Activity 5: Professional Connections

Professional Connections

Figure 1

Departmental community

Figure 2

Secondary schools are a maze of connections evolving daily and prone to the problems of the hard ground upon which we sometimes scatter our seeds. Departmental connections are interesting place to start. These connections are ‘intra-disciplinary’, by that I mean we connect within our department under a broad umbrella of Technology, but with significantly different expertises in an area of the curriculum traditionally thought of as vocational. The developments of the NCEA has placed the subjects under the domain of Technology with responsibility of developing a design thinking philosophy. Within this domain, aspects of each specialism, connect with ITOs in each area e.g. Competenz for engineering, MITO for automotive, BCATS for construction and so on. Each of these ITOs holds specific responsibilities for developing the skills of individuals studying under these umbrellas and so they set the standard and moderate the outcomes for the trades. So, the teacher in the classroom is intensely impacted by the way in which each discipline defines the learning for each trade, and since learning a trade leads to different occupation teachers can become very isolated in the style of teaching they adopt to promulgate the learning from each discipline. The impact of this can be to focus entirely on the outcomes required for assessment as opposed to the individual student and their need to learn and understand, evident in the competition to acquire credits at all costs and the competition between teachers for a fair share of the time to be able to teach and assess each student. Yet the design thinking evident in developing products for people is inherent in trades. A building isn’t built if it is not required, food not made, an advert not bought. Trades exudes authentic learning in New Zealand, since trades are occupations much sought after and ministry goals to increase the number of students acquiring these skills is resulting in positive outcomes:

“A growing number of students are gaining their NCEA Level 2 through Vocational Pathways.

A recent analysis of 2014 results shows 40 per cent of students born in 1997 who achieved NCEA Level 2 achieved one or more Level 2 Vocational Pathways Awards.” Vocational Pathways update

The impact of this is an epistemological change in direction for our department thus our tamariki (children). There are many units and credits available to students in the domain of technology that require significant amounts of evidence generation, usually in the written form. There is a politically motivated need to develop literacy to ever increasing levels, but I posit there is a greater need in New Zealand for trades people who, whilst literate, do not need to decontextualise their experience of literacy, in fact by using Google apps for education tools, we can actually contextualise this aspect of their learning and integrate disciplines to create stories and projects to be proud of. Hence we have a community in tension being pulled in different directions. NCEA, via the NZC and ERO expect a particular style of teaching to address such issues as 21st CLD, literacy, numeracy. Whilst New Zealand needs skilled craftspeople who can build a building, wire and plumb a house, landscape and serve good quality safe healthy food. The dream sold all students is that success at school is measured by credit acquisition, subject endorsements and university entrance. The reality is that not all students will attend university and for us in the technology department, a community of vocational teachers, a better measure would be the number of students who leave school and are gainfully employed thereafter. A worthy step forward for our department would now be a measure of the number of our students who achieved a vocational pathway endorsement for their achievements in 2015.

Changes to our collective community practice are explored as an aspect of and impact from the eLearing network and since the Technology department is an area of the curriculum that is constructed of specialists from other disciplines we frequently use coaching techniques to support one another.

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eLearning network

Figure 3

The second area of professional connections impacts practice in a two way manner. As a technologist and proponent of setting student learning goals that relate to citizenship, decision-making, skills and inquiry skills where knowledge acquisition is derived from experiential, social and personal learning, Mathison and Freeman (1997). Google apps for education allows me to explore issues across the school and identify tools to assist in solving problems.

Figure 4

Yager, et al. (1981), Heath (1989), Hurd (1991), Fagan (1989) are proponents that technology related subject areas have a predisposition to learning in a particular style. GAFE empowers staff across the school to engage with technologies that enable students to create evidence of learning over and above the humdrum written form illustrated in Figure 4. Technologists are taught how to deal with tools and engineers problem solve to solve problems. Members of the ICT committee community are influenced by this practice in endorsing such initiatives as the innovative teacher award for our school. As a committee, we argue for a budget to support innovative teachers who want to develop new methods and pedagogy in the classroom. In this way, we can further focus on the GAFE suite and wider to encourage the development of individuals professional learning and developing a wider resource for the school making full use of the features in figure 5.

