What is the data telling us about 'caring teaching'? What might explain the discrepancies or elements that are much lower or higher than others? by

2025-10-15 19:40:48 UTC

Students and/or teachers not fully understanding the questions being asked

2025-10-15 19:40:59 UTC

Teachers see all aspects to be equally important as oppose to students.

Difficult to clump teachers as a whole, are they thinking about their worst teacher or their favourite teacher? Answers would vary hugely

2025-10-15 19:41:17 UTC

2025-10-15 19:41:34 UTC

Visibility - teachers perform caring tasks that students might not see or view as caring

2025-10-15 19:41:39 UTC

Maybe a misunderstanding between collective class care and individual care. For example you may give full class feedback but a student might only see the 'care' when it is one on one.

2025-10-15 19:41:48 UTC

We ask for feedback through student voice yet teachers do not always want to change their ways to adapt, especially if you have been long in a school.

Hidden voice?

2025-10-15 19:41:50 UTC

Bringing in student voice is great but only looking for specific coded answers limits what we allow ourselves to hear. Maybe some discrepancies exist because students don't start from an understanding of this framework and maybe messages are being repeated about issues that are important to a students' worldview but are one of the few discrete issues that we are searching for.

2025-10-15 19:42:02 UTC

Students potentially not informed about what specific terminology means.

Depends whar is the definition of caring in different context

2025-10-15 19:42:16 UTC

Did the students fully understand the language used in survey?

2025-10-15 19:42:30 UTC

Ako

2025-10-15 19:42:43 UTC

Students did not appear to be concerned with Ako:power sharing. They probably didn’t fully understand the concept…

2025-10-15 19:42:54 UTC

Discrepancies between teacher and student perceptions, sometimes it’s really hard to know what a student’s personal experience is/was.

Teaching Skills

2025-10-15 19:43:00 UTC

Students value direct input more through feedback and feed forward as it reinforces what they know or need to know compared to what teachers see feedback and feed forward as

Teachers possibly underestimate how appreciated feedback/feedforward is for students

2025-10-15 19:43:04 UTC

Teachers offen think exclusively to the subject they teach,while students will have combined experience from multiple subject and teaching style.

2025-10-15 19:43:13 UTC

2025-10-15 19:43:35 UTC

The “teaching skills” could be lower for teachers than students because we are familiar with our areas of expertise, so we as teachers spend more time and energy focusing on doing our best to be caring teachers, rather than analysing specific practices or pedagogies.

2025-10-15 19:43:36 UTC

Communication gap: caring actions may not be explicitly communicated in a busy class lesson

2025-10-15 19:43:46 UTC

Students are more concerned about the present while teachers look at the bigger picture

2025-10-15 19:43:54 UTC

maybe different ideas between what demanding is vs. what being strict or unfair is

2025-10-15 19:43:55 UTC

More students are sharing that they have experienced deficit theorising however less teachers are saying that they are not.

2025-10-15 19:43:57 UTC

Student perspective is based on individual experiences and/or limited perspective; teacher perspectives have benefit of what they have experienced their own lives and the life paths of others so have wider context when looking at addressing the questions.

2025-10-15 19:44:16 UTC

One intriguing result was the idea that knowing what students need to know is rated the lowest for both students and teachers. Both seem to priority that care and relationship. Is this representing a core need for students, maybe? Or is it due to the survey itself? Really interesting and needs further investigation!

Teachers across the school have different style of teaching and this can be confusing to students.

2025-10-15 19:44:26 UTC

2025-10-15 19:44:29 UTC

With relation to the total number of teacher voice vs student voice for teaching skills:

Students might not find teaching skills a form of compassion - it’s the teachers job, so it’s not something that they see as caring?

2025-10-15 19:44:32 UTC

Data can get skewed when we are generalising. The teacher or student may be thinking about a person in particular when answering the question. But may not hold true for all

Random collection of student voice can have its advantages and drawbacks. A an average class with 30 students will have varied opinions

2025-10-15 19:44:37 UTC

2025-10-15 19:44:42 UTC

The jargon used can cause misunderstanding and confusion both amongst staff and students

A caring teacher (from a students perspective) can change on the daily. It depends on what they bring to the table in the moment. :)

2025-10-15 19:44:46 UTC

2025-10-15 19:44:49 UTC

Discrepancies may be a result of a couple of things. You may need a wider data pool to bring in more opinions (i.e. speaking with teachers and students at multiple schools). It may also be a case of defining key words in your research question so that students and teachers all have an understanding of what they’re specifically speaking to. For example, students might rate something low - not because they don’t see it as important, but because they don’t know exactly what they are rating, or they think of an idea as having a different name or definition. The point is, making sure everyone is speaking in the same terminology with the same definitional understandings, might help you acquire more consistent data.

Student voice is important but can also be interpret differently by students. Also, teacher's can feel protective around 'how' they teach and can be reluctant to change.

2025-10-15 19:44:53 UTC

2025-10-15 19:44:58 UTC

I think that the discrepancies (in terms of 80% of teacher's thinking we are caring vs 50% of students thinking this, reveal that for many teachers, they prioritize learning as the "core business". Even in the data we just saw, the language for teachers focused on learning only lots , whereas the students appeared to focus on - even in the learning focused questions - on feeling cared for. I think when teachers say "I show my care by knowing my stuff or teaching my subject well", This is valuable but I think it often only works for high ability students.

Nice PL guys

2025-10-15 19:45:04 UTC

What are some ways I can practice power sharing

2025-10-15 19:45:07 UTC

Immediate ‘caring about me’ might be your cut me some slack, teacher may feel that long term care may be the need to push further.

2025-10-15 19:45:37 UTC

Communication with students is key weather it’s feedback, feed forward or getting to know students when it comes to ‘caring teaching’.

2025-10-15 19:45:40 UTC

Student and teacher perception of what "caring behaviour" looks like may not align. As others have said, students may be looking for one-on-one affirmation and feedback, when teachers may give group/whole class feedback or interactions.

Ako: power sharing

2025-10-15 19:45:57 UTC

This aspect doesn’t seem to be clear to students in terms of teaching and learning.

2025-10-15 19:46:00 UTC

Students' perspectives on the attitudes and actions of teachers may be different which is why they may not feel the care.

Question wording can be simplified for more effective student comprehension

2025-10-15 19:46:09 UTC

Feedback

2025-10-15 19:46:17 UTC

I think we have pbviously underestimated the power/effectiveness of feedback/feed forward. Whilst this can take time (and we should be firm withourselves about the amount of feedback given to each student in a class of 30+) it is obviously worth it for the usefulness students get from it

Co-construction

2025-10-15 19:46:18 UTC

If goals are developed naturally in a whanau based environment, it feels normal and students may not realize that have been co-constructed with!

No question is a dumb question

2025-10-15 19:46:32 UTC

I have students with limited language. They may have behavioural issues, or seem lazy because they actually don’t understand. So most of their teachers don’t take the time with them, or may feel negatively towards them. Even if I’m annoyed with a student, if they ask me what a word means, ask about spelling or ask about what to do, I will drop everything to help them in a kind way - even if I have to repeat myself. They are also the ones who get GBTs for the tiniest improvement. And it’s starting to make a difference- those students are now finally start to engage in lessons and feel safe to ask for my help.

2025-10-15 19:46:56 UTC

Students may perceive some of the high expectations as arbitrary and don’t see the connection between behavioural expectations and their learning. They may possibly perceive it just a form of external control as opposed to being part of a school community

2025-10-15 19:47:02 UTC

It was interesting to see that students mention "teaching skills" more than teachers. I feel like in general teachers focus on the "whanau-like culture" part of caring relationships but less on the immense amount of organisation and planning it takes to create quality lessons tailored to each class.

What percentage of participation was there teachers v students in completely the survey.

2025-10-15 19:47:07 UTC

2025-10-15 19:47:09 UTC

Students are sharing that feedback for their assessment is important for them so they can understand more. Teachers will need to provide more feedback to help the students

2025-10-15 19:47:23 UTC

Sometimes having high expectations may come across as not caring about their well-being or them as a rounded person. Students may be having an off day but they may still need to complete their assessment.

2025-10-15 19:47:25 UTC

Do students understand the difference between ako and co-construction? Are they even aware that teachers are learning and reflecting as we go?

