Analysis of the draft NZ National Education Learning Priorities (original) (raw)
Related papers
Education Futures 21C, 2019
Never before has New Zealand’s education been in crisis conditions as bad as they are today! Teachers and Principals are in conflict with the Ministry of Education and the Minister of Education. Teachers and Principals are resigning from their positions since they are experiencing high stress and very high workload. Some students are finding schooling beyond Year 8 to be irrelevant for their current socio-educational needs. Students are not adapting to the new stresses and expectations of the teenage-to-adult maturation process. Parents are unable to relate effectively to their “out of control” children. There is a great need to change the framework of New Zealand education by changing the focus from assessment-of-learning to assessment-for-learning by urgently applying the KUBDD Framework for Future Ready Education, reducing the emphasis on subject-based learning and assessment and increasing the significance of Multiple Literacies (MLs). These MLs provide more meaningful and more relevant learning for more students, including Maori, Pasifika and European NZ students who need greater support. We must not continue to use teaching and learning strategies that will not prepare students for 21st century living. This paper provides detail of the KUBDD and Multiple Literacies in an expansive set of tables. The teaching-learning-assessment strategies are provided through Concept Based Inquiry. The challenge is to choose the right pathway supported by a strong framework for ensuring the 21st century education direction is achieved and maintained, together with supportive pedagogies that will enable successful transformation of teaching, learning and assessment through the development of the New Zealand Curriculum 2022
Understanding and Implementing the New Zealand Curriculum Handbook
Over the past eight years, 2008 – 2015, education professionals have continued to consider, analyse and understand the depth of the statements in the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum document. Understanding and Implementing the NZC Handbook documents and develops these concepts and issues about the NZ Curriculum. Teachers need to understand these so that the true intentions of the NZC are implemented. Many of these concepts are clouded by the covert use of particular educational terminology. These ‘special words’ convey extensive implications when further understanding is synthesized. Some of the book’s features include: ▪ The implications of the Vision statement, the Principle and Key Competencies. ▪ Strategies to create full Treaty of Waitangi partnership, develop coherence and include the values in teaching and learning. ▪ The meaning and implications of future-focused learning. ▪ Can we teach ‘thinking’? ▪ Why should we use Wicked Problems and Systems Thinking? ▪ What might be missing from the NZC? The book includes readings and questions to engage teacher-educators to consider and discuss the concepts and issues. The book will provide an excellent resource for teacher trainees, or might be used to stimulate professional development of experienced teachers, either individually or in groups.
Changing Learning, Teaching and Assessment in NZ
To teach as we have always done is to ignore the needs of the millennial students in the 21 st Century! Students have different needs now and these differences in needs are becoming more apparent as society changes from a knowledge-based society that relies on just-in-case learning, to one that needs people to be just-in-time learners. Learning and teaching should have changed dramatically in 2007 with the launch of the " new " New Zealand Curriculum. Learning rather than teaching has now been placed at the top of the priority list. This implies that pedagogy, values, implementation of the Treaty of Waitangi principles, Key Competencies (unified by Thinking), Capabilities, Future focused learning, use of multiple literacies to support learning and inclusiveness have now been promoted to become more important, with greater emphasis than prior to 2007. (1) In any review of the New Zealand Curriculum and NCEA system it is essential to ensure that assessment structure is closely aligned to the NZ Curriculum since assessment follows curriculum and not vice versa. Since they are an essential part of the NZ Curriculum, the Key Competencies and Values need to be wrapped into the learning and assessment contexts. So teaching, learning and assessment needs to include both content related learning and competency based learning included in the NZ Curriculum and NCEA assessment system. That is, both subject focused learning together with learning capabilities and competencies and values should be included in the assessment structure. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) framework uses the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at Levels 1, 2 and 3 in secondary schools, though this is extended to Levels 4 to 8 in tertiary institutions. The criterion referenced Achievement Standards are linked to units of learning and each Achievement Standard (AS) specifies three levels of achievement (Achieved, Achieved with Merit, and Achieved with Excellence). These AS, together with Literacy and Numeracy requirements at each level, combine to contribute a summative assessment statement that requires a total of 80 credits to gain each NCEA Level of Achievement. Almost all of these Achievement Standards focus on content, memory work and skills, rather than include the Key Competencies, Values and learning dispositions that have been brought to the front of the 2007 NZ Curriculum document. Skills are assessed using Industry Training Organisation (ITO) Standards that apply Vocational Pathway Achievement Standards. NCEA AS are not closely linked to personalised learning as requested in the NZ Curriculum. While teacher-educators do consider the AS Outcomes to direct students into course for successive years, the final course constructed is a combination of AS that fit a particular theme or curriculum focus, rather than being a construct to support each student's learning needs. The combination of course studied by each student in one year does not necessarily have relevance to the needs of that student in the 21 st Century.
