In progress – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Early childhood teacher practices for supporting oral language acquisition and competency for children from Pacific heritages

Our project uses a multiple case-study design to investigate how EC teachers in both Pacific and non-Pacific ECE settings can effectively support oral language acquisition and learning for children from Pacific heritages. At the heart of this research is our focus on quality teacher-child practices and interactions that support children’s oral language learning and development. Our project draws on Pacific values of respect, reciprocal relationships, family and belonging (Rimoni, Glasgow & Averill, 2022) together with alofa (love and commitment), tautua (service and responsibilities, and fa’aaloalo (respect and dignity) (Luafutu-Simpson, 2011) and uses Pacific methodologies of teu le va and talanoa to enable researchers, teachers and whānau to share and build understandings

Tukua te mātauranga marautanga kia rere—The challenges of integrating mātauranga Māori into a Year 10 and 11 curriculum

Kupu whakataki / Whakamārama mō te kaupapa This kaupapa Māori derived longitudinal study will investigate best practices for the inclusion of relevant mātauranga Māori into an integrated programme for ākonga Māori in an English-medium secondary school. This project involves the trialling and documenting of different approaches to curriculum integration and the inclusion of kaupapa Māori and mātauranga Māori into curricula for a cohort of Year 10 and Year 11 ākonga Māori. Narratives of experience will be collated from ākonga, whānau, pouako and iwi/hapū members, with the intention of analysing the opportunities, highlights, and challenges of incorporating localised mātauranga Māori into an integrated curriculum. Ngā whāinga This project aims to identify the

Equity for Mātauranga Māori in mathematics education

Researchers and kaiako are investigating implementation of equity for mātauranga Māori in mathematics education in Kaupapa Māori and Kaupapa English settings. We are asking what is being done already, and what more is needed to be done to support kaiako enactment of equity for mātauranga Māori and mātauranga mathematics. Kaiako and researchers are co-designing programmes and evaluating strategies and activities that demonstrate how dual knowledge systems can combine and work together for purposes that are important to communities. Project findings will potentially support education settings to develop and implement their own programmes based on mokopuna needs. New kura/schools who are interested will be added in year two and three. We will

Beyond the classroom: Pacific-School partnership, leadership development and structural change

Led by Dr. Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga & Dr. Martyn Reynolds, this three-year project involves a partnership between Kāhui Ako Kapiti North, Kāhui Ako Dunedin Catholic Schools and Te Herenga Waka- Victoria University of Wellington. Further details to come (Sept 2024).

Supporting children’s literacy skills and sense of belonging through co-created multilingual multimodal stories

As families from refugee/immigrant backgrounds resettle in New Zealand to bring up children in a society that privileges English, effort is required to pass on their linguistic and cultural heritage to the next generation. This two-year project is a research-practice partnership which utilises culturally sustaining storytelling strategies to explore how family engagement in early childhood settings can enhance children’s learning outcomes and affirm their multiliterate identities. Using a narrative approach to qualitative inquiry, the research team will work with families from refugee/immigrant backgrounds to co-create multilingual multimodal stories situated in the participants’ lives and investigate the impact on home-school connections, children’s literacy outcomes, and their multiliterate identities. Aims The study’s central

Pacific Leadership in ECE: Privileging Culture, Community and Enhanced Outcomes

Our two-year project seeks a deep understanding of how Pacific ECE settings in Aotearoa enact culturally grounded, community-responsive leadership to promote equitable educational outcomes for Pacific children, their families, and communities. In this strengths-based project, we will collaborate with teachers and leaders (the practitioner-researchers), family/community members, and elders from Samoan and Tongan community-based centres to investigate the culturally-grounded collective leadership practices that make a positive difference for Pacific children, and their families/communities. Findings will inform teaching and leadership practices to enhance the educational experiences and outcomes for Pacific children, and their families/communities in these and other culturally diverse ECE settings. Aims Our research collaboration aims to transform the educational experiences of

Ko te tākaro te kauwaka e pakari ake ai te tangata framework for play in a primary school. Cultural pluralism for play-based pedagogy: Developing and implementing an indigenised framework for play in a primary school

This project is focused on the intersection between culturally sustaining practice and the use of play as a powerful pedagogical approach for early learning. Recognising the potential bias or systemic racism when play is only considered from a western perspective, we aim to explore decolonising and indigenising play practices within the school setting. The project builds on the groundwork undertaken by the leaders and kaiako at Te Whai Hiringa Peterhead School in indigenising their local curriculum reflective of mana whenua goals for their ākonga. Aims This project aims to explore the ways in which kaiako can adopt culturally sustaining play practices in their classrooms and intentionally promote, through play, an indigenised

Toi ora, reo ora, Whatuora – Developing Toi Māori pedagogy to support Māori whanau aspirations for reo and tikanga

Ō mātou hoa kōtui Three rumaki reo (te reo Māori immersion units) within the Waitemata Kāhui Ako – Te Uru Karaka (Newton Central Primary), Te Waititiko (Pasadena Intermediate) and Nga Puna o Waiorea (Western Springs College) Kupu whakataki / Whakamārama mō te kaupapa Toi Ora, Reo Ora, Whatuora is a practice led arts-based project to story the reo aspirations of three connected rumaki reo whānau in the Waitematā Kāhui Ako through the Māori pedagogy and practice of whatu. This research contributes to scholarship and practice on Toi Māori / Māori arts-based pedagogies as key language and cultural revitalisation practices within rumaki reo education. Importantly, this research sets out to strengthen Māori

Pāngarau unleashed: A multiple case study of de-streaming secondary mathematics

Many secondary schools in Aotearoa currently ‘stream’ mathematics, despite evidence that streaming exacerbates achievement inequalities and harms self-confidence. The need to ‘de- stream’ mathematics is clear and widely endorsed. However, the transition to mixed ‘ability’ mathematics is challenging and complex, involving changes in pedagogy, assessment, leadership, and community relationships. This project will use a bi-cultural teacher-researcher-student partnership model, grounded in the principles of ako and whanaungatanga, to provide four contrasting case studies of non-streamed secondary mathematics. In doing so, it will illustrate diverse ways to initiate and sustain effective transitions to non-streamed mathematics. Aims The broad aim of Pāngarau Unleased is to support a movement towards effective non-streamed practices in secondary

Tikanga and mātauranga Māori, paramount in effective speech language therapy for tamariki and whānau Māori

This is a Te Aitanga a Mahaki Iwi led project, with Te Aitanga a Mahaki whanau and hapu, for Te Aitanga a Mahaki uri whakaheke. This Research is co-funded by the Cure Kids and A Better Start Successful Learning Project Grant and The Teaching and Learning Research Initiative. In this research project we aim to find out what our whānau and Kaiako Māori of Te Aitanga a Mahaki know about speech language therapy and speech language and communication needs of tamariki Māori, and work together to build iwi-specific information and Kaupapa Maori resources that will support speech language and communication needs at home and in the classroom. Project Aims: Cultural Guidelines

Renewing participatory democracy: Walking with young children to story and read the land

Participatory democracy provides the value base and conceptual frame for this project. We will explore the ways in which walking, reading and storying the land with teachers, community members, iwi, and whānau, enable young children to experience and learn about their local area (its stories, geology, biodiversity and cultural meanings), and envision democratic socio-ecological futures. A participatory design research process will support two kindergartens, a kōhanga reo, and a primary school to develop and analyse pedagogical strategies that promote valued learning and dispositions of being ready, willing and able to actively participate in Aotearoa New Zealand and as “citizens of the world”. Aims Our research questions ask: What does it mean

Ngā pūrākau o Te Kura o Tuahiwi. A Kaupapa Māori Case study: a mixed methods approach

Ō mātou hoa kōtui The research partner of Te Kāhui Pā Harakeke, Child Wellbeing Research Institute at the University of Canterbury is Te Kura o Tuahiwi. This kura community brings to the research partnership a long history of collaboration with UC, a staunch sense of mana motuhake, and a passion for evidence based effective Māori teaching and learning. Each kaiako, through the leadership of their tumuaki, is committed to making sure every ākonga has a foundation for future successes. Aroha ki te tangata, te Tuahiwi ki te whai ao! Kupu whakataki / Whakamārama mō te kaupapa The research team in partnership with Te Kura o Tuahiwi has undertaken this project to

Investigating the effects of a T-Shaped Literacy intervention on Year 7 & 8 students’ reading and writing in subject English

This design-based project will use quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the effects of the innovative T-Shaped Literacy Model on Year 7 and 8 students’ disciplinary reading and writing in subject- English. A total of 40 teachers from predominantly low- decile schools throughout NZ will partner with us to co- design, implement, investigate and re-design units in which students (n>1000) will read text sets linked by a “big idea” (such as evocation of mood or narrative reliability) and conduct and synthesise complex literary analyses of multi-modal text sets, and apply what they learn about language to their own writing. What we plan to do We will support teacher-partners over each year

A Māori Modern Learning Environment: Ko te Akā Pūkaea kia ita, ko te Akā Pūkaea kia eke!

