Visual Communication Research 2019

I’m looking to design teacher resources that help the process of planning coursework. I want to improve student engagement by helping teachers provide more diverse and effectively planned coursework. Context Questions: How long have you been teaching? 2 years Details on school + level + courses teaching? High school visual design teacher, personal interest in level 1 (year 11) Does your school teach with NCEA? Yes, decile 2 school, so more funding and smaller classes, but much much harder students to work with. Are you aware of the current situation with the NCEA review? What’re you’re your experiences and opinions working with this system, are there any changes you believe need to be made?  What’s the process when it comes to teacher resources- are they provided by the school, or do you have to source them yourself (is there freedom) (is there support) Curriculum requirements are given with NCEA, however creative freedom for how you want to teach, and...

What do I want to know??? Context questions: their teaching background Opinions context. What resources do they currently use? Success or failures? Can they see any flaws in my theories or ideas? Would they be interested in helping me work through my ideas as I prototype? Would it be a possibility for me to participate/ spectate in a professional development day at their school? Are there any coming up in the next 6 weeks? Do they have any networks or connections they could link me up to to further this project?

Hi, my name’s Ruth, I’m a student from Massey University working on my honours project.  I’m looking to design teacher resources that help the process of planning coursework, as well as making it easier for teachers to incorporate learning diversity into their classrooms.  I’d love to ask you 3 quick questions to validate my research so far, are you the right person to talk about this?  No:  All good, is there any chance you could pass me on to someone who could help? Or even pass on some contact details to call or email another time? Yes: Awesome! All right, so as I mentioned, my project is about supporting learning diversity in the classroom. I want to improve student engagement by helping teachers provide more diverse and effectively planned coursework. In your opinion, do you think there’s a need for something like this in schools?  So far most of my research has come from articles, reports and studies, but I’d really love to actuall...

Context Questions: How long have you been teaching? Are you working or have you previously taught elsewhere? Is Massey your first/ only teaching job? What is your core area of teaching? (Subject + age/ level) Content Questions: Have you seen a change in the 'quality' of first year students over the period you've been teaching? I.E. are new students 'better' or 'worse' than when you began teaching? From your experience, are first year students (generally) prepared for Uni? Are there any specific skills/ abilities that you wish students had before  they begin uni? What do you currently do now in order to  compromise  or catch students up? Are you aware of the current situation with the NCEA review? Do you have any opinions on the system, or changes you believe need to be made? Any recommendations for teachers do you think I should be interviewing for this? (New teachers/ first year teachers)

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement, or NCEA, is the current system of educational assessment in New Zealand, although some schools teach alternate assessment programs. A Teacher's Perspective: "NCEA is a failed experiment. It is meant to be a standards-based assessment, but the standards are norm-referenced so that if the teachers do a better job, the pass rates do not change." "I know of one standard in mathematics where a skill that was excellence in the first year, is now an achieved skill." "The standards themselves are poorly written. There is not enough detail in the standards for a teacher to know exactly what skills are required for each level of achievement, and so there can be up to five other documents that have to be read, in conjunction with standard, to provide the necessary clarity." "While the external assessments are consistent throughout the country, the internal assessments have almost no National S...

Buckholt-Payne, Anya. “The Speaker Series: Our City Tomorrow.” Creating Places for People, Wellington City Council, 28 Ma r. 2019, City Gallery Wellington. Speaker Series. I went to a talk by the Wellington City Council: The Speaker Series: Our City Tomorrow, Creating places for people. From this I got some enlightening insights from Anya Buckholt-Payne, where she talked about making a better city for youth. She talked about the lack of engagement within school cultures, and how students weren't being inspired- and therefore weren't getting involved- in their education. They weren't investing in themselves because the majority of her peer group didn't feel represented within the world, which is reflecting in class/ learning engagement. She talked about student voice, and feeling " powerless and isolated". She stated that the conventional education environment needs to be challenged . Her observations cross over a lot into my project, and I've gotten i...

Today I had a catch up coffee meeting with Phoebe, (a mentor I've had in the past outside of Uni.) It was great to run over where I'm at with someone who has a fresh perspective, and getting some new ideas and clarification for the direction I'll head in now. We went over the research map I'd made earlier with Mark, and discussed the potential and flaws within each area. It was great talking it through, as it drew to light the parts that needed further research and documentation. Phoebe reminded me to go back to the original problem, to refine and develop this in the context of my new research, and then use that to prioritise what to do from there. I need to choose a primary objective, and have secondary ones as well. I don't need to throw away everything else I've been researching, but focus in on one section to prioritise and 'go deep.' We also discussed the scale of my project. So far my research has been quite broad, and as such somewhat vague. ...

Student Survey: Teacher Survey: Parent Survey: Recent Graduate Survey:

Survey Link Preliminary research Do you like school? Do you hate school? Are you a parent, student, or teacher? Then you should fill out this survey <3 Are you a student, teacher, or parent? For Teachers: What curriculum do you teach under? What subject(s) do you teach, or have taught in the past? Do you feel restricted with what you have to teach? If you could make any changes, what would you do? Do you feel there needs to be changes within the curriculum itself, or just better resources for teachers, or both? As a teacher, is there anything you need that you aren't getting? (In order to effectively teach students.) Are there any reoccurring comments/ complaints you overhear from students?  For Parents: What subjects do they struggle with the most? Do you think this has anything to do with the methods this subject is taught by? Do you feel the current school system is giving your child/ children the support they need to achieve their potent...

Whitcroft, Aimee. “The Speaker Series: Our City Tomorrow.” Smart Capital, Wellington City Council, 14 Mar. 2019, City Gallery Wellington. Speaker Series.

Nimue Strivens is a recent graduate from Waora Montessori High School, and she gave me a new perspective on an NCEA alternative curriculum.