Trident High School
Leading Learning – Leading the Future
Purpose – Performance – Pride
Engaged Active Learners
Hauora – Resiliency :: Thoughtful Resilient Learners
Core Values / High Expectations / Managing Self – Best First Time
Term 4
Week 8
Dec. 5
2011
Key Features of the Week
Monday 5th
Peer Support
Tuesday
Peer Support
Wednesday Peer Support Junior cricket Bowls team
Thursday
Friday 9th
FINAL PRIZE-GIVING
Farewells @ 1.30
We would love to have your contributions to The Bulletin – email info through to
principal@trident.school.nz.
Bulletins are available at T:Teacherwrite\1Monday Bulletins !NF\2011
Focus Area for the holidays … 2012:
Reflection and Action
Keep asking … “What’s my purpose?”
What needs to happen on ‘Day 1′ 2012?
What needs to happen on ‘Day 1′ 2012?
I used to think…
Now I think…
1.
Explain your expectations.
1.
Ask about their expectations.
2.
Establish rules.
2.
Create an essential agreement.
3.
Know everyone’s names.
3.
Know everyone’s story.
4.
Arrange seats to minimalise talking.
4.
Arrange seats to encourage collaboration.
5.
Organise books.
5.
Demonstrate that you value thinking.
6.
Talk about homework.
6.
Talk about learning.
7.
Tell them what they’ll be learning.
7.
Ensure they know that they own their learning.
8.
Make sure they listen.
8.
Make sure you listen.
9.
Get students working right away.
9.
Show you’re a part of the learning community.
10. Show a firm hand.
10. Laugh…
The words underlined are links …
Source: http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/what-do-you-mean/
To those leaving, THANK YOU for your
contribution to Trident!
http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/what-do-you-mean/
To you all, thanks for a great year – reflect
on the year and the positive difference you
have made for your colleagues and the
students you have come in contact with ... in
the classroom and beyond.
Have a great holiday and Christmas.
All the best.
Peter
"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."
Stephen Covey (1932 - ), leadership guru and author of "The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People", writing here on the importance of staying focused.
2012: The main thing is …. CONSISTENCY …. CONSISTENCY
School in Cyberspace
NZ Herald Mon. 28th Nov 2011
The way education is delivered is
Chris Barton reports
becoming increasingly
technology-driven as students - and teachers - head to the
web. But does learning via a computer achieve the same
results?
It's an iNightmare. When cutting-edge teachers talk shop
there is a stream of jargon: podcast, wiki, QR code, Scratch,
Kodu, Photosynth, SkyDrive, Kinect, iPad, iPhone, iCloud...
Then there are awkward words like pedagogy and
"gamification", plus collaboration, personalised learning,
self-regulated assessment and knowledge building collectively termed "21st century skills". Skills, it seems,
most students aren't much getting at school.
Technology and pedagogy. The instinct is to flee. But then
one of the teachers says something startling. "I want my
children to be found by strangers on the net," proclaims Will
Richardson - American parent, educator, speaker, author
and blogger.
He reassures Microsoft's Partners in Learning Forum in
Washington that of course children must first know how to
discern good and bad strangers. His point is that our children
are indeed increasingly being taught by strangers. In a
globally networked world, education is not contained by the
confines of the school or the classroom.
Richardson cites North American students stuck on science
or maths problems using Motuto - on-demand, real-time
mobile tutoring. Install the app on your iPhone or iPad, log
on, connect with a tutor on standby and get the homework
help you need for about US$5 ($6.75) per 20 minute session.
Knewton is adaptive learning software delivering computerbased lessons with diagnostics to create a "personalised
learning path" targeting what lessons need work and then
delivering the appropriate material.
Then there's Khan Academy, originally a YouTube channel,
now offering 2700 instructional videos free online, on
everything from mathematics to history to finance and
biology. At last count it's had 82 million views.
"My Teacher is an App" is how the Wall Street Journal
summed up this brave new world this month. The article
noted an estimated 250,000 students in the United States
attend "cyberschool" online.
Often the learning is informal. Richardson's children wanted
to learn Scratch, an educational programming language
developed at the MIT's Media Lab. They were taught the
basics by a 10-year-old expert in Perth, Scotland via a Skype
video call.
Seventeen-year-old Mark Klassen is a self-taught
cinematographer who freely shares all his work online. As
Richardson points out, Klassen learned his craft, including
using professional editing software Final Cut, spending "not
one minute in a classroom".
Richardson is talking about a fundamental change in the way
education is delivered that raises questions about the role of
teachers, what is taught and whether technology can make a
difference. The recurring theme of Partners in Learning is
that schools, even those well equipped with technology, are
not providing for a 21st century workforce.
What's needed is applied digital literacy - competency in
modern "authoring" tools like Photosynth and Movie Maker
2012: The main thing is …. CONSISTENCY …. CONSISTENCY
that demonstrates problem solving, critical thinking,
knowledge building and the ability to collaborate. Yet most
teachers still teach with traditional chalk and talk methods,
albeit sometimes disguised by Powerpoint presentations or
an electronic whiteboard, and test students with questions
like this:
This Roman emperor changed the official religion of the
Roman Empire and moved its capital to Constantinople
(today Istanbul):
A. Ptolemy
B. Cyrus the Great
C. Constantine
D. Jesus
Richardson asks why we're asking kids to memorise facts
that, in all likelihood, they will have forgotten in a year's
time. Or, if we are asking them to do this, why we don't let
them go online from their smartphone and use Google to
instantly find the answer.
Challenging as the idea sounds, it highlights another
problem. Generally, greater use of computers hasn't shown
significant improvements in science, maths or reading scores
- a conundrum calling into question the whole idea of giving
schools technological upgrades.
Advocates say computer-based learning lets students learn
at their own pace, teaches skills needed in a modern
economy and holds the attention of a generation who has
grown up with digital devices.
But simply using computers to drill students on maths,
science and other curriculum facts, doesn't prepare students
particularly well for jobs in today's world. The way learning is
assessed, largely through standardised tests, also doesn't
capture the breadth of skills that computers can help
develop.
The biggest barrier to effective use of computers in schools?
The majority of teachers are not particularly proficient in
their use. But not here in Washington, where some 700
educators, passionate about the use of technology in
education, are breaking new ground in what can be done.
Teachers from 70 countries - including several from New
Zealand's Howick College and Botany Downs Secondary
College - are gathered to share in technological expertise
and pedagogy.
Combining skills, interdisciplinary co-operation,
collaboration and real-world engagement are to the fore.
Hence Pennsylvania students creating historical
documentary video podcasts of local businesses each linked
to a QR code on display - a square bar code-like pattern
which can be "read" by smartphones.
Or Malaysian students creating games using Microsoft's
Kodu that teach environmental lessons. Or five American
teachers in collaboration with computer science, fine arts,
business and economics and design students to develop an
Xbox Kinect motion-based simulation replicating sights,
sounds and history of the Pike Place fish market in Seattle.
The elephant in the room, in this case, is Microsoft, but it
could easily be Apple or another technology giant looking for
a slice of the lucrative education market and its taxpayer
funding.
Such overt corporate involvement leads to questions about
whether education is being radically rethought at all whether the only gains are for computer companies cashing
in on the demand for technology in classrooms.
Sig Behrens, Microsoft's United States general manager for
education, casually mentions 25 per cent of all Microsoft
business is academic - a lot of software licences. He claims
more altruistic reasons for the multinational's involvement.
That imprisonment rates in the United States are among the
highest in the world and that 50 per cent of those in jail did
not graduate from college.
Plus that 77 per cent of jobs in the next decade will require
technology skills, but a 3 million shortage of workers with
American college degrees or similar is looming by 2018.
Microsoft's Partners in Learning Forums, with their focus on
teachers and teaching rather than technology, are very
much a soft sell of Microsoft products. But, as a New York
Times article this month pointed out, "the courtship of
public school officials entrusted with tax dollars is a sensitive
matter".
The article noted how Apple woos the education market
with a state-of-the art sales operation, inviting American
educators to "executive briefings" - described as "equal
parts conversation, seminar and backstage pass". The
criticism was such trips could "cast doubt on the impartiality
of the officials' buying decisions, which shape the way
millions of students learn".
Whether soft or hard sell, the education sales pitch battles
an atmosphere sceptical about how effective high-tech
products are at improving student achievement.
Even Apple's co-founder, the late Steve Jobs, and Microsoft
co-founder Bill Gates recently agreed "that computers had,
so far, made surprisingly little impact on schools - far less
than on other realms of society such as media and medicine
and law".
Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs also recounts Jobs
telling US President Barack Obama that education was
hopelessly antiquated and crippled by union work rules. "It
was absurd," he added, "that American classrooms were still
based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks.
All books, learning materials, and assessments should be
digital and interactive, tailored to each student and
providing feedback in real time."
It's a view echoed by Gates, whose vision of what schools in
the future would be like has students watching lectures and
video lessons on their own while using the classroom time
for discussions and problem solving. Gates also promotes
teaching the "Big History Project" in schools around the
world, working with Macquarie University's David Christian
to make it happen.
The approach looks at the past from the big bang to
modernity, weaving evidence and insights from many
scientific and historical disciplines "into a single, accessible
origin story".
While some worry that high-tech classrooms and online
learning are education cost-cutting by another name replacing teachers by having fewer do more - many see
technology's march on the classroom ushering in a
fundamental change in the teacher's role. That teachers
need to transition from being "a sage on the stage to a guide
on the side".
But findings from the Innovative Teaching and Learning
Research project across seven participating countries shows
there is a long way to go. The research, sponsored by
Microsoft's Partners in Learning, shows while examples of
more innovative learning environments can be found around
the world, "too often they are available only in isolated
pockets rather than to all students".
And while ICT use in teaching is becoming more common, its
use by students in their learning is still an exception in most
schools today. The fact that just two New Zealand schools
are involved in Partners in Learning is further testimony to
just how long the road ahead is.
On the plus side, the report highlights how innovative
teaching practices may flourish - when a school culture
offers "a common vision of innovation and consistent
encouragement for new types of teaching".
It also requires one of those elusive 21st century skills collaboration. In this instance, it's teachers working
together, focusing on peer support and the sharing of
teaching practices, plus active professional development of
teachers - particularly in "practicing and researching new
teaching methods". Pedagogy - the art, and, increasingly, the
science of teaching - rules.
Keep asking … “What’s my purpose?”
One teacher said: “Teaching is not an isolated activity. If
it’s going to be done well, it has to be done collaboratively
over time. Each of us sets our own priorities in terms of
student outcomes. For example, one teacher might
emphasise students knowing all the facts and operational
skills. Another might think that what’s most important is to
develop a love of learning in students. Still another teacher
might want to develop students to be better critical
thinkers and problem solvers, and they’re not as
concerned about students memorising the facts. A good
teacher needs to help students develop all of those things,
but it’s easy to get stuck in your own ideology if you are
working alone. With collaboration, you are exposed to
other teachers’ priorities and are better able to
incorporate them to broaden your own approach in the
classroom.”
Acknowledgement: “The Missing Link in School Reform?” by
Carrie Leana in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2011
“Fortune favours the prepared mind” – Louis Pasteur
On Creativity:
"The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering
substances are entwined is one of the great popintellectual myths of our time."
Stephen King (1947 - ), American novelist, in his non-fiction
book, "On Writing" (2000)
"The one thing worse than a quitter is
someone who is afraid to begin."
The Ethos of Trident High School
Our distinctive character, spirit and attitudes
Mission Statement
Trident High School offers a quality education in a partnership
environment where excellence and respect are encouraged.
Kia Manawa Nui – Be Courageous.
The Logo
This embodies the concept of cultures within a partnership that
focuses on a student learning and advancing with courage. The koru
represents the community, school and parents nurturing the student.
The Motto – Kia Manawa Nui:
Literally, Kia Manawa Nui means “be of a big heart” or have the courage to stand up for
what you believe in. At Trident it encompasses two essential ideas:
Have the courage:
1. to produce quality work as a learner and have the tenacity to keep trying until you
succeed;
2. to be respectful as a person, by being compassionate, supportive, and caring for
others.
Furthermore, when individuals are respected by others and supported in their endeavours
they have a greater chance of reaching their goals and gaining success. In turn these
individuals are better placed to support those around them, building courage and respect
and assuring community success.
Accordingly, Kia Manawa Nui becomes the “Trident Factor”, our very own formula for lifelong success.
Values and Virtues
Trident High School is a “values-based” school that focuses on quality work, respect for
others and the importance of courage. Underlying these values lie the “virtues” of courtesy,
thankfulness, helpfulness, responsibility, self-discipline, creativity, determination,
enthusiasm and excellence. These operate in a partnership environment between the
school, the student, and the home/community.