Key+Competencies

Participating and contributing
=Key Competencies=

Capabilities for living and lifelong learning
The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies: • thinking • using language, symbols, and texts • managing self • relating to others • participating and contributing. People use these competencies to live, learn, work, and contribute as active members of their communities. More complex than skills, the competencies draw also on knowledge, attitudes, and values in ways that lead to action. They are not separate or stand-alone. They are the key to learning in every learning area. The development of the competencies is both an end in itself (a goal) and the means by which other ends are achieved. Successful learners make use of the competencies in combination with all the other resources available to them. These include personal goals, other people, community knowledge and values, cultural tools (language, symbols, and texts), and the knowledge and skills found in different learning areas. As they develop the competencies, successful learners are also motivated to use them, recognising when and how to do so and why. Opportunities to develop the competencies occur in social contexts. People adopt and adapt practices that they see used and valued by those closest to them, and they make these practices part of their own identity and expertise. The competencies continue to develop over time, shaped by interactions with people, places, ideas, and things. Students need to be challenged and supported to develop them in contexts that are increasingly wideranging and complex.

Thinking
Thinking is about using creative, critical, and metacognitive processes to make sense of information, experiences, and ideas. These processes can be applied to purposes such as developing understanding, making decisions, shaping actions, or constructing knowledge. Intellectual curiosity is at the heart of this competency. Students who are competent thinkers and problemsolvers actively seek, use, and create knowledge. They reflect on their own learning, draw on personal knowledge and intuitions, ask questions, and challenge the basis of assumptions and perceptions.

Using language, symbols, and texts
Using language, symbols, and texts is about working with and making meaning of the codes in which knowledge is expressed. Languages and symbols are systems for representing and communicating information, experiences, and ideas. People use languages and symbols to produce texts of all kinds: informative and imaginative; informal and formal; mathematical, scientific, and technological.** Students who are competent users of language, symbols, and texts can interpret and use words, number, images, movement, metaphor, and technologies in a range of contexts. They recognise how choices of language, symbol, or text affect people’s understanding and the ways in which they respond to communications. They confidently use ICT (including, where appropriate, assistive technologies) to access and provide information and to communicate with others.
 * written, oral/aural, and visual;

Managing self
This competency is associated with self-motivation, a “can-do” attitude, and with students seeing themselves as capable learners. It is integral to self-assessment. Students who manage themselves are enterprising, resourceful, reliable, and resilient. They establish personal goals, make plans, manage projects, and set high standards. They have strategies for meeting challenges. They know when to lead, when to follow, and when and how to act independently.

Relating to others
Relating to others is about interacting effectively with a diverse range of people in a variety of contexts. This competency includes the ability to listen actively, recognise different points of view, negotiate, and share ideas. Students who relate well to others are open to new learning and able to take different roles in different situations. They are aware of how their words and actions affect others. They know when it is appropriate to compete and when it is appropriate to co-operate. By working effectively together, they can come up with new approaches, ideas, and ways of thinking.

Participating and contributing
This competency is about being actively involved in communities. Communities include family, whanau, and school and those based, for example, on a common interest or culture. They may be drawn together for purposes such as learning, work, celebration, or recreation. They may be local, national, or global. This competency includes a capacity to contribute appropriately as a group member, to make connections with others, and to create opportunities for others in the group. Students who participate and contribute in communities have a sense of belonging and the confidence to participate within new contexts. They understand the importance of balancing rights, roles, and responsibilities and of contributing to the quality and sustainability of social, cultural, physical, and economic environments.

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Values, key competencies,and learning areas in the School Curriculum
The New Zealand Curriculum identifies values to be encouraged and modelled and to be explored by students, key competencies that students will develop over time and in a range of settings, and learning areas that describe what they will come to know and do. Schools need to consider how each of these aspects of the curriculum will be promoted and developed in teaching and learning. They can do this in different ways. Schools may, for example, decide to organise their curriculum around one of these three aspects (values, key competencies, or learning areas) and deliberately weave the other two through their programmes. Alternatively, they may decide to organise their curriculum around central themes, integrating values, key competencies, knowledge, and skills across a number of learning areas. Or they may use another approach or a combination of approaches. The values, competencies, knowledge, and skills that students will need for addressing real-life situations are rarely confined to one part of the curriculum. Wherever possible, schools should aim to design their curriculum so that learning crosses apparent boundaries.

Key competencies
The key competencies are both end and means. They are a focus for learning – and they enable learning. They are the capabilities that young people need for growing, working, and participating in their communities and society. The school curriculum should challenge students to use and develop the competencies across the range of learning areas and in increasingly complex and unfamiliar situations. Opportunities for doing this can often be integrated into existing programmes of work. Use can also be made of opportunities provided by the ways in which school environments and events are structured. There will be times when students can initiate activities themselves. Such activities provide meaningful contexts for learning and self-assessment. In practice, the key competencies are most often used in combination. When researching an issue of interest, for example, students are likely to need to: • set and monitor personal goals, manage time frames, arrange activities, and reflect on and respond to ideas they encounter (managing self); • interact, share ideas, and negotiate with a range of people (relating to others); • call on a range of communities for information and use that information as a basis for action (participating and contributing); • analyse and consider a variety of possible approaches to the issue at hand (thinking); • create texts to record and communicate ideas, using language and symbols appropriate to the relevant learning area(s) (using language, symbols, and texts). When designing and reviewing their curriculum, schools will need to consider how to encourage and monitor the development of the key competencies. They will need to clarify their meaning for their students. They will also need to clarify the conditions that will help or hinder the development of the competencies, the extent to which they are being demonstrated, and how the school will evaluate the effectiveness of approaches intended to strengthen them. With appropriate teacher guidance and feedback, all students should develop strategies for self-monitoring and collaborative evaluation of their performance in relation to suitable criteria. Self-assessments might involve students examining and discussing various kinds of evidence, making judgments about their progress, and setting further goals.

Future focus
Future-focused issues are a rich source of learning opportunities. They encourage the making of connections across the learning areas, values, and key competencies, and they are relevant to students’ futures. Such issues include: • sustainability – exploring the long-term impact of social, cultural, scientific, technological, economic, or political practices on society and the environment; • citizenship – exploring what it means to be a citizen and to contribute to the development and well-being of society; • enterprise – exploring what it is to be innovative and entrepreneurial; • globalisation – exploring what it means to be part of a global community and to live amongst diverse cultures.

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Habits of mind Marzano (1992) defines habits of mind as mental habits individuals can develop to render their thinking and learning more self-regulated. These mental habits include: Marzano illustrates effective use of these habits: " A student might develop a specific plan for an upcoming classroom project. Part of this plan would include identifying necessary resources and establishing milestones. As the student executes the plan, he might occasionally note whether he is getting closer or further from his goal and then make corrections as needed."
 * Being aware of your own thinking
 * Planning
 * Being aware of necessary resources
 * Being sensitive to feedback
 * Evaluating the effectiveness of your actions