Changes in my practice

Mindlab was a welcome relief after having studied an e-learning paper through another University. To be fair the first paper set me up for Mindlab by getting me used to academic study again and that experience formed my opinions on what kind of study environment was most enjoyable for me. I really enjoyed the first two Mindlab papers, revelling in the opportunity to discuss face to face, being able to talk without worrying about the structure of sentences or the different meanings that could be read into posts. I enjoyed trying new software, the immediacy of help when I couldn’t work out what to do and getting to know the people that would form my online professional learning community in the second half of the course. I appreciated the logical structure of the course and that so much of the required resources were provided, reducing the time needed to complete tasks. I found the marking of papers too slow as I needed feedback to make sure I was on the right track for the next assignment.

Criteria 5: Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning.

I worked as a facilitator for teachers for 5 years then came back into teaching looking for a new direction in my own teaching. I found this by teaching in a year 7 homeroom although I am secondary trained! I liked the holistic approach of this type of teaching and distanced myself from pedagogical leadership. Readings in the Leadership in Digital and Collaborative Learning paper gave me the chance to think about what kind of leader I wanted to be and to make the decision to become involved in the leadership of  e-learning again. Part of this decision was based on the Wayne Freeth’s case study, “Towards Reconceptualising Leadership: The Implications of the Revised New Zealand Curriculum for School Leaders” which discussed distributed leadership. This reading made me think about the leadership structures within my own school and re-think my own definition of a leader. I now recognise that a leader is not only someone identified as such by their management role. Teachers are leaders within their own class and I acknowledge that most teachers have the ability and skills to take that leadership into their own professional learning. We are all leaders at different times depending on the experiences and skills we have to offer.

Criteria 12 (i) : Systematically and critically engage with evidence and professional literature to reflect on and refine practice

Reflective practice is described by Osterman and Kottkammp (1993) as “the means by which practitioners develop a greater level of self awareness about the nature and impact of their performance”. I know that I do reflect on my practice, in particularly reviewing lessons in my head and thinking about what I wasn’t happy with (emotional response) and what I would do differently next time or how this will affect what I plan for my next lesson. The aspect of reflective practice that I don’t do as frequently is that of collaborative problem solving - using another teacher as a facilitator. I only seek this kind of help when the ‘problematic experience’ causes a higher level of unhappiness that requires me to invest the time involved in discussing the problem with another teacher. Collaborative problem solving combines the different experiences and skills of the participants and provides the opportunity for many solutions to be considered. I encourage and use this skill within my class but haven’t done so well in my own professional development. Collaborative problem solving did work well when the facilitating teacher and I had a common teaching goal, allowing us to reciprocate as facilitators. This would be a goal for the future - making time to meet regularly with another teacher to continue our reflective practice.

References
Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California:Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files.

My interdisciplinary connection map

Current collaborations

Interdisciplinary collaboration is defined by Andrews (1990)  as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998). When I think about the interdisciplinary collaboration in my school, there is no systemic approach within the levels that I teach. It is up to individual teachers to reach out to the teachers who teach ‘other subjects’ and collaborate. The justification could be made that this allows collaboration to be specific to the interests and learning goals of the class, rather than ‘ticking boxes’ for a curriculum check.

Examples of collaboration
In my practice I have always found the teachers I have approached to be eager to share their expertise, materials and time. For the last few years our year 7 class has made photo frames as a way of learning about perimeter and area. They often get the ideas muddled up so covering the frame with material or backing it with card reinforces the understanding of area while edging with ribbon or coloured string reinforces perimeter. We use the Art room for the painting and gluing part as well as the final decorating with glitter and coloured shapes. Over the last couple of years we have moved towards a modern learning environment with tables and tote trays rather than individual desks in the classroom. A couple of projects that students could choose to be involved with were making cushions at lunchtime and creating and decorating a box to keep them in. For these projects the Soft Materials and Art teachers were involved.

Reflecting on past projects

Thinking about these projects I can see that I have chosen subject areas that I already have some knowledge of and teachers that I feel comfortable working with - nothing to do with Hard Materials or Music! By making these choices I am limiting the “knowledge, skills and organizational perspectives” that the class are being exposed to. The maths project was compulsory so could be seen as less authentic as students were not able to follow their own interests. These projects have been one off, rather than ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration.

My next goal

Looking at the connection map and thinking about a collaboration that could be more ongoing, my next goal could be to work with the Science teacher as this class continues for the year, rather than a term. We would need to discuss our common goals, qualities/attitudes and workplace conditions as detailed in “A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration”. I think that we would start with something short term and build as we learn what works. There would need to be joint planning and our ‘standing meetings’ would be when our class lines up to go into the Science classroom. A challenge for our interdisciplinary practice would be to establish authentic common goals for our collaboration. A theme from the literature that may work for us is described by Mathison and Freeman (1997) as “teaching approaches that place research and inquiry skills in the center of curriculum organisation”. Maintaining enthusiasm and therefore the desire to continue the collaboration could be difficult so starting with a short term collaboration will be a good stepping stone to further potential collaborations.

Benefits

Mathison and Freeman assert that an “authentic and connected curriculum” is needed. They state that “forming connections between fields of knowledge is an essential need for success in the 21st Century”. These connections allow for the sharing of ideas and methods, rather than compartmentalising the skills and knowledge. They are well suited to helping students make sense of information and connect it to their world and the needs of everyday living.  

References

ACRLog. (2015). A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration

Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107.

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf: 

Social Media

I have been cautious with my use of social media in my personal life and this has influenced the use I make of it in teaching. I do have personal social media accounts but I’m definitely a lurker rather than a poster! Milla Inkila, one of our Mindlab tutors, quotes that 95% of traffic on social media is lurking. I feel supported!

Twitter for student learning

Returning to my teaching practice, I used Twitter for the first time last year. I had met some teachers at a Wellington school and they suggested that we both read the same book using global readaloud and then use Twitter to comment on the book as we read each chapter. Karen Melhuish’s paper discussing professional learning using social media identifies many benefits which apply to this learning opportunity; enabling collaboration, connectivity, accessing diverse perspectives. My experiences didn’t quite line up with the possibilities this first time. The class were excited about sharing their thoughts about the book with another class. We did tweet backwards and forwards but I had set up one class account so I had control and I think that the students felt less ownership of their posts because of that. The writers of the Open University’s Innovation Report comment that a social media site requires a skilled facilitator to initiate, filter resources and engage people. On reflection the communication and therefore the learning between the two classes would have been more effective if the teachers involved had spent some time defining the learning purpose (as recommended by Sean Lyons) and coordinating so that we were reading the same part of the book at the same time.

Twitter and whanau

I also used Twitter as a way of connecting with whanau for two terms; posting photos of class activities, reminders about upcoming events. At the end of this time I emailed all the parents in the class to ask them if they considered it worthwhile. The general feedback was that many of them were not using Twitter and because the information wasn’t delivered directly to them, they weren’t interested in using the browser to see what was happening in class. Using this feedback, I have now switched to Seesaw which had a 75% uptake last year and in the current year 66% of students have a parent connected after 2 weeks. For each connection, there is a chocolate bar, I’m sure that is helping too! Seesaw also meets my concerns relating to privacy and identity, recognised as potential negative features of social network sites in Karen Melhuish’s paper. Seesaw allows the teacher to approve all content and set up student content so that only the teacher and the connected parents can see it.

Facebook and resources

I use social media for my own professional development in a limited way using the Primary Teachers’ Facebook page. My use is at the level of accessing resources but not participating. Karen Melhuish points out in her paper that ‘lurking’ provides benefits to the lurker but doesn’t build the social media community.

My next step is to become ‘civic minded’ and start contributing. My plan is to start a professional learning group within our school to share our learning experiences from Mindlab. Watch this space…

References

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from ttp://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han...

Sharples, M., de Roock , R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Looi,C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf

Education Council.(2012). Establishing safeguards.[video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49216520

Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

An ethical dilemma that is reasonably common in New Zealand, based on complaints made to the Teachers Council, now re-created as the Education Council, is teachers friending students on Facebook and therefore opening up their private and social life to the community that they work in. We had a discussion about this recently in a staff meeting and a wide range of points of view were expressed. One of the questions we ask to help decide what to do is to take the ‘digital’ out of it and look at the actions if they happened in a public place. Would that be OK? The question in this case is would students be part of teacher’s private or social life? There will be situations where this is the case, for example teaching students of families that you already have friendships with or teaching members of your own family. The teacher will need to make the boundaries between school and outside school very clear to all concerned. Our school works to reduce this issue by giving teachers the chance to check their class to see if there are any students they already know. This is not possible in smaller schools where there is only a small number of classes. Returning to the original issue of “Should teachers friend students on Facebook?” our school has taken the stance that teachers should not ‘friend’ students. There may be situations where it is OK but for the sake of clarity and to reduce the risk to the teacher and the school’s reputation, that is the way it is at present.

