Education Review NZ Teacher 2016 by NZME. Educational Media

EDUCATION REVIEW series

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2016 / www.educationreview.co.nz / $10.95

Are we failing children with

First-hand advice from a first-year teacher

learning differences?

Getting answers from

Council's new CE

Digital teachers

– the Manaiakalani findings

Finding Parent Voice:

building bridges between home and school Part of the series:

>> Leadership & PD >> Postgrad Education >> ICT & Procurement >> Postgrad & Research

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Home and school

Education Review’s print edition is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to in-depth coverage of education in New Zealand.

As a parent, I always have mixed feelings about the end of the summer school holidays. Half of me mourns the carefree lunchbox-free days of swimming, cricket and scooters. And half of me – probably the slightly bigger half, if I’m honest – can’t wait for school to resume and for routine and order to reign again. I share the kids’ excitement at new stationery and I look forward to getting to know their new teachers. However, some children will find it harder than others to return to school after the long summer holidays. For some, their home life and school life differ so considerably that the daily transitions between the two worlds are difficult. If parents and caregivers are not ‘on board’ with what’s happening at school, it makes it hard for the child to make progress and really enjoy their education. With so much attention on other aspects of teaching, learning and education, it’s easy to forget one of the most influential stakeholders in a child’s schooling – the parents and caregivers. This issue carries a special focus on parent voice – on engaging the whānau in a child’s learning. Ranui Primary School deputy principal Sharon Fuemana shares how the Individual Education Plan (IEP) process can have a profound effect on teacher-student-parent partnerships. David Taylor also shares the findings of his research project that looked at how effective parent engagement can lead to improved student reading outcomes. Part of the ‘disconnect’ between parents and school is often because their children’s education differs so greatly from their own classroom memories. This is also a factor for beginning teachers, as they encounter digitally rich teaching environments that are vastly different from those in which they were students. In this issue, NZCER researchers discuss the fascinating findings of the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA) initiative. The findings highlight the importance of mentor support as new teachers begin their teaching careers working with digital pedagogies. We’ve also asked a provisionally registered teacher (PRT) for her candid account of her first year of teaching, along with some words of advice for new teachers from faculty at Massey’s Institute of Education. Or, if you prefer, you can refer to our student opinions of what makes a good teacher; in five-year-old Emily’s esteemed opinion, a good teacher “must be funny”. Meanwhile five-year-old Eden is adamant that a good teacher “must have good shoes”!

Go to www.educationreview.co.nz for web-exclusive content, including thought-provoking opinion articles from sector leaders.

Editor, Jude Barback CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Sharon Fuemana, Sally Hansen, Rob Harris, Rosemary Hipkins, Fee Holdsworth, Andr’e Jay, Dave Johnston, Jo MacDonald, Jason McKearney, Guy Pope-Mayell, Carolyn Richardson, Alison Sewell, Lynda Shanks, Greta Spearing, Karen Spencer, Graham Stoop, David Taylor, Sue Taylor, Jenny Whatman and Lauren Zappone Maples.

Education Review is distributed to key decision makers in the education sector and its distribution is audited by New Zealand Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC). Distribution: 6450

EDUCATION REVIEW series

INside: 2

The sector speaks up: the future of New Zealand education

Are we failing our students with learning differences?

Getting answers from Council’s new CE

The importance of parent voice

The power of the IEP – getting parents on board

Building bridges between home and school: empowering parents and improving reading

The Manaiakalani experience: changing teaching stances

First-hand from a first-year teacher

Starting out as a new teacher

What makes a good teacher?

Making learning visible: putting Hattie into practice

VET: no longer the poor relation

Online assessment – what’s stopping us?

Home and away: teaching in Qatar

Acceleration groups – finding the formula for success in maths

ESL teaching in China: what to expect

Rock ’n’ role model Dave Johnston

Outdoor education: what it offers our children

Upskilling and opportunity: The Mind Lab

Ten years of Ten Trends

Editor Jude Barback 07 575 8493 editor@educationreview.co.nz Advertising & marketing manager Belle Hanrahan 04 915 9783 belle@nzme-ed.co.nz Publisher & general manager Bronwen Wilkins production Aaron Morey Subscriptions Gunvor Carlson 04 915 9780 gunvor.carlson@nzme-ed.co.nz images iStock

Vol 7 Issue X 1

NZTeacher NZME. Educational Media, Level 2, NZME. House, 190 Taranaki Street, Wellington 6141, New Zealand PO Box 200, Wellington 6140 Tel: 04 471 1600 © 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISSN: 1173-8014

Errors and omissions: Whilst the publishers have attempted to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information, no responsibility can be accepted by the publishers for any errors or omissions.

Education Review series

NZ Teacher 2016 1

Policy

The sector speaks up: the future of

New Zealand education Education Review’s outstanding ‘Sector Voices’ special e-edition was published at the end of 2015, bringing together the varied and considered opinions of leaders, principals and teachers to reveal the key issues New Zealand education faces going forward. Here is a taste of some of the topics and views that emerged.

The Education Act Review Hon Hekia Parata, Minister of Education

“We need to make changes to our education system to ensure impediments to learning are dealt with as they arise, rather than waiting till near the end of a student’s schooling. And those changes need to be sustainable over time so that we are not constantly in fix-up mode. And so that those students already doing well are supported to do even better. “The process is under way. We have almost doubled spending on early childhood learning since 2008 to ensure our early learners start school better prepared. We have introduced National Standards to help teachers identify student strengths and weaknesses more quickly and to do something about them. We have established the Education Council to raise the quality and status of the teaching profession. We are investing about $700 million in digital infrastructure to ensure every child is able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by technology. We are refocusing teacher professional development on key priorities. We are bringing schools together in Communities of Learning to work collaboratively to raise achievement because the skill and professionalism of our teachers and principals is our greatest resource. “We are updating the Education Act 1989 for 2016 and beyond. And we are reviewing the education funding system to ensure it supports schools to focus on the things that make the greatest difference to kids’ learning. None of these measures have been without debate – and nor should they be. We all want the best for our children and a good Kiwi education is a passport to a better future.”

Tracey Martin, NZ First

We need more than goals for our education system; we need a clear purpose.”

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“... it is time to have meaningful, open and transparent consultation about the review of the Education Act 1989. This would take place in a similar manner to that which developed our world-leading curriculum documents. Consultation alongside

wider public conversations; robust discussion between all stakeholders across all sectors – early years, early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary and trade training, adult and community education; discussion that includes the voice of students, parents and caregivers, support staff, teachers, school leaders and school trustees. “This Education Hui would develop a collaborative 30-year strategic plan for New Zealand education. This plan is timely after 25 years of Tomorrow’s Schools and would set an agreed direction and a shared vision for our nation’s education that is free from changes in governments and ministers. It would include the development of regional educational strategies and enable seamless transitions between and across sectors. In order to make and embed positive change, politicians must recognise that they are not educational experts. It is the job of legislators to make sure that all citizens’ rights to education are enshrined and protected by practical appropriate laws.”

Catherine Delahunty, Green Party

“[We] believe that education is at a turning point and that the review of the purpose of the Education Act is a critical opportunity to affirm public quality education and reverse competition and inequality in our schools.”

Louise Green, NZEI Te Riu Roa

“New Zealanders have been given a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have a say in the direction of education, with a review of the Education Act. The legislation that comes out at the other end of this process will have a massive effect on the future shape of public education. “It is crucial that education not be framed as a set of ‘goals’. We need more than goals for our education system; we need a clear purpose. This purpose must be enduring, inclusive, studentcentred, and embrace the breadth of desired student outcomes. It needs to focus on more than narrow, data-driven student evaluation, and build

Policy Chris Hipkins, Labour

on the vision outlined in the curricula of confident, connected, actively involved and lifelong learners. “To achieve this, all educators, parents, whānau and communities need to engage with the Education Act review. They also need to be fully involved in their local communities to determine the needs of the learners and how best to meet them. Whenever there are changes proposed to the education system, educators need to be involved in the debate. We can influence change when we get involved and speak out.”

Investing in Educational Success Patrick Walsh, SPANZ

“The establishment of the Government’s Investing In Educational Success policy (IES), at a cost of more than $360 million, has the potential to mitigate the destructive, competitive nature inherent in the Tomorrow’s Schools regime, allow for the sharing of best practice between schools and ultimately provide a conduit to raise achievement of all learners across the schools with additional resource. Regrettably a ‘good concept’ is being sucked dry by bureaucratic red tape, squabbling by unions and unreasonable delays in implementation. The Government will have a small window early in 2016 to get some runs on the board with IES or it runs the risk of failure by inertia.”

Preparing students for the future workplace Claire Amos, Hobsonville Point Secondary School

“All around us are examples of businesses and industries that have made the transition – think about how you used to book travel, book a taxi, do your banking or share written communication. There are so many examples of change, because industries have to change; if they don’t, they simply lose customers – in business, it’s evolve or die. However, compulsory schooling doesn’t seem to work that way. For many, there is what is perceived as an intellectual argument for change that might make them feel a little uneasy maintaining the status quo. “However, as long as we have a system where schools can be positively antiquated yet publicly lauded as educational successes for hothousing students, focusing on little more than assessment and ‘results, results, results’, then we are unlikely to see any sizeable change in the near future.”

“Our education system needs to prepare our young people for a workplace we can’t yet imagine. They will need to be resilient, creative, adaptable, have great communication and interpersonal skills, and be prepared to work collaboratively as well as independently. Far from having a ‘job for life’ they can expect to chop and change careers on a regular basis. They will probably undertake a range of different types of work; some salaried, some contracted, some in a workplace, some from home. “Subject-specific knowledge will be a lot less important; transferable skills will be essential. Attitude and aptitude will be just as important, if not more important, than qualifications. That poses enormous challenges for the education system and here, as around the world, we’re only just beginning to grapple with those. “The current focus on standardisation and measurement works against adapting the education system to the needs of the modern world. Those policies seek to refine a system that was well-suited to the last century, but simply won’t cut it in the future. Our focus has to be on a much more personalised learning experience, one that brings out the best in each and every individual. No two people are built exactly the same so we should stop forcing the education system to treat them as if they are.”

Denise Torrey, NZPF

“At the time of the industrial revolution, the nation did have a ‘purpose of education’. It was to prepare the people to be work-ready for the factories and the fields. This meant standard mass education, including the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic and socialising children for social conformity. Teaching punctuality, obedience, knowing one’s place and respecting authority were critical. The purpose was economic and socially controlling. “Leap forward to today and we are immersed in the ‘Information Age’ where children are preparing to be globally connected citizens facing very different issues from earlier generations. They might change jobs several times during their working lives as different careers are created. So what is the ‘purpose of education’ now? “We might agree that education is for children to acquire skills, knowledge and values. However, most would argue that today’s students need to be empowered to be lifelong learners and manage their own learning so that they can adapt to the rapidly changing landscape. The skills they might

need to do that are more likely to be creativity, problem solving, communication, being a team player and critical thinking. Teaching these skills requires a personalised, not standardised, approach to learning and teaching.”

Colin Dale, Murrays Bay Intermediate

“The Government has recognised that we need to work with all sectors of the pathways a child will proceed through the educational journey from early childhood to 24 to 35-year-old citizens who need to sustain jobs in the workforce and so will need appropriate, future-focused qualifications and skills. “So the skills, in the education sector, of collaboration and critique, innovation and growth in leadership and pedagogical skills will have the most impact on our future educational arena.”

John Morris, Morris Consulting

“My ideal would be for our future education system to produce people who are confident, creative, knowledgeable problemsolvers who have had the benefit of an education that has engaged and inspired them and prepared them well for the 21st century. This requires a curriculum that is knowledgebased; of course, a curriculum must incorporate skills but our current curriculum is unbalanced and ‘knowledge-free’. Such a situation does nothing to improve the current achievement gap that exists in New Zealand, and which contributes to the economic and social disparities that blight our society.”

Inequality Angela Roberts, PPTA

“... education is completely tied up with broader social and economic policy. As Jonathan Boston demonstrated in an important paper in 2013, simply focusing on raising the quality of the education system without also tackling child poverty won’t be enough to address our achievement gap. As long as we have kids coming to school from overcrowded, unhealthy homes where parents are stressed from insecure, poorly paid jobs, and some schools where this is the norm rather than the exception, we’ll be struggling with this challenge.”

Continued on next page >>

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NZ Teacher 2016 3

Policy Chris Hipkins, Labour

“The modern education system needs to address poverty and the enormous effect it has on student achievement, improve targeted support to those students who need extra help either because they are struggling or due to special needs, and shift emphasis back to a broad curriculum.”

Catherine Delahunty, Green Party

“We are committed to the goal of equity and inclusion in education rather than the mechanistic and limiting focus of National Standards and NCEA targets. Poverty and inequality are undermining the potential of many children but an equitable education system can create more opportunity for everyone.”

Teaching profession Barbara Ala’alatoa, EDUCANZ

“The status of the teaching profession needs to rise. The Education Council’s mandate is to change perceptions about the teaching profession. We want to grow respect for the profession so it attracts the brightest and the best and they stay because of the professional opportunities afforded, and the rewarding and challenging environments they experience. We look forward to developing standards with, and for, the profession. We will be ensuring the progression of these standards support career development. We will work with our peers and colleagues to build rich evidence and exemplars of the standards. “We know in countries where teaching is held in the same esteem as the medical or legal profession the outcomes for learners are better and teachers are more committed, fulfilled, and connected to the education community. Teachers are lifelong learners – it’s not a one-way process.”

John Morris, Morris Consulting

“Our future education system will also require, most importantly, a teaching workforce of exceptional quality, which means attracting the top tier of graduates to the profession. This is vital as New Zealand will only get a sufficient number of quality principals if we have a predominance of quality teachers. Attracting the best and brightest into teaching remains a current and future challenge

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for New Zealand and one that must be met and won by innovative government policies that raise the status of the profession and make teaching an attractive proposition for our most capable young men and women. The performance of a school system essentially rests on the quality of its teachers. It is the teacher that makes the difference.”

Digital assessment Dr Karen Poutasi, NZQA

“Today’s young people are growing up with technology. It’s an integral and very natural part of their lives. Teenagers don’t know a world where information isn’t at their fingertips in one way or another. Digital pedagogy is becoming commonplace in the classroom. That means it makes sense that current learners, and those in the near future, should also be assessed using digital technology. Already, many schools are using digital processes for internal assessment and submitting assessment to NZQA digitally. By 2020 NZQA will offer a wide range of digital assessment. We are taking small and considered steps towards this goal, running trials and pilots to ensure we get it right. And we are very aware that we need to take everyone within the education system with us.”

