Activity 10: Summarising my Postgraduate Learning Journey and my Planning for the future

At last…….

I am writing my last blog for this wonderful, thought provoking and challenging course that took 34 weeks to complete instead of 32 weeks as I took extension for my last assignment. The first sixteen weeks was very intense. I felt the workload was high and became compounded by my schoolwork. Four hours per day, two hours per course, once a week was intense and lot of information to take in and think about. At times, I felt that certain topics needed much more time for me to comprehend.  The first two courses had some interesting topics that kept challenging my views and assumptions. Some of the interesting topics that grabbed my attention were collaborative learning and coding, augmented reality, blending learning, games in education and gamification of leadership, agile based learning and leadership, design thinking in classrooms and leadership, leading change and leadership theories plus leading change. These topics are of great interest to me, which needs further attention. From weeks 17 to 24, the literature review was quite involved and demanding. The inquiry based research project was equally demanding but beneficial. However, doing online discussion on the Mindlab discussion forum was helpful. Seeing other peoples’ views in regards to my discussion was also helpful.

From weeks 25 to 32, has been again challenging for me because blogging is not my forte. To be able to blog fluently, requires a person to be widely read and write with a passion. For me, I had to read each topic to get a better understanding before I could express my views in a blog with regards to my pedagogy and my teaching context. I feel as time progressed, I have become good at it and in doing so, I have gained tremendous amount of information regarding the topics covered. Reflective practice, use of social media, law and ethics within my profession plus Indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive teaching has been thought provoking. I feel I have gained a lot in terms of professional development in these areas.

The three PTC criteria that I have met well.

Criteria 1: Establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of all ākonga..

To be an effective teacher, one needs to maintain or build relationships with their akonga, their colleagues and the wider community. This course, has helped me to redefine my role as  a facilitator than as a teacher in my classroom. My priority this year has been to understand my students better by getting them to do a little survey about them. During class time, I chat with individual students to maintain the friendly, but professional relationship. I tend to acknowledge my students when I see them out on the fields or sitting in a shade chatting away. I find this is good time to talk to them.

Maintaining relationships with colleagues in a professional manner is paramount. Having enrolled in this course has led me in to having meaning full talks with my colleagues. I can now better relate to them because I can now talk about how to embrace teaching in this 21^st century. Having meaningful discussions on the use of ICT in a classroom is hot topic as teachers find it hard to implement digital media within their lessons. Giving them ideas and ways to introduce ICT, is my way of sharing my learning at the Mindlab.

 Criteria 4:  Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.

Our profession is such that it requires lifelong learning for the betterment of our students and colleagues. So, ongoing professional development is a necessity. When I first embarked on to this course I found myself lost because my understanding of some aspects for 21^st century teaching and learning was quite shallow.  When I saw my fellow teachers having meaningful discussions and views, I felt that I knew very little. So I started to actively listen and do further readings. As time progressed, I found that my understanding of various theories and pedagogical style was getting better. Lot of things started making sense. From here on my desire for professional development has been rekindled and now I avidly read material related to my profession. My 32 week course has finished, but my personal learning journey has just begun and will continue, as we live in a society where knowledge is growing at an exorbitant rate. While writing the assignments for DCL and LDC  and R&C, I have gained a lot of knowledge from each of these courses and some areas will be revisited by me.

Criteria 7:  Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment.

While doing my assignments in DCL, LDC and R&C, my focus always has been how to raise students’ motivation and engagement in a classroom. I have used collaborative teaching and learning in my senior school. With this, I found that within each heterogeneous groups, those students who were thorough with the content knowledge, improved their grades because they were busy teaching their peers. This allowed them to improve their understanding and the content knowledge.

I became a fan of digital games and gamification whilst doing this course. My literature review was on using digital games and gamification to improve student engagement and achievement in schools. Moreover, my inquiry project that followed the literature review was based on use of games to improve student engagement and achievement. For me, being on a learning journey, I have fulfilled this criteria to the best of my ability. This doesn’t mean I will stop here. I am more inquisitive to see how I can use this with my classes and see what the outcome is. This could be the basis for my Masters project.

Plan and Justification for my future developement

 Goal 1:

The first 24 weeks of this course has taught me a lot but I have had very little time to really think about how I am going to incorporate this within my teaching. Now that I am on the verge of completing this course, I will have ample time to revisit some of the topics and study it in depth. I can than apply that to my pedagogy. They say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, so obviously it will take time to make changes in my pedagogy.

Goal 2:

This course has been really interesting and challenged my assumptions.  My views have changed and I have started making changes in my pedagogy. I would like to spend may be one year to really try things out and then embark on completing a Masters in Applied Practice in Digital and Collaborative Learning and teaching.

Reference

 Criteria 1

http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning/Criteria-1

Criteria 4

http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning/Criteria-4

Criteria 7

http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning/Criteria-7

Activity 9 :Evaluations of cultural responsiveness in practice .

My School Community

My school community is made up of learners from diverse cultures. Namely Pasifika students, followed by Indians, Asians, Europeans ,Maori and others. With such diverse cross-sections of learners, the school community is enriched by the diversification of various cultural heritages and communities.

My own views on Indigenous Knowledge

When I first migrated to New Zealand, I passed a group of Maori people doing a Haka at the arrivals at Auckland International Airport. This was new to me as I had not seen this before. I asked my wife, who was waiting to receive me, about this Haka. She explained to me that this is part of New Zealand’s heritage and they were here to welcome some one important. However, since then, my knowledge about the indigenous culture has slowly built up. Hearing about treaty of Waitangi and watching Kapa Haka groups on TV1, taught me a few things about New Zealand’s Maori culture. Other than that I know very little about the cultural aspects of the local people.

In my opinion to learn about the indigenous culture of any country, you need to mingle with the people and see from their perspective.  However, being here in this country for a while, I have not been able to do that. The only interactions I have had is with the parent community during parent teacher nights or when we have cultural night at school.  The only connections I have with Maori students is during school time. Some Maori learners follow their culture, whilst some have no clue what Maori culture is all about. They have lost the language skills and are more westernised than a Maori. I am not sure whether it was their choice or it was the effect of colonialism.

Beginning of this year, I was invited on the Te Tahawai Marae with my year 9s. After the Powhiri , I got to do the Hongi with the people who invited us  and later I was allowed to enter the Marae. To my surprise, we were told to take our shoes off as this was not to be worn inside a Marae. To me, this resembled something similar in my culture where we are not allowed to wear shoes in a place of Worship.

For me, as a teacher and an individual it is my responsibility to build my understanding and gain more indigenous cultural knowledge, so that its easier for me to relate to the Maori students and provide better learning opportunities for them.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Mike Hogan in his Ted talk mentions the word “tokenism”. To me, it feels the same in my school as well. Do we really make any emphasis on incorporating the richness of Maori culture within our pedagogical programmes?  For me this is only on the surface to fulfil some criteria or requirements from the senior management. There is very little cultural awareness within the classroom. This could be that as teachers of different cultural backgrounds, we lack indigenous knowledge to make learning more meaningful to the Maori akonga. They fall in the same rut as other kids of different cultural backgrounds of learning with the cultural boundaries set by the school.

Russel Bishop in his TED talk mentions that the deficit in the Maori students’ achievement is due to the lack of more agentic teachers in school who are not prepared to accept the challenges of incorporating aspects of Maori culture within their teaching.

For teachers to be agentic, Russell Bishop mentions six important things in his TED Talk.

1.      They care for Maori students as Maori

2.      They also care for performances of Maori students (having high expectations)

3.      They manage the class they teach.

4.      They Promote interactions of young Maori by providing feedback and feed forward to create co-constructivism of learning.

5.      Teachers should be able to use range of strategies and be able to use it  effectively.

6.       Highly effective teachers use the evidence of students’ performance to decide where they take their teaching now.

Culturally responsive pedagogy has the potential to grow when teachers are prepared to have multiple and diverse learning opportunities for the students to develop, express and receive feedback on their understanding of the subject. Students should be encouraged to bring in their different cultural experiences and knowledge within their learning context.

Culturally responsive pedagogy also thrives when the teachers allow for oral, visual (group and individual) presentations. Also, for Maori learners teaching other students, with lesser skills is an opportunity to demonstrate what they have learnt.

