Spark M.I.T day - take 2!

My initial inquiry was looking at ways to improve engagement and learning outcomes for our year 9 students through blogging.  Before coming to the college, the students in the primary schools in our cluster had been blogging since year 0 and I wanted to implement blogging as 'normal practice' in year 9 social studies programmes.  This was one strategy that I could see working in helping with transitioning from primary school to secondary school which has always been a challenge.

Although blogging at our school is something that is done dependant on the teacher (or department), I decided to focus on how we could implement it within my department for our first unit on sustainability.  I set up class blogs and helped to ensure that students had access to their individual blogs.  In our department meetings, we found opportunities to share lessons when we would write a class blog and what we wanted students to write and reflect on in their individual blogs. Looking back at our terms work, I found that my teachers added a few blogs here and there on their blogs, but rarely commented on students' work. On reflection, I have found that the teachers were hesitant and may have needed more guidance on blogging.  I had taken it for granted they would regularly blog and comment on their students blogs.  I also felt that like the kids, teachers too needed an authentic audience and purpose for blogging and commenting.  To confirm this, I conducted a student voice survey that found 78% of our students found that blogging helped them with their learning and that it was beneficial to help them succeed because other people were reading them which gave them purpose.  One student even commented about their future job prospects:

"Yes, blogging helps us. Because when you post all of your idea's, thinking/knowledge and that on your blog, their might be people from around the country that work at a very special big company or job like that and they might like our post or what ever and maybe want to make something out of it and stuff".

Our Spark M.I.T day today has helped me re-evaluate my focus slightly that in order to ensure engagement for our kids, the teachers need to be engaged and on-board.  My next steps will include showing the teachers the results of the survey and creating multiple opportunities for them to write their blogs and understand the value in using them in their teaching and learning pedagogy.

To support me in this process, we have been paired up with Spark 'Buddies' who provide insight and 'another pair of eyes' on our inquiry process.  As part of the Spark Foundation's initiative Raven Garcia has the privilege of being my buddy this year.  We discussed ways in which I could use strategies that could engage my department like 'Toastmasters' and 'Linked in' for ideas which were really useful sites that I will explore further.  As I move towards a different (but related) focus, I am excited to take up the challenge.

Our Spark M.I.T team getting to know each other

Meeting the @SPARK M.I.T crew!

Today Hinerau (pronounced He-neh-row - roll the r) and I travelled to the Spark headquarters to begin our journey as M.I.T inquirers into issues that we are interested in.

In our first session we introduced ourselves and it was interesting to hear how our Manaiakalani outreach programme allows for 'Sparkers' to join us and share in their digital journals.  We met Lynne LeGros, who is the CEO of the Spark Foundation and shared the other initiatives that Spark are involved in like being the creators of the 'givealittle' pages etc.  It was lovely to hear the stories of how they are involved in the community and their invaluable support of our Manaiakalani M.I.T initiative.  Lynne also alluded to the fact that we will have a Spark support person assigned to us throughout this journey which is exciting to know.

After morning tea, we each shared what our inquiries were and thanks to some invigorating grilling by Dorothy senior, we felt like we were getting to bottom of our inquiries - I definitely needed this time to sort mine out.

One of many hypothesis that I'd discovered is that kids in our cluster that are coming to year 9, come with skills that we don't utilise.  The sharing component of our 'learn, create, share' model is definitely under-utilised at our school, and with the majority of students arriving at year 9 having blogged for years and years, my mission is to figure how we can roll it out in our school so that it becomes the norm.

Is it the teachers? Is it the lack of knowledge or will or a bit of both?  Is it the culture of learning that we have?  Wait, but do we know that blogging works and does it raise achievement?

I think part of it is that teachers at the college don't understand the purpose of blogs.  Many feel that it is about exposing their inner thoughts and emotions to the world and they feel vulnerable.  I totally understand how that feels and this being only like my fourth blog ever, it has taken me ages to write because the self barrier I've imposed comes from a misunderstanding of the purpose of blogs or the audiences I am writing for.

 I need a new photo!

After a scrumptious lunch, we were asked to revisit our inquiries and make sure that we were happy with what we'd originally had written on the website.  Andrea from Point England pointed out that she liked my photo which was nice but totally irrelevant to the what we were supposed to be doing and distracted everyone who were probably looking at my photo and thought 'what the heck, she doesn't even look like that!' haha.

Back to the issue at hand, when looking at my inquiry,  I'm happy with it for now and know that I will come up against a couple issues, but after today, I feel confident that the support we have will allow us to give it ago - let's do this Sparkers!!!

Getting our inquiry hats - Spark M.I.T 2017