Modern Learning Environments Melanie Taylor, Golden Sands School

“I have some concern about the new emphasis on converting traditional schools into MLE or, as known now, ILE. We get a large number of tours through our school from schools who want to change to an ILE or a school with flexible spaces. Unfortunately, all too often they visit wishing to find out about the spaces and the furniture, not the pedagogy or the collaboration of teachers. I am regularly surprised that schools haven’t considered key elements of visioning, good practice, teacher skill and knowledge, and student needs. These are the foundations of any successful change – not the furniture or the layout!”

Catherine Delahunty, Green Party

“The state has a responsibility to invest in equity as a goal in every school. A modern learning environment is not technology and open plan, although they are tools we might embrace. Modern learning is building a pedagogy of learning rather than of testing. We must value the teaching profession to get on with teaching.”

... think about how you used to book travel, book a taxi, do your banking or share written communication. There are so many examples of change, because industries have to change; ... in business, it’s evolve or die. However, compulsory schooling doesn’t seem to work that way.” Shane Kennedy, Manukau Christian School

“The Ministry-driven promotion of ‘modern learning environments’ is just another expensive, unnecessary, passing educational bandwagon and fad, and will not make the significant impact required to improve learning outcomes for students. “Rather, future success in any educational endeavour should be built on a solid foundation of highly trained, innovative and inspirational teachers who are passionate about teaching, training and nurturing students. It is and always has been about great teachers and teaching.”

ECE special education services Peter Reynolds, Early Childhood Council

“Centres tell stories of teachers with no access to assessment services and therefore no idea what’s wrong with children or how to deal with them; of other children punched, kicked and bitten as a consequence; of teacherchild ratios distorted because one teacher has to stay one-on-one with an especially difficult child; of parents pulling their children from services because they believe children with special learning needs are disrupting their centre, and of parents of children with special learning needs suffering ‘loss of belonging’ as a result of this. “If surrealism is the positioning of objects not normally found together, then the situation is surreal. There is the happy Wellington world with an early childhood curriculum that requires children with special learning needs to be taught within the same strands as all children, and a Human Rights Act that prevents discrimination on the grounds of disability… and there’s the real world in which a government early intervention teacher advises an early childhood centre NOT to enrol a child, because the centre is unlikely to receive help any time soon. To access the full Sector Voices, please visit http://goo.gl/GS4aVo

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Special learning needs

Are we failing our students with learning differences? GUY POPE-MAYELL says the recent Select Committee Inquiry [into the identification and support for students with the significant challenges of dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism spectrum disorders in primary and secondary schools] provided a chilling insight into the problems that students with learning differences can face. He outlines some of the issues and potential solutions.

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earning differences are widespread in New Zealand. Conservative estimates are that one in 10 Kiwis is dyslexic. So when teachers ridicule students with learning differences, call them names or throw their work in the rubbish bin, it is clear we have some serious and systemic issues in play. The Select Committee Inquiry heard many such first-hand accounts of students suffering at the hands of inexperienced teachers. It is apparent from this that one of New Zealand’s biggest challenges is that too many teachers are not sufficiently trained or knowledgeable about learning differences.

Learning differences in a nutshell

Academics agree that the single most common characteristic of dyslexia is a problem with reading and/or spelling. As a spectrum of neuro-differences however, dyslexia can impact motor skills, cognitive processing speeds and comprehension (both written and verbal), auditory and visual perception, planning and organising, and short-term memory and concentration. Dyslexia is often comorbid with other conditions – communication disorders, Asperger’s and autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, and so on. Brain research, including Auckland University studies and fMRI mapping at Yale University, has shown that while it is common to use the ‘verbal’ left side of the brain to understand words, dyslexic people use the ‘pictorial’ right side. Dyslexic individuals thus tend to think in pictures rather than with the sounds of words, receiving and retrieving information in a different part of the brain from neurotypical, word-based thinkers. Put simply, translating these ‘pictures’ back into words, whether spoken or written, can take extra time and considerable effort. Bottom line, difficulties with the acquisition of basic skills are a symptom of the different ways the dyslexic brain processes information. This is a fundamental point to grasp as it shifts the

focus from difficulties with reading and spelling to an understanding of the root cause. Dyslexics are often less able to navigate the education system due to factors including: cognitive processing – often slow literacy levels – often very low listening comprehension – a vivid imagination and thinking in pictures can hijack attention during a conversation, leading to low comprehension written comprehension – often low.

Failings in the system

Despite progress in recent years, the education system is far from being inclusive and responsive to individual learning needs. There is still a significant equity issue with students in lowerdecile schools, including Māori and Pasifika, all statistically disadvantaged. Students with learning differences are still not getting support they need. Schools that are succeeding in this area have one thing in common – a clear and transparent educational pathway to create successful learning outcomes. This pathway reflects and facilitates strong leadership, provides students, parents and teachers with confidence, and allows differences to transform into successes. Unfortunately, this type of pathway is most often absent or dysfunctional, and as a result we see all the problems that underlined the urgent need for the Select Committee Inquiry. Where no educational pathway is identified and implemented: too many principals, teachers and support staff are not sufficiently trained or knowledgeable on learning differences early identification is not sufficiently prioritised and resourced and too many children wait too long for appropriate intervention children are progressing through the education system with unmet needs that often create long-term negative effects

Special learning needs

Schools that are succeeding in this area have one thing in common – a clear and transparent educational pathway to create successful learning outcomes.” there are poor transitions through school years, with minimal to no forward planning for learning outcomes access to services and decision-making is unnecessarily complex; for example, there are currently 10 ways for a child to access funding for a teacher aide there is a lack of transparency and certainty of services; for example, once an intervention is complete, often no further support is mapped out.

Interventions and accommodations

Often, dyslexia’s greatest difficulty is self-esteem – it only becomes a disability if not appropriately addressed. If addressed, dyslexia can become a key driver for creative thinking and problem solving, enhanced spatial understanding and innovation. By prioritising and addressing dyslexia in schools we avoid flow-on adult-related expenses from social, mental health and prison services. Once dyslexia is understood, it is not difficult to see what changes would benefit dyslexic students. Best practice is a fully inclusive learning environment, ensuring that legal rights to inclusive learning and accommodations are delivered on. Best practice comes down to three things: early identification; a ‘notice and adjust’ teaching approach to accommodate difference, and, if no improvement, interventions to specifically target problem areas. Simple changes from reviewing seating layout and noise levels through to use of new technology can all make a big difference.

Key to success – an educational pathway from year

At NCEA level, provision of NCEA Special Assessment Conditions (SACs) such as reader or writer assistance, computer use, and/or extra time, have created a ‘route to success’ for students with learning differences. Schools already familiar with SAC applications and

accommodating student needs are seeing better NCEA results and student engagement. However, this ‘route to success’ currently only applies to students at NCEA level. As mentioned earlier, a critical step to meaningful change therefore is to create a clearcut, accountable pathway to successful learning outcomes that starts at year 1. Such a pathway would outline what constitutes effective teaching training and professional development in relation to learning differences. While there is plenty of information available, it is not finding its way into the daily interactions between student, teacher, school and parent. The concept of accommodating needs from year 1 dovetails with the recommendations of the 2014 NZQA and Ministry of Education Review of SACs, which signalled the widening of the SACs model to earlier years. In the review MoE said it would work with RTLBs, NZQA and schools to make better use of the National Standards achievement data to identify students who may require SACs in the future, transferring information about students as they move through school and particularly as they transition to secondary school. The review also identified significant inequities between high and low-decile schools in accessing SACs. Funding, however, remains a pressure point for

full implementation of review recommendations. While schools must be accountable for delivering on the Government’s Inclusive Education agenda, the Government must prioritise adequate funding and resources to support this. Margaret Stewart, manager of the RTLB Te Whiri Koko Cluster, says that despite increased 2015 SAC applications, equitable access for low-decile students remains an issue. Data gathered by Te Whiri Koko Cluster found that schools struggle to find funding for SAC staff, such as readers and/or writers for assessments throughout the year and teachers coached to accommodate diverse learners. “It is our fear that, unless schools gain tagged funding to access, train and pay for SAC personnel, needy students will be excluded from accessing appropriate SAC help, despite the extra support from RTLB clusters, and those in lowerdecile settings are likely to continue to be underrepresented in SAC statistics,” says Stewart.

Best practice in action

Despite the challenges, some New Zealand schools are providing effective support for dyslexic students. As noted earlier, in each instance these schools have aligned around a clear and transparent educational pathway that celebrates inclusivity and diversity. Continued on next page >>

Inquiry info The Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry into the identification and support for students with the significant challenges of dyslexia , dyspraxia, and autism spectrum disorders in primary and secondary schools was announced in August 2015. The committee chairman is Dr Jian Yang Submissions closed 2 October 2015. The committee finished hearing oral submissions on the inquiry on 9 December 2015. A total of 455 submissions were received. Next steps: the committee will consider a report from its advisers, the Ministry of Education, then prepare its own report. No deadline has been set for the completion of this report. Education Review series

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Special learning needs

Understanding dyspraxia GRETA SPEARING discusses the impacts of dyspraxia on children’s learning and social development and shares some ways that teachers can support children with this neurodevelopmental disorder. What is dyspraxia?

It is not these children’s fault that they have been failing in our education system. Rather, it is the education system that is failing these children.” Kapiti College is one such school where creation of a dyslexia-friendly environment has seen significant improvements in selfesteem and academic achievement, plus reductions in negative and destructive behaviour. Sarah Sharpe, Kapiti College teacher and special educational needs coordinator (SENCO), says families from throughout New Zealand and even overseas are now choosing the school because of its approach. “While it is undoubtedly flattering, it seems shocking that whole families are relocating because of the limited choices available within the education system,” says Sharpe. Kapiti College believes there are three main ingredients required for children with learning differences to succeed: early screening for dyslexia at primary school and appropriate early teaching intervention; access to a dyslexia specialist for all schools, and dyslexia education as a compulsory part of teaching training. In addition, equitable access to NZQA SACs is a must. With RTLBs and SENCOs insufficiently resourced to provide alternative evidence for all students making SAC applications, a long-term solution would be to make educational psychologist reports available at no cost. Sharpe says all children have the right to an education system that allows everyone the best chance of success. “It is not these children’s fault that they have been failing in our education system,” she says. “Rather, it is the education system that is failing these children.” Guy Pope-Mayell is Chair of Trustees of the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand.

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Developmental Coordination Disorder(DCD)/dyspraxia is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting fine and gross motor coordination and the processes of ideation (forming ideas), motor planning (planning the action) and execution (carrying out the action). Messages created during any of these stages may not get through and are lost. It is a disorder of the link between brain and behaviour – the way we function purposefully in our world – and can affect movement, learning, behaviour, speech and language, self-care, and sensory, social and emotional development. Because dyspraxia is a hidden disorder and not always recognised or understood by adults, it is easy for children with dyspraxia’s learning needs to go unsupported. Dyspraxia does not affect the individual’s intelligence; however, he or she is often challenged by processing information and communicating what they know or understand. The disorder is frustratingly inconsistent; for example, a skill learned today may not be recalled tomorrow so a child with dyspraxia could be labelled ‘difficult’ or ‘lazy’.

Teachers can help

The following good teaching practices will support children with dyspraxia access the curriculum: Give clear, simple instructions then check for understanding. Simplify tasks into manageable parts. Adjust quantity of work given. Use a multisensory approach and a range of expression such as text, image, voice. Give regular breaks and plenty of time to begin and complete work. Use technology and devices to even the playing field. Provide reminders, prompts and appropriate visual supports (Dr Susan Foster-Cohen). Focus on children’s strengths. Anxiety commonly plays a huge part in the life of a person with dyspraxia. Recognising and understanding how anxiety presents in children and the impact it has on their learning will be beneficial. Preparation, organisation, predictability and structure are important to children with dyspraxia. Setting up systems in consultation and collaboration with whānau and various professionals will support children to better understand and control themselves as well as provide them with tools to manage their anxiety. Well-planned and managed transitions are important to alleviate unnecessary stress for children. Consistent and robust systems for identification and support and the provision of flexible, adaptable and responsive classroom environments will be advantageous for children, whānau and schools.

Social development

Another commonly affected area is social development. Children with dyspraxia do not always have the same level of social thinking and understanding that typically developing children have. Difficulties here can contribute towards low self-esteem and depression so identifying this early is important. Discussing the differences of all children and explicit structure and support socially is required to lessen isolation and prevent self-esteem issues. (Alison Schroeder, Socially Speaking) Many challenging behaviours such as acting out, opting out or switching off may present themselves at school and will have underlying reasons. It is worth investigating what might be going on for that child. Look for a pattern to this behaviour, give the child time to explain or draw the information out of them by asking questions if necessary. Ask the child what you could do to help next time a similar situation arises. Understanding and supportive adults and peers and some minor adjustments can make a positive impact on these children’s lives by supporting their self-esteem and mental health and supporting them to reach their potential and lead successful fulfilling lives. Greta Spearing is a national fieldworker for the Dyspraxia Support Group of New Zealand.

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EDUCANZ

Getting answers

from Council’s new CE

Education Review asks Education Council’s new chief executive DR GRAHAM STOOP about his priorities for the Council, his response to Council opposition, his views on Communities of Learning and his hopes for the Education Act review.

Your resumé is impressive! I note that you started out as a secondary school teacher before embarking on a number of high-profile leadership positions, including chief executive of Education Review Office and within the Ministry of Education. Could you please give some insight into how experience gained from your previous roles will assist you in your new position as chief executive of the Education Council? A: I am a teacher by profession. I worked in secondary schools for 22 years – as a teacher, head of department, deputy principal, and principal. The Education Council is a professional body for teachers. I understand the work of teachers and school leaders. I believe in the power of teaching and I want to play a role in a greater public awareness of what teachers do and the contribution they make. I have headed up two Initial Teacher Education (ITE) institutions – as chief executive in one outside the university system, and as pro vicechancellor inside a university context. An important part of the Council’s work is the approval of initial teacher education programmes. And so I understand the issues in ITE (early childhood, primary, and secondary) and speak the language and know how to engage with the tertiary environment. This part of my background will be important in my CE role here at the Council. I have also been a public servant – chief executive at the Education Review Office and several deputy secretary positions at the Ministry of Education. This public policy experience and the big picture of education that it has given me provide an overall context for the functioning of education in our society.

