In 2013, Ewan McIntosh, from www.NoTosh.com, introduced me to the concept of bringing design thinking into lessons across the curriculum. He encouraged us to have students work through the design cycle in all subject areas, as a way to develop creative innovation thinking. At the time, I particularly explored bringing design thinking models into maths lessons, with some starling success. Most notable was the increase in student engagement and voice in the lessons.   

That was 2 years ago with 10 year old students. Now I work with 5 year old students, so I have had to rethink the place that design thinking has in my lessons. Surprisingly, it is finding its place not so much within my classroom lessons but rather as the vehicle of my professional inquiries. In an adapted MLE space, consisting of 3 traditional classrooms and 2 smaller rooms off a large central space, my colleagues and I are constantly having to develop new systems and processes for our young learners. 

The use of space, student space, teacher space, resource space, has become a pivotal question we find ourselves revolving around. How do we use space in ways that breaks the traditional closed paradigm of the single cell classroom? An MLE offers the advantage of access to different teacher strengths, a larger cross sections of peers for cooperative learning and the opportunity for students to move more freely, engage in and self-direct their learning in different ways. However, it also poses big questions?

• Should students move into different spaces for different subjects?
• Should teachers move into different spaces for each subject?
• How much stability do 5 year olds need? 
• How much flux can they actually cope with during the day? 
• How does a teacher ensure all their resources are at hand for teaching if they are constantly moving from space to space?
• Should spaces be subject specific or should all spaces have a mixture of resources for reading, writing and maths.
• How will the use of space alter as our team grows to accommodate more teachers and children,  up to 100 kids and 5 teachers by the end of the year.

We have been using the central space as our combined meeting place at the start of all lessons, then we brake apart into different spaces with 3 groups of 6 children each. With no teacher ownership of spaces and no teacher desks, our first problem was identified quickly. We had designed all the spaces around the students needs and we realized we had not made provision for teacher needs. Where to put activities, photocopies and resources we needed?  

Initially, we were in constant movement from space to space. Herding mixed groups of confused kids, while also balancing computers, resources, student books and our personal teaching supplies. This is where we had to actively apply design thinking to come up with solutions that could work for us. As a teacher I was confused, constantly lost and it seemed never had what I needed for my lessons. Worse - I was often missing kids and having to go search through the spaces to bring them back to where they needed to be. 

At the same time, I was introduced to the principals of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). These principals challenge us to design solutions with the outliers in mind; the extreme kids, the high flyers, and those who really could have done with an extra year of pre-school. To consider those children with specific learning needs and IEPs. By catering for these differences in a way that enables their success, all student benefit in ways we could not have imagined. I was so lost, that I actually had to consider myself as that first special needs student. If I was lost, what hope did my 5 year old students have of making sense of their school day. 

Problem 1 - Lost students. How can we keep track of who should be where? More importantly, how can we help students take responsibility to be in the right place at the right time? Our solution - a personal lanyard with all their most important information. Result - Excellent success. Most children know their groups and their teachers and are usually in the right place at the right time. When a stray child is observed it is simple to ask them to show their lanyard so we can direct them to where they should be.  

One week into our MLE for our New Entrant 5 year olds (known as Team Kiwi) and my teaching partner and I are already amazed at how well the children have begun the year. Children are freely using 3 of the 5 spaces throughout the day, accessing resources independently and cooperating to tidy up resources. They are beginning to feel the rhythms of the day; when we meet collectively, when we break apart, when we have choice, when we work alone, when we work with others, when we work with a teacher. It will take more time for these rhythms to become internally established but we are pleased with the progress so far. 

I am also amazed at how well my teaching partner and I are beginning to learn the rhythms of each other. This is the first time we have worked together and the first time either of us have worked in a multi-space MLE. This first week has involved a lot of collaborative teaching; opportunities for us to jell as a teaching team, to enforce shared standards and behavioral expectations, but also to understand each others non-verbal cues. Cues for tag-teaching (reinforce me here), cues for support (please sort out that child), cues for our responses to a myriad of situations that arise when teaching excited new school children. 

