Changes in my practice

                           

                     



Reflection
I am not a natural scholar. Study, research and professional reading does not come easy to me. Therefore, in Week 2 when we had to read 'Towards Reconceptualising Leadership', I honestly nearly had a heart attack. The memory of those long nights I spent at varsity wading through books and articles when everyone else was out, came flooding back to me. 'Oh My God', I remembered - 'that's right, I'm not good at this!'
Abject terror set in when I failed one of the papers - I think I am the only person to have actually done this. The Lit Review - never again thanks. My take home advice for anyone thinking about doing Mindlab - do it Summer. Winter can be quite long and depressing when you are up to your eyeballs in reading and assignments.

HOWEVER

Now that we are at the end of this journey, I cannot believe how valuable the Mindlab has been. Mindlab is hands down the best PD I have ever done. It has ignited a fire in me for professional growth. I have really enjoyed most of the topics and I am already applying them to my classroom practice (gamification, interdisciplinary teaching, followership, flipped classroom to name just a few), and many of the readings I keep with me for reference (Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching (Bolstad et al 2012), Innovating Pedagogy (2016), Tātaiako (MoE ,2011) also just a few).
Without a doubt, the most valuable learning I am taking from the course is the 21st century skills. I call them my C skills - Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and being Connected. I wrote my Lit Review about the 21st century skills and I have shared the ITL 21cld rubrics with our staff. I also appreciate the World Economic Forum's 21st century skills graphic that includes character traits.

In this week's reading, Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) comment that the reflective practice approach to professional development, such as we have been undertaking in Mindlab, will facilitate behavioural change via self awareness. I completely agree with their assertion that our process has been collaborative and holistic, and we are action learners. They compare our journey to that of traditional PD, where learners are passive consumers of standardised knowledge. How many times have we all attending PD and left full of great ideas, but no action follows?

Beyond all else is the collegiality that has come out of this course. What a fantastic group of people to ride this wave with.

So thank you themindlab by Unitec, it has been a rollercoaster ride and my teaching practice has been changed forever.

Changes 

Criteria 9: Respond effectively to the diverse and cultural experiences and the varied strengths, interests, and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga.
I really connected with the cultural responsiveness reflections we did in Week 28. The Geneva Gay video was a stand out for me. While I am culturally respectful, I have some way to go to become truly  culturally responsive. I am committed to working harder to honour the tātaiako competencies in Ka Hikatia. Although these competencies have been developed to guide our Māori learners, as Professor Bishop says "What is good for Māori is good for everyone."

Criteria 6: Conceptualise, plan, and implement an appropriate learning programme.
Many of my blogs and assignments have referred to the new build ILE I am lucky enough to be teaching in with two colleagues next year, using an integrated curriculum. I have done a lot research into STEAM versus STEM curriculum, and our team is dedicated to including Arts and PE in our new curriculum to motivate and engage our Maori learners. I really enjoyed last week's supplementary video on the TIP curriculum being delivered in Los Angeles. I am so excited to be involved in the evolution of this curriculum at grass roots level. 

Dreaming
I haven't considered a next step in my professional learning beyond applying the layers of Mindlab learning in my practice and sharing it with our staff.
I would like to learn more about my own leadership and followership styles, and see how I can be a better leader and follower.

But for now, I had better start my reports.

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files.

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_NewVisionforEducation_Report2015.pdf

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Tataiako.pdf

http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf