ILT+Conference+Reflections+from+attendees

__Alistair Banks-Clyde Primary School__
Reflecting back on the ILT conference it was a great opportunity to spend some time with my colleagues from work in the company of other enthusiastic educators! I have been to conferences before but never with someone else from my school! This led to lots of frank discussions about where we are at as a school, as well as giving me the opportunity to reflect on my own practise as a class teacher.

Through seeing such speakers as Wilson McCaskill and Allie Mooney, I had the chance to reflect on things I am doing well, and things that need improving. Listening to Wilson was inspiring at times and at other times I felt that my own style of management was more suited to the children I teach. He was highly passionate about how children have been treated by teachers. I feel I treat my class with the utmost respect and I am constantly intuned with both their educational and emotional needs. Constant contact with parents through texting has contributed a lot to this.

Allie Mooney allowed me to reflect on the different ‘types’ of children I have in my class! It helped me gain greater understanding in the way some children tick and why they are the way they are. Some adults as well! I found her a breath of fresh air and a delight to listen to. I bought some of her resources and will be using them to start next year when creating a ‘getting to know our classmates’ type unit.

James Nottingham was another speaker I was impressed with. His keynote on giving children task specific praise rather than child specific – eg you swam well when u used your arms properly’, rather than – ‘you’re a great swimmer’, gave me food for thought. I don’t know that I entirely agree with him, as I believe some lesser ability children need to be told every now and then that they’re clever when they’ve achieved. I believe this is good for self esteem, and that too much analysis of such praise isn’t always healthy.  I thought his ideas on giving children ‘wobble’ moments in which they struggle, but then persevere and succeed was very worthwhile and I have tried to incorporate more ‘wobble’ moments into my everyday classroom programme! Whether it be through numeracy or through group topic learning. There is nothing more valuable in my eyes than a child learning from their mistakes and then achieving success.

Over all I’d like to thank the Cluster for giving me the opportunity to go to ILT. I enjoyed the whole time I was away. It was superbly organised, and I’d love to go back some time.

__Darran Ingram- Remarkables Primary School __
ILT 'I Love Teaching' conference Invercargill

The conference focus this year was themed for teachers under two curriculum competencies – Managing Self and Relating to Others. We were exposed to a range of quality keynote speakers, who shared their philosophies, ideas and strategies, so that we could take them back into our learning environment.

I particularly enjoyed Dr Jenni Wilson’s keynote of developing reflection and metacognition. She referred to reflection as ‘almost any purposeful thought, where the learner engages in active, persistent and careful consideration of ideas for a deeper understanding.’ I have been able to apply this understanding to my own pedagogical practice. I have been developing criteria for students to reflect on their learning with the use of questioning strips that help them to identify the choices they have made, internalize their own learning and thinking critically about their and their classmates’ choices. The students have already started to reflect on their learning with the use of technology, including using voice threads to talk about their learning.

I have also applied the use of Wikis at school. It has been interesting to see such young students sharing information, being able to add information and discuss ideas in an open forum. The immediate benefit has been the sharing of their knowledge and their learning journey between students, thereby creating that all-important community of critical thinkers.

The Wikis and questioning strips offer students new opportunities for personal reflection and provide them with the ability to seek new information and test ideas, particularly through the social contact of the community. Learning with computers is not about programming or drill and practice, nor about fast updating or cost-efficiency – it is all about people sharing ideas.

Jenni also made the point that teachers need to understand their own thinking, as well as thinking and learning in general. I believe as teachers we can constantly challenge and think about our own thinking and our teaching pedagogy, but it’s through reflection and taking action – self-correcting, hopefully for the better good, that makes us an effective critical teacher. Jenni described that when we reflect in this way, we create a shared language for discussing, modeling, assessing and interacting with students about thinking to enhance thinking.

__Lara Moss-Remarkables Primary School__
ILT…I Love Teaching

Ali Mooney tells us that we can influence but we cannot change people. When I connect the learning or changes to my thinking that I took back to school from Ali I relate this more to relating to colleagues where I am reminded that each person sees the world differently and that we all bring something to the team.

One key concept is that we need to treat people the way they would like to be treated not the way we would like to be treated. For the playful it needs to be fun, to be about relationship, for the precise it needs to be factual and deliberate, for the peaceful it needs to be balanced and have an approachable feel and for the powerful there needs to be an element of competition and adventure.

I downloaded Ali’s book at the conference –enjoying eReader technology on the iPad. It’s not just pressing the right buttons on a keyboard (or touch screen) but also pressing the right buttons in our relationships with others. eLearning in the classroom is the same. The way I hook each student in depends whether the learning at hand has been presented in a way that treats them the way they want to be treated for example when considering digital learning experiences Mathletics curriculum works well for the precise, powerful and peaceful but not so much for the playful…whereas ‘show me’ on the iPad ‘grabs’ the playfuls as they get to talk about the problem they are solving and record their talk (they love to talk…).

Thank you to the ICT Cluster for supporting me to attend the ILT conference - learning that goes beyond the classroom and my role as ‘teacher’.