ACTIVITY 3: APC Trends in Global education

ACTIVITY 3: APC

Trends in Global education

Speed up & Awareness

Using Week 27 notes and going through videos on:

"Changing education paradigms" by Sir Ken Robinson, 

Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history Pearson. (2013, April 26). Myself a visual learner would initially like to share these three images on changing trends of global education 

This where we were at the beginning of 21st century 

Acknowledgement: http://www.mtabsurveyanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/iStock_000011272391XSmall.jpg

This is our target for 21st century learning learners are collaborating across the world

Acknowledgement: https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/6/005/057/006/07ef439.jpg

The education has always been and will be in state of review and constant reconstruction with the changing global demands and needs of  learner, the only difference I see in current times looking at global trends (from Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US, 2012), is that restructuring is required in current time at faster pace than it happened in past. 

http://mywebodyssey.blogspot.co.nz/2010/09/under-construction-template-for.html

Current Issues in Global Education

To achieve universal primary education:

Globally, 123 million youth (aged 15 to 24) lack basic reading and writing skills; 61 per cent of them are young women. Children who start school late are more likely to drop out before completing their education. Data from household surveys in 22 developing countries (conducted between 2005 and 2010) show that 38 per cent of students starting primary school were at least two years older than the official entry age. Children from poorer households are more likely to delay the start of their education for a number of reasons, including poor health and nutrition and the risks associated with travelling long distances to school. Girls are less likely to start school than boys, but once enrolled, they are more likely to reach the last grade of primary school, except in Western Asia and Eastern Asia. Boys tend to repeat grades more often than girls, which can increase the risk of leaving school early.

Mega trends and their impact on global education

Acknoledgement: http://www.strategy-business.com/media/image/00309_ex1b.gif

Influence of Issues in New Zealand education

Shifting the focus to student-centred learning by:

• identify the needs of students 
• modifying school systems, programmes and resources to meet these needs of the students
• being innovative around students' learning needs 
•  catering for students with diverse needs 
• providing opportunities for creative problem solving 
• working effectively as teams 
•  having strong communication with external agencies, families and whānau 
• using information about students' strengths, interests and needs to develop and review programmes for students
•  Supporting students well to manage transitions within and beyond the school.

Knowledgeably implementing a responsive and rich curriculum:

From secondary school point of view the area that needs to be reflected in classroom planning and school curriculum planning is are NZC principles. A classroom that will be inclusive of these principles will cater well the needs of 21st century. 

Using assessment information to know about, and plan for, students’ learning: 

Teachers must have knowledge of students‟ cultural backgrounds, including their bicultural foundations, so they can ensure that the curriculum which students experience is culturally and ethnically relevant. With a strong knowledge of all of the aspects mentioned above, teachers are well placed to plan a curriculum that links to, and builds on, students‟ interests, strengths, and learning needs. 

Addressing Issues in My Community of Learning:

At my school in order to prepare learners for 21st century huge emphasis on building learning habits of students and students are regularly asked to reflect on the following rubric

In order to prepare teacher to embrace technology in their classroom e-learning group is an effective group represented by mentors from each faculty. These mentors meet regularly to create a e-learning vision for the school and support staff within their individual faculties to provide professional development in ICT. In 2016 e-learning team has stated offering e-certificates to staff on completion of certain basic, intermediate and advanced levels certificates on successful inclusion of ICT tools around google doc, google classroom and moodle in lesson plans and unit plans. In term four about 4-5 hours professional learning time is provided to build new ICT resources or to review the existing ones. Science faculty has stated using SAMR model in their e-learning annual plan.

Student voice has big emphasis at my school in overall school's plan as well as in individual teacher's progression over the year. Teacher’s carryout teaching inquiry project around an area that teacher would like to investigate. During this project a reflective log is maintained and inquiry is shared with colleagues and student voice around this is gathered that assist in analysing the inquiry. In term 3 some of these teaching inquiries are shared all across the school, the most interesting aspects of these presentations are that they are done by students, who share their teacher's inquiry.

