Knowledge and theory
Te mātauranga me te ariā
Each educator’s expertise and understanding develop through the course of their professional lifespan and across all aspects of professional learning. Much of our learning takes place through complex interactions with others as we inquire into problems of practice in our local contexts. It is important for us to understand how we generate our knowledge and theories of practice. This helps us to take ownership of our professional learning, to locate it within the context of the wider educational community, and to direct it towards the purposes of schooling in a democratic society.
What are the implications of concepts such as the knowledge society and key competencies for what you need to know and understand as an ISTE?
The New Zealand Curriculum represents New Zealand’s collective response to rapid change. Globalisation and technological progress are just two of the forces that make it imperative that we should transform our society into one that is based on knowledge. However, the knowledge needed to cope with constant change is itself ever-changing. Students need to be able to access knowledge “just in time” – at the point when they need it. This means that they need to develop the competencies that are essential to becoming active, lifelong learners, and it also means that our education system must itself be transformed to enable this to happen. All educators need to sharpen their focus on the learners, making sure that improvements in student outcomes become the “touchstone” for making decisions about whether new knowledge is worth having and about the actions they will take to improve student learning.
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