The Mindlab by Unitec - July '15 PGC Intake

16th July 2015
"An Introduction to 21st Century Learning Pedagogy"
As background to this part of the blog, and to help you to get an idea of WHY educators in the 21st Century need to begin to explore and apply technology in the classroom, watching this video is very thought provoking for all of us involved in the education of young people today: Teaching 21st Century Skills.

On Thursday 16th of July 2015, fifty or so teachers - from primary, intermediate and secondary schools in the wider Auckland area - met at the NewMarket campus for the first time. There we were, the July 2015 intake for the Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital and Collaborative Learning) Programme. The gist of the four hour lab was both an orientation and the opportunity for some hands on practical ICT-facilitated activities that could be used in those classrooms or 'learning hubs' with our students.

It was a fantastic experience working with other innovative, tech-savvy and forward thinking educators. I enjoyed working collaboratively within a group of six teachers in sharing our understanding, enthusiasm and skills to meet the challenge of creating our own video - within just sixty minutes, from planning to creating and then uploading - on to an online environment.

Above is a screenshot of the video we created together, using an iPhone app, some play-dough, felt pens, and a whole load of collaboration. For all but one of us in the group, it was our very first attempt to make a stop motion video. 

Whilst it was a short film in the end, I think we all got a sense of pride in what we achieved together - and were no doubt excited at the prospect of how we could share this new ICT facilitated activity with our own students and colleagues!

Here are some of the free-to-use/trial apps we found out about online that some of the groups were using to create their videos when collaborating:

Pixlr is a free web-based photo editor that allows you to turn your computer desktop, or mobile or internet browser into taking and editing photos on your device. You can "apply quick fixes, overlays, filters, and stickers to make any photo beautiful".

"Do you have presentation envy? Fed up with 'Death by PowerPoint'?! Then you need Keynote... Apple presentation software." For a video of how this app works, take a look here.  

Videoscribe allows you to create your own moving whiteboard videos for use in the classroom - a far more exciting, animated view of lessons can be created to engage students and colleagues alike.

"iMovie makes it easy to browse and share the HD video you shoot on your iOS tablet device. Turn your favourite clips into blockbuster movies or Hollywood-style trailers. And watch your mini-masterpieces anywhere with iMovie Theater. A few taps, a few swipes and you’re ready for your big premiere."

And if you have a look at what students have done with 'older' technologies and interactive software here - you can see that, potentially, and with a bit of enthusiasm and risk taking around ICT use in schools - anything is possible!  


13th August 2015
"Learning Theories and Developing a Growth Mindset" 
What is stop motion animation? Taking a series of still photos of an event, and turn it into an animated sequence. Some of us have used stop motion in the classroom to provide modelling, science (chemistry reactions) and for story telling, for example. 

Stop motion animation activities with our students can provide a really good challenge, with opportunities for hands-on kinesthetics and problem solving. The activities also link well to the Key Competencies of the NZC. Because each group of kids is approaching the activity differently, there are always unique challenges that occur.

Learning theories are developed around "things that we can test [/apply regardless of personal traits]" (quantitative - can be transferred from one person to another vs. qualitative - an example of the latter would be leadership styles).

Today's activity is to create a stop motion animation around a particular leadership theory - as an 'elevator pitch' - using visual metaphors or concepts to explain (not writing!).

After picking a theory out of a hat, plan how you'll explain the theory, film, edit and then save/upload it... 

Our group of five teachers got Cognitive Load Theory. With an air of enthusiastic collaboration, as we found out about the theory itself and began to formulate a suitable visual metaphor, we chose our background setting and worked out how to present our understanding of the concepts using everything from available props to playdough, a plastic cup, some carnations surreptitiously 'found', and some tinfoil... 

Researched, conceived, planned, resourced, created using Monkey Jam and published online in under an hour, our video begins with our character's head going from being able to fill his cup with ideas (his eyes growing wider as his pupils dilated in response) until one idea too many "overloaded" his fragile mind, squishing him flat in the process! Then, we juxtaposed this with technical information being given like water to a flowering plant - growing from seed, and then flourishing, even sprouting new, complex ideas. With permission of the group participants (Desire', Heather, Fiona, Michelle and Marla), here's the stop motion video that we made:

Some of the other Leadership Theories that other groups have looked at included: Andragogy, Cognitivism, Communities of Learning, Constructionism, Learning Ecology, Modal Model of Memory, Operant Conditioning and Social Learning Theory. 