Success is promoted through "Positive Behaviour For Learning Group" by promoting the issuing of positive attribute certificate around core values of school "Strive, Connect, Reflect & Respect"  and teacher are encouraged to take selfie with students at the time of issuing these certificates. These selfie photos go on school's display stations all across the school. 

At faculty level there is huge emphasis on making learning relevance to the needs of the learner and to link learning with real world and this must be included in teaching and delivery of lessons on regular basis, so that the learner can see the need of learning of what they are learning. 

Cultural diversity is embraced well during school year by organising cultural expos, cultural night, acknowledging various language weeks and celebrating cultural festivals. Each Maori & Pasifika students work with an individual staff mentor throughout the year to support these students in the overall wellbeing. Whanau Hui and Talanoa nights are organised once a term to build strong connection with whanau and aiga.

Student led homework clubs are run every Wednesday. The house system at college is very strong to create sense of belonging and role of tutor teacher has been very effective since 2014 when Tutor -Parent-student conferencing has been introduced twice each year and tutees set goals annually around three areas: Academic, co-curricular and personal. Tutees are encouraged to reflect on these goals using dream catcher programme regularly. 

Concluding statement

Personally I believe that we certainly do not need to be in a panic stage, we as educationist are trying our best to move forward only thing is we need to do it at faster pace and making sure that it is a collaborative approach among our colleagues, as some of them are still in a fixed mind-set stage, as they are still working with some assumptions like:

•  learning is content driven rather than skills, 
• blaming the learner for not being able to concentrate rather then investigating why things are not working for learner in my classroom
• fear of embracing challenges.

Above all I think Mind lab course should be promoted well so that most schools will have staff ready to embrace 21st century challenges.

   References:

• Bickham, M., Bradburn, F., Edwards, R., Fallon, J., Luke, J., Mossman, D., & Ness, L. A. V. (2008). Learning in the 21st Century : Teaching Today’s Students on Their Terms. International Education Advisory Board, 7–20.
• Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance : Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools August 2012, (August).
• Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf: This report drawn from the panel of experts around the globe provides informative and easy-to-access reading around technology trends that impact on the educational practices and what plan and actions should be done to effectively address the changes.
• OECD. (2016). Trends Shaping Education 2016. OECD Publishing:Paris. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/trends_edu-2016-en (this publication can be read online by following its DOI’s hyperlink): This document compiles the analysis of the global trends affecting education and raises relevant questions for education policy makers and practitioners to consider how to act towards those trends.

Activity: 2 APC Current Issues In My professional Context

Organisational culture

Values and Guiding Principles at Pakuranga College

·         There 5 main core values emphasised at Pakuranga College: Strive, Respect, Connect, Reflect and Create.

•  Students are always encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. Students are encouraged to aim for their very best performance in whatever they undertake whether it is in academic, cultural or sporting endeavours.
• Staff collaborate to build independent learners. Success in all endeavours is acknowledged and rewarded.
• College environment promotes respect. 
• The local community including business, sporting, cultural and other organisations are included in the development of our policies and priorities.
•  Students will celebrate and enjoy all forms of diversity in our college, nationally, and internationally. This includes cultural, gender, intellectual and physical difference. 

My contribution in my community of Practice:

