Collaborative practice – Kaiako planning and learning together

In order to support our design learning model and our collaborative practices, obviously we needed to change how we plan in the school. We’ve always collaborated across teams. We look at events that are coming up in our Māori calendar, in our iwi calendar, so sometimes that can drive what our kaupapa is going to be about. So we start off, brainstorm big ideas, then teams meet, then I bring my expertise to that planning cycle. I’ve met one-to-one with every teacher in the school specifically to develop our collaborative practices. What does that look like when I work in your class, when you come to my classroom?

Part of my one-to-one hui with the kaiako is looking at how we’re delivering the curriculum from a 21st century learning perspective. We have these rubrics that we look at to say are we differentiating? Are we providing real-world opportunities? How are we constructing our knowledge? Are we constructing our knowledge using ICT for that part of the process? Are we, are we using ICT to create, not just consume? So we have these little checklists to help our teachers to bring their planning and allow for those 21st century learning competencies. So we use our think, design, create model as part of our planning, so we will just go through and identify all of the learning sprints that we are going to use with the kids. This helps us to think about the learners right from the get go, how we can differentiate and cater for all those needs.

With our co-lab approach, we are just trying to continuously grow our learning. So, part of that cycle is actually reflecting on what we’ve done. This is part of the reason why each time we plan it can look different. So a big part of our approach is actually supporting teachers in real time with their professional learning. So right from planning with me I’ll be showing them resources, we’ll be sharing, they’ll be sharing back with me. So right from the planning phase we are trying to incorporate professional learning with the teachers. So in our one-to-one hui and then as well as our teaching cycles, they are coming to the digital hub which is my classroom. I’m supporting them with things like how to set up a Google classroom or learning some of the skills or the processes involved in using Scratch, for example. So they can be supported through me to actually take that technology back to their classroom and likewise, I learn so much from them when I’m in their classroom, so that’s supporting me with my te reo Māori as well.