Week 18: Reflect on Changes in my future oriented teaching practice.
I refer to Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012 “Supporting future-oriented
learning & teaching —a New Zealand perspective” and select Sub-theme 2: Role of collaborative
practices as a focus of my reflection. I will be using Gibb’s (1988) reflective model to structure my
reflection.
Description:
My journey as a teacher was totally changed after I decided to join Mindlab this year. I wasn’t an advocate of using 21s t technology in the classroom until I saw several programmes being demonstrated during the workshops. I was exposed to so many ideas and somehow thought of so many opportunities that we could use to upskill and inspire our learners to be part of the 21s t century learning, as (Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012) stated “Current and emerging technologies play an important enabling role in creating new learning opportunities and ways of learning. These technologies increase learners’ motivation, engagement and achievement and foster innovative ways of working collaboratively’.
Feelings:
The leadership of my team includes me as a team leader and 2 whanau support.
I’m always a leader who prefers to work alone, I feel that I perform better if I organize and facilitate team meetings by myself. But I shifted my Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset. A fixed mindset reflects a belief in natural talent: one is either good at something or is not. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is a belief that one can get good at something through effort and
learning. (Dweck 2006)
Distributed leadership came to mind as my new journey begins with my leadership team and teachers who are now involved in the planning and running of the team. This collaborative planning is done with students in mind. Dr. Harris (2014) said that “Distributed leadership is an important component of and contributor to improved organisational outcomes.” (Hargraves, A. Boyle, A. Harris A (2014) also stated that “Distributed leadership requires all educators to take responsibility for leadership, whether or not they are in a formal leadership role.”.
Evaluation:
Things changed as collaboration becomes paramount to our practice. We have decided that all those who are taking MINDLAB need to share our new learning to the rest of the team, especially our early adopters. By doing so, new technology, new programmes and apps wll be used for classroom learning. Students will benefit a lot more when we work collaboratively to upskill our teachers. For example, one of our MINDLAB teachers shared ‘edpuzzle’, the following day, another teacher used it in her classroom learning. As evident, “children were inspired and highly engaged, they were excited and eager to learn more.”
I was fortunate enough to witness one of our teachers (who is also part of the MINDLAB journey) introduced ipads to her class towards the end of Term 2. The sudden change of student engagement and student interests in the learning was evident. The classroom noise was more about student sharing and discussions and a desire to finish work on time instead of unnecessary talk. Even the teacher was overwhelmed by what she witnessed. Fredericks, et.al (2004) 2 Ibid.;
My journey as a teacher was totally changed after I decided to join Mindlab this year. I wasn’t an advocate of using 21s t technology in the classroom until I saw several programmes being demonstrated during the workshops. I was exposed to so many ideas and somehow thought of so many opportunities that we could use to upskill and inspire our learners to be part of the 21s t century learning, as (Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012) stated “Current and emerging technologies play an important enabling role in creating new learning opportunities and ways of learning. These technologies increase learners’ motivation, engagement and achievement and foster innovative ways of working collaboratively’.
Feelings:
The leadership of my team includes me as a team leader and 2 whanau support.
I’m always a leader who prefers to work alone, I feel that I perform better if I organize and facilitate team meetings by myself. But I shifted my Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset. A fixed mindset reflects a belief in natural talent: one is either good at something or is not. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is a belief that one can get good at something through effort and
learning. (Dweck 2006)
Distributed leadership came to mind as my new journey begins with my leadership team and teachers who are now involved in the planning and running of the team. This collaborative planning is done with students in mind. Dr. Harris (2014) said that “Distributed leadership is an important component of and contributor to improved organisational outcomes.” (Hargraves, A. Boyle, A. Harris A (2014) also stated that “Distributed leadership requires all educators to take responsibility for leadership, whether or not they are in a formal leadership role.”.
Evaluation:
Things changed as collaboration becomes paramount to our practice. We have decided that all those who are taking MINDLAB need to share our new learning to the rest of the team, especially our early adopters. By doing so, new technology, new programmes and apps wll be used for classroom learning. Students will benefit a lot more when we work collaboratively to upskill our teachers. For example, one of our MINDLAB teachers shared ‘edpuzzle’, the following day, another teacher used it in her classroom learning. As evident, “children were inspired and highly engaged, they were excited and eager to learn more.”
I was fortunate enough to witness one of our teachers (who is also part of the MINDLAB journey) introduced ipads to her class towards the end of Term 2. The sudden change of student engagement and student interests in the learning was evident. The classroom noise was more about student sharing and discussions and a desire to finish work on time instead of unnecessary talk. Even the teacher was overwhelmed by what she witnessed. Fredericks, et.al (2004) 2 Ibid.;
Seal (2009) clearly stated that “when cognitively engaged, students concentrate, focus on
achieving goals, are flexible in their work and cope with failure.
Analysis:
Collaboration played a big part in this new learning, by sharing our new learning with others in the team, our early adopters are more open to ideas and suggestions to improve practice. The only issue is, all the classrooms in our team were given 6 chromebooks, which is not enough. On the other hand, every class has a big screen TV that teachers can use. We are hoping that in the future, our school is able to provide more chromebooks so every child has an opportunity to access information on their own, as Teaching on the 21s t Century video clearly stated that “Students can find information on anything, anytime and anywhere”. Since we have been taught how to Blog, we can also pass this on to our students as well.
Collaboration played a big part in this new learning, by sharing our new learning with others in the team, our early adopters are more open to ideas and suggestions to improve practice. The only issue is, all the classrooms in our team were given 6 chromebooks, which is not enough. On the other hand, every class has a big screen TV that teachers can use. We are hoping that in the future, our school is able to provide more chromebooks so every child has an opportunity to access information on their own, as Teaching on the 21s t Century video clearly stated that “Students can find information on anything, anytime and anywhere”. Since we have been taught how to Blog, we can also pass this on to our students as well.
Conclusion and Action Plan:
I am very fortunate to be part of MINDLAB as not only I have learnt a lot of new apps/
programmes for improving classroom learning but also new ideas for shifting mindset and refining
the daily operation of our team.
Reflection improves when models like Gibbs and Jay and Johnson are used as a guide.
As a team leader, I am looking at improving teacher reflection about their practice by using one of these models. Gibbs model is easy to follow, so our MINDLAB team will work collaboratively to demonstrate how this is used for our early adopters.
We will also use TPACK framework to upgrade our team planning, especially when there’s a relationship between technology, content, and pedagogy, and the purposeful blending of them is the key.
Reflection improves when models like Gibbs and Jay and Johnson are used as a guide.
As a team leader, I am looking at improving teacher reflection about their practice by using one of these models. Gibbs model is easy to follow, so our MINDLAB team will work collaboratively to demonstrate how this is used for our early adopters.
We will also use TPACK framework to upgrade our team planning, especially when there’s a relationship between technology, content, and pedagogy, and the purposeful blending of them is the key.
(R Bolstad & J Gilbert with S McDowall, A Bull, S Boyd & R Hipkins 2012). Supporting
future-oriented learning and teaching – a New Zealand perspective.
Dr. Harris (2014). Distributed Leadership.
Hargraves, A. Boyle, A, Harris A (2014). Uplifting Leadership: How Organizations, Teams, and
Hargraves, A. Boyle, A, Harris A (2014). Uplifting Leadership: How Organizations, Teams, and
Communities Raise Performance.
Fredericks, et.al (2004) 2 Ibid.; Seal (2009) Engagement in Australian schools
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