• Another key aspect for successful teaching practice is building positive student and teacher relationships, in particularly beneficial to older students as stronger effects are found in higher grades (Roorda et. al. 2011).
• My Practices are around building Self-regulatory (Mega, et.al. 2014),  learning habits among students and keeping high expectations from my students, whether it's is around key competencies or for academic performance.
• As a tutor teacher I encourage all my tutees to actively get involved in extra-curricular activities as results showed that the amount of participation in extracurricular activities was positively related to academic achievements (Gerber, 1996). I foster the leadership skills among my students by assigning them leadership roles from small scales in group activities at classroom level to become cultural group leaders, sports in-charge, and home-work club runners or involved with specific school councils. As developing leadership skills helps in motivation.
• My teaching practice has evolved over the years, when I was a beginning teacher my style of delivery had been very traditional, chalk talk. My position in the class now has become more of a facilitator role, working either one on one or with small groups.
• Lately I have started spending more time around critical reflective process, gathering student voice and action research using teaching inquiry. As supported by the researchers, teachers and students gain a sense of empowerment as they deepen their relationships and negotiate new roles as partners and co-researchers making sense of learning in their classrooms (Bell, & Aldridge, 2014).
• My current teaching inquiry is around creating and promoting a culture of growth mind set using strategies from Dweck‘s research (1988).
• My perceptions towards  how collaborative approach can be an effective tool still depends upon where in the school the collaborative approach is used. If it is among members of same faculty team this approach does work. However it is very much shaped still from the people high up in the hierarchy, collaboration at individual level becomes effective only once you have strong emotional connection with a team member. This could be within the faculty supporting each other on similar need of topic resources or with colleagues in other faculties, with whom you open up to share strategies that when you implemented worked in your class. However in many times these later half of collaboration is carried out more among members on same students that they teach in different areas. 

Issues with collaborative approach:

:

• Serious collaboration--teachers engaging in the rigorous mutual examination of teaching and learning--is rare, and where it exists, it is fragile. When teachers work as colleagues, it produces greater coherence and integration to the daily work of teaching. Further it equips individual teachers, groups of teachers and school for steady improvement.
• Two fundamental conditions appear to be crucial to joint action among teachers: interdependence and opportunity. The key practices of colleagues are most likely to make a difference where they are an integral, inescapable part of day-to-day work. Joint work will beneficial if teachers find themselves truly interdependent with one another to manage and reap the rewards of teaching. When teachers' success and satisfaction can be achieved independently, the motivation to collaborate is weakened.

Current issues in my community of practice

• The school overall does value providing a caring and supportive environment for well being of all staff. There is a strong emphasis on staff and student voice in decision making. But as the education is driving many schools across the country into competing with one another, unfortunately the main criteria used for this is based around grades and performance. Which shifts the teaching practice towards assessment driven. A lot of teacher time is being used around number crunching and regular reflective written records needs to be maintained by staff, which is quite time consuming. 
• My perception on collaborative team work on shared vision and values is still at transient stage in high schools, as it is still working under the directions of  senior leaders rather than self-driven among colleagues. I do believe at organisational level collaborative approach needs to be developed with opportunities for reflective professional dialogues and professional training. Schools do need to invest more time and effort in this area as suggested by Hongboontri and Keawkhong(2014).
• Lots of new initiative but these initiatives needs to be integrated well. As suggested by research conducted by Timms et.al (2007) teachers generally regard their workload as increasing every year.

Comment from a teacher was: “What tires me out (after 30 years of teaching) is the ever increasing tasks that are placed into my “teachers’ work wheelbarrow”. Never does anyone take tasks off, so the barrow gets harder to push, more time consumed, and often on tasks not directly related to face-to-face, classroom contact with children”.

Addressing challenges in my community of practice

• Time being a major factor affecting the teaching profession, bearing this in mind schools try and listen to teachers voice by providing professional learning time to complete these kind of documentation. However this is done at cost of adding yet another job into your already full basket. 

• School is trying currently to link a new initiative to a previous one. Either by providing professional learning time or by spending some of the ToD time around collaboratively working on new initiatives.

•  Regular professional learning time is provided to staff on Friday mornings period one as this not only provide opportunities for collaboration but also gives us time to plan our teacher inquiry around our teaching practice. This additional time help us to plan our inquiry, analyse inquiry and receive feedback from critical buddies. Plus it is also used in sharing strategies around classroom subject practices, literacy resources and also for collaborating on e-learning strategies.

Changes occurring in my profession and how these changes are addressed by my community of practice

• Effective school wide e-learning programme: e-learning mentoring teams has been set up school wide, staff from each faculty has a role in this team. Collectively school wide vision for e-learning initiative is developed annually. E-learning mentors work with their own faculties to communicate school wide policies to be implemented and to collaborate resources in this field. 
• Any necessary professional development to colleagues in e-learning is provided by the faculty mentors or by students digital councils (students assigned to each faculty are also encouraged to support staff in their professional development around use of ICT tools in classroom). Student mentors and peer support leaders are also used to help and train new students to use google docs and other ICT tools. 
• The list is endless..... however overall I must say school is moving towards as Stoll, 1998 suggests 

"An understanding of and respect for the different meanings and interpretations people bring to educational initiatives, and work to develop shared meanings underpinned by norms that will promote sustainable school improvement."

