T.C Sos Dept : Welcoming in the new year 2022 with our first Social Sciences Department meeting.

I always feel nervous when starting a new year with my department.  I think it’s because I want to make sure they feel encouraged and motivated and the first meeting could essentially set the tone for the year.  We have so much to cover so I have to try and make sure to get the right balance of administration, planning, feedback etc etc.

We started by reconnecting and giving everyone a chance to share their thoughts with two initial guiding questions:

It was nice to hear everyone’s feedback and goals for the school year and we were all hopeful that covid would not be such a huge impact in our year looking ahead.

Next we brainstormed some strategies to build relationships and get to know our kids.

Our first school goal is around raising Maori achievement.  For our new year 9’s, I wanted them to know our school pepeha as well as introduce themselves by writing theirs and sharing it with the class.   It tells people who you are by sharing your connections with the people and places that are important to you and for our new students, those connections should be valued and brought to the forefront.

To role model to our kids what a pepeha could look like, I invited my team to write theirs or share one they have with our department.  

We all stood individually to share our pepeha.  We have one new staff member who is joining us from another department and it was nice to hear him share his pepeha with us as well as to hear from each other.  Our team agreed that it was a nice way to share who we are and to build a sense of collegiality within our department.  To me, it is important to build trust and respect with my colleagues who will share the same goals and the same purpose in wanting the best for our kids.  It’s my hope that as the head of department, I can support my team in all areas of their teaching and learning so that we can have an exciting and successful year.

Peter is new to our team and shared his pepeha.

Janish shared her pepeha

As an aside, our Puriri house in 2021, I created a short video showing our School’s Pepeha.  This was done during lockdown for our Te reo Māori language week and we plan to show this during our first week with our year 9’s.

Bursts and Bubbles 2021: Summing up our inquiries

My inquiry focus:  Can culturally responsive teaching and learning shift achievement in a time bound assessment driven classroom?

The aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was …..

Was making sure that my Year 13 seniors social studies students were supported in their learning in the short time frame that we had.  More often or not are limited by assessment and this doesn’t always give us a chance to be in-depth with their learning and when coupled with the lack of choice, it was harder for students to be engaged.

I identified this as my focus when I noticed …

That students were engaged when we learning about the content but when left to work on their assessments, they were disinterested and struggled to stay motivated and focused.  The contexts and topics got them credits but we could only really touch the surface.  

To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I used comprehensive student voice.

Most of my year 12’s have taken Social Studies again this year in year 13 so I used their student voice from the end of last year to identify what suggestions they had in how I as their teacher could help them better.

Two key aspects students had identified with:

• A number of students said they wanted more one on one time.
• More in depth understanding and what we are learning (explain it better) and to make it interesting

Although they enjoy coming to Social studies, enjoyment wasn’t enough to get them credits.

The main patterns of student learning I identified was that they were awesome at getting starting but they weren’t getting enough work done in class and that was evidential when checking their docs and the quality of the work was surface level and superficial.  

This then told me I need to provide them with more time outside of normal school hours and to take them outside the classroom learning to get more in-depth knowledge of what we learning about.

My profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in ….

Selling the topic.  Students say I have a great lecture style of teaching and that I could teach a topic generally to the whole class at once.  I have no problems with engaging students and motivating them when I’m in front of them, but when I shifted gear to individual work, it was a slow burn.

When thinking about my own teaching, I knew I had strengths in connecting with students outside the normal classroom timetable.  This was easier in the junior school but finding time in the senior school was a lot harder.

My students would likely make likely more progress if I offered them that opportunity - to do more in depth learning outside of the classroom, they would ask more questions, they would know they would get on the spot feedback and they would have my attention.

Other changes I made in my teaching were ….

Recording small aspects of the work at a time designed to not overwhelm.

Offering really focussed study classes for a few hours and even on a Sunday that allowed for that specific, non intrusive one on one time, unrestricted by bells and timetable.

I also took kids outside of the classroom because I didn’t pretend that I knew everything.

I’ve been guided on this journey by another of key texts:

• The Tapasā:  A cultural competencies framework
• 4 strategies to effectively support Pasifika Learners
• The teachings of Dr Rae Si’ilata, whose message supports creating opportunities for students to bring their value knowledge into the classroom.

The Tapasā offered insight into how I could build and test strategies that work for our Pasifika learners:

Tapasa says look at the approach and relationship with the students and being open.  Allow whanaungatanga, informal conversations, getting to know them first.

Positive strategy examples:  Use the other pacific students to work with you.  Make them realise their value as Pasifika.  Praise and wanting to learn because they feel valued.  Don't just need a teacher but values them for who they are, got their back and cares about things that are going on in their lives outside the classroom.  Encourage kids to communicate in a formal environment too.

The easiest thing  for me to change this year was...

Making better use of my time in the classroom. For those who did stay on after school they understood that their time was my time. 

And hardest things for me to change were…..  

My mindset about the pressure of assessment vs the using the time to get in-depth into what was important.  I needed to move away from being assessment driven and trust that the kids could use time to their advantage because they decided what their time could look like.

Some changes I made along the way were ….. including the teachers in my department in the planning and process to allow them to see what worked and what didn’t work.

Overall… when the students who attended the extra classes and engaged in more in depth learning shared their work, I could see that their understanding of our contexts allowed them to complete an assessment better.  I knew this when I checked their work completion online and saw their attendance to class increase.

The most important learning that I think I’ve made this year was to allow students knowledge to be accessed if given the opportunity and to allow them to create the right pace to share that knowledge.  Assessment is important but we make it work for us and not the other way round.

Inquiry Question #5: Hypothesise and Research

1. Share your findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. Make sure it is clear what evidence from your inquiry supports each finding.
2. Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year.

My inquiry is looking at whether culturally responsive teaching and learning can shift achievement in a time bound assessment driven classroom?

My initial focus was to develop a plan to observe and understand how the teaching and learning strategies from the Tapasa would support our young people their understanding of their learning through contexts that they can relate to.

I have taught level 2 and level 3 Social Studies for a number of years, and when it comes to students understanding and exploring contexts that are interesting, I find that they are less engaged and less productive.

In the past, I have chosen themes and contexts that I know are well-prepared but too far removed in context.  There are often big issues that students select on their own but still can’t be done properly because students become easily bored. 

A big part of my inquiry focussed on the engaging students in their learning through the development of a robust programme that include class trips and relevant guest speakers.

Student voice feedback from our trip to Auckland University earlier this year saw students utilise their learning to now base some real life inquiries around.  My higher ability students in particular and those aiming to go to university could see it was achievable for them to go there and I believe this helped them become more engaged in their work.

Also, the academics from uni who led us, Olivia and co supported our kids and our kids in turn wanted to complete the tasks for them.  

One of my goals with my inquiry this year, is not to wait for the students to design the learning, but to encourage them by allowing them take the initiative.  

Inquiry Question #4: Collecting evidence and data

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

Most of my year 12’s have taken Social Studies again this year in year 13 so I used their student voice from the end of last year to identify what suggestions they had in how I as their teacher could help them better.

I have started to think about the staff resources we have in the school to help understand the issue better.

I have spoken to other staff members in my department who teach the same students what they believe the challenges are

I have used a tracking sheet to track progress in their attendance to class and task completion in their assessments. 

Inquiry Question #3: Building an accurate student profile

 Inquiry task #3: 

My task is to describe the tools/measures/approaches I plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge.  I will also try to justify why I chose these approaches and tools.

My level 3 class is very mixed ability in the academic and cultural sense. The majority are of Pasifika descent and there is still a mix among these young people with regards to which how Pacific they are.  

Here is the link to my diagram showing what I will use (thanks to Karen Ferguson for the model)

Empowering Pasifika Identity at Tamaki College

“A child educated to be strong in their own identity stands confident in the world” 

(Dr Rae Si’ilata)

As part of our Pasifika Initiative, we wanted Pasifika students to have a platform where they would be acknowledged and valued in their cultural ethnicities.  According to Turu #1 of the Tapasā, effective teaching pedagogies must first ‘demonstrate awareness of the diverse and ethnic-specific identities, languages and cultures of Pacific Learners’.  The plan was to hold a Pasifika student platform which doubled as a launch for the programme.  

Planning for the event: 

To get to this point, I met our SLT to share the idea who supported our plan.  I then met with our Pasifika staff to gage how we would go about organising the meeting.  It was important to get their feedback and to have them as a strong part of the journey.  Then I needed to inform our students through whanau meetings and whole school assemblies to prepare them for the day.  Last but not least, we informed our parents and families through letters and social media posts.  

The layout of the day was to enact a Talanoa style environment.  We wanted students and staff to feel like we were back in our villages, in an open fale, where no one was above and no-one was below the other, all were equal and all shared the power.  We covered the floors with mats (fala).  We then put a cover bowl on one side of the auditorium for our Pasifika student leaders to be around and opposite them were going to be our senior leadership team Ms Pamaka and Mr Dunn.

The Event:

On Friday 9th April we held our first ever Pasifika student cultural meeting.  The purpose of this cultural platform was launch the initiative and to hear from some of our ex-students who were not back at the college what they’re schooling experience was like.

We began with a prayer and song, then I shared a brief outline of our journey to this point.  We then had a performance and each of our three speakers shared their educational stories . Our principal then launched the programme and we concluded with a pray.  

To me this powerful image sums it all up.  The feedback from the students was interesting.  They wanted to know more about the purpose of the launch and some had never been in a Talanoa environment before.  A discussion with some colleagues after the day found that students were taking photos of the event and sharing it out to other schools on social media and asking what was happening.  To me, I was in my element and the day would be one of the most significant for me in my teaching career.  I know it was the start of an amazing journey for all students and staff involved.

 

Turu 1.14 Demonstrates understanding that many Pacific learners share multiple heritages, such as inter-Pacific, Māori and non-Pacific, and know the importance of supporting those shared identities, languages and cultures in their educational success and achievement

Teaching through a Cultural Lens: a collaborative workshop

At our Manaiakalani Cluster wide Teachers’ only day held on the 16th April, Christine Tupou, Poto Faalili and I took the opportunity to share with staff the challenges faced by our young Pasifika students every day.  We invited a number of students to speak about the importance of teachers’ knowing how to pronounce their names properly and they wanted shared some of the sad stories of when teachers got it wrong.  They talked about how it made them feel and the space was provided for them to share their stories.  

A few of our presenters practice the day before

Staff who attended our workshop

Our students were amazing.  They spoke with confidence and poise and determination.  We were very proud of them.  It was quite an emotional time for me because I felt they spoke for me and for every child who would have to sit and be embarrassed when someone spoke their name incorrectly or for the child who just accepted the incorrect name because they didn't want to make a big deal.

We designed our own analogy of the kava ceremony and what the ceremony represented.  Each element of the process was described as related to the world of a Pasifika student and how each aspect linked them to their families and that a child's success is the families success. The staff who attended the workshop had the chance to take part in the ceremony.  

Afterwards, we asked staff for feedback and collected their thoughts to be collated and discussed after the holidays.  It was a very special workshop that I felt proud to have been a part of. 

The links to the Tapasa are:

Turu 2.14 Critically reflects and examines whose knowledge is being taught and valued in the early learning setting or classroom in order to balance and enhance power sharing collaborative relationships.  (Please refer to a previous blogpost about the planning for this workshop)