Finding your voice in a digital world

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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

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Learning through play and assessment

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“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.

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Impact project: integrating the curriculum

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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.

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Aroha: breathing life into Tātaiako and Tapasā

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Image copyright CORE Education, all rights reserved.
Image copyright CORE Education, all rights reserved.

Setting the scene

I have a passion for re-imagining what secondary schooling and especially the middle years (Years 7-10) could look like. Starting out in my teaching career, my personal educational philosophy was simple: make this time memorable for students. But what seemed like a simple task was in reality an uphill battle.

In 2009 I started teaching at St Thomas of Canterbury College where the focus was on social justice and equity in education. In 2016 I was able to lead the transition of our junior school from a traditional delivery to a more integrated model in order to support future-focused learning and teaching (Bolstad and Gilbert, 2012). Coinciding with this, our school was granted a Teacher-Led Innovation Fund (TLIF) focused on deconstructing existing systems, structures and routines to create a 21st century curriculum with a specific focus on engagement and student agency.

Throughout the two years of the TLIF project, our evidence showed that we had created positive shifts in the engagement of our students, and we were also able to uncover data that we had not seen previously. For example, even though we had begun to integrate learning areas, for example with STEM, and begun to make projects more engaging by using student voice to inform our planning, our Year 9 Pasifika and Māori learners still showed reluctance to engage.

This perplexed me and forced me to reflect on what we were doing. What assumptions were we making? I wrote myself some key questions:

  • Was the learning in a context that Māori and Pasifika students could relate to?
  • Could involvement of the community, specifically iwi, help engage learners?
  • Were the conversations, or lack of conversations, at home having an impact on student engagement?

The Dr Vince Ham eFellowship 2020 offered by CORE Education was an opportunity to explore these questions in more depth, and so I began a new research journey.

My research

In applying for the Dr Vince Ham Fellowship I looked to the key concepts of Tātaiako (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2011) to shape my research. These concepts specifically included:

  • Wānanga: participating with learners and communities in robust dialogue for the benefit of Māori learners’ achievement.
  • Whanaungatanga: actively engaging in respectful working relationships with Māori learners, parents and whānau, hapū, iwi and the Māori community.
  • Tangata whenuatanga: affirming Māori learners as Māori. Providing contexts for learning where the language, identity and culture of Māori learners and their whānau is affirmed.

When it came to considering my research design, I posed the following question: “How could students share their learning in STEM with parents in an authentic context?’’ But then the spanner in the works hit: Covid-19! My initial idea of having learning out in the community was derailed and for a while my project floundered until, through conversations with CORE’s research mentors, I soon realised that my question actually suggested the answer: I was focusing on the outcome without going to the source – the parents.

Methodology

Through the research design process, I began to focus on exploring new methods of gathering student voice. As a college we gather student data each term to help us reflect on our practice, but often through a digital form. This method has been successful but had also in some ways reinforced the questions I was asking myself. During the TLIF, our lead researcher posed the provocation: “It’s the voices you don’t hear that matter!” I realised it was often the Māori and Pasifika learners whose voices were needed the most but were often the quietest. How then might educators gather the voice of the voiceless? On reflection, it became clear that digital feedback was not culturally responsive.

With this idea in the back of my mind, it was at our first eFellows hui that the idea of Story Hui was suggested. Liz Stevenson, herself a former eFellow, created Story Hui (Stevenson, 2015) as a story-telling process to capture the voice of students around their capabilities, engagement and well being. Straight away I could see the missing link: I could see the benefits of Story Hui and how it could make learning and achievement visible for the Māori and Pasifika learners at our college.

Talanoa, hui and oral language are so deeply embedded in Polynesian culture it made sense that we gather voice in this way, rather than the written, Eurocentric ways of digital online forms. Stories speak to us at a deeper level; they value and honour diverse ways of knowing, being and learning. Stories put a face to the numbers and help to show what’s working, what’s not and why. It simply aligns better with cultural capabilities and in my view moves documents such as Tātaiako and Tapasā (Ministry of Education, 2018) from being a ‘tick box exercise’ to living, breathing documents. Therefore I wondered about using Story Hui as a methodology to test my idea about what students felt about school and the conversations they have at home with parents, if indeed these conversations happen.

