Last Term started off on a high note after me being back from Rarotonga after sharing my successes and challenges with teachers there. I had planned to kick off the Term by getting straight into working on my Manaiakalani innovative teacher journey and complete developing the tool for Manaiakalani schools. BUT then... Week 3 had just finished and start of week 4 brought the big nationwide lockdown. Auckland is still in level 3 lockdown.
Lockdown equals online teaching, seeing your learners online, lots of planning and thinking of innovative ways through which learners can access the curriculum and learning tasks.
One key element was relationships. Having a good positive relationship with my learners did give me a head start or a good kickstart I should say as I launched myself into online teaching. However, after about two weeks I saw myself struggling to keep online sessions fun, positive and upbeat. They were turning to be mundane, boring and basically me talking talking majority of the time and explaining tasks.
I then reflected on this and thought of changing the way I was doing stuff. I planned for more learners engaging in conversations rather than simply answering questions. I planned for more learners talking during the sessions than myself.
To my surprise, it was not that hard. All I had to do was give more leadership to learners and opportunities for them in running the sessions. Giving them prompts to start talking on a topic, create tasks that made the learners talk, share more and discuss. Created padlets for learners to put their ideas and during Google meets we commented on the different things/ideas we saw on the padlet. Commenting on each other's blog posts. Doing activities during Google meets like saying something nice about a class member. Choosing a different class member each time. Students leading the morning Paepae session (It is starting the day the Aotearoa way using lots of Te Reo Language). Very quickly towards the end of Week 3 and beginning of week 4 of lockdown/online teaching and learning I saw this subtle but huge shift- I was talking less and the learners were talking heaps more. I had become a facilitator rather than the initiator or the one talking all the time. Google Meets had become a fun space for all of us to be in.
Making this change or shift stopped me from making online teaching boring and the same old stuff and it stopped the attendance from dropping in Google Meets.
Every-time I come across a challenge in my teaching I realise each time that one must keep trying and that's our responsibility as reflective practitioners and ask for help if we need and innovate and collaborate. I have to give credit and mention my colleagues and team members I met with every Wednesday from Week 3 and we discussed our low moments and high moments both on personal and professional level and engaging in korero with them really helped me do my best during lockdown teaching and learning. Lastly, but absolutely not the least the students in my class and the student teacher in my class Sharon Chan. My students have been the guiding light for me in paving a pathway for us during these times.
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