Week 29 - APC - Influence of Law and Ethics on Professional Practice

Legal and ethical issues in my practice
The influences of social media and access to the internet within my professional practice scares me a little. We build positive relationships with students, whanau, and the community. We believe we have good communication and that our community of practice understands our obligations around ethics. This is not always the case.  There are different perspectives and views of what is acceptable when sharing personal information, especially when sharing it globally. I have a facebook account, but rarely use it for fear that what I content I post may be construed not appropriate for a teacher. I feel that as a teacher we are very 'visual' and need to be appropriate at all times. This can be challenging especially when you are not in a teaching context, outside of school hours and one of your own children is playing up in a public place! Who is watching? Judgments are made on how well you deal with the situation!

Influences that support law and ethics on professional practice:

We are bound by the Teaching Standards and also the Code of Ethics to guide us.

• Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended
• Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power
• Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others
• Truth to be honest with others and self.

We  have school policies under our strategic plan that clearly outline what we are required to do to protect our students and fulfill our obligations.

Below is an excerpt from part of the cyber safety agreement:
"Any photographs of students, or examples of their work, published online must meet the school's guidelines for publishing student information. This includes checking that parents have given consent (at time of enrollment) for their child's image or work to be published, and obtaining the child's permission to use their work. "

Parents often forget what they have signed and do not understand the ramifications or even the potential for information sharing about their children. If we intend to set up a school blog or classroom blog and share images or student information in a global context, then parents should be reminded if they are happy for this information to be shared. The parents and families do not always update with new information or change their sharing of information guidelines. Schools need to have regular contact with parents to check if they have all the necessary information to ensure that privacy issues are not breached.

However, if I was developing a new initiative I would review the PPTA toolkit (2016) and contact parents before posting information. As the above states "at time of enrollment" and as I mentioned earlier a lot may have changed for and parents may have forgotten the consent.

My other concern is that once the information is posted who has access to it and what can they do with it? I feel students are still vulnerable and maybe we need to be creative in how we use their information, so that they are more protected. I try to take photos so that not all their face is totally visible, but they can be seen in the activity.

Students do not need to provide all their personal information and I have experienced some excellent cyber safety courses run by NZ Police (The KOS programme). Many students are not aware that they should not have a facebook account until they are 13 years old and many are using social media without guidance or support to ensure that they are safe. Parents and teachers should experience the same social media that students are using to support them and understand the dynamics of the particular tool.

http://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/kos-cybersafety.pdf

Here is the link for the above pamplet from NZ police
http://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/kos-cybersafety.pdf  and also lots of information to support online safety http://www.police.govt.nz/advice/email-and-internet-safety/online-child-safety

http://www.vln.school.nz/discussion/view/702465?orderby=latest

References

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/graduating-teacher-

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/about-code-of-ethics

http://www.police.govt.nz/advice/personal-and-community-advice/school-portal/resources/successful-relationships/kos-info-teachers

PPTA (2016) Education Change management toolkit. From http://ppta.org.nz/resources/publication-list/2460-change-management

Week 28 - APC - Indigenous knowledge & Cultural responsiveness

https://www.huntsbury-preschool.org.nz/curriculum/

Learning Activities:

Professor Bishop discusses providing a 'context' that is appropriate for the learners and ensure that there are positive relationships with students before learning can happen. Students need to feel comfortable in their learning environment and because we only teach our students for a couple of hours each week we provide activities that develop relationships within the 'team'.

 'Circle time' is used at the beginning and at the end of the session and provides students with opportunities to share their ideas about their learning. This also provides the teacher feedback which can be used to shape further sessions and learning. Students are offered choices within the programmes and activities, which provides them with ownership of their learning and intrinsic motivation. 

Students are encouraged to support each other and work together as a 'team'. This gives students opportunities to support each other in their learning and gain skills in communication, collaboration and problem solving. 

Professor Bishop also discussed the importance of having high expectations of students. I believe this is important for students to reach their full potential and students need to be able to 'believe in themselves'. Often low achieving students have low self esteem and providing them with learning success gives them a great boost and opens the door to more learning opportunities. It sometimes a matter of moving their 'mind set' and providing encouragement to do this. 

Planning and assessment: 

Savagea, Hindleb, Meyerc, Hyndsa, Penetitob, & Sleeterd, (2011) state "As teachers invest in learning through relationships with their students, they might then take responsibility for learning to shift their pedagogy in ways that benefit students academically as well as socially and emotionally."

The above statement relates, as I feel we have been developing relationships with students, however further development to encourage student achievement is the next step. 

