Changes in My Practice

Over the past 32 weeks I have been on a learning journey with Mindlab that has challenged me and inspired me to reflect on my own practice. It has made me even more conscious that it is not just our students who need to develop 21st-century skills, but also those of us in teaching and leadership positions within our schools. As Meyer (2016) states, “For leaders, thinking about the future is a moral imperative.”
As a member of the Senior Leadership Team at my kura, I have had to reflect on and critically examine my own leadership practice and my role as an e-leader, especially in the context of digital and collaborative learning.

One of two key changes that I have made is the shift to regularly engage with the online learning community via social media. I previously had a facebook, Google+ and a Twitter account which I never used, but now I frequently read, like and re-tweet posts on Twitter and regularly share my ideas and practice via my blog posts and the Google+ community. Through the medium of online networking and the use of social media, I have begun to share my own thoughts and ideas globally, rather than just with the kaiako in my own school. I have been challenged to research and explore ideas, trends, and issues in a deeper and more meaningful way, to be innovative and think critically about the way we do things at our school, and examine why we do them. It has been a big shift in my thinking, as I grew up in a culture where you kept your own opinions and ideas to yourself. I now feel empowered to verbalize and share my thoughts more openly, creating both opportunities and challenges, and ultimately it has allowed me to be part of a supportive culture of learning.

Another key change to my practice over the past eight months has been to look at ways I can encourage, support and challenge my colleagues to create more engaging learning experiences for students, and develop new philosophies and contexts for how teaching happens in our school.

In our ever-changing world it is necessary to constantly reflect on and adjust the way we do things. 

A crucial aspect of future-focused learning, as I see it, is to encourage our kaiako to make a shift from a knowledge, acquisition-based, passive model where the students are expected to fill their kete with knowledge in order to achieve the desired results for assessment purposes.  

A more collaborative model where students focus on the process of how they learn, creating engaging and authentic learning experiences for students, and encouraging our kaiako to view teaching through a different lens is now my priority.

My dream for the future is to continue on this journey of exponential learning and reflective practice, where I can make a difference for students and help to prepare them for their futures, and lead and inspire my colleagues to also better understand and evaluate their professional practice and enhance self-awareness, for as Carlgren, I., Handal, G. & Vaage, S. (Eds.). (1994) state, “The process of learning to teach continues throughout a teacher’s entire career … at best, we can only prepare teachers to begin teaching.” I want to help develop the culture of our school, where we all become researchers, continually engaging in a collaborative process of self-education, and self-reflection alongside our ākonga. My dream is to work together in new ways so that our students have agency over their own learning, taking a more active role in authentic contexts, developing the skills to determine their own pathways into the future.

References:
Carlgren, I., Handal, G. & Vaage, S. (Eds.). (1994). Teachers' Minds And Actions: Research On Teachers' Thinking And Practice. London, UK: The Falmer Press.
Meyer, M. (2016). Reflections on Nearly a Decade in the Education Sector. Retrieved on October 14, 2016 from http://knowledgeworks.org/worldoflearning/2016/10/career-education/
Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

Interdisciplinary Connections

My current and potential interdisciplinary professional connections

Jones, (2010) states that "The interdisciplinary approach synthesizes more than one discipline and

creates teams of teachers and students that enrich the overall educational experience." (Pg 1). 

An interdisciplinary connection that I have as a near-future goal, is to have more regular communication and connection with our parent/whānau community, especially our Māori and Pasifika parents, in order to strengthen the partnership between ākonga, kaiako and whānau.

Jones, (2010) also expounds that, "The interdisciplinary approach provides many benefits that develop into much needed lifelong learning skills that are essential to a student’s future learning."

Through these interdisciplinary connections, I hope to focus on interdisciplinary activities that revolve around a set of ideas providing authentic learning experiences in more than one curriculum area. As educators, we need to build on our student’s prior knowledge and assess understanding in a variety of ways. I believe it is about giving students choices for their inquiry projects and how they are presented, it's about harnessing their personal interest, prior knowledge and unique backgrounds and having a consideration of their needs and understanding across a variety of disciplines. We need to adapt our teaching and the opportunities we offer our students to meet their emerging needs and interests.

Through my own interdisciplinary connections, I endeavour to cultivate opportunities to engage parents and whānau in their children's learning. There must be meaningful contexts for learning, and to gain an insight into this, I need to connect with others who can help make a difference. Parents and whānau help to give ourselves, as educators, that insight into who our learners are, what they are interested in and what their needs might be. We need to take into account the whole child - their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive needs.

