Celebration of students scholarship

On Wednesday, Brittany and I presented our posters at the Celebration of Students Scholarship which was held at MSU. Our posters were displayed for two hours, and we got a chance to talk to a lot of people about our trip. We got to talk to the dean about giving presentations around campus next year to share what we have learned.  Many teachers and staff from the education department stopped by to hear what we learned on the trip. Everyone was very interested in the things we observed in New Zealand and said they were looking forward to hearing about our final results.

Some people asked great questions that I am interested in finding out the answers to. For example, how much do teachers get payed in New Zealand compared to the U.S. and how much does their government spend on education? I am looking forward to hear what Drs. Lindsey and Fernandez learned during their extra two weeks in New Zealand. Its the last week of school and I am very busy preparing for exams and doing last minute assignments. I am really looking forward to summer where I will have a lot more time to  reflect on the trip and write out my thought on everything.

update

Today, Brittany and I got together to work on our posters for the Celebration of Student Achievement. We e-mailed them to Drs. Lindsey and Fernandez so that they can make corrections or tell us what we need to add. The celebration is next Wednesday.

I have been very busy with school. It turns out that missing a month of school is very overwhelming. Since I came back at the end of the semester, I have a lot of assignments due for all of my classes. I have been working hard to stay ahead of my workload and not procrastinate.

Last night on Kate plus 8, they visited New Zealand. It made me miss it! Kate jumped off of the sky tower along with two of her kids. They also went to a Kiwi house and a Maori village.

P.S. Happy birthday Dr. Fernandez. I hope you and Dr. Lindsey are having a great time in New Zealand!

Home!

I am now back home in Kentucky. We spend the last day in New Zealand at the Auckland Zoo. It was beautiful. My favorite parts were the kiwis, giraffes, and sea lions. It was a great last day!

Brittany and I had to fly back by ourselves which was kind of scary. We had to run to our first flight because the boarding time on the ticket was two hours before the plane left. they put it that was because there are so many passengers for the flight. We thought we were going to miss our flight but we actually had an hour wait before we got on. I slept off and on throughout the flight and watched two movies.

The 8 hour layover was very long. We ate, did homework, and walked around the airport. I bought a book and read the entire thing while we were waiting. The flight went pretty quickly. I could sleep so I read magazines and listened to my Ipod. while on the flight I realized I left my boarding pass for the Lexington flight in my carry-on. Unfortunately, they checked our carry-ons through to Lexington because there was not enough room on the LA to Chicago flight. Luckily, all I had to do was show my license to the people at the desk and they printed me a new one at the Chicago airport.

After three hours in Chicago we got on our last flight. I slept so it went by very quickly. My parents met me at the airport and took me home. It is good to be home but I already miss New Zealand. It was a wonderful experience and I am VERY thankful to have been granted this opportunity. I look forward to continuing to work on this project and see what comes from it.




P.S. I hope Dr. Lindsey and Dr. Fernandez are having a good time in New Zealand!

Karori Normal School

I haven't had a chance to blog about this school. We went there on Tuesday, the day before I left to come home.
It was a Decile 10 school in Wellington.


We visited two classrooms. The first was doing guided reading. The class was doing a unit on the body. Around the room, some students were working on posters about the body, some were playing games on the computer, and some were on the carpet with the teacher. The second class was working on supporting statements with evidence. They read a passage and highlighted the evidence in the text. Then, they had to come up with their own evidence that supported the statement that the teacher gave.

Most of the day was spend in meeting chatting with some of the staff. The principal gave us general information about the school. The school theme was challenges. Instead of portfolios, they students had reflection books. They did unassisted writing at the beginning and end of the term. They selected what other pieces they wanted to go in their books. We also met with a woman who worked with the teachers and wrote lesson plans for the term. She gave us a copy. They were plans of what should be covered by a unit but a teacher could adapt the plan for his/her classroom.

We visited the library which was very cool and inviting. We ended the day with a meeting where we told them a lot about how Kentucky education is.

After the school we went to the Te Papa museum. It was very cool learning about New Zealand and seeing all of the artifacts. Our flight to Auckland was at 9:30. We had to change out tickets because they were accidentally scheduled for Wednesday instead of Tuesday. Luckily that was easy to fix and we arrived back in Auckland.

South Island/ Victoria University

Since we have not have internet for the last few days, I have not been able to post my blogs. I had already written them out, so I am going to post two together. The first post is about our time on the South Island and the other talks about our trip to Victoria University.

South Island Trip

We flew from Auckland to Christchurch and stayed the night in a jail that has been renovated into a hotel. The next morning we took the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth. The train ride was beautiful! The scenery was breathtaking, and I took a lot of great pictures. Greymouth was a small town. Brittany and I spent most of the weekend relaxing and watching movies on the wonderful movie channel. There was a small shopping plaza that we spend the first day browsing around in.

On Saturday we took the train back to Christchurch and stayed at the jail again. On Sunday morning, we went back to the train station and took a bus ride up the coast to Picton.  We supposed to take a train, but the train is no longer running since the earthquake.  Luckily, the bus ride was really pretty and went a long side the coast. I even got to see some seals resting on rocks.

After the four hour bus ride, we got onto the Interislander Ferry which took us from the south island to the north island. The ferry ride was beautiful as well. I will never get tired of seeing New Zealand scenery! The ferry took us to Wellington where we are staying until Tuesday evening. We are visiting Victoria University and their normal school.

Victoria University

Today, we visited our second University. Unfortunately, all of the students were out at field experience so we could not observe any classes. Instead, we met with a few literacy people who gave us some great information.

The fist people we spoke to were two women who were literacy advisors assigned by the ministry to go into schools.  They told us some of the things that they have been seeing in schools. Then, we talked with the man in charge of two literacy classes. The class is very condensed and I find it hard to believe that the students learn how to teach good literacy courses in such a short amount of time. The last woman we met with confirmed that literacy courses are being cut from the university. I am very thankfully that there are literacy courses offered to ALL students at Morehead.

When we left the University, we went to wellington Botanical Gardens. We walked around the rose garden which was very pretty. Some of the roses had very unique coloring and I enjoyed seeing the many different types.

For dinner we stopped at a nice fish restaurant that was right on Oriental Bay. The restaurant had a great view. After dinner we got ice cream. The ice cream here is so delicious and much creamier. Tomorrow is our last full day in NZ. This trip has flown by!

Dio

Diocesan (Dio) is an all girl private school that is a decile 10 school.  The school had students from Year 1 to Year 13.there was also a preschool that had children as young as 4 and a half.  A lot of infrastructure was being built, and the school had a lot great facilities for the students. Dr. Lindsey attended Dio so it was interesting seeing where she was educated.

The schools employs tutors for the students. Teachers can refer students to a tutor or a student can refer themselves if they think that they need some extra help. The first tutor was working with five students. The students were reading two different articles. On the side of the article the teacher put boxes that said character, action, setting, outcome, etc. that the students filled in as they read the stories. The teacher moved back and forth from groups for students that needed her help. Students highlighted words that they did not know and were working on self-monitoring their reading. At the end of the period, the students discussed the methods they used to comprehend the story. One thing I found surprising was that the students were looking forward to taking their spelling test and were upset when the teacher thought about cancelling it.

We got to observe another tutor who was working with two girls to prepare them for their upcoming test. The teacher was awesome! She was very funny, energetic, and creative. She had a great chart on the board that had four sections. The sections were types of words, how they are used, word sounds, and descriptive language. One of the main focuses was the different types of sentences. They read a paragraph of a prose piece and the two girls had to answer questions based on the text. I think that the girls really did learn the material because they were able to pick out the literary devices and sentence type and explain the effect of it for the piece.

We also went to the schools assembly after morning tea. One girl spoke about the importance of the school being a community. Then, awards were given out for recent sporting events. At the end, the school’s kapa haka group performed.

Dr. Lindsey and I observed a Year 10 math class. The students were given data sheets that listed ages, heights, foot length, wingspan length, bedtime, and waketime for a group of boys and girls. The students had to pick which area to look at and then analyze the data. They were given the choice to do a box and whiskers plot or a stem and leaf plot. The lesson was similar to one that I would expect to see in the United States, and I did not see anything special about the lesson.

We observed the gifted classroom. The students talked about wearable technology and the advantages and disadvantages of in a previous class. During this class, they were looking at wearable technology from an ethical perspective. The girls had to pose ethical questions. I was really impressed by the discussion that the students had over the topic. The students designed “smart clothes” for clients as if they were in the year 2035. They had to draw their idea and explain all of the features that the clothes had.

Waikowhai Intermediate

Waikowhai Intermediate is a decile 6 school in Auckland. Leanne Smith set up our schedule and even bought us lunch at a cafe. the staff at the school was very nice.

