DFI S4 Reflection

 Time to reflect and share with colleagues

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

This week's session we focused on the sharing aspect of the Manaiakalani pedagogy and discussed the effectiveness of sharing student learning. Based on my experience sharing is essential to learning because students need to understand the importance of sharing knowledge with others in their learning communities. This is the way we learn through sharing knowledge, experiences therefore helps us see learning from different perspectives. Although Manaiakalani promotes using digital technology to amplify learning experiences face to face interaction remains essential to learning. Just being in the presence of an audience shows the importance of face to face interactions; it's how we communicate on a deeper level with others. 

When I think back on last year and how I implemented PBL (project based learning) there was a lot of opportunity for my students to share what they learnt in each session. This gave them a sense of ownership and fulfillment being proud of what they created as a result sharing became more powerful.  Students also hesitate to share because of the fear of their work not being good enough. I guess it's like us teachers when we are all in a staff meeting we hesitate to share our knowledge because of the fear that it's not good enough. I guess it comes down to how well we create a learning environment that is inclusive and open to sharing no matter whether it links or far from linking to what we are talking about. Feeling comfortable to share is important. 

The question is how much of sharing happens in my classroom? Previous years probably not enough but as this year rolls out student input and output has to happen in order for students to critique and give feedback to each other. 

Learning can take place during learning, creating and sharing and capturing these moments and giving my students to share what they have learnt. Our School does DMIC and during this approach maths students are learning to solve problems, they are working together to create new ways of solving the problems and then sharing their thinking as a group. The Manaiakalani pedagogy is happening in my class and thinking about this on another scale is trying to capture this sharing digitally and sharing this on our class site. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

We learnt how spreadsheets work and how this could be used to help gather data for my students in my class. 

Learning about Google Maps is very helpful. This could be used for so many learning opportunities for my students. 

What did I learn that could be used with my learners, how could they use

My new learning made me think about collecting data using spreadsheets etc test scores, spelling scores

Taking a statistics approach and helping students gather data and form this in a chart for them to read. 

Using google maps to find distances, areas, measurement and just telling a story of their holiday trips. Great ways to engage our students in learning. 

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Just using Spreadsheets as a working document for planning for my students and looking forward to embedding my spreadsheets to my classroom site.