What are your first priorities for the Education Council? A: The Education Council is a new body. It is an independent statutory body. It is not a Crown entity. One key priority is to identify key public policy issues and to lead professional public debate on their implications for high-quality teaching and educational leadership practice. The Council needs to publicly represent the voice and face of the teaching profession. It can do so without fear or favour.

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What do you ultimately hope to achieve as chief executive? A: The Council has two main functions: a public interest function and a professional function. The public interest function is very important – assuring the public with respect to the quality of the teaching profession and the processes that point to that quality. Those processes include initial teacher education, registration, ongoing certification, competence and conduct. I want to make sure that the Council’s processes meet these expectations. The Council, as I have already noted, also has an important role in the promotion of the professional practice. In the three years I have in the role, I want to give weight to both of these functions. And the legislation that set up the Council outlines several pieces of work that must be completed in two years – including a review of standards and work on a code of conduct. Clearly I will be focused on that work.

What are the main challenges currently facing the Education Council as it beds in, and how will the Council address these? A: The Council is a new body with new functions. Teachers have knowledge of the Council’s work in its roles of registration and practising certificates. Universities and other tertiary providers understand our work in ITE. We now need to engage with teachers and leaders on the new strategic and professional functions and initiatives. We have an engagement process in place. This involves regular stakeholder meetings and we have a survey of teachers planned and we are working with key education peak body groups on this survey and on the Council strategic direction.

The Education Council has been criticised for removing democratic membership, with many stating that the process of appointments was political rather than democratic. Do you think these are valid concerns for the sector? A: The former Teachers Council was a Crown entity and could be influenced strategically by the government of the day. It had some elected members – with all members, including the elected members, appointed by the Minister of Education. The new Council is completely independent of ministerial direction. The appointments to the Council are made by the Minister of Education through a nomination process. It is a different model with a different balance of interests.

The PPTA has expressed some opposition to the Council’s approach to teachers’ professional learning and development (PLD). In addition to their concern that it is inappropriate for a ministerially appointed Council to make decisions on PLD priorities, the union also believes that combining the developmental purpose of PLD with the compliance function of registration and deregistration within the same body creates a major source of role conflict. What is your response to such objections? What are the Council’s plans for managing teachers’ PLD? A: The Minister of Education has not made a decision on the future of PLD in terms of a possible role for the Council. That decision will be made in 2017.

It has been a long road to getting the Communities of Learning initiative off the ground since the Investing in Educational Success (IES) initiative was first announced. Do you feel the initiative has now achieved the necessary support and engagement from the sector for it to be truly effective? A: The Council’s interest is not in Communities of Learning per se. IES was a policy initiative that was developed before the Education Council came into being. But social capital (how well teachers work together) is just as important as the human capital of what teachers are able to do in their own classrooms and centres. And so commitment to strong professional communities is important.

EDUCANZ

The new Council is completely independent of ministerial direction … it is a different model with a different balance of interests.” There could be quite a few ways of strengthening social capital. Communities of Learning may be one good way. I hope so. But they will need to truly build strong professional communities if they are to make a difference to the functioning of social capital.

How will the Centre for Leadership Excellence support the CoL initiative? How do you envisage the centre working? A: The centre will not be a bricks-and-mortar centre. But the Council has set as one of its early priorities to support leaders and develop leadership capacity. The leaders of the Communities of Learning will need support as they develop a new way of working across centres and schools. A new type of leadership is required. It requires leaders to think, engage and act differently from their roles as leaders of a school, kura or early childhood service. The Council will work with sector bodies to develop the sort of leadership approaches that will support the collective endeavour.

There appears to be a sense of excitement at the opportunity to make changes to New Zealand’s education legislation. What are some of the key changes you would like to see emerge? A: There is a great deal of knowledge held in centres and schools about effective leadership and teaching known to have a positive influence on learning. The revision of the Act provides an opportunity to enable this expertise to be more easily shared. The revision of the Act is an opportunity to structurally re-gear the system from a competitive approach to one that is based on collaboration, while keeping the best of the community-led approach to schools and services.

The revision of the Act should provide the enabling conditions for teachers and leaders to use their professional expertise to support the learning of their students; and it should provide the enabling conditions so leaders and teachers can share and build practice, and are supported to try new ideas.

Much of the enthusiasm from the sector around the Education Act review stems from having the chance to be involved. It strikes me that where policies have not been initially well received it tends to be due to a lack of genuine consultation with the sector. Do you agree? What is your view on sector consultation with regards to decisions made by the Education Council going forward? A: I completely agree. Education is a shared endeavour. Further, public servants working in government agencies aren’t the only ones with policy nous. Practitioners can contribute so much to the educational debate and to the solutions to seemingly intractable problems. And so the Council is running quite a few exercises, right now, with significant sector involvement. And that will continue for sure. The leadership approach from the Council must itself be collaborative and appropriate for the development of social capital.

Go to www.educationreview.co.nz Education Review series

NZ Teacher 2016 11

Parent voice

The importance of

parent voice “W

ell, she’s your responsibility from now on. You’ll have to deal with her.” These were the words of Matilda’s father, Mr Wormwood, to her teacher, Miss Honey, in Roald Dahl’s Matilda. While fictitious, they represent the attitude of some – fortunately the minority – parents of school-aged children. Parents can be placed broadly into two camps: the first being those who take an active interest in their child’s schooling and education and the second being those who don’t. Of course there is a spectrum, ranging from the overbearing to the outright absent, but in broad-brush terms, parents are either involved or they are inclined to ‘leave it to the school’ à la Mr Wormwood. The traditional ‘in loco parentis’ approach to education that regards students as belonging to the school when at school and belonging to the parents when not is no longer relevant. However, while the culture is changing in some schools, the in loco parentis approach remains strong in others, particularly secondary schools. Yet research shows that parents’ participation in their children’s education can have a significant effect on their achievement at school. According to Professor John Hattie, “parents need to hold high aspirations and expectations for their children, and schools need to work in partnership with parents to make their expectations appropriately high and challenging, and then work in partnership with children and the home to realise, and even surpass, these expectations”. So what are we doing to ensure that parents feel fully included in their children’s education? How do we make sure parent voice is heard and valued at schools?

With so much attention on teaching practice, policy decisions and student agency, it’s easy to forget one of the most influential stakeholders in a child’s schooling – the parents. JUDE BARBACK looks at the importance of making parents and whānau part of the education conversation. Importance of parental aspirations

Recent research from ASG and Monash University reinforced the Government’s focus on parent participation. The inaugural ASG Parents Report Card 2015 investigated the state of education in New Zealand from parents’ perspectives and found that the aspirations that New Zealand parents have for their own children’s education is the strongest driver in their academic success. ASG chief executive John Velegrinis gave the analogy of education as a three-legged stool, describing the three legs as the schools, the policymakers and the parents. “The parents are a very important stakeholder in education, yet they don’t have as much of a voice as the other stakeholders.” Velegrinis says the findings of the ASG Parents Report Card show that, generally speaking, New Zealand parents have an acute focus on, and understanding of, their child’s knowledge, skills and ability. This demonstrates the importance of schools, teachers and policymakers working together to model a more holistic approach to communicating with parents, he says. “Parents hold incredibly important, often intangible, resources in contributing to their child’s educational success. The ASG Parents Report Card has found that parental aspirations for their children’s education is the glue that holds everything together – aspirations optimise and underpin all other resources and influences that support their children’s educational needs.” Dr Shane Phillipson, associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University and co-author of the report, says regular communication about the importance of education from an early age helps children to feel supported and achieve their learning potential. “Schools need to encourage parents to set high expectations from a young age. They need to communicate early and often that learning is fun and important.”

There is a call from parents to be educated about the teaching methodology, so they can ensure they’re supporting their child’s education in the home setting.”

Inquiry into Engaging Parents

In 2013, there was an Education and Science Select Committee inquiry into engaging parents in the education of their children. The focus of the inquiry was to determine how well parents are engaged in the education of their children and what can be done to ensure more parents become engaged. The committee received 79 submissions. In the New Zealand School Trustees Association’s submission, it was claimed that while many New Zealand schools encourage parent participation, fewer genuinely engage parents, and many don’t encourage participation at all. In its September 2015 edition of STAnews, the NZSTA discussed how parents will have their own perspectives on learning, teaching and schooling; how their insights warrant the attention and response of educators, and how parents should have opportunities to actively shape their children’s education. It outlined how parents must be given the confidence to know that their opinions, contributions, and values have a place in the student’s life at school. Following the inquiry, the Education and Science Select Committee made 18 recommendations to the Government that collectively proposed to prioritise the importance of engaging parents and families throughout the education sector. Specifically, the committee recommended that teacher training and professional development incorporates parental engagement, and that the Education Review Office includes a function for reviewing parental and community engagement. It also recommended that the Ministry of Education develops best-practice guidelines for schools to use when developing effective approaches to engaging parents. The Government accepted all 18 recommendations. In its response in January 2015 to the select committee’s report, it drew from national and international research to support the importance of parent, family and whānau engagement in children’s learning. It outlined that parents play a role as educators and as facilitators of learning, supporting their children by engaging with teachers and schools. It also discussed the importance of the expectations parents hold for their child to participate in and achieve at school.

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Parents in the dark about teaching methodology

The ASG report also highlighted that parents want to better understand school curriculum and teaching methods, but are generally positive about the quality of teaching. “The education system has procedures in place to ensure parents and teachers are communicating on both behavioural and performance progress. However, there is a call from parents to be educated about the teaching methodology, so they can ensure they’re supporting their child’s education in the home setting,” said Phillipson. Parental buy-in to curriculum and teaching methods is an area that could be improved across the globe. The Harvard Family Research Project run out of the Harvard Graduate School of Education homed in on this issue. In one case study, one teacher told another: “Parents are rarely notified of the [curriculum] changes when they happen. Nor are they told about the benefits and challenges of the new curriculum or how to deal with it at home. Basically, the teachers have to spend the next few years demystifying and defending the programme to parents, hoping they will either embrace it or give up questioning it. By that time, we are changing the curriculum again anyway.” Director of Maths Inspiration and BBC presenter Rob Eastaway shared a similar experience of struggling to help his daughter with her maths homework, which included problems vastly different from his own understanding of mathematics. “Like most parents – numerate or otherwise – my first reaction to this was annoyance. Why have they changed it? Now my child gets cross when I try

Parent voice

The power of the IEP – getting parents on A board

Deputy principal of Ranui Primary School, SHARON FUEMANA, undertook research to examine parents’ perspectives of schools’ engagement with them and discovered the profound effect a successful Individual Education Plan (IEP) process can have on teacher-studentparent partnerships.

s a parent of four children of Pasifika descent, I have always been passionate about Pasifika students and their journeys to success. In the past seven years I worked as deputy principal at Ranui Primary School, where there is a high percentage of Māori and Pasifika students. Part of my role was to work with children who have special learning needs. This involved working closely with their parents to help children find success. My observation was that engaging parents in their child’s learning is very effective in supporting success. This was evident across all families and particularly families considered ‘hard to reach’ (Harris & Goodall, 2007). The questions I often asked were: what do we do as a school; and, what can we do to successfully engage parents in their children’s learning? Finding time for indepth exploration of questions like these is not a luxury teachers readily have. However, in 2014, I was

fortunate to be a recipient of the Woolf Fisher Lead Teacher Masters Scholarship, so I was able to do just that. Taking a year out of the business of my role in school gave me the time needed to examine parents’ perspectives of our engagement with them. The Individual Education Plan (IEP) became the vehicle through which this was done. Throughout the year, I felt both humbled and privileged to be able to “live inside the heads of my participants”, most of whom were parents, and discover through their experience in our talanoa (Vaioleti, 2006; Amituanai-Toloa, 2007), their perspective of the IEP process. Seeing through the eyes of another – in the case of my research, the eyes of parents – proved to be very effective in evaluating the impact of our school’s practice of the IEP process (Hattie, 2012). It was my belief that understanding the IEP process from the parents’ perspectives would enable teachers Continued on next page >>

to explain using my methods. Is this why some people reckon the country’s maths is going to the dogs?” And here in New Zealand, the Numeracy Project came under attack earlier this year, with part of the problem being attributed to a lack of parental understanding of the new maths teaching methods.

Gender divide

Arguably, one of the most surprising findings from the ASG report was that Kiwi parents had higher educational aspirations for their daughters than their sons. Phillipson says this could be due to a perception that girls need to overcome more than boys to achieve highly in education. Seventy per cent of parents with sons said they have to remind their children to study, compared with only 49 per cent of parents with daughters. Half of all parents of daughters agree their child will not stop until their homework is complete, compared with only 35 per cent of parents with boys. There is also a difference between the perceptions of fathers and mothers, with 76 per cent of fathers perceiving their child to be high achievers, compared with 69 per cent of mothers. Fathers also believe more strongly that their children have more knowledge than other children the same age (73 per cent, compared with 60 per cent of mothers).

Next steps

Phillipson says the next step will be to gain a better understanding of the impact of parental involvement in a student’s educational journey. It is already well known how much impact variables such as teacher quality and curriculum quality have on educational outcomes, he says. A child’s intelligence, motivation and skills are also measurable. However, it is not so well known how much impact parental participation has on outcomes. This will be the next step in his research. The good news for policymakers is that rolling out best practice in the area of parental participation need not be a costly exercise. “It’s not a case of just pouring more money into schools. There is much more to it than that. There might be smarter, better ways of collaborating with key stakeholders to produce better outcomes,” says Phillipson.

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Education Review series

NZ Teacher 2016 13

Parent voice

process to empower parents. The flipside of this is that when any process has the power to empower parents, it also has the power to disempower parents.

to evaluate the impact of their practice and gain a better understanding of what a successful IEP was. That information could then lead to improvement of the overall process and therefore greater engagement with parents and improved achievement outcomes.

Engaging with parents

An IEP sets goals for a student who has special learning needs. At Ranui Primary School, teachers and resource teachers of learning and behaviour (RTLBs) develop the plan in collaboration with other professionals, the student and his or her family. Engaging the family is an essential element of the IEP (MOE, 2011). I was keen to examine how the school engaged families and more specifically, Pasifika families, in the IEP process. I was also hoping to capture how the school engaged families who are often labelled “hard to reach” (Harris & Goodall, 2012). The IEP process involves a team, so it was important that I interviewed a crossrepresentation of a typical IEP team to obtain a clear picture of what the overall IEP process was in the school. I began my research by interviewing the principal, teachers, parents, students and other education professionals to find out what the nature of the current IEP process was. From there, I analysed parent data to determine what a successful IEP process was from their perspective. Following this, I further analysed Pasifika parents’ data to determine what a successful IEP process was for them.

Holistic student-centred process

My research findings showed that all participants believed the IEP process in the school was student-centred and focused on the holistic needs of the child. This involved taking time to know and understand the child as a whole person, not only their learning needs but also their physical, social and emotional needs as well. Findings showed that taking time to know and understand the child’s family values, beliefs and cultural perspectives was important in supporting the school’s knowledge and understanding of the child and this, in turn, supported engagement of the family in the IEP process.

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The successful IEP empowers

Learning-focused relationship in an equal partnership

My findings also revealed that the stamp of a successful IEP process was rooted in relationships in an equal partnership between parents, the child and the school. There was strong consensus from all parents who believed the successful IEP process is underpinned by the strength of relationships between all stakeholders in the IEP and without exception the teacher as the primary point of connection for the family. Parents saw the IEP as a collaborative partnership based on trust, honesty and respect in transparent communication with them. Parents believed that the priority of a successful IEP process is in building, maintaining and sustaining relationships and importantly, successful IEP relationships were shown to include consultative communication.

Consultative communication

In addition, the findings showed that consultative communication requires full commitment from all stakeholders and that effective relationships were seen to empower parents to engage in learning. An inspirational finding in my research was that a successful IEP process was found to be transformative for parents. Findings showed that Pasifika parents believed honest and transparent consultation is the core of their relationships. This included the school’s acknowledgement and understanding of cultural ways of communication and consultation such as ‘silence’. While my research findings supported the MOE (2011) IEP guidelines which endorse collaboration for a successful IEP process, they also showed that collaboration does not always equate with consultation. A strong message in the research that can be transferred to all collaboration with parents in schools is that the process of how we do this within the IEP is critical. My research highlighted the power one school had in the IEP

My research showed the successful IEP process in the school empowers parents and in turn empowers learning for both the child and the parent. This increases the likelihood of successful achievement outcomes. Concrete examples found in the research were where teachers and management took the time to know the child and the child’s family; to listen to them and work through problems, solving them together. This meant teachers being available to talk with parents particularly before and after school and taking time to check their assumptions and ask parents instead of assuming they know best. Ensuring transparent communication continued throughout the entire IEP process was another important example given to empower parents. Ironically, in examining the voice of parents, what spoke most loudly in my research was their silence. My research took me on an exciting journey of discovering parents’ perspectives highlighting the need for schools to acknowledge different cultural ways of communication and consultation. Through both the voices of parents and their silence, a culturally responsive model for valuing cultural capital in the IEP became apparent in my research. While my research was specific to the IEP, the findings can be applied to any partnership schools seek to have with their parent community. I am hoping to publish my research in 2016 and pursue further study in this area, in the belief that when we as educators view the IEP and all parent engagement as one of equal partnership where all cultural capital is valued, we can then empower parents to feel an innate sense of belonging in our schools. A result of this is that they can be involved, informed and supportive of their child’s education. This has to lead to greater student wellbeing and achievement for all learners, particularly priority learners and SEN students. For references please contact the editor at editor@educationreview.co.nz

Parent voice

Building bridges between home and school:

empowering parents and improving reading

Fulbright Scholar and Northcote College teacher DAVID TAYLOR’s research in New Zealand and the United States found that initiatives to encourage better parental involvement in students’ reading not only resulted in improved reading habits, but also had significant additional benefits.

ver the past two years I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to investigate an intervention for improving adolescent reading habits by working directly with parents. The intervention grew from the belief that in achieving our goals as educators, sometimes we might make more progress by working with parents than we would by just using the limited class time we have with students. There is a substantial body of research that explores this idea and the concept is summed up well by Professor Viviane Robinson (2011) of The University of Auckland when she says, “Although the worlds of school and home may differ greatly, students will thrive if there are enough bridges between them to make the crossing a walk into familiar rather than foreign territory”. In Aotearoa New Zealand we have experienced a time of rapid change in education and for many families the education system may be a very unfamiliar place, compared with what they experienced themselves. By explicitly helping parents to become involved in the education process, schools now have the opportunity to build some of those bridges that students need.

Bespoke, collaborative and sustained

With this in mind we ran an intervention focused on improving recreational reading habits for a group of year 9 students in a decile 7 Auckland secondary school. The theoretical model being tested was that parental involvement initiatives need to be bespoke, collaborative and sustained. They must be bespoke because every family is different, with different time demands, resources, educational experience and relationships. This means that what will work in one family cannot be relied on to work for another. As such, it is important to provide a range of different strategies for parents to try and work with them to choose one suitable to their particular circumstances. This is why collaboration is important: schools and teachers need to work alongside the parents in a properly collaborative fashion to help families choose strategies that have a realistic chance of making a difference in their circumstances.

Finally, the intervention must be sustained. It might just be an email, a phone call or a text message every few weeks but ongoing support is crucial if families are to successfully integrate new routines into their lives and maintain motivation during challenging times.

The New Zealand findings

In the Auckland iteration, families undertook a diverse range of strategies to try and promote recreational reading. These included set reading times, family discussion times, reading in a second

amount of recreational reading being done and in one case this was accompanied by a sharp increase in the student’s reading level. Although helping reluctant readers to read more is challenging, it is clear that a teacher’s chances of trying to achieve this are greatly improved if parents are participating and if there is regular contact between teacher and parent. There are no magic solutions in education but the results from the research in these two different contexts suggest that whatever a school’s goals – reading, maths, interpersonal skills, healthy living

It might just be an email, a phone call or a text message every few weeks but ongoing support is crucial if families are to successfully integrate new routines into their lives.” language of the household, and using online catalogues to find suitable books. There was a high degree of success for families in reaching the goals they set for themselves and there were other significant outcomes as well. Families reported improved relationships between caregivers and teenagers as a result of their reading focus and there were positive benefits recorded for siblings who were not directly part of the intervention. From an administration point of view, although there was some effort required to set up the intervention in the first instance, once it was established it took very little time to keep it running – an important consideration for any new school initiative.

– having parents as active participants in trying to achieve those goals will greatly enhance the chance of success. A further advantage of this approach is that it is inexpensive and, once established, requires minimal resourcing, which makes it realistic for all schools, regardless of circumstances, to seriously consider.

The US findings

In the US context the work has focused on two families with struggling readers. The students both attended the same large secondary school situated in a small Midwestern town. This provided an opportunity to see how the intervention might work for reluctant, struggling readers. Both cases showed positive results in relation to increasing the

Go to www.educationreview.co.nz Education Review series

NZ Teacher 2016 15

Digital teaching

The Manaiakalani experience: changing teaching stances

NZCER researchers ROSEMARY HIPKINS, JENNY WHATMAN, and JO MacDONALD discuss the insights that emerged from the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA) initiative.

here is a common saying that we parent as we were parented and we teach as we were taught. This truism obviously glosses over a great many variables and complexities but most of us would recognise the challenge it highlights. Teachers are being asked to change the ways they work in digital classrooms and to hone their capabilities in areas such as cultural responsiveness. This can be demanding for highly experienced teachers and can be even more so for those just setting out on their teaching careers. On top of learning to manage students and plan appropriate learning, beginning teachers need to set aside their own experiences of how they were taught: they need to learn new ways of being a teacher in digitally rich learning spaces.

Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA)

A group of schools in the Manaiakalani cluster have responded proactively to this challenge. In late 2013 the Manaiakalani Trust devised a pilot initiative called the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA). Ten newly qualified beginning teachers were each to be paired with a mentor teacher for the full 2014 year. The aim was to support them to begin their teaching careers working with the digital pedagogies their mentors already skilfully used, thus accelerating their progress to becoming highly effective teachers. The initiative was widely advertised and mentor/ mentee pairs began their year together at the start of 2014. In 2015 the beginning teachers, now second year provisionally registered teachers (PRTS), took sole charge of their own students for the first time. There were three strands to the initiative. For most of the week, each beginning teacher and their mentor shared a class or a group of students within a modern learning environment. Both the beginning teachers and their mentors attended a postgraduate course designed specifically for them by The University of Auckland. The course explored challenges in accelerating learning for students from the Manaiakalani schools (mainly decile 1a schools in the Tamaki Basin). The university course ran in the late afternoon on Wednesday. Earlier that same day the beginning teachers attended a digital learning academy so that they could become fluent in using a wide range of technologies in their teaching.

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One mentee designed a whole new recording system, now used by the group of teachers in a common learning space to track students’ progress across the multiple different ways they are grouped during learning. In the very best of the partnerships there were win-wins all around and clear evidence that there had been a positive impact on students’ learning progress. As one part of the evaluation, we compared the features of MDTA with a range of theoretical perspectives on effective preparation of beginning teachers. This wasn’t totally straightforward. The 10 mentees were no longer student teachers, so literature on initial teacher education wasn’t the closest fit. But neither were they PRTs in the usual sense, so the literature on supporting beginning teachers wasn’t a really close fit either. Nevertheless, we found that MDTA exhibited strong features identified in one or both of these related research fields.

The beginning teachers all learned to teach in ways they had not personally experienced as learners themselves.” A successful pilot

NZCER was engaged to evaluate the pilot. Early in the 2015 year we worked with key players from Manaiakalani to develop a simple ‘theory of change’ model for the pilot. This enabled everyone to see how the pieces were intended to fit together and what sort of evidence we might expect to see if they interacted as intended. We then interviewed almost everyone involved (mentors, mentees, principals, Manaiakalani personnel, Auckland University personnel). It became clear that this was indeed a successful pilot at the midway point. By early 2015, all 10 of the beginning teachers were working as effective, engaged, second-year teachers and some of them were markedly more skilful than might be expected at an early career stage. As would be expected, there were differences in the relative success of the 10 partnerships. It’s not really surprising that the mentor/mentee relationship is really important, especially given that the pilot was designed with the metaphor of tuakana/teina relationships woven through multiple aspects. In the strongest pairings, both the mentor and the mentee were comfortable in the role of learner. They worked together on their university assignments and sometimes the mentees, freshly out of university, needed to take the academic lead. They worked together in the classroom and mentors sometimes had to dig deep to surface tacit thinking about their own practice as they shaped support and guidance for the mentee. Mentors also had to learn to step back and not ‘rescue’ too soon, so that their mentee could profit from making common beginner’s mistakes. In turn, the beginning teachers brought new digital knowledge and skills to their school teams.

Going forward

Perhaps most tellingly, the pilot was able to address a challenge raised by researchers who bring a complexity framing to their work: Under conditions of complexity, experience is a doubleedged sword, providing a basis for action while also potentially blocking awareness of real-time responses and inhibiting insight into possibilities. (Yorks & Nicolaides, 2013) This comment brings us back to the challenge with which we began. The beginning teachers all learned to teach in ways they had not personally experienced as learners themselves. Doing so was challenging, stressful, and took a great deal of time. Everyone found it hard to juggle the university component with the other parts of the pilot, but they all agreed in the end that it was important that they did persevere and that the study brought deeper insights that enriched the overall experience. The effectiveness of the overall whole really came through in the evaluation. At the time of writing this article (November 2015), we are about to go back and talk to the people we interviewed early in the year. They are now nearing the end of the second year of the pilot. We’re looking forward to it, and to seeing what happens next. The full report of this first phase of the evaluation can be accessed on Education Counts at https://goo.gl/x4rAVC. For references, please contact the editor at editor@educationreview.co.nz.

New teachers

First-hand from a

first-year Provisionally registered teacher Carolyn Richardson shares lessons learned from her first year teaching at Tauranga Intermediate.

ere I am at the end of my first year as a provisionally registered teacher (PRT) with a couple of my year 7 students. I have grown in so many ways and this growth has happened because of an amazing group of kids, families, colleagues and friends who have supported and nurtured me on my learning journey towards becoming a fully registered teacher. They say it takes a village to raise a child – I also believe it takes a whole school community to raise a teacher. It is about making connections; with your students, with their families, with your colleagues, with support staff, with your school community and with the teaching and learning that goes on in your class. When you are excited and passionate about what you’re doing then the students are too. It’s also about having high expectations from day one and having really clear routines and structure in place so your kids know what is expected in all areas of their school day. It’s about how you make them feel and how they feel about each other. A positive classroom culture is at the heart of everything that happens at school. It is overwhelming at the start. There is so much to process and figure out and some days it feels like you’re just keeping your nose above water. It gets easier and people understand what it’s like. Every other teacher has been through what you are going through and there is a wealth of knowledge and expertise to tap into among your colleagues. Don’t be scared to ask lots of questions and share your knowledge and ideas too. It’s great to bounce ideas and resources around. We are all here for the same reason and together we are a rich source of ideas, creativity and experience.

Know your kids

Get to know your kids and what makes them tick. Have a circle time at least once a week and talk about what’s been going on; the good, the bad and the challenges the kids are facing. Talk about how we can celebrate the good and improve on the other stuff.

We use the 4 Cs in our circle times to share a care, a concern, a celebration or a compliment. It’s amazing the things that come up and how this helps us be more cohesive as a group – we work together and support each other.

Know your colleagues

Get to know your colleagues; they care about the same things as you. It’s amazing how a little chat around the photocopier or at morning tea can really lift your day or inspire you. Every teacher has had challenging times, whether related to behaviour or learning, and a problem shared is a problem helped. You are never alone.

A positive classroom culture is at the heart of everything that happens at school.” I have come into teaching in my 40s with my own family of two daughters aged 9 and 12. I have had to ensure that my family gets my time also as it is very easy to always be working as you are constantly striving to do more and make the best possible learning experiences for your class. Try really hard to worker smarter, not harder.

Prioritise and drink water

There will always be a long list of things you need to do but just prioritise and tick off a few things every day. There will always be more tomorrow. When you’re starting out you feel like you have to prove yourself and you work really hard to stay on top of everything. Try to keep a balance. Overall, my advice to you is to take care of yourself, drink plenty of water, get to know your kids and what is happening in their lives, make sure you go to the staffroom for morning tea, and enjoy this wonderful, crazy, amazing and wild journey that is teaching.

