Role

Sara is the Regional Education Leader Kaiārahi Mātauranga ā Rohe of the Waikato region. She leads lecturers based in Kirikiriroa, providing pastoral care and learning support for students and connecting with the community.

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Education Background

Sara has been involved in Early Childhood, Primary and Tertiary Education for around 20 years. In recent years, her work has included leadership roles in tertiary education. A key focus for Sara is learning and teaching in digital learning environments. A career highlight for Sara was being awarded in 2013 the Nola Campbell eLearning excellence award from the University of Waikato.

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Research Background

Sara’s research portfolio reflects her interest in the use of digital technologies to enhance teaching and learning across education sectors. Sara’s Masters and current Doctoral studies focus on learning relationships in digital learning environments, in particular the human aspects of online learning relationships from a sociocultural perspective.

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Teaching Interests

As a lecturer and researcher in Tertiary Education Sara’s pedagogy is focused on relationships, interaction, responsiveness, sense of community and the engagement of students in the learning process. She believes all students have the potential to succeed but each has their own pathways and learning styles; Sara sees her responsibility is to notice and respond. She believes that lecturer and student can learn from and teach each other. For Sara, this is a way of upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi and enabling all people to participate and learn in an equitable way. She strives to uphold the professional teaching values of Our Code Our Standards, Tātaiako, Tapasā and Te Whāriki.

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Recent Publications

Archard S and Archard S. (2022). Voices of playgroup: Using digital stories as a method to capture migrant families’ aspirations for their young children’s education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Bloomsbury.

Archard S. (2019) Digital Fluency. In: Peters M. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore: Springer doi 10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_63-1

Archard, S., Archard S., (2019). Establishing a learner identity: Young digital citizens and the pursuit of a democratic and empowering Early Childhood Education. In V. Margrain, & A. Hultman (Eds.), Challenging democracy in Early Childhood Education. International Perspectives on Early Childhood development (pp. 153-166). Springer.

Madsen, S. S., Thorvaldsen, S., & Archard, S. (2018). Teacher educators’ perceptions of working with digital technologies. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 13(3), 177-196. Retrieved from https://www.idunn.no/