Week 30 - PRACTICE- Trends Influencing NZ or Internationally
Week 30 Activity 6: Contemporary trends in New Zealand or internationally.
My challenge this week is to create a reflective entry where first I analyse a trend that is influencing or shaping NZ or international education that is relevant to my practice. Then, critique and evaluate my practice in the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives. My reflection will be based on Rofle's Reflective Model.
What?
Classrooms and learning spaces are changing so too then should the education within these classrooms. Educators need to be up-skilled in the use of the digital tools that are becoming more and more a part of everyday life. The issues we have with this is that teachers who are not willing to become up-skilled or are not willing to learn how to use digital tools will be left behind as this is the trend forward. It is an evolutionary requirement now for continued learning for the educators as well as the students. Gone are the days that you train to be a teacher and then you can repeat your lessons for your class year after year, now the teachers need to evolve their learning styles and techniques each year to fit the needs of the students for that space in time. This year coding is the big push, next year it could be something else. Educators need to be as open to learning new things as the students they are teaching. Also teachers now need to teach students how to find the answers themselves. They do not need to know all the answers now, they just need to teach students how to research their own information and take control of their own learning.
So What?
The introduction of the new Computer Science Curriculum this year is making a huge impact on how to incorporate this into our already busy classroom programme. I, myself, have a passion in this area and so have undertaken a number of professional Development courses to support my understanding of this curriculum and how to implement it into my programme. The only way this can move forward is for teachers to participate in their own Professional Development so they too can get a better understanding of how this can be incorporated into their programme.
Now What?
As far as trends go this is one that is being driven by the Ministry of Education and so needs to be addressed. How do we get every teacher onboard with this new curriculum? They need to understand it themselves before they can introduce it to the children. How can they lead it if they don't believe it? If the Ministry want this trend to take off then they need to provide opportunities for staff development, they need to fund the schools so the teachers can be up-skilled.
References:
New Media Consortium. (2017, August 29). NMC and CoSN Release the Horizon Report: 2017 K-12 Edition [Video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/m-rPhEltg9o
Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014 MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf
University of Canterbury. (2018, May 28). UC Connect: Computer Science in the school curriculum? What's the big idea?!. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/CZF0wBIyoiU?list=PL1D0DE06F56864BA4
My challenge this week is to create a reflective entry where first I analyse a trend that is influencing or shaping NZ or international education that is relevant to my practice. Then, critique and evaluate my practice in the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives. My reflection will be based on Rofle's Reflective Model.
What?
Classrooms and learning spaces are changing so too then should the education within these classrooms. Educators need to be up-skilled in the use of the digital tools that are becoming more and more a part of everyday life. The issues we have with this is that teachers who are not willing to become up-skilled or are not willing to learn how to use digital tools will be left behind as this is the trend forward. It is an evolutionary requirement now for continued learning for the educators as well as the students. Gone are the days that you train to be a teacher and then you can repeat your lessons for your class year after year, now the teachers need to evolve their learning styles and techniques each year to fit the needs of the students for that space in time. This year coding is the big push, next year it could be something else. Educators need to be as open to learning new things as the students they are teaching. Also teachers now need to teach students how to find the answers themselves. They do not need to know all the answers now, they just need to teach students how to research their own information and take control of their own learning.
So What?
The introduction of the new Computer Science Curriculum this year is making a huge impact on how to incorporate this into our already busy classroom programme. I, myself, have a passion in this area and so have undertaken a number of professional Development courses to support my understanding of this curriculum and how to implement it into my programme. The only way this can move forward is for teachers to participate in their own Professional Development so they too can get a better understanding of how this can be incorporated into their programme.
Now What?
As far as trends go this is one that is being driven by the Ministry of Education and so needs to be addressed. How do we get every teacher onboard with this new curriculum? They need to understand it themselves before they can introduce it to the children. How can they lead it if they don't believe it? If the Ministry want this trend to take off then they need to provide opportunities for staff development, they need to fund the schools so the teachers can be up-skilled.
References:
New Media Consortium. (2017, August 29). NMC and CoSN Release the Horizon Report: 2017 K-12 Edition [Video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/m-rPhEltg9o
Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014 MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf
University of Canterbury. (2018, May 28). UC Connect: Computer Science in the school curriculum? What's the big idea?!. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/CZF0wBIyoiU?list=PL1D0DE06F56864BA4
Cat - you might be interested in a course that was offered by Canterbury University and their Computer Science Department. It is called CS4PS (Computer Science 4 Primary Schools). It was offered last year 2017, but as yet I don't see any courses for this year. The people behind it Tim Bell, Tracy Henderson and Caitlin Duncan also played a big part in writing the updated Technology Curriculum. CS Unplugged https://csunplugged.org/en/ has some great ideas and resources to use and it is all free.
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