Reflections for The Mindlab

This is the seventh (and penultimate!) in a series of posts in which I will attempt to demonstrate critical reflection with respect to different aspects of life as a teacher.  This post aims to explore how I might leverage my current and potential interdisciplinary professional connections to provide interdisciplinary learning opportunities for my students. I made this (link to full-size original): The above map shows the interdisciplanary professional contacts with whom I could potentially engage for an interdisciplinary purpose.  I can't say that I'm currently engaging any of these contacts for that purpose, although I regularly engage with many on professional and/or social levels! I am really interested in the potential for e-learning to facilitate interdisciplinary learning, and being in a high school I have fantastic contacts in the form of teachers in other departments, teaching the same BYOD class.  I'd love to be engaging with contacts in other schools an...

This is the sixth in a series of posts in which I will attempt to demonstrate critical reflection with respect to different aspects of life as a teacher.  This post aims to explore my use of social media for professional development. Thankfully, I explored the ethics of using Facebook for learning in last week's post , so I feel I can leave out that aspect of the discussion.  In short, as long as the teacher is careful to frame and facilitate, it's okay to use social media for education, and it can be a very effective way to organise and engage students. Above are screenshots of some online social networks that I use professionally.  These are Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yammer (from top to bottom).  Listing like this prompts me to feel that the range and extent of my involvement is a bit excessive, but I swear I use each network quite differently and they all serve quite different purposes! Google+ I use Google+ as a requirement for a ...

This is the fifth in a series of posts in which I will attempt to demonstrate critical reflection with respect to different aspects of life as a teacher.  This post aims to explore ethics related to digital/online access and activity within the context of fusing acebook groups for the purpose of organising school sports teams. Facebook groups are widely used at my school to communicate with students and parents, as we often struggle through either traditional methods (e.g. daily notices), or more 21st century methods (e.g. email), and the majority of our students are active on Facebook. Hall (2001, p.5) proposes a guide for ethical decision-making which I will utilise, alongside the Education Council's Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers (2017).  There are many questions to be asked!  But for the purpose of the exercise I will dig into issues of privacy . What is the problem? Opening up an online, public, forum challenges the teachers' ability to protect ...

This is the fourth in a series of posts in which I will attempt to demonstrate critical reflection with respect to different aspects of life as a teacher.  This post aims to explore my understanding and practice of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness relative to learning activities and assessment. Firstly, I acknowledge that the concepts of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness are complex and nuanced, and that I have a long journey ahead in appreciating them with significant fullness.  As a straight, cis-gender, NZ European male, I have no doubt that I am blind to many privileges I benefit from, and many deficits of access and opportunity that I haven't had to overcome. I work with Gay's (2001, p.106) broad-but-comprehensive definition of culturally responsive pedagogy : "using the cultural characteristics, experiences and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching”. My reading and reflecting resonated strongly with an experience last...

This is the third in a series of posts in which I will attempt to demonstrate critical reflection with respect to different aspects of life as a teacher.  This post aims to analyse the issue of unresponsive curricula as a barrier to learning,  then to critique and evaluate practice in the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives. If the reports by the US National Intelligence Council (2012) and KPMG (2014) are to be believed, poverty is set to decline as globalisation sets in and we, as a global community, advance .  While this may be the case globally, I have my doubts about whether we will experience the same shift here in New Zealand.  My skeptical tone stems from our currently increasing inequality; the widening gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' (Rashbrooke, 2013).  I choose this trend to analyse as a flow-on from last week's post , wherein I identified issues affecting my practice arising from s...

This is the second in a series of posts in which I will attempt to demonstrate critical reflection with respect to different aspects of life as a teacher.  This post aims to critically analyse issues of socioeconomic factors, school culture and professional environments in relation to my practice.  I will avoid discussing the decile system, only using it as basis for inference regarding the living situations of students at my school. My school is rated as decile 3.  At the time of writing I didn't have access to data regarding the different factors in decile ranking.  However, I can infer from this ranking and the insight I have that a significant number of our students: live in households with income in the lowest 20% nationally have parents in occupations at skill levels 4 or 5 live in households with an equivalised crowding index greater than one have parents with no tertiary or school qualifications have parents who received some form of benefit (Mini...