Digital and collaborative innovation

 Title: Implement, document and critique a digital and collaborative learning innovation applied to a specific area of your practice. Within your reflective portfolio, continue to add reflective entries that critically evaluate your practice.

Reflective entry 5 

Critically analyse issues of ethics, society, culture and/or professional environments that have been relevant to the digital and collaborative learning innovation you applied in your practice 

All of the students I work with have Neurodevelopmental disorders, some of whom have complex communication needs and/or relatively limited experiences of generating language, literacy and more so writing presents many challenges. 

Teachers want to assist the students that I work with, but due to their lack of knowledge about special Ed, and assistive technology, most are unable to do this successfully. As a specialist outreach teacher, my aim is to upskill staff in the mainstream school by providing them with special education pedagogy. Digital literacy and collaboration is an area they find difficulties in.

My students require lots of one on one support to access the curriculum. They want to share their work with their classmates, but due to their communication and fine motor difficulties, they shy away from doing so. They often find tasks like writing really challenging and would prefer to not do anything rather than get the work incorrect. Students want to work with their bubbies, but have difficulties in communication and managing themselves.

Their Whanau indicated that they would love to see their child’s work published on the class blog. They often tell us that their child  knows what they want to write about, but needs to find the correct ‘writing tool.’ During the lockdown, this was also an eye-opener for whanau, as they realised how much lower their child was working at compared to their peers and how little they were involved in the class programme. They wanted to know ‘why isn’t my child doing what the others are doing’. (At their level)

My aim is to adapt the program and differentiate their learning, but allow them to work collaboratively with their peers where possible.

Bottery (2006) suggests that “Most discussions on the roles and responsibilities of educators have centred around the three core values of subject expertise, public service, and the need for autonomy in exercising professional judgement. These values remain essential, but for my students with special needs, it could also be supplemented by the fact that Teachers should not regard accountability as something ‘done’ to them, but rather permits both greater trust and professional autonomy. In building trust and constituencies,  teachers should be involving and educating stakeholders like support staff and whanau especially for students like mine with diverse needs. Teachers should accept  that knowledge is not fixed  and have professional attitudes to research and to the nature of Special Education PD and lifelong learning, 

“In any innovative approach to digital teaching and learning, there is a potential tension between moving ahead with pioneering projects and the maintenance or enhancement of equity. How is it possible to ensure that ‘all boats rise on the same tide’ while not being held back by the valid needs or attitudes of minorities?” (Parsons, D., 2017). My students with special needs are in the minority and often get ignored. Teaching strategies that work for children with special needs generally work for all students. But in a mainstream setting, it is often the opposite. Where the child with special needs is expected to fit in. They are not treated as equals in their class and get left behind.

The journey of our Rangatahi has been likened to paddling a waka down a braided river (BERL, 2019). There are many paths they can follow to reach their chosen destination but they need to be empowered to make informed decisions to chart their own course and avoid getting stuck. While we know there are a number of contributing factors that need to be addressed, equity in education is key to their journey and a crucial catalyst for transforming outcomes. 

According to the Ministry of Education (2016) school’s culture consists of the "customs, rituals, and stories that are evident and valued throughout the whole school … In developing a positive culture, effective principals ensure that educational practices are inclusive. They make certain that students and their families do not feel alienated either from their own culture or from the culture of the school.” A major part of my role as a specialist teacher was to develop that sense of inclusiveness by upskilling staff with special Education pedagogy. 

In his work around school culture and school improvement. Stoll points out some internal and external factors that shape a school's culture include the school's history, the students' socio-economic background and external context such as national educational policies, and societal changes (Stoll, 1998). 

introducing ICT [Information Communications Technology] across the curriculum, another group may have very different beliefs about the importance of ICT. The school can then become a location for struggles for control, in-fighting and competition.  Status issues are also involved, so in the case of national primary literacy initiatives, the literacy co-ordinator may be seen as having assumed power while specialist subject teachers, for example, music, may feel marginalised, especially if primary schools use the flexibility they have to focus on “the basics”. Students are all expected to come with their own devices (BYOD). Digital responsibility is taught in general to the entire class. For a child with special needs, this information will need to be broken down and explained with the use of visuals. The ICT curriculum leader will research apps and programmes that work for the majority and my students are expected to use what the rest of the class is using. The class teacher is often faced with the dilemma of one size fits all or learning what is going to work for the child with special needs.

Ethics are what we ought to abide by, but what should we do when we face an ethical dilemma - when we cannot find an ethically acceptable or preferable option without any ambiguity? Teachers often face ethical dilemmas in their everyday work, as what constitutes ethical behaviour may lie in a ‘grey zone’.

Real improvement cannot come from anywhere other than within schools themselves, and “within” is a complex web of values and beliefs, norms, social and power relationships and emotions. Changing schools is not just about changing curricula, teaching and learning strategies, assessment, structures, and roles and responsibilities. It requires an understanding of and respect for the different meanings and interpretations people bring to educational initiatives and work to develop shared meanings underpinned by norms that will promote sustainable school improvement for all students.

References

Bottery, M. (2006). Education and globalization: redefining the role of the educational professional. Educational Review, 58(1), 95–113. 

Brown, P., & Lauder, H. (1991). Education, economy and social change. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 1(1-2), 3-23.

Eliot, L. (2019, March 1). Global Moral Ethics Variations and AI: The Case of AI Self-Driving Cars. AI Trends. Retrieved from  

 

Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane.

Parsons, D. (2017). Stakeholder, Corporate and Policy Perspectives, in J. Traxler (Ed.), Capacity Building in a Changing ICT Environment (pp. 81-90). Geneva, Switzerland: International Telecommunication Union

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London.