Training manual for teaching working with Pacific students: engaging Pacific learners

Thompson, Sandy and McDonald, Fraser and Talakai, Malia and Taumoepeau, Venusi and Te Ava, Aue (2009) Training manual for teaching working with Pacific students: engaging Pacific learners. Ako Aotearoa, New Zealand.

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Abstract

The Centre’s vision is to “Embrace Pacific Cultures to enhance student experience through improvement of student engagement and achievement so that students become valued leaders and contributors to Pacific communities and New Zealand society”. The main function of the centre revolves firstly, around providing academic and pastoral support for Pacific students. Secondly, through the provision of advise and support for academic lecturers. Finally, through engagement and working closely with Pacific families and communities. The Nakuita, which is Fijian for octopus was developed by the Pacific Centre’s Director, Linda Aumua in 2008, to inform the work of the centre. The octopus has one central body which metaphorically refers to the centre and its tentacles as the Pacific support provided through the learning development lecturers infiltrating the departments and services. The concept started out with the centre employing learning development lecturers. The learning development lecturers are nurtured at the centre before they are placed in the departments, usually in the staff member’s area of expertise. The idea is that the staff member will be able to provide content support and learning development support for Pacific students. The flexibility of the octopus framework enabled the centre to collaborate with departments to co-employ the learning development lecturers with the aim of the departments picking up full employment of the Pacific staff. The success of the Nakuita has extended into the area of staff support. This include providing professional development workshops on understanding Pacific learners; engaging Pacific learners; providing input into curriculum development around embedding Pacific dimensions into the curricula and collaborating with staff on Pacific research. Through collaboration with the two lecturers in the Graduate Diploma in Not-For-Profit Management, Sandy Thompson and Fraser McDonald we are also able to produce this training resource. This collaboration started with the centre providing support for the Pacific students on their programme. This has extended to a co-employment of a Pacific staff member to provide focus support for students in this programme. This manual is divided into five sections. Section 1 is the introduction and includes a triangulation of a literature review on engagement of Pacific learners, students’ evaluation and tutors learning experiences. Section 2 draws on the experiences of the above Unitec staff and looks at meaningful ways to engage Pacific learners in classroom discussions and class content. Section 3 provides some example of teaching plans and Section 4 consist of a list of references used in this work. Finally, Section 5 is a resource/information section that will provide additional information and resources to support the work of teachers.

Item Type:	Other
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Education
Depositing User:	Aue Te Ava
Date Deposited:	28 May 2020 22:47
Last Modified:	28 May 2020 22:47
URI:	http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/12079

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