PRACTICE - Changes in Practice

Wow! My learning journey at Mindlab, has been exciting, challenging, thought to provoke and at times really, really hard!! The hardest part was re-learning how to be a student again, write formal essay’s in university-speak, AND  use correct referencing. Oh my gosh! The referencing! I know this is super important, but on my list of priorities, this just wasn’t up there for me, even though I got marked down on it in every single assignment.  If it wasn’t for the support ( and at times, giant push) from my colleagues. I’m not sure I would have completed the course- Thanks, Mindlab Buddies!!!

Criteria 7: Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment:

The best part of my learning journey was having the opportunity to do this with 4 of my colleagues. I really enjoyed our Wednesday night Mindlab sessions, that we continued until the end of the course. Unfortunately, in the busy world of school, we don’t have enough ‘protected time’ where we are able to think deeply, reflect, research, discuss and debate the things that are happening in our school and what drives our teaching practice. We worked collaboratively on all assignments, even the weekly reflective tasks we had to do in the second half of the course. We would go through the readings and videos together, discuss how it fitted with our school vision and our own teaching practice, before writing our reflections independently. Kate and I often shared stories about our learning journey at Mindlab with our students, as it was a great way to role model collaboration, lifelong learning, what it feels like to be in the pit and how we had to persevere to get out of it. Because this has been such a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning journey we are hoping to keep Wednesday nights as our ‘protected ‘ Learning time where we can spend more time working on our teacher inquiries, sharing ideas/ best practice and discussing the latest research.

Criteria 12: Use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice:

Mindlab has also provided me with an opportunity to record my teaching and learning inquiries, especially the change initiatives that I have helped drive and lead, in a professional and engaging way that can be shared with others, as a learning tool. It has also helped us to plan future change initiatives and inquiries and how we are going to implement these and get others in our school onboard the waka. One of the biggest changes for me and my co-teacher this year has been how WE and our student's problem solve using the same model of inquiry. We have realised that we don’t have to follow the model as a spiral or move in any one direction, but instead, you can move fluidly between the stages of inquiry and are continually reflecting to know what your next step is. This has definitely created a much high level of engagement and excitement from students and staff about how we learn.

As a staff, we are really excited about our next learning steps. We will be continuing to develop our knowledge and practice of PBL and focusing on how we improve whanau and community engagement, as well as cultivate global citizens.

Interdisciplinary Connections

This is a map of our school’s interdisciplinary connections. It shows the schools in our newly formed CoL, the school support Agencies we work most closely with, as well as the people and services we collaborate with in our local community. Each of these connections supports our students, teachers and whanau to achieve our school vision.

The Interdisciplinary connections I am going to focus on is the School Support Agencies. As our school SENCo and a classroom teacher, I work with a range of these agencies on a daily basis to support students to achieve at school.

When a teacher identifies a student who needs additional support either for learning, behaviour or social/ emotional difficulties the classroom teacher, discusses this student with their Syndicate leader and team. Together they decide if the school has the resources and knowledge to support that student in-school or whether they require more specialised support. If it’s the latter, the class teacher would then refer the student to the SENCO.

We hold Special Programme meetings each term in Week 5 for every class. At these meetings, we discuss students who are currently on our Special Programmes register and new referrals. The role of the SENCO is to facilitate these meetings and coordinate ‘Interdiscilinary Learning Teams’ for individual students. This usually happens in the form of an IEP meeting, once the team has been established.

Based on discussions at Special Programme meetings, the SENCO will consider the students needs and what agencies need to be involved. The SENCO then makes referrals to the necessary Support Agencies and is present with the classroom teacher at pre-referral meetings or initial information gathering meetings. Although the SENCo facilitates these meetings the class teacher is always the ‘lead’ professional in the interdisciplinary team. This is because they know the student best and is responsible for managing the IEP.

New referrals can be made at any stage of the term, but our Special Programme meetings are seen as ‘protected’ time.  This enables us to reflect on the needs of our students and the progress they are making both academically and socially, to ensure every student reaches their potential.

An example of the agencies that are involved in an Interdisciplinary Learning Team for one of my students is RTLB, GSE, SWIS, Public Health, IWS, Oranga Tamariki ( when they are involved with his whanau), Strengthing Families, Well Stop and Te Whare Marie. My job as SENCO was to get all of these agencies on board, advocate for the needs of the student and his whanau, coordinate and facilitate meetings, and hold everyone accountable. My role as his classroom teacher is to provide evidence of his needs, lead the IEP and implement, monitor and assess plans.

