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As outlined in today's NZ Herald article, Covid19 Omicron outbreak: 15,540 new community cases, 952 in hospital, 2 deaths, Auckland covid cases are said to be "on a downward trend".  However, also stated in the article, "schools across the country are feeling the impact of the Omicron outbreak".  

What does this look like for "our" students?


Since the beginning of the 2022 school year, I have inquired into various aspects of Hybrid Teaching and Learning, and how this learning approach may be used to enable our learners to achieve.  As outlined from the list below, this has included inquiring into initial takes on Hybrid Teaching and Learning, Student Voice of Hybrid Teaching and Learning, what we've (Techies) learnt from Lockdowns, Understanding the variables to make it work, and the Hybrid Timetable.

  • Hybrid Teaching and Learning | Take 01
  • Hybrid Teaching and Learning | Take 01 - Student Voice from Learners In-Class Onsite
  • Hybrid Learning 2022 | Techies Learning from Lockdowns
  • Hybrid Teaching and Learning | Understanding the variables to make it work
  • Hybrid Teaching and Learning in our Hybrid Timetable

At this stage of the pandemic, with Omicron as the main Covid19 variant, and also at this stage of the year, it is too soon to come to any conclusions about the long term impacts or benefits of Hybrid Teaching and Learning for learners, but also the long term impacts or benefits to educators; particularly educators who are in the classroom.

What is clear is that teaching and learning has evolved, and continues to evolve at a frenetic pace, in response to the Covid19 pandemic.  It will be interesting to see what student achievement looks like as assessment data becomes available.





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Last night I had the pleasure of presenting and sharing in the Manaiakalani Toolkit Session about Well-being - Supporting Our Educators through the Covid19 Pandemic.




Following our icebreaker activity, I proceeded to share a snapshot of the journey that I have taken the Technology Department through, to address our well-being throughout the Covid19 pandemic.

Knowing Your Team

Knowing Your Team - Connecting on the morning that our first lockdown was announced


Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic

  1. How do my staff feel about what’s happening around us (at the time), and how are we engaging with each other about ourselves and our households?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting the staff through this process?

Developing Staff Capabilities

Developing Staff Capabilities - Actively helping staff build skills to transition into remote teaching

As the Head of Technology I recognised the need, and invested time developing staff capability and technical know-how to support staff to be able to teach remotely.

Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about the need to upskill in order to teach remotely?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting the challenges they have experienced and overcome?

Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset - Encourage and normalise “mistake-making”

At the very beginning of the pandemic I encouraged my staff often, to get comfortable making mistakes.  Being in a pandemic at the beginning of the pandemic, meant that we were not planning for this scenario, it wasn’t a situation that we were dealing with hypothetically, we were in it, and we were in it now.  Because of this, we didn’t have the luxury to have a hui about every minor detail.  We had to trial things, help each other, use it or lose, and move onto the next thing.  And repeat this constantly.

Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about mistake making and normalising this as positive teacher practice?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting my staff to feel comfortable with this process?

Whanaungatanga

Whanaungatanga - Providing ways to connect; Offsite (Tech dinners) Onsite (at TC) Online (Meets) and also via Instant Messaging (Viber Chat)

Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about connecting socially, onsite, offsite, online and through IM?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting my staff to feel comfortable with this process?

Well-being and Celebrating Success

Well-being - Promoting positive mental health during lockdown

Celebrating Success - Acknowledging and celebrating the Journey

A really important aspect of coping with ‘change in a crisis’ was the support for staff in the Technology Department, and staff wellbeing.  This was crucial; not only in terms of enabling staff to do their best with the changes that we were all faced with, but just connecting with the team as people, as parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, and reassuring the team that, irrespective of dealing with the unknown, as long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.
It was also extremely important for us to celebrate our successes in terms of how we were overcoming obstacles, showing resilience, engaging our learners, and retaining our sanity levels.

Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about the challenges they have experienced and overcome?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting the challenges they have experienced and overcome?

Adapting to Covid19

Adapting to Covid19 - Onsite and Online

The Techies have been experimenting with all forms of teaching in the past two years to enable our students to learn.  We’ve adapted our teaching environments, and run with the situation as best as possible to keep our learning spaces safe, engaging and functional; whether that be onsite, online or otherwise.

Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about the changes to our work environments?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting the changes and adaptations that my team is experiencing?

Hybrid Learning

Hybrid Learning - Online, Remote, Face-to-Face, Onsite

Hybrid Learning is the vehicle for approaching Teaching and Learning in our current climate, and it is a term that educators are becoming more and more familiar with as the pandemic unfolds.  For the Techies, we may not know all of the answers, but we’re in a really good space to move forward with Hybrid Learning to Elevate Student Engagement, and Accelerate Student Achievement.

Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about the changes to hybrid learning?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting the trials and tribulations that my team is experiencing with hybrid learning?

Nurturing Relationships

Nurturing Relationships - Valuing Staff, Impact on Self, Staff and Students


Reflective Questions for Myself at this stage of the pandemic
  1. How do my staff feel about their own teaching and learning practices?
  2. How are we sharing this information in our team?
  3. How am I acknowledging and supporting my team to share their teaching and learning practices?

Key takeouts from the Journey that I’ve shared

  1. Constantly and consistently being aware of my staff, how they are feeling and also anticipating what their emotional, their mental and their professional needs might be, at different points of the pandemic.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t get this right all of the time, but I try
  2. Providing my team with various platforms and means, to share in our team
  3. Self awareness as a leader for my part in every step of the journey, and me making and taking deliberate actions to support my team.  
  4. Something that I feel is essential for my leadership style, is that I am leading from the front, and walking side by side with my team, both at the same time.

Conclusion

There may be elements of our Well-being journey that are relatable and worth trying out.  
It doesn’t matter where we are in the pandemic, or where we are in our own journeys of supporting the well-being of our teams and our staff, the main thing is that we’re doing something 🦄

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On the 3rd March 2022 the Technology Department had the opportunity to participate in and share various aspects of our teaching and learning in the Technology - Manaiakalani Department Discussions, facilitated by Kerry Boyde-Preece.




As well as sharing an overview of the Technology Department, which you can follow by accessing our presentation Manaiakalani Technology Department Discussion | March 2022 bit.ly/3IDreqp, the Techies also shared in some of the developments within their own Specialist Subject Areas.


  
   
Carol spoke about the range of hybrid learning techniques that both herself and Meryl have been applying within their subject area of Food Technology, which has included practical lessons online (students in their home environments and teachers also in their home environments), a combination of onsite and online in two different venues (students in their Primary school environment, and teachers in their Secondary school environment), and also completely onsite at Tāmaki College.

  

Rob and Andy talking about the different pathways in Building and Construction, and in particular, Rob providing insight as the Tāmaki College Trades Academy, into the pathways and industry connections that the Trades Academy offers to our students.


  
   
Ruby spoke about 'Design Thinking' and how she is inquiring into cultural responsiveness as a way of enabling learners to celebrate themselves and share of their identity and who they are as a part of the learning process.

Marc discussed the literacy work that he had been working on relating to the Technology curriculum area, including examples of the literacy strategies, interventions and learning tasks that he had developed in this area.






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About Me

Kia ora! I am the Head of Technology at Tāmaki College and also teach Digital Technologies.


My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2021 will be my Year 12 NCEA Level 2 class. This group of learners were my target group from my 2020 Inquiry. I would like to inquire into whether Academic Writing exemplars specific to Digital Technologies, in conjunction with the 'Explanation Writing' classroom display resources for Digital Technologies, based on SOLO taxonomy, could accelerate achievement in literacy in my subject.


My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2020 were my Year 11 NCEA Level 1 class. I inquired into the process of using the LearnCoach online programs (content) and VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning (workflow) to accelerate student achievement for Tamaki College students undertaking courses in Digital Technologies NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3.


In 2019, my inquiry is to maximise pedagogical practices (relating to integrated education, and collaborative teaching and learning), to effectively shift student achievement, supported by digital platforms connected to visible teaching and learning.


My Inquiry in 2018, was to develop a VTaL Purpose-Built Innovative Tool, to enable all elements of the VTaL Framework to be accessible to teachers, in order to accelerate student achievement.


In 2017, my inquiry was based on raising student achievement and shifting teacher practice around effective pedagogical practices including Learn, Create and Share. This will be achieved through the development, implementation and monitoring of the Visible Teaching and Learning Framework.

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