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