At our school, we also hold monthly interdisciplinary meetings with the liaison person from each key support agency that works regularly in our school. This normally involves me, our principal, SWIS, PHN, and RTLB. At these meetings, we discuss all students on our Special Programme’s register that is supported by more than one agency. This is so we all have a very clear about what each agency is doing for the child and what other supports/ resources we might need to consider getting involved.

Overall, I think our school has excellent systems in place to work collaboratively and effectively with School Support agencies to ensure our students get equitable access to the support they need to be the best learner they can be. This requires us to build strong professional relationships with each support agency and individual working in our school, and always have open, honest and respectful communication.

Using social online networks in teaching or professional development

So Dictionary.com defines social media as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking”. I have to be honest, this is news to me. I thought social media only included web apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and snapchat etc. and were only just about social networking. My eyes have now been open and my view broadened, which has helped me realise that our students and staff actually use quite a few social media networks in our teaching and learning.

These are some of the social media websites and applications that I use in my class:

Google Apps: Most students in my class own their own Chromebook. We also have access to ipads and iMacs.  We have been using Google Apps such as Docs, presentations and google forms as a part of our everyday learning for about 5 years. Students mostly work with others, so Google apps work perfectly for students sharing and collaborating. One of the greatest benefits is that students are able to work together anywhere/ anytime. Learning doesn’t just have to happen in the classroom or school, it goes beyond the gate. A challenge with shared docs, presentation etc that we sometimes have, is students accidentally deleting and moving someone else work. Thankfully this doesn’t happen quite as often as it uses to when we first got our Chromebooks.

Blogs: Every student in my class has an individual learning blog. This replaced paper-based student portfolios. The purpose of their blog is to be able to share their learning with others, especially their whanau and the wider school community. Although we encourage parents to post feedback on their child’s blog this rarely happens and is something we want to improve. The students love their blogs as they can show their learning in lots of interesting ways such as writing, videos, photos, screencasts etc. It makes them feel very proud. A challenge we have with blogs is that some (a very small handful) of parents do not want their child’s blog to be public. We are OK with this, but it makes it really difficult for the student to have a wide audience and get feedback from others.

These are some of the social media websites and applications that I use in my professional development:

YouTube: Thank god for YouTube!! I love youtube!! When I moved from teaching in a Y4-5 class to teaching a Y6-8 class and suddenly had to teach Level 4- 5 maths it was my saviour!!! I’m also quite a visual learner so often find videos more engaging and easier to follow. It’s also made me find more interesting and transformational ways to use YouTube in my classroom as a learning tool or a way for either myself or my students to share their learning. A challenge we have around this is privacy and safety. I’m not sure how we can limit this except for being aware and well informed about the dangers and how to be a responsible You Tuber.

Facebook: Facebook can be hard to keep up with sometimes, and sometimes there is a load of rubbish posted on there, but at the same time I follow some great professional groups such as Longworth Education, Mindshift, Tedtalks, NZ Primary Teachers, etc. I find Facebook especially worthwhile when I am focussing on a specific inquiry and need to keep up to date and on top of new and current research. What ‘s even better is that I don’t need to go and search for things, they just pop up on my newsfeeds and can be saved for when I have time to look at them. I can also share these easily with my colleagues, or with whanau. The challenge with Facebook is similar to YouTube. A growing digital footprint, and cyber safety.  

Legal and Ethical Dilemma’s in my Digital Teaching Practice

Legal and Ethical Dilemma’s in my Digital Teaching Practice

The huge growth in the use of digital technology and social media means that schools and teachers need to have an awareness of the ethical implications that can arise.  Teachers have an obligation to make students and whanau aware of these issues and support them to become reflective, considerate, and respectful gobal citizens, in the real world and online.

I teach in a Y6-Y8 class. All of our students have chromebooks and online Learning Blogs. The purpose of this, is so students can share their learning with their whanau and wider community and potentially reach a worldwide audience from which they can receive feedback. This provides students with exciting opportunities, but can also potentially exposure them to danger.

Potential dangers for our students can include:

Students could accidentally share information about themselves of their families that might put their personal safety at risk.

Students share photos of themselves, their families and their friends. They might not have obtained permission or photo’s could be copied and used inappropriately.

People might send inappropriate or unkind feedback about students learning because they do not know or understand the context of the learner or work that has been posted.