Just as our learners are complex and multi-faceted, so too are the real-life problems and issues that we want them to inquire about. We cannot simply compartmentalize these issues to be investigated through a single discipline. We need to teach inquiry from a range of perspectives and foster their 21st-century skills across a range of disciplines. We want our learners to have a greater understanding of the complex issues in the world. In interdisciplinary learning models, the development of inquiry skills are a primary goal as we seek to investigate authentic issues, thus providing our learners with a domain for problem-solving and decision-making.

I do not believe a teacher can single-handedly achieve this for their learners. We need to collaborate with our colleagues and gain insight, support, and information from others in our interdisciplinary network.

We need to give our students opportunities to delve into social and emotional themes, encourage them to be innovative, develop a metacognitive awareness, and be critical thinkers, as we relate these issues to their own personal experiences.

We also need to help our parents and whānau members to understand these perspectives and what their role is in developing these connections to support authentic learning as we develop the ability of their children to make decisions, think critically and creatively, and synthesize knowledge beyond the core disciplines of Reading, Writing and Maths.

By actively seeking to make these interdisciplinary connections, we create opportunities to have more meaningful relationships with our students and their whānau, and promote positive attitudes towards various curriculum areas. We are thus enabling our learners to experience life through a variety of lenses and see issues from different perspectives, which allows them to have a more holistic view of the world.

As Pink, (2008), professed, “We need to prepare our kids for the future, not our past”. It is therefore imperative that we not only establish interdisciplinary connections, but that we consciously nurture, maintain, and strengthen these connections to enrich our learning programmes through an interdisciplinary approach as we develop their lifelong learning skills.

References:

Barton, K. C., & Smith, L. A. (2000). Themes or motifs? Aiming for coherence through interdisciplinary outlines. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 54-63.1.

Lacoe Edu (2014) Interdisciplinary Learning [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA564RIlhME

Jacobs, H.J. (1989). Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Design and Implementation 

Jones, C.(2009). Interdisciplinary approach - Advantages, disadvantages, and the future benefits of interdisciplinary studies. ESSAI7 (26), 76-81. Retrieved from http://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=essai

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

Pink, D. (2008).  A presentation at the Minnesota TIES conference.

ThomasMcDonaghGroup. ( 2011, May 13). Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA

WNet Education. Educational Broadcasting Corporation.(2004). Concept to Classroom blog. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/interdisciplinary/#sbs

Professional Online Social Networks

When I first began teaching in a small rural school in the Waikato in the 1980's I took my class on a trip to visit the first supermarket in Hamilton to have price scanners, and then onto Databank, an international innovator of online computer networking.
Back in class we made our own 'computers' using card and knitting needles to sort their own personal data punch cards.
I lived in a farm cottage at the time, where I shared a party-line phone with two of my neighbours.
Not long after I bought my first personal computer, an Amstrad. There was no internet or online social networking then, I unplugged and lugged that heavy PC to and from school in my car most days of the week so I could share this new technology with my class. Wow! How things have changed in the three decades I have been teaching.

Today I am an e-Leader in my school, supporting staff and students to be connected and keep up to date with new technology. After shying away from my first experiences of social media, why would I want to share my personal life with everyone on Bebo, I am now a proponent of using social media to share professional knowledge and new innovations and ideas. I am inspired and motivated every day by what is shared online. I now understand the importance of being familiar with the social media platforms available to not only enhance my own knowledge and keep me up to date, but also to help promote the benefits and appropriate use of these platforms to enhance learning opportunities for our students.

Turner (2010) divides social media into three categories - social media platforms that help you network ; social media platforms that help you promote; and social media platforms that help you share. Using these three categories to reflect on my professional use of social media, this is how I am utilizing social media in my teaching practice.

