Toolkits: Awesome Audio

This afternoon I took part in the Awesome Audio toolkit run by Cheryl Torrie. We explored the chrome extension 'Mote', an accessibility feature that allows you to add voice note feedback or instructions for students within Google Docs, Slides and Sheets. 

When using Mote in Google Slides you can leave verbal instructions making this extension a great tool for rewindable learning. Having both written and spoken instructions gives students a better opportunity to access the learning. To demonstrate this I have used a slide from last week's distance learning that was set for the students who require teacher aid support in class. By clicking on the Mote speaker icon and format options you can change the colour and audio playback options for each voice note. A bonus feature is that a Mote recording can be copied and pasted into different slides.

To insert the spoken instructions I clicked on the Mote icon which can be found in your extension tool bar if you have pinned it, or next to the comments icon in Google Slides, (refer to the image below). After doing this a box appears on the screen and prompts you to begin your voice recording. What I liked was that the box is moveable so that meant the need to memorise instructions was removed. Recording the instructions allows you to add a personal comment eg: 'Have fun!' which is often in the text lost when written.

The Mote extension also allows you to leave sound bites in the comments tool. To use this feature you need to click on the purple Mote icon in the comments tool. You then record your feedback and click done. Your voice recording is then inserted into the comments tool and can be accessed by clicking the play button. The comments tool is the only place Mote can be accessed and used in Google Docs.

Mote recording sit in the cloud and allows you to see who has accessed (viewed and/or listened to) your voice recording. This was a great toolkit to attend as I am already thinking of ways this extension can be used creatively and purposefully to open the connections to our learning up to a wider range of students. 

Teaching as Inquiry 2021

Click here to see how I align my inquiry with the Manaiakalani framework.

“Recognising and spreading sophisticated pedagogical practice across our community so that students learn in better and more powerful ways...”

The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning. 

Labels:

LEvidence, LScan, LTrend, LHypothesise, LResearch, LReflect,

CPlan, CTry, CInnovate, CImplement, CReflect,

SPublish, SCoteach, SModel, SGuide, SFback, SReflect

Q2: What is it that we want our students to learn?

As a school we are unified in the fact we want to strengthen our students' oral language skills, for many of us, it is so our students are able to confidently talk about their learning and understanding in maths. This not only deepens their understanding but also strengthens their connections. Strong connections allow for confidence to be increased and with an increased confidence comes the ability to ask questions. By using content specific language in context our students paint a much clearer picture for us of where they are at. These pictures also help us to see where misconceptions and disconnects are hiding. It is this detail that not only informs our practice but shows us when we need to make changes. 

Our data shows that across each class there is a huge disparity between the students who have made the connections they need to allow them to operate at a higher and more challenging level, and those for who the gap widens each year. It must feel incredibly disempowering to keep trying and not reap the rewards of success that mastery of a concept brings. Talk Moves is something every student can do and is something where every student regardless of achievement level will begin to feel success. 

Transferring this learning talk to blog commenting is going to afford our learners a further opportunity to revisit their learning in context. The Covid 19 lockdowns of 2020, and more recently, of 2021 meant all our learning abruptly shifted to the online platform. There was a lot less opportunity to have that 1:1 teacher time that our lower ability learners need in order to help them feel supported when taking risks in new learning. Talk Moves will not only provide a well rehearsed pattern of conversation within a google meet, but in addition will allow our students to continue learning as they maintain the all important connections with their peers via their blogs.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we realised that if we were expecting the comments to be specific, the learning behind the blog post content needed to be equally as specific. By linking the language we want our learners to use to the Talk Moves process, we are providing an authentic opportunity for our learners to practise using the language we are hoping to see within both a blog post and a blog comment. By having the opportunity to practise we are removing the unknown and affording our learners the rich opportunity to learn both from and with each other in context. 

As teachers not all the adaptations we make work but by carrying out continued inquiry we are able to continually reflect, adapt and try. The ideas we try that are not successful are often referred to as mistakes. However it is by sharing these ‘mistakes’ along with our successes that others have the opportunity to learn the most from us. Something that may or may not have worked for one teacher, might just be the key that unlocks the door another teacher is trying to open.

Q1: Brainstorming Student Inquiry Foci...

At Panmure Bridge School our shared aim for 2021 is to carry out visible and rich teacher inquiries to help us meet one of our school’s strategic goals of 1 ½ times accelerated shift in Maths. 

Currently our inquiries fit under the wider umbrella of Achievement Challenge 6, to lift the achievement in maths for all students years 1-13, in our case years 1-8. Throughout 2020 our school wide professional development focus was Maths. This year we began the year with a teacher only day on maths that allowed us to top up our own knowledge ketes and strengthen our own connections to this curriculum area. Consolidation is the key to success here as it allows us to take the learning from 2020 and give it a place of value in 2021.

One area we can all implement as we embark on our 2021 learning journey with our students, regardless of level, is the strategy of Talk Moves. Talk Moves is a strategy that promotes classroom conversations centred on maths that helps to improve students' understanding of mathematical concepts. Talk Moves is a framework to prompt the discussion. Frameworks was the one thing most of us identified as being the most powerful tool towards helping increase student achievement. These frameworks or prompts were not generic, they were class specific, created by the teacher to help meet the learning needs of the students in front of them. The idea of frameworks or prompts was the most common tool teachers at PBS wanted to carry forward in 2021. I’m excited to see how each teacher adapts the Talk Moves framework for their class. As a teacher of Year 7 and 8 students I know that I can definitely learn from the work done by the teachers in the class levels below mine, as they can learn from me. Often a word that makes no sense to one person can be the word that unlocks the learning for another.

Last year we all encouraged our learners to use and apply their learning, and the language and vocabulary linked to that learning, by leaving purposeful comments on each other's blogs to promote authentic dialogic interactions. The differentiation came in the form of individual peer to peer comments in the senior school, and class to class comments in the junior school. Doing this allowed us all to peek into the learning going on in each room. 

At the end of the 2020 school year I had a check in chat with each teacher. Once again we were all on the same page with our reflections identifying that changes in practice not only gave us opportunities to develop a strong cybersmart program, but also encouraged us to think critically about the learning and language behind each lesson. In the senior school we realised that if we were expecting the comments to be specific, the learning behind the blog post content needed to be equally as specific. Rather than moving on and leaving this rich learning behind, as a school we have decided to focus our teacher inquiries around how the language and learning need to actively participate in Talk Moves can be harnessed and replicated in blog comments. 

Data from the SLJ shows that the value we placed on blog commenting helped our students to connect to the learning shared online by their Manaiakalani, and their wider outreach school peers in a meaningful and purposeful way. Dialogic conversations were not the exception, they were the norm. With this evidence and the evidence we have from our 2020 learning journey, we have chosen to capitalise on this momentum and continue to strengthen what we began last year. The power for us as a school is how each teacher puts their own spin on it.

One size definitely does not fit all in this case. What I am excited about as the in-school COL teacher for Panmure Bridge School is finding out how each teacher approaches this challenge. We all agree that we want to use Talk Moves in Maths to help us meet our school’s strategic goal of 1 ½ times accelerated shift in that curriculum area. The changes we identify that we now need to make to our practice is where the learning will come from.  It takes a village and each member of our PBS village who willingly shares their practice, ideas and inquiry journeys allow us to strengthen our own teaching and learning skills. 

For us, it is the opportunity to consolidate our learning from 2020 that we hope will be the key to our success.