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Activity #3:
The
‘Machine Age’ allowed for schools to prepare students with specific skills-sets
and knowledge. Educational
trends were based on the economies of the day. Sir Ken Robinson speaks of a need to
reform educational systems operating on models from last century. We are trying
to prepare students into taking their place in unstable 21st century economies
and maintain their sense of cultural identity while countries integrate with
the world through the process of globalisation. Many schools are locked in the past
whilst others are striving to address the need for change.
The
ERO 2012 Report identified three key issues pertaining to improving student
learning:
i) Students-centred learning
ii) Responsive and rich curriculum, and
iii) Assessment used for students’ learning.
I
have chosen to discuss the first two issues.
i) Students-centred
learning:
Shifting
the focus to student-centred learning speaks volumes about teaching an
inclusive and responsive curriculum not only encompassing students but the
school as a community in its entirety, the wider community included. ERO findings indicated a component of
successful schools was the high level of care exhibited towards students from
the school and its wider community. This
‘practice of care’ is shared collegially amongst all staff especially from the
leader, collaboratively working to find innovative ways of addressing issues of
student engagement and achievement for the diverse range of student needs,
especially for priority learners.
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“Effective
leaders have a strong sense of ethical commitment to making school a place that
fosters students’ learning and wellbeing.” ERO 2012 Report, p9.
Leadership
(here I go again!) is a prominent aspect of success in terms of inspiring and
leading staff to operate as one, to enable staff into creating learning
communities or taking part in existing ones in order to focus on improving
student success. Herein
lies an issue of ‘leadership’. Great
leadership, forward-thinking and inclusive management can ‘model’ and ‘drive’ a
school towards success, while on the flip side, poor leadership can leave staff
feeling negative and embittered with teachers toiling to meet student learning
needs. How do you change a
‘leader’ who operates in the ‘authoritative mode of senior management team’
and, ‘the staff’? You can’t
as the power lies ‘you-know-where’, however, the teacher is in control of the
classroom realm and their professionalism.
Mahuika, Berryman and Bishop
(ERO, 2012) relate to students as ‘partners in learning’ and making learning transparent – knowing and understanding the
‘why’ and ‘what’ gives good reason to ‘do’. Part
of this process is to enable students into becoming life-long connected
learners by embedding essential skills-sets as identified in the New Zealand
Curriculum document into our classroom programme and curriculum: the Values,
Key Competencies and the Principles. However,
many of us are still not engaging students into being ‘partners in learning’,
they are remaining ‘just the student’. We
need to ‘up-our-game’ too by improving the competency of our teaching practice,
our pedagogy and how we support student learning.
ii) Responsive and rich curriculum:
If we are to enable a
student-centred learning environment and practice, we must also observe
developing a better understanding of what a responsive and rich curriculum
looks like.
“…the principles put students at
the centre of teaching and learning. When they are not fully enacted, students
do not have opportunities to experience a broad and deep curriculum that caters
for their interests, strengths and learning needs, and promotes their
independence, self responsibility and engagement.” ERO 2012 Report, p12.
Passionate and hardworking
teachers entrenched with an ‘I Care’ philosophy underpinning teaching practices
will be naturally working to infuse an inclusive and responsive rich curriculum
(well, I believe). They
will be searching for creative and innovative ways of engaging, supporting and
arming students with essential skills of learning to learn, inclusive of
self-motivation to learn and striving to aim high.
But then again, sadly we teachers
are not all the same and nor do we all work amidst a cohesive collegial staff
with an inspiring and innovative leader. So what of those who don’t have an
iota of these characteristics? Maybe
NZ should take a leaf out of Finland’s ‘education system’ and keep those (teachers)
who do and get rid of those who don’t.
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References:
ERO, (2012). Evaluation at a glance: Priority learners in New Zealand
schools. Retrieved from http://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/evaluation-at-a-glance-priority-learners-in-new-zealand-schools/
MOE (n.d). Principles, The New Zealand
Curriculum. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Principles
MOE, (n.d).
The Educultural Wheel - Implementing an Inclusive and Responsive
Curriculum.
The RSA.(2010,
Oct 14). RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
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