Here is the latest Executive news for TEFANZ Members to read up on.
TEFANZ Newsletter Number 8 November 2020
Kia ora koutou; ngā mihi nui ki a koutou,
Here we all are at the beginning of November, back to a Level 1 world, and looking forward to having some time to draw breath over the summer. The disruption and uncertainty has continued since our last newsletter, especially for colleagues in Auckland, and we will all be turning our minds to ways of making our programmes resilient and flexible as a result of our experiences this year.
There are two great professional learning opportunities for teacher educators coming up in November: Our half-day seminar, and a world-wide seminar involving teacher educator groups from around the world.
One of the intentions of the new ITE Requirements from the Teaching Council was to encourage new pathways into teaching. The Request For Proposals for Employment-based ITE programmes was released recently. At the PPTA /TEFANZ online hui recently we heard about new secondary programmes that had been approved, including Post Grad Diplomas from existing providers, and qualifications from new providers. A recent press announcement that a consortium of Auckland secondary schools will be paying fees and stipends for a group of student teachers who will study in The University of Waikato’s secondary programme and be based in their schools further demonstrates that the ITE space is set to diversify further. In these interesting times, having an organisation like TEFANZ can be very helpful for promoting quality ITE for Aotearoa New Zealand – so do get in touch if there’s anything you want to discuss or suggest.
TEFANZ Research Seminar
The advertisement for our seminar day has been circulated, and the Eventbrite link for registration is also given below. Thanks to all who have offered to contribute, and particular thanks to Professor Angus Macfarlane who will present the keynote address. Do join us if you can, for all or part of the day. The presentations are really interesting, and it will be nice to have an opportunity to share with each other. We are opening the hui space at 8.30am if people want to come and have a ‘chat’ before we start: think of it as a cup of coffee together over breakfast at the conference venue – except you’ll have to bring your own coffee!
The full programme is appended to this newsletter too (and it’s on the website).
To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/tefanz-seminar-day-tickets-126323692565
Teacher Education Around the World
TEFANZ is participating in this two-day international seminar series, focusing on teacher education issues that impact us all. You are welcome to join in: the flyer is attached to the back of this newsletter.
Responding to Māori and Pasifika people in ITE
In each newsletter we highlight resources or events that can help ITE providers respond to Māori and Pasifika people in ITE.
Our first suggestion is to attend our Seminar day and listen to Professor Angus Macfarlane speaking about culturally responsive pedagogy in ITE!
Recent articles by colleagues from the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington provide inspiring descriptions of teacher education practice that is culturally responsive or culturally sustaining: they are worth reading to see how people are working with these ideas in our own local contexts. Look them up!
Averill, R. & McRae, H. (2019). Culturally sustaining initial teacher education: Developing student teacher confidence and competence to teach indigenous learners. The Educational Forum, 83 (3), 294-308.
Clarke, T., Macfarlane, S. & Macfarlane, A. (2018). Integrating indigenous Māori frameworks to ignite understandings with initial teacher education – and beyond. In P. Whitinui (Ed.).
Promising practices in indigenous teacher education. Springer: Singapore.
Fickel, L., Abbiss, J., Brown, L. & Astall, C. (2018). The importance of community knowledge in learning to teach: Foregrounding Māori cultural knowledge to support preservice teachers’ development of culturally responsive practice. Peabody Journal of Education, 93 (3), 285-294.
McRae, H. & Averill, R. (2019). Ensuring Māori success and inclusion of tea ō Māori through initial teacher education. New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 24, 160-176.
Executive Meeting News
The executive met on 15th October by Zoom. We ‘met’ with Ben O’Meara and Hae-In from the Minsitry of Education, and with Jayne Franklin and Pauline Barnes from the Teaching Council, as well as discussing TEFANZ business.
Points to note from this meeting:
- Eunice Price and Hiria McRae are going to look at a matrix for evaluating submissions for TEFANZ awards to help the awards committee make decisions
- 2021 will be a TEFANZ forum year (not a conference). We are working on confirming the venue and will let you know as soon as the decision is made.
- We discussed having individual as well as institutional membership, and this will come to our AGM next year for discussion and decision.
- If anyone is interested in being part of TEFANZ’s environmental response working group, please send names to Rosina Merry. Commitment is 1-2 Zoom hui.
- There was no detail to be had on enhanced induction and mentoring. A proposal is in train and a provider has been identified but the contract is not yet signed and is therefore confidential. This detail should be forthcoming very soon. The Council estimates that there will be about 1300 graduates accessing the scheme.
- Some themes are emerging from the panel approval processes:
Themes of recommendations at present: 1.3 Partnerships, 4.1 Assessment framework, 4.2 Features of high-quality placements.
Themes of conditions at present: 6.2 te reo Māori; 1.3 Partnerships, the ‘CIA’
- There will be new calls for panelists for approvals, and they are currently inducting a new chair.
- The Teaching Council recently released the Malatest report on the introduction of the ITE requirements and the approval process (available from them)
- By the end of the year, 40% of programmes will have been through approval
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Other Hui
Providers were invited to meet with both NZEI and PPTA via Zoom during October. The PPTA meeting was well attended, and some members took up the opportunity to meet with NZEI. PPTA and NZEI value these connections and want to continue to meet with us in 2021.
Meetings will probably be via Zoom to maximise accessibility. We will share dates as soon as we have them, via our direct email and on the website.
Literacy and Numeracy Testing
The requirements for literacy and numeracy testing are raising questions for some providers.
In the same way as we shared some of our Key Teaching Tasks through the TEFANZ website, we would like to share how people tackle numeracy and literacy testing.
If you would like to share, please write up a brief narrative of what you do and how you do it that we can place on the website for others to access.
Noho ora ra
Fiona (on behalf of the TEFANZ executive).
The newsletter aims to keep our members up to date on TEFANZ activities and the national ITE landscape more generally. It will also be used to advertise opportunities to participate in policy or research activities that are offered to or generated by TEFANZ. We welcome contributions by member organisations who would like to connect with other members through this medium. We hope you find it useful and are happy to receive feedback (via Fiona Ell, f.ell@auckland.ac.nz).
TEFANZ is a climate conscious organisation. TEANZ strongly encourages purchase of carbon offset for all travel associated with TEFANZ business and events.
Want to find out more about carbon offset?
https://www.orataiao.org.nz/offset_your_emissions https://ekos.org.nz/
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/sustainability-customer-carbon-offset