title: Voices of women

authors: Austin, Katherine

abstract: "Voices of Women" was a concert that voiced a range of concepts and preoccupations as expressed by leading female thinkers and writers. The music was composed by Janet Jennings, and performed by a team of female musicians from across NZ. The programme was also recorded for SOUNZ (the Centre for NZ Music) and Atoll Records.

text: Voices of women "Voices of Women" was a concert that voiced a range of concepts and preoccupations as expressed by leading female thinkers and writers. The music was composed by Janet Jennings, and performed by a team of female musicians from across NZ. The programme was also recorded for SOUNZ (the Centre for NZ Music) and Atoll Records.

year: 2019

title: Students' learning wellbeing in an Innovative Learning Environment

authors: Richmond, Anke

subjects: Learning

abstract: In the New Zealand context, students, whānau (extended family) and the wider community as well as the Ministry of Education have identified students’ learning wellbeing as a matter of priority. Learning wellbeing is understood to be essential for students to feel safe and confident in themselves, and to engage and achieve in education and life beyond schooling. Correspondingly, in 2020, the New Zealand Government announced a funding initiative to promote the development of positive attitudes in students that would help them address learning challenges and achieve a sense of belonging and community. A particular focus within this initiative related to explicitly teaching about resilience and teachers developing ways of creating satisfying learning experiences for students. This initiative was introduced at a time when new design standards specifications regulated how refurbished classrooms and new schools were to align with the principles of Innovative Learning Environments (ILE). Interest in ILEs has arisen in response to national and international policy directives on the redesign of learning spaces. As yet, little is known about students’ perceptions of their learning wellbeing in such new types of learning spaces. My study aimed to contribute to addressing this gap.
To investigate relationships between students’ learning wellbeing and new learning spaces, I used a single case study design with purposive sampling. Through this approach, I investigated students’ perceptions of their learning wellbeing in a newly built ILE school. For the purposes of my research, I defined students’ learning wellbeing as a predominantly positive mood and attitude towards school learning experiences and challenges. Students demonstrating high learning wellbeing have positive relationships with other students and teachers, demonstrate everyday academic resilience, and experience a sense of satisfaction with their learning. For my project, I defined an ILE as an open-plan learning area where teachers facilitate personalised learning contexts. Other studies have found students are organised differently in these spaces from traditional classroom settings, with more than one teacher assigned to a larger cohort of students. These teachers commonly co-teach and combine subject areas, connected by cohesive teaching and assessment tasks. Other infrastructure elements include ubiquitous Wifi and a focus on learner agency. Both students and teachers participated in my research. Data collection took place via participant-driven photo-elicitation, focus group and individual interviews, and documentary data analysis. I analysed participants' comments on their learning wellbeing thematically and inductively. By modifying the portraiture technique, I crafted three descriptive profiles of students’ learning wellbeing. The portraits allowed me to make participant students’ views visible, while protecting them as individuals, and create three categories of learning wellbeing.
My findings illustrate the value of the school’s proactive approach to learning wellbeing through its learning wellbeing framework. It has three parts: 1) a dispositional curriculum focusing on students’ everyday academic resilience, learner agency and self-regulation skills which are summed up in the CLOAK acronym; 2) Learning Advisors who foster the CLOAK values through individual, high quality mentoring, and 3) a badging system that functions as a recognition programme whereby students receive badges for displaying CLOAK values. Student data indicated that the three aspects of the learning wellbeing framework mutually inform and support each other to foster students’ sense of learning wellbeing. The three-part learning wellbeing framework assisted students to make personalised learning choices in their curricular learning.
The three fictional portraits illustrate the characteristics of students with high learning wellbeing (HWB), medium learning wellbeing (MWB) and low learning wellbeing (LWB), offering a nuanced insight into students’ various perspectives on their learning wellbeing. The portraits highlight that students’ learning wellbeing is linked to their ability to make and act on positive learning choices: HWB students were distinguished by how they thrived in making learning choices while MWB and LWB students needed more support to make positive decisions for themselves as learners. The portraits point to a need to better understand the complexities in students’ learning wellbeing in ILEs.

