Journal article

This article reports on a case study from a larger project exploring ways in which online citizen science projects can enhance students’ learning in science and in digital technology. In this case, two teachers integrated the digital technology curriculum with the science capability “interpreting representations” using the engaging context of Mars. As part of the unit, the students contributed to the online citizen science project AI4Mars, did some unplugged computational thinking, and then transferred this learning to learning to program mBots. Our aim is to inspire others to plan curricula that integrate opportunities for developing students’ science capabilities and their digital technology skills.

Embracing Fa’a Pasifika within New Zealand schools helps students of Pacific heritage to feel that their culture is valued. If transformational change is to happen for Pacific students, then Fa’a Pasifika needs to be weaved through everything that the school does. This article looks at one school’s journey to achieve that.

In this article, Holly Bodman shares the journey she embarked on as a fourth-generation middle-class Pākehā to decolonise her practice. Bodman began by reading the work of local scholars and educators to discover her unconscious bias, which led to deepening cultural relationships with her students, their whānau, and the community. Armed with a new level of conscientisation, Bodman transformed her practice within the context of her social studies classroom. Bodman acknowledges that this is a journey, not a destination, and shares her journey in the hope that it may resonate with other tauiwi educators.

The education system is in a period of significant change. Wellbeing is an increasing priority as schools reintegrate students after COVID-19 lockdowns and climate-related disasters. A large-scale curriculum refresh programme and the implementation of a new Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum are underway. These changes are encouraging schools to expand their focus on culture, identity, and mātauranga Māori within the curriculum. This article shares insights from a study of six primary schools with high wellbeing for Māori and non-Māori students. We examine how these schools undertook a change journey to better support the wellbeing, belonging, and identity of students, and, in particular, tamariki Māori. We also consider the implications for other schools undertaking similar journeys.

This article draws on doctoral research into conferences for teacher professional learning and development (PLD). It outlines the literature on teacher PLD, and describes the process by which the collective, game-like activity, Plan D, was designed and prototyped. Plan D affords teachers the opportunity to design their own, bespoke, PLD experience: a “d.conference’. The emerging findings from the research suggest that Plan D can support teachers to design PLD that interrupts “business as usual” (BAU), taken-for-granted assumptions about how to plan PLD for colleagues. Further, the research suggests that Plan D interrupts BAU through creating four conditions for collective knowledge co-creation, or knowledge-ing. These four conditions are: being purposeful; being open-ended; offering opportunities to play; and offering time and space. Designing effective PLD is emergent from, and contingent on, positive school culture and group dynamics.