I found an article

Dangerous Discussions: Voice and Power in My Classroom

It made me think about how we manage discussions in my classroom. I have difficulty getting students to engage. Part of which I put down to their unfamiliarity with the content but I still have to develop my discussion management skills to enable the shy and quiet to have their say, and to not have the loud/confident students dominate.

My classes have a different mix of ethnicity to the one in the article. Some have minority groups, as defined by society, are  in the majority in their class. That would give a different air to the discussion. Also the difference in subject matter will have an effect. Science is a difficult subject for many, and they do not often feel as informed as they might in a discussion on social issues that that live, as in the article.

I am inspired to try some of the suggestions in this article with my classes.

Te Apārangi The Royal Society, Rutherford Lecture

Last night I attended the touring presentation of the Rutherford Lecture. This is an annual lecture by the winner of the previous years winner of the Rutherford Medal, the top prize given out by Royal Societ Te Apārangi "to recognise eminent research or technological practice by a person in any field of science, mathematics, social science, or technology." The 2017 medal went to volcanologist Professor Colin Wilson FRS FRSNZ of Victoria University of Wellington for the work he has done on Supervolcanoes. 

The lecture covered and introduction to what determines a supervolcano, Comparitive supereruptions of the Quaternary Period, and the history of the supereruptions of the Taūpo volcanic field, the most active supervolcano globally, with 4/10 of the geologically recent eruptions, geologically recent meaning the last 2.6 million years. 

I find attending these sorts of events very useful in the classroom to help broaden and maintain my knowledge on a range of subjects, and this allows me to help students make connections between the content in the my classroom and their own interests. 

Communities of Learning Meeting

Yesterday we had a meeting  with other teachers from the establishing CoL. Aside from the talk on what the community of learning is for, and the positions available it was interesting to talk to the primary teachers.

There is a great disconnect between Primary and Secondary, which I suppose is the purpose of the CoL, to lesson that divided, but some things we encountered were quite surprising. The number of primary teachers that couldn't say hello in 3 languages was an initial clue, but I found the attitudes of some quite insular. There was an emphasis from them on linking all learning to the child's life, a laudible goal to make it relevant, but contrary to the purpose of education which I see as broadening the mind. So many of our students rarely if ever leave Northland. If we as teachers do not expose them to the wider world their worldview will be quite narrow and parochial to the detriment of society.

The other concern is the goal of the CoL. As students arrive in secondary school there is a glaring underperformance in the cohort. A full third of students are coming in with literacy below par, half of those very low at L2. Yet the goals of the CoL do not include literacy. It feels like the elephant in the room is being ignored. In addition the goals are very primary oriented and feel like are not managable in the secondary system. Knowing every student and their Whanau is all well and good in the primary setting with 25 kids who you are with all day. It is quite a different proposition for secondary where we have 130 kids for 4-5 hours a week. The primary teachers were quite taken aback when we reminded them of that. For that reason alone greater communication within the CoL might be useful.

Skills level test on Education Perfect

The Education Perfect Software we have bought the use of for the school included diagnostic tests at Curriculum Level.

The past two weeks we have done testing at Level 4 for Year 9's and Level 5 for Year 10's. the marks are returned as a percentage score, which we will need to translate into Grade Scores for the academic report being sent home.

SCICON

This year the SciCon conference is in Christchurch. I have registered to attend and I have also had an application to present accepted.

The presentation is on the redevelopment of the junior curriculum from a content based model to a thematic and skills based curriculum.

Literacy

We have had a new initiative in the school focusing on Literacy. Initially we have had observations done to assess the standard of literacy teaching in the school, starting with the Science department.

I have started to outline the literacy learning alongside the Success Criteria and the Science skills that we are working each day, colour coded to make it clear that the Success Criteria in Black is the Literacy in Red, and the skills on the posters above the board.

Te Reo Maori

One of my goals for the year is to improve my use of Te Reo and my understanding of Te Ao Maori.

I have already started to increase my use of simple Te Reo in the classroom with some surprise from my students. One student in particular has been impressed with my commitment to learning Maori and it has shortcutted out relationship development as she has opened up to me.