Week 21 - Inquiry Question

Week 21 - Inquiry Question

This weeks challenge is to develop my research question that I’ll be using for the base of my literature review. Last week I came up with my topic - “Agency and Engagement”. This article by Martyn Shuttleworth explains a literature review. I will use the suggested break-down question template adapted from Riel (2014) to turn my topic into a research question.

Step 1 - Topic to Breakdown Inquiry Question
My Inquiry Topic: Personalisation and Agency and Engagement.
Action Plan: If I personalise learning...
Measuring the Reaction:  how will this affect learner agency and engagement in digital fluencies...
Group of People:  for learners at RJHS

Step 2 - Breakdown Inquiry Question to an Initial Teacher Inquiry Question
How does personalised learning (how) affect agency and engagement in learning digital fluencies (affect) in a range of learners at RJHS (in)?

Step 3 - Change Initial teacher inquiry question into an initial literature review question
Now I need to broaden the scope of the question to remove the context/subject/target group etc so that it is easier to find relevant literature.

So my final ideas for my research question:
How does personalised learning impact learner agency and engagement?
OR What factors of personalised learning might impact learner agency and engagement?

I would appreciate any comments or feedback.

References

Riel, M. (2014, Feb 18).T6-Beginning the first cycle of action research.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwWPwyv60E4

Week 20 - Inquiry Topic

Teacher Inquiry Topic
This week I have been asked to choose a topic area that I am passionate about or interested in investigating in my teacher inquiry. I will also explore the principles of Kaupapa Māori and how they relate to educational research and my inquiry.

Choosing a Topic
I started by watching a video from Dr David Parsons in unpacking Research and Research Questions. He has identified 5 aspects of research:

• Aims - challenge thinking, apply, test assumptions, justify, discovery, investigate etc.
• Ways - research methods, approaches, reasoning, data etc.
• Sources - books, journals, experts, conferences, websites, blogs etc.
• Problems - personal agendas, funding, ethics, bias, peer review etc.
• Outcomes - increasing knowledge, finding answers, multiple views, infer new understandings and future work etc.

We should choose what fits best with the topics, interests and desired outcomes of the research. Research can also be defined as original investigation to contribute knowledge and understanding to a discipline, culture or social context. Research is important in feeding back into our own professional development.

Educational Research as defined by the American Educational Research Association - “Education research is the scientific field of study that examines education and the learning processes and the human attributes, interactions, organisations, and institutions that shape educational outcomes."

John Creswell (www.johncreswell.com) suggests an approach for scripting inquiry questions. Agile stories can also be used. Here is a basic structure that could be followed for qualitative inqiry questions:

1. How/what
2. story/meaning of/theory of process/culture sharing pattern/issue/case/ of
3. the central phenomenon for
4. the participants at
5. the research site.

This reminds me so much of developing a concept statement as part of brief development in the Technology development process curriculum which basically covers who, what, where, why and how for an issue or problem to solve as the starting point of technological innovation.

Here is an example that Dr David Parsons gave “What is the impact on engagement in learning of device addiction for students at my school?”

For quantitative inquiry questions that are a bit more focused the following structure is suggested by John Creswell:

1. Does (the name of the theory)
2. explain the relationship between (the independent variable - stable)
3. and (dependant variable - moves by management independent variable)
4. controlling for the effects of (control variable/s)

An example of this kind of inquiry question from Dr David Parsons - “Does social constructivism explain the relationship between student activity and learning outcomes, controlling for the effects of prior learning?”

Integrating the Principles of Kaupapa Māori Research into My Teacher Inquiry

Katoa Ltd has some great information about Kaupapa māori - http://www.katoa.net.nz/kaupapa-maori. Kaupapa Māori is literally ‘a Māori way’. Graham Smith describes Kaupapa Māori as:

• Related to ‘being Maori’,
• Connected to Maori philosophy and principles,
• Taking for granted the validity and legitimacy of Maori,
• Taking for granted the importance of Maori language and culture, and
• Concerned with the ‘struggle for autonomy over our own cultural well-being’.

