Final GOA Intro 430pm Fri.mp4

Kata O'Donnell

Nau mai haere mai ki taku akomanga. Ko Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Aerana, me Ngāti Koroātia ōku tatai whakapapa. Ko au te kaiako o Hauora ki Te Kura o Tamaki. Ko whaea kata ahau. Ko tēnei taku tau tua rima e whakaaro ana.

Email: odonnell@tamaki.ac.nz



Kia Ora & welcome to my Google Class on Air Site for 2020. My name is Whaea Kata and I'm TIC of Health at Tamaki College.

The predominant focus of these lessons will be based from the teaching and learning that occurs in one of my year 9 Junior classes and my senior NCEA Level 2 & Level 3 classes. As a result, most tauira are between the ages of 13 - 18, and you’ll notice across episodes, that class sizes vary between 6 to 30. Senior classes will often be smaller as there are a number of tauira who do trades courses and have extra responsibilities at home, work and/or school. Both senior classes have tauira who have taken health before, and those who are new.

All students have access to either a personal chromebook, school ipad or desktop. Students have access to their learning, anywhere, anytime as they can visit my google class site, click on their year group to find the specific tasks we are focusing on for the term and be guided from there.

As 91% of our tauira are Māori and/or Pasifika, and the remaining 9% are a beautiful mixture of diversity from across the globe, culturally responsive pedagogy & practices are central to student learning and well-being in my classroom. Manaakitanga is at the heart of all that happens within our health space.

If you have any pātai or questions, feel free to contact me.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.


Term 1: Leshgooo

The first lesson is from my y13 class, aiming to develop tauira engagement and confidence in the research & writing process.

The second lesson is from my y9 class where we begun to unpack what Covid-19 is & its affects on well-being. This was just as Covid was being recognised as something significant in NZ.

The remaining two lessons are explanations of ways various applications I used during Covid-19 lockdown in Aotearoa/NZ, contributed to tauira learning and the development of my own digital pedagogy.

Term 2: Covid cray cray

The first twos lesson are from my y9 class during lockdown. We explored what gratitude is, how it can help our well-being, & what practical ways we could incorporate it into our daily lives.

For the third & fourth lessons we are back at school initially under Level 2 restrictions, and then desks remaining separated until the end of term for more precautionary measures. We were learning about a Fixed & Growth Mindset & developing ways we could practice/maintain a growth mindset. This is again with my y9 students. The 4th lesson had to be postponed a few times due to Covid restrictions so we actually completed it in Term 4.

Term 3:

The first lesson was from my y13 class and was created as a result of tauira coming back from L3 lock-down with various questions about 'conspiracy theories' and fake news on social media. They really wanted to know how they could learn to tell the difference, especially with some 'fake' articles looking quite sophisticated.

For a second year in a row we celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) at Tamaki College. The second, third & fourth lessons were therefore related to this. While we were still under Level 2 restrictions for over half of it, the second & third 'lessons' provide some insight into how tauira were able to share their understanding of Mental Health with staff. The fourth lesson provides some guidance on how a staff team could run a MHAW within a school, in particularly how to boost staff engagement & well-being in a traditionally quite stressful last week of term.

Term 4 :

Given Aotearoa has returned to level 1, term 4 was an opportunity for lessons that were more student centred and focused more on group work due to the reduction in restrictions.

The first lesson three 'lessons' were recorded at KPMG in Auckland Central. We took a year 9 class there to explore their business and how they use their design thinking skills. A skill some year 9 teachers have integrated into student learning across the year.

The fourth lesson was a chance for students to participate and contribute to each others learning through a method designed to ensure everyone must participate for class success.

Extra lesson:

I have included one lesson that was adapted from a resource myself, Jenny Robertson & Gloria Tu'itupou put together after Gloria's achievement as Top Scholar for HPE in Aotearoa/NZ in 2019.

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