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

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

Akoaga: efficacy, agency, achievement and success in the tertiary sector focus on students and parents from pasifika communities

“Success in Tongan terms is all about Tongan notions of agency; it is about making one's way in the world, giving, taking, and above all, being an affective human being” (Evans, 2001, p. 161). This research project is situated in Unitec Institute of Technology, a tertiary institution in New Zealand catering to the needs of a large and diverse student population enrolled in courses ranging from certificate level to doctoral programmes. The institution has its main campus in the suburb of Mount Albert in Auckland and satellite campuses in Waitakere and North Shore districts. For the present research we focused on students from Mount Albert and Waitakere campuses. Annual summative evaluations of achievement of students reveal ethnicity based disparities in the rate of success and retention of undergraduate students, with Pasifika students positioned in the lower levels as compared to mainstream and Maori students in both Unitec campuses. In this research project, the reasons underpinning this disparity is assessed from the context of efficacy and agency of students, two constructs which correlate with academic achievement. Led by a research design famed by Kaupapa Maori, Pasifika, mainstream methodologies and ancient philosophies, the findings are reported mainly from the perspective of student and parent participants from Pasifika communities. The central aim of the research was to unravel some of the challenges faced by participants from the Pasifika community which precluded optimal achievement. Students from indigenous, Pacific, mainstream and diverse ethnic orientations were invited to participate. Pasifika parents with teenagers enrolled in secondary schools or/ and with children in the tertiary sector were also invited to participate in focus groups to share their perspectives on higher education, and how they coped with emerging challenges. Unitec’s Pacific Centre for Learning, Teaching & Research approved Tertiary Education Commission funding for this research project. A mixed-methods approach was used to assess self-efficacy, agency, and student perceptions of success. Findings reveal students reporting high levels of efficacy, their level of agency and perception of success are collective in nature, with a sense of responsibility towards oneself and one’s family acting as agentic forces to succeed in the tertiary sector. Students also expressed intent to setting goals, using learning strategies, taking responsibility for their learning and attaining their goals. The findings also capture the critical role of family, teachers, support staff, and peers in student achievement and success in a bicultural and multi-cultural tertiary education context

Akoaga : efficacy, agency, achievement and success in the tertiary sector : focus on students and parents from Pasifika communities

The term akoaga has a pan-Polynesian origin and meaning. In the Samoan language, the term can be broken into two root words, ako and aga. Ako or ato means basket and aga means measurements associated with weaving

Whaia te iti kahurangi: Efficacy, agency, achievement and success in the tertiary sector: Focus on students and parents from Pasifika communities

The present study is situated in Unitec Institute of Technology, a dynamic tertiary institution in New Zealand, catering to the needs of a large and diverse student population enrolled in courses ranging from certificate level to doctoral programmes. Annual summative evaluations of achievement of students reveal ethnicity based disparities in the rate of success and retention of undergraduate students, with Pasifika students positioned in the lower levels as compared to mainstream and Maori students in both Unitec campuses. In this research project, the reasons underpinning this disparity is assessed from the context of efficacy and agency of students, two constructs which correlate with academic achievement. Led by a research design underpinned by Kaupapa Maori, Pasifika, mainstream methodologies, and ancient philosophies, the findings are reported mainly from the perspectives of student and parent participants from Pasifika communities. Although an inclusive approach of inviting tertiary students across all ethnicities that had enrolled for a qualification programme to participate was the norm, the central aim was to unravel some of the challenges faced by participants from the Pasifika community which precluded optimal achievement. Unitec Centre for Pacific approved Tertiary Education Commission funding for this research. Pasifika parents with teenagers enrolled in secondary schools or/ and with children in the tertiary sector were also invited to participate in focus groups to share their perspectives on higher education, and how they coped with emerging challenges. A mixed-methods approach was used to assess self-efficacy, agency, and perceptions of success. Findings reveal students in the tertiary sector reporting high levels of efficacy. Agency and perception of success seems to be more collective in nature, with a sense of responsibility towards oneself and one’s family acting as agentic forces to succeed in the tertiary sector. Students are intent upon setting goals, using learning strategies, taking responsibility for their learning and attaining them. Teacher participation in this research was almost non-existent, despite being part of the research design. This was a major limitation of the study, since there is no empirical data on culturally sensitive teaching strategies in use. The findings also capture the critical role of family, teachers, support staff, and peers in student achievement and success in bicultural and multi-cultural tertiary education context