John Hattie's 8 Mindframes

This video was interesting as although I have come across Hattie's work before I had not heard these 8 mindframes. I agree with all 8 to an extent, some more than others! I strongly agree that my fundamental task is to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching. Working collaboratively has strengthened my ability to do this as we are constantly discussing and evaluating our joint and individual practice and the affect this is having on our students' learning. Mindframe 2 poses some questions for me. Although I agree that a teacher is a very strong determinate of student achievement I also feel that social, cultural, emotional and physical aspects of a student's life also affect their success rate. Research shows that students who are struggling with emotional distress or upset have a limited capacity to learn (Odgen, 2006). This is due to brain space being taken up with worrying and not being able to focus on learning.
I definitely agree with 3 and 4, although we are assessing what children have learned ultimately we are assessing how well they were taught. Mindframe 5 is the cornerstone of my teaching philosophy. I feel very strongly that teachers should not be the holders of knowledge and power in a classroom but rather teach through conversation and dialogue. This builds much stronger relationships with students which is shown to improve student outcomes. This also links to mindframe 7, education is all about relationships. With staff, students, parents and community. Challenging oneself as a teacher comes as part of the territory. I enjoy the challenge of researching and trying new things in my practice and evaluating how these affected outcomes. Mindframe 8 confuses me somewhat, I am not entirely sure I understand what informing about the language of learning looks like. I have interpreted it as talking to students and adults about the why of learning. How we learn and why we learn what we learn. I agree this is important, discussing metacognition with children helps them understand how they learn. This awareness can lead to great reflection and goal setting.

What do you consider to be the most important skills of the 21st Century?

ITL research considers these to be the most important 21st Century skills:

• Collaboration
• Knowledge construction
• Self-regulation
• Real-world problem solving /innovations
• ICT for learning
• Skilled communication 

After discussing each skills. We were allocated one as a group to create a video. Our skill was Real-world problem solving

When reflecting on these skills for both myself and my students I found myself thinking about how much value I put on these skills in my classroom. When planning I realized that subconsciously I often look for or create activities that centre around these skills. The planning flow-charts we were shown today will definitely help to ensure these activities are higher stage activities. As a school we talk a lot about these skills being the 'soft' skills we want our children to develop. They are embedded in most of our practice and although they may not be assessed and checked off I think our children are beginning to develop a great understanding of these 21st Century skills. One area I have seen a huge improvement on is collaboration amongst children. Traditionally we undertook 'group work' however now that as teachers we have moved into collaborative environments I think the children also more naturally collaborate on tasks. Many tasks we do are collaborative in nature however even when set tasks that are not explicitly collaborative our children still naturally tend to collaborate with peers to complete activities. Moving forward I would like to expand this by creating tasks that have components that are reliant on other group members. I think this will extend my students' collaborative nature by showing them that group discussions are fantastic however to truly work as a team each person/sub-group must do their part. This will then feed naturally into creating environments where skilled communication, real-world problem solving and self-regulation are needed. I will aim to use this as a focus in my first assignment. 

"Towards Reconceptualising Leadership: The Implications of the Revised New Zealand Curriculum for School Leaders".

"Towards Reconceptualising Leadership: The Implications of the Revised New Zealand Curriculum for School Leaders"


