Teaching

Spring

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Along with Spring in Melbourne, we get a two week break from school.  We ask our students to reflect at the end of term, so I thought I would have a go:

A smattering of what I learnt this term and a few examples (well OK, I  knew most before this but saw them in action over the past term) :

  • Leaving kids to make their own mistakes and successes is very powerful learning – for students as well as teachers.  Teaching is messy.
    We embarked on creating Movies and games for the ACMI ScreenIt competition with some Year 5/6’s and I was amazed by watching their processes, the struggles, the challenges and a few triumphs.    One of the teachers involved said “It was much easier when we could say, “Turn to page 5 and read this passage” , but this is exciting”.  This was a huge learning curve for our community, the technical skills were new and the access to equipment was limited, so a large degree of time and resource management was required.  Patience, resilience, perseverance all traits that were spotted in use by both teachers and student.   Allowing the time for experimentation, mistakes and resolutions is vital.   The process, the journey are more important than the finished products.
  • Being a networked educator is a bonus for both the teacher and the student – as already stated in previous posts, students deciding to publish their unfinished narratives for reader imput and receiving feedback from a real author – such great stuff.   My PLN has been an amazing source of support, inspiration and challenges and there have been many opportunities to share these.  I really cannot imagine my teaching life without the stimulus this provides.   Also this term Teachmeets have thrived in Melbourne and I am constantly enthused by the people I meet there ad the things I learn.
  • Technology failures can be a major disincentive –  the frustration felt when an activity cannot continue as it is THE hour when the internet slows to a trickle, or the extra little program required to make Kodu work on a PC is not loaded on the devices we want to use, or despite careful planning a saved file is irretrievable.   Once again patience and flexibility are required.
  • Student ownership breeds motivation – the second round of students embarking on the Student Blogging challenge with amazing confidence and prior knowledge, having watched their peers through the process earlier in the year.  They still need to be coached in the incidental skills but they want to be part of the on-line world, they ‘get-it’.
  • Our plans and purpose are not always clear to all stakeholders – we received feedback from our parent community that they do not quite understand the emphasis we place on engaging in the Web 2 world.   We need to improve our communication and ensure we always have a clear intention for our actions.  We have very clear rationale, sound educational purpose but this needs to be portrayed to families who have not experienced this before and are fearful of some of the possible impacts of these changes, fearful that in our attempts to use these tools we are diminishing our emphasis on ‘basic’ skills that they are familiar with.
  • Teachers love learning too – we extended our Professional learning community this term and explored Personal Inquiries – staff making decisions about what they wanted to explore, applying it to their daily practice and then sharing it within our community.  The results (not all shared yet) were as diverse as the group and the messages were powerful.   Make learning inquiry based, self-directed and social and you have a wonderful  mixture.

What’s happening?

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Picture this :
  • Connor comments on Matt’s first blog post and gives him advice as an experienced  (6 months) blogger and wishing him ‘Good Luck’
  • A Year 3/4 class participate in a global project with schools in South Africa/NZ/USA/UK/Canada and Chile using a Wiki and Edmodo to share stories
  • Sue comments on Simon’s post with his published story, encouraging his writing
  • Mary posts to Edmodo publicising her new blog post (having returned to blogging after a lapse of a month or so) and responds to a homework tasks by sharing her response on-line
  • Teachers post comments on student blogs, praising, encouraging and suggesting
  • Robyn  and Mark trouble shoot  issues with saving and exporting Kodu projects for entering to Screen It competition by consulting the on-line help
  • Joe uses the chat feature on Skoodle (SuperClubsPlus) to get help from a classmate correcting his spelling words from home (he left the sheet at school)
  • A new blogger asks for help from classmates on Edmodo
  • A teacher posts on Edmodo reminding students to support a worthy cause they have been discussing
  • Brenden requests to use You-tube to look up  a movie how to create a bridge using Kodu (game making software)
  • Teachers sharing resources and ideas via a Yammer community
  • A student adds a page to his blog linking to his YouTube channel (created at home) with ‘How-To’ videos he has created.  (An opportunity here for discussion about Terms of Service that he is breaking)
  • A new season of Quad-blogging begins as the US school year opens
  • Students publish their thoughts about their current animation project on Edmodo
  • Staff share resources and ideas on a Yammer network
  • A teacher emails parents, praising student work, highlighting ways they can be involved, raising awareness of events and blog posts
  • A Year 3 student emails me on the weekend asking for his SuperclubsPlus log in details as he left them at school
  • Class teachers constantly posting to Twitter to advertise their new blog posts and connecting with other educators
  • A group of students working on a collaborative project decide to create a data chart to itemise their roles and responsibilities
  • An author responds to the draft writing of students that they have published on their blogs for feedback
  • The mother of a fresh blogger responds to her son’s writing
  • A new class blog connecting with a buddy class at a nearby school to promote commenting skills
  • A teacher from another school responds to a student’s post
  • Sarah uses Edmodo to ask her classmates for opinions as to the language to select for Year 7 next year
  • Susan, a student from another school introduces herself to Samara from our school as another Student blogging Challenge participant
  • Sue W, the organiser of the Student Blogging challenge comments on student blogs, welcoming them to the challenge.
Do you get the idea? A fortnight in our on-line world.  So it made me think ….  Each conversation can be considered in regard to Richard Olsen’s Model.