Aligning Learning and Assessment to the NZ Curriculum Utilizing Capabilities and Competencies
To teach as we have always done is to ignore the needs of the millennial students in the 21 st Century! Students have different needs now and these differences in needs are becoming more apparent as society changes from a knowledge-based society that relies on just-in-case learning, to one that needs people to be just-in-time learners. Learning and teaching should have changed dramatically in 2007 with the launch of the " new " New Zealand Curriculum. Learning rather than teaching has now been placed at the top of the priority list. This implies that pedagogy, values, implementation of the Treaty of Waitangi principles, Key Competencies (unified by Thinking), Capabilities, Future focused learning, use of multiple literacies to support learning and inclusiveness have now been promoted to become more important, with greater emphasis than prior to 2007. (1) In any review of the New Zealand Curriculum and NCEA system it is essential to ensure that assessment structure is closely aligned to the NZ Curriculum since assessment follows curriculum and not vice versa. Since they are an essential part of the NZ Curriculum, the Key Competencies and Values need to be wrapped into the learning and assessment contexts. So teaching, learning and assessment needs to include both content related learning and competency based learning included in the NZ Curriculum and NCEA assessment system. That is, both subject focused learning together with learning capabilities and competencies and values should be included in the assessment structure. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) framework uses the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at Levels 1, 2 and 3 in secondary schools, though this is extended to Levels 4 to 8 in tertiary institutions. The criterion referenced Achievement Standards are linked to units of learning and each Achievement Standard (AS) specifies three levels of achievement (Achieved, Achieved with Merit, and Achieved with Excellence). These AS, together with Literacy and Numeracy requirements at each level, combine to contribute a summative assessment statement that requires a total of 80 credits to gain each NCEA Level of Achievement. Almost all of these Achievement Standards focus on content, memory work and skills, rather than include the Key Competencies, Values and learning dispositions that have been brought to the front of the 2007 NZ Curriculum document. Skills are assessed using Industry Training Organisation (ITO) Standards that apply Vocational Pathway Achievement Standards. NCEA AS are not closely linked to personalised learning as requested in the NZ Curriculum. While teacher-educators do consider the AS Outcomes to direct students into course for successive years, the final course constructed is a combination of AS that fit a particular theme or curriculum focus, rather than being a construct to support each student's learning needs. The combination of course studied by each student in one year does not necessarily have relevance to the needs of that student in the 21 st Century.
Why New Zealand Secondary Schools MUST change to a 21 st Century Curriculum
Since publication of the NZ Curriculum in 2007 there has been a paradigm shift in schooling, assessment and in society. The students of today are quite different to those of the 1990's and certainly have different needs. We cannot continue with only standards based learning and assessment that focuses on content and memory alone. Students need more meta-cognitive based learning that builds competencies and confidence and focuses more on personalized learning using intrinsic motivation. This paper explains the what and why of the paradigm shift in terms of achievements.
Waikato Journal of Education, 2011
Teacher educators in New Zealand are charged with supporting student teachers' understandings of the New Zealand Curriculum document (Ministry of Education, 2007). Integral to this challenge is the need to provide relevant knowledge and understandings that are contextually and pedagogically appropriate (Fullan, 2007; Jasman, 2003). Aspects of the "front end" of the New Zealand Curriculum document such as the vision, principles, values and key competencies along with the learning area statements need to be understood by newly graduated teachers who will be applying this curriculum in their own classrooms. This paper reports on ongoing research investigating and reflecting on student-teacher understandings of these components of the New Zealand curriculum, on completion of three different compulsory papers within the Bachelor of Teaching degree and Graduate Diploma of Teaching (Primary). Implications for pre-service teacher education and for supporters of provisionally registered teachers are considered.
aims of education and initial teacher education programmes in New Zealand
2016
Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes must take into account much more than just the current school curricula; they must also prepare student teachers for entry into a teaching environment that is likely to be very different from whence they came. At the same time, funding constraints, quality standards and potentially opposed stakeholder expectations provide an ongoing challenge. The New Zealand school system is undergoing major change as it introduces a new national curriculum focussed on outcomes. This new curriculum requires schools to design and review their own curricula within the framework of national philosophy and guidelines rather than according to prescriptions relating to the subjects that make up the curriculum. New Ministry of Education initiatives targeting senior students and Mori and Pasifika students require teachers to keep what is best for the student at the forefront of their teaching and decision-making. ITE programmes must ensure these considerations are...
2008
Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes must take into account much more than just the current school curricula; they must also prepare student teachers for entry into a teaching environment that is likely to be very different from whence they came. At the same time, funding constraints, quality standards and potentially opposed stakeholder expectations provide an ongoing challenge. The New Zealand school system is undergoing major change as it introduces a new national curriculum focussed on outcomes. This new curriculum requires schools to design and review their own curricula within the framework of national philosophy and guidelines rather than according to prescriptions relating to the subjects that make up the curriculum. New Ministry of Education initiatives targeting senior students and MƗori and Pasifika students require teachers to keep what is best for the student at the forefront of their teaching and decisionmaking. ITE programmes must ensure these considerations are evident in their overarching philosophy, course structure and practice. Teacher education programmes at the University of Canterbury are currently under review. As part of this process, we used the international Teacher Education for the Future project to help us identify aspects of the programmes needing attention. We asked stakeholders (teachers, student teachers and teacher educators) to rank the aims of education and their preferred future focus for ITE programmes. This paper reports the findings and discusses their implication for the design and facilitation of the university's ITE courses.