I found this article very interesting as it was written shortly after the 'new' curriculum was introduced. Having only been teaching for 2 1/2 years this is the only curriculum I have worked with and therefore I was not part of the discussion when this was implement. I was also not even at school in NZ when the new curriculum came in so the only experience I have had with it is through my limited teaching career. Personally I find the NZ curriculum fantastic. The framework allows a lot of individual interpretation and I usually find myself building class programmes that suit the needs of my students then finding corresponding objectives from the curriculum not the other way round.
This article talks a lot about the 'tell me what to do' mentality. I can see how this would have been a big mindset change with the current curriculum as the objectives do not tell you what or how to teach but rather the skill that the child will end up with. This would have been very confronting for teachers who were used to working with a more prescriptive framework. The article talks about knowledge being conceptualized as a verb is something we do something with, rather than something we have (Gilbert, 2005). I think the new curriculum reflects this clearly.
From a leadership perspective the biggest challenge talked about in this article is teacher think time when facing a new reform in education. Education is constantly changing and as teachers we need to be able to change along with it. However I can relate to the feeling of 'stop the world, I want to get off!' some days. The article discusses how by distributing school leadership among staff will enable teachers to gain ownership over some of these changes. I have been very fortunate in my career to work in a school that does distribute leadership and encourages teachers to have imput into any major changes. We are consulted and our opinions valued before changes are made. This article made me realise that perhaps is isn't/wasn't the case in all schools. Frost and Durrant (2002) emphasise that teacher agency is central to school improvement. The article includes a list of characteristics of teacher leaders:

According to Wynne (2001) the literature on teacher leadership offers a profile that defines teacher leaders as those who:
 • demonstrate expertise in their instruction and share that knowledge with other professionals
• are consistently on a professional learning curve
• frequently reflect on their work to stay on the cutting edge of what is best for children
• engage in continuous action research projects that examine their effectiveness
• collaborate with their peers, parents, and communities, engaging them in dialogues of open
• inquiry/action/ assessment models of change
become socially conscious and politically involved
• mentor new teachers
• become more involved at universities in the preparation of pre-service teachers
• are risk-takers who participate in school decisions.

This list caused me to reflect on myself as a teacher leader. There are aspects of the list I feel I do confidently (consistent professional learning, reflection, collaboration) and areas that I find challenging (demonstrating expertise, mentor new teachers, socially conscious). I thought for a long time about the areas I find challenge and they are things I would like to work on. Some come down to me not feeling like an expert compared to colleagues that have been in the industry for much longer than me. Other come down to not having the brain space/time to become aware of political/social issues. These are both things Freeth mentions in his research!

What is knowledge?

This week we were asked to discuss 'what is knowledge?' Here is our brainstorm.



This week we discussed the purpose of education and what we think knowledge is. Here is the video our group created to reflect this thinking.

"What 60 Schools Can Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skill" and reflecting how 20th century and 21st century skills differ? Do we need both?

This video was very interesting as much of the message was similar to what I have heard since starting my teaching career. This made me think about the potential difference between American education and NZ education as I think NZ is further along this journey than the video tells. The main point of the video was that we can't wait for a government driven change but rather need to start changing the way we view 'skills' now. In Christchurch there has already been a bit of a shake up of the education sector through the implementation of clusters. These clusters have starting breaking down the silos Lichtman talks about and encourages more collaboration between schools. Likewise the implementation of collaboration in the classrooms is making a huge difference to the way students are now taught.

Lichtman discusses the difference between 20th century and 21st century skills.

He discusses how 20th century industrial skills are not reflective of the world we will in today. Therefore education needs to move with this new way of being and put more emphasis on 21st century 'ecosystem' skills and approaches. These two approaches differ predominantly in the role of the child in both systems. In the 20th century model there was much more focus on adult control and passive children whereas in the 21st century model children are encourage to drive their own learning as much as possible. This also reflects the huge social changes that have occurred with views towards children. I think the main difference between the two is adults being open to change and getting things wrong. We are no longer expected to be the 'sage on the stage' and know it all but rather encouraged to model failure and perseverance to children. Lichtman talks about how 21st century learners need to be self-evolving. Technology is changing so fast that we can't predict what concrete skills our children will need and therefore Lichtman argues that we should be teaching children to evolve constantly to develop new skills for different situations. Therefore as adults and teachers we also need to embrace this constant change and develop schools that are also self-evolving. This can prove difficult when schools are still answerable to an industrial model of measurement and standards based performance. I think there is a place for some 20th century skills to remain in the 21st century education model. Many parents are worried that teachers are throwing the baby away with the bathwater however we need to clarify that this is not the case. Children will still leave school with the traditional skills of being able to read, write and add however they also need to leave school with resilience, problem solving, adaptability, teamwork and self-management skills as these will form the basis of many jobs they undertake. Even teachers who have been present in western society for many, many years have a very different role now to how they were 100 years ago. We still have the same job title and basic role requirements however a teacher from 100 years ago would find it quite challenging to teach today. Likewise our children may hold similar roles in the future (e.g. doctor) however this will be very different to how we perceive doctors now. We need to teach students for their future not based on what is in our past. Research clearly shows that the biggest influence on how a teacher teaches comes from how we were taught ourselves. This also goes for parent expectations of schools. We need to broaden our thinking around this. This is by no means a new concept, Dewey was discussing this years ago.

What you consider a good leader to be like? Are you a thought leader, would you want to be?

The question of what makes a good leader is one that has fascinated me as I have not previously considered myself to be a leader at all. I use to think leaders needed to be confident, loud and extrovert however I now think that although these qualities may be useful, they are not the only things that make good leaders. Good leaders need to be able to create an effective team dynamic. You can't be a good leader if no-one wants to follow you. Likewise leaders need to be open to team ideas while keeping in mind the overall goal of the team. By enabling each team member to contribute their ideas and feel like a useful part of the team a stronger team dynamic is created. Good leaders also need to be brave when dealing with conflict in their teams. They need to be honest and open about all things that influence team members and address these in a fair and even way.

I am not sure if I am a thought leader in my school, I certainly don't feel that way at times! I enjoy being part of a team and will contribute my ideas confidently. If my ideas are used by the team then I am happy to step into a leadership role to drive these ideas and projects forward. I would like to be more of a thought leader in my school however I am not sure what this looks like!

Reflect on how your understanding of the purpose of education is visible in your classroom. Think about also how you would like to record and perhaps share your learning with a wider community?

How visible the purpose of education is in my classroom is something I have been thinking about a lot as part of my teacher inquiry this year. One of the Appraisal Connector criteria I have chosen to look at is 

Students go beyond articulating what they are learning to explaining why they are learning what they are learning; what they are learning has contextual relevance and meaning for them.

I feel this statement is similar to investigating the purpose of education, the 'why' of learning. This is something that I frequently discuss with my students and they can now articulate independently why they are learning a certain thing. I feel that at the age my students are (7-9 years old) this understanding is pretty sophisticated. When having general discussions about why we go to school/the purpose of school I tend to get a generic "to learn things and get a good job" answer. This is something I would like to revisit with my students as I personally feel education is so much more than just gaining qualifications. During our MindLab session this week we created a mind map of what we feel is the purpose of education. It was interesting to discuss this concept with others in my group from different educational backgrounds (secondary, primary, specialist teacher). We all had very different views. The secondary perspective was focused on qualifications and bettering oneself while the primary perspective was more holistic e.g to socialise, to learn conformity/being part of a group, to question ideas. This difference was interesting as when I asked primary aged children they responded in a very 'secondary' mindset. This made me wonder if their ideas of the purpose of education are so socially ingrained in adults that they feed down to our children. This makes me wonder how we are going to change the mindset of young children to think of education as a much more holistic process than just gaining good qualifications. This then made me think about how to share this ideal with our wider school community. During recent student-led conferences most children could articulate their learning goals and successes clearly. They could also discuss with parents why they learned certain topics. This conversation was one way of sharing the purpose of what we do with our parents. Many of our parents still hold a view of education that reflects how they were educated. I recently had a conversation with a parent about why the children go to gymnastics and how she wishes they did 'fun' things like this when she was at school. We then went on to have an interesting chat about how education is changing and how learning is now becoming more 'fun'. I would like to think more about how to share the purpose of education with my school community. I don't feel our class blog is the appropriate platform as this is used much more as a celebration of children's learning. Likewise our weekly emails are used to build links with whanau at the end of each week. This could potential become a forum for sharing this purpose however I need to think about how I could do this without appearing 'preachy'.