Week 2

Leadership

Flipped preparation (required): First take a look at some of these ideas on 'Self Assessing Key Competencies in Leadership' pdf (in Related Media below) about how the key competences relate to leadership. Then self assess your 5 Key Competencies in your teaching and leadership practice. What are your strengths and weaknesses? You can do this in the format of your choice, just bring the self reflections with you to Week 2 session.
Strengths

• Managing self
• Relating to others
• Thinking

Weaknesses

• Participating and contributing  
• Using language, symbols and texts

Collaboration

.

Flipped preparation (required): Prepare for the session by watching the video "What 60 Schools Can Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skill" and reflecting how 20th century and 21st century skills differ? Do we need both?

21st century skills are more about being open, being leaders. Not being part of a machine. They are more focused on skills and attitudes than recall and retention of facts. The education system needs to change to prepare our children for their future. However, there are parts of what we do that will continue to work for children, for example, having relationships between home and school. Children always need to be at the heart of the matter. 

Notes from session 2:

Values	Code	Standards
WHAKAMANA: empowering all learners to reach their highest potential by providing high-quality teaching and leadership. MANAAKITANGA: creating a welcoming, caring and creative learning environment that treats everyone with respect and dignity. PONO: showing integrity by acting in ways that are fair, honest, ethical and just. WHANAUNGATANGA: engaging in positive and collaborative relationships with our learners, their families and whānau, our colleagues and the wider community.	1. COMMITMENT TO THE TEACHING PROFESSION I will maintain public trust and confidence in the teaching profession 2. COMMITMENT TO LEARNERS I will work in the best interests of learners 3. COMMITMENT TO FAMILIES AND WHĀNAU I will respect the vital role my learners’ families and whānau play in supporting their children’s learning 4. COMMITMENT TO SOCIETY I will respect my trusted role in society and the influence I have in shaping futures	Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership Demonstrate commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand Professional learning Use inquiry, collaborative problem solving and professional learning to improve professional capability to impact on the learning and achievement of all learners. Professional relationships Establish and maintain professional relationships and behaviours focused on the learning and wellbeing of each learner. Learning-focused culture Develop a culture that is focused on learning, and is characterised by respect, inclusion, empathy, collaboration and safety Design for learning Design learning based on curriculum and pedagogical knowledge, assessment information and an understanding of each learner’s strengths, interests, needs, identity, language and cultures. Teaching Teach and respond to learners in a knowledgeable and adaptive way to progress their learning at an appropriate depth and pace.

Reflective thinking turns experience into insights
-J.Maxwell

Digital footprints-They will one day carry more weight than what you might include in your CV and/or resume.

What is the difference between the initial due date and the final due date?
The initial is the recommended due date, the final is the last time, you must let Mindlab know if you will be using the final date.
What are the additional procedures for group entry?
Self and peer assessment forms
How can I submit in Te reo?
Tick the box that indicates this
What happens if I get less than 50% in an assignment?
You fail
What do I do to submit on the final due date?
Notify using the form online, before the initial due date, that you need the two weeks until the final due date.
Where can I find the rubrics? What are they like?

Why and how does using the 21st century learner activity rubric could help us to enhance our practise?

Why?
We need to do this to prepare our children for their future

• Real work projects require collaboration skills

• How?

• Through inquiry
• Through play based learning 

Leadership and the Key Competencies

The Ministry of Education web site notes that "Learners are most likely to develop and strengthen their capabilities for living and learning when they learn with teachers in a school whose leadership creates conditions that stimulate key competencies." (MoE, 2014). It goes on the say that compelling change to support key competencies is a vital role for school leadership and that, for many, key competencies require, and make possible, a significant change in practice.

Flipped activity task

For the flipped activity you were asked to self-reflect on how the KC’s relate to leadership in digital and collaborative learning.

• Thinking
• Using language, symbols & texts
• Managing self
• Relating to others
• Participating and contributing

Professional Standards

The new professional standards (Education Council, 2017) include the following values, which also overlap to some extent.

MANAAKITANGA: Creating a welcoming, caring and creative learning environment that treats everyone with respect and dignity.

WHANAUNGATANGA: Engaging in positive and collaborative relationships with our learners, their families and whānau, our colleagues and the wider community.

Our Code Our Standards

The Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession (Education Council, 2017) includes leadership.

One of the four values is “WHAKAMANA: empowering all learners to reach their highest potential by providing high-quality teaching and leadership.”

An elaboration of Professional Relationships is “Actively contribute, and work collegially, in the pursuit of improving my own and organisational practice, showing leadership, particularly in areas of responsibility”.

The 'Our Code Our Standards' document asserts four values and states that ‘These values underpin Our Code, Our Standards. They define, inspire and guide us as teachers.’ (Education Council, 2017). The following table suggests how these values might align with He Tikanga Whakaaro.

He Tikanga Whakaaro	Our Values
Rangatiratanga (personal autonomy and leadership)	Whakamana: empowering all learners to reach their highest potential by providing high-quality teaching and leadership.
Whakawhanaungatanga (establishing relationships)	Whanaungatanga: engaging in positive and collaborative relationships with our learners, their families and whanau, our colleagues and the wider community
Manaakitanga (a context of caring relationships)	Manaakitanga: creating a welcoming, caring and creative learning environment that treats everyone with respect and dignity.
Whaiwāhitanga (engagement and participation).	Pono: showing integrity by acting in ways that are fair, honest, ethical and just.

In the session we will ask you to discuss how He Tikanga Whakaaro relates to good leadership and the leadership components and values of ‘Our Code Our Standards’? 

KCs and He Tikanga Whakaaro

He Tikanga Whakaaro suggests a Maori way of thinking / understanding. Macfarlane et al (2008) provide the following comparison between the KCs and the concepts of He Tikanga Whakaaro:

Key Competencies	He Tikanga Whakaaro
Thinking  Using language, symbols & texts	Tātaritanga (thinking and making meaning)
Managing self	Rangatiratanga (personal autonomy and leadership)  Whakawhanaungatanga (establishing relationships)
Relating to others	Manaakitanga (a context of caring relationships)
Participating and contributing	Whaiwahitanga (engagement and participation).

Reflective Practice and Blogging

This week we ask you to consider why classes or students might have blogs, and how might blogging relate to teacher agency and teacher leadership? One option when blogging might be to attach the Professional Standards as hashtags to your own posts. The ones that we feel are most relevant to each week's content are shown in the portal on the overview tab for each week.

As a regular process on this course we ask your to reflect on your practice; to be a reflective practitioner. Maxwell (2009) states that "Experience alone does not add value to life, or your practice. It’s not necessarily the experience that is valuable; it’s the insight you get because of your experience. Reflective thinking turns experience into insights!"

If you choose to make your blog public, it can become a positive contributor to your digital footprint. As Betcher (2009) notes "Ask any blogger, they know the benefits.I can see a day in the not too distant future (if it’s not already here) where your digital footprint will carry far more weight than anything you might include in a resume or CV.”

On the fourth course of this programme “Applied Practice in Context” you’ll get to critically reflect upon different aspects of your practice. If you want to start that journey already you can start to blog about your learning. Even if blogging is not assessed as part of the official assessments during the initial courses, all the previous students who have started blogging have felt it has been essential to their professional growth and improvement. Blogging can be a really good way for you to explore and record new ideas for your future research. If you are taking notes anyway, why not share them and build your online identity at the same time?

Hanuscin et al (2014) state that blogging can also be important from a leadership perspective. "Specifically, by participating in pedagogical transactions, social interactions, and intellectual deliberations via blogs, teachers were supported in their efforts to be leaders in their classrooms, schools, and districts."

References

Betcher, C. (2009). Digital footprints. Retrieved from http://chrisbetcher.com/tag/digitalfootprint

Education Council. (2017). Our Code, Our Standards: Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession. Wellington: Education Council. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf

Hanuscin, D., Cheng, Y., Rebello, C., Sinha, S., & Muslu, N. (2014). The Affordances of Blogging As a Practice to Support Ninth-Grade Science Teachers' Identity Development as Leaders. Journal Of Teacher Education, 65(3), 207-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022487113519475

Macfarlane, H., Glynn, T., Grace, W., Penetito, W. & Bateman, S. (2008). Indigenous epistemology in a national curriculum framework? Ethnicities, 8, 102. Retrieved from https://app.themindlab.com/media/35220/view

Maxwell, J. C. (2009). How successful people think: Change your thinking, change your life. Hachette UK.

MoE. (2014). Leadership and the key competencies. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Key-competencies/To...

21st Century Skills

This week we open with some reflections on the flipped preparation video "What Can 60 Schools Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skills?" and discuss how do 20th century and 21st century skills differ? Do we need both? Some of the skills related ideas in the video include:

• Schools are becoming, creative, adaptive, permeable, dynamic, systemic, self-correcting
• The 5th sphere - the ‘cognitosphere’ - system of knowledge creation and management
• Problems - Anchors of time, space and subject, Dams and Silos
• Solutions -
  • Teach into the unknown
  • Self-evolving learners
  • Self-evolving organisations
• Education innovation - “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow” - supposedly John Dewey (though in fact Dewey never actually wrote that!)

Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) 21st Century Skills

Many skills frameworks seem to converge on a common set of 21st century skills (collaboration, communication, ICT literacy, and social and/or cultural competencies, including citizenship). Most frameworks also mention creativity, critical thinking and problem solving). However, many different terms are used (Voogt & Roblin, 2010).

These are the 21st Century Skills that ITL Research (2012) decided were important.

• Collaboration
• Knowledge construction
• Self-regulation
• Real-world problems / innovations
• ICT for learning
• Skilled Communication

We might contrast these with the key competencies of the NZ curriculum. "More complex than skills, the competencies draw also on knowledge, attitudes, and values in ways that lead to action" (MoE, 2017):

• Thinking
• Using language, symbols & texts
• Managing self
• Relating to others
• Participating and contributing

and with the 21st Century Competencies from the World Economic Forum (2015), sometimes known as the 4 C's:

• Critical thinking / problem-solving
• Creativity
• Communication
• Collaboration

It is worth noting that collaboration-related concepts appear in two of the key competencies (MoE, 2017):

Relating to others: Students who relate well to others... know when it is appropriate to compete and when it is appropriate to co-operate.

Participating and contributing: This competency includes a capacity to contribute appropriately as a group member

What do you think are the most important Skills of the 21st Century?

After viewing and discussing the video, and looking at some suggested sets of 21st century skills, What do you think are the most important Skills of the 21st Century? Share your views by filling in the form IN CLASS: tinyurl.com/TML21CSJuly18

You can see the results on the shared spreadsheet. 

Word Clouds

A word cloud is a graphical representation of word frequency and word cloud generators are tools that can map data, like words and tags in a visual and engaging way. The Word Cloud Generator Google Docs add-on calculates the frequency properly (which several other tools don't), but unfortunately it doesn’t have a mechanism for keeping compound phrases together. You can copy the results from the spreadsheet generated from a Google Form and paste them into a Google Doc, then use the add-on to create your word cloud.

ITL Learning Activity Rubrics

“The purpose of the 21st Century Learning Design Rubrics is to help educators identify and understand the opportunities that learning activities give students to build 21st century skills. A learning activity is any task that students do as part of their school-related work. It can be an exercise that students complete in one class period, or an extended project that takes place both in and outside of school.” (ITL Research, 2012)

In the guide, the description of each rubric has three parts: an overview of definitions of key concepts and related examples, a rubric to help you assign each learning activity a number from 1 to 4 or 5, according to how strongly it offers opportunities to develop a given skill and a flowchart that shows how to choose the best number in each case.

For example, this is the flowchart for the collaboration rubric:

This part examines whether students are working interdependently on the learning activity, and have shared responsibility to make substantive decisions together about content, process and product.

Students work together in pairs or groups when the activity requires them to:

• discuss an issue
• solve a problem
• create a product

Film making to develop narrative, why is this a relevant skill for an educator?

Film-making is a technique that can be effectively created on a wide range of devices from tablets and phones and free web based software like OpenShot (for Windows or Mac) or iMovie (on the Mac), to digital SLR’s and paid for software. In the hands-on element of this session you have the opportunity to create and edit a video using any tools of your choice. One of the key elements of making an effective video clip is developing the story or plot, and creating an effective narrative. Editing is also an important part in the process as this can have a huge impact on the final product, as we experience in the session.  

For the purposes of this session, we ask you to address the following questions:

• How can we present one of the rubrics in our video?
• What does it mean to be ‘present’ in our videos?
• Can we have an introduction, message and conclusion in 1-3 minute video?

Acknowledge your sources

You are probably familiar with the idea of acknowledging your sources in written work, but what about in a video? We encourage you to cite your sources both verbally and visually in your videos For example to cite the ITL rubrics you would include the citation of author and date when you refer to the document (ITL Research, 2012) and the full reference at the end:

ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

Flipped jigsaw activity

This is the flipped learning activity for next week (see next week's task list).

We are going to divide into 3 groups, so that we know to become experts in 1 of the 3 different ‘conditions for classroom technology innovation’ (flipped prep reading).

We need approximately the same number of experts in

• The Innovator (Teacher)
• The Context (School)
• The Innovation (Project)

So who’s taking what? (So that next week we can do some jigsaw learning in expert groups and make groups that have experts from all 3 conditions to find the connections between them) 

References

ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

MoE. (2017). The New Zealand Curriculum: Capabilities for living and lifelong learning. Retrieved from  http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum#collapsible7

Voogt, J. & Roblin, N. (2010). 21st Century Skills Discussion paper. University of Twente. Retrieved from http://opite.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/61995295/White%20Paper%2021stCS_Final_ENG_def2.pdf

World Economic Forum (2015). New Vision for Education: Unlocking the Potential of Technology. Retrieved from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_NewVisionforEducation_Report2015.pdf