Some Key Values that can relate to different interactive activities.

Te Kotahitanga Teaching Profile Effective Teaching Profile Effective Teaching Profile (Bishop, et al. 2003)

Effective teachers of Māori students create a culturally appropriate and responsive context for learning in their classroom. In doing so they demonstrate:

• they positively and vehemently reject deficit theorising as a means of explaining Māori students’ educational achievement levels (and professional development projects need to ensure that this happens); and

• teachers know and understand how to bring about change in Māori students’ educational achievement and are professionally committed to doing so (and professional development projects need to ensure that this happens); in the following observable ways:

• Manaakitanga: They care for the students as culturally located human beings above all else. (Mana refers to authority and āki is the task of urging someone to act. It refers to the task of building and nurturing a supportive and loving environment.)

• Mana motuhake: They care for the performance of their students. (In modern times mana has taken on various meanings such as legitimation and authority and can also relate to an individual’s or a group’s ability to participate at the local and global level. Mana motuhake involves the development of personal or group identity and independence.)

• Whakapiringatanga: They are able to create a secure, well-managed learning environment by incorporating routine pedagogical knowledge with pedagogical imagination. (Whakapiringatanga is a process wherein specific individual roles and responsibilities are required to achieve individual and group outcomes.)

• Wānanga: They are able to engage in effective teaching interactions with Māori students as Māori. (As well as being known as Māori centres of learning, wānanga as a learning forum involves a rich and dynamic sharing of knowledge. With this exchange of views, ideas are given life and spirit through dialogue, debate and careful consideration in order to reshape and accommodate new knowledge.)

• Ako: They can use a range of strategies that promote effective teaching interactions and relationships with their learners. (Ako means to learn as well as to teach. It refers both to the acquisition of knowledge and to the processing and imparting of knowledge. More importantly ako is a teaching-learning practice that involves teachers and students learning in an interactive dialogic relationship.)

• Kotahitanga: They promote, monitor and reflect on outcomes that in turn lead to improvements in educational achievement for Māori students. (Kotahitanga is a collaborative response towards a commonly held vision, goal or other such purpose or outcome.)