Michael Fullan (2013)  has argued that new pedagogies ought to be stratospheric addressing the issues of bored students and frustrated teachers. Using the influence of the ICT committee to impact the technology department community and address practices therein, is a way to encourage and coach staff to alter their practices. In this way, pedagogy can be challenged to incorporate devices that can be found day to day in trades occupations and build a database of a specific set of apps for each subject. SAMR, whilst lacking academic rigour, is a useful starting point to consider when blending such apps into activities. For our technology community there is an uneven distribution of expertise in this area. As HOD too much time has been dedicated to supporting other areas of the school whilst our community can benefit from these technologies also. Studying the diagram below we can easily see where the expertise lies.

This illustrates the lack of impact on other members of the department for wider use of apps e.g. Google Classroom and other areas. Google Docs is used by department members with students but that is the extent of the usage. BYOD is a problem with our school and our department. In a recent survey conducted with the students from the Automotive class, 100% returned a strongly agree to the statement: “Do you think the school should provide all devices for students to work on”. In fact this a bite the bullet moment.

“”One to one" is the key, not optional BYOD as this will only add to teacher workload as they double up on paper and digital approaches - teachers will also use this as a handy excuse to not evolve their approaches, and fair enough too if it's all a bit "here and there". Teachers are bloody busy, they deserve nothing less than one to one if they are going to learn and leverage new strategies, they need to be able to do so efficiently. Bite the bullet, just do it.” Amos (2016)

Hence, we have bought a set of tablets for each of the teachers. Most students bring a phone but it is not necessarily the latest micro iPhone 27 with edge technology and can find your car in a rain forest 12,000 miles away. Many of our students bring the latest hand me down from a family member complete with cracked screen. So, in our department, we want to research innovative teaching strategies, apps and websites for each vocational area to move from unconscious incompetence to at the very least conscious competence. The Mindlab has helped this HOD to do exactly that and now I am in a position to lead change in our technology community as a direct impact of the work done by the ICT committee.

A good starting point will be a challenge set to our departmental staff based on this infographic developed for the school.  Teachers will be asked to critically reflect on activities from 2015 that were problematic in some way and they will be asked to develop more engaging activities for students that make use of at least 5 of the apps mentioned herein. This may mean 5 different activities using 5 different apps. Outcomes will be interesting.

References

Amos, Clare. "Blue Sky High - Five Things Every Secondary School Should Implement...Now". Learning Leading Change 2016. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

Fullan, M. (2013). The new pedagogy: Students and teachers as learning partners. Learning Landscapes, 6(2), 23-29.

Mathison, S., & Freeman, M. (1998). The Logic of Interdisciplinary Studies. Report Series 2.33.

New Zealand Immigration,. "Jobs In New Zealand For Skilled Migrants | Move To NZ". Newzealandnow.govt.nz. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

The Education Gazette,. "Vocational Pathways Update". 2016. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

Activity 4: Community of practice

Job definition:

HOD of Technology and eLearning facilitator and Automotive and Engineering teacher advocate of apprenticeship systems for learning.

Etienne and Wenger-Trayner describes community of practice as based on three tenets: Domain, Community and Practice. For me as a HOD of technology in the first instance means our collective domain is technology, all forms of technology and we endeavour to work together as members of a department to share resources and workspaces and use policies to maximise the opportunities for our young people. Our practice is delivering the learning for students to acquire new skills in construction or engineering or home economics. Our practices differ, markedly in some cases, but our community is evolving daily encompassing like-minded students seeking out a career in areas we find stimulating. We call our community - the technology department. It comprises of a hard materials teacher, a home economics teacher, a graphics teacher, a building practitioner and a carpentry teacher. Our professional community meets regularly and has both formal and informal discussions and networks inherent in it and connected to it. Furthermore, our community is connected to the wider whanau of our families and to our professional learning communities such as Unitec for broadening the experience and understanding in the complex world of technology trades education.

However, this is not the only community for the multiple roles I hold. The other aspect of my practice is elearning. This role has led me to co-construct a community of interested professionals who are all keen to learn the next cool tool in technology. Once again motivated by a desire to share our interests with our students to help them navigate the digital world safely but also enable them to participate in a digital world they might not necessarily see at home. This immediate community I will call the ICT committee although this community evolves in many other ways.

Finally, there is our school community of students, families and teachers. The School community is a bedrock upon which the foundations of the technology department and eLearning communities are constructed. One arm of this community is the one of the classes I teach. So, the department community is used to prepare, manage and resource the community of the classroom following the wider cultural and social acceptances of the school community. Our school community is made up of interesting social and cultural groups. A school in South Auckland has many cultural identities and these all impact on the social interactions within the wider school community.