References:

1. Bell, L. M., & Aldridge, J. M. (2014). Student Voice, Teacher Action Research and Classroom Improvement. Springer.
2. Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256 – 273.
3. Haddad, W., & Jurich, S. (2002). ICT for education: Potential and potency.Technologies for education: Potential, parameters and prospects. UNESCO and Academy for Educational Development, 28-4
4. Hongboontri, C., & Keawkhong, N. (2014). School Culture: Teachers' Beliefs, Behaviors, and Instructional Practices. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(5), 66-88. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2332&context=ajte
5. Gerber, S. B. (1996). Extracurricular activities and academic achievement. Journal of Research & Development in Education.
6. Mega, C., Ronconi, L., & De Beni, R. (2014). What makes a good student? How emotions, self-regulated learning, and motivation contribute to academic achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(1), 121.
7. Roorda DL, Koomen HMY, Spilt, JL, and Oort FJ. 2011 The Influence of Affective Teacher–Student Relationships on Students’ School Engagement and Achievement. Review of Educational Research 81 (4): 493-529. - See more at: http://www.parentingscience.com/student-teacher-relationships.html#sthash.bZiocgEb.dpu
8. Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture
9. Timms, C., Graham, D., & Cottrell, D. (2007). “I just want to teach” Queensland independent school teachers and their workload. Journal of Educational Administration, 45(5), 569-586.

Activity 1: Communities of Practice

My teaching practice:

My practice involves following aspects:

1.      Clarity of learning intentions -Informing students around the learning objectives of a unit is vital to generate student interest (Hattie, 2012), this helps students to link learning to the real world.

2.      Co-operative learning -Students learn from each other by setting common goals within the group, supporting each other and learning to collaborate. Thus enhancing not only the motivation but also making them feel responsible for one another's achievements, to engage in cognitive processes which enhance learning(Slavin, 2014).

3.      Formative assessments -As per Hattie’s recommendations I strongly believe that teachers spend the same amount of time on formative evaluation as they do on summative assessment. My senior physics class usually have one question test before I start next subtopic within a unit.

4.      Building self-regulation -This has been my key focus from couple of years to make my students autonomous learner to prepare them for the challenges of 21^st century world.

5.      Collaborating with colleagues -You cannot work in isolation, which is why having professional conversation with colleagues are essential.

6.      Reflective practice -After reading Larrivee, (2000)’s article on transforming teaching practice critically reflective teacher, my style of reflections has changed. As suggested I emphasise on these three things. Making time for solitary reflection, maximum fifteen minutes each week per class then note it on a google keep, identifying the problem and challenge my status quo then finally analyse to put strategies in place. Plus writing reflection on weekly basis on teacher inquiry on one note.

 My communities

Myself a science teacher and my regular community with whom my learning journey get influenced are:

1.      Personal life -My personal life which involves my family of my ever supporting husband, two lovely kids, extended family and my personal space. This personal space consists of my spiritual time and reflection. As devoting some time here in my personal space revitalise my emotional and physical well-being and empowers my practice (Gu & Day 2013). 

2.      Professional life:

Students:

At my professional level my teaching practice involves following community involves, first and for most my students. My students are integral part of my community of practice. Student voice has huge impact on my practice and it also support in student’s growth (Mitra, 2008).

"Consider the words of Felipe, a senior who struggled at Whitman, particularly in English class. Recalling his positive experiences in the reading research group, he commented, One day the teacher made everybody [in the working group] stop and said to me, “What were you going to say?” I said it. I felt good. Somebody was listening, you know? "(Mitra, 2008).

