It is almost the end of Term 3 and it has been 5 weeks of Level 4 lockdown for us in Auckland and 1 week of Level 3 lockdown.

My inquiry was going to be about increasing engagement for my Year 10 students in my physical classroom. I have changed it to an online classroom setting. I have found that the biggest challenge and obstacle to my inquiry is student attendance. I have had only one student consistently attend my Year 12 class. I have had 1 or 2 attend year 10 intermittently. Sometimes I will have no students at all. It is frustrating but it is something I can’t control.

I am finding I am trying to create ways of designing lessons that are accessible to my students online and at any time, as are every other teacher in Tāmaki Makaurau. I have been trying out rewindable lessons, I have also been trying ngohe or activity boards that they can chip away at over a period of time. Recently I have been trying to use an online resource called Genially. I was inspired by Ako Panuku’s activity boards they created using Genially for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. So I have started creating ngohe boards to engage my tauira to continue and recap on their learnings for this year. I have created one for my NCEA Level 1 students with four activities – a pronunciation activity, a riddle activity using kahoot, a pūrakau lesson, and a whakapakari reo activity. I created a ngohe board (see image below) using Google Slides containing nine different activities for my Year 10s. Only one student has completed the whole board. Two others started it, but have not yet completed it.

This lockdown has really forced me to be a bit more creative and tech-savvy. I have even been updating my subject website. Year plans, course outlines, calendars with class hangout links and classwork, marking criteria, exemplars, booklets are the things I have been working and re-working and uploading to my website. 

Despite all this mahi, only one student has completed my Year 10 ngohe board. What is the point of cooking all this kai if my ākonga do not come to eat it? Moumou kai, moumou tāima ki te pō. There must be a solution out there…