In the first block we visited a class doing a program called smartwords. One group was at the front of the room working with the teacher while the rest of the class was working in their workbooks. The teacher was a friendly American man who had us play a game with the class. The students had to match words with their synonyms and then match word parts with their meaning. At the end of the lesson, he had the four of us face off against the students to select the correct spelling of commonly misspelled words. The teacher used a method called "say sound spell" where the students picked a difficult word and said the number of sounds that they thought were in it. I found it very interested that he focused on the number of sounds instead of the number of syllables.Next, we went to the library. The librarians had a lot of great ideas to improve the library and make it more student centered. Also, they had a program called Lexile which is very similar to Accelerated Reader in the U.S.

The next class we visited was working on techniques to hook the reader. Some students were on the computer playing literacy games. Another group was supposed to be reading passages and answering questions, but they were very off task. The group at the front of the room working with the teacher was listing techniques using the SmartBoard. Another lesson that we got to observe was called "vocabulary detectives." The students read a passage that had underlined words in it. the students had to replace the underlined words with their synonyms in a box at the bottom of the worksheet. Then, they had to identify if the word was an adjective, noun, or verb.

After the second break, we went to another guided reading lesson. I spent the time observing the group that was working with the tecaher at the SmartBoard. The students were the lower group in the class and they were writing a narrative about little creatures called grassheads. They were working on developing their story by creating a setting. The students had to choose landmarks for their make believe city. The lesson was really interesting, and I think that the students were really enjoying making up the story. I was also impressed by all of the teachers in the school that used the SmartBoards. A lot of American classrooms have SmartBoards, but they do not use them like teacher in NZ do.

At the end of the day we observed Rainbow Reading. Apart from listening to the books, the students had to complete worksheets that went along with their stories. The worksheets tested their comprehension.

Tomorrow is our last school. We are flying to the South Island tomorrow night. Since Canterbury cannot host us anymore, we have about 4 days off. The plan is to take a train from Christchurch to Greyson. The train ride is supposed to be very scenic and beautiful. Once we are in Greyson, we are going to see some sights and do some shopping. I am really looking forward to some time off. I think that we all need a little rest after being in so many schools and learning so much information. Next week, we have Victoria University on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, we are going to the zoo and then Brittany and I fly home late that night. I cant believe we only have a week left in New Zealand. The time has gone by really quickly.

Rotorua Primary

The day finally arrived for our wonderful singing debut! We were welcomed into the school which was really cool. The students sang and then did their school's haka. The haka was amazing! The boys did the warrior faces and chants very well. Then, it was our turn to sing. We sang "You Are My Sunshine." Thankfully, it was over very quickly and nobody laughed at us.

This school is a decile 4 school. They had three breaks in the day. Two twenty minute breaks for morning tea and lunch and a thrity-five minute break for activities. all of the breaks made the day go by very quickly.

We were gifted around the school by two Year 8 girls. They were head girls for their syndicate. The fist syndicate we went to was the gifted one. We went to the two Year 8 and two Year 7 classes. A lot of the classrooms were looking into natural disasters like the recent earthquake and tsunami.

The next syndicate was the digital classrooms. The students had to pay $100 per term to be in the class. Each student used laptops for almost all of their work. One thing that I found really interesting was that the class used a website called Ultranet which was similar to Facebook. Students can create their own profile, upload pictures, and have friends. The teacher posts assignments on their and the students submit their work onto it as well. The tecaher and other students can comment on everyone's work and give advice on how to improve it. Also, parents can create their own profiles to keep up with their child's work.

One unique thing about this school was that they had an all boys class and an all girls class. Since they separated the genders in my high school, I was interested in seeing this. The all boys class was doing reciprocal reading. The boys were on task and doing their designated jobs.One group was doing spelling words and they had to write them ten times and sue them in a sentence. the all girls class was int he library doing worksheets on New Zealand. Brittany and I distracted a lot of the girls because they were really interested in knowing all about America.

At the end of the day, we met with the woman who ran the school's interventions. She used a book called Toe by Toe to teach the students how to pronounce sounds and blends. Also, she tries to get the student's parents to come in and observe a session. She teaches the parents some of the techniques to use when their child is reading.

On the ride home it rained, and we saw a rainbow. It was beautiful! Also, Sofya taught me how to count to ten in Maori. I will definitely have a pretty good New Zealand vocabulary when I get back.

Rotorua weekend!

Kia Ora!

After we got back on Friday, we started the three hour drive to Rotorua.  Halfway through the drive we stopped in Hobbiton (named after The Lord of the Rings) and ate dinner at a nice restaurant.  Once we got to Rotorua, we settled into the house. I loved the house! There were five bedrooms and two bathrooms. The house was beautifully decorated with a lot of wood and stuffed animals. There was a lake just down the road and there are kiyaks and a canoe that Robert and Sofya used.

On Saturday, we did some shopping. Afterwards, we drove around and looked at some of the hot springs. Some of them were boiling and they were way too hot to get in. Then, all of us went to Kerosine Creek which is a natural hot pool. It felt like a hot tub. It is so strange to me that there are some bodies of water that are naturally hot. That night, the four of us took a bus to a Maori village for a hangi. It was so interesting. We got to learn a lot about Maori culture and they sang and danced. The hangi was delicious. The food is cooked underground for three hours by steam. There was chicken, lamb, bread, carrots, potatoes, rice, salad, and pavlova and fruit for dessert.

On Sunday, Brittany and I were dropped off in Rotorua. We spent five hours shopping, eating, and getting pedicures. At 1, we went to the Polynesian Spa. We soaked in their hot polls for about an hour until our massages. My massage was wonderful. The treatment started with 30 minutes of a mud treatment. Then, they turned on the water and warm water was sprayed on me while the masseuse massages me with lotion. The hour went by way to fast. After the massage we spent some more time in the hot pools. For dinner, we picked up fish and chips (which I will miss dearly.)

This was a great weekend. The relaxation and free time was just what I needed after a long week in the schools!

Royal Oak Primary

Royal Oak Primary is a decile 8 school that has about 640 children. We got a chance to talk to the principal who was a very nice woman that had a lot of good plans to better the school. Our guide, Robyn, was really flexible with us and asked what we wanted to see.The school was planning a multicultural food festival which is happening tomorrow.

We got a chance to observe another reading recovery session. Then, we talked to the woman that ran the Bannatyne program. The Bannatyne program was one of the interventions I had researched so it was interesting to see it in person. The program focuses a lot on the vowel sounds. The sheets are color coded with colors that have the name of the vowel sound in them. For example, green was used to represent the “e” sound.

One of the most interesting rooms we saw was a room that was teaching literacy by using music. The children read from a book and had to sing a lot of the sentences. Also, they practiced their syllables by beating on buckets. At morning tea, we got to talk to the teacher who has seen the program have a bug impact on the students. In fact, she said that her class has made students excel enough to finish their Bannatyne program.

One of the themes that I saw in some of the classrooms was “pride in our place.” One classroom was doing rotating groups. One of the stations focused on learning about flags from countries all over the world. Other stations had children reading multicultural books and then answering questions from what they read. There was also a large focus on new Zealand and what they called “kiwiana.” The students had to answer questions about things associated with New Zealand such as pavlova, gumboots, L&P, and fijoas.

After morning tea, Brittany and I went to a Year 1 class and had a really good conversation with the teacher. Although I will not be teaching children that young, it was really interesting to hear the methods they use when children are first staring school. After that, we walked in and out of a few classes. Of course, all of the walls of all of the classes were filled with student t work.  One classroom in particular, the ESOL room, had every inch of the wall covered with a lot of interesting information.

During breaks, the students were practicing for the festival. They were doing what they called “jump jam.” Music was played, and the students did dance moves. A teacher was leading the students, and it seemed really fun.

After lunch, we chatted with Robyn and she answered the questions that we had. She showed us the program that the teachers use to  track attendance and behavior. It seemed like a great program because you had all of your information in one place. All teachers receive a laptop from the Ministry of Education and the school chooses the program that they want to use in their school out of 5 Ministry approved ones.

The day was really great and the school was very welcoming. They invited us to come to their festival, but we will be in Rotorua. After school we went to One Tree Hill. The view from the top was really amazing. On the way up there was a big field with lots of sheep. I tried to get close to some to get a picture but they all ran away from me!  We will be leaving for Rotorua this evening. Bryony found a house for us to stay in that in on the lake that had kiyaks. We won’t have internet access this weekend so I am not sure when my next blog will be.

Glen Eden Intermediate

Today, Sara and I visited a school she used to teach at, Glen Eden. It was a very big school with over 1000 students. She ran into a lot of people she knew and showed me her old classroom.

The first class we went to was an enrichment class. They were doing inquiry learning. The students were using mini laptops to do their presentations which was a very nice resource. The filled out booklets that outlined their presentation and the information on the topic they were learning about. I was very impressed with one group that was doing their presentation on water. In the booklet, they had little scripts stapled to each page. It was very detailed and they had mixed in some humor to their presentation as well. Many of the students had great presentations and were working hard on completing them.

The next class we went to was a Year 8. The teacher was a former principal who quit to go into teacher. His passion for his job was really inspiring. His children were also doing presentations over inquiry learning. He had created a packet that the stduents had to fill out about their subject. It was really detailed, and he let me have a copy. The students were in a lab working on their projects. Many of the students were off task playing games, printing pictures, or finding wallpapers for the computers.

After morning tea, Dr. Lindsey and I had a little meeting with some of the teachers. They had a lot of questions about education in the United States and we shared information about what we have learned so far. It was really interesting to hear their opinions about education in both New Zealand and the U.S.

The next class was a Year 7 English class. They were learning about alliteration and assonance because that was an area of weakness in their testing results. The teacher gave examples on the board and then the students had to come up with their own examples. Then, the class went outside on a lawn and spread out. they had to use figurative language to write a few sentences about being outside using their five senses. At the end of class, a few students shared their paragraphs and I was very impressed at how detailed they were.

At the end of the day, we sat in on a teacher doing what she called "book club." When she started the year, she noticed that the students had a very negative opinion of reading. To fix that problem, she told the students that they did not have to do any writing over their books for two whole terms. She also decided to split the genders because girls usually overshadow boys during discussions. In her class, she had two boy groups and two girl groups that were reading four different books. For their discussion, the students had to summarize what they read, make connections with the text, and then make predictions using actual or possible evidence. I found the class really interesting. I liked the idea of splitting the boys from the girls. The group I observed was a gril group and they had great discussion over their book. Unfortunately, I didn't get to observe a boy group, but Dr. Lindsey said they she was amazed at what the boys were discussing.

This has been a very fast week! Tomorrow we are going to Royal Oak Primary. After, we are going to One Tree Hill which I have been dying to go to since it shares the name of my favorite t.v. show. We won't be staying at One Tree Hill for long, because we are heading to Rotorua tomorrow night. We are stopping at a restaurant near where they are filming The Hobbit. I am really looking forward to the weekend. I plan on getting a massage and am looking forward to relaxing in the hot springs. Also, we are going to a hangi which should be delicious! I am looking forward to all of the culture!

Kaurilands Primary School

We are staying at the beach house for a few days this week so we do not have internet access. It has been quite an adventure going around the towns to try and find wifi. Luckily, we were able to find a McDonalds that has it.

The school we visited today was a decile 8 primary school. It was a very big school with about 800 students.  The school is continuing to grow each year so that had some construction going on. Luckily, the school had a lot of land. The Year 6 students were working on a field all day outside doing problem solving activities which they called day camp. Denise, who is a friend of Bryony, organized our day and was our guide around the school.

The first classroom’s teacher was on release so every Wednesday a certain aide teaches the class. The class was doing a unit on community. Today’s lesson was to learn how to  compare things. The students had learned about how school’s were 100 years ago. On the inside of the chart, they listed the things that they knew about schools from their previous lesson. Then, they read a story from one their school journals (free journals provided by the Ministry of Education) and filled in the outside of the organizer with the new material they learned. Since she does not teach the class every day, the aide uses a book that has a bunch of teaching practices with activities in it. I have seen the book many times and will definitely be getting it when I get back to the U.S.

The next class we visited was doing a unit on the brain. The class was split into groups and given a text about a specific part of the brain. Then, their groups went outside and did talking frames. Talking frames were a list of a few questions for the students that they had to discuss with their partners. The students were going to present their part of the brain in front of the class during the next class.

We also got to observe another reading recovery lesson. The teacher was doing the same thing that the pervious teacher had done. I can definitely see the effectiveness of the program and why it is such a success. We stopped in quickly to watch the school’s kapa haka group. They hired a Maori man to teach the students. Although they had just started learning it, the students did a great job demonstrating what they knew.

The school was having book week which meant that they had a scholastic book fair going on. One of the teachers in the school had written a children’s book which Dr. Lindsey and Dr. Fernandez bought and got signed. After, we went to the new entrant teacher to talk to her. She told us about the activities that she did with the new students. I saw a lot of similar methods that were used in other schools.

At the end of the day, we talked to Denise and she showed us some of the testing that the students did. It was really interesting. I love the fact that tests in New Zealand are used to access the students to make sure that the teacher know what level they are on. In the U.S. unfortunately, tests are used to grade schools and teachers. There is talk that New Zealand might be switching to this type of system but all of the schools are hoping that that will not happen.