hana-cover

Raising the equity flag – why I’m passionate about fighting inequity in Aotearoa

Posted on by

By Dr Hana O’Regan, Tumu Whakarae CORE Education

I was raised in a family that was consumed with the issue of justice and equity. We had incredible opportunities to discuss these kaupapa when other New Zealanders, and those from overseas, came to our home. When I was about nine years old a West Papuan man visited my father. It was a meeting that would leave a deep impression on me. He was living in exile from his country and had committed his life to raising awareness about the genocide his people were suffering.

The man took some time to tell me about his fight for justice, and about petitioning our Government, and the Australian Government, for help and recognition. I remember getting really upset by his stories, and demanded that my dad do something about it! Surely if the Prime Minister knew, he would do something to help? I couldn’t reconcile that people might know about such cruelty and injustice, and not do anything about it! I still find this hard to reconcile.

As I grew up, the dining room table discussions of my youth were often focused on the kaupapa of injustice – from my own Ngāi Tahu tribal Treaty claims and grievances, the histories surrounding the Highland Clearances and grievances of my Irish and Scottish tīpuna, to stories of the Welsh Coal Miners on the West Coast, their welfare and employment rights. There were also family stories of the roles people played in the riots around the Springbok tour / No Māori-No Tour campaign, the waterfront strikes, and protests around continued land alienation policies through the Public Works Act or other such mechanisms of the State.

My personal equity journey, especially in terms of my Māori heritage and identity, underpins the passion that I bring into this debate. My first-hand experiences of inequity – directed at me, at those around me, and what I have seen – have profoundly impacted the way that I have viewed myself, and others, in terms of access, opportunity, and potential within education and wider society. While my reaction to those experiences has been tempered by time, they have ignited a fire in me that seems to grow with time.

Raising the equity flag

I’ve been challenging my understanding of equity issues, and where possible, the understanding of others, for decades now. My own understanding has grown considerably. I have learned about the history of inequity in our country and its origins, and about how specific parts of that historic narrative have impacted where we are now as a nation.

I have found myself vigorously wanting to raise the equity flag across the motu, and to help construct a new narrative in those spaces where I can see the existing narrative perpetuates negative outcomes for certain groups in our society.

I’m also doing a lot of thinking about the issue of equity and education and what that means within the context of Māori learner engagement and achievement.

CORE Education Tātai Aho Rau is committed to an equitable and thriving Aotearoa through learning.
CORE Education is committed to an equitable and thriving Aotearoa through learning.

I am excited by the current levels of discussion and, for the first time in my life, I am starting to see the equity kaupapa actively addressed across many spheres. It is true, we have a considerable journey to travel, but how exciting to know that the journey is now on our immediate horizons.

But I am also anxious about how well prepared we are as a country to move ahead on the journey. So far, we have not told ‘our story’ as a nation well. This means we don’t have a clear view of what the issues are or how they have come to be.

As a nation we have become very accustomed to putting out defensive or deflecting responses. We have also become very good at justifying inequities or ignoring them. I understand that discussing the issue of equity and being open to identifying inequities can be hard to do and uncomfortable for many reasons. It takes a strong level of commitment and resilience to push ourselves, let alone whole communities, into uncomfortable spaces. Despite this, there have been times in our collective history where we have been able to do just that on a number of issues, so my anxiety is tempered with a certain level of optimism, that this is something we can do and should do together as a nation.

This will be in part addressed by the introduction of Aotearoa New Zealand histories into the national curriculum in 2022. It means more people will have access to a wider and more informed narrative.

A number of other waves of thinking and information on the tides of our national consciousness are continuing to gain momentum, like the Unteach Racism campaign being led out by the Teachers Council and the Human Rights Commission’s work on tackling racism in Aotearoa. The combination of these efforts will serve to help develop a movement of change that I know will help us shift the equity dial in a positive direction for future generations. We just need to prepare and be brave enough to withstand the challenging currents swirling around us that may try and pull us in another direction, or stop us from moving forward.

