Yvonne MacKinnon's Reflective Musings

What? According to Bolstad and MacDonald (2016), the aim of reflective practice is to develop in teachers the agency needed to impact change in our curriculum and not merely passively adopt handed-down models. This aligns with Robertson’s (2016) work in leadership coaching whereby the reflection allows one to move from observing change to being part of the change to being transformed by the change. Within my practice, one such transformation is around the area of flexibility - from the 13 key concepts arising from the Hack Education research (Patston & Nash, 2017). As I reflect on the changes I have made, I can see this notion of flexibility actually encompasses a multitude of areas and has pervaded much of my practice, including flexibility of: student groupings learning experiences teaching approaches  physical learning spaces leadership styles disposition (as I make peace with the notion I don’t need to have all the answers). So what? Flexibility in st...

What? Indigenous knowledge, as I understand it, is the collection of values, beliefs, perceptions and traditions that constitute the culture of the native inhabitants of a particular area. With that said, according to Jacqueline Jordan Irvine (Teaching Tolerance, 2010), we need to be mindful that indigenous peoples have this knowledge to varying degrees depending on their connection to their culture. To be a culturally responsive educator, is to attempt to see the world through the eyes of each of our tamariki, and help them to connect that which needs to be learned to the cultural ideas and values they are most familiar with (Teaching Tolerance, 2010). The demographic in my context is 50% Pasifika and 30% Maori with the remaining learners identifying as Asian, Middle Eastern and N.Z. European. As luck would have it, one of my colleagues worked alongside Dr Ann Milne for some years at Kia Aroha College; she has now spent the past four years guiding the team at Prospect School in...

What? I had a conversation with my sister recently that went a bit like this: Sister: I’m thinking about taking the boys out of school and putting them in private school. Me: Are you insane? Sister: Maybe. I just feel I would then have paid to constantly annoy their teachers about their progress, and wouldn’t feel so bad about it. What do you think? Me: That it kind of depends on what you send them to school for. Is it so you can track their reading and maths levels (to the point where you know the curriculum progressions better than some teachers) or is it so they develop as well-rounded humans who learn who they are, what they like and how to engage with the rest of the other humans we are surrounded with daily? This conversation basically sums up why I think we go to school. The current focus on the development of personal skills in students (Daggett, 2014), speaks loud and clear to me, and is something always at the forefront of my teacher-brain. As our world cont...

Descriptive My biggest shift in Social Media use has been my professional learning through social networking on Google +, from the sharing of our in-class experiences across NZ, and the rich discussions that have occurred as we engage in this Mindlab journey together. I have also crossed the great divide and connected with the global Hapara Educator Google + community in order to upskill myself in the creation/management of my digital classroom. My next step could be to jointly collaborate on a project outside my immediate environment (Starkey, 2012); possibly something a bit more meaningful for me intellectually than the Zooniverse projects I have simply contributed to. Comparative Using the Social Media Tool Survey highlighted for me that I seem to be stuck using the same old tools I am familiar with and that these are very similar to the ones almost everyone else seems to be using. The highest percentages were for tools such as social and content networking,...

With a whole-school focus on development of learner agency, outlined in our 2018 strategic planning, I attempted to ‘Flip’ my Year 5/6 digital classroom at the beginning of this year. Students had 1:1 access to Chromebooks supplied by the school. The aim was to develop Rangatiratanga in our learners; the self-determination required to drive their learning journey (Bishop & Verleger, 2013). I was really excited at the start and spent a considerable amount of time creating and sourcing suitable material to support their learning. However, I noticed very quickly that the enthusiasm from the students began to wane after the first few weeks and there was an increase in the amount of students who seemed reluctant to participate in the in-class learning. Following much classroom discussion, I unearthed access issues for students at home. I had asked about ease of internet access beforehand but perhaps some learners were reluctant to say in front of peers that they had none. I also made...