Reflective Entry #8
Evaluate the outcomes of a digital and collaborative innovation in your practice from an educational research perspective.
Our end goal was to introduce an innovation within our school, Seesaw for Schools, that would ultimately promote digital capabilities for our students, improve whānau engagement and raise student achievement for our students.
Promoting Digital Capabilities
Looking at the addition of Computational Thinking, and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes to the new Technology Curriculum, has meant many schools have had to consider how to integrate and measure achievement of these capabilities into their teaching and learning programmes. As stated in the Curriculum Handbook, “These two areas also significantly contribute to students developing the knowledge and skills they need as digital citizens and as users of digital technologies across the curriculum. They also provide opportunities to further develop their key competencies.”
Our students were able to demonstrate these skills through their use of Seesaw in the classroom and during their home learning programmes. Through student voice gathered after the recent lockdown, we were able to celebrate that the majority of our students felt confident using the technology, in most cases a Chromebook, to access the programme and the majority found using the Seesaw tool itself ‘easy to use’. For example, our students as young as eight years of age were confident in adding a photo, making a recording, and uploading work for their teacher to comment on. Students were also able to connect to their teachers through the Google Meets links sent out on Seesaw. Our tamariki were able to develop many of the Key Competencies through this process; especially Using Language, Symbols and Texts.
Improve Whānau Engagement
We were very fortunate to have created and adhered to the timeline that we created on Visme for rolling out our initiative to introduce Seesaw for Schools at the start of this school year. It meant we were able to introduce the tool to students and send home the QR codes to parents and whānau so that by the time the first lockdown occurred in Auckland, a vast majority of our families were able to access Seesaw with confidence.
Unfortunately, we were not able to have our parent information evening around the tool because of the rescheduling of so many events, which meant, when we entered the second lockdown, we still needed to support quite a few parents in accessing work online and supporting them digitally to submit work completed. Once we have returned from lockdown, we will try to return to our timeline schedule, with the priority being parent support, in the event we return to home learning once again.
On a positive note, parents were asked through a Google Form survey about their experience with the Seesaw for Schools programme to date, especially through the two recent lockdowns. Overwhelming, parents expressed their appreciation in having easy access to their child’s learning programme, the variety of tasks on offer, the ease of submitting work, and they especially appreciated being able to contact a range of staff for technical support when necessary.
Raising Student Achievement
After the lockdowns of 2020, many educators expressed concern over the damage these ‘breaks’ from traditional learning settings would have on students' achievement and movement across the learning progressions; would there be regression? Analysing our end of year school data, we saw very little regression in our student’s progress. The students that did not make the expected progress were the students that were not engaged in their online learning programme and/or families were difficult to connect with during lockdowns and the school year.
Our staff commented after this most recent lockdown that once we had allocated Chromebooks to students with no access to devices, it was quite an easy transition to the home learning programme. Both students and parents commented that they appreciated the agency available to them offered through the Seesaw programme; the choice in the tasks they completed, the opportunities to collaborate and share with their peers, and freedom over the time and pace in completing the tasks. They also appreciated the variety of options available when submitting their work.
Teachers found the tasks completed were of a very high standard as students were able to follow areas of interest and an unexpected benefit was the frequency in which they involved their local resources, with parent engagement and support. The quality of work produced did not diminish outside the parameters of the classroom and face to face time with their teacher; rather, in many cases, they were enhanced.
When considering the Emerging Trends in K-12 Education NZ Edition, we feel we have acknowledged and touched upon most if not all of the 8 emerging trends, suggesting a positive outcome for our project.
Coming to the end of this assignment, we found the words of Sir Ken Robinson very empowering. “Innovation is hard, because it means doing something that people don't find very easy, for the most part. It means challenging what we take for granted, things that we think are obvious.”
Have we used our innovation to prepare our tamariki for 21st Century Skills? While it was hard, challenging and not easy at times, we hope we have made an impact on the digital school culture of St Joseph’s Primary School in Pukekohe.
Word count - 857
References
https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Key-competencies
https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_learning_revolution/transcript
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