Different concepts of care

2025-10-15 19:47:35 UTC

Teachers and students are all individuals. I care for the success of my students and have interest in their lives and their growth. Yet I have heard one student say to another, "___ doesn't care about ___" when actually I did. So maybe we are caring for our students in a way that sometimes gets overlooked. A growth opportunity for us, for sure, but also something we need to keep in mind when looking at a discrepancy in teacher and student voice

2025-10-15 19:47:50 UTC

Do students know that teachers are teaching to the Northeast, warm and demanding?

Ako - is tricky for even teachers to know what this might look like in the classroom. Specfic examples are always needed with this. Sorry, this isn't fantastic 😬.

2025-10-15 19:47:59 UTC

Allow students to ask questions and give them time with an answer.

2025-10-15 19:48:00 UTC

Caring deficit

2025-10-15 19:48:02 UTC

There is a significant difference between what we think and what the students in terms of effective caring. Where does this difference sit in terms of student experience. How can we tell what this practically looks like when it feels extremely personal individual kids and changeable day to day?

2025-10-15 19:48:03 UTC

The students seemed to focus heavily on formative assessment/feedback for teaching skills. I think this is predictable as assessment (formative or summative) is the quantitative/tangible culmination of learning, especially for seniors completing their NCEA. For a student who is reflecting on how they were supported and cared for, it seems natural for them to frame this within the context of their academic achievement.

Because the word caring is loaded with connotations such as love and kindness and warmth. If a student doesnt see these qualities in teacher they assume they dont care rather than the fact that the teacher might take a tougher love apporoach and show caring by having high expectations.

2025-10-15 19:48:11 UTC

Discrepancies

2025-10-15 19:48:24 UTC

Potentially they understand how to articulate teaching skills rather than whānau-like context: one seems arbitrary and the other seems factual.
The concept of having a relationship with your teacher isn’t one a lot of kids may appreciate/think of.
Power sharing seems too far fetched for students - won’t understand the term - as the “teacher” is the head of the classroom.
Feedback/forward is something the kids hook onto, because then they actually know what to do/how they can learn. It’s also individualised which kids want.
The idea of power sharing or co-construction feels the same to us, but to kids co-construction seems less scary.
Rejecting deficit explanation could be related to self esteem for students, so it’s really important to them that everyone rejects these negative thoughts because that’s all they know/they feel like everyone dislikes them because of their own self-esteem which is why that’s so much higher for the students than the teachers.

viv_milton — 2025-10-15 19:48:24 UTC

One assumption I have is that good (caring) teaching often goes unnoticed by students, especially if it is their most common experience in classes. Whereas the opposite has more of an impact. They seem to love mentioning aspects that they feel aren't helping (e.g. "my x teacher said they don't give feedback"). So perhaps when the questions around this were asked during the Wellbeing survey, students minds went to these unhelpful aspects rather than the norm?

We are told to have high expectations but it's difficult managing expectations. For some learners meeting expectations is really hard for lots of reasons. We cheerlead them and push them to reach an expectation they won't be able to and both of us feel disappointed and like we failed.

2025-10-15 19:48:46 UTC

Feedback

2025-10-15 19:48:46 UTC

Teachers understand that students find feedback useful, but often we are stretched for time, and, at least in my department, they won’t do a similar assessment until the following year, and we know they won’t go back and check their feedback from the previous year. I wish there was a way to streamline feedback in an ethical way, so it isn’t this big time suck for the teacher. I also have noticed that in my subject, students don’t spend the time to go back over their assessment themselves and use the provided rubrics to see what their own next steps are, even though the answers to their questions likely lie there. I always appreciate being able to debrief after an assessment with each student and have those one on one feedback conversations, but there is rarely time, and often you need to sacrifice quality whole class teaching and learning to achieve this

raj_beedah — 2025-10-15 19:49:22 UTC

The word caring may be interpreted differently by teachers and students

2025-10-15 19:49:26 UTC

Opportunities for co-construction feel much easier in junior school, but are obviously equally important in senior school. Strategies and ways to co-construct in the senior school would be good to focus on as a department.

2025-10-15 19:49:32 UTC

I would also be happy if i didnt have to call them out during class.

