I already have a history with the waka hourua (double hulled canoes).
In 2011 I was privileged to catch a ride on Gaulalofa. This year I spotted an advertisement on Facebook for Tirotiro Whetū, a free event offered as part of Matariki and was sponsored by AMI Insurance. The opportunity was too good to miss and so I jumped at the chance to ride another waka hourua.
We climbed aboard Aotearoa One for a special vessel for a three-hour sailing trip out on the Waitemata Harbour. Aotearoa One is a modern take on a traditional hourua (double hulled) waka and was launched in 2003 for Te Wananga o Aotearoa at their Mangere Campus in Auckland. This evening the boat was skippered by Dale and crewed by members of Te Toki Waka Hourua. The main message from Dale was ‘Don’t fall in the water.’
We set out from Orakei Marina and headed out into the Waitemata Harbour. The evening was cold and luckily we had been warned to come prepared. So I did with thermals, a hat, gloves, scarf and a waterproof jacket. On the way the sun went down and the sails were hoisted. We sailed past Auckland Business district to a beautiful display of fireworks for Bastille Day. The sun dipped lower and lower and with it the changing evening colours reflected in the clouds. Eventually we were in darkness and the city lights reflected on the water.
Unfortunately the sky was overcast but that did not stop the stories. We sailed under the Auckland Harbour Bridge and Ataahua Papa, Matariki Festival Director for Auckland Council, explained the Vector Lights on Auckland Harbour Bridge. She narrated us through the light sequence. She explained how this year’s host iwi for Matariki Festival, Waikato-Tainui, created the stunning display of lights. More can be read here. The full sequence took just over eight minutes.
As we motored back Hoturoa Kerr shared his knowledge about traditional Maori and Polynesian culture and sailing methods. I loved hearing the stories of my ancestors. With the stories, we were served warm soup and a roll and then a mug of hot lemon drink. This came at a good time because by now the cold was settling in.
Finally we arrived back at the marina and disembarked.
My reflection, wow what an incredible experience going out at night on a waka hourua. I felt Manaakitanga as we were taken care of so well by the crew. I felt whanaungatanga as part of the events of Matariki that brings all of us together to share in an experience. I thought about my key word of Turangawaewae where I am learning more about who I am and my place in the world as I learn more about my past.
To everyone involved in the Matariki organisations for Auckland, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for making this evening possible. To AMI Insurance, please continue with your awesome support within our community. To Ata and Hoturoa and the crew of Aoteroa One extra special thanks go out to you for your time and for sharing your knowledge with us.
Over the past two years I have been leading
the Mathematics Initiative for the Auckland Central Community of Schools.
(ACCoS)
This year I wanted to continue to develop
and to maintain knowledge and skills relevant for my performance as an Across
School Leader of Mathematics in ACCoS.
One of the areas I identified as needing
further learning, was growing my own knowledge about Mathematics for learning.
I was also extra lucky because Virginia, our initiative Champion for Mathematics, is an Adjunct Lecturer for the Auckland University and Newmarket School is a university partner school. Through our school’s involvement with the university, the other part of my paper’s fees were covered.
A decade has passed since I have studied at post graduate level and so I undertook the challenge of completing the paper. The extra pressure of having the fees paid for was my greatest incentive to complete the course. I believe that if I had not that incentive I could have very easily given up.
Those of you who know me might have
wondered where I had disappeared over the past few months. I have been
surviving.
The course overview indicated that we would
focus on critiquing historical number systems as a way of illuminating
theoretical issues, and informing our teaching practice, around learning number
and place value concepts.
I always believe and say that I would never
ask teachers to do something I was not prepared to do myself. I am conscious
that my maths is not as strong as it could be and I remembered the year I spent
extra time learning maths with one of my teachers when I first arrived in New
Zealand. I also remembered a high school teacher spending time with me to help
strengthen strategies in preparation for school examinations. My brother in law
also spent many afternoons helping me with my maths knowledge and I passed high
school maths, but only just enough to get me through.
So maths for me has always been a
challenge.