From the implementation of Huakina Mai in 2015. We have focused on developing positive relationships with the students and their families. We are now moving forward to improving pedagogy to increase student achievement.  We are collaborating with our teaching and our planning to develop ideas around how to provide success for students. Student feedback and opportunities for them to co-construct their learning to provide more student ownership. We differentiate sessions to support low achieving students and this is often discussed in our meetings to share our knowledge and gain ideas. 

We have sought advice and professional development on assessment methods to support student achievement and to provide purposeful feedback during programmes to students. We are developing assessment that provides regular  feedback and is easily accessed by students. 

Students will have opportunities to increase their level of achievement and understand clearly what they will need to do to achieve this. Students that require more support will then be  identified and provided alternative learning methods to increase their level of achievement. 

Circle time activities link for teens:
http://www.kidspeakconsulting.com/blog/circletimeforbigkidsteambuildingwithteensin5easysteps

References:

Savagea,C, Hindleb, R., Meyerc,L., Hyndsa,A., Penetitob, W. & Sleeterd, C.(2011). Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum .Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183–198: (Available to download from Unitec Library) This is a report evaluates Maori student experiences in the NZ classroom whose teachers underwent Te Kotahitanga trainings. The authors discuss the implications for teachers to when implementing the Te Kotahitanga to address the culturally responsiveness in their practice.

Gutschlag, A.(2007). Some implications of the Te Kotahitanga model of teacher positioning. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, 4(1), 3-10. Retrieved from http://www.teacherswork.ac.nz/journal/volume4_issue1/gutschlag.pdf. In this paper, the author critiques the implications of Te Kotahitanga’s ‘teacher positioning model’ and suggests an alternative power relationship between teachers and Maori students.

Professor Russell Bishop talks about culturally responsive pedagogySource: Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994

Week 27 - APC - Broader Professional Context

Activity 3: 'Contemporary issues or trends in New Zealand or internationally'

Technology and global trends are changing, but our education system is not keeping up with these changes.  Sir Ken Robinson discusses that we still teach in very structured environments in 'batches' of students and the question is 'why'? Standardisation of the education system affects how students learn by not viewing the student with individual learning needs.

The standardised testing and framework  impacts on teaching practice and how we teach our students (The RSA, 2010). The implementation of National Standards restricts the opportunities of the curriculum document - where the curriculum document allows for flexibility.  Individual learning plans and individual assessment allows purposeful learning based on students learning needs. I often differentiate during sessions to ensure learners are able to have success. The Education Review Office suggests that we need to focus on 'student centred learning'. Last year, our school introduced a positive behaviour programme: 'Huakina Mai' (see week 26 blog) that focuses on partnerships with the school, students and whᾱnau, supports relationships and learning experiences that meet students needs. In our technology team and with consultation from our contributing schools we have strong collaboration to support our students.

https://propelsteps.wordpress.com/about/our-story/critiques-on-indian-educational-system/education-system-cartoon/

Another challenge with our education system is lack of funds or access for digital technologies;  even though digital technologies are developing globally at great advances they are not always available to all students in schools. Many students own their own device, so opportunities for students to bring their own devices to schools (BYOD) has allowed more access.

The future global trends students require a new range of skills to be able to have a chance in the competitive global market. The demands of the global trends (National intelligence council, 2012) where students will be faced with many issues around sustainability, cyber safety, world views, climate change and policy makers.

During technology sessions our aim is to do our best by teaching some skills for the future: developing positive and design mindsets, collaboration, problem solving, innovation and communication skills. These skills are taught during sessions through the various practical experiences. The practical experiences are the merely the platform to teach these skills and I really not sure whether the actual practical skills will be valuable for the future? Students also have opportunities to share their ideas with each other to learn that there are different ideas and ways of experiencing learning (divergent thinking).


'Circle time' sharing has also provides opportunities for students to share their ideas and sometimes it will be an alternative subject, which allows students to provide their 'global' view. Students responses often surprise me with their knowledge, interest and understanding on such subjects and the fact that they have very strong opinions and views.


References

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, fromhttp://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

National intelligence council.(2012). Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved fromhttps://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf

The RSA.(2010, Oct 14). RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

Shonkoff's Three Cultures - Scientific research vs policy makers?

Scientific research vs policy makers?

Shonkoff (2000) discusses child development research in regards to science, policy and practice:
Science - Scientists dissect data with a quest for knowledge - new research and what they do not know.
Policy - this is influenced by social and selected knowledge or data is used to form decisions or agendas.
Practice - scientific knowledge and data is influenced by policy. Practitioners are keen to act on research, where policymakers prefer it to be simple and scientists would rather reflect.

In practice we have opportunities to research such as scientists but are bound by policies. Shonkoff (2000) discusses human rights of the parent and the child and privacy issues, which impact on the way we carry out our research practices. This also may not provide the best outcomes for our students by not having all the information that we require. Policies protect us but may also affect and reduce opportunities to provide innovation outcomes. Shonkoff (2000) also mentions that incomplete information  impacts on guiding policy.

Ethical guidelines for educational research to protect participants includes their rights and privacy, the responsibilities to the researchers and the policymakers. The document is elaborate and sets out the guidelines and rights to withdraw.   https://www.bera.ac.uk/researchers-resources/resources-for-researchers

Where policy has been implemented it is important for this to be consistent and be assessed over time (Shonkoff 2000). This is true to be effective and for changes to be made for the desired outcomes.

A blend of the three: science, policy and practice allows a multi perspective approach and this is important in a complex subject such as child development.

 http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irpweb/initiatives/trainedu/igrfp/readings05/Shonkoff2000.pdf)

https://www.bera.ac.uk/researchers-resources/resources-for-researchers

https://www.bera.ac.uk/researchers-resources/resources-for-researchers

Week 26 - APC - Professional Context

The challenges:

We are a Technology Centre within a primary school. We are 'two cultures' (Stoll, 1998) within the school, as we operate with different contexts and timetables.  The timetables are not aligned due to the contributing school slots and we operate session by session, as we only see our students one session per week. 

We operate under our own budget and becoming more independent from our school with our own support staff and equipment. We tend to not share our equipment due to the specialist nature and health and safety issues, which are becoming more accountable.

These structures and constraints restrict collaboration with the greater school staff and is generally limited to the weekly staff meetings. Where possible involve ourselves in our school community to develop these relationships by attending 'picnic' days. We offer our expertise to support the school for school wide projects. 

The eight contributing schools are another part of our community of practice that is vital to develop relationships with these schools. Recently we have  encouraged  teachers and staff to attend sessions and this has reduced challenges by allowing 'collegiality' (Stoll, 1998) to support students for success (TedED, 2012). Teachers are able to experience our 'culture' but at the same time share their school's culture providing 'mutual respect' and 'openness' (Stoll, 1998). 

The changes:

Huakina Mai was introduced to our school beginning of last year. Huakina Mai is about 'getting it right for Maori' especially for learners who are having behavourial challenges at school (Savage, Macfarlane, Macfarlane & Hēmi, 2012). It involves a partnership with the community whᾱnau, students and teachers, developing an awareness of the culture and Te Reo, mana inhancing interactions with students, and ways of behaviour is 'normalised' through dominant discourse. 

We have noticed improvements in student relationships with implementation of using Te reo and developing cultural awareness and implementing culturally appropriate protocols in classroom practices. 

However, further development and  strategies are necessary to underpin the main focus of Huakina Mai - developing partnerships with whᾱnau. This connects to above challenges for us: a Technology Centre with the many schools and students by finding the opportunities for this to happen. Mind Lab has given some insights into this and simply a 'blog' or digital newsletter reaching out to our greater whᾱnau could be options. We offer open days for whᾱnau to join with students and share their learning experiences. 

References

Savage, C., Macfarlane, A., Macfarlane, S., Fickel, L., Hēmi, T. H. (2012). Huakina Mai. A whole school strength based behavioural intervention for Mᾱori, University of Canterbury.

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved fromhttp://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

TEdEd(2013, Jun 21). Building a culture of success- Mark Wilson. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_8Bjz-OCD8

Quantitative or Qualitative?

Which is better to use qualitative or quantitative data?
Reflecting on my practice I use both. The purpose of collecting data to improve practice, raise achievement levels and student success. It is important to have a clear understanding of what you want to find out and to refer back to your research questions (Easton, 2012).

Qualitative:  I ask students for feedback in the form of mini interviews.  I want to try and get as much information as possible and work hard to ask open ended questions (Barker, Pistrang & Elliott, 2016) and if a student is reluctant to offer their opinions in front of others I will ask them individually. Qualitative provides detail about why something is happening with 'why' questions, but does not provide a greater evidence over numbers because usually conducted over smaller groups.

Quantitative:  I use google slides for surveys on iPads that are quick and provide me with a 'big picture' of what students think. Google slides provide great visuals with pie charts and graphs to easily view the break down of the results. The results provide evidence of 'what' and 'how many' but not the greater detail of why something is happening (Easton, 2012). I often select some groups to participate in the surveys, but not always all due to time restraints. I may select groups depending on their cultural, ability, or engagement for specific findings.

http://www.mymarketresearchmethods.com/quantitative-vs-qualitative-research-whats-the-difference/

Both have advantages and disadvantages, so I will continue to use both. To further develop my practice I need to try different types rather than doing the same.

References

Barker, L., Pistrang, N., & Elliott, R. (2016). Research Methods in Clinical Psychology An Introduction for Students and Practitioners. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

Easton, C. (2012) Data for Self Evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.nfer.ac.uk/schools/data-for-self-evaluation-seced.pdf

Week 25 - APC - Reflective Practice

Introduction:

I am a technology teacher at Kaiapoi Borough School. I teach Creative Textiles 4 days a week and 1 day a week in Robotics.

Defining my ‘Community of Practice’

This is hard to define because of the context I teach and the eight contributing schools, the many students, colleagues and support staff. They all form part of the COP as we ‘engage’ with them all to create the best learning outcomes for students and the sense of ‘joint enterprise’ (Wenger, 2000). Students are at the forefront of our COP from the feedback we receive from them and the fact we actually ‘learn’ from the students! They provide valuable information that helps shape the learning programmes and to provide a more purposeful learning experience.  The contributing schools’ practices provide us with insights how we can improve and differentiate our programmes to best suit the needs of their students. Our home school provides opportunities for flexibility and professional development in other curriculum areas.  As a Technology team we are very strong on collaboration and share our ideas that we receive from students, peers and schools.

Contributions to my community of practice

I am constantly reflecting on my practice, which has its ups and downs. However, both are shared with my team to provide a new perspective. Often the positive experiences are taken up and used by another team member – it may be just another way of teaching a concept or a simple ‘circle time’ topic. The not so positive experiences actually end up being a positive because the team learns from these too. If I have had a session that has not gone to plan with a particular group some strategies may be suggested and these may be adopted by another team member when they have a similar experience. 

I share my planning and programme to my team which allows feedback to improve on the development of this and also as a team we borrow each other’s ideas.

One of the most important contributions to my community of practice is the students. I give the students the opportunity to give me feedback at the end of the session: “How did I do?” “What do I need to change?” The students are very forthcoming and provide honest feedback, and sometimes it hurts. Alternatively, I might ask: “How was the session today?” and do a PMI  (positive, minus and interesting). The feedback sometimes surprises me and is vital in how I can forward plan (Findlay, 2008) and teach the next sessions. The students appreciate the fact that I ask them for feedback and value their ideas.

Core values and principles that underpin my profession
The Teaching standards:
 https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/gts-poster.pdf in particular standard 3: understanding contextual factors; students cultural needs and the influences. 

The 'values'  that are developed by each school that have connections to the NZC by embedding these during technology sessions. Students understand their school's values and relationships with students are developed by using their own values.

The principles from the curriculum document (MOE, 2007) – they are all important I have just highlighted these:

Coherence- we gather as much information about students to provide a ‘big picture’ to support their individual learning needs. Sessions are differentiated to provide extra supports or independent learning depending on the students learning needs. Individual learning plans are also developed to provide student success and information is provided to the contributing schools, so they can have an input. The student learning information is passed between the technology teachers to ensure that students are provided with easy transition between the technology areas and to also encourage progression.

Inclusiveness – Each of our students’ groups is a ‘team’. Every team member has the right to be respected and have opportunities to learn. We have ‘circle time’ at the start of the session to encourage this and at the end as a reflection. Students are encouraged to support each other (tuakana/teina). We collaborate as a team using a ‘rights and responsibility’ agreement at the start of the term to build positive relationships and for the students to understand their responsibilities.

Learning to learn – I encourage students to be independent and think for themselves. The key is for them to problem solve and discover solutions by trial and collaboration with peers. The learning experience is much more valuable and they feel proud of their achievements. It is awkward as a teacher to step back sometimes and allow for this to happen, it is so easy to ‘fix’ the problem. They often explain that they actually enjoyed the experience and learnt more. It is essential for students in their journey of ‘lifelong learning’ (Findlay, 2008).

High expectations – I have high expectations of students and sometimes this is challenging. Some students are often nervous and anxious when they initially use the equipment. I know that they can overcome their feelings, but this does take some encouragement. It is often knowing when to let go of the training wheels and walk away, so they can go solo and feel that they are in control and gain the confidence they need. Some students need extra scaffolding to complete learning outcomes, but the expectation is that they will need to ‘give it a go’. Students that can achieve greater levels are encouraged to self-assess their learning and asked: What could they do differently?

References

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved fromhttp://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Ministry of Education (2009) Principles. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Principles

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press