My Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher Journey

Kia Ora

November 22nd was our final hui for Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers program

and marks the end of my journey for my project this year. It's been long and at times

challenging journey but it has been invigorating having to examine my own thinking

and ask the question 'am I doing what's best for my ākonga (students)?'  Also creating

friendships with my MIT colleagues this year. I am so thankful for the professional

connections I have been able to make through being part of this team. 

The slide below has some clickable links if you wish to explore where I came from

and where I finished this year. It might be the end of my MIT 2021 journey but it

surely is beginning of me thinking more flexibly and continue to make the needed

changes to make sustainable gains in engagement and achievement in learning for

my students. 

Thank you

Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher Journey 2021

Click here to view the video 

Critical Questions

Critical questioning explained by some learners in my class for the learners and educators in our Manaikalani cluster of schools. 

Click here to view the video

2021 Wananga Presentation Slides

 

MIT 2021| Project Update

Where am I at with regards to my MIT journey/project and how lockdown has not stopped me from working on my project but has certainly made me think innovatively and change the pathway to meet the required goals for this Term and October school break. 

Visiting 6 Different Schools in Rarotonga

Experience of visiting schools around in your local community is something really special,  informative and a great learning experience. I was absolutely lucky enough to visit 6 different schools in Rarotonga. 

It was an incredibly informational experience as we visited each school and got to learn about how they deliver the curriculum- what their curriculum entails and how they cater for the diverse student needs. This was really interesting as each school had their own flavour and feel. One thing that was common at most schools was the vision of each school was not only displayed in the schools but very visible in the classrooms. 

Like New Zealand there are other dominant cultures and the responsibility of treasuring the Cook Island culture is not taken lightly by the schools we visited. 

I am so thankful again to the Manaikalani Education Trust, to name a few Jenny, Dorothy and Matt for organising this one of the most wonderful opportunity and providing us with a chance to not only go and walk through six different schools in Rarotonga but also have the time to chat with the principals of each school and some teachers. I really enjoyed listening to their journey and make connections with our journeys here in New Zealand. Journey of 'Teaching and Learning", journey of learning, creating and sharing'. 

To sum up this post I would say a big thanks to all the principals and staff members of every school that we visited for not only welcoming us so warmly with open arms but also being so willing to share their success stories and their school's journey. Really very special. 

What springs to my mind now as I reflect on our visits to all the six schools is that if we have a positive mindset as educators, have the heart to go for it , build relationships and let our kids be the best that they can be - we can make a huge difference in this big wide world. 

Each school we visited had their own special way of giving their learners with the best possible educational outcomes. It was heartening to see and experience. 

I wonder if I will ever be able to visit Rarotonga again after a few years. 

Pecha Kucha Presentation in Rarotonga

Click on the image and read what Pecha Kucha means. 

Last week on 21st July I had the ultimate opportunity to present in front of an international audience. Wow! Those of you who have been looking at my blog will know that I am one of the Manaiakalani innovative teachers this year. 

Towards the end of May this year we found out that we will be lucky enough to travel to Rarotonga and share our learning journey regarding our projects this year with educators over in Raro. 

So, when I started working on preparing my Pecha Kucha presentation in order to share my learning journey of where I am at with my project so far, you can well imagine the excitement. I was absolutely thrilled but a little bit nervous as well. My project this year focusses on designing a tool that helps with raising my learners' critical literacy skills. I have been really working on providing the learners' in my class with the opportunities that not only raise their critical literacy skills but engages them in their learning at an level where this raise in their skills is sustained for years to come and becomes a well established skill they use for a prolonged period of time. 

Therefore, my main focus has been around developing their ability to question, generate discussions about texts they read and through texts they read. 

So, we all prepared 20 slides to present and the slide I just showed in the screencastify above was one of the slides. I found learning to prepare for the Pecha Kucha presentation a bit nerve wrecking as the whole process for me was something I had not really done a lot of. 20 images, 20 slides and you talk about each image. You have to talk more and write less- it's basically an image on the slide and you talk about it but you only have to cover what you want to say about the image in 20 seconds. And it is not as easy as it sounds- there's a bit of trick to it which I am really thankful to acquire (kind of acquire) before the big presentation at the Manaiakalani Wananga held in October in Auckland. 

Me presenting

I will definitely say one thing that my presentation in Raro was not perfectly a good example of Pecha Kucha presentation, however, the experience I gained from doing this presentation was just invaluable. I got to present in front of educators in Raro and I got to share my learning with them. I got asked a lot of questions, which was really reassuring and made a lot of connections with the educators there. 

To sum up this post, I am really thankful to the Manaiakalani Education Trust and in particular Jenny, Dorothy and Matt from Manaikalani who were the driving force behind organising this once in a lifetime professional opportunity for us Manaiakalani innovative teachers this year, especially in the global conditions we are facing due to Covid 19. 

Thank you Manaiakalani Education Trust for making this happen for us. I will remember this experience in many many years to come and remember it every year as a motivator to do better to get better educational outcomes for all our learners. 

The Cook Island Cultural Experience

Kia Orana Bloggers,

Last week I was able to go to Rarotonga as part of the 2021 Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher programme to present my project. We got to share our journey so far with the educators from all around the Cook Islands. 

To get to know more about the beautiful Cook Islands we were hosted by Mark Harris and his school Te Oki Ou.

First we were formally welcomed by the school students and staff by organising a Turou (Cook Island welcome). We were each presented with a ei made of tipani or frangipani.

