Reflection on Action

In conversation about this week's progress it's coming to me that I am working backwards to find the way forward. This is fine because it was the act of looking back that gave me the idea to improve my group work so that our Shops can be planned more effectively by the students.

What has bothered me this week is the fact I am having difficulty figuring out how to consciously recognise any progress in my professional development.

As I was talking to Des (lecturer Diploma Culinary) this morning it came to me that conversation is where I articulate a lot of what is going on in my mind.

I know that I think better out loud and that through conversation a lot of good ideas come up. Then I go away and work them out, which is exactly how it went this week.

By spending time looking, talking and thinking about what, how and why I needed to change things, when I finally sat down to work on those changes, they really did flow fairly fluidly onto the screen.

This allowed me to achieve some of last week's goals
1.  I am finding activities to help introduce and hopefully motivate solid group work next Trimester. The Shop assignment is updated and I have completed both a production plan and a task list for the students to work from.
2. Adding milestones is kind of done - just need to add in the class dates - the lesson schedule will be confirmed this week which will help with that.I'll put into the class calendar as well so there is complete clarity.
3. the story board made way for Canvas, I spent a frustrating Sunday afternoon working on it - I don't enjoy learning new systems especially when I'm told it's so easy! I have such clear visions of what I want I get on my own way when I don't see how to achieve that straight away.However, by yesterday morning I was a whole lot happier about what I had accomplished. After a night's sleep I saw that it will be quite good. Now to work out how I want to do the group and individual collaboration files.

So what am I learning about my teaching practise? Looking further back at my action plan I realised a lot of points were covered by the end of the day's work, and that once I organise some good tactics to introduce improvements to group work. Above all I want to avoid this!:

I think then with this hindsight, part of my plan would be to be more mindful of the impact of our expectations on our students. While talking with Des I realised that a lot of the time as lecturers, we are 70% there in our heads and don't reflect enough on how it will look to the student - where do they start from and where will they end. I know I wrote about this in my reflections on the Special Topic and Research, but I still have more to do getting this to be a part of me so I think back in better detail and get the consequences in front of me ore effectively. This meta-cognition takes time and effort, unfortunately I don't always want to listen to those voices that tell me (they can be very quiet and I can be good at putting them aside until the consequences SCREAM at me - by which time I have to RUN!) to make improvements.

Time for some story boards - I seem to be avoiding it yet I am fairly sure it will help to keep my focus so off I pop!

Further into Action Land......

Well today I decided to work from home- it really is a privilege to be able to choose that for my non-teaching days. I thought I had a modest goal in deciding to concentrate on the shop assessment and then spend the afternoon working on my new Canvas course - we are shifting from BlackBoard to Canvas and we were just told that for our Faculty that will kick in wit the new Trimester starting on Sept 6th. So that really put the wind up me as I am supposed to support my peers with this new thing, and I'm not yet confident myself.
I haven't been into Canvas yet so will do that next week. Instead I re-worked our Daily Observations into 2 parts - one lecturer version into Excel so we can keep tabs on professional practice. It's more work for us but there is no other way - at least this one will do the adding for us! The other one is a tweaked version of what the students currently have to write for their weekly reflections; better sample text and I've taken the scoring back - it was a nice idea but students aren't ready. Comes to mind I still need to see that we are marking what is written not what is produced! That's been the rub the whole time and it bears proper thought to be effective. So with all of that what am I learning about my own practice? I think the iceberg is shrinking!

I really have to keep the direction I want to take in front of me. I went all the way back to the Course Descriptor and Learning Outcomes to start a fresh and I'll need to take another look on Friday to see if I kept to that - it's so easy to put in what you WANT to put in as assessment criteria! Alignment is so important, it pays for me to keep looking at what is to be assessed. David Boud on reflective writing and Ken Bain on successful teaching both remind me of that need. There is definitely more now,  on the product quality than I had before - hopefully I am also formulating in such a way that the students will write what  am looking for! I needed to have more of "explain how" esp in the second shop. This time I want the Artisan (1st Shop) to have a lot more milestones and guesswork removed, and the second shop for Proficiency, to be more independent.  
I'm learning also that I really can get something substantial done when I put my mind to it, I'm very pleased with how far I got today.
Looking at my action plan though, a lot of attention needs to be given to the actual process by which to facilitate the group work. I plan on making the philosophy behind group collaboration more clear so the students have a more vested interest. Fink's resources may also help me to work out an enticing way to  encourage better teamwork. I think already taking on leadership and having tasks allocated will take out a lot of the guesswork. Students just need to rock up, get their task, start on them and then check on each other for progress. Hopefully that will allow them to focus more quickly on the task which is to produce goods!
Here's a video link to what we do:
Baking at Manukau 2016

Goals for this week:
1. work out a strategy to introduce group work
2. make a milestone map with dates and meeting  times that can be used and checked off - that should be a part of the Canvas calendar too so it pops up to the students 
3. work on the excel sheet story board so I can get started on that in the weekend!

I feel as if I have finally put some of those words into action and that if words are wind, words are getting me underway!

Action Plan and Learning Outcome

The action plan is complete, and I'm happy to say it was for 80% acceptable. As far as what my students need, is concerned, not a problem. As far as my own goals - that needed to be stated more clearly and explained throughout the action plan. Without that then there is not a lot for my own professional development, that after all was the point of this whole exercise. I think I under estimated how much harder is it so see what you need to do for yourself and to write that in clear terms. 

I need to bring the learning outcome for the Mobile course.

I came up with this:

Here is the outline of what I plan to do.

1. The context.  Where will the learning fit in the big picture? It might be a lesson or a link between lessons.  It might be a 'must know' topic that can be deepened in class.

Students in Level 4 Baking participate in 2 shop days. They plan for and carry out the preparation of baked goods for sale, which they sell themselves through our shop outlet.

2 What is the intended learning outcome?

'Calculate the ingredients require and the cost of that food for Shop Day using the Excel template provided.'

As a part of this process they have to work together to produce the food order based on the product list while also states how much of each will be made.

In level 3, students have learned how to calculate the cost of a recipe do they know how to calculate the cost of ingredients.

Using the excel temple provided will give student the opportunity to complete the recipes and product specifications as a part of the shop exercise. The template will also calculate an estimated selling price per unit, as long as the recipe and yells are put in correctly.

3. R2D2. How can the learning outcome/s be achieved and fulfill all 4 parts of this model.

The main part of this task will be 2-3 short video clips explaining step by step what students have to do to complete the order 

Part 1 will be a short video of how an excel sheet works.

Part 2 will show how to put in the recipes and yields.

Part 3 will describe how to link the ingredients to get the cost of each recipe

Part 4 will show how to refine the costs by deleting information such as the way eggs are sold per unit but the excel sheet says per 1000. This changes the cost and makes it unrealistic.

Part 5 will teach students to gather the ingredients and sort them into the final order format ready for processing.                   

Looking at the R2D2 model, what do the students need to do?

• Reading - locating resources find the videos and the file to work in
• Writing – communicating the process - filling in the required field communicating how that went - if the numbers are making sense or not and why that may be
• Doing - diagnosing needs, locating resources - who needs further assistance - who can give that from the group?
• Displaying - evaluating learning - 

Here are two really useful blogs relating to adult learning and engagement:
http://dynamind-elearning.com/2013/11/can-we-develop-e-learning-that-respects-adult-learning-principles/

http://blog.cathy-moore.com/

This week's goals:
Once the goals and action plan are set then WORK on them!!!!!! Time is marching on and it's a matter of getting on with it now. In 4 week's time we will have a whole lot of new students that I can try out my revamped learning event on.

Developing a teaching philosophy and Teaching Action Plan

Not much to report on the Mobile Learning this week apart from the fact that I have a great looking microphone and a good desktop stand for it. Very happily I received good feedback in last week's reflection for Mobile Learning, that I had written clear deep reflections giving me a firm foundation on which to build my Mobile learning activity. This gave me a great deal of satisfaction particularly since while reading it over, I began making notes to myself where I thought I needed to be more specific about what I was trying to get across. I think this is that thing called meta-reflection. I haven't even tried the microphone out yet, as it has been all about developing my teaching philosophy and writing an action plan for professional development. Both sound a lot easier than they seem at first sight...

I'll share all of this when I have my marks back. Suffice to say after having done the teaching perspective inventory in the past fortnight I am quite comfortable with the fact that I seem to be sailing on an even keel. It's nice to think I have found a certain equilibrium within my teaching self. That allows me to see what I want to improve based on student successes and struggles, without feeling the need to chastise myself over my 'failings' as it is not necessarily anything I have done wrong rather than that I would see things needing to be changed. The action plan began writing itself purely with what I wanted to achieve from the student's perspective. At some point today I realised that there needed to be a lot more about what I want to achieve as a practitioner so another hunt for teaching action plan templates ensued. With a bit of tweaking I now feel as if I am developing a plan that will improve my delivery as well as the student experience. The background work will be the most demanding. I have a busy month ahead of me getting the templates all organised and using the screen casting software - that also needs to be storyboarded so I have a good guide for what needs to be accomplished. Formulating what needs to be improved from two perspectives has been quite useful in that I have a more clear idea of what work needs to be done and how much will need to be rewritten - that I will try to minimise since there is limited time and I want to spend more on developing the screen casts. Suddenly I have more than one in mind - I knew that would happen but was hoping that the ideas would wait a bit longer - perhaps a few static screen shots via a website will be a good substitute? Does that mean I have to develop a Wix website as well now?

Let's keep it simple. Start with a storyboard and go from there.

There are some great visuals and concepts forming both in my head and on paper, yet also a lot of empty spaces around them that need to be filled in to complete the whole scenario. With time and thought that will happen.

Goals for next week:

1. assignment to be submitted on Monday
2. prioritise what needs to be worked on next - the action plan will help with that. There will be a fair amount of tandem projects 
3. refine this journal and write a new summary for Teaching in Action for next Saturday's class. This week's blog post will help me out.

Let's see how the reflective writing comes along - shall I make a new wordle again? I guess it depends on what terms and concepts I come across in the next few days. Oooh, I could put this into a Word Sift and see how that turns out.