Social media platforms that help me to network: 
Facebook - at school we use a closed facebook page to help keep parents in our Māori-medium classes informed about upcoming events and other things happening at our kura. The potential challenge here is keeping it professional when we have parents, and potentially students, able to access and comment on this page and also see the profile pictures of the staff who belong to it.
I mainly only use facebook in a  professional context, and therefore my 'friends' are the likes of NZ Teachers (Primary), etc.
Google+ - this is one of my favourite go-to places to learn about new trends and innovations in educational technology. It is also a great platform for requesting support or information if I am unsure about new technology I might want to try.
Linkedin - an interesting platform to network with others and share skills, employment history and education. I see the main purpose of this platform as providing information and opportunity for future employment.
Twitter - I use Twitter on a regular basis and just love this as a quick and easy platform to share ideas professionally. As a school we tweet to the school community to keep them updated and connected about what is happening at our school, almost as it is happening. A challenge with Twitter, is having control over retweets and comments and ensuring photo permission for students in photos.
Social media platforms that help me to promote:
YouTube - this is a great platform to promote our school. By posting videos we create on YouTube, we are able to reach a wide and varied audience. It also has some great features such as Playlists and editing options for supporting targetted learning. The main challenge is to keep the focus on appropriate and useful content.
Social media platforms that help me to share:
Google sites - We use Google sites for collaborative team planning; student sites to share our planning, student tasks and other learning links; to share learning outcomes and processes with parents; and also for our PRT's documentation. A challenge with a site is to keep it updated and interesting to revisit. Adding links to blogs and Twitter feeds are two ways to do this.
email - Used regularly by all staff for communication purposes, and less often by students. The challenge with email is to keep it professional, appropriate and be careful who we email to.
Blogging - This is an excellent platform for sharing information. I replaced our inefficient 'Staff Daily Notices' exercise book with a staff blog several years ago. Not only do we have a great record of notices staff need to share, staff can access this private blog at any time from anywhere, and it has been a great learning tool for those self-professed technologically-challenged staff members. We also have team blogs for sharing learning processes and outcomes with the school community, and students are using personal blogs as e-portfolios, to share their learning journey. I now have this personal blog to document and share my professional learning and ideas. This is a great self-reflection tool.

Using social media allows us as educators to extend learning opportunities for ourselves, our students and staff outside the walls of our learning spaces, and to also invite the world into our classrooms. It brings with it opportunities and challenges I could never have imagined when I first started teaching, but enables us to be future-focused, global, 21st-century learners.
By using social media we can be connected to the 'real' world, develop a 'world view' and empathy for others, and have authentic purpose for developing our communication and digital citizenship skills. The challenge as educators, is to try to keep up and have the confidence to give it a go.

References:
Melhuish, K. Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Source: p. 36-44 in Chapter 3 of 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/handle/10289/8482/thesis.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
Office of Ed Tech. (2013, Sep 18). Connected Educators. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=216&v=K4Vd4JP_DB8 
New Zealand Teachers Council.(2012). Establishing safeguards.[video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49216520 
Turner, J. (2010). Top 52 Social Media Platforms Every Marketer Should Know. http://60secondmarketer.com/blog/2010/04/09/top-52-social-media-platforms/ 
Tvoparents. (2013, May 21). Using Social Media in the Classroom.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riZStaz8Rno

Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

An ethical dilemma that I face in my own practice relates to how we share our students' work and their images online.

The school where I work has clear guidelines around ensuring that staff are informed and are aware of which students do not have parental permission to have their images shared online. Sometimes we are very clear why this is an issue for a student, particularly if there are custody issues or a family is part of a police protection programme. Sometimes, we do not have a reason, however, we remain diligent in checking that photos on our school website, in newsletters, etc. are checked by one of the student's teachers and also by one of the Senior Leadership Team before being shared.

There are, however, a number of issues that sometimes arise and situations that we have much less control over.

If we run a school sports day, for example, we encourage and welcome our parents to join us and support their tamariki. Parents will eagerly snap photos of their child participating in one or more events, and often these are posted online immediately via Snapchat or Instagram, or might be shared on their facebook page. As a school, it is virtually impossible to control what parents will post online, and they will be unaware that another child, who might happen to be in their photo, did not have photo permission. For me, it would be unethical to prevent those tamariki from participating, just in case they got in someone's photo; but is it ethical to put the child or their family in this situation, and possibly even at risk?

One of our school goals is to provide authentic learning experiences for our students. We regularly do this through digital and online forums, where the authentic audience for their projects are the readers of the school or team blog or website. For students who are unable to share their work publicly, this creates an ethical dilemma. Do we isolate them somewhat from the collaborative groups who are sharing their learning with others, just in case they are accidentally identified online?

Later this term, our Year 7 & 8 students will travel to Wellington for a big day out where they will visit Parliament, Capital E Studios and Te Papa. They have been asked to incorporate their personal or group inquiry project into this day, where they will gather more information, ask more questions, and navigate ideas in preparation for launching their own creations of a solution or presentation related to their inquiry.  We are encouraging them to take their digital devices, most likely their phones, so they can digitally record data to use in their presentation.
Although we will do our best to ensure all students are well informed and understand their rights and responsibilities as digital citizens, we do not have total control over what will happen to those images.
We have asked ourselves, is it ethical for us to expose students without photo permission to the potential of having their photos posted online by their peers? Should we try to shield them and block them from danger and have complete control over their online content and sharing, or do we teach them about ethics, about rights and responsibilities, and give them the opportunity to put that learning into practice?

When our Year 8 students attend secondary school next year, there will be little chance of preventing their peers from getting out their phones and digitally recording people, places and events as they wish. This is now a norm of our society, and we cannot shield and protect our students from this forever.

I believe, however, it is our responsibility as a school to educate our school community about the ethics of being a member of the online community, about their rights and responsibilities and the things they need to be alerted to and wary of.

Perhaps, as a school community, we need to develop our own Online Code of Ethics, which has community input, and community responsibility for the respect and care of ourselves and others.

References:
Educational Council, (n.d.). Code of ethics for certified teachers. Retrieved September 28, 2016, from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0
Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers 
Henderson, M., Auld, G., & Johnson, N. F. (2014). Ethics of teaching with social media. In Australian Computers in Education Conference 2014, Adelaide, SA. Retrieved from http://acec2014.acce.edu.au/session/ethics-teaching-social-media
Ministry of Education. (2015). Digital technology: Safe and responsible use in schools. A companion to the guidelines for the surrender and retention of property and searches. Retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseInSchs.pdf

Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness

What is indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness and how should it be incorporated into our professional practice?

My understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness is that every student is unique, and they bring with them their own special indigenous knowledge - i.e. the unique ideas, beliefs, values, and customs they are acquiring as they grow up within the culture of their own whānau (family). We cannot assume that just because a child is of a particular ethnicity, that they will all have a particular set of ideas, customs, values, and beliefs. Every whānau is unique, with their own unique cultural knowledge.

To be culturally responsive as a school, we need to learn from, and be respectful of, the indigenous knowledge of all our tamariki and their whānau. The National Centre for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems defines cultural responsiveness as “the ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of your own culture as well as those from other cultures.” (P. 13)1

Our kura has students from a range of ethnicities - 49% of our students identify as Māori, 30% as NZ European, 18.9% as Pasifika (13% Sāmoan), and 10% as other, including African, Indian, Filipino, etc.
This does not add to 100%! Why? Because many of our students identify as more than one primary ethnicity. Our ākonga bring their own unique blend of ideas, values, beliefs and customs,  their own unique culture, to our kura.

We must value each of our learners for who they are and be culturally responsive to all our students. Our staff need to learn from, and be respectful of, the indigenous knowledge of all our tamariki and their whānau, ensuring that our students have equal opportunities to reach their full potential and also learn to be culturally responsive towards others, to help prepare them for their futures in our increasingly multi-cultural society.

Our school's vision "to empower our students to prepare for positive futures through exploration, innovation, and collaboration" inspires our staff to be culturally responsive by empowering our students. But does this go far enough? Have we ensured that  all our staff know how to empower our students and do they truly understand what it means to be culturally responsive? Is there evidence of staff acknowledging the indigenous knowledge of our tamariki and their families? Is this indigenous knowledge built into our school curriculum and learning programmes?  We must, therefore, examine how our staff use their own cultural knowledge when interacting with our students and their families who are from a diverse range of ethnic cultural backgrounds to their own. Our staff also, are from a blend of unique and diverse ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. We must examine further how our school ensures our vision, mission, and core values reflect our cultural responsiveness.

There is certainly evidence of cultural responsiveness in our day to day learning programmes and in our school structure, which includes both Māori and English medium classes, and a Sāmoan enrichment programme.  We have Board of Trustee members representing a range of cultures, including Māori and Ngāi Tahu.
I believe the foundations for our kura to be culturally responsive are well laid, but we must now look at ways to regularly reflect upon and self-review our cultural responsiveness as individuals and as a school.

References:
1. National Centre for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems NCCRES, (n.d.) Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practice. Dimensions of Culturally Responsive Education. 
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, 734–742.
Bishop, R., & Glynn, T. (1999). Culture counts. Changing power relations in education. Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press.
Castagno, A.E., & Brayboy, B.M.J. (2008). Culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous youth: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 78, 941–993.
Macfarlane, A.H. (2007). Discipline, democracy and diversity: Working with students with behaviour difficulties. Wellington: NZCER Press. 
Savage,C, Hindleb, R., Meyerc,L., Hyndsa,A., Penetitob, W. & Sleeterd, C.(2011) Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum .Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183–198.

A Global Trend - The Shift from Students as Consumers to Creators

Pearson. (2013, April 26). Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history.[video file].Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdZiTQy3g1g

A trend that is relevant to my practice, and which captivates my attention, is the shift from students as consumers, simply learning a prescribed knowledge set to prepare them for gaining qualifications to enter tertiary study or the traditional workforce, to being innovative creators who are encouraged to question and explore and collaborate with others. It is a trend that is infiltrating schooling systems across the globe, in both the primary and secondary context.1

This trend enables our students to be empowered as individuals, and with the shift to learning with digital technologies (LWDT) being introduced into many of our New Zealand schools, our students have the opportunities, and are in fact, encouraged, to explore, ask lots of questions, and think outside the square. In the school I teach in, our vision is "to empower our learners to prepare for positive futures through exploration, innovation and collaboration." Teachers across the globe are now encouraged to use digital tools that foster creativity and production skills. NMC Horizon Report (2015, P.14) 2

Traditional teaching methods (single cell classrooms, with one kaiako delivering a prescribed curriculum to a class of students, expecting them to sit attentively and listen to the delivery of set information so they can attempt to give the right answers) will no longer prepare today's students for their futures. Instead, we must change the way we teach and how we allow our students to learn. 

Learning with Digital Technology empowers our students to be globally connected to a wealth of information sources and allows them to pursue and explore the questions and issues that interest them and which they can relate to. Learning extends beyond the classroom walls and outside regular school hours on a daily basis. The digital technology, then also provides the opportunity for students to create, whether it be via blogs, video presentations, gaming or through one of the plethora of apps now available.

How can I, as a school leader, support, educate and empower the kaiako in our kura to make a shift in the way they deliver our school curriculum? In its 2012 report, ERO stated, "considerable work needs to happen before primary and secondary teachers and leaders understand the permissive nature and intent of The New Zealand Curriculum, and implement responsive curricula in their schools"3. 

I believe the school I work in, does endeavour to implement a responsive curriculum, however, I see the need to further develop a growth mindset of inquiry in both our students and our staff. It is not easy for kaiako to let go of the teaching methods they were trained to use and have successfully developed over their years as experienced teachers.

Through support, PLD and school policy, we need to help our staff to understand that we are increasingly connected across a variety of platforms, especially digital, and in a variety of settings that extend beyond the boundaries of our school. We need to support both teachers and students, all learners, to engage in the interconnected digital learning platform. As 21st-century learners our staff and our students need to actively seek knowledge and respond to the changes and opportunities that new technology provides. By encouraging this growth mindset, we are helping to create a framework for preparing our students for their futures. The impact of technologies is what will make the biggest impact on solving future problems, especially those caused by the world's expanding population, rapid urbanization, and climate change.4 

In order for our students to have a chance to be part of the trend towards being creators, rather than consumers, and to be future problem-solvers, I believe we have a responsibility to change our paradigm of how we teach and allow our learners to learn. Despite there being a number of challenges, such as the cost of the digital technology and our student's ability to access the technology outside the school environment; the need to upskill staff in both pedagogy and IT skills, I believe, is achievable in the school I work in and other New Zealand Schools. It is a journey we need to be prepared to take if we are to equip our learners with the 21st-century skills they need for the future.

References:

1. Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2015) NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

2. New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf 

3. Education Review Office. (2012). Retrieved 5 May 2015, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

4. US National Intelligence Council’s (2012) “Global trends: Alternative Worlds”

KPMG Australia. (2014, May 22). Future State 2030 - Global Megatrends.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im5SwtapHl8

Current Issues in My Professional Context

Every school has its own unique culture and climate. The school I work in is no exception.
It is a Year 1 - 8 Primary School, which opened in 2015 after a very difficult merge process, following the Christchurch earthquakes. Two very different school communities, with longstanding traditions and history, were forced to become a new, future-focused school with a vision to empower students to explore, collaborate and be innovative life-long learners. This was a shift in thinking for many of the students, staff and whānau in the pre-merge school communities.

Establishing a positive, welcoming and future-focused school culture has been no mean feat during the turmoil of merging the two communities, with one of these communities fighting against the merge right to the end. "Thrupp (1997) argues that the social mix of the school plays a major role in how it functions, largely because of the cumulative effect of how the pupils relate to each other as a group." Stoll and Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998) p. 9-10 1

From these shaky beginnings, we have aimed to build a positive school culture and climate where every student, staff member, and whānau feel they are an integral part of the school, with an important contribution to make. We aimed to build a culture of success and belonging.

School culture is dependent on the beliefs and actions of the people in our school community, and for this to be positive the leadership team needed to have a clear and purposeful vision about why we do what we do and how we do it. We needed to ensure that our school vision was a shared vision, developed through consultation, empowering the school community to have a voice in shaping it.
The school now has a welcoming and warm 'feel' (climate), a comment often made by visitors to the school, and I believe for this to develop, the establishment Board and leadership team needed to create and foster a sense of belonging and worth.

The socioeconomic status of our school community reflects the collective background of the students and their whānau. We have a large percentage of our families living in poverty and uncertainty, exacerbated by the effects of the 2011 earthquake, with housing at a premium.

