After a career spanning 48 years, retiring e-teacher, Malcolm Belton, reflects on his time as a educator.

Introduction

Malcolm grew up on a farm near Waverley in South Taranaki, and completed his secondary education at New Plymouth Boys’ High School. After two years of farming, he went to study at Massey University in Palmerston North. He lived in Dunedin for 27 years, working and raising a family, before moving to Thames in 2003. Malcolm has been teaching since 1976 (48 years) and plans to fully retire at the end of 2024.

Malcom was interested in teaching early on and developed a passion for teaching Economics. When he wasn't in the classroom, he could be found spending time with family and friends, boating, golfing, volleyball (playing and coaching), cycling, walking the dog, enjoying classic cars, gardening, listening to classical music and reading!

Our team at Kotui Ako VLN has valued Malcolm's professionalism, commitment and collegiality. I am sure you will agree that after 48 years of service to education Malcolm is fully deserving of a long and full retirement.

I encourage you to read about Malcolm's journey as he reflects on his career as an educator and the legacy he leaves behind.

Malcom's Thoughts & Reminiscences

Kia ora koutou

I recently decided to fully retire at the end of this year after 48 years teaching in the secondary sector. Teaching has always interested me and I have enjoyed the stimulation and opportunities it has provided me and the huge number of talented people (students and colleagues) that I have worked with in that time.

My degree was in Social sciences and Humanities, but my teaching specialty and passion has always been Economics. Before making some comments on my distance learning experiences, I’ll summarise what some might consider, on top of my main teaching role, quite an array of relevant educational experiences. It wasn’t planned that way – it just happened over time!

Where it all started

After graduating, I started teaching in Dunedin in 1976 and Economics was a recent addition to the curriculum at that time. Being a new subject, there was a lot to learn about what resources to use and how to best teach and assess the subject. I was keen to be a part of that development and was encouraged to be involved. Teaching is great in that way - your focus is on the classroom and teaching, trying to stimulate interest in your subject and have your students achieve academic success and develop possible career pathways. However, for those interested, there are so many additional and rewarding opportunities out there for teachers to be involved in as career pathways (an alternative to senior management/non-teaching pathways).

I became involved in the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Commerce and Economics Teachers’ Association (NZCETA), an agency that has always been well organised, active and supportive of teachers in many practical ways, and this soon led to being shoulder tapped to take on new local opportunities, e.g. the role of school based Senior Economics Lecturer, Dunedin College of Education 1989 – 97; Economics Adviser, Otago/Southland 2001 - 3; Economics Adviser, Otago/Southland 1980; Project Director, Professional Development in Economics Programme, Otago/Southland, Jan 1993 - May 1994, (Joint Ministry of Education/ NZCETA Contract).

Inevitably, this led to involvement at a national level and over many years I was part of working groups in the development of Economics education for NZCETA and the Ministry of Education. Especially following the introduction of NCEA, the focus then became assessment and for several decades I have been employed by NZQA (and other agencies) to fulfil senior Economics assessment related contracts. Also, from 2009 until 2017, I was approached and contracted as a consultant to update the Year 13 Economics curriculum and assessment practices in the South Pacific. I also carried out the role of Year 13 Examiner and Chief Marker for the South Pacific Board of Education Achievement (now called EQAP) countries during this time. My work involved several trips to Fiji to explain the planned curriculum and assessment changes and up-skill teachers from local countries so that they could become independent in writing and marking their own formal assessments (external and internal) in the region.

Teaching online

Since 2003, I have lived near Thames and was employed by Thames High School as Head of Commerce in 2005. The various projects mentioned above continued as usual. In 2008 I was offered the opportunity to teach a distance learning class (Level 1 Economics) for the local cluster of schools (Coronet). I couldn’t turn down a new challenge and adapting one’s teaching style to accommodate viewing your class at a distance for only one hour a week certainly provided new challenges, along with the technical issues often associated with using video conference equipment at that time! But teaching students who only lived in the local region did have its advantages in that you could meet with them face to face on occasions.

As the local clusters amalgamated (becoming the Volcanics network – Central North Island – in my case), meeting with the students became impractical, but it was nice that the e-teachers and e-deans could continue to meet and share ideas face to face at least once a year. Then further amalgamation led to what we have today – a single North Island VLN network called The Online Learning Community (OLC) initially, now called Kotui Ako VLN. And, of course, computer software and Zoom replaced older video conferencing methods, allowing more flexibility and less expense for schools.

