Practice 1: Activity 5 - Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

The NZ Code of ethics for registered teachers makes clear in its opening statement that the 'primary professional obligation of certificated teachers is to those they teach'. Moreover, under that heading the first ethic is to: 'develop and maintain professional relationships with learners based upon the best interests of those learners.' Hall (2001) also points out that 'Teaching in schools has long been considered a moral activity (Wilson, 1967; Tom, 1984; Goodlad, Soder and Sirotnik, 1990) largely because it is recognized that how teachers fulfil their public duties influences the lives of vulnerable young people.'

As teachers we have a duty of care and responsibility to our students. Our relationships with them, must have their best interests at heart, must not endanger them physically, mentally or emotionally. We must also keep ourselves safe from any possibility that our actions in relation to our students might be seen in a less-than-professional light. Given that teaching is a relationship-centred profession we sometimes walk a tight rope between maintaining professional distance and building good teacher-student relationships. The ubiquitous use of digital communications and social media now make that tight rope even narrower.

The rise of social media, in particular, Facebook, has the potential to raise some ethical issues. Over the seven years that I have been teaching, I have often had senior students say 'Miss, we should be Facebook friends!', or 'You should follow me on Snapchat / Instagram.' My response is always 'Absolutely not!' Social media is a place to engage with friends; students are not friends. Students should not be a part of your personal life and should not be privy to your personal communications with adult friends. Depending on what you post, there is the possibility that students will see you behaving in an unprofessional manner. Even if you don't behave that way, being friends with your students on social media takes away that professional distance that must be maintained between teacher and student.

I remember an incident when I was in my first year of teaching, which was also the first year that I had a Facebook page. A teacher friend of mine, H, had a friend, K, at another school. K's daughter, M, though, attended our school and was in my class. I was Facebook friends with H, and H was Facebook friends. M managed to access my page by going through her mum's page, to H's page and then to mine. Now, I don't post anything that my own mum couldn't see, but I was still horrified that a student had managed to access my personal information that way. I immediately tightened my privacy settings and have kept them that way ever since.

Texting is another potential minefield. I give my cell phone number to students when we go on school trips or when we are arranging to meet at school for tutorial sessions or rehearsals and the like. There is a real danger here that students could try to text me as if I was one of their mates, and try to engage in social chitchat. If I were to respond to those types of messages I could put myself in a compromising situation, where my texts could be seen as unprofessional, crossing a line between teacher and student. Again, a student did try that in my first year of teaching. I made the mistake of responding a couple of times, but realised that was giving the wrong impression. I stopped responding and eventually the student stopped messaging me. In recent years, students with my number have used it only to contact me with regard to assessment work - when is it due, am I in my classroom now, they'll be late to the tutorial, that sort of thing.

I think one of the first things we should ask ourselves when communicating with our students is, what would we, as parents, think if a teacher communicated with our child in this way? Would our communications stand up to our own test for ethical behaviour? 

References:

Connecticut’s Teacher Education and Mentoring Program.(2012) Ethical and Professional Dilemmas for Educator: Facilitator’s Guide. Retrieved from http://www.ctteam.org/df/resources/Module5_Manual.pdf

Education Council. (n.d). The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-et...

Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers

Practice 1: Activity 4 - Indigenous knowledge & cultural responsiveness in my practice

Gay (2010) defines culturally responsive pedagogy as 'teaching to and through students' personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities, and their prior accomplishments, and notes that is premised on 'close interactions among ethnic identity, cultural background, and student achievement.' (from Savage, et al). 

The educators in the Teaching Tolerance video (define culture as being the 'world views, beliefs, values, opinions, assumptions and filters that help us make sense of ordinary things.' They discuss the teacher's role as the 'cultural bridge', the person who must take the students' everyday lived experiences and help them make connections through their individual cultural lenses to the learning in the classroom.

Bishop (Edtalks, 2012) talks about culturally responsive pedagogy as creating a context where Maori can bring their own cultural understandings to the classrooms, where their values, beliefs and assumptions and the way they make sense of the world, is legitimate and valued. Overall, he states that culturally responsive pedagogy is relationship-centred education.

