Curriculum Design and Engagement

Kia Ora Bloggers,

It seems like a long time since I shared and posted on my blog. I can tell you though I have been extremely busy trying out a variety of things within my teaching programme in order to respond to my question I posed myself at the beginning of this year- 

How can I engage with my learners and establish relationships with them and their whanau and at the same time engage them in their learning irrespective of the circumstances we are in?  

Although the question remains the same, it surely has given rise to many other sub questions and one of which I was grappling with in term 2 was- 

How do I reignite student engagement in a post-pandemic world and the on-going covid outbreaks? 

Currently, we don't have any lockdowns , however, engaging students in their learning and checking in with them regarding their well-being is of utmost significance.

The importance of student engagement in their learning, making deep learning outcomes possible for students, and achieving student retention, is increasingly being understood in this post pandemic year.  It struck me towards the end of term 1 this year that student engagement is going to be a challenge for many teachers and schools.  So, I started thinking of pedagogical practices that would successfully support this transition of my learners from virtual learning caused due to prolonged lockdowns to them being in a class not only physically but also mentally present. 

I then thought, there is not much I can do to improve their home life but what happens in the class I can really make a difference. So, I thought of revamping the way I was designing learning for my learners. As Kift, Sally M. & Field, Rachael M. (2009) state in their research that intentional curriculum design motivates students to learn, provides a positive learning climate, and encourages students to be active in their learning. AND that's what I envisaged for my learners- to be active in their learning.

So, I had a chat with my learners towards the end of term 2 and gathered up their ideas on what makes them excited, what is it that they want to learn about. Carrying out this survey has proven to be highly beneficial as it has not only increased student engagement in their learning but also their achievement is getting better. 

The other major change I started implementing is asking my learners what they want to learn about. What are the topics or subjects that interest them? 

This term learners wanted to learn about the history of protests in New Zealand so along with my learners we created a Google site to study about the history of New Zealand Protests. 

Here is the link to the inquiry page of my class site- we call it the LCS(learn, create, share) page. Learn Create Share is our pedagogy that guides our teaching and learning in Manaiakalani schools. Link 

Another major factor in increasing student engagement in literacy has been through designing T-Shaped literacy units using Google sites as these units are used by the learners in mixed ability groups where the learners choose who they would like to work with and they get two weeks time period to work from a site and this strategy in curriculum design and implementation has proven to be highly effective in engaging the learners. My role has been that of a facilitator of learning and be there for my students to answer their questions and support the ones form a group or be part of a group who have been away from school due to sickness and other reasons. 

Here are the reading, writing and maths slides and if you see them from term 1 , you will be able to notice how these have evolved and how the learning design has changed over the year. 

Reading Tumbles and Learning Slides

 
 

 Writing Tumbles and Learning Slides  

 Maths Tumbles and Learning Slides