MIT2020 - My MIT Presentation

Here is a recording of my Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher (MIT) presentation for 2020 and below are links to the digital tools I developed as part of my MIT journey to design a tool to support Year 8 students to be better self-managers who will transition with confidence to high school.

Taha Challenge - a digital tool to encourage Year 7 & 8 students to manage themselves during lockdown by completing a series of challenges based on the Māori health model, Te Whare Tapa Wha (April 2020)

Get Ready!  - a digital tool to guide and assist Year 8 students in their organisation and preparation for Leadership Camp in Term 3 (5th -8th August, 2020)

A huge thank you to Dorothy, Matt and each member of the 2020 MIT cohort for your advice and unflagging support throughout our design thinking adventure this year.

He rau ringa, e oti ai te mahi  

Many hands make light work! 

UPDATE: May 2021

Before leaving Pt England School at the end of 2020, I prepared a new  Get Ready! site with updated digital content all set to roll out for 2021. The school camp for Year 8 students at Pt England School went ahead in May (Term 2, 2021) and anecdotal feedback from students suggested that the updated site had (like the original version) been useful for both students and teachers in their preparation for the annual leadership camp.

Looking to the future, I'm now convinced that a digital tool based on the Get Ready! site could be modified to support the Year 9 transition and bring to fruition my original design thinking  The key component being the tuakana-teina  relationships between current and past students.  

I am now aware of successful student mentor programmes using older students such as  at Wellington East Girls High School (with Year 12/13s) and in the  MATES Junior programme  (with University students). Both of these initiatives involve regular face-to-face contact to build up close relationships over time.

My vision would be to offer a digital platform with current Year 9/10 students (tuakana) sharing their advice and experiences on how to cope in the first year of secondary school through a set of multi-media resources they create and feature in.  Incoming Year 8s (teina), their whānau and teachers could then access the tool anytime - not just within school hours - for guidance from their older peers on effective ways to cope with the first year of secondary school.

I anticipate that the main challenge will be convincing colleges and  feeder schools of the value in collaborating with each other to leverage the tuakana-teina  connections between the Year 9/10s and intermediate students from within their learning community. 

Ultimately, I believe the effort to get all schools on board will be worthwhile especially if this tool can  equip successive cohorts of Year 9 students to have a positive experience when starting secondary school and give them a toolkit of ideas and information to help them stay the distance and ideally finish their schooling, right through to Year 13.

So, who's ready to tag team and take up the challenge?

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.