Unless you have been living under a rock, life as we know it has taken a very dramatic turn in recent weeks. In a matter of days the country went from a handful of cases of COVID-19 to a nationwide lockdown, and those of us who haven’t had to work from home for more than a day or two at a time, have been thrown into the unfamiliar territory of setting ourselves up for the long haul.
The Tātai Angitu team prides itself on being nimble and responsive, so how well have we adapted to this “new normal”?
Firstly, once we had received notification that the University wanted us to work from home, one of our IT savvy facilitators arranged to run three Microsoft Teams sessions for anyone who was unfamiliar with this platform. After some initial teething problems, I think we got the hang of it pretty quickly. However, one issue that became evident early on was that Teams can only show four participants at a time. This made it very difficult to know who was part of the conversation, so the decision was made to switch to Zoom. This platform has proven to be much more successful for our larger meetings, although we did have to work through a few protocols first.
For me personally, I find a one-to-one chat in Teams works really well, particularly if I just need to ask an individual person a question that might be difficult and drawn-out if done by email. When we have larger team meetings and our virtual morning teas on Zoom, it is nice to see everyone and chat. Of course there are still phones and emails, but chatting face-to-face with others makes the connection just that little bit less impersonal.
Our Co-ordinating Director has been very proactive in setting up regular Zoom meetings for the team to connect throughout the next few weeks, so hopefully nobody is feeling too isolated or alone. As a self-confessed non-homebody, I’ve been surprised at how well I’m coping!
As cliché as it sounds, there is no doubt that our lives and working landscape will be forever changed by this experience and more mainstream collaboration between everyone in this environment will be the way of the future. I have no doubt that all of us at Tātai Angitu will continue to thrive in this brave new world.
Christine Braid is a Professional Learning and Development Facilitator / Kaitakawaenga at Tātai Angitu e3 @ Massey University specialising in supporting literacy across the primary school years. She was part of the Massey research team Enhancing Literacy Learning Outcomes for Beginning Readers and is currently applying the findings into practice, making the outcomes accessible for teachers and children.
I
have been involved in education for more than 30 years, including 12 years teaching
in a primary school classroom, training as a reading recovery teacher,
lecturing in the initial teacher education programmes, and working as an
in-service adviser to schools. In my time as an educator, I specialized in the
area of literacy. Using my knowledge from my Diploma of Children’s Literature,
I focused my M.Ed thesis on using picture books for developing children’s
comprehension and critical thinking. I have worked extensively with teachers on
classroom practices such as guided reading, teaching comprehension, and
developing children’s writing expertise.
With
my specific literacy training, I thought I had the answers for effective literacy
teaching. However, I was missing knowledge about how children learn to read. I
had been taught that children learned to read by using the meaning and syntax
of the sentence (including help from the picture), and as much of the printed
code as necessary. I had been taught that children would deduce knowledge about
the code from exposure to words within text and that it was too overwhelming
for young learners to be explicitly taught. I thought that this method of
learning to read was suitable for most children and that those it did not suit
needed specialist teaching. I was taught that meaning was the most important
outcome of reading, which is true, and that a focus on teaching the code denied
the importance of meaning, which is false.
My
PhD study has given me the opportunity to examine the extensive research in the
studies of the science of reading. At first, I was unsure about this different
view of how to best teach reading. However, examining the studies has widened
my understanding of why some children struggled to learn to read. I learned
about the importance of ensuring children had the chance to learn the connections
between letter sounds and letter shapes and formation. I discovered studies revealing
how the brain processes letters in a word to build word knowledge or
orthographic maps. I learned that this happens in a progression from simple
combinations (e.g., am, hot, fit, frog, jump) through to more complex vowel
team combinations (goat, beach, light, thought) and onto multi-syllable words
(e.g., table, computer, surface). The studies explained that good readers can
automatically decode words, giving them fluency in reading, and ease of
comprehending. Good readers do not need to rely on the meaning and structure of
the sentence as I had been taught to promote. On the other hand, struggling
readers will overly rely on meaning and sentence structure as compensation for
poorer decoding skill. This view reversed what I had been taught to be true
about learning to read.
When
a family friend’s son, Jack* presented as one of the children who struggled to
read, much of the research literature became real. Jack had been read to right
through his early childhood years, had an extensive vocabulary, and could
recite a number of favourite books. He entered school with the skills known to
be foundational to reading success. He began to learn the letters of the alphabet
and their associated sounds reasonably well, but after one year at school, he
could not recall any words and was not able to read texts at the expected level
for his age. The only way he could read a page of a text was from memory. He had
to compensate for his lack of knowledge of the printed code by using his knowledge
of the context of the story and syntax of the sentences.
Trying
to teach Jack whole words was futile (and we did try). Even small words like
‘at’ and ‘on’ were not recognised out of a sentence or after any time span. So
instead, I taught him how to sound the letters and blend them together to read
words. I had to show him how ‘at’ was made up of /a/ and /t/ and you blend them
together to get the word ‘at’. Finally, he began to learn some words and was
quickly able to recognise them in and out of a connected text. Jack’s struggle
gives an insight into what the cognitive process of reading entails. Many
children work out the cognitive puzzle for themselves (that ‘at’ is made of /a/
and /t/) but Jack, and many children like him, needed the process much more
explicitly shown. Teaching him to read by using the sentence meaning and
structure was simply not effective. As soon as he realised what learning the
code entailed, he started to make progress. At nine years old, Jack had become
the best reader and speller in the class.
It
is unfortunate that researchers and practitioners who declare the importance of
explicit and systematic teaching of the code are criticised for focusing on “just
phonics” and are accused of not focusing on meaning. But this is not the case.
A focus on teaching the code includes getting children to read the sentence
using their decoding skills, and then check it makes sense with the story. The
books have stories with characters that the children engage with. In addition,
the Massey project emphasised the use of teachers reading aloud from quality
picture books, for opportunities to develop understanding of story and expand
children’s vocabulary. The idea of understanding what they read is paramount.
However, the means of getting to that meaning is through strong foundation
skills that enable them to be proficient at decoding so they can access the
meaning. While knowledge of the code is not sufficient for effective reading,
it is absolutely necessary.
The
main implication from the Massey research project is that teachers need to be
equipped with the knowledge and teaching methods that consider what happens in
the brain as children learn to read. Teachers need knowledge about the complexity
of the written code of English and how it can be taught. The Project results
suggest that when teachers have the knowledge and resources for teaching the
code explicitly and systematically, children’s reading outcomes improve.
Teachers who are using an explicit and systematic approach are reporting that
they feel empowered to teach all children to read. They report that children
are excited and engaged because they have the skills they need to make progress
in reading. Some schools are reporting that after years of having a large
proportion of children underachieving, after a systematic approach, the results
show that most children are experiencing success in reading.
I count myself lucky to have worked with many exemplary educators during my career and to continue to do so. I am in awe of the work teachers do on a day to day basis to ensure successful outcomes for their learners. Understanding more about how children learn to read and having the resources to teach explicitly and systematically has provided teachers and learners with a pathway of success. Teachers are totally committed to their students’ success. Seeing children, who had been struggling, finally learning to read is the joy of teaching.
By next year, all our primary and secondary schools are required to implement the revised Digital Technologies curriculum in which our ākonga will learn not only how digital technologies work, but also how to use that knowledge to solve problems.
Digital technology has been a part of teaching and learning in schools for many years but has not been formally integrated into all strands of teaching and learning. Since the Ministry of Education’s introduction of digital devices for principals in the early 2000s, over 50,000 principals and teachers now have access to devices through the TELA scheme. For teaching staff this has meant the ability to digitise the learning experiences of their students, with giants in the digital arena providing them with the digital tools to do so. Kaiako are now able to set their entire year of work online, interact with their students outside of the classroom, set assignments, and provide formative and summative assessment with marking and feedback. But let’s be honest; this practice I have just described is not much different back when I was at school. The only difference is the vehicle of delivery – and the fact that I would never have dreamed about contacting my teacher outside of school hours!
To my mind, as educators we should be focusing, via
the curriculum, on lifelong skills needed in the 21st century. These
are: critical thinking and doing; creativity; collaboration; cross-cultural
understanding; communication; career/self-reliance, and computing. You will
note that computing is only one component of the skills set our students will need, but understanding how to use
it well is a key to future success. Computing and digital technologies
are, therefore, not just about being able to code. Like any language, coding on
its own is pointless unless you know how to apply it. We look at digital
technology as a means for facilitating solutions to problems.