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New teachers

Starting out as a

new teacher N

ew teachers invariably greet their first day in the classroom with feelings of excitement at meeting a sea of shining new faces with all their energy and potential, as well as with a few nerves. Starting out in teaching has its stresses and challenges – not knowing the school culture, its systems, processes and people. Despite trainees getting more classroom experience before they start a job, that first full-time position is still a big leap. You don’t know ‘how we do things round here’, a concept described as ‘transition shock’ by US educational researcher Ellen Corcoran – something most teaching novices experience. Teaching is, after all, one of the few professions where novice practitioners immediately take on many of the same role responsibilities as their much more experienced colleagues. So, newbies to the classroom can expect to find a clash between their expectations and the reality of teaching. Excitement coupled with idealism can be taken over by disappointment and feelings of disillusionment. Here’s how to ensure you can muster and maintain that essential sense of excitement throughout the hard work of teaching – especially as a beginning teacher.

You are helping to shape the future through each student you connect with.” 18 NZ Teacher 2016

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Associate professor SALLY HANSEN and Dr ALISON SEWELL give some advice to teachers embarking on their teaching journey.

It’s important to have a supportive and collegial work environment. Form positive collegial relationships with staff (experienced and beginners like you) and in the wider school community, including office staff, gardeners and cleaners. Come out of your classroom and have a visible presence in the staff room and playground. Speak to people, smile, be positive, take initiative – make sure you attend all staff briefings. Keep connected with the ITE (Initial Teacher Education) student cohort that you belong to. Nurture these relationships. How you respond to challenge is important: try not to react negatively to problems. In fact, don’t see them as problems. Instead, listen, reflect and develop some planned strategies for dealing with the unknown. For example, if asked your view about something that you are not sure of, ask for time to reflect or research and then talk about it. You can’t be all things to all people. Don’t feel you have to say ‘yes’ to everything, and learn how to say ‘no’ tactfully. If asked to take on a position of responsibility that you don’t yet feel ready for, or that you don’t have time for, say ‘no’ and say why, and that you might consider it later in the year. It is easy for staff who’ve been teaching for 20+ years to forget how overwhelmed you might be feeling.

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Be organised and prepared. It’s important to plan ahead and anticipate what might come up. You might be asked to supervise swimming – make sure you have sunscreen and sun hat in your car.

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You need to be mentored – and mentored well. Establish how you would like to be mentored. Seek out the kind of mentoring that works best for your professional learning. What does that look like and who might be best placed to give it? Develop a mentoring plan. Familiarise yourself with EDUCANZ Induction and Mentoring guidelines.

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Be observant. Make time to observe other teachers and familiarise yourself with the school environment. If you see something that interests you in the school and you want to know more, ask to observe. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

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Know your limits and identify your weaknesses. If you are poor at remembering names, make sure you have a strategy in place to help you.

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Be positive. Research shows the value of simply being positive. Smile! If you’ve had a bad day – let it go. Tomorrow is a new start. Be happy with one success each day and think about this achievement on your cycle or drive home.

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Self-care is vital. Emotions lie at the heart of teaching – yours too. Take time out for you. Recognise the signs (body and mind) when enough is enough and you need to take a break to feel refreshed again. Get plenty of sleep, eat well, and be kind to yourself when you make a mistake. Learn from it and move on.

10. Keep a journal. write about the things 10 that happen to you when you are first teaching – your fears, successes and new ideas you want to try. Talk to people too – don’t bottle things up. Find out what is available in your area for a PRT 1 teacher.

At the end of the day, even if you are tired and feeling overwhelmed, remind yourself that teaching is the most wonderful, timehonoured profession. You are helping to shape the future through each student you connect with. As American historian Henry Adams reminds us, teachers affect eternity – you will never know where your influence stops. Keep hold of this thought as you start out in teaching! Associate professor Sally Hansen and Dr Alison Sewell coordinate the Master of Teaching and Learning at Massey University’s Institute of Education.

Vox pops

What makes a

good teacher?

Education Review asked some younger kids for their thoughts on what makes a good teacher.

I think a good teacher is one that makes a comfortable and friendly environment for all the students. So everyone is happy and likes coming to school.” Keira, aged 10

She’s kind. She does nice stuff. She lets us to go on the iPad and computer and gets us new games on them. Sometimes she lets us to have free play time.” They have to be funny. And fun.”

Stella, aged 7

Emily, aged 5

A good teacher is one who wants the student to progress in their learning and who puts the effort into making sure students understand what they are learning.” Thomas, aged 15

Do heaps of maths so I can learn heaps. Be nice and have good shoes.” Eden, aged 5

Someone that can make us all laugh and gives fair consequences.”

I want my teacher to teach me a lot of stuff and be nice.”

Tyler, aged 10

If they are nice.” Millie, aged 7

Looks after us, teaches us really good things, is kind and loves us!” Arthur, aged 5

To me a good teacher is one that is really interested in what they are teaching, so the interest spreads to the students, and they want to learn about it more. Also someone who is funny and calm.” Arlo, aged 12

Taylor, aged 7

Doing art, and painting, and drawing pictures. That is all.” Mason, aged 5

If she is nice and not really mean and she likes doing activities.” Daniel, aged 7

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Visible Learning

Making learning visible: putting Hattie into practice Professor John Hattie’s metaanalyses have helped to unveil effective teaching and learning practices. Here, LYNDA SHANKS shares how this research is being made accessible to schools and teachers through the popular Visible Learning plus programme.

hen Professor John Hattie met with parents and educators over 20 years ago, conversation circled around what ‘the next big thing’ in education might be. Everyone seemed to have a theory about what really made a difference to teaching and learning – and everyone was searching for a new idea. It struck him that rather than chasing everything new – and with so much great learning already taking place – it would be great to know what really does work for students’ learning. And so the research project was born. For 20 years Hattie has been seeking out research studies called meta-analyses so that he can find out what things really do make the greatest difference to student learning. There was so much research available (in fact he has looked into over 1,000 of these studies) but the studies tended to focus on one thing at a time. For example, a researcher might have a strong interest in homework. They pull together all the studies that have ever been done on homework and then make some overall conclusions and, by using some calculations, are able to see how effective homework is for students. While these are really helpful studies, Hattie wanted to be able to pull all of these studies together so that he could look at the difference that various things collectively made to student learning. He wanted to know what things we should pay attention to and what things we shouldn’t get distracted by. What struck him while researching was the importance of learning being visible to everyone in the learning process – leaders, teachers and especially the students. The tag line he has for Visible Learning is ‘when teachers see learning through the eyes of their students, and students see themselves as their own teachers’.

Putting research into practice

Hattie wanted his research to do more than just sit as an interesting body of work that made no difference to student learning, so he worked with Cognition Education in New Zealand to develop the Visible Learning plus professional learning programme. As they have compiled this programme they have taken the research and thought about the ‘so what’ question – what are the implications of the research for schools and teachers? The big ideas of Visible Learning are used as a framework for considering research-informed strategies in the light of the specific learners in their context. With that in mind, the Visible Learning plus programme is intentionally designed to enable educators to understand their impact and how it can be evaluated through a series of workshops and ‘impact’ cycles (evidencebased cycle of inquiry and knowledge building). Four key areas provide a basis for deep learning conversations that get to the heart of teachers’ and leaders’ learning and understanding of the impact of their practice and the combined impact for a school or system.

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What is Visible Learning?

At the heart of the programme is the ‘visible learner’ – understanding how to create students who have the skills, dispositions and characteristics to lead their own learning is vital. Visible learners will be able to answer three essential questions: How am I going? Where am I going? Where to next? ‘Know thy impact’ means that teachers and leaders understand the difference they make to students in terms of progress and achievement as every child has the right to make one year’s progress for a year’s worth of teaching. The programme also delves deeply into what it means to be an ‘inspired and passionate’ teacher and in particular from the students’ perspective; how these characteristics enacted by the teacher are experienced by the student. ‘Feedback’ makes up the fourth area of visible learning and has been one of the most researched influences, as done well it has the power to double the speed of learning. Providing the cohesion for all these strands needs good alignment of systems, process and structures at both a system and classroom level. The way that schools organise things such as planning, how data is gathered, student voice and so on has the ability to support visible learning or create barriers. This is all underpinned by a certain way of thinking. In Hattie’s book Visible Learning for Teachers (2012; 9, p15) he has written about eight ‘mindframes’ and has since added a further two. He says, “… mindframes underpin our every action and decision in a school… the claim is that teachers and school leaders who develop these ways of thinking are more likely to have major impacts on student learning.”

How can Kiwi schools utilise Visible Learning?

In order to turn this into reality schools and systems have transformed this theory into practice in a variety of ways that suit their context and learning needs. Deb Masters, global director of Visible Learning plus, says the materials provide the framework for the multiple, varied and ‘onesize-fits-one’ discussions that schools, school leaders and wider systems (districts and territories) might have as they interrogate practice and evidence. Here in New Zealand we have schools that use Visible Learning as their umbrella framework that guides the actions and decision-making, whereas other schools might have Visible Learning as one of the spokes of their umbrella as a key pedagogical approach. Whichever way is used, alignment and coherence are critical to the success between different aspects of the curriculum so they all support one another.

Case study one

A secondary principal in the upper North Island describes his role as being: “to influence the teaching and learning at the college in order to close these gaps by developing a much greater transparency around what was happening inside our classrooms and to enable our students to be able to take greater responsibility for their own learning”.

Visible Learning

They identified both the knowledge and practices that staff and students would need in order to achieve this, which became a relentless focus for professional learning. The leadership team’s dedication to only a small number of priorities has led to successful implementation of the plan and, more importantly, long-term sustainability. All too often teachers can feel overwhelmed at the barrage of innovations that come and go and nothing ‘sticks’.

Case study two

Student voice gave them the impetus to reframe what they were doing as it had shown the staff that learning was actually ‘invisible’ to students. In this case, it was decided that: success in learning is no longer to be measures by Achieved, Merit or Excellence but instead it is best defined and measured as the progress (or growth) that students make the focus of teaching and learning is to understand where students are at in their learning and then using this understanding to guide future action, monitor progress, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions the next iteration is teachers identifying individuals’ levels of readiness and learning needs in order to set appropriate stretch goals for further learning. Through a collaborative process they set out with a clear aspiration and a three-year instructional plan for teachers and students to develop: a shared understanding of the language and process of learning across the school a shared understanding of learning progressions and the ability to use them to evaluate progress observation of feedback processes that are based on student learning.

Principal of Pahiatua School Lynne Huddleston also had a positive experience with the programme while leading a cluster of five schools in Visible Learning. Initially all five schools worked together with their professional development days and now are at a point where each school is seeking its own pathway as they have grown more confident in understanding their evidence/needs and impacts. Huddleston has exemplified what it means to be an evaluator and change agent. “This year the kids have grown wings – they are so hooked into their learning it is unbelievable,” she says, “Our five-year-olds talk about persevering, where they are with their learning, and where they need to get to. They work independently and with purpose. “Furthermore, we can see progress across the board in all assessments, but even looking solely at the National Standards we had an overall [across the school] improvement of 18 per cent of students in writing achieving at or above. Our target cohort of year 8s improved 45 per cent and there is a similar story in maths.” She credits the hard work and dedication of the teachers and the students. The lift in achievement can be seen in every aspect of their learning. There are many stories of schools from around the world that have been inspired by John Hattie’s research and have been part of the Visible Learning plus professional development programme to get to the heart of understanding their impact. These cases are summarised in the latest book titled Visible Learning into Action – International Case Studies of Impact and provide a glimpse of great stories that will inspire you to delve deeper at your place. Lynda Shanks is a consultant for Visible Learning plus.

Go to www.educationreview.co.nz

Vocational Education and Training

VET: F

or a long time vocational education and training (VET) was seen around the world as the ‘poor relation’ to university study. It was viewed as a second-chance stream – the training option for the poorer, marginalised people of society. But as economies slowly recover from the recession, and the focus shifts to improving productivity and filling skills gaps, attitudes towards VET are improving – particularly from a political stance. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is out to change perceptions of VET across the board so that young people and their parents also view it as a promising pathway to career success. Chief of Youth, Literacy, and Skills Development Dr Borhène Chakroun says the organisation is intent on repositioning VET, making it central to lifelong learning, and therefore a more attractive option for people.

What is driving VET globally?

Dr Chakroun, who spoke at the New Zealand VET Research Forum in October last year, says the increasing significance of VET is driven by several factors. The difficulty experienced by youth in entering employment is thought to have an impact, and there is an expectation that VET will increase employability. The changing workplace is also a factor. Once upon a time, a person might have trained in his or her chosen vocation without the need to undergo further training. However, changing technology and workplace culture now demand new skills, which require people to consider up-skilling, re-skilling and multi-skilling. VET is also being given priority on a large global scale. The recent UN Summit developed a sustainable development agenda with a broad range of priorities, including the importance of skills development and raising the profile of VET. UNESCO’s global 2016–2021 strategy feeds into this bigger picture. The strategy is essentially about working with member states, including New Zealand, to support new policies that will enhance their approach to VET. While a one-size-fits-all approach to VET is unfeasible, there are certain factors that are constant for all countries. “While we need to be sensitive to the institutional setting of the country, there are important factors that are common to all countries as they focus on outcomes: economic growth, social cohesion and sustainability,” says Chakroun. He says the demographic and socio-economic make-up of each country will have a bearing on their areas of focus. Some countries are concerned with youth unemployment. Others, like France, have a dual focus on increasing youth employment and older people looking to re-enter the workplace.

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no longer the poor relation JUDE BARBACK talks to global Vocational Education and Training (VET) experts about why VET is starting to take centre stage. Others still will be concentrating on their migrant community or minority groups.

How does New Zealand measure up?

While somewhat reluctant to comment on New Zealand’s situation based on his limited knowledge of its approach to VET, Chakroun believes New Zealand has solid institutional infrastructure in place to support a robust VET system. He was particularly impressed with the Treasury’s Higher Living Standards framework and thought the main challenges were achieving buy-in from the various different departments and sectors, and translating it into outcomes. Outcomes appear to be the area to which New Zealand needs to turn its attention. Chakroun gave the example of qualification completion rates sitting at 52 per cent as an area that should be addressed. Michael Davis, who also spoke at the VET Research Forum, agrees the focus needs to be on the outcomes of VET.

“Everyone – not just New Zealand – needs to focus on outcomes, and not just outputs,” he says. Like Chakroun, Davis thinks the “institutional architecture” is stable. The Tertiary Education Commission, as a central funder for industry training organisations (ITOs) and education providers, helps to provide equality of status among different education choices. Davis says since the recession there has definitely been a shift that has seen employers introducing initiatives to encourage VET. However, he says the UK lacks the central facilitation role for this that is neatly provided in New Zealand by its ITO system. Following a major restructure a few years ago, New Zealand now has 11 ITOs which set the national skill standards, lead the development of qualifications and generally play a central role in industry-related vocational education and training. The ITOs also work alongside senior secondary and tertiary education to provide industry skills standards and qualifications through Vocational Pathways. Josh Williams, chief executive of New Zealand’s Industry Training Federation (ITF) agrees New Zealand is well placed to respond to UNESCO’s recommendations as long as industry and government work together with renewed focus on workforce skills.

Adrienne Dawson, also from the ITF, says the New Zealand VET Research Forum provided a useful opportunity to present current research and ideas to policymakers, researchers, vocational education providers and government agencies to promote collaboration, further research partnerships and fresh ideas. “Our international keynotes gave us the opportunity to benchmark ourselves against what is being thought about and done internationally in the VET space, as well as position ourselves in the overall picture.”

Putting VET on an equal footing

Part of the difficulty is changing perceptions of VET, and specifically its relationship to more traditional ‘academic’ education options. John Rogers, who heads up the Skills for Health in the UK, believes we shouldn’t try and split VET and academic education. “For me, it’s always a continuum,” he told delegates of the Careerforce Workforce Development Conference, held in Wellington in November last year. Tina Sims from the Ministry of Education, also spoke at the Careerforce conference about the need to challenge perceptions, particularly at school level. Sims says it is common for many secondary schools, particularly single-sex high-decile schools, to claim “We’re an academic school” or “All our school leavers go to university” when tracking data will often reveal a different story. In one example, the data showed that at one such school, actually 56 per cent of school leavers went to university. In fact, Sims says that overall just 30 per cent of school leavers take the university route, and of these a fifth drop out in their first year. Students shouldn’t be restricted to an academic path or a vocational pathway. If people in established jobs and careers are finding it necessary to upskill and pursue professional development opportunities, then shouldn’t this approach to skills-based education begin at the school level. Sims says there are some exciting new approaches under consideration for year 13 students. Instead of the traditional five time-tabled days at school, it is possible that year 13 students might have the chance to incorporate more flexibility into their week. Their curriculum options could be broadened to allow them to embark on some Level 3 tertiary study and/or employee experience on top of their school-based subjects. This approach may incorporate study towards a Vocational Pathway. Ultimately, it allows students to participate in year 13 student life – the ball, the First XV, leadership opportunities, and so on – while tailoring their study to set them up for their next step.

Digital assessment Work-based training

Michael Davis, who heads up the United Kingdom Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), believes more could be done to capitalise on apprenticeships. He is a big advocate for taking a work-based route into a vocation. The challenge is making people aware that there isn’t a glass ceiling for work-based careers, he says. The UKCES published a Growth Through People report which identified a number of priority areas for the UK governments to address. Among these is a focus on ‘earning and learning’ – essentially studying while on the job. Davis says there has been a dramatic shift towards apprenticeships in the UK, with businesses and unions in agreement that apprenticeships provide a genuine pathway into a career. The emergence of degree-level apprenticeships is an exciting development, with people being given the chance to achieve a degree over four or five years while on-the-job. Not only do they achieve a high-level qualification, but their education is aligned with the requirements of their chosen vocation. Davis says that while getting the degree – or diploma, certificate or other qualification – is important, the focus is to look beyond qualification attainment to what outcomes VET brings people. In keeping with similar initiatives in New Zealand, he says technology now allows them to track earnings after qualification. The use of comparative data is helpful to people in making informed decisions about which vocational and educational pathway they pursue.

Looking forward

One of the most significant things emerging from the UKCES report was that employers need to take ownership of skills development, and work together – with government support – to drive it forward. It seems the collaboration and innovation advocated by the world VET experts is on the cards here. In November, the Government announced a Productivity Commission inquiry into new and emerging models of tertiary education. The inquiry is expected to take into account the needs of a rapidly changing and dynamic workforce. “We will prosper, both socially and economically, when we seriously invest in the skills of our working population, through workplace education and training,” says the ITF’s Josh Williams. “We need to encourage delivery models that link the world of education and the world of work, and a coherent system that efficiently delivers relevant skills.” However, Dr John Polesel from the University of Melbourne says VET is often used as a tool by government to fix problems, like skills shortages or unemployment. He suggests we are risking the learning of young people by focusing on narrow vocational competencies instead of broader generic competencies and the broader cultural base of knowledge. Polesel believes the curriculum needs to be broader to allow for better and more positive tertiary-level or workplace-based training. “Change will require ensuring the pedagogy used is relevant to a broader range of kids,” he says. Change is certainly afoot in the VET space. It is a relief to see VET slowly shake off the second-tier stigma and leverage its status in the education hierarchy.

Online assessment

– what’s stopping us?

JUDE BARBACK looks at where the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is at on its digital assessment journey.

hen I think of assessment, I think of sitting in the school hall, desks evenly spaced, clear plastic bags with pens. I think of sprinting to the university with printed assignments. For generations before mine, assessment will evoke different memories – perhaps handwritten coursework and the long wait over summer for the results to turn up in the post. For today’s young people, and certainly tomorrow’s, assessment will be a vastly different experience. From social networks to shopping to school work, today’s teenagers live digital lives; they don’t know a world without technology. So it makes sense that they should also be assessed using digital technology. Many schools are already using digital processes for internal assessment, and by 2020, NZQA intends to offer a wide range of digital assessment. Chief executive Dr Karen Poutasi says NZQA is taking “small and considered steps towards this goal, running trials and pilots to ensure we get it right”. One such step was the revamped eMCAT assessment. The MCAT (Mathematics Common Assessment Task) is a paper-based algebra assessment that Level 1 NCEA students sit each year. In 2014, a very small number of students took part in an electronic version of this assessment, and the pilot was expanded in 2015 to involve approximately 11,000 students, from 146 schools. The eMCAT was also delivered to 14 students who are currently residing overseas. Students who sat the computer-based assessment also sat a paper-based assessment, with their highest mark counting towards NCEA. Deputy chief executive assessment, Richard Thornton, says that while the initial feedback about the eMCAT has been mixed, 54 per cent of students indicated that the experience was satisfactory. “We expected there would be challenges in taking an exam designed for paper and putting it online, and some of the feedback reflects this,” says Thornton. There are bound to be some hurdles in switching mediums for assessment, however NZQA believes they are hurdles worth leaping, given the potential advantages to digital assessment.

Technology can allow assessment to occur anywhere, at any time – for example, whenever the student is ready. That said, NZQA is determined to keep the student and assessment as the focus of its digital assessment programme, rather than the technology itself, which they view as “an enabler for positive change for assessment”. As such, NCEA students in the future are likely to be able to complete internal and external assessments online when they are ready, access their results and exam ‘scripts’ online faster with options to apply for reviews and share with others. Of course, the difficulty with any major change like this, is getting everyone on board. While some schools have had BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programmes up and running for years now, others are struggling to maintain pace. In an effort to determine schools’ readiness for computer-based assessments, NZQA surveyed secondary schools about their BYOD programme, the capacity of their wireless networks and hardware, and whether they used the electronic submission process for moderation. Of the 182 schools that responded, just over a quarter would be able to manage computerbased assessment with their existing hardware – although around half indicated they could manage if students’ computers were able to be used. Many schools also mentioned the variable quality of their Wi-Fi, which could impact on its usefulness. Nearly all the responding schools had BYOD programmes in place. For schools in which digital technology already occupies a firm place, like Orewa College, Tamaki College and Hornby High School, many teachers and students are converts to internal assessment, praising its flexibility and relevance to students’ learning. However, many others are not there yet. While it won’t happen overnight, others will eventually join those schools that are ready for digital assessment. Certainly, no small task confronts NZQA in meeting its 2020 goal.

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Teach international

Home and away New Zealand teacher friends JASON McKEARNEY and ANDR’E JAY taught together at an international school in Doha, Qatar. One returned to teach in New Zealand, the other remains in Doha. Education Review talks to both about their experiences teaching abroad.

Jason McKearney and Andr’e Jay

JASON McKEARNEY: Living in Doha

Where are you teaching at the moment? A: I am currently working in Doha, Qatar. Qatar is a desert country that borders Saudi Arabia on one side and the Persian Gulf on the other. Doha is the capital and comprises 80 per cent of the country’s population of two million; per capita it is the richest country in the world. It is most recently famous for being announced as the host for the 2022 Football World Cup, which has been shrouded in controversy since its announcement. The school I work at is a Private PYP (Primary Years Programme) school, using the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme.

What prompted you to consider teaching abroad? A: My original plan on travelling abroad was prompted by doing an OE [overseas experience] with my wife. I had looked at teaching abroad and then travelling from that place as a base, rather than going to London and working odd jobs like others do.

Have any family members accompanied you overseas? Do they work or attend schools? A: When we first moved here in October 2011, it was just me and my wife. We now have two daughters (aged one and three). The three-yearold will begin preschool in September.

Why the Middle East? Did you consider any other options? A: The main reason for the Middle East was it looked exciting; everything is new (as these cities/countries are literally being built and popping up in the desert). Also the money was a factor. On an international scale of salaries the Middle East is very favourable. We also looked at Asia, but the Middle East is central and therefore fitted our plans for travel.

Did you find placement through a recruitment agency? Was this a straightforward process? A: When applying for jobs I was signed up to a recruitment agency. However, I also applied directly to schools. In the end, I got my job through word of mouth, through a family member’s friend who was working at the school.

Are there many other teachers from New Zealand at your school or nearby schools? Are New Zealand teachers generally held in high regard, do you think? A: When I first started here in 2011, there were about 30 New Zealand teachers on the staff (besides Americans, we were the most represented). Now there is only about a third of that. This is mainly based on people moving on to other areas of the world to work and have new experiences, as contracts are fixed for two years and then only continue year by year. New Zealand teachers are held in very high regard in this area of the world and internationally. What is having an effect right now, especially in this part of the world, are oil and gas prices. It has become more expensive to hire New Zealand teachers due to relocation and flight costs, based on New Zealand’s location.

How do you think New Zealand’s curriculum, teaching practices and education system compares with those of the school you’re teaching at currently? A: New Zealand’s curriculum rates very highly. We have a New Zealand assistant principal who introduced New Zealand maths to our school so we currently use that as the basis for our mathematics programme. In terms of our practices, we do things very well at home. Seeing the American system in action, they teach to tests or workbooks. The transdisciplinary way of teaching at home and the use of differentiated lesson structures and small groups is the norm in New Zealand, but is seen as great teaching practice abroad.

What are the most rewarding aspects about teaching abroad? A: It’s the travel and people you meet, both professionally and otherwise. Having the ability to go to conferences with people from all over the world is amazing. The travel we get to have as a family is also unbelievable. The other big factor is the time. Due to the heat here, we start school at 7am and finish at 1.40pm. I am usually home from

Kia ora! Welcome to Vibe

Teach in London. Play in Europe! 24 NZ Teacher 2016

Education Review series

info@vibeteaching.co.uk

Teach international

ANDR’E JAY: Back in New Zealand

Where did you teach overseas, and for how long? A: Doha, Qatar for six years. Doha is an hour’s flight from Dubai. We returned to New Zealand last year.

What prompted you to consider teaching abroad? A: We wanted a change and the opportunity to travel and save money for a house deposit. We also wanted to give our children a global perspective of the world.

Did you go through an agency? Was this a straightforward process? A: Yes, we used Search Associates, which is a widely used agency with a very reputable name on the international circuit. It was a very easy process. It does help to know someone who has been through the process and can answer questions. I would be happy to offer advice if another needs some quick answers.

What were the most satisfying aspects about returning to teaching in New Zealand? A: The students and colleagues. It is refreshing to be back in New Zealand and get the opportunities to teach within the New Zealand curriculum.

And the most challenging? A: The transition into school life in New Zealand and the demands of teaching in New Zealand. It is something that most people who teach internationally find. It is a lot harder to move home and begin assimilating back into New Zealand life, as well as building friendships here, after being overseas for so long.

Do you think your time spent teaching overseas has enriched you as teacher? A: Very much so. Teaching abroad offers so many opportunities to learn about new curriculums, dynamics of teaching and learning, perspectives on inquiry – not to mention the global sense of community that you are immersed in by living in a foreign country.

Do you miss any particular elements of the school or education system in Doha? A: I miss the non-contact time that you receive in an international school and the chance to use this for collaborative interaction with colleagues. Also the opportunities your students get with having specialist teachers in the arts, physical education, and languages. If you are fortunate

And the most challenging aspects? A: The most challenging aspect is being away from family. Also getting used to the heat. It sits around 40 degrees Celsius for a large part of the year. The other thing was that, living in a desert, there isn’t much greenery – which was very strange, coming from New Zealand.

Has culture shock been an issue for you or your family? A: Culture shock wasn’t too big a thing when we first arrived. ‘Nanny culture’ is a big part of this country though. Every family has nannies/ maids, sometimes one per child. This was strange and took some getting used to. Besides that, this country is very westernised. It is mainly made up of British and American food and clothing stores and everything is bilingual with Arabic and English. Therefore the transition wasn’t too difficult.

Would you consider teaching abroad in the future? If so, would you return to the Middle East or consider other destinations? A: It will definitely be something we will look at again. For the moment it was a good opportunity to move back to New Zealand for family reasons and having our children settle into a New Zealand system to give them grounding in their home country. We would most likely look at moving to another area away from the Middle East to get a different experience.

What advice would you give to Kiwi teachers considering teaching abroad? A: My advice for any teacher, with dependents or not, is to seriously consider a move to an international school to gain a different insight into the world and education. At the same time, save money, travel and experience the vast cultures we don’t really know about, living in New Zealand. It’s a chance to get a wider perspective on many things.

