D24 - Educational Trends

Educational trends or initiatives come and go all the time.  As educators we like to keep up these as we all know education is forever changing.

Today's post from the 30 Day Reflective Blogging Challenge is what educational trends captures your attention and why?  I know for me it is anything where I can teach more meaningful for the students such as the work from Jeff Anderson or personalising learning with a strong link to LwDT.

However, I think the bigger question isn't about what educational trends that capture you, is how much of it do you get to try out and use authentically to make it your own before moving onto another trend?

For me and my experiences I have seen a lot of trends come and go quickly through our school.  For the trends that have stuck with me, has been the PLP (personal learning plan) which the children have all their individual targets to work on and how Jeff Anderson delivers his lessons with a strong reading/writing link.

It is up to the schools to take a good look at these trends, see how it fits them, and give their staff enough time to experiement, get it wrong, play around further, discuss it, make it their own, keep the parts that fits, then move onto the next.  The saying that springs to mind is: quality not quantity!

 

Day 23 - Community Involvement

As a school we always have someone coming or going through the school whether it is to support the Environmental Group, talk to a syndicate, view the school, or support learners in their classes.  

Reflecting upon how I meaningfully have the community involved I instantly thought about social action. As an teacher I haven't had much success with social action.  We've always thrown the idea out there and got the children working away at it but they loose steam as they are waiting on a response from someone or it didn't quite workout the way they wanted.  This is all a part of the learning process with social action however can feel like a waste.  Again throwing caution to the wind, social action is on the cards again for next term!

So what do I define as meaningful involvement?
This can come in multiple forms:

• Sending an email to gain knowledge/information from an expert
• Visiting a site to learn more about what they do and/or help out for the day
• Experts coming to visit us
• Children getting involved in worth causes like the SPCA cupcake day 

And the list goes on.  I believe community involved is a vital part of learning.  A lot of children want to change the world, for our social action this year we are looking what we can do either at a class/syndicate, school, or community level. The children are looking to change the mindset of it's not just about fundraising it is about doing more.

A bit more information about our Social Action for Term 4

As next term our overarching theme is "Let's get Accelerated" instead of doing careers, like we normally do, we thought it meant using their learning targets to do more, push more.  So to motivate the children we watched a TED talk:

Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx

Session 2:
From there we got the children to complete a Bronfenbrenner style diagram with them at the heart of it.  Each level being: me - class - syndicate - school - community.  They were to list the things that concern them.

Session 3:

The next session we got them to get their diagram out again and have a think about what learning they were going to get out of it and tentatively choose a topic.

Session 4:

We emphasised the choosing of a good group that these were groups of 3.  They then chose a topic that they would like to do and start to map out the following:

• Timeline - what were they going to do when (8 week window)
• Holding time - what are they going to do while they are waiting for responses etc.
• Targets - what targets were they going to achieve?
• Learning - what learning are they going to go from this?
• Workshops - what workshops would they like the teachers to run

We are looking towards this week getting the children to cement what they did in session 4 so we can match them to one of the teachers in the house to be their mentor and who they work with for this project.

Day 20 - Curation of Work

Sharing and celebrating the learning of your class is an important aspect of learning however sometimes never gets any further than the walls of your classroom.

Technology has been one way to curate students work and as it becomes more and more accessible the limits is becoming boundless.  Over the years I have experimented with Wiki's, e-portfolios, and last year with a class Weebly.  To be honest, a person who isn't ICT challenged, I found it like putting another subject into my classroom that I didn't have time for.

This year, with the new found motivation through my lovely LwDT teachers Leigh and Barb, I have started up a class blog through Blogger, as we are on the Google platform, to each child having their own blog.  The children are starting to want to blog things about their learning.  

Now the next step is how to build our audience!

Day 13 - Top Tech Tools

I need to explain my approach with my class.  As we all do, we deal with a range of learners, not all tools will suit them or meet the need of how or what they want to do.  With this in mind I take the approach of they are to use the tools that fit what they want to do.  

This being my second year in a BYOD blended e-learning class the learners who I work with, a lot of them spent their first year in a BYOD class, bring their own wealth of apps and knowledge.  There are some in my class that are new to BYOD.  The learners share with each other different apps/tools to try and I also throw my ideas out there too.  Often as a class we review apps to reflect upon it's ability to meet our needs.

After much reflection upon the tools in which I use on a daily basis whether it is to help me teach or learners in my class, I came up with a rather small list:

• Evernote
  Me - record my RTCs, PLD, meeting, and class notes
  Learners - Maths notebook, Inquiry notes
• Camera (iPad, smart phone, digital camera)
  Me - capture moments that I want to record, PE, presentations
  Learners - tutorials, blogging, PE, speeches, recording learning
• Blogger
  Me - blogging whether it is for 30 Day challenge or the class blog
  Learners - achieved learning targets, "ah-ha" moments, reflections
• Google Drive
  Me - sharing files with learners, colleagues, giving feedback, workshop notes
  Learners - collaborative work, sharing files, handing in assignments/home learning
• YouTube
  Me/Learners - flipped lessons, inspiration/motivation for lessons

Unsure of the acronyms that I use, here they are:
RTCs - Registered Teacher Criteria
PLD - Professional Learning Development
BYOD - Bring You Own Device

Day 12 - Back to the Future

I like to plan for the future and look to what I want to do next.  As we all know education is forever changing, just like taking on a university paper this year was something that was planned to do but changed.

The question today is how you envision your teaching changing in 5 years?

• Children will be blogging their achievement/learning progress - or sometime similar to this
• Classes will have their own PLN to source experts to help them develop their projects
• Workshops would be something everyone does - children nominating workshops they need for their learning
• Children being actively involved in the decisions made for their learning and how they're going to learn it based on their needs and interests

A part of this question brings up thoughts of what would I have done, thinking about that, this is what I would like to have done 5 years in the future:

• Ra and I would have developed our version of personalising learning.  This is something I am passionate about and would like to see this well developed and in use.
• Presented this to a wider audience other than the staff
• I am unsure if I am meant for the classroom or management, I would love to have done some time in a curriculum role as a deputy principal to further develop staff professional learning
• Grown my PLN 
• Become a competent blogger to continue to share my love of teaching

We never can plan for what will happen and how things will change.  But for now, this is the plan, the hope.

Day 5 - Picture of my Classroom

Had one of those moments when driving home this afternoon where I got half way there and remembered I forgot to take a picture of my learning environment!

I will upload a picture after looking around in my many photos folders I discovered no pictures of just the space however once I upload the photos you will see what I mean!  Hopefully this will happen on Sunday as I am going to see the children off who are traveling to AIMs for the week.  So, in essence they're coming!

**UPDATE!** Pictures are in below, I will take some when the children are in use.

What do I see?
A some what modern learning environment, with a range of furniture, open plan (being the middle class of 3), flexible space where multiple places for learning.  It's light and airy - huge bi-fold doors that can be opened out onto the deck to continue the learning there.  Has no traditional teacher desk. 

The lovely little boy in the picture is my son - he loves visiting mummy's classroom.

What it looks like in the weekend when there are no children.  Will take some when it's in action tomorrow.

As the pictures I will post have no children in it and of course it is all closed up for the weekend, so a bit of imagination is needed, when it is a hum of learning you will see children working on the ground, up at tables, sharing documents/learning asking for feedback, children working individually, and of course children talking (some on and off task!).  

You would normally find me either sitting at a table with the children talking, helping, or trying out something different.  I tried 81DASH with a small group yesterday and discussed the pros and cons - looking further into it.  The other place you'll find me is taking a workshop either directed by the children or by me.

Something I don't see but would like to
Learners - more cross over in groups to find the experts within the classroom for them to seek help/feedback.
How?  Have toyed with a few ideas on how to make this happen whether it is through a visual aid

As a physical environment - less tables and chairs, a whiteboard somewhere else in the classroom on the wall for another learning space.
Why? Another whiteboard, not a fan of the small workstations as I prefer to stand when I workshop, to create another space for groups whether if they are working with me or each other.
Less tables and chairs - I feel my classroom is crowded by furniture, crazy I know!  When I removed a lot of the furniture in my room one year a funny thing happened - the children talked more, interacted more!