We all bring our selves to the classroom and that means our backgrounds, our values, our beliefs, our assumptions, our previous and current experiences, our understandings of how the world works. As teachers, we need to ensure that we accept, acknowledge, respect and value the varied backgrounds, beliefs, and understandings of our students. As Berryman states, if we aim to be agentic teachers, then we need to create a learning environment where our students can bring themselves - the whole of themselves and their cultural beliefs and values - to the learning conversation.

1. School Vision, Mission, Charter & Values
My school is predominantly Maori and is located in a town that acknowledges and owes much to the rich, cultural inheritance of its local iwi. Our school charter acknowledges the importance of culturally responsiveness pedagogy through the inclusion of the statement that 'where culture counts, learners bring who they are to the learning.' The school is very clear that one of our foci is 'Maori succeeding as Maori.' 

As teachers, we are encouraged to build relationships with our students, to get to know them and their whanau, to understand who they are, where they come from, and what values, beliefs, knowledge and experiences they bring with them. There is a huge emphasis on this in the time we spend with our whanau groups (aka form classes, tutor groups). Whanau time is not just about reading out notices and taking a break between classes, it is about getting to know each other, taking photos of whanau activities and displaying them on the wall, acknowledging birthdays and successes, tracking academic progress and attendance, and discussing any issues that students might have that affect their learning. Moreover, we keep the same whanau every year, so we see the girls grow from year to year and build stronger relationships with them.

 Cultural identity is also embedded in our school values. There are four values and they are built around the qualities of a Maori ancestress - Te Ao Kapurangi - a strong woman who exhibited personal qualities that we encourage our girls to aspire to. These Te Ao values are T - the willingness to learn; E - engaging to achieve; A - always shows respect; and O - offers to serve.  Under the acronym, Te Ao, they also encompass the Maori view of the world, acknowledging the importance of Maori culture in our school.

2. School-wide activities
Another way Maori culture is celebrated and promoted at our school is through a variety of school-wide activities. 
We begin each school year with a school pohiri for all our new students and staff. And all visitors throughout the year are welcomed with a pohiri.
Te Reo is strong at the school and its use by teachers and students is actively promoted. Often, the students know more than us, but they are always pleased when teachers use Te Reo. I'm not fluent, but I always use a little in the classroom everyday.
Our school waiata is in Maori and we sing it at all assemblies and award ceremonies and any other school occasion where singing is appropriate. It's a joyful sounding waiata and fun to sing.
Kapa haka is huge at our school, and we are currently the national secondary school champs. Kapa haka is always a part of our House chants, and our junior school have an annual competition  in it at the end of the year.
As a school we actively promote Maori culture through Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori and through Matariki celebrations. As a staff, we practise our pepeha and learn a kupu hou every week. Our Year 9s spend a week on noho marae in Term One of every year and this year, our staff have gone on noho too, learning more about our culture and our city's Maori history.

References

Bishop, Russell. Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994

Savage, C., Hindle, R., Meyer, L., Hynds, A., Penetito, W., & Sleeter, C. Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigeneous student experiences across the curriculum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. Vol 39, No. 3, August 2011, 183-198. 

Teaching Tolerance.( 2010, Jun 17).Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8

Create a blog post where you first share your critical understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness. Then, critically evaluate how your practice or your school’s practice has been informed by indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy in two of the following areas (ideally you would be able to evaluate one that is done well, and another that would benefit from improvement):

• vision, mission, and core values
• policies,
• goals,
• communication methods,
• decision-making,
• planning and assessment,
• learning activities,
• school-wide activities,

• resources

Practice 1: Activity 3 - wider professional context

Activity 3: Contemporary issue or trend in New Zealand or internationally

The 2016 K-12 NMC Horizon Report identifies 'students as creators' as a key trend driving technology adoption over the next two years. The report points to the "growing accessibility of mobile technologies" such as Snapchat and Instagram as one of the drivers of this trend. My recent adventures in MIndlabbing and my own changes in practice with regards to the use of digital technologies made this trend of immediate interest. I have added the use of those very apps to my learning units in the hopes of shifting my students to be creators and not just passive consumers of content knowledge. It has been a challenge, for, despite their frequent use of these apps for personal communication, my students have been reluctant to use them to show their understanding of classroom learning.

