Maui's Dolphins - Co-Construction Day 7

Year 9s

Another big focus on vocabulary today. I decided to give them all the words at once so that when we start analysing the film the language is familiar.
Words they had to define and give effects of today were:

Camera Angles

• High Angle
• Low Angle
• Tilt
• Eye-Level

Camera Movements

• Pan
• Tilt
• Zoom in
• Zoom out
• Tracking

Lighting

• Natural
• Soft Light
• Hard Light
• From above
• From Behind

Colour

• Bright
• Neutral
• Pastel
• Dark

Sound Techniques

• Non-diagetic Music
• Diagetic Music
• Dialogue
• Monologue
• Soliloquy
• Sound Effects
• Voice Over

Because these students are brand new to film analysis, I know that all these words are arbitrary and meaningless to them right now. However, I'm hoping that by introducing them, as we go through them over the next couple of weeks, they'll become adopted more readily. This is a change for me from last year where I didn't explicitly give the vocabulary they needed. Now that they have the list, I'm hoping that the contextual learning of vocab will be more readily absorbed.

Year 10s

Today we continued to work on their projects. I started with presentation skills - reiterating the need to have a solid purpose and audience in mind and how to address their audiences. Different vocabulary for children than for adults, for example.

Five students went down to the library to continue working on slides presentations (can't be done on tablets). The rest were working on devices or in books in the classroom. Success when finally one student who doesn't use a device finally organised himself to print out material to bring with him to class.

Both Levels
I have seen this in the notices this morning, and am strongly suggesting that the students turn up for it:

Maui's Dolphin's Co-Construction Day 6

Year 9

We started today with a close look at the NZC Level 4 and what it had to say about language features in viewing. They copied this into their books, and then we figured out what all the words mean:

Language features
Show an increasing understanding of how language features are used for effect within and across texts.

(Photo to come)

We then focused in on the indicator:

uses an increasing vocabulary to make meaning

by explicitly looking for, writing down, and drawing a diagram for the following film techniques:

• Close Up
• Extreme Close Up
• Mid Shot
• Point of View Shot
• Perspective Shot
• Long Shot
• Establishing Shot
• Bird's Eye View

Year 10

Today we reviewed the research tasks and made sure that everybody was on track for meeting the criteria. This was particularly pertinent owing to an email I received indicating that I needed to provide more structured guidance for one child.

All students were engaged for most of the lesson. However, the fact that I confiscated three devices today indicate that the students were unable to focus on self-directed learning for the whole time. Some need to have a more structured and guided lesson on constructing a presentation.

Maui's Dolphins - Co-Construction Day 5

Year 10

Today I explicitly taught language features of visual text using Hectors and Mauis Dolphins Appeal by William Trubridge. The students had to identify 5 different language features and explain what their purposes were. We found:
Lighting / Colour: Negative connotation of blue is sadness and despair
Non-Diagetic Music: Engages melancholy emotions emphasising despair
Monologue: Trubridge uses words such as 'dwindling toward extinction'. Vocal expression: serious, melancholy.
We talked about how these three particular techniques built on each other to emphasise the message each was making. For example, the director would know exactly what the colours are underwater, and would have used those to his advantage.

We also found:
Archived footage
Mid-shot
Cut Away
Montage
On Screen text

Resiliency Muscles and Physiotherapy

If resiliency is a muscle, are there physio therapists for it in the same way there are physios for physical muscles?

Maui's Dolphin's Co-Construction Day 4

Year 9s

We finished watching Dolphin's Tale today, and with the rest of the lesson (about 20 minutes), the students did the following four tasks:

Task 1:

What was the film about? 

(Their only chance ever to write a plot summary)

Task 2:

Did you like the film? Why or why not?

(Doesn't matter if they liked it or not - either way their reasons needed to be backed up with examples from the film)

Task 3:

Who were your favourite character(s)? Why?

Task 4:

Which of the following issues affecting Maui's Dolphins did you see in the film? Describe the scene(s) where you saw them:

a. Tourism      b. Protection    c. Fisheries    d. Sanctuary    e. Human Responsibility    

In the interests of the students keeping a track of where they're at and what they need to accomplish I just thought that I would do them up a check list in student speak based on the NZC. Then they can track their achievements.

Year 10s

There was a hive of activity today as all the students were busy working on their research projects. Going around the room there were:

• 2 boys standing at my white board brainstorming their powerpoint presentation
• 3 boys working together to collect research with one producing an essay, one a speech, and another a powerpoint presentation
• 2 girls working on a poster, having printed an image of a dolphin on A3 for their background
• 2 girls working on research to make some creative writing from.

There's a class of 30, and the others were working on one of the types of activities listed above. The students were really engaged, and the information they're finding so far is looking really good. Next week will be teaching on specific presentation skills needed to ensure they meet their task criteria.

Both levels

I have tweeted WWF NZ regarding Maui's Dolphins experts, but have yet to hear back.

Thea has given me two contacts of people who I could call/email to set up skype chats with.

Maui's Dolphins Co-Construction Day 3

Year 9s

This was there second lesson watching the film Dolphin Tale

Year 10s

I went through the research task with them and showed them what their work so far had created. They seem to have a much stronger grasp on what they are supposed to do now. I think without the paper copies in their hand, and without the task being solidified into something they could have in front of them and refer to, there were too many new things all happening at once. This way they have their 'map' their 'guide book' in a mode that is familar (even though I utilise docs a lot, it just seemed that the tangible was necessary to help step them through their work.

I'm seeing a lot of autonomy over modes of assessment, I'm seeing a lot of engagement. Students are really focusing carefully on their projects. It's good to see.

Maui's Dolphins Co-Construction Day 2

Year 9s

They have chosen to watch the film first, so today's lesson was watching Dolphin's Tale.

Year 10s

They are showing the difference between having had an introduction to co-construction and not. This class has done plenty of independent learning tasks this year, but I haven't co-constructed anything with them. They are finding it difficult to co-construct the entire unit. We are now focusing on the research project. We talked today about the different ways they might like to present the information that they learn in the project. The students know what they Have-To-Do and they know that they can choose to present their information in a method that matches a Have-To-Do or they can present it in a way that they want to.

They have contributed the information to the research task, and have started doing a broad-sweep of the information. I have pulled all their ideas in and written the task for them, which I've shared on Drive as well as printing for those who need paper copies. I have given them a check list of tasks so that they can ensure they are covering everything they need to this term.

I have tweeted WWF NZ asking if they have any contacts who may be happy to skype with my classes.

I have asked if friends have any contacts of people who may be happy to skype, and mentioned to senior management the kids' ideas about going and seeing the the work on the ground.

Maui's Dolphins Co-Construction Day 1

Year 9s and 10s have started co-constructing their Maui's Dolphins unit that will probably take them the term to complete. The overarching question for the unit is:

"What Are the Issues Facing the Maui Dolphins?"

I know - a pretty weird topic for an English class. However, when I was young, idealistic, and at teacher's college, I studied Education Outside The Classroom with a specific focus on how to make English engaging for my students. Even all the way back then I thought that students needed to see how things worked 'in real life'. At school I always wanted solid, real-life based learning, and I've always loved projects. Always. It was the thing I really missed as a student when I entered High School - not having the option to be creative, to carry out research and do projects anymore. So when the school's Sustainability Action Group approached me to ask my juniors if they could write letters lobbying to protect the Maui's Dolphins, my response was "why not?" - all the hard work of finding a suitable project was done. Thanks to the Hackyrclass project last term, I've learned enough skills to carry out a co-constructed, UDL, PBL unit. I've experimented on two small-scale projects. Now it's time to challenge myself again and draw on those skills and allow the kids to more-or-less run the whole term.

Year 9Period 5Tuesday, Term 3, Week 1.

This class has had experience with co-construction, so we launched straight into it. The skills they have to do (for marks that are going on reports) are:

• Formal Writing
• Creative Writing

They will be doing a letter to the Prime Minister lobbying for the protection of the Maui's Dolphins for their formal writing, as requested by SAG.

They also need to learn how to do literature response essays in preparation for their exams next term.

Processes and Strategies

The students are desperate to skype with experts about the Maui's Dolphins. They are also desperate to go on a field trip and talk to the people on the ground.

Purposes and Audiences

They have identified a wide-ranging pool of sources that they can draw on to search for information about the Maui's Dophins.

Ideas

We will be looking the issues Maui Dolphins are facing and how they are similar to and different from the ones in Dolphin's Tale. Ideas that they have found so far are to do with pollution, fishing, mining, drilling, habitat, and disease. Because of the focus of the government and the purpose of the letter, I will also be talking to them about the economics that affect the situation.