What do you miss most about teaching in New Zealand? A: The thing I miss most about teaching in New Zealand are the students and parents and their easygoing nature and being relatable to myself. Teaching abroad things are different. You don’t build the relationships with the students and parents like you do at home. Parents do not really come into the school unless it is for conferences. Other than that, drivers or nannies/maids drop the children off and pick them up.

work at 3pm, so get to spend a large part of the afternoon and evening with family and friends, which is fantastic.

enough there are external rewards like presenting and being part of international professional development.

Do you intend to return to teaching in New Zealand at some stage? A: I cannot see myself returning to teaching in New Zealand. This would be mainly due to the workload (less time to spend with family) and the poor salaries in relation to work done.

What advice would you offer Kiwi teachers considering teaching abroad? A: I would say to other Kiwis to definitely consider it. I have enjoyed my time – the travel, the new friends, the extra time I get with my family each day and the overall life experiences I’ve had in the last few years have been well worth the move.

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NZ Teacher 2016 25

Priority learners

Acceleration groups

– finding the formula for success in maths SUE TAYLOR discusses how priority learners can achieve better outcomes through focused, high-impact mathematics instruction from their own classroom teacher than from intervention programmes.

Making sense of maths Jo Boaler’s set of positive maths norms (2015) develops these behaviours: Everyone can learn maths to the highest levels Mistakes are valuable Questions are really important Maths is about sense-making Maths is about connections and communicating Maths class is about learning, not performing Depth is more important than speed. 26 NZ Teacher 2016

ithin every New Zealand classroom exist students who experience difficulty learning, and ultimately, achieving at the same rate as their peers. These struggling students are identified as priority students and require support to achieve National Standard expectations. The Ministry of Education provides a range of intervention programmes to assist qualifying students to ‘catch up’, to ‘accelerate’ their learning. Schools, and students within, must meet certain criteria to qualify for such programmes. Students involved are expected to increase achievement, and are generally monitored to ascertain whether they maintain these improvements post-intervention. When they return to learning within their regular class programme, would they suddenly learn at a higher rate and thus achieve on par with their peers? Year after year, the same students are enrolled in intervention programmes, and year after year, the academic gaps don’t narrow. Students need a scaffolding programme that operates regularly, in-class, and with their own classroom teacher – a teacher who ‘knows’ their ability, self-efficacy, participation rates, and learning history. Grouping priority students for the purpose of providing teaching and learning over and above regular classroom programmes can be administered by classroom teachers to accelerate the progress of individual students. This research-based, high-impact instruction will provide support to identified students and ensure equitable learning opportunities that link to equivalent achievement outcomes.

Acceleration groups

Are your priority students often sitting passively in a group? Do your priority students join in mathematical discussions and collaborations voluntarily? Talking to explain, justify and reason is critical to maths learning.”

In the context of mathematics, acceleration groups provide the opportunity for development of students’ mathematical self-efficacy, the development of positive classroom maths norms, and supportive social experiences including collaborative group practices, productive maths discourse and the promotion of relational equity. The use of acceleration as a strategy to differentiate instruction will lead to a positive mathematics classroom with higher engagement levels and increased maths thinking, talking, explaining and reasoning by students with positive attitudes to maths. Acceleration involves extra teaching sessions, daily, of approximately 15–20 minutes. This teaching occurs over and above regular classroom teaching and can be followed up with daily homework revision of the day’s teaching or knowledge practice. Acceleration groups do not require release time. Acceleration groups do not require students being removed from their classroom environment. The operation of acceleration groups can work effectively in any classroom environment. Effective acceleration groups provide learning opportunities for priority students in a safe, supportive and cooperative small-group environment. Utilising good pedagogical practices through teaching specific lessons designed to jumpstart students for new learning ensures students have the prerequisite knowledge to connect new

Education Review series

learning to, while at the same time providing remediation of skill gaps that could impede new learning. The success of acceleration groups lies in the consistency of the extra lessons, specific, focused teaching of identified learning needs and prior knowledge, provision of follow-up homework practice activities, parental support, and student commitment to learning. The culture of acceleration groups can positively impact on students’ self-efficacy through adapted practices that enable priority students to engage in maths. It is general practice in New Zealand schools to provide students with daily maths sessions of 45–60 minutes. The sessions are structured with teachers spending allocated time with ability-based, mixed ability, or flexible groups. Classroom teaching can be broken down to approximately three lots of 15–20 minute teaching sessions a day with each group receiving, on average, 45–60 minutes of total maths teaching per week. The little time available to students to learn maths becomes apparent when teaching time is calculated in relation to individualised student-teacher time. For example, a student in an acceleration group that meets for an additional 20 minutes a day on top of the three 20-minute, regular classroom sessions receives 32 minutes of individualised student-teacher time – compared with 12 minutes if they attended only the regular classroom sessions.

Identifying priority students

Evidence drawn from schoolwide data shows schools still have students not participating, not engaging, not learning, not achieving. Therefore teachers must challenge the traditional learning structures and question whether they are sufficient. To provide equitable learning, teachers must use professional noticing to discern students for whom learning is a priority and adapt their classroom programmes to ensure every student receives the opportunity and the tools to participate in, engage with, and access learning. Teacher pedagogy used to identify students requiring acceleration incorporating professional noticing requires teachers to be observant by means of attending, interpreting, and deciding. Teacher attending involves noticing actions by students that adversely influence mathematical thinking or lack of prior knowledge that might prevent a student making connections to new concepts. Teacher interpreting involves making connections between student actions noticed and the mathematical development impacted. When teachers plan an effective method by which to reverse or correct the noticed actions or misunderstandings, they are deciding; deciding to include a student in an acceleration group for the purpose of meeting their individual needs reflects professional noticing and attending. Children learn maths by actively participating and engaging. There are three engagement factors interdependent within

Priority learners

the individual student: behavioural engagement – active participation and involvement; emotional engagement – students’ reactions to school, including teachers and peers; and cognitive engagement – the value of working, wanting to improve own results, and seeing the teacher actions are directed to assist them. Teachers will recognise that priority students participate and engage to a much lesser degree than their peers. Are your priority students often sitting passively in a group? Do your priority students join in mathematical discussions and collaborations voluntarily? Talking to explain, justify and reason is critical to maths learning. When students participate, teachers are able to ascertain what students understand and do not understand. Students who are struggling to achieve at the National Standard, or are not progressing at the same rate as their peers, need the most powerful and effective instructional practices that research and pedagogy have to offer: more teacher-time focused on developing prior knowledge so students can access and connect learning; opportunities for increased participation rates; teaching to address misconceptions or errors in understanding; more thinking time; and practice to grow mathematical discussions. Supportive teaching through acceleration grouping is an effective pedagogical practice that gets students moving in the right direction and empowers teachers to ensure every student has access to an equitable and inclusive mathematics education. Sue Taylor is Learning Centre MiLearning facilitator at Lake Rerewhakaaitu School. For the full, referenced version of this article, please visit www.educationreview.co.nz.

Traits of an effective maths acceleration group Extra specific teaching for students below or well-below the National Standard Extra teaching time to address students’ misconceptions or errors Development of productive mathematical discourse to improve students’ mathematical vocabularies Opportunities to use ‘talk moves’ in a small group environment Introduction of new learning to ‘preload’ students prior to regular maths group sessions Higher behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement levels Increased active participation rate More thinking time to construct understanding Supportive social experiences including collaborative group practices Promotion of relational equity Increased chances for maths thinking, explaining, justifying and reasoning.

Teach international

ESL teaching in China: what to expect

Certified and non-certified ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers alike are lining up for teaching positions in China. ROB HARRIS explains why, and adds a salutary note of caution about expectations when they get there.

ate Russell’s article on overseas opportunities (‘How Old is Too Old?’ Education Review June 2015) pointed to the numbers of older teachers leaving New Zealand and Australia for end(or near-end) of-career stints in Asia and other places. Another group of Antipodeans heading to the same places to teach are nonprofessionally certificated teachers armed with little more than a degree, an online ESL

Students enjoying an Oral English activity at Dalian Maritime University, the People’s Republic of China.

certificate and a sense of adventure. Given the central place of English in commerce and international relationships generally, it is no surprise that access to relatively low-paid native speakers has been seized on by Asian countries. Certificated teachers with many years of classroom experience behind them can access jobs in so-called ‘international schools’ that in terms of pay and allowances are not too dissimilar to their home-country incomes.

ESL benefits

The non-certificated ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers heading overseas are remunerated at about a quarter the level of the career teacher group, yet there seems to be no shortage of takers. Generally, the non-cash or non-taxable benefits available to certificated career teachers and non-certificated ESL teachers, Continued on next page >>

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NZ Teacher 2016 27

Teach international

<<Continued from previous page are similar and include free on-campus apartment, annual return airfare allowance or refund, access to subsidised cafeterias and a mid-year (February) travel allowance to encourage teachers to get out and about. However, it is in the monthly salary that the difference between to the two groups is seen most starkly. An ESL teacher in a public sector university or vocational college will likely be remunerated in China at between RMB5,500– 6,500 per month (around NZ$1,270–1,500). A certificated teacher in an international school would receive five times that amount.

Oral English emphasis

Generally, while certificated career teachers slot into their home specialties, ESL teachers are invariably thrown into classrooms and told to teach ‘Oral English’. In China, through a lethal combination of naivety and parsimony, supporting resources are usually pretty sparse and it seems to be a matter of: ‘If you can speak English, you can teach it’. There is an additional complication in the Chinese Oral English classroom, which I only came across when researching my book about my China experiences. Skyping with a former student from my first year in China (2004), alerted me to the fact that the high school to tertiary transition process in China is slanted against Oral English.

Profile

English programme at a lower-ranked school. The ‘Tier One’ ranking of Dalian Maritime trumped every other consideration.

Oral English ‘drought’

The real ‘whammy’ of the Gao Kao system for foreign Oral English teachers though, is not the pass marks that his/her tertiary Oral English students may have required to get into that particular school, but rather, the fact that the Gao Kao tests have no Oral English component. For high school students in their Gao Kao year, there is no earthly incentive to devote time to maintaining Oral English skills. If a student makes a second attempt at the Gao Kao, their Oral English ‘drought’ is not one year but two. Foreign teachers are often heard to remark that they can’t understand how students arrive as freshmen in the tertiary sector, after intensive English since Middle School, unable to string two words together. Only when the the selfdefeating nature of the Gao Kao is explained does the ‘light bulb moment’ occur. Foreign teachers, confronted with illprepared students and little, if any, resources, often experience early burnout. No wonder the ‘in-China’ tenure is thought to average 16 months, or about three semesters. Chinese universities and vocationals add to the calumny by insisting on percentage marks rather than an A, B, C, format. Assessing Oral English skills is subjective at best and trying to fairly differentiate the 89 per cent student from the 90 percent student is nigh on impossible. Teachers generally meet classes once per week and they may have seven or eight classes each of fifty-plus students, all covering the same material. In this setting, maintaining fair and equitable marks across the totality of your contact students is difficult. As Kate Russell suggests, maturity is a plus for people going overseas to teach. In my experience, for non-certificated ESL teachers, the mature ability to ‘ride the bumps’ and take the long view often marks the difference between ‘made it’ and ‘crashed and burned’.

The existential impact of the tertiary access exam, the Gao Kao, on young Chinese, is hard to overemphasise.”

‘Gao Kao’ – China’s tertiary education gatekeeper

The existential impact of the tertiary access exam, the Gao Kao, on young Chinese, is hard to overemphasise. The ranking status of universities is such a predeterminant of career success for aspiring Chinese students that they adopt all sorts of stratagems to enter the more prestigious schools. Other than geographical area ‘home province’ enrolment schemes, universities maintain an absolute reliance on Gao Kao scores to determine admissions. This means that often students with well-off parents will stay back another year in high school, with the expectation that a second Gao Kao attempt will yield a better score and hence entry to a higher-ranked university. One fluent, English-speaking high schoolleaver told me that he had accepted a place in the School of Russian at a prestigious Beijing University because the school’s ranking had a career value that far outweighed the questionable usefulness of majoring in Russian. My former student from 2004 accepted a place in the School of Public Administration at the prestigious Dalian Maritime University, even though she could have easily entered the

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Education Review series

Book offer:

Rob Harris’s ebook about his China experiences The Cat Thief of Gaizhou, is available for download at meBooks New Zealand: bit.ly/1F8QimR. Use coupon code kfldwqc for a 50 per cent discount on the list price. Offer expires 31 August 2016.

Rock ’n’ Villainy drummer DAVE JOHNSTON also works as an industry liaison and marketing coordinator at SAE in Auckland, connecting students with companies in the creative industry through internships and work placements.

isit any one of SAE Creative Media Institute’s 50 campuses around the world, and you will find students working alongside creative specialists who balance their time as educators with work in their respective professions. Dave Johnston is exemplary of the Institute’s staff – juggling the demands of drumming for alternative rock band Villainy with his busy role on campus. Villainy is one of New Zealand’s most successful alt-rock bands, having supported the tours of big-name bands such as AC/DC, Incubus, The Offspring, Billy Talent and I Am Giant. Their second album, Dead Sight, has been nominated for the 2016 Taite Music Award. Johnston’s passion for music started in his teen years when he learned drums and performed in school groups. He completed a Bachelor of Business (marketing) and a Bachelor of Sport and Recreation (both at AUT), while playing in bands and tinkering with music production software. SAE beckoned in 2009, where he undertook a Diploma in Audio Engineering. These qualifications may seem like an odd combination, but Johnston is a genuine all-rounder. He also recognised that being a musician with both marketing and music production skills was a unique combination that would serve him well in the industry. “Personal relationships are very important in music production. When you’re suggesting changes to someone’s music, it’s helpful to be versed in both the creative and the technical aspects.” Johnston has continued to spend equal amounts of time on both sides of the studio glass. Since forming in 2010, Villainy has released two albums – 2011’s Mode. Set. Clear, and 2015’s Dead Sight. Regulars on The Rock FM and Hauraki, Villainy has received NZ on Air funding for their singles and videos. They feature on the festival scene and tour nationally about twice a year. Villainy played to their largest audience yet this past December, supporting AC/DC alongside Shihad.

Profile

role model One of the great things about SAE is not only that it’s interesting and creative, but they are supportive of the demands of my work outside of the Institute, because that connection benefits the students.” When he’s not touring or recording, Johnston freelances as a mixing engineer and music producer. Understandably, he says his schedule is “…all over the place. I do a 9am–5pm at SAE, and then it’s band practice or mixing work on weeknights and weekends, until the early hours. It’s hard to plan social things, because I have to be available to take any opportunity that presents itself.”

