Maui's Barb a blog by Sara Plunkett.

       Post Study Self Portrait July 2017 What is so? The MindLab course has blown my mind. In many ways it has been a struggle. An overload of new content, new ideas and applications that I have not always wanted to engage with. However I have taken away many positives. My learning around leadership has already been beneficial to my position as a Head of the Arts Faculty. The way I look at the changing landscape of learning in the 21st century has changed, I am no longer reluctant but have moved into using digital modes of learning as tools to improve practice and experience for my students. I have tried out new things in the classroom, some will stick some will be modified. Visual Art Research standards digitally presented (Video unit for Level 1 and 2 and a digital catalog for level 3) – Makes digital moderation easy. Use of Seesaw blog for year 7/8 junior art students. – A digital record that can be shared with their classroom teacher and a dig...

My Interdisciplinary Connections: I am a conceptually trained visual arts teacher. In my undergraduate degree I specialised in sculpture (object based and installation). Since then I have been painting and drawing within my own art practice. I work as a visual arts teacher years 7 – 13 and have in the past taught year 9 Maori and English, relieved in Graphics and textiles and every year offer a Level 1 kapa haka dance standard to interested students. Through my teaching I have developed a passion for Te Reo and tikanga Maori, and have sought to integrate this learning into my visual art teaching. (Freeman & Mathison, 1997) Intradisciplinary or integrated: I have developed a year 9 Toi Ataata (Maori visual arts unit) based on the design and make of a miniature kakahu that utilises an interdisciplinary approach by combining art skills and content from painting, printmaking, design, sculpture and technology with a kaupapa Maori approach. This unit of work has...

Social Media in the Art Room. My initial reluctance, hesitant progress and a possible way forward. The weight of 'the cloud'. 2017 I have been reluctant to use social media in the classroom as I have been scared about the negative effects of social media; distraction, oversharing, safety of students and myself, the potential for posts to go viral  (Clun, 2015) . I am also very concerned about making sure I do not cross any legal or ethical boundaries as a teacher and representative of my school so have tended to tread lightly in this area. I have however used Pinterest with my students before for gathering visual ideas for artwork and design problems. I once followed a photography student on Instagram then decided that this led me too much into the personal life of the student. In an earlier blog post (Jan 1st 2017) I set myself a list of digital goals for 2017 and one of them was to start using Facebook with students to critique their art work. This did n...

Influence of Law and Ethics Week 29 #Not robots yet. Ever feel like you are stuck between a rock and a hard place? When thinking about the Education Councils Draft Code of Ethics (Education Council, 2017), I feel like there is an enormous weight on my shoulders. Possibly it is the weight of the teaching profession. So much responsibility! Student well being, parental expectations, school reputation, collegiate relationships, curriculum objectives, NCEA, EOTC, SOPS, health and safety. There is a mountain of regulations in teaching today. The draft code of ethics gives examples of good ethical behavior and also poor behavior for each indicator. My first reaction was that there seemed to be so many expectations of teachers and so much that could go wrong. I wondered where the room for teachers to be human is. (#not robots yet). However on deeper reflection I can see that these example provide good guidelines for keeping our students and ourselves safe. What ought I to do, ...

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS - Week 28  Full moon over Oamaru during Matariki 2017 Indigenous knowledge and educational systems - The requirements of NCEA Visual Art.  An experience on visartsnet (an email list which is effectively a national community of practice for NZ Visual Arts teachers) earlier in the year has me critically evaluating the collective practice of NZ visual arts teachers. A discussion on the requirements for the Level 3 folio standard highlighted to me some issues around cultural responsiveness when advising students on how to best meet the marking criteria. The discussion was around students producing paintings that could be viewed as whole panel works. The example was a folio with irregular shaped (not square or rectangular) individual paintings that could be read as a whole in that each painting was integrated into the next. Many teachers were confused as they had experienced students not achieving when treating a whole panel...

‘What are we doing for our boys? Their jobs are being taken by women and robots.’  A Brave New World: Have you heard this lately? I have and initially I was taken aback in fact, affronted! Poor boys’! How dare those women and robots take jobs that were once yours? And then I thought really? Is this a thing? The nature of work is changing and this along with other factors is disrupting our education system. Women and girls are out there, graduating, getting tertiary qualifications, gaining employment and raising children. No we have not yet caught up to the boys but the nature of the employed world is changing and it is scary for those who are slow to adapt. ‘Technology is accelerating progress but causing discontinuities. Rapid technological advancements will increase the pace of change and create new opportunities but will aggravate divisions between winners and losers. Automation and artificial intelligence threaten to change industries faster than economie...

A painting for my brother inspired by my students. Sara Plunkett, 2016  Current issues in my professional context. St Kevin’s College is Catholic school in small town Oamaru with a roll of 441 as at 2016 (“Education Review Office,” 2016). St Kevin’s is one of three high schools in the area and the only school to offer a co - educational environment. Census data shows from 2013 that in Oamaru Central and Waitaki Region there are more females than males, NZ European is the predominant ethnic group with 88.6% (Oamaru central), 91.2%(Waitaki), the next largest group is Maori making up only 6.9% and 6.5% however the second most spoken language after English is Tongan. (Census New Zealand, 2013). Our school data from 2016 shows that our Maori and Asian students both reflect 10%, NZ European 70%, Pasifika 5% and 5% other , we have 6% more female than male students. 20% of our roll are boarders. (“Education Review Office,” 2016) We are decile 7 although there is a concern aft...

I must swim to the ocean floor to discover the depth of my practice. Just like Tane climbed the steps to the heavens to gain the three baskets of knowledge, I must delve deeper into my practice, and descend five levels of reflection. (Finlay, 2008). Okains Bay 2017 1 - Rapid reflection - On rapid reflection I previously mentioned that my communities of practice were the MindLab community at my school, and my visual arts cluster group. For me they seemed to fit with the three criteria for Communities of Practice in that they both had 'joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire' (Wenger, 2000). Our MindLab community was delivering some PD with the staff. This was voluntary, we had picked up on an issue and decided we could address it if we worked together the three areas we had were: Domain: Interested in our school use of digital technologies and the impacts on students. Community: We had begun to work together voluntarily as a spin off from studyin...

Kia ora, A seaweed circle protecting the nest of an oyster catcher (torea-pango) at Okains Bay Jan 2017. Well the beginning of the last paper for Mindlab has arrived. I have been reading about reflective practices and communities of learning. I started this blog right at the beginning of the Mindlab journey and have made a few posts along the way. After getting lost in all the course work and assignments along with balancing school and home I have realised that the Mindlab has helped me to discover something quite special. We have developed a Mindlab Community of Learning at our school.  For the first 16 weeks we had to travel from Oamaru to Dunedin every Thursday night. We found that the best thing about this was the car ride. Here we could discuss the weeks readings, share our ideas and on the way back develop plans for change in our school. When it got hard we were able to offer support to each other. This week we are helping to run some PD with our staff on integrat...

Kia ora! I mātakitaki au he ataata a 'korero TED'. I have been watching TED Talk videos. Aue! This is a good one. Teaching Art or Teaching to think like an artist?