Week 18 - Future-oriented Learning and Teaching

Activity 2: Reflecting on changes in my future oriented teaching practice

I will be using Gibbs reflective cycle as a framework for this reflection. (Finlay, 2008, pg 8)

Step 1: Description: 
Today I will be focusing on Theme 3: A curriculum that uses knowledge to develop learning capability.  "Knowledge is seen as more like a verb than a noun. Knowledge is about creating knowledge and using knowledge, and bringing it to solve problems and find solutions to challenges. "(Bolstad, R et al,  2012, pg 32)
At Tuakau School myself and a colleague designed an inquiry model that developed learning capability. This reflection relates to my leadership of embedding this model into practice at my school. 

Step 2: (Feelings)
I knew the importance of changing our curriculum. "Reproducing existing knowledge can no longer be education's core goal" (Bolstad, R et al,  2012, pg 9) and thought that this inquiry model would be a great way to redesign the understanding of knowledge for our tamariki. I just had to lead this change and ensure all the staff at our school also knew the importance of redefining knowledge.
During our mindlab session on Inquiry we shared our model and Tuakau College saw our model and asked if they could share it with their senior management so I was excited about the possibility that our tamariki would be able to use this model after they leave us and that they will be able to continue to display "learning to do" one of the UNESCO pillars of learning. (Bolstad, R et al,  2012, pg 32) 

Step 3: Evaluation:
What was good about this experience: Having a school wide model of student inquiry was positive. Everyone using the same language and seeing the students enthusiasm and ownership for their learning was so positive. The ways students used their learning was great. Letters to the prime minister, talking to local council members and sharing their learning with others. 
What was bad about this experience: We spend alot of time working with the junior school in how to implement this model for the younger children. Teachers were quite frustrated and overwhelmed with the thought of it. But we overcame this by breaking the model down and scaffolding it with students. The junior teachers would teach the skills for one part of the model each term. eg. Term 1: Asking questions. This would mean the children learnt the model and would be scaffolded to redesign knowledge understanding and would be able to do in independently further up the school.

Step 4: Analysis: 
Analysing my leadership of this change initiative I displayed transformational leadership. 
(Bass and Riggio 2005) state that “ transformational leaders empower followers to pay attention to their individual needs and personal development, helping followers to develop their own leadership potential”  
This was displayed when I worked with the junior team. I allowed them to design an implementation model to introduce the Inquiry model to the younger children and scaffold them to re-design knowledge and how to use their learning to make a difference. By doing this it enabled the laggards "who are so worried they stay awake all night, tossing and turning, thinking up arguments against it" (Robinson, L 2009, pg 6) to become innovators. They had control over where, and which part of the inquiry model they introduced and this was very successful.

Step 5: Conclusion: This was a successful innovation. One of the other reasons for this was that the inquiry model was designed with the Team Leader of the yrs 4-6. So this teacher was an innovator who implemented this so well in the Senior area of the school. The teachers in this are became supports to other teachers and the children were role models sharing their learning with the younger children in the school.

Step 6: Action Plan:
Future implications:

• Planning for how we can unpack our inquiry model with our parents and whanau. 
• Working with Tuakau College so we can use the Tuakau Inquiry Cycle across both schools.

References

Bass, B, & Riggio, R.E. (2005). Transformational Leadership (Second Edition), Routledge

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching- a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from
https://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Robinson, L. (2009). A summary of Diffusion of Innovations. Changeology. Retrieved from http://www.enablingchange.com.au/Summary_Diffusion…