Thursday, November 22, 2018

Manaiakalani Class OnAir Lesson 13 - Gears



Link to Manaiakalani Class OnAir to see the whole team.

Direct Instruction

We have a set of gears that have been made on the 3D printer so the introduction was about showing them the pieces we have and how to connect them together. There is also a worksheet to refer to for more understanding.




Class Site Content



This is activity 2 on the site.
Learner Generated Content

First Activity
To start with, they had to connect the gears together and see the motion that was created.




Second Activity
The students had to get the movement being transferred from one side of the board to the other.





Third Activity
The challenge was to get the motion transferring from one side of the table to the other, using multiple boards and working as a team.


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Friday, November 16, 2018

Trying Blogging with Jumpstart

In my senior Design and Visual Communication classes for the last few years we have been using Google sites as the place to put all of the project work as online design portfolios. Example here.
This year, during JumpStart, I thought that I would experiment with them using their blogs instead.
I am getting them to blog the tasks separately with a label on it that is the standard number. In this way all the work for the standard can be found all together by clicking the label.


AS91057
Student 1Link
Student 2Link
Student 3Link
Student 4Link
Student 5Link


We have just made a start on this so I will make a judgement about how it goes compared to using sites at the end of the project.


Learning Geometric Drawing through Pattern Making

My intermediate classes have been learning how to draw geometric shapes using drawing equipment lately. The equipment we have been using is rulers and compasses to draw circles, triangles, hexagons and isometric cubes.
To make this more fun, we have been doing this learning as pattern making.

To start with, we practiced some circles and when we were feeling more confident we started putting 7 circles together. From these 7 circles you can colour a flower or add some extra straight lines to make stars or flowers.
The link to the instruction on the class site for this is here.



Then we used our compass skills to draw equilateral triangles and hexagons. Link to class site instructions

All the time while doing this we were talking about the new vocabulary we were coming across and finding examples of it to explain and clarify it further. Blog post here.

Then we moved onto using isometric grid paper to make templates for our coloured cubes.


This template was used to draw around on 3 different colours of sugar paper that they then assembled to create a stacked cube illusion.
This is the link to the folder with their work in it. 


Their flowers, stars and cubes are all decorating my classroom wall and they look great.






Thursday, November 15, 2018

Bursts and Bubbles 2018

Today all of the Manaiakalani CoL teachers got together to present the findings of their year long inquiries in a "Bursts and Bubbles" session.

Check out the blog links on all of these slides to see how the CoL teachers have conducted their inquiries and results that they have had.













Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Inquiry Group - Number Crunching

My inquiry group this year been my Year 11 NCEA Level 1 Design and Visual Communication class.  I have already done an overall analysis of their results this year, link to blog post here, so I thought that I would do an analysis of the level of excellence grades. I think this will show if my work on literacy with them this year has had any effect as it is the level of analysis writing that gets them the higher grades.

This table shows the percentage of excellence grades achieved for each standard for this year and the previous 5 years.  I decided to show percentage as the comparison as I get a widely different number of students every year and this year was the largest class that I have had in a long while (13 students).


201820172016201520142013
AS9106915%14%0%0%13%0%
AS9106715%14%0%0%13%0%
AS9106642%13%0%0%0%0%
AS9106825%13%0%0%13%0%

This next table shows the total entries for all the students for all the DVC standards against the number of excellence grades achieved.. This year has the most entries (50) as there was the most students. There was still the same number of standards.


Total Entries503034253238
Excellence1240030
24%13%0%0%9%0%


The achievement challenge that I have been focussing on this year has been achievement challenge number 1 :-

Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13.

Because of this, I have broken down the achievement of the Māori students in the class.

Maori 2018151515
4 students8 (E)3 (M)4 (A)
4 standards -153%20%27%

I am very pleased with the increase in achievement the students have shown and their willingness to go through the process with me this year. They knew I was focussing on literacy with them and why I was doing it.
The breakdown of my inquiry at the start of the process has helped greatly as it gave me a structure to work to and a target to aim at.
The section where I broke down what I needed to learn as the teacher has been a huge learning curve for me this year but I feel it has given me something that I can continue working on.
This whole process for me this year has really highlighted the benefit of using the skills of colleagues round you to great effect.
Thank you to :-



Link to all the literacy labelled posts here.

I can do the happy dance now ....



PS ... don't ask me about the Year 12 and year 13 results as that is a whole other story, but I have proved to myself that it works now so I have something to build on and use.



Friday, November 9, 2018

Jumpstart - Task One

I met my new NCEA Level 1 class yesterday for the Jumpstart session at the end of the year. We did some drawing skills yesterday and so today for the first double period of the course we made a start on Task One of the project. Link here to the Jumpstart project site.

The first task is to make a mood board of our theme for the project which is Steampunk.  My plan was to have the students work in pairs or small teams to do the mood boards as they are all collecting images to do with the same theme it may as well be a team activity. We decided to do this as a whole group today and make one big mood board.





The students researched lots of different images to illustrate Steampunk and sent them to me to print. They then cut them out and started assembling them on the mood board. The board itself was three large pieces of cardboard taped together so it can stand up. They can then have that up in the class room as they are working on their design ideas to be inspired by the shapes, colours and textures.



It was good to see them all working together as a team (one of them didn't want to be in the team photograph ) and feel like they accomplished something so early in the project.

We had some time left at the end of the session so we had a play with the gears to prepare ourselves for the next task.



Thursday, November 1, 2018

Inquiry Group - Student Voice



What went well this year in DVC?


Getting my credits before the deadlines.
Basically, everything.
Me getting all my credits before the deadline and ms ferguson helping us achieve without getting a NA.
I think what went well, while being in this Graphics class, I have improved more in my drawings and developments of those drawings.
The group activities that we did earlier this year in DVC including the no rules game where we had to create our own rules from scratch went well.
Everything went well in my opinion, by doing assessments, designing and etc...

I like the fact that they have brought up deadlines and group activities. My plan for next year is to work much tighter around deadlines to keep us all up to date ( letters and phone calls home with regular updates, after school sessions, regular looking at each other's work to see themselves in relation to the rest of the class). I also feel that the group work was a very positive point this year so will be doing much more of it.

Why do you think this went well?
Because of how fast I am at finishing the work.
I think this because i was put into graphics and it went well because i managed to achieve in all the internals with the help of Ms Ferguson.
Ms ferguson helping and hurrying us up to finish so we can pass quickly.
Because overtime I was clueless about creating something new and improve, but over the year I excelled more and ended up getting a few excellence in my projects, which I was very pride of.
Because all the groups were supportive with each other's set of rules and adapted to them and had a good time together.
Because I was able to meet my goal into getting excellence credits, and I got the help that I need in order to achieve this goal.

Supporting each other has been a definite positive this year and needs building on in the other year groups too. I am so pleased that they are feeling pride in their progress over the year and they are feeling the benefit of trying hard to improve.

What did not go so well this year in DVC?

Just struggling last minute for the last internal when i decided not to take the wearable tech internal serious from the start.
Trying to complete the tasks on time
When i'm doing my final design for my chair I had a lot of mistakes and improvements that needs to be done.
Being naughty and get into trouble a lot in the start of they year.
My first project which was the Poster designs on my architecture
I think that the commitment of attending after school catch up classes to complete unfinished work did not go so well for most students.
Students who disturbed the class

I find it interesting that they highlight similar things that I would. For example, not coming to the offered after school study classes which would have helped them a lot. Also, the bad start some of them had on the first project when they were still settling into being a Year 11 student. 

Why did this not go so well?

Because when ms was away i didn't do the work left behind and i just used it as free time.
Because it was hard to progress when you stumble across an obstacle
Because I did not apply what Ms Fergerson told me to do to make my work better.
Me hanging around the wrong people and at the wrong time.
I wish I did better and got a excellence for this project, but I'll work hard next year.
Because some students that needed to complete their assessments did not turn up when it was necessary to do so.
Because they were a distraction.


I too was worried about the time that I had to be away this year and the fact that hardly any of them did the work that I had left for them to do. This has lead to a huge rush at the end of the year which I was hoping to avoid this year. It was also a factor in the students who failed to complete the last project.

How could this be made easier, better for the future?

Be a better person at listening and focusing on my work.
Just for myself, i could improve on my free hand sketching and being able to cope with the struggles of trying something new.
If there was more time to explain and guide across the obstacle
I will apply all the techniques and imporvements that she told me to do so it will be easier for me.
Just to listen to ms, focus on my work more harder and to just be a better person.
Focus more and do more work in order to get an excellence endorsement for graphics
I think what would make it easier in DVC for the future, is to group those who work consistently with people who need help, that way, students will be able to learn off each other in a way that will lead to success hopefully.
I could avoid there distracting and just focus on working hard even more

I like the feedback about taking time to explain and work around the speed bumps we come up against. I think we spend too much time forging forwards when we need to slow down and focus on the things that need more work when we need to.
Choosing the group s for them is an interesting one. I am never too keen to do that in  case I put them with people they don't like. I might try it once and see how it goes.

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Inquiry Group - Results Analysis

I have just completed packaging up the students work to send away to Wellington to be externally marked so they have no more time on their projects.
I have done an analysis of the internal standards that the students in my inquiry group (my Year 11 class) have completed over the year and compared them to the previous 5 years.
I have had 13 Year 11 students doing Level 1 this year which is the largest group that I have had.


AS91069 - Promote an organised body of work to an audience using visual communication techniques - 4 credits

AS91067 - Use the work of an influential designer to inform design ideas - 3 credits



AS91066 - Use rendering techniques to communicate the form of design ideas - 3 credits

AS91068 - Undertake development of design ideas through graphics practice - 6 credits