Findings

My initial wonderings had centred around the question of conversations about education at home. Did they happen? The biggest takeaway from my research blew my assumptions. Participants talked about learning almost daily! Moving into the Story Hui I wanted to unpack exactly what students and whānau talked about and their views on education, as my hunch was that this was not aligned.

Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdown had brought learning into the home and for many whānau challenged their world views about education without the barrier of school. Key findings from my research included the following:

Who talks?

The data suggested that families talked far more than I had imagined, in most cases daily. For both parties it was seen as important to discuss learning, and particularly for students to let parents see that they are doing well. These discussions were open and honest and echoed the importance of kōrero and its relationship in improving learning outcomes.

Difference in worldviews

One parent said, “Lockdown was an eye opener on how learning happened, especially group work and use of devices.” Parents, while acknowledging much of the content they learned in school was pointless and the soft skills they use in day-to-day life were more important, often focused only on literacy and numeracy. Parents commented that during lockdown they were surprised with how much collaboration took place, while students saw this as being what they valued most about learning.

Proud to be Māori!

Whānau discussed the importance of culture being represented in learning. Students at our college report that they feel proud to be Māori, and believe culture is represented in their learning. However whānau reported that their own school experiences clearly impacted on their views. Participants spoke of negative experiences and how this had an impact on them as they tried to fit into a Pākehā | Palangi system. For whānau they wanted to ensure the experience of school was mana-enhancing for their tamariki.

Recommendations

My assumption is that as educators we often see cultural competencies and documents such as Tātaiako and Tapasā as merely a paper exercise to comply with Ministry requirements rather than having a living, organic system in place to enhance the voice and learning of our Māori and Pasifika ākonga.
Whanaungatanga and tangata whenuatanga cannot be achieved on paper. Schools need to have systems in place to engage with whānau outside of traditional meetings or surveys. Story Hui or other forms of Talanoa provide this.

My experience of engaging with new systems of gathering voice was that whanaungatanga and tangata whenuatanga were embodied, and enhanced the mana of both students and whānau. Schools need to be critical of whose voice they are gathering and how they are collecting it to ensure that voices are genuinely heard in the planning and implementation of learning.

Find out more about the Dr Vince Ham eFellowship

Further reading

References

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., & McDowall, S. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching. Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2018). Tapasā. Ministry of Education.
Stevenson, L. (2015). STORY HUI TRUST. STORY HUI TRUST. Retrieved 26 March 2021, from https://www.storyhui.org/.
Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. (2011). Tātaiako. Ministry of Education.

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Three high school students use laptops for online gaming

An unexpected journey through eSports

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Three high school students use laptops for online gaming
Image courtesy of Duncan Trickey

“However, in the end, the real importance of good computer and video games is that they allow people to re-create themselves in new worlds and achieve recreation and deep learning at one and the same time” (Gee, 2003, p.3)

My name is Duncan Trickey and I am the teacher in charge of sports at Otago Girls’ High School (OGHS). For some time I had been wondering, “Why was it that the ākonga at OGHS did not play eSports?” (eSports is a form of sports competition that uses video games). This question made me curious. Why did this matter to me? Why did I think it mattered to the school? This became my research focus as a Dr Vince Ham eFellow in 2020.

Why was it that ākonga were not playing eSports?

I conducted a survey of OGHS ākonga in 2019, before the eFellowship began, and it showed that students were not competing in eSports though some of them thought they would like to. In response to this, I arranged to run a duty time in the innovation hub called the eSports and Gaming Club. We had two new gaming computers purchased through community funding which meant ākonga were not reliant on their own devices. During the lunch times students could play any games they wanted. We had between five and ten ākonga attend our weekly meets which showed that there was definitely an interest in playing eSports.

At first, Brawhala and Minecraft were the most popular free games. We then found League of Legends. This game requires a team of five players to play but forming a consistent team was a challenge. Ākonga in the eSports club were from different year groups and the team members changed depending on their afternoon timetables. Though friend groups came in, they often had different games they wanted to play. In addition, though we had just started this group all too soon we had to leave the school walls for our home bubbles.

Te pou herenga – navigating education through tricky times

Through our journey this year at OGHS, a colleague used the metaphor ‘te pou herenga’, the hitching or mooring post for our waka. Through the turbulent times of lockdown, we relied on our leadership to hold together the diaspora that school had become in 2020. Every educator had a part to play as we led our respective students, whānau and community through tricky times.

My research project on eSports and education became something I could relish. While all other sports paused during lockdown, my athletes were in the position where they were the only sport still going. Our communication through discord meant everyone could schedule games and though the digital divide meant I lost a number of ākonga, our meets were well-attended. For a number of students it was the first time they had been in a game chat and they seemed genuinely surprised to have a teacher talking through discord.

The eSports team was very new and it was unclear to me what we actually were. I did not teach any of the students, and the games we were playing were also completely new to me. I quickly realised that lunchtime sessions were not perfect. It was difficult to get the students into the game and complete the game within 45 minutes. This is when we initially started to do evening games, after dinner. This was an exciting move and was a foreshadowing of how the group would meet in the future. Within this distance setting it gave the group added excitement about finally meeting as a team and presented me with a hidden learning.

The hidden learning

The hidden learning was why our eSports team needed to be a recognised part of our school community and what the ākonga would gain through it. As with traditional sports, the social learning within eSports is the same. Like preparing for a rugby game, you similarly need to be prepared for an eSports match; you need to understand your role within the side; what tactics to use; how to complement each other; and how to communicate clearly during high stakes (digital life and death). Furthermore, basics like remembering your power cord and log in; organising your calendar; communicating with home and an endless number of other skills are needed that relate to being part of a team who can rely on each other.

There has been a huge amount of learning around who the ākonga were who joined the group. It was completely voluntary and attracted a diverse group of students and transcended conventional boundaries of year groups; it also attracted students from outside our school community. The ākonga had to adapt to who was in the team, negotiate what roles each student would take, and what character they were able to play. We also initially had to find common ground on what games we wanted to play and who we were to play against. Though my focus was gender equity it was quickly apparent that the ākonga at Otago Girls’ High School wanted to play, and beat the boys.

We aren’t going anywhere

Setting up our first competitive game against Otago Boys’ High school was an exciting step for the group. The tension and excitement through the week was tangible as the match approached. The game itself was hugely one-sided and the team coming in had thousands of hours experience on the OGHS students, being mostly Year 13 students. This did not put off the squad though we continued to meet and train and arrange games. In Dunedin we were breaking new ground as schools were often initially wary about eSports. The news of our eSports team quickly flowed through to others who were interested in playing against our team, even when their schools didn’t necessarily have a recognised school team.

Face-to-face games with other schools break down the often social silo associated with gaming: the image of teenagers isolated and playing games in their darkened bedrooms. Basic practices around sport like saying ‘good luck’ and talking to the captain before going into a game is just as important in developing the social skills within the team. The level of excitement at a win or simply just knowing the team has performed really well is akin to the emotions experienced by any team sport I have known, and as a manager and coach in other sporting codes, the ‘buzz’ is similar.

esports-in-your-school

The next step – this project will not let me stop!

The next steps are to develop a sustainable Dunedin league and develop a support network for these students. If we ensure we value them as much as other athletes, we will reap benefits. Already I have offers to help coach our team from some of the students from the boys’ school. When looking at how we continue as a group I think this is a really interesting area going forward. Will these sports teams look like traditional teams, or will they take more of a cultural model with students from other schools joining teams where they feel comfortable and being managed that way? The possibility could be of a sporting hub model where students interested meet and form teams before looking to compete in regional or national competitions. Either way it is clear to me that the students are not only enjoying it but learning and gaining important skills. There is an exciting future ahead of us.

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

References

Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy. (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan)

Ngā kupu

  • Pou herenga, “(noun) hitching post, mooring post, rallying point.” Retrieved from Māori Dictionary
  • discord, a chat room where gamers often meet
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