Tag Archives: Education

DEMANDS – New Content for the new NZCALNE Assessment 3 with ALEC

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Kia ora ano and welcome back

You’re up to the third assessment task in the new and improved NZCALNE (Voc). Kai pai you…!

We’re working hard to get all new content for this and other modules live on Pathways Awarua, but until then you can find the first draft here.

The new Assessment 3 still focuses on mapping the demands of your programme using the Learning Progressions. However, the format is simpler and easier to use.

There are six short sections to complete in the new assessment task.

  • What are the big picture literacy demands?
  • What are the big picture numeracy demands?
  • What are some specific reading demands?
  • What are some specific writing demands?
  • What are some specific number demands?
  • What are some specific measurement demands?

Follow the links below

If you already know what you’re doing with mapping, please skip ahead to the assessment template. Email us if you don’t already have it. You can always come back and dip into these resources as you need to.

Overview

The Learning Progressions

Looking at the big picture for literacy

Looking at the big picture for numeracy

Getting more specific

If you’re stuck, please reach out by email here: assess@alec.ac.nz or call Graeme on 0800-ALEC-1-2

Concepts: What is Tino Rangatiratanga?

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What is it?

Tino rangatiratanga means self-determination

Can we dig a little deeper?

Tino rangatiratanga refers to determination by Māori of issues that impact on Māori.

Taken literally, rangatira means chief and -tanga implies the quality or attributes of chieftainship. When you add tino in this context means the phrase can be translated as ‘absolute/unqualified chieftainship’.

The closest English translation is self-determination. And this extends to the learners’ right to define their powers of decision-making, leading to their independence.

How does this help describe a learner-centred teaching environment?

Tino rangatiratanga helps describe a learner-centred teaching environment because we want to develop independent learners who can make their own decisions about their training and lives in general.

This is particularly important for Māori and other learners who have not been served well by our institutions.

We need to develop learners who have the ability to make choices and exercise a high degree of control, such as what they do and how they do it.

We can support self-determination by:

  • Providing positive opportunities for our learners to be challenged, such as leadership opportunities,
  • Providing appropriate feedback
  • Establishing and maintaining good relationships between teachers and students.

These strategies can increase learners’ interest, competence, creativity and desire to be challenged. They also help ensure that students are intrinsically (internally) motivated to study.

On the other hand, learners who lack self-determination are more likely to feel that any kind of success is out of their control. These learners lose motivation to study, which causes them to feel helpless and believe that they will fail. This becomes another self-fulfilling prophecy and the vicious circle of low achievement continues.

  1. What choices did your learners make to end up where they are now?
  2. What do you do to develop independent learners who can see that they have options and choices in their study, work, and life?

Concepts: What is Mana Reo?

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What is it?

Mana reo means developing communication skills.

Can we dig a little deeper?

Mana reo is literally the mana of language. This means the power or authority of language and communication.

For Māori, language (particularly the Māori language), prestige, land ownership, and culture are intimately connected.

How does this help describe a learner-centred teaching environment?

Mana reo helps describe a learner-centred teaching environment because it means developing the communication skills that learners need.

Mana reo also means means developing literacy and numeracy skills for all kinds of purposes. It includes being expressive and creative, and covers verbal and non-verbal forms of communication.

  1. What do you do to develop your learners’ understanding of how to ‘read’ and respond to the world around them?
  2. What opportunities do you create for others to speak or use Te Reo Māori in your classroom or teaching environment?

Concepts: What is whakapapa?

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What is it?

Whakapapa refers to genealogy, history, stages of development, or layers.

Can we dig a little deeper?

Knowledge about who you are (identity) and where you come (background) from are integral to Māori approaches to education

Whakapapa helps connect people to knowledge about the world through stories.

Also, everything has a whakapapa, not just people. Everything comes from somewhere. The story of where something or someone comes from is whakapapa.

How does this help describe a learner-centred teaching environment?

This helps describe a learner-centred teaching environment because for Māori and many others, whakapapa is always the starting place. Whakapapa means that the learners are central to the learning from the beginning.

Whakapapa is also both a noun and a verb. This means that as well as describing someone’s background or genealogy, it’s also something you have to actively do.

Learners’ cultures are important. This extends beyond Māori and Pakeha as well. Learning to whakapapa your own and other histories opens you up as a whole person and helps create relationship and connections. You can use whakapapa as an education tool to help others:

  • Make connections to people, the environment, and things.
  • Understand history and human relationships
  • Explore different viewpoints and ways of understanding.

We often use the “Wh” words (Who, What, When, Where, Why) as a quick way of teaching the basics of an inquiry process for learning. Whakapapa is another “Wh” word that we could add to this set.

In fact, whakapapa sums up all of these words and provides a great tool for framing any learning.

Exploring the whakapapa of something, e.g. a subject, a discipline, an object, a person, a group of people, an organisation, or your own genealogy allows you to actually deal with all of the “Wh” words and to investigate the relationships between the parts and the whole.

What’s your starting point with a new group of learners?

  1. How do you whakapapa with your learners in your teaching context?
  2. What’s something that you teach, that would be interesting to whakapapa?

Teach better: How should we look at teaching and learning?

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Introducing Approaches

In these next modules, we look at some of the approaches and concepts used in adult teaching.

Here are a few things you need to know first. Feel free to skip ahead if you want.

What’s a teaching approach?

  • When we talk about teaching, an approach is simply a way of looking at teaching and learning.

Teaching approaches lead to teaching methods, which is the way you teach something. And this involves using activities, strategies, or techniques to help learners learn.

What’s a teaching concept?

A concept is an idea. In this case, it’s an idea about teaching or learning. For us, it’s related to adult literacy and numeracy.

We want you to know some of the key ideas about teaching and learning that relate to your work in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Why are we talking about this?

Any approach to teaching and learning has some theory sitting behind it. This includes the work that you do.

But we’re not going to get deep into education theory. Our goal is this… For you to:

  • Know some of the terminology.
  • Have a working understanding of what the words mean.

This is a big topic, but we’ve picked key approaches and concepts that are relevant to adult literacy and numeracy in Aotearoa New Zealand.

At every point, what we’re most interested in is our thoughts and answers to this question:

  • How does this approach help us make our teaching more learner centred?

This means that it’s the practical application that we want you to focus on.

Approaches in adult literacy and numeracy education

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Kia ora and welcome…!

This is the second of seven collections covering the knowledge and skills you need to teach better by embedding literacy and numeracy into your training.

By the end of this second part, you will have covered:

  • What you need to know to understand some of the approaches and concepts we use in adult literacy and numeracy education.

This next big content area breaks down into two modules. Here’s what’s coming up:

  • How should we look at teaching and learning?

We’ll take a look at some of the approaches that we use in adult literacy and numeracy education. Some of these are from adult teaching and others come from the world of Māori education.

  • What are other key ideas you need to know?

As well as different approaches for teaching, you need to know a few key ideas and concepts that we use to talk about adult literacy and numeracy learning. Again, some come from more general teaching approaches and methods, and others come from Te ao Māori.

What’s the problem? Cycles of poverty

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Poverty is one of the socio-economic factors that we discussed earlier. A cycle of poverty is what happens when where poor families become impoverished for at three or more generations.

This means enough time passes that the family includes no surviving ancestors who possess and can transmit the intellectual, social, and cultural capital necessary change their impoverished condition.

This is the kind of poverty trap that many low-income families find themselves in. They often don’t have the resources to get out of poverty, such as education, savings, or connections.

Students from families who are trapped in this kind of vicious cycle are more likely to struggle with literacy and numeracy as adults.

Often, people trapped in a cycle of poverty need some kind of outside intervention to help break out of it.

Early childhood intervention is a key strategy in breaking the poverty trap. Foundation focused adult education that includes literacy and numeracy is another strategy.

Some questions to think about

Let’s pause again and think about your own learners. The questions below are not assessed, but thinking about your answers to them will help you with the assessment task.

  1. Do you have learners who seem trapped by cycles of poverty?
  2. Is there a framework or approach that you could use that would allow you to work with your learners from a more holistic perspective?
  3. What other support services, either inside or outside your organisation, could you promote to your learners?