This post graduate paper introduced me to
Ancient Egyptian Mathematics and Ancient Greek Mathematics. We learnt how our
ancient maths ancestors developed their systems of calculations and we made
links of how we could transfer this learning for when we teach children. One
section of tasks was to test our children and evaluate where their gaps were.
The gaps we identified for was Place Value. As educators we must take this part
of mathematics seriously because most of maths knowledge hinges on place value
knowledge.
What I learnt doing the course was a lot of
what I needed could not be googled. I used youtube as much as possible to help
with explanations because the research reading we were given made very little
sense. Maybe because the topic I chose was not an area of strength, like
language acquisition would have been.
Some of what I did to help with
clarification and understanding was to use digital readings and flick them
through word clouds so that I could identify what the key ideas might be. I
also used free summariser to shorten huge reading down into an understandable
paragraph. Therefore when I reread the whole article, I had a sense of what it
was about.
As assignment deadlines loomed, I also gave
up hope of achieving with excellence and just focussed on completing the assignment
and uploading it on time.
I created a couple of videos to help me
explain thinking, but learnt quickly that one minute of video equals
approximately 100 words of writing and yet took a whole day to create.
My learning from completing the paper was identifying gaps in children’s mathematics and what to do about it. But would I do another paper?? Maybe. However I believe my other professional learning developments add to my microcredentialling such as completing Hapara Training where we focussed on Andragogy, or the book I cowrote with Pam Hook using SOLO Taxonomy, or the Global Educator Certificate with Julie Lindsay, or the collaborative projects I lead such as EdBookNZ where I have worked with forty educators to create collaborative books for education, or the TeachMeetNZ project where I have worked with 120 educators sharing their learning in three minute videoed presentations, or all the conference presentations and staff development I have led, as well as twitter for up to date professional readings, have contributed more to my professional learning than completing a written paper on my own. My other challenge with post graduate studies at Auckland University is that none of my other achievements count towards a qualification and yet they accept educators coming in with a Diploma of Education at Masters Level. I wonder what their digital portfolios look like and if they even share them.
I had Ginny with me and we had plenty of discussion which really helped. However more could have happened in a collaborative way. Yes we had group discussions and group problem solving, but we did not take that collaboration further. More could have happened in co-construction and co-creating. The online learning seemed really surface. There is a massive range of tools out there that could be used to help with co-creating. The simplest being google docs. Knowledge is the start and that is what this paper did. But now to take that knowledge and set up ways that our teachers and students can cocreate with it. I have ideas for maths week.
My Cumulative GPA currently stands at 5.361. But that is still not enough just to do the research component, I have to go back and do more university papers at post graduate certificate level and like I said all the other collaborative work I have done makes no difference.
I finish by thanking my school, Newmarket School, the University of Auckland, the Ministry of Education for covering my fees. However my biggest thanks goes to Virginia Kung, our initiatives champion who prodded me into doing more than just leading the Mathematics Initiative.
On Thursday the 25th of April in New Zealand, we remembered ANZAC Day. A day most of us associate with a holiday. However the day means so much more than that. ‘ANZAC’ stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. ANZAC day is the most important national commemorative occasions because it marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.
Each year I remember my paternal grandfather because he served in both world wars. He enlisted when he just turned 18 years old and served until he was well into his forties. The second part of his service happened when his children grew up without his home presence and his wife was gravely ill.
War records indicated that in 1915 he enlisted when he was 18 years old and was sent to Egypt. His skills as a rifleman were legendary. That and having 20/20 vision in both eyes meant he was a sniper. War records showed his role.
In 1917 he was injured and transferred to Hornchurch Hospital in England. Family stories share how he was gassed and developed rheumatic fever for which eventually he was allowed to return home to Loburn, Canterbury New Zealand.
He purchased his own apple orchard and spent the next phase of his life growing apples in his own orchard in Loburn, just out of Rangiora near Christchurch. My father tells stories of returned servicemen gathering at the orchard both for work and for reminiscence. When the second world war broke out my grandfather was back in service but this time leaving a wife and two children to look after the family business.
