Week 31 - Interdisciplinary Connection Map

Activity 7: My interdisciplinary connection map

Once I got started on my interdisciplinary connection map I felt like I could have kept adding more and more things!  There are so many things that have an impact (or could potentially have more of an impact) on my teaching practice.

Creating this connection map did make me realise how I draw on so much of this when I'm in the classroom - for example, when it comes to relationship building with students I draw very much on my experiences teaching skiing and teaching English as a foreign language as in both situations I found that I needed to gain the trust of students (often in a very short period of time) in order to make them feel comfortable and to help them get the most from the learning experience.

One thing I noticed from my map is that there are connections that currently aren't being made which could help improve my practice.  The first of these is that I have been completing the Mind Lab course at the same time as working on a graduate certificate in primary maths teaching. Both courses share similar ideas about getting students to work collaboratively, getting them to take ownership of their learning and engaging students by making learning relevant and accessible, however, I've been viewing them as very much separate.  I've been completing Mind Lab tasks one day and then working on assignments for the graduate certificate the next without really spending much time reflecting on how they fit together.  This is something I think would certainly help my practice and enable me to help find ways to help meet our school goal of raising achievement in mathematics.  The challenge with this is finding the time (with all the study and working) to do this effectively! Also convincing the senior management team and head of maths to allow me to radically change the way I am teaching maths when this is an area we are focusing on as a school.  I would need to be able to show that what I was doing would benefit the students and help raise achievement.

I think I could also make much more use of professional connections. There are so many different ways in which I am in touch with different teachers both locally, nationally and internationally but I know I don't make the most of their collective knowledge and experience, nor do I share enough of what I'm doing with others so they can learn from my experiences.  The benefits of doing this are that I could learn from what others are doing and get different ideas for things to try in my own school as well as share my practice so others can learn from me.  The challenges are that while I often have good intentions to do this, I am so busy with other things that it gets pushed to the side.  It is also sometimes scary to put yourself out there and share what you are doing (both the successes and the failures) so that is a barrier I'd have to get over personally (and I imagine others too).

I have long been a fan of an interdisciplinary approach as you rarely approach things from a single lens, you always use everything you know when trying to understand something new or come up with a different idea.  When I was studying history and politics at university for my bachelors degree we often used literature of the time to study periods in history or to get a different viewpoint on political events.  I found it was not only far more interesting than reading a textbook but also gave a human viewpoint to the events that we were studying.  I also feel that in the workplace, you often draw on knowledge and skills gained from all different areas.  When I was working as a ski instructor I used what I had learned about teaching children from my primary teaching qualification to help new instructors develop their teaching for children.  When I worked as a personal assistant to a CEO I was able to use what I knew about government and politics to help my boss understand changes to legislation.  Helping students see the connections between curriculum areas and integrating disciplines will better prepare them for live beyond formal education.

Week 32 - Changes in my practice

In all honesty, although this course has been amazing, I'll be relieved when it's all over and I have some time to put more of the stuff I've learned over the last 32 weeks into practice!  Every week I've had so many ideas about how to engage our students and get them collaborating on exciting learning experiences but finding the time to integrate it into our programme properly has been challenging. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing to develop our classroom programme going forward.  I've also remembered that I am a shocking procrastinator who is incapable of getting anything done until I'm under pressure (I was hoping I'd magically grown out of that but evidently not!). 

In terms of the Practising Teacher Criteria (PTCs) I think the biggest change has been in terms of getting students to take more ownership of their own learning and getting them to work collaboratively.  Over the last 32 weeks I have also been involved in setting up our modern learning environment of four classes and helping to develop our classroom programme. From this course I have definitely gained a greater understanding of how we need to change the way we are teaching and how are students are learning to make sure we are setting them up for life in the 21st century and developing skills that will enable them to be successful in whatever they end up doing.  The greater focus on collaboration and on enabling students to follow their passions and interests, as well as finding different ways to engage all our students, has driven our thinking as we've been developing our learning programme.  This clearly ties in with PCT 7 - "promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment".

This course has also enabled me to start taking more of a leadership role in terms of sharing what we have been learning with other colleagues and helping to develop ICT programmes and use throughout the school.   This course has definitely provided me with the tools and strategies to help implement programmes more effectively and has made me more confident in my abilities to help lead ICT and collaborative learning initiatives in the school.  This fits in with PCT 5 - "show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning."

Future professional development
Where to next?  I would love to be able to develop collaboration/interdisciplinary approach to teaching maths within our school.  I've found it relatively easy to make changes in other curriculum areas - to integrate them and find ways to engage students using various tools but it's been much harder to do in maths so far (but would be hugely valuable).  I think a lot of the ideas we've looked at do lend themselves to maths teaching and learning but in our school we have a pretty traditional approach to maths and I think it will take longer to make those changes - I'd love to shake up what I do and really engage the students.

I also share more of what I've learned with the rest of the staff - due to time constraints and where the staff are right now this has been limited to specific initiatives so far.  What we have done has very much been Nicki and I leading from the the front but it would be great to get to a place where we can collaborate as a team and share ideas, building on what others think.  We are getting closer as we build the confidence of the less tech savvy but still a long way to go.

This course has given me so many ideas that I think it is going to take me some time to process it all and figure out how to work it into my classroom programme in a way that works for me, my students and my colleagues - I'm definitely excited about what the future in education can look like!

Week 30 - Using social online networks in teaching and/or professional development

What are some key features of social media that are beneficial for teaching and learning? Why?

Every year I face the same issue with my year 7 & 8 students (primarily the year 8 students who have already had me as a teacher for a year) when they tell me they are going to find me on facebook and add me as a friend.  I explain to them that I am happy to be in contact with them outside school hours but that my facebook is for me to connect with my friends and it's not an appropriate forum for us to stay in touch.  However, I can understand where they are coming from - they want to share what is going on and for them, facebook is an important way they keep people updated on what is happening in their lives.  I have eventually caved and made a separate facebook account that is purely for students and their parents which the kids seem pretty happy with (although they constantly berate me for not updating it enough!).  It's not just facebook - if I'd let them, they'd follow me on instagram, snapchat me daily and comment on every tweet I ever posted (I think they may draw the line at this blog though - far too wordy!). Part of it is nosiness - they love to know what is going on but students like that they can get a quick response to questions or issues and don't have to spend ages contacting different people - I'm always fascinated to see what goes up on facebook around the time their science fair project is due or the night before a mufti day.  They also have a genuine desire to connect with each other and me and share their interests and what is important to them. Social media allows students and teachers to access a wealth of ideas, knowledge and opinions in a short space of time and is easily accessible - they can get involved whenever and wherever. Although I'm not keen to share everything with them, I do understand that they spend 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year for two years with me and it's important that I know about them and them about me.

In terms of teaching and learning it would be fantastic to use social media not only to connect with others in the class but also to become more globally connected.  I've lived all over the world and have friends in numerous different countries but I am continually surprised at how little my students know about the world and how isolated they are from what is happening beyond New Zealand.  There is real potential to use social media to connect with others further away and start developing a great sense of what is going on in the world.  There is also the potential for connecting with experts to get information about areas that interest the students.  I get really excited about the idea of students connecting with people who can get them fired up about a topic and that students can see that these issues or subjects aren't just something they do at school but are part of the world beyond - I haven't yet been able to integrate this into my classroom programme but that is definitely something I want to work on next term.  I also think that using social media for this would be engaging for students as it is something that they use and are familiar with.  

How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development? Why?

I have used social media for a lot of professional development already.  Currently my cluster is involved in an online mentoring programme which is helping us develop our programme for our modern learning environment.  We've been using social media to share ideas with others about what we've been doing and what ideas others have, as well as receiving support from our mentor.  The huge advantage for us is that we can contact people who are in a similar situation to us who aren't necessarily local.  Using social media has enabled us to work with schools all over the country rather than just in our local area.  Similarly for this course, being able to communicate with others when you aren't able to meet face-to-face is fantastic for busy teachers!

At the moment I get a lot of ideas from twitter and facebook on various groups and forums for teachers but I don't yet feel like I'm at a stage where I have much to contribute (which I think is down to lack of confidence at the moment).  I am starting to contribute more, mostly in the form of asking questions, but at the moment I'm definitely more of a lurker!

I also find it incredibly useful to use social media to keep track of what is going on in other countries in terms of education. It gives you an idea of what others are trying and what is working and what isn't.  I'm fascinated by stories of others working in different places, seeing what experiences they are having and working out what I can take from that.

Week 29 - Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

This week we are thinking about ethical dilemmas in particular in relation to social media.  Within our school most teachers have a personal facebook page, as do many of our students.  My personal decision has been that my personal facebook page is for me only and I don't accept any friend requests from students or parents. At the request of some of my former students who want to stay in touch, I've created a separate "Miss Hatch" facebook page that I will accept friend requests from students on.  However, other teachers in our school accept friend requests from students and parents and use this as a way to communicate with them.  On one occasion, at a party where there were several teachers from school one teacher took photos of teachers drinking (several of them had been drinking a fair amount) and posted them on facebook, tagging in teachers.  Even though a lot of teachers don't accept requests from students, the fact that some of the teachers tagged did have students on their facebook caused some issues.   Eventually the teacher was asked to remove the photos and now it is an understanding in our school that we ask each other if we are going to post anything that could be viewed as inappropriate to facebook or any other kind of social media.

Even though these photos were taken outside school and only showed teachers engaging in activities that were legal and not inappropriate we felt that they weren't appropriate for students to see as it could be considered that drunken photos on social media that students can access appears unprofessional and could breach the commitment to the profession as stated in the Code of Ethics for Certified Teachers which states "teachers shall exert every effort to maintain and raise professional standards, to promote a climate that encourages the exercise of professional judgement, and to achieve conditions which attract persons worthy of trust to careers in education."  As teachers we need to be aware of the influence we have over students and particularly when dealing with emerging adolescents, we need to set a good example to them.  While they are fully aware that teachers are humans and are perfectly allowed to drink alcohol, it's unprofessional for those pictures to be accessible to them. 

Week 28 - Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

Share your own views on the indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy.

This week I am reflecting on indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy.  In some ways I know this is an area where I know I am not as strong as I would like to be.  As I grew up in the UK and have only been in New Zealand for four years I know that my indigenous knowledge is something that I need to work on further.  What I have come to understand is the sense of community and location that is important particularly to Maori communities and that it is important to get to understand local traditions and customs as there are considerable variations throughout the country.  For me, that is most evident in the local Whanganui pronunciation of 'wh' which is something I took a while to understand.  In terms of culturally responsive pedagogy, for me it comes down to building strong relationships with all your students and knowing what is important to them and their whanau as well as providing them with a safe space to express themselves and bring whatever they hold important into the classroom.  Students need to feel that all aspects of their culture and identity are valued and supported.  Te Kotihitanga project emphasises the importance of strong teacher-student relationships to help raise Maori achievement (cited in Gutschlag, 2007) as well as the need to build on student's prior knowledge and cultural frame of reference (Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy video, 2010).

Critically reflect on how you or your school addresses cultural responsiveness in practice in two areas:

Learning Activities

In our school we are given a lot of freedom to design learning activities based on the needs of our students.  Within our cluster, we have taken a lot of care to ensure that learning activities enable students to take them in their own direction and explore in a way that suits them and their needs. We try to provide lots of open ended learning experiences where students can use their own prior knowledge and preferred ways of learning and communicating to complete assignments and we are always eager to have input from the students about ideas they have.  We use what we know about students to try and design learning activities that no only address their educational needs but also enable them to express their ideas in a way that works for them. Ka Hikitea document (2008) says that  "students do better in education when what and how they learn reflects and positively reinforces where they come from, what they value and what they already know. learning needs to connect with students existing knowledge". Ka Hikitea (2008).

Planning and Assessment

This is something I feel in our school that we don't do so well on, particularly when it comes to assessment.  Our writing assessments particularly spring to mind as they are school wide and often don't reflect the experiences or needs of our students.  In one particular example, students have to write a set of directions from a fictional map (which is taken from an English fiction novel) including descriptions of the places someone might pass.  This is so far from the experience of the majority of our students and doesn't relate to their own experiences.  Our assessment assignments need to be reexamined with our current students in mind in order to make them more suitable and reflective of the students' experiences. 

References:

Gutschlag, A Some Implications of the Te Kotahitanga Model of Teacher Positioning New Zealand Journal of Teachers' Work, Volume 4, Issue 1, 3-10, 2007

Source: Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994

Teaching Tolerance. ( 2010, Jun 17).Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8

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.

Week 27 - Contemporary Issues or Trends in New Zealand or internationally

Activity 3: Contemporary issues or trends in New Zealand or internationally

Identify and evaluate two contemporary issues or trends that are influencing or shaping NZ or international education, which you find most relevant to your practice.

