Kate's Inquiry Blog 2017

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND CHANGES IN PRACTICE I have found the Mindlab learning journey to be very challenging and it was hard for me to stick with it until the end. Having not done any tertiary study for 40 years, getting back into assignments, deadlines, and especially recording my ideas in a certain way for a certain purpose was not easy. I guess this is a ‘learning curve’ for me in terms of what I expect from my students. Eg You need to be very knowledgeable, thoughtful and critical about the structure, language features and ideas in your writing when it comes to achieving your purpose for writing. When I submitted assignments ‘back in the day’ they were done by hand, there was no Turnitin and it definitely was not a collaborative exercise! If completing the assignments for Mindlab had not been collaborative , I definitely would not have been able to complete the course. Criteria 7: Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment. I huge benefi...

Interdisciplinary  Collaboration It takes a village to raise a child. Each group on our interdisciplinary map has a role to play in supporting teachers and students in our school to achieve our school vision. Our learning community will be lifelong learners empowered to use all the key competencies to shine in a range of contexts with their voice, agency, and identity. The current situation for the teachers and learners in our school is that we are now learning through play, projects, problem-solving and our passions. (We call it PBL) We learn through inquiring into a problem that is often linked to the students’ passions and involves learning through play. With this change in pedagogy we are finding that teachers and students really need support from people outside of our school staff. At all stages of the inquiry process we now realise that we need ‘experts’ from ‘the real world’ with knowledge, skills and access to resources that will support us to solve our inq...

Using Social Online Networks in Teaching or Professional Development I mistakenly thought that social media w as just apps, websites or platforms like Facebook and Twitter where people communicate personal information with each other. Because I don’t use any of these, I assumed that I wouldn’t be using any social media in my teaching. But… the dictionary.com states that social media are websites and apps that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. So I realised that my students and I are using a wide range of social media to communicate  information, ideas and opinions with others and get response including feedback. Google apps such as shared Google docs, Google forms and presentations are a type of social media that we use on a daily basis. They are great for ‘brain- pooling‘ ideas where everyone contributing can do so at the same time. We have to be mindful of the contributions others are making and connect our o...

Legal and Ethical Contexts in My Digital Practice The potentially worldwide audience for our students to share their learning using chromebooks is both exciting and carries the possibility of danger. Knowing that your learning stories posted on your blog can be read by anyone in the world, means that you put extra thought and effort into informing, entertaining, persuading and engaging your reader. But….. The dilemma for me as a teacher and also for my students is that although communicating with such a huge audience is awesome, there are things that could make this unsafe for them. If their blog posts include photos that identify the students, these could be used in ways not agreed to by the child or their families. At this stage we have not experienced this but we have to be careful when allowing students to include these. Our families sign a document indicating whether or not they want photos to be taken or videos to be made of their children while they are at school and p...

Gay (2001) states that a culturally responsive pedagogy is using cultural characteristics, experiences and perspectives to be an effective teacher. This includes understanding cultural diversity, integrating cultural content, developing a learning community, communicating effectively with diverse learners and using a culturally appropriate method of delivering the curriculum. I think expecting the best from yourself and for your learners is also extremely important Hearing about the findings of the Te Kotahitanga research done by Russell Bishop and others between 2001 and 2008 was hugely significant for me as a teacher and a learner. Being made aware of the voices of Māori students and their whanau was a very powerful way for me to have to take a good hard look at what I was doing and not doing to ensure that Māori students reached their potential. The findings made it really important that I examine my own beliefs and practises and also draw on the funds of knowledge and experience...