T.C Sos Dept #6: Effective Online Learning Environments PLD

Today our department took part in a PLD that supports the Hybrid Teaching and Learning model our school has taken on this term.  It was good to revisit the nuts and bolts of this type of teaching and learning as we could always find new and innovative ways to engage our learners.  We revisited the SAMR model which helped us to that we were already doing and think about some new ways of doing the old stuff differently.

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #4a: The Dawn Raids Content

In year 9 Social Studies, I decided to introduce learning about the Dawn Raids as part of our migration unit.  In the past, I have left it for the seniors to learn about but I felt it was a good example of an ‘intervening obstacle’ that made life difficult for Pacific migrant groups in the 70’s.  It also allowed us to explore the social actions that led to the apology by the Government.  This part of the unit took 8 periods to teach, including learning how to write a good dawn raids essay.  I have divided this blogpost into two parts: The Content and the skill building.

PART ONE: 

Learn…the content

Through a series of in-depth lessons about the Dawn Raids.

We started by revisiting our 7 key concepts and making links to the 'intervening obstacles' created by the Dawn Raids'. 

We then explored the social action and the lead up to the apology.

 

Create…a presentation to show your understanding (individually and in groups)

Students worked in groups to discuss and create a powerpoint to show their understanding of dawn raids to New Zealand history.

Individually, students then created a document that allowed them to further explore the dawn raids and how a group of people presented a petition to parliament that caused the government to apologise. 

Share…a blogpost

Students wrote about their thoughts and views around the Dawn Raids and why they thought it was important to learn about.

Reflection

I tried to use a variety of mediums to capture and engage students through videos and discussions about how people were feeling at the time.  I think my kids enjoyed these more than me trying to teach and talk them through the events of the time.  We pointed out vocab and words we weren't familiar with reinforced them throughout the teaching so that kids would become more and more familiar with them.  Engagement wise, I felt the kids enjoyed the lessons.

Linking to my inquiry

Creating contexts that kids would want to learn about.

Year 9 Social Studies: The importance of Pepeha

To get to know my kids and for them to get to know each other, I asked to create and recite their pepeha in front of their peers.  I shared mine first and provided a template for them to create theirs.  I have 2 year 9 classes and one class really embraced the exercise whilst my other one, not so much.  I hope that by the end of the year, 2 things happen:  they know their pepeha off by heart and they are confident in presenting in front of their classmates.

COL Inquiry #2: Selecting the problem of student learning

Manaiakalani Challenge this year

For this year, our COL focus has changed to ‘How do I have present, happy, healthy, engaged tauira who are learning in the “Goldilocks Zone”;

The challenge:

In 2018, I was preparing my year 9 class for their asttle test by looking at one of the possible topics for their essay.  The students had to write about one important place in their community and say why it was important and who it was important too.  When I looked at some of their answers, a number talked about the local pools, the library and different parks in the neighbourhood.  When I surveyed the class and asked them to identify other places of significance and many of them couldn’t.  A few admitted that they never go out and didn’t care to.  When I asked why, they said there was nothing important about their neighbourhood.  I was saddened to here this and wondered about ways to get them to care about their community.

My initial thoughts for an inquiry this year was based around how to engage our Pasifika students in our local Maori history through a Maori lens.  I have been doing a bit of research and discussing this draft with a few people to see if will support my students and my school especially with the introduction of the new Aotearoa Histories.  

Background to my inquiry:

I have been brainstorming with Scott Mansell, our TIC of History and other COL staff around how to link my inquiry with a focus on the new Aotearoa Histories curriculum that needs to implemented next year.  I was interested in the Pasifika History component in Aotearoa resonates with me.  It is part of the new Histories curriculum and I would love to expose students to their own histories and knowledge.  One of the challenges we have in year 10 social studies is making the treaty interesting but I feel we probably leave it too late in year 10 to understand the Treaty and to engage students in learning about parts of history that have often been left like the dawn raids.

I am still in the scanning and skimming stages to learn more about where the ‘gaps’ are but an article I read last year had resonated with me. "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.".  The space has been provided to allow the local histories to come alive and be told with the final launch of the Aotearoa Histories curriculum recently.  I feel excited about the possibilities of the new journey the curriculum can offer our students and community.

I have started research and plan different resources and tasks to help me get to my inquiry:

• Developed a new year 9 migration unit shared with my department and how it has a strong Maori focus.
  
• Got each of my department members to stand up and share pepeha as it allows the connection of the staff to and from
  
• Have my 2 year classes stand up and share their pepeha (videoed the class)
  
• Create designed based thinking models in our Sos team for teachers only day (highly commended, I have video).
  
• Am working with Ruby, Scott and 9PAp to develop a project based animation to tell the stories of our local Iwi and Indigenous peoples’.
• Discuss the new curriculum with Scott and members of my department to gage how we can utilise in our department.  

Next steps:

• Meet with Dr Jannie to understand more about the ‘Goldilocks zone’
  
• Complete local iwi trip with Ngati Paoua, my year 9 class and support them in understanding the context.
  
• Student voice surveys for the junior classes
  
• Research more on what other schools are doing to address the new curriculum.
  
• Work closely with Ruby to design a cross-curriculum engaging programme for our shared class.

After discussing and reading my initial draft, my principal suggested narrowing my inquiry to a smaller more specific focus and focus group which is important for me to do so I can manage it better and more intentionally.  After also talking to Scott about how I can support the Aotearoa Histories curriculum in it’s early stages, I feel it’s important to engage the learners in front of me and to build a programme that can hopefully support and engage them in their learning.

My Possible Inquiry class: 

I am currently teaching two year 9 Social Studies classes and one of them is my mentoring class.  I have not had a year 9 tutor class for at least 10 years and I feel like a parent who has inherited 28 new babies.  For the last few weeks, I have been getting to know them and connecting with their whanau.  I want to build this connection so that they can trust me to know what’s important for their learning.  I have a mixed ability class and I will be formulating a profile of students by gathering data both past and present as well as other qualitative and quantitative data. 

My inquiry at this stage will be:  

How do I engage and empower my year 9 Social Studies class to ‘care’ about their local history?

(Watch this space for the rewording)

Reset, renew and re-go again!

The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. 

I had covid and my 10 days expired the day before my daughter got married!

I had been sharing the build up and preparations for the big day with some of my students (all while battling mild covid symptoms) who have attended online classes as well as my team who helped hold the department together with their hard work and commitment. 

Because our website and workspaces were organised, I felt confident that kids who attended classes or we doing the work on their own were ok, but it was the ones that weren’t coming to class that I needed to worry about and being able to come back to school this week is all about resetting and reflecting for me and my tauira.  

As an aside, on the wedding day itself, it just happened to coinside with an email that went to all staff acknowledging long service at Tamaki College and a beautiful cake was delivered to our homes.  I have been at Tamaki for like the longest time, 23 years so far and when thanking the SLT for the cake, I relayed how important the teachers were in moulding my daughters life.  Essentially, it was them and their belief in her that helped prompt and push her to stay at school and complete NCEA.  What a blessing!

Oh and the wedding went well! Although I loved being mother of the bride, I wouldn’t want to go through that again in a hurry!

Me, dad, bride, bridesmaid and grandbabies about to go to the wedding!

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #3: Connecting learning to context.

After our initial introduction to concepts, it was time to apply those concepts to real life learning.  The migration model is a simple visual that connects all of the concepts that we have learnt together.  I explain the model and physically move like I am being pushed and pulled in different directions. Then we apply the model to a real life story.

Learn…about the context.

We discussed the need for migrants who came to New Zealand to work and I shared my parents migration story as a narrative.  I told the story verbally and students had to identify all the concepts using a blank migration model template.  This forced them to listen and essentially push their brains to work.

Create…a migration model for Ms Apelu’s migration story.

Share…their own migration stories

Students read one or two more stories using the model. Students were then encouraged to identify someone that they know, either family or friends, who have their own migration story.  This was done for homework.

Reflection

I found the students were engaged and listening when they knew what they were listening for.  I also found that they were respectful and polite because when it comes to talking about families they know that they are important.  By sharing my parents migration story, they could relate to someone who knows someone who identifies with the model we’d been learning about.  They were also free to ask more questions if they needed to.  I know that kids need to see connections to what they are learning about because it makes it less foreign and more real to them. 

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of connection to the learning by hearing a relevant real life story.

Links to the Tapasā.

(Characteristics of a good teacher pg 7:  Incorporating stories, legends, myths, events, activities and symbols that I understand and are relevant to me when teaching). 

T.C Sos Dept Hybrid #5: Online lesson with a year 9 class

As I am at home unwell at the moment, I managed to record a live lesson with a small year 9 class who were tuning in from either home or school with one of my new department members Mr Launoa.  The reason for recording the lesson was to ensure that make the lesson rewindable but also to allow my new teacher the level of language that I would expect him to use when teaching our kids.  Although I am used to teaching and learning online, it’s still a learning process to getting it right.