Changes in Practice Week 32

Activity 8

                                      Week 32 - PRACTICE - Changes in Practice

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Mindlab journey. I feel we are in an exciting time in education as we have tools and information at our fingertips to promote and encourage innovation.

I need to revisit the course material for the first sixteen weeks as I found the delivery of this part of the course less effective than the last sixteen weeks due to the commitment of the weekly four-hour class time. After a ten-hour work day, the frontal lobe of my brain was not working at full capacity. I found that delivery online, which was self-directed and self-paced was more productive. I found I could focus better and make connections with my practice and the course work. Thus I feel more empowered by my engagement with the last two papers, research and community informed practice and applied practice in context. I do however need a deeper knowledge of the content of the first two papers.

It is comforting and enlightening to read the chaos that is necessary to be an early adopter of disruptive innovation. As part of my commitment to ongoing professional learning and development in my personal practice (Criteria 4, PTC), I will be revisiting the readings on leadership of transformational change as it is challenging to lead others that are reluctant to change their practice and are afraid of failure. Strong leadership is needed to promote and facilitate interdisciplinary pedagogy both with teachers and students. From engaging with my community of practice of other ILE’s I have found that many teaching teams are finding challenges with integration confusion and curriculum preparation time-consuming (Jones, 2009). Here is an opportunity for me as leader of my team to put theory and research into practice, become more of a pedagogical leader and promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment (Criteria 7, PTC) by using innovation to resolve some of the issues with collaborative teaching and learning. Working in education at the moment is like a having a Wicked Problem (Horn, & Weber, (2007).  There is no easy solution. There is not enough money, all children do not come to school ready to learn, class ratios are too high, the curriculum is overcrowded, we are too focused on assessment, we do not have enough resources. Teachers have an unsustainable workload.  Wicked problems are never solved but can be resolved. Through the course we have looked at new ways of collective decision making to solve these types of unsolvable problems, I will be revisiting these readings and trying out methods suggested with my team, starting with a mess map.

I am passionate about maths education and believe the interdisciplinary potential for maths with other curriculum areas to offer real problem solving opportunities in the primary class is under-utilized. It is time for Maths pedagogy to change. Too many teachers are still reliant on the numeracy project and the narrow focus it breeds. I can think of many innovative approaches to teaching maths, and there are many approaches that I am not aware of yet. To demonstrate a commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal practice (Criteria 4, PTC) I have enrolled at Massey University next term to study current issues in Mathematics. Depending on how useful I find this paper I may enrol in their Masters in Mathematics Education. I will be needing all the knowledge I have learnt from the leadership in digital and collaborative learning paper from Mindlab to be part of the inevitable change that will occur with Maths education in the near future.

References

Horn, R. E., & Weber, R. P. (2007). New tools for resolving wicked problems: Mess mapping and resolution mapping processes. Watertown, MA: Strategy Kinetics LLC.

Jones, Casey (2009) "Interdisciplinary Approach - Advantages, Disadvantages, and the Future Benefits of Interdisciplinary Studies,"ESSAI: Vol. 7, Article 26.Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol7/iss1/26

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/