Week 32

I will use Rolfe et al’s (2001) Reflective Model and the Cycle of Experiential Learning by Osterman
and Kottkamp (2015, p.70)  to guide my reflection.

Week 32

What?

The journey over the last 32 weeks has been arduous and at times I have questioned my ability to
complete all of my readings and assignments. But as I think about about the tremendous amount
of learning that we as a cohort have undertaken I can’t help but admire our collective tenacity to
complete our journey and really commit to enhancing our own practice. Positioning ourselves as
learners, truly lifelong 21st century learners has helped us to become culturally responsive educators.
We have the confidence to change our pedagogy so that we can develop teacher agency that will affect
change within our school and our profession.  As outlined by Bolstad & MacDonald, (2016) who state,
that teachers changing their practice or even their thinking is important. I certainly couldn’t have
changed my mindset as significantly as I have without being a Mind-lab participate.  Reflecting on a
key change to my practice that helped me met the teaching standard of the Ministry of Education
NZ Teaching Standards (2017) is. “Develop a culture that is focused on learning, and is characterised
by respect, inclusion, empathy, collaboration and safety”.

Now what?

I will use the reflective “practice for educators” model by Osterman and Kottkamp (2015) to evaluate
the change to my practice.

Problem identification

I have often strived to develop a culture that is focused on learning and have looked at student centred
learning in the classroom but I have not being able to successfully implement this throughout the entire
class in all subjects. I sometimes revert back to teacher centred learning. It is important to develop
successful 21st learners and having a collaborative mindset is important.

Observation and analysis

Through the work on the assignments over the year as a student I have worked collaboratively with
my peers and I have found the experience to be enlightening as it exposes you to so many more ideas
and knowledge sharing. I also found that recording students voice about  working collaboratively was
insightful as the children had many positive experiences. When researching my review I looked at
‘How does blended learning improve motivation to collaborate for learners’? Which has really sparked
an interest for me.

Abstract re conceptualization

(Reynolds & Baik, 2013) note  that collaboration is a soft skill that needs to be fostered and this will
help to improve student engagement and motivation especially within a blended learning environment.

Active experimentation

Blended learning can act as a vehicle to support student centred learning and agency. The ability for
the students to share their ideas collaboratively and drive their own learning has been great to watch
flourish, as the locus of control sits more with the student. Power sharing with students is great as
students are engaged with their learning and students have developed a respect and genuine
friendships with one another.  Moving towards integrating see-saw within the whole class is something
that I will be doing next year and I hope to a launch a class blog as well.

References

Bolstad, R. & MacDonald,J.(2016). An analysis of participant blogs supplemented by teacher interviews.
Wellington:New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

Ministry of Education (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards

Reynolds, R. B., Bailk, E., & Li, X. (2013, November). Collaborative information seeking in the wild:
Middle-schoolers’ self-initiated teamwork strategies to support game design. In Proceedings of the 76th
ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Beyond the Cloud: Rethinking Information Boundaries (p 76). American Society
for Information Science.

Week 31

   

Week 31

I will be using the Rolfe's et al’s (2001)  to guide my reflection.model of reflection to look at culturally responsive pedagogy.

Step 1 (What)?

Unfortunately for many years education in New Zealand has not been culturally accessible to all
and as a consequence many Maori have been marginalised and forced to conform to colonialist
ideology with disastrous effects.  As outlined by Savage & Hindle (2011), who argue that mainstream
schools have been mono-cultural not multicultural and thus values and recognises the dominant
culture and ignores and devalues the culture of the minority. It has been a goal for Maori to be
self determining and in control of how they proceed in education. As noted by Bishop (2009), there
is a need to move beyond interdependence and to be self determining by developing positive
classroom interactions and student - teacher relationships. I realise that building strong student
teacher relationships that allow students to feel comfortable to be themselves and feel respected is
very important. This is established with our class norms, as well the school values which the
children learn throughout their schooling career. As outlined by Bishop & Berryman (2006),
positive student and teacher relationships is important for student engagement, especially for
Maori students. I also realise that communication with families is vital for students to feel appreciated
and respected and I personally feel that developing stronger homeschool partnerships through the
use of social media is another great way for me to strengthen these ties. As noted by the (MOE n.d.),
strong home school partnership ties improves the learning outcomes through practices that are
sustainable, blended and culturally inclusive.

Step 2 (So what)?

When I look at the Milne (2013),  action continuum - eliminating White spaces our school sits
between the  green and red zone. The values that underpin the school have been developed with
the staff, parents and local iwi. Whakapono ki a koe - Believe in yourself is the school motto that is a
living, breathing ethos that has been cultivated and nurtured over time. I would say that all cultures
are respected and valued by carefully building strong relationships and whanaungatanga amongst the
children and staff. This is indeed a rare and truly rewarding learning environment for the students and
staff alike. Milne (2017), outlines the concern that cultural identity can be relegated to be celebrated on
language weeks or only on certain occasions. Fortunately the cultural identities of the students and the
staff are celebrated and appreciated everyday not only during language weeks.  

Step 3 (What next)?

Many of the staff speak more than one language which is fantastic as we all have so much to learn
from one another. Learning a second language as part of ongoing Professional development could
be a great way to utilise the plethora of talent that we have across the school. We as a staff could also
learn from our students. The reciprocal nature of “Ako” could be actioned at the school where we could
give the students the opportunity to be teachers. As practitioners we have to be reflective. I realise
that I have to be able to develop and enhance my own culturally responsive pedagogy to help all
students in my class.

References

Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T. & Teddy, L. (2009).Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational
disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5),734–742.