          Professional learning communities:

“A learning community is a group of organisations or individuals that operate as a collaborative network. Some are face to face but many are connected via the Internet. A learning community provides opportunities for educators to connect with others, share ideas and resources, reflect critically on their practice, and create new knowledge about teaching and learning”( TKI, 2014)

Professional conversation in my community with colleagues helps me to learn from other practitioners’ experience this also provide me a way to share my successful strategies with other colleagues. These interactions with staff mostly happens during professional learning time every week, during staff meetings and the most valuable one's are with a critical buddy during teacher inquiry discussions. 

Here I have 2 groups one face to face, my colleagues in college and the other group are online professional who I interact through G+, Facebook and blogging. This professional community helps me to keep my moral high as at times I need to remind myself I am not alone in this teaching and learning journey. This form of interaction provide professional development that engages teachers in instructional inquiry over an extended time through collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs) is effective in improving instruction and student achievement(McConnell, 2013).

Whanau:
Important to mention role of whanau not only for the benefit to the child and the family as suggested by Murray, et.al., (2013), but also I personally see lot of benefits to the teachers. One of those benefit I had shared this with my year 11 science class is " reason I enjoy meeting parents on parent night is that this reminds me that a particular student I might at some stage start visualizing as number 16 or 30 in my class, however, in their home they are always number one and this child is integral part of someone's life, therefore I must value this individual in my class, despite of what they bring to my classroom". 

It is well established that parental school involvement has a positive influence on school-related outcomes for children. Studies have demonstrated an association between higher levels of parental school involvement and greater academic success for children and adolescents (Hill & Taylor, 2004).

Also in my role at college as Pasifika Liaison teacher I get to interact quite often with Pasifika families. We organise once each term Talanoa night to share our values and experiences to empower pasifika learner in an culturally appropriate context. These interactions with community are linked with successful outcomes include teacher and parent efficacy; enhanced student achievement outcomes and the development of complementary knowledge, skills, and understanding (Gorinski, 2005).

Resources:

Lastly my community of practice does include the new resources that I come across through my regular learning journey it could be my subject specific or a specific teaching strategy. These include books, journals, internet, mind lab or professional development training. 

Mind lab peers:

Since November 2015 my new buddies from mind lab course are my latest inclusion in my community of practice. This definitely includes interaction on G+ community and working with my group through Facebook interactions and hangouts. 

References: 

1. Gorinski, R. (2005). Pacific Island School Community Parent Liaison Project Case Study. Wellington: Ministry of Education. 
2. Gu, Q., & Day, C. (2013). Challenges to teacher resilience: Conditions count. British Educational Research Journal, 39(1), 22-44.
3. Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.
4. Hill, N. E., & Taylor, L. C. (2004). Parental school involvement and children's academic achievement pragmatics and issues. Current directions in psychological science, 13(4), 161-164.
5. Larrivee, B. (2000). Transforming teaching practice: Becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective practice, 1(3), 293-307.
6. McConnell, T. J., Parker, J. M., Eberhardt, J., Koehler, M. J., & Lundeberg, M. A. (2013). Virtual professional learning communities: Teachers’ perceptions of virtual versus face-to-face professional development. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 22(3), 267-277
7. Mitra, D. L. (2008). Amplifying student voice. Educational Leadership, 66(3), 20-25
8.  
9. Ministry of Education(2014). Professional learning communities, link: http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Learning-communities 
10. Murray, M. M., Handyside, L. M., Straka, L. A., & Arton-Titus, T. V. (2013). Parent empowerment: Connecting with preservice special education teachers. School Community Journal, 23(1), 145. 
11. Slavin, R. E. (2014). Cooperative Learning and Academic Achievement: Why Does Group work Work?. Anales de Psicología/Annals of Psychology, 30(3), 785-791.

Introduction

Myself

Manmeet Sandhu, preferred name  Meeta.

With over 17 years teaching experience at various NZ schools and prior to this eleven years teaching experience in tertiary institutions in India.

 Currently teaching Physics and Science at Pakuranga college.

I am enjoy working with high school teacher, as this profession keeps me young at heart and provides heaps of learning opportunities from students and staff. The two quotes that I enjoy as a teacher are