Maori students are kinaesthetic learners. Their preference is to learn by using all their senses. Maori students learn by being actively involved and they like the abstract content to be presented to them using suitable analogies and using examples from real life situations.(Zapalskadallas, Helen, Keiha, Zapalska, & Dabb, 2002).

School Wide Activities

My school has the ability to entice the parents to be the part of their children’s learning journey in terms of performing Kapahaka, performing at polyfestival, doing powhiri during school senior price giving and other important events. The students are keen to be part of their heritage and spend time afterschool learning Kapahaka etc.  The parents of these students take responsibility along with the Maori teacher to teach and educate their children. Also, during school cultural nights the students take pride in performing in front of their elders and teachers. It is their time to express to the wider community what their culture is about and how much they value it.

The Karakea and  powhiri for  important occasions shows that as a school, we value the input of the Maori community. Students and Parents of Maori origin feel the cultural values are being respected and taught in this school according to the guidelines of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Learning Activities  

Learning activities that happen in my classroom are devoid of any Maori cultural aspects. The main reason could be that my major emphasis is to complete the required teaching for the NCEA assessments. There is hardly any time to think of anything other than completing the teaching curriculum for NCEA.

There have been times where I have incorporated some aspects of Maori culture in my teaching. These have been more tokenistic rather than being agentic as per Mike Hogan and Russell Bishop respectively.

Lack of Maori cultural aspects within my teaching can be attributed to the lack of my indigenous knowledge, lack of Te Reo and not opening open to seek help from the Maori community to see how I could use their funds of ethnic and cultural knowledge to maximise my teaching to help Maori Kids.  

Bibliography.

Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved fromhttps://vimeo.com/49992994

Edtalks.(2012, May 30). Mike Hogan: Culturally responsive practice in a mainstream school. [video file].Retrieved fromhttps://vimeo.com/43097812

Cowie, B., Otrel-Cass, K., Glynn, T., & Kara, H., et al.(2011).Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment in primary science classrooms: Whakamana tamariki. Wellington: Teaching Learning Research Initiative.Retrieved from http://www.tlri.org.nz/sites/default/files/projects/9268_cowie-summaryreport.pdf

Zapalskadallas, A. M., Helen, B., Keiha, D., Zapalska, A. M., & Dabb, H. (2002). Teaching Maori students business issues : an experiential approach. http://doi.org/10.1108/00400910210424346

Activity 8: Legal contexts and digital identities.

Code of Ethics

Code of ethics is an essential and a compulsory document for people to excel and maintain their professionalism in their career. Otherwise people will do whatever they feel is right for them. This will cause an emotional and physical harm to the person or people on the receiving end. The teaching profession is no exception and the teachers are bound by the code of ethics especially formulated for teachers. This helps to maintain the professionalism required in teaching profession.  

The New Zealand teachers’ code of ethics has been put in place to ensure “Teachers certificated to practice in New Zealand are committed to the attainment of the highest standards of professional service in the promotion of learning by those they teach, mindful of the learner's ability, cultural background, gender, age or stage of development.” (“Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers | Education Council,” n.d.)

The above mentioned intricate task is achieved by collaborating with colleagues, learners, parents and family and the wider community.

The code of ethics is based on four fundamental principles:

“Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended

Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power

Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others

Truth to be honest with others and self.” (“Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers | Education Council,” n.d.)

The registered teachers’ professional obligation is towards the students they teach. They need to ensure that the teaching and learning is happening in a safe environment. The commitment to the learners is paramount. The learners of today are accessing digital media at an alarming rate on their digital devices anytime anywhere. How do we keep these learners safe from the digital challenges such as cyber safety, cybercrime and cyber security.

To ensure learner safety, Educational council of New Zealand has come up with some guidelines. For commitment to learners, it says:

 “Teachers have a professional obligation to develop and maintain professional relationships with learners based on the best interests of those learners. A teacher who is both aware of social media and a competent and confident user will be a role model for their learners and encourage them to become good digital citizens.”(“Teachers & Social Media | Commitment to Learners,” n.d.)

We as teachers have to ensure a robust digital citizenship program in schools is available to the students to ensure the students understand the pros and cons of using digital media in schools and at the same time avoid any negative activity on the network.  The article from Netsafe says that:

“The overall objective for schools is to create a learning environment involving the safe and responsible use of digital technology. This is largely achieved by fostering a positive culture of digital technology use where challenges are understood to exist. This approach should reduce negative outcomes by:

 •  reducing the incidents of misconduct involving digital technology

 • minimising harm to students by effectively responding to incidents when they occur.”(“Digital Technology: Safe and responsible use in schools.,” n.d.)

Ethical Dilemma

My school has recently embraced BYOD program for year 9’s. However, this BYOD program is not restricted to year 9’s as we have been encouraging other year levels to bring a device to school for learning purposes. My school has installed “Linewize” monitoring software. This keeps an eye on the students’ activity online. This means the students are aware that their actions are being monitored. The year nines are doing the digital citizen program to understand the pros and cons of digital world.

One aspect that really bothers me is that; what if some students bring in an objectionable material saved on their devices and show it to their close friends. How do we monitor that? Only time such things will become apparent is when one of the students makes a complaint. So the dilemma is, have I done enough to safeguard these students from such dubious activities. To me this is analogous to a child bringing in a hardcopy of that objectionable material and showing it to their friends.

Addressing the Potential Issue if it occurred in my own practice

The Education act 1989 has provisions to support teachers how to handle situations involving digital technology incidences. Note “This advice is based on the Guidelines for the Surrender and Retention of Property and Searches and accompanying rules that the Secretary for Education released in January 2014.” (“Digital Technology: Safe and responsible use in schools.,” n.d.)

If a student did bring an objectionable material to school, saved on their device and I was notified of this by other students, then I can ask the student to reveal the item and hand in the device to me provided I have reasonable grounds to believe that such item exists on the concerned student’s device.  This will then lead me to believe that objectionable material could be detrimental to the learning environment and affect other students emotionally.

Once reasonable grounds have been established, I can get the concerned student to reveal the item of “interest”. I can also get the student to reveal any other objectionable items stored on his device and confiscate his device, noting the time name and date of confiscation.  The reason for confiscation would be to establish the fact that the objectionable material has not been circulated to other students and it will be necessary to remove it from the device to avoid further harm. The confiscated device can then be returned to the student or the student’s parents/guardians within two days. This breach of trust and the ICT contract between the student and the school can be forwarded to the senior management for restorative justice.

Bibliography

Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers | Education Council. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2016, from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Digital Technology: Safe and responsible use in schools. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2016, from http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseInSchs.pdf

Teachers & Social Media | Commitment to Learners. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2016, from http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/guidelines/commitment-learners

Activity 7: Social media in teaching and professional development.

What is social media (SM)?

‘‘Social media’, associated with what are also called Web 2.0 technologies, may be defined as the suite of tools and platforms which are ‘participatory, characterised by user-generated content and peer critiquing’’ (Conole 2010,).

http://whatis.techtarget.com defines Social media as “the collection of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking , social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media.”

The most common SM is Facebook followed by twitter and google+ etc.

What are some key features of social media that is beneficial to teaching and learning?

Social media has very aptly planted its foot in our 21^St century education system. Children of today and younger teachers find social media a necessity to function from day to day. Those teachers who are older and less confident with the social media find it a nuisance and wish the children never knew how to use them. Parents who have been to school in the last 10 to 15 years have a better understanding of the social media compared to parents who were taught in schools during sixties and seventies.

Children of today find the use of You tube, Facebook , Twitter, Google+ , Snapchat etc   a part of their daily routine. I believe, as educators of 21^st century we can use this to our advantage in our classrooms.

Social media has its pros and conswhen used in a classroom. So what features can we employ to our advantage as teachers?

i)                    Most children of today are familiar with social networking sites. They can be an asset to you as a teacher and you could learn a few tricks on the go.

ii)                  For educators, it is an ideal opportunity to make yourself familiar with issues pertaining to social media surrounding the students. In other words, you as an educator have to be conversant with various social media to resolve unethical issues arising in a classroom. For example cyber bullying or online harassments etc.

iii)                Students and teachers have access to a vast wealth of information via social media. Here the students are able to improve their research skills and sieve in relevant information. A skill that is needed for 21^st century workforce. Teachers are able to exchange information, resources and provide feedback to their colleagues and students.

iv)                Social media allows for improved communication between the students and the educators. This could be posting homework and content of a particular topic, sending reminders for homework, project collaboration, school events and tests.

v)                  Educators can utilise social media to teach Digital Citizenship that can be built within a learning context. It also allows us to share relevant learning materials.

vi)                Social media has the potential to accommodate students with different learning styles and students who find social interaction in class difficult, can use online interaction to collaborate and contribute. Thus allowing for more engagement in class.

What are the potential challenges the teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities?

The notion of students being on a social networking site in a classroom sends a chill down the spine of most teachers. Firstly, the teachers themselves are not fully conversant with the concerned social networking site.  Whilst those teachers who have spent most of their lives around social media, find various ways to use it in a classroom.

Constant monitoring of students using monitoring software would be appropriate. However, not all schools are in a position to invest heavily in such robust monitoring software. Moreover, even if a teacher wanted to use a social media such as Facebook or Twitter, they would find that such sites, were blocked by the school. The fear of students being subjected to unwanted material, cyberbullying and harassment is of concern to senior administrators and the board of trustees. Hence, social media sites have become a no go zone.

Some schools are warming up to the idea of using social media. This has happened in schools where the younger generation have moved in as teachers with various degree of expertise and knowledge of social media. This in returns has allowed the schools to provide training and ongoing support to staff who have been reluctant to employ social media in teaching and learning.

Teachers need to keep abreast of the technical and security changes that happen on social media. This will allow them to manage the students and the teaching that takes place in a classroom, much more efficiently.

The possibility of malware and phishing for scammers to attract adults and children to exchange personal information to access computer networks is of concern. The school’s network site administrator needs to have robust network security system to avoid such mishaps. 

What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement with your professional development.? Why?

My professional development happens via two or three social media platforms. The first is You Tube. This platform, allows me to grow both intellectually and built my knowledge base. I enjoy learning things online that I want to learn to improve myself as a teacher.

The second platform that I enjoy using is Twitter. This platform provides a tweet of less than 140 characters regarding the area of interest. Built within the tweet will be an address to a blog or a content of interest. For me, my interest lies in receiving tweets about education in 21^st century, science, physics and digital technologies. 

The third platform that has grabbed my interest recently is the blogger. Having written some blogs for two assignments, I have found a liking to it. I enjoy reading blogs relating to education and would enjoy blogging about education.

How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development?

My professional development has taken an exponential growth due to the social media.YouTube provides me with various videos that I can see, learn and develop intellectually. I have learnt how to filter and sieve relevant information regarding a particular topic.  Twitter allows me to go on to current topics in education and science. It also allows me to read other people’s blogs. Especially those I follow. As I mentioned above that blogging has grabbed my attention, I would like start blogging on issues in education. I would love to get feedbacks, criticism and constructive comments so that I can grow to be a 21^st century educator. 

References

Conole, G. 2010. “Facilitating New Forms of Discourse for Learning and Teaching: Harnessing the Power of Web 2.0 Practices.” Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e- Learning 25 (2): 141–151.

http://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/what-are-the-benefits-of-social-networking-for-teachers/

Activity 6 : Contemporary issues or trends in in New Zealand or Internationally.

Global Trend

Global Megatrends 2030, identifies four crucial trends that’s going to globally transform our lives by 2030. These are :

• .           Individual Empowerment
• .           Diffusion of Power
• .           Demographic Patterns
• .         Growing food, water and energy nexus.

Individual empowerment and diffusion of power will transform the lives of individuals on a global basis. It is envisaged the world population will increase from 7.1 billion (2012) to 8.3 billion by 2030. In the next 15 to 20 years, the world will see an increase in the middle class population. This means that this group of people will be the driver of the wold economy. However, at the same time they will claim better health, living conditions and better and higher standard of education for their children, putting a huge demand on the available resources. “Individual empowerment is the most important megatrend because it is the cause and effect of most other trends. “(Global Trends 2030, 2012).

