Our school has policies and guidelines in place to reflect the local curriculum based on the New Zealand Curriculum. It is updated regularly as the Ministry of Education updates/revises its policies and guidelines. We are therefore bound by these policies to deliver the innovation in the classroom. The innovation being improving our students’ vocabulary knowledge through explicit teaching of vocabulary, was influenced by the digital technologies in The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa as well as the e-Learning Planning Framework. Our school is fortunate to have effectively aligned processes and practices across the school and community. I was able to adapt the innovation of explicitly teaching vocabulary easily to the school’s policies. I incorporated multiple features of digital technologies in the teaching and learning. In class, the students were able to access my learning website, knew how to navigate and locate their tasks and activities, look for feedback and present completed work.
The e-Learning Planning Framework (Ministry of Education, n.d) identified different phases. “The phases – from Emerging through to Empowering – have been aligned with a number of international frameworks that describe how technology is adopted and integrated into teaching and learning” (Ministry of Education. n.d). Our school is presently at the “Extending” phase. We have “effectively aligned processes and practices across our school and community. The use of technologies is appropriate and allows significant adaptation of learning experiences to meet all learners' needs. In the classroom, teachers and students work together to use technologies as part of authentic, higher order, co-constructed learning.” (Ministry of Education. n.d).
Our school is fortunate to have effectively aligned processes and practices across the school and community. It was therefore seamless to include the digital and collaborative innovation into the teaching programme.
One of the ideas discussed to improve reading comprehension was literature circles. According to Van Hees “providing multiple encounters is by far the most important condition” in order to learn vocabulary (Van Hees & Nation, 2017). In the innovation, these “multiple encounters” was provided digitally. This approach allows students to use and practice 21 st century skills. The 21 st century skills that are exhibited during reading circles include:
Critical Thinking - Finding solutions to problems
Creativity - Thinking outside the box
Collaboration - Working with others
Communication - Conveying ideas
In using the policies embedded in the digital technologies in the New Zealand Curriculum, our students presented their work by creating DLOs, videos and blogs to show their understanding of new words they encountered. This is in keeping with what the Minister of Education said “The digital curriculum is about teaching children how to design their own digital solutions and become creators of, not just users of, digital technologies, to prepare them for the modern workforce." (Ministry of Education. n.d).
The barrier to implementing this initiative was the limited time we had on hand. This was caused mostly by taking Covid-19 precautions by the closing of schools.
Learning Theories
In our cluster of schools we have moved away from just the “Chalk and Talk” method of teaching. Based on the theories that promote digital learning, our school leans closely with the connectivist learning theory. Starkey (2012) proposed that “Teaching and learning in the digital age is likely to be underpinned by connectivist learning theory which has emerged from a decentralised view of knowledge based on complexity.” The connectivist learning theory is one of the more controversial ones developed by George Siemens. He touted this as a “learning theory for the digital age”. (Parsons, 2015). “Connectivist learning theory asserts that knowledge is created through connections and learning occurs through the networks to which learners belong.” (Starkey, 2012). In this digital and collaborative innovation, we are approaching vocabulary acquisition through the use of digital tools, hence making connections between the student and their community (home), other learners (collaborating), experts beyond the classroom (video clips, chats, email) to “make connections between experiences and knowledge as part of the learning process” (Starkey, 2012). For Siemens himself, ''Decision-making is itself a learning process (Siemens, 2004)." In the delivery of our digital and collaborative innovation, we have moved away from traditional spelling and dictation tests - which emphasized memorisation of words to the students understanding what words mean and therefore able to use them in new settings. Starkey viewed the constructivism learning theory as “ a focus on understanding what and how students are learning, and how they can be guided or scaffolded to the next stage of their learning.” (Starkey, 2012).
Delivery Models
The traditional form of teaching in schools often involves lessons being given to large groups of students, together with tutorials and workshops and with some independent study. However, at our school we have moved away from the traditional model of delivery to one of collaboration and online learning. Our digital and collaborative innovation explored other modes of delivery such as the flipped classroom and blended learning. Hill (2012) found that there “is a transition to an educational system no longer dominated by traditional education and one or two alternative models.” and “educational technology and new educational courses and programs are interacting to create new language and models for education.” Moving to online learning, especially through New Zealand’s response of eliminating Covid-19, was a safe and effective method of teaching and learning. Teaching in a school whose policies encourage the use of digital devices, the implementation of our innovation was seamless. Now that we are back at school, we continue the use of technology in collaboration and learning.
References
Hill, P. (2012). The emerging landscape of educational delivery models. Retrieved from: https://eliterate.us/the-emerging-landscape-of-educational-delivery-models
Ministry of Education: Pasifika Education Community. (2019). Tapasā – Cultural Competencies Framework for Teachers of Pacific Learners. Retrieved from: https://pasifika.tki.org.nz/Tapasa
Ministry of Education. (n.d) Digital technologies in The New Zealand Curriculum. Retrieved from: https://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Curriculum-learning-areas/Digital-Technologies-in-the-curriculum
Ministry of Education. (n.d). e-learning planning framework. Retrieved from: https://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/e-Learning-Planning-Framework#:~:text=Phases%20in%20the%20e%2DLearning,development%20in%20technology%20integration
Parsons, D. (2015). Top ten learning theories for digital and collaborative learning. [video]. Retrieved form: https://app.themindlab.com/media/121176/view
Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. eLearnSpace. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Starkey, L. (2012). Teaching and learning in the digital age. ProQuest Ebook Central. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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