Developing a Growth Mindset (Leading change) LDC Week 5

We had a professional discussion around the provocation: " Intelligence is innate and cannot be developed beyond what you are born with." Suffice it to say, our understanding around concepts such as differentiated learning and neuroplasticity made us universally balk at this prompt! What about innate vs. learned knowledge? Someone mentioned The Flynn Effect - which found that the results of intelligence tests in different countries show that over the past century average IQ has been increasing at a rate of about 3 points per decade.

Provocation: Consider - "Intelligence has become defined as the kind of mind that responds most readily to the peculiar demand of school." (Claxton, 2008). What do we know about Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset theory? Details a paradigm shift around how intelligence is viewed. There is of course a degree of overlap between the two mind sets outlined.

How might we build a 'Growth Mindset' in our learners? 

- the power of 'not yet'; 

- change our language: talk about learning rather than work; 

- use our wall displays to document the learning journey as well as the final product; 

- Praise and reward effort, process, perseverance (rather than intelligence or talent).

Next Steps: Changing Mindsets

- Create a list of comments you hear students say and write a growth mindset alternative.

- How else do we build resilience, curiosity, resourcefulness, and persistence in our students?

20th August 2015
"Leadership Theories and Connected Learning"
Leadership Theories and Styles LDC Week 6
Transformational Leadership
Group Task: What makes a good leader? An active listener; inspirational / passionate learner, strong content knowledge, up-to-date, reciprocity of approach, sense of humor, positively invested in others, compassionate, empathetic, finger firmly on the learning pulse within a school/class, skilled in relationship building/maintenance, flexible and adaptable. Also links to the Key Competencies.

Leadership challenge: we selected one of six options (scenarios) to then reflect on our natural ways of doing things - how would we act as a leader? Then, we made some notes for ourselves before think-pair-sharing, where we shared our approaches, and discussed some alternative ones. 

e.g.: "Teachers in Year 6 are complaining that teachers of year 5 teach science in many different ways which is resulting in an inconsistency in the preparedness of students arriving in year 6. Consideration amongst senior leaders has identified the need for a greater consistency between science learning between year levels.
How do you make the year 5 teachers follow a more consistent science programme?"
My initial thoughts on this 'problem' were: "First of all, determine the extent of the differences in approach - either through survey by encouraging shared reflections around how different programmes are being carried out around the school. Identify the extent of the 'problem' - is it one or two of your teachers' programmes who are out of alignment, or is it more extensive? Don't assume that the Year 6 teachers have it right either - bring it back in to context via alignment with the NZC. Consider how you could collaborate with staff to begin to develop and align programmes - without finger pointing - and create PLD opportunities linked to the targeted curriculum area (in this instance, science). Reflect on the broader contexts for science learning in the senior school, and how the introduction of co-constructed benchmarks around learning might occur. This may be done within year level syndicates initially, and then taken back into whole / senior school meetings (depending on the size of your school) and identifying those staff members who have a strong interest in taking the qualitative discussions..." [What style does this best reflect? = participative leadership]

Try this quiz to find out your style of leadership...

(My score was: Authoritarian 24 / Procedural 28 / Transformational 36 / Participative 39 / Laissez Faire 40 :-)

The Six Leadership Styles (Goleman, Daniel "Leadership That Gets Results" 2000)

Connected Learning DCL Week 6 
"...is an educational approach designed for our ever-changing world. It makes learning relevant to all populations, to real life and real work, and to the realities of the digital age, where the demand for learning never stops." (source)

Connectivism - video of the original theorist Dr George Siemens' explanation for this theory.

Online Sharing Apps
We also tried out some 'mind mapping' tools or other visual presentations to summarise key ideas visually:
Comic Strip - using bitstrips (shared on to Facebook)
Storyboard - use Storyboard That
Infographic - use Piktochart

Assignment Notes: for LDC 1 - talk about a specific leadership theory (not style!), how it applies to you, evaluate how it impacts on your professional practice. LDC 2 - can broaden and compare to other theories and styles.

Most commonly, LDC students have chosen from:
Participative Leadership
Situational Leadership
Servant Leadership
Transactional Leadership
Transformational Leadership

Next Steps: setting up our own Twitter 'handle'/accounts for our next tutorial session... Here's a helpful video I found as to why this might even be a good idea after all.

