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According to a ERO report published in 2018, state schools in New Zealand are becoming increasingly ethnically diverse. While the Auckland region is the most diverse other regions are increasing. This means that all teachers in NZ will have children from difference ethnicities in their classroom.
Diversity of ākonga is not limited to ethnic diversity. According to a Stuff article written in 2015, anywhere from 1-10% of NZ children are gifted. It is estimated that 3% of the population have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), 5% of the NZ population have ADHD, and 1% of the New Zealanders being diagnosed with ASD. According to the dyslexia foundations website 10% NZ school children have dyslexia.
This information does not account for all the diversity in NZ classrooms, but does start to paint a picture that correlates with what I have seen in my practicum so far. NZ classrooms have diverse learners. A NZ classroom will have a wide variety of learning differences, cultural differences and abilities and interests in different subjects.
As a teacher who considers herself to be a facilitator of learning, how will I facilitate learning for all ākonga learners in my class?
Inclusion is a principle of New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). Making sure that all students in the classroom are able to engage with the school work regardless of their background, ability and learning differences is crucial to having education be equitable for all.
In the classroom inclusive pedagogy has many aspects. Learning activities need to be accessible for all students. In maths this may mean using a DMIC approach to mathematical tasks, where there are many ways to solve problems. As an example if a student has mastered multiplication strategies they can use these but repeated addition is also a valid strategy for those that are still working towards understanding how to use multiplication strategies.
Inclusion isn’t limited to setting learning activities that everyone can achieve in though. Inclusion recognizes ākonga for who they are, and caters for them to succeed as they are.
Ka Hikitea is a Māori education strategy with a key aim for “Māori succeeding as Māori”. Inclusive practice as a learning facilitator includes developing my own cultural knowledge (of te reo and tikanga Māori) and making sure there are opportunities for all ākonga to learn te reo and tikanga Māori. Since I was educated in NZ before te ao Māori was actively recognized within the NZ school system, my own learning journey in this area is a long steep one. Thankfully for me, Ako (which is part of Tātaiko) has an aspect of learning from Māori ākonga. This fits well with drawing on students lived experiences and their prior knowledge, which is part of NZC.
Current inclusive pedagogical practice in maths is DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities). Professor Roberta Hunter has had an active academic career for over 19 years bringing DMIC into NZ classrooms. Professor Hunter talks of helping Maori and Pacific Island learners see themselves as capable mathematicians by using historical examples from their cultures of complex maths being used. This takes concepts such as those from Tātaiko of Māori being capable as Māori into a mathematical curriculum area.
Enquiry for learning is a student centered pedagogical approach. Ākonga have opportunities to be active learners (they can choose an aspect of the task that they want to explore further) and they have co-agency in their learning (deciding what information is relevant to their enquiry). This supports inclusive practice and engagement as well as respecting Article 12 of the United Nations Convention of the rights of the child. Article 12 states that children have the right to have their “views heard, considered and taken seriously”, this applies to learning in a classroom just as much as anywhere else in a child’s life.
An enquiry project can be cross-curricula, and NZC is created in such a way that it is open to being able to have one enquiry project cover many subjects. As an example, an enquiry project for ākonga to find examples of mathematics used in different cultures would include maths (as ākonga could be exploring cultural use of patterns) social sciences (as the project may include understanding the societal practices of a particular culture) and the arts (as ākonga create a work of art to demonstrate the patterns that they have found in the culture they were exploring).
I have noticed in my practicum that student engagement is key to getting student success.
There are three main components of effective engagement in learning. These are behavioral (students having good learning behaviors), emotional (students having positive feelings about their learning) and cognitive (where students are thinking about the subject).
Effective pedagogy outlined in a Best Evidence Synthesis Program in 2008 (BES for social sciences) has four mechanisms for supporting ākonga in their learning.
Connecting learning to students lives is the first concept. This is supported by research that states that if students don’t consider information worth learning then they switch off and disengage with the learning.
Alignment of learning to learning outcomes by being explicit with what the learning is for and what is expected of students has shown to an extremely effective approach in student learning.
Community is another mechanism outlined in BES for social sciences. As a teacher I believe that setting classroom norms is crucial for learning. Learning is, by its very nature, always challenging. Students deserve to be in a safe and affirming environment while they learn new information and develop their understandings and skills. As part of the class establishing a culture at the start of the year, determining what our social norms (or behaviour rules) will be together by thinking about how we each learn best, and the kind of classroom that we would ideally like to be part of will help set up an agreement that we can work from.
As a teacher I also have a responsibility to foster positive relationships with each of my students. This supports the need for connection and belonging, which is a strand of Te Whāriki, the ECE curriculum. The NZC develops belonging into participating and contributing and while this is understandable given that the 2 curriculums are catering for difference age groups, I find it useful to keep the original strands from Te Whāriki such as belonging in my personal classroom curriculum too, as learning in a primary school setting is working towards children being independent and responsible for their learning but this is a long process and teachers need to be aware of the role they have in filling the needs of the children in their care.
Interest is the remaining mechanism referred to in BES for social sciences. ‘Interesting’ is a subjective evaluation, what one students find interesting, another won’t. By differentiating ways and experiences for ākonga to learn it can foster interest in a subject.
Modelling is a deliberate act of teaching. When introducing a new way of completing a task then showing someone how to do the task is a form of modelling. I find it helpful to remember that modelling is also something that you are doing as a teacher all day every day. When a teacher takes a moment to listen to someone, they are demonstrating that person is an important person worth listening to. It’s necessary as a teacher to model the behaviors that you wish children to exhibit themselves. This is important for how everyone in the class behaves towards each other, but also how they behave when they are challenged by their learning.
The environment of the classroom is not the only one that matters with students. The community they are raised in, and the family they are raised by all have a big effect on a students ability to learn. NZC has a principle of community engagement, and there is flexibility with the curriculum to be able to explore and learn from the local community. A school, and each teacher must have good connections with the community and the whanau of the students in order to be culturally responsive and have learning that is responsive and meaningful to the students in the classroom.
Since there is increasing diversity in NZ classrooms, and there are many effective pedagogical approaches including inclusion, engagement, connecting learning to prior learning, making information meaningful and being responsive to the community. Having student voice in their learning is important and can be about having a say in activities that will support their learning but I can also been seen as being able to share learning with whanau by using apps such as see saw. The education matters to me report released by the children’s commission found that children wanted to make their family proud. It would be very rewarding as a kaiako to see that all the hard work the students and I put into their learning was able to be used to value learners by ākonga proudly sharing their learning with their whanau.