I am mindful of the stages of effective group formation: Forming, Storming. Norming, Performing (Bruce Tuckman, 1965). Therefore, I need to be careful not to crow too early. Our group as a New Entrant cohort and our group as a teaching team are both in their forming stages. I am grateful for all the insights I am learning about our students and my colleague during this time: the strengths they bring to the table. I need to consciously take note of these, to remember them, because inevitably the time for storming will come. 

Little people will suddenly realise that school is not a novelty, it is every week M-F, 9-3, and they don't get to opt out. We teachers  will become overwhelmed by life demands outside school, by paperwork, various behaviours, by that one child that we have yet to connect with on a real level. It is in the stress of those moments that perfect storms arise. Do we ever really know anyone until we have seen them in the storm? Can we ever really develop a close effective working relationship if we do not know how to weather those storms together? 

Hold tight Team Kiwi, remember these first days of delight. We will develop strong working rhythms and we will grow to perform beyond our wildest expectations. It will be quite a ride - so hold on tight. 


Tackman, Bruce (1965) Developmental sequence in small groups, Psychological Bulletin, Vol 63, No. 6, Pg 384-399

It is the eve of a new school year and the start of a whole new professional journey. This is the year we launch full on into the collaborative teaching pedagogies of a Modern Learning Environment. No more dabbling around the edges of AFL, no more security of being able to stake our space, claim our kids, close our door and do our own thing. We will start initially with 2 teachers and a Dean of Learning. Throughout the year, as new 5 year olds start school, more teachers will join us. We will probably end with 6 or 7 teachers and over 100 children. The spaces we have today will have to evolve as we grow. 

Our hope had been for a redesigned space, more open plan with walls knocked down and furniture to facilitate new teaching and learning patterns. Unfortunately, engineers stated that none of our walls could go. They are all load bearing. Additionally, budgets did not extend to large furniture purchases so we have only a few new pieces, a round ottoman and 5 whiteboard teaching tables. It was depressing to come in late January and see the same rooms and all the same furniture, and yet, to know that we HAD to make a shift in our teaching. Same + same, usually = same. Therefore we needed to consciously force a difference. Many teachers were in the last week setting up their rooms. Gina and I had 5 classrooms to set up. Some suggested that we only set up two spaces and open the other rooms as new teachers join us. However, that would have meant teachers "seeing" spaces as their own. We did not want teacher ownership of spaces, but rather for students to access all spaces. To promote student autonomy in their decision making and to developing self-regulating behavior for their own learning. This meant setting up all classes. 

A central space for developmental play, inquiry, and large group meetings, then a classroom each for Maths, Reading and Writing. Our final space is an Art Room.  These rooms will be used to centralize resources in and to display progressions, however we will try to promote the concept that all learning can occur in any of the zones. My teaching partner and I just spent 3 hours putting finishing touches on the learning spaces. These five adjoining rooms. It was a mammoth task and we especially thank friends who helped out. The wall displays and progressions will be developed through the year with the students. I look forward to being able to post these and my reflections on how the learning spaces are being used. 

Roll on 2015  Team Kiwi (Year 0/1) are all ready.

I have just come from a meeting where we were asked to envision what we wanted, furniture wise, to create a modern learning environment for up to 120-130 five year olds. We took some time looking through catalogues, discussing the pros and cons of the various teaching and learning spaces. We dared to dream big (I really want a classroom loft) and we considered small individual spaces (bubble space mats and table partitions). We discussed having differing heights, ranges of motion, and tactile experiences. We all fell in love with the whiteboard topped teaching tables. 