So how do we truly change learning, using digital technology
as a key transformative tool, rather than a tack on to resilient traditional
practice which includes being a classroom baby-sitting service? We need
to challenge stubborn assumptions and practices about digital technology in the
classroom. It goes well goes beyond a teacher setting up their courses
online and teaching content as they may well have done on paper for most
of their teaching career. These days teachers must look at the digital tools
that their students can access in order to support their learning. As a teacher
of students with English as Another Language, I have encouraged them to use
their smartphones simply to gain access to dictionaries and online
translations, and to use their camera to copy their teacher’s notes from
whiteboards. But I have come up against school policies which restrict the
internet access of a student’s personal device during class hours, or even
worse, teachers who outright ban the use of any device within the classroom.
These teachers cite phones as a distraction to a student’s learning. As
teachers, it’s our job to equip our students with the tools to enable them to
succeed beyond their school days, and this includes the appropriate use of
their digital devices. If we ban the use of their devices instead of choosing
to guide them as to how and when to use their devices appropriately, we are
letting them down when it comes to developing the key competency of ‘Managing
Self’ (which also happens to be one of the seven ‘Cs’ listed above).
We are not doing our job properly when we choose this option.
So how can we incorporate the various digital
technologies well into our students’ learning? Like any task we tackle, it’s
about choosing the best tool for the job. For my ESOL students and other
students who struggle to learn in the traditional environment, the ubiquitous
smart phone is the ideal tool for them as outlined above. They also have access
to film and voice recording apps which add to their tool kit. We are learning
all the time about students with different learning processes. For a
student who may not be able to craft writing on paper with a pen, access to a
keyboard or perhaps a camera to create a vlog can unlock their
thought process and allow those words to flow thereby demonstrating their
true learning and understanding. For teachers, it can be a case of
relinquishing the fear of the unknown, to throw some caution to the
wind, as they try something different. That’s how we encourage
our learners, and this is just a start in how we can use digital technology
effectively in our classrooms.
Jacky Braid Kaitakawaenga / Facilitator / Digital Technologies consultant Tātai Angitu e3 @ Massey Massey University
During my interaction with children, parents, families,
student teachers and lecturers, I have found that many a time, what I have
assumed as common knowledge has been new information to them. Experiences,
backgrounds, skills sets and traits of people, influences their understandings
of, and responses to happenings around them.
In children, more often than not, limited exposure or
unfamiliarity of ‘the other’ can be a cause of ‘resistance’ to diversity. However,
I see this lacuna as a promising ground for engaging children in meaningful
learning and thinking about difference. I argue that knowledge of ‘the other’
and the richness of diversity can lead to great social learning opportunities
for children, and it be introduced to them in interesting ways. Here by ‘the
other’ I mean different ways of being and doing. As Maya Angelou points out, “It is time for
parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activitst Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014
Exposure to new cultures, languages and different ways of
being and doing can augment a sense of contribution in children. This exposure
to ‘the other’, over time, transcends the tolerance mode, removes resistance, and
paves the way for acceptance. Acceptance of ‘the other’ is a manifestation of respect,
which can then lead to appreciation and celebration of diversity. Robinson and Jones Diaz (2006) in their
research on children’s understanding of cultural diversity in early childhood,
urge educators to go beyond the discourse of ‘tolerance’ of diversity to a
discourse of ‘respect’.
Early
childhood teachers can begin exposing children to ‘the other’ by first drawing
on their own culture and later could invite parents to share their cultural
practices in the early childhood setting. For both teachers and parents, the
exercise of delving into their own culture and weaving aspects of it into the
curriculum, can be a ‘coming out of the comfort zone’. However, this endeavour
does bring in rewards by way of strengthening relationships, parent partnership
and opening up new avenues for learning.
In
early childhood, teachers can take the initiative to create opportunities for
children to learn about difference (culture, language, clothes, food, religion,
celebrations) and identify the ‘teachable moments’ within them. Based on my own experiences as an
early childhood teacher, I have found that cultural celebrations have the scope
to weave in varied aspects of diversity (which children in early childhood
understand) such as food, language, beliefs, religion, music and dance and
appeal to children. For example, being the only Indian teacher in an early
childhood centre, (and we didn’t have any Indian children enrolled at that
time), I took the initiative to arrange for a Diwali party. Me being an Indian from India was
contextual enough for me to familiarise my centre with my festival. The entire
centre geared up for this party two weeks in advance of the actual date by
including Indian music, dance, stories, cooking and visual art into the
curriculum. The participation by children and teachers was well documented and
as the finale during the Diwali party, a live classical dance performance was
arranged where two dancers enthralled the audience with their dance. The
children learnt first- hand about the different dance costumes, their material,
the make -up, the hair do and the jewellery and had a sense of the effort which
goes into a performance. It was a learning curve for some teachers and parents
as well that there was more to Indian dancing than what Bollywood offers.
The kōrero
of children, parents and teachers which followed the dance and the Diwali party
was robust. Learning happens when one is led to make connections between past
experiences and new ideas. With the Diwali party, I could see a rhizome of
links being formed. Some children made connections between the dance and their
past experiences in Aotea square, where they had seen glimpses of some
performers in similar costumes. Other children drew links to the book they had
read with me and the costumes of the dancers. Parents were making links to some
Indian movies and sarees which they had seen earlier. A lot of discussion was
on about the food served and generally there was whakawhanaungatanga happening with this one event.
The feedback from the parents after the Diwali party evidenced how the parents,
(some of whom came from monocultural backgrounds) were empowered to teach their
children about ‘the other’. The documentation of the entire event through learning stories, photos,
videos and newsletters enabled children and parents to revisit this experience,
enhancing the learning opportunities even further. Cultural celebrations in
early childhood centres have huge potential to empower parents and children,
enrich the curriculum and ensure celebration of diversity. Early childhood
teachers must make every effort to tap into this rich source as a practical and
fun filled way of key learning of ‘the other’.
Reference: Robinson,
K. H. & Jones Diaz, C. (2006). Diversity and difference in
early childhood education: Issues for theory and practice Berkshire, England: Open
University Press.
This is the first in a short series of blogs about the qualities of effective professional learning and development (PLD). They discuss some of the important factors we should consider as we design, contract for, and deliver PLD to audiences in the school sectors.
This first blog investigates how we might order the events, activities and strategies of our programmes that lead to teachers genuinely changing their attitudes and beliefs about their practice. I apply Guskey’s (2002) model of teacher change to understand how the ‘order of events’ of a day’s PLD I facilitated, affected the ‘hearts and minds’ of the participating teachers.
Living in our professional bubbles as we often do, it has frustrated me to see ideas I believe and promote, and are contracted to disseminate to schools, treated lightly with only passing consideration, simply ignored, or contemptuously rejected as academic fluff. I have realised that ideas I thought were essential to quality teacher practice would not, in and of themselves, create the conditions for changes we anticipated of teachers. For this audience, these ideas were not self-evident truths whose time had come, so powerful were they as pedagogical game-changers that would create sustainable change to teachers’ classroom practice, their attitudes and beliefs, and the learning of students.
A few weeks ago, I ran an all-staff full day PLD programme on disciplinary literacy at a mid-decile secondary school (Years 7 – 13). The day came some weeks after beginning a disciplinary literacy PLD project with a smaller core group of teachers. I started the day by asking two core group members to honestly explain to their colleagues what changes they were attempting to make, how those changes challenged their beliefs, and how their students reacted. Their explanations were unrehearsed as I deliberately asked them only a few minutes before the course started. They told great stories.
Teachers were there under instruction (teacher-only day), had an outsider working with them, had been asked to prepare for the day by reading selected materials, and they weren’t too sure if the topic was relevant anyway. But they did have a sense that they might learn something and were prepared to cut me some slack. By the end of an intensive Friday, teachers had read, talked, written and listened with critical insight, and sustained interest and focus. Subsequent feedback, even a week later, showed the day had made a genuine impact on teachers’ thinking and their confidence to change aspects of their classroom practice. And it seems hardly a big idea or ‘overarching concept’ was in sight to introduce, frame and conceptualise the day.
What was the difference? It was the two teachers who gave the opening kōrero that flipped their colleagues’ natural skepticism on its head. So how might we understand this flip? And why should it matter for Tātai Angitu E3’s work? To answer this second question, let’s turn to the work of Thomas Guskey, in particular his modified model of teacher change (Guskey 2002). Firstly, he makes some cogent points about PLD and its effective delivery and implementation. He argues:
PLD is a systematic effort to create change in classroom practice, and to challenge and change teachers’ existing attitudes and beliefs in ways that improve students’ learning outcomes.
Teachers, even the more skeptically minded, attend PLD believing that they might/could learn something new which will enhance their effectiveness.
Through PLD engagement they hope to gain specific, concrete and practical ideas that relate directly to their daily operations in their classrooms.
It is this third point that we need to note: it implies that it is not the attraction of powerful ideas per se, designed to trigger shifts in attitudes and beliefs that capture teachers’ interest, and provide the basis upon which new and revised practices and strategies will be implemented. Rather, Guskey argues that PLD that does change hearts and minds prioritises the consideration of teachers’ evidence of practice and examples of successful implementation. That is, teacher change is experiential. Teachers are more likely to implement what they have seen colleagues do well or have done themselves. Practices that seem to work, with demonstrably good results for students’ learning, are more likely to be introduced, retained, and repeated, rather than any changes invoked by the imagined application of theory front loaded at the beginning. “Experienced teachers seldom become committed to new instructional approaches until they have seen it work in their classrooms with their students.”(pg. 384)
And note too, the inclusive and expansive notion of a learning outcome: Guskey goes beyond the confines of curriculum imperatives, learning area achievement objectives, cognitive and achievement indicators, and NCEA results to bring in attendance, participation, classroom discipline, student motivation and efficacy, and their attitudes to school. In other words, learning outcomes are not just standardised test scores, grades, and credit totals. They can include “whatever kinds of evidence teachers use to judge the effectiveness of their teaching.” (pg. 384).
To return to my PLD day on disciplinary literacy: the two teachers’ narratives with which the day opened were the experiential evidence their colleagues instinctively tuned into that suggested that this work was worth investing in. The two teachers were reporting how changes they had made had improved their students’ biology and social studies work. In turn, this effect was enhanced by other ‘core group’ colleagues relating their own recent classroom experiences throughout the day’s small group work. And, perhaps fortuitously, what they had read beforehand, and then through the day, also skillfully balanced theory work with implementation strategies. Not a global unifying theory in sight – yet!! That will emerge as we gather further experiential evidence over time.
To the third question: why should this matter for Tātai Angitu E3 and our clients? There are a number of implications for what we understand to be quality PLD that can change hearts and minds in sustainably long-term ways.
Change is not a natural behavior, so changing hearts and minds toward something new and different requires time, effort, and extra energy. Contracts need to provide facilitators and teachers with time to create favourable conditions for the work, in which authentic PLD experiences can be generated, trialled and revised. Change is also destabilizing. It can create anxiety and be threatening. It risks failure as much as it might suggest success. The work we do needs to support that fragile and uncertain practitioner with verifiable evidence that what we are advocating can work. For this, we require time for such evidence to emerge. If Guskey is right, simply reassuring teachers that it’ll work because the ideas are right won’t cut it!!
There is an inevitable tension between a contract’s pedagogic aspirations and restrictions imposed by funding limits. Promising substantive shifts on an austere budget over a short period of time – however intensively delivered – cannot result in the kinds of PLD experiences we would describe as effective.
Nurturing sustainable new practices involves teachers receiving feedback in cyclical rather than linear patterns. Regularly delivered, critically thoughtful and strategically planned feedback about experiences can evidence successful and unsuccessful actions, and from there, what practices can be retained and repeated. In addition, receiving feedback on these experiences can increase teachers’ perception of their competency and effectiveness. Guskey’s point is clear: “specific procedures to provide feedback on results are essential to the success of any professional development effort” (pg. 387)
Continued follow-up and support, after the initial implementation phase, is simply crucial. Follow up can shift learned knowledge into ideas-based natural teaching behaviours and skills. Support can help engaged teachers advance their work, while some associated pressure can prod the resistors into engagement. Together they can provide encouragement, motivation and the ‘occasional nudge’ to keep trying when the going gets a little tough. Our approach to PLD, and the contracts we enter into, need to reflect the value we place on developing enduring longer term relationships with our teachers as they grapple with changing practice, improving student achievement and integrating our big ideas into their pedagogic thinking. When and how should a contract end, if we value support and follow up over time as key features of the work we do?
You may read this and decide that you practise these various points already, but hopefully there will also be material in this and subsequent blogs that might help your thinking, shape your approaches, or address conundrums you’ve encountered along the way.
Reference: Guskey, T.R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, Vol. 8, No. 3/4, pp 381-391.
Tātai Angitu e3 @ Massey Blog 