Katoa also describe the potential of Kaupapa Māori being based upon six intervention elements or principles:

• Tino Rangatiratanga - The Principle of Self-determination
• Taonga Tuku Iho - The Principle of Cultural Aspiration
• Ako Māori - The Principle of Culturally Preferred Pedagogy
• Kia piki ake i ngā raruraru o te kainga - The Principle of Socio-Economic Mediation
• Whānau - The Principle of Extended Family Structure
• Kaupapa - The Principle of Collective Philosophy

Therefore, I should consider how these elements might be integrated into my Literature Review and Teacher Inquiry project plan.

There are also interesting points made by Macfarlane, H., Glynn, T., Grace, W., Penetito, W. & Bateman, S. (2008), about our NZ Curriculum Key Competencies not being consistent with Maori world views as they don’t really take into account these competencies in the bigger picture of how they are impacting on the natural world and survival. Also some other interesting points made about the early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki being more inline with a Māori perspective. There is probably much I can learn by including further investigation into these contexts.

My Inquiry Topic Selection
In my teaching and leadership practice I am still grappling with how to best support and inspire teachers and learners to drive their own learning and development in the area of digital fluencies as everyone is on such a different journey in this respect. So for my broad topic I would like to look into Learner Agency and Engagement.

I think this inquiry would link in well with the principle of Tino Rangatiratanga (Self-determination). This is all about having meaningful control over one’s own life and cultural well-being.

I look forward to diving into this in more detail over the next few weeks.

References
Creswell, J. W. (2009) Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Katoa Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.katoa.net.nz/kaupapa-maori

Week 19 / Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

Week 19 / Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

Reflection Objective: To critically reflect on how two potential and inspiring digital and/or collaborative learning related teacher inquiry topics would contribute to my communities of practice

Method: I will use the model from Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) to reflect in three stages.

Step 1 - Descriptive
I have identified two possible inquiry topics:

1. How can I more effectively support students to develop their learner agency and take action to engage in deep learning opportunities?
2. How can I more effectively lead, support and inspire staff with the implementation of digital fluencies and digital technologies curriculum. 

Wenger (1998) defines a community of practice (CoP) as a “group of individuals participating in communal activity, and experiencing/continuously creating their shared identity through engaging in and contributing to the practices of their communities”.

(Wenger, 2000, p.229) suggests that a CoP is defined by and comprises of the following three aspects:

Joint enterprise (domain): is a shared domain which is the “collectively developed understanding of what the community is about”.

• Mutual engagement (community): the members engage through interactions within the community, building mutual trust in the relationships.
• Shared repertoire (practice): is “the communal resources” that the community of practice produce.
• Another definition from (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002, p.4) suggests CoPs are “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis”. 

My CoP

• Domain - I currently lead the school wide digital fluencies initiative and am always looking for more effective ways to implement this and support staff. We also would like to more effectively develop learner agency and help students to access deeper levels of learning in this area.
• Community - consists of the Advisory Teachers who are implementing this initiative, as well as Hapu and IWI leaders, myself and the Senior Leadership Team. We currently engage and interact through leadership meetings, Hapu meetings, informal chats and drop-in sessions, and PD sessions. We could investigate how we can use these opportunities more effectively to develop a more active and effective CoP. 
• Practice - We can continue to develop and share relevant resources, our challenges and successes with each other via our learning management system, shared Google drive, emails and in our conversations and interactions. 

Step 2 - Comparative

Current barriers that prevent staff from being more active and engaged include time and work pressures, we are a relatively new and large school whose culture of learning is still developing.

Another barrier might also be the confidence levels of the teachers in this area, many might be reluctant to assertively engage with the future focused contexts and digital technologies as also found in research by Jamieson-Proctor, R. M., Burnett, P. C., Finger, G., & Watson, G. (2006). Another study as discussed by Hsu, H., Wang, S., & Runco, L. (2013). Even when confidence was high in use of digital technologies, meaningful technology integration and new literacies practices were scarcely observed in their classroom practices.

Staff members are keen to pursue more student driven, personalised approaches that we can explore next term to try to mitigate the confidence and engagement levels of staff, as the staff can learn alongside the students who are taking more of the lead.

Step 3 - Critical Reflection

To continue to grow my CoP I must seek ways to more actively engage and explore the domain and use the CoP to work through the barriers and challenges together to improve our practices as a collective. As Bruce Knox suggests the success depends on the energy of the community that the community generates.

References
Hsu, H., Wang, S., & Runco, L. (2013). Middle School Science Teachers' Confidence and Pedagogical Practice of New Literacies. Journal Of Science Education & Technology, 22(3), 314-324.

Knox, B (2009) - Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making the Grow. Retrieved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk.

Jamieson-Proctor, R. M., Burnett, P. C., Finger, G., & Watson, G. (2006). ICT integration and teachers’ confidence in using ICT for teaching and learning in Queensland state schools. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(4).

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.

Week 18 - Future Oriented Learning and Teaching

Week 18 - Future Oriented Learning and Teaching

This week we have been set the challenge to reflect on changes in our future oriented teaching practice. Last week’s reflection model was about multiple perspectives. This week I will be using the Gibb's Cycle of Reflection from the reading Reflecting on Reflective Practice (Finlay, 2008, p. 8)



1 - Description
We have been asked to read the Executive Summary of “Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective” (Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012). This includes many future focused themes that I am familiar with as our new school was founded on many of these findings. One of the themes that fits well with the changes to my practice I have been trying to implement would be ‘Personalising Learning’.

2 & 3 - Feelings and Evaluation
I initially was very excited about helping students to develop more in-depth reflections about themselves as learners during our induction weeks with loads of outdoor education opportunities. However, I was disappointed to find that the new approaches had very limited success. Despite providing engaging digital tools (such as cameras, drones, Google Tour etc), setting up interdependent groups, discussing meta-cognitive prompts and scaffolding the activities, when undertaking learning, students still seemed to focus on the tasks and recounting what and when they did things rather than how and what they learnt.

4 - Analysis
I conducted more research around why this might have happened and found that using personalised goals and constantly self monitoring the progress towards the goal might have proved to enhance this process as discussed by Yıldız-Feyzioğlu, E., Akpınar, E., & Tatar, N. (2013).Working with learners to truly understanding why reflection is important would have probably helped to set this up to be more successful. I also now realise that when implementing servant leadership it is important to acknowledge both sides of a humble service-oriented side and an action-driven side, both co-existing and complementing each other as discussed by Sousa, M., & Dierendonck, D. (2017). In the future personalising this goal setting rather than simply providing prompts, tools and helping learners with the activities without some way for the learners to monitor and reflect on how well they are progressing was not ideal.

5 - Conclusion
It might seem quite obvious looking back on what I could have done differently to help our learners but I guess sometimes we put so much energy into what we are planning to do much like the learners and we must put the time into working out how the learners might have more agency to take action and personalise the learning themselves to come up with their own goals and reflective practices. As a learner if I am clear from the beginning about what I am hoping to achieve and how I might get there and routinely check this along the way I am probably more likely to take appropriate action to drive my own learning in the right direction.

6 - Action Plan
When implementing changes and supporting learners and followers I now realise I should try to help and support people in setting their own learning goals and progress indicators so that they are more engaged, and support them to monitor their own practice and learning so they can make changes as needed to gain a better understanding of themselves as learners and reflect more deeply. I now also realise aspects of this process I have just completed would also be a great to share with our learners.

