Mind Lab - Week 2 - Leadership - Key Competencies and He Tikanga Whakaaro in Leadership

Flipped preparation (required): First take a look at some of these ideas on 'Self Assessing Key Competencies in Leadership' pdf (in Related Media below) about how the key competences relate to leadership. Then self assess your 5 Key Competencies in your teaching and leadership practice. What are your strengths and weaknesses? You can do this in the format of your choice, just bring the self reflections with you to Week 2 session.

As a leader in my classroom I need to provide an environment in which the students can develop their KCs.

Creating conditions for KCs - making sure that activities in class have KC components to them - such as the Participating and Contributing aspect of our current inquiry which includes the SVA part and hopefully will help other be more prepared for earthquakes.

Leading change - during CRT and team meetings encouraging other teachers within the team to embrace the KC aspect. The KCs come through the learner pathway, so encouraging the continued use of this in the team and throughout the school is the way forward.

Areas of leadership practice

Culture - think about celebrations and activities we traditionally do at OUR school - these reflect our school culture. How can these celebrations show that we value the KCs? By showing that we value the 4Rs of the Learner Pathway.

Pedagogy - quality teaching, conversations for change, learning together - What are students doing in KC rich activities - 1-3-6 of Responsibility? Collaborating during inquiry? MindLab course - conversations, new learning - we all need to learning more about the KCs (4Rs and Learner Pathway) together - breaking the 4Rs down through 1-3-6s is a good way of doing this.

Systems - resourcing, routines, expectations - we need to be responsive to what we see in the classroom, talk about our learning, focus on how students are learning (skills focus in inquiry) consider learning dispositions (agency, curiosity, initiative, resilience, adaptability, persistence, leadership, ethical behaviour, self-control - many of these are on our Learner Pathway) - need authentic contexts (inquiry), share decision making (rewrite what Learner Pathway looks like) make connections across learning areas.

Partnerships - about applying learning in the wider community (this could be through inquiry action), help parents support their learning - homework activities - are we informing parents, consulting with them or collaborating?

Thinking - thinking skills developed in inquiry and maths - need to develop the individual inquiry / passion project

Using language, symbols, and texts - need to value literacy activities more that demonstrate this KC and timetable in coding activities

Managing self - growth mindset (I need to talk about this more on a day to day basis - are some of these phrases in the Learner Pathway?)

Relating to others - homework presentations are effective for listening actively and recognising different points of views, 1-3-6 was very good for sharing ideas and negotiating

Participating and contributing - I tend to get students participating in small groups in class or in larger / whole class activities - contributing to the wider community is not something I encourage students to do regularly (Book inquiry). The current inquiry with the Student Volunteer Army action would be a good place to start with community contribution.

Reflection

KCs - Just the same as where teaching skills is key for inquiry, Need to think through the skills we have so far and see if they cover all of the KCs

The 'Our Code Our Standards' document asserts four values and states that ‘These values underpin Our Code, Our Standards. They define, inspire and guide us as teachers.’ (Education Council, 2017). The following table suggests how these values might align with He Tikanga Whakaaro.

He Tikanga Whakaaro	Our Values
Rangatiratanga (personal autonomy and leadership)	Whakamana: empowering all learners to reach their highest potential by providing high-quality teaching and leadership.
Whakawhanaungatanga (establishing relationships)	Whanaungatanga: engaging in positive and collaborative relationships with our learners, their families and whanau, our colleagues and the wider community
Manaakitanga (a context of caring relationships)	Manaakitanga: creating a welcoming, caring and creative learning environment that treats everyone with respect and dignity.
Whaiwāhitanga (engagement and participation).	Pono: showing integrity by acting in ways that are fair, honest, ethical and just.

KCs and He Tikanga Whakaaro

He Tikanga Whakaaro suggests a Maori way of thinking / understanding. Macfarlane et al (2008) provide the following comparison between the KCs and the concepts of He Tikanga Whakaaro:

Key Competencies	He Tikanga Whakaaro
Thinking Using language, symbols & texts	Tātaritanga (thinking and making meaning)
Managing self	Rangatiratanga (personal autonomy and leadership) Whakawhanaungatanga (establishing relationships)
Relating to others	Manaakitanga (a context of caring relationships)
Participating and contributing	Whaiwahitanga (engagement and participation).

Blogging

Blogging has been important, both as a way to record teacher reflection and as a tool for students to use. Before blogs we used wikis to provide students with the online space to record their learning and show their parents.

Currently we use individual blogs with our students but I can see this changing in the future. There are now so many other platforms that could be more appropriate - class facebook pages rather than class blogs are much easier for parents to access. Seesaw seems to give parents the option to only see their own students work and for them to receive notifications more easily than with blogs. Also the option to just like posts rather than having to comment makes responding quicker and easier. Twitter we have used during chapter chat.

We also committed to blogs at the very beginning of our Google journey and now students find it easier to sort their digital learning in their drives - the need to a blog has lessened.

I don’t know which way forward. It’s something we will need to discuss in the eLearning Think Tank. But blogs are not popular amongst staff. They are cumbersome and hard to use and there must be easier to use options.