Supporting staff to care: about themselves, and about their work

There is a formula that helps organisations become more capable, and it starts with supporting staff to care.

Today’s educator is faced with a constantly changing technology landscape. Education institutions see the importance of keeping up, in financial, reputational and pedagogical terms. But keeping abreast of developments and experimenting with new approaches requires time. Time to research, discuss and practice.

Increasingly, teaching staff are tasked with finding and testing education technology that supports their practice, while the institution tasks itself with providing foundation platforms such as the ubiquitous learning management system.

For teaching staff finding time to develop their digital capability can be difficult. Not only are there pressing and immediate issues to be dealt with, the approach – where to start or what to consider next – can be unclear.

Personal emotional justification is critically important for self-directed learning. Caring enough to investigate requires an understanding of the purpose and potential benefits of spending time on new education technologies.

Information on new technologies is everywhere. But guidance from an institution about how it supports staff in a programme of self-directed professional development is rare. We may say “check out new education technologies and try some out” in performance planning, but the question of ‘’how” remains unanswered.

Providing advice about how to approach self-directed professional development is challenging: staff need to feel supported and be willing to investigate and apply new technologies. The institution needs to know that associated risks are being minimised and institutional goals remain the objective.

An institution that provides justification and pathways to staff and trusts that staff will act with the institution policy and strategy in mind will be more successful in enabling self-directed education technology development.

Let’s not forget the time it takes to research, discus and practice. Here an institution can help by legitimising self-directed education technology development and ensuring professional development time is available.

The use of social media to discuss and share ideas and the use of blended courses to help staff understand possible pedagogical approaches provides flexibility to pursue an interest in free moments or outside of work – if the staff member cares to do so.

The point being, they need to care to do so. Providing time, pathways and permission may be enough to navigate the fast-changing education technology landscape. But an institution is unlikely to change without everyone understanding the mission and caring about themselves, the institution and the lives they touch.

That is why I see the communication and messaging from institution leadership as having a pivotal influence in developing organisational capability. The key elements must be there (the time, pathways, and permissions) but emotional justification by the individual is a critical element – and this comes from caring.

So, the final piece of the equation is communication. An institution can help staff understand, and ultimately to care, by using interwoven messages, channels and voices to provide reinforcement and clarity about the things that matter: the way we think and behave, our business priorities, and the importance of each individual as part of our shared mission.

How do you know how well your students are doing?

Image: John Hitchcock

If your job is to teach stuff to students, then to do it well you need to be constantly monitoring what they are making of your teaching. Hopefully they will be learning something to do with their purpose for being in your class, but how do you know? Here are some ideas.
Ask them. Say “How are you doing?” and listen to the answer. Or better, ask them the Three Magic Questions: “What is one thing you understand, one thing you are not sure of, and one question you have”.

Even better, make these questions into a three question questionnaire so you can take what they say back to your desk and ruminate on it.
Watch them. When they are doing an activity, watch what each student is doing. How do they organise their work space? How do they choose and handle the tools? How focused do they seem?

Listen to them. What things do they say in discussions, in the workshop or on the job? What questions to they ask? How are they expressing ideas or using the words from the subject? Who is confident and leads the talking, who is thoughtful, who is silent?

Look at the work they do. Whatever it is, how well is it done? Have they missed anything? How well do they describe their work to you? Get them to tell each other things, or hand work in to you.

If you don’t know how well your students – each one of them – are doing, it is very hard to be an effective teacher. Knowing where your learners are at gives you a place to start from which to build their skills and knowledge.

It’s a Small and Fast World After All

I’m still buzzing about the conference I attended almost two weeks ago: EdTech for Export conference held in Te Papa. A gathering of educators, industry and investors connecting the influencers of how Education Technology can change the world.

I left the conference thinking about two questions that lingered in my head:

• Why is the conference mostly attended by businesses? Where is the other side of the party – the education providers? Out of perhaps a group of 100, there were only 3 institutes there, WelTec included. I thought that the education sector would snap up this opportunity to team up with the businesses who are trying to get their product outside of our beautiful country. After all, we all have the same intentions, internationalisation of our products, our branding, our reputation.

Allow me to take it as it is and leave the question for you to ponder on as well. Is there a major disconnection or lack of united front with the education and business sector? Do they talk to each other much? Perhaps we need to strengthen our relationships with each other before we head out to make sure we have a united approach. After all, aren’t we all in this together?

• There was only one Asian keynote speaker, Professor Siah Hwee Ang. He’s the The Bank of New Zealand Chair in Business in Asia at Victoria University of Wellington.

I found it rather strange that the focus is how to penetrate the Asian market and yet, we only have one speaker from Asia? Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very a knowledgeable person who is right smack in the middle of it all where changes and bridges can be made between Asia and the rest of the world but I expected more of us 🙂

Although Asia was the canvas, China was the central focus – no contest there given that they play a huge chunk of the market. I found it highly interesting the points and tips that Prof. Siah mentioned in his keynote speech. It made me wonder, “does the rest of the world truly know how Asia works?” Another speaker, Allison Baum of Fresco Capital, from a business point of view, delivered a highly motivating presentation on the Asian market and the crucial timing of getting in now. Frank Catalano presented a wealth of information on the US market, trends and fads to avoid in the technological world and education.