Canterbury University school of health sciences associate professor Dr Kathleen Liberty2  says "a study of 5-year-olds starting primary school in east and south Christchurch is finding that as many as one in five now exhibit the classic symptoms of post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)". We have certainly found this to be true at our school, not only for our students, but also for many of the parents.

These factors have contributed to both the climate and culture of our school and has had a significant impact on why we do what we do and how we do it.  Gargiulo (2014, p.7-8)3, considered six strategies to reduce the impact of poverty in his school, a South Auckland secondary school.
Our school community has also undertaken similar strategies, such as providing lunches and breakfasts, engaging students and whānau in 3-Way Conferences to look at student achievement, shared goal-setting and next steps with well over 90% engagement and participation in this aspect of student learning, staff PLD in the Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) programme, providing authentic learning opportunities that are future-focused and encourage a growth mindset for all stakeholders (students, staff, and whānau), providing mentoring programmes and support for students, staff and whānau in terms of their pastoral care and personal well-being.

In essence, our developing school culture continues be an interpretation of what people bring to the educational initiatives we undertake, and how we work to develop shared meanings about the norms, or culture, that will provide sustainable and future-focused school improvement for our kura.
This must be led by the Senior Leadership Team, yet be owned by all stakeholders. We endeavour to empower students, staff and whānau within each of our unique teams, while trying to ensure that the growth in the size of our kura does not lead to Balkanisation. We need to ensure there is frequent opportunity to reflect on our practices and our values, and that we have a shared understanding of what our kura really stands for.

References:
1. Stoll, L. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network's Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London.
2. Liberty, Dr. K. (2014) www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch.../Quake-stress-hurting-our-young 
3. Gargiulo, S. (2014). Principal sabbatical report. 
4. Video - Building a Culture of Success - Mark Wilson - TEdEd. (2013, Jun 21). 

Reflective Practice

How well do we reflect on our own practice? What do we understand by reflective practice and how does it inform our future practice?
There has been some consensus about how reflective practice can be defined. "In general, reflective practice is understood as the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice" (Boud et al 1985; Boyd and Fales, 1983; Mezirow, 1981, Jarvis, 1992).
Our response to our own reflective practice should surely show our awareness of new understandings and how we will use those reflections to improve our future practice.

My personal learning journey involves a number of Communities of Practice (CoP), defined by Wenger, McDermott & Snyder (2002) as "groups of people who share a concern or passion ... whom deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis" (p.4). Wenger professes that participation in these communities is essential to learning; so essential to my personal learning journey is my primary CoP, our Senior Leadership Team.

Working collaboratively in a shared office space enables me to have professional learning conversations on a daily basis with my Senior Leadership Team (SLT) colleagues - discussing, theorising, debating, considering, exploring, reflecting, reviewing and analysing the learning and teaching taking place in our school, and in other learning institutions around the globe.

Sometimes the issues are very specific to our kura (school), and at other times our conversations revolve around learning and teaching on a more global perspective, e.g. learning systems in Finland, High Tech High in the United States, or the Manaiakalani cluster of schools in South Auckland and how we can relate that to our own practice. Our daily interactions are focused on how well we are doing things and can we do it better; how does what we are doing compare with other schools doing well, and most importantly, are we doing what will benefit our students most?

In order for these conversations and reflections to have purpose, we need to share our thoughts, ideas and findings with other Communities of Practice within our kura. We have five learning teams, each being a CoP focusing on their own unique group of students. Four of the teams are English medium divided into Year level focus groups - Year 1 & 2, Year 3 & 4, Year 5 & 6 and Year 7 & 8. The fifth team is Māori medium, Year 1 - 8.  Integrated within each of the five teams is a strong Sāmoan representation and a Sāmoan Enrichment.

My role in the Senior Leadership Team allows me to be involved in all these teams and to be a part of this network of learning communities and their CoP. Not only am I able to contribute ideas and reflections to these other Communities of Practice, I am further enlightened and exposed to ideas from the participants in these groups, often through their involvement in CoP outside our own school, e.g. our Principal regularly attends workshops for our local CoL (Community of Learning) being established with a group of local schools; other colleagues are engaging in Professional Learning outside our kura and regularly participate in other learning organisations, such as the Canterbury Literacy Association, or the Canterbury Primary Mathematics Symposium. This year, through our participation in the Mindlab Postgrad studies, a group of us from across different teams in the kura, have formed our own CoP and regularly have conversations reflecting on our day to day practice in relation to the content of this paper. We have helped and supported each other to try new things, reflect on our successes and mistakes and identify issues we need to investigate further.

