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)