(Video Open Source: Edutopia) 

5th October 2015
Design Thinking in Education  
(Mindlab by Unitec: Week 13 - DCL) 

"How to Escape Education's Death Valley" (TED video)

"Sir Ken Robinson, chair of the UK Government's report on creativity, education and the economy, described research that showed that young people lost their ability to think in "divergent or non-linear ways", a key component of creativity. Of 1,600 children aged three to five who were tested, 98% showed they could think in divergent ways. By the time they were aged eight to 10, 32% could think divergently. When the same test was applied to 13 to 15-year-olds, only 10% could think in this way. And when the test was used with 200,000 25-year-olds, only 2% could think divergently. . . . Education is driven by the idea of one answer and this idea of divergent thinking becomes stifled.' He described creativity as the 'genetic code' of education and said it was essential for the new economic circumstances of the 21st century." signed: Ken Robinson - (TESS, 25 March 2005)

 "Why Design Thinking?" Design Thinking for educators (Vimeo video) 

* Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions...

"Austin's Butterfly"  building excellence in student's work (Vimeo video)

"Rose, Bud, Thorn" - 2 minute PD (video)

* Convergent thinking is focusing on a limited number of choices as possibilities. Then you choose the “right” answer or course of action from among those choices..."

"The Deep" (video)

Design Thinking in Leadership

(Mindlab by Unitec: Week 13 - LDC)

"This week we focussed on Leadership and Design Thinking.

As education evolves, education is working hard to keep up fostering teaching that supports an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving.

Design Thinking is a hands-on problem finding and solving session that provides a forum for experiential learning. We apply Design Thinking methods such as posing short explorative questions that launch brainstorms. This builds a platform broad enough to uncover a wide range of solutions. We then learn to shape options that are sufficiently narrow to work through the problems using rapid prototyping techniques.

As a result, we are able to flesh out a number of needs that are both meaningful and actionable. Like designers, we will create simple three-dimensional models to get our ideas across."

*u.lab > Sydney. Design Thinking in Action
(Vimeo video)
Change Agents for Education through Design Thinking
(Vimeo video) 

Ewan McIntosh on Design Thinking for Librarians' and Teachers' professional development.

12th October 2015
Inquiry Led Learning  
(Mindlab by Unitec: Week 14 - DCL)

"This week we explored the integration of 'Inquiry' in the classroom to create independent motivated students who take responsibility for their learning.

What is Inquiry-Based Learning?

"This video explains the teaching methodology Inquiry-Based Learning. 

It was created for the Inspiring Science Education Project as part of a 

series of videos to promote the use of  Inquiry-Based Learning."

Pedagogical and technological innovations are redefining education and while there is great debate on the relevance of traditional education there is also increased support for the resurgence of traditional education ideals linked to higher order thinking and inquiry.

The demands of an evolving knowledge based society requires learners to be independent thinkers as well as interdependent collaborative learners who work together.

There is significant need for students to understand the processes of critical thinking that improves their ability to reason, evaluate, judge and assess. Critical or reflective thinking is integral to inquiry and to the process of forming an opinion or building knowledge."

nQuire - Young Citizen Inquiry

(video by Open University)

Inquiry Lead Teaching Report  (downloadable text version)

Inquiry Learning in an ICT Rich Environment (downloadable text - PDF version)

12th October 2015
 Teaching as Inquiry
(Mindlab by Unitec: Week 14 - LDC)

"Teaching as Inquiry aims to achieve improved outcomes for all students. Equally, the teaching as inquiry cycle provides a framework that teachers can use to help them learn from their practice and build greater knowledge. It includes three inquiry aspects.

The Focusing Inquiry

In the focusing inquiry, teachers identify what they want their students to achieve. What do they need to learn next to reach these goals?

The Teaching Inquiry

In the teaching inquiry, teachers select appropriate teaching strategies, looking at best practice and research literature. They plan to gather evidence of success for their students.

The Learning Inquiry

The learning inquiry takes place both during and after teaching. Teachers monitor and reflect on their students’ progress. They use this information to feed back into their practice.

Collaboration

Although teachers can work  independently, it is better if they support each other, providing different perspectives and sharing ideas, knowledge, and experiences."

"Learning to be a New School - Building a Curriculum for new times" (online text version).

 

David Perkins - "40 Years of Teaching Thinking: Revolution, Evolution, and What Next?"

