MIT 14 First Meeting

I had the pleasure today to be part of the MIT 14 team hosted by Telecom. We had out first meeting of the year in their FABULOUS down town headquarters.
The area that Lynne from The Telecom Foundation gave us for the day was lovely with lots of different areas for different things over the day. A very modern learning environment!!

We started the day with a look at what the research projects are that the group are undertaking this year.

With everyone having very different age ranges and are from different schools ( mostly ), the focus of the projects cover a range of areas. The link to everyone's inquiries is here. We had to read the inquiry intention of the person sitting 2 away and think of a "good" question for them to get them talking about their plans.

One of the things that came up in the conversation for me was how to track the progress of the Level 3 students that I have in my class who have not done the subject since they were in Year 10. With the Level 1 students, I can look at their Asstle results from the end of last year and for the Level 2 group, I can look at their DVC achievements from last year if they took it. This does not apply to most of my Level 3 group. How can I have a level start to compare them all from and know their abilities? A suggestion from Dorothy was to use their English NCEA results from the previous year as a guide to their reading and writing ability, as their analysis and note writing is what I am hoping to increase in my inquiry this year. ( DVC students are always surprised at the amount of writing and thinking there is in the subject !! ) I like this idea as it can also be used for the Level 2 students ( some of whom are new to the subject too ). So that is going on my to do list for next week, as will talking to their English teachers from last year.

I looked at Helen's plan for her work and even though Helen's inquiry is very different to mine, as she is looking into embedding the key competencies within her teaching of her students, what I took away from her today was the use in the classroom of the specific language that you want the students to use. Helen had not been using the language of the key competencies long before her students were using it in conversations with her and each other. My students in Design and Visual Communication always need to use specific design language when they write their analysis notes with their work and the use of this is specifically required in a number of the Achievement Standards. We need to start using this language as part of the everyday things that they hear in the classroom / lesson, then it will not be such of a problem when they have to write using these words. The Google Plus communities that I have set up for each level will also help them to practice using these words to describe design in a no pressure / no assessment situation.

So...lots on my to do list after this meeting. And so it starts!!!

The Telecom building is GREAT!!