Dealing with Data and consolidating Manaiakalani pedagogy

Today's DFI consolidated in my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy. Empowered was the focus. This empowerment comes as a result of increased practice, support and collaboration. Pat Snedden head of the Manaiakalani trust speaks of empowerment in relation to taking control of our lives. Small things in life empower us with choices we have around our health and lifestyle and even the amount of words we speak to our young children. Our challenge is to have ongoing conversations for young children to enhance their opportunities for learning and comprehending language.

We were fortunate to have Dorothy Burke in our presence today. Dorothy likened what we are doing to being like renovating a house rather than building a new one. The fact that we are doing this course part way through the year makes it challenging to add to our already busy workload. Manaiakalani started off using the word agency. This lead to having to explain what agency meant, however in the community where this word was first introduced this meant other things, so the word empowered was used instead. It had a positive connotation.

We learned many shortcuts and useful ways of working with google sheets today. I already use google sheets for planning and within my hub. A good idea of what to do with spreadsheets would be for students to create a spreadsheet, go to their blogs, assisted by their teacher and create a hypothesis, looking at their own journey and seeing what has happened as a result of their data. You can collect valuable data by looking at the outside of a students data: how they post, what they post, frequency of posts….look at the trend information. Students can’t see the statistics directly as we are their blog administrators, however we can share this information with students.

Today we had a taster of google maps and looking at marking spots on a map. This could be used in the classroom prior to a trip, showing students where they can go. Or where did you go in the school holidays, locally or further.

I liked the idea of 'The 5 plus a day' challenge that was discussed today. This idea related to conversation and interacting with our young students in an ongoing conversation. Quite simply, if we want to empower students we need to create more conversations. This can be enhanced through the blogging. Ultimately this empowering assists people to make better choices with simple things like shopping.

My ongoing challenge is to continue consolidating my knowledge and continuing to grapple with what I have learned.