Task Completion vs Learning
When observing classroom Teachers, school leaders often pose three classic questions to ākonga:
"What are you learning?"
"Why are you learning it?"
"How will you know when you’ve learned it?"
My experience indicates that many ākonga struggle to answer these, often confusing "learning" with mere "remembering" or "listening."
A common misconception also exists between "task completion" and "learning." While task completion is easily assessed, genuine learning, though much harder to measure, holds far greater importance. As Albert Einstein wisely stated:
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
The perils of prioritising outputs over inputs in Education
Unfortunately, education has increasingly become overly fixated on easily quantifiable outcomes such as summative assessment results, attendance records, stand-downs, and suspensions. These are merely outputs of the system, sometimes indicating system failure. Paradoxically, the crucial inputs, like pedagogy, and teaching and learning resources designed to meet learners' actual needs through scaffolding and differentiation, are frequently overlooked - because they are harder to measure and are no longer resourced (via PLD programs). These inputs, in fact, represent the critical components of school and learner success.
At its core, teaching can be broken down into three components: Pedagogy, Curriculum, and Assessment. Of these, pedagogy is arguably the most vital, yet it remains the most challenging to measure and quantify, unlike curriculum and assessment.
These issues are particularly pertinent in the current educational and political climate of Aotearoa New Zealand. As Greg Ashman observes:
"In education, the further a person is from a problem, the less practical and the more idealistic they become in their proposals to address it."
The proposed "solutions" to our educational challenges are increasingly detached from quality inputs like pedagogy and associated responsive resource creation. Consequently, while many ākonga focus on completing tasks rather than deep learning, many kaiako understandably prioritise curriculum and assessment over pedagogy.
It's a tragic irony that despite the numerous opportunities and new tools that significantly enhance pedagogy and, by extension, student learning outcomes, funding previously allocated to PLD has been diverted to curriculum and assessment overhauls. This shouldn't be an either/or debate, but rather an "and/also" conversation.
Strategies for Meaningful Change
So, what actions can we take? Here are five strategies that we at Learning First are currently implementing and sharing with schools across Aotearoa NZ:
Termly student voice collection: Gathering student perspectives on specific learning competencies.
Termly leadership observations: Focusing on these same learning competencies during observations.
Alignment with PGC: Ensuring the above strategies are aligned with professional growth cycles.
Differentiated PLD: Providing engaging and motivating PLD experiences that empower kaiako to continuously improve in response to the first three strategies.
Creative AI tool utilisation: Encouraging thoughtful and innovative use of AI tools by kaiako to design, scaffold, and differentiate responsive learning experiences for ākonga.
The optimal time to initiate lasting change within a school is often Term 4, when the shortcomings of some current practices are still fresh in everyone's minds. The challenge, however, is that schools frequently have limited PLD budgets remaining at this point in the year. To address this, Learning First is actively engaging with numerous schools and events in Term 4, offering the flexibility of invoicing in 2026 to facilitate these crucial engagements.
