Kotahitanga - Unity and standing together

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JIWI Co. Internships

Jiwi Co. 2025

Kia ora Ruma Rima Whanau! Sorry about the lack of communication and, to students in class, sorry about the weeks away this term.

During week two of this term we visited the MindLAB to explore the concept of 'Design Thinking'

through the context of 'Jiwi Machines' and marble tracks. Jiwi Machines are wonderful contraptions invented for completing a simple task in the most complex of ways. The video below was our inspiration for the start of this project...

Our design brief is:

'How could we use a Jiwi Machine to teach other students about scientific concepts?'

This week we move beyond 'design thinking' and start to use assessment to help us determine what our next learning steps are. On Thursday (the only day I was in last week!!!) we developed and identified which maths 'core skills' we would need to be successful in securing a job at Jiwi Co in the year 2025. What is important for us to be able to succeed?

We identified that being accountable for our learning and decisions is an important part of 21st century learning. Part of this is identifying our next learning steps.

These are snippets of self assessment (using example questions) to determine which 'level' students are at for each criteria - that were established by students. Our 'groups' will be based on student needs, which will help students to not feel like they are in a 'Low' or 'Bottom' group. This was a concern highlighted by students in the survey they completed.

Student Data:

Home Learning:

• Reading - 15min personal reading AT LEAST 5 DAYS A WEEK (could be about scientific concepts - which is what our Jiwi Machines need to be able to 'teach' people about)
• Writing - BLOG POST - ONE POST A WEEK (Criteria will be set in class on Monday)
• Maths - BASIC FACTS - AT LEAST 5 DAYS A WEEK for 15min each day
• Maths - DRAGON MATHS (3 pages per week, marked and fixed) or KHAN ACADEMY (25000 points per week)
• Jiwi Machines - Start to hunt down materials to use for your machine - bamboo? cardboard? Tubes? etc.... 

Design Thinking

Life Ed links

Www.knzb.org.nz

Www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved

Www.stompoutbullying.org

Www.redcross.org.nz

Week 5, Term 3

"An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail." Edwin Land

This week is going to be more interesting than usual. We are going to learn about keeping ourselves safe online, and about the choices we make. Innovation, failure and creativity will be the vehicle for learning this week as we embark on a new frontier... tinkerEd (explain everything!). Hopefully through completing science fair projects, students will have a better grasp of the process of creating new information, gathering current information, and using the scientific method for testing a theory/prototype.

Life Ed

Our class will be visiting life ed for two sessions this week, followed by one more next week Tuesday. Hopefully we will meet the infamous giraffe and learn a bit about being a better person. It was a great first session in which our classroom was given some amazing feedback about the depth of our responses, reasoning and questions. Tu meke Ruma Rima! :)

Learning Teams

This week we have started to develop a better understanding of what a 'Good team member' is like. We are working on developing a better understanding of the attributes of a skilled games player (Social, Physical, and Thinking Skills). Our teams are not just for taking part in 'PE' or for learning about running competitions, but about developing transferable skills that will lead to success in the future. These are the blogs that our teams have set up so far. Thanks for the hard work and learning about leadership captains! You guys are doing a superb job, along with your teams!

Team Blogs: Blogs for News, updates and info.
Howling Huskies
Anonymous Badgers
Stars Out East
Turtle Eclipse
Wolf Pack
Pride of Five

Mindlab

On Monday the 31st August we hope to attend Mindlab for a second session. The hope is to make 'battle robots' and to hopefully learn about coding. The basic idea would be robotics. In class before this visit we will use some time to take apart different electronics to get an idea of design using components. Students will hopefully get a better idea of drawing/designing prototypes, and testing their effectiveness before going back to the design process.

Parents/caregivers... could you please complete the form below to grant permission, and hopefully offer support for transport there. We will leave GisInt at 12:10pm (for a 12:30pm start), and head back at 2:30pm. I would love to gamble with the weather... but would be safer to travel there and back using vehicles. Thank you in advance for your support. Sessions will be $2 per child.

Week 4, Term 3

Our learning theme in Ruma Rima, for students and the teacher, continues to revolve around developing an understanding of what a 'Growth Mindset' is. Our focus has been on overcoming challenge, and learning about what to do when you are stuck. Science fair, innovative ways of learning, and learning to work together has helped us to develop towards being open to new ways of learning.

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill

Science Fair

Managing time and using strategies/tools to complete tasks, has ensured that most students are comfortably completing their science projects that are due next week. Part of having a 'Growth Mindset' is about making sure that we keep on improving (unlike the timing of our classroom blog posts!) on skills, attitudes and effort. Below is an image (which is similar to the image from the 'Science Fair' booklets distributed last term) which serves as a reminder of the required parts/aspects of your science fair project that should be displayed on the board. A few students have forgotten about the journal, which is kind of like a blog or record of the experience. Don't panic if this has not been complete - will be something to improve on for next year.

PE Teams

Sport education is about using the 'sport team' model to learn about cooperation, collaboration, problem solving, and making connections with people. This term we are working to establish teams within the classroom who will work together to 'gain points' in a competition that mimics a sport tournament. We have six teams that are lead by 6 students voted in by the rest of the class as 'leaders' in our room. These captains, with Mr Fourie's guidance, selected teams that would be fair and effective in helping students to learn skills that will be useful for working as a team in the future. They have had their first challenge (maths challenge) to try working together. We will use the video below to reflect/improve on our team's strategies for working together.

Learning about Light

Light is an interesting subject of conversation. It's all around us, yet we have no idea of what it looks like! Jack's science fair project is about creating a hologram using a smart phone. As a class we will be building on Jack's idea of a smart phone hologram to see if we can come up with something even better... or at least bigger. We have used words to try to explain what happens when a hologram is created. Traditionally we would have written an 'Explanation' of the science concept... but we tried to use a creative solution to understand what is happening a bit better. Our creative solution is using the basics of the concept of a hologram to create a recount (story) about the experience from a 'Proto' perspective. Very complex language and concepts... but makes for interesting discussion and learning! Below are videos we have used to understand light and holograms better.

  

Week 3, Term 3

He waka eke noa means that we are all in the same waka. We all need to work together to get to the same place. This week our classroom worked on cooperation by contributing to the kanikani video, working together to complete infographics, writing stories together, constructing science fair projects together, and helped each other to learn about chess.

Te Reo Maori Week:

It was my intention to have our kanikani video of 'Maui and Mahuika' uploaded onto the blog by yesterday (along with this post) but it seems that time and technology is not on our side at the moment... mostly time ;)

Last week's experience learning about the legend of Maui and Mahuika was very challenging, exciting, and interesting. With the help and support of her Whanau, TK managed to create 9 parts of the legend that would be transformed into a video showcasing some of the amazing skills that were taught about using poi and mau rakau. Our main actor (Dan Lee) plays the role of Maui, who is an inquisitive and innovative young man.

We will hopefully share the video later this week.

Infographics:

This week has had an interesting start with students spending some time in other classes to help Mr Fourie have time to extend his Te Reo Maori knowledge. It was a very rewarding session for Mr Fourie. For the remainder of the week we will be focussing on developing our infographics to showcase data in a creative way - can't believe people get paid to do what our students are doing in class at the moment! Some very innovative designs and displays appearing that show the difference between our lives and that of others in the world.

Free Writing:

At the end of last week we started to use 'Free Writing' to construct amazing pieces of writing inspired by images/writing promtps. This week we will be using picture books as inspiration to make a storybook come alive in another story. We will focus on developing language and visual techniques to better craft, edit and display our work. Might be handy skills for creating science fair displays ;)

Science Fair:

DUE IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS! Where has time gone! Most students are under way now, but will need parent support to meet targets and requirements. I am hoping to organise a trip to Lytton High to learn and extend knowledge around science. More details on this by next week.

Chess:

We used the vehicle of chess to develop logical thinking skills, that will add to our understanding of 'coding and programming' before our next mindlab session in Week 7 (31st August) where we will construct robots and learn about coding! Exciting times!

Week 2, Term 3

Kia ora Ruma Rima Whanau,

This is going to be a very fast and action packed week of preparation for the 'Winter Tournament' and a chance for Ruma Rima to use their new connections and knowledge gained from our 'Tuning In' week (last week) where students were able to learn from different teachers and experience what it would be like to work collaboratively as a team.

The 'Winter Tournament' is an annual event where our Rugby, Hockey, Soccer, and Netball teams head to Tauranga and compete for a spot in the finals/experience new competition from all over the BOP/PB region. We send all teams (irrelevant of being the 'best' or new to a sport) so that kids have development and experience in competing outside our region. We work hard to ensure our students have the best sportsmanship qualities and are having fun while there.

In class we are working on 3 main areas;

• Statistics - developing skills required to progress with constructing a 'info-graphic' to show how their lives reflect a 1st world life,  
• Inquiry - learning about the process of finding information by asking open ended questions and creating sub-questions to further develop understanding. During this process they will need to decide on information that is true... and not so true.
• Coding - learning about 'code' language, problem solving, and applying learning to PE to help develop better strategies. We are 'modding' our lives to make them better. Coding is great for developing logic in problem solving; ideal for development of sequence in maths/writing, and will link with our 'argument writing' later in the term to develop structure/better paragraphs.

We are working to give learners more voice (student agency) in the learning process. We are using surveys to figure out how students would like to learn. This week we discovered that more kids prefer Mathletics as a working platform, but prefer to practice basic facts at school. We have made changes accordingly:

1. We will complete a maths grid to develop basic facts at school. This will be each day until a student completes the grid to prove that they know their facts.
2. We will be moving to using Mathletics instead of Khan. Students who prefer Khan, can keep on using the platform (there is no one solution - and several kids still prefer Khan). The most important thing is that students are completing their tasks/practicing facts.
   
3. I will be asking students to use their own 'whiteboard markers' to write on tables (comes off relatively easy) to help them do 'working' to solve maths problems.

4. Blog work will happen once a week in class, instead of having a little bit of time each day.

Maths Reflection - I need your feedback RumaRima!

The End of the Holidays! Welcome to Term 3!

Week 1, Term 3

Kia ora Ruma Rima!

I hope that your holidays were amazingly productive, enjoyable and relaxing. I certainly needed the time to fully get over my cold/flu that I finished the term with. I'm feeling much better and ready for a very busy and exciting term.

This term is full of wonderful experiences like; the Winter Tournament (Rugby, Hockey, Soccer, Netball) that takes place in Tauranga during week 3; Clubs and Challenging learning; and most importantly for some the annual Action Week experience during week 10.

We are going to be focusing on being a 'Global Citizen' which builds on our learning about Learning (Term 1) and Innovation (Term 2). It is my mission to challenge you all to become 21st century learners that are set for a future that is both exciting, and unknown.

We will have some changes to/in our classroom this term... Please fill in the form below to give me more ideas of what to change. After you finish the survey - Comment on any changes you notice to the class! Prize for the person who finds the change I'm thinking of!

Views: Ruma Rima @GisInt by Herman Fourie

Speeches!!

 Kia ora Ruma Rima Whanau,

Thank you so much for all the parent support to get speeches to the point where they were. I was amazed by the efforts of students; planning, drafting, and learning superb speeches! Ka pai!

Congratulations to our 'Syndicate Speech Finalists' who had to compete for a spot to represent our syndicate at the school speech semi finals today. Top effort by all presenters! They had to present to 150 of their peers... something most adults wouldn't be able to do!

A few more speeches will be presented next week of students who were away/sick/or needing a bit of extra time... tu meke effort to complete the task anyway! :) Please enjoy the photos and video!

Week 5 - Eating an Elephant

Managing Time

This has been an interesting week of immunisations, projects, and preparation for speeches! I know that there are quite a few tasks to be completed before the end of the term. Our main tasks are:

1. Classroom speeches (after completing two pecha kucha presentations, reflecting on them, preparing, editing and practicing individual speeches)

2. Individual testing for Maths (to use data to set goals, reach targets, and excel past any standards posed :] )

3. Innovative 3D Solutions (in preparation for our MindLAB visit in week 10, we are hoping to learn about 3D design, and prototypes to solve problems)

4 Science Fair (Is now next term some time, but would be good to think about prior to the holidays )

Collaboration

It's important to always think about how we can contribute to our community when solving problems and thinking about solutions. Phil gave up a bit of his time to contribute to Ruma Rima's ability to complete projects. We realised that day that to complete a project we need to really think about the specific tasks that need to be completed. Using tools like brain-storming, Evernote, Google Keep can make BIG tasks seem a little bit more manageable.

We received this email from Phil today giving Ruma Rima students some tips about managing time and workload. 