Then we took time to walk around our existing space to imagine what we wanted it to look like. One large wall will be knocked down and 4 large internal sliding doors will be removed, opening up the space into one large central room with 3 large bays, 2 smaller bays, 2 cloak rooms and 1 withdrawal office coming off it. We decided that each large bay should be the home for either reading, writing or maths. This will allow us to centralize our resources into that space and use the large floor to ceiling display wall to show curriculum related progressions. We decided to knock out some windows between two spaces and make a breakfast bar look through space instead. We decided that the larger central space would support integrated inquiry and developmental play resources.  We even identified an area to turn into a "cave". We also decided to develop the outside space that runs behind the block into an outdoor learning space, with water play, sand play and gardening. 

At the heart of all this talk about spaces though is a realization that modern learning spaces are negotiated spaces, flexible spaces and collaborative spaces. They are about empowering students as self-motivated, self-regulted learners, which is a big order for five year olds brand new to school. Our understanding of how we will move around and use these spaces is still rather nebulous. We have a few (very few yet firm) parameters from SMT. We have been told that all teachers need to collaborate strongly together both in planning and teaching. Teachers and students are expected to use all the learning spaces flexibly and not to claim any one space as their zone. We know that while we will each have a homeroom list of students, in practice all students will be pooled and taught by different teachers according to identified learning needs. 

I am excited by the upcoming journey and also a little bit scared. The other day I dreamt of a beautiful collaborative learning environment with all students engaged, but when I woke up I realized that all the children in the dream were ten years old. Five year olds will be altogether different. It is great though to have this new professional journey to undertake. Open plan classrooms of the 70's were in most part a failure. Now we are breaking down the walls again, but this time it is supported by pedagogical practices such as Inquiry, Assessment for Learning (AFL) and The Thinking Curriculum. Additionally, we have technological resources to support more flexible and integrated approaches to learning.  

This blog has floundered for lack of focus as I have made the transition from teaching in an international school in China to teaching back home in New Zealand after an 18 year absence. Part of this was due to only having a fixed-term contract of 6 months. It is hard to dig deep into professional inquiry when employment is not stable. Now, however, I have a permanent teaching contract starting in 2015. To focus this blog, my professional inquiry will be centered around the development of successful teaching and learning in a Modern Learning Environment (MLE) for Early Years (EY) students. Hopefully, I will be able to connect with professionals around the globe engaging in a similar journey if discovery. 

Changing schools can be incredibly stressful. Each workplace has its own unique culture, both hidden and explicit. Additionally there is a whole new set of colleagues to understand, and who need time to understand you. In a collaborative work environment, like a school, I have found that it is essential to start on positive assumptions of belief in new colleagues and in myself. Most people want to be helpful, they mean to be clear. I will emerge from the fog of confusion. I will ...and here is the rub....feel competent as a teacher again.

This July, I started work at a new school. It is my fourth school in my 20 year career. I remember distinctly the cognitive and professional dislocation I felt during my last school transition. It seriously threatened to derail me, undermining my confidence and my identity as a teacher. Thankfully, so far I have been handling this transition with more grace. 

When you have been in a school for a long time, there is a known track record, a level of trust, familiar resources, known professional expertise and working relationships that you are comfortable with. In changing schools, all these are left behind. While I carrying with me a large pool of professional capital, in my current setting it is only privately held. In contrast, the collective professional capital of my new school does not yet belong to me. I know that it will only be a matter of time and experience, that eventually I too will be able to claim and be fully cognizant in the collective professional capital of this new workplace. For now though I live and work with a level of ambiguity that is uncomfortable and stressful. I am trying to rejoice in this: to claim it as my own professional Goldilocks Zone, or ZPD if you prefer, of professional learning. I do not believe in professional stagnancy. So while I am struggling, I also know I am learning.  

How has change impacted my life of late? It has not merely been a shift to a new school. Can I promote growth through practicing positive assumptions across all areas of my life? I have written before about developing growth mindsets and positive habits of mind in our students. Now my challenge is to develop these is myself amidst these changes:

• Changed country from China to New Zealand
• Change educational systems from an IB International School to the New Zealand public school system
• Switching from Year 5 to Year 0
• Living with family just down the road for the first time in 18 years
• Started attending a new church community
• Living in my own house instead of rented accommodation for the first time
• Living on considerably less than my previous salary
• Owning and driving a car for first time in 18 years
• About to vote for the first time in 18 years - This one is really confusing me. Understanding a countries political climate is tricky!!!

