Activity 2: Reflecting on changes in my future oriented teaching practice

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The theme I relate to most from Bolstad is Theme 4: “Changing the script”:Rethinking learners’ and teachers’ roles. This mirrored my vision for my juniors, hoping they establish a leader mentality with course content/tasks. Our school is very driven on student voice, but I am more of a traditionalist. Meshing my view with students to evolve into a symbiotic relationship is my goal. Pakuranga's learning habit “Connect, building relationships with others” really fits the overall theme of sharing power and changing that script. But keeping in mind not ceding all the power and responsibility.

Being a traditional teacher for the past 9 years, I was a little bit hesitant about altering my approach. But once I embraced the sense of “to change” I have become more relaxed and open. Seeing my students (10MAT) in action put me at ease. Padlet was new to me before this course and I have utilized this to build a stage of real time for student thoughts. Students having the anonymity with their responses really brought out a good feeling from all of us, highlighting misconceptions of what was known or not known with subject content.

The reaction has been overwhelming positive. The increase in student discussions improved, as well as, results and vocabulary understanding. This technology provided insight with student responses so that lessons were redirected to benefit them. I thought something negative would have come from using Padlet as a main discussion/learning tool but it has not. I am able to give a broad task, and the students then gain clarity to collaborate with each other through Padlet.

From the start of this course I really wanted my juniors to become collaborators and self regulators. With “Changing the Script”, this has linked perfectly with how my year 10’s are responding to the class discussions and group tasks. I am no longer lecturing about a PowerPoint followed by monotonous Mathematical exercises. We are discussing, learning terminology, and sharing ideas of how the topics relate to other subjects. The insight on student strengths and weaknesses has helped me move away from a design scaffolding technique. I have been able to progress to the interactive scaffolding due only from real time feedback and responses from Padlet.

Reflecting on how well things went, the new class structure and format is great. Students appeared to be enjoying it, so I collected some student voice. The results about the new class process and the use of Padlet was overwhelming positive. Over 93% would participate in a Padlet discussion and share their ideas and thoughts. 100% said yes Padlet helped with building confident and to collaborate with peers. So as of changing anything for the time being, that would be no. I have even started to implement the same pedagogy approach to my senior courses and the response has been equally positive.

For moving forward from here, I have seen first hand how embracing a change should not be scary. There is always uncertainty, but there can also be large positive benefits for changing the script with your teaching pedagogies. My students have gained a deeper understanding about themselves as well as the other 29 students around them. They have not only learnt Maths skills, but they have learnt their peers have similar misunderstandings, as well as, a common idea that they are able to build on to their own, and then share it. I have shared my success stories with not only my faculty, but other departments as a CoL leader hoping they too can see positives of utilizing a new approach. According to my survey these students want to see these ideas and devices used in other classes and even detailed on why and how it can be useful. As a CoL leader, I share ideas with my coachees to hopefully inspire change for them since this is what my students wanted me to do.

References:
Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012. “Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective”

Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Teaching in the 21st century video, Mindlab
https://app.themindlab.com/media/68050/view

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