Teacher role – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Te Kura Mai i Tawhiti: He Tau Kawekaweā: Building the foundation for whanau educational success and wellbeing; a Kaupapa Māori ECE approach

Introduction Te Kōpae Piripono (TKP), Māori immersion early childhood education (ECE) centre, was recognised by the Ministry of Education in 2005 as a Centre of Innovation (COI), funding a 3-year practitioner research project which looked at whether Whānau Development at Te Kōpae Piripono fosters leadership across all levels of the whānau enhancing children’s learning and development (Tamati, Hond-Flavell & Korewha, 2008). The COI research identified obstacles to individual and collective whānau development and participation in TKP that can have negative consequences for the educational and life outcomes of children and their whānau (families). This study, He Tau Kawekaweā, has built upon understandings derived from that earlier research. The aim of this

Reengineering an engineering course: How flipped classrooms afford transformative teaching, learning, and workplace competency

Introduction Successful engineering graduates need to understand engineering principles and practices and be able to work in teams, to communicate well, and to work in contexts that can be risky and uncertain (Adamson & DarlingHammond, 2012; Meier, Williams, & Humphreys, 2000). Current trends in engineering education call for the development of students’ technical and non-technical skills (Male, 2010). Thus, it is crucial that tertiary educators develop curricula that enable students to develop these capacities and to enhance their employability and contribution to a country’s economic competitiveness and societal wellbeing (Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, 2014). This project extends our previous research on the effectiveness of

Designing knowledge building communities in secondary schools

Introduction With the emergence of globalisation and the knowledge economy, it has become a priority for economically advanced countries to increase and democratise the innovative capacity of their citizens. In New Zealand, there is an urgent need to develop young people’s capacity to work creatively and innovatively with knowledge (Ministry of Education, 2007). This presents a huge challenge for teachers, who will be required to shift their pedagogical beliefs and practices from supporting students to reproduce knowledge, to “actively interact with it: to understand, critique, manipulate, create, and transform it” (Bolstad & Gilbert, 2008, p. 39, emphasis in original). A knowledge building communities (KBC) model developed by Scardamalia and Bereiter (2003)