The purpose of this white paper is to use the Collective Knowledge Construction Model to identify strategies by which knowledge construction is facilitated when learning online. And, secondly to encourage teachers, school leaders and other stakeholders to reimagine the pedagogical, technical and contextual consequences that arise from teaching and learning in technology rich environments.

Collective Knowledge Construction

I find it helpful to refer to this and ponder where we are and where we might direct the learning so we continue to explore the possibilities created by our involvement in the online world.  Where to next?

 

Sand Pit Time

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I like to allow students ‘sandpit’ time when encountering new tools or websites.  I am finding that they need this time to explore the features, play, experiment, discover and wonder. We can then move on to more purposeful tasks and they will be familiar with the tool as well as ready to use it without some of the distractions that occur when first introduced.

Most recently, I have applied this with the introduction of Edmodo to a group of Year 5/6 students.  We gave them a few ideas,  two group codes, but really did not teach them any skills.

Progressively, as they have explored and experimented, we have had to monitor or mediate  a few incidents, but in general, they have done a great job.  I believe that the management of any issues in this arena is wonderful as the ‘teachable moments’ that occur are very valid and immediate.  We have started to create non-compulsory opportunities for them to use Edmodo to communicate about their learning .

They are ready to offer each other help

What I have loved is the fact that they are ready and confident to suggest uses for the tool.

The teachers are experimenting too, responding to notes, creating polls, creating Homework tasks, creating and awarding badges.  Also, a lovely by-product occurred when a student was away from school and contacted her classmates on Edmodo and engaged with them from her sick bed.

Throughout the day many students and her teachers responded and wished her well.

This process reinforces many of my beliefs about the use of technology, namely

  • play is an important element of learning
  • most often the mechanics of a tool do not need to be explained to children (with obvious exceptions)
  • students will support each other
  • teachable moments occur when we give students ‘free’ rein
  • the uses of tools can best be explored by being in the space – having a go

I guess Sandpit time is similar to the ‘Stimulate’ and ‘Incubate’ stages in The Educations Departments Innovation Model .  Despite these describing much larger issues, I can see a correlation to smaller events like those described above.

“The Department’s model of innovation comprises three stages:

  • Stimulate – system level reflection. Look at what’s happening and what’s been tried. Explore new ways and add new ideas.
  • Incubate – local level action. Test ideas and develop the ones that work. Support change leadership and create communities of practice.
  • Accelerate – system learning. Share what has been learned and scale-up the ideas that worked.”

 

Let’s see how the next stage goes ….

 

Time

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“I never have enough time to … ”

I know there is general angst amongst teachers that there is never enough time – never enough time to cover the curriculum demands, never enough time to feel like we are doing justice to our ideals.  I know this is a reality.  It is a reality that is perhaps having a negative effect on our students.

The theme of time is often mentioned.  Henrietta Miller wrote of always rushing, starting from personal experience with her son then considering the classroom.  Watching the video Deadlines, highlights how important time can be in the creative and learning process.

Not long ago, I was placed in the position where I had to prepare something creative in a short period of time.   I found the time constraint paralysing.  I must note that there were many others given this task and they produced amazing results under the pressure of the time limit.    I was not one of them: my learning style wanted me to have time to go away, consider, tinker and then produce.   Obviously the adrenalin of a short-time frame can be positive for some, but I suggest not for all and definitely not all the time.

It made me think about the children in our classrooms who face similar situations. Do we treat them fairly when we prescribe quite tight timelines? I know some of our students have told us that they get annoyed when they are asked to move on to another task, just because the timetable says it is time to move on. I know this leads to many practical difficulties when accountability and schedules are pressing on our minds, however we can make adjustments. Henrietta says “…since I know that it is the learning that counts not the finished product. I reflect that I must find time for them to enjoy the process even if we have no product”.  There are times in our lives when we do have to adhere to deadlines, work to the clock, but I think we could be doing things better.

Richard Olsen of Ideas lab says learning should be – “self-directed, inquiry based and socially constructed” and I agree with him.   In my mind this automatically means we need to free students and teachers of some of the time constraints that have evolved over the years within school routines.  When we segment days into little boxes, it is hard to work towards these goals. I would welcome any comments … Do you work well under time pressure?  Can you see opportunities for us to allow more flexibility in the school day? Are you already giving your students this opportunity? What are the constraints or limitations? What elements of freedom, playfulness and fun do you provide in your classroom?

What they learned … we may never know

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The one that struck me amongst this set of lovely thoughts about teaching was the guy who said “I didn’t learn how to speak Spanish, even though she was my Spanish teacher, but I did learn how to be be myself”.

When I look back at the teachers who made an impression on me, I do not remember what they taught me, I remember how they treated me. I remember the ones who I felt respected by and who treated me as a whole person, and I have awful memories of a few who were unjust.

The unexpected impact that a teacher can have is quite awesome – we never know how much impact a small few words may have on the students we talk to, or how our simple actions can affect them. The simple acknowledgement of the importance of something they say, a recognition of effort, leaving them alone when they need space or providing an encouragement or affirmation at a time of confusion.

We should never underestimate the potential of the impact of any of our actions or words. Many may forget us, but you never know what that spark is ready to ignite.

Thanks to @melcashen for tweeting this video