A Facebook Classroom Culture

5 Years ago I attended a breakout at the Ulearn conference on school organisational systems (I forget the speaker). Since then I've noticed how we can run our school's with the same apparent structure but, when you examine exactly how the leadership 'works' you will find something quite different - especially after working in three different schools now.

This infographic, from Bonkers World, got me thinking. It shows how major corporations structure their companies in quite different ways. It's interesting that they all share relative success, too. Even though some have a top down scenario and others are more centric and collaborative.

2 questions come to mind. Which one would we would like to work within? Which model would empower and inspire it's members? Which model would retain staff? Which structure achieves the best from it's employees?

It also made me wonder how my class is structured? And does the leadership model change during the day / week?

There is a need, I think, for the class to be run like Microsoft at times - very much with me at the top directing, although without the 'guns' I hope. Teacher's do need to teach and explicitly pass skills, information and their content knowledge through to the students. But, something I am trying to instill within the culture of our class is a model similar to Facebook, or Apple. It's one where the students are driven and inspired by a central motivating force that's outside of the teacher. They are more likely to seek help and assistance from each other rather than the teacher.

This is the philosophy of empowerment that I think is the central goal of personalised learning - student's making decisions, helping other students and working together is the aspiration I have for our class. And it's the culture of the class that we're creating.