This kaupapa Māori project investigates the ways that two Māori-medium pathways (bilingual and immersion) work together in a newly built Flexible Learning Space (FLS) to progress Te Reo Māori and the aspirations of whānau. This study explores the notion of the Māori Modern Learning Environment (MMLE), and explores how this ‘space’ is understood and utilised by Maori teachers, students and whanau of the two Māori-medium pathways, and within the wider English-medium primary school context. This pūrākau (case-study style project) takes a strengths-based approach, and is based on the experiences, pedagogies and the potential of Te Akā Pūkaea, Newton Central School. Aims This research will be guided by the following key question:

Kōtuia te mātauranga marautanga reo Māori (KŌTUIA)

Ō mātou hoa kōtui Tuihana Pook, Te Kura Mana Māori o Whangaparaoa, Campbell Dewes, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kawakawa Mai Tawhiti, Wi Pōhatu, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Arahou, Hinematua Gillett, Te Wharekura o Te Ra Aroha, Waimarie Cassidy, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Pukemiro Kupu whakataki / Whakamārama mō te kaupapa Kāore i te tino mōhiotia te whakatinanatanga reo a ngā ākonga kei kura reo Māori e ako ana. E rima ngā kura ka mahi ngātahi mātou ki te tūhura i te reo ahurea Māori (Māori social language) me te reo mātauranga (academic language) o ngā ākonga. Ka aromatawaitia ō rātou reo, ka tātari ngātahitia hoki. Ka wānanga

Mātai mokopuna – he tirohanga wairua, hinengaro, tinana, whatumanawa

In 2017 Te Whāriki a te Kōhanga Reo was published in collaboration with Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust, formalising assessment or ‘mātai mokopuna’ practices within kōhanga reo. Mātai mokopuna makes visible the mana of mokopuna in conjunction with the Māori dimensions of wairua (spirituality), tinana (physicality), hinengaro (cognition) and whatumanawa (emotion). The research is a Participatory Action Research project underpinned by kaupapa Māori principles that will explore how whānau and kaiako give expression to the mana of mokopuna through these dimensions. Aims The overarching research question for this project is: How do whānau and kaiako give expression to the developing mana of mokopuna through the dimensions of hinengaro (cognition), wairua (spirituality),

Weaving our knowledge together: Uncovering Pasifika learners’ mathematical funds of knowledge

Working within an equity agenda, this project draws on a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach to recognise and record the mathematical learning experiences of Pāsifika learners outside of school in home and community settings. We aim to highlight the ways in which teachers can work with their students and parents/whānau to learn from and value their everyday experiences, cultural practices, and mathematical funds of knowledge. The project will explore how educators can develop and enact mathematically challenging group-worthy tasks which draw on Pāsifika mathematical funds of knowledge and the impact of these tasks on Pāsifika learners’ mathematical learning, engagement, and disposition Aims The principal aims of this project are to: 1. document

ACT: Advanced Computational Thinking in the New Zealand Digital Curriculum

Students and teachers who demonstrate an advanced computational reasoning can ethically use, creatively apply, and critically question the values and impacts of technology in society. This requires a deep and critical conceptualisation of computational thinking in the new Digital Technologies and Hangarau Matihiko (DTHM) curriculum. This research systematically, collaboratively, and creatively explores a curriculum of Advanced Computational Thinking (ACT) within the Maker Space community of Te Kura Tuarua o Manurewa Manurewa High School. The Manurewa Maker Space is an after-school space that works with student-led initiatives in digital technologies and entrepreneurship. In this project we engage with the Maker Space community in an action-oriented, design-based, and creative participatory inquiry in order

Using narrative assessment to support secondary school teachers’ inclusive practices.

Assessment capable teachers and students drive quality teaching and learning. Some students continue to be invisible in secondary school assessment landscapes and this is particularly the case students with special education needs. This project focusses on encouraging and supporting teachers to be capable and confident when working with all students in their classes. It investigates the formative use of narrative assessment as an approach to support the recognition of all students as learners. The students at the heart of this project are those secondary school age students working long-term within Level 1 of the NZ Curriculum. Aims We want to learn more about using narrative assessment to support teaching and learning

Envisioning student possible selves in science: Addressing ‘plant blindness’ through place-based education

We would like to develop primary, intermediate and high school students’ sense of place and science-related possible selves through local curriculum units that focus on plants. We chose plants because, compared with animals, they are often overlooked (hence the phenomenon of ‘plant blindness’), as is their part in realising many sustainable development goals. Our curriculum units will cover biological, personal, social/cultural and political/economic aspects of plants (kūmara, kawakawa and harakeke being examples our teacher partners suggested). Hence, the project harnesses the values of place-based education to foster student learning of science and development of aspirations to participate in science. Aims This project has two goals: to develop students’ understanding of science