Manaiakalani Orientation 2022

Kia ora koutou, it was great to be part of the Manaiakalani Orientation event, held over the last couple of days at Tāmaki College. Beginning the journey working in South Auckland this year, as part of the Te Purupura Ngātahi o Manaiakalani cluster, today has been a very helpful exercise to see how new teachers are introduced to Manaiakalani kaupapa and what is done to engage them with what we do, right from the beginning. 

There were many highlights, but what I always enjoy is hearing Dorothy speak about the Manaiakalani story and her love for what we do. I have heard the story many times over the last year, but I always seem to get something new out of every talk. 

Maria and me are running out Te Purupura Ngātahi o Manaiakalani orientation next week, and the last couple of days have been really helpful for giving me some ideas for what we could do with our orientation event.

Ngā mihi 

Jeremy

Dorothy delivering her Manaiakalani story korero

A fun activity involving scenarios and acting

Dorothy talking us through the scenarios

Hāpara Champion Scholar

Happy New Year everyone!

Very happy to announce that I am now a Hāpara Champion Scholar! Really enjoyed the opportunity to grow my knowledge and confidence in using the Hāpara tools, and looking forward to use these new skills to support teachers and learners!

T-shaped Literacy: Skills for Juniors - Dr Rebecca Jesson @ Pt England School, Mon 21st June 2021

Kia ora koutou, 

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to hear from Dr Rebecca Jesson on the fundamentals of what effective T-shaped literacy looks like in Junior classes. T-shaped literacy is an area which I am interested in learning more about, having first heard about the concept within in the last year. In all honesty, it's a concept that I have struggled to understand, never really having an opportunity to see it in practice. Without the chance to see it being modelled in person and without an example of a teacher plan being implemented in person, it never really clicked with me.

That said, I really enjoyed the way that Dr Jesson broke the presentation down into practical steps and 'how to' do t-shaped literacy for early readers. Speaking to other facilitators who attended, they were all in agreement that it would have been really beneficial for junior teachers.  

A realisation that I made during the presentation was the fact that I had been getting confused between the idea of 'topic' vs 'theme' when it comes to putting together a set of texts. I was prompted to reflect on what are the transferable ideas? What can be taken from text 1 and applied across texts 2, 3, 4, etc?

All in all, a really helpful talk that I thoroughly enjoyed. Dr Jesson is a fountain of knowledge in this area, and I am looking forward to further opportunities of hearing her speak again in the future. 

Click on the screenshots of the Slides and YouTube video below to revisit Dr Jesson's content.

Ngā mihi 

Dr Jesson presenting her content

Kent Somerville's impressive livestream set up

Link to Dr Jesson's Slides 

live stream of the event

Manaiakalani Toolkits Term 2 2021 - Simplifying testing with Google Forms

Kia ora everyone,

It was great to be able to lead a Toolkit this afternoon on the topic of using Google Forms to create self-marking tests. This idea was birthed out of me getting fed up with the hours of marking of tests done on paper, such as the Schonell Spelling test, Maths basic facts, etc. I thought to myself that there has to be a more simple way of getting assessments done, without the hours of time spent marking, So, I did some Googling and watching of YouTube tutorials, and realised that I could solve my problem using Google Forms. I tried it with my class during mid-year testing last year, and it was a success! 

In terms of how Forms can help in this situation, the 'Quiz mode' feature of Forms is the key here - setting an answer key for each question and appointing a point value for each question. This way, as soon as the student submits the Form, it is marked instantly and the data is then readily available for teachers to view and analyse.

Check out the Meet recording and the Slides below! 👇

A new chapter with Manaiakalani!

Kia Ora Koutou, 

The start of the new term has seen the start of a new job for me. Having finished up at Wesley Intermediate at the end of last term, I have begun my role with Manaiakalani as a PLD Facilitator. At the moment, my week is made up of 3 days in a mixture of schools from the Tamaki and South Auckland clusters, as well as 2 days of DFI - 1 online and 1 in person. Every day is different, and I am loving the chance to get a different perspective of the awesome learning, creating and sharing that is happening in our kura across the wider Manaiakalani outreach. 

Check out some of the photos of my first two weeks below👇

More updates to come!

Taking a Cybersmart lesson at Glen Taylor School 

Matt Goodwin using Explain Everything at Tamaki Primary

'Learn Create Share' staff meeting at Ōtāhuhu Primary

Dorothy Burt talking about Docs on Day 1 of our Auckland Face to Face DFI cohort

Matt Goodwin at the junior bilingual unit at Tamaki Primary

Dorothy during the Connecting with Manaiakalani session W2 Auckland F2F DFI

Talking 'Taming our Tabs' on DFI W2

Hāpara Champion Educator!

Kia ora everyone,

I am happy to announce that I have received my recognition for completing the Hāpara Champion Certification Program earlier this month! I am really looking forward to putting into practice the skills that I have learnt during this course.

Below is the link to the Hāpara Workspace that I created as part of the final assignment. I based it on the e-asTTle Writing test, as this was a need that I was facing in my school at the time. I am happy for teachers to make a copy of it and use it in their schools.

Ngā mihi  

      

Click on the screenshot above to check out the Workspace and make a copy of it for yourself