Lenses into history - unpacking the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum

Using three lenses is like creating a kaleidoscope effect with possibilities for learning. Kaleidoscope image courtesy of instructables.

What lenses do you actively think about when designing your learning experiences for ākonga?

Katrina Ward

Sometimes it feels like we are looking through a kaleidoscope. Three mirrors work as a metaphor for the three lenses we put onto something, and suddenly there are fractals and moving parts everywhere… but I love that part. I love how the coming together of different lenses can suddenly create something really exciting.

We have been working with the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum with a number of schools and a lot of them have opted for some additional lenses to ‘triangulate’ their approach. The additional lenses I have been enjoying working with the most are the additions of digital fluency and learner agency. 

So what happens when these three lenses are combined?

The first lens is the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum. The lens of understanding the big ideas. Seeing the big ideas as big umbrellas that need to be over everything and then zooming in to the ‘knowing’ learning objectives aligned to specific contexts for each year level. Then we can adjust to a sharper focus to ensure that the ‘do’ of each activity hones into the subject knowledge and skills that are aligned with key subject-specific skills. An example of this is looking at cartography skills when looking at a map (geography skills), or focusing on source reliability and usefulness when looking at artifacts or photographs of the past (history skills). In the case of Burnside High, we have even designed a series of badge tasks to earn digital badges as ākonga complete skills-focused activities like ‘understanding bias’, ‘lateral research’ and ‘chronology’. 

The ANZHC lens is the main lens because it actively seeks to undo bias. This lens needs to be held in strong focus. When looking through this lens it is important to be conscious of the ‘rose tinted’ views that might come about if you neglect to meaningfully address the biases and power imbalances of history. This lens needs to be the ‘main lens’ into exploring local curriculum content for schools.  The ANZHC lens needs to be put on and put on again with regular editing processes to ensure that the big ideas can be ‘seen’ to be present in all of the activities/contexts that ākonga can explore. 

But those other two lenses also have an important role to play.

Let’s look at the lens of learner agency. 

For ākonga to be agents of their own learning they need to have choice about what they do, have choice about when they do it and also have choices for how they are assessed. They also need to be given opportunities to discuss and debate, explore and explain to show their understanding in different ways. The learner agency lens has been a fun lens to play with by adding ‘this or that’ choices throughout the unit design. It means ākonga can branch off and do different things and explore what interests them in addition to the ‘must cover’ content of the curriculum. It also means they can explore digital tools or play with paper-based ways to show their learning. Learner-agency as a lens means that no matter what is offered as content, you can give students multiple ‘ways in’ to the content which allows them to take more ownership of their learning. More ownership means more engagement and more engagement means more connection to the important ideas at hand. 

Learners as agents of their own learning also have more opportunity to be future agents of change. That’s why this lens is such a magic one. 

The third lens is digital fluency.

Have you ever heard of the term app-smashing? It is when you fluently combine apps to create something new. This is an end goal for students. Students can take a photo on their phone, edit it in one app, animate it another app and publish it on another app. Similarly students might create an infographic on canva and then load it as an image into thinglink and then upload audio to create a museum-worthy digital artefact of their own clever making. App-smashing processes give students an ability to be creators with technology - to see limitations and push things to their limits to create new things. It is highly engaging and ‘accidentally’ teaches them how to use a range of digital tools through focused and enabled discovery processes. We have really enjoyed designing some exciting tasks for ākonga to explore like creating a digital interactive map, experimenting with augmented reality and VR and creating a working school history app for real-life prototyping.

So there you have it. Three lenses. And just like a kaleidoscope creates new shapes and shifts in perspective, the new insights and the new learning can be magic. 

Exploring vocabulary with visuwords

Exploring primary sources with jamboard

Thinglink interactive map - pulse points lead to more thinglinks

Bringing understanding to life with interactive Thinglinks

This or that - creative writing or a timeline?

Planning your flight path - PLD planning tool

What great things does 2023 have in store for you?

Writing PLD applications can be a real drag, we know. But what if the process could be swift, uplifting and exciting? It is an opportunity to dream big, aim high and fly.

Check out our handy planning tool example here.

Step One: Choose from the drop-down boxes

These drop-down boxes are aligned with regionally allocated PLD priorities. You can decide on one PLD priority or weave a couple of priorities together into your application. We know that even though you might have ‘one big push’ there are likely some other supporting priorities in the mix. These might be embedding a previous priority, keeping the momentum with something you have started already or even adding an additional layer to support your application.

Step Two: Draw it. 

