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Reflective Practice and Changes in Practice

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The thirty-two week journey Anticipation, nervousness, excitement, trepidation. These were some of the initial feelings as I entered the school library where I would spend the next 16 weeks, 1 evening a week, with fellow teachers. We would discuss, interact, collaborate and touch on many concepts, skills and IT tools, some of which I had previous exposure to and some that were new to me. I grew in confidence over the 16 weeks, as I attempted to implement some of the tools and thinking into my teaching, with varied results. The main thing was that I was trying out new ideas and spending time thinking about how the tools and skills could be best utilised in the classroom to improve student engagement. Engagement has become a key word in the modern classroom, but it is difficult to define fully. We recognise when a student is or is not engaged, but can we measure engagement? Often, there are other features we can measure, like achievement and behaviour. These are easier to put a nu...
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Interdisciplinary Connections

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Defining Interdisciplinary:   A knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic, or experience. (Jacobs, M.M., 2004)  Interdisciplinary Connections Map Science is a relatively easy subject to connect to other secondary school subjects. The different science disciplines (chemistry, biology, physics, geology and astronomy) each include sections from English, Mathematics, Technology, History and Geography and we often include Computing skills when researching, recording, discovering, analysing data or displaying information. But to create a true interdisciplinary connection requires combined planning between the various disciplines.  In planning interdisciplinary projects between Technology and Science, a problem that requires a technological solution could be identified. Examples might include a study of an ecosystem that requires a...
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Social Media Use

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Social Media In Teaching What are the challenges that you think using social media in teaching would bring to practice? In what ways could teachers address the challenges and harness the potential benefits of social media in teaching? I use very little social media in teaching. The main reason is because I do not use it significantly outside of school either. My main use of social media is to keep track of my sports commitments and to catch up with the events and activities of friends and family. I personally post very little on social media and only comment occasionally. According to a 2015 article in the New Zealand Herald, Facebook use in New Zealand is on the rise. Students under 25 are the greatest users, followed closely by mums. Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11436997 We can take several things from this graphic: More than 4 out of 5 students are using Facebook on a daily basis. Most users are using Facebook to c...
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Legal and Ethical Contexts

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Ethics in Teaching with Digital Technologies Many students live in a social media world. It is their connection to friends and the main way they communicate with one another when it comes to gatherings. A student without access to social media can feel very isolated. As teachers, we need to be aware that our social media profile can be accessed by anyone at any time and it is this ethical issue that this blog will discuss.  Henderson, Auld and Johnson presented a paper at a conference regarding social media and the teacher's responsibilities around teaching with social media. (Henderson M., Auld G., Johnson N. 2014) In this paper, the authors raise four valid issues when using social media as a teaching resource, consent, confidentiality, boundaries and dealing with illicit activity. For this blog, the area of boundaries will be discussed. Henderson, Auld and Johnson describe the implications of a teacher's social media profile being accessed by students. ...
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Cultural Responsiveness

A cultural responsive pedagogy: Culturally responsive teachers: Create a learning context in the classroom where young Maori people (and any cultural group) can bring themselves to the learning conversation, where they can bring their own experiences, their own cultural understandings, how they make sense of the world to the learning conversation, where their language is official and legitimate. And it is that level of engagement that brings improved attendance, achievement and engagement.  Bishop, R. (2011) Culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centered 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. Culturally responsive pedagogy is divided into three functional dimensions: the institutional dimension, the personal dimension, and the instructional dimension. Lynch, M. (2012, February 13) Each one of us ...
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Contemporary Trends

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Structure of the Nuclear Family In the last two decades, there have been significant changes to what is referred to as the nuclear family. The Dad, Mum and 2.4 child family structure has morphed into a plethora of structures. The nuclear family has many variations: single parent two parents living at different addresses married or unmarried parents civil union same gender parents The list goes on.  The basic education of teaching Mathematics, English and Science may not be affected significantly, but discussions between teachers and students and the language around gender and 'acceptable' relationships' require re-thinking. This is an issue for a Catholic-based school where the church upholds the sanctity of marriage between one woman and one man.   By virtue of its very definition, marriage can only be between a man and a woman, Pope Francis has said in a new book-length interview. (Glatz, 2017) How does a state-integrated school, with a Catholic...
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Climate and Culture

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Socioeconomic status (SES) encompasses not just income but also educational attainment, financial security, and subjective perceptions of social status and social class. Socioeconomic status can encompass quality of life attributes as well as the opportunities and privileges afforded to people within society. Poverty, specifically, is not a single factor but rather is characterized by multiple physical and psychosocial stressors. American Association of Psychology (2016) Decile ratings have been used in New Zealand to determine the funding a school requires. Those with a lower financial base are given greater funding. These ratings have been used to indicate the "type" of student that attends. Often, greater behavioural needs are found in lower decile schools. The socioeconomic status of my community is skewed towards the higher end compared to other schools in the district, according to the decile rating. The decile rating of 8, compared to the average for New Plymo...
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