Corinna School has several policies to minimise the above risks and to keep students, teachers and whanau safe when online. The Te Mana o Kupe Kawa of Care was developed in 2014 when we formed a Trust to enable whanau to buy a chromebook for their child through a lease to own system. The Kawa of Care is an agreement between students, parents and schools to ensure the best care and responsibility is exercised with the chromebook during the student's time in the Te Mana o Kupe Programme. There are three important areas to acknowledge as a user of the chromebook:

• Responsible use agreement and what that looks for Insurance coverage:
  - student
  -Whanau

          -Teacher and school

• Chromebook to Home:
  -whanau engagement
  -connecting to the internet

We also have the Corinna School Internet Code of Conduct for Students, the Acceptable Use of Internet and Responsible Use Policy for teachers and support staff, and the Student/ whanau Computer, email and Internet Use Agreement. These policies provide important information around ethical issues, personal safety issues, responsibility around privacy and security and how we use social media and online enviornments including blogs, gamil Google Apps etc. These policies are discussed with students and whanau at enrolment and the agreements signed, and with new staff as part of there induction process.

Examples of our school guidlines that can help minimise ethical dilemma and safety concerns for students when using their learning blogs are:

• Do not give out personal information such as your address, phone number, parents/ guardian’s information or the name and location of your school without staff or parents permission.
• Inform staff/ parents right away if you come across any information that makes you feel uncomfortable.
• Do not post photos of yourself or others without seeking permission from everyone that can be identified in the photo as well as your parents and teachers.

To ensure, students and whanau are following the rules and guidlines, staff need to be frequently checking students use of their chromebooks and checking all blog posts and feedback. Teachers are resonsible for teaching cyber safety and supporting students to make good choices and keeping this on top for students and whanau.

If students break the Kawa of Care we remove digital devices from students and they are only returned when there has been  a ‘sorting out’ discussion (that sometimes involves parents) Eg. What did you do? What did you want to happen? What should you have done? Who was affected by this? How can we make this right? This consequence came from discussions with parents/ whanau.

Our school and teachers need to ensure that we are continuing to learn about how we can make positive ethical decisions and what proactive measures we might put in place to keep our school community safe. Guidelines such as  Digital Technology Safe and Responsible Use in School Policy and NetSafe’s Learn, guide, Protect model are useful resources to suport our teching and learning

Understanding Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness

Understanding Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness

Published 27/ 11/2017

Cultural responsiveness is defined in Tataiako as  “ interacting with their (Maori and Pasifika student’s)  families to truly understand their reality; it means understanding the socio-political history and how it impacts on classroom life; it means challenging personal beliefs and actions; and, it means changing practices to engage all students in their learning and make the classroom a positive learning place for all students”

For schools and teachers to adjust their teaching practice so Maori and Pasifika students achieve to their full potential, as Maori, and as a person from a Pacific nation;  they first need to critically examine their own beliefs about culture and be open to learning the language and customs of their students and whanau. This often means that teachers need to accept that they are not the experts or the teacher, but the learner.

To achieve these teachers need to be culturally competent. This means they need to “affirm and validate the culture/s of each learner” and understand  “that all learners and teachers come to the classroom as culturally located individuals and that all interactions and learning are culturally defined” (Tataiako).

To me, this means, that teachers should never assume that because they know about one group of Maori or one group of Pasifika students, that it relates to EVERYONE who is Maori and Pasifika. Each learner, depending on their cultural and historical background, where they were raised and their ‘journey’ or movements from place to place, and the choices their elders made in the best interest of their whanau, has a created a very different and unique story for each individual.

I am Maori. From birth, all the way through my schooling and into my adult years, I’ve experienced the negative effects of people assuming that they know and understand my culture because they think they know and understand Maori. This isn’t just a pakeha thing either. Maori can also assume that all Maori are the same. The effect this can have on our Maori learners is huge. As a child, I started to question my culture and identity. Am I really Maori? Is my ‘Maori’ as good as other people’s ‘Maori’? Am I a bad Maori and letting my culture down because I don’t know Te Reo? Or am I too good and setting other Maori up for more racism because of new equal opportunity and quota laws by achieving beyond what was expected of Maori?

These questions are still really relevant to me today.

As a teacher, I know my own experiences have helped shape what I believe culture means and what it means to be culturally responsive. First and foremost, this means getting to know each of my students individually and building a quality and effective learning relationship with them and their whanau. Corinna School is predominately made up of Maori, Pacifika and Asian students. I think we work really hard to get to know individual students and whanau, and never assume we know or understand their culture based on their ethnic identity.