Visual sense-making is a really useful exercise. Are you wanting to work in sequence - one dot leading to the next in a line? Are you needing a woven approach? Does a triangle make more sense? Drawing the solution can help see connections in the PLD priorities and help you have a clearer picture of what success looks like. Thinking clearly will help you to lead better and we can help you to make sense of the priorities in your context with a quick drawing. 

Step Three: Check-in and destination thinking

Just like a real flight, you need to take stock of your current situation. What baggage are you checking in, what are you taking with you, and how might the weather affect your journey? We’re using a flight path metaphor to help you to make sense of the journey - who you are and where you are going, noticing and addressing barriers, predicting turbulence and painting the ‘blue sky outcome’ of your final PLD destination. 

Step Four: Mapping the path

This is a strategic planning tool to consider ‘layovers’ and checkpoints. Just like a long-haul flight, you will need to consider some re-fueling options and make the journey manageable. We also know that you will need a ‘visa and passport’ to prove who you are, where you have come from and where you are flying. We can help you to figure out the relevant documentation to support your application before you fly as well as what you will need to show when you land. 

We want your PLD journey to be fun. Look out the window and enjoy the view! We can celebrate little wins along the way.  What might you imagine for ‘in-flight entertainment’? We’ve added some examples of how we work with schools in this example. 

Your flight is yours to plan. The application process should not be a bore, it’s a time to soar! Get in touch with us to ‘book your flight’. We can’t wait to fly alongside you.

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Strategic Planning: Treasure Maps and Ensuring Future Success

We have been working with school leaders and their teams to support strategic planning and mapping of ‘steps for success’ for the next three years.  Strategic planning is a bit like designing a treasure map alongside the captain and crew of a big ship - with kotahitanga and manaakitanga. The sheer level of responsibility that rangatira feel for shaping the journey and direction for their tamariki and school community is high.  The commitment to having a clear vision and ‘getting it right’ is central to this mahi.  

What does that look like? In consultation with the key stakeholders, we review, refine and develop new strategic documents with great care and acute awareness of the need to design a map that will work.  We work with school leaders to map a journey that has their tamariki at the heart and forefront of all decisions.  This work is not for the faint-hearted. As ‘Captain of the Ship’, school leaders have the responsibility for determining the ‘X’ (Vision - or treasure!), and plot the map to get there (Strategic Plan) as well as recognise the need to navigate all that goes in between.

“‘Strategy is a style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an intensive implementation system, the science of ensuring future success’”

— Pete Johnson

It is a privilege to work alongside passionate leaders to create their strategic plans. The captain, with map in hand, can ensure the crew has the freedom to make progress creatively while still tracking towards the ‘X’. The passion and commitment leaders have for their vision, values and strategic goals is inspirational.  The strategic plan will guide decisions, and resourcing and can be a filter for effective decision-making for the next three years.  

As captains of the ship - school leaders have their eye on what is coming and they know that they are not alone. They can navigate unpredictable seas, and oversee the many nuances of the plan in action.  School leaders can mark the spot, map and track the course, negotiate turbulence, and empower and support the crew. A shared vision is so important. Having the crew on board and steering in the same direction is crucial to the success of any plan. The strategic plan needs to be a treasure map ‘to pull the island to you’  that the whole crew can buy into. It is a shared vision for a team adventure. “True success is when the navigator is no longer needed” - Wayfinding leadership.

The power of our work with strategic planning starts with the ability to listen and unite - kotahitanga. We can help formulate the plan and we can personalise the process. We can support you from the bow, the stern, beside the waka or wherever you need us. In essence, we can be your support crew on your treasure hunt.  We want you to have a successful adventure!  We will help you to write your strategic plan, draw your treasure map and ensure your future success.

““Perhaps the most profound lesson we have both learned from the navigators is their ability to maintain a fierce unwavering vision for the island, to harness their mana, and call a new reality into being. To an untrained eye, it would appear that the mariners are sailing to an island. Yet, to a master navigator, the island is held within him or her, and they are drawing that island to them.””

— Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey, Wayfinding leadership

Visual Thinking - 10 ways

Visual Thinking - 10 ways

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say. So how might you ‘save one thousand words’ by using visuals (images and video) in your classroom? This is a strategy that supports literacy, numeracy, critical thinking and a culture of collaboration in the classroom. 

Visual Thinking Prompts

In a nutshell, Visual Thinking is providing an image or video as an ‘I wonder’ prompt for students. It allows them to connect to prior learning, ask questions and think on their own about a topic before the teacher begins more traditional instruction. They can be used like conversation cards to spark discussion or as curated question prompts to introduce a new topic or idea. 

