2020: Now into my third year with Manaiakalani as one of their Outreach Facilitators, I feel like I have a whole lot more to offer in terms of professional development support for teachers and schools. Experience gained over the past two years has served me well. Working alongside teachers in their classroom, has given me plenty of opportunities to see first hand, what works for them in different situations and importantly what enables teachers to feel confident enough to try something in a digital environment. I’ve been particularly encouraged by teachers who initially were sceptical about the benefits of visible learning but have persevered and gone on to completely overhaul their teaching practice. The shift in their practice has resulted in students taking more ownership for their learning and student engagement has increased as content is more accessible online. Through the use of student and class blogs, what’s happening in the class is more visible allowing the wider community and whanau to be a part of students’ learning evidenced here in this example, a Year 10 class blog.
2020 is also the year the Ministry is requiring all schools to deliver the new Digital Technologies curriculum across all subjects from years 1 – 10. I see it as an exciting opportunity to truly shift teaching practice and empower students to be creators and innovators.
To support my understanding of the new Digital Curriculum, I’ve decided to study part-time and have enrolled in a paper offered by the University of Canterbury, Teaching Computer Programming.I was also lucky enough to be a recipient of the Educate Scholarship offered by Signal for which I am grateful. I’m looking forward to a year of new learning, innovation and active participation on my part to turbocharge teachers’ practice to align with 21st century ideals.
In 2018, I started working for Manaiakalani as one of their Outreach Facilitators. I have long been an admirer of Manaiakalani and the work they are doing for students in low decile schools. My role this year sees me supporting mainly secondary schools in Northland. I work closely with teachers to enable them to transfer their teaching expertise quickly and smoothly to the digital environment.
2017, I am the Lead Teacher for the Chromebook initiative in conjunction with the Kaikohekohe Education Trust and Bay of Islands College. Moving to a digital pedagogy is a positive move and allows me to put into practice many of the things I learned from my thesis research. The Kaikohekohe Education Trust is an offshoot of the Maniakalani project which has been providing digital learning to students in low decile schools since 2010. I am also Teacher in Charge of Digital Technologies at Bay of Islands College, teaching students from Year 9 – 13.
In 2016 I completed my Masters in Education with the University of Auckland as a Woolf Fisher Leader Teacher Scholarship recipient. My research involved investigating how students manage themselves using their own devices in a digital environment and what makes students competent, self-regulated learners.
To understand the concept of self-management further I embarked on a historical path to explore the evolvement of the key competencies in the NZ Curriculum (2007). This led me to the international literature of self-regulation, the OECD and the DeSeCo Definition and Selection of Competencies project. Filtering through many readings, some of which were the work of Hipkins (2007, 2005, 2009) Rutherford (2005) and Keown et al., (2005) I began to appreciate the complexity and attention that has been afforded the development of our current NZ Curriculum (2007). Still it remains a simplistic, flexible and robust document that allows individual schools to adapt it to reflect their needs and communities.
In my opinion there are a number of issues that are currently facing the education sector in New Zealand. First and foremost it is paramount to have an education system that can deliver equitably by accommodating the needs of all our students who come from diverse backgrounds, cultures and communities. To complement and bridge the equity gap the education sector needs to focus on providing individualised learning programmes that foster innovation and 21st century skills that will meet the demands of living in a knowledge driven era. Ensuring students are engaged, intrinsically motivated and developing a ‘learning to learn’ attitude will aid the pathway towards career advancement and an ability to meet the requirements of a dynamically changing employment sector.
I am always on the look out for cutting edge ideas and innovative teaching practices that I can implement into the classroom.
Qualifications
University of Auckland
February 2016 – Masters of Education
Woolf Fisher Lead Teacher Scholarship recipient
January 2015 – Research focus self-regulation in a BYOD class
University of Canterbury
January 2014 – Postgraduate Diploma in Education with Distinction
(endorsed in e-learning and Digital Technologies in Education)
University of Auckland
January 2010 – Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Secondary)
North Tec Tai Tokerau Wananga
March 2007 – Bachelor of Applied Arts
Professional Development
EdchatNZ Conference
August 2014
Restorative Justice Practice
March 2014 with Margaret Thorsborne
Developing Leadership Attributes and Skills in Staff and Students
October 2013 with Dr Camilla Highfield
It’s a Learners World: Mapping a New Landscape
July 2013 – Learning Network NZ
- Myths in Education – Lee Crocket fluency21.com
- Homework, what can you do about it? – Neil O’Reilly
- Maori Success as Maori – John Leonard
- Remember the Revised Curriculum – Perry Rush
- Thinking Language, Thinking Learner, Thinking World – Joan Dalton
- Going Beyond – Chic Foote
- Kathryn Berkett
Secondary Provisional Registration Teachers Workshop 2,
September 2012, Whangarei
- Inquiry Learning
- Teaching as Inquiry
Best Practice Workshop – Learning to Assess
July 2012, Whangarei Workshop Attended
- Graphics/DVC
Technology Cluster Workshop,
May 2012, Whangarei Workshop Attended
- Teaching as Inquiry Level 1 and 2
Moodle Moot 2011
April 2012, Auckland
Secondary Provisional Registration Teachers Workshop 1,
May 2012, Whangarei
- Teaching as inquiry
- Focusing inquiry
- Culturally responsive pedagogy
- Teacher registration requirements
Albany Senior High School,
April 2012, Auckland Workshops attended
- Using the cloud with students
- PD for your staff – Rangitoto High School IT Department
- BYOD – Mark Osborne
- Augmented Reality in the classroom – Mark Osborne
Nethui Conference 2011, Auckland
- The Data Explosion – Douglas Harre
- Combating Cyberbullying & Harassment – John Fenaughty
- The Interent as a Revolutionary Tool – Lance Wiggs
- Engaging Young People to Like Cybersafety – Brian Calhoun
Digital Technology Symposium 2010, Auckland
Workshops attended
- Strategic planning for a changing landscape – David Parr
- How digital technologies can transform pedagogies – David Parr
- Digital Media Assessments – John Creighton
- Innovative classroom ideas to support assessment within the new technology matrix – Melinda Stevenson
- Digital Design Pathways – John Piper
- Flash basics – Yulie Great
- Learn to edit video like the industry – Lee Herbert and Mary McQuoid