That reluctance is one of the reasons that I am so keen to continue to push the use of digital technologies to drive this trend in my classroom. Somehow, it seems to me, that we have bred a generation of students who only want to regurgitate learned content and do not want, or do not know how, to do anything with that learned content. I don't think they necessarily enter high school that way; generally Year 9s are still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to learn, eager to make stuff, and eager to please. Somewhere between Year 9 and Year 12, though, they lose that enthusiasm for learning and creating. Perhaps it is our tendency to over-assess at high school; perhaps, as Ken Robinson discusses, entering high school is like entering a factory, where we expect the students to churn out the one right answer to each problem, so that they lose that creative spark they arrived with?

Reigniting, or maintaining that spark by shifting students to be creators rather than just consumers could be very empowering, particularly for those who don't do well on written, standardised tests. Giving students the opportunity to create something new out of what they have learned, in a form of their choosing, allows them to take control of their learning and to be more deeply engaged in it. Critical thinking and problem-solving skills would also be enhanced as students figure out ways to set and meet goals and ways to create something that shows their understanding. 

To achieve this increased creativity and critical thinking, teachers will have to think carefully about the design of learning units. The NMC Report discusses the examples of schools that encourage student-led curriculum design and lesson-planning and have found these tools to be useful in promoting creativity in the classroom, greater engagement, and deeper understanding of complex topics. Kay Oddone (Scootle Lounge) also suggests that an inquiry learning approach or a design thinking approach to curricula planning would achieve the same effect because they both put the learner at the centre, making them active participants in the learning process. Design thinking in particular "emphasises the role of the student as an active problem finder: investigating, trialling, and creating possible solutions." (Oddone).

The NMC Report also points out the changes that this trend would lead to in terms of assessment. Mastery of an area of learning would be shown more through a creative process than through a simple test that makes students restate recalled facts. The reports notes that with the increasing use of technology in schools, and with teachers becoming more comfortable and more adept at using that technology, we are moving towards more learning and assessment through creative means. 

Shifting students to become creators doesn't only involve digital technology though. And, certainly it is still the case at many schools that not all students have equal access to digital tools. But teachers could set up makerspaces to allow students to let their imaginations run free, using trial and error to investigate and redesign and think up new ways to approach all sorts of topics.

The ability to think creatively, to be adaptable, to come up with new ways of doing things is becoming increasingly important in our constantly-evolving world. Young people today will have to be flexible and fluid in their thinking and actions to keep up with changes in technology and society. It is our responsibility as teachers to ensure that we nurture our children's innate creativity and divergent thinking (Ken Robinson) rather than stifling it through standardised testing and a factory-like approach to schooling. Employers look for problem-solvers, critical thinkers and evaluators, not conveyor-belt jockeys.

Another important issue that the report points out too, is the need to understand copyright and fair use. With students creating their own products and probably sharing it with the world in general, they and schools will need to have greater awareness of the issues around ownership and use of their own and others' products.

References
Adams Becker, S., Freeman, A., Giesinger Hall, C., Cummins, M.,and Yuhnke, B. (2016). NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2016 K-12Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2016-nmc-cosn-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

Oddone, Kay. Making the Leap: Students as Creators, Not Consumers. Scootle Lounge. Resources for Australian Educators. Retrieved from  http://blog.scootle.edu.au/2016/11/02/making-the-leap-students-as-creators-not-consumers/.

Practice 2: Activity 8 - Changes in Practice

I still have a couple of posts for Practice 1 to complete, so this is my non-linear, big ball of timey-wimey-not-quite-the-last-blog-post-post.

