Week 18: Future Oriented Teaching and Learning

Future Oriented Teaching and Learning

Week 18: A critical reflection on how I have positively changed my practice during my postgraduate journey.

Figure 1: Gibbs’ reflective cycle (Finlay, 2008, p. 8)

Description:

I have chosen Theme 5: ‘A culture of continuous learning for teachers and educational leaders specifically through research and readings,’ as my focus for reflecting on positive changes to my practice since embarking on my postgraduate journey.

Positive changes to my practice:

·        Developing a growth mindset.

·        Using deeper reflection.

·        Interacting with colleagues through a lens of understanding of their leadership skills, teaching styles and where they are in their own journey.

·         Beginning to plan for educational shifts towards 21^st Century learning.

·         Developing digital technologies within my programme.

·         Having an increased online presence to collaborate and share/receive ideas.

My most significant change in practice has been from within, through a Growth Mindset. This has come through readings and research and my Mind Lab journey and challenged me use digital technologies in my programme.

Feelings: 

The Mind Lab readings have given me confidence in implementing See Saw in my classroom without fear of mistakes because I knew they were going to happen. I thought the use of technology in the class was a passive activity which was off-putting. I was nervous when I had to implement a digital change initiative.

Reading (Kotter, 1995), grew my confidence to implement See Saw as a digital learning journal. I was hopeful it would; collect data on how students felt about their learning, show they understood what they were learning, improve the quality of writing, be a source for my teacher judgements and assist in build closer ties with whānau. I had high expectations.

We were slow to start but when we saw glimmers of success a sense of excitement grew and the initiative gained momentum. Student’s and families showed high levels of engagement.

Evaluation:  

The positive feedback from colleagues, students and whānau contributed to my evaluation of the initiative as the beginnings of success we just needed more time to continue. Putting in the time to research first gave me the extra confidence to get started. 

The initiative’s teething troubles were because we were new to using technology. The application felt a little clumsy but as Nottingham 2016, says “You have to be in the pit before you can achieve success.” We began developing a Growth Mindset (Dweck, 2006) and shared this with the students. These readings helped keep us going.

See Saw has been a successful starting point for implementing digital technologies.

Looking at the bigger picture I can see the value of the research in developing pedagogy around using digital tools and how this will flow on to future initiatives.

Analysis:

Key issues were frustration at our lack of knowledge around the See Saw application, the stability of our internet, and the shortage of digital devices. My time management around implementing the initiative could improve. Next time I would build on skills and timetable the use of devices.

Using the theory of ‘Distributed Leadership’ Spillane, (2012), was best as I found others who had more experience and could solve initial problems. This added to the whole staff buy in.

I will use this approach in the future because it draws on the strengths of both staff and students and looking further our community.

Conclusion:

The students were actively engaging in using See Saw and parents were engaged in a way we had not offered before. There will now be an expectation for learning to be shared this way and for our learning community to become more cohesive.

Research and readings have challenged me to ask more questions and never be satisfied. I aim for the paradigm shift in thinking needed to prepare our students for their future.

Action:

I see my next step is to research further on personalising learning in the form described by Bolstad (2012).I will  continue to develop my implementation of digital technologies, 21^st Century skills and developing a Growth Mindset. I would use Distributed Leadership to enhance all initiatives.

References

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 fromhttp://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

Gibbs, G. (1998). Learning By Doing: A guide to Learning and Teaching Methods. London: Further Education Unit. Retrieved from https://app.themindlab.com/media/79183/view

Nottingham, J. The Learning Challenge: How to Guide Your Students Through the Learning Pit to Achieve Deeper Understanding. 1^st Edition. (2017). Corwin publishing. California.

Spillane, J.P. (2012). Distributed Leadership. Retrieved from http:/bookcentral.proquest.com Created from unitec on 2017-08-20 22:02:15.

Kotter, J. (1995). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review. March-April 1995, 59-67.

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. New York.