I want to further explore my understanding equity and its nemesis – inequity – and I will be sharing some further thoughts on the topics of inequity by design and the Aotearoa experience, the kaupapa of streaming in education, and the steps and leadership required to achieve more equitable outcomes. But in this first blog I wanted to locate myself in the equity story – and to reflect on a few of the factors that have motivated me and brought me to this point, working here at CORE Education, and our vision of equity in learning for all New Zealanders for a thriving Aotearoa. It’s an acknowledgement that to do so is challenging, it can be heartbreaking and uncomfortable, but it’s also a story of change and transformation, liberation and hope.

I hope you will join us in the journey ahead.

read more
Posted in
games-based-learning-path-cover

Games-based learning: the door to equity through agency

Posted on by

Did you know that in Aotearoa only 4% of digital technology employees are Māori? and 27% are female? (New Zealand Digital Skills Forum, 2021) Perhaps you could have guessed that. We know digital content affects almost every aspect of 21st century life. Our future digital creators need to reflect our varied cultures and world views. Games-based learning might help bridge the gap.

As you reflect, while reading this blog post, see if the penny drops and you can uncover the hidden kīwaha.

Engaging ākonga

CORE facilitator, Viv Hall, has many stories of deep engagement in learning when facilitating students creating and developing their own digital games. Games-based learning allowed the students to engage in new ways.

She recalls a group of girls coming up to her after a session and saying, “Miss, Miss, guess what we’ve discovered? Girl power. We can all do it, we can all code.” (CORE Education, 2020b)

She talks of a year 6 student who had struggled to engage with learning at school. “He stayed there coding and watching the videos and working away for an hour. He was in front of his computer, he was engaged, and he was creating … He displayed amazing resilience. It was magic totally!” (CORE Education, 2020a)

Games-based learning can lead to high engagement and could increase the diversity of those involved in digital technology.

Game creation

As educators, we may have heard of or studied the zone of proximal development, the theory that scaffolding and working alongside more capable peers can strengthen the learning experience for ākonga. How does this change when ākonga are the designers and creators of games? Games can be transformative. Participants can create and play characters they are not in the physical world, and that reflect their cultures.

Marlborough secondary school kaiako, Duncan, took part in CORE’s games-based learning online programme. “It has changed my practice and others because we have used elements of games-based learning and have incorporated these into some of our new junior courses. For example in Ancients Alive, a year 9 and 10 social studies course, the students use the creativity element to help build a structure in Minecraft that reflects a cultural narrative.”

CORE’s unique games-based online programme design includes many games-based learning practices that help participants’ reflect on their own behaviour to gamification. Duncan says, “Reflecting on the elements, competition drove me and the side quests as someone who far prefers a narrative as opposed to problem solve and badges.”

Games-based learning practice programme with choose your path options. Characters used with permission from Gamefroot.
Games-based learning practice programme with choose your path options. Characters used with permission from Gamefroot.

Gamification elements

A feature of games-based learning is the many elements that make it accessible and engaging for different students. It can provide plenty of agency. Games-based learning can allow for students to be successful as themselves as they take up different roles in game creation.

Te Mako Orzecki noted in a recent CORE blog post on engaging Māori students in design thinking, the “notable rise in Māori role models in tech and innovation industries”. With role models to follow, and the variety of elements available through games-based learning, it can allow a variety of ākonga to engage with their learning in different ways. For the ākonga who like to push the boundaries, they can find extra information or add in hidden side quests or touches of detail. Gamification gives the agency and space for them to be creative. Another example was a student with autism spectrum disorder in a class working on game development. They made a brilliant tester of a game because of their skills in looking for perfection.

Gamification elements used with permission of Andrezej Marczewksi, Gamified UK.
Gamification elements used with permission of Andrezej Marczewksi, Gamified UK.

Games-based learning in the classroom

Viv Hall worked with students in game creation within a schools’ local curriculum. She says part of their mahi was to retell some of the stories they’d learned about the local iwi. “We had the mahi they had already done, that was place-based learning and they had their context and that was the knowledge of what happened and tying it back to a modern day application which was something they were used to which was gaming.” (CORE Education, 2020c)

University of Auckland used games-based learning techniques to help engagement at tertiary level. During online learning, the principles of game design in design programme lessons proved to be engaging and motivating for their students. Attendance at the online classes had a 90% attendance, which previously face-to-face lectures never achieved. “We’re using the mechanics and principles of successful game design, to teach and motivate students,” former head of their Design Studies programme Associate Professor Deb Polson said. Deb is now Professor and Associate Deane at RMIT University, Australia. The lecturers also noticed that as students started to engage with this approach it fostered creativity and the social side of online learning – strong friendships started to form.

Games-based learning has exciting possibilities and can make for more equitable outcomes, particularly if everyone – students and teachers – collaboratively learn a game platform together.

 

Did you find the hidden kīwaha? How did knowing something was hidden, this element of gamification, affect your engagement with reading this blogpost?

References

CORE Education. (2020a). Engagement with Gamefroot by students who often struggle with other mahi. Games-based learning | CORE Education [Podcast]. Retrieved 16 May 2021, from https://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/podcasts/game-based-learning-channel/showPodcast/153

CORE Education. (2020b). How to embrace your coding fear with Gamefroot. Game-based learning | CORE Education [Podcast]. Retrieved 16 May 2021, from https://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/podcasts/game-based-learning-channel/showPodcast/152

CORE Education. (2020c). Place-based learning with Gamefroot. Games-based learning | CORE Education [Podcast]. Retrieved 16 May 2021, from https://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/podcasts/game-based-learning-channel/showPodcast/149

New Zealand Digital Skills Forum. (2021). Digital Skills For Our Digital Future [PDF]. New Zealand Digital Skills Forum. Retrieved 16 May 2021, from https://nztech.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/01/Digital-Skills-Aotearoa-Report-2021_online.pdf

Orzecki, T. (2021). Innovation is in our DNA: engaging Māori students in design thinking [Blog]. Retrieved 17 May 2021, from http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2021/03/innovation-is-in-our-dna-engaging-maori-students-in-design-thinking.html

University of Auckland. (2020). How the principles of gaming are being used in the remote Design Programme classroom – The University of Auckland. Auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved 17 May 2021, from https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2020/04/21/how-gaming-is-being-used-in-the-design-programme-classroom.html

read more
Posted in
finding-your-voice-in-a-digital-world

Finding your voice in a digital world

Posted on by
finding-your-voice-in-a-digital-world
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

2020 threw us all a curveball. It was the year of baking banana bread, viral TikTok trends, and online learning. Forget Year of the Rat, 2020 was the year of the Zoom chat. Education, along with the rest of the world, was virtually redefining itself. When I looked ahead to the uLearn20 conference, my first as a presenter, I was both invigorated and daunted by it being online.

While Covid-19 has been the source of some of our problems, more so it has amplified those we have already been facing as a community. It was an amplifier of digital inequity issues, forcing us to reassess our measures of academic achievement. It amplified our pedagogy, forcing educators to adapt our practice to suit a digital format. It has shown us that we need to rethink not only what but how we teach. But has technology been a hindrance or an enabler? Well it kind of depends on who you talk to.

Zoom

Zoom is a tricky beast. Have you ever caught yourself zoning off in your staff Zoom meeting? You are busy reading emails in another tab, or scrolling through your phone trying, all the while, to look like you are listening. I will admit, I am guilty of this. It is an all too real experience. The way we use and view technology as a means for teaching and learning, often depends heavily on the approach we take within the kanohi-ki-te-kanohi (face-to-face) environment of the classroom. I have listened to teachers complain about students sitting with screens off as they talk for 20 minutes into the abyss. I cannot help but question if this is not merely an extension of their kanohi-ki-te-kanohi classroom practices.

