My Professional Connections

My Professional Connection Map

Two goals for extending my professional connections

Benefits and Challenges of working in an interdisciplinary environment

A few years ago, Te Kura undertook a project to integrate the learning of Year 7 to 10 in which I participated from the Technology area with members from other teams. The context was theme based for example “Fire” then all areas met and did a scoping of the learning whilst taking the context to his broadest sense thus opening up the experience of the learner. We tried to overlap and make connections in our areas of learning so that students felt a flow and scaffold as opposed to a series of disjointed tasks combined together without thought. In the process we also had to ensure that the key competencies, values and achievement objective of the NZ Curriculum was being met- Yes ERO always at the back of our minds! However in saying that it is always sound practice to expose students to a variety and our Curriculum is perfect for that.

Benefits

• Making connection of different disciplines for learners
• Exposing them to a range of contexts
• Ability to be creative as this was project or inquiry based learning styles
• Opportunities to collaborate with other learners on Skype or Hangouts
• Self-directed learning and opportunity to choose the project to undertake based on the needs of the family, community, resources available or country of residence at that point
• More interaction of staff with students as lots of different project being undertaken and a new way of learning for students
• Better relationship and dialogue amongst staff involved
• Less assessment in the end but more interaction and deeper learning for students as when it is self-directed they were motivated to dig deeper and wider

Challenges

• Unknown outcomes- will it work or not
• Acceptance from families and students for this model of learning
• Internal structuring of systems, delays in production, copyright of images
• Reluctance of other teaching staff –changing mindset
• Initially it was like a stab in the dark as it was a new concept so how do we develop resources? How do we structure activities?
• Reading this resource refreshed all the experiences and challenges we faced at that time so if you wish to undertake this model, do read this article.
• Watching this movie could be a way forward for parents and staff as it outlines critical 21^st century teaching and learning issues for all parties concerned in education.

My Professional Community

Core Values that underpins my profession

Evaluate your practice in regard to these values

Essentially these (above) are values that drives my practice and leadership which clearly outlines the importance of EQUITY for all be it staff, students, their communities or partner organisations. The level of service that is provided whether curriculum or pastoral, demonstrating empathy of individual situations and ensuring positive outcomes for all is always at the forefront yet having an acceptance that sometimes we do get it very wrong. Studying by distance at school level is a huge undertaking for most communities as it requires tools, support, personal discipline and a need to be open and honest as we are unable to meet every learner and have a clear understanding of their needs. Our LINK UP is a chance for us to share these values and show case/ celebrate/communicate the difference we are making with our learning communities such as pilot projects, dual enrolled schools, fulltime students, partner organisation such as Star/Gateway/Authentic Learning, young adults or primary/early childhood groups.

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

In the distance environment we have numerous challenges but we are currently trying to embrace it with an opportunity to lead change in Education in NZ in the 21^st century.

Challenges

•  Connectivity and Collaboration opportunities for staff and students
•  Sustaining on-going student Engagement
•  Growing/changing the mind-set of staff
•  Digitising teaching and learning

Work in Progress of the Community of Practice to address these challenge

• Exposing and empowering staff to different tools like Adobe Connect, Hangouts, Skype to connect with their learners if the learners cannot make it to face to face advisories or are too isolated for Liaison teachers to visit. Regular Adobe Connect sessions are now being held with Regional office staff to make all feel inclusive and indirectly expose and encourage them to use this tool as it is “safe” as no phone numbers and emails of students are shared on this platform.
• Ensuring that contact is made within a week of being enrolled, whanau have been involved in ongoing dialogue and ensuring that the goals of the students are being worked towards and met.
•  Giving opportunity to the staff we lead to have leadership and resource development opportunities so that they feel valued and are proud to be contributing to the learning of students rather than being “glorified markers/assessors” of resources developed by others. This is critical as in face to face environments teachers have the autonomy to develop, teach and amend teaching materials which is not the case in a distant environment.
•  Actively participating and leading Professional development of the school going from blended to online learning. Our biggest role is here right now and communicating and problem solving as a team as well as peer-sharing has been in valuable.

What are the changes occurring in the context of your profession? How do you think you or your community of practice should address them?

Education in NZ has to start preparing 21^st Century learners for a world that is unknown in terms of opportunities, new careers that require new skills and a highly digital dependent world.

Our community of practice is now

• having dialogue and collaborating
• sharing resources and solving problems
• starting to integrate curriculum areas
• co- teaching and developing of resources that allow students to think critically
• applying student voice to new material development- forming relationships
• co-operating with the school as they now have an understanding that for success of our strategic goals that leading from the MIDDLE is essential so we are embracing that opportunity.

Reflecting on Reflective Practice

The article titled above by Lynda Finlay (2008) has been thought provoking rather than outlining aspects that relate to my practice!