This is all great and exciting but I think it is important that we remember to drop any prejudices or presumptions we may have if we haven’t sincerely immersed ourselves to get to know the potential customer. Are we trying to approach it with “we know what’s best for you, here’s what you should do” or “how can we contribute and do work together to benefit each others’ strengths?”

Asia is huge, its culture and sub-cultures have to be studied deeply to understand how it differs from the western world. Regardless of where your market is, isn’t one of the foundations of a business to understand your customers and the value you are trying to add to their lives?

If by now you’re wondering… my answer is yes. Filipina. Yes, I do feel that some things got lost in translation :). At the end of the day, as the world gets smaller with all the technologies that enable us to connect beyond borders, everyone should be treated truly without judgment except for the benefit and effort they bring. We have to up our game, quality, and aim our focus at the end results. To get there, we have to leave all inhibitions, face the challenges with much gusto, enough of the ‘bring-others-down-to-get-ahead’ syndrome, we’re all heading the same way, it’s faster and easier if we help each other.

So, enough of what I think. Here’s another question for you: how is New Zealand’s tertiary sector going to take advantage of this $100 billion tech-ed industry?

relaxing to create

clipart.com2015

Our team holds  (irregularly)  a ‘what I’ve been thinking ‘ session. It’s a way to share ideas  apart from the daily ‘things to do’ lists. Colleague Christine’s post (see previous) arises out of that share and some recent Twitter posts prompted me to consider the topic of relaxation, creativity and purposeful play once more.

 Christine shared  that Salvador Dali used to relax with a spoon in his hand and near a tin plate. When he relaxed and began to dream of course he’d drop the spoon onto the plate. If you know Dali’s work you can see the results…..

In this website – brain pickings, Maria Popova explores the idea of daydreaming.  Clearly several acknowledged geniuses daydream/ed: Freud, Bell, Nin. The post talks about a book by Jerome Singer called The Inner World of Daydreaming.  Singer describes 3 types of daydreaming: positive constructive daydreaming, guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, and obsessive reliving of trauma. The book is dated 1975 but two recent authors have reviewed the idea in Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming, to provide views on how daydreaming improves our lives.

On the same site Popova proposes that creative thought is combinatorial – that our brains gather a host of disasssociated  ideas that they (our clever brains) form into a new idea. Einstein called it ‘combinatory play’.How Einstein Thought: Why “Combinatory Play” Is the Secret of Genius

Popova describes in another post  how Lord Byron’s daughter (Ada Lovelace) and Charles Babbage constructed the idea of a computer. The astonishing and heart warming aspect of the post is that Lovelace’s mother tried desperately to train her daughter to avoid fantastical and nonsensical ideas so as to avoid being like her father.

His daughter’s ability with maths and creative thinking, is a triumph of spirit and imaginative day dreaming.

I’m off to relax my mind, although for me driving is the ultimate time to mull thoughts. What works for you?

being bicultural

“That was just a dream some of us had” Joni Mitchell

A metaphor: Leaning into the wind. Image: Kim Gumabay

My recent post in which I reflected on the 1980s and biculturalism got me thinking about what is happening now in New Zealand in education. Bear in mind this a personal view – not one necessarily shared by my (younger and therefore less cynical) colleagues. And yes I generalise as I reflect.

Discourse in the 1980s focused on the idea that there were two partners in the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi and that partnership needed to be implemented as an idea and as a practice. It was accepted that being Pākehā in all its forms constituted a dominant cultural group, that institutions arose out of that cultural group and now needed to reflect the partnership principle  embedded in the Treaty/Tiriti.

So, for better or worse, for idealism, for idiocy or for good faith we gave biculturalism a go.

It was an idea that foundered because what we were (and I mean both Māori  and Pākehā) trying to do was add something onto institutions and organisations that had existed for a while, and the outcome was always going to be a little stilted. In the process many people of both cultures were burned. Some died far too early. Some opted out. Some survived to continue the work. Some altered their views and focus.

The great advances are where Treaty settlements have enabled iwi to become financially more secure and to take hold of Article two of the Treaty/Tiriti where they manage their own affairs.

Hill says in 2003 ”The evidence is now clear that Māori have always interpreted the promise of rangatiratanga in the Treaty’s Second Article as that of autonomously running their own affairs through their own methods. Their whole history of political and cultural interaction with the state since 1840 can be viewed as attempting to deflect the Crown from its imperative of full assimilation, and to effect indigenous aspirations for autonomy by adapting collective-based modes of organisation to ways that meet the realities of colonialism and post-colonialism”.

The 1989 Education Act stipulates that education institutions will “acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi’. But truly what evidence do we see that this happens? Is this just another form of assimilation? I am not sure that we (Pākehā administrators and educators) know HOW to acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Russell Bishop et al not withstanding.

