Solo Stations and Student Agency

Within our team teaching programme we're looking at how we can create as many opportunities for students to learn at their own pace and with the right learning goals. This, in itself, is quite a huge ask when you're talking about 58 students and counting. 

One of our favourite tools for learners to know where their understanding is, and what to work on next, is the Solo Taxonomy model. The Solo levels are, and framed for a math's learning goal, in a nut-shell;

Pre  Structural - I'm just starting out.

Uni Structural - I know one thing about the goal.

Multi Structural - I know three or more things about the goal but I'm not sure when or why to use them and I sometimes make mistakes.

Relational - I know three or more things about the goal and I know when and. Why to use them.

Extended Abstracted - I can teach others how to do this and I can use this goal to apply to other goals.

This year we've started using the Solo Taxonomy (See Pam Hook's site for more info) to create differentiated stations within our math's workshops. Here's how we put the levels to use;

When we first run a workshop we work with materials and take the whole group through the learning intention and use buddies to share our ideas and work through a few problems. At the end of session we share our understanding of where our learning is at. We talk about what each Solo Level would look like and then share our understanding using hand signals. You can see some examples of the symbols here.

The next time we run the workshop we meet as a large group and quickly remind ourselves of the goal and how it works with a couple of examples. Then we show the symbols our learning is at the moment (we're trying not to say, 'I am....' because it's not US that are multi structural but our learning). This is usually quite varied with students at all stages of understanding.

Then we talk about the different stations around the room. We make sure that everyone knows where they are, what they will be doing at each station and how the will know when they can progress to the next station.

At each station we have card signs for each Solo Level that are shown in the pictures. Here's how each station works.

1. At the Pre-Structural / Uni-structural station the students work mostly with the teacher and are scaffolded through examples with materials and lots of prompting and questioning. The focus here is helping them see some concrete solutions and touching, moving and talking with their thinking buddy.

2. The Multi-structural station has a set of written equations with at least example of how to set out the thinking involved with solving the problem. Students work with a little prompting from the teacher checking in on them occasionally and their learning is written into their books for easy reference for them and the teacher.

3. Lastly, the Relational and Extended Abstract station is where the students can have a chance to confirm that they have a solid grasp of the goal and to check and little holes they have in their understanding. We give them a word problem with the maths within it and they have to read the problem, write down the maths equation or solution to the problem and then create an 'artifact' of the learning that will help others learn. So far these have been posters, instructional videos like Showme or Doodle Cast Pro. 

There are three things that impress me during these workshops;

• The students are (mostly) incredible honest about their understanding. It's very obvious when someone is at the wrong place and their peers are very quick to help them out when they are, either with redirection or peer tutoring. For the odd one or two who constantly over estimate their understanding it's very easy to quickly check in with them once the stations start.

• This approach allows them to move stations when they think they are ready and is always done with some guiding from the teacher. Once they think they are ready to move they check with the teacher and we talk about why they think they are ready. It's wonderfully fluid with some learners moving very quickly and others taking 2 or more workshops to consolidate and really gain some depth to their learning. I have seen learners move from Pre Structural to Extended Abstract in one workshop and it gives them a real tangible way to view their progress.

• These Solo Stations make the learning visible! We can all see where our thinking is working at, where we are moving to next (literally and figuratively) and as a teacher I have a quick snapshot of where this group is currently at.

I should also mention that we run learning programmes where students are guided to make their own choices about the goals and workshops they attend. In a workshop we could have students who have been working on a goal for 2 weeks and others who arrived for the first time. The Solo Stations approach allow us to make the learning M and M - 'meaningful and manageable.'

Our next step is to move this approach and adapt the pedagogy to other learning areas. There are advantages for workshops to remain as a large group and I'm thinking that we could set up the stations later at the end of a reading or writing workshop.

Are you catering for different learning levels and learning paces in your programme? We'd love to hear how you're doing that. 

Reference: M and Ms Pic

Ownership - Self Directed Guidance

My Teacher Inquiry Goal this year is to provide an increase of student ownership in our
classroom. I mention 'our' because at our school we teach in teams of 2 (3 if you include our release teacher). At the moment I would describe our learning programme as...

