Mindlab by Unitec: Global and Local Trends in Education

08 February 2016 (APC Week 29, Task 6)

Reflecting on Some of the Current Trends in Education

When we're considering 'where to next', it's important that we consider the issues and trends that are likely to influence education over the next ten to twenty years. Looking first at the international trends helps us to see the bigger picture as it were. 

In the "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" report released by US National Intelligence Council (2012), they found four significant 'megatrends' that will likely have a huge influence on the geopolitical framework our education systems take place within.

Screenshot from "Global Trends 2030" pp.7 (Source)

The use of online digital media is now widely being used to allow for both collective and individual empowerment at a scale that has been previously unequalled. 

We're able to find out and share ideas online like never before, with learning-based and social media websites allowing individuals  to collaborate in a manner that is likely to be a potential source of both innovation and fundamentalism. In essence, we're all at a bit of a nexus - those clinging on to traditional modes of thought may find the 'future is wide open' and wish to keep the status quo.

Essentially, it has become imperative that educators and administrators alike climb onboard the collaborative technology train as digital immigrants, as the millenials are living and learning as digital natives. (Prensky, 2001).

However, the efficacy of this process before now has been inversely affected by changing demographic patterns - such as high transience in low socio-ecomomic areas within New Zealand impacting on these students in particular gaining equaitable access to the technology that facilitates this process. 

This has seen schools in low socio-economic areas to sign up for apparent 'social enterprise' models in order to provide their students with both the digital tools and internet access they will need to empower their students in the twenty-first century. 

With this model of enablement, there is the risk of gearing educational outcomes within these schools to enhance philanthropic input from private organisations. But, given the real need for access to the tools and skills our young people will need in the coming years, it is essential that we take a collective approach to providing more equitable learning pathways for millenials and their decendants.

By contrast, those schools in more socio-economically advantaged areas are still free to develop curricula that more adequately reflect the wider learning needs and/or educational interests of the community around them, thereby engendering the underlying values and principles of the New Zealand Curriculum document.

In conclusion, it is important that we fully grasp the increasingly globalised nature of living and learning in the current day. We need to make every effort we can muster to adapt our way of thinking and doing (i.e.: theories and pedagogies) to better allow us to provide our students with the insights and learning styles they will need to answer the issues that will arise in the coming decades.

In my next blog entry, I will look at how the rise of social media may provide us with an effective and engaging platform for empowering both ourselves and our learners over the coming year(s)...

References Cited & Recommended Reading/Viewing
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching: A New Zealand perspective.Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Education Review Office (2012). The three most pressing issues for New Zealand’s education system, revealed in latest ERO report - Education Review Office.
KPMG Australia. (2014, May 22). Future State 2030 - Global Megatrends.
US National Intelligence Council (2012). Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds. Washington, DC: United States National Intelligence.
OECD (2015). Education at glance 2014.
Pearson. (2013, April 26). Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants - Part 1. [pdf] 
Science News (2014, Nov 26). New Mega Trends.
The RSA.(2010, Oct 14). RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms.

From the Web: Teaching in the 21st Century

Mindlab by Unitec: My Professional Community of Practise

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 coummunity 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 occuring 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 likley 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 additonal / 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].

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)

NB: Click here for the original link for the above jpeg

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)