References
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. Practice-based Professional Learning Centre, Open University. 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

Sousa, M., & Dierendonck, D. (2017). Servant Leadership and the Effect of the Interaction Between Humility, Action, and Hierarchical Power on Follower Engagement. Journal Of Business Ethics, 141(1), 13-25.

Yıldız-Feyzioğlu, E., Akpınar, E., & Tatar, N. (2013). Monitoring students’ goal setting and metacognitive knowledge in technology-enhanced learning with metacognitive prompts. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 616–625.

Week 17 - My Reflective Practice

I have always been quite a reflective person often analysing (and probably often over-thinking) and asking questions to gain a view from many perspectives which I have often found useful. However, using a formal model is probably a great idea at this point as I have been finding it difficult to teach this to our learners and so looking at this from a more structured point of view might be quite helpful in sharing strategies with students and other colleagues.

Today I will use the suggested reflective model from Jay and Johnson (2002) to critically evaluate my current reflective practice as shown below:


Step 1 - Descriptive Stage
At the start of this course I have been writing weekly blogs to reflect on my learning and enjoy reading and discussing research, problems, challenges and improvements. Over the past few years I also started using Twitter to learn from other educators and gather interesting professional articles and readings. I think over the past few years I have become more open to new ways of thinking and teaching and more reflective than ever thanks to being part of a newly opened school. I am constantly working through many professional challenges in my leadership and teaching practices and am continuing to try to make sense of these challenges through reflection which at times can be quite confronting. I think this quote from Ghaye (2000) sums up fairly well the day in the life of a teacher “Maybe reflective practices offer us a way of trying to make sense of the uncertainty in our workplaces and the courage to work competently and ethically at the edge of order and chaos…”

Step 2 - Comparative Stage
In discussions with other colleagues and learners etc I would say they would agree that I am usually quite open to discussions about what is working or not and that teaching and learning is a complex issue. I am currently finding that this course a great way to reflect on my practice and have already learnt so much from the process of completing the assignments and undertaking research and making changes to my teaching and leadership practice. Some new ideas and perspectives I have been able to apply straight away and others are more long term and I am taking steps forward in a more future focused long term view of changes to my practice. I have also realised that I am sometimes much more comfortable gaining feedback from students than from my colleagues at times. I am also very aware of my blog being public and so maybe I am reluctant to truly share some of my major struggles and concerns given the public nature of a blog so I would also like to explore a more private platform like a reflective journal that I could share with a trusted mentor or critical friend to voice more private concerns, doubts, struggles, successful and unsuccessful learning experiences as Yang (2009) suggests sharing these with others who have shared similar situations. I could also be more brave in sharing these experiences with a wider audience through my blog and via Twitter. I should walk the walk more as I am helping students to become creators and constructor of knowledge vs being a consumer, I should do this more often in terms of my professional learning. I often worry and wonder if I am like many people who are simply confirming their own biases rather than truly exploring other perspectives on the truth and realities of professional practice and coming to new understandings given our unique situation.

Stage 3 - Critical Reflection
I think this 3 stage process has been useful to reflect broadly on my current practices and what it might take for my reflection to reach the next level. I think using this process regularly might help me in terms of the varied roles I have in my current job. I would like to go through this process with my e-elearning hat and IWI leader hat on and see what new insights might be uncovered. I also wonder what this model might look like for our students to use to reflect on their learning? Can this be slightly modified for student use or is there already a student version of this? I wonder if there is an opportunity to do this in the upcoming weeks? I would appreciate any comments on these ideas. Thanks for reading this!

Conclusion

In conclusion, I am excited to start the new journey of the second half of this course and have already learnt so much about the reflection process. I hope I am able to transfer some of these ideas to help our learners and colleagues become more thoughtful and active in their reflections to become even more successful learners and leaders.


References

Ghaye, T. (2000) Into the reflective mode: bridging the stagnant moat. Reflective Practice, 1(1) 5-9.

