This will knock your socks off

 I was recently introduced to NotebookLM and WOWWWWWW.

I uploaded our Staff induction Booklet and it converted the doc to a Podcast with 2 AI hosts. Most interesting and quite entertaining. Much better than having a read, that's for sure. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures

 I have attempted something that I would not have ever dreamed of doing. Not sure if I am being brave or foolish.

I noticed that while a few of my learners were engaging well with their learning, a core group were struggling with integrity and behaving like part-time learners where they would switch between their work and MAJOR DISTRACTIONS which included social media, gaming, videos and movies.  As a result, their work was suffering. Just as I could feel my frustration rising, I realised that if I was waiting for my learners to make the change, I would probably run out of patience, so I rolled up my sleeves and took action.

I rearranged all my tables so that they were against the walls. This meant that I would be looking at their backs and would have a perfect view of their screens. I explained the reason for the rearranged tables to them when they first entered and to my surprise, they were all on board with the idea. This has been the case for about a week and within that time, more learners are asking for help and/or feedback and a few have even sat assessments. 

I am not convinced that this is the way to go, but will keep it going a while longer.

Tuakana-Teina at its best

 Last year while we were doing introductions, one of my learners mentioned, among other things that she HATED maths and then apologised as she thought that she had hurt my feelings. I quickly cleared that up by thanking her for her honesty and telling her that my job was not to make her LOVE maths; instead I just needed her to try.

I provided her with teacher-created CHEAT Sheets as well as short videos with teaching and learning strategies for each standard and also taught her thinking strategies. The latter would help in all classes and even at home/work. She ended up being a top achiever in MATHS and now claims that MATHS is one of her favourite subjects.

I bumped into her today and she mentioned that her year 5 sibling (aged 10) was struggling with maths homework and no one at home was able to help, not even her parents. She remembered the thinking strategies that I had taught her and she used them and what do you know.................it worked. Tuakana-Teina at its best.

Student voice

 I have been perusing student voice about what support/encouragement I have given them and here are a few responses, verbatim.

a lot of support and help if something needed to be clarified

Helping me when I need it.

General motivation

Noelene has been a huge help during during lesson time. I have learnt a lot of nothings whilst working on this standard.

all the support I need

Zoom calls to re go over what I was unsure about and leaving comments to help me know where ive gone wrong

She checked my work fast so I could correct everything I needed too.

positive rienforcement

🤷‍♂️

A lot of encouraging words and lots of help.

Corrected me with feedback, given encouragement, showed me the standard

She's Nice and is a great teacher

lots of verbal encouragement and great environment to achieve independently.

When she called my work beautiful