Broader Professional Context

I believe that one of the biggest trends that is influencing the New Zealand education system, is the shift towards student-centred learning (ERO, 2012).Here, in New Zealand there is a real shift towards seeing learners as individuals and adapting our teaching to focus on student's interests.

 Student centred learning really needs to be personalised learning, in that it is driven by the student. The students needs, interests, aspirations and cultural backgrounds should be addressed (Johnson et al, 2015). Students can be motivated by a sense of ownership and control in what they are learning.

Of course we have further to go towards reaching these goals of effective teaching practice and this will be better solved in how we educate new teachers, how we engage with the curriculum as current educators and how effective the leadership is within schools (ERO, 2012).

ERO (2012) state that students that are seen as partners by their teachers have a strong sense of identity and are able to see themselves as competent, capable learners. This of course has great impact on our priority learners here in New Zealand as they encouraged and supported to succeed to their potential.

Project based, inquiry based, flipped and blended learning have a real place in student based learning and lead the students onto learning pathways that have their own interests at the heart of them and allow students to problem solve in their learning in an authentic way.

However, this is no easy task. In a time when educators are time poor due to all the requirements and red tape required by the Ministry, it is difficult to juggle the actual art of educating. Student centred or personalised learning really does require much more work on the part of educators. It requires time and effort to integrate curriculum areas and different ways of assessing how a student is achieving. There are still national requirements for these students to reach, and sometimes it can be easier to do an outright reading lesson than plan and research for the resources to tie that reading into that individual student's learning pathway.

It really does require a bit of innovation on the educator's part. The introduction of BYOD throughout schools in New Zealand has had an impact on student autonomy, but then educators struggle with issues such as cyber safety and tracking of not only what student's are doing but how they are achieving. Johnson et al (2015) discuss that individualised progress and support is constrained by the pressure of reaching the standards set, and until there is a real change in the current system, personalised learning can not reach its full potential.

Globally, I see a distinct shift in creating innovators, rather than consumers and I think New Zealand is being influenced by this trend also. In our small economy we have to produce innovators in order to grow economically. We are too small and too far removed geographically to contribute to many industries and so we really do need to think outside the square for how how future students might succeed.

There has been a real emphasis on developing STEM in schools (Johnson et al, 2015) and the new trend of balancing this by integrating the arts and design into this, STEAM, has a real impact on what kind of graduates we can produce. Johnson et al, discuss the value of integrating these different disciplines to produce deeper, more meaningful learning. This creativity allows students to understand, use and apply technologies in new ways.

Students can innovate in a real world authentic context and perhaps use these innovations to solve problems within their own communities or even on a more global level. It's the kind of learning that will influence and sway these children into seeking success on a whole new level, that we as educators never experienced ourselves.

This raises the issue of how we, educators who were schooled in an entirely different age, support this learning. Firstly there needs to be accessible support and professional development for us to make the changes in our curriculum that fosters innovation and the development of skills rather than knowledge. Community STEAM experts play an integral part to really achieve this kind of learning for both educators and students. If we don't have buy in from the community it really is difficult to find the confidence to take students down a path you have no experience in yourself. Thank goodness for the difference social platforms have made in how we can reach out for expertise or ideas!


References
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pd

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools - Education Review Office. Retrieved 5 May 2015, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N