Being an active member of these Communities of Practice helps to ensure that we embody the vision of our school - 'Empowering our students to prepare for positive futures through exploration, collaboration, and innovation'.

References:
Finlay, L. (2008). Reflecting on reflective practice. The Open University. Retrieved fromhttp://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf
Wenger,E. (2000). Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems. Organization, 7(2), 225-246.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Five Ways to help Learners Become Better Questioners

Reference:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/help-students-become-better-questioners-warren-berger?utm_content=buffer8ac3e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Using 'THE RULE OF THREE' for Learning

I recently read an article by Ben Johnson (2016) that promoted the theory that our learners need to be given the opportunity to learn something new at least three times before we can expect them to know it and apply it.

Johnson suggests we use these three steps:
1. Engage the students in a practical way. After introducing and modelling the learning that is the focus, we need to have our students 'do' something, such as a practical inquiry or discovery activity.
Johnson states, "The important thing is that students have their first roll-up-the-sleeves-and-get-messy experience with the content they are supposed to acquire."

2. Give the students a second opportunity to practice what they learned by using collaborative learning strategies. In groups, they can categorize, analyze or create their own unique patterns.

3. Do some really fun stuff with the content through project-based learning. Require them to do some problem-solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking and then showcase this learning for others.
Examples he gives for showcasing learning include: movie presentation, Reader's Theatre, quiz show, panel discussion, a photo tour, or a slide show.

While sometimes it might take more than three opportunities for the learning to be consolidated, Johnson suggested three is a minimum requirement. He says, "The Rule of Three has to be the students trying to recall, understand, or apply what they have learned on their own."

Ask yourself, "What three learning opportunities have I given my students about this content so they can be successful?"

From: 'Using the Rule of Three' Johnson, B. April, 2016, Edutopia

Some Thoughts and Ideas About Inquiry Learning

The Galileo Educational Network Association (2006) defined inquiry as, "a systematic investigation or study into a worthy question, issue, problem or idea."

Inquiry learning should be student-centred and allow for self-directed learning, focusing on the learning process, rather than just the outcome or product. The students should be able to develop a deeper understanding of the concepts and problems they are investigating. The student drives the learning, while the teacher guides and facilitates it.

Inquiry learning may also be known as project-based learning or problem-based learning.
The inquiry should be meaningful and authentic.

The main feature of inquiry learning is the problem, task or question being investigated.
Students need to use their prior knowledge to select, organise and integrate new information. Teachers will need to scaffold the inquiry process, while still allowing students as much independence and ownership of the inquiry as possible.

Teachers may need to work through Heron's four levels of inquiry (1971).
Level 1 - The problem, procedure, and solution are all given by the teacher.
Level 2 - Structured inquiry
Level 3 - Guided Inquiry
Level 4 - Open Inquiry where the problem is formulated by the student and the solution is not known in advance.

We also want our students to work collaboratively and support each other through the process, and to use digital technology as a tool to support their inquiry in authentic and meaningful ways.

At the end of the inquiry, the students need to be able to communicate what they have learned in some way and REFLECT on their learning and the process.

Coping With Stress and Challenge

We need to help our students to develop strategies to deal with stress and challenge.
Our students need to view challenges as opportunities and to build resilience.
If students can view stress as a positive motivator and develop a 'challenge response' to stress, they will learn how to manage stressful and challenging situations and feel empowered to overcome the problem.
Life is stressful in lots of ways, and we cannot erase stress from our own or our student's lives, but we can help them to build resilience and grit and ways to cope with stress.
Kelly McGonigal in her popular Ted Talk, suggests three interventions to help students change their approach to stress and build resiliency:

1. Encourage our students to care for and connect with others.
  
2. Help our students to develop a high sense of purpose. McGonigal suggests that teachers regularly get their students to self-reflect and ask them the following questions:

• What quality or strength do you value about yourself? (This is different than what a teacher or adult would value about you.)
• What activity, role or relationship brings you meaning, satisfaction or joy?  McGonigal says students often point out things like sports, art or being a sibling. The point is to get at something bigger than self.
• What mission, purpose or community do you serve? This question expands the sense of self and gets at what a student cares about.
• Why are these important to you?

3.   Focus on how stress can help our students grow.
“If you are able to look back on your life and tell yourself a story about your stress that includes how you learned from it, it continues to create a narrative of strength, learning and growth,” McGonigal said.
McGonigal suggests getting students to regularly get into small groups and how they have faced challenges and persevered to overcome them, reflect on who or what supported them, and think about what they learned and how they managed the stress or challenge.

“When we are anxious, stop interpreting it as a sign we are inadequate and start seeing it as a way we can rise to the challenge,” McGonigal said.

