Week 32...Where to Next?

It is hard to believe that my Mindlab journey is coming to an end. The time seems to have flown by and the 32 weeks has included many ‘aha’ and ‘argh’ moments, as well as the moments where everything just seemed to connect. Commencing the course way back in March, I was unsure what to expect but I was also glad to have two of my work colleagues beside me, as we embarked on a journey of discovery and reinforcement that what we have been doing is on the right track for both ourselves and our students.

Within my own practice, I can identify so many changes. One change in particular is that I now feel that I have far greater confidence in my ability to ‘Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning’ as per Criteria 5 from the Practicing Teacher Criteria. I feel like I have been able to help lead change within my school, and have been able to back the reasons why change needs to occur with research based evidence. Having this evidence base has enabled me to implement changes within the department I lead, with many positive spin offs. While change also produces challenges, with my two colleagues alongside me, we have been able to build momentum for change and lead from the front. We have been able to share our learning with our Senior Leadership team and also our College Change Team, and then extending this out in to our wider school community. As a result, much of what we have learnt is being put in to practice on a department or school wide front, instead of in isolation within just our own classrooms.

Alongside these school wide changes, I have been evaluating the way in which my own classroom operates. I have been trying to incorporate a number of aspects from my Mindlab studies in to my own classroom programme. My approach to teaching has become far more inquiry learning based, which relates closely to our assignments from our research paper. After all, why plan something but not actually implement it? It also relates closely to Criteria 9 of the PTC, which requires teachers to “respond effectively to the diverse and cultural experiences and the varied strengths, interests, and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga.” With an inquiry based approach to learning, I have been able to develop my student’s individual strengths and interests, resulting in far higher levels of student engagement in their learning. I have observed many of my students taking more ownership for what they are doing and they have loved exploring some of the new ideas I have introduced within our classroom space. I am also hoping to introduce layers of Design Thinking in to my programme in the future. What I have also loved about this is that I have been able to implement aspects of this type of learning throughout my department. The clincher for me was at the end of Term 3 and the end of a department wide inquiry project that had allowed students to have choice about what they learnt. This was a first for some teachers,  but at the end a somewhat reluctant teacher made the following comment “I have really enjoyed our learning this term. We need to do more of this type of learning with our students”. At that point, I knew that we had crossed a line in the right direction and that momentum is growing for the change that needs to occur.

So, where to now? To be honest, I am not sure. Some crazy part of me is thinking about the Masters programme, while the more sane part of me is telling me to focus on what I am doing and embed the changes before doing more study. I think for me, this makes sense. I know what I want to achieve within my own practice and what I want to see happening within my school. I also want to see some of the changes spread within the other schools in my community, so that the students come to us already equipped with an understanding of some of what we want them to achieve. However, that does not mean doing nothing PD wise. I believe I have made lifelong connections with so many other amazing educators who share the same passions and desire for our tamariki to achieve and succeed in this rapidly changing world. As a result, the learning will continue as we share our endeavours to provide every child we encounter with the best possible opportunities for success, no matter what that might look like.

References

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

Interdisciplinary Connections

As a teacher within a Year 7 to 13 school, there are numerous opportunities and networks that allow for interdisciplinary connections to be formed. From the connections enabled through outside providers, to those that can be enabled from within and across different subject areas, the opportunities are vast and varied.

When mapping or noting these connections and how they can be utilised within our recent move to a Middle School (Years 7 to 9) concept, one that stands out for me is a recently formed connection developed through the provision of funding through the Curious Minds programme. Curious Minds is a government project that aims to “encourage and enable better engagement with Science and Technology across all sectors of New Zealand” NZ Govt (2016). As a result of this project, the College has been given funding to work with local providers such as the Ōtaki Clean Tech Centre. While this initially commenced within the Senior Science area and has become embedded, it has now filtered down to include Years 7 to 9 students and teachers. One aim is to develop a curriculum based on cross-curricular links, with a focus on the environment and sustainability. While the programme in Year 10 and beyond focuses on the global perspective, in Years 7 to 9, we want to focus on local and national issues.

One benefit of such a connection with outside providers, is that it helps develop closer links and ties to our local community and what it has to offer. This connection would involve local facilitators as well as staff from within our school, in particular our Science subject specialist teachers, our Year 7 & 8 Homeroom teachers and our Year 9 Integrated Studies (English and Social Studies) and Science teachers. There is also the potential for other subject area involvement such as the Technology department.

There are numerous ways in which the joint planning, decision making and goal setting can take place. In fact, this process has already commenced with all of the key stakeholders mentioned above, as well as members of the Senior Leadership Team. This ensures that the initiative is supported from the top down, whilst being led by those most closely involved. From the intial meeting, off site planning sessions have been set in order for deeper drilling down and planning in the key focus areas of how to incorporate Science and Technology in a deeper manner in to our middle school programmes. These plans will then be taken back to the curriculum areas involved for further development. From these planning meetings, the curriculum plans will be put in to action in Term 1, 2017. As noted by Kuban and Mcloud Mulligan (2015) in their post on ACRLog, workplace conditions such as organised meetings and administrative support, common goals and shared positive attitudes towards collaboration are vital in order for interdisciplinary collaboration to be successful. I believe that within our project, all three of these factors are in place and as a result, it is far more likely to succeed. Of particular importance, I believe the shared attitudes and qualities hold the most value as it allows for a safe environment in which people are comfortable in sharing their ideas.

Whilst there are many benefits to this and other connections, there are also some challenges. One is ensuring that all those involved have an understanding of the way in which a school operates and that things are not always as flexible as we would like. Constraints around time and the constant balancing games that occur are also obstacles that will need to be overcome. For myself, I have seen this happening as I have trialled some aspects of what we wish to do in Term 3 of this year. I have had an outside specialist coming in to my classroom on a weekly basis and while this has been incredibly supportive and well received by students and myself, it has also presented issues around time, and how to fit everything in to the programme. In this case, I think the ‘do less, but do it better’ fits well. Ensuring all involved are open and willing to the sharing of ideas and expertise is also important, as is recognising the importance of individual subject domains within the collaboration. I am looking forward to developing this project further in the coming months, with a focus on increasing student engagement in Science and Technology.

References

Kuban,A J.,  Mcloud Mulligan, L (2015). A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration.

New Zealand Government (2016) Curious Minds. Retrieved from http://www.curiousminds.nz/

Mindmap developed in conjunction with Marion Lumley in order to be able to use this as part of our upcoming Change Team discussions