Manaiakalani - Engage with Create
Thursday 10th June
The intention for term two's Secondary Connect for 2021 was to discover how our schools engage students with creativity.
We heard from Karen Ferguson at Tamaki College, Stephen Aitken at Ōtaki College and Marc Milford , the literacy specialist at Tamaki College.
We also heard from the Manaiakalani research manager, Georgie Hamilton, about this year's classroom observation tool and the alignment to the new literacy standards.
Classroom observations
Manaiakalani Research Manager, Georgie Hamilton explains the Designing Learning with the End in Mind observation tool and the connections to the new literacy standards.
Research observations.mp4
Karen Ferguson
Tamaki College: Teacher of Design and Visual Communication, Manaiaiakalani in school CoL for Tamaki College
Higher order thinking skills using SOLO and Google Draw
Karen was a Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher in 2014 and 2015. In 2017 and 2018, Karen was a Manaiakalani class on Air teacher, creating many episodes showcasing her teaching practice in the classroom. In this presentation, Karen shares how she visually engages students with Google Draw graphic organisers to help them prepare for their achievement standard evidence.
Professional Blog link | Class site link | Contact email: ferguson@tamaki.ac.nz
Stephen Aitken
Ōtaki College: Head of Digital media
Stephen started his teaching career back in 1988. He’s then gone on to teach Music and Drama at secondary school and later digital media. Stephen then spent some years working for Capital E studios in Wellington, an education programme to ignite that creative spark in young people through film and digital media. He’s now at Ōtaki College as the Head of Digital media, overseeing an extensive range of digital media programmes, PP2Ō, Maoriland, Coast Access Radio, Ōtaki College Strategic Plan, Animation, TV Series Phatman and the Ōtaki CollegeTV Weekly show. Stephen talked about he engages students with their local community to create digital media projects.
Marc Milford
Literacy Advisor at Tamaki College
Marc works with teachers to help them find ways to bridge the gap between the demands of writing or reading tasks and the comprehension and fluency levels of their students. This involves developing vocabulary tasks, scaffolding texts and the use of functional grammar in writing exercises. Marc shared how he uses group work to improve student fluency when attempting writing tasks.