From the Principal

Message

from the Principal

Over the past few months we have been seeking to illustrate aspects of powerful thinking and learning as they relate to Ōtūmoetai College. In this ever evolving COVID landscape our students, now more than ever, require a solid academic foundation so that they are able to develop their understanding, knowledge, skills and experience needed to navigate whatever life throws their way.

In the words of Seymour Papert, ‘All skills will become obsolete except one, the skill of being able to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.’

To capture the essence of powerful thinking and learning we are developing a series of 12 videos that highlight different aspects that our school is working on to develop thinkers who know how to respond to an ever changing world. Our first video encapsulates our school’s purpose statement. Watch here.

The essence of our school purpose is to enable our students to achieve their personal best in their academic studies, the performing arts, sporting and cultural pursuits. As you can imagine, there are a number of building blocks or mental models that we need to enact in order to help our students develop a firm foundation. One tool in our toolbox is the WHAT HOW WHY strategy, which is being employed in the Junior school. This provides a structure for our students to be able to accurately and succinctly convey their thinking on paper.

This strategy is applicable in many contexts such as oral presentations, essays, and other practical contexts where students are expected to combine technical language (language that is specific to that learning area) throughout their Idea Development. That development will include:

• at least one sentence in the Identification (What) section that describes the subject • at least two sentences in the Explanation (How) section that explains a relationship [cause, effect, sequence…] • at least one sentence in the Extension (Why) section that extends the subject

WHAT HOW WHY creates an opportunity for students to develop their own agency, use prior knowledge and have the opportunity to build on their cultural toolkit, i.e. the students’ ideas have value in the classroom context. If students become automatic in, using technical language, justifying their answers with evidence, and providing insight, we know this improves their overall grades.

We look forward to sharing the remaining videos that help to explain other deliberate strategies that Ōtūmoetai College is employing to develop powerful thinking and learning over the next few months.

Russell Gordon, Principal