The problem with online learning spaces is that they are authoritative. They are focused on teacher-centred knowledge telling, evaluation, and the presentation of unquestioned findings (Juuti et al., 2019). Here is the rub – neither in-class nor digital teaching should be, or has to be authoritative. Digital learning offers us the opportunity to change the script, rethinking learners’, and educators’, roles, personalising learning, and to approach knowledge in ways that promote equity, diversity, and inclusivity (Bolstad et al., 2012).

During the first lockdown, my extended family met regularly on Zoom and we found exciting new ways to pass the time. We would share a novel we were reading, write collaborative quizzes where each family would contribute a round, and we even made a game out of guessing people’s favourite songs. Whilst these experiences were fun, engaging and worked to not only maintain my connection with family, but to strengthen it, at the same time, it got me thinking – what was it about these conversations that made them so enjoyable?

The answer: Talanoa.

Talanoa

The word ‘talanoa’ is a term meaning to talk or speak. In my research, I’ve drawn on the work of Togi Lemanu and other Pacific academics who developed the Talanoa model. (Manuatu, Vaioleti, Mahina, Seve-Williams) (Lemanu, 2014). I have seen how effective Talanoa conversations can be in helping educators better understand the interests and passions of their students.

In my research, I aimed to use four attributes that make the ‘talanoa’ meaningful and rich: Ofa, Malie, Mafana, Faka’apa’apa (ibid). I was interested in how these attributes apply to the way we do digital teaching and learning. And, I wondered whether our most enjoyable and productive digital spaces were inadvertently echoing the principles of Talanoa? Below, I explain how these were applied in my research.

Ofa/Love

When we talanoa, we begin with questions about who we are and where we come from. By providing an opportunity for all involved to feel known and to have their gafa, or genealogy acknowledged, the barriers to building relationships are removed. In my classroom Talanoa, I have observed that this process takes time. I have learnt that you must allow space for these stories to be told.

During the first lockdown, I asked all my classes to engage in a Zoom ‘Show and Tell’, where students could bring their taonga and were given time to share part of who they are. Students in my classes immediately opened up during this time and were far quicker to ask questions about the learning after this experience. They were given a chance to speak and a chance to be heard. The opportunity to speak and share, not only strengthened our whanaungatanga within the class, but also allowed students to apply learning to their personal context.

Malie/Humour

My students are funny. Transcribing our talanoa throughout this research project was a pleasure. Our conversations were punctuated with laughter, the humour allowing us to be real and authentic, as we felt comfortable making jokes. In digital spaces, I’ve seen people use humour to liven up meetings, with challenges, funky backgrounds, and silly digs at one another in the chat. I always come away feeling more engaged after I’ve had a good laugh.

Mafana/Warmth

Both Ofa and Malie help build Mafana in our conversations. Talanoa needs to be warm and unthreatening to the parties involved. Lemanu makes the salient observation that “at times, teachers just want to get to the point and then move on.” This was my experience in both digital and kanohi-ki-te-kanohi class talanoa. Active listening, taking the time to build rapport, and developing a connection is something that did not come naturally. I’m often quick to try to get to the point but I’ve learnt that talanoa is as much about journeying through conversation together as it is the destination.

Faka’apa’apa/Respect

Respect is overarching in talanoa conversations. Mutual respect involves actively listening and allowing students to make authentic contributions. It is about the purpose. We need to give students a platform; recognising that everyone has a voice and a contribution to make. I keep seeing this phrase at the start of webinars and teachers’ classrooms: “Mute your mic please”. It makes me question how often education spaces are instruction heavy and dominated by a single voice. Instead of asking students to mute their microphones, we should be providing opportunities for rich ‘unmuted’ learning conversations to take space.
When reflecting on the first digital hui for our eFellows, I shared that the moments I found most valuable were those where I was able to bounce ideas off other people. Where I was heard, where I was able to joke, where I didn’t feel afraid to share my potentially half-baked ideas.

Conclusion

What became clear is what works for teachers, works for students. We are a reflection of one another and so are our best learning experiences. What if we took all our boring Zoom chats, instructional meetings and webinars and compared them to both our live and digital classrooms. Would we see much difference?

