Inquiry Learning

Sophie and Bodie

2009-07-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Nine days after Sophie was born Janines daughter Sjaan had her baby in Christchurch. Nanna drove down overnight and was present at the birth. His name is Bodie and sometimes he has playdates with Sophie. He doesn't look keen on the kneegrab though.

2009-07-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

This is Toria with Sophie.

2009-07-11T02:27:00.000-07:00

This is another photo of me with Sophie. I didn't get to meet her for four months. She is gorgeous.

Grandaughter

2009-07-11T02:21:00.000-07:00

This is my Grandaughter Sophie. Her Mum Janelle had her at 5:26 am in Christchurch. She was 5lb 14oz at birth.

Another Year

2009-01-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

Well another year passes and I'm still a relieving teacher. Interestingly I was "terminated" at the end of last year on the grounds that the school didn't have enough funds to pay me. I mentioned this recently to our Union rep who promptly said rubbish the funding is continous. So I'm re-employed at least for the moment. lol. Did the NEMP thing again last year but not sure I will do it again. Sold the MR2 for a great profit to help fund the replacement for my partners car. We were written off by a guy who missed seeing the corner.
We drove to Hamilton without a clutch which was both hilarious and frightning and swapped it for a Mitsi Colt. I'm beginning to miss it though and I'm spending a lot of time on Trademe looking for a replacement toy.

2008

2008-03-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hell it's a year since I posted anything on here. I spent most of the last year relieving and really enjoyed myself. I also spent six weeks working on the national education monitoring project (NEMP). This was a tue eye opener working in "top" private schools and decile ones. In fact I now have a bit more sympathy for ERO after seeing some of the things going on. Nothing actually bad just the huge range in the way schools operate. I've got my application in for this year as well.
This year I'm doing principal release at Marco and Kaimata. It's been very enjoyable working with a senior class again. You seem to be able to do so much more with them.
I still seem to be the IT person but I'm a lot more relaxed about it these days. I carry a range of units big and small in my head that can slot nearly anywhere in the programme.
Mason and Anja are both doing NCEA level one, Victoria has started at Stratford High, Cameron is yr5 and a member of St Johns.

Janelle gave up law and did a Diploma in Vet Nursing. I went to her graduation at Easter which was rather cool. She is working at a top surgical vets in Christchurch. They are the vets for the zoo and she is sort of hoping to work on a tiger or lion.
I sold last years mid life crisis toy - the BMW - for a profit and have since aquired an early model MR2 Toyota. Driving out to Marco on the Forgotten World Highway has become something to really anticipate.

Over the holidays we spent two weeks touring around the East Cape. Spent several days at Tolaga Bay and I had forgotten how cool it is. Took the boys out on the wharf and remembered how it had taken me ages to screw up the courage to jump when I was a kid. Mason went straight into a backflip and Cameron jumped straight after him. Who says modern kids are wimps!

Changed Lifestyle

2007-05-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

Well the school has now closed and I've shifted house, my divorce has come through and I have a new partner. I've also started life as a relieving teacher. I was really unsure about this but it's ended up with more work than I can handle. It's been really great to get around other schools and see whats happening. I'm afraid it's confirmed my preference for smaller rural schools. This isn't from the learning aspect as I've been really impressed with the schools I've seen. It's a personal lifestyle choice. Still I've decided to do this for the year and then take stock at the end. It would be really easy to lose contact with the overall picture and become a glorified babysitter that walks in at 5 to 9 and out at 5 past 3.

I have also bought myself a toy. A 1981 BMW R100RS motorcycle. It was bought sight unseen from Trade Me and I picked it up and rode it back from Auckland. Firstly across the Harbour Bridge in high winds. The wrists were pretty sore and it was totally embarrasing at Mokau to find I didn't know how to open the fuel cap. A knowledgeable crowd of onlookers formed and we decided that it was jammed and a bit of brute force would help. It's worked fine ever since.I only ride it on fine days (wimp) and enjoy tinkering with bits and pieces.

