The Power of Sharing and Collaboration

I really enjoyed connecting, once again, with the other teachers involved in the Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher (MIT) programme for 2016.   This opportunity enables us to share with the group and hear how each inquiry is going and the progress we have all made to date.  Importantly, through collaborating with others we get unique perspectives and ideas to incorporate into our own inquiries as well as providing others with feedback.

Today's session focused on sharing one success from our inquiry to date as well as an opportunity to receive feedback and suggestions on challenges we have come across.   As with many things, the different experiences and ideas we bring to the table provides for unique viewpoints and ways of looking at things which we may not have thought about.  Additionally, today we started working on our presentations for ULearn 2016 and in my case to present at the Manaiakalani Hui later this month - watch this space, as they say!

The collaborative approach of the Spark MIT reminded me of my experiences in the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy (MDTA) in my first two years of teaching (2014 - 2015).  Each week we met and collaboratively shared our experiences as well as receiving professional development on teaching in a digital classroom.   This unique program, combined with the Honours study through the University of Auckland gave me such a boost to my teaching career.   Co-incidentally, an Addendum was recently released as an addition to the evaluation report on the MDTA completed by the NZ Council for Education Research and I had an opportunity to read this over the weekend.  Its great to see the success of the program continue through the intake of ten new beginning teachers earlier this year into the MDTA 2016 program.  Pt England is lucky to have three of these MDTAs and I really enjoy hearing about their experiences each week and comparing them to my own journey.