Anne Sinclair

Graduation 2016 Graduation of some of the first MDTA cohort on May 6th, 2016 at the University of Auckland. This was a very proud day for our graduates, as it was the culmination of 2 years of very hard work and dedication.  These wonderful teachers are providing our learners in Manaiakalani with rich experiences and chances for real accelerated learning. The mentors and beginning teachers working and studying together has been a feature of the MDTA programme and this is an example of true collaborative practice.  The contributions these new teachers are making to the profession are significant and being able to share their ideas and practice  is evidence of their commitment to Learn, Create and Share. Congratulations and we look forward to seeing the outcomes of your endeavours in future research and publishing. You are already putting your practice in the public arena for others to see. 

            Manaiakalani Leaders Study Tour Our MDTA class were privileged to be invited to spend the morning in and around the learning Hubs and to be inspired and challenged by the leadership team on the way they do things around there. The hubs provided a view of what is possible in their schools and opened up dialogue for thinking differently about how they will do things now. The session on collaboration and culture opened up cans of worms about confronting our own practice and the practices of others, but howwe can work through issues to provide better working and learning conditions for learners. Important to deal with the elephant in the room before we have a herd of them! How generous Sarah and her team were with their time, ideas and spirit. Thank you Stonefields for an inspiring morning. http://www.stonefields.school.nz/page/Vision/

                                                                 https://sites.google.com/a/manaiakalani.org/manaiakalani---google-class-onair/ Manaiakalani Google Class On Air is about to go live. It is live!  Four of our MDTA Graduates and one TeachNZ Graduate feature in this exciting project. It is a first anywhere in the world and will provide a lens for people to actually see, hear and understand teaching and learning with real children, real teachers, not actors. These brave teachers are exposing their practice so that others may see the complete cycle of the teaching and learning, from the planning, to a film of the direct instruction, the learning experiences, the artefacts, the feedback, the reflections and the work shared on Blogs. The first series will feature two secondary teachers teaching maths and biology and three primary teachers teaching literacy and writing. The project will be linked to the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland to showcase teach

Manaiakaialani Digitial Teacher Academy First day of Digital Immersion and working together What a wonderful first day for the Academy and sharing an understanding of how important the Digital world is to our learners. Ten new teachers came together and demonstrated enthusiasm, creativity, willingness, wholeheartedness and wanting to learn everything to help our learners in Manaiakalani to be world citizens. We are so lucky that we are all on the same page.

After years of 'learning' music I have just spent 3 days 'unlearning' a traditional method of teaching music and had a world of patterns opened up for me to explore music in a different way. I relate this to what we do in Manaiakalani, where we have shown learners a different learning pathway. The excitement, puzzlement, but discipline, practice and choice, generated for me in this workshop, an urge to want to grasp the ideas, wrestle with them and make them my own.  How exciting it is to realise there are other ways to learn.  So, every new learner starting today in a new class or starting school for the first time I hope you have this same excitement that I have.