Manaiakalani 6th Annual Hui

The Manaiakalani 6th Annual Hui was held on Friday 25th Aug at the Panmure Yacht Club. Here is the link to the website which has all the information about the day, including presentations that were given. It was a really well-organised day, lead by a team which has worked together and run cluster-wide events for many years. Here are my reflections should Kootuitui be thinking in future to emulate Manaiakalani.

I asked Russell Burt, the Principal Convenor, how many years Manaiakalani had been a formal cluster and he informed me that it came into being as an entity in 2006-2007. Thinking about this being their 6th annual hui meant that their first one was in 2012, and six years after formation. This gave me some comfort in that Kootuitui could also start 'slow' should we be considering a similar type of annual event.

Tea and coffee was available as people arrived. It was a first chance to meet people and reconnect with others. The formal start was a mihi, karakia and waiata from students from Pt England school and principal, Russell Burt. The student spoke confidently and the group sang with heart and love. the student who did the whaikorero said that the marae of the area was Ruapotaka, however there wasn't a kaumatua to start the day. The second thing I noticed was that even though everyone was welcomed, there wasn't a whakawhanaungatanga. Maybe this was because the community of Manaiakalani knows itself well and members see each other often. I am sure that Manaiakalani followed their local tikanga and should we have an event like this in Kootuitui, I must remember to check what our tikanga is.

The first section was student ambassadors from each of the Manaiakalani schools sharing their inquiries through short presentations. These had Learn Create Share as the base and included slide shows and movies, and links to their blogs to invite feedback. The student from Puau gave her presentation in Te Reo. All inquiries were local problems, eg water from gutters through pipes into the Tamaki River; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; disability parking; transport around the local community; how we can keep ourselves safe in our community; sustainability in school, and an inquiry into a school problem. Following this, every table was given two blog addresses to make a comment on some of these specific blogs.

Having students up first was a very powerful start which demonstrated the impact of inquiry learning in 1:1 digital environment. Students were confident, calm and eager to explain what and how they had learnt. It would be fantastic to have a student representative from each of the Kootuitui schools present as their Manaiakalani peers did. As yet, we have not had any students present to any formal Kootuitui forum. It would be good to think about getting this started, maybe with one or two students first. Having attended a Manaiakalani Open Day last year, I remember student presenters there, so students have multiple opportunities to present their learning within their cluster.

Following the students, some of the teachers on the Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher programme gave their presentations. Each lead us through their inquiries with a digital presentation called an 'Ignite Talk': the slides move on without needing to be clicked. They were doing a run through as a precursor to their presentation at ULearn. One teacher is using the Paideia method which I was first introduced to in the movie HighTech High which I watched at ULearn 2016 and which Kootuitui hired to show within the cluster late last year.

A Paideia Seminar is a collaborative, intellectual dialogue facilitated by open-ended questions about a text or topic – increased understanding of ideas and values. This method is more often referred to as the Socratic Method during which the teacher acts as facilitator guiding the students into meaningful dialog. The teacher inquiries were each interesting for the different questions they were posing, hypothesising and testing.

After morning tea, Rebecca Jesson from Woolf Fisher Research Centre spoke about the efficacy of engaging in discussion driving further learning. Classroom observations within Manaiakalani have revealed that there is not as much 1-1 discussion occurring as previously. The provocation after the earlier presentations is that the leading edge of the wave is focusing on discussion but what is the rest of the wave (the other teachers and students) doing? She suggested that we need to have a broader mindset about 'create' to not just include a finished product but also a process - of thinking, of collaboration. Recent classroom observations by WFRC have also pointed to low levels of student empowerment around tasks although there are other types of empowerment. The teaching focus needs to get to a place where there is more critical thinking. Rebecca believes that critical literacy is difficult to understand let alone do. How often do we see students showing reasoned thinking about what to do or believe?

Rebecca asked participants to reflect on their vision for Manaiakalani, discuss this in their groups and question whether this has changed over the years. Individuals were invited to share their ideas with the whole group, eg such as paddling the same waka up the same river, schools seeing the positive educational results coming through, increased whānau engagement through Kawa of Care sessions with parents, wanting to engage the community and schools further to more fully empower students into careers as doctors, lawyers, engineers, politicians.  Woolf Fisher came into the community in 2012 and part of Rebecca's purpose today is to bring everyone back to the original shared vision to investigate whether it can be further capitalised on. She wondered aloud whether the cluster needs to redo the visioning exercise.

I reflected that we need to make sure we share the research results/evidence within our schools and communities and continue to have discussions about our vision and our shared goals and achievement challenges. We were asked to do a 5-minute audit on the types of thinking that are currently being shown on our student blogs. Do we have blogs that demonstrate thinking about thinking?

Rebecca asked the cluster to concentrate on how it is evolving to greater engage and empower - 'e-words' - students in ways that show up in their achievement. She holds the vision more than the data, believing in very high quality teaching and learning experiences that show up like 'footprints in the sand' when the data is captured. Russell spoke about how schools scaffold students in their learning to assist them but does this very process restrict student agency?

After lunch, Pat Snedden, Chair of the Manaiakalani Education Trust, addressed us. He spoke about the message of hope to Tamaki and other communities like Tamaki and the huge support from funders such as Spark and the NEXT Foundation in the spreading of the Outreach through NZ. He gave a thank you message to everyone doing the work and reiterated Rebecca's message that they must not relax in it but push on. He shared where the money for Manaiakalani comes from and emphasised that the way teachers welcome partners into their classrooms and the evidence of change support the partnerships and ongoing funding. He said that the MET is in service to other clusters raising resources, innovating, and helping make connections as an issue of 'love' and to do what is good for NZ. It was extremely good news for Kootuitui that the Manaiakalani Education Trust is committed to continued support.

It was announced that a new sponsorship has been secured for two teachers to go to Chicago next year to attend the ISTI (Information Systems and Technology Innovation) Conference and that the advert would be put into the Manaiakalani Google+ community before the next school holidays.

The Kahui Ako section of the afternoon was an opportunity for the COL inquiries to be shared via a poster session. This was organised as a bingo session related to the Manaiakalani Teaching as Inquiry Framework. A stamp on the bingo card was given after visiting the display, talking through the inquiry with the teacher and a blog comment being placed on the inquiry teacher's blog. This was an excellent opportunity to get up, move around, talk, investigate the COL inquiries, question, and give feedback. What's more sponsorship had been secured for a few prizes for lucky bingo winners.

The afternoon finished off with the bar being opened and snacks appearing on the tables, for a time of socialisation and welcome to other teachers who had not been able to make it during the day.

The MC for the day was Dorothy Burt and she had a very light and engaging touch which made it seem like the day moved seemlessly from one section to the next. In all, the organisation was expertly crafted and executed with the people doing the most talking being the students and teachers, with a little from the lead researcher and the MET Chair. The breaks and catering were sufficient to get around and chat and take refreshments. The caterers moved quietly and efficiently during the day without me even noticing them.

The main message I took from the day was that this hui demonstrated how the Manaiakalani cluster is a learning community with the main presentations and discussions being lead by students and teachers. There weren't long-winded speeches from school leaders, board or trust members, facilitators or sponsors. The day was about students and teachers sharing the stories of their learning journeys and it felt fantastic.

Putting students and teachers at the centre of the day seemed a natural and effortless way of holding this hui. It is at the classroom level where all the knowledge and skills about combining the pedagogy and the tools are put into practice every day; it is where 'the rubber meets the road'. It is also the place where those who are not in the room hardly ever get the chance to venture into.