Te Kotahitanga Project

Results from the Te Kotahitangi project show that students reported that having teachers who believed in them and who created a non-threatening classroom environment made them want to learn.

On 9 August 2007, the Ministry of Youth Development hosted Professor Russell Bishop, Professor and Assistant Dean of Maori Education, University of Waikato to present on the Te Kotahitanga Project, which he has been developing for over 15 years.

The first phase of the project began in 2001 and involved interviewing Year 9 and 10 students and their teachers, principals and parents to find out what was behind low levels of Maori achievement. The project developed through the gathering of narrative accounts of students' classroom experience.

Students reported that having teachers who believed in them and who created a non-threatening classroom environment made them want to learn. These teachers boosted their academic performance. Building upon this work and the narrative accounts of those parenting the students, their principals and their teachers, the research team developed an Effective Teaching Profile as the foundation of a professional development intervention. Professor Bishop gave further details on the story of the project and the exciting applied interventions that have been developed as a result of the findings.

Professor Bishop also leads the Maori Educational Research Unit (MERU) at the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research and has published various articles and books including Culture Counts: Changing Power Relations in Education (with Ted Glynn).

More Information

For more information on this seminar, email us at mydinfo@myd.govt.nz


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