TENZ National Council Annual General Meeting

Appendix One: Chair Report

Chair: Wendy Fox-Turnbull

Annual Report: October 2009

This year had been a very busy but rewarding year for me in my role of TENZ chair.  This year the Council has worked on two major MOE funded contracts:  The first in conjunction with HETTANZ and NZGTTA was the contract for the Alignment of Achievement Objectives and Unit Standards for Level 1.  The Ministry of Education has recently decided to discontinue the writing contract and has opted to manage the writing of the L2 and L3 standards themselves.  Thankfully our writers were heavily involved in this process.  We believe they were the best qualified and most suitable for this task, given their outstanding knowledge of the curriculum and its implementation in secondary schools.  To undertake this work TENZ established a Memorandum of Understanding with HETTANZ and NZGTTA that allowed us to work collaboratively on this project.  TENZ members have been given numerous opportunities to submit feedback on the draft standards. I would like to personally thank all of you who did take the tine to submit your feedback.  This is a vitally important process and your input is appreciated.  Our heart felt thanks must go to our writing team: Cliff Harwood, Cheryl Pym and Carol Rimmer, who have worked very hard over the year in sometimes very trying and frustrating conditions.

This year we also saw further development in the positive and collegial relations between TENZ, HETTANZ and NZGTTA.  The TESAC (Technology Education Subject Association Coalition) formally know as TTAWP (Technology Teacher Associations Working Party) met in Dunedin in June.  We were delighted to welcome NZACDITT (New Zealand Association for Computing, Digital and Information Technology Teachers.) to our fold.  Members from (TTAWP group) met again in June.  Firstly after considerable debate our new name was decided.  The group revisited their terms of reference.  All are agreed that the main aim of TESAC is to ensure teachers of technology are able to speak with one voice when needed and that individual associations continue to work towards the best outcome for all their members and students of technology education in New Zealand schools.  The group has plans to meet face to-face twice each year coinciding with our conferences whenever possible.

The TENZ council is also undertaking the research component of the MOE materials development contract.  The whole contract is responsible for the establishment of Techlink and continues to work on more resources- you may have seen the recent case study print publication put out by Learning Media.  The job of the research team is to critique and write guidelines for the improvement and further development of that material.  A number of our members from around the country have been in our focus group interviews.  If you are one of these people we really appreciate your input. The website Techlink is continually being updated and developed and I believe a world first and I know our colleagues New Zealand working in other discipline areas are very envious.

Another huge undertaking by the council is the publication of this newsletter T News. Recently we have received funding commitment from the Ministry of Education for each issue.  This is a very clear acknowledgement from MOE as to the value and quality of the publication.  All those involved in T News appreciate the positive feedback they receive, and would also love to here from you and or your students. As teachers we all love to her what other teachers are doing. We can only do this if we are prepared to share our own work..  Our heart  felt thanks must go to Glynn McGregor and his team for this amazing publication.

This year is an election year for the Council.  Each conference year two elected members of the council roll off and we hold elections for replacement members.  The Council currently has five elected members: Gary O’Sullivan, Brian Allen, Cheryl Pym, Mary Mason and myself.  There are also three co-opted members: Sue Parkes, Glynn McGregor and Angela Christie.  Professor Alister Jones is the Technology Education New Zealand Trust board representative on the Board.  We are allowed up to seven elected members so this year we will be looking to elect four new council members.  Mary Mason and myself will be rolling off the Council at the end of the year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mary for the valuable work she has done, especially in the areas of membership and relations with the PPTA. The newly elected council will begin office in the New Year.

Unfortunately Louise Milne resigned from the Council during the year.  We were very sad to see Louise resign but wish her well in her current endeavours.  The council have written to Louise to thank her for her work on the Council over the last four years but I would also like to publicly acknowledge her work on the Council.

On 13 August the National Council had their annual face-to-face meeting in Wellington   This year we invited your Regional Chairs to the meeting.  During the day we revisited and revised policy and guidelines, set short term and long term goals among other things.  Personally I really enjoyed seeing the regional chair come together as a group for the first time.  We plan to continue this practice annually.

One of the main tasks for this meeting was to establish short and long term goals for the association.  We decided on three draft goals for the 2010-2012 period. To:

1. promote technology education in the wider education community including :
• Schools Y1-13
• Careers/Tertiary
• Economic community
• Parent Community
2. advocated for change at a political level
3. support promote and celebrate research in the field of technology education.
4. A 4th goal was added at last months Council meeting, aimed at increasing TENZ membership and therefore effectiveness

By sharing these goals with delegates at this conference we look forward to and hope to get your feedback. 

In the immediate future the Council will be developing strategies and identifying indicators to accompany each of our goals to ensure that we are actively engaged in working towards achieving our goals.

 We also established some longer term five-10 year goals to ensure that the Council facilitates the positive development of technology education in New Zealand, again these are in draft and we look forward to your feedback.
TENZ would like:

• the whole education community to understand the philosophy that underpins  technology education in New Zealand

• to be an innovative, forward thinking professional organisation within New Zealand and globally
• to work with TESAC to find the best way to support and represent the technology education community in New Zealand
• to nurture our teaching and student community to enhance the profile of technology education in schools, tertiary education providers and the wider community.

At our meeting in Wellington The Council also recommended that annual subscriptions remain the same for the 2010 financial year. This decision will be ratified at this annual general meeting.

Late last month I attended an international technology education research Conference: PATT22, held near Delft in The Netherlands. I presented a paper on the use of Stimulated Recall- autophotography as a research tool for technology education.  Also attending the conference from New Zealand were Dr Vicki Compton and Ange Compton presenting their work on the Indicators of Progression for the new strands of the technology curriculum.  Throughout the conference we were continually complimented on the state of technology education in New Zealand.  I came away from the conference confident that New Zealand is a world leader in this field., Our current challenge now  is to ensure that all students have access to the curriculum through quality teaching and up to date facilities with the full support of senior management in schools and our wider education. My current vision for TENZ is to support these goals as much as possible.

All that remain is for me to thank the council members for their very hard work over the last two year.  Although I am intending to stand for re-election the process of rolling off the council has forced me to reflect on what we have a achieved over the last four to six years and ponder the future.  I believe technology education is in good heart most of the time but I cannot help thinking of all that there is still much to do.  Finally I wish the incoming members of the Council all the best for their upcoming term.

Wendy  Fox-Turnbull

October 2009

Download Agenda and Appendices as a PDF document (PDF, 37kb)