N4L has launched a new podcast series 'The Point of Learning' to spark a discussion about leadership in teaching and learning from a New Zealand perspective.
Available on iTunes and N4L's digital learning hub, Pond, the podcasts are designed as a place for open discussion on the future of learning, classroom best practices, and the opportunities and challenges presented in today's schools.
Pete Hall, a former principal who joined N4L earlier this year to lead educator engagement, hosts the podcasts and is joined by local and international teachers, researchers and other leaders involved with shaping the future of our young people.
John Hanna, N4L CEO, says the company created the podcast following a significant amount of time spent in schools helping educators get the most from N4L's Managed Network and online learning hub Pond.
"We've met with hundreds of amazing educators who are doing some incredible work inside and outside of their classrooms.
"We wanted to find a way to share these stories to a wider audience, so that others with an interest in education could hear and benefit from them too," he says.
Hanna says New Zealand educators are among the best in the world, as evidenced by the results of a recent teaching and learning survey, and this podcast enables them to share their stories.
"Great teaching is happening everywhere, and the 'Point of Learning' podcast series is about turning up the volume on a profession that has an impact on almost everyone, from those directly involved with teaching to parents of children in school," he says.
Four 'Point of Learning' episodes have been published over the past few weeks. The first podcast features a conversation with Auckland's Newmarket Primary School veteran teacher Sonya Van Schaijik, who talks about the impact of her collaborative TeachMeetNZ project where more than 80 teachers have recorded short videos to share their learnings and discoveries.
The second podcast features a chat with Emerging Leaders Aotearoa and Core Education Founder Mark Osborne, who also runs Edu-Ignite evenings and the annual two-day Ignition 'unconference.'
In the third podcast, Hall interviews US-based teacher Vicki Davis, author of ebooks "Reinventing Writing" and "Flattening Classrooms", and in the fourth installment, UK-based Abdul Chohan chats to Hall.
Chohan received global recognition for dramatically raising student achievement levels at the Essa Academy - a school 30 minutes from Manchester situated in low socioeconomic area. He credits the rise to a 95%-plus pass rate to the digital learning strategy he developed for the school.