SKI TRIP

2006-09-19T00:15:00.000-07:00

One of the better things about your school closing is that you can spend up a bit more on school trips. We have made two attempts to go skiing in the past but it's never worked out. Well it's hard to ski with no snow. So at very short notice we booked accomodation at Mt Heights Motel and Discovery ski packages for everybody. The weather on the first day was great and the kids I all started with a skiing lesson.It was really neat to be a pupil with them. They passed and I failed. I damaged my knee and that was basically it for me. The kids were all skiing at the end of the two hour lesson. They spent the rest of the day zooming up and down Happy Valley pausing only for snack bars, drinks and sunscreen. We left when they closed the field and went over to Tokaanu for a lounge in the hotpools. Had tea at Turangi and all kids were asleep within the first km. home.
Next morning the weather was dreadful but we rang and they said it's great come up. We were above the clouds, brilliant sunshine, and we could look across at Mt. Taranaki seeming to float above the clouds. Pure magic. Cameron spent the day skiing Happy Valley with boots. skipants, gloves shades and a singlet. Toria had more lessons and made one trip down the valley. The others went up with two skiing parents to the Rock Garden. They spent until two in the afternoon skiing and then we headed for home. The improvement in their ability was remarkable and it's well worth the trip.

Weblogs

2006-06-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Hmm it's been awhile since I added anything to my own weblog - seem to spend heaps of time working with others on theirs. In fact I've help set up over fifty this year. Basically we seem to have met our goals with setting these up. There have been a few technical problems and staff changes across the schools haven't helped much. Now I feel it's up to the schools and the kids themselves to continue. I have had lots of requests for site counters, how to add video etc. I was initially going to do this. However after thinking it through I've decided to put in a short lesson at each school on how to follow links and use help pages. Two of my seniors have been taught to do this and with a little help on using the templates for their sites they have mmanaged to do a great deal themselves. The point of all this is the kids gain ownership of their weblogs. When you put in the effort to personalise your blog,(or help each other to do it), then it becomes yours. Hopefully this applies to the concept as well.
I'm very pleased with the kids weblogs from my school. It's now an option for them when it comes to publishing written work. They are reasonably selective about what they publish and the driving force seems to be the perceived audience. For the juniors it's a specific group; nanna sisters, family friends, the people who put comments on the blogs. The seniors are more aware of the far wider potential audience. One good reason for a sitecounter is it can show them the world wide audience. It's a shock to see that someone fron Nepal or Japan has logged on to your blog.

Lately

2006-03-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

This week the Board made the initial decision to close the school due to lack of numbers. Next week we will be holding a community meeting to see if they come up with any alternatives and then we will be approaching the Ministry.
So with most long term planning on hold at the moment it's been good to get out into our cluster schools and help them set up weblogs. We are aiming to get the children sharing their stories with a much wider audience. Also an audience that can provide feedback. We are running everything through one site called ED's Weblogs. My own personal thought is that we structure everything so that the children are using the technology to achieve an outcome rather than the technology etc of weblogs being an outcome. Early days - but they do look good.

Topdresser

2006-02-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

Another noisy interuuption early this morning with the topdressing plane "bombing" the school farm. The farm is so small he basically dives at it from different angles, He is really low and the noise is amazing.

Surprise

2006-02-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well I was sitting down to write something serious when the drug squad arrived. Very dramatic with a convoy coming up the road and a helicopter zooming overhead. They landed beside the school and started unloading all the marijuana. They told us that there are several crops with over a 100 plants just over the hills. The kids all got to sit in the chopper and Alice found something in the pilots seat.

2006-02-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

New Year

2006-02-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

Well we are back at school and just as we all feared we have only four pupils. We have already rung the ministry to let them know what is happening. We will be holding a meeting shortly to discuss our options and then getting back to the ministry. Well at least the holidays were fun and here are some photos of my kids enjoying the swimming hole and my oldest daughter bJanelle jumping off the skytower.Janelle is starting a law degree this year, Mason starts boarding at Francis Douglas and Cameron is starting at MIdhirst SChool. Big changes for everyone.

Enquiring into Inquiry Pedagogy

2005-11-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

Hmmm it's a while since of written anything but I have still been trying new ideas in my classroom. Just recently in the latest copy of Good Teacher Gwen Gawith has really questioned what she calls the myths feeding a distortion on what good inquiry learning can achieve. It certainly reinforces many of the ideas that have occured to me this year but I need to think about it some more. It's a mongrel this thinking as it gets in the way of work.

Wondering

2005-07-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well since my last comment we have had an ERO report and an IT conference in Auckland. My last ERO three years ago was a very enjoyable experiance. They could see what I was intending to do in various areas and made some well observed and constructive comments. They showed that in several areas I was actually doubling up on my paperwork and that I could cut down on a reasonable amount. They were also very supportive with what we were trying to do with IT.
Our current review fell woefully short of that standard. My BOT and I had to argue the point over everything and we were constantly finding that they had missed things. Things like the children's writing books, the fact that we had a swimming pool, (they parked outside it), and anything to do with IT seemed to get very limited attention. All our assessment is recorded electronically and it was very clear that it was given only a cursory examination or they didn't look at all. Then they commented that they felt I was spending too much time with the computers and not enough time on long term planning. I guess visions don't count as planning.
But then I jumped in a van filled with like minded individuals and headed off to Ulearn in Auckland. Great conversation, great food, great fun and lots of meaningful things to think about. I know that we are starting to undergo one of the biggest shifts in education since the invention of the printing press. And anal retentive dickheads who insist on us assigning a level for every child in every area of the curriculum have long passed their use by date. Ah well a weeks holiday left- perhaps I'll try relaxing.

Integration

2005-06-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ive been thinking about how experimenting with IT in the classroom has added excitement to both my teaching and the class programme. As a sole charge, and considering I'm the only teacher these kids have, I think it is important I continue with this, The other thing that keeps nagging at me is that the term integration implies control. As IT and the possibilities it provides keeps changing I think that attempting proper integration will simply create a form of stagnation.
What I intend to do is to keep cahanging. That is acquire some new technology and try it in the classroom. For example with our new broadband technology we will attempt to develop video conferencing with a neighbouring school. If something really works it will basically integrate itself. I've noticed this with word processing, video and powerpoints. They are available as an option and the kids use them when they feel it's appropriate.

Re-thinking

2005-05-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

Well I spent my holidays pretending school doesnt exist. Not bad considering I live right next door. But one thing kept bothering me. I haven't really put maximum effort into creating an integrated approach to including ICT. What I have noticed is that I have had a heap of fun trying things out. I've also noticed that the kids are enjoying it too. One of the problems with a sole charge school is that the programme can become stale. The changes seem to motivate the kids and give them a variety in terms of approaches to learning. So I'm going to keep doing some experimenting.

Infolink

2005-03-24T18:31:00.000-08:00

Rachel our ICT advisor/facilatator convinced me to do the Infolink course. There is nothing really new in this as many of the ideas date back to the 80's. However everything is put together in a linear fashion rather than the holistic approach we used back then. Rather than go our own way I decided to give this a good shot in terms of time allocation. It's strange revisiting old ideas from a new perspective but its had a positive spin off. Sometimes I think its a good idea to revisit old ideas and teaching strategies.

Our weblogs are ticking along nicely. The writing has clearly improved as the children realised it was being read more widely. Two of the older children have begun to target specific audiences which wasn't really possible in the past. Current work is based around paragraphing skills in relation to non fiction. Our next step will be to look at paragraph skills with fiction. The children are getting to choose which work goes on their blogs and they have become a rather picky when compared to the work they used to display on their classroom patches.

The new i-Mac and highspeed internet access has also proved popular. The kids have made great use of it in classroom work and have also learnt about online gaming as well. This is closely monitored as these also have chat facilities but there have been no problems to date. Our next goal is to set up a video exchange with another Mac school. I have been informed that this is easy. :)

The other internet goal is to redo our website and include some interactive features on it such as a guided tour of the school. The kids have also wondered if they can upload their hyperstudio games or if they would need to used some other software.

New Year

2005-02-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

Well the holidays gave me a chance to think. I still like the overall model I'm working from but I have serious doubts about applying it in a sole charge school. The reason for this is lack of numbers. I have the strong feeling that a true inquiry learning approach requires numbers - especially at the brainstorming - question building stage. The second worry are the lack of essential skills to undertake an inquiry. By this I mean that the seniors have reasonable study skills but they actually need to develop a plan in order to reach a solution. If they dont work from a plan they tend to wander aimlessly about.
This term we started with some work on paragraphing for writing stories. They all knew the basics for paragraphs in writing but not that you could use these skills for locating information. During discussion it emerged that when they have a problem to solve they go looking for the ANSWER. But unless this answer is obvious they quickly become stuck or go down blind alleys.
We discussed this further and I decided that we would develop a plan for finding information.
At first it was very simple
Go to the library
Go to the reference section.
Get an encyclopedia.
Look up the topic.