 'Using individual learning pathways through a process of guided goal setting. We co-construct our learning goals and help students select goals that lead to a flipped learning / workshop based programme within an inquiry context.'

Wow. It sounds like a mouth-full so to break down the teacher jargon we simply;

• Use our curriculum to help the students set their goals
• They use these goals to select their workshops
• They can learn before, during and after these workshops at their own pace and time
• The learning they are doing always helps them gain the skills and understands to move ahead with our overall inquiry.

If this sounds like a lot of hard work and with the potential for chaos...then YES! I have to admit that at times my finely tuned 'teacher chaos radar' is pinging off bright flashing lights. BUT, the benefits we are seeing in engagement, achievement, motivation and learning dispositions (the ability to learn and take ownership over learning) is huge.

However, one of the reflections I am making from watching what is happening, and talking with the students, is how to help guide the students to be making the best decisions for their learning in a way that both gives structure and support to those that need it, as well as giving the opportunity for those increased 'agency' for those who are ready. Basically, how do I give 'just the right amount of cage' for each learner? We are very good, or better, at differentiating the learning for our students but what about differentiation in terms of the guidance and structure we put in place to help the learning happen.

This term we have added some management structures which to help students do just that. Our question was, 'What can we do to help the students be in the right place at the right time and go where they need to go to access the learning that is right for them?'

Here are 3 things we have set up with some thoughts on their effectiveness so far.

1. Student Calendars and Timetables.

Since last term we have create a class timetable on a Google Calendar and embedded that into our Ultranet Class Page. The embedding aspect has some teething problems by-passing our domain restrictions (it reads 'busy') but we also have it showing on a wide screen TV on the wall. Teachers and students can see what is coming up next, especially the workshops that are happening next door and it even has a function as a planning sharing tool for release teachers who access the workshop notes through the event details.

This week we've started giving each student a paper timetable that we record their workshops on and it also includes an overall picture of events and changes that happen in a lively, colourful school. It's early days with this one but the majority are learning a lot about self management and reading tables and have even started colour coding the learning areas and what they're working on.

There is increased accountability with this timetable as well because we can quickly see if they have booked themselves in for 2 maths and reading workshops. Thanks to @fuse11 and the team of teachers at Russel St School in Palmerston North for this idea.

2. Workshop Selection Tables

We've made a Google doc for each set of workshops for the week. There is a designated 'Mother Ship' imac we have set up to a large screen where the students can move their names from one workshop to the next. The names are an image from comiclife and they are easy to move withon the table - no deleting and typing, just click and drag.

It's been a great way to keep a record of who has attended which workshop and the students check in on the screen often.

3. Ako Hubs

This was an idea we borrowed from @msbeenz  and her classroom. It's a buddy system that gives each learner someone to ask, question and help make great learning decisions. We start our day in these hubs and often throughout the day. They change their hubs each week and have different people to work with often.

We started working in hubs of threes but with the number of students in our room we found it easier to move to pairs. This has lessoned the likely hood that one of the students were left out of the conversation, too. We're finding this a great accountability tool where one student will quickly let us know that their Ako buddy has not picked a maths workshop, or has lost their timetable. We're also really pleased with the modeling that is going on from the student's with high agency for those still learning.

Next Steps?

For a digitally minded teacher it's been an interesting transition this year to having so much paper as a part of our programme. The students have their goals, timetables and books - all paper. For us at the moment it just makes access to all of these things instant and easy. There is no logging in, opening up etc and we have a very 'the right tool for the right job' attitude to what we do.

BUT, in saying that,  I'm really aware that some students would prefer to have a digital version of these tools, just like I would! One student has shown me his ipod Google Calendar and how it's synched with our class calendar. He's really keen to start using this as his timetable and add his calendar over the top. This could be our next step! It's all about choice as there are lots of children who prefer the tangible version.

(Cartoon from http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/uxmagazine/rubes-cartoon-i-roll/)

Maths Symposium Presentation

Tomorrow I'm presenting a breakout at the Southland Math's Symposium. The workshop brief I wrote was;

ICTs and Maths - understanding the potential for the tools to take your math's programