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/
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