This proved to be an excellent start and lead to the discovery of keywords for searching. They quickly realised they couldn't look up the question so they needed to identify the keywords within the question. Or develop two keywords around the question. As an example we had the question: "where does Valentines day come from?" The key words for this were identified as Valentines day and history.

We stuck to encyclopedias and tried out a few searches. The plan evolved to using the main keyword to find the topic and the second one to skim the first sentence of each paragraph. They had tremendous success with this and even the year fours could at least find relevant paragraphs. Next we developed key word searching into the non fiction section. They used a similar plan with the exception that they look up the keywords in the index. Because our library is rather small this had limited success but they could see that it was efficient and useful if there was a book available.

The next step was to repeat this with Encarta and once again they had to describe their plan before starting. We then applied the same techniques to the Journal Library database and then to Googgle. Each time it was the same. Form a question - identify the key words - make up a plan for whatever resource they were going to use. An activity to encourage this was the two minute search game. Everyone had the same question and for the first couple of times shared keywords. They then made up a plan to locate the answer in under two minutes.
They are becoming very proficient at this and the older pupils have pulled back from their reliance on the internet. The good old encyclopedia is often the most efficient wat to find an answer. It can often be faster than encarta.

I am now doing an Infolink paper on Action Learning and the methods in there at this stage seem very similar. I'm now thinking about the next stage. That is - what are they going to do with the information once they find it ?

Years End

2004-12-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

Now that we are reaching the end of the year I thought I would review our progress. The weblogs have been very successful. By widening the audience and getting feedback from around the world it has caused the children to take their writing more seriously. They are putting more thought into what they write and they put a lot more effort into polishing them.

The next step is for them to take ownership of their blogs. Currently it is the blog that they are doing as part of their schoolwork. What I want to see is that they log on from home and publish because they want to. I am ensuring they have the skills to log on independently and am encouraging them to do it in the holidays. They will all be travelling so they can keep in contact with each other. If I see it happening I'll know I succeded.

The school play is looking very good and the further we go the more control they have over it. It's been amazing to listen to the conversations on timing etc.

We had to drop the kiwi spotting as we ran out of time. All the parents have been commited to shearing and their has been no-one to help.

Next year I hope to extend the inquiry approach into the senior reading programme. The weblogs should help as they are now considering themselves to be writers and are more interested in what other writers do. I intend to use this in encouraging recreational reading . The second thing (fingers crossed) is that we will have broadband and we can now get seriously into web based research. I am working on what I call a wise steps approach. But it's a work in progress and I hope to clarify my thinking while lounging around at the swimming pool in the holidays.

MOVING ON

2004-11-13T23:13:00.000-08:00

The juniors have quickly moved through their first project and then completed a second. They had to design and make a birdfeeder using a 4 liter milkbottle and a couple of ice block sticks.
Both seniors and middle group have almost completed their projects. This is the hardest thing I've had to deal with as far as this method of learning goes. It takes ahuge amount of time. The children argue, discuss, try things and sometimes seem to just stop. The work quality is very good however.
There are three things I wish to try before the end of the term. One is to come up with a method of advertising our weblogs and home page, second is to get the kids as a class to write as much as possible for our end of year show, and the third is to set up an investigation to discover if there are any kiwis still living in the bush to the north of the school. Hmmm well at least I'm being positive.
With the end of year show I quickly realised that I had to provide some scaffolding. I suggested a dreanm sequence and we discussed how Alice in Wonderland worked. After suggesting some possible sketches we went to the hall and started work. Once we had the first sketch up and running I became the scribe. As we finish each part we go back to the beginning and just keep working through. This is exciting and I think it could be very successful.
The advertising idea has been good initially but I cant get the counter to work on our website and the kids initially couldn't see much action. However we have started to get some positive feedback through email and this could improve things.
The kiwispotting is in the future but the kids keep asking when we are going to start so it looks promising.
I'm not totally sure where we will go next but I think there is enough on the go now for the time we have left.

The Seniors

2004-10-25T01:43:00.000-07:00

Once again only three pupils. I had already begun collecting information for a project with the whole school. When the road had been built I had read a story on the first teachers journey to Matau in 1896. The seniors had found it interesting and I had made the suggestion that they could collect other stories and we could publish them somehow on CD. We had previously talked about preserving local history and donating it to the museum. In fact the school has an excellent history of doing this. They looked at what information already exsisted. This included stories of the early maori and the first Europeans to the district.
Next they decided to try an interview at least one person from each decade as far back as possible. The questions they asked were very simple. How did you get to school? - and - tell us about one special trip to town. The result was fairly spectacular and they have about ten results that overlap but stretch back to the 1930's.
After a visit from Rachel our IT facilitator the decision was made to record the information using Frontpage and recording it onto a CD.
This quickly bogged down and they were understandibly worried about the prospect of typing up all the interviews. I have since got an adult to do this for them and they are now setting about designing and planning all the pages.
There were two things that emerged from this. One was that it wasn't really their project. It was one I had foisted on them. It was only the stories that emerged from the interviews and Rachels' example of her families wartime archives that started them going. The next was the huge amount of computer time required. Currently we have two using computers on Frontpage and one researching on the internet and scanning pictures. As we aren't networked this requires a lot of running around with a pendrive.
Co-operation, teamwork, leadership, independence, and ability to organise themselves is slowly beginning to emerge. Being such a small group and tackling a fairly large task was always going to require co-operation and teamwork. But there have been disagreements and this has required some leadership skills in that someone had to make the decision. Also they are getting to the stage where they have to trust each other to get the job done and to trust themselves to be able to do it. This is my definition of independence and they are now at the stage where this needs to start happening. The next two weeks will be fairly interesting.

The Middle School

2004-10-25T01:19:00.000-07:00

That's an overstatement as there are only three of them. However the aim is to focus on basic research skills, extending their comprehension, and use IT in a meaningful way.
Once again tthe sealing of the final stage of the road created the opportunity. The question that arose was- why would anyone come to Matau?
After discussion I suggested they could produce a pamphlet that would encourage tourists to come here and basically left it at that. They came up with a list of questions themselves and also the idea of interviewing two people that had recently arrived in the valley. They also decided to collect some pamphlets from the information centre to check them out.
They completed the research very quickly but it was nearly all based on oral and visual language. They didn't even need to read the pamphlets, just look at what was in them.
Next they planned out what would be in the pamphlet and very quickly produced the cover page using Works. Due to sickness and other interuptions the second page has been held up. The only skills I have had to teach so far have involved saving files on the scanner.
This group have been very pleasing in terms of working without help from me and working together as a team. In fact I feel I have underestimated them. I think the trick at this level will be to find problems that are sufficiently complex to challenge them and at the same time stay within their reading levels.

Starting Out with the Juniors

2004-10-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

After going to Navcon2k4 in Cristchurch I decided that the best approach was to start in a limited way and gradually expand and learn as I go. With the juniors the focus was to be on literacy and we decided to produce a book about our new road. ( I asked the question and they seemed keen would be a more accurate description.) This was based around i-photo on an i-Mac.

After one quick demonstration they were easily opening the program and share writing the story by themselves. The problem I had was in forcing myself to get out of the way and let them get on with it . Once underway they could be fully absorbed for twentyfive-thirty minutes. The team building process seemed to involve little arguements over the text and whose turn it was to type. They quickly sorted this out and sometimes one would wander off and check out the other things happening in the class. Eventually they would wander back. At the end of the first session I reviewed the days work and looked at a couple of errors. I discovered that it was better to do this at the start of the next session. The kids were fresher and were more likely to make changes.They shared the story with the seniors to make sure that they understood it and it was then printed off ready for binding.
They are now comfortable with the basic i-Photo program, demonstrated good sequencing skills with both text and photos, used a shared approach to spelling, selected appropriate photos from the library and added a text that complimented the photos. Main lessons for me. They learn the basic skills with programs very quickly and- let them make mistakes - then use the mistakes as teaching points.