WAYS TO ENCOURAGE MORE STUDENTS TO TALK

 As a teacher, I tried the following method to encourage my student to talk and participate in the class. Because participation in class discussion is very important for their knowledge and learning.

1. Find Out Why Students Don't Participate

When I asked my students what kept them from participating, I got the usual responses: I don't know the answer; I hate being wrong; Someone else knows a better answer; I wasn't prepared. Noticing that these reasons centred around the concept of failing, I led a discussion about why it's acceptable to not be perfect. I shared the story of Ragish and the school egg drop contest. On the day of the event, in front of the entire school, Ragish's egg cracked wide open when he dropped it. Instead of moving on to the next student, the teacher judging the contest suggested that Ragish do some reading and try again the next day, which he did—and then the next day and the next after that. Finally, his project ended up among the top five champions. He eventually took that lesson in bouncing back from failure to MIT and then to Khan Academy, where he now works.

2. Show Students Their Fears Are Unfounded

Once I knew that the fear of failure was keeping my students from participating, I began demonstrating subtle failures in class. I gave the wrong fact, acknowledged my "mistake," modelled how to resolve the situation, and moved on. This removed the fear associated with being wrong and gave my students permission to make mistakes. I transformed my classroom into a safe space for trying, failing, and trying again. I could almost see students' relief as they realized that if their teacher made mistakes, they could too.

3. Create an Atmosphere That Encourages Participation

I knew I needed to reset students' expectations for in-class discussions, and they had to stop limiting themselves by thinking the only way to participate was by knowing the right answer. As a class, we reviewed our policy for maintaining a safe, collaborative space and came up with the following rules:

Be respectful.

Speak loud enough so everyone can hear.

Listen to classmates.

Don't interrupt who is speaking.

Build on your classmate's comments with your comments.

Use participation to not only answer questions but to seek help or ask for clarification.

4. Assess student's prior knowledge and tailor your lessons to build on what students already know. Students will feel successful and be more engaged when new content is linked to what they already know.

5. Allow for student collaboration. Well-timed opportunities for students to work together or even discuss a concept mid-lesson can be great for engagement. Turn and Talk is a great strategy where students are given a discussion topic and time to turn quickly and discuss with a partner. The 123 Teach strategy is also great for reviewing content. This works best for material that needs a lot of reviews–more knowledge level content. For this strategy, the teacher names the concept to be reviewed (e.g., the definition of a vocabulary word) and after counting 123 the students turn and review the concept with a partner as many times as they can until the teacher calls time.

Teacher Only Day (Last day of the Term 1) Reflection

 Today is the last day of term 1 and we have TOD in Glen Taylor school. All Manakalani school Teachers gather at Glen Taylor to share their knowledge, ideas, actions, strategies and experiences. I am very grateful I was a part of this day and grasp a few new strategies and ideas for my kids. Today's focus was on supporting teachers in implementing a range of approaches that will help students to develop the knowledge, strategies, and awareness required to become effective readers across curriculum levels and learning areas. Developing teacher capabilities to use a range of deliberate acts of teaching inflexible and integrated ways to meet the diverse literacy learning needs of our students. Today's speaker was Dr Rae Si'ilata. She talked about Pacifica learners and their educational achievement in Aotearoa New Zealand. Educational inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand on the basis of socio-economic class and language background remains persistent and endemic.

There is a still relatively limited pool of research that directly addresses Pasifika bilingual education in Aotearoa New Zealand. This research ranges from Spolsky’s initial study into the potential for Samoan bilingual education in the 1980s to more recent case studies of (mainly) Samoan language programs, as well as related studies into the benefits of bilingual programs for Pasifika (and other bilingual) learners. 

The implication of best practices is Funded specialist bilingual teacher education pathways for Pasifika bilingual education in both initial teacher education and at in-service/postgraduate level. Targeted in-service professional development support for teachers in Pasifika bilingual education, as well as updating and expanding existing related research and professional development resources. Additional Pasifika language and literacy resources, and related assessment measures, to support the ongoing consolidation and expansion of Level 1 and 2 Pasifika bilingual education programs in primary schools, as well as the expansion of NCEA Pasifika language subjects in secondary schools. A related community (and wider public) dissemination strategy on the attested benefits of Pasifika bilingualism and bilingual education, along with the limits of English monolingualism in an increasingly linguistically super diverse Aotearoa New Zealand.

10-year action plan for Pacific Education launched (Reflection)

 A new educational action plan focusing on ensuring Pacific learners and families reach their full potential was released in New Zealand. The Action Plan for Pacific Education 2020-2030 responds to the feedback of Pacific communities from across the country and outlines the shifts they want to see in the education system. This action plan is a blueprint for transforming outcomes for Pacific learners and families and is a key part of our wellbeing programme. It will drive systemic change in and across the education system to support the education and wellbeing of our Pacific children and young people. Pacific students, educators, teachers and parents discussed experiences of racism and bullying and challenges to their well-being being impediments to their educational success. The action plan guides education agencies to work collaboratively with Pacific communities over the next 10 years, and signals how early learning services, schools and tertiary providers can achieve change for Pacific learners and families.

There were five key shifts that were recognised by the Pacific communities in New Zealand:

1. Working reciprocally with diverse Pacific communities to respond to unmet needs, with an initial focus on needs arising from the Covid-19 pandemic;

2. Confronting systematic racism and discrimination in education;

3. Enabling every teacher, leader, and education professional to take co-ordinated action to become culturally competent with diverse Pacific learners;

4. Partnering with families to design education opportunities together with teachers, leaders and educational professionals so aspirations for learning and employment can be met; and

5. Growing, retaining, and valuing highly competent teachers, leaders, and educational professionals of diverse Pacific heritages.

The Ministry of Education currently has a cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners called Tapasā. Tapasā is a tool designed to help improve the way teachers and leaders engage with Pacific learners and to extent parents, families and their communities.