Week 30 - Contemporary Trends in New Zealand or Internationally.

Step 1 (What): Identify one trend that is most relevant to your practice. 

The current trend that is most relevant to my practice is the impact on digital learning.  Whether we like it or not as educators when our students walk into our classrooms we are competing with Youtube, Netflix, Playstation, Fortnight and multiple other high engaging digital platforms.   If we do not compete with these in the classroom the our students will become disengaged. 

Embracing digital technologies and the affordances of digital technologies in the classroom has significant positive impacts to the students learning from, improving student agency, personalised learning, visible teaching and learning, realtime feedforward and feedback and the ability to create more authentic context with an authentic world wide audience.

I have been on a journey for the past 4 years developing a 1:1 digital curriculum.  This topic is most definitely relevant to my practice.

Step 2 (So What): Analyze how the identified trend impacts global and New Zealand education.

‘The workplace has changed in fundamental ways.

Unfortunately, our education system is not preparing

students for this changing work environment.’ Daggett, B. (2014)

As educators we need to ask ourselves this question.  Is our education system preparing our students for the future?  The students in our classrooms are digital natives.  They have access to multiple forms of digital technologies and can access information and knowledge at their fingertips.   So if we are still insisting on delivering a knowledge based curriculum where we see our role as educators as pouring knowledge into vessels and assessing on what knowledge they have retained , we are doing a disservice to them.   We are not preparing them for the future.

In my context the affordances of digital technologies has eliminated some of the socio economic barriers that children in low decile schools face.  With access to a digital device they now have global access and the ability to experience learning in different context.  It caters to different learning styles and promotes collaboration.

Digital learning has had the most significant influence on my teaching and learning philosophy.  My focus has moved from teaching knowledge full of keep busy tasks to learning how to learn, creating and sharing. 

Step 3 (Now What): Critique and evaluate practice in the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives.

How has this trend been addressed by local, national or global educational organisations?
Digital learning continues to grow exponentially in education globally, nationally and locally. 
In my context  my school is part of the Manaiakalani outreach programme.  We are working collaboratively with 6 other schools under the Uru Mānuka cluster.  The entire local community is benefiting from the use of digital learning with significant gains in student achievement across the cluster in writing, greater than the national average.

Nationally the Manaiakalani is expanding significantly throughout New Zealand which is allowing more students to have access to digital technologies and a framework of learning the accelerate student achievement.

Globally game based learning, apps and other affordances of digital technologies are being developed refined and improved which have a significant impact of how students learn.

What limitations/barriers/opportunities might impact the adoption of this trend for other educators across NZ?

The limitations for digital technologies is the cost of them and also the willingness of the educator to upskill or adapt their pedagogy.
There are limitless opportunities for educators to collaborate, network be exposed to best practice within New Zealand or globally.

What changes might need to be adopted in your context?

To continue to research best practice pedagogy and not rely on status quo.  There is always room for growth.  As a leader it’s also important to ensure teachers feel supported in this area and understand why we are doing what we are doing.
How might the curriculum be delivered to equip the students with adequate competencies to cope with or adapt to the trend?
We have developed a graduate profile which focuses on the key competencies.   The front half of the curriculum is more important to us than the back half. 

Reference

Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014 MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf