Educating the Dragon: vln

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Final VPLD Hot Seat for the year

Christina Ward: Teaching as Inquiry

Session Overview

“Teachers are at the heart of school improvement, and with all the change in the
world and new understandings about learning it is essential that they too keep
learning. “
(Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2003)

In this session we will explore teaching as inquiry by:

discussing the process and its place in The New Zealand Curriculum,
taking a look at the characteristics of schools and classrooms where high
levels of teaching as inquiry are evident
sharing examples from New Zealand schools, and other useful resources.

Bio:

Christina Ward manages New Zealand Curriculum Online. Since 2004, she has worked with the education sector to ensure schools have access to quality information to support curriculum development and implementation. She also encourages them to contribute to the online environment, share their stories and make connections with each other.

Christina is also closely involved in a number of online environments, including Key Competencies Online, Middle Schooling, Secondary Middle Leaders, Community Engagement, Software For Learning, and Te Manawa Pou.

Christina was a classroom teacher before launching into curriculum resource development and publishing, then Social Studies Online and the exemplar project.

Follow up notes, summary and material available.

Virtual Professional Learning Development programme

Expressions of interest for the VPLD 2012 intake close this coming Monday 12 pm 31st October:

The Virtual Professional Learning Development programme (VPLD) team is very keen to hear from NZ teachers, Principals, APs and DPs, who are interested in participating in the next VPLD intake (programme beginning in February 2012).

The VPLD programme offers flexibility of choice, time and approach, and is designed to fit in with what you are already doing as teachers and/or leaders. Each participant is partnered with a mentor, with whom they meet online using Adobe Connect (a Web conferencing tool that enables interactive synchronous communication), or Skype, once a month for between forty-five to ninety minutes. The programme also provides professional learning through engagement in the VPLD professional online Community of Practice (CoP). The CoP offers a safe environment where you can discuss and challenge alternative points of view about pedagogy and practice, across disciplines and sectors.

The literature suggests that the duration and frequency of effective PLD are important - little and often over an extended period of time being the most effective. Participation in the VPLD programme is therefore over the course of three years. In the final year, you will be encouraged to develop your own mentoring skills, and are scaffolded to work with someone of your choosing in a mentor role.

The overall aims of the programme are to raise the professional knowledge and skills of participants, while also accelerating students' achievement of learning outcomes.

If accepted onto this programme you will develop your own learning goals around projects that interest you, framed within an inquiry process.

Find out more about the VPLD programme:

Please use this form to submit your expression of interest.

To discuss participation, for yourself or a colleague, contact Hazel Owen hazel.owen@core-ed.org, Rachel Roberts rachel.roberts@core-ed.org, or Clarrie Yates clarence.yates@core-ed.org.

Fiona White - Open talking: Open communication

Wednesday 26th October 3.30 pm

Session Overview

“What we have to face is that the more we ‘manage’ students’ behaviour and try to make them do what we say, the more difficult it is for them to become morally sophisticated people who think for themselves and care about others […]. In saying that a classroom or school is a ‘community’, I mean that it is a place in which students feel cared about and are encouraged to care about each other”

(Alfie Kohn from Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community (1996).

How do we do this? A fundamental factor is our communication with ourselves and with others. Fiona will be taking you through the 4-step process of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and touching on other aspects of the NVC philosophy such as ‘Reward & Punishment’ and ‘Rules & Values’, with a view to creating a holistic, respectful classroom community.

This session will provide you with:

Strategies for developing classroom communities
Some culturally responsive approaches to communicating with students
Ideas for engaging students who are not engaged
A range of ways of thinking about how dialogue can influence the 'social' side of learning

In preparation, Fiona requests that you watch a Video on TeacherTube and consider what might be the effects of such a demonstration.

The session will be facilitated in Adobe Connect.

Fiona White

With over 20 years professional experience in education, management, commerce, industry, recruitment and customer care in the UK, France and New Zealand, Fiona has a great understanding of the costs of conflict in the classroom. Fiona uses approaches to develop thriving, culturally responsive classroom communities, using strategies such as listening actively and respectfully, ensuring the student feels 'heard', and then asking the right questions to empower her students to find their own solutions.

Fiona is based in East Auckland, where she has her own Mediation and Conflict Coaching practice - Mediation Matters - and holds a clinic one day a week at the local Citizens Advice Bureau.

Please register your attendance here.

eLearning Capability Framework - July 12

"eLearning Capability Framework"

Ross Alexander

Core Education

Tuesday 12 July 3.30 pm to 4.30 pm.