PRACTICE - CHANGES IN MY TEACHING PRACTICE

PRACTICE- Changes in Practice

The inspirational quote from the last week of my Mindlab journey is worth mentioning here,

“Reflection as a slogan for educational reform also recognises that the process of learning to teach continues throughout a teacher’s entire career, a recognition that no matter what we do in our teacher education programmes, and no matter how well we do them, at best, we can only prepare teachers to begin teaching.” (Carlgren. et al, 1994).

Indeed the last 32 weeks has been an exciting journey to me, both personally and professionally. Some of the topics have been very useful and applicable to my field of practice, while the others were interesting and familiar. This course have given me a chance to ponder of the philosophical and theoretical groundings to my practice in more than one ways.

Applying the 21^st century rubric to all that I did in this year in my teaching has been rewarding. The implementation of Self-Regulated Learning, Digital and collaborative lessons and tasks in my class, experiencing my leadership with a theoretical backing, implementing innovative ideas as a leader and experimenting a few in the course of my middle management role, communication with my akonga, whanau and my colleagues has been a huge learning curve to me. The interactions and feedback I had from my students about their experience with SRL will be my current and ongoing research topic in the light of the new Innovative/Flexible Learning Environment initiatives in Marlborough.

As a part of my PD I have shared a few videos and literature reviews from Mindlab resources with my colleagues. The feedback has been positive and I am sure what I have learnt and experienced with MindLab has been shared via FirdayFlash Newsletter at my school. My past professional experiences and research on culture/integrated curriculum were refreshed this year and I am planning to continue researching to design an integrated education at the senior level of education in New Zealand.  

The most useful learning apart from the above was the extensive course content on digital and innovative learning. I liked the communication and social media context in learning. It was revealing to know more than what I knew about the digital direction of our education and learning. Augmented and virtual applications in a classroom were fascinating and wonderful when shared with my students. “The larger universe of social media will continue to evolve” (Seaman & Tinti, 2013).

All the studies I did during this course of 32 weeks was useful in my Teaching Inquiry. A deep reflection enabled me to develop my challenging areas of teaching and leaning. This has also fulfilled the MOE Teacher Practice Criteria.

Most importantly, Mindlab has created a very beautiful collaborative community in Blenheim and made it possible for us to share knowledge and experience. The last 32 weeks have been enriching and rewarding. Thank you very much. I hope and believe that my contribution to the online community and the wider audience that were generated in the course of time had increased my professional circle.

I am looking forward to sharing what I have learnt and experienced in this course and will be in debt to Mindlab for its generous and valuable offer. Thank you to all my Kaiako’s, colleagues and my online professional friends.

Koinei anake te whakangungu kaiako i pai ki a au.

Carlgren, I., Handal, G. & Vaage, S. (Eds.). (1994). Teachers' Minds And Actions: Research On Teachers' Thinking And Practice. London, UK: The Falmer Press.

Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Babson Survey Research Group. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-2013-report.pdf