text: Students' learning wellbeing in an Innovative Learning Environment In the New Zealand context, students, whānau (extended family) and the wider community as well as the Ministry of Education have identified students’ learning wellbeing as a matter of priority. Learning wellbeing is understood to be essential for students to feel safe and confident in themselves, and to engage and achieve in education and life beyond schooling. Correspondingly, in 2020, the New Zealand Government announced a funding initiative to promote the development of positive attitudes in students that would help them address learning challenges and achieve a sense of belonging and community. A particular focus within this initiative related to explicitly teaching about resilience and teachers developing ways of creating satisfying learning experiences for students. This initiative was introduced at a time when new design standards specifications regulated how refurbished classrooms and new schools were to align with the principles of Innovative Learning Environments (ILE). Interest in ILEs has arisen in response to national and international policy directives on the redesign of learning spaces. As yet, little is known about students’ perceptions of their learning wellbeing in such new types of learning spaces. My study aimed to contribute to addressing this gap.
To investigate relationships between students’ learning wellbeing and new learning spaces, I used a single case study design with purposive sampling. Through this approach, I investigated students’ perceptions of their learning wellbeing in a newly built ILE school. For the purposes of my research, I defined students’ learning wellbeing as a predominantly positive mood and attitude towards school learning experiences and challenges. Students demonstrating high learning wellbeing have positive relationships with other students and teachers, demonstrate everyday academic resilience, and experience a sense of satisfaction with their learning. For my project, I defined an ILE as an open-plan learning area where teachers facilitate personalised learning contexts. Other studies have found students are organised differently in these spaces from traditional classroom settings, with more than one teacher assigned to a larger cohort of students. These teachers commonly co-teach and combine subject areas, connected by cohesive teaching and assessment tasks. Other infrastructure elements include ubiquitous Wifi and a focus on learner agency. Both students and teachers participated in my research. Data collection took place via participant-driven photo-elicitation, focus group and individual interviews, and documentary data analysis. I analysed participants' comments on their learning wellbeing thematically and inductively. By modifying the portraiture technique, I crafted three descriptive profiles of students’ learning wellbeing. The portraits allowed me to make participant students’ views visible, while protecting them as individuals, and create three categories of learning wellbeing.
My findings illustrate the value of the school’s proactive approach to learning wellbeing through its learning wellbeing framework. It has three parts: 1) a dispositional curriculum focusing on students’ everyday academic resilience, learner agency and self-regulation skills which are summed up in the CLOAK acronym; 2) Learning Advisors who foster the CLOAK values through individual, high quality mentoring, and 3) a badging system that functions as a recognition programme whereby students receive badges for displaying CLOAK values. Student data indicated that the three aspects of the learning wellbeing framework mutually inform and support each other to foster students’ sense of learning wellbeing. The three-part learning wellbeing framework assisted students to make personalised learning choices in their curricular learning.
The three fictional portraits illustrate the characteristics of students with high learning wellbeing (HWB), medium learning wellbeing (MWB) and low learning wellbeing (LWB), offering a nuanced insight into students’ various perspectives on their learning wellbeing. The portraits highlight that students’ learning wellbeing is linked to their ability to make and act on positive learning choices: HWB students were distinguished by how they thrived in making learning choices while MWB and LWB students needed more support to make positive decisions for themselves as learners. The portraits point to a need to better understand the complexities in students’ learning wellbeing in ILEs.

year: 2022

title: Boat electrofishing survey of fish abundance in the Ohau Channel, Rotorua, in 2015

authors: Hicks, Brendan J.

