To Infinity & Beyond...

Until your plan(e)'s grounded...

What do you do when you are presenting at a conference and your flights are cancelled? Up until April this year, I have never had to really consider this possibility.
Last year, Lachie, Martin and I submitted the following practice paper for the FLANZ conference held earlier this year: https://goo.gl/EUL6iv. Lachie is based in Whakatane, and we worked collaboratively online, to create the presentation, ready for April 12th.

Unfortunately, the night before we were due to fly down to Palmerston North, our flights were cancelled, and we desperately needed a PLAN B. Luckily, the conference was for Flexible Learning Association of NZ (FLANZ) - making ako accessible for all.

To Infinity & Beyond...

Our colleague, Dr Lachlan McLaren was able to set us up with a Skype connection, and we were able to beam in from our lounge. It worked remarkably well, and considering the nature of our topic - the evolution of an online course, focusing on empowering middle leaders, we were able to walk the talk - literally!

You can check out our slides here:

 The feedback we received from this session included:
I found your evolution process interesting, and the course sounds interesting. I really liked the feedback you got from teachers as to what they wanted to learn – so sensible.
Love the way you incorporate the conference theme into your presentation - very memorable

Background:

 Our recently published paper stemmed from the previous FLANZ Conference in 2016, based in Middle Earth - which you can access here:

The Two Towers: the quest for appraisal and leadership development of 'Middle' leaders online

Our quest for effective appraisal and middle leadership development is still strong. Check out a previous blogpost which supports this need.

In 2018, with more leadership roles being created within Kāhui Ako, there is still a huge need for a specific middle leadership course. Ideally, by offering this online, ako and accessibility for all is possible. 

Lessons Learnt:
  1. Establishing a partnership between Facilitators, Learning Designers and the Learners is essential to ensure the course is responsive, relevant and authentic
  2. Our emerging online course is much more flexible and adaptive to the needs of the learners - not restricted to four modules of 20 weeks, or set topics.
  3. Not only is co-construction important, it is essential.

With a teacher shortage, a demand for effective middle leaders, an ageing population, amongst other issues, an online learning course specifically for middle (aspiring through to experienced) through to senior leaders. Our goal:

empowering middle leaders 

If you are interested in our first intake, numbers will be limited. We invite you to register yourself, your team or Kāhui Ako to obtain further information. 

Au Kaha, Kia Kaha!


Empowered, together!

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