Goals
Increase the use of kupu Maori in the classroom
- Greet students in te reo maori everyday
- Introduce kupu maori into the classroom everyday with words I already know
Develop deeper curriculum knowledge for English by:
- Identifying the curriculum strands and AOs that my AT is using in their lessons
- Making sure I have a strong connection between my lesson plans and the curriculum strands and AOS
Goal Development Week 1
Goal 1:
I have been greeting all my students in te reo Maori and using it in the classroom where possible. As I have not had the chance to take any lessons in week one, besides covering for my AT who was sick, I have not had a chance to include te reo maori in my formal planning
Goal 2:
I have asked my ATs how they link the curriculum into their planning. There are curriculum links on Hapara, which is the planning site which teachers at Tawa College use for all their lesson plans so we can be on the same page for which key competencies we are trying to link too.
Goal Development Week 2
Goal 1:
As well as greeting my students in te reo Maori for every class I have been trying to include new vocb into my lesson plans and powerpoints. For example I have been trying to use the words pukapuka and tuhinga instead of book and texts in my classes where we do novel study. When I had to make a slideshow on how to create a bibliography I used the term rarangi pukapuka in my lesson as well. On my final slide I put “Miss Campbell’s Rarangi Pukapuka above my bibliography and when we created a class bibliography on the board I wrote rarangi pukapuka. After my lesson my AT asked for a direct translation and I was able to tell her that rarangi means “list” and pukapuka mean “book” so new vocab for her as well. I have continued with greeting my students in te reo Maori as well as including words in Te Reo in my classes such as “mahi”, “korero”, “paparorohiko”
Goal 2:
When I planned my first lesson which I taught I had links to the Level 1 NCEA standard but not curriculum links so my AT told me that I need curriculum links in all over my lesson plans so I have been careful to add them in to all lesson plans since.
Goal Development Week 3
Goal 1:
I had the discussion this week with my AT about using Te Reo Maori in the classroom and where it becomes token and where it it is useful. By simply putting it in my lesson plans and slides it is token if I don’t weave it into the lesson more deeply. I want to look at ways that I can use it more deeply in my lesson planning.
Goal 2:
This week was a big week of teaching for me, I taught 12 lessons, most of which I planned myself. It is hard to focus on curriculum links when you are focusing on so many other things at once. I feel like I am trying to include at least some of the key competancies in all of my lessons, but it still feels like since I am work to NCEA standards that they are at the forefront of my and my ATs minds an that the curriculum and key competancies are taking a back seat.
Final Goal Reflection
Goal 1
One of the things that has been on my mind since I arrived in the classroom is how to use Te Reo Maori in a classroom when I don’t have a high level of Te Reo Maori and neiether do the students and since I am not a Te Reo teacher. I understand the desire too normalise the use of Te Reo, but I I feel like as students teachers we aren’t being given the basic support on a way to do this and in turn we aren’t able to support our students in their Te Reo Maori journey. I have had my appraiser say that me using kupu Maori in the classroom was a good way of normaling it but I don’t feel like it is. I am not fluent by any means but I have a lot of Reo that I haven’t used in the classroom because I can’t be sure that my students understand it and there is no space for me to teach it. Going forward into my next practicum I aim to look at ways around this problem, because I do agree with the normalisation of Te Reo Maori in schools but at the moment there is a disconnect between the goal to increase the use of Te Reo Maori in the classroom and how we make it something meaningful for both students and teachers.
Goal 2
I feel like I have been struggling with this goal. However I found it really useful speaking to my appraiser about how to use the key competancies from the curriculum. He suggested that instead of listing all the key competancies that I will be using in my lesson plan that I shuld just focus on one specific one and look at how I can build build my lesson around it. This was a real lightbulb moment for me and I really feel like it will help with both my lesson planning and my curriculm links in the next practicum.
First Impression:
On my pre-visit to Tawa College my STC sat us down and gave us a briefing on what Tawa College is like as a school and how it relates to the community. There are several aspects that stood out to me. The first was the school’s use of Restorative Practice. This is the way in which the school focuses on strengthening and repairing relationships in the classroom and community, as opposed to punishing students when they break a school rule. This strikes me as refreshing and I am looking forward to seeing how this works in practice. Another aspect that stood out to me was the school’s work with Poutama Pounamu. Our STC gave us a diagram of the aims of Poutama Punamu, which includes ways in which we can incorporate it into the classroom. These include building cultural relationships by having care for learners and their learning, recognising students prior knowledge as foundational to identity and learning and focusing on potential. On the whole the school seemed to me well organised and opening minded and I am looking forward to my first practicum.
Final Impressions:
I really enjoyed my time at Tawa College. It is a busy, vibrant school with lots of intersting things going on. I am pleased to be returning later in the year as I feel like there are many more activities to see and many more converstions to be had and 4 weeks isn’t quite long enough. Looking back on my first impressions of the college, I was able to achieve my goal of seeing restorative practice in action. This was apparant in the classroom management styles of the teachers who mostly were able to manage behavior in the classrooms through realtionship building. For example in my form class I was able to see my form teacher speak to students about uniform issues. Instead of handing out detentions she repeatedly appealed to her students to de respect the uniform code by telling them how much she valued them as students and how she wanted to go to bat for them but that their continual disobediance in terms of uniform meant that the wouldn’t be able to support them to such an extent. However there were several kids stood down during my time at TC and also 3 kids who received a permanant explusion. I don’t know the details, but I am interested to see how the how restorative practice was used in these cases. It seems to me that expulsion goes against the tenements of restorative practice.
Observation of a Junior Class:
Classroom 1
Year 10 English
When we arrived in the class the teacher was asking the students about their weekend. She had a soft toy which she was tossing to each student when it was their turn to speak about their weekend. Students would volunteer to speak and they would pass the toy to the next person who was due to speak. The effect of this was that the class appeared to have bonded quite well and they knew that they were a valued member of the class. The students in this class seemed to all be engaged from the start of the lesson. Once that was done The teacher moved on to the lesson which was on speech making. First they discussed what was important in the speech that is content and delivery and the different aspects of those two things. The teacher asked the class what elements they should focus on and they compiled a list on the board of what things should be considered. The teacher allowed the students to make their own suggestions and gently prompted them when they needed suggestions. Because they were involved in the creation of the list on the board they were all very engaged. Next the teacher had the students do an exercise where each student would come up to the front of the class and present either a “good” version of the aspects of speech which were written on the board or a “bad” version. The students all presented a “bad” version that is talking too fast or facing away from that audience. This gave the students an example of what not to do when making a speech but in a really fun way. Students were then given independent time to work on their individual speeches.
Tawa College uses Restorative Practice which means instead of punishing students they try to put the focus on building relationships and there was a good example of this in this class. The teacher saw that one of the students was looking at cars on Trademe instead of working on his speech. She asked him what he was doing and then asked him what might be a better thing to be doing at this point. There were no raised voices or punishments and the student was quickly back on task. This Restorative Practice added to the feeling of bondedness that was already present in the classroom.
The classroom was bright and the walls were decorated with classwork such as posters created by the students. Although it was a rainy day the room felt warm. It was directly after interval so they students seemed energised and engaged.
Classroom 2
Year 10 Maths
The first thing that I noticed on the arrival in this classroom was that the windows were very steamed up and there was the muggy smell of wet teenagers which reflected that rainy day outside. The room was darkish because the exercises for the class were being reflected on the projector. Not all the students seemed to be present but the ones that were sat to the sides of the classroom and there was a group of empty seats noticeable in the centre of the room. When we arrived the teacher informed us that the students would be revising that day for the assessment they had the next day.
Unlike the previous class there was not introductory exercise and the teacher went straight into explaining the exercise that they would be completing that day. The students set about their work and the teacher walked around the room checking their progress and answering questions that the students might have.
There was a definite decrease in energy from the first classroom to this one. It could be down to many things, the dark muggy classroom, the presentation of the work and the distance from interval to lunchtime. Tawa College only has five periods per day with only one period after lunch which means that lunchtime is not until 1.20pm. It means for a long time before lunch time but it means that students and teachers only have one class in the after lunch slump. You could see in this period that these students were possibly lacking energy because they were ready for lunch and a proper break. The teacher was warm and engaging with her students, but didn’t do much to lift the energy levels in the room.
Design for learning
Week 2
One of the stand out things that happened in week 2 was the Teacher’s only day that I was able to attend. We had a korero in the English department about how we can best achieve Mana orite mo Matauranga Maori. It was a fascinating korero, very respectful on all sides but a few things stood out for me. Firstly, that the whakapapa of the group of teachers in our English department appears to be mostly pakeha. As one of the only indigenous people in the room, and I pass for white too, there seemed to me to be some important voices missing from the korero. I think English specifically as a discipline has some mahi to do to achieve Mana Orite mo Matauranga Maori. This could look at ways in which we can include maori and other indigenous voices in this korero by figuring out how to recruit more indigenous teachers, especially Maori and Pasifika ones as well as including more texts from writers and makers in those communities.
Although I taught some lessons in Week One based on my ATs planning as they were away sick, Week 2 was the first opportunity that I had to plan and execute my own lessons. After my first one my AT gave me some great advice about how to use the board more effectively. I hadn’t used a board before and I was writing a lot of stuff down on there without thinking about why. She suggested that I think about why I use the board and having just some specific points. She also suggested that possibly using a powerpoint would be helpful. I’ve been using powerpoints in my lessons since to get my main points across which means I can be more engaged with the students and face them. Also it means I can be more prepared with the points I want to hit home in my lessons, so it has been helpful in my planning.
I also visited the Special Education classroom this week, Being Autistic and ADHD myself this is an area of teaching that I am interested in. There is a very different mood in the Special Education classroom than my mainstream classes. There are less than 10 kids and the classes have a more relaxed atmosphere. I wanted to visit because I wanted to see what they were doing but also as a ND adult I felt like I may have some incites that may help. One of the teachers in class is a very good friend of mine and had mentioned that as a Special Education teacher she had had little training outside of her teacher training and nothing specific to do with autistic people or other disabilities. Similarly to the korero above, it’s vital to have the voices of disabld and neurodiverse people in those spaces for our tamariki as their needs are specific and they aren’t always in the best position to communicate those needs.
Week 3
This week has been my biggest week of teaching as I have taught 10 lessons over the whole week. Having only a small amount of time for lesson planning made me much more efficient.
Last week my AT gave me the feedback that I needed to improve how I use the board. In my lessons this week I have been preparing powerpoints with my main points of my lesson which has made my lessons more cohesive as they give me a thorough visual plan that I can follow and also mean that I can upload the slideshow to the student Workspace so they have access to the main points of the lesson. On the Workspace at Tawa College the students can also edit the slides with their own notes so it seems an effective way to communicate with the students both visually on the board and in their notes. Since I was feeling comfortable with that my AT suggested that I also use the whiteboard to write the aim for the lesson so the students can have a visual reminder of what we are wanting to achieve. She also suggested that I put up a “Do now” on the board so that when the students arrive in class and are settling in they have something to do right away and that gives me a chance to walk around the room and connect with students that is say hello to them, check if they have their books and devices etc. She also demonstrated to me how this could work. I have tried this in several of my lessons and will continue to try it out.
With our discussions of Mana Orite mo Matauranga Maori last week, I have been thinking about how I can engage my Maori and Pasifika students more effectively. In my year 13 English class there is a group of mostly Pasifika students who sit at the back of the class. Since we are looking at satire I was trying to find a piece of satire which they might engage with, so I showed them the video from the TV show SIS called “Brown People Problems”. The videos uses satire to draw attention to the way Maori and Pasifika are racially profiled, especially how in supermarkets the have to have their bags checked by security when they leave whereas white people tend to get to leave without being checked. It felt slightly awkward showing the video in class, you could tell that the Pasifika students felt a little tense. However I was encouraged when some of the students spoke with me about it the next day and several students chose the video as the subject of the case study for their assignment. It felt like a good way to include Maori and Pasifika voices in our class where the white kids sit at the front and ask lots of questions and the Maori and Pasifika kids sit quietly at the back.
Week 4
I had hoped that the majority of my teaching had been done in week 3 and that in week 4 I would have the chance to finish up my final observations with my classes but that was not the case. My AT who had previously been away with a very sick child was not there first period Monday morning and I found from the reliever that she had left no plan for her classes. As a parent I am completely understanding of this because I know were my kids sick they would be my first priority. However this meant that I had to plan a lesson on the fly for my year 11 students. Luckily we had started an activity on the friday that we could finish that day. As my AT was away all week I ended up taking the two classes that I had with her for all their lessons. Although this was quite stressful it also gave me a great chance to practice my lesson planning skills and my classroom management skills. Some of the students in my classes decided to push back a little with me as a student teacher and that gave me a good chance to work on strategies of how to deal with them. It also gave me the goal of next practicum to have the opportuinites to work with classes that present bigger challenges woth classroom management as the 4 classes I am currently in a reasonably compliant but not all the classes I teach in the future will be this way.
Julia Campbell 