Journal article

This article presents the thoughts of six teachers asked to reflect on their experiences planning for and delivering school-led learning from home opportunities during Aotearoa New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Levels 3 and 4 lockdown at the end of the first term and beginning of the second term 2020. What comes through is the efforts that these teachers made to keep connected with their students, the ways in which they prioritised student wellbeing ahead of formal learning, and the support that came from feeling part of a wider community where they could share their experiences and learn from others. The insights are shared in the hope that they inspire readers to reflect critically on their own experiences of learning to teach from home, identifying positive outcomes, insights into their own practice and motivations, and learnings that will continue to shape their professional practice moving forward.

Problem solving is at the heart of mathematics, and is known to support learning for a diverse range of children. However, challenges can be encountered when teaching mathematics through problem solving. This article provides insights from research literature into (a) the nature of the challenges, and (b) some ways that problem solving can be implemented in the primary classroom. We draw upon some of our own action-research experiences, and those of colleagues, engaged in exploring and learning about teaching mathematics using a problem-solving approach.

Learning in maths is complex because it is a process that involves cognition and the affective domain. Indeed, learners experience many emotions during maths, both positive and negative, which influences their learning. In addition, the learner can believe that one’s capacity to do maths is static and cannot be changed. All these aspects are linked to mathematical learning outcomes. This small-scale inquiry investigated 11 Year 3 and Year 4 girls’ beliefs and attitudes towards maths and their maths learning. Findings showed that these girls held a range of beliefs and attitudes, and experienced a range of emotions during maths learning. Their responses also showed a range of beliefs about the malleability of their mathematical capacity. Strategies for engendering more positive emotions about maths are identified.

In this article I explore a challenge identified by teachers involved in a recent research project on curriculum integration. Teachers described this challenge as how to balance the need to “cover” The New Zealand Curriculum with the need to support student agency. I describe how teachers saw this challenge, and the different ways they responded to it. I end by considering how our conceptions of knowledge might contribute to the ways in which we might think about and address this challenge.

Service is a fundamental value for the teaching of Pacific-heritage learners. This article describes educators’ perspectives of the value of service, one of the values foundational to Tapasā. Findings from interviews, talanoa, and teaching observations show that service is demonstrated and nurtured differently by Pacific and non-Pacific educators, and therefore is experienced differently by Pacific-heritage learners, depending on who is teaching them. Ensuring service is strongly embedded in teaching involves demonstrating deep care for learners and holding high expectations while providing strong support.

The contributions partial-immersion Māori programmes offer to the wider educational landscape of Aotearoa is essential to Māori achieving as Māori. In this article, partial-immersion settings are defined as Level 2 immersion (51%–80% te reo Māori instruction) and Level 3 immersion (31%–50% te reo Māori instruction). While lower levels of immersion can be less effective for language acquisition than full-immersion Māori environments (May et al., 2004), this study finds that partial-immersion programmes are perceived to produce beneficial outcomes in terms of ahurea tuakiri and culturally empowering practice.