High expectations are odelled, not just expected. Being on time, prepared for the llesson

2025-10-15 19:49:58 UTC

. Starting the lesson explaining the objectives and success criteria. What they need to learn, know or start mastering by the end of the lesson and clear pathways and activities that will support them through it.

2025-10-15 19:50:21 UTC

The fact that power sharing is entirely missed in student voice might indicate that Bishop's model needs to be adjusted. I think if everyone treats all people with respect and we try to uplift each other, worrying about who has power or whom might not be a big thing. But then, I guess that's power sharing ;)

2025-10-15 19:51:24 UTC

Explicit explanation may be needed for students to understand what teachers are doing and why - but perhaps there is a need for greater trust that teachers are there because they care (otherwise they probably wouldn’t be teachers in the first place)

Well managed environment - this is the second highest comment by students. I feel this might be where some of the student 'high expectation' comments might be sitting?

2025-10-15 19:51:58 UTC

Students don’t necessarily see that teachers having high expectations is actually caring. Teachers want students to succeed.

2025-10-15 19:52:13 UTC

2025-10-15 19:52:20 UTC

Specifically thinking about the discrepancy with Ako (within Teaching Skills). I wonder if students have not talked as much to that idea because they haven't explicitly been taught or don't understand what Ako means and what power sharing looks like 'in action'.

I am curious to know some more data (below)

How many students responded?

What demographic of students were respondents? Are the all academic or was there a range of diverse leaners spoken to?

We're they given kōrero about the 'why' behind them giving feedback?

We're there definitions for all aspects so students knew what each question is asking them?

There will always be different opinions on what is and isn't important to individuals.

Was the data potentially driven to look like that from because they thought we would want to hear that? Rather than answering the question authentically.

To bridge the gap between student and teacher expectation we can spend more time dialoguing with students to elicit strategies that can be useful

2025-10-15 19:52:25 UTC

Whanau vs whanau

2025-10-15 19:53:05 UTC

The idea of bringing the metaphor of whanau into this model is challenging and raises questions. As a person without children, my meaning of whanau isn't the same as a large family situation. So I guess it makes me wonder what this model means or whether making that a core aspect is necessary. Care is necessary, but different people understand family in different ways with different associated joys and struggles.

High Expectation

raj_beedah — 2025-10-15 19:54:04 UTC

High Expectation may be towards only high Achievement for some whereas it it could be more than that for others

Students' perceptions of the role of the teacher

2025-10-15 19:54:17 UTC

I think it would be important to categorise this data alongside student's perceptions of what they believe the primary ROLE of teachers to be. For example, students who think the role of a teacher is to help them achieve academically and enter a future learning/professional pathway may perceive caring in a very different way to a student who believes the role of a teacher is provide them a safe, supportive environment during the day.

Teaching skills

2025-10-15 19:57:40 UTC

I invest a lot of time giving feedback. Students often tell me that they don't often get it from other teachers. Students themselves do not always read feedback despite being given, it is important to make class time for them to work out what they did well and what they need to improve, so the responsibility doesn't just lay on teachers.

2025-10-15 20:05:33 UTC

there contradiction between kids who want well-managed and feedback/feedforward, well prepared classrooms and systems etc and other students who "don't want to be singled out" meet me where I'm at etc. different students want different things that contradict each other, and we are expected to deliver both.

2025-10-15 20:29:02 UTC

Teachers can often be scapegoats when things aren't going well for a student. You're dammed if you do and dammed if you don't by nature of the job.

Some students experiences differ

2025-10-16 05:49:10 UTC

I think it’s good to remember that in a situation where we’re hearing feedback from teachers and students, only one of us is aware of the readings/terminology/pedagogical concepts. We may think we’re nailing the northeast and finding that sweet spot between being warm and demanding, but if we catch a student on the wrong day and push the wrong way, that could be the moment that lingers in their head when asked about caring teachers. It’s unlikely that a student will go, “but hey, at least they have high expectations of me”. Same goes the other way, if we notice something off about a student one lesson and address their need, maybe we’ve won that student over. It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, but only one bad one to lose it. And I’m sure it’ll totally depend on what each student needs to define what caring is in a teacher. A high achiever with tough expectations from home will define caring completely different to a student for whom school is a sanctuary.