Appraisal 2021

 Appraisal - Interim Summary Report: Jean Batten School 2021

Appraisee:	Kathy Teo
Appraiser:	Tali Mamea - Syndicate Leader

General Review 

Reflect on the following:

• Lockdown/Distance Learning

This year we went on the longest lockdown, we were faced with many challenges but even greater opportunities. Distance learning was definitely a challenge, a challenge for myself as an educator but also our students who were at home.  In the beginning of the lockdown in Term 3 we were pushing for learning packs to go out to ensure everyone was learning at home. I believe this enabled more students to work independently, gaining more student agency. Our virtual lessons on zoom started out great but as the lockdown extended, less students were joining zoom sessions and completed online tasks. Our kids weren’t as excited to do the online work anymore. With the term 4 topic focussing on our tamariki we were able to put the excitement back into our work, creating more engaging content. Although parents were working and taking care of their household we still managed to stay in contact. Alot of the work our students received from MOE was difficult so guiding them through it by phone call was a struggle, but the outcome was worth it. Our online learners used a collaborative document to ask questions and ask for assistance, this allowed them to take ownership of their learning and ask for help when they needed it.  

• Digital Competency

Coaching our tamariki to learn the necessary skills that will be required of them in the wider world because Digital technologies is teaching our tamariki how technology works, and how to utilize that knowledge to solve problems. It is important that we foster these skills. I noticed during the distance learning our students struggled to use the tools on certain applications and needed assistance all the time. These skills are needed especially in the 21st century, we’re living in a digital era, with the support of our school community and whanau we can help encourage our students to be more digitally aware. Providing crash courses for our parents can help students when they are working from home.

• Student Agency

This year students have been encouraged to work more independently- by accessing their work online, completing tasks, SSR and working from home on their own. Almost all of my learning tasks were accessed online through our classroom sites, students would have to login to their own Google account and find their group activities. My work was descriptive enough for students to work independently but what I found was students weren’t engaged in the work and would get distracted easily. Distance learning was definitely a learning curve, it was a time students needed to be more independent and do their work. In future I need to make more of an effort in structuring my work in a way that helps students become more empowered to learn and encourages student engagement.

• Whare Tapa Wha

Te Whare Tapa Wha illustrates the four dimensions of wellbeing, this is a model we have been using to inform our students of the importance of taking care of their health. Students must understand all four dimensions in order to fully understand what the model represents. As an educator I struggled to fully understand the model, so I taught Te Whare Tapa Wha as health and basic knowledge. My lessons were based on the meanings of the dimensions and what it means to them.  As the year progressed it was great to see students reflecting on their health using the Te Whare Tapa Wha model- especially during the lockdown, students shared how they feel and how the lockdown has affected them. It’s hard to get students to understand the dimensions, we all understand Taha Tinana but diving deep into Taha Whanau, Taha Hinegaro and Taha Wairua puts too much pressure on students. To make the model more meaningful we only did simple tasks, where they know what the dimensions are but if you were to ask the students to explain it further it’ll put too much strain on their basic understanding.

• Blogging

Blogs are used for reflection, updates and sharing of work. The classroom blog is updated quite regularly with student work and classroom work. Also I have a professional blog that is used for reflecting on what I have been doing to better myself as a teacher, alsong with this students have their own blogs. Blogging is a lot of work, I don’t use it for what it is mostly just for reflecting and sharing work. The only audience and viewer is myself so I can’t really say that I am blogging it’s more of I’m just using it. Students only know to upload their work once it is completed, once they’ve uploaded their work that’s it. I need to make more of an effort to ensure students understand fully the purpose of blogging and making it meaningful, this for my own blog also.

• Professional Development

This year we’ve grown our knowledge on areas of our teaching we needed a lot of help in. DMIC has provided a new insight to students' math learning, making content relatable and shifting the responsibility of learning on them. Also Alexis' writing cycle helped me to structure my writing lessons that benefit all students. This year we went into lockdown, and suddenly we were working and meeting with students online virtually. The Mindlab programme is helping me to grow my skills and knowledge of digital technologies and how to better support our students to utilize technology better in class and out.

List of Evidence Verified By Appraiser

These aspects are independently verified as being completed during the appraisal period.

