Kristine's Blog MindLab

Reflective Practice - Key Changes in my Professional Practice Applied Practice Two, Activity Eight In the following blog, I will reflect on my 32 week Mindlab journey and critically evaluate the key changes in my professional practice being the “Teaching” theme from “Our Code, Our Standards”. I will use Rolfe et al’s (2001) Reflective Model and the Cycle of Experiential Learning by Osterman and Kottkamp (2015, p.70)  to guide my reflection. Step 1 - What? The key changes I have made as a result of completing the 2018 Midlab programme are around my teaching pedagogy in the classroom. In particular, the following ideas/theories impacted and resonated with me in such a way that it brought about change on how I deliver learning to my year seven and eight class. ·          Theories of Learning - Applying the Constructivist theory ( Papert, S. & Harel, I., 1991) of Learning in my classroom. ·          Digital Technologies as a learning tool. These changes relate

Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness Applied Practice Two, Activity Seven   In the following blog, I will critically evaluate how my school’s practice has been informed by indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy in the two areas of communication methods and school-wide activities . I will use Rolfe et al’s (2001) Reflective Model to examine this in my school. Step 1 - What? My understanding of Indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy is around the creation of an educational environment where; ·          Culture is an integral and integrated part of the school landscape ·          Relationships are fundamental - connectedness between home and school ·          Power and decision making is shared-self determination (ako) I believe for us as educators to be able to provide this culturally responsive environment we first have to understand and examine our own cultural background and beliefs. Being aware of our own bias c

The Broader Professional Context Applied Practice Two, Activity Six The trend I am going to reflect, critique and evaluate my practice on is the Heightened Demand for  Career Readiness . I will Rolfe et al’s (2001) Reflective Model to examine this trend. Step 1 - What? The trend that captivates my attention is the national and global trend of heightened demand for our school leavers to be ready for careers in our ever changing career environment. My reflections on this are based around; how do we prepare our students for a world of changing employment opportunities that we don’t even know about yet? I am a classroom teacher and Hub Leader of Year Seven and Eight students. Teaching and learning about careers is required at this year level. I have just recently met with a representative of Careers New Zealand and discussed a Careers programme with her. Very little, if any, emphasis was placed on our unknown future and what we can be doing to prepare our students. I w

Professional Online Social Networks Applied Practice Two, Activity Four The discussion below looks at the use of Social Media in classroom practice.  I will be using Jay and Johnson’s (2002) reflective model guide this discussion. Descriptive I use the following social media tools in my teaching practice as follows: Facebook - parent announcements, sharing of student photos/work/awards, requesting resources, requesting parent help, celebrating success, responding to parent and community  questions- high parent/community engagement Videos - Youtube tutorials, Netflix-Novel study/Documentaries e.g Before the Flood as part of Environmental Inquiry Linc-ed SMS - Uploading student digital work e.g writing, photos and student made screencasts summerising their term’s work for parent/caregivers to view remotely Content/Documents - Google suite utilising Google Classroom to share tasks with class and manage assessment of task

Legal and Ethical Contexts in my Digital Practice:Week 28 Applied Practice Two, Activity Four The ethical dilemma I am going to examine and critique the issues around is one about gaming obsession in students and the role schools play in addressing this. I will use Rolfe et.al's (2001) Reflective Model to examine the dilemma and the Hall (2001) ethical decision making framework to guide my own decision making process. What? As a B.Y.O.D school, our classroom pedagogy makes use of digital technology to engage and enhance learning. My year level is year seven and eight and I enjoy the digital literacy levels of my students who successfully use their devices in many ways including research, evidencing learning and collaborative learning. Over the past two months, I have had a student who is obsessed with playing Fortnite every moment he can. At any opportunity, he will be playing Fortnite, searching and watching Youtube clips on Fortnite, listening to Fortnite music and da

Kahoot - Pre-test on the Water Cycle I used an existing Kahoot I find on the water cycle to check what my student already new about it before I started teaching it. I love the breakdown of results that Kahoots gives me. A big help in focusing my planning and implementation.

Padlet Class Brainstorm - converted to PDF Today we kicked off our Inquiry topic with a prior knowledge activity about the water cycle and the Waikato River. We used Padlet which was a big sucess. The students were all well engaged and I was able to make a great looking PDF (on the link) of the results for my students to place on their Blog. A great day!

Today I have joined the Manurewa class for week 16 learning. Really interesting to be in a much larger group with a greater diversity of ideas.

Day One - first learning session. Setting up Bog for reflections. The pic shows how happy I am to make it this far!