It seems to me that the successes are where iwi groups have opted out.   Wananga appear to flourish. Which  doesn’t mean there are not successes within the Pākehā institutions. Some tertiary institutions excel at embracing or even incorporating ‘otherness’. The huge advance is that there are now more choices. We can choose to attend a wananga or a mainstream educational institution. We can hope that advances have been made that ensure Māori success and we can be thankful that some aspects of the Treaty work a little better.

Biculturalism? Not sure we even knew what we meant. Two cultures sharing power? One person being at home in two cultures? But no, not multiculturalism. That’s different. I still see myself as tangata tiriti – here because of the Treaty and my Māori  colleagues and friends are definitely tangata whenua.

And I’m still pleased we had all those discussions, arguments and efforts in the 1980s.

Identity, play and biculturalism

“A sense of self is difficult without myth” (J.C.Davis 1985 p.7).

Being away from work and in a sense playing has a purpose too. Part of my playing led me to a thesis by Emma Kelly about a friend, Jonathan Dennis. It’s also a thesis about identity and biculturalism in the New Zealand 1980s.

For many of us the 1980s was a time of discovery and exploration. When I arrived in Wellington Ngā Kaitiaki o ngā Taonga Whitiāhua the New Zealand Film Archive had just been set up, the first events of the NZ Film Festival were underway and the NZ Film Commission was beginning to hit its stride. Fingers Gallery in Auckland was er waggling its multiple digits too. The people involved, like me, were passionate about work and play. Both of which interconnected. It was hard to know where play and work began and ended.

Many of us had returned from overseas and were exploring our identity. We were no longer wanting to go’ home’. Our home was here. But we had arrived back to the end of Muldoon, a rugby tour with South Africa that we didn’t want and a desire to share and understand diversity. Many Māori had arrived in cities and universities and our relationship with them was intense, difficult, joyous, rewarding and frustrating and affirming. World views and expectations collided.

By the late 1980s we had seen the Te Māori exhibition at the National Museum, and we were gearing up for commemorations of 150 years of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. We had explored gay rights, a Labour Government and feminism.

There were women’s bookshops, Māori women’s exhibitions and exhibitions of Maori artists at the National Art Gallery. The significant group Haeta was active. We had explored whether or not Pākehā should learn te reo Māori and we had attended hui for weavers, and I had seen many movies, in particular the wonderful James McDonald movies, compliments of Jonathan.

Kelly’s thesis explores the role of Jonathan as a gay man and his desire to accommodate and integrate Māori communities into the New Zealand Film Archive. Kelly uses, amongst many, the theories of Bordieu whose work on cultural capital underpins my own ideas about education.

“Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to forms of capital (cultural, social and economic) is an outsiders’ perspective from which to consider issues between Māori and Pākehā in relation to the archive. Bourdieu argues from a sociological perspective that aesthetic taste, attitudes and understanding are dictated by upbringing and education. He describes these as “cultural capital” (P. Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Furthermore, within any institution, an individual member’s upbringing, belief systems and background will dictate their position in relation to power.”

It is a thesis that deserves to be read as it contains ideas that affect us all. It makes me consider how many changes have occurred since the 1980s and to wonder if things are better or worse. It makes me want to know how much the work of Jonathan, James Mack, Mina Mckenzie and Kiatiaki Maori influenced changes in museums in Aotearoa New Zealand. A friend tells me it’s harder now because Pākehā have learned to be more duplicitous in our racism. I wonder what Jonathan would make of the 2010s? In a world where developers can reiterate the 19th century mantra about biffing found artefacts in a museum rather than considering the place and relationship to land of those artefacts I think he’d be not so quietly despairing.

I am grateful that Emma Kelly took it upon herself to write this thesis. It seems to me worthy of taonga status and something for us to reflect upon. And a consideration of discourse and change in regards to the Treaty is now on my mind.

Kelly, E. (2014). A critical examination of film archiving and curatorial practices in Aotearoa New Zealand through the life and work of Jonathan Dennis. Communications School, Faculty of Design and Creative Technology, Auckland University of Technology.

checking it off checking it out

Image from elearning guidelines

We’ve been updating our QA checklists which we developed 2 years ago based on the elearning guidelines an inclusive, broad ranging and useful set of guidelines developed in a collaborative project by several institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This musing led us to the very useful e4innovation.com blog where author Grainne Conole shares her thoughts over a new checklist she is updating for inclusion in a book. Her list is wide ranging and the ones I think educationalists forget are: “Are the pedagogical approaches explicit?”and “What pedagogical approaches are used?”. My observation is that we like to move into being online without reflecting on our own pedagogical approaches. I observe, alas, a dependence on personal charisma and presentation.

Our aim in EdTech is to encourage tutors to reflect on their online course and to ask gentle questions. They are asked to complete their own checklist – much of it focussed on the provision of course/programme information. There are five points under accessibility and usability, four under support (for example learning support) five under the community heading and four under facilitation. For the 2015 update we have included a capability heading – that asks about authenticity, lessening plagiarism and activities that are designed to develop learning communities. To support this checklist we have a site of resources -Rauemi- where we share recent blogs, research and ideas to support the online/elearning community.

I have always found the elearning guidelines useful and by using them for our in-house checklist we hope to promote good learning design, facilitation and tutor reflection. We hope, too, to have further discussions about pedagogy.