Challenges

The recent impact of refugees is one such issue affecting our school in bicultural Aotearoa. Others are the impacts of ITO reorganization and redefinition within the framework of the NZQA. New Zealand needs people who have trades occupations but the introduction of the NCEA pressed many schools to consider updating schemes and programmes to accommodate achievement standards of the Technology domain. This proved to be challenging with much training and emphasis by the ministry to upskill teacher of technology to deliver these achievement standard literacy rich programmes. It is widely accepted that literacy and numeracy are key indicators of capability in New Zealand and schools, supported by ministry contracted businesses, are challenged to drive up the capability in these areas. How as a teacher of a technology domain subject can we contribute to this aim whilst maintaining the engagement of students in practically based subjects? This is where Google Apps for Education suite can help. Literacy should not just be thought about as the written word, creating and editing video clips using youtube and blogging to tell a story and share with family and friends provides a foundation for discussion to explore understanding. Engaging students with apps and technology is just the sandwich filling. The bread is the course structure of constructing projects, learning techniques, working safely, ordering materials, assessing jobs. Using apps in a practical way is how we intend to meet the challenges of “Literacy”.

Issues

Recently, well in  ERO popped round. They came, they saw and they left a terse report full of positivity and challenge. One such area I have mentioned in previous posts is our key next steps:

• affirm New Zealand’s bicultural heritage and be responsive to students’ various cultures, languages and backgrounds
• promote high levels of interest and challenge, and encourage critical thinking and problem solving
• support students to make decisions about what and how they learn, and make seamless transitions between schools and into the world of work and further learning.

ERO (2015)

A ‘lovely’ article was placed in the Herald about the totality of the report, “Uphill battle for Sir Ed school” Herald 2015. Just an observation isn’t everyone traveling uphill because if it was all downhill wouldn’t we be coasting? Not only do we face the issue of pedagogy within our community of technology, but we also face the issue of perception in the public eye. Unpublished results for 2015 will attest to progress made from base camp, however, our community will now engage the Southeast ridge of our mountain and begin the ascent into culturally sensitive pedagogy addressed in a recent PL with Angus Macfarlane. Applying the techniques shared to all staff by Angus especially the educultural wheel. This is the community implied version for our collective community of practice, i.e. the school.

TKI, The Cultural Wheel - School Version. 2013.

Angus presented further details of the approach to focus on the classroom and thus implicit for our technology department community.

A principle referred to in developing this wheel and for teachers in our community to adopt in the classroom is head, hand and heart. Where teaching becomes a more thoughtful (head), caring (heart) and practical (hand) endeavour for teachers and students alike. Using apps, building ‘things’ in technology and caring about who we build for is the bedrock for technology, design thinking and the acquisition of trades. Learning life by apprenticeship is a real feature in technology and related subjects and interestingly is a feature of learning communities.

“Anthropological studies of apprenticeship offer possible alternative cultural points of view on social processes of learning and inspiration for counterintuitive conceptualizations of such processes. Craft apprenticeship in West Africa and apprenticeship among Yucatec Mayan midwives, for example, are practices in which mastery comes about without didactic structuring and in such a fashion that knowledgeabIe skill is part of the construction of new identities of mastery in practice” Lave, Situating Learning in Communities of Practice

For our communities, adopting an apprenticeship learning style to share approaches to collective problems, and coach one another through the issues we are faced with, is a technique Macfarlane promotes to provide a more equitable education system leading to more engaged students. Will this impact our next steps for ERO and more importantly, will this impact the global phenomenon of push pull referred to by Fullan? Time will tell.

References:

(2015). Lave, Situating Learning in Communities of Practice - Scribd. Retrieved February 5, 2016, from https://www.scribd.com/doc/130747559/Lave-Situating-Learning-in-Communities-of-Practice.

ERO,. "3 Curriculum - Education Review Office". Ero.govt.nz. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

Johnson, Kirsty. "Uphill Battle For Sir Ed". The New Zealand Herald 2015. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

Fullan, M. (2013). The new pedagogy: Students and teachers as learning partners. Learning Landscapes, 6(2), 23-29.

Macfarlane, Angus et al. "Creating culturally-safe schools for Māori students." The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 36 (2007): 65-76.

New Zealand Immigration, "Jobs In New Zealand For Skilled Migrants | Move To NZ". Newzealandnow.govt.nz. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

TKI, The Cultural Wheel - School Version. 2013. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

Wenger-trayner.com,. (2016). Introduction to communities of practice | Wenger-Trayner. Retrieved 4 February 2016, from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/