Bishop, R., & Berryman, M. (2006). Culture speaks: Cultural relationships and classroom learning.
Huia Publishers.

Milne, B.A. (2013). Colouring in the white spaces: Reclaiming cultural identity in whitestream schools.
(Doctoral Thesis, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand). Retrieved from
http://hdl. handle.net/10289/7868

Ministry of Education (n.d) T.K. I. Homeschool partnerships retrieved from
http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Beyond-the-classroom/Engaging-with-the-community/Home-school-
partnerships/?tab=js-tabcontainer-1-tab-2

Milne, B.A. (2013). Colouring in the white spaces: Reclaiming cultural identity in whitestream schools.
(Doctoral Thesis, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand). Retrieved from
http://hdl. handle.net/10289/7868

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.

Week 30

Week 30

I will be using the Rolfe’s et al’s (2001) reflection model  to guide my reflection as I look at the development of personal skills which are essential soft skills that help to navigate
the digital world in a positive manner.

What?

The digital world allows students to access information and to connect with people within seconds.
Having a social media presence can offer a meaningful way to connect with people however this
practice needs to be underpinned by a number of soft skills. According to Daggett (2015), a digital
footprint will follow a person forever, carrying information they have posted and whatever information
others have posted about them.  At our school we have a set of nine school values, one value is taught
each week during each term. This gives the children the opportunity to fully understand, live and
breathe these valuable skills such as integrity and responsibility. When the children are using digital
devices they know that they need to interact with each other in a positive way, at the moment they
share with each other via emails and they know they can only write positive messages to one another.  
The students are also collaborating when they are working on google docs together, working in an
environment where everyone in class can see each other's work and comments. Providing an in
class platform to share is a great opportunity to teach these soft skills before launching onto a blog
site that can be seen worldwide.

So what?

Teaching so called “soft skills” or life skills are a necessary part of education and this should definitely
be taught hand in hand with digital content. According to Daggett (2014), Education is a powerful tool
that can reduce inequalities and help to influence the outcome of the most disadvantaged.  Our role
as educators is to provide opportunities to engage with technology in a responsible way. The digital
age is moving at an alarming rate and the facilitator's role is adapting to meet these needs. As outlined
by Bolstad & Gilbert (2012), Individual knowledge is important for personal cognitive development
and to be able to participate economically and socially however individuals must be able to share
ideas and knowledge by collaborating and connecting. In class the children work collaboratively and
they have learnt so much in terms of sharing their ideas, working as a team and problem solving.

Now What?

The safety concerns of having an online presence is a factor that must be considered as children
are vulnerable and they may otherwise make unwise decisions in the heat of the moment and not
consider the possible repercussions. As stated by Daggett (2015), It is important that clear guidelines
and a deep understanding of the possible consequences are highlighted to the students. When using
digital devices it may seem that the children are engaged with their learning but we as educators need
to ensure that they are benefiting academically as well. As noted by Daggett (2015), who argues that
there needs to be a balance with digital collaboration and online interaction as it may reduce academic
performance.

References

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.

Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from 
http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf

OECD. (2016) Trends Shaping Education 2016, OECD Publishing, Paris. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/trends_edu-2016-enDaggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf

Week 29

           


           

Week 29 

For this Weeks blog I will look at my professional use of online networks using the Jay and Johnson’s reflective model.

Descriptive

At the moment I find great inspiration from browsing and liking ideas on the social curation site – Pinterest for ideas for resources. When incorporating blended learning tasks the use of Youtube clips is great for enhancing students synthesising skills. Since joining mind-lab I have found the social interactions within the google plus community to be invaluable through the feeling of camaraderie and the opportunity to learn from colleagues. The use of google docs within the school is such an efficient and effective way to communicate and collaborate with team members. I have incorporated the seesaw app with the early adopters in my class and I will need to be more confident to use this more effectively with the entire class. I will also need to connect with other classrooms and develop stronger home-school partnerships with families as their children could share their work and clips of their learning . I definitely think that as a practitioner I need to connect with other educators throughout the world. I would have to troubleshoot any potential problems before implementing blogs or twitter into the classroom and beyond, as I do have concerns for safety.  

Comparative

It is vital that we develop 21^st century learners. The digital age is evolving at an incredible speed, faster than the change experienced during the Industrial Revolution, schools need to be able to adapt and change to suit these needs (Whitaker, Zoul, & Casas, 2015, p. 10). Change does not happen without educators becoming the agents for change. I am guilty of not being more adaptable and I need to be more connected with social media. I could start with a classroom blog and then share this with the school and then share within a wider community. To prepare students for the future we as educators must move beyond the past 50 years of education and become lifelong learners, we need to be connective educators. (Whitaker et al., 2015). There is also a need for agency so that students are motivated to drive their own learning. According to Melhuish whostates that the flexibility to facilitate learning using online technologies is vital for sustainable learning. As lifelong learners we as educators must also drive our own learning and lead this change.

Critical reflection

The great thing about mind-lab and google+ is that we have been exposed to the potential use of 21^st century learning in the classroom, and we have the support of our online community. As Mishra’s (2009) research stipulates that, “if you’re not going to change your pedagogy, then technology use makes no significant difference”. (as cited in Wright 2010, p 31).  I am the person who can make a big difference to the learners in my class and I definitely could be utilising technology in a more meaningful way by incorporating a connective platform for the learners in my class.

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 http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han…

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What connected educators do differently. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wright, N. (2010). e-Learning and implications for New Zealand schools: a literature review. Ministry of Education, New Zealand (p. 55). https://doi.org/10.1.1.617.4373