The Audiences

RESEARCH 1 and PRACTICE 1 Reflective Entry 2

April 18, 2020.

Audiences - Local, National and International

Reese (2019) indicates that “many authentic tasks can be created for a local, national, and or global audience. Our students need to create mental relationships for their existence in a global, interconnected world. Topic and audience can help to create the situation and require students to utilize practices and capacities, adapting as necessary for a global audience and or an audience somewhere other than where they are familiar”. These will then only take us forward to be 21st Century learners. (Figure 1).

Figure 1 - 21st Century Learners Qualities

After reading the above quotation, I had my eruka moment. This is because for my research, I am focusing on Engaging Learners Digitally in a Lockdown Situation (adhering that soon we all are going to come out of this lockdown) addressing the context of different audiences (local, national and international) and their perspectives. 

Years ago while teaching overseas I only thought that the audience for my learners was only me. This is because learners were only using books and pencils and the books were kept at school. Only at the end of the year the books were given out to be taken home. When I immigrated to New Zealand and as time went by, teaching and learning became digital in our Manaiakalani Cluster. Then only I realised that the audience involves people more than me and that was huge.

I will utilise Brookfield’s (2017) (Figure 2) Four Lenses of Critical Reflection ...“students’ eyes, colleagues’ perceptions, personal experiences, and theory and research. These will help us uncover when and how certain assumptions work and when distorted or incomplete assumptions need further investigation”.

Figure 2 - Brookfield’s Four Lenses

Local Audience

The local audience include learners, colleagues, parents, Board of Trustees (BOT), community and cluster.

Who is the audience for 99 percent of the work students do in school? The teacher! If you happen to work with students who come to school eager to win their teachers' approval, you won't need to do much to motivate them. (The Power of Audience - Educational Leadership, 2020). However engaging learners digitally in a lockdown situation or after lockdown can be challenging but not impossible.  

The next local audience will be my learners. Brookfield (2017)... seeing ourselves through students’ eyes makes us more aware of the effects of our words and actions on students. This helps us clarify our assumptions and decide when they make sense and when they need to be changed or discarded. Monitoring my learners' behaviour online will give me some ideas.

My colleagues are the next lot of audience whom I can look up to when stuck. We always collaborate, bounce back ideas with each other seeking better ways of teaching using 21st Century Skills since we are a digital school. Colleagues can suggest perspectives we might have missed and responses to situations in which we feel clueless (Brookfield, 2017). 

Our administration team, Board of Trustees, Cluster, parents and extended whanau are another lot of audience. Their contribution also assists my practice when it comes to engaging my learners digitally especially during or even after lockdown. Effective partnerships between schools and parents, whānau, and communities can result in better outcomes for students. The better the relationship and engagement, the more positive the impact on students' learning (Involving parents, families and whānau/ Partnerships and networks/ Home - Educational Leaders, 2020).

National Audience

The national audience includes the New Zealand and Ministry of Education impacting New Zealand. 

Google for Education (n.d.b) indicates that New Zealand is attempting to address the ‘digital divide’ between students of differing socio-economic classes. In response to the estimated 100,000 children residing in homes lacking internet connectivity, the government has promised to close the digital divide by 2020 to offer all students digital competence opportunities. (p.3).

The first part of my national audience are my school colleagues together with twelve other schools belonging to the Community of Learning cluster. With the help of Woolf Fisher Research Centre (University of Auckland) yearly we compare how much progress the learners have made using devices as a tool for learning in reading (Figure 3), writing (Figure 4) and maths (Figure 5) within the cluster. The strategies and suggestions are discussed at professional learning groups and celebrated at yearly conferences called hui.

Second audience is the Ministry of Education, Education Review Office and cluster as they collect data. We use Teaching as Inquiry (TAI) which illustrates how teachers have used an inquiry approach to teaching to become more culturally responsive and to improve outcomes for their Māori and Pasifika students (Involving parents, families and whānau / Partnerships and networks / Home - Educational Leaders, 2020). In both cases learners' performances are measured while they use devices to enhance their learning. 

Figure 2 - Woolf Fisher Research (PAT Reading)

Figure 3 - Woolf Fisher Research (Writing)

Figure 4  - Woolf Fisher Research (Mathematics)

International Audience

PISA 2018 result table shows that New Zealand has done well in literacy and mathematics. The New Zealand Ministry of Education and The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will be my international audience. “OECD is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. Their goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all” (About the OECD - OECD, 2020). When implementing my research topic it may improve the scores as shown in the PISA 2018 result table.

However “Theoretical and research literature can provide unexpected and illuminating interpretations of familiar as well as newly complex situations. Practices that you may have thought were transparent and empowering may be experienced by some as invasive and aggressive or as taking away power in a wholly unconvincing way” (Brookfield, 2017). 

My research topic Engaging learners digitally in a lockdown situation addresses the context of multiple audiences and their perspectives. It has shown some light as to where I stand with my situation.



Reference:

About the OECD - OECD. (2020). Retrieved 6 May 2020, from https://www.oecd.org/about/

Brookfield, (2017). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. 

Google for Education (n.d.b). Future of the Classroom: Emerging Trends in K-12 Education NZ Edition. Retrieved from http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/new_zealand_future_of_the_classroom_country_report.pdf?utm_source=web&utm_medium=campaign&utm_campaign=FY19-Q2-global-demand gen-website-other-future the classroom

Involving parents, families and whānau / Partnerships and networks / Home - Educational Leaders. (2020). Retrieved 4 May 2020, from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Partnerships-and-networks/Involving-parents-families-and-whanau

Reese, D. (2019). The Importance of Audience in Authentic Teaching and Learning. DefinedSTEM. Retrieved from definedstem.com

The Power of Audience - Educational Leadership. (2020). Retrieved 4 May 2020, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov08/vol66/num03/The-Power-of-Audience.aspx