Using digital technologies to support culturally responsive leadership

Create effective links between school and other cultural contexts in which students are socialised, to facilitate learning. Use a blended approach, which includes face-to-face and online.

• Prioritise the importance and facilitation of face-to-face relationships between school staff and students, whānau, and other community members.
• Establish systems and structures to support the development of relationships – support whānau to view student work online and engage in their learning.
• Create a culture of learning within the entire school community – invite whānau into the school and connect with local marae.

(Ford, 2012 )

School examples

Building the mana of te reo and tikanga in the classroom

Teachers from Pegasus Bay School discuss how students learning their pepeha, rakau games, waiata, and karakia has created a culturally responsive environment where tikanga Māori is celebrated and valued. Teachers work hard to connect with whānau. Student work is shared through classroom blogs. Teachers have organised workshops using parent and whānau expertise with harakeke weaving leading up to Matariki. Feedback from whānau has been positive.

Te ika unahi nui wānanga – A marae-based learning programme

Students from Coastal Taranaki School learn at Tarawainuku marae. The marae holds the cultural knowledge of the local tribe inside its houses and in the environment in which it is located. Whānau were invited to provide their input into designing learning experiences and encouraged to participate in these at the marae each week with the students. Regular meetings were held to discuss learning for each term.

Engaging your school community using technologies

Rob Clarke, principal of Burnham School, explains the importance of face-to-face meetings in terms of successful whānau and community engagement with e-learning tools.

Face-to-face dialogue and relationship building helps to eliminate “guesswork” when identifying possible barriers and opportunities for student and teacher learning. Provide opportunities for the leadership team and teachers to have conversations with, and listen to, Māori students, whānau and the wider Māori community to gain a deep understanding of where students are from and what they bring into the school setting. Find out about the expectations and aspirations that parents have for their children.

As well as ensuring that leaders and teachers are building interdependent relationships with students, parents and community members, and the principal, consider the quality of internal relationships between leaders, teachers, and administration staff. Provide staff with opportunities to share their ideas and perspectives, so they are empowered to contribute to decision-making. 

Use understandings gained from conversations with Māori students, parents and whānau, fellow leaders, teachers, and support staff to guide the development of a shared vision. Develop a vision that ensures all students (particularly those being least served in the school in terms of education success) are better able to achieve academic success. Use your vision to inform school systems and structures.

Key resources

Te Hurihanganui : A Blueprint for Transformative System Shift.

A co-design approach with the Ministry of Education to address bias, strengthen equity and accelerate educational achievement and wellbeing of ākonga Māori.

Leading schools that include all learners

This online guide unpacks what it means to lead an inclusive school where all students are supported to be present, engaged, participating, and achieving in ways that honour and value diversity.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 4.0: A toolkit for leaders to accelerate social progress in the future of work

This toolkit is designed to highlight the opportunities and outline the challenges specific to greater use of technology in the service of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. It is designed for organizational leaders, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officers (CDIOs), and others actively working to promote diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces globally.

Design systems and structures that articulate "how your school does things" to create an inclusive culture that supports learning.

• Provide multiple opportunities for engagement with school families, particularly Māori whānau.
• Plan and timetable regular parental meetings, information evenings, and events to celebrate learning into the school schedule each term.
• Encourage teachers to target parent drop-off and pickup times for informal opportunities to talk with parents about their children.
• Plan regular meetings between the senior leadership team, teachers, and administration staff to ensure shared understandings about how staff relate to and interact with students, parents and one another. These meetings also provide opportunities for staff to have their voices heard and professional needs responded to in an individual and collective way.

Regularly review and update documents to reflect developing understandings of culturally responsive practice, as a result of ongoing dialogue with students and parents, and through your professional development programme.

Cultural responsiveness needs to permeate every aspect of the school to create an inclusive environment, including the:

• physical environment
• policy and procedures
• curriculum
• relationships among teachers, students, and the community (Williams, 2016 ).

Key resources

Treaty of Waitangi

A series of videos on the NZC website supporting understanding and leading whole school te reo Māori development, effective pedagogy, and a culturally connected curriculum.

Partnering with parents, whānau, and communities

This online guide provides information, examples, and resources to support schools to develop and strengthen effective partnerships. It emphasises the value of building close community networks to support student learning and wellbeing.

Policies

ERO suggest schools can improve their practice by building their understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi and its implications for school policy, organisation, and planning (Ministry of Education, 2012 ). Consider to what extent the Treaty of Waitangi principle is evident in the interpretation and implementation of your school curriculum and how it is enacted in classrooms.

Use important policies that guide the school as a basis to develop practice guidelines, in conjunction with teachers, which contain expectations regarding relationships and the classroom.

Consider your:  

• curriculum delivery policy
• Treaty of Waitangi policy
• appraisal and attestation policy
• school charter and strategic plan.

"To ensure that all Māori can achieve their full potential in education, the system must fit the learner rather than the learner fit the system."

Ministry of Education, Supporting Māori students

Establish and support pedagogies and frameworks that underpin culturally responsive practices by:  

• emphasising high expectations for student achievement
• incorporating the history, values, and cultural knowledge of students and community in the curriculum
• developing organisational structures that reflect the cultural diversity in the school and wider community
• providing relevant learning opportunities to improve educational experiences and outcomes for all students
• building relationships between schools and communities.

Key resource

The Treaty of Waitangi and school governance: Ki tua tua o te matapaki kōrero ko te mahi

This document enables trustees of English-medium schools to better understand the Treaty; emphasise the responsibility and potential that boards have in ensuring that the implications, obligations and the spirit of the Treaty are implemented and upheld.

Localised curriculum – bicultural by design

"Your local curriculum is the way that you bring The New Zealand Curriculum to life at your school. It should: be responsive to the needs, identity, language, culture, interests, strengths and aspirations of your learners and their families. have a clear focus on what supports the progress of all learners."

Ministry of Education, Local curriculum: Designing rich opportunities and coherent pathways for all learners

Student-centred schools will put their students, their whānau, hāpu and iwi at the centre of learning design and will honour those voices in shared decision-making processes.

Systems will create honourable and respectful communications and programmes of learning that reflect our dual heritage in Aotearoa (past, present and future).

Māori tikanga and kawa, appropriate to local contexts, will also value and prioritise te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori and respect spiritual beliefs and practices of both Māori and non-Māori.

Effective pedagogy will remove educational barriers and inequalities are removed to ensure equitable educational outcomes by valuing Māori diversity, giving Māori agency, voice and choice resulting in outcomes where Māori achieve success as Māori.

School examples

Local histories – a student’s perspective

Arapeta Latus, a senior student at Whanganui City College, talks about the importance of hearing local history from local people and visiting sites of significance where possible. Video source: Hītori Māori –Maori history

Map my Waahi

"Social mapping is the term given when technologies are used to aggregate geospatial information and blend it with local knowledge about people, places, events, and features...bringing our local stories and cultural histories to life in authentic and meaningful, valid and reliable ways. This is where multiple voices and their perspectives can be heard, enriching local and contextualised knowledge."

CORE Ten Trends 2019, Social mapping

 The LEARNZ virtual field trip Map my Waahi connects students to their cultural and physical landscape: 

Use mapping technology like Google Earth and Google My Maps to create personalised, culturally located learning activities.

Connection between the school and the community is essential in developing school-wide culturally responsive practices.

Research indicates that when schools develop educationally powerful connections with whānau and their Māori communities there is potential to significantly improve learning outcomes for Māori students (Berryman, Ford & Egan, 2015, p. 18 ).

Both partnership and collaboration infer a degree of power-sharing. Consider what power-sharing means in terms of engagement with Māori whānau and communities. A productive partnership is described as being a two-way, mutually respectful relationship that “starts with the understanding that Māori children and students are connected to whānau and should not be viewed or treated as separate, isolated or disconnected” (Kahikitia, p. 17 ). 

Understand and be responsive to the cultural conditions of your particular school community by:

• 
  interacting with the students and their families to truly understand their reality
• understanding families' cultures and they it impact classroom life
• challenging personal beliefs and actions
• changing practices to engage all students in their learning and make the classroom a positive learning place for all students (Earl, Timperly & Stewart, 2008) .

Using digital technologies to support partnerships

Identify how you can use digital technologies to support and facilitate your partnerships. This may mean providing parents and whānau with support to access and use the technologies.

Holy Cross School is a multicultural community. Kathy Moy-Low explains how they engaged with their community while building e-learning opportunities. One of their initiatives is after-school parent technology sessions, which run once a month. In this video clip, parents explain why they go to the classes – the benefits for their own learning with technology, and how they can engage more with their children's learning.

More information »

• Māori achieving success as Māori
• A marae-based learning programme
• The Mutukaroa project
• Connecting with Pasifika families and communities

Embracing cultural narratives

"A cultural narrative describes what is unique about the place and the people your educational setting is part of. In the New Zealand context, a cultural narrative recognises the histories of and by mana whenua (tribes who have territorial authority over land), their sacred places, their interactions with the land and their ways of being as a people. It helps build a common understanding of their values, their heritage and their traditional and spiritual connections to the land and the environment.

The Cultural Narratives of mana whenua embody the essence of who they are. It supports authentic engagement with whānau, hapū and iwi because it invites all these groups to not only contribute their stories, and invites them to be able to participate as mana whenua on their lands their tamariki are educated on."

– CORE Ten Trends 2019, Cultural narratives

"A local cultural narrative may contain a range of things that mana whenua would like your school to understand, share and embrace. This could include:

• whakapapa
• significant sites, landmarks and geographical features
• historical events
• relationships with flora and fauna
• local language
• local stories, waiata, whakataukī, symbols."

– Educational Leaders, Cultural narratives

Cultural narratives and Earth Education at Ngunguru School

Video source: EDTalks: Cultural narratives and Earth Education at Ngunguru School

Cultural narratives are entwined with science and environmental studies in Earth Education at Ngunguru School. The EarthEd programme aims to embed the role as protectors of the environment (kaitiakitanga) into students' everyday life, and is more than just educating about the environment. Through this school-wide programme students develop meaningful and authentic connections with the local environment and local history, and with the earth.

More information »

• Technologies suitable for different types of communication for more information on ways to use e-learning to connect with whānau and the wider community

"The aim of culturally responsive teaching and learning is to improve Māori education outcomes where the tamaiti (child), the whānau (parents and family), and hapū and iwi (tribal group) are integral to determining the education journey. The core of cultural responsiveness is: responding to 'the child’s cultural experiences' – in this case as Māori and all that it encompasses."

Patara, 2012, p. 50

Understanding diversity

Diversity encompasses many characteristics including:

• ethnicity
• socio-economic background
• home language
• gender
• special needs
• disability
• giftedness.

Teaching needs to be responsive to diversity within ethnic groups, for example, diversity within Pakeha, Māori, Pasifika and Asian students. The diversity among individual students influenced by intersections of gender, cultural heritage(s), socioeconomic background, and talent also needs to be recognised. Evidence shows teaching that is responsive to student diversity can have very positive impacts on low and high achievers at the same time (Alton-Lee, 2003 )

Plan learning that acknowledges who your students are and where they are from.

• Start with students' culturally-located needs and strengths.
• Create ongoing opportunities for students to share where they are from, what is important to them and why.

Identifying effective practice

Culturally responsive teachers use a wide variety of strategies to create inclusive classroom contexts where students are encouraged to acknowledge and celebrate diversity and learn with and from each other. These include:

• building care-based relationships that underly all classroom interactions
• power sharing between students and teachers
• challenging deficit theories of achievement
• making students’ cultural and ethnic identities and knowledge fundamental dimensions to curriculum design (Gay, 2000; Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 1995 in Ford, 2010 ).

The Effective Teacher Profile (ETP) illustrates effective interactions:

• manaakitanga (caring for students as Māori and acknowledging their mana)
• mana motuhake (having high expectations)
• ngā whakapiringatanga (managing the classroom to promote learning)
• wānanga and ako (using a range of dynamic, interactive teaching styles)
• kotahitanga (teachers and students reflecting together on student achievement in order to move forward collaboratively).

(Patara, 2012, p. 52 )

Tātaiako – cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners

• ako (teachers taking responsibility for their own learning and that of Māori learners)
• wānanga (robust dialogue for the benefit of Māori learners’ achievement)
• manaakitanga (valuing Māori beliefs, language and culture, caring for students as Māori and acknowledging their mana)
• whanaungatanga (actively engages in respectful working relationships—tamaiti/whānau/hapū/iwi)
• tangata whenuatanga (affirms Māori learners as Māori).

Culturally responsive teaching and learning pedagogy is realised when:

• teachers’ cultural competence increases
• teachers’ deficit theorising is reduced
• teachers build positive relationships with students
• teachers have high expectations of Māori learners
• Māori learners bring their cultural experiences into the classroom to inform learning and teaching (mana motuhake)
• Māori learners and extended whānau are integral to determining Māori education success.

Tau Mai Te Reo and Ka Hikitia are companion strategies and should be read in conjunction with each other. Tau Mai Te Reo is a strategy for all learners, while Ka Hikitia is a strategy for all Māori learners.

• Ka Hikitia – Ka Hāpaitia | The Māori Education Strategy
• Tau Mai Te Reo | The Māori Language in Education Strategy

Tapasā – Cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners

Increase the capability of all teachers of Pacific learners.

• Tapasā resources  – video resources with conversation starters and supplementary resources.
• Quality Practice Template – Cross Sector Examples for a QPT using a Tapasā lens – a description of quality practices and evidence teachers can gather to demonstrate competence in each Teacher Standard.

"Culturally responsive teaching is about making school learning relevant and effective for learners by drawing on students’ cultural knowledge, life experiences, frames of reference, languages, and performance and communication styles. 

Culturally responsive teaching recognises and deeply values the richness of the cultural knowledge and skills that students bring to the classroom as a resource for developing multiple perspectives and ways of knowing. Teachers communicate, validate and collaborate with students to build new learning from students’ specific knowledge and experience. 

Culturally responsive pedagogies can reduce the gaps between the highest and lowest achievers while at the same time raising overall levels of achievement. Culturally responsive pedagogies raise student achievement for all cultural groups, ensuring that all students are given the encouragement and support to realise their educational potential regardless of their social, economic or cultural background or individual needs.

While student diversity is increasing, there is a general lack of diversity amongst New Zealand’s teachers. Cultural gaps between students and teachers, when left unaddressed, can lead to misunderstandings of teacher expectations on the part of the student, or of student behaviour on the part of the teacher."

The Education Hub, Culturally responsive pedagogy

Teachers at Pegasus Bay completed an online course, Te Reo Puawai, over a term with ongoing access to the course content and resources for the year. They collaborated to plan learning and to build a culturally responsive environment. In these videos, teachers share the variety of strategies and approaches they developed to engage the tamariki with what is happening in their learning community. They explain the different technologies they use as part of their classroom programme to support learning and engage with parents and whānau.

Students use a variety of apps to create content, practice their reo, hear themselves, reflect on their learning with peers, and set goals for improvement. Content is shared with whānau through classroom blogs.

Te reo Māori is taught and used daily in the classrooms. Teachers agreed to plan 15-minute instructional lessons to make it manageable. They also include daily karakia, music, and games and identify features of their learning environment that reflect the culture of their learners and provide prompts to support using te reo Māori.

Digital Resource – Using digital tools for inclusive practice

More information »

• Teacher standards and e-learning  – This page contains details on Standard 1: Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership as well as Tātaiako and Tapasā competency frameworks. School leaders can use it to support teachers to develop and grow culturally responsive practices as they develop their use of digital technologies for learning.
• Supporting place-based education with digital technologies  – By focusing on local stories, Place-based education can show how past events have shaped a student's own life and surroundings.
• Digital tools supporting te reo Māori  – A collection of online resources to support learning and teaching using digital technologies.
• Supporting Māori learners – Information, resources, and examples of classroom practices to provide an environment that supports Māori to achieve as Māori.  

Use Arataki cultural trails
Arataki is an interactive mobile app that turns local walks into story-telling experiences. It works by proximity, connecting the user to points of cultural significance around their local area. Walk a local trail, stop and listen to rich narratives from local guides, and be immersed in the stories and places of Aotearoa. 

Go to the School stories tab for more examples of using digital technologies in the classroom.