working in an MLE is sure to be easier. Students will not be as reliant on you as the teacher and will be able to work more effectively independently.

Create an environment in your classroom where it is OK for students to make mistakes and fail. FAIL stands for: First Attempt In Learning.

3. Teach students to take ownership So what do students do when they make a mistake or get things wrong? Do they automatically become a victim or a victor?

At this point the key is to teach students the strategies to get themselves out of ‘The Pit’. Some of the strategies, or Thinking Dispositions, that are the rungs of the ladder used to climb out of ‘The Pit’ include persisting, thinking flexibly, using past knowledge, using their senses, finding humour, asking for help, working with others and questioning. Once out of the pit and the project is completed, it is important to take time to reflect on the journey and the next steps.

5. Celebrate the learning – not the end result Take time to celebrate the learning in your classroom. Display the ‘work in progress’ and have conversations about the steps that are taken and not just the end result.

Ask students to hand in their drafts along with the final product as this will give evidence of growth and learning. Also invite students to reflect on the process and what they might do differently next time.

Steve Gurney, nine time winner of the NZ Coast to Coast race (a gruelling multisport event) said, “I never learned from winning, except to increase my ego. I learned most from losing.”

Take time to discuss what went wrong and celebrate the failures so they will not be repeated. If someone makes the same mistake more than once, it simply means they did not learn the lesson the first time.

a positive outlook towards the completion.

However somewhere along the learning journey they get stuck, unsure, confused and the work gets hard. These are signals to suggest learning is about to occur!

4. Ensure students know the learning process Our job as teachers is to take students to the edge of their comfort zone and invite them to step out. Teach students about James Nottingham’s ‘The Learning Pit.’ Often, when students start a new project they seem to be clear about the task required and have

Karen is an expert in effective teaching and learning, study skills, motivation a n d p o s i t i v e t h i n k i n g. S h e wa s awarded the NSANZ Educator of the Year 2014 award and works in schools throughout Australasia teaching students how to Study Smart and teachers how to raise achievement. www.karentuiboyes.com

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HAUORA HOMEWORK

HAUORA HOMEWORK

Managing the stress of flight-or-fight

Breaking patterns of resistance toward homework.

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 2

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

Breaking patterns of resistance toward homework.

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 3

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

The psychology of colour

pLan for a SmooTh rIDE how the wheel of life can help you

Watch the little words you say and improve students’ understanding

Fostering intelligent relationships helping the “powerful” child win

stUdeNts speAk Up Why it’s important for students to ask good questions

the instructionalrevolution learning new tricks and building students’ self-esteem Five positive steps putting the fun back into the playground

ISSUE 3

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter

pg. 63

LEARN THE A-B-Cs OF DECISION MAKING

bEcomE a SUpErIor TEachEr What to say and when to say it

Take a Break How doing less can help you accomplish more

sAy WhAt?

Being a hero to your students

pg. 64

EmbracE ThE changE Why interactive instruction is a good idea

WHen THey Can’T SiT STill Why some children might move too much and what you can do about it

What you can do to improve your school

The little things are the big things

SUPERTEACHERS

Nurturing Competitive Kids Into Elite Sport

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

TeachersMatter

See, Hear and Feel Help students truly understand the Habits of Mind

ChArACter CoUNts

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN CHILDREN

Anger Danger

pg. 40

Teaching: A letter-by-letter guide Ice cream in the classroom?: Think variety

TeachersMatter

5 Problem Based Learning pg. 13

Using Portfolios

pg. 32

p. 14

Students sign on for confidence p. 35

Perfect your teacher’s vision

LET THE THREE RUSSIAN BROTHERS AND THEIR COUSIN HELP YOU

GET YOUR COLLEAGUES TALKING WITH PROTOCOLS

Exercise Boosts Brainpower Teachers Can Learn From Chefs

WHY STUDENTS NEED LEARNING HEROES

HOW YOU CAN WALK THE PLANK OF SUCCESS

The social side of your class

How to Really Say “Goodnight”

pg. 22

From “no” to “yes”

Humour and the Habits of Mind

pg. 53

The contract for independence pg. 60

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NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 5

leaders in developing Teachers

iSSUe 6

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

leaders in Developing teachers

issue 7

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 8

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 9

Leaders in Developing Teachers

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

Connect with a blog pg. 52

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

TeachersMatter

Connect with a blog pg. 52

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

Classroom management or discipline?

pg. 25

Be Alarmed

Exercise Boosts Brainpower

pg. 47

50 Ways to Raise Your Game

The little things are the big things

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter p. 26

pg. 12

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN CHILDREN

ISSUE 13

ISSUE 10

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter

Beyond the Bank

From “problem” to solution

Return on Investment

pg. 14

Students sign on for confidence

Identify key areas for an effective, fulfilling and sustainable teaching career.

Humour and the Habits of Mind

Scrapbooking: Just like Facebooking?

p. 35

Perfect your teacher’s vision

HAUORA HOMEWORK

pg. 32

p. 54

Breaking patterns of resistance toward homework.

“Sorry:” the world’s rewind button

p. 52

p. 14

THE ULTIMATE FRAMEWORK FOR LEARNING AND LIFE

How to Really Say “Goodnight”

Friendly vs.

Approachable

Being a hero to your students

IS THERE A TIGER IN YOUR CLASSROOM?

p. 36

Connect with a blog

p. 12

Think your way out of stress

Students need to think about how they are thinking.

Learn From Chefs

Managing the stress of flight-or-fight

Use predicting to improve attention

KEEPING THINKING FRONT AND CENTRE

need Teachers blurbs Can

pg. 54

SUPERTEACHERS

pg. 54 NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 12

Leaders in Developing Teachers

Leaders in Developing Teachers

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 11

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

WHen THey Can’T SiT STill Why some children might move too much and what you can do about it

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

pg. 62

Ice cream in the classroom?: Think variety pg. 66

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

sAy WhAt? Watch the little words you say and improve students’ understanding

The Magazine of Spectrum Education

Top ten trends in education p. 32

Are you a half-tank pike?

Problem Based Learning pg. 13

p. 43

Using Portfolios

Which language do you speak the most?

pg. 16

Anger Danger pg. 40

Nurturing Competitive Kids Into Elite Sport

p. 62

pg. 64

stUdeNts speAk Up Why it’s important for students to ask good questions

The social side of your class

HAUORA HOMEWORK

pg. 22

Breaking patterns of resistance toward homework.

ISSUE 14

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter

Growing your talent p. 10

What you can do to improve your school

Identify key areas for an effective, fulfilling and sustainable teaching career.

NZ$15 / AU$15

ISSUE 16

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

ChArACter CoUNts

THE ULTIMATE FRAMEWORK FOR LEARNING AND LIFE

Teaching: A letter-by-letter guide

ISSUE 3

TeachersMatter

The psychology of colour pg. 63

Take a Break How doing less can help you accomplish more

KEEPING THINKING FRONT AND CENTRE Students need to think about how they are thinking.

pg. 32

Leaders in Developing Teachers

proFessIoNALLy & persoNALLy

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter The Magazine of Spectrum Education

See, Hear and Feel Help students truly understand the Habits of Mind

The power to be happy: You can make the difference

NZ$15 / AU$15

ISSUE 18

ISSUE 2

PROFESSIONALLY & PERSONALLY

TeachersMatter

From “no” to “yes” pg. 53

The contract for independence pg. 60

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 17

ISSUE 3

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NZ$15 / AU$15

NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

leaders in developing Teachers

Leaders in Developing Teachers

iSSUe 6

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 13

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NZ$15 / AU$15

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 5

Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 15

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Leaders in Developing Teachers

ISSUE 20

ISSUE 19

Energetic. Practical. Fun. Passionate. Inspirational

Presentations for Teachers: • Living & Learning with the Habits of Mind • Creating An Effective Learning Environment • The Many Ways the Brain Learns and Remembers • Developing Independent Learners & Thinkers

Parents:

• Helping Your Child At Home • Preparing your Child for Secondary School

Students: • Study Skills for Success • Discovering & Exploring the Habits of Mind

“

Karen is the consummate professional who inspires the listener and creates opportunities for the learner to ask questions and structure their learning at the correct pace for change to occur.

- Mark Ellis, Principal

2014 Educator of the Year National speakers association of new zealand

Entrepreneurs:

”

• Success Behaviours for Entrepreneurs • Success Thinking and Living • It’s All Life – readdressing the work-life balance

“

Karen lives her philosophies and her delivery is relational, humourous, relevant and pertinent. She is an inspiring presenter and I am loving the impact she has had on my team.

- Lesley Johnson, Director: Read think Learn

”

To book Karen to speak at your next Professional Development Day, Conference or Function 2013 Speaker of the Year National speakers association of new zealand

please call the Spectrum Office on 0800 37 3377 or 1800 06 32 72

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Here’s how you can ensure Study Success in 2015 with The Ultimate Study Skills Pack Ensure your students know HOW to study with this simple, colourful and practical desk flipbook. With 31 individual strategies, 10 minute quick fire lessons – suitable for mentor and form time, plus student and teacher workbooks, your students will be on their way to study success.

Tip and lesson topics include: • An Intro to Study • Learning Styles • Study Environment • The Brain • Memory Techniques • Personal Wellbeing

Also coming soon: Exam Tips Flipbook

The Ultimate Study Skills Pack is $449 + p&h plus tell us you are a subscriber to the Teachers Matter Magazine and we will also send 30 copies of the 27 Study Tips for Success Poster FREE. Order your copies today (NZ) 0800 37 33 77 (AUST) 1800 06 32 72 or email us at info@spectrumeducation.com “Passing exams has far more to do with technique than intelligence. Give your students the gift of proven techniques that guarantee results.”

Karen Tui Boyes NZ Educator of the Year 2014

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