“That’s common for creative people – a lot of our work is project-oriented and we’re juggling multiple things. It can be difficult, but it makes life very enjoyable.” He has worked at SAE for five years and is now marketing manager and industry liaison coordinator – connecting students with companies in the creative industry through internships and work placements.

“One of the great things about SAE is not only that it’s interesting and creative, but they are supportive of the demands of my work outside of the Institute, because that connection benefits the students. It’s the same for all our staff, which is very fulfilling for everyone.”

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Education Review series

NZ Teacher 2016 29

Outdoor education

The Great

Outdoors

The physical environment plays an important role in children’s education and in shaping their development. Here, US teacher and Fulbright scholar LAUREN ZAPPONE MAPLES congratulates New Zealand for providing students with wellsupported outdoor education opportunities.

n a stroke of tremendous fortune, I was selected to travel to New Zealand as part of the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Programme in the spring of 2015 for the purpose of exploring place-based outdoor learning programmes in the public school setting in New Zealand and comparing them with existing programmes in the United States. The goal of my project was to use the information gathered to determine the best way to bring more outdoor learning opportunities to public school students in my local district. I inventoried the following components of outdoor learning: spaces used, subjects and curriculum taught, activities that occur, teachers’ attitudes towards teaching outside, and the successes and challenges of established programmes. I also studied the physical spaces around schools to determine what they can offer to crosscurricular, place-based outdoor education. The physical environment (both built and natural) plays a key role in shaping child development socially, emotionally, and cognitively. The availability of both natural spaces (i.e. wildlife habitat areas, gardens, woods, streams, meadows) and built areas (i.e. black tops, playgrounds, sports fields) have a great influence on getting students outdoors for learning. While I gained some of the insights for my study through a survey I conducted with teachers from both the US and New Zealand, the depth in which busy teachers have time to respond was understandably limited. Since it was essential that I visited directly with teachers in New Zealand to see them at work with their students and in the spaces they use for outdoor learning, the majority of my study occurred through direct observations and face-to-face interviews with teachers and administrators. Teachers from both countries agree that students’ engagement in lessons is much higher when they happen outside. Being outside gives the students real-world connections to concepts that otherwise seem abstract. Gardens, woodlands, meadows, and beaches often provided a space for outdoor learning opportunities in science, maths, and writing. Both groups of teachers felt that more professional development would help them to get their students outside more often and they wished to have more training surrounding related curriculum. Many US teachers would like additional

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training to help manage student behaviour in outdoor spaces. Teachers in New Zealand often took walking field trips while teachers from the US felt their students would benefit from having more suitable spaces nearby for outdoor explorations. I had the opportunity to observe and be inspired by numerous outdoor lessons while I visited schools in New Zealand. The most startling thing I discovered was that on average teachers in the US go outside for academic lessons four times per year, while teachers in New Zealand go outdoors for lessons on average three times per week. It became clear that the value the people of New Zealand have for being outdoors impacts on the school structure, which has a major effect on students’ exposure to the outdoors. In our district (and, from my understanding through discussions I’ve had with teachers from across the US) our students are only allocated 20–30 minutes of recess (and sometimes this is an activity that is led by an adult) each day. I have been an advocate for increasing unstructured play time during the school day for years because of all of the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional benefits it provides for children. In the schools in New Zealand it seems to be a ‘no-brainer’ that children need this time outside among their peers, and the school schedules are created to accommodate it. Schools in New Zealand typically do not start until 9am while elementary (primary) schools in the US often start as early as 7.45am. Students who are dropped off early can often play on the school playground or playing fields, with minimal supervision, or have a special space where they are allowed to wait. This allows them to socialise and exercise before class even begins. Every school I visited had morning tea, which included 10–20 minutes of outdoor playtime. There are no cafeterias in New Zealand schools, so lunch time consists of 10 minutes required eating time and 50 minutes of play. This time outside, which often occurs rain or shine, gives students the opportunity to develop and use their socialemotional and problem-solving skills in a real-world context. In the US, most public school students eat indoors in the cafeteria where they have to stay seated and talk quietly. Much research has been done in the past decade that confirms that people in general are becoming increasingly disconnected from the

land and nature. Helping students develop a sense of place in this world can help them feel connectivity with their natural environment. Many years ago I was struck by a quote from Baba Dioum, a Senegalese forestry engineer. He said, ”In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” The purpose of my project in New Zealand was to inspire more teachers and administrators to find the time within the academic day to get students outside for learning, so they can help students to love and value Earth. Upon reflection on my time in New Zealand and by returning to the classroom in a country where children spend an average of seven hours a day facing a screen, I feel urgency to get teachers the support they need to get students outside for learning and help them connect with nature. I do feel there is hope, and it comes through the form of community partnerships. The four entities I noted that support robust outdoor education programming in New Zealand schools were: administration that values outdoor education, partnerships with non-profit organisations (like Enviroschools, Garden to Table, and Surf Life Saving), family and community volunteer support, and the payment of a management unit and time set aside for teachers who take on specialised programmes.

Professional development

In my district, aside from sports programmes, teachers are not paid stipends nor given time for planning and preparation of academic programmes that get students outside on a regular basis and supportive administration is not consistent from school to school. Because of this there is a great need in our community to help schools build partnerships with non-profits, community members, families, and local businesses. When I returned to the US this past summer a few members of our school and community farm, known as PEAS (Partners for Education, Agriculture, and Sustainability) decided we could help build these partnerships that will get students outside on a more consistent basis. We launched this fall as an official non-profit organisation with the mission to connect communities to the natural world with a focus on school and community gardening and outdoor learning in order to inspire the preservation and conservation of our precious planet. As PEAS moves forward with assisting schools in building community partnerships for outdoor learning, providing curriculum, and assistance with garden revitalisation, I will continue my research on the best ways to help schools develop support systems that will provide longevity for outdoor education programmes in the academic setting. In the past two decades that I have been teaching it has become increasingly obvious that our nation as a whole does not find value in giving our children the time they need outdoors in general, much less during the school day when their brains need it the most. Although our nation has set mandates for how much unstructured play time children can have during the school day, we can do better at getting them outside more often. Unfortunately, in the US, it becomes the responsibility of the teacher to design lessons that meet state/national academic standards while engaging the students in outdoor learning. The pressure put on teachers to move forward multiple district initiatives while working to improve scores on standardised tests often makes it challenging to get creative with planning new lessons, much less in a new environment that can change class dynamics and cause need for additional behaviour support. It is evident that teachers need time and support to make outdoor education during the school day a reality. Lauren Zappone Maples was a 2015 Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching recipient. You can read more details about the schools she visited on her Fulbright project website: http://goo.gl/X04rPo. For full reference list, please contact the editor at editor@educationreview.co.nz

Upskilling and opportunity:

The Mind Lab FEE HOLDSWORTH shares her journey of professional development in the area of digital and collaborative learning.

am the social media and technical advisor at Tauhara College in Taupō. After leaving high school, I gained my teaching qualification at Te Kupenga o Te Matauranga, formally known as the Palmerston North College of Education. I completed The Mind Lab by Unitec’s Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital and Collaborative Learning) in 2015. I have a passion for learning and finding solutions to problems. I love being able to personally grow, develop, take on challenges and extend my capability in the hope of becoming a better person. And with my fascination for how things work, it’s really no surprise that The Mind Lab grabbed my attention. Trying to grasp how we as teachers might best prepare and equip our students and communities with the skills they need to be inquisitive, innovative and lifelong learners has long been a challenge I’ve grappled with. The Mind Lab has helped me to realise that to achieve this I need to change the way I operate both as a teacher and as a learner myself. Since beginning my studies at The Mind Lab, my approach to learning has changed dramatically and I have become a lot more curious about my teaching paradigms. It makes sense because as our students show us every day, there are so many different learning styles and ways of attaining knowledge and skills. Using technology to solve problems is one way to engage and I have thrived on being able to upskill my capability in this area. My students have been fully supportive of and interested in my postgraduate study, and it is interesting to reflect on the value of my ability to demonstrate to them that just because I’m the teacher, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped learning. Another real advantage of undertaking the qualification has been the opportunity to work with other like-minded teachers, all of whom are on a similar journey. I love that you don’t have to be a technology teacher – the course caters for all teachers in all areas. I also always looked forward to heading into The Mind Lab each week to learn something new, and then apply it back at the classroom. Put simply, completing my Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice has been the chance of a lifetime. The Mind Lab’s expert team

Just because I’m the teacher, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped learning.”

and innovative practices have offered me new and exciting opportunities and I would highly recommend the course to any teacher, regardless of their school or subject specialty. I believe this course is the best professional development out there, not only for them but also for all their prospective learners. I’m now on my sabbatical completing a master’s degree in applied practice and I can’t wait to continue my learning journey this year. The Mind Lab by Unitec’s Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital & Collaborative Learning) is a part-time 32-week programme and is redefining professional development for teachers through the offering of a hands-on, progressive and blended qualification. 2016 intakes are in March, July and November. For more information visit www.themindlab.com.

Go to www.educationreview.co.nz Education Review series

NZ Teacher 2016 31

Professional Development

Ten years of Ten Trends As CORE Education’s influential Ten Trends initiative enters its 10th year, KAREN SPENCER looks back on the origins of the trends and what’s in store for 2016.

ll modern educators know the value of staying relevant and connected to the world around us. We might be leading change in schools, developing vision and strategic direction, or helping our communities understand new thinking in education – whenever we need to innovate and problem solve, it is vital that we ground our thinking in research and effective practices by connecting to sources beyond our immediate context. For nine years, CORE Education has sought to support the New Zealand education sector and beyond to look at developments on the horizon as a provocation for thinking afresh about what we are currently doing to support our learners. The ‘CORE Ten Trends’ is a keystone initiative that anchors a whole range of resources from this notfor-profit organisation.

The origin of the Ten Trends

Each year, CORE Education’s experienced staff of researchers and educators pool their expertise and combine their understanding and evidence of the ways that social and technological trends are influencing all aspects of education. The result is a list of the 10 trends that are expected to make a growing impact upon education in New Zealand in the coming year. For many years, these trends spotlighted the extraordinary adoption of new and emerging digital technologies to explore their impact on learners of all ages. For example, back in 2007, we spotlighted ePortfolios (‘Fad or future-focused?’) while 2008 saw us touching on ‘mash-ups’ and ‘loop’ networks. The information presented in these early years tended towards a brief summary, strikingly succinct compared to the rich, multi-media offerings that the Ten Trends now represent! The purpose in presenting these trends each year is to provide a glimpse of the ‘big picture’ within which we operate in the education system. It is important to recognise that these are trends, not specific predictions. They indicate broad developments across multiple fields that are likely to influence all our work in coming months and years. As such, they are offered to provoke further research, investigation and discussion to help leaders and educators determine what might affect strategic planning.

Recent years

While the Ten Trends have their origin in digital technologies, these days this resource takes a broader view. From 2014, CORE has organised ideas in relation to five categories of innovation and change: cultural, structural, technological, process, and economic.

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Education Review series

A sneak peak at 2016

With two trends selected for each of the five key areas, the team aims to provide a context for understanding how the trends may develop, and where we’re likely to see the impact of what is happening. An innovation for 2015 was the provision of spotlights on practitioners who were embracing some aspects of one of the trends in their organisations. For example, the focus on Maker Culture in 2015 saw CORE provide a summary of the key ideas with a window on the work of Kimberly Baars and Stephen Lethbridge at Taupaki School. In addition, the scholarships offered by CORE, such as the eFellows, Pasifika and Vince Ham awards, use the Ten Trends as a backdrop for stimulating applications and research. The Ten Trends have come a long way since the first brief summaries were published. Now, each trend is unpacked in a post on the CORE blog and website, accompanied by a collection of videos on the EDtalks Ten Trends channel, curated resources on Bundlr (32.5k+ views to date) and events such as the CORE Breakfasts. The EDtalks videos in particular provide powerful provocations for professional learning; the 2015 ‘Learner Orientation’ video has been accessed 55k+ times, while the ‘Learner Agency’ film has received 5,500+ views to date.

This year, the Trends will include a strong focus on diversity and digital fluency, equitable access, collaboration and managing change, to name a few. We are keen to ensure that the megatrends that influence our work in New Zealand, such as super-diversity, equity and the growth of grassroots networks, are to the fore so that educators can see strong local relevance in them. While many sites offer different trend summaries and predictions for the coming year, CORE Education is keen to keep pushing the boundaries around the relevance and usefulness of the Ten Trends to New Zealand educators. 2016 sees the Ten Trends innovate yet again. This year, 10 of our experienced educationalists are each hosting one of the trends that we expect to make an impact upon education this year. So, for example, you will see Carolyn English (Professional Learning Services Manager) hosting ‘Data driven organisations’, Manu FaaeaSemeatu (Digital Technologies Facilitator and Pasifika Malaga) hosting ‘Community focus’ and Mark Osborne (Senior Advisor FutureFocused Education) hosting the trend ‘Change Leadership’. Throughout the year we plan to build the explanation, research, links and opportunities for further learning and exploration for each trend, providing a growing resource around the 10 themes for ongoing professional learning. Watch out for the trailer early in term 1 with teaser summaries, and the growing collection of curated resources and events throughout the year. Karen Spencer is senior advisor transformative learning at CORE Education. Find out more about the CORE Ten Trends on www.core-ed.org.

How to use the Ten Trends

The Ten Trends have proved themselves to be a vital, popular resource for educators looking for an engaging, informed platform for discussions around change and innovation. They are eagerly awaited each year and often referenced across the sector. In the 2014 survey, for example, 83 per cent of respondents said they used the trends to keep up with new thinking, while over half used them to inform their personal learning interests. We have found that organisations get best use of of this resource in the following ways: Shared reading and stimulus for professional learning sessions and events Reference points for teacher inquiries Provocation for conversation in lead teams as a prelude to visioning and strategic planning Accessible, dip-in reading for staff and communities Reference points for research.

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“Writing an entry gave us the opportunity to put the whole story in one place. It showed us possibilities we hadn’t actively been aware of – subtle shifts we didn’t notice until we sat back and reflected on our journey.” Dr Michelle Dalrymple, Head of Faculty - Mathematics Cashmere High School, Finalist 2014 Excellence in Teaching & Learning (Atatū Award)

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