You're my favourite class, too

My final Mindlab challenge: condense 32 weeks of learning and reflections in under 600 words.  Have I reached my Mindlab goals? A key motivation for enrolling in the programme was to develop my skills in collaborative and digital teaching. I have certainly achieved this, becoming a more research-based teacher in the process. I have reflected on developing 21st-century skills in my learners, planned and implemented a video-making task, critically reflected on my leadership style and incorporated different leadership tactics in a plan for my depart . I have read and reflected on a range of academic articles for literature review, which was used to develop a TAI cycle. Perhaps most beneficially, I have reflected on my learning throughout the course, utilising this blog. These reflections cover most of the PTC, particularly PTC 1 (establishing and maintaining professional relationships)  through feedback and interactions with other Mindlab students. This has pushed me outsi...

Of late I have been reflecting more on my learning and applying it to my practices via this blog. I set it up a couple of years ago but had been sporadic in adding entries to it. My motivation for having a blog was to try to encourage me to reflect of on my teaching practice more regularly. I guess in theory it was good but although it gave me an avenue to think about my teaching it didn't really encourage more writing. I also felt a bit uncomfortable putting my ideas out there to the big wide world, which is kind of the purpose of a blog! With the Mindlab course, though, I'm going out of my comfort zone in all kinds of ways, and sharing my ideas and thoughts publicly is one of them. I have been making regular updates after each session, focusing on the aspect of the class that I found interesting and can apply to myself, my students or my school. I have found this a useful avenue to make me think about and clarify the ideas from the course rather than forgetting about them a...

Last night was the second Mindlab session, exploring the links between 21st century skills and the key competencies of the New Zealand curriculum. One interesting idea that was raised was that organisations ‘biological’, I guess in that there are levels of organisation and that they are living, evolving systems. This also means that organisations have the ability to ‘learn’. A t raditional school structure is hierarchical - within my own school we have the principal and two deputies, as well as three teachers who act as Senior Leader Support, followed by layers of deans, HODs, 2ICs... If we take the biological metaphor further, organisations, including schools, must be self-evolving or else they will stagnate. As the culture of an organisation changes, the nature of leadership within the organisation will also change. In schools, this includes how we might define knowledge and the role of teachers in bringing about changes. For my school and others to continue to evolve there ...

Tuesday night was my first session of the Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Teaching (Digital and Collaborative Learning) through Unitec - otherwise knowns as The Mindlab . The focus of the first session was on what is knowledge and the purpose of education.The course notes state: [Students'] familiar means of information aggregation and distribution are not in sync with the education system and students are looking for flexible, more affordable and more relevant ways to gain the knowledge needed to apply ‘as needed’ skills for life-long learning. At heart this challenges the whole notion of what schools do, hence the question we were focusing on: what is education? In a formal sense, education is the systematic transfer of knowledge and information, but informally we are 'educated' in various ways everyday - through what we read and listen to, who we talk to. What we do as educators is inherently governed by what has been done before, because change can be a slow ...