Possible Inquiry Questions

Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

For this week's blog I am going to look at indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice. I will be using Rolfe’s model of reflection to help me and also Milnes (2017) action continuum to evaluate where I am and need to do. What is my understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness? Prior to moving to New Zealand I had done a fair bit of research on Maori and Pasifika cultures and practices and arrived feeling semi confident in my knowledge. Well that confidence soon left me, I was confused and mesmerized at the same time by the language and customs. I loved the way that Māori words where used in everyday language by the majority of people I met. The bilingual road signs reminded me of holidays to Wales where they had both English and Welsh on them, and similar to those holidays, I would be several kilometres down the road before I had mastered how to say it correctly. So I decided that I wanted to be able to pronounce people and place ...

Trends Influencing NZ or Internationally

For this weeks blog I will be discussing contemporary trends in New Zealand or internationally and for it I will be using Rolfe et al.’s (2001) reflective model. ‘Looking at trends informs our ideas about what might happen as we better understand what is already changing in education’s wider environment’ OECD. (2016) (p. 16) What Daggett (2014) identified five potentially disruptive emerging trends, of these I am focusing on the impact of digital learning, as I feel that that one is the most relevant to my practice. This trend, more than the others, captures my attention because since starting my Mind Lab journey I have become more aware of the emergence of new technologies within education and how they can be incorporated into my pedagogy. Also the fact that my school is slowly becoming a BYOD school. Personally, I feel that BYOD should be all or nothing rather than being brought in slowly but that could be the topic of a blog on its own. So What It is easy to...

Future-oriented Learning and Teaching

For this blog I am looking at “Changing the Script”: Rethinking learners’ and teachers’ roles and how the last 17 weeks of Mind Lab and researching have had an impact on my practice. When I first started on this journey I had a very definitive description of teaching, something that had been ingrained in my mind-set over the last eleven years of teaching and that was that I was the font on all knowledge within my subject. I felt that I had to dictate how the lessons went, exactly what was to be covered and how it would be addressed, with very little deviation from that planned route. Not surprisingly, when I rated myself against the 21 st century learning skills rubric, I did not come out favourably. The whole point of signing up to Mind Lab was to improve my practice so I was happy, yet extremely nervous, to try out anything. My first change within my pedagogy was to trial out some collaboration within senior classes, I wanted to see if students could support and educate their pe...

Ians Mind Lab 2018

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