Video blurb: "Today, national and international educational frameworks commonly include a range of thinking skills, often as part of 21st century skills or competencies. Although policy probably promises more than practice delivers, teaching thinking in some form has become a presence in many classrooms. All this began with revolutionary zeal in the thinking skills movement of the 1970s and 80s. Over the decades, skepticism about teaching thinking emerged from IQ advocates ('people can't get smarter'), the back-to-basics movement ('no time for frills like thinking'), and the notion of situated learning ('good thinking requires saturation in a discipline'). Meanwhile, both research and practical classroom experience have evolved our ideas about what thinking skills are, whether and how they can be taught, and what place they might take amidst competing educational agendas..."

19th October 2015
Maker Movement (3D Printing and Modelling) 
(Mindlab by Unitec: Week 15 DCL)
3D modelling is no longer the domain of visual effects artists and animators. Due to the increased availability and affordability of computers and laptops in the classroom and the abundance of free 3D creation software the opportunity to bring these technologies into the classroom has never been greater."

Uber revolution and 3D printing for all - what the future holds for technology

3D printing is a lot more than just a niche technology. Over the past few years 3D printers have started to appear within a broad range of industries from medicine, manufacturing, engineering, aerospace, retail, mechanical engineering, dentistry and food science.""As with the launch of social media 10 years ago, 3D printing is a rapid disruptor experiencing expediential uptake. By the time our students enter the workforce there is a high likelihood that 3D printers will be as commonplace as household ink printers. [Within a learning context,] using basic design skills 3D printing can be used to trigger new learning and acquiring new skills."

Workshop Activity: Tinkercad "a free, easy-to-learn online app anyone can use to create and print 3D models." Need to create an account, then go to where it says 'create a new design'. It is a very basic package, but it is a good entry level programme for beginners using 3D printers. Tinkercad allows you to save your design and access it anywhere. Recommend not deleting these files, as you will be able to see how your skills develop over time! Today's activity involves collaboratively making the seven seperate pieces of a Tangram - how will you organise yourselves to achieve this in the time provided?  

Learning Spaces and Models

(Mindlab by Unitec: Week 15 LDC)

Workshop Activity
"Modern classrooms reflect new ways of teaching and learning and they remove the focus from a teacher led environment to a space where teachers and learners collaborate.

These learning environments are much more creative, flexible and supportive of technology and are ideally designed to facilitate a more creative approach to content, and news ways to deliver the curriculum that encourages connections in content, encourages excitement and makes learning a transformational experience.

Our classrooms should support new ways of accomplishing the desired outcome that is more active and enables students to retain knowledge and expand on concepts beyond what is taught in the classroom.

Modern learning spaces should be bold and encourage risk taking and original thought through breaking rules around what a classroom should look like."

21st Century living - A 2.5 min overview of the world we teach in (Source: You Tube)

Food for thought: "If Students Designed Their Own School" (You Tube video clip)

Flexible Learning Spaces (Source: You Tube)

Learning Spaces (a Blend Space Lesson with a huge range of embedded resources for educators)

Recommended Reading: "3D Printers in Schools" (UK pdf article)

14th January2016
"Ethics and Cultural Responsiveness"

Every Kid Needs a Champion - Rita Pierson
Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like." A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

My notes: Rita discusses how relationships are the basis on which  learning occurs - without mutuality of intent, and connectedness, there is no lasting basis for this to happen. The ability of a teacher to build relationship "seeking first to understand before you are understood; apologising to students" where necessary, reflects your humanity as well. Building a learner's self esteem - "you say it long enough, it starts to be a part of you". Rita Pierson: "Teaching and learning should bring joy... We're educators, we were born to make a difference".

Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher
Class Notes / Youtube explanation: "How do you reach students who are culturally and racially different from you? This course provides thought-provoking background and practical suggestions for teachers seeking the answer to this question. Participants explore their own assumptions about race, class, and culture; and learn strategies for creating classrooms that are culturally inviting to all. Classroom footage illustrates principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching, including affirming students' cultural connections, stressing collectivity as well as individuality, and managing the classroom with firm, consistent, caring control."

Culturally Responsive Teaching
Class Notes / Youtube explanation: "In The Culturally Responsive Teacher, Sonya Whitaker shows you how to provide a safe, respectful, and professional place for teachers to discuss cultural conflicts and learn to be culturally responsive educators. Sonya... shares a simple framework to resolve cultural conflicts that may have a long-term impact on students performance in school."

