Week 28- Indigenous knowledge & Cultural responsiveness

Week 28- Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness

Reading through Unitech's Poutama model (Unitech, n.d.) enabled me to look at the different areas within cultural pedagogy to really analyse where we sit as a school. I think it is a model that schools should use as a reflective tool to see their next steps to become the most culturally aware and responsive they can be. 

Self Analysis of our school using the Poutama Model-

Wairua/Relationships- I think our school is currently sitting between the demonstrating and the modelling steps of this area. W have worked hard ro build relationships and have a great support network offered, however we are still working towards having stronger, active reciprocal relationships with staff and community

Assessment- In this area I believe we are sitting at the learning step of the model as we use diverse approaches to assessment and are somewhat responsive to students pedagogy needs, however maori knowledge concepts are not part of these assessments, therefore this is where we need to be heading.

Pedagogy- In terms of being inclusive, reflective and responsive, are program definitly have these element ingrained in them, however I dont believe that evey class have maori knowledge concepts incorportaed into their prrams and therefore we are sitting on the first step for this section.

Course Content- I believe we are at the know stage of course content, we use our maori staff to help support and develop areas, however as mentioned above, we don't have constant cultural aspects in all programs.

Te Reo- Te Reo is definitely present at a basic level in all classes throughout our school. We have a schol wide expectation rubric which include karakia, haka and waiata, but there is still more that needs to go into our programs, and therefore we are sitting at the mohio step of this section.

Community- Engaging with our community is an area we have really focused on in the past 4 years which is why I think we sit between the consultation and intrinsic steps.

Reading through the work that Cowie, Otrel-Cass, Glynn, Kara, Anderson, Doyle, Parkinson and Te Kiri (2011), it has changed my understanding of what 'culturally responsive pedagogy' means. Initially I took the concept quite literally and thought it meant having maori elements in all things within the classroom, however it's more around student responsiveness- ensuring that we allow students to follow their curiosities, connect with their whanau and community and assessments that allow students to express their ideas and knowledge.

Activity 4 : Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

Strength: Vision, Mission and Core Values

We are really lucky in Rotorua to have such a supportive and education focused iwi that backs the local schools by providing professional development for teachers around our local culture, curriculum initiatives such as Math Whizz and House of Science. With this support, our school has had the opportunity to see how we could become more connected to our community and culturally responsive to our maori students and whanau. With consultation with our iwi, we have changed our team names to names of Ngati Whakaue koromatua. This change alone has enabled students and their whanau to make connections with their wider whanau and ancestors to create a real feeling of belonging. This has become a huge part of our school vision, mission and core values and is why we have also introduced whanau days where we engage in a range of activities that allow students diverse opportunities to demonstrate their learning throughout a range of experiences as well as encouraging community experts to be part of these experineces; tapping into these experts is not something we have done well in the past but soemthing we are actively working on doin more.

Weakness: Resources

I think if we want to be more culturally responsive and improve in the areas of poutama as mentioned above, we need more resources available to teachers to make incorporating te reo, tikanga and culture into our programs and assessment easier. For many teachers, knowledge and understanding of the maori culture and the way in which maori learners prefer to learn is an area of minimal understanding. Therefore more basic resources are needed to support teachers in a way that doesn't seem like more work for them. PD in this area is also needed. In terms of assessment, our bilingual teacher is having difficulties getting her head around assessing her students as there seems to be a real lack of te reo based assessments. Therefore, the students who have a background in full immersion at primary school, are not getting the opportunity to be assessed in their strength area, and thus their testing is not culturally responsive. 

References:

• Cowie, B., Otrel-Cass, K., Glynn, T., & Kara, H., et al.(2011).Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment in primary science classrooms: Whakamana tamariki. Wellington: Teaching Learning Research Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.tlri.org.nz/sites/default/files/projects/9268_cowie-summaryreport.pdf
• Unitec. (n.d). Unitec Learning and Teaching Booklet. http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ahimura/publications/U008817%20Learning%20and%20Teaching%20Booklet.pdf