I believe our school’s vision encompasses the values of cultural responsiveness by “expecting the best” for all learners. We strive to ensure that “Our learning community will be lifelong learners, empowered to use all the key competencies to shine in a range of contexts with… Voice- everyone has a voice, Agency- make a difference and Identity- value who you are.”  This fits with Unitec’s Poutama model, which also aims to develop the capabilities and skills of it’s graduates so they can be successful and contributing members of their community.

At Corinna School we try to achieve this in a variety of ways including:

• Involving parents/ whanau and students in all decision making. For example: if we are making any changes or holding an event; we always seek whanau advice and guidance and don’t move forward until we have it. We strive for 100% attendance at 3-way interviews and all school events so students can share their learning with their whanau and so it can be celebrated. We work hard to build strong relationships with whanau by communicating with them regularly. We try to do this face to face as much as possible but also have a school facebook page, use the Parent Teacher Calendar App, have a school website and class blogs.
• Teachers are constantly learning about how to bring about change and engage all learners in the learning programme to achieve accelerated progress. For example, 3 years ago we started new PLD on Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities. This involves students working collaboratively with mixed ability groups to solve culturally relevant mathematical problems. Based on the significant progress we now do this across the curriculum. We have also begun an inquiry into PBL, and how this style of learning meets the cultural learning needs of our students.
• Providing students with opportunities to have Voice, Agency and Identity- Ako. Over the last 6 years, in particular, our school has been on a learning journey to find out and understand how we can cultivate opportunities for our students to learn and become competent 21st century, future-focused learners. This has involved providing a platform for whanau to lease/ buy Chromebooks for their students, developing flipped and blended learning programmes, and opportunities for students to follow their passions and teach others their strengths.

Corinna School recognises, that we always need to work on how we further engage with our whanau and community to improve our outcomes and be more culturally responsive. We regularly seek advice from our local iwi, Pasifika whanau and church groups, and other schools within our CoL. Although our attendance numbers at school events increase each year, they are still considered relatively low in comparison to higher decile school. We are always inquiring about why this is and seeking advice on how we can improve.

In conclusion, if I go back to what I experienced as a Maori, growing up Maori, and going to school as Maori; I wish I had had the opportunity to go to school at Corinna. Corinna School is one of the very few places that I have been a member of where people have taken the time to learn about me and MY culture. Me as Maori,  and me as a Maori learner and as a Maori teacher. For this reason, I have a strong sense of belonging and now call Corinna home! As our students and whanau often say “ Once a Corinna Kid ALWAYS a Corinna Kid!”

Global Trends: Digital Technologies and what this means for our future

Global Trends: Digital Technologies and what this means for our future

“Teaching in the Internet age means we must teach tomorrow’s skills today.” – Jennifer Fleming

The rise of digital technologies has been the biggest, most influential trend to impact on education both nationally and globally, and most importantly on my own teaching practice; in the last 10 years especially.

When I first started teaching, computers and ICT were only just being introduced into primary school classrooms. We were all still learning about the “World Wide Web”, Google search and even what an email was and how to send one. It was pretty big and exciting, way back then for students and teachers!

Now, we are surrounded by technology and are hugely dependant on it in our daily lives. We use it in nearly every aspect of what we do to learn, communicate, collaborate, and to live comfortably. As Karehka Ramey states ” technology  and human life cannot be separated; society has a cyclical co-dependence on technology.”

The implications of digital technology in the 21st-century classroom are huge. Firstly we are having to predict what life and careers might look like for our students in the future. For example, the United States Department of Labour has stated that 65% of school-age kids will end up in jobs that haven’t even been invented yet.

So what does this mean for me and my students?

“digital transformation isn’t only about technology, it’s about bringing together the power of technology with a culture that embraces the change that it can lead the organization”  (Newman, 2016)

For myself and my colleagues at Corinna School, this means we have had to work really hard to, build our IT knowledge and expertise and get informed about what skills and digital tools our students need and how we can use these innovatively in our classrooms for transformational learning.  

At the beginning of our journey, there were so many opinions about what tools were the best, whether we should go with BYOD, ipads, chromebooks, macs or a mixture. And… how we were going to adapt our teaching and learning practices to utilise these tools to accelerate learning and prepare our students for the 21st century.

To be honest, although it was exciting times, it was also very scary mostly because we had to do a lot of forward thinking beforehand to ensure our choices were future proof. We didn’t have the money to make the wrong decisions and our students couldn’t afford to have their valuable learning time wasted on something that wasn’t going to work for them.

For this reason, one of the biggest pitfalls I think this trend has had on education is all the “fads” that have come with it.  As a school, I think we’ve done well to navigate our way through these to work out what is just a fad, or a fancy acronym, and what is worthwhile. We have strong pedagogy and values and have stuck true to what we believe as we have introduced new digital technologies and 21st-century teaching practices.

Throughout our journey, we have had lots of advice and PLD, which we have taken and adapted to meet the needs and values of our school community. An important part of this process was establishing Te Mana o Kupe Trust to ensure all our whanau could afford to buy a chromebook for their child on a lease to own basis. This was extremely important to us as we wanted to ensure learning could happen beyond the school gate and that our students can be global citizens not just citizens of Porirua, or even New Zealand.

To ensure we fully prepare our students for an unknown future, we know our journey has not ended. We will always be striving to not only keep up with the global trend of digital technology and changes in education but hopefully be innovative and creative enough to get ahead of it. Big thinking, big challenges, but definitely achievable if we “expect the best” for our students and whanau.

Corinna School Community

This week we are discussing and analysing issues issues of socioeconomic factors, school culture and professional environment in relation to our practise.

Corinna School

Corinna school is a Decile 1a, Year 1 - 8 school located in Waitangirua. Our school has had a growing roll of 240. The roll is expected to continue to grow in 2018. At the beginning of 2017, the roll surged when 40 students enrolled in the first week of Term 1. This seems to be linked to housing, the movement of families back into the area, or extended whanau coming from overseas to live together. Our community can be transient and each year there is approximately a 30% turnover of students.

The percentage of children belonging to particular groups in March 2017 are:

Samoan: 47.4%

Māori :23.4%

Cook Island Māori 12.1%

Tokelauan: 9.8%

Other , including Filipino, Tongan, Tuvaluan, Pākeha: 6.1%

South East Asian, including Kampuchea/Cambodian, Laos and Myanmar: 1.4%

These statistics, however, do not give a clear picture of the cultural diversity of the roll of Corinna School.  Many of the students have parents from more than one ethnic group. Some may be brought up by their grandparents, who are from another ethnic group; some may be 2nd or 3rd generation New Zealand born Pasifika children who may or may not speak a language other than English; some are new immigrants for whom English is a second language; some are refugees who were professionals and forced to leave their countries for political reasons immediately; some are refugees who have only ever known life in a refugee camp before coming to New Zealand; some are well established families whose parents and grandparents also attended the school; some are Christians; some are Muslim; some are from single parent families; some are beneficiaries living in rental accommodation; some have both parents in the workforce who own their own home; some have had  formal early childhood education and some have not; many have access to the internet; many have television and are open to the music and fashion influences of  youth culture, nationally and internationally.

Our school does not make assumptions about how the ethnicity, or home environment, of any student may impact on their learning. We believe in their potential to be successful learners, confident in their own identities.

What students have in common is that almost all attend Corinna School because it is their local school and they live close to it. The other commonality is that, regardless of what experiences the children may have had before they attend school, when parents or caregivers enrol their children, they come with hope and expectation that their children will be cared for, be happy and learn well.

These are the issues that arise from the socio economic status of our school’ s community and how the issues have been acknowledged and supported:

Rich language and cultural experiences: We acknowledge, respect and celebrate all cultures in our school community in a variety of ways, such as  kapa haka and polyfest clubs and preformances, providing language classes in Te Reo, Samoan, Tokelauan and Cook Island Maori, celebrating language/ cultural weeks with students and whanau etc

Strong Sense of Whanau: Our community are very close. Many are related or know each other through church, cultural and community groups. Many parents also attended Corinna School as students. They are very supportive and are always willing to help each other in times of need. We have strong Samoan and Tokelauan Parent groups, who regularly do volunteer work at school and help organise and run events.

How these issues impact on your practice? How have the issues been addressed?

We build strong relationships with outside agencies to support students and whanau: SWIS, PHN, CAMHS, Housing, WINZ

Healthy food policy, canteen/ Canteen Manager, student cooking classes and garden club

Learning through play: Inquiries based on student passions, strengths

Home Language classes, celebrating culture and identity, Polyclub, kapa haka, Noho...

Whanau, Mixed ability learning

Key competency focused, strengthed focused

Whanau engagement/ events such as Language week events, Fiafia nights, Masterchef Challenges.

Chromebooks: Global citizens