At my school this year, my team created an assembly to highlight what we learnt about ANZAC day.
Then in the holiday’s we visited the War memorial at Newmarket park that has one of our past assistant principal’s name engraved on the memorial. Several of our students took part in the Newmarket Business Parade down Broadway to Newmarket park.
This post allows me to unpack my understanding of Wairuatanga. When we stood together at Newmarket Park and heard the birds and the wind through the trees, I felt the wairua of the place. I think of Cyril Moore who lost his life at 32 years old. As we reflected on all those who had fallen during the first world war and those who returned changed by the experience of war. We remember their families and whanau.
We remember the thousands of young people who lost their lives for king and country. We remember the other side too, who were defending their homelands from invaders.
Not only was she a teacher trainer, she was also a mother, grandmother, tireless community person and a dear friend.
I first met Pati in January 1995, when I undertook my first paper for the National diploma of Education. At that time Pati was Pasifika Education Advisor and worked in the Advisory service at Kohia Teachers Centre. She worked closely with Samoan teachers in the Auckland Region to establish the ‘Ulimasao Bilingual Education Association Inc.
We became firm friends.
Over the years I learnt more about Pati and we connected through several links. Such as connections with our families in Samoa. Historically our Gafa crosses paths in the villages of Afega and Manono in Samoa.
She was one of the few people who did not hesitate to tell me if I she thought I was neglecting my learning. Through Pati’s gentle encouragement I completed my National Diploma of TESSOL whilst raising a young family and working full time. She took me under her wings and encouraged me to further my learning both academically, service to community work, and to growing my Samoan language and culture.
She helped steer me on the path of first language maintenance. When I first knew her my Samoan had become rusty through lack of use. However she encouraged me to present in Samoan and to run teacher workshops in Samoan and to speak at community events in Samoan. My oral Samoan is now very strong.
I was going through my photos of Pati and sure enough it was a real challenge to locate her as often she would hover behind. She would always pushing others to the front. That was her way. Always the mentor behind us. Push is not a strong enough word for Pati. Somehow or other I would always say yes to anything she asked of me. She had a gentle way of persuasion.
Together we visited Samoa in 2000 for the Fagasa annual conference and then visited her sister and family in Savaii and her brother and family in Afega.
We attended the CLESOL conference in Wellington in 2002.
In 2003, we co-presented at the LED conference in Hamilton.
Together we went and presented in Hawaii at the annual Fagasa conference in 2004.
We attended the CLESOL conference in Christchurch in 2004 where she was invited to be a plenary speakerand it was where she shared the earlier research of her PHD.
We were both on the Auckland CLESOL Conference Steering committee in 2000.
We were on the steering committee for both Ulimasao’s conferences. The one held in Auckland in 2002 and the second conference in 2005, one where 200 educators visited Samoa. Both conferences stressed the importance of Bilingualism but not at the expense of first language maintenance.
Over the years we have watched our children grow up. She would often attend my children’s celebrations and I would often be at hers. Over the past few years, celebrations centred around her grandchildren of whom she was immensely proud.
In 2016, Pati graduated with her Doctorate of Philosophy in Education. Her thesis was titled ‘Pululima Faifai Pea.‘ Her expertise and educational experiences were in the areas of Language Acquisition, Bilingual Education/Bilingualism, Critical Theory & Critical Literacies, Empowerment Education for Minorities and Raising Achievement for Pacific children within the NZ educational system. Her research on bilingualism, empowerment, critical pedagogy and power relation was influenced strongly by the work of Jim Cummins and Stephen May.
‘E i loa le Samoa moni i lana tu ma lana tautala.’
You can tell a true Samoan by behaviour and speech.
Pati was hugely influenced in fa’asamoa knowledge and epistemologies by experts such as Professor Aiono Fanaafi Le Tagaloa and Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese and many other Samoan elders. She followed their examples of service to the community. She would say to me that alongside research, one must always be an active member of the community being researched. Pati, manuia lou malaga ma e fetaui i le Pule muamua i le lagi.
Each year at Newmarket school we usually begin the year with teacher only days. I have been at a school that had them at the end of the year and both times have positives and challenges. This time I was ready for some learning because I have been really busy with family and my garden during the summer holidays. Usually I read heaps in the holidays but this vacation I have not done as much. Below is a summary of what I learnt
Three years ago together with several members of staff, I attended my first training with PaCT at the Ministry of Education Symposium held at Ellerslie. Last year our ISL created a Hapara space on our Staff Workspace to guide teachers in using PaCT with mathematics. You can check that link here. The PaCT section is green.
This week we had Nadine Sorresen from evaluation associates run a days professional learning with us using PaCT.
The session with Nadine was just in time learning for me. She took us through the power of PaCT and reminded us about its interrelationship with the Learning Progression Framework.
To explain it simply PaCT is the engine that unlocks algorhythms when we make Overall Teacher Judgements using the Learning Progression Framework.
The Learning Progression Framework Illustrates the Curriculum visually.
Three key words from PaCT to know are
Aspects
Aspect are the big ideas within each curriculum areas.
Some aspects have smaller sets and this indicates smaller increments.
The aspects cover learning from Year 1-year 10.
They do NOT Correspond with curriculum levels and do NOT increase year by year.
Sets
Sets are within the aspects and break down those big ideas into smaller increments of learning.
Help with decision making as illustration examples are wide and varied.
Illustrations
Are visual examples of learning at each level so that as teachers we can track and confirm our judgement before using the PaCT tool to give a clearer picture.
Below are the Aspects we make Overall Teacher Judgement on
Writing across the curriculum
encoding
text features
vocabulary knowledge
think and organise for learning
communicate knowledge and understanding
literary purposes
influence others
Reading across the curriculum
processing system
text structure
vocabulary knowledge
reading critically
organise ideas and information for learning
using information and ideas in informational texts
My Takeaways
All of the Illustrations within a Set weights the Aspect.
PaCT does not happen at one sitting but as evidence is gathered over 1-2 terms across the curriculum. Nadine spoke about Naturally Harvesting.
Several week before confirming the final indicator within a PaCT a teacher can see where gaps still need to be gathered from.
PaCT works well when completed twice a year and is ongoing annually
PaCT can be anniversary collated for our year 1-3 reporting cycle.
Teachers can track progress of
Individual students
Class
or other groups
Overall PaCT supports teachers to understand how students develop their expertise in learning. Currently PaCT is set up for Reading, Writing and Mathematics.
As we naturally harvest learning we look across curriculum for evidence to help us make our overall teacher judgement.
Belonging
Last year I worked with a group of students to look at planning for 2019.
Together the children came up with the overall theme of Belonging.
We used SOLO Hexagons to clarify thinking around what we believed to be important ideas for learning. The children wanted to know more about our local history and wanted to know stories about our school and area.
As a school we were fortunate to make connections with Pāora Puru from the Ministry of Education who was then invited to share his historic knowledge about our Maunga, Maungawhau.
As a staff we were going to have the session on the mountain itself however the weather had other plans. So Pāora came to school. Pāora helped define what is unique and distinctive about Auckland. We garnered information not just about our local area but the whole of Tāmaki Makaurau. He shared rich historic heritage. This heritage reinforces our sense of belonging, our identity as Aucklanders and a sense of pride in our beautiful city.
As a green gold endorsed school this learning enriches our knowledge and pride about our environment.
During his session we had two visiting teachers from Parnell School who are working alongside us as a Green Gold Endorsed school. In addition we had Nicky Elmore our liaison from the Auckland Regional Council.
I cannot wait to share some of the stories I learnt with our children. Every two years we visit our local marae of Orakei and this year is our year so again there will be more to learn and to share.
Teacher only days are usually days of professional learning. At Newmarket School I always enjoy them because of opportunities that are created to make connections with each other. Our Senior Leadership team always ensure that we are well fed and watered both physically and mentally. There are always next steps through Goal Setting and that will come soon. These days give us the chance to reflect on what is coming and to set in motion ideas and opportunities for learning.
This year I am in class with a beginning teacher, I have our support staff programme to oversee and coordinate, I will continue to look at the trends in our ethnic and learning data, I have my across schools role for ACCoS, and I will continue to support the staff wherever I am needed.
I have had a good break and feel refreshed and excited for the new year.
O le a lou manatu i le uiga o le savali i le pogisa faaleagaga?
What do you think it means to walk in spiritual darkness?
One word for 2019
Wairuatanga
Mā te whakapapa tūhonotia ai ngā mea katoa, whai māramatanga ai hoki ngā kōrero atua, kōrero tuku iho, ngā hītori, ngā mātauranga, ngā tikanga, ngā āria me ngā wairuatangaki tēnā whakatipuranga ki tēnā (Te Ara 2015). / Whakapapa binds all things and clarifies mythology, legend, history, knowledge, customary practices, philosophies and spiritualities and their transmission from one generation to the next.
(Maori Dictionary)
Every year, I think of a Maori word that I hear in my educational context but do not really understand. I take that word and find out as much as I can about it to deepen my understanding. This year my one word is Wairuatanga. In Samoan the word is ‘Faaleagaga.’
Last year, I learnt to use my Samoan language to help with unpacking Maori concepts. The challenge I have is that I am not of Maori blood. However I am Samoan and historically we share ancestors and traditional spiritual practices that are intertwined with our environment.
When I refer to the introductory statement in Samoan I think back to Fanaafi, when she wrote: ‘A leai se gagana, ua leai se aganuu, a leai se aganuu ona po lea o le nuu.’ When you lose your language, you lose your culture and when there is no longer a living culture, darkness descends on the village.
Yesterday at my nephew’s wedding, my eldest son shone a light on our Samoan culture as he proudly stood up in his ‘ie faitaga’ and his ‘ofutino elei’ wearing an ‘ula fala’. He had been practising a translation in Samoan to say at the wedding. And he did it. As a Samoan mum, I could not have been more proud. He had also made some Ula Lole and made a big fuss with presenting them. The couple received 2 strands each and one strand had $10.00 notes in between. So if you can visualise this very handsome young man calling ‘Tiuhoo’ and racing up before the ceremony began to present his gift. Behind the couple we faced the beach so Tagaloa was our backdrop. In front of the couple the ‘Uo ma Aiga’ had gathered and were seated. So we have all the next generation witnessing something like this for their first time and therefore the transmission of a practice. Around us we have our ‘Faalupega’ both living and deceased so there is live history happening.
At a wedding, the focus is always on the newly wedded couple. However if we dig deeper we can see the occasion as an opportunity to revitalise who we are, make connections to our past, our ‘gagana’ and our ‘aganuu.’ The chance is there to do something about ‘Wairuatanga’. If you just think about it, the moment to act is soon gone.
The backdrop of Tagaloa is a timely reminder too to act. The wedding allows us the opportunity to reflect about what we say and do. Tagaloa and who we are as Pasifika are so intertwined. As inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean our islands are drowning in plastic and so the reminder is there to look after our natural resource.
So my son our customary practice of gifting ‘Ula Lole’ does need a revamp. Maybe our next ones do away with all the plastic and we just weave money into natural materials. As we sat making them you and I discussed how creating these gifts sets a benchmark for the next wedding in your generation. So let us take up the challenge together and see if we can create something just as stunning, but with a lot less plastic. At the same time, hold your head high. As a young man, you already have all the qualities we hold dear. Your knowledge of our legends, our family history, our customary practices, philosophies and ‘faaleagaga’ holds you up as a light in my heart.
I learnt how to use this fabulous tool on youtube where the transcript can be extracted. Earlier this week our Across School Leaders in the Auckland Central Community of Schools (ACCoS) presented their years work as a short video. I exported the transcript into a spreadsheet, removed the times, copied and pasted the text into a doc and then created a word cloud using https://voyant-tools.org.
What came through strongly in the key terms used were agency, teacher, student and school. Other words to be expected were learning, leaders, professional, collaboration, feedback.
