Activity 10 Summarising your Postgraduate learning journey and your planning for the futues

Reflect on your personal 32 week learning journey through the whole postgraduate programme

I cannot believe that we are coming to the end of this learning journey; the first couple of weeks I wondered what I had let myself in for.

The first sixteen weeks to me were the most valuable.  I enjoyed the collegiality of course members, the collaboration and co-operation, the provocations during discussions, the agreements and the disagreements, hearing the views of people with differing personal backgrounds, experiences, and from different stages in the seamless education system.

The second sixteen weeks, which were online, were the toughest, having to stay focused and remembering to do my online reading.  I missed the ability to discuss what I had read with others and get their views.

Overall, in this course I went through stages of elation, anger, frustration, and loneliness.

Reflect on the 12 practising teacher criteria in e-learning and reflect on three of them

Criteria 4:   Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.

The Mind Lab course has provided me with the opportunity to make a number of face to face connections and make a number of online connections with others through social media tools such as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.  These connections have discussed ideas, given support, shared resources and given advice which has enabled me to grow professionally.

It has also provided me with readings and links to online videos that have enabled me to be self-directed in my learning and reflective in my practice, so I can decide what best practice is for those in my school community.

Criteria 5:  Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning.

I have been an assistant principal for a number of years and thought I knew what was my leadership style was, but that was about to change. Mind Lab through LDC assignment 1 made me reflect on my current leadership style and question its effectiveness.  This was achieved through researching different leadership models and relate the key aspects to my practice; doing this enabled me to see that my present style was not as collaborative as I thought, and see if there were other models that were more collaborative.

Criteria 12:  Use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice.

Mind Lab through LDC assignment 2 and R&C assignment 2 have made me analyse and critically evaluate my leadership practice, with professional literature to reflect on and enhance my practice.  I found out  a lot about myself as a leader through this process; I can articulate why I lead in the manner that I do, and show how using a transformational leader using a coaching style leads to effective learning for all in the learning community.

Plan and justify two main goals for your future developments

Criteria 4:  Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.

I am looking forward to our school moving towards a BYOC environment.  This will enable me to continue to develop and ingrain the collaborative and digital practices from the Mind Lab.  Through social media I hope to continue interacting with other course members.

Criteria 6:  Conceptualise, plan, and implement an appropriate learning programme

To ensure that our students become future focused learners, as teachers we need to critically analyse our current teaching pedagogy and use of new technologies.  By doing this we will ensure that we are able to move from passive to collaborative forms of learning and teaching.  Once we have made the move we need to be able to give sound professional reasons to our community for the change.

Ministry of Education (n.d.). Practising Teacher Criteria and e-learning / Professional learning / enabling e-Learning - enabling eLearning.  Retrieved 5 March 2016, from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning

Osterman, K.F. & Kottkamp, R.B. (1993).  Reflective practice for educators: improving schooling though professional development.  Corwin Press Inc: California.  Retrieved from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

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www.psychguides

Activity 9: Evaluation of cultural responsiveness in practice

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

Indigenous knowledge as described by Warren (1991, cited in Worldbank, para 2, n.d.) is ‘the local knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society’.  Flavier et al (1995, cited in Worldbank, para 3, n.d.) describe indigenous knowledge as ‘the information base for a society'.

Tauli-Corpuz (2012) outlines how indigenous knowledge is being lost, as scientists feel this knowledge does not have the rigour required for it to be taken seriously.  She suggests that scientist should take notice of indigenous people’s knowledge, as evidence shows that modern systems underpinned by science are not sustaining our ecological systems whereas indigenous systems were, and in some cases are, sustaining today's eco-systems.

In New Zealand our indigenous knowledge can be viewed as Tikanga Māori.  Tikanga is based on experience and learning that has been handed down through generations; it is also rooted in logic and common sense (University of Otago, n.d.).  It permeates through all aspects of life and sets how people act in all situations of daily life.

To ensure that indigenous knowledge is recognised within a school environment, schools need to use a culturally responsive pedagogy.  A culturally responsive pedagogy is defined as ‘a student-centred approach to teaching, in which the students' unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student's cultural place in the world' (Lynch, 2011).

A culturally responsive pedagogy ensures there are equitable learning outcomes to guarantee academic success and respect for students.  In a culturally responsive classroom, positive relationships are built on ‘non deficit thinking’; Bishop & Berryman (2009) call this ‘agentic thinking’ (p29).  In this environment student’s self-esteem is boosted and they are motivated to learn as the school and home are culturally comparable.  They work collaboratively and co-operatively together, are able to elaborate their ideas by bringing their experiences and knowledge to the task and where they receive feedback and feedforward.

How does your school address cultural responsiveness in practice?

At our school we have made addressing cultural responsiveness one of our strategic goals; we are into our second year of the goal.  To enable us to achieve our goals we have developed an education plan, ‘Māori enjoying success as Māori: Māori learners achieving academic success while maintaining and enhancing their identity, language and culture’ (Paraparaumu Beach School, 2015).

Our strategic goal is ‘for all Māori students to realise their potential and achieve to the best of their ability, while creating a strong sense of self’ (Paraparaumu Beach School, 2015).  We wrote micro goals that we as a school community are working towards, using 'Tātaiako and Kotahitanga –effective teacher profile' as our guides. These are:

•     build and sustain strong and effective school/whanau, school/akonga and school/iwi links to raise akonga achievement.
•    māori akonga will achieve academic success through culturally appropriate and responsive contexts for learning
•    māori akonga will have their identity, language and culture maintained, enhanced and reflected in their learning environment

Examples of what we have done well in regards to our goals:

•    engaging with the community                                                                                             - informal, e.g. school picnic, school hangi,                                                    - formal, e.g. reporting evenings, whānau group, local marae visit
•    planning and implementing programmes of learning which accelerate the progress of Māori learners by using strategies that engage them and caters for their needs

Examples of what we can improve on in regards to our goals:

• actively using local Māori contexts to support Māori learners learning
• facilitating the participation of whānau and local iwi with knowledge of local tikanga, history and language to come and support classroom teaching and learning programmes

Bevan-Brown, J., Berryman, M., Hickey, H., Macfarlane, S., Smiler, K., & Walker, T. (2015). Working with Māori children with special education needs: he mahi whakahirahira. Wellington: NZCER Press

Bishop, R., & Berryman, M. (2009). The Te Kotahitanga effective teaching profile. SET: Research Information for Teachers, 2, 27–34.  Retrieved from http://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/set2009_2_027.pdf

Lynch, M. (2011).  What is culturally responsive pedagogy? Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/culturally-responsive-pedagogy_b_1147364.html

Paraparaumu Beach School, (2015). Māori education plan.  Retrieved from pbs.school.nz

Tauli-Corpuz. V. (1 October, 2012).  Climate change mitigation with local communities and indigenous peoples. [Video]

University of Otago (n.d.). Māori at Otago.  Retrieved from http://maori.otago.ac.nz/reo-tikanga-treaty/tikanga/societal-lore

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marykim@aol.com