The Mind Lab - Transformation 2: Reflective entry 4

My role as a facilitator lends itself nicely to this idea of leading educational transformation. In essence, my role is to support this in every school I work in - whatever this looks like for each school. I am fortunate that I get to work with a number of different teachers, providing 1:1 support throughout the course of a year. Spending an hour a week in each class, my role is to support the teacher to develop their understanding and confidence in digital teaching and learning. No matter where they start on the ‘spectrum’ of confidence and ability to teach with digital technologies, my role is to take the teacher on a journey over the course of the year, modelling and demonstrating techniques and tools which they can use as part of their programmes. In addition to the support with individual teachers, other aspects of my role are to support senior leadership, as well as the wider staff group through staff meetings and ongoing PD sessions. In short, I am fortunate that I have tremendous potential to lead transformation in the schools I am working in.

Manaiakalani in-class facilitation

An example of how I am supporting one of my schools in changing the way that teaching and learning happens in their school, is by assisting in the transition to having a class website for every class, where teaching and learning content is readily accessible with a few clicks. Another example of how I am supporting transformation in my role has been a case of supporting the school to implement processes such as teachers switching from a weekly Word doc that is saved to a shared drive and printed off, to one single Google Doc that is embedded into the class site, with the latest learning at the top. The real-time collaboration component of the G Suite apps assists with this. 

Class Sites linked off the school website, easily accessible to anyone interested

Lockdowns and other Covid-related class/school closures highlighted the need for digital technologies in modern teaching and learning. Anecdotally, across the schools I am associated with, those that already had a reasonable level of digital infrastructure across their community were able to, more or less, continue with their programmes from home straightaway. Whereas those that didn’t have these processes in place struggled to get teaching and learning happening effectively, or else needed some time to set themselves up prepared to do so, meaning teaching from home was delayed or heavily scaled down to compensate.  

The effects of Covid 19 on education highlighted issues with equity across the country, notably around the lack of access to digital infrastructure in homes, whether that be with a lack of devices, no internet access, or both. In a 2021 blog post, Claire Amos, Principal of Albany Senior High wrote about what she calls the “digital divide”. Amos writes that it is a serious problem that so many of our young people don’t have access to their own devices for learning, or internet access. (Amos, 2021). 

Claire Amos' blog post

But what is being done about this? The Government attempted to address this by sending out devices and internet routers to families who indicated they needed them during 2020, but this only goes part of the way to addressing the issue. Putting a new device in the hands of a family is helpful initially. But what happens when that device breaks? Or when it becomes slow or unable to be updated in a few years? For me, the answer is supporting and empowering families to purchase devices of their own. As part of our partnership with our schools, and with the support of our commercial partners the Manaiakalani Education Trust offers families the opportunity to purchase Chromebooks for their children. Not just the device, but importantly device care (insurance) and a case to protect it as the learner comes to and from school. 

It is this kind of model which I believe is the answer to supporting young people to be successful in education. We know that technology is only going to become a more crucial part of modern teaching and learning, and so device access is essential to facilitate this. 

References

Amos, C. (2021, August 24). Why need to close the digital divide in our schools - now! Teaching. Learning. Leading change. Retrieved July 18, 2022, from https://teachingandelearning.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-need-to-close-digital-divide-in-our.html