I was involved in setting up the Teachers and Social Media web site which was coordinated by the Teachers Council. Although teacher ethics are being reviewed and the new version will not be available until June 2017, I think  that the advice on this web site is still relevant and appropriate. Teachers are encouraged to think about their ethical dilemma in terms of the Code of Ethics. The one that is appropriate is in this situation is “Commitment to learners”. Teachers have an obligation to develop and maintain professional relationships with learners based on the best interests of the learner. The web site provides advice such as: “Before having one-on-one conversations using social media, consider ethical risks that could arise. Act the same way when using social media, as you would in a face to face setting.” This is sound advice and can be applied in many situations.

Our school is set within a large community and so many of the teachers would not be recognised by members of the school community unless they taught their children. This is not the case in a small community where everyone knows who the teachers are! There is no doubt that teachers are expected by the community to maintain high standards of behaviour. It is in the interests of every teacher to consider their professional ethics when planning and carrying out their digital practice.

References

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/

http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/

http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/guidelines/commitment-learners

Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

Culturally responsive pedagogy

I like Jacqueline Jordan Irvine’s description of culturally relevant pedagogy as good teaching with a cultural perspective. She talks about building on students’ prior knowledge and experiences, in this case cultural, making connections between what is known and what is to be taught and understood.  As a teacher it is easy to plan and include tangible culture as described by Geneva Gay but the intangible culture; world views, beliefs, values, feelings, opinions and perspectives are more dependent on the classroom culture that is developed by the teacher and students. If the classroom culture is inclusive and respectful, the ‘unseen’ culture of individual students will be welcomed and shared.

Culturally responsive communication methods

Te Toi Tupu’s (n.d.) resource, “Pasifika: Participation, Engagement, Achievement tool”, can be used to reflect on my school’s practice by asking the question,  “How does the school involve parents, families and communities in supporting their students' and the school's activities?”

Our school uses the usual methods of communication such as newsletters, emails, letters, school website and parent meetings. The school website and newsletters provide the wider communication and celebration of students achievements. These include cultural, sporting and academic achievements. The appearance of the school is another way of ensuring that parents and the community feel welcomed and included. New signage including Te Reo and English has been installed on offices and specialist classrooms. Early in the year whanau are invited to a “Meet the Teacher”. This allows whanau to meet teachers and see their child’s classroom and become familiar with key locations such as the library, hall and office. Parents are invited to meet in the cafeteria for supper and this provides an informal setting for them to ask questions. I think that secondary schools don’t make it particularly easy for parents to talk face to face with teachers, other than at this introductory meeting and after reports are sent home. Communication is distanced and limited by the use of email or phone. A greater effort is made for those students who opt for the whanau class with numerous meetings at school as well as home visits, cultural events and kapa haka.

Culturally responsive learning activities

Te Toi Tupu’s (n.d.) resource asks the question; “How do you plan activities and lessons to support diverse cultural backgrounds and languages?” In my own practice I know that I can improve in this area. Cowie et al (2011) describes culturally responsive pedagogy as using the funds of knowledge and lived experience that students bring from their homes and communities. Sharing of knowledge and experience does happen through discussion at the beginning of a topic, asking questions like; “What do you know about this?” “Who has had an experience like this?” The next step would be to use these experiences and knowledge in a more significant way to allow students to more easily build on their prior knowledge. I would need to factor in time to allow this to happen and plan to encourage more parental involvement. This will become easier now that our class is using Seesaw learning journal as parents can add comments using their phones or other devices.

References

Cowie, B., Otrel-Cass, K., Glynn, T., & Kara, H., et al.(2011).Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment in primary science classrooms: Whakamana tamariki. Wellington: Teaching Learning Research Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.tlri.org.nz/sites/default/files/projects/9268_cowie-summaryreport.pdf

Savage, C., Hindle, R., Meyer, L. H., Hynds, A., Penetito, W., & Sleeter, C. E. (2011). Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: Indigenous student experiences across the curriculum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183-198.