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002). Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Yang, S., H. (2009). Using blogs to enhance critical reflection and community of practice. Educational Technology & Society, 12(2), 11-21.

Education - Sensors and Sensibility

Week 16 - Sensors and Sensibility

Despite not being able to attend the whole class session this week, I was able to participate in a couple of the activities as follows:

Mobile Sensor Inquiry - in a small team we used http://www.nquire-it.org/ and installed their app then joined a mission to record noise levels and compare with other peoples samples using our mobile phones. This was an interesting process and it was great for gathering baseline data to compare with other samples. A great repository of information that could potentially be used in many different ways in a class.

We moved on to the Action Bound Mission. We used https://en.actionbound.com/ on our phones to complete a mission our facilitator had setup. This particular mission was like a scavenger hunt that involved particular selfies, pictures, video and audio. We were encouraged to collaborate and come up with creative outcomes.

From these workshops I could see that you could use your mobile devices in a number of ways. Our mobile phones have useful features like GPS, camera, and sound sensors that we probably don’t always make the most use of and would provide other means of engagement with our learners.

Education - Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning, Inquiry learning, Robotics and AI

Week 15

Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning

Inquiry Learning, Robotics and AI

This class started by pondering about which jobs might still exist in 20 years time, our group came up with jobs and industries such as Pro gamer, IT Infrastructure, AI and Singers. We then searched for them in this website to see if our hunches were correct.

Apparently the word robot originally came from Czech ‘robota’ which translated means ‘forced labour’ or ‘slavery’. We discussed many different definitions, and I teach aspects of robotics to our students at school. Our Lego Robots consist of motors for movement and sensors to react to the environment. Sensors include sound, light, colour ultra-sonic etc. It is always fun talking about how robots can be used to automate what humans can do and how they can sometimes even do a better job. For example the ultrasonic sensors are a sense we humans don’t have, bats and dolphins use echolocation for navigation which is what these sensors are replicating. I also love talking about our cars like my Lexus which has this kind of sensor to help me park and plays a huge part in the safety of using the cruise control features. Through the use of ultrasonic/sonar sensors our cars know how close they are to other objects.

We also breifly looked at Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

There are many ethical dilemmas that will be programmed into AI systems and robotics. We must educate our future developers to understand the complexities of the ethical dilemmas that are presented because of our technological capabilities. Sometimes we must ask ourselves just because we do something - should we do it? What is the impact of our technological advances to all stakeholders? Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have also backed some principles to ensure humanity benefits from technological advances.

We then moved on to looking at an Inquiry Based Learning Video - We have experienced this growing up and trying to make sense of the world. We have asked questions like how do cars move? It is our natural urge to inquire, and think to make meaning. IB learning starts with a question. Traditionally done as Sage on a Stage with teacher knowing correct answer. Now days inquiry is more dynamic and involves student agency as they drive their own learning through constructivism, asking questions and gathering new knowledge and reflect.

Here are some ideas from Harpaz (2005) on six characteristics of 'fertile' questions that might be used in an inquiry:

• Open - there are several different or competing answers
• Undermining - makes the learner question their basic assumptions
• Rich - cannot be answered without careful and lengthy research, often able to be broken into subsidiary questions
• Connected - relevant to the learners
• Charged - has an ethical dimension
• Practical - is able to be researched given the available resources

We also had a brief look at the NZ Ministry Teaching as Inquiry Model and the updated Spiral of Inquiry Model also often used with more focus on agency and collaboration.

One of the last activities was to have a go with some different kinds of robotics kits. As my partner and I were very unfamiliar with the robotic arm we had a go with this. I had no real idea about how to work the electronics and programme the Arduino in the time frame given would have had to look up most of it. So my partner got it going and after the coding was done I got the gist of it. A great day all round.

References
Harpaz, N. (2005). Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 20(2), 136-157. Retrieved from http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/en_learning/teaching-learning.pdf