Computer programming is one of the compulsory courses in the Diploma and the Bachelor of IT at Whitireia Polytechnic and Wellington Institute of Technology. During the Covid pandemic, it was a challenge for us to provide culturally appropriate pastoral care to ākonga (students) as we used to be in the “kanohi ki te kanohi” (face-to-face) teaching environment.
This research aims firstly to implement culturally supported teaching strategies for the seven learning styles in the area of computer programming. Secondly, it focuses on evaluating the proposed strategies through surveys and students’ performance and proposes further improvement through analysis of the evaluation. This study uses both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data in terms of students’ feedback and performance.
The outcome of this study has the potential for attracting more Māori and Pasifika ākonga into the IT programmes. Our experience could also apply to other ITPs (Institute of Technology and Polytechnics) in Te Pūkenga.
Dr Minjie (Min) Hu is a senior lecturer in Information Technology at Wellington Institute of Technology and Whitireia Community Polytechnic, Wellington. He has many papers presented at CITRENZ conference and other international conferences, including previous NACCQ conference at Christchurch in 2004.
Dr Hu’s research interests include computer education, teaching novice programming, software testing, mobile application development, data analytics and business intelligence, agile development, and accounting information systems.