MIT2020 - Google Meet (May 25th) - Getting back on track!

Today another Google Meet with the MIT2020 mentors and crew- a chance to check in and see how everyone is after lockdown and how our projects are tracking.

We are all at very different stages with our projects - some progress, some success and some stuckness. Despite my recent revelations, I am definitely feeling firmly in the 'stuck' camp and took advantage of the opportunity to meet one on one with Matt. 

Exploring how to support Year 8 students to confidently manage the transition from the primary to secondary school learning environment is a too broad and was causing me a degree of overwhelm! Matt  advised me to narrow the scope of my project to just one aspect of self-management skills and Matt also suggested to make it practical for the students by linking it to a single even in their lives  e.g. the annual Year 8 Graduation in Term 4.

Taking has advice on board, my next steps are to:

• Research the literature on self-management skill sets (e.g time management and organisation skills)
• Link the Year 8s self-management skills to their preparation for the upcoming Year 8 Camp (scheduled for the start of Term 3).

Reaffirming my MIT 2020 Challenge

Reflecting back to the challenge statement (v2) from March - to provide a 'one-stop' shot for students, teachers and whanau to access a toolkit for self-management and staying connected that is based on Te Whare Tapa Wha - the Taha Challenge site was my attempt to meet this brief. 

I was not convinced that this tool completely hit the mark in terms of connecting students in a meaningful way so I decided to park my first prototype and explore other possibilities.

One suggestion was the PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope), programme brought from Canada to Aotearoa/NZ by  Katarina Pipi  over a decade ago. The idea is to tap into the dreams and aspirations of a person or organisation and with the help of a faciliator, create a plan of what they will need to do to/overcome to achieve their goal/s. Pipi has used PATH successfully with youth, whanau, hapu and iwi throughout the country.

 

I also came across the Te Rito Toi project, set up to support teachers to work with children when they first return to school following major traumatic or life changing events such as the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes but has since been used following the Christchurch mosque attacks and more recently COVID 19. This initiative inspired me to support students to build stronger connections between them and their whanau  (both immediate and extended) to record family stories/histories/events of importance to them.

In the end - I felt I was going off in too many tangents and I desperately needed to refocus! 

I am convinced the way forward to successful transition to high school is to figure out how to best support our intermediate students to manage themselves. With this in mind,  I found my way back to my original (pre-COVID) challenge statement!

Year 8 students need self-management skills to confidently manage the transition from the primary to secondary school learning environment.

The next iteration of my design project is to find a tool that will support Year 8 students to develop their personal capacity to manage themselves independently.

MIT2020 - Meeting May 7th - Impact on my thinking/planning

I was really looking forward to this meeting - a great opportunity to catch up with fellow MITers and hear where they were at with their design projects AND to get some much needed feedback to guide the next steps for my own project.

REFLECTIONS:  During COVID lockdown, I got to see my prototype in action and embrace the mantra, Fail Fast, Fail Forward!  Over the month of April, I got to road test a digital tool designed to help students build and maintain connections with each other during a period where there would be no face to face contact with teachers or their peers. 

My experiment has run its course and now,  I am left with lots of questions - what exactly was the connection, if any, that students achieved during the Taha Challenge experience? Is this 'connection' to their peers what I need to be focusing on to prepare? Should I be focussing more on developing the 'self-management' part of the toolkit of my project challenge?

NEXT STEPS: I need to go back to the drawing board - do some more ruminating - connect with my support team and figure out how to progress.

MIT2020 - Taha Challenge is Complete!

In the midst of COVID Lockdown, Easter and ANZAC Day, the Taha Challenge is ran its course and is now complete! For the month of April 2020, a team of seven students collaborated from their bubbles to create video and blog content for 15 taha challenges. Each challenge was based on the four elements of the the Māori health model, Te Whare Tapa Wha:  Taha Tinana (Healthy Body) - 5 challenges;  Taha Wairua (Healthy Spirit), - 4 challenges; Taha Whanau (Healthy Family, Relationships) - 3 challenges and Taha Hinengaro (Healthy mindset) - 3 challenges. 

Using GOOGLE Forms to track the blogging and commenting, here are a few interesting stats:

• 17 unique Taha Challengers (that included 14 Students; 3 teachers)
• 51 Blog Posts in total
• 23 Blog Comments in total
• One student completed 13 challenges - check out her blog posts here:  Taha Whanau, Taha Hinengaro, Taha Tinana and Taha Wairua

The majority (44) who used GOOGLE Forms to add their Taha Challenge posts enjoyed themselves!

REFLECTIONS: It was exciting to see that all bar one of the 14 students who took part, completed at least two challenges. As already mentioned, one student completed 13 challenges but seven others completed between 3 - 5 challenges each! 

I was hoping to have more students involved but it is quite possible that the uptake may have been higher as blog links and/or blog comments about challenges may not have been updated in the Google Forms I set up. Tracking 160+ year 7 & 8 student blogs would have given more accurate data but not sustainable over the one month that the Taha Challenge ran.

Now that the Taha Challenge is officially over, I do wonder what, if any, kind of  'connection' was created/maintained between the students who took part and whether this site was the best way to create a connection in the first place! Plenty of food for thought as I think about what my next steps might be.