Reflection for Domain 1: Professional Learning and Identity

This reflection is about the progress I have made on the goals that I set two weeks ago when I began the Core Theory and Foundations of Specialist Teaching Paper at Albany University where I attended a three day block course, 13 February - 15 February.


When thinking about my year, I feel very privileged to have the time and space in my professional life to have so many learning opportunities.  I know that the learning is more about the process than the outcome and think that I have made some progress in developing my competency and skills in a range of digital literacy skills. 


Using Blogger as a way to record my reflections and learning journey is one thing that I have really enjoyed.  It has enabled me to reflect throughout the process rather than at an end point which is what I often have done in the past, only reflected out of accountability and having to for my professional management requirements.  I am learning that reflecting is an essential part of my professional learning.  I have mentioned in some of my other reflections that with my new role this year, I have extended travel time which allows me both some personal wellbeing space and some time to process my work and reflect which I am finding very helpful.


One area that I haven't made much progress in is my wellbeing goals as I have been very busy over the last few weeks.  I hope to be able to prioritise my time better to allow space in my schedule to focus on my wellbeing goals.  As my mother frequently tells me, "You can't help anyone if you don't help yourself Jess" - words of the wise that hinder my thoughts.


Another area that I would like more opportunity to develop are my academic skills.  Most of my reflections have been written informally and my posts on the forums on Moodle have been short and not written in academic writing so this is something that I would like to add to my goals - practice academic writing regularly in forum posts over the first semester.


A question I have asked myself after reading the material in the Domain One book is: Are my goals written as SMART-EST goals and I wonder if there is a tool that can help to analyse goals to ensure they are well written?


I am looking forward to the next Domain to see if I am able to use MyPortfolio with more ease and competence.  I will be asking at my whānau group whether I can turn on the 'skins' function to make my pages more aesthetically pleasing.

How are digital tools used by other educators and what for???

https://www.unleasheducation.co.nz/about/ this is a blog I came across after googling nz educators blogs.  I'm keen to learn more about this.  It was interesting the other day in a supervision session as I was sharing about how my study was going and explaining to my supervisor what I had contributed to the glossary in my endorsement that she was interested in the content.  We got a bit side-tracked but I felt genuinely valued that my supervisor who is an experienced psychologist was interested in something I had to contribute.  It felt like a true moment of natural tuakana teina.




There are so many resources and tools to use and what I find a challenge is intially getting to know how it works and then getting to know who uses it and what for.  I've tried twitter, but I haven't mastered the knack of tweeting and hash tagging and how to add much or contribute much in that arena as a professional and in my brain I have categorised that to professional connections / networking and don't put anything personal on twitter OR LinkedIn.  My personal social digital tool is Facebook.


Another literacy demand in blogging is the visual aspects as I find it quite boring just looking at a whole lot of text, but who wants to take photos of documents and notes?  What visual components do educational bloggers use to make their posts more attractive to readers?  Or is this even important?  Are blogs for a purpose, a particular audience or just a means of expressing meaning?

Navigating my way around MyPortfolio

MyPortfolio is a tool that we need to use for our papers to evidence our learning and the cool thing is that is an electronic tool that we can continue to use after our study.  It has lots of potential to be used for a range of purposes such as evidencing for appraisals, presenting information for professional projects or for things like CVs so I was excited to get the hang of how it all worked. 


I did come across some challenges right at the start.  When I signed up, I didn't put Massey down as my facility and put University of Canterbury instead which meant that skins weren't enabled so I couldn't make my pages look pretty. On reflection though I'm actually glad about this because it has meant that I haven't been too distracted wasting time, making my page look pretty. 


At the block course, I worked with a new friend, Wendy Blackmun who was quick to get the hang of how it all worked and she showed me how to copy a page so that I could set-up a template so that is the first thing I did so that after completing Domain 1, I wouldn't need to fiddle around with setting up my page for Domains 2-6.


Another challenge has been the computer that I am using.  Since starting my new role at MoE, I was allocated a tablet to use that is Windows and for the past 12 years I have been using an apple Mac which I was very comfortable with and knew many techie things to help me do my work efficiently so getting used to a new system has been frustrating and I've had to go ask friend Google a few things like how to take a screenshot and how to save a document to pdf from internet etc... I was even tempted to go out and buy a laptop but I'm trying to resist the temptation due to finances.


The next thing I have tried to do is embed my blog on my page as this is the tool that I have decided to use for my reflections and after lots of attempts, I put up a post on the general discussion forum for all and got some helpful advice so then I was able to put at least one article of my blog on the page and now I'm going to attempt to correct this so my whole blog shows.....  I will know this works when this post is showing as an article for an artefact and when my reflections part of my page shows the whole blog.

I'm still having some challenges with it as whenever I add an item to a page and save it, it takes a long time to load and I have to push remove or the X button to get rid of the box and sometimes this deletes the item I've added and sometimes it doesn't so it has taken me a lot of time to fiddle around with it....


Now for feedback from Assignment One :)

Reflecting on Wellbeing...

It always amuses me how the more we try and focus on personal wellbeing, because we know that it makes all the difference....the busier our lives become.  Lately I have been feeling quite overwhelmed trying to get used to the new routines of my new role, balancing this with the new study routines and level of commitment as well as trying to honour my responsibilities as Mum, wife and in other areas of my life, at church and with the league club.  Every time I look at my calendar, I feel the stress rising.


It's the little things that make all the difference and as I consider wellbeing goals for myself as a professional, I start with the obvious:

• Lunches - I make my kids lunches everyday but often don't pack anything for myself and then I often skip breakfast trying to get out the door and then... I buy junk because I am starving after getting to work, doing some work and before I know it, it's 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  One of my wellbeing goals is to eat breakfast daily and take a packed lunch to work.  This will also help my finances too if I don't buy food at the shops near the office.
• Sleep - As a busy working mum who is studying, I often am up at night doing the housework that I haven't had a chance to do during the day when I'm working and this impacts on me being able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.  It is a vicious cycle....if I left the housework, then I'd be stressed out in the morning trying to find clean school uniforms for the kids and trying to pack lunches when things aren't tidy in the kitchen.  With all of this, sometimes you've gotta give yourself a break so part of my goal is not worrying about the state of my house as much as this isn't the top of my priority list, the other thing that I can do is get my family to support with these things and lighten the load.  I will sacrifice TV viewing to be able to do all my jobs and get to bed at a reasonable hour. 
• Exercise - a bit of a foreign concept for me but something that I want to be able to achieve.  This is always the first thing I find an excuse for.  I started a few weeks ago, getting up early and taking the dog for a walk but this was short-lived as things picked up and my sleep was impacted, so I will start with a goal of taking the dog of a 45 minute walk in the morning for 3 mornings a week.
• Spiritual - this area of my wellbeing is reasonably okay.  I am committed to attending my weekly women's celebration group where we reflect on life as women.  I also am involved in my church which I find very fulfilling.  One new area that I have enjoyed is being able to sing in my car as I travel to and from appointments in my new role.  This is the first time I have worked in a job where there has been a bit of travel time.  I have found this enables me time and space to process, reflect and prepare my head for what is required of me next and also means when I arrive home after a long day, I'm ready to put on my wife / mum hat and leave the worries of my work behind me until the next day.  Of course, this will take some discipline to maintain.
• Family - it's exciting this year with lots happening in my wider family and in my little family too.  I am enjoying having a bit of flexibility with hours of work and study days which have meant that I have been able to take my daughter to school visits prior to her starting school in term 2 and have been able to drop my son off to his new school and support his transition there.  One area that I would like to do better would be to make time for myself and my husband to go out for an evening, maybe once every two weeks.  He is a very supportive man but I don't want to put too much pressure on him as he is a busy man too.  He has had to change his routine a bit this year to make it work and he is still adjusting to picking up all the kids and doing the after school sports trainings, homework, dinner prep routines.

Now that I have this all processed, I think I'm ready to write my wellbeing goals.  I bet everyone is feeling a bit like me in the description above doing this course and I'm interested to see how everyone else is coping.  I have my first whānu group meeting next week so it will be good to catchup with the other Christchurch people doing this.

Equity through Education Symposium 13 Feb 2019

To open the Specialist Teacher Programme for 2019, First Year and Second Year Students and some others (Masters Students and some previous students) were invited to Equity Day.  The day started at Massey University, Albany Campus with a Mihi Whakatau with approximately 300 First Year students, one of the biggest intakes since the Programme had been offered. The Programme is a collaboration between Massey University and the University of Canterbury. 

 

How I got there...
I was lucky enough to come across a post on the Learning Support Network that I had subscribed to explaining that applications were open for study awards from the Ministry of Education (MoE) for Post Graduate Diplomas in Specialist Teaching and there were a range of endorsements to specialize in.  I read through all the info and decided to apply.  I was working as the Diverse Education Leader at Haeata Community Campus supporting diverse learners across Years 1-13.  I wanted to learn some new skills and knowledge to contribute back to the community and the ākonga of Haeata.

 

Following my application, I was approached by one of the Learning Support Service Managers from the Ministry of Education about considering a secondment to a role as Special Education Advisor for a year so I looked further into that and began discussing my options with my Principal.

 

What a real blessing to have been successful with the study award and to be able to take on the secondment with the support of my school team, Principal and the Board of Trustees.  I have found since starting at the MoE that I have been given lots of autonomy to manage and direct my own workload which has been both challenging and rewarding, particularly for my professional learning.  I feel very privileged to be able to have space within my work to learn and develop my skills and knowledge in a new and interesting professional context.

 

Some of the words from one of the waiata (Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, a song written for Massey University) from the Mihi Whakatau really resonated with how I was feeling about the start of the year and all the learning opportunities in front of me:

Te ara mātauranga

Ka whakarewa e

Te māramatanga ka kitea e

Kimihia, rangahaua kia whita e.

 

The pathways to learning

Can be inspirational

And deeper understandings can enlighten

Therefore, seek out and grasp knowledge

Judge Andrew Becroft, New Zealand Children's Commissioner was the Keynote:







The question that framed his keynote - "Is New Zealand the best place in the world to educate a child?"

 

He went on to point out that New Zealand has one of the most inequitable education systems in the world and asked if there was a new approach required in 2019.  He explained why there needs to be a commitment to change across our educational system.

 

Judge Andrew discussed four challenges:

1. Understanding the impact of child poverty and material disadvantage


2. The pressing need to do better for Tamariki Māori and Pasifika


3. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders


4. Being truly child-centred and hearing young people's voices

He went on to talk about the stats, how 20% of our 0-18 year old population is struggling, 10% who face significant disadvantage and 2% who face overwhelming disadvantage.


Judge Andrew then went on to challenge whether this inequity was to do with our cultural approach and his call to action was to, genuinely empower and to channel the voices of all students to school leadership and to consider their concerns in decision-making...


Following this Keynote, we heard from Mere Berryman and John O'Neill who are part of the Tomorrow's Schools Review Taskforce.  They presented some of the findings thus far and that they had established there is a case for change in our education system so that it is fit for ALL.  Mere explained the phrase, Manaakitia a Tātou Tamariki and that the 'tātou' word that these Tamariki are our responsibility, all of ours and they are all our children.  This really made me sit up and listen.  Our society is becoming more and more diverse so what's the response of our education system? We need to be future-focused but what does that look like?  They asked for us to participate in Kōrero Mātauranga Feb-Apr 2019 to have our say - who am I standing for and who is standing behind me?