DFI Session 6 Reflection

 Time to reflect and share with colleagues.

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

“The important thing is living together, making friends and exchanging ideas”. This statement has truth to it because when we think about ourselves as teachers we communicate, collaborate with our colleagues in order to make learning fun and engaging. This is how we as teachers stay connected. We bounce ideas off each other, share resources and come to a shared understanding so that we all have a common purpose or goal that our students will understand. We focused on the importance of staying connected not just teachers with teachers but also with students and families. This is one thing we strive to accomplish as teachers where we think of ways we can interact and engage with our whanau so that they too have the opportunity to connect with their children's education and aspirations in life. We are very familiar with the quote “it takes a village to raise a child”. It takes teachers, students, families, principals, board of trustees etc to have a massive impact on our students as learners. The importance of staying connected through teaching and learning and vision schools have is important. This is what drives our passions and our goals which is to help our students succeed in whatever career path they decide to choose. 

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

• Google sites have become my go to workspace where I am focusing on making it presentable but also easy to navigate. 

• I am trying my best to make it look professional but also student focused where their photos are on it. 

• At this point I am focusing on one learning and just trying to get this up and running moving away from google classroom and start working the site with my students. 

• Hapara is now working for me, I can see all the folders I need to have and will focus on working with my students to move their work into these folders. 

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

• Organising their documents into the correct folders this will make it visible for me in Hapara but also more organised for teachers and students. 

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

• Working google sites and providing feedback to our peers brought about new ideas and ways to make my google more interactive and engaging for my students.

• I am now focusing on one curriculum area so that my students can engage with the content loaded on my site. 

• I have chosen to work my Literacy site for page so that I start using this as a live working document. This will mean my students will become familiar with how they will access their work moving forward.