I wonder what the education sphere might look like if we embodied Talanoa in everything we do? In our teaching, meetings, and professional development. Technology will always be an amplifier but what if we changed the practice it was amplifying?
The irony of this is that a blog post can often feel like a one-sided conversation. You’ve heard my thoughts; I’d love to hear yours and in doing so, maybe we can start a conversation.

Find out more about the Dr Vince Ham eFellowship and read Kit’s research report

Further readings

References

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching. Ministry of Education.
Juuti, K., Loukomies, A., & Lavonen, J. (2019). Interest in Dialogic and Non-Dialogic Teacher Talk Situations in Middle School Science Classroom. International Journal Of Science And Mathematics Education, 18(8), 1531-1546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-019-10031-2
Lemanu, T. (2014). Creating the ‘talanoa’ conversation is all it takes… [Blog]. Retrieved 20 April 2021, from http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2014/12/creating-the-talanoa-conversation-is-all-it-takes.html.
Vaioleti, T. (2016). Talanoa Research Methodology: A Developing Position on Pacific Research. Waikato Journal Of Education, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.15663/wje.v12i1.296

read more
Posted in
learning-through-play-and-assessment

Learning through play and assessment

Posted on by

“We need a teacher who is sometimes the director, sometimes the set designer, curtain and backdrop, and sometimes the prompter. A teacher who is both sweet and stern, who is the electrician, who dispenses the points, and who is even the audience – the audience who watches, sometimes claps, sometimes remains silent, full of motion, who sometimes judges with scepticism, and at other times applauds with enthusiasm.”

Loris Malaguzzi, cited in Rinaldi, 2006, p.89

How can we use Malaguzzi‘s quote to understand the learning in a play-based environment where assessment is an essential and natural way of the process of teaching and learning? This was my focus as a Dr Vince Ham eFellow in 2020.

In a play-based learning environment, the teacher has many roles and responsibilities, including that of one who interferes/interacts with children’s play to support learning. This can often direct (and misdirect) children’s play towards specific goals or intentions. However by performing what Malaguzzi mentions in his quote we can see that in order to scaffold children’s learning through play, the teacher draws on a set of skills. These include:

  • Developing a sense (and habit) of listening and observing closely to the processes of children’s play and inquiry.
  • Reflecting, revisiting and investigating children’s actions, conversations, interactions, urges so as to be able to assess knowledge, sustain interest, and plan future actions.
  • Planning meaningful and playful provocations or adding to the existing environment in order to enrich exploration and learning, enabling children to test out their developing theories as related to their play and inquiry.
  • Finding ways to stay close to the children’s ideas, resisting the adult agenda.
  • Teaching skills as and when required at meaningful stages in the project.
  • Researching, participating, and offering information as a means of aiding and scaffolding discovery and exploration.
  • Documenting the process of projects of play and inquiry, revising with children, looking forward to more information and details so the children can build on new knowledge and experiences.
  • Engaging in dialogue with students; scaffolding their meaning of play and inquiry.

Assessment and play

Each of the bullet points above are not just the skills needed to facilitate play, they are also the skills needed to assess play. Just like play is hard to define, so too is assessment, especially with very young children. In my classroom for 5 and 6 year olds, I use play as the medium for learning and teaching. However, the notion of play doesn’t always sit well with the implications of the word “assessment” in school settings.

As teachers place themselves as observers, they notice the engagement, interests, knowledge, learning, children’s urges, skills. Teachers are able to adjust to a situation where children explore and learn, so being able to make appropriate choices on how to act next. After some consideration I realised that assessment is basically a cycle and the diagram below represents the process of assessment in a learning through play environment where teachers observe (1) and analyse the children’s play/experiences they gather information/data (e.g. children’s interests, urges, physical, emotional and behavioural, developmental stages, etc.) that will help the teacher to know each child and prepare future strategies for teaching. To have a good understanding of each child’s interest and learning stages, it is important to keep track (2) of their interests, learning, needs, etc. This information will give the teacher the necessary data to apply assessments (3) accordingly, responding (4) appropriately to each need and stages. This cycle suggests a constant and continuous opportunity to assess as children play. It shows the support necessary to the system of learning and teaching in the play-based learning environment.

Diagram by Patty Barbosa
Diagram by Patty Barbosa

So are play and assessment happily married?

Play and assessment can indeed work together happily in a creative and informed relationship that is responsive to the children’s interests and needs. We want to support play-based, dynamic environments which are safe and challenging for learners and teachers (Kangas, 2010), creating brave and meaningful learning.

To illustrate how to marry assessment and play, I reflected on one example of a group of children exploring the arts learning area of the curriculum. Alex (name changed), a five year old boy, created an army of knights by making some puppets. He engaged in many different imaginative experiences with his army by role playing with the puppets. Through his enthusiasm and constant creation of new stories with his puppets, he gathered a new army of friends who joined him through this journey.

puppets-sml

This journey lasted one term (sadly interrupted by the Covid-19 lockdown). During this time Alex and his friends discovered new ways to communicate their ideas, to write texts and record dialogue. They came to understand that there are different purposes for texts as they collaborated to write a play. During their writing sessions, they worked on understanding some basic grammatical rules like punctuation and text structures, which are examples of academic learning.

Alex and friends had many opportunities to work on the five key competencies from the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2006):

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

Alex and his army of friends were engaged in deep learning as they experienced learning through their own interests. As well as developing their writing skills, they conquered the fear of speaking in front of an audience as they worked on the common goal of preparing a puppet show.

Left: Play curtains prepared by the children for the puppet show. Right: Crew collecting the audience tickets.
Left: Play curtains prepared by the children for the puppet show. Right: Crew collecting the audience tickets.

As the project evolved, other skills were required such as mathematics and marketing, which gave other children the opportunity to participate with their individual and more specific skills. They created tickets, invites, [representative] money, scenarios and even a videographer was requested. Throughout this journey, many learning opportunities happened and the outcomes were varied, exceeding curriculum expectations.

Show tickets prepared by the children.
Show tickets prepared by the children.

The children took ownership of their learning and trusted their choices during the journey. They succeeded in every way. When the interest waned new interests arose, new adventures began, carrying and implementing the learning from previous experiences. The cycle of observing and analysing, tracking, assessing and responding continued.

The role of the teacher

The role of the teacher in this journey was as Malaguzzi suggests. In this case, because the teacher observed attentively, she was able to scaffold and enhance the learning. The teacher needed to learn the right time to intervene so she would not interfere with the process of creation. She followed children’s lead as they imagined their own story lines, and encouraged them to ask questions, and to look for answers. She observed how her suggestions and gentle questions supported the children to set new goals and create new strategies based on their prior knowledge. This intentional teaching encouraged their progress, supporting them in a respectful and trustful relationship. Student agency is prime in this environment, and the teacher’s role is to understand (through close attention); respect the children’s ideas; and then decide when and how to act. These are the elements of assessment in a play-based learning.

Understanding how teachers work to assess learning through play is continuously evolving. I hope that this journey continues to grow through research in New Zealand and that the desire to find simple and practical ways of marrying assessment and play as learning continues to grow. As teachers engage in this brave, responsive, complicated and yet beautiful journey of seeing through the process, I hope we continue learning how to merge assessment into the play-based learning environments in ways that are respectful, responsive, valuable, meaningful and fun.

The CORE Education Dr Vince Ham eFellowship gave me the opportunity to notice the importance of the Malaguzzi quote, which empowers myself as a teacher as the scaffolder who does not say to the students what and how to do things, but instead, as one who places herself in a watching mode, observing the right time and way to act and participate in their knowledge building process. As a teacher in the play-based learning environment, I want to be this adjustable, flexible teacher, capable of directing, watching, applauding, guiding, assessing all the way through.