Questions that arose for me to consider   

• Do I really do reflective practice as “defined” (several definitions) in the paper? And if so do I do it “in action” “for action” or “on action” (Pg. 4), consciously or subconsciously, structured or thoughtless, critically or mindlessly?
• Do the benefits outweigh the negatives? And if so at what point should I use it with staff I manage?
• If I promoted this practice, what model would be suitable, how would I avoid confusion and how could I ensure it isn't detrimental to the ongoing progress of myself and my staff as it is something they will need to embrace as quoted in the article “An honest self-appraisal conducted in conjunction with peers is one of the hallmarks of an effective promoter of reflection”!
• Educators are not the easiest in the world to convert- don’t we know it all and how dare someone tell me something new as the belief is “I have years of experience and what I do works, why should we reflect, evaluate, change and adopt new methods”?

The model that I tend to use is Rolfe’s Reflective model which is based around Borton’s 1970 Developmental model

Image Source

Being a technologist ongoing evaluation has become part of my practice. My curriculum leader and I regularly do this practice especially with our Level 3 NCEA students as we were the first to develop and deliver a totally on-line course. We had no experience in the delivery platform, do design thinking was used as a structure and ongoing discussions and tweaking goes on regularly as our learners keep changing and so does their needs.

What: Te Aho O Te Kura Pounamu as the name suggest Pounamu is a metamorphic rock, hence as an organisation we are in the process of metamorphosing from blended to fully digital delivery. Our Year 9 and 10 courses have now being delivered online for the last two years and the cohorts have been surveyed and results have been shared with the relevant teaching areas.

So What: These results have started dialogue in our areas and staff are starting to reflect, amend, create, critique the materials that are available based on the feedback. For my area Technology, there is a strong request for collaborative opportunities, not surprising at all since we are now often being reminded that Collaboration is the way of the future and one the key 21^st century learning tools.

Now what: As an organisation we have started sharing the online tools and tricks that are working and highly engaging in our areas. We are now collaborating for the next stage as NCEA level 1 is being adapted and delivered online this year. We have to explore tools collectively on the OTLE platform that makes assessment, interaction with students, our peers and delivery of content efficient and effective as bear in mind we have rural students where connectivity is highly expensive and unreliable as well as students in different time zones globally.

At this point in time this simple model is sufficient as we have a lot to learn, reflect and adapt in our teaching practice and mind set. In the future the NZ Teaching as Inquiry Model could be a model we adopt as it is locally developed and takes the issues relevant to our practice.

Reflection of Learning Practice based on Key Competencies

Five key competencies in the NZ curriculum I believed were for me to create lifelong learners in my teaching but never applied or saw its value in my own practice till I started the Mindlab course. Thinking led me to explore the value gamification if any could have on student engagement and motivation driving me to intellectual curiosity that is the heart of this competency. My literature review on it revealed both sides of the coin including gaps in studies conducted, however due to lack of NZ research it motivated me to set up my Teaching as Inquiry in 2016 based around it with the support of my Curriculum leader. Being passionate about the Design Process, the inquiry I have set up to undertake is an investigation of game elements, questioning my cohorts on interaction with the work, compare and contrasting cohorts that had exposure to gamification and ones that haven’t to see the impact it makes on their engagement. All these skills are encompassed under this competency and I hope it will reveal information that will challenge my practice yet meet the objective of motivating and engaging my learners’ which is a major struggle of distance education at school level.


The 24 weeks of the course exposed me to new concepts such as

• growth mind-set 
• crowd sourcing 
• flipped and blended classrooms 
• Agile based learning 
• Connected learning 
• Different leadership styles 

All of which challenged my thinking upside down, back to front and most of all questioned my practice in terms of “how am I supporting and enriching the lives of the 21st century learner”? It clearly showed me the need to create a collaborative environment where knowledge is created by the learners and they lead their learning.

Meeting and relating to people from different walks of life in the course was both a pleasure and an eye opener – somewhat scary. The discovery that face-face predominately Primary schools were quite advance with the use of digital tools in students everyday learning/interacting clearly outlined how some secondary schools are behind with the times in terms of 21^st century learning- Food for thought. 

Interacting and sharing ideas in class on different topics or IT programs, role playing at different stages in the lessons, working out strategies of efficiency in ball games and doing the practical components in the early part of the course created opportunities for me to contribute and accept the ways others did things. 

Within the course, the assessment requirements left me no choice but to interact and contribute on other forums that I had expertise in such as project based learning and design thinking or needed to gain insight into. That was how I created networks with the groups listed in the diagram (above) and am starting to nurture the relationship created as I cannot continue to stay in my cocoon...time to spread my wings and transform the lives of my learners so they can survive in the world ahead of them- quite different from mine and make those connections too. 

Collaborating on assignments with my Te Kura colleagues doing this course tested this skill as we didn't get all the aspects correct the first time and by the end we three had developed respect, a listening ear and an effective working relationship regardless of being from three different teaching areas.

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