Reality Pedagogy - Christopher Emdin at TEDxTeachersCollege
Class Notes / Youtube explanation: In this talk Christopher Emdin talks about the true meaning and role of "peace", "justice", "equity" and "equality" in the classroom by talking about Reality Pedagogy. The full title of his talk is: Reality Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, Truth, and Distortions. 

18 January 2016 (APC Week 25, Tasks1-3)

My Reflective Journal
Kia ora, my name is Marla Jane, and I am a primary school teacher in South Auckland, New Zealand. 

   I have been teaching at my current kura (school) for nearly eight years now; I have had the good fortune to have taught across the school as a classroom teacher for akonga (students) from Year 2 to Year 6 during my time as a kaiako (teacher) there. 

   I've been teaching within the senior syndicate for the past few years, so I get to work with students from Year 4-8 as we move into innovative learning environments and full immersion digital platforms through the Papakura Kootuitui initiative in 2016.

   As part of my role within our community of learning, I have been actively involved in co-developing ICT-related practises, most recently around our class blog and learning hub website.

   To keep up-to-date with the goings on in education in the 21st Century, I also keep a pinterest board and interact with other educators through my own Google+ and Twitter accounts 'in my spare time'. 

   Then, of course, we arrive at this blog, which I've created in the past year to keep track of all my professional learning: from professional learning and development in the workplace, through to educational conferences; and most recently, during the Mindlab By Unitec PGCert course. 

   Beyond my obvious strong interest in "all things ICT", my other passion is for Visual Art - from teaching and learning about it, through to sharing my creations with the wider 'globe'.

My Learning and Practice

   I have created this blog post to reflect on the last 24 weeks of my PCGCert studies at Mindlab by Unitec. To begin, let me start with 'a critical discussion' of two of my own Key Competencies that I believe have been developed the most during my studies the past several months.

My Original Reflection - cut and pasted from our Google Form made in August 2015.

   Reflecting on my initial comments in August 2015, one of the most striking contrasts for me over the past several months has been how my pre-existing 'Participating and Contributing' competency has proven to be a real asset when undertaking both e-Learning and professional networking.   

   My locus of interest has greatly expanded over recent months - from discussions with my fellow post grad students, through to my relatively new use of Twitter as a way to foster networks and source innovative ideas in ever-changing professional leading and learning contexts. 

   Along with this post graduate course itself, experiencing ULearn'15 allowed me to confidently approach educators from a wide variety of professional settings. 

    Another noticable change has been in how my 'Thinking' key competency has been opened up even further by this discourse and sharing of such a broad, expansive and increasingly globalised view of education as it is now occuring in the present tense.
 
   Other key changes that I have noticed within my own pedagogical practise since starting this course include how my use of online networking and cloud-based tools and resources have all effectively become an intrinsic part of how I gather, learn, create, share and reflect on my teaching and learning.

My Response to Finlay’s (2008) article 
In Lynda Finlay's (2008) article "Reflecting on Reflective Practise", she paraphrases Zeichner and Liston (1996) as saying that the reflective practise can effectively occur at five different levels:

1. rapid reflection - responding to the immediate contexts within the learning setting;
2. repair - adjusting teacher responses and behaviours in light of different student cues;
3. review - thinking, verbalising or writing about aspects of one's teaching;
4. research - engaging in a longitudinal view of one's pedagogy through a process of triangulation of assessment data, professional readings and other professional sources of information;
5. re-theorising and reformulating - adjusting one's professional thinking and pedagogy in response to all of the above.

This particular hierarchy of reflective thought aligns well with my own learning experiences around the professional reflections at this juncture. Within my own professional teaching and learning, the model that we endeavour to use is identified as Teaching As Inquiry.

   This process aligns with my professional obligations in regards to meeting my own goals within my teaching practise, and the model itself essentially provides me with a clear picture of "where I am, what has worked, what didn't work, and what my nexts steps would be". The process of review is complimented by my being able to discuss these different steps within my syndicate and as part of my professional appraisal cycle. 

Source: Teaching As Inquiry (TKI website image)

Teaching As Inquiry effectively gives me a clear, definable platform on which to best develop the professional skills and reflective approach needed in an ever changing world of learning and leading.

   Looking at Finlay's discussion around the concepts of reflexivity and critical reflection also align well with how the practise often necessarily occurs within learning environments where 'value-added' appraoches are explicit in the pedaogogical setting in which teaching occurs.