It is a scary thing to let go as teachers. To let go of control and decision making. To step back and let a natural learning process take place. This year our grade 4 teaching team have grappled with the question of when to intervene and when not to. I have discovered that it is one of the hardest things to do as a teacher. We are wired to sort, to organize, to order kids and resources and to ensure that all learning moves forward as it should. Our first foray into handing organizational control to the students was during our unit under the theme of "How We Organize Ourselves". We realized that the more we as teachers organize kids the less hands on experience they have of organizing themselves. 

First, the students decided to organize a flash mob in the school cafeteria. Our 55 grade 4 students are all very opinionated!  The biggest difficulty was that everyone wanted to lead, they all thought their own ideas were best. They easily spent the first two planning sessions talking themselves around in circles, while we, their teachers, bit our lips and sat on our hands. After school meetings as a team centered around questions of parameters. Should we set any? How long were we willing to wait for action? Is there a time in which we will need to step in and at which point might we need to pull the plug? After the first agonizing week, where they went nowhere, we finally delivered an ultimatum. By the end of the next lesson, they had to agree on how they would organize themselves, who would be responsible for what, and they had to deliver a schedule of rehearsal times so that they could being making bookings for facilities and equipment. Suddenly they were off and away. Rehearsals went well and corporate  decisions were made, although not always the ones we teachers would have chosen. The final flash mob was a success - in our small world at least.  

We were ready to step up the ante. We floated the idea of a Maker Faire with the students. A Maker Faire would give them the opportunity to participate in the organization of another whole grade event, but also each student would need to be responsible for the organization of their own exhibit. The scariest part was that none of us teachers had ever even been to a Maker Faire before. The projects were all their own choices and in many cases they needed to source their own materials. We worked closely with our Design teacher who supported the students through the design cycle and the development of various prototypes. Some students chose to work alone while others grouped together. Again, it was excruciating at times to see kids spinning in circles achieving nothing but then at other times there were huge gains in product development taking place. The same questions of intervention and timing arose. I was hesitant to step in too quickly, wanting to give them the chance to find their own way back to the task. One group decided to design a product display box to market the headphones they had made. I watched them muck around with this ugly naked box for about a week, basically achieving nothing. Finally, I stepped in to demonstrate action and to get them moving forward. Within 10 minutes, 1/2 the box was painted and their mylar window had been installed. Suddenly they caught the vision and I stepped back again. Over the next two lessons that box was fully kit out with a persuasive paragraph, instructions for use, a photograph showing it in use and the product logo. In class, we had moved onto our new unit about persuasion and influencing others, so the students were also asked to develop an advertising campaign both for the Maker Faire itself and for their own stall.  

The final Faire was a huge success. There was a range of items on show from stomp rockets, to recycled can cars, a fishing game, a model airboat and even a cool hovercraft. One of my favorite was a very addictive squishy ball. Some products definitely had the WoW factor, while others were frankly weak and didn't reflect a productive engagement over 6 weeks. It was very evident in the final event who had shown good organizational skills. I hope the school repeats the Maker Faire, opening it up to the wider community in future years. I think this is an event where the quality of the exhibits can only get better each year, as they learn from each other and the experience of being a maker. The biggest indication of success for me was the very high level of engagement from our visitors. Many students had sourced sufficient materials to encourage visitors to get involved and make too. As I moved through the throngs calling for pack up time, there was a chorus of disappointment from the visitors and grateful relief from the presenters. They were exhausted, having spent 90 minutes teaching, demonstrating and helping others become makers too. 

