COL Inquiry Research Question #1: Summarising the problem of Student Learning

In my last blogpost, I talked about an article I had read that said “The engagement of young people when they learn about Māori history through a Māori context and worldview is a lot more powerful than learning history that's really disconnected with any cultural identity that you know, New Zealanders have and particularly Māori and Pacific students”.

After getting to know my learners for the last 4 weeks, I can see the challenges of our tauira trying to learn about our local Maori history when it is so diverse and fluid.  We as a school are also just at the starting point when it comes to developing a sound understanding of our local histories especially as we working closely with Mana Whenua and our Matua Harley who is new to our Tamaki whanau.

I am rethinking my inquiry and would like to see if I can build engagement in understanding our local and national history through a Maori/Pasifika lens and whether this will create a motivation to want to learn better and achieve success.  Because of my work around the Tapasā, I am going to use the strategies and tools from the document to frame my inquiry around.

The Tapasā Pasifika Success compass puts the Pasifika learner, their parents, families and communities at the centre of the model and they are surrounded by 9 values: Love, belonging, family, respect, service, inclusion, reciprocal relationships, spirituality, leadership.  

I have some wonderings:

• What do these values look like in practice? 
• What do or can they look like in my classroom?
• Do kids feel like they belong in my classroom? 
• Can I ‘see’ the kids which don’t feel like they belong and how can I respond?

I know I need to define what a Pasifika lens is, essentially how our tauira see the world.  

The value that really resonates with me is belonging.  

Where do our tauira feel they belong and if they knew, would they be present and engaged? 

I want to explore an inquiry now:

How can I create a sense of belonging for our taiura so that would be present and engaged in their learning?

TC Sos Dept #4: Online Teaching and Learning, here we go again!

This week we returned to teaching and learning from home while our school came to terms with covid in our community. 

Here is the initial start of an email I sent to my department earlier in the week. 

At our department meeting, we shared how we could engage kids to come online and what our goals were the work.  The team were positive and glad to have had a few weeks with kids to prepare them for what could come. 

When connecting with my year 9 mentoring kids, I wanted to see if they were ok and to allow them to share their concerns.  They were bored and wanted to come back to school.  On average, I had about 6 of the 23 kids come regularly.  

The kids were struggling to keep up with what was due and when so I created a simple tracking sheet for them to help. 

My other year 9 class that I have for Social Studies had a few more students in it and we spent much of our time this week designing what they wanted to do in the times we met online.  We played kahoot, socrative and I allowed them to go into breakout rooms to work on tasks together.  

On average I only saw 4-5 of my senior students when classes were on, which was really disheartening.  If they weren’t sick themselves, many of them were taking care of siblings and family members who were sick, with a few having to go out and work.  I continued to let them know that I will be checking work and checking in on them continuously until we got back to school and a few students responded feeling reassured.

On reflection, all in all, the week seemed to run smoothly.  We knew it was coming but you don't actually believe it until it happens.  I know I need to find more ways to connect to the kids who don't come to online class but at the same I accept that their lives as we know it will continue to be disrupted by covid.

TC Sos Dept #3: Manaiakalani Secondary Social Studies Department Discussion #1 LEARN

Today Scott Mansell and I attended the Manaiakalani Secondary School connects workshop for Social Studies facilitated by Kerry Boyde-Preece.  It was a good opportunity to connect with other schools in our wider cluster group and to share resources.  Kerry shared some wonderful literacy examples that I definitely will try out especially with my juniors.  We also had the chance to hear from Maria Perreau of the Aotearoa Social Studies Educators' Network (ASSEN) who provided access to some relevant resources for Social Studies nation-wide. 

Some of the awesome people at the workshop

COL Inquiry #2: If you know, you know! Knowing my biases to understand myself

The purpose of this blog is to identify any possible biases, prejudices and actions of privileging that I may have, that might influence my approach to teaching.  According to the Tapasā to 'know oneself fully is to understand one’s own biases, prejudices and actions of privileging’ (Tapasā, pg 7).  I wanted to understand what this meant further so I did some research.

To start with, I did what a lot of people do when they try to figure out the meaning of something, I googled it.  I put in ‘understanding own bias in education’ and I found a really interesting opinion piece article about The Pygmalion Effect. The article was called "Focusing on the wrong end of the problem" and it shared how students grow into their teachers’ expectations.  

The article was published in June 2021 and the writer Anton Blank did a small experiment.

“At an Auckland secondary school this month, I asked a group of eight Māori and Pasifika students to try sitting with Asian and Pākehā students, and come back a week later with their findings. All, except one, got more attention from their teachers. All, except one, got more attention from their teachers. The student who reported no difference was already sitting with a diverse group of friends.

The lesson here was not just seating the students differently that the relationship with the teacher changes, it was about how a teachers perceptions unconciously influenced their actions.

In economic theory, this is called a nudge — an environmental change that encourages humans towards a desired behaviour.  If, therefore, we understand racism and bias as an aspect of the human condition, that we are all capable of these behaviours, we can make sense of the political and social world and navigate it more successfully. 

If we use the iceberg analogy, most of a teachers behaviours and triggers sit below the level of their conscious awareness.  They don’t realise they spend more time with Asian and Pākehā students. Māori students see it, though, and retreat to the back of the classroom, where they sit in groups and disengage". 

To understand my bias, prejudices and actions of privileging, I need to provide context.  I am Samoan and was born and raised in South Auckland.  My parents were migrants in the early 70's.  In my professional experience I have taught at my secondary school for 23 years and have been involved in various roles in and out of the school.  The following wonderings are based on my own experiences (so please don't judge me):

My Maori Students

I am always worried about the Maori students in my class all of the time.  I always think that their families are probably displaced in our community and that Glen Innes is most likely not their whanau, iwi, hapu or tribe and that they are probably disconnected to this place.  There maybe one or two who come from well-supported, strong cultural homes but the sadly a lot of our kids don’t come from these homes. A few of our Maori students have very strong Pasifika friends and would identify more closely with them and their cultures, than their own.

When I think of my actions towards my Maori students, I think I am probably too nice and understanding and not expecting too much especially it might be too hard for them and sympathise with them.  I'm just happy that they are at school.  I want them to succeed but it’s ok if they don’t because it’s not their fault.  This then lowers my expectations of them, which means I am continuing the cycle of low expectations and underachievement that I always say I am fighting against.  What a hypocrite! Hmmm not good.

My Pasifika Students

Most of our Pasifika kids come from very strict backgrounds and are deeply rooted in their church and their cultures.  Economically, parents or families are working. There are very few full Tongan students that don’t know how to speak Tongan which is amazing.  The most challenging of our Pasifika students (and these are mostly boys) come to school to find their place in the hierarchy of their social and peer groups and sometimes they forget the key values of respect and service.

My actions to the Pasifika students is that I have very high expectations of them because I know that they came from proud people who worked hard for them to get where they are.  I always say to them that they are ‘standing on the shoulders of their ancestors’ and wherever you go, you take your identity and your people with you.  I see them excelling and being the best versions of themselves and my actions towards them reflect this.  I am tougher on them then the other students in the class because they need to work harder then everybody else for the who they are.

I am what the kids call ‘chilled’ so the attention is usually redirecting or supportive rather than strict when it comes to managing classroom behaviour.  Sometimes this then becomes a lot of positive affirmations for the naughty kids and a lot less attention on the kids who are actually working.  I fear this happens in most of my kids classes.  This is something I need to look further into and this has a direct impact on the expectations I have of the kids in my class.

Raising achievement for my kids to an equal playing field.

Do I treat my Maori students differently to my Pasifika students? I think I do and part of it is because I am a Pasifika person and can relate to the Pasifika kids, it's a given.  It's not what I want to do but it's what I know.  What I need to do now that I've identified important biases (conscious and unconscious) is to think about ways to understand how to raise my level's of expectations for all the learners, but I must make a more concerted, conscious effort for my Maori students now that I think I know my biases. I found an image that I think is appropriate.  I want to break down the barriers which starts with knowing oneself, accepting that we all have biases and prejudices and start actions to address it. That change starts with me.

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #2: Balancing content and skill.

For year 9’s this year, I am looking at the less is more approach: less content but with more in-depth learning on specific contexts and less ‘just writing’ and more scaffolds to support the learners to craft their writing.  The reason for this is that I’ve found that students weren’t providing enough quality writing that showed their understanding of what they’d learnt because we spent a lot of time on learning about content itself. 

Our year 9’s learn about 3 theories of Migration and have to identify and describe which one could be the most true and likely theory, based on the information provided and their own research.  We had 2 lessons for the learning of the content, one lesson for the learning of the skills of writing a paragraph and one lesson for the creating and sharing of their learning.  Students could also work on their paragraphs for homework.

Learn … about the theories

We went through a discussion of each of the 3 theories (Hawaiiki, South America and Asia) and I tried to provide the same amount of learning time for each.  I allowed for questions to be asked and for students to discuss their ideas with their peers.

Create … paragraphs that show their understanding of the theories

Students were then encouraged to use key bullet points from each of the theories to write a paragraph to share with their peers.  At this point I decided to teach about the  skill of writing a paragraph writing using our T.E.X model to help scaffold the students writing using a template that supported essay writing in Social Studies.

Share …their learning in a blogpost

Students were to create a blogpost about their learning.  Unfortunately we ran out of time so I had hoped to get them to blog when we have time.

An example of the change in writing before and after using the TEX model

Reflection

Normally I would have taught this part of the unit in two periods but because we had an extra 2 periods to craft their writing and to allow them to process and create their understanding of the learn, they were able to produce some good paragraphs.  

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of achievement by providing enough time for everyone to get the paragraphs done

COL Meeting #1: Understanding the basis of our inquiry

Today we had our first COL meeting for the year and it was nice to see some of the team actually in person!  Our co-ordinator Russell Burt led us through our session and we started with a discussion on what life was like coming back to school, what the vibe was like in our classes, what we noticed with our families and whānau and what would excite us about the year.

Our past inquiries have been based on the 6 achievement challenges across our cluster.  After 2 years of covid, the goal posts have shifted and we are in a super challenging space where kids don’t know what ‘normal’ school is.  Our achievement challenges don’t seem to be suited to our current learners needs.  Today we were asked to think about a shared inquiry challenge question:

How do I have present, happy, healthy, engaged tauira who are learning in the “Goldilocks Zone”.

I needed to re-familiarise myself with what the Goldilocks zone meant.  When I googled it, there was the lovely Dr Jannie explaining ‘Working in the learner’s ‘Goldilocks zone on Vimeo. 

Dr Jannie explains how the Goldilocks zone is the art of providing new learning that is in the just right zone (not too easy or too hard etc).  This is the where optical conditions for learning and uptake exist.

How do we know if a child is in their ‘Goldilocks zone’. 

We need to have continuous stock take and evidence points before, during and at the end of learning.

Most usually, the expression is oral and tauira can be talking their learning.

• Think about an idea and share.
• Take turns and tell what you know.
• Think, pair share.
• Give a reason and explain abit more.
• Organise the strips into the order of the story and tell why you’ve arranged them that way.
• Arrange the words in groups that belong under one heading then explain.  

These are triggers to reveal a learners known and uptake of new information. 

Armed with this information, I hope to now refocus my inquiry to ensure that I keep the shared inquiry of How do I have present, happy, healthy, engaged tauira who are learning in the “Goldilocks Zone” at the forefront of my own inquiry.

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #1: Slowing down the learning.

When introducing a new unit, I always start by using a double period to focus on teaching and learning 7 key concepts needed to understand the unit.  I don’t allow devices and expect students to use their brains to work hard to remember the concepts and their meanings (please see previous inquiry and video).  

This year was no exception and I invited members of my department to come and observe how I did it.  One of them commented on how engaged even the most challenging students were and how in their teaching, they needed to practice more patience when using wait time and that they tend to rush through the teaching.   They also shared that the levels of confidence of the students to speak and verbalise what they learnt, even though it was basic was really cool to see.  I told them it was really hard at first and I had to slow my thinking before I could slow the teaching.

I was really happy with how well my year 9's engaged with the lesson.  The lack of distractions from devices really helped and I gained a small sense of accomplishment even from the toughest of critics.  

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of achievement by remembering the 7 concepts helps to set the tone of learning.

T.C Sos Dept #2: Social Sciences connecting with Project RISE

Making connections with Project RISE

At the end of last year, our staff were introduced to a new initiative called ‘Project RISE’ that would involve working more closely with our community to support the needs of our young people and their families.  In December 2021, each department started with an initial meeting with two of the initiatives directors, Ina Micheal and Tash Audi who shared how important our curriculum area was in the greater scheme of Project RISE.

This week Ina and Tash returned to our department meeting this year to provide us with an update of where the project was at and where any ideas we had could inform the projects progress moving forward.  We shared all the different ways we already connected with our community and our hopes with developing these connections better moving forward.

A key aspect we raised was the need for a creative and performing arts space.  We can teach kids about the content of their histories and perspectives and about their culture and identity but they have no outlet to show this in performing arts and these needs to be valued.  After a good discussion about what we would want in an ideal world, we identified some key plans moving forward. It was a productive session and we shared how excited we were to have a voice in some of the key decisions around learning spaces in the school.

Year 9 Mentoring: Getting to know my year 9 Mentoring class

 I am blessed to have a year 9 Mentoring class this year and I have so many wonderings.

• Who are these young people and how did they get here?
• What kinds of lives do they have?
• Are their homes and families loving and supportive?
• How will I mentor them and help them in their transition to secondary school?
• How do they feel about college?
• Do they know who THEY are?
• What do they want to be when they grow up?
• What are their values?  What do they care about?

I have a 13 year old granddaughter who started college this year.  I will take some guestimations on what I think the answers could be just from experience which may be completely off so here goes.

• Most of them live in the area and probably have siblings or relatives that have come to our school.  
• I guess they come from families who may struggle, both parents working. I think our Maori students are different to our Pasifika students and our one Filipino student.  I hope that their homes are loving and supportive but I know it might not always be the case so I need to be emotionally prepared to expect this.
• I've done an inquiry in the past about the impact of transitions from years 8 to 9 and know that this is one of the biggest transitional change in a child's schooling journey.  It would be scary not knowing what it would be like and I need to take this into account. 
• I think at 13 years of age, they care about about friends, peer groups and family.  Fitting into the right group may also be on their minds
• Some may know what they want to be when they grow up and some won't know which is ok.
• I would think some would say they value their families and it's part of my job to help instill in them our school values and what that would look like in action.

Ethnic Breakdown of the class

I did an ethnic breakdown of my class so I can understand what cultures we have present.  I have chosen to graph the 1st ethnic groups listed on Kamar although there are 7 students who have more then one ethnic group that they identify with which is important to note.

Of the 23 students,  16 are Pasifika, 5 are Maori, 1 is Filipino and one identifies with NZ European.  This information will help me with how I approach whole class interactions and individual discussions with my kids.

Building Trust

The first activity that I did with my class was to ask them to introduce themselves, what primary school they came from one thing they enjoyed doing.  I was interested to see who was confident and who was shy and all but one boy got up and spoke. 

I shared with my class some of ‘My Why’ and what gets me up in the morning.  I want to kids to know how important knowing who you are and where you come from right from the get go and sometimes I know as a teacher, I need to be willing to share what's important to me so that my kids can feel safe and will hopefully trust me.  I know it is important to build a relationship with my kids before even expecting them to engage in their classroom learning.  It's also a bonus that I teach my mentoring class for Social Studies.