Inquiring into my teaching practice

Hypothesis:

If a less experienced classmate is supported by a more experienced classmate to learn a new skill, then their confidence in this skill will begin to develop. Confidence will begin improving in this skill as well as in other areas of school and life once they are out making decisions for themselves as members of the PENN (school news) crew. 

What specific aspects of my current teaching are relevant to my hypothesis:

How am I teaching the more experienced classmate how to follow the values of the Tuakana Teina approach?

- Ako (learning/teaching)

- Manaakitanga (caring/uplifting each other)

- Rangatiratanga (uplifting students)

- Whanaungatanga (relationships)

- Tuakana Teina (apprentice-expert)

At what point do I as the teacher let the less experienced classmate start having more independence from their more experienced peer?

What is my role in this if the more experienced peer is taking on the 'teaching' role?

Formative information about your current strengths and areas for development:

Student voice (also in previous blog post):

Findings: Three children felt confident with knowing how to tell their teacher that they needed help. Four children felt that their confidence with this dropped compared to their primary responses. I'm not entirely sure for the reason for this however, it could result in the fact that in a Tuakana Teina relationship, the more skilled peer is like their 'teacher' and my role as the teacher was to step back from that "traditional" role. The children need to be seeing their peer as their teacher in this pedagogical approach which may still feel slightly uncomfortable to the children.

Practices which are currently implemented to support the hypothesis:

I was fortunate enough to have a whole day with my target group and their more skilled peers during our recent Matariki day. However, what practices am I implementing for general day to day improvement?

- Daily PENN crew - photography, video editing & presenting, studio technicians

During the daily PENN session, I teach children skills for developing their photography, video editing and presenting.
Presenters come in at 8am, open the script and rehearse before their turn to present.  I give the presenters in the moment support and tips based on their own individual needs.
Photographers get opportunity to develop their skills learned through Creative Space. I give them feedback on their photos on their return, explaining what makes their photos good.
Video editors get autonomy to learn how to transfer files between SD card and iMac. They also learn editing skills through iMovie.
Studio technicians set up the studio (lights, green screen etc).

- Sports events - Videographers and Photographers

Students attend sports event with video camera and still camera. This is a challenging area as I cannot attend the sports event with these children to teach them new skills and techniques. 

What changes can I make to my practice?

Currently, there is no implementation of a weekly training time for the children who are photographers and videographers. This is something I should definitely be implementing to explicitly encourage confidence for these children. This could be a before school on Friday session (since I don't run PENN on this day) OR a weekly lunchtime session (where we go and film sports trainings to learn skills). 

What do I need to do to implement this?

Videographers lunchtime club - Meeting together regularly to learn the skills of videography and photography.

More mileage of videography and photography for these children.

How can I measure changes to my practice?

I will measure changes to my practice by:

- Continuing to gather student voice about how students feel they can ask for help.

- Making a comparison of the interventions and implementations that I have added during the year.