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.

DNAiTECH WORKSHOP AUCKLAND - 30th March 2021 Reflection

 

The cool thing about DNAiTECH is that you do not need a specialized laboratory environment to operate this technology. Last week, DNAiTECH ran a training workshop for teachers in a community hall in Kohimarama, Auckland. 

These were one-day workshops for teachers around the country, and each workshop consists of an introduction to the theory of isothermal DNA amplification, hands-on use of the DNAiTECH instrument, analysis of an unknown E.coli DNA sample and extraction and analysis of E. coli microorganisms from a local stream, river, or beach. 

As councils grapple with implementing the Governments new freshwater policy and targets for swim ability, we as a nation must face the reality that our waterways in Aotearoa are not as clean as we would like to think they are, and the clean green mantra is often a fantasy. This map of the country’s waterways from the Ministry for the Environment shows vividly that in the areas of most intense population and intensive farming, our waterway quality is often in the zone of fair to poor.

DNAiTECH empowers students to determine the levels of E. coli and toxic cyanobacteria in their community waterways. There is no better way to engage students with science and technology than to give them the tools to test real-world samples. Let them be part of the collective social conscience, reminding us when we care for the land, we care for its people. 

DNAiTECH combines android smartphone technology with a simple Bluetooth connected handheld instrument that uses isothermal DNA amplification chemistry. Popular isothermal methods include loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), rolling circle amplification (RPA), recombinase polymerase amplification (RCA), helicase dependent amplification (HDA). Avoiding expensive on-board optical systems and thermocycling DNA amplification, DNAiTECH makes DNA technologies affordable for secondary education so that cool experiments can be done to complement the teaching of NCEA 2/3 science, molecular biology, environmental studies, and technology. The instrument is robust and lightweight. The smartphone captures many images during the DNA amplification process and the App processes the Evergreen dye incorporation into DNA product in real-time. For more technical information on how the DNAiTECH works to measure DNA concentration go to our in-field testing page. DNAiTECH is a versatile in-field instrument for education and the science community. It is lightweight, portable, and can be battery-powered, making it perfect for that immediate rapid result in the field.  Real-time quantitative DNA amplification is yours for a fraction of the cost of current DNA reading technologies. We support teachers by running regional workshops as well as selling instrumentation and classroom science kits and easy to use tests for specific environmental assays.

Athletic day in School

 15 march 2021

Athletics Day is always a great time of competitive performances, and friendly rivalry, with our four Houses pitching themselves against each other to be the dominant House in the annual event.

Senior students go early to assist in setting up for the event, and student House Leaders do an excellent job of motivating, encouraging and organising the students in their Houses. The athletic day starts with the houses chant. Every house March and came in a group and sit in the allocated area. Every house has a theme for sports day so they were marching on the ground while representing their theme. After that, the chant starts, First turn was kowhai, then Totata, Rata and in the last Puriri came for the chant. Students were very enthusiastic and their house leaders and mentors were encouraging them all the time.

After that, sports and games started. Different house students participated in the Discus throw, shotput, Hight jump, 100-meter race boys, 100-meter race girls, 200-meter race boys. And in the last, it was a 100-meter teachers race. 

The day ends with the winner of the day. Rata was in the first position, on the second Kowhai, On the third Puriri and fourth was Totara. Students participated very well and represent their houses very enthusiastically.

Students have to participate in school sports to increase confidence, mental alertness, and self-esteem. Sports are important in schools because it helps to teach various skills to students like leadership, patience, patience, team efforts, and social skills.

Planning to go Kelly Tarlton's with Level 3 Biology students.

 This year I have planned I will start year 13 biology with an internal assessment so that they can go on trips at the beginning of the year. Because last year they didn't get a chance to go out on any field trip due to COVID-19. I have started AS91604 (How an animal or birds (penguins) maintains internal body temperature). For the first two weeks, I discussed Homeostasis and how it works in humans, animals and birds. We learned basically in class. And then I planned an aquarium trip to Kelly Tarlton's So that students can visit the aquarium and learn more about penguins, habit, habitat and adaptations in Antarctica.

I booked their visit to Kelly Tarlton's and also booked an education session with one of the educators at the Aquarium. Students are really very excited and looking forward to going there and discuss penguins and how they live in cold and what they do when it summers. So, they have a lot many questions and they will discuss all the questions with an educator. Hopefully, this visit will help them in their science learning and assessment.

COVID-19 Vaccine strategy in New Zealand

 The Government’s goal is to give New Zealand and our Pacific neighbours' access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines as early as possible. This will help us to: control the virus in the long term, protect our communities, support our economic recovery, re-open our borders. This strategy outlines our approach. It makes sure the Government can: contribute to all aspects of global vaccine development, distribution and use, invest in research that supports global efforts, builds relationships and helps New Zealand get access to a vaccine, develop the ability to manufacture a vaccine, in case we need to make sure the way we regulate the vaccines, support research and enable manufacturing is fit for purpose use purchase agreements to secure supplies of vaccines. There’s never been this level of global collaboration amongst scientists and governments in vaccine development. Vaccine companies have been sharing their data all over the world, which has sped up the research process. It has also led to a number of innovations, such as the use of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

In New Zealand, applications for all new medicines (including vaccines) are assessed by the New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority (Medsafe). So COVID-19 vaccines can be made available as early as possible, Medsafe is streamlining its processes and assessing these vaccine applications ahead of normal applications.

Medsafe will only approve a vaccine for use in New Zealand once they are confident it complies with international standards and local requirements for quality, safety and efficacy. There is no ‘emergency use authorisation’ in New Zealand. The first group to be vaccinated are border workers, people working in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities, and their household contacts. This is because they are most at risk of getting COVID-19. Border and MIQ workers include cleaners, nurses who do MIQ health checks, security staff, customs and border officials, airline staff, hotel workers. Household contacts include anyone over 16 who lives full-time or part-time with a border or MIQ worker. We don’t have any evidence yet that the vaccine will stop the transmission of the virus. To reduce the risk of people with a connection to the border getting COVID-19, we are offering the vaccine to both border workers and their household contacts.