   "Reflexive practitioners engage in critical self-reflection: reflecting critically on the impact of their own background, assumptions, positioning, feelings, behaviour while also attending to the impact of the wider organisational, discursive, ideological and political context." (Finlay, 2008)

   It is necessary that we understand the contexts in which we teach, and the wider influences on both ourselves and our learning community of learning - from our immediate students who need both our informed empathy and guidance, through to the over-arching educational bodies that govern our practise.

   As we seek to provide our learners and our colleagues with the tools they need to live and learn within a globalised educational context, it is important that each of us is able to confidently approach and then master the skills we all need to be 'digital citizens' of the new millennium.

References Cited
(not directly cited unless undelined as above - citations include suggested readings for creating your own reflective learning journal.)

Dawson, F. (2012, October 10). Reflective practice. [video file].

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. [PDF file]
Galanis, M (2014, November 4). Blogging in Education. [video file]
Godin, S. (2015). The tribes we lead. Ted.com. [Web blog post].
Goins, J.(2015). How to Write Scannable Content for Your Blog. [Web blog post]
Gunelius, S. (2015). The Secrets of Blog Post Length. About.com Tech. [Web blog post]
Gunelius, S. (2015). Legal Issues Bloggers Must Understand. About.com Tech. [Web blog post]
Gunelius, S. (2015). 3 Expert Tips for Better Blogging. About.com Tech. [Web blog post]
LSU Center for Academic Success (2013, March 26). Think about Thinking - It’s Metacognition!. [video file].
Trinity,A. ( 2010, April 19,). Reflection Models. [video file].
Walker, J. (2012, February 17). Brief Intro to Metacoginition. [video file].
Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (1996). "Reflective teaching. An introduction. Reflective teaching and the social conditions of schooling".

25 January 2016 (APC Week 26, Task 4)

My Professional Community

This blog post is intended to be around defining my own professional learning and leading context using Wenger's concept of community of practice: a group "of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly." (2015)

   Within my own community of practise, I am going to critically review the following three areas:

1. current issues within our community of practise;
2. challenges faced within my professional practise; and
3. changes that are occurring within the context of our profession, and how we might address these. 

 Within our 'Decile 1A' South Auckland kura (school), we face many issues; ranging from socio-economic challenges (i.e.: truancy, absenteeism, transience) through to the need to specifically cater for a predominantly Maori student body. [I have also discussed the wider contexts for this in my recent RCIP blog entry.]

    This also brings us to some of the contextual challenges we face as a community of practise - how do we bring value-added learning outcomes within a socio-economically 'disadvantaged' setting?

   In recent years, digital learning platforms have increasingly offered us an effective tool for overcoming these obvious geographical and physical limitations. Our leaders of learning have worked alongside our community to bring greater ICT-based learning opportunities into our kura and devices onsite for our akonga.

   Whilst this support from our wider community and leadership has seen a huge shift in the resources we have available to our learners, this has been a reflection - and perhaps a response - to the huge changes occurring within our profession in recent years.

   Shifts in the tide of political agar in which we learn and teach have had huge implications for all of us. For example, while National Standards gave a standardised tool for the government to measure our student's progress over time 'longitudinally' against their peers nationally. This has led many local communities of learning once again losing their self-directed autonomy or sense of tino rangatiratanga, once implicit in the once innovative New Zealand Curriculum document.

   In the coming years, the ability to foster and grow effective, lasting (inter)relationships - within and between communities of practise and learning (locally, nationally and globally) - will be the most likely basis on which we can best share the resources and skills our young people will need to succeed and thrive in the new millenium.

References  Cited
(including additional / suggested readings for understanding and defining your own community of practise.)
Hodkinson, P., & Hodkinson, H. (2004, May 11th). A constructive critique of communities of practice: Moving beyond Lave and Wenger. Paper presented at “Integrating Work and Learning- Contemporary Issues’ seminar series. OVAL Research.
Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In L. Resnick, J. Levine, and S. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition.[ E-reader version](page 63-82).
OPENiPhotojournalism. (2009, Sep 15). Etienne Wenger talks about 'walking the landscape of practice'. [video file].
Team BE. (2011 Dec 28, 2011). Communities versus networks? [Web blog post].
Wenger-trayner.com. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice | Wenger-Trayner. [PDF file].


1st February 2016 - My Reflective Portfolio

Topic Area: Blended Learning

“Blended Learning is any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.”  (Quote Source: Horn and Staker, 2011)

My 'Big' Question: 

How do we best develop a culturally responsive teaching approach to Blended Learning within our Community of Learning?

Background

There is an increasing use of Social Enterprise models in providing the resourcing for the rise of Blended Learning over the past decade, particularly within K12 schools (e.g.: in the United States Australia and the UK).  In the New Zealand setting, the original Manaiakalani project has gone from one school cluster in East Tamaki created a dozen years ago, to now involve several other school clusters around New Zealand as a Blended Learning outreach .

My recent literary review around the topic of Blended Learning indicated that there was limited longitudinal research-based guidelines around what best teachers looked like and what teachers need in general practise when approaching online learning contexts. (Source: DiPietro et al 2008).

Within the New Zealand educational setting, the increased use of Blended Learning approaches indicate a growing need for formal nationwide training opportunities for teachers around the use of online learning platforms. (Source: Barbour et al 2013)

Examples of this need starting to be addressed by New Zealand tertiary providers have become evident over the past couple of years. In-service teacher training opportunities around the use of digital devices in practical learning contexts now includes Postgraduate Certification for fully registered teachers and the provision of a Digital Teacher Academy for beginner teachers.

The latter has been created in response to the efforts of the Manaiakalani Outreach project, as the process of providing affordable, reliable Blended Learning opportunities for so many schools has necessarily created longitudinal development of teacher training programs as a part of these. As these schools necessarily partake in digital learning platforms and use online mediums in a collaborative context, the process has facilitated the development and provision of training programmes for teachers and learners at an unprecedented scale. By extension, this model may then provide us with a basis for a replicable nationwide model for teaching within Blended Learning environments.

Amongst the several new Manaiakalani Outreach projects now underway around New Zealand, the Papakura Kōtuitui initiative encompasses both my own school cluster and kura (school).Whilst the outreach in the context of the Papakura cluster of schools has a three pronged approach, the educational aspect is predominantly around providing students with the devices and skills they will need to learn and grow within increasingly innovative, “Blended Learning” environments. As such, digital collaboration is the underpinning process by which their learning will be realised.

Image modified from Online Source

When reflecting on those elements that relate to both digital mediums and collaborative learning practises, over the last several years, our own kura (school’s) Community of Learning has explored how we can:

• enhance student engagement through the use of Information Technology (ICT);
• develop the skills and content knowledge required to improve learning outcomes;
• engage our educators, whanau and wider community to improve the learning outcomes for our akonga (students);
• develop learning relationships that best allow Maori to learn as Maori.

Aside from my own kura being a Primary School where three out of every four students identify as Maori, there is a wider need within our educational community to address the needs of our Maori students across the board. The New Zealand Ministry of Education guidelines found in the “Ka hikitia: accelerating success” (2013) document tell us that we must address those factors which are critical to the educational engagement of our Maori students, and by extension, their wider whanau (family groups) and learning communities.  The inference is that at all levels, Maori must be active, involved participants in their education - both as students, as parents, and as a wider community. This would better provide Maori with the sense of connectedness to their whanau and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) in a more holistic manner.

The use of an effective social enterprise model such as the one offered by  the Papakura Kōtuitui initiative may also allow our schools to “create productive partnerships with parents, whanau, hapu, iwi, communities and businesses that are focused on educational success” as is explicitly prescribed in the Ka hikitia document (MoE 2013, pp.8)

In our own school, we need to consider practices that will actually utilise models that encourage the discussion of new ideas whilst also building on the prior knowledge that students bring with them, such as those oral traditions that foster a sense of cultural identity and belonging. The concept of whanau underpins so much of what we do and relates so well to our understanding as teachers and leaders of learning. 

Relationship building is perhaps the most significant aspect, for Maori and non-Maori learners alike. A sense of mutuality, of ako (reciprocity), and of belonging all contribute to the wellbeing and desire to live and learn for all of us. This is something that the Papakura Kōtuitui approach to the wider wellbeing of our students also intends to address in the coming years.