Folau team meeting notes

Dr Alexis meeting notes

Mindlab session notes 

Classroom Site

Classroom Blog

Professional Blog

Target students 

Google classroom 

Long term folder- In class

 Summary of Achievement of Professional Responsibilities, Our Code Our Standards

1. Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnership  Demonstrate commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Tiriti o Waitangi partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand	Celebrate language weeks Collaboratively creating classroom rules  Reading activities- Content relating to Tangata whenua tangata Long term plans
2.  Professional Learning Use inquiry, collaborative problem-solving and professional learning to improve professional capability to  impact on the learning of all achievers.	Reflecting on teaching and add to professional blog Upskill on digital technologies through Mindlab Adding student work and sharing in on classroom blog DMIC observations and lesson plans Dr Alexis writing cycle
3.  Professional Relationships                                                                                                          Establish and maintain professional relationships and behaviours focused on the learning and wellbeing of each learner.	Connecting with parents through parent conferences  Maintaining relationship with families through Google classroom updates on notices Student reports Assessing students through Gloss, writing tests, and PM Benchmark
4.  Learning-Focused Culture Develop a culture that is focused on learning, and is characterised by respect, inclusion, empathy, collaboration and safety	Conducting and planning spelling bee competition for team folau Classroom Waka Ensuring students follow classroom rules and reviewing them weekly
5.  Design For Learning Design learning based on curriculum and pedagogical knowledge, assessment information and an understanding of each learner’s strengths, interests, needs, identities, languages and cultures.	Creating lesson and tasks uploading to our classroom site Making tasks meaningful and relatable to students- creating online tasks and uploading to classroom sites
6.  Teaching Teach and respond to learners in a knowledgeable and adaptive way to progress their learning at an appropriate depth and pace.	Classroom sites that has classroom tasks and work  Testing informs lessons and tasks

Areas for Future Development 

• Learn Te reo Maori and attend after school Maori classes

• Reflect more on my teaching and areas of improvement

• Encourage more collaboration In class so students can be more independent 

• Integrate digital technologies and programmes more into my teaching 

• Utilize digital technologies more effectively 

• Set achievable goals 

• Be more spontaneous and explore different ways of teaching 

Closing Remarks 

Based on your appraisal, this clearly indicates that you are knowledgeable in the NZ Curriculum through your planning, organisation and teaching.  You  have met the requirements of Our Code Our standards as a professional teacher and also working with our community. Your evidence and observations depicts this and your reflections are instrumental in the ongoing development of your teaching and learning. Great to see that you are aware of areas for future development and I have no doubt that you will continue to achieve these. 

Te Whare Tapa Wha: Lockdown

DMIC: Time

 Measurement: DMIC

This Term we focussed on Measurement. I thought about the problems I would give and context. Lately students have taken interest in cinema movies and I thought I would make a problems around ti. This way students can relate and be more engaged. 

Reflection of lesson

Students enjoyed the problem and even explored possibilies and what could happen with the "story". They thought about time and whether the would make the movie time, what they could do with all the wait time. The context was relatable and students have knowledge to help them inform their answers and decisions.

I would re-do the lesson and change the times a bit, that way students can think more about how long it would take them to get in the actual mall or the walk time to and from the bus. What is their is weather issues or bus problems. What would happen then?

DMIC: Statistics

This term we have been looking closely at how can we support our learners in math. DMIC was a programme that I started last year, and now the rest of the school will be giving it a go. In class I am currently doing DMIC lessons twice a week, more if needed(based on the outcome of the lesson). This term our strand was statistics. This is what the elaborations state about statistical literacy:

Statistical literacy

S3-2: Evaluate the effectiveness of different displays in representing the findings of a statistical investigation or probability activity undertaken by others.

I notice that most students undertand and know how to make a bar graph, but could not label or say what it needed. So we did that as a warmup each lesson on statistics, we labelled and looked at various types of graphs- Line, dot, bar and pie graphs. Going thorugh the axis and labels each graph had. This will help students in thier groups when problem solving. 

Warmp ups are usually for me simple math games, but to encourae and contribute to students better understanding of the lesson and task. I changed the warmup to suit the problem. This help quiet alot in our lessons as students could read the graph and understand what each part/label was about.

Using the elaborations as the mentors have told us has helped me to be more explicit in my teaching approach in math. A lesson I had done with a group of students was around the "free lunches" our school recieves. I made sure to make the content relatable for students and so they have something to connect to. Students analysed a graph about school lunches and made stataement about what they noticeand wonder.

I was able to see students discuss what they notice and see just from looking at the graph. This was all about understading the story of the problem. 

What is it about? Who is in the story? What do you know about attendance?

After this lesson I would work on extending the problme further so that students can critically think about the content and problems and look further e.g. How can attendance be better? What other situations or obstacles impacted this graph?