Week 32: Changes in Practice

Wow! What a roller coaster the last 32 weeks has been. I have felt many emotions ranging from pure terror to absolute delight (I received my highest tertiary grade ever!). I approached many assessments with thoughts of total inadequacy and wondering ‘How the hell am I going to do this?’ Fortunately, I have shared this journey with two amazing colleagues who have been with me all the way, sometimes dragging me along. We have all had our lows over this time and have been able to encourage and motivate each other.

The biggest thing that I have gained from this experience is how much more we achieve when we collaborate. Criterion 7 of the Practising Teacher Criteria (PTC) states that fully certified teachers promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment (Ministry of Education, n.d.). Having spent so much time over the 32 weeks collaborating with my colleagues it has made me very aware of how much collaboration could boost the learning of students in my classroom. I am more motivated to include collaborative activities in my planning and, while I have a fairly dysfunctional class this year, I have seen glimpses of it having a positive effect on students’ learning.

PTC Criterion 4 requires teachers to demonstrate a commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice (Ministry of Education, n.d.). Right at this moment, in all honesty, I have no desire at all to launch into further formal study such as The MindLab. I am drained. If I never have to write another essay I will be happy. I am, however, keen to further my knowledge of digital applications and devices that I can use in my classroom to further my students learning. I will achieve this by seeking out professional development that I can fit around a heavy workload. This may be attending webinars or undertaking online training courses to upskill. It will also involve participating in forums with like minded educators where ideas are shared.

As ICT leader at my school, my current focus is the new Digital Technologies curriculum coming in 2018 and working on how I can help my colleagues implement this curriculum successfully. We have a wide range of ability when it comes to ICT amongst the teaching staff and catering to everyone’s needs will be a challenge. Obviously I will need to spend some time getting my head around the requirements of the curriculum and this will involve attending consultation meetings held by the MInistry of Education and other professional development opportunities.

Thanks MIndLab for challenging me, for forcing me to reflect on my practice and for opening my eyes to new possibilities.

References

Ministry of Education (n.d.). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning. Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/

Week 31: Professional Context - Crossing Boundaries

My Current and Potential Interdisciplinary Connections

Who will I have interdisciplinary connection with?

The obvious choice for me is my fellow middle school teachers. We already plan some of our curriculum material together and it makes sense that I would collaborate with them to plan and teach in an interdisciplinary way. It seems so logical to present the curriculum in this way, having students relate their learning to real life situations.

As this is the year of our bi-annual school production, Term 3 is a manic term where normal learning has to fit in around production practises, creation of costumes and choreographing dance moves. Our topic for the term is “Colour My World” looking at the Arts. This term leads itself perfectly to an interdisciplinary approach covering all the curriculum requirements but combining this together in such a way that students can relate it to the real life scenario of putting on a production. As a team we can collaborate together planning tasks related to the production. This could occur at our fortnightly team meetings and through our use of collaborative documents in Google Docs.

Benefits of this interdisciplinary connection

• 4 heads generating ideas rather than 1
• students benefit from a more connected curriculum
• students get a more rounded understanding of the Arts as interlinked curriculum areas are taught together

Challenges of this interdisciplinary connection

• 2 members of the middle school team have only been in the team for 5 weeks and 2 weeks respectively so there is still some settling in occurring and we are still working out the new team dynamics
• parents except school to look a specific way so may take some persuading that their children are covering all areas of the curriculum

Week 30: Professional Online Social Networks

I am a frequent user of social media… potentially an addict if I’m honest. I am not a prolific poster but I am a prolific reader/lurker. I check on Facebook numerous times a day. I am a follower on Twitter (rarely a poster) appreciating the posts of educators such as Alice Keeler @alicekeeler and organisations like Edutopia @edutopia. I follow many on Instagram and have recently started using Snapchat. When I look at it, I am a follower not an initiator. A lot of my social media use is to keep myself informed of current practices and trends, to seek advice and search for resources. Being able to connect easily with fellow educators from around the world is a valuable tool (Melhuish, 2013).

In my classroom I use Blogger to operate a class blog which highlights what the students have been doing in class. I often wonder about the value of this as it has not received any comments this year from friends and whanau of my students. Is there a better forum I could be using to include parents and caregivers in our everyday classroom life? We have recently implemented Class Dojo as a behaviour management tool. The platform does have functions for including parent input and the ability for students to actively participate so my holiday task is to investigate this further. Some classes (Yr 7&8) at our school use Facebook but because of the age restrictions on Facebook the teacher does all the posting. I struggle to see the appropriateness of this as is it not promoting underage use of Facebook? The teacher justifies it, saying he is posting not the students. The jury is out for me on this one.

Last year my class of Year 3s and 4s took part in a number of Chapter Chats  which is effectively a book club where participating classes join together at a designated time to interact using Twitter, discussing the chapter read that week. My students enjoyed this but it took quite a bit of coaching about using Twitter, focusing on writing quality tweets that answered the questions posted. One of the challenges of this particular social media interaction was the pressure it put on students who struggle with writing and reading. They needed considerable support to interact and dealing with that together with the pressure of 28 students all tweeting simultaneously was a serious test of my wits.

