📚 Professional Learning
Workshops, PD sessions, marae visits, and ongoing self-study
🌿 Te Reo Māori & Cultural Learning
Te Whanake 1: Te Kākano
Progress: ~10 chapters completed (out of 15).
Success - "The Lexicon Shift": Permanent replacement of core English words. "Kirikiriroa" comes to mind faster than "Hamilton" now. Also "Ngā mihi", "Aroha mai", "mahi", "kai".
Challenge: Good at vocabulary (kupu) but freeze on grammar when speaking.
Poihakena Marae Connection
Regular visits to Poihakena Marae in Whaingaroa.
Impact: Cultural learning (tikanga) progressed better than language. Relationships with the community are real and inform my teaching practice even when not using te reo.
University Te Reo Course
Reality: Immediately overwhelmed. Course assumed prior knowledge I didn't have. Withdrew to avoid failing grade.
Lesson: Better to consolidate basic competency via self-study than keep failing at advanced goals.
💻 Curriculum & Digital Development
Te Kete Ako Platform
The Pivot: Shifted from formal "curriculum planning" to building this resource platform.
Outcome: Built a collaborative tool for the teaching community. Learned more web development in 6 months than expected.
"Easier to share a link with students than print everything."
Understanding by Design (UbD)
Applied UbD framework to design "Treaty of Waitangi vs Treaty of Versailles" unit.
Key Learning: Backward design principles and essential questions.
Māori Wordle Game
Created a digital resource that engaged students with te reo in a gamified way.
Win: Helped engage with vocabulary without the anxiety of sentence construction.
💭 Reflections on Professional Growth
✅ What Worked
- The Lexicon Shift: Permanent replacement of core words (Kirikiriroa, mahi, kai) - these are now my default.
- Māori Wordle: Creating digital resources engaged students better than formal grammar lessons.
- Marae Relationships: Building genuine connections was more impactful than classroom theory.
- Te Kete Ako: Building a platform was more achievable and useful than writing formal syllabi.
⚠️ The Hard Truths
- Love of reading vs. structure: Under workload pressure in 2025 I leaned too hard on structured literacy and lost some of the love-of-reading spark that drove my strongest results. Structure has its place, but the magic is in making ākonga love words — I don't want to trade that away again.
- My lowest learners: I caught myself designing lessons that were good for the class but too hard for my lowest learners. It is too easy to pass them to learning support and feel your duty is done — I want to get genuinely good at early-stage intervention instead.
- Te reo grammar: I am strong at listening and reading, but I freeze on grammar when speaking. Te reo can't be rushed — it needs sustained, consistent effort over years, not months.
💡 Key Realization
"Professional growth has to fit real capacity, not idealised capacity — better to do one thing well than many things poorly. And in the classroom, the magic is never in doing everything: it is in the relationships you build and the love of learning you can genuinely pass on."
Note: PD certificates, workshop materials, and additional documentation will be added as they are organized.