Our students supporting high school students – their teachers learning from our teachers

Anne McKay working with one of the high school groups

A new workshop series, targeted at high school students also provided teaching experience for our Physical Education major student,s as well as professional learning for the high school students’ teachers.

The Community Development Sport team ran the workshop series in conjunction with the Mt Albert Grammar Health and Physical Education faculty and the Auckland branch of Physical Education New Zealand’s (PENZ). Anne McKay, Physical Education Lecturer – Community Development, is a PENZ Auckland committee member and this initiative came out of a discussion about the PENZ scholarship programme.

The scholarship application process includes a report submission; a critical evaluation of an aspect or aspects drawn from the Health and Physical Education curriculum at Level 8, supported by an organised collection of evidence.

The programme concept was designed to work closely with schools to ensure students are learning and developing the skills they need to write and submit their report to NZQA in November. The workshops had a focus on how to research, what is credible research and where to find this information for their topic. Writing academically covered how to use the research/information in their report and they also learn how to reference, with a focus on APA.

The workshops were run by Anne McKay and Kylie Thompson – Community Development Senior Lecturer, with support from Rob Gambolati, Mikki Willeden and Wes Verhoeff. They used active learning strategies to ensure the students were able to learn from each other as well as develop skills to be able to find and use research in their report. All four staff   worked directly with the students, sharing ideas and encouraged them to stay in touch, which they have already started to do.

Our physical education majors students were also there for day two of the programme, sitting within the student groups helping guide them on finding the information they need, paraphrasing and referencing which gave them hands on experience they will find valuable when they do their post grad diploma in secondary teaching.

The high school students were from across Auckland and their teachers were also invited to be part of the workshop series. These teachers said that this was a really valuable programme for their students and also  professional learning experience for themselves. They saw new teaching techniques in action and got the opportunity to be learning themselves from the “best of the best”!