I have often considered using social media to connect with other classrooms around the world… I think this would be an amazing experience for the students. They are quite sheltered when it comes to seeing that the world is a big place and I don’t think that they realise how different learning is in other parts of the world. Maybe another research task for the upcoming holidays...

References

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han…

Week 29: Influence of Law and Ethics

I consider myself an ethical person (my husband just commented ‘very’). For as long as I can remember I have always had a strong sense of right and wrong and have always done the right thing. This may in part be due to my christian upbringing from birth. When I became a teacher five years ago I didn’t really give a lot of thought to the ethical side of the profession, maybe because I didn’t see it being an issue for me. As I progress in my career I can see that we, as teachers, are going to be faced with more and more situations where our ethics are going to be tested. The more we move through the twenty first century the more challenges I think we will face.

In my five years in the classroom I haven’t really faced a major ethical situation/dilemma. There was a case in my second year where one of my Year 2’s sent me a friend request on Facebook but that was a no brainer - I hit decline quick smart. I did question why a seven year old was even on Facebook given the minimum age limit is thirteen.

I have a policy of not accepting friend requests from students and parents of students. To date I haven’t taught anyone over the age of nine so that hasn’t been a problem. As teachers we are constantly on display and potentially being judged. While we are on the job from 8 until 5 (yeah, I know that’s an understatement!), we are always conscious of anything that we do reflecting on us and our school. At the end of last term I took the last week as a week’s leave without pay to go on a cruise, which was a delayed honeymoon after getting married some two years prior. My principal quietly asked me not to post any pictures on Facebook until I had returned or the school holidays had started. Why? Am I not entitled to a holiday like anybody else? Or is it because I’m a teacher I can’t have holidays outside of the school holidays, even if it was without pay? I’m not friends with any parents from school but the degrees of separation are quite small in a smaller city and somebody is bound to be friends with one of my Facebook friends and would it then get back to parents and they question the Principal’s decision to grant this leave? I’m still not sure about this particular situation.

Hall (2001) talks about distinguishing between personal values and beliefs and professional obligations. I had a situation recently where two of my students were having a rigorous debate about the existence of God. Looking for someone to settle the argument they sought me out. Now, on a personal level I could have agreed with one and confirmed her belief that God exists based on my own christian beliefs but as a teacher I have an obligation under the Code of Professional Responsibility (Education Council, 2017) to ‘respect the diversity of the heritage, language, identity and culture of all learners’. I politely pointed out that I couldn’t settle the argument for them and they would have to agree to disagree and discuss it further with their families.

References

Education Council. (June, 2017). Our Code Our Standards: Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession. Retreived from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf

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

Week 28: Cultural Responsiveness

As identified in Tātaiako - Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners (2011), culture has both a visible and an invisible element. The visible is the obvious signs and images that we link we a particular culture. The invisible is the values, morals and thought processes that accompany that culture. When researching what cultural responsive pedagogy was the definition I related to the most was Gay’s (2002, p.106) of “using the cultural characteristics, experiences and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching”. To me it’s about recognising each student as an individual who comes to school each day with strengths and capabilities that are influenced by their culture. It’s about getting to know the student and their whanau and developing a learning approach best suited to them.

My school aims to be culturally responsive in everything that it does. We have a team responsible for the Te Reo Maori curriculum area whose job it is to support staff develop their cultural pedagogy. This is a difficult task as the teaching staff are all at different stages of development and capabilities.

Communication

Our school takes pride in its communication with the school community. We feel it is important to keep whanau informed about what is happening in the life of the school and in the school life of their child. We do this through a number of forums.

The obvious methods of keeping parents informed of the progress of their child’s learning are school reports and parent interviews. These report on both academic and social progress. A new approach this year is more regular contact with the whanau of target students. These are students who are currently just below National Standard and we touch base with families via phone calls or emails monthly, reporting on progress and providing suggestions for what families can be doing at home to help boost the learning of their child.

Facebook is a  another form of communication where whanau can be kept up to date with what is happening in the life of the school. It is where we can share events such as Cultural Diversity Day. On this day our students from other cultures get the opportunity to wear their national dress, share food from their culture and perform dances, etc. Facebook also provides a means of contact, via Messenger, for those parents who have an aversion to face to face or telephone contact.

Learning Activities

I have been teaching for 4 years now and still find it difficult to integrate culturally responsive learning activities into my teaching program. Having been raised in a white, middle class family with limited exposure to alternative cultures I find that I have to make conscious effort to increase my knowledge. Our curriculum team does a fantastic job at supporting all staff but I still, at times, find it difficult. I struggle with not wanting to make mistakes and have a fear of offending someone by butchering things like pronunciation of the maori language. I have been reassured by colleagues with comments such as ‘at least you’re trying’ but I that doesn’t still well with me because how can I be responsible for teaching future generations something when I’m still learning the basics myself?

References

Gay,G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2),106-116

Ministry of Education (2011). Tātaiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners. Wellington: Ministry of Education.  Available at www.minedu.govt.nz/theMinistry/EducationInitiatives/Tataiako.aspx