Mind Lab week 18 - Reflecting on my future oriented teaching practice.

How has Mind Lab positively impacted in my practice?

To be honest it’s hard to figure out how to tackle this question without waffling. So I’m going to try and stick to Gibbs Model for reflection in an attempt to avoid this.

I had always felt that I was fairly forward thinking with my practice. I have been using BYOD, blended learning, O365 and One Note since 2015. But, I had had varied success. Unfortunately, being a High School Science teacher there are certain restrictions that can affect what and how we deliver content, such as school structure, limited flexibility and assessment criteria for NCEA and expectations of the schools stakeholders. For me I needed to break from what had always worked and look towards how I could make it better for my students. Mid Lab offered me the opportunity to explore how I could affect these changes by looking at my practice and leadership.

At first I was apprehensive as it had been a long time since I had last studied – what if everyone was smarter than me or I found it too challenging? After my first session I was hooked, and to be honest it took some time to get used to coming home from our Thursdays sessions with my brain still trying to figure out how I could try everything with my students. I really enjoyed our flipped prep before these sessions.

Fortunately, while researching our first assignment I researched the flipped learning model. I had played with the idea in 2015 by setting the occasional flipped task for my year 9 class but I had never taken it further. When I analysed my student voice data I was intrigued to learn they wanted to focus on:

• ·         Knowledge construction
• ·         Real world problem solving
• ·         Self-management
• ·         Skilled communication

I analysed the flipped model using the SAMAR model for blended e-learning planning framework and the 21^st Century Skills to assess if this could help with the student’s needs. I also read the e-book; Flipped Learning – For Science instruction, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, 2015 from the Unitec library. It was soo good I bought the book!

I was really nervous and apprehensive about making this change in pedagogy. At the time of implementing this change I was recovering from a frozen right shoulder/arm, so my Level 2 Physics class three weeks behind the other classes. I applied J. Kotters’ eight step change method along with Robinsons diffusion of change concepts. I explained the need for change and how we were going to do it. We also celebrated our little successes and I reminded the students that this would allow us to go deeper into our learning and catch up. When we caught up, I was elated. We then got to a point where each week we have one hour of guided practice, this allows me to move around the room to deliver individual support and instruction while students can collaborate together or work at their own pace. We linked this to our development of our 21^st Century skills and the concept of self-management and collaboration.

This model has been empowering for me as a teacher and for the students. They have active conversations about their flipped prep and at the end of each week ask for the flipped prep for the next week. Parental feedback during a recent parents evening was also encouraging. The impact of this model on student results is analysed in a separate entry (24.7.18). I believe this has improved my practice as it has given me time to employ the guided practice hour and I am beginning to facilitate the learning on occasion and not just lead from the front. I am going to continue with this model and I am beginning to encourage other senior science teachers to consider this at school too.

I’m interested to know what other positive changes in practice have occurred for teachers during their Mind Lab journey.