Left: Race track. Right: child explores addition by classifying pretending food and planning ‘a meal’ in the family area
Left: Race track. Right: child explores addition by classifying pretending food and planning ‘a meal’ in the family area
Left: Children hide in the bushes for hunting animals in the wild. This was part of a children's project about guns, from the boys’ interest in playing guns. Right: play in the doctor’s area where the doctor checks baby’s heartbeat
Left: Children hide in the bushes for hunting animals in the wild. This was part of a children’s project about guns, from the boys’ interest in playing guns. Right: play in the doctor’s area where the doctor checks baby’s heartbeat.
Two children reflect after flipping through the book The Stick Man. They drew the stick man and supported each other with writing the sentence.
Two children reflect after flipping through the book The Stick Man. They drew the stick man and supported each other with writing the sentence.

Find out more about the Dr Vince Ham eFellowship and read Patty’s research report

References

Kangas, M. (2010). Finnish children’s views on the ideal school and learning environment. Learning Environments Research, 13(3), 205-223. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-010-9075-6
Ministry of Education. (2006). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. Routledge.

read more
Posted in
impact-project-mural-cover

Impact project: integrating the curriculum

Posted on by

A number of purpose-built, open-plan schools with flexible timetables enable students to learn via integrated curricula passion project courses. Can a similar learning opportunity occur in a school with single cell classrooms, a traditional timetable, and where expert teachers are not always available at the same time?

This blog post covers the following points:

  • What is curriculum integration?
  • Why does it matter?
  • What an integrated curriculum can look like: Impact Project

What is curriculum integration?

Curriculum integration has varying definitions, and this has troubled researchers and hindered teacher understanding (Drake & Reid, 2020). Broadly, curriculum integration refers to teachers combining the concepts, content and skills from two or more subjects into a particular topic. Arrowsmith & Wood (2015) define three different forms of curriculum integration:

Transdisciplinary  Where courses or research questions cross disciplines to extend beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of instruction. In this approach, subject boundaries are often collapsed or merged. A primary focus is on student-centred inquiry and learning through real-life contexts (Beane, 1997). 
Interdisciplinary  Disciplinary boundaries still remain, but the disciplines are connected more explicitly than in multidisciplinary learning through a focus on skills such as critical thinking or communication skills, which are emphasised across learning areas rather than within them. 
Multidisciplinary  An approach where a number of disciplines may be used to address a topic. In this process a discipline is not changed or influenced by another. For example, a central concept or theme is examined with each subject area addressing the theme through their lens during the same time frame. 

Why does curriculum integration matter?

Providing opportunities for integrated curriculum learning is not a new or recent trend. The roots of curriculum integration can be traced to the early 1900s (McPhail, 2018), but despite a long history, curriculum integration has not been seen frequently at secondary school. This is possibly due to teachers being trained as subject specialists, and the nature of traditional school timetables often means that teachers work in their curriculum area only, leaving limited opportunities for collaboration outside their area of specialization.

However, in the last decade as teacher education and rigid timetables have altered, different forms of curriculum integration are emerging in a number of secondary schools in New Zealand. Drake (1998) argues: “The world we are living in is changing, and education must change with it. If we live in an interconnected and interdependent world, it only makes sense that knowledge be presented as interconnected and interdependent (p. 24).”

In our rapidly changing society, curriculum integration offers more holistic and joined-up thinking where learning is experiential and student-centered, with an emphasis on real-world problems (Arrowsmith & Wood, 2015). There is also a focus in the New Zealand Curriculum for curriculum integration:

While the learning areas are presented as distinct, this should not limit the ways in which schools structure the learning experiences offered to students. All learning should make use of the natural connections that exist between learning areas … (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 16).