So, finally, I have made it to the end of 32 weeks of the Mindlab. It's been challenging, and I won't lie, I wanted to give up several times. "I hate Mindlab!" I found myself saying, quite frequently, as managing my time to fit in teaching, parenting, living and mindlabbing got too much for me. However, I have been extremely grateful for the assistance and support of the Mindlab team, who allowed me to push some of my assessment submissions right to the very, very limit of the wire (and maybe slightly past it!). And even as I was bemoaning my bad decision-making in having signed up to this course, I was at the same time saying to anyone who was still listening, that I actually really enjoyed the reading and the ideas that we were being exposed to. The chance to engage in not only scholarly reading and discussion, but to see how the ideas in those readings could be applied in a practical context, have been invaluable. I realised that, when I caught myself saying "Oh, but if ...(person X).. had done Mindlab, they would know..." So, yes, it's been hard work, and I haven't had fun exactly, but I have learned so much.

So what changes have I made to my practice because of my Mindlab learning?

1. PTC 6 - Conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme.
I have always been an early adopter of digital technologies and have been incorporating their use in class for some years. That was done piecemeal, though, with no real plan or link to 21st century skills. However, the readings for Digital 1 and 2, particularly the ITL 21st Century Learning Rubrics and Voogt, really opened my eyes to what the term '21st century skills' actually meant. And my research for the Lit Review gave me so many great, practical ideas as to how to achieve the learning of 21st century skills in my classroom. I have been slowly, but systematically, rewriting my unit plans to incorporate these 21st century skills, ensuring that the learning has a mix of both digital and collaborative activities that enhance my students' learning of the topic. The key trends reading for Practice 1 has also been a factor as I have been tweaking my plan for my combined Classics/History class for term 2, and as I rework my Year 9 Social Studies lessons on the fly. I keep thinking 'students as creators, not consumers', collaboration, real-world contexts; it's all very exciting.

2. PTC 9 - Respond effectively to the diverse and cultural experiences and the varied strengths, interests, and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga. 
The proliferation of digital tools now makes meeting the diverse needs of my learners more possible. It's been much easier this year to devise learning materials and activities that cater to different levels of understanding and to the different paces at which my students work, and to put it all online. No photocopying required. Digital tools have allowed more individual learning plans for my senior students, so the high flying students can continue at their own faster pace and those who need more time to process can take that time without feeling the pressure to keep up with others. And, as a teacher, I can conference and guide students as they need it.  This has been happening quite organically this year, but I am now writing it into my unit plans and am giving consideration to how this will impact on assessment requirements, particularly assessment done by a test paper.

Goals for the future
Really, I want to ensure that I continue to implement the learning from Mindlab, and to continue keeping up to date with the latest theories. I will really miss access to the Unitec library! I'm also interested in rethinking how we assess to take into account 21st century skills and tools, so I will be looking at that in more depth this year too. However, another key trend that I am really interested in is changing the way schools work. I think this is a really important trend, we need to move away from the factory model if we are to serve our learners interests. I'd like to somehow be a part of that conversation. Thanks Mindlab.

Practice 1, Activity 2: Current issues in my professional context

I work in a decile 3 girls' school. The ethnic makeup of the school is 73% Maori,15% European, 5% Pasifika, and 7% other. Many of these girls come from low socio-economic backgrounds. This background brings with it issues such as poverty, domestic violence, gang-related situations and criminal activity, not to mention unsettled family and living situations, low academic achievement and low expectations. There are students who regularly come to school without any breakfast or lunch, and kids who cannot afford to go on school trips, pay for replacement of books or uniform items. Along with these socio-economic factors have come behavioural issues, which, for some time, led to a negative public perception of the school, a falling roll, poor NCEA results and the image of a 'failing school'. Teachers and higher-achieving students were scrambling to escape, and there was a feeling of 'last one out, turn off the lights'.

A new principal four years ago, though, led to new initiatives to change the school culture in a concerted effort to address all these issues. On a practical level the school runs a breakfast club through the Wellness Centre, offering weetbix, toast and milo for those who need it. In winter, soup and toasted sandwiches are often provided for hungry students. The food supply is dependent on donations. The school does what it can to help with uniform and stationery issues. Our girls can choose to attend trades academies and gateway placements, they are offered individual learning programmes to meet their needs, and literacy and numeracy is tracked through twice-yearly e-asttle tests. As a school we are also several steps ahead of other schools in our area in terms of BYOD and e-learning initiatives.

The new principal's vision for the school was that we needed a culture change that would lead to an improvement in academic results which would, in turn, lead to an improvement in public perception and, hopefully, lead to an increased roll. Her vision was in line with Mark Wilson's statement (TEdEd.(2013, Jun 21)  that "if you want a successful school, start with culture...culture is the beliefs and priorities that drive the thoughts and actions of the people at the school." 

When the new principal arrived she inherited a school that had reached the  'Maturity and stagnation and decline' point (Stoll, 1998), where the internal and external contexts of the school had changed, but the school had not responded adequately to those changes. Elements of the teaching and learning had become dysfunctional. Four years later, the roll is increasing and NCEA results have improved to now be above both national standards and decile 3 girls' school standards, with Level 2 and 3 provisional pass rates at 97% and 93% respectively (as at February 2017). To get to this point we have experienced a time of rapid change. Like Mark Wilson's school we had to have a vision, had to ask 'what is it we are seeking a do as a school', 'who are we?', 'what do we wish to be and why?', and 'how do we become what we wish to be?' (TEdEd.(2013, Jun 21).

To build this new 'culture of excellence' (as the Principal called it), we began with a new school charter. Underpinning the vision of this charter are our Te Ao values, which have been woven into the fabric of school life. Our Te Ao kaupapa is based on the life of the Te Arawa ancestress, Te Ao Kapurangi, and her qualities are now part of our PB4L expectations. Te Ao stands for:

T - the willingness to learn

E - engaging to achieve

A - always shows respect

O - offers to serve

These values are promoted around the school in our signage and discussed in assemblies and classrooms. Students are encouraged to exhibit the Te Ao values in everything they do, and they can earn points for doing so; many now proudly wear badges that show their commitment to Te Ao. These values, which I know many of us were sceptical about at first, have proved to be a unifying concept within the school. Even the teachers are celebrated in the staff room at the end of every term for showing Te Ao, and this is a nice 'feel-good' recognition of our efforts throughout the year. 

Another element of building this culture of success is an emphasis on relationships. For many years our form classes have been called Whanaus, and whanau teachers are now playing a much greater role in nurturing relationships with students and their whanau. We spend lots of time getting to know the students on a personal level, and are encouraged to create whanau blogs to share and celebrate what we do as whanaus and as Houses. House spirit has always been strong at the school, but to build this new culture, we created new Houses based on strong women from our area with whom many of our students have family connections. As Salvatore Gargiulo pointed out (Principal Sabbatical Report, 2014) building relationships is essential with students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Students from these backgrounds value relationships over achievement, but if you can build a strong relationship first, if you understand what makes the student tick, then you can work on their academic achievements.  The student's family is an important part of this, so we are welcoming parents into the school more. We now have two academic planning days a year, where parents/caregivers come in to meet the whanau teacher to discuss student goals, attendance, behaviour, literacy and numeracy and anything else of concern. It is a great way for the whanau teacher and the student's whanau to get to know each other and to create lines of communication. 

After four years of building this new culture, our school can now be said to be exhibiting most of the norms of improving schools as identified by  Stoll & Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998). In  particular, I believe we have a sense of shared goals, responsibility for success, continuous improvement and lifelong learning. Risk taking has proved trickier for some, the 'laggards' who were slow to adopt new ideas and new technology, but they are in the minority now. And I believe we still have issues to work out around collegiality, openness, respect, celebration and humour. But the positives for the school as a whole, and for the students and their achievements are a strong indicator of a school on the rise.

References:

Gargiulo, S. (2014). Principal sabbatical report. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Professional-information/Principals-sabbatical-reports/Report-archives-for-2007-2014/Secondary-award-recipients-2014/Gargiulo-Salvatore

TEdEd.(2013, Jun 21). Building a culture of success- Mark Wilson.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_8Bjz-OCD8

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Practice 1, Activity 1: Defining my community of practice

Wenger defines a community of practice as a group of people who share a passion for something they do and regularly get together to learn how to do it better. The community of practice has three main elements:
1. A domain - an area of shared inquiry

2. A community - relationships, a sense of belonging

3. Practice - a shared body of knowledge, stories,methods, tools, documents

Further, the community of practice must keep learning at the core, foster a deep sense of community and a degree of self-awareness of its repertoire of knowledge and the effects on members' practice.

My main community of practice is my faculty at school. We are a tight-knit group, a family really, who are passionate about the Social Sciences and who constantly strive to improve what we are doing in order to improve learning outcomes for our students. Our sense of belonging has developed over several years of working together, we have built trust and understanding of each other, our strengths, weaknesses and motivations. We each know that we can drop into the other's classroom at any time to discuss any aspects of our teaching and learning and both give and receive constructive feedback. The collegial nature of our faculty has also often been commented on by others who have occasionally been co-opted into teaching Social Sciences for brief periods. As a faculty, we believe in supporting each other, both the long-term and newer members of the community, to learn and grow as teachers in general, and as Social Scientists in particular.

In formal, scheduled faculty meetings, we not only have a great deal of fun and laughter, but also work effectively together to design and revise units of learning that are aimed at enhancing our students' skills, knowledge and understanding. Moreover, with two of us learning with the Mindlab, and sharing the new ideas we have been exposed to, our faculty has become more reflective and has, as a consequence, begun developing a clearer vision of what 'future-focus' learning should look like in Social Sciences. 

Interestingly, as I came to thinking about communities of practice, I realised that the Mindlab has come to be one for me, but only now towards the end of the experience. I didn't feel a sense of belonging during the face-to-face sessions, there were too many differences between us all and hardly any interaction between people from different schools. It is really only now, during the blogging phase that I feel more of a sense of all three elements of a CoP coming together. The sense of a joint enterprise feels stronger now; perhaps the walls have come down through the sharing of our thoughts online. Certainly, the readings and videos and other materials provided by the Mindlab are now our 'shared repertoire' of knowledge, something we have all been reflecting on here online, and something that, hopefully, we will continue to reflect on after our Mindlab time is up.I am sure that for all of us, it has made an impact on our teaching of the young learners in front of us.

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

Crossing the boundaries - interdisciplinary practice

My interdisciplinary connections map:

'Cross-curricular', 'interdisciplinary', 'collaboration', 'integration': say them with a flourish of your wand and you have a spell from Harry Potter! But are these 'academic buzzwords' really that magical? Certainly, when watching the video on the Ross Spiral Curriculum one could be forgiven for thinking that some kind of wizardry was afoot - it was an interesting watch. I was intrigued by the idea that Ross uses cultural history as the core, with all other learning areas spiralling off it; for an historian and Social Studies specialist this is curriculum gold. The spiral is quite complicated though, and one needs to be mindful that Ross is a specialist school, not the standard state school that most of us are working in.

I found the video on Interdisciplinary Learning a more realistic, attainable goal in terms of interdisciplinary collaboration. In this video we see a  thematic approach, wherein the core subjects all teach the same theme, but using their own subject-specific language and skill set. This approach allows students to see the connections between subjects clearly. It's an approach that has been discussed at my school, but never really implemented. I can see the potential to create an interdisciplinary programme with the English and Drama faculty; the example in the video of 'Power and the abuse of power in Nazi Germany' would fit in perfectly with our current Human Rights unit in Social Studies. The difficulty would be getting buy-in for this theme from the English faculty and collaborating effectively with the teachers and Head of that Faculty.

ACRLog conceptual model for success of interdisciplinary teaching.

I know from experience that collaboration across faculties can be extremely difficult. Last year I was part of a new initiative at my school - a year 9 digital, project-based-learning class with an integrated curriculum. Four teachers - one from each of the four core learning areas of Social Sciences, English, Maths and Science - were told to 'go forth and collaborate'. It was a challenging experience. There were issues around lack of time for planning, misunderstanding of each other's learning areas, different concepts of the purpose of the initiative, reluctance to give up control of our individual subjects, and personality clashes and lack of trust amongst the team. If one looks at  the ACRLog conceptual model for success of interdisciplinary teaching, then almost everything was missing for us last year. However, after a year of experimentation and missteps, the programme may be looking more positive this year, without me though; I opted out.

Which is not to indicate that I'm a non-believer; as a Social Studies teacher, I already teach in a cross-curricular fashion, with units of learning that include a bit of science, maths, economics, literacy and drama. I can see how powerful a co-ordinated approach to interdisciplinary teaching and learning could be for our students. If anything, I have some doubts as to the efficacy of a fully integrated curriculum, particularly within our current school system. As Mathison and Freeman (1997) point out "little evidence is provided that illustrates that these [positive] outcomes occur".

Still, I have already approached the head of the English Faculty about the possibility of a cross-curricular programme and maybe, if we get it right, it could be a stepping stone to greater integration across the curriculum.


References:

A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Learning. (2015). Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration./

Interdisciplinary Learning [video file]. (2014, Oct 24). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA564RIlhME.

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf:

Twitterpatered? or Teaching the Meme Generation. (Applied Practice 2: Activity 6 - Use of online social networks in teaching and professional practice)

Social media can be a great way for teachers to connect professionally to share ideas and resources. I enjoy being part of several Teachers' Facebook pages, finding the discussions and materials shared there incredibly valuable. As Melhuish put it, these teachers' Facebook pages are shared "funds of knowledge". And that is certainly one of the reasons I joined up to them, to connect with other teachers of the same subjects, to find out what and how they are teaching those subjects, and of course for that exchange of resources!  I do tend to be one the 'lurkers' Melhuish writes about, reading much, posting seldom, though I have been commenting more often in the last year. And there have been some fantastic discussions on these pages around the philosophy of what we are teaching, so it isn't just about physical resources. 

I don't really participate in other forms of social media for professional development though. I constantly get messages from Linkedin, asking if I 'know these people', so I must have signed up to Linkedin at some stage, probably to get access to some slideshare resources, but I have never used it and am not sure what use it could be. Nor do I blog, except for Mindlab, but I have often read  other Teacher blogs from around the world, again, trying to gather ideas for the classroom. And Twitter? Well, I know what it is, but I've never had any desire to tweet, though I did note some interesting tweets on the Mindlab page. Perhaps it is something to look into to connect with other teachers? 

At school, we are being encouraged to create blogs for our tutor classes, though that is about relationship building rather than specific learning goals. Last year, though, I was involved in a Future-Focused class in which a blog was one of our main forms of communication with the students, but it was used as a way to post tasks and resources, rather than as an exchange of ideas or place for academic discussion. However, I could see the potential of a blog when listening to Kathy Cassidy tell the story of her kindergarten class in the US connecting with a kindergarten class in New Zealand via each other's blogs, and her kids being opened up to the vastly different experiences of the kids down here - volcanoes! sharks on the beach! Perhaps there is potential here for Social Studies classes??

I can certainly see some value in using Twitter in the classroom after reading about @RealTimeWWII and PepysDiary.com (Sharples et al). These Twitter accounts have real application in the History and Classics classroom, bringing the past to life for students. I can already see the possibilities for teaching Homer's Odyssey, getting Odysseus to tweet about his journey! In that vein, I did try a brief experiment in the use of Instagram in History last year, getting students to set up accounts as personalities involved in the French Revolution, and instagramming as those people. It provided a bit of fun and could, I believe, enhance student learning as students try to get inside the skin of historical figures, building that empathy that history teachers are always trying to nuture in their students. The creation of memes by students too, to show their understanding of topics in History and Classics is another social media tool I am keen to use in class; if you can joke about it, cleverly, you probably get it! 

As the Netsafe clip pointed out though, it is important to ensure that we have fully thought through the process of using social media for teaching, before implementing it. That means thinking about the purpose and the plan and entering into discussions with parents and the school, so they understand too. Next steps then? As Kathy Cassidy suggests, perhaps I will pick out just one small thing that seems doable and plan to put that into action, so I can "harness the power [of social networks] in authentic learning contexts" for myself and my students.

References:
Kathy Cassidy on engaging young students with technology, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1p0TuwfdS8

Education Council.(2012). Establishing safeguards.[video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49216520

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrived on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han...

Sharples, M., de Roock , R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Looi,C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf