Field Notes for Professional Learning Group Meetings

Field Notes for professional learning group meetings

Date: 29th August

Descriptive field notes Analytical field notes Reflective field notes

Session: Where am I What patterns are What is my response to What do I see emerging what I see What’s going on here What do I think this means What does this remind me of

Main data gathered here First impressions of key Reactions to what is Detailed observations of a setting words, recurring images, appearing in the main Notes taken from an interview repeated phrases, column emerging themes 29th august -  Making use of the data talking about the instep model and how we worked in comparison to the model.  Pedagogy recognising that learning is not linear.  Social Strengthening discussion around McNiff spirals and links to our practice. trust learning is not linear it happens in multiple pathways  Technical How to G bringing in Barbara Rogoff's planes of analysis we've collected a lot of information - we could present this at the numeracy hui as we've got the data. didn't come in with a research focus, we had a problem - meaningful and purposeful the puzzle came first in our case. any thoughts about hte process out on the wiki by Friday. Ethics forms to Janine. we need to talk about our wiki and the presentation today. discussion about the presentation talk about our wiki heather talking about what i need to do next - find out what i have done to enable you to be successful things i could have done. in the last month there has been some significant shift - what's changed Robyn - been more proactive - i've been more on to it. put up pages as a stimulus latest lead teacher meetings - more autonomy so could timetable the wiki. got teachers to put things on the wiki. used skrbl with teachers. talked about how teachers could use this too. teachers were impressed with this tool invited another 20 teachers to the site one teacher in Hastings keen to start a discussion - not done yet so i will email him one lead teacher in a school - offered to go and get her computer and put things on there and then another teacher said she was going in a lot but not doing anything time is a factor - reminded them about notify me put some photos up of wall displays had an opportunity on Tuesday but didn't have hte camera. (earthquake) H- what sort of reaction have you had to the photos? R - great. So i've told them to do it and comment J - Craig did really well - this is our first idea so i'd like some comment R - has bought choc fish for her teachers Heather talked about Choconancy and the bribes she uses to engage her audience H when you put hte photo up what happened? (discussion about the size issue) G - talked about the 3 ways to put up a photo that are on her wiki - shared with group H - WCC putting up silly photos G at least they are putting photos up

R - Anaru convinced Massey is trying to sell wikis G - excited about wikis - has just had an experience with blogs. you can't put a pdf on the blog! Wikispaces are more user friendly, designed for education, blog is just a chat Php forum - not as clear H/J maybe you get your head around one type and find others hard R noted the editing on wikis have changed

H showed R how to do a screen shot. How could we use it? Play the game of guess what's in heather's head R shared how to do this other's really keen to use this H suggested that these could be used to email instructions R - talked about emailing instructions to teachers - Heather talked about trimming the picture wordles discussion around Cedric and outlook calendars, backing up phones to computers

Refocus - what's been happening

G - having a drought talked about things on the wiki to a lot of people - literacy progressions - people have gone on and taken them off and not saying anything about it every meeting i ask if they've joined - invite them again - and again used choc fish time is an issue for all this month getting re-motivated by you guys and the photos I've been expecting them to do it but it's not that easy so might go around and take photos while i'm there and get them to tell me about something about the photos cluster meeting tomorrow might work better if we have more face to face - more action after these meetings don't have time to talk about them - got all that assessment stuff to talk about do you take notes when you’re there could you put the notes straight up onto their wiki page on for each centre - multiple teachers - do you send the notes to the teachers? yes. and i take photos as an evaluation tool. is it ok if another centre sees them? take notes as usual, don't send them to them, tell them they will go up on the wiki. put photos up too - discussion about how to put photos up, change size, etc I'll give it a go.

G - I was going to set them up a page each, get them to put their names up etc discussion around putting clipart up on the wiki and how to reconfigure the photos to a different format H - Could go to flikr or google images to find photos instead. don't use clip art. talked about issues about getting clipart to download G - otherwise I've had a bit of a drought suggested they all have a page - each centre put a photo up for each page i want you to all write your name on the page, and one or two sentences explaining what the photo is about. and someone else's photo and ask them a question. what are you going to do next stuff. what surprised you? Starter questions - i wonder, i was surprised by, ... feedback/forward J - cluster meeting where hte screen stayed up and modem worked. everyone shared stuff - then i put up the wiki - Craig did the tec stuff but he is a mac man so he was learning. showed them notify me which they appreciated new teachers asked to be invited into the wiki looked at Craig's stuff and asked for feedback my job is to now put Anne's stuff up with feeder questions teachers saying they've been in a couple of times but no one else is so we don't want to younger teachers feeling the hierarchy and not willing to take the risk Craig has done hte most - Atol leader too, encouraged the others to 'talk' to him but worried about the 'teachers pet' feeling that was being generated. it was a start H - we're growing a leader - we've moved craig from being an observer to being a leader. keep the balance reminded them about the way our plg went through a dip when some of us had teachers input and others didn't so i had to do some drastic repair work to make us rethink what was success. not just having everyone involved, success is where you are at. R - our groups have different dynamics - Instep - pitfalls and positives come out G - you've been quite innovative to bring out the opportunities as you go into schools - i haven't and i'm in centres all the time

So what's been the stuff that's allowed you to have these things pick up and run G - your tec advice is definitely an bonus- like the photo thing and hte clipart thing - i just thought i cant do that, it's just too hard, i flicked that aside and thought i haven't got time to think about how i could do that better. i sat here and immediately got the info J - and not being able to put the PDF on R -I would go a step further - it's h's questioning puts us in a slightly uncomfortable position - h is going to think i'm useless so i do it G - warm demanding - that's an early childhood theorist I don't feel pushed but i feel moved to not sit back - i'm doing that to myself but with someone else asking the questions i will go in and do it and then you go in and try it and i see it and say i might try that.. h- i think it's the group cross chat these discussions are more important than we realise - online party that came out of nowhere - and this idea of coming up with a page for each - that jsut happened because we've been together Paddy had done it so J - if we weren't in the same office we'd use the wiki more R - our office lends itself to us sharing reflection on how our group worked well in comparison to the others and what the other groups looked like refocus data analysis process - what did this do for you? G - found it really simple to understand - data and evidence. this is a real situation and had a frame from BES to hang it around graphs were good - qual and quant data - so easy R - scared me initially - put it off then when i sat down and went through the printouts quietly H - we all analysed it slightly differently - tried to use the same but it didn't work. Paddy's support proved it didn't. so once you'd don teh analysis how did it make you feel about what was happening on your wikis? G Much better H why G because i was linking it with the research - research frame and the phases, you could identify yes i've done that phase, there was a where to next. that was the exciting part R actually just qualified what i'd thought anyway - that was good. it was quite interesting - looking at the graphs and what caused that. a number of teachers said they'd been on so maybe the stats weren't all us if you look at the stats graphs - unique visits that is not us - it's us plus talked about computer addresses being unique

H so graphs made you think about what caused the changes - once you realised what did it make you think about? did it tell you what you could be doing more of and less off identifying the phases - and printing those off - in your face - given the situation - you have the expertise - might have helped to have you along earlier in the process - not think i could do it all myself - should have happened on day one

G - so what we did actually was we assessed our own learning and where to next H - we did - and if you look at BES - questions on front cover - have a look at the yellow cycle - isn't that what we did G - absolutely - formative assessment H - so that stuff there is a result of what happened when you analysed your data J - and how have we contributed to those outcomes - what do we know - because of the sharing, what do we need to learn to do - come knocking at you door h sources of inform - using me, online, wordles as a result of us analysing the data and thinking about what our next steps are we are now designing tasks that are meeting specific needs that have emerged from the data rather than just fishing in the ocean - rather than just we could try this or that. now we are recognising the key things that are making a difference R - still feeling i'm fishing - this hasn't worked so i'm trying something different so you're looking at what you can do that might inspire but it's with evidence of the need But it's as a result of the data telling us that it's not working H now you look at teh graphs and find there’s a peak on that day what happened - cluster meeting or photo so obviously these things work so i might try them that's what im finding that these are the things that are working

J - shared copy of what others were doing in instep