Cobden Primary School (TLIF 3-077) - Nurturing ākonga wellbeing through agentic learning environments Publications
Publication Details
Project Reference: Cobden Primary School (TLIF 3-077) - Cobden Primary School had already carried out an inquiry exploring how the ākonga and kaiako could work together to develop agency in the senior (years 6–8) class.
Author(s): (Inquiry Team) led by Justin Hickey
Date Published: January 2020
Overview
They had developed an agentic learning environment based on their shared understanding of community. Although there were many positive gains for students in their attitudes and engagement, student learning outcomes compared to national achievement standards remained consistently poor.
This wellbeing project has helped me to trust children more – to see their capabilities more... Sometimes I have thought their idea was not a very good one, but the other kids seem to like it, so I have just gone with it – kids leading kids. And the kids reflect on what they did and make it better next time.
Teacher reflecting on developing trust in their students
The teachers had a hunch that they could use this agentic learning environment to nurture the students’ wellbeing and that this could contribute to improved learning outcomes. They wanted to see what would happen if the ākonga were actively involved in creating solutions to problems that negatively impacted individual and community wellbeing. They also wanted to know how they, as Kaiako, could facilitate improved wellbeing and learning outcomes.
With the teachers’ support, the ākonga established school-wide wellbeing initiatives and activities, which benefited many of the students. Ākonga displayed improvements in their focus and attitudes to themselves and others, improvements in their writing, and less anti-social behaviour. Kaiako have shifted their practice to facilitate shared decision-making with ākonga better and become more authentic in their endeavours towards more student agency.
However, the big learning for kaiako was that they needed to shift their practice to trust ākonga and involve them in decisions that had an impact on them. All shifts in teacher practice came down to trust – the teachers had to learn to trust differently, listen more, and let go of control so their co-design model would work as intended.
The inquiry story
This inquiry involved the teachers in the senior school (years 6–8) along with 25 senior students in the wellbeing committee that formed during the project. These students engaged with all the 120-odd students at the school.
What was the focus?
The project teachers had a hunch that nurturing ākonga wellbeing through agentic learning environments is critical for ākonga to experience successful learning outcomes. This hunch became their inquiry question: “Is nurturing students’ wellbeing through agentic learning environments a prerequisite for students to experience successful learning outcomes?”
The teachers aimed to answer three key questions to help them determine if their hunch was correct:
- How does their community define wellbeing (including ākonga)?
- How can they achieve wellbeing in their school with ākonga taking a lead on this?
- Does working on ākonga wellbeing have a positive impact on attitudes and achievement?
These three questions were the focus of the three inquiry cycles of their project.
What did the teachers try?
In the first cycle of the inquiry – to investigate how the community defines wellbeing – the teachers formed a ‘cogen’ group (cogenerative dialogue group) with senior school ākonga. The ākonga quickly re-named this the ‘Wellbeing Committee’. The committee spent several months co-creating a set of indicators that represented their collective view of wellbeing. It put these into a matrix ākonga and kaiako could use for further data collection in the other two cycles of the inquiry.
Cycle Two focused on the second inquiry question — how to achieve wellbeing when ākonga took the lead. It began with the entire school completing the wellbeing matrix. The Wellbeing Committee collected the data from the whole school, working with ākonga of all ages to help them complete it. This included talking to even the youngest ākonga about what the statements meant, often using scenarios the project leader had used with the committee members to help them reach agreement on the wellbeing indicators.
The ākonga worked with the project leader to analyse the data they collected to identify the main issues within the school they thought they could address. These issues included students not feeling they could give new things a go, make decisions about their learning, or have fun while learning. Many of them thought Cobden was not always a healthy or safe environment. They didn’t always stand up for what was just or fair and didn’t always know what made them happy. Nearly half of them thought it was not easy to make friends at school. The student-dominated Wellbeing Committee decided to put their efforts into nurturing friendships within the school, particularly for new ākonga and between junior and senior ākonga.
They carried out school-wide initiatives such as:
- Ākonga running mixed-age hapū groups across the school once a week to collect feedback on their wellbeing initiatives.
- Whole school energisers during hapū time, such as inter-group games and activities.
- Lunchtime games designed to be inclusive and help develop friendships in a fun and safe environment.
- Installing buddy benches.
In the third cycle, the Wellbeing Committee collected more data from ākonga and kaiako on the impact on attitudes and achievement of kaiako working with ākonga to improve students’ wellbeing.
What happened?
Impacts on ākonga
The ākonga in the Wellbeing Committee joined the group because they wanted to make a difference for others, and this kept them motivated through the project. These ākonga displayed maturity and thoughtfulness, with most of them being personally affected by what they learnt from their peers and the positive changes they had initiated for others across the school. They cared about and wanted to build communities of care within their school, and they found ways to do this.
The main impacts on wellbeing identified through ākonga reflections included:
- There were fewer ākonga on their own.
- Ākonga were more friendly and inclusive.
- There was less bullying.
- Ākonga felt cared for and safer.
- There were improved connections across the school.
The hapū groups and lunchtime activities helped ākonga to get to know each other across the school, increasing the number of connections for ākonga and providing a wider network from which to form friendships and seek help. This impact was particularly so for younger children who felt they could now go to ‘big kids’ for support and that that there were safe places at lunchtime for them.
Feeling safer in the playground extended to the classroom and both ākonga and kaiako noticed that ākonga were more confident in expressing opinions when previously they had been afraid of giving a wrong answer.
Overall, the greatest benefits reported by ākonga were those that had been the focus of the Wellbeing Committee’s original intentions and the initiatives they developed as a result of data gathering and analysis carried out with the guidance of the project leader. Not only did the Wellbeing Committee demonstrate great empathy, determination, and motivation throughout, but they also demonstrated that they were capable and competent researchers when given the opportunity.
Ākonga and kaiako also reported improvements in:
- Changes in focus – ākonga believed they had a better attitude to learning; improved wellbeing helped them focus; being less stressed and feeling happier helped them focus; and the feeling that there was more help on hand also helped them focus.
- Changes in attitudes to self and others – ākonga also believed they were more confident, they had more courage, they were less shy about speaking up in class, and they shared their ideas and finished their work.
- Improvements in writing – students believed their work had improved, and there were considerable improvements in writing in the focus groups (boys and Māori ākonga). Most boys moved one or two writing sublevels, with some moving four or five. Most Māori ākonga moved one sublevel, with some moving four or five asTTLe sublevels.
- Reductions in unsociable behaviour – positive learning for behaviour (PB4L) data showed that in-class problem behaviour reduced significantly. The teachers believed this was partly from a combination of lunchtime and hapū activities and kaiako practices.
All-in-all, more people talked about wellbeing throughout the school, including kaiako who were not involved in the project but who became part of a school-wide shift in culture and shared understanding of the importance of student wellbeing.
Impacts on Kaiako
All the kaiako reported that they trusted ākonga to make decisions about their learning, whereas half of the ākonga felt their teachers did not trust them to make these decisions. This challenged kaiako to change how they viewed their position as kaiako and how they worked with ākonga.
When dealing with a discipline issue with a group of ākonga, two kaiako listened and talked to the ākonga about the wider issues in their lives that were affecting with behaviour at school. The kaiako were able to offer their support and rebuild trust between then and the ākonga.
Another teacher had introduced mindfulness activities into her classroom. These activities resulted in a considerable difference in how ākonga were able to name their emotions and use language to describe how they feel. She created an emotions board to help the ākonga understand how to anchor rising emotions, which introduced language students used to remind each other to calm down.
Another teacher — the project leader — faced several situations where he had to let go of how he wanted the project to proceed when he struck a brick wall with ākonga. In one situation, he had to spend more time with the Wellbeing Committee for them to find common ground in their understandings, even though it risked the project getting behind. This decision was pivotal as it enabled the committee to have the confidence to carry out the data collection and be active in its analysis. In other situations, he had to let go of the idea that he had all the answers and to trust ākonga to develop their own ideas.
As kaiako trusted ākonga more, the capabilities of ākonga became more visible, which helped kaiako build trust in ākonga.
What did they learn?
The teachers’ research challenged them to think more about their attitudes towards ākonga. In particular, they thought about how stereotyping was influencing and shaping their understanding of ākonga; that hyper analysing encouraged them to categorise and label students; and that positioning the teacher as knower, fixer and saviour positioned students as ‘unfortunate’ people in need of the teacher’s help. These challenges got teachers questioning each other more about how their classroom practices could hinder rather than facilitate deeper agency amongst ākonga.
A challenging learning for kaiako came from the discrepancies between ākonga and kaiako views identified in the wellbeing matrix survey early in the inquiry. These differences were most obvious in the area of trust. In the end, kaiako realised that all shifts in their practice came down to them changing how they trusted and involved ākonga in decisions that affected them. Learning to trust differently involved teachers examining their motives for genuine intent, being vulnerable and honest, and giving credit freely to ākonga for what they achieved.
More visible ākonga capabilities meant kaiako listened to ākonga in ways they had not done before, learned more alongside and from them as they worked in the classroom, and were more prepared to let go of control so they genuinely used a co-design model when working with ākonga (even if they felt the students’ ideas were not very good ones, or that it would be quicker to do things themselves).
All of these practice changes took a determined effort by kaiako, but the trust between kaiako and ākonga was integral to both the success of the project and to developing a sense of authentic wellbeing for ākonga.
Inquiry team
- Justin Hickey – Project lead
- Michelle Urban – Teacher
- Mandy Dodds – Teacher
- Michelle Gurden – Teacher aide
For further information
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leader Justin Hickey at justinh@cobden.school.nz
Reference list
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