Planning to include Kia Eke Panuku

All through last year, the whole staff had sessions all together where we focussed on Kia Eke Panuku. 
I have to admit, that I struggled all through this. I could not see what I was doing and how it fit in, or what I was not doing, so what I needed to focus on.

I began to see the light a little towards the end of the year when a fellow teacher and member of another team I am in told me what she thought I was good at. The light bulb wasn't fully on but it was beginning to glimmer.

This is how I decided to move forwards :-

In the spirit of Kotahitanga and Ako, and a focus on Level 2, as they were the topic of the Change Committee,  I got two of the current Level 2 students last year to help me design the course for this year. Blog post 1   Blog post 2.

The main way I am approaching it this year, is to include group work in NCEA. I had restructured the Level 2 course to include a couple of Technology standards as well as the DVC standards. This way, if I got the project structure correct, the students can pick up 2 standards worth of credits for one project.

While dong this restructure, I looked really carefully at where I could include group work instead of the students producing everything by them selves. We already did a little analysis work together in out Google Plus Communities and I have found this to be very beneficial as the students find the analysis to be the most difficult part of the work. Where, then, could I include group work to support them as they were producing project work? With NCEA having such an individually assessed structure, I had to be careful what I planned here so I don't stop the students from achieving the requirements of the standards.

The first standard we are doing at Level 2 is a Technology standard, AS91354.
The students are working in small groups interview their client, produce mood boards to show their client and to analyse what the physical and social aspects of the problem are. Link here to the tasks.
They will produce individual priority lists, specifications and design briefs, but we will still structure this work together.
It is the first time trying this, so I wanted to find out early what the students thought. If they are positive about it, then I can build group tasks into further projects.

I sent them a Google Form that was anonymous, so they could be honest with me.
Here are the questions I asked :-

• Did you choose to do Level 2 DVC this year or were you put into that option line?
• Did you do Level 1 DVC last year?
• How easy or difficult are you finding Level 2 DVC this year? Please tell me in your own words and give reasons if you can.
• This is the first year that I am trying to include some group / team work into some of the NCEA tasks. What do you think of this as you have been doing a little of this by now. You can talk about good and bad points here.
• Do you feel more comfortable moving into more individual work now that you have done activities together?
• Do you work together in teams in any other of your lessons?

Here are some of the answers I have received so far. It seems that I am going to be building more tasks like this into the following projects. (they are unedited)

It was good communicated with new people from overseas, other schools but also getting to know other pasifika children that has the same skin colour as me

I think that its a great idea being able to work and help each other because we all stay up to date.

I would rate from difficult 1 - 10 easy confident
= 10 easy confident because we all help each other as a team even when somebody falls back we always seem to catch up together.

Its alright because some of the topics we could work in groups which would make things easier for all of us

I would feel comfortable working individually but I still recommend that team work is the best! :)

Yes that would be brilliant because i love how partners communicate and help out another person because being as brothers is the best thing that you will ever have in your journey.