I quickly learnt that to properly support the learning of distance students, your lesson plans for the week had to be accessible and well structured to enable independent learning. Initially we used KnowledgeNet for this purpose, but this platform was later removed. I transferred my lessons onto Google Sites which I found convenient and still use today – so I didn't find the need to change to Google Classrooms when it was introduced. I share the Google Sites Coursework with my students who can easily access the Zoom link and weekly lesson plans and supporting resources which I frequently update. My weekly lesson plans are organised sequentially and logically according to the Achievement Standard being studied. Included for each lesson are clear Learning Intentions which are then broken down into specific Success Criteria (linked to the necessary text/workbook/other resources required to allow independent and clear learning requirements for the week.

At the end of each weekly Zoom lesson, I also send students a brief mass email that summarises what the week’s work entails and makes reference to the Coursework site. I also include a link to the recorded zoom lesson for those who might have been absent or want to watch/listen to some explanation or discussion again. Clear communication is obviously a fundamental requirement for successful distance learning.  Supporting the above, is an open invitation to students to email me at any time if they need help with anything, including to arrange a quick zoom tutorial if necessary. Regular communication with e-deans is also essential so that they can support students (and the e-teacher) as required.

One of the biggest challenges for e-teachers is how to “best” use the one hour only weekly zoom lesson time. I am no exception. In the school classroom I have long been an advocate of pupil centred learning, including group work. In a zoom lesson this is not always easy or the best use of limited time - one has to carefully consider how effectively the one hour of face to face contact with the class is used. In Level 3 Economics, which is the level I have been teaching on-line for some years now, there is a lot of difficult theory (applied to models) that often must be explained carefully to be understood and allow the students to progress on their own with the notes and detail during the week. I encourage as much student input as possible into these discussions, but I always ask myself, “is there a better way”?

Young Enterprise

From its commencement in 1983, for many years I was involved in the Young Enterprise Scheme - which is group based, student centred and problem-solving. It was totally extra-curricular in those days, but an added benefit was exposure to the real world through advice from local business mentors. In the mid-1980s, a colleague and I developed a small business unit for the junior school Economics course. Word got out and we later distributed the unit plan far and wide to all those interested. Again, it was totally group based, but had a real world feel in that the students had to devise an original product that they thought they could sell (based on their market research), design and cost the product, hands-on manufacture, profitably price the product including GST, market the product (in Dunedin they had the benefit of the school having its own craft shop in town, run by students/parents in shifts; in Thames there is a weekly Saturday morning craft market), complete the necessary accounts, complete an evaluation and write all this up in a report for formal assessment. There is a real risk/reward experience to this unit – they risked their own money capital to fund their ventures and learnt that the reward of hard work and organisation was profit (which they could keep, minus nominal tax on profits and GST -which was donated to a charity of their choice). One fond memory of how totally engrossed the students were in their small business work in class is when, as a young man, Prince Edward visited Dunedin. He had an interest in education and somehow got to hear about our junior small business venture and a visit was arranged. I met and accompanied him into the classroom and introduced him to the students.  They were very polite and answered his questions as he moved among them, but I felt that they really wanted to get back to their work - “time is money” after all!!

Thailand experience

I have a final story on this pupil centred learning theme that may interest you. In June 2000, I was fortunate enough to be the recipient of an ‘Asia 2000 Foundation’ Scholarship to Thailand for a month.  I was billeted by several families in different parts of Thailand, enjoying their authentic and often very spicy dishes and being shown the local sights. My main purpose, however, was to visit several schools and explain and demonstrate pupil centred learning which some Principals and officials had heard about through Thai teachers visiting NZ. The norm was for students to sit in rows in total silence, often with 60 in the classroom, and work from books or write notes from the blackboard or be dictated to by the teacher. So, after introductions and a brief outline of intentions, I got the students to move their desks into groups of six, facing each other. I then distributed resources that I had brought relevant to their task of comparing certain characteristics of Thailand and NZ. They were to make summary notes, then afterwards report their findings verbally to the class. All straightforward group work you might think! It took a little while for the students to realise that they were expected to talk and cooperate with each other, assign tasks etc. Things soon developed into smiles, quiet laughter and chatter as they got settled to their tasks. What amused me was that while this was going on, word had spread and soon the back of the classroom was lined with teachers interested to see what was happening in this normally quiet classroom. Initially, many had looks of concern, some bordering on panic, at the relative “chaos”, but soon there were smiles as they observed the involvement and enthusiasm of the students. Obviously, lots of questions followed later, and it would be interesting to learn 24 years later if changes were made to teaching practices by some in these schools and elsewhere.

I hope you find some useful comments regarding e-teaching and other things of interest amongst my reflections.  Finally, I would like to acknowledge and thank the many people who have supported me during my long and varied career in education and e-teaching for the last 17 years in particular.

Ngā mihi

Malcolm Belton