Pt England Ambassadors @ MIT - 2019

Today Garth and I took the 2019 year 6 Ambassadors to MIT. Their job was to present to a group of training teachers and show them how they learn from day to day. These training teachers were blown away by the way our Ambassadors were able to talk about their learning, and do so with such confidence. Some of my reminders/takeaways from their presentation was:

• our children are hooking into learning because of a real audience
• they are passionate learners
• our children are learning in a VERY different way to other learners in other schools
• if you give our children a stage, they take it with two hands! Our children lifted hugely in their presentation because of the large crowd today and they lifted more when the crowd were responsive

After the Ambassadors' presentation I was then given the opportunity to stay and discuss further the way in which we teach and learn at Pt England school. I was impressed with the openness of the training teachers and the passion with which they talked about teaching and learning. The things that stuck out for them was:

• why we teach with digital devices (see photo below)
• why it's important to rewind what we teach
• the importance of connecting with our children and then connecting them with a real audience
• have fun!

Pt England Ambassadors @ MIT - 2018

Today Garth and I took our year 6 Ambassadors to present our learning to students studying to be teachers at MIT. This was a very passionate and eager group who were very impressed with our year 6 Ambassadors!

From their feedback it became clear that there were a few main areas that challenged them the most:

1. Why teach with digital devices? We use Chromebooks and iPads because these devices enable our teachers and children to capture their teaching and learning so that it becomes rewindable and can be re-watched and re-used at anytime. If it is worth teaching, it is worth capturing. If it is worth learning, it is worth capturing.
2. It stops learning from only happening in the confines of a school day - 9am till 3pm. It enables children and their whanau to continue the learning together at home with all of the same scaffolding as they would get at school. 
3. It enables children to work at their own pace - either ahead of the class or slower if needed.

Thank you MIT for having us! All the best for the rest of your studies and for teaching in 2019!