One of the key issues in education at the moment is how best to 'modernise' our education system to meet the changing, and often unknown, demands our students will face in the future.  Sir Ken Robinson (RSA Animate video - Changing Education Paradigms) argues that the traditional method of education was designed to produce workers for the industrial system, however, those jobs are in decline and we need to prepare students for a world in which problem-solving and innovation are more important that rote memorisation of knowledge.  Students need to know how to access, evaluate and apply information to solve a multitude of problems.  KPMG's Future State 2030 infographic shows how different the world will be in 2030 to now highlighting that we can't teach students in the same way we always have if we want them to be ready for the future. 

In order to address this issue, in my cluster within the school we are developing a learning programme which gives students opportunities to solve problems in their own way and provides support for them to do this.  They have lots of opportunities to engage with information that isn't just designed for students but is widely available for anyone.  This gives students the chance to evaluate what they are reading and judge what is useful and how they can use it.  We also need to give them opportunities to engage with the wider community beyond their school, their local community and beyond their country.

Another issue in global education that applies very much to my own practice is how we engage students in education. The traditional education system was centred on the teacher who held all the knowledge and imparted it to the students.  However, as Sir Ken Robinson highlights (Changing Education Paradigms, 2010) this turns many students off learning.  We need to encourage divergent thinking or the ability to see multiple answers and solutions to a problem. This can help to engage students as it values all their ideas and views.  Robinson argues that our current education system discourages divergent thinking.  This also links to the idea of setting students up for the future as in order to be successful in the changing world they will need to be able to collaborate and be able to be innovative.

In order to address this in our community of practice we are focussing on collaborative learning experiences for our students, encouraging them to solve problems in their own way and provided open ended learning experiences.  Students are able to tackle a problem in a way that makes sense for them and we are trying to get them to be creative.  It is a challenge to get them to move away from traditional ways of learning as they've already been at school for a number of years and are used to having information provided to them by the teachers but they are getting better! They are also enjoying the freedom to explore aspects that interest them and solve problems in their own way rather than the way prescribed by the teacher.

References:

The RSA.(2010, Oct 14). RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

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

Week 26 - Professional Community

What is the organisational culture (collective values/principles) that underpins your practice? How would you contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in your community of practice?

The organisational culture of our school very much focused on meeting the needs of the emerging adolescents we teach.  We aware that students of this age are going through a period of change and are finding their way from childhood towards adulthood.  In this, we are trying to develop their independence and encourage positive decision making in a supportive environment.  As a staff we are encouraged to build positive relationships with our students in order to help them reach their full potential.  We also work collectively as a school community to support each other in meeting those needs.  

In order to contribute to fostering a positive professional environment I ensure that I am developing positive relationships with the students and with the staff.  In terms of the staff, this means sharing resources and ideas, providing support, helping solve problems where required.  The better you get to know your students and colleagues, the better able you are to support them.

What are the current issues that you face in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?

One of the biggest challenges for our cluster at the moment is creating our innovative learning environment and developing a coherent, future focused learning programme for our students.  We have the problem of how we go about creating this programme but also the challenge of our perception among the rest of the school.  We have given the students much more choice about what they do and how they do it and others in the school have commented that it appears chaotic and lacking discipline.  Our way of addressing these issues are through educating and involving the rest of the staff in what we are doing and why we are doing it.  By engaging others in the conversations about our learning programme we hope to bring them into the community, enable them to learn about what we're doing and also hopefully get further ideas from them about what changes we could make.   Developing a sense of what Stoll and Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998) describe as collegiality or a sense that "we're working on this together" (Stoll, 1998) should help to engage the wider school staff and mean that they're involved, rather than critiquing from the outside.  It will also help develop a sense of openness - "we can discuss our differences" (Stoll , 1998) as ideas can be properly discussed in an open forum.

Another issue we are facing as a school community is how to better manage behaviour of our students.  In the last year we have had a number of staff changes throughout the school and as an intermediate school, half of our school population changes every year.  In order to better support our students to make positive choices we've implemented the Positive Behaviour for Learning programme (PB4L).  This has very much been a school-wide initiative which has incorporated a number of Stoll and Fink's  influencing cultural norms of school improvement (cited in Stoll, 1998), particularly : “Shared goals - “we know where we’re going”, responsibility for success - “we must succeed”, collegiality - “we’re working on this together”, continuous improvement - “we can get better”, support - “there’s always someone there to help” and celebration and humour - “we feel good about ourselves”” (p.10).  All students and staff are involved and it has also required us to develop our school values which are now embedded in everything we do. 

References:

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from  http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture