Google sites

Monday 30th November

Had a brilliant PD session with Julie from core education, working on 'Google sites'. I have established a good start to my site for the Lifestyles group, which is a combination of Home Economics, Health and Physical a Education. I am really happy with the start that I've made and am starting to see how I can use this fluently with the classes.

Staff and Students engage in the taste testing opportunity 

Fresh fruit salads made by my Year 10 Classes. This was selected the most popular on the day

As a school we are looking at improving the healthy options for our students in our school canteen, within my  Year 10 classes we trialed three different foods, a crispy chicken that is made from cornflakes and lots of spices, which is then grilled, to a choc chip biscuit that replaces the sugar with apple sauce and the fruit salad. Each taster was asked to place a token in the jar of the product they would most like to see the school canteen. The fruit salad was the overall winner and was trialed in the school canteen that following Friday.

Have been working with my Year 10 classes to try and get them to be creative when designing alternative and healthier burger concepts. The above picture was of the rice burger in which there was no bread used but was replaced with the rice. The patties incorporated the Japanese flavours of a teriyaki glaze. Students were a little nervous about the wasabi but many gave it a go.

PD at Papanui on Thursday for Hospitality. This is the second of our cluster meetings and it has been so beneficial being able to get together with other staff from around ChCh schools to see where we are at in comparison.

We spent the morning going through moderation and checking to make sure our marking was okay. It was such a nice feeling to know that the doubts and issues that i was having were shared with the group.

The middle session was looking at units and having pair and group discussions with people doing similar units, seeing how they were run and sharing some of my ideas. I told the other schools about my blogging of the paper work for hospitality and many were thinking of doing something similar with their classes.

In the afternoon CPIT came in and talked to us about what they are offering at their facility today.
 http://www.cpit.ac.nz/study-options/our-study-interest-areas/food-and-hospitality
It was good to finally understand the links and see the pathways that my students can then move onto. Was really interested in the new Degree of Hospitality they are looking at running in 2017, some of us staff even volunteered to be tasters for the new course.

October 20th
Today I tried a new teaching philosophy in my Childcare class: Reggio Emila Approach.
The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education which values the child as strong, capable and resilient; rich with wonder and knowledge. Every child brings with them deep curiosity and potential and this innate curiosity drives their interest to understand their world and their place within it.
The child is incharge of the direction in which their learning travels. 

So today I gave my students of what an Reggio Emilia lesson would look like, they spent time gathering objects from outside, each returning with a variety of objects. We talked about why they selected those objects and then referenced them to spring and the changes we see in nature during spring time. The students were then asked to design pictures that would give us a story. Below are examples of their work.students said this is one of the best lessons they have done in childcare this year.

Monday 14th
Tried making Gnocchi tonight as i am making it with my Hospo crew tomorrow, so needed to make sure i knew the process. Was fairly straight forward but need to make sure i boil the Gnocchi longer than what i did i think. Think the kids will have fun trying to do this.

professional learning

Have had a peer show and tell at school today showing the awesome study staff are doing with their classes and Google apps.

6. conceptualize, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme

I designed these resources for my year 10 classes for a couple of reasons.
1. As part of my KEP observations looking at co-operative activities where students needed to gather different informations from their sheets so that at the end of the activity each student had identical maps.
2. It was about discursive practice.
The activity varied between classes and I found the class that had more consistent and lessons that had better flow completed the activity way better than the second class was learning had been more disjointed. On reflection I need to go back to the second class and fill in the gaps that they are missing.

Tuesday 3 Feb

Tried doing expert groups with my Childcare class today, as I thought it would encourage communication and force them to have discussions. However, it was an EPIC fail. Students ended up going into their shells and ended up working independently rather than sharing and discussing ideas. When it came to teaching they just showed them their notes and the rest copied.

However on a positive I included a third phase to this activity where they have to pair up and one is the recorder and the other holds osprey with words that could fill the gaps. Between the two they must decide which best suits. It was through this activity that I could see what information they had taken on board during the 1st and 2nd parts which were encouraging.

On reflection I would certainly do this activity again as it allows the students to take accountability for their learning, creates an environment in which they can be confident to share their ideas and direct the learning in a direction in which they understand. Also the repetition of seeing the information through a couple a different parts will hopefully allow that information to be retained more.

27th Jan

Day Two of Professional Learning looked at Raising Maori Achievement. It was a really interesting session, the ideas weren't new but they really made me look at things in a different angle. Even though I am already creating good relationships with my students i still feel like these more i can do, starting with my form class, especially as they approach NCEA L1 this year. Tomorrow is their first day back an i'm going to get them to create a jigsaw puzzle for me that answers questions that tells me things around them i am unaware of and their goals and aspirations for the year.

A quote Jarnelle used
"if we teach today as we did yesterday we rob our tamariki of tomorrow" - John Dewey helped me understand the purpose and reason for the change to Modern Learning Environment. Its not all about the flashy equipment, digital technology, and room layout, but it's about preparing our students for the "Creative Era" in which careers/jobs will require the skills involved within that MLE.
I am starting to see the link or alignment with the other things we are doing such as the new Year 9 kete and the teaching for inquiry 'Kia Eke Panuka'. Therefore a lot of my blog over the next 12 months will show my involvement with the Kia Eke Panuka (KEP) scheme and cultural responsive systems and how they will influence my teaching and hopefully students learning.

26th Jan

First day back at school. The staffroom was a hum with everyone's Summer Holiday stories, from those that had traveled a far to those that just enjoyed the Christchurch sun.
However down to business..........

HHS strategic plan and our Developmental Appraisal was discussed in the annual first day staff meeting. The common trend spoken about during the day was that its important to be creating environments in our departments and classrooms where TEACHING = Relationships for Learning
#professional learning

The school has been using Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching Profile which looks at the following 6 elements as effective teacher-student interactions.












How does this link with Hospitality and Home Ec
1. Manaakitanga - pronounce names correctly, write up on the board the date in eng, Maori and Pasifika, signs around the room are multicultural

2. Mana Motuhake - having high expectations, outlining the steps taken to get to Merit and Excellence in a scaffolding manner so the pathway is there for them to create their own learning direction. Giving them that feedback that they can use to build their learning from

3.Nga whakapiringatang - using PB4L effectively so that behaviour is controlled and the environment is safe for those to learn and be comfortable in expressing opinion and ideas.

4. Wananga - using IT for the students to blog about their practical lessons and use this as a reflection tool that allows themselves and others to critique the final products. Ensure that a broad method of teaching is occurring so that it caters for different learning styles/abilities.

5. Ako - that student/teacher learning is occurring and utilizing experts in different fields to pass on their knowledge and experience with both teacher and students. Ensure that learning is promoted in a two way street, tht it doesn't all have to come from the teacher.

Kotahitanga - ensuring that the feedback for each student is discursive - relevant to them and the education path they are on, it's meaningful, achievable yet challenging!!!!!

During Sue's Professional Development Session we watched a couple of clips from Rita Pearsons, I found her to be an inspiring speaker that made you feel good about the profession we are in and the differences we can make to the next generation

Professional Knowledge in Practice

6. Conceptualise , Plan and Implement an Appropriate Learning Programme

HHS is currently going through implementing a new Yr9 programme following on from the introduction of the 7-8 programme last year. We have introduced 5 new Ketes that will be the umbrella for all of our units. 

Still working at this blogging thing, seems to be harder that we first thought. Not much progress, but lots of laughter

January 19th 2015

Holiday prep underway over mock tails and food. Everyone together learning 'Blogger' and getting their Google Sites underway