How might you use visual prompts in the classroom? Here are ten easy ways to get started:

1 To prompt observation

‘What can you see in this picture?’ Ask students to make a list of all of the things that they notice. To extend them you could add a second question, ‘Why do you think it is there?’ and see how much they can pull out about the image’s purpose and author.

2 To connect to prior knowledge

‘What do you know about this picture?’ Ask students to bring their prior knowledge ‘to the table’. You might have a budding expert who has a lot of prior knowledge already and this is a simple way to begin differentiating the next activities based on what students already know. It also gives students a chance to share their knowledge with their peers so that they can have more agency and ownership of their learning. 

3 To teach inference

Inference can be a tricky literacy skill to teach with text - but you can model it first by using pictures. Pair some ‘between the lines’ statements to go with a picture. Read them out loud (or provide them to students to unpack in written form, and ask ‘can you prove it?’. An example of this might be ‘the girl is frustrated’ and the inference or clue might be crossed arms and looking down. The ‘not quite right there’ clues in pictures and the thinking, scanning and searching for evidence is a great detective skill that students can then transfer or apply to reading and writing.

4 To use reasoning

As an extension to inference above - students can observe and reason using a picture as a prompt. ‘I think this because…’ This helps them to practice persuasive/argument writing skills as well as to practice reasoning to build on their detective skills.  

5 To inspire writing

A picture prompt can be a great way to explore perspective - from the viewpoint of a character or person in history. It can be used to recreate a factual account or it can be used to inspire creative writing. You could also use video to add sound layers to the image for more sensory writing and use the visual prompt as a way to inspire more sensory description into writing. 

6 To give permission to wonder

The new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum is a great way to start with picture prompting and visual thinking skills. We can use pictures to unpack perspectives, make sense of events in timelines and promote connections between the past, the present and beyond. 

“Instead of listening to lecturers share their knowledge, VTS asks people to talk about what they see and guides their looking with a pattern of three basic questions and a method of facilitation that involves listening, paraphrasing comments, linking related ideas, and framing the kinds of thinking shared.” 

Philip Yenawine - Permission to Wonder

7 To actively estimate

Check out esti mysteries for encouraging clue finding, productive disposition and reasoning with estimation in maths.

Esti Mystery example - visual thinking prompt for active estimation.

8 To work on language in reverse

With new open source artificial intelligence technology becoming more accessible you can enter descriptions into artificial intelligence image making software. Then you can troubleshoot how the description might need to be edited and refined to produce the right kind of image. 

Believe it or not this digital painting was created by artificial intelligence (Dall.e) using a description of a classroom using a visual prompt that students are pointing at. It potentially needs more guidance on rendering human faces. What else would you change? How ‘accurate’ can we be with words?

9 To encourage curiosity

Have you got Maths Eyes is a great resource to encourage curiosity and ‘seeing maths everywhere’. Their curiosity packs are downloadable as posters for the classroom too!

10 To cement critical consciousness

Adding some critical questioning to any image or photograph can increase students’ ability to think critically. It can help them to identify fake news and deep fakes on the internet too. Has the image been digitally manipulated? How do we know a photograph is ‘true’? How can we identify fact from fiction? Who took the photo? When did they take it? Why did they take it? (The same applies to paintings or drawings). Understanding context clues and being brave with asking questions and thinking critically is a valuable 21st Century skill that can be nurtured by using visual thinking prompts.  

Although originating in a museum context, using Visual Thinking Strategies is a universal way to promote engagement, inspire wonder, foster connection and increase collaboration. 

Just think of the ‘not yet thought of 1000’ words, thoughts and connections that might be born into the world as a result. How will you use visual thinking strategies in your classroom?

References:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-visual-thinking-strategies-classroom

https://www.philipyenawine.com/

Growing Capability Together

Are you ready to get some traction with your professional learning?

We hear your stories on the ground when we are working with schools across Aotearoa. We hear you when you speak about the loss of learning time, the need to re-engage with whānau and how the ‘urgent’ has been taking over what is important. We can see the ripple effect of how this is affecting learners and we are here to help you to be re-grounded into your ‘why’.

Check out this video that explains the importance of standing strong together - no matter what the disruption. 

We know that areas of growth in a school need to be woven together like the roots of trees. Priorities can be interconnected and there is strength in combining ‘root systems’ in order to stand strong.  We partner with you to identify and prioritise the ‘seeds’ for your areas of growth. We then work together to create and nurture your thriving ecosystem.

Regionally Allocated PLD Applications (RAPLD) are due on Friday the 12th of August and Friday the 4th of November. Now is the time to make a difference. Let’s refocus on learning and professional growth. Email us so that we can take the pain out of the paperwork, support you to draft an application and help you to get what you need to realise your vision.