Week 25: Discuss how you are addressing the context of different audiences and their perspectives.

For the purpose of this reflection, my targeted audience are teachers in New Zealand, who are at a primary or secondary level. Due to New Zealand’s implementation of the Digital Curriculum in 2020, I am focusing on the culture of continuous learning for teachers and educational leaders.

The introduction of the New Zealand Digital Curriculum will expand the possibilities of teaching and learning (Europe & Total, 2017).  How we implement this curriculum needs a collaborative approach to share and develop ideas in schools (Bolstad, Mcdowall, Bull, Boyd, & Hipkins, 2012).

 As teachers we have the responsibility to support and sustain a culture of learning among our staff that will enhance learning and teaching in the 21 century for our students, (Bolstad et al., 2012).  However, the burden for this implementation will be considerable. Understanding the delivery of the curriculum will require a collective approach to understand how we can maintain and develop academic rigour with the use of digital devices, apps and online programmes. This is important for teachers and students in today’s world of globalisation, and the fact that students will be in a larger variety of jobs, and therefore require new and emerging skills. Not least the critical thinking skills of the 21st century (Daggett, 2014).

The skill levels of primary and secondary teachers are varied.  Factors that contribute to this are the time spent in teaching and leadership roles, and the varied school environments that we have in New Zealand. However, all teachers are obliged with the need for continuous unlearning and relearning.

Some teachers will be confident and experienced integrating and supporting learning with digital devices, apps and programmes.  Other early adopters will be using digital technology but will need support to evaluate and change the way in which they use digital devices, apps and programmes to be sure learning outcomes are enhanced.  Many teachers will be set in their ways and need a lot of support to make changes. 

As an early adopter of technology, I realise I often used technology merely as a substitute, i.e. using Google docs for publishing.  However, through this inquiry, I have steadily realised that primary and secondary teachers will need to improve and adjust to make sure they are augmenting learning outcomes.  As mentioned in the article Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education, the lack of training to implement new digital technologies is a challenge in schools; to augment and provide a rigorous, instructional program in an application modality (Daggett, 2014).  

The established teachers and curriculum leaders are going to need to reflect and understand  how to develop a framework to make sure schools are organised so that they identify the instructional leadership to support teachers and develop their competency at implementing the digital curriculum (Daggett, 2014).  This will require future-focused thinking.

Based on my reflection I need to be critical in my choice of apps to enhance the learning outcomes of the National Curriculum.  I need to be changing my management of learning activities and assessments because traditional applications, such as writing the best draft, are going to be increasingly irrelevant.  Why do we need to write a good draft?  Is it to show off nice handwriting?  Why can’t we use video posts, that might be easier to share with family and whanau?  What other audiences can we tap into through online applications, that might provide a more relevant, authentic learning opportunity for students?

References

Bolstad, R., Mcdowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching — a New Zealand perspective Report to the Ministry of Education. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/708/2/1268

Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. International Center for Leadership in Education, (June), 2–15. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf

Europe, A., & Total, A. (2017). A Brave New World : Technology & Education. 1–12.