Innovative Teacher at the Manaiakalani Hui

The Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers are teachers who are focusing on in-depth innovative inquiries  aiming to engage learners and community in learning.

They are using one idea to spark more and more ideas that lead to change. 

Meet the Teacher and explore their inquiry focuses...

Sandy

Is a Pt England Teacher who teachers ICT to learners of all ages. Her inquiry is focused on Extension Learners who are learners identified as achieving above that of their peers. She identified that these learners were not achieve as well as they could in writing. She is using film with these learners to gain more depth in their writing. She used short films to support learners to develop knowledge of Character setting and plot. One of the things she noticed was that learners struggled with the structure of a narrative.

Here is a link to Sandy's blog so you can see more about her innovative inquiry.

Nicola

Is a Biology teacher at Tamaki College. She is noticing that year 13 learners are not achieving the grades needed to get into university.
She found last year that when she provided all resources learners found this overwhelming.
Nicola's inquiry is focusing on making her planning visible to the learners. She uses Solo taxonomy in her planning which allows her to plan to extend learners thinking. She want all learners to have the ability and desire to catch up using planning and blog posts for other learners.

To see what else Nicola is doing check out her blog.

Karen

Found that the learners in her class felt that they couldn't write and had no reason to do so. Her aim was to help learners to gain an audience that mattered to the learners, their family.
She started by giving learner family access to the blog by sending home a bookmark. Some family did comment but this stopped quickly and didn't motivate learner to write more.
She then provided the learners family with a more detailed poster about how to comment and a link again. Then she implemented a challenge for learners to get the most comments making them encouraged the their family to comment. This has changed the attitude of the learner who now want to write and enjoy.

Check out Karen's blog and you may want to provide some comments for her learners.

Matt

This inquiry is around the boys not achieving in writing. When Matt asked the boys what they needed they said peace and quiet he provided headphones which learners use when they need them. He also used timers to break the writing in to parts and put on the pressure a bit. He also thought about the SHARE part of our pedagogy, stating that the way we share writing can be boring so he found way to share that are different.

To see what else Matt is doing check out his blog.

Maryanne

Is focusing on partnering with learners and their family to strength the CyberSmart curriculum. She found the learners in year 8 had forgotten most of the key points in CyberSmart. So learners needed ownership so they felt connected to these ideas. When learners had an understand they had created they decided to share this through movies so their families and community could connect with these ideas as well. This class decided what was important to share from the CyberSmart curriculum, these videos also help new learner to catch up on the skills they need.

To see what else Maryanne is doing check out her blog.

Jackie

This focusing on rising read achievement using the digital affordances. She is engaging family through a family blog that supports family to understand the benefits using their chromebooks at home. They also had a Hui for learners to share more with their family. Student ownership has increased when learners can take up their devices, sharing for home and engaging with reading.


To see what else Jackie is doing check out her blog.