Impact project

In 2020 I taught a new Year 13 University Entrance course called Impact Project. Impact Project broadly fits into the transdisciplinary approach defined by Arrowsmith & Wood (2015) above. Students combined one or more subjects with Impact Project to conduct a major project over the year. For example, one student applied her skills from Painting to Impact Project by creating a mural for the local preschool:

Combining Painting and Impact Project to create a mural for the local preschool
Combining Painting and Impact Project to create a mural for the local preschool

The image below shows the timetable at my school. Option classes occur twice per week and each option class is for approx 100mins. The yellow highlight represents when Year 13 Painting occurs on the timetable and the pink highlights when Year 13 Impact Project occurs:

hagley-timetable

There have been a few occasions where students have integrated three areas of study. Examples include: Business Studies, Digital Technologies and Impact Project to create an app for young people to style their hair; and Computer Science, Digital Technologies and Impact Project to create a website for the elderly to link with people in the community.

Combining Digital Technology, Business Studies and Impact Project to create an app for young people to style their hair.
Combining Digital Technology, Business Studies and Impact Project to create an app for young people to style their hair.

This transdisciplinary approach of ‘connecting the curriculum’ appears to have worked well this year at my school. Many students could see that with their Impact Project at the centre of their work, the other curriculum areas ‘feed in’ to help their project creation:

Because I am working on a children’s book, I am connecting with many teachers from many departments who I wouldn’t normally connect with, so far, I have met with teachers from many areas, most who I don’t even have classes with. Some areas include textiles, fashion, creative writing and art and many more to come (Student R).

There is no right or wrong approach with curriculum integration (Arrowsmith & Wood, 2015). I can see that the transdisciplinary approach I have taken with Impact Project in 2020 has advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages  Disadvantages 
Students learn in specialist classrooms with specialist teachers during dedicated class time.   There was no shared physical location where the two subjects could be worked on at the same time with the input of two teachers.  
No alteration to existing school timetable.   Students had to personally make the connection between the two or more subjects.  
Students maintain the opportunity to develop a positive teacher relationship with 1 teacher and approximately 25 students.  Students didn’t have many opportunities to see teachers working/teaching together. 
Students can easily link the Achievement Standard assessments to the teacher and content.   

 

Before undertaking a “Connected Curriculum” approach, McPhail (2020), recommends that the following principles should be considered:

  • Consider what it is that the students will learn that they would not otherwise learn by bringing two or more subjects together.
  • Only use Curriculum Integration in selected parts of the curriculum and carefully assess its effectiveness.
  • Plan for Curriculum Integration at the subject concept level once a topic has been chosen.
  • Use Curriculum Integration to deepen learning that has already occurred in a single subject setting.
  • Introduce subject concepts in a planned, sequential, and logical way and revisit them in a spiral fashion.
  • Ensure that sufficient time and subject expertise are available when planning for Curriculum Integration.

Conclusion

A transdisciplinary approach of integrating the curriculum appears to have been effective at my school this year. The project management components of Impact Project work well when combined with another curriculum subject which is based on students creating a physical project outcome. Creating meaningful, genuine connections between curriculum areas has resulted in quality learning for students. As my school begins its rebuild in 2021, and new teaching and learning spaces are developed, there will be more obvious opportunities to integrate the curriculum which may overcome some of the disadvantages I have identified above. Sharing my findings with fellow teachers at my school and beyond is important, so too is further investigating integrated curriculum opportunities in other subject areas for 2021 and beyond.

Find out more about the Dr Vince Ham eFellowship and read Nathan’s research report

References

Arrowsmith, S., & Wood, B. E. (2015). Curriculum integration in New Zealand secondary schools: Lessons learned from four ‘early adopter’ schools. SET: Research information for teachers, 1, 58-66.

Drake, S. M. (1998). Creating integrated curriculum: Proven ways to increase student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Drake, S. M., & Reid, J. (2020, July). 21st Century Competencies in Light of the History of Integrated Curriculum. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 5, p. 122). Frontiers.

McPhail, G. (2018). Curriculum integration in the senior secondary school: A case study in a national assessment context. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(1), 56-76.

McPhail, G. (2020, September 10). An introduction to curriculum integration. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://theeducationhub.org.nz/an-introduction-to-curriculum-integration/

Ministry of Education. (2007) The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.

read more
Posted in