Reading Practice Intensive - Day 1

Today was an exciting day. I am participating in The Manaiakalani Programme's Reading Practice Intensive (RPI). Being a facilitator I have heard how the Manaiakalani Research Team have been developing this programme, so it is with great anticipation that I connected online this morning to start our 9 weekly sessions.

Delivered online, this is a pilot for the RPI programme that will be available for teachers across all clusters in 2023. Being online means that teachers need to have been through Digital Fluency Intensive (DFI) so they can cope with the environment as well as the apps used in the RPI such as Google Slides, Sheets, Google Forms, Jamboard, Blogging - for professional reflections and of course Google Meet.

One of the outcomes of the RPI is to develop a "common practice model".  This is stated in the MoE Literacy Strategy but there is no detail around this yet. The Manaiakalani Programme has decided not to wait for the MoE and is driving this work for our schools and clusters across the nation.

Because this is a pilot I will not be sharing any resources used in the 9 weeks. Our participation in the pilot is to be a critical friend and provide feedback as well as adding in our experience and resources we have.

The group of educators that are in the pilot are a powerhouse of practitioners! It is a privilege to be working with them.Our first task was to introduce ourselves in a digital bubble. Here is a copy of my slide I used as my introduction.

I really honed in on the purpose of the RPI as I'm sure there will be many questions from Principals about it and why they should send teachers to the RPI.

This is an online programme to build capability for teachers to do the 5 things really well with integrity and fidelity to the programme. And the 5 things are below. We have heard about these from the Research Teams at our cluster Research Reflections. These valued reading outcomes will be covered in the 9 weeks.

Connected Learners Share - Term 3 Online Staff Hui

Term 3 staff hui are based around the kaupapa of Share | Hanga. The Manaiakalani Programme harnesses the affordances of digital technologies to connect teachers so they can share. This extends the idea that as educators we are also learners.

The online staff hui in term 3 are an opportunity for teachers across all clusters in Aotearoa to connect and share their Teaching as Inquiry with others teaching the same curriculum level.

Small groups are formed where teachers can share strategies and talk about academic outcomes for their students.

The hui is designed to be conversational and whilst Google Meet is used to connect, the session is not recorded nor is there any presentation required. 

I had the pleasure of facilitating 2 hui. One was focused on Well Being for years 1-3 and the other on reading for years 4-6.

In both session we were able to share strategies and resources. There were many takeaways for participants as well as affirmation that their Inquiry was benefitting their students. Perhaps it is in this time where we can sit and reflect that we can take stock and see what is happening for our students. In the busy and complex school environment reflection time may be very scant.

One school had a collective inquiry into forming a common practice method for the teaching of reading. I will be following their progress as I take part in the Manaiakalani pilot Reading Practice Intensive (RPI). The RPI starts at the end of August and I will be blogging each week of the 9 week intensive.

Webinars and Recovery - PLD On Demand

 I have been on leave for 12 weeks recovering from surgery. Nothing too scary - a hip replacement which meant recovery time was needed to get moving again.

It was Winter and I was stuck inside.  After a few weeks I found myself wanting to think and use my brain again. There are only so many crosswords that can be done!

I subscribe to lots of website and get masses of emails giving the heads up about webinars. One I particularly enjoy and look forward to are the Google Educator Groups (GEG). The Australia/New Zealand Google Educator Group (Aus/NZ GEG) is particularly active. The webinars are a great way to keep up with what's new in Google and how to use it in classes.

The timing of the Aus/NZ GEG pretty good for us NZ'ers. They are usually at 5.30pm. But if that doesn't suit then you can find all the recordings here. I really like being able to use the recordings as I can rewind anything I need or speed it up past the the bits I don't need. 

There is also a wider Global Educator Group with Teach With Chrome webinars. Because these webinars are not in our time zone having the Recordings and Resources page is great as you can watch and learn on demand - PD in your pyjamas!

It is through these 2 groups that I have kept up to date with the accessibility settings on Chromebooks. I am evangelical in spreading the good word about accessibility settings for Chromebooks. I always show the classes I am in the Dictation and Select-to-Speak settings. Dictation works in edublogs which is such a good way to get students to complete their blog post if they are slow typists.

I have a lesson to support the use of Dictation and Select-to-Speak titled “Let Your Chromebook Do The Mahi For You”. I did this lesson with a year 4 class recently as the teachers has a number of diagnosed Dyslexic students and ASD students. It was an immediate hit. The teacher reported that the next day the students used Dictation without any prompting. She reported that the students said they liked it and it was easy to use.