Teaching Tolerance.( 2010, Jun 17).Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8

Te Toi Tupu. (n.d.). Pasifika: Participation, Engagement, Achievement tool. Retrieved from http://www.tetoitupu.org/pasifika-participation-engagement-achievement-tool

Climate change

Climate change

The global trend that interests me personally and in relation to my practice is global warming, in particular climate change, as described on page 32 in “Global trends: Alternative Worlds” . Jim Salinger, a New Zealand scientist who worked for NZ Met Office and then for NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) contributed to earlier publications of this document and also produced a report on how global warming would affect New Zealand back in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. I used this report to promote discussion in my senior horticulture classes at that time. He continues to be a sought after speaker on this topic, for example his presentation in Auckland in 2014. Now that I teach year 7 students, I can see the opportunity for meaningful learning using the context of climate change; participating in research and problem solving on climate change at a local level, for example coastal erosion, how climate change is affecting agriculture (national level) and what effects it is already having on our day to day lives (Heatwave in Australia).

The effects of climate change

“Global trends: Alternative Worlds” states that “empirical evidence alone - without reference to climate models - indicates that a general warming trend is affecting weather and ecosystems, causing increasing impacts on human”. Climate change is reinforcing extreme weather, such as the heat wave recently experienced in Australia. The Guardian tweeted a quote from Shane Fitzsimmons the RFS Commissioner at his briefing “ "These conditions are unprecedented not just in NSW but Australia, worse than Black Saturday forecast”. The Global Trends report states that this pattern is predicted to continue during the next 20 years. These environmental changes are already affecting our community, for example the road closure at Colac Bay and erosion of the Hokitika coastal walkway. There is a growing awareness of the need to plan and prepare for the predicted changes.

How this could affect education

The ERO 2012 report on priority learners identifies issues which schools need to focus on to address the needs of priority learners and are of benefit to all learners. The report states that only a third of New Zealand schools are addressing these issues satisfactorily. Two of these have relevance to climate change; student-centred learning and curriculum implementation. Student-centred learning gives teachers the opportunity to “foster students’ interests and strengths” (see page 7 of the report) as their students choose local or international climate change related issues to research and problem solve. Curriculum implementation is “responsive and rich” as described in page 12. Responsive in the sense that it has meaning for the learner and is supported by their families and the wider community.  The communication skills learnt can contribute to solving problems now and in the future.

The Ministry of Education is also planning for the future in the design of their school buildings. Amesbury School in Wellington is an example of a primary school which has internationally recognised  “best practices in educational investment”. The buildings are designed to have a low impact on the environment and includes technology that monitors energy consumption which is available to teachers and students as a learning resource.

References

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Evaluation-at-a-Glance-Priority-Learners-in-New-Zealand-Schools-August-2012.pdf

National Intelligence Council. (2012). Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved from https://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf

Web links

https://amesbury.school.nz

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-12/live-coverage-as-heatwave-drags-on-nsw-qld-weather/8263130

https://conversations.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/events/living-warmer-world

https://www.niwa.co.nz/news/international-scientists-focus-global-warming-and-climate-change

.@RFSCommissioner briefing: "These conditions are unprecedented not just in NSW but Australia, worse than Black Saturday forecast" #nswrfs

1:25 PM - 12 Feb 2017 · Sydney, New South Wales

Current issues in my professional context

Current issues in my professional context

Socioeconomic status of the community, organisational culture and professional environments
I teach at a decile 8 year 7 to 13 co-ed state school. The school is zoned and the roll is controlled by limiting the number of year 7 enrolments. There are always families that miss out. Funding based on decile is summarised below.

Targeted funding	Per pupil	$46.86
Careers information funding	Year 9-13 pupils	$16.82
Special Education	Per pupil	$46.50

Source: http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Running-a-school/Resourcing/DecileChanges18June2015Review.xls

The school is well resourced and supported by the community. Work days where students find paid work and then donate the money to the school are the main fundraiser at Year 9 to 13. This money has been used in the past to buy a school van, computers and furniture for the library. The organisational culture is influenced by the large number of teachers who have remained at the school for much of their teaching life, myself included! This has allowed leaders to develop a very efficient administration as they review and refine processes from year to year based on feedback and their own observations. An identified issue for our school is the current age of the leadership team and of a number of curriculum leaders, meaning that many teachers will retire at a similar time. This could lead to a loss of institutional knowledge as well as reculturing as described by Morgan (1997) as new leaders bring their own values and beliefs.

The current culture of the school is influenced by the age of the school, created as the amalgamation of a high school and two intermediates, 10 years ago and in the ‘founders’ stage as described by Schein (1985). The values are based on the person that the school was named after. These stories and the values they represent are shared through assemblies at year 7 and 8 level and reinforced as students move through the school. The values were co-constructed by staff and students and are part of the day to day life of the school.

The professional environment of the school has two foci which are closely related; Kia Eke Panuku and e-learning. The organisational structures within the school provide a spectrum of professional development opportunities, for example all curriculum meetings involve teachers sharing their practice and planning together, teachers provide after school PD sessions, individual teachers can apply for PD funding.

Issues around the socioeconomic status of the community, the school culture and professional environments

The socioeconomic status of the school has allowed us to ‘highly recommend’ devices for learning for students at year 7 to 9. The issue is that a decile rating of 8 does not ensure that all students can afford a device. At present an average of 26 students in a class bring a suitable device, leaving a shortfall of 3 or 4 devices per class. Equity devices are issued through the library and in year 7 and 8 classes there are also some classroom computers.

The professional environments in our school are complicated by having two separate campuses which are 1.5km apart. Year 7 and 8 on the primary campus with the focus on “care and control” and “being part of a family” Stoll (1988) while Year 9 to 13 could be described as more “fragmentised” due to department structure and teachers identifying as a ‘specialty’ teacher e.g Chemistry or Art. The physical separation combined with different foci results in a lack of understanding of what happens on the other campus and how the teaching is different. The issues have been addressed but not resolved by cross campus curriculum meetings and the ongoing opportunity to observe teachers at the other campus. The divide still exists as evidenced at social functions when teachers sit with who they know and work with. I don’t think this can ever be completely resolved as the relationship with teachers working together on a day to day basis will always be stronger.

References

http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Running-a-school/Resourcing/DecileChanges18June2015Review.xls

Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks: Sage. p. 139.

Schein, E.H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 6.

Stoll, L. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin, No. 9, Autumn 1998 Institute of Education, University of London

Reflective practice through Kia Eke Panuku

Reflective practice through Kia Eke Panuku

I was involved in a Kia Eke Panuku team in 2016 which was the last year of the programme. During the year the visiting facilitators met with small groups of teachers and leaders from our school to facilitate the discussions around the goals for our target students, teaching experiences and evidence. Our joint enterprise as defined by Wenger 2000 was to improve the academic achievement and engagement of Maori students. To this end each teacher had identified 4 or 5 students that they were going to specifically work with, although lesson planning would be for the whole class.

The Discussion

The discussion was structured around Ako: Critical Contexts for Learning supported by Kaupapa Maori and Critical Theories. Each teacher talked about their goals for their target group and the actions they had taken and the evidence they have gathered. The sessions were reflective and facilitation resulted in the teachers deciding what they would do next to work towards the goal. Teachers continued to discuss activities informally at other times but these facilitated sessions provided the formal and more rigorous reflection and committing to next steps.

The shared repertoire was the teaching ideas that were shared during these sessions which could be used by other teachers in the group. The evidence we had gathered was also used within our wider school community to show what we had achieved.

The members of this community of practice were also part of the larger teaching community of year 7 and 8 teachers within my school. We already had a high degree of trust and were willing to share our feelings as well as observations. The facilitators of this group, although visitors were so positive about what we were trying to do that I didn’t feel threatened by their presence or the questions that they asked. Perhaps because I do want to think honestly about my teaching practice.

My role in this community was as an active member although I hadn’t been in the group as long as some of the other teachers. Although this community no longer exists, it served a valuable purpose for me in that it invited me to test some assumptions I had made about students in my class and find out that I was wrong!


References

http://kep.org.nz/assets/resources/site/Ako-Crit-Ctxs-forL-V3-MM.jpg

http://kep.org.nz/mahi-tahi/making-the-difference
Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.