The past year and a half has seen me going through many changes in my practice and so I am choosing to focus on just one - the use of Linc-Ed to make students learning visible to their whanau. I reflected on this using Gibbs Model for Reflection.
The project I undertook in the first part of the MindLab course was mainly focussed on engaging our community with their child's learning and encouraging their participation. I focussed on looking at ways we could share learning with our students and, after consultation with our leadership team, decided to focus on introducing the student account aspect of our student management system - Linc-Ed.
As a new school (opened 2017) we have spent a lot of time building relationships with our learners and whanau as Hattie (2009) has shown that this is a very important aspect that influences learning. Our focus in our second year is taking that relationship building to the next level - making it more of a partnership in learning. Currently the teachers do most of the communicating with the parents but we want our students to be the ones that are leading the sharing of their learning.
Because of the short time frame we have had with the beginning of the year and everything that comes with that, I feel we have been initially successful in this method of communication, however it is still only in the early stages and as such we have only surface involvement. The depth of community involvement that Bolstad et al. (2012) discuss in theme 6 (New kinds of partnerships and relationships: Schools no longer siloed from the community) has not yet happened but I am hopeful we now have a framework to start building on.
I am also a bit wary about the platform we have chosen and would like to trial other options as discussed in my original project outline, for example Seesaw. From discussions with other colleagues in other schools, Seesaw seems more user friendly for all parties involved - learners, teachers and whanau.
Overwhelmingly the students were positive about the changes and loved the opportunity to share their learning with their parents - they love the comments they receive back from their families and the conversations they can have via the comments.
The teachers have also been enthusiastic about the roll out of student accounts and their sharing of their learning. The Year 7/8 whanau teacher has taken it upon herself to introduce it to all of her students not just those in my trial group.
I would have liked more parent involvement and am waiting on results of a survey to find out how they have found the experience so far so that then I can develop a plan - was it the user friendliness aspect that has held them back, time or something else?
Hattie (2009), Bolstad et al. (2012), Mutch and Collins (2012) all support my thinking about developing relationships and involving our community with our learning.
Our next small step is to roll out Linc-Ed student accounts to all of our students and to work with our parent community on encouraging interaction with their child's learning. Once this is established we can develop depth in the interactions and then build on this to hopefully get use our community as more of a resource for learning.
We have a long way to go but as we know "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" Lao Tzu
References:
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses On Achievement. Routledge
Mutch, C. and Collins, S. (2012). Partners in Learning: Schools’ Engagement With Parents, Families, and Communities in New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.adi.org/journal/2012ss/mutchcollinsspring2012.pdf
(The path we choose can take many forms and have many obstacles -
stepping stones, footsteps, forks, waves...)
The project I undertook in the first part of the MindLab course was mainly focussed on engaging our community with their child's learning and encouraging their participation. I focussed on looking at ways we could share learning with our students and, after consultation with our leadership team, decided to focus on introducing the student account aspect of our student management system - Linc-Ed.
As a new school (opened 2017) we have spent a lot of time building relationships with our learners and whanau as Hattie (2009) has shown that this is a very important aspect that influences learning. Our focus in our second year is taking that relationship building to the next level - making it more of a partnership in learning. Currently the teachers do most of the communicating with the parents but we want our students to be the ones that are leading the sharing of their learning.
Because of the short time frame we have had with the beginning of the year and everything that comes with that, I feel we have been initially successful in this method of communication, however it is still only in the early stages and as such we have only surface involvement. The depth of community involvement that Bolstad et al. (2012) discuss in theme 6 (New kinds of partnerships and relationships: Schools no longer siloed from the community) has not yet happened but I am hopeful we now have a framework to start building on.
I am also a bit wary about the platform we have chosen and would like to trial other options as discussed in my original project outline, for example Seesaw. From discussions with other colleagues in other schools, Seesaw seems more user friendly for all parties involved - learners, teachers and whanau.
Overwhelmingly the students were positive about the changes and loved the opportunity to share their learning with their parents - they love the comments they receive back from their families and the conversations they can have via the comments.
The teachers have also been enthusiastic about the roll out of student accounts and their sharing of their learning. The Year 7/8 whanau teacher has taken it upon herself to introduce it to all of her students not just those in my trial group.
I would have liked more parent involvement and am waiting on results of a survey to find out how they have found the experience so far so that then I can develop a plan - was it the user friendliness aspect that has held them back, time or something else?
Hattie (2009), Bolstad et al. (2012), Mutch and Collins (2012) all support my thinking about developing relationships and involving our community with our learning.
Our next small step is to roll out Linc-Ed student accounts to all of our students and to work with our parent community on encouraging interaction with their child's learning. Once this is established we can develop depth in the interactions and then build on this to hopefully get use our community as more of a resource for learning.
We have a long way to go but as we know "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" Lao Tzu
References:
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses On Achievement. Routledge
Mutch, C. and Collins, S. (2012). Partners in Learning: Schools’ Engagement With Parents, Families, and Communities in New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.adi.org/journal/2012ss/mutchcollinsspring2012.pdf
Hey Jennie,
ReplyDeleteGreat to have a read of your blog. It does really take time to build a strong relationship with a new community and there are very few examples in New Zealand that have such a new, fast growing community like Faringdon so my advice is to not be too hard on yourself!
I was working at a 10 yr old school and the home communication was one of the biggest areas of challenge they had. I think you guys are definitely on the right track trying to get students more involved in sharing their own learning with parents.
I wonder if you could have classroom websites where students work can be shared and access by parents? Also student blog posts that parents can comment on?