“In our view, Mana-a-riki is possible by bringing together three things for children, and that is education, it is health, and it is homes. We’re trialling integration of strands of work, health education in homes, we’re trialling the interconnection of schools with one another, we’re trialling the interconnection between community; but the idea is that you do that all together, to get the outcome, which is the wellbeing of children, which is Mana-a-riki." ~ Rangamarie Hunia (Project Manager)

Original video source: Kōtuitui ki Papakura website

Some key discussion points to consider further (when developing our own pedagogy (practical aspects) around teaching within a Blended Learning environment):

• What does 'best practise' look like for teachers within Blended Learning environments?
• How can we be truly inclusive and build meaningful learning relationships with our students and their whanau when utilising digital learning and collaborative approaches?
• What guidelines can we develop around the use of Blended Learning that will meet the needs of all of our learners, and in particular, our Maori students?
• Can more traditional methods of Maori learning / achieving as Maori be adapted to compliment and enhance student's Blended Learning experiences in the current day?
• What benefits can our learners gain from incorporating aspects of Kaupapa Maori to our Blended Learning approaches?

Follow Up Prompt: Looking at the above, where I might go next in regards to a quantifiable / qualitative question / series of questions that might be allow me to observe and reflect on over the next couple of months in my teaching practise?

A recent snapshot of our school website.

REFERENCES CITED

Barbour, M. and Bennett, C. (2013) “The FarNet journey: Effective teaching strategies for engaging Māori students on the Virtual Learning Network” Education Faculty Publications. Paper 69.

DiPietro, M., Ferdig, R.E., Black, E.W., and Preston, M. (2008) “Best practices in teaching K-12 online: Lessons learned from Michigan Virtual School teachers.” Reprinted from Volume 7, Issue 1: Journal of Interactive Online Learning. 

Horn, M.B., and Staker. H. (2011) “The Rise of K–12 Blended Learning” Innosight Institute, January 2011.

Ministry of Education (2007) “The New Zealand Curriculum” online, as published by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education (2013) “Ka Hikitia: Accelerating Success 2013-2017”, published by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

A snapshot of our school's overall ethnic composition

01 February 2016 (APC Week 27, Task 5)

My Professional Context 

As part of the process of becoming a “self-aware” teaching professional, it is important to be fully cognizant of the broader contexts in which we learn and lead in the 21st century. 

   By defining our own roles, pedagogical approaches, inter-relationships and the way these are all interwoven, we begin to develop the understanding we need to effectively move within our own community of learning. 
    As we develop our a sense of ako or 'reciprocity', we begin to understand our own context within the educational framework in which we operate as leaders of learning, and this allows us to better develop the relationships, skills and content knowledge we will need within an increasingly global learning environment.
     As part of this change process, the increased use of online sources to facilitate new, innovative learning processes compels educators to increasingly develop an interdisciplinary approach to leading and learning. 
    "Interdisciplinary programs may be founded in order to facilitate the study of subjects which have some coherence, but which cannot be adequately understood from a single disciplinary perspective." (Wikipedia, 2016)

 TEDx Talks (2001, April 6). TEDxBYU - David Wiley - 

An Interdisciplinary Path to Innovation. [video file].

No longer are the school teacher and their physical school sites the proverbial font from which "all necessary academic content" (i.e.: curriculum) pours forth. 

    The exponential growth of information sharing via the internet allows learners to discover their own understanding from a digitised, globalised and publicised network of knowledge available to them.  

    Professional educators now need to venture into the same open access context, and the same freedom to venture forth into innovative approaches to the questions we all may have.

   With a sense of stewardship and global citizenship both, teachers can indeed be the leaders who guide our young people to asking the questions that will lead to the break throughs previously limited by environmental boundaries...

My Professional Connections

In this blog post, I have created a 'professional connection map' of my current and potential professional connections. For this, I have used a digital tool via Coggle. I chose this tool because it allowed me to sign via my Google+ account, which made it very user friendly - thanks Michelle for the inspiration!

"My Professional Connections Map" (click on image to enlarge)

An interesting observation I made when creating this 'mindmap': It started out in a rather linear or "hierarchical" manner at the outset; yet as I visually mapped the links between the different elements or "stakeholders" in my professional connections, the more interwoven and web-like the illustration became...

[I think this process was an important reminder professionally of how the advent of digital collaboration and devices are increasingly changing our world view and pedagogcial approaches - at the micro as well at the meta level - in the same way... Welcome to "Global Citizenship" in action!]

Next, I will choose two professional connections I have in my map: and I will evaluate their impact on my practice and professional community.

Further Reading 
(around the concept of interdisciplinarity i.e.: in educational settings.)
Mathison,S. & Freeman, M. (1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. [PDF file].