Abstract
Technological transformation has the potential both to empower and to marginalise. This is an especially real tension for the most vulnerable in our communities – children and young people othered by material, corporeal or symbolic difference. Digital innovation, typically driven by louder and more privileged cohorts, can reinforce the quiet experienced by othered voices in traditional forums. This study describes a pedagogical approach intent on disrupting learning hierarchies, amplifying unheard voices, honouring their stories and actively inviting their influence on the learning landscape. The pedagogy informs a year-long course in a new post-graduate Specialist Teaching programme for teachers learning how to support all children and young people to experience an inclusive and equitable education. Using a suite of digital multimodal networking tools, the course is designed to enable Specialist Teaching students from across Aotearoa (New Zealand) and across endorsement specialities (including Blind & Low Vision, Complex Needs, Deaf & Hard of Hearing, Gifted, Learning & Behaviour) to participate in a virtual learning community. Working inter-professionally and collaboratively on enquiry and action projects, students are invited to learn how to listen, to value the knowledge, wisdom, and experience within their practice context, and to respond authentically through creative poiesis. The intention is to create a democratised and multidirectional knowledge flow amongst the Specialist Teaching cohort (spanning geography and speciality) and between the Specialist Teaching students and their diverse communities of children and youth, families, teachers and support services.
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Designing Social Transformations
KEYWORDS
Specialist Teaching, Inclusion, Democratised Knowledge, Educational Equity, Poiesis, Transformative Pedagogy
