Tania's Professional Learning Blog

Kickstart Hui at Kūaotunu – Coromandel  Sometimes the start of something big doesn’t look big at all. Sometimes it begins with a group of people who are mostly strangers, a weekend ahead full of questions, a shared sense that something exciting is about to unfold and a quiet question sitting in the back of your mind: What have I signed up for? That’s how the MIT Kickstart Hui began. The Drive Down  The build-up to the weekend was a mixture of anticipation and nerves. Picture this: a 3+ hour drive in a van with people you have never met before. Everyone arriving with the same thoughts: a challenge, a possible solution, a deep drive to make a difference. But little did we know that the weekend ahead would turn all of that upside down in the best possible way. The first few hours were full of small conversations, getting to know names, backgrounds, and the challenges we had each brought with us. Slowly the strangers began to feel less like strangers....

MIT 2026 It is such a privilege to be part of this amazing opportunity.  My focus for this year is a "Moonshot" for literacy. The goal isn’t just a small step forward; it’s a bold shift toward true fluency and empowerment. I want to see our students move past just "getting through" a text to a place where they genuinely love reading and can naturally use those skills as a toolkit for every other subject they dive into.  I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into the design thinking process—taking a hard look at the hurdles our learners face, working through the "why," and eventually building a prototype that actually makes a difference. To get this proposal off the ground, I’ve been looking closely at the students who are struggling most and gathering the evidence to show exactly where the disconnect is happening. I’ve come up with two different ways we might tackle this—including how we can lean on technology to bridge the gap—rather than just stick...