Language Features

The students have no knowledge about language features and so we will need to focus on how the messages of the film are communicated through film techniques.

Structure

The students have a basic working knowledge of how films are structured (the good guy always wins unless it's a horror, in which case everyone dies).

Year 10Period 6Tuesday, Term 3, Week 1

This is my second day with them. Yesterday I told them what co-construction means, we talked about what we have to do and options of things that we could do. There's quite a buzz as the students are talking about the different ways they can present the learning, and the different things that they might look at. As it turns out, Maui Dolphins are a feature in year 10 science as well, so many of them already have a good understanding of what's going on. The challenge is to extend that knowledge and use it to do practical things with.

The Have-To-Do tasks are:

• Formal Writing
• Creative Writing
• Oral Presentations

As with the year 9s, they will be writing letters to John Key lobbying for the protection of Maui's dolphins for their formal writing.

Processes and Strategies

Again, these students are dead keen on getting out of the classroom and seeing how the issues are being tackled at the ground level. They are also really excited about the concept of skyping experts.

Purposes and Audiences

The ranges of purposes and audiences that they considered is vast. When they are looking for information to find out what the issues are for Maui Dolphins, they have considered a wide range of texts from podcasts for the general public to websites for students to propaganda aimed at business.

Ideas

Using the brainstorm from yesterday, they have identified issues of mining, oil drilling, habitat, fishing, pollution, and diseases. We have talked about how these ideas will develop and unfold as we go through the unit.

Language Features

Film is the major text for this unit, and so the focus will be on film techniques, and how those techniques communicate the messages.

Structure

We will look at the different ways letters are structured, particularly for persuasive, lobbying type letters. We will also look at how the film is structured.

Because this is this class' first co-construction, we have stopped today with the Making Meaning strand. The students then took a vote as to which way around they wanted to cover the material. The options were to study the film first or to research the dolphins first. First vote was a dead heat - 15 voted to start research first. I then gave them 5 minutes to debate between themselves for a re-vote. Re-vote gave a slim majority to starting with the research first.

Student Voice and Respect

I love student voice, I advocate for to students to use their voice, but I don't always like what I hear - and sometimes it's not the words by themselves, but the tone or the body language that accompanies them. Sometimes, when my students use their voice, they hit on the one thing that makes me rage.

"When are we getting our marking back?"

Usually just an annoying question that presupposes I have nothing else to do when I get home than to mark their essays or static images. On the last day of last term though - by crikey. Immediately after handing in his static image, one student asked when he was going to get it back.

My response: "You mean the one you've just handed in? The one that I haven't had a chance to even look at yet?"
"Yeah".

A conversation ensued with body language that overtly stated that nothing else mattered in my life except getting this child's grade back to him. He is a big advocate for student voice, is on the student council, and thinks that everything he says should happen, just because he's voicing his opinion. I don't want my kids growing up thinking that student voice means that if they say they want something done their way, that they will get their way. This student had no regard for anything except himself - and for student voice to work I believe that students need to have empathy and understand that sometimes, what they're saying might not get them what they want.

But, how do I find that balance?
Any comments/suggestions/experiences gratefully received.

Train A Child in the Way They Should Go

I was at a conference over the holidays where one of the speakers, Paul Scanlon, was talking about The Crisis of Human Flourishing. He started with this excerpt that highlights how current methods of education are crippling people.

Clifton, D. O. and Nelson, P. Soar with Your Strengths: A Simple Yet Revolutionary Philosophy of Business and Management, Dell Publishing, New York (1992).

This is something that I really engaged with. I've always believed that we're all wired individually, that we're all given gifts and that they're not all the same. Some are called to teach, some to be accountants, others to be doctors. Some are happiest when they're dancing, painting, or making music. It doesn't matter what spectrum of life lights their fire; they are all valid, relevant giftings, and they can all open doors and opportunities.

Who am I, then, to come along and instill a sense of failure and snobbery by telling a student that what they want to do isn't good enough? Or that what I want to teach is better for them than what they want to learn. Last term I did a 9 week module called #hackyrclass. This started to change my thinking about pedagogy, about co-construction, and about modes of assessment. This module taught me to do what Paul Scanlon taught in his session - to train a child in the way they should go, not in the way I think they should go. Everybody has a different gifting. Everybody has a different path. Everybody has a different life journey and skill set. My job is to create the environment to let students flourish and be the very best them they can be; to help them discover their giftings, their passions, the things that light their fires. To help them find their course and then set them free.

So my challenge - how am I going to take this teaching, apply it to what I've already learnt over the past 2-3 months, and use it to make changes to the students' experiences?

Some goals are:

Year 9

At the end of last term we agreed to do a unit around the Maui's Dolphins. We have chosen the text, and first week back we will begin the co-constructing process. They have just done a co-construction with me, and I expect this one will be even better and even more creative.

Year 10

I can't decide on one film to do this term due to the vast range of abilities and interests in my class. I suspect I might be co-constructing units with kids on more than one film. Power of One will suit some students, Gorillas in the Mist will suit another group, and I may also need an overtly sporty option. This is less daunting than it sounds - I'm gaining confidence in co-construction and look forward to actively engaging the diverse learners in this class. I know Power of One, I know Gorillas in the Mist, and I can quickly learn a sporty movie. Utilising the co-construction skills I practised last term, we will build our learning for this term together. These students are phenomenal when given the chance to be creative, so I know they'll rise to the challenge.

Year 11

These students are working on writing summative tasks this term, along with exams. They have already had the tasks - they are at 'fix up stage'. I have identified the students who have yet to hit their potential due to inappropriate tasks, and will sit with them to work out appropriate tasks to try and meet their passions and skills. 

Year 12

I have created eight writing assessment tasks that meet the curriculum requirements but are aimed at the different interests and skills that are already present in my classroom. I have included 'free choice' tasks and prescribed tasks to try and reach the different ways the students evidence their learning. They can choose any tasks they like (they need to have 4) to finish their writing portfolio. They've already done several that I've told them to do, so I look forward with interest to see how the grades come out with self-selected assessments. My challenge with my seniors is to re-instill the creativity that has been trained out of them along the way.

"People don't grow into creativity; they are born with it. People grow out of creativity".

-- Paul Scanlon, 2014.

Paul Scanlon's message is available here:

The Crisis of Human Flourishing

Learning to Learn A Co-Construction Experiment Part 3

I have been absolutely buzzing this week! My year 9s and my year 11s have been the most engaged that I have seen them all year. They are good kids who will do the work under 'normal' circumstances, but to see them engaged because they want to be... that has lit my fire and given me even more drive to get kids co-constructing their learning modules.

Haha - learning modules - I say that like I'm not an English teacher in an English faculty!!

Just because I am an English teacher in an English faculty doesn't mean I can't co-construct cross-curricular units though - so I have discovered. I've always been really big on cross-curricular learning. I can do lots on my own - I'm trained as an English, Classics, Art History and Social Sciences teacher. I do talk to the teachers from other faculties who also teach my year 9 class - and work out what I can do to work with them.

I love it, it's fun. Like so many of my kids said today - they learn more when it's fun. I work better when I'm having fun (probably why my marking is so often at the bottom of my to do list!!). Keep changing things up, keep learning new things, keep it interesting, and I'm engaged. Why should I expect any less of my kids? Or for my kids. They are but people after all. Smaller (some of them!), younger people; but people. They know they want and what works for them. Why not give it to them with a little bit of stretching on the side? You know, the kind where we recognise that yes, young Johnny, you are an amazing visual learner. Shall we add some kinaesthetic learning to that mix too? And so on and so forth as we expose their young selves to the wonderful world that is around us.

The experiment has ended really well. And no, not everyone achieved 'excellence' on their presentations, but every single one of the kids increased their knowledge base and skill bank.

At the beginning of the unit every child participating wrote me a 15-minute essay on what they thought Learning to Learn is. And today, their presentations show me that they know more. Lots more. As they've worked on this project, they have identified purposes and audiences, ideas, language features, and structure. They haven't interpreted everything they've read perfectly, but they've given it a really good go. I couldn't be prouder of these kids.

Students, I would really love if you would contribute your experiences of this unit at the bottom of this blog. This unit wasn't just about me learning, it was about you learning. I would love if you would share with my Professional Learning Network what you enjoyed about the unit, and what you didn't. What worked, and why; what didn't work for you and why. Reflect on the journey that you had - what did you get out of this project. Leave a comment at the bottom of this blog knowing you are reaching a network of educators who are interested in what you have to share so that they can be informed and use your experiences to change their practise and the learning experiences for the students in their classes.

This isn't just my story - it's yours.