I am constantly astounded by the direction 9 year old students can go in their thinking. This morning we were discussing 3D shapes, clarifying and defining. What makes a shape a pyramid and what makes a shape a prism? What are the distinct differences between pyramids and prisms? We had a wonderful array of 3D shapes to sort and explore with. Suddenly one student asked, "Is a cone a pyramid?" 
"Good question, who wants to theorize?" I asked.
"No'" exclaimed one chap, "because it only has one face at the side and it is not triangular in shape."
There was a consensus of nods, but one divergent miss shouted out. "Not necessarily, maybe the sides are actually made of many very, very small triangles." 
"How many would we be talking about?" I asked.
"Well lots and lots, because the more triangles you have the more the base will look like a circle," she explained. 
"Ah, you have hit upon one of the great mathematical discussions. If a line is defined as straight, how many lines make up a circle?" I challenged.
"Lots and lots and lots of them," the students were starting to get animated now with the ideas, but as the bell was almost on us I asked them to take a quick vote on whether a circle has zero straight lines or infinite number of straight lines. We then voted on the fate of the cone. Did it qualify as a pyramid? We decided that these were both debatable. Finally, I asked, "What about the prisms. Using the same logic and arguments, is there a shape that could debatably be a prism?"
"Oh, the cylinder, " a group stated, 
"Because, the curved face could actually be millions of very small rectangles joined together," it was explained by one. 

Sometimes it is the simplest changes to our teaching that have the most powerful effects. Building dynamic classroom discussions is a perennial goal in my teaching practice. Some years the English language level and personality mix of the children make discussion excruciating. Other years, they are vibrant and lively. This years bunch of kids are all very vocal! They have opinions and are not afraid to speak up. A few are deep and divergent in their thinking, constantly pushing the envelope of ideas and provoking new lines of inquiry in their classmates. I was thoroughly enjoying our class discussions, and almost resting on my laurels. Then suddenly, one small change opened up depths I hadn't anticipated. 

We had been learning about how people use persuasion to influence others. It the past, I had introduced formal debate phraseology with the students: Giving Opinions, Disagreeing and Providing Reasons. These were printed on 3 A3 posters and mounted in the room.  These were referred to occasionally, but that was all. The introduction of an IWB several years ago meant that 1 poster at a time could be displayed in large format. This worked well during my introduction of the lessons as they practiced the 3 skills separately. However, this year I really wanted to facility a truly dynamic discussion with students moving in and out of the 3 skills as they needed them to persuade others. I decided to put all three into a looped slideshow, and without drawing attention to it, simply run it in the background during the discussion. The answer was so simple and yet I could not have anticipated the increased level of engagement. The rolling starter phrases provided a hook for the shyer students and challenge to the confident students to try new language structures. It seemed that whatever topic was introduced discussion raged hot and students were disappointed when I drew the debate to a close. 

How innovative can one be when introducing students to long multiplication? I wasn't sure, but I definitely wanted towards more of an inquiry process. A pre-assessment had shown only 3 students knew any procedure, so I was starting from the very beginning with most. I hadn't intentionally tried to bring design thinking into the lesson plan, so was surprised when mid-lesson my colleague reflected, "This is design thinking in Maths." I was quite delighted. We had just come off an inset workshop on building design thinking into all curriculum areas, and I had subconsciously done this in my Maths plan. Here is what I tried and how it worked. 

Rather than direct teach the steps of long multiplication, I wanted the students to inquire and uncover the steps. Although there are many procedures, I decided to stick with a standard long multiplication algorithm for this first lesson. Below are the stages of the lesson broken into the parts of the design thinking cycle we used. 

Analytical Thinking (Defining the problem to be solved)
I decided to first model through think aloud and shared responses what analysis thinking looks and sounds like. I did this with a 4-digit subtraction problem by writing one on the board and having a student solve it. Then I asked the class to analyze what they could see, starting with the obvious and going deeper. I modeled a few starting observations and then invited responses from the class. I scribed these responses all over the board, around the problem. I used 3 guiding questions

• What is happening?
  
• Why is it happening?
  
• What if ....I didn't do that? etc..
  

The sorts of thinking the students came up with ranged from 
- It is subtraction
- It is borrowing
- Numbers are being changed
- The working numbers are smaller than the numbers of the original problem  
- The working numbers are going down, from 9 to 8, or from 10 to 9
- You are crossing off borrowed numbers

I then had students work in pairs to analyze a long multiplication problem. They were a mixture of 3 or 4 digit numbers multiplied by a 2 digit number. Each pair had only one problem written and worked out, including the answer, in the middle of an A3 sheet. I asked them to use the 3 guiding questions to analyze what was happening and to write their observations and understandings around the problem. 

Here is some of the thinking that came out of this time
- There is multiplication of big numbers to make even bigger numbers
- There is a multiplication sign
- There are two puzzles
- First there is multiplication and then second there is addition to get the answer
- Here is multiplication, here is addition and here is the answer (arrows)
- This is a 50 (digit 5 in ten column circled)
- This 1 looks like a 1, but it really means 100 (digit 1 carried over into the 100's column)
- Small working out
- Cross out the working after it is used
-  First we do 306x6, then 2nd we do 306x10 and then we add it together. (306x16)
- 7x6=42, so the 40 goes to the tens place and the 2 goes to the ones place.
- There and two lines (answer bars)
- This means = (pointing to an answer bar)

They discovered a lot of truths about how this algorithm works.

• No one in the class identified or defined the role of the placeholder zero, although several followed the procedure)  so I know that will definitely be part of my follow up. 
  

Trial & Error (Prototyping)
Once students started to form an idea about how the algorithm worked they were told they needed to test this idea on the mini-white boards. I encouraged the students to prototype early, even if they only had a partial idea. They did not need to understand the whole problem before starting. If they were correct they could add that observation to their sheet and continue, otherwise they needed to revise their ideas and go back to further analysis thinking. 

Practice and Teaching (Refining)
Once the algorithm was fully understood, students needed to be sure that their partners understanding was equal to theirs. For the few students that had already learned long multiplication this meant that they couldn't skip analysis or trail and error as their partners needed to see these stages to fully understand as well. In the last few minutes of class, I placed a few extra unsolved problems on the board so that they could have further practice. I encourage them to take turns with only one solving a problem each time and the other acting as a mathematics coach. They could also create their own problems to further challenge themselves.  

Adaptation (Modification & Enhancement)
Only about 1/2 of the class made it all the way through to confident understanding of the algorithm, and all of them need further practice to gain computational fluency. This is where I will focus in the immediate lessons. However, my teaching partner multiplies by a slightly different algorithm and I am sure 1 or 2 students will come up alternative algorithms too. I will therefore plan some lessons that let all students replicate this same investigative approach to the other algorithms. We will probably finish by doing a very personal comparative investigation. In this they will write their own problem and then solve it using all the algorithms they know. Under each they will need to write a reflection of pros and cons, and make a personal choice for their preferred method. 

What does it mean to be a good teacher? What defines and separates out the good from the excellent? I keep returning to this question of excellence in my own professional life. I am in my final semester of a very profitable 9 years at my current school. Huge life changes loom ahead as I will be relocating back to my "home" of New Zealand after almost 18 years of absence. Questions of finding a teaching position, of entering what will be for me an new education system and the transferability of my professional skills, dominate my thoughts. 

Yet in the midst of all this, I have a wonderful class of very present students. Daily, I need to seek and find myself as a professional in this present moment. Thoughts of the future will not benefit my current students. They need me today, to hear their queries and respond to their excitement about learning. Dylan Williams in a recent conference at our school summed up a very popular sentiment by saying repeatedly to us that: "teaching is an impossible job." There is always more to be done than can be achieved within the constraints of time, curriculum and access to resources. And yet, beyond all of these, I have always believed that the most powerful of all forces for learning is relationship. Today, tomorrow, each period of class, I commit to being present for my students with all my mind and heart. They deserve nothing less. I am inspired by the students before me, their trust in me to make each day count.