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Te Mana Kōrero
Te Mana Kōrero - professional development programme is a series of professional development packages and facilitated workshops.
Each programme is based on important Māori concepts or principles:
- ako – effective and reciprocal teaching and learning relationships where everyone is a learner and a teacher
- manaakitanga – the care for students as culturally located people above all else
- mana motuhake – the care by teachers for the academic success and performance of their students
- whakawhanaungatanga – the nurturing of mutually respectful and collaborative relationships between all parties around student learning.
Attending to these principles is essential if Māori students are to feel truly valued and therefore become meaningfully engaged in classroom learning activities.
Te Mana Kōrero Online has been developed to help school leaders and teachers address and meet the goals of Ka Hikitia: Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008–2012 (Ministry of Education, 2008; 2009). It is based on information in the Te Mana Kōrero resources and other successful initiatives, and it provides tools for using an inquiry approach to investigate six key themes that affect Māori student achievement in schools.
Seeking to find what is working for Māori students, Te Mana Kōrero drew on the evidence from these inititiaves and wove the findings in the professional development programme.
Key learning from Te Mana Kōrero – Teachers Making a Difference
The teachers making a difference series explores the subject of what successful teaching of Māori students looks like.
The key messages are:
- the importance of having a strong belief in high expectations – Māori students do and can achieve
- that you make the difference – the programme explores ways that teachers can make a difference using evidence-based pedagogy.
Teachers are encouraged to:
- reflect on how we teach
- develop expectations
- create an inclusive environment
- explore the curriculum
- learn about our students
- pronounce each student's name correctly
- develop partnerships.
Key learning from Te Mana Kōrero 2 – Strengthening Professional Practice
The strengthening professional practice series expands on the key messages of the first series and strengthens the message that professional development can make a significant contribution to enhancing teacher capability to make a difference for Māori students.
Strengthening Professional Practice emphasises the importance of teachers and other school staff:
- engaging students meaningfully in the learning process and sharing the responsibility for setting learning goals
- forming positive and mutually respectful relationships with students
- undertaking focused and sustained professional development within a collaborative and reflective learning community
- making teaching and learning decisions based on data from a wide range of sources
- using students’ prior knowledge and local community expertise within the delivery of the curriculum and the learning process
- developing close relationships with whānau to support learning
- using ICT innovatively to promote learning.
Key learning from Te Mana Kōrero 3 – Relationships for Learning
The relationships for learning series focuses particularly on the need to build and sustain effective and mutually respectful school and whānau/community links if Māori student achievement levels are to be raised.
Principals, teachers, students, parents, and other whānau talk about the importance of forging strong relationships and exploring the ways that have worked well for them.