However the word I would love to see appear was parents. But this was not. I know in our Pāngarau/Mathematics Initiative which I led, we had parents as one of our key areas.
As we move into 2019 I wonder how we can include parents and whanau more into what we do as school leaders. Our initial achievement challenge document included this key area and we fought to have it included and passed for our ACCoS but it seems to have fallen under our headlights.
Maybe each initiative can include our parents and ways to include them as one of their goals when they create their Action Plans for next year.
Again I am looking at this from a leadership view across our schools but as I dig deeper and push right down into our professional learning groups within schools or PLGs, I wonder what their improvement plans look like and if parents even receive a mention.
We are so much better at focussing on our agency with our children and now our teachers. Maybe it is time to also highlight agency with our parents and families. By stressing a focus in this area, a greater consciousness will be raised of the importance of parents and whanau in their children’s learning.
What are your thoughts? Do your parents and whanau feature strongly in your Action Plans in your Communities of Learning. Can I see this if I search for it?
This Year I attended Ulearn 18 with several colleagues in our ACCoS Kahui Ako.
Ulearn is CORE Education’s annual professional learning conference. The conference is suitable for teachers, facilitators and school leaders alike, from early childhood through to tertiary.
CORE set up a space where we have access to plenary speakers Bios and Graphic Sketches that were created during sessions.
This blog post is a summary of those presentations with links if you want to explore these further.
Each conference gives us access to international speakers. Often I hear inspirational plenaries and I am always super excited to see our own educators take the main stage. I believe that here in New Zealand we also have world class stories to share. This year there were three plenaries who were varied and all had the same message about the importance of humans being at the heart of decision making.
On the first day we heard Hana O’Regan from Aotearoa. Hana asked us to tell stories, stories that have not been told. Stories that were not allowed to be told in the past. She questioned the negativity within stories from our cultural legacy that our ākonga are hearing and described their potential impact on young Maori. Let us “be brave” (Hana’s words); we must reflect on the cultural narrative that is shared in our classrooms and positively override the stereotypes by telling the stories that count. Here you can read more.
On the second day we listened to Pasi Sahlberg from Finland and who is now based in Australia. Pasi reminded us about the power of small data: tiny clues through personal observations, collective human judgment, and raw instinct that can lead to big change in schools. In order for big data to work we as educators have to contribute small data to contribute to our school’s big data. Lead and think with small data first, then use in conjunction with the rest of our skillset and Big Data.
Pasi iterated that rather than develop and agree to systems that put even more emphasis on screen learning and can truly mine data for Big Data, we should be pushing for ‘face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath to get a full understanding of who we are working with.’ Here you can read more.
On the final day we had Mike Walsh beam in via hologram. Mike discussed a reality where we cannot avoid ‘big data’, analytics and ‘machine thinking’. We have to prepare our children and students for this digital world, where our services are more and more likely to be run through a digital platforms. The consequences of of big change are arriving in the world. We need to teach the coming generation about being comfortable with uncertainty / ambiguity and to be flexible in the face of change.
Mike sees great potential in digital tools, environments and artificial intelligence that can assist teachers and parents to help learners reach their own potential. In his view it will not be entirely digital or online, it will be a combination, the screens will be less visible but DATA and algorithms will be prevalent in informing decisions. Here you can read more.
The breakout sessions I attended.
There are links to the abstracts and any resources they shared. Also do follow them on twitter.
Removing specific barriers to access learning using assistive technology
Ulearn conference is also the time when I reconnect with other educators from around New Zealand. I also have the chance to catch up with CORE Education efellows and hear what they have been sharing. If you want to know more, here is a link for the annual efellowship. It is now known as Dr Vince Ham Scholarship. Vince was one of the mentors for the efellows.
The conference is also time to connect with new twitter buddies via the hashtag #Ulearn18. I have to mention Tim Stevens @MrStevensAGSnz who quickly created shared docs of all the plenaries. It is time too to catch up with old friends such as Ritu Sehji @rsehji
This year our Mathematics Team presented our initiative and work across three schools. For them Ulearn was a first time experience. I was super proud of them all and how together we collaborated to share our years work in one hour. To find out more you can check out the Mathematics tag on our ACCoS Blog.
Auckland central schools use collaboration to drive change in Pāngarau/Mathematics
Overall Ulearn is a time for connections, for collaboration, for sharing and for reflection. A reminder to share back with your schools what you learnt and a reminder to thank your school leaders if they supported your attendance. For us at Newmarket School I am always grateful for the opportunity that our Board of Trustees and principal provide by supporting our attendance at this national conference. They have allowed me to attend every year since I have been at Newmarket school. As we continue with our ACCoS journey I know that more principals within our Kahui Ako will also allow their Across School Leaders and In School Leaders to share our work with educators in and beyond New Zealand.
In 2012 as a core education efellow I researched Hyperconnectivity with the initial thinking that it was important to travel on the journey with our children to be as connected as we could possibly connect them. My thinking was that the more devices we could plug the learners into a variety of devices, the better they would be in learning. However by the end of the year I realised how much more I needed to learn and found my thinking had shifted hugely thanks to several disruptive thinkers in education. These were names like Larry Cuban, Mark Pesce, Ulises Mejias, Sherry Turkle and of course our own Pam Hook who just kept asking the hard questions.
Search for them and you will find readings and videos that have a bit of a cautious educators edge to them. Here you can listen to my reflection as an efellow. From my learning I realised that what was not seen or could not be measured was just as important as the numbers. I changed my thinking to the human approach or as in samoa we would say Va Fealofani. In Maori they say Whanaungatanga. My twitter buddy Tahu wrote a fabulous definition here about whanaugatanga and included ‘Me hui kanohi ki te kanohi kia rongo i te mauri o te tangata!’ It is important to meet face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath to get a full understanding of the people we are working with.’
Since I have been an Across School Leader for the Auckland Central Community of Schools I have been the person with the big data focus. I love data so when I knew Pasi would be talking about data I was intrigued. Last year I had been invited to be part of the Ministry of Educations initiative, Student Information Sharing Initiative (SISI) and I wrote a post cautioning about how we gather data as educators which has continued to guide me and my thinking around data.
We often need educators who force us to pause what is happening and zoom in a little closer and say hey, remember that the machines are fabulous however just a reminder “whose voice can we not hear?” During Ulearn I attended 2 sessions with Professor Pasi Sahlberg with a focus on data.
Those of you who know Pasi’s work will remember his works around GERM, Global Education Reform Movement. Pasi introduced me to fabulous educators in Finland when I decided I wanted to visit the country that was highlighting extraordinary Big Data results via PISA. You can read my journey here when I visited Juväskylä- the Centre of Finnish Education.
Next: What I took away from Pasi’s sessions.
Education Data in general is run by big big data educators. Big data does things like data mining. But does big data really make education smarter?
How does big data help schools? There are those that think that the more we rely on big data concludes the better our education will be.
However big data often fails educators. In order for that big data to work we as educators have to contribute small data. But is small data, smart learning?
Big data often uses schools as small data and schools use teachers and their data as their small data. So as teachers we collect small data to contribute to our school’s big data. But more importantly we should be looking at the best way of using that small data to improve our practice.
We have already identified the strategies that help shift learning. But is learning all about the data? Pasi say’s ‘As educators we should trust our raw instincts of what works. Be amongst what is happening- not just observing and monitoring.’
Alongside our learning data we should be focussing on the space between the nodes. The elements that cannot be seen or measured. These are relationships. Relationships with our students and family, relationships with our colleagues both in and beyond our schools, relationships with our communities both locally and globally.
Ethically, rather than develop and agree to systems that put even more emphasis on screen learning and can truly mine data for Big Data, we should be pushing for ‘face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath to get a full understanding of who we are working with.’
To finish with (Excuse the pun 🙂
Pasi leads by example and always shares his work freely. Here you can have access to his slides.
Thanks Pasi for the reminder about the space we cannot see but yet is just as important as the data gathering.
Sonya @VanSchaijik 