Less Assessment - More Engagement and Multicultural and International perspectives on Education (Week 9)

Homework Task:

We had to prepare for this week's session by viewing the TED talk ‘Don’t ask me where I’m from, ask where I’m a local’ by Taiye Selasi and do the task (about your Rituals, Relationships and Restrictions) she suggests in her talk.  

Ideas from my homework:

What does your identity look like? First generation Kiwi (although have been living in a number of countries)

Where are you from? Lots of places...

Where are you local or multilocal? Where I feel home.

Rituals	Relationships	Restrictions
Coffee Listen to news Driving to work Values/Virtues Checking emails Planning Seeing parents every day Study / Research / Learning Twitter / FB / VLN / G+ Church (regularly) on Sunday	Family Friends Social media: local, across NZ & worldwide PLN)  Colleagues within school, cluster events Parents & students MindLab	Work-life balance Finances Time Energy

"Culture exists in Community and Community exist in Context. I carry my experiences within me, where I am from comes from wherever I go." - Taiye Selasi

Digital & Collaborative Learning (DCL) - Less Assessment - More Engagement

- Interesting to see how NZ value where we sit on this
- We want to be perceived to have a good education system






How do we create a need to know?

Do you talk about engagement in your assessment? "Engagement always connotates a relationship - one of involvement - to something" - Shernoff, 2013, p.11

"When you interact with someone who is fully engaged and filled with passion, it can be an overwhelming and unforgettable experience.There is no faking it...you can't 'Meg Ryan' that type of passion!" 
- Burgess, D. (2012). Teach like a pirate: Increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life as an educator.

Group Task:

By: Annemarie, Alison, Clare, Graham, Wendy and myself

Some digital tools that might be used for (formative) assessment: 

• Padlet (collaboration canvas), Socrative (audience response), Kahoot, ForAllRubrics (rubric creation), PollDaddy
• Flubaroo (grading), VoiceThread (audio comments), Videos (assessment), XMind (mindmapping), Formative (real-time FA)
• Turnitin (writing and assessment), TodaysMeet (collaboration), Google Docs (collaboration), ThinkBinder (collaboration), Knewton

Leadership in Digital & Collaborative Learning (LDC) - Multicultural and International perspectives on Education



Maori Education - Transformative paradigm. They take more pride and strength in being Maori when their identity is acknowledge. Kotahitanga.


Michael Fullan on change:
"Moral purpose without change agentry is martyrdom; change agentry without moral purpose is change for the sake of change."

"We shouldn't worry about how effective we are in getting things done, but we should be focus on being good at getting the right things done."

Change is hard. There is a ceiling effect to how much we can learn if we keep to ourselves (Fullan and Hargreaves 1991).

Tasks:

• Participate in an online Quiz about Finnish Education System comparing it to New Zealand's – using Kahoot!

This was an interesting exercise... 
My 'thoughts' about this tool:
- Fun and engaging
- Students who are slow, might find using this tools challenging
- Might be a bit disheartening if they don't see their name on the scoreboard
- Is there a way that students can track if they make progress/ becoming faster in answering questions?

Best practices of this tool:
- Students benefit from online games
- Engage students in educational in a fun way
- Challenges students in learning process
"When we use Kahoot students are engaged!" What do you meant by that?
State of flow, because you are engaged and time flew by.

Group Tasks: (by Annemarie, Alison, Graham, Clare, Wendy and myself)

• Think about which local communities do you belong to? Which do your students belong to? Are they same as yours?

• Think about how do you define an Education System’s success? What do you think success means on a personal level?

What is success on a personal level? If we think that IQ does not determine success, is it instead the outcome of... grit, perseverance, optimism, curiosity, empathy, sense of rightness, social intelligence and other character traits? Paul Tough emphasizes that character traits, not cognitive skills measured by IQ test, lead to success

Jude Barback writes: "As in many other countries, Finland's approach to education has provoked much interest in NZ education circles, with many questioning whether we should be looking at taking a similar path. to do so completely would mean a major shift in political direction, away from standardised testing and other competitive measures. Yet, steps like raising the profile of the teacher training through a postgraduate focus are within grasp. In any case, watching and learning what other nations are doing - and doing well - is important, but so is considering our own unique challenges and circumstances that need to be addressed. The best path can only be taken when best practice fully meets the specific needs of the population - that is New Zealand's real challenge."

~ "Scholars have noted that the ability or inability to direct one's attention is an essential determinant of the success or failure of any practical operation." -Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society ~