Expeditionary Learning

It's nearly the end of 2017 and I have retreated to the coolness of our temporary living room (currently in the midst of a major house renovation), to escape the insanely hot afternoon sun.  The current dry spell that we are experiencing provides me with the perfect opportunity to catch up on Jo Bolar's Mathematical Mindset online course.  The latter half of Term 4 was filled to the brim with assessment, report writing, reflections and meetings - leaving little time to squeeze in anything else.  So now I am on a mission to complete as many parts of this course as I can.  Hopefully, I may even manage to finish it before the start of the Term 1 next year!

Catching Up

I am currently watching an interesting interview that Jo Bolar had with Carol Dweck, and Jo asked Carol if she had examples of schools that implemented her work successfully.  Carol replied that many are - giving the work of Stephanie Fryberg and Ron Berger as two exceptional examples.  Fryberg's work was on a Native American reservation in the state of Washington and Berger was the founder of Expeditionary Learning that embed growth mindset around students' projects.  I felt an urge to explore this further and subsequently lost a few hours of study time, but gathered a few gems along the way.

Ron Berger is the same guy that travelled across the states to share 'Austin's butterfly' - the movie that illustrated the importance of constructive feedback.

Gems for my treasure box

The Expeditionary Learning education model refers to all students and educators as being part of a 'crew'.  Everyone is responsible for pitching in and supporting each other achieve their personal best.  Their moto is, "We are are crew, not passengers".  Expeditionary Learning (EL) schools embed growth mindset around students' projects - many of which are in the community.  At the completion of the project, the students give presentations to the community, highlighting their struggles and the obstacles that they've had to overcome.  While watching a video on the EL school site, I heard that the students in EL schools are "on a mission to contribute as scholars and citizens to a better world".  This got me thinking...

Giving Feedback

The learners use models and rubrics (see below) to 'enhance their ability' through critique and feedback which is guided by the norms, "Be kind, be specific, be helpful."

Here's a link to the approach that EL school's .  I know that I'll be returning to this site frequently over the next few months to gather ideas and identify best practice for supporting my learners to give (and receive) constructive feedback.

Standards

With the change in government, New Zealand schools have now been able to wash their hands of the National Standards.  This is wonderful news, but it also brings about a sense of uncertainty.  Since 2010, we have used the language of National Standards for reporting and assessment.  It has driven, (but also narrowed), our learning pathway.  Will it be difficult to shift away from this mindset?

EL education identified that the US core standards made it difficult for teachers to consider high standards because they were more concerned about covering the content.  As a result, Berger found that: 

One consequence of this is students feel more and more like there isn’t time for mistakes or revisions, or editing.  They are often in a rush to complete assignments and they are missing the value of the work. And when one doesn’t understand the value of the work, maintaining true pride in successes and a growth mindset in failures are difficult to own.    (Source)

So, my takeaway from this is to look at slowing down the pace so that the learners are able to have time to work through the challenges, identify their mistakes - and have the time to recraft, redesign, redo.  As Carol Dweck suggests, growth mindset is not about the final outcome, but it's about what happened in the learning journey.

This delightful distraction from my online learning has now completed it's circle.  Now, let's get back to Jo Bolar and her interview with Carol Dweck.

Resources to check out:

• Grades 3-8 English Language Arts Curriculum
• Beautiful Work - Project based learning
• EL - Our Approach

Maths Madness

Games, Games and More Games

The focus during a recent ELT session was about maths - maths games to be more precise.  Games that required the players to race each other to get to 100;  Now that I have been here at OrmPS for over a year now, I am developing a greater awareness of the importance of games in education.   Language can be a barrier to learning, but this can be overcome through games.

"PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for "educational" toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a "message." Often these "tools" are less interesting and stimulating than the child's natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning."

- Joanne E. Oppenheim (Kids and Play, ch. 1, 1984)

Ideas to Follow Up

These are some notes that I made during the session.   Now, looking back over my draft some months later, I am wrestling with why I jotted down this short list.  This is where a portal would be great :)

Multiplication - How Close to 100?

This game will encourage the learners to get an understanding of arrays - which is important.

DATs what has made a difference?

In 2017, our Spiral of Inquiry was around our maths programme and learning in the habitats.  Every week we were required to reflect and use this reflection to guide our design for the following week.  I feel that providing time to reflect more deeply on the learning that took place (by both the learners and LCs), and discuss the highs and lows with my team did make a difference.  We frequently had 'aha' moments when what we thought would happen, took a different path, which in turn lead to a completely different journey to that which we had anticipated.

Notice... Think... Wonder...

To borrow thinking from Science and apply it to Maths.  Such a great way to pause, reflect and move forward with our design for learning.  I'll have to remember this.   As always, so many good thoughts and reflections are recorded in personal blogs.  We need to make sure that we provide time to reread posts from the past as they often contain gems to use in the future.

Never Ending Learning

Just One More...

At a time in my life when I should be taking on less, I find myself taking on more.   I'm realising now that I am my own worst enemy.  I just can't turn a blind eye to new opportunities in learning and now I find myself signed up to yet another online learning community - Learning Creative Learning.

http://learn.media.mit.edu/lcl/

This pathway of my learning journey has only just begun and I am excited about what lies ahead with the opportunity to be connected with such a wide range of people across the globe.  

Mitchel Resnick from MIT Media Lab, is the man behind LCL.   Resnick is passionate about what he refers to as 'kindergarten learning' and how as children we are creators and makers, yet this behaviour disappears when we start school and, unfortunately, it is starting to disappear in the kindergarten years and early childhood centres too due to the belief that we need to engage in formal education at an earlier age if we are to be successful in the future.  

Friedrich Froebel

It was interesting to read in chapter 1 of Mitchel's book, Lifelong Kindergarten, that in 1837, when Friedrich Froebel opened the world's first kindergarten in Germany, he had no idea that it would be a way to encourage the creative thinking that many educators believe is an important feature in 21st century education.

          

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Fr%C3%B6bel

Froebel designed a set of wooden toys - 'Froebel's Gifts' that along with singing and dancing, became important aspects of this child-centered approach to early education.  So different to the dictorial style of learning that was prevalent in the schools at that time.  Unfortunatley, some would say that the schools of today have not changed.

Foebel's Gifts

Lifelong Kindergarten

Mitchel Resnick would like to see life being like kindergarten - where the 4 'Ps' - projects, passion, peers and play are an integral part of our daily lives.  I began my happy dance when I read this because the creativity and sense of play that we associate with kindergarten is the link to what I've been trying to identify with when thinking about 'play-based' learning.     

Ormiston Primary cannot be a 'forest school' in the true sense because our environment simply doesn't lend itself to be one.  It can, however, have an approach to learning like a kindergarten.  A kindegarten that encourages creating, experimenting, refining, reflecting and imagining.   This is so exciting.  Let the learning begin!

Harko Brown - NZCER Games in Learning Conference

Games for Learning - Learning From Our Past

Harko was the first speaker to kick-start the NZCER Games for Learning conference and his laid-back 'kiwi' approach set the scene for a few days of inquiry, observing and most of all - play!   He spoke about the traditional games that he played as a child when visiting his marae and how these cultural games have begun to disappear over time.  Harko also saw children playing and enjoying their time when on the marae, but not finding school as inspirational.

Have games been lost?  Is there still a divide between school and home/marae?

Harko's presentation left me excited at the prospect of exploring games from the past, then reintroducing them so that our learners become connected with their own learning through play.

21st Century Learning

Are We Making a Change?

We are now in the 17th year of the 21st century.   For 17 years I've heard, read and watched many explanations about why we need to make a change to the way that we learned in the past.

I am a product of the education system from 1970-1985 then later from 2001-2005.  You might also say that I am a product of the current education system as an educator from 2006.  I have watched my own children travel along the education conveyer belt and although they have been given the opportunity to learn from some wonderful educators, I have often wondered how different is their learning from that which I was part of over 30 years ago.

Are we shifting enough in order to make a change?

We do not know what the future brings, so it's increasingly difficult to prepare our learners for tomorrow.  We do know, however, that today's learner needs to be a critical thinker and problem-solver.   They also need to be able to adapt to a changing world - to learn and relearn.

This video provides an overview of what I need to take consider when designing learning so that I am supporting the young learners of today to be prepared, to the best of my ability, for tomorrow.

Design Thinking & Preparing for the Real World

Revamping iExplore

If you have been reading my previous posts, you may have noticed a trend towards developing the curiosity and innovative thinking within our learners.   Over the past few months, I have been ideating my own exploration through the vast range of online resources that are currently available in:

• Design Thinking
• Problem Solving
• STEM & STEAM
• Maker Movement

The following TEDx video of Co Barry illustrates very clearly how educators may not be challenging and extending every learner in the classroom.  This is where design thinking comes in.  It's exciting to think about providing complex and challenging experiences for my learners with opportunities to be problem solvers, innovators, designers, collaborators - and all the other catch-phrases that we use when considering the 21st-century learner. 

Watch the video and reflect on your learners.   Are you catering for their real-world needs?

Towards the end of Term 2, I visited Nick Pattison at Kauri Flats School.  This is a newly opened school which is still in its development stages.  Nick (formerly with Rongomai School) is spearheading design thinking (and learning) at Kauri Flats with amazing authentic projects such as breeding flounder and placing locator chips on wheelie bins.  This is powerful learning - working directly with an industry in the real world.

I was blown away by the level of learning that was taking place - under Nick's guidance and obviously as a result of his connections with various industries.   The learners (at many age levels) could articulate their thinking and were excited to share how they progressed through the 'design thinking' pathway.   I could clearly see that many of the learners were designing their own learning and taking ownership of their education.

Learners valuing and leading their learning would be my utopia learning environment.  We aren't there yet, but the path is becoming clearer.

Encouraging Curiosity

Creating Questioning Learners

While I sit here in the warmth of the winter sun, writing report comments about the learners in my collaborative whanau, my mind drifts towards what possible learning opportunities we (my #oresome team of learning coaches in LH6) can design for Term 3.  The OrmPS focus will be Curious.  A word that I quickly associate with curiosity is questioning and this links to a problem that has been discussed with my fellow LCs several times over the course of Terms 1 and 2.   We have noticed that many of our learners are either asking low level questions, or unfortunately, no questions at all - unless specifically encouraged by a learning coach!   I'm finding this situation very concerning.   Is this a result of having a large number of English Language Learners (ELLs) who are not confident in asking a question in english?  Or, after five and six years of schooling, have we (educators) snuffed out the wonder and curiosity that existed in the pre-schooler?

CORE Education's Trevor Bond provides some disappointing statistics and informative suggestions

on how to transform our current learners into active learners who ask questions.

Building Question Askers, Not Question Answerers

The following data from Bond's video illustrates how questioning decreases over the time that children attend an educational environment:

• 50% prior to going into any form of schooling
• 10% once they are at preschool
• 0.08% when at high school 

This means that within the learning environment, a question answerer will only be "sharing what's in their head" whereas a 'question asker' will be "somebody who can think, find information, get the things that they need to solve problems, to think deeper and wider, to see new perspectives".

"If we go on doing what we have always done, we will go on getting what we have always got". (Bond)

In other words, we're not content with what we currently have, then we need to redesign what we are currently doing in order to raise the number and quality of questions that our learners are asking.

Provocations

Bond suggests that we should be providing experiences to create stimuli.  He says that as result of responding to that stimuli, we will create that moment of cognitive dissonance.  This new information can't link to their current schema and questions should start to form in their head.

Provocations during iExplore would be an excellent place to start a change.   In LH6 we currently enable our learners to create and design their own iExplore, but I have noticed that many, even after being involved in an iExplore 2-3 times, are still not delving deep in the question phase of their iExplore planning.  I've also noticed that it's often the same handful of learners who are asking the questions - when either in small, larger or whole habitat groups.

With some additional time given to our weekly design for learning, we could plan for several provocations each week.  Rather than 'biting off more than we can chew' and trying to provide provocations to suit 100 learners, I feel that it would would be best to identify a group of learners and 'know' where their current knowledge and interests lie, then design a provocation to 'hook' them in.  This might help to ensure that our provocations are linking with their prior knowledge and schema.

Creating Questioners

Bond's research suggests that 80-90% of the children are asking questions that are irrelevant or missing vocab that's needed to make the question work.  Question needs to be taught.   With this in mind, further development of how to ask questions needs further development.  I've requested Bond's 'waka graphic' and I'll also take a closer look at his questioning wiki.

Points to Consider

• What negative signals am I giving to the learners?
• What is my reaction and body language to the questions that learners are asking?
• Make time - don't be so busy that questions are ignored 
• Provide a space (Wonder Wall) to 'store' those questions that are not relevant to the current conversation
• Make time to explore and answer questions from the 'Wonder Wall'
• Create an environment where the learners do not have to put their hand up to 'negotiate a right' to ask a question 

Further reading:

Neil Postman - Teaching as a subversive activity - question being our most important intellectual tool.

Minecraft - Building Our Communities

Learning Through Minecraft

Are educators reluctant to use Minecraft because they do not understand it?  Is that a good reason to not use it at all?

Disobedient Teacher

Ability to Learn

This book should be arriving in my letter box this week and I'm looking forward to having the time over the Term 1 holidays (aka 'non-contact time') to read and understand why Ings feels so strongly about why schools need to make a shift away from the assessment and box ticking that school has become.  

During Ings' interview with the New Zealand Herald, he talks about "putting children in the tractor seat and allowing them to drive their learning".   This idea is not unfamiliar to me and it's something that I've been working on with greater intensity for at least the past five years.  The one wall that I keep facing, however, is the wall of assessment and reporting.   I find it difficult to have the time and energy to be innovative and/or let the learner's interests drive their learning when we are constrained to assessment and reporting against assessment within the areas of English and Mathematics - not Science, Technology The Arts or P.E.

Watch this NewsHub interview with Ings to help understand a little more about his views on why education needs to change:

Click here to view

Ings believes that learning is both emotional and cognitive.  He also believers that if a child loses belief in their ability to learn, then we (educators) have lost them.   I know that it's going to take more than just reading a book, but if it becomes a stepping stone for helping me to enable at least one child to believe that they have the ability to learn, then spending my holiday time to read 'Disobedient Teacher' will have been worth it.

NRich Maths Learning

Low Threshold High Ceiling

Nrich Maths

Over the past 3-4 years, I have been referring to Nrich Maths for ideas to include in my learning programme.   Nrich offer rich tasks which develop deep understanding of mathematical concepts and this is why I like them so much.   It's not just about knowledge of number, but it's about how to use our knowledge.

Nrich liken their LTHC tasks to entering a room.   Everyone goes through the same door, but the activity that you do inside the room is not restricted to one.  Some activities are "unproblematic, while others are more challenging".  There's an opportunity for the less confident learners to move through the activity within their comfort zone, whereas the more confident are able to explore and challenge themselves.   However, which ever way the learner wishes to go, we are all in the same 'room' so each learner has an opportunity to see and hear what others are doing.

Another reason for using LTHC activities is the element of surprise.  No longer am I controlling the outcome with only one possible answer.  Instead, the learners can go as high as they like because I am no longer putting them into a preconceived box of what I think they are able to do.  

It's a 'room' where the learners can feel safe.  Safe to be curious - to explore and be challenged. 

Digital Technologies in Learning

Designing Blended Learning Experiences

I've had an interest in blended learning for a long time.   The use of digital technologies provides us all with the ability to access and produce information in a variety of ways, e.g. video, photos, interactive websites, apps and text.  Digital technologies also enable learning to be accessible to all learners - language or a disability is not a barrier to learning.

Initially, when introduced to digital technology (or ICT as it was known to be 10 years ago), my class and I were allocated 40 minutes once a week to visit our ICT room.   It was a case of let's go and use a computer to learn maths or literacy in an interactive way for 20 minutes - because let's be honest, it took the other 20 minutes for my 7 year olds to line up, walk across to the other side of the school, get their swivel chair to the correct height and log on to the computer.  For many teachers, this often became too difficult and unfortunately, some reduced their visits to the ICT room, especially if difficulties with the hardware and network were also added to the mix.

Today, I was able to attend Digital Technologies PD, that was organised by the Connected Learning Advisory/Te Ara Whītiki.   I had not personally signed up for this seminar, so I was curious about the contents and what I would learn.

My morning workshop unpacked digital citizenship, digital literacy and digital fluency.  I was heavily involved in learning around digital citizenship five years ago at my previous school as we ventured down the road of GAFE and BYOD.  My questions were - "Had our thinking changed in any way and what was the difference between digital fluency and digital literacy?"

The first activity required us to think of all the ways that we use digital technology in our daily lives.

A fast paced workshop with Ann and Tania (Slide Presentation)

This highlighted the fact that digital technology is all around us so even the computer-shy should understand that they are users of digital technology - one day the user of a wringer washing machine, the next, an electronic machine.  That's what technology is all about.  Making a change to meet the need and making our lives a little easier.

Further links to explore:

• Digital Citizenship - Resources to support schools
• Designing Blended Learning -  A sandpit of activities to explore and use.
• How Kawakawa Primary are using blogs for learning - Ashton's Blog

How has technology changed my life... how has it changed the life of an educator - or learner?

Comma vs Full Stop

The above quote is taken from Coldplay's (Chris Martin) well known song, 'Every Teardrop is a Waterfall'.  It made me think about my role as an educator at OrmPS and how my actions be a comma, not a full stop.  

Like a comma, how can I ensure that whatever I do is in addition to, and supportive of whatever is already there; rather than a full stop - an ending?

Inspirational Quotes

This was one of the videos that we watched on Day 1 of the 2017 Staff Call-back days.   It's one that I will return to watch when I need a mental hug.

Co-Producing the Learning

I'm so glad that I wasn't expecting to gently unwind from the summer break and merge slowly back into the fast lane because my first day with the other educators at OrmPS was definitely a case of hitting the ground running with little time to pause and take a breath.   

  

Along with getting to welcome some of the new Learning Coaches that are joining our #oresome team, today's timetable covered a range of learning and refresher moments.   The collaborative games had us up and moving, videos gave us an opportunity to learn from people outside our community and conversations within the room provided food for thought.

There were many 'ah-ha' moments throughout the day, e.g. how games are a fun way to encourage learning (and recall); what connections we have with each other (no matter how random they may be); the whys and hows of narrative assessment (mental note to self that I will complete more of these in 2017);  tools to use when constructing a narrative assessment; what happens during the numeracy stages/steps etc.

Heath kick-started the day with some videos to provoke thinking around the changes that have been made in education, and how it's important that we continue to review and reflect on our practice so that we can...

Guarantee every learner engages in innovative, personalised world class learning

Following this were many 'gems', but one that shines the most for me were the words spoken by Tony Mackay (Executive Director of the Centre for Strategic Education (Melbourne) and President of the Global Education Leaders Programme, (GELP).  Refer to the following video from 2.25minutes where Tony says,

"improving learning outcomes in an ILE by not just doing better, but we need to think about learning differently."

He also said,

"young learners of today need to be able to thrive and survive in a 21st century environment.   They need to be creative, collaborative, culturally aware and problem solvers."    

I'm excited by this thinking as it leaves the door wide open for educators and learners to move away from the rigid and directed education process that I grew up with.  Instead, we are able to learn in a variety of ways, with an authentic purpose and acknowledgement of everybody's abilities and interests.    As Clive Dimmock said (in the above video),  the learners, teachers and leaders are "co-producing the learning."   This teamwork approach to learning is far more supportive and personalised than traditional learning.   I'm looking forward to working alongside my fellow educators in LH6 to co-produce the learning with each and every one of the 82+ learners that we meet next week so that they will be able to 'thrive and survive in a 21st century environment'.