In the Cook islands, 'ei are used on many occasions, including receptions to welcome or farewell dignitaries, at graduations and even at funerals. 'Ei are a symbol of friendship, love and respect. 'Ei are also used by Cook Islanders in their everyday dress. 'Ei can be worn day or night, on special occasions, or just for completing one's dress when going out.  

Mark Harris with his senior leadership team providing us with a bit of a debrief before we are welcomed by their wonderful school (Students and Staff). 

The whole school performed a Turou (powhiri) of song, drumming and prayer. We were invited up to dance although I felt shy, the students made us feel very welcome.

The image on the right hand side shows our schedule while we were in Raro and being immersed in the cultural immersion through the school visits to six different schools.  

These activities, along with the drumming and screenprinting showed me how important the land and culture is to the Cook Island people. Like New Zealand there are other dominant cultures and the responsibility of  treasuring the Cook Island culture is not taken lightly by the schools we visited.

The hospitality shown to us was so generous as people welcomed us with open arms and delicious food.

Presentation Slides

Finally, I have completed my Raro Slide Deck ready to be presented to educators in Rarotonga sometime between 21st and 23rd July next week. I really look forward to this amazing opportunity as I get to share my MIT journey with our colleagues in Raro and get to hear from all of my other MIT colleagues and their journey so far... The challenges we face in our own setting and how we are tackling the identified challenge or challenges in our classrooms with our learners. What are we doing to make a difference or achieve the desired imapct? 

Using- Socratic Questioning Way

An update on what I've been up to with regards to my Manaiakalani innovative teacher journey so far...

Since mid of June I have been focussing on using the socrative way of questioning in my class. You might wonder what is Socrative way of questioning. Well...

Introducing the socratic way of questioning has been absolutely fantastic as it showed students how they could have extended discussions on a topic or an idea or a question in it self. For example- Should Matariki be a celebration for all New Zealanders? Student A says yes and gives their reason and student B challenges their reason or asks a question about their reason. Building their perspectives and making them confident in doing this. 

Socratic questioning has also helped my students develop critical literacy skills as they are beginning to make informed statements and decisions on social issues. 

I look forward to my trip to Rarotonga in the last week of this month where I will have the opportunity to share my journey so far with some educators there. All the Manaiakalani innovative teachers are going from this year and also a few from last year are joining the group this year.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. 

Kia Ora 

Project Update

Kia Ora,

If you have been reading my blog, you would remember that this year I am part of the Manaiakalani innovative teacher team. As part of this awesome team I have the opportunity to design, innovate and create a tool that will support teaching of critical literacy skills to our tamariki (children) in the Manaiakalani community of schools. 

The challenge that I identified at the beginning of the year was that many of our tamariki (children) have gaps in their application of critical literacy skills, especially when they are reading texts. This starts at an early age when we see gaps or low levels of comprehension. So, from the beginning of the year I have been gathering data and analysing the findings. 

Here is a link to the teacher questionnaire I asked my colleagues at Glen Taylor school (School I work at) to take and the students responded to questions on this padlet. 

I discussed the responses with my colleagues and students separately. We drew out common themes and gaps. 

Since Term one I have been implementing programmes, ways and using resources that are going to fill these gaps and hopefully not only fill the gaps but accelerate student engagement in a way that promotes their learning of critical literacy skills. 

Two of the websites that I am using in my literacy programme that are really making a positive difference in student engagement and their achievement too are - ARBS website and Pobble for writing. I use ARBS not only in my literacy programmer but also Maths. 

Here is the link to ARBS website  that I am currently using to get resources for my tamariki and implementing these into my literacy programme. 

ARBS is free for New Zealand educators and the variety of resources is of high quality ranging from level 1 of the curriculum to level 5.  

The other website that is having a huge positive impact on student learning and engagement is Pobble. 

Here is the link to this website. Every week as part of the daily 5 students do a task from Pobble. Here is the link to this week's. 

All the students in my class enjoy doing their activity from Pobble. It's not just writing, it is more than that. The students get to think about , discuss and share their responses to various questions about an image. 

Here is a video link of an online toolkit I ran early this month on creating a T-Shaped literacy unit and what T-Shaped literacy is.

Link to the site from where I ran my toolkit. Link to the video of the toolkit. 

To summarise, I am really enjoying trying to create a tool that will enable students to master their critical literacy skills. I believe the students have it in them , we just need to find a way or ways to help them get there. I am hoping that the tool I am developing this year will help with this end goal. 

Goal to engage our tamariki and maximise their learning outcomes and their achievement. 

Take care. 

Blog soon. 

Dangers of Judgement- Danger of a Single story...

 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie| TED Talk 

Listen to this 10 minute very powerful snippet from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk about " The Danger of a Single Story".

When I watched this TED talk and heard Chimamanda share her experiences tears rolled down my eyes as I was reminded of very similar experiences and stories. I remembered how I felt or was made to feel by some people by the way they questioned me about my life in India. When I first came to New Zealand I often was posed questions that just left me shattered. Like Chimamanda I too was not seen as someone having Shania Twain as one of my favourite singers in college and spice girls being our group favourite. 

This TED talk reminds me to always have appreciation for where people come from, their backgrounds and their mana- respect people for who they are. 

As an educator , as a teacher, as a mother I know my only chance to make a difference in young people's lives is if I know them, believe in them, respect where they come from because no matter who , no matter where - we all bring with us something that adds to the collective basket of knowledge and paves the way for the future, a better future for us. 

This TED talk reminds me to see the young people in front of me as wholes not halves- they too don't have a single story like me. 

It is our experiences that shape us in who we become... so, as educators let's provide our young people with experiences that are going to help them to become who they really want to become. 

Kia Ora.