abstract: The aim of the survey was to provide on-going monitoring of the fish communities and abundance by boat electrofishing in the Ohau Channel, especially fish species that are taonga to Maori (eels, goldfish, and koura). In the current study, we present the findings from the ninth year of sampling (2015) and a summary of previous surveys.
We used the University of Waikato's 4.5 m-long, aluminium-hulled electrofishing boat to catch a total of total of 1,198 fish and koura (18.9 kg) at 13 sites on 2 December 2015, which comprised 2,671 lineal m and 10,684 m² in area. Koura (freshwater crayfish) and 6 fish species were present, with common bully the most abundant species (up to 45.5 fish 100 m⁻² at the site 6, edge habitat). Goldfish (up to 4.85 100 m⁻²) was the next most abundant species, with most goldfish at sites 7 and 12-13 in and around the side channel. Rainbow trout densities were up to 0.28 fish 100 m⁻². Mean bully density (11.41 fish 100 m⁻²) was much higher than for smelt (0.29 fish 100 m⁻²). Koura had a patchy distribution; only 3 individuals were caught at one site.
Comparing catches over the 9 years of sampling, the mean abundance of common bullies in 2015 was consistent with densities in most post-wall years (after 2007), but lower than in 2007 before wall closure (ANOVA P = 0.001). The cause of fluctuating bully abundance is not known, and was not accounted for by changes in water clarity expressed as black disc distance (BDD), water temperature, or water conductivity. Poor water clarity can reduce the efficiency of electrofishing, but high BDD did not correspond with high common bully densities. In 2015, smelt abundance had recovered somewhat from the low catch in 2014.
Goldfish biomass increased initially (2009-2010) because of targeted fishing in the excavated side branch (site 11), which has dense macrophytes and offers good habitat for goldfish. The continued rise in density from 2012 on, however, suggests a real increase in goldfish numbers. In 2012 and 2013 shortfin eels were caught, but no eels were caught in 2014 and only a single longfin eel was caught in 2015.
Analysis of fish densities before and after wall closure is hampered by the single data point before closure. However, we now have 9 years of post-wall data, and comparison of means suggest that the number of bullies has been lower since 2007. An obvious cause could be interruption of bully migration into the Ohau Channel from Lake Rotoiti by the wall. This suggests that the bully population in the Ohau Channel before wall construction and closure was a mixture of fish from lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti, and that recruitment from Rotoiti is now restricted. This hypothesis is testable with otolith microchemistry.

text: Boat electrofishing survey of fish abundance in the Ohau Channel, Rotorua, in 2015 The aim of the survey was to provide on-going monitoring of the fish communities and abundance by boat electrofishing in the Ohau Channel, especially fish species that are taonga to Maori (eels, goldfish, and koura). In the current study, we present the findings from the ninth year of sampling (2015) and a summary of previous surveys.
We used the University of Waikato's 4.5 m-long, aluminium-hulled electrofishing boat to catch a total of total of 1,198 fish and koura (18.9 kg) at 13 sites on 2 December 2015, which comprised 2,671 lineal m and 10,684 m² in area. Koura (freshwater crayfish) and 6 fish species were present, with common bully the most abundant species (up to 45.5 fish 100 m⁻² at the site 6, edge habitat). Goldfish (up to 4.85 100 m⁻²) was the next most abundant species, with most goldfish at sites 7 and 12-13 in and around the side channel. Rainbow trout densities were up to 0.28 fish 100 m⁻². Mean bully density (11.41 fish 100 m⁻²) was much higher than for smelt (0.29 fish 100 m⁻²). Koura had a patchy distribution; only 3 individuals were caught at one site.
Comparing catches over the 9 years of sampling, the mean abundance of common bullies in 2015 was consistent with densities in most post-wall years (after 2007), but lower than in 2007 before wall closure (ANOVA P = 0.001). The cause of fluctuating bully abundance is not known, and was not accounted for by changes in water clarity expressed as black disc distance (BDD), water temperature, or water conductivity. Poor water clarity can reduce the efficiency of electrofishing, but high BDD did not correspond with high common bully densities. In 2015, smelt abundance had recovered somewhat from the low catch in 2014.
Goldfish biomass increased initially (2009-2010) because of targeted fishing in the excavated side branch (site 11), which has dense macrophytes and offers good habitat for goldfish. The continued rise in density from 2012 on, however, suggests a real increase in goldfish numbers. In 2012 and 2013 shortfin eels were caught, but no eels were caught in 2014 and only a single longfin eel was caught in 2015.
Analysis of fish densities before and after wall closure is hampered by the single data point before closure. However, we now have 9 years of post-wall data, and comparison of means suggest that the number of bullies has been lower since 2007. An obvious cause could be interruption of bully migration into the Ohau Channel from Lake Rotoiti by the wall. This suggests that the bully population in the Ohau Channel before wall construction and closure was a mixture of fish from lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti, and that recruitment from Rotoiti is now restricted. This hypothesis is testable with otolith microchemistry.

year: 2016