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5 Principles of Lean Thinking in Education

Consider:
1. What is the value of each learning experience for our learners?
2. How does the learning experience fit into the wider value stream, where every step of the learning process adds value to the learning process?
3. Have you allowed the learning to flow, without interruptions?
4. Do our learners tgain value from us as educators?
5. Do we pursue excellence?

Lean education and lean thinking looks at lean processes for learning rather than mass production through learning tasks and intentions designed for large groups of students to achieve in a set period of time.

In a lean approach the learner pulls what they need from the system when they need it (learner agency); rather than the traditional push approach where educational content is pushed toward the learner over a set period of time.

Adapted from Womak and Jones (2005)

Growth Mindset - It's not what you are born with that matters; it's your mindset that matters

"A mindset is a mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations." (Dweck, 2006).
Growth Mindset is the view that we do not have a fixed intelligence that can be measured by an IQ test, but rather that the brain can develop and work better as you learn and challenge yourself. "Over time you can get smarter," (Dweck, 2010).

Carol Dweck is a professor at Stanford University and is a leading develop of the growth mindset philosophy and research on why people succeed and how to foster success.

Read: 'Mindset:The New Psychology of Success' (2006) by Carol Dweck for further information or visit her website.

Genius Hour Workshops

If you want to find out more about Genius Hour - work through these free online modules from A.J.Juliani.

Module 1: Why Students Need Choice

• 3 Videos on the need for 20% time and Genius Hour
• 4 articles on the research behind inquiry-based learning
• A guide to explaining 20% time and Genius Hour to teachers and parents

Module 2: How to Get Started with Genius Hour

• 2 Videos on the step-by-step process for starting the project
• 5 articles on how to begin and move your class forward
• 3 resources and handouts for your class

Module 3: Navigating the Project’s Ups and Downs

• 3 Videos on Motivation and Facilitating Successful Projects
• 3 Articles on passion, purpose, and what to do when Genius Hour Fails…
• 3 Resources on conducting research, the CRAAP test, and giving feedback

Module 4: Final Presentations, Grading, and Reflections

• 3 Videos on final presentation possibilities and assessing these projects
• 2 Articles on reflections at the end of the project
• 3 Resources for continuing the learning and grading

CORE Educations Ten Trends 2016

Click on the image to visit their web page to learn more

Each year, CORE Education's experienced staff of researchers, educators, and digital technology experts, pool their expertise and combine their understanding and evidence of the ways that digital technologies are influencing all aspects of education. The result is CORE's list of the ten trends that are expected to make a growing impact upon education in New Zealand in the coming year.

Ten Trends 2014: Agency

Click on the image to go to this Ed Talk

Derek Wenmoth provides an explanation of learner agency. Derek describes three features: the initiative or self-regulation of the learner, the way agency mediates and is mediated by the sociocultural context of the classroom, and social connectedness - an awareness of the responsibility of one's own actions on others.

Impactful Innovation and Student Agency

Click on the image to hear this Ed-Talk

Chicago-based digital learning coordinator, Jennie Magiera, talks about meaningful change - not change for the sake of change, but transformation that is focused on improving learning and experiences for students. Jennie emphasises the need to reinstate curiosity, scaffold the release of responsibility to our students, show them how to follow their passion and the importance of resilience.

Student Agency - Sparking Curiosity

Click on the image to go to the Ed Talk.

Stepahine Kitto, CORE Education eFellow, talks about investigating curiosity in the Junior school - how to encourage and utlilise curiosity as a starting point for further learning - and discusses some strategies used to engage children's thinking and questioning.

Project-Based Learning

If interdisciplinary project-based learning is a goal for us and our students, we could start with questions about our place.

For example: Where are bicycle accidents most likely to happen in our community? Where is the best spot to watch for migrating Monarch butterflies? What is the safest evacuation route in the event of a natural disaster? How have the suburbs of Christchurch changed since the 2011 earthquakes?

To investigate such questions, the tamariki would need to gather and analyze data, look for patterns, think critically, and communicate their understanding using maps (Google maps are a great option here), and other visual aids. In the process, they would also make connections across curriculum areas and deepen their literacy skills.

The ability to organize, visualize, and analyze information that relates to local and global issues is critical preparation for living in our connected and fast-changing world.

Students could not only investigate these interesting and timely questions, but also develop possible solutions. That means not only finding a problem worth solving, but finding a problem that is solvable, based on available data.

Using technology, the tamariki can communicate their solutions in a way that is visually interesting and understandable to public audiences.

"They're moving out of a place where there's always one right answer." Kolvoord, R. (2016).