My First Term as a STEAM Specialist @MatuaNgaru

An astute reader of this blog would probably notice that I haven't written anything here for about half a year now. A reader who knows me personally would also know that despite that fact, much has been going on in my life. I'm the type of person who, when opportunity comes knocking, finds it quite difficult to say no. Maybe it's because I read too much into the movie Yes Man. I'm not sure.

Well, opportunity certainly has come knocking a lot for me in the last six months. I'm here today to tell you about one of those opportunities that I've seized: being a STEAM specialist educator at a new school, Matua Ngaru in Auckland. Perhaps my story can help you. Perhaps it will just be an interesting read. Either way, here's what I did, how it went, and what I learned.

For some context: Matua Ngaru is a school that first opened its doors to learners on February 7th, 2019. Since about late August 2018, I've been working for the school, doing various things to get ready. We knew it was going to be a lot of work, but boy, did it ever exceed our expectations in that regard! Our first term has pretty much seemed like a non-stop school day that lasted 10 weeks. There have been ups and there have been downs, but no matter how those balance out in the end, I can say this for certain: I learned a lot!

Up until this point, I had never really spent too much time teaching STEAM specifically - unless you count robotics and a few things I've done with Lego - so being told I'd see every Matua Ngaru learner once a week to do some STEAM stuff with them was quite a scary proposition (What if I'm no good at this thing I've been trying to do for the last several years? What if I can't make it work?). Luckily, I was given this task well in advance, so I had time to prepare and think about it. I had some help and, obviously, I also had all those previous conversations with people who HAD done this before. It's safe to say I came into this with TONS of ideas.

Our school is divided at the moment into two Kāinga: Wheke, for our Year 1-3 learners and Popoto, for our Year 4-8 learners. As a school we decided I'd see four groups from Wheke and 2 from Popoto each week. To make things simple, I decided to just make two lessons each week and repeat them. While we were planning everything, we hadn't yet met any of the learners and we did't know what skills or STEAM experience they would be bringing with them when they arrived on day 1. While this decision was not a total disaster, it was clear there needed to be some more differentiation after a few weeks. The difference between a Year 1 learner who has just started school and a Year 3 learner can be quite big, and having them do the same things after a while didn't seem that great of an idea. I made it work for the term, but now that we know the learners, we've grouped them differently - and have added another group for the older children so I can give them a bit more time. These groups have been determined by the maths groupings in their kāinga, so there will be less of a range of abilities and experience within the groups.

My plan for the term was to go through as many different STEAM related areas and ideas so that I could 1) get a good understanding of where every child was and 2) introduce a lot of things that they will need going forward if my long term plans are to be realized. This plan worked quite well on some weeks and on others I felt like I needed more time. The very idea of only seeing a group once a week for 40 minutes to an hour is troublesome when it comes to STEAM, so I also had the potential problem that if I started something that needed to be kept for a further week, it would be difficult to manage all the resources.

I tried to make sure I was covering as many of the STEAM areas as I could, as well as giving a good variety of activities to introduce certain ideas to the children. Overall, I think it was a good plan and that it went well. Almost every activity (even if I thought it wouldn't) was something that the majority of the children enjoyed. Not everything went as I had thought - there was definitely a skill gap for many of the children and most had never heard of things such as Sphero, Scratch or Makey Makey.

As far as individual lessons and activities went, I tried my best to 1) make them hands on, 2) connect them with our school's 4 C values (Creative, Curious, Communicative, Collaborative) and 3) highlight a specific role of STEAM professionals. So for example, some weeks we would look at what a scientist does and is, another week we would look at what an engineer does and is, and so on. As mentioned above, I only had two different lessons and they were usually related. For example, in one week I had the younger learners drive Sphero and the older ones code it. This worked well enough, but there were always children on the fringes for whom things were too easy or too hard. So in this upcoming term, I've decided to go with four different lessons/activities for my 7 groups. One group will be mostly play-based and experiential. This change was necessary because many of our youngest learners have shorter attention spans and had a hard time following when I talked of bigger concepts. I wanted to approach their learning in a different manner and will have the opportunity to do so with this grouping. I'll also have a Learning Assistant available for this and I plan on recruiting an older learner or two to assist in this session. I then three different lessons & activities for the remaining 6 groups - so two each lesson. They will range from a group I'll be trying to push quite far (as they have had some experience and are very keen learners) to a group of young and excited children who like what we're doing but just haven't done it before.

Another change I want to make this term is to highlight someone who's done something noteworthy in each session. I was inspired to do this by seeing various articles about Dr Katie Bouman who was the lead scientist in charge of taking the first picture of a black hole. I want to be able to give my learners some inspiration for what they could do and I thought this was a good way to do so.

Here's a look at a couple of the slides I've used this past term:

Lesson Design

Lesson Design

As some readers may also know about me, I've been working on a few projects through MakerEdNZ: namely Coding Across the Curriculum & the Monthly Maker Challenges. In this past term, I made an effort to tie these in together. Having been preparing for this year for a while now, I've not actually had a group of learners of my own to participate in these things, which is somewhat necessary for me to make them better. We've done two of the challenges now and one of the coding across the curriculum videos. I'm definitely going to keep using these (especially the Maker Challenges - which will be the topic of a post one of these days) as I feel like if given enough participants they could become a very meaningful way of sharing STEAM learning throughout New Zealand.  Here's the latest challenge I've made:

I've also been very lucky when it comes to resourcing this year. Despite being a new school (and not having had years to build up our resources) we've spent some money on some useful tools for me (and the rest of the school) to use with any STEAM learning experiences. Our first major purchase was a kit of 15 Sphero Bolt robots. We've had many of our children excited to learn on these and after only one session with me, many have discovered some interesting new ways to use them. The long term plan (at least until we get another set of robots in the future) is to use these once a term with each group to start build on their knowledge base around them. We've also managed a set of Makey Makeys (which again, went down very well with our learners) and have just ordered a set of Micro:Bits. I've been given a healthy budget to acquire more things so that has been super helpful, and there is a lot of that left, so I'm looking forward to exploring some of the things we can get for my future STEAM sessions.

Oh this is going to be fun... @MatuaNgaru @SpheroEdu #MakerEdNZ #ubiquitouslearning #waveofchange pic.twitter.com/Bael9LD1Nw

— Michael Davidson (@michaelteacher) December 12, 2018

Going forward I've got a clear plan of action. I will continue to do one-off sessions to get the learners more familiar with a variety of technologies and ways of engaging learning. We've been developing a series of inquiry processes that will be introduced more and more in my STEAM session, but also in our Trans-Disciplanary Projects - another aspect of our program that I'll be supporting. We're also looking at creating a few clubs to help push our more keen and older learners. Competitions are also going to be a focus for the remainder of the year, with us looking at the Epro8 and Lego First League as priorities.

I'm really excited both about what I've accomplished in one term, but also for what the future holds in this role. There is a lot to do, but I feel like I've made a great start!

For more information about the STEAM program at Matua Ngaru, visit our website.

Term 1 2016: Moving and Shaking

This past term was my first at a new school - Pakuranga Heights School. After having been at the same school for three and a half years and in the same room for the last 3 years, this was a big shift for me, especially since I moved classes in the middle of the term (and am planned to move once again in the middle of this term coming up). For the last two years I had also been in year 2. With a move up to year 3 and 4, it was almost as if I kept the same cohort of students from the last two years. It does make things a bit easier when you can see the progression of learning over a few years, even it I don't have the same children.

I have also been given some bigger responsibilities: eLearning Leader.

Despite the big changes to my school and level, I put a large amount of effort to change my practice. Though a bit stuck because of a lack of permanent learning space, I was able to actually work on that. I think it's important to have a classroom with a variety of well defined learning spaces. Starting out, I tried to get my students to design the classroom, but I'm pretty sure I didn't give them enough direction because the results were confusing. I couldn't really work with what they suggested. So I set the classroom up to my liking. And that work somewhat. Originally I had 28 desks and chairs, but I managed to scrounge a number of tables and got rid of the desks rather quickly. I've spent some time (and money!) on freshening up the "Shark Tank" - basically a tent, but it can hold 3 or 4 students. I've now got blackout curtains (4 blanket sewn together), "seaweed" at the entrance, lots of blue blankets and cushions, blue fairy lights and (my newest edition from a few days ago) speakers to be attached to an old smartphone which can play calming nature sounds. Several of my students do love to work in there, so hopefully that continues.

An Early Incarnation of the Shark Tank (in the old room)

Originally this term I was allowing students to take chairs all over the room, but that became something of a nightmare with students rushing in after morning tea and lunch to get the good chairs (swiss balls) and then nothing was ever put back. I've decided I do need to take something of a hard line on where the furniture is used (i.e no big chairs at the kneeling tables). I struggled with this decision mostly because I want to let the students have choice, but at the same time, they just get in the way of each other and actually need instruction on how to manage themselves. Maybe as time goes on, I can give that privilege back to them.

I've also worked on some other specific areas in the classroom. I've got a Lego building area (complete with thousands of Lego pieces) and a budding Makerspace/Tinker Table (more on this later).

Using the Lego Table

The learning space will once again undergo a transformation when we move in a little over a month, but for now, I've got lots in mind and will be able to take on board student suggestions.

One of my big focuses is shifting my teaching from me taking group after group after group to one where students are mostly self directed and I jump in when needed. This will be a long process, and I'd probably say I'm closer to the middle than either the beginning or the end (ha! there will never be an end, I think).

The first thing I made sure to do was to get my students set up with their own blogs. I did this last year, but have made a bigger effort to get students posting work (it also makes me think about what kind of work is worth sharing and leaning towards those kinds of activities). Many students are posting multiple times a week, though some still need a bit of extra motivation.  They are also commenting on lots of other blogs. We've got a pretty good amount of blogs for them to look at and the expectation is a blog comment a week. Most are doing this and the comments have been amazingly positive. We will continue to develop these communication skills with the students.

I have continued the independent activities I gave last year for reading. The year 3 and 4 students have proven to be much better (mostly) at completing these and understanding them. I do have my doubts about whether or not this is the most effective way to teach reading. I am still the one who chooses the books (though the more activities I have made, the more likely they can choose), but they are becoming much more independent. My biggest worry on this front is that it may be too much for them to do in a week, though I suspect it is more the format that they are getting used to. The activities themselves don't seem to be too difficult. We shall see.

Despite not (seemingly) putting as much effort into changing writing, it feels like I've got a pretty good thing going with it. I've mixed up my groups and have them working in partners. They are doing really well with coming up with good stories with partners and many of them are very aware of their targets for writing and are actively working to improve (some have already improved significantly). This is definitely the way forward, with a few more tweaks.

I've talked to my students about passion projects (Genius Hour/20% time). They desperately need to be allowed to do these things. After failing miserably last year with this, I'm hoping I can gain some traction with it soon.

My Maths Problem solving has come a long way as well this year. With some help from other teachers who have had the actual pd, I've changed up my questions (now I have three levels) and my groupings (there's only small differences between partners, even if the groups are extremely mixed) and have had some success. This will improve as students start using the tools more efficiently. I will also need to help support students with the way they interact (talking to each other, listening to each other).

 Two things that I tried this term were Twitter Chats and Mystery Hangouts. The twitter chats have had some mild success for some students. They do like posting the answers we come up with, but there is little interaction with other children. I've tried my best to seed discussions with other students, but they often don't reply to questions. I think this needs to stay as an optional Wednesday afternoon. Mystery Hangouts have been much more successful. All of my students (or most of them) are engaged during them. Even though they have a long way to go in terms of working together and trying to solve the problems, they are trying. Time will make them better at this. I already have a few scheduled for next term so they will get some more practice.

The last week of term was spent on what I called the Super Happy Fun Challenge. I put the class into 4 teams which were completely mixed up. They had a series of challenges (make a team name & chant, build something with lego, make a musical instrument with the Makey Makey, program Dash to get around and obstacle course, and make a digital storybook). Without going into a crazy amount of detail (because I could probably write a short novel on what I learned from that) it was eye opening. It showed me which children need to work on teamwork skills (hint: pretty much all of them), problem solving skills (less of them, but still a lot), communication skills (a good number) and just general creativity. We had a reflection about the whole thing on Friday afternoon and a lot of things also came out of that - one being that they don't really know what some of the dispositions mean, and the other being that they don't like it when things are hard. We will definitely be doing some sort of iteration of this challenge at the end of term 2.

Makey Makey Challenge

Robot Obstacle Course

 Becoming an eLearning Leader has had its challenges. A lot of what I've done this first term could easily fall under the category of Tech Help. I'm happy to help, but I don't want to be doing just that and I'm not really qualified to be that person. I agreed to a job which would help others with eLearning, not with broken technology. I've tried very hard this term to focus on things I can do to help. To lead by example. I don't want to force anything down anyone's throats. I think I've managed to start that slowly. My goal is to get a few more people on board with some things and slowly introduce new things.

So where to now? The biggest thing I want to focus on is making my students independent. I think one way I can do this is start to use SOLO a lot more in class. The school uses it so it's not like I'm starting from scratch with my students. The first thing I want to do is go over the school dispositions using SOLO (and make some sort of rubric for that). Then I want to make sure students understand how they need to interact - using talk moves and some other things I've made. Also, focusing on growth mindset and working through the dip/learning pit is going to be a massive focus this term.

With respect to my makerspace and passion projects, I've recently spent some money to get some electronics (Arduino, squishy circuits components, a launcher for Dash, some Makey Makeys) and some other materials for this along with getting some books from the public library. I want my students to have some chances at hands on activities. I will also be starting a code club next term, which will hopefully get some students (in my class and in others) using coding to create their own things. There are countless opportunities for these kinds of things. I need to make sure I am careful and not stretch myself too thin.

I'm also looking at changing reading a bit. I've read a bit lately about how mixed ability groups can be done in reading and am going to continue to try some new things to see if I can make reading a bit more fun for students. Or include it in some sort of passion project-type activities. Definitely keep tuned here for some stuff on that.

I have reached the limit of my ability to reflect in one go. Perhaps one goal for this term will be to do some sort of reflection every week instead of all in one go. We'll see. Until next time...