Changes in my practice

Postgrad Reflection & Outlook

"We do not learn from experience...,

we learn from reflecting on experience." (John Dewey)

The good, the bad and the ugly

34 weeks ... , now it seems like last week. Time has past so quickly and I'm wondering if I made the most of it. Perhaps not 100% but then again I know from reflection that I find it very hard to settle for second best.

A definite highlight was the close collaboration with my teaching colleague from Arahoe Primary, wouldn't have been the same without a study buddy. And wasn't it all about that, digital & collaborative practice in context. More collaboration that's what I want, develop these networks, connect to like minded educators and share expertise, effective practice.

It is somehow sad that such a promising progressive field of study is caught up in the traditional way of doing teaching and learning. I mean sitting through these lectures, covering topic related material, completely unrelated to my teaching practice, where was differentiation & engagement? Look around you throughout the lectures, how many of us were completely disengaged. I hoped for more.

Opinions, I have mine, everyone else has their own. Sharing personal views and stories is fine, that's how you create relationships but repeatedly, I'm not so sure. It definitely put me off, more than once I was ready to leave to make a statement that I completely disagree. While I'm reflecting about my postgrad certificate, I was missing the practical parts, the application into practice. This was always very short and lacked the connection. 

In hindsight this wasn't the postgrad study for me, next time I'll make sure I find out more from people who did it before I commit to anything. 

On the positive side is the feeling of being able to complete it - proud of myself. Going through with it during the transition to a new school, which isn't at all supportive of postgrad study while in full-time employment give me great satisfaction in my ability to accomplish something. Furthermore I've honed in my research skills and was able to retrieve numerous interesting articles. A skill set that will be beneficial for my future endeavours.

Outlook

I don't know about my colleagues but for me one thing is clear, change takes time. Therefore I honestly admit there are only incremental changes to my practice. Where possible I include elements but there far more important areas of my practice that need addressing than the content of this course, for example student agency. I take great pride in my teaching philosophy to establish a mutual, collaborative and respectful learning environment and I am very sceptical how digital tools are offering a solution to achieve this.

 Te Tangata, Te Tangata, Te Tangata! 

Effective and respectful collaboration and communication across cultures and ethnicities is my goal. For the future I want to achieve a purposeful and meaningful integration of digital tools into learning and teaching. Finding like minded people, who are on the same journey and learn alongside them would be my dream.

Interdisciplinary collaboration

My Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Reflection

Looking at my map and comparing it to other fellow colleagues it becomes clear that I can't settle for one potential growth goal. As an immigrant and fairly new teacher I lack the extensive network that other colleagues have. A major obstacle, as I have mentioned earlier in one of my blogposts and one of the key findings from my literature review, is finding the time, in which way ever, to collaborate. Personally I'm still not satisfied with the connections and collaborations I have engaged in my current school. Teachers there have so many ideas, passion and knowledge to share but we have barely found the time to scratch at the surface. 

Image Credit: Pete Reynolds and Gary Stager

Many Schools still see the world through a prescribed lens, time and time again the same mistakes are getting repeated. Whole staff development, instead of differentiation, who cares about my engagement? I could go on and on but what would it change.

Future potential networking goals

One of my future goals is being more involved in online networks. Using these online channels looking after personal connections and deepen the collaboration or at least share good practice and stay in the loop with developments here, in the States and in Germany.

Secondly, having a new position next year it will be crucial to enhance the interdisciplinary collaboration with outside agencies to bring additional expertise into the school. My challenge will be to establish these connections and then engage and use them to create curriculum overarching idea generation and planning. One area this needs to happen is the planning, outfitting and running of a school TV station and radio. Members of the staff have connections with school community members who are working in the industry, my job is to bring them in to support the process and listen to their expertise.

My role will be to bring together these outside experts, school management, ICT professional development provider and our own systems administrator to collaborate, plan and create a road map for the project. In a second stage I will contact my network to find out where similar projects are running in schools to research their experiences and interdisciplinary curriculum integration.