"I don't have time for this right now!"

It’s nearly time for the term break. What plans do you have? 

I often hear from my students that that they are planning to get onto of their evidence or portfolios “this holiday”. 

Somehow, the holidays have become the time when you get this “extra” work done.  There’s no time for it in the school term is there?

I mean, there’s barely time for lunch and a quick trip to the loo!

We all have 24 hours in our day... so why is it that some people CAN find time?

It’s so easy to beat yourself up about feeling like there’s “no time” for reflection, accreditation or portfolios.  How many times have you promised yourself that you’re going to get it done this holidays… and then it just doesn’t happen?

It’s ok.  If you could see everyone reading this.. you’d see a lot of hands in the air.  It’s something that we all suffer from. 

Teachers are TIME POOR.
The question is … why?  

Is this really about NOT having enough time or is something else going on?

In this week’s episode of The Reflective Teacher Podcast, we look to answer that question.  We explore why it is that some people seem to get this done without extra work whilst others spend hours of their time working on it and seem to get nowhere fast.

Is this really about time? 

Or is this about support, advice, mentoring, coaching and a missing process?

Tune in to find out…

My Teacher Portfolio? Oh I'm waiting until...
Can you complete the sentence above?  Has it crossed your mind that there things that you need to wait for before you begin your journey to teacher accreditation?  Maybe you’ve been waiting until your final prac, until you’ve been teaching for a couple of years.  Perhaps you’re waiting until you’ve got all the evidence you need… before you start? 

I can understand why you might be thinking this way.  If we focus on the outcome of accreditation or passing a module at uni. then it’s easy to wait.  Wait until the deadline comes a little close.  Because the process involved evidence and annotations, I can see why you might be thinking you need both of those things BEFORE you start putting together a portfolio.  It’s all very logical.  It’s also all very wrong.

The best time to start your teacher portfolio is RIGHT NOW.

The thing is, every time you stop yourself reflecting on your practice, every time you create a reason to wait to start your teacher portfolio, there’s a cost.  A cost to your time, a cost to your learning and a cost to the impact you could be having on your students and your confidence as a teacher.

In this podcast episode, we talk about what these conditions mean and why they are so detrimental.  This episode is a call to action.  A rally to start focusing on your impact.  To understand that the accreditation and reflection process is NOT just about career progression. It’s about being the kind of teacher who cares deeply about their impact and wants desperately to know they’re doing a great job in their classroom. Your teacher portfolio is a place to learn and grow.  The rest will just happen.  Trust me.

Why would you complete the "Highly Accomplished" Process? It's just more 'stuff' to do.

In my work with Edufolios, I am finding myself mentoring and supporting more and more educators as they go through the Highly Accomplished process. The decision to attempt Stage 1, the portfolio, can feel like a BIG one. In fact, there are many beliefs about the process out there. Ideas like you have to teach for at least 5 years before you can apply for it, that it’s so much extra work it’s not worth doing, that, if your state doesn’t give you the pay raise automatically why would you do it?

Kat, is someone I have worked with for nearly 4 years now. I’ve had the pleasure of walking alongside her through the proficiency (or full registration as we call it here in SA) stage and on through to her recent success as a Highly Accomplished educator. Her story is inspiring and she is awesome. I love working with her. In this episode, I had the pleasure of stepping back through the processes she followed to move from self-doubt to self-confidence.

Kat’s journey through HA, like many educators I work with, was thwart with doubts, overwhelm and limiting beliefs. It was also full of amazingly powerful growth, development and transformation.

"I found it found it really powerful to go through a process where I could really focus on what I was doing and the impact that was having."

In this podcast, Kat shares her journey to nationally certified Highly Accomplished Teacher (HAT) Status. We talk about:

What kind of evidence did you put in your HAT portfolio?
What made for a good artefact?
How did you know you were ready for HAT?
How did you pull your evidence together? 
and much more.

Tune in to gain real insights into the process and to her the surprising bonus the HAT journey has for its applicants.

"I need to know that I'm putting my energy into the right things..."
Teaching is a ridiculously demanding job. Your time is so precious and there is a never-ending list of things that need to be done. “I don’t have time” is a catch cry for so many of us as we try hard to juggle the challenges and responsibilities of our role.  

Our students are our main priority and we will fight to do what’s best for them. Honestly, we fight so hard it’s can be detrimental to our own health and personal relationships. Having no time, being time-poor, not wanting to waste our time on something until we know we’re going to get it right… oh, wait…

Are we afraid of wasting time or getting it wrong?
Whatever your reason for feeling so time-pressured, in this episode we’re going to have a frank and open chat about what it might mean if you’re too busy to stop.. not even for five minutes. We’ll chat about shifting mindsets so that you can start to see evidence and reflection more as “being” in your teaching day than “doing” something extra.

You can even download this free handout which accompanies today’s episode and is full of handy links and notes. Head to Edufolios.org/089 to find them

Get ready to start seeing evidence everywhere. More than that, get ready to understand how to start the process and finish it whilst making sure that not a minute is wasted. We’ve got:

A 5-minute process that you can add to the end of your day. One that will show you where potential stories of practice lurk. 
An app that will help you find artefacts to support that evidence.
A new way of seeing the structure of the teaching standards that will help keep you razor-focused and
the ultimate assessment tool that can reveal impact in 20 mins.

Are you a Teacher Mentor? Need to work with the Standards?
What if I had five sneaky secrets to help you be the best teacher mentor… ever… in the world? Tune In I’ve got them here for you today. 

Before we go any further, I want you to think about the term “mentor” and what that brings up for you.  Because… we are ALL mentors… every single educator.  Whether you’ve been teaching for 20 years or you’re in the first year of your teaching degree.  If you sit and listen and support another educator in any way (that includes coffee and cake… in fact that’s highly encouraged) then you are a mentor to someone.  

When you thought of the word mentor did you associate yourself with it? What emotions did it bring up for you? I ask because we need to move more of us away from this limiting belief that we have to be teaching for x years or achieve some self-set goal before we are worthy of supporting another human being in this career. Stop it! We all have different experiences and so we all have something to share with each other. I learn as much from a new teacher as I do from a colleague who’s been teaching for 20 years. 

Yes, you are. We are all teacher mentors. Here are 5 tips to help you support others.
With that in mind, I want to share five very quick (and sneaky) secrets that will help you to increase the impact you’re having on your friends and colleagues as you work with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.  

These sneaky secrets will help create more clarity for you and your mentee (or friend) and, at the very least can be used to guide some really powerful learning conversations for both of you.

So, tune in to hear about:

• Focusing on Impact NOT Standards
• The Myths around the structure of the standards
• The secret code in the descriptors that reveal the holly grail
• How Artefacts are NOT evidence (yes! STOP collecting stuff!)
• Why you should start with your stories NOT the standards.

and don’t forget to tell us what you think over on our facebook, twitter or insta accounts

"They see the standards as the answer, not the question..."

When you approach the Australian Professional Standards for teachers. When you look at the rubric, what do you see? For so many, they see the answer sheet. You know, the document you have alongside as you check off your evidence. The document that tells you whether you’re doing it ok. The thing that enables a judgement to be passed. 

We’ve been talking to a lot of principals recently about adding the Principal standards into the Edufolios platform and a lot of them are feeling disconnected with their standards too. I’ve heard the standards be labelled as “not relevant” to early childhood, to outdoor ed, to special ed, to gifted ed. That’s only possible if we give them a context that restrains them. If we turn them into the answer.

What's stopping you from seeing the Standards as a question?

What if we approach the standards in the same way we would ask our students to approach a problem or enquiry they were facing? What if, instead of seeing them as the tick sheet, the mark book, the answer… we moved towards seeing them as goalposts? Goalposts and weigh points that guide us on a journey of exploration and critical thinking about our own practice. 

If we choose to see the standards as a tool that can guide us to better understanding what happens to the process of accreditation? What happens to our levels of impact in our classroom?

These are the questions we are tackling in this week’s episode of The Reflective Teacher Podcast. We talk fear, overwhelm, conditions and more…  

"The bell doesn't dismiss you! I do!"

Have you ever found yourself working through a process in your classroom, at your site or in your professional career and thinking… “I can see a different way.. This is so frustrating”?

I know that many of you feel that way about teacher accreditation, that’s for sure, (That’s why Edufolios exists).  Have you ever considered how we find ourselves emulating what came before without ever realising it? If we’re honest, there are many times in our career where we find ourselves borrowing lines from our old teachers.  We emulate what came before us, without a second thought. Phrases like “The bell doesn’t dismiss you. I do!” come spilling out of your mouth almost unconsciously.  They aren’t your words, there’ your  tear 8 Math’s teachers words… and you’re using them.   The same is true when we become leaders.  In some ways, we might follow the example that was set.  Should we?

Culture is a huge part of Education because Education is about people.  So many of us end up feeling frustrated inside of that culture.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard teachers give up on their innovative ideas because there are no resources, head office wouldn’t like it or they’re just scared to speak up and jeopardise their position at their site. All of these are real issues.  Issues that hold us all back if we let them.

"...we need to create conditions, where people feel that they can share their thoughts and their ideas without pushback."

Our guest this week is George Couros.  Some of you may have met George has he toured around Australia eight years ago.  I know he left a significant footprint on the educators he was working with here in Adelaide. George is the author of two books “The Innovator’s Mindset” and “Innovate Inside the Box.” and is a passionate storyteller.  His years of experience as teacher, principal and department leader over in Canada have sparked some amazing insights that are shared in these books.  Inspired by his most recent book ““Innovate Inside the Box.” I talked to George about:

How the way we see compliance (teacher accreditation) can be transformed from an obligation to empowerment.
School leadership and the important role that plays in creating a safe environment. One where, a teacher with a great idea has the freedom to share it,  to feel heard – without fear. 
We talk about the importance of being open to new ideas, to new experiences. In fact, one experience he had here, in Adelaide, helped shape the way he structures his professional learning days all over on the other side of the world. 

It’s time to consider what influences your practice, how you make space to connect with and learn from that and, most importantly, how your students know what you’ve been learning and benefit from it.

Tune in to hear some amazing examples of innovation.  Some practical tips to support you in transforming your practice and some insights into how being concious of the choices and mindsets you have in your professional life can hold you back or help you (and your team) flourish.

When we work Towards Accreditation, we Start with the Standards
With a process that involved paperwork and lots of box-ticking, (boxes with standards next to them of course!) I can completely understand why this might be the way you see things.  When we do so, we feel like we have to learn an entirely new language.  The language of the standards. It gets overwhelming pretty quickly.

That’s why at Edufolios we do things the other way around.  Start with your stories.  Tell us (or rather the system) what you’ve been doing in your classrooms, in your uni lectures, at your staff meetings, at PD (anywhere where you’re developing and using your professional skillset) and THEN look at what the standards can tall you about your practice.

So, it’s probably not too much of a surprise that I received a question from a new Edufolios member wanting to know how they could be sure that they were using our standards guide right.  That they were selecting the correct focus areas for their evidence. 

Here's how to flip the process. How you know which standards you're talking about.
In this podcast, we explore why it is that we choose to see accreditation as a box-ticking exercise.  What compels us to go standards first?

We also explore the tools and resources (see the further reading section below) that will move you from that overwhelm and confusion and into some clarity and purposeful reflection.

We also reveal a few up and coming changes to the Edufolios platform that users can expect to see in the coming weeks. Exciting times my friends!   

2,960,000,000 people in the world have a fixed mindset. Are you one of them?

Recently, I bought my 8-year-old son a book. It’s called “You Are Awesome – Find your confidence and dare to be brilliant at (almost) anything” and it’s written by British Ping Pong Champion turned motivational speaker and author, Matthew Syed. It used two characters to tell its story; Kid Awesome and Kid Average. As I went through this book with my son, I was quietly surprised to note that, despite my research and ability to teach growth mindset, I had a lot to learn from Kid Awesome.  

In this episode, I ask you to think a little deeper about your mindset around accreditation, around teaching and your abilities as a teacher. Using Matthew Syed’s work, we explore what it takes to be an “Awesome Teacher” or Teacher awesome – if we follow his format

Let's take the opportunity to stop, reflect and move towards Awesome!

If you’re busy thinking things like, “growth Mindset, not that again” then I want you to pause… because…well… that reveals a bit of a fixed mindset doesn’t it? The ability to decide that you have nothing new to learn from a new perspective…that’s fixed.

As I read this book with my son, I was challenged in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Challenged to consider my phrasing and attitudes and what I was modelling to him, myself and my students. Matthew’s book got me thinking and connecting some dots.

Join me as we talk about 4 key things we can consider in 2021 as we move one step closer to awesomeness! 

This is the week the kids come back for 2021!
The Edufolios and Reflective Teacher Podcast community is full of passionate educators. Educators with one goal, to have the best impact they can have on the students and families they work with. That’s why, in this episode, we hand the mic over to you.

Over the past few weeks, the Podcast voicemail has been collecting your stories, your advice and your support for teachers in 2021.  The result? A string of golden wisdom to start off the academic year.

Here is the advice that your community wanted you to hear.
With massive thanks to Kerry, Ash, Judy, Marian, Linda and Rachael, it’s time to tune in and gather some pearls of wisdom.  From establishing boundaries to tuning into your learners there is some great advice here.

Thank you, all of you for listening each week and tuning in.  Thank you too for your continued support of Edufolios as we forge forward on our mission to make Accreditation meaningful and powerful for all of us. 

Enjoy the episode! Show notes are at Edufolios.org/083