Thanks again for your time and contribution Phil :)

Hi Ruma Rima,

I know most of you are probably like Luke and have heaps on both in and out of school and find the workload pretty intense!!

I thought it was a good time to remind you to use some tools to help plan and break things to do down into manageable chunks.

Remember we talked about mind maps?! You should do one every week to break your learning down. I started one for this week based on Mr Fourie's learning outcomes for the week using mindomo. This should help you focus on what you need to do, by bringing all of the information into one place.

When you see it clearly you can identify little bits of work that you can do when you have a bit of free time. You can use the time between school and practice to reflect and make notes on what to put on your blog. You can use dishes time to hide and do your 15 minutes reading.

There's an old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

Hope it helps!

Cheers
Phil 

Inspiration

Check out this solution to the World's problem of Rubbish in the Ocean. This project started out with a problem, a person who cared, and a simple idea. MORE INFO HERE --> http://www.theoceancleanup.com/

Week 4 - Part 2

Videos of Pecha Kucha presentations:

This is a selection of videos of students performing Pecha Kucha mini in class. It is based on the idea of a full size (20 slides for 20 seconds per slide) Pecha Kucha night presentation. Our version was for 10 slides x 10 seconds. Students were graded on preparation, presentation, effective slides, and idea/thesis. These will be the same criteria as our speeches:

Presentation - OUT OF 5	Preparation - OUT OF 5
Was there a gripping introduction? Cue cards - not read, used for support Relevant visual aids were used effectively Eye contact was maintained with all the members of the audience Gestures were used to draw the audience in	Each word is clear and easily heard (diction and volume) Has maintained rhythm, momentum and effective pausing (pace) Expressive voice is used to emphasise different points (tone) The speaker is relaxed and confident The speaker effectively uses facial expression
Ideas/Content/Structure - OUT OF 5	Appeal - OUT OF 5
Is the subject well known / researched? Is it said in the speaker's own words? Does the speech have a logical sequence? Are quotes and / or rhetorical questions used? Did the conclusion bring the speech together?	Did you want to keep listening? Did you learn something? Did it motivate you? Did it amuse or entertain you? Did the whole speech maintain your interest?

Week 4 - Where has the term gone!?

Projects, projects, and more projects!

Today was a very busy day with some students having as many as 3 meetings at the same time! That's what the busy life of GisInt is like at this time of the year. These experiences are effective in teaching students about communicating their concerns, and negotiating difficult situations. When technology catches up with us at GisInt again, then we can start to look at some of the project management tools that Phil suggested we use to create order in our ocean of chaos ;)

We spend a bit of time today making sure that our speeches, science fair projects, and core maths skills have been developed and considered. We also had the fun experience of listening to 'Mini Petcha Kutcha' presentations this afternoon. These experiences are about getting us prepared for delivering a speech. We will create another presentation next week, and formulate specific goals for each presenter to extend themselves. Check out the awesome presentation of Hamish and Harry below, can't believe they only spent a day putting it together! Tu Meke boys! :) Congratulations to all students who gave presentations a go today. Awesome effort :D

Project Planning with Phil

Learning about Learning...

Today we had the pleasure of a guest visitor, Phil McLeod, from ECT join us for a learning experience about managing projects. This will be very helpful when it comes to designing a science fair project, preparing a speech, or following an interest project. Thanks heaps again Phil! Looking forward to catching up later in the term to review projects - we could have a RumaRimaRhino 'Dragon's Den' session!

Creating personalised learning pathways using Khan academy was rather successful today, despite our current internet situation. Was really cool to hear that students have taught themselves how to add decimals, fractions, etc... One day soon our SNUP upgrade will be complete. More personalised data will be available to students after the completion of Pearson Maths tests, which will give them a better idea about the 'things they don't know, they didn't know'

We continue to learn about becoming an Ultimate Games Player by learning about the game of Ultimate Frisbee. Some amazing talent in our classroom, and also some excellent learning experiences!

Our Whakatauki o te wiki for the week was 'Toku reo toku ohooho' meaning 'My Language, My Awakening'. We endevoured to recreate our 'moments' where we realised that a particular language (be it horse riding, mountain biking, playing minecraft, etc...) became our awakening. Very interesting renditions!

Holiday Project Presentations