Rethinking Learners - Our Presentation

Our work around rethinking learners has been drawn together, and presented back to the team at Core Ed.

We had to develop a presentation outlining the research, or beliefs, and the actions we ere going to be taking to cater for 21st Century Learners. We took all our ideas (a lot of which are in previous posts), and used a journey/climbing a mountain metaphor to visually show Douglas Park's journey.




Our next step is to refine the presentation to use with our community. We have had a little bit of feedback from the team:

We were pleased with our version (in the presentation) of the Kid President clip below...and will look to make a better version of it.

21st Century Learners - What are the changes?

These are some of the changes/drivers that we have discussed as a team. Not a definitive list, rather they add to Derek from Core Ed's (Ubiquity, Connectedness and Agency.)

Interactivity: Students learning by doing.  Using technology only enhances the hands-on experience; it does not--and cannot--replace human interaction. Students look to the "teacher” who has the expertise or passion to lead their learning.

Multi processing/multi-tasking...Students can process information from multiple sources, even though there is more information, students can deal with this. We need to create ways to engage them with the curriculum, where they have to make important decisions every half-second, and have multiple streams of data coming in, and give them goals that they want to reach but wonder if they actually can, and beat a really tough game and pass the course....just like they do in games.

Gamification - Providing learning conditions that promote these ideas from gaming: Instant feedback on ideas and choices, failing forward rapidly, problem solving, and taking risks. Games provide a safe environment for children to explore these, and see their results instantly.

Collaboration and Connectedness - Personal technology is common in their learning but the desire to learn socially in collaborative environments remains important for these learners. Having access to expertise from anywhere and any knowledge about anything, instantly at their fingertips, is an expectations. Learners also see themselves as content generators, they have an audience and can share content with them. They value being a part of connected environment.  

Engagement - moving students beyond being mere participants in the class to become active learners and discoverers.  They have the ability to multi-task and can engage in lots of tasks at one time.  

Kids as Digital Natives -

• grow up and into a digital world of speed and instantaneity; being digital natives
• through using the digital tools they are processing, thinking and applying knowledge differently that changes the way the brain develops physically
• They are able to parallel process and multi task switching easily from one task to another
• Need to receive information fast, go for the graphics first preferring games over serious learning

Competencies and Dispositions

We have moved beyond the point where content is the important thing to learn, and now…its about what you can do with what you know. 

There is a growing mis-match between what the education sector is doing, and what the world is requiring. The “talent being developed, and the the talent that is needed”.

The challenge for us as educators comes back to some fundamental questions:

1. what skills should we be focussing on developing in our learners?

2. what are the implications for what we teach?

3. what are the implications for how we teach?

I agreed with what he is saying, but to agree means accepting the challenge of figuring out an alternative, which isn’t easy. I think that within schools a discussion of what we really would like children to learn, what we actually believe is essential for them…would be a great step. Not what is mandated (not just National Standards), but answering the question of what is important and therefore worth spending time on. In our context these skills and competencies could have come through our Inquiry…but that isn’t functioning as it should anymore. 

So what skills are important?

We were given a few sites to go check out, and several competencies kept coming through:

- Critical thinking

- Collaboration

- Creativity/Curiosity

- Communication

Others that resonated were:

- Grit (I like this…life can be tough, learning can be hard…gotta have Grit!)

- Adaptability

- Self regulation

The whole area of Digital Citizenship/Digital literacy, and the embedded skills within, are also important. While not competencies, the skills are needed, and need to be taught. 

Core Ed has then left us with the challenge of considering each competency, and asking 3 questions.

1. Why is this skill important?

2. How might it be developed?

3. What does success look like?

A learner's perspective

The first part of my Modern Learning Practice PLD is looking at learners. This is the first of 4 sections relating to Rethinking  Learners.

What expectations do our students have? And how do can we meet them?

http://www.leavingtolearn.org/

Some of these questions resonated with me.

Do I have real choice about what, where and how I learn?

This is interesting as I think it is easy to say ‘yes’…but the choice being offered isn’t real. Lots of our classes have versions of ‘Must Do/Can Do’ independent tasks…but they are still a teacher directed affair. Getting some input/voice from the learners would be a good first step in changing that.

Do I have opportunities to apply what I am learning in real-world settings and contexts?

We are at a bit of a crossroads at our school with Inquiry Learning…where the learning had become more 'research', with little real learning or action happening as a result. I can see ‘real’ inquiry as being a great vehicle for providing real-life issues and problems to solve…and the chance to apply all the great stuff learnt in and out of school.

I started to consider what my students would say, and how I could improve/change what happens to better meet the aims of the questions...built myself a little table. Could be a great self-review exercise for our teaching teams. What parts of their programmes need a tweak? What are we doing well?

We were directed to have a look at the Learner Charter from Future Lab

http://archive.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Learners_Charter.pdf

I think unpacking what this could look like at Primary level would be great. If we viewed it as what the education system as a whole should be fostering, then what is our role in the early part of schooling? 

It is interesting reading…and my first response was to consider myself as a learner, but not as a child-learner. What a growth mindset environment a school would be IF these criteria applied to us as ‘learners’. Personalising the learning, the systems for teachers at school is something I have started to look more at…and this fits so well.  

A part of the charter reads...

As a Learner I expect:

To have access to people who are able to develop and extend my understanding in my chosen areas

This sounds like a great Teaching as Inquiry PLD programme to me…where the school, or school leaders, are available to help facilitate teachers to find the people or resources that they need to develop their skill/practice in a chosen area. 

Core Ed leaves us with a challenge to interview and engage with children, preparing and asking them a series of questions such as...

What are the things that most excite you about your learning?

How do you learn best? How is this catered for in your time at school?

What things make you really engaged with what you do? Examples?

Where do you complete most of your assignment work? What works best for you?

How important is it to you that you have choice over what you study?

1. select a group of students who you think may represent the 'typical' view of learners in your context and invite them to have a conversation with you

2. record their thoughts and share them in summary form

3. reflect on anything that emerged for you through this process that (a) may have come as a surprise and/or (b) suggests something that you may be able to immediately change to meet expectations?

A job for Monday!

Modern Learning Practice - PLD w Core Ed

Over the first 2 terms of the year our school Leaders team are engaging with Core Ed in a Modern Learning Practice course.
As we are just starting to make changes at school, we hope this course will build nicely on the work of 2013/2014 when classes started to work differently, learnings from uLearn 14, and our session with Mark Osborne at the start of the year.
While some of the 'activities' to complete are meant to surface discussions, we intend to use them as practically as possible. The first 'presentation' we have to make is about selling our 'future school' as a great place for learners. This may just be a hypothetical, but our idea is to actually run with it, and use it at a parent evening.

I'll be using the blog to keep a track of my thoughts, things I want to investigate further, things to trial...and things to question.