The global economies will see a shift. Countries like China and India will be in the forefront of global economy. It is likely, that United States’ economy will fall short compared to China’s a few years before 2030. Countries with changing and increasing economies will need to maintain this by being innovative and show entrepreneurship.  This will also apply to those countries whose middle class would be working towards improving their own economy.  New Zealand being a developed nation, will want to be on the forefront of improving its own economy to meet the demands of the 21^st  Century.

Question is how does one become innovative and show entrepreneurship.

For New Zealand to be the forerunner in the global economy, it needs to scrutinise its education system. Most schools in New Zealand are still stuck in the education system of industrial age.  We as teachers need to be more vigilant in the way we educate students of this era. Students of today are our investments for the future. These students need the skills to survive in the 21^st century. 

Core Education describes five key areas of change. These are

1.       Cultural

2.       Technology

3.       Structural

4.       Economic

5.       Process

Embedded within each change are two trends as each change provides a context to see how these trends may develop in the future.

The diagram on “10 trends 2015” has been adopted from the Core Education’s website.

For me, the two areas, that I think, are shaping New Zealand Education are Cultural and Economic changes as shown above.

Trend 1: Cultural Change ( Learning Agency)

The idea of learner agency has been around for a very long time (10 trends 2015, Core education). Learner agency is regarded as, when learners have the power to make decisions about their learning. Here the learner is more active and takes initiative in their learning.

In the past, most of our schools had the approach of “one size fits all” type of education. Individual needs of students in the classrooms were neglected. Some students lacked motivation as they found this type of delivery of learning material not to their liking. Students who became active participants in their learning and were involved in decision making about their learning showed greater agency.

Core education website  for 10 trends for 2015, outlines three important features of learner agency.

a.       Agency requires self- regulation

b.       Agency is interdependent

c.        Agency requires learners to be aware of the responsibility of one’s own actions on others and the environment.

What are the implications ?

Things are rapidly changing in this 21^st century. With a blink of an eye technology changes, vocations vanish and new ones come up. At this rate, it is difficult for individuals to keep up with the change. So, for our learners to be functional in this rapidly changing world, they will need to be resilient and adapt to change when they are out in the workforce. We as classroom teachers need to encourage students to be agentic in their learning allowing, them to easily adapt to changes.

For me as an educator, I need to start working on individualised plan for the students. To some extent, we already do this in class because some students find the required learning beyond their means. So they get either put in groups of two or three and taught, whilst others work on their own, learning what they think is relevant

Trend 2: Economic Change ( Innovation and Entrepreneurship) .

Individuals, communities and countries who are willing to be innovative and come up with new ways of doing things are the ones who will be successful in the 21^st century. With the advent of exponential growth in technology, massive demand on earth resources and globalisation are going to be the drivers for this trend. To be able to sustain this onslaught of 21^st century demands, workers will requires new set of skills and temperament.

New Zealand school curriculum identifies “Entrepreneurship” as the future focused idea as this is the foundation of developing a ‘knowledge economy’.

Core education in 10 trends 2015 mentions that there is a need for more innovators and entrepreneurs in order to sustain a healthy level of growth.

How do we achieve this?

As an educator in the 21^st century, I feel I need to provide opportunities in class for students to be entrepreneurs and innovators where risk taking and failing will be taken as a positive.

Currently, with the demands of completing NCEA curriculum in schools, it doesn’t leave much room to be innovative in classroom. Students are required to complete internal assessments and then they need to be readied for the external exams within a certain time. If we as educators are going to employ the two trends mentioned above in preparing our students to be sustainable in this fast paced world, we need to examine our assessment system which puts huge pressure on teachers to teach the way they teach now.   Report from ERO mentions three issues that schools are lacking at. They are:

“One: The need to shift the focus to student-centred learning.

Two: The need to knowledgeably implement a responsive and rich curriculum.

Three: The need to use assessment information to know about, and plan for, students’ learning.”

Bibliography

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012).Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching: A New Zealand perspective.Wellington: Ministry of Education. Retrieved 5 May 2015, from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Education Review Office (2012).The three most pressing issues for New Zealand’s education system, revealed in latest ERO report - Education Review Office. Retrieved 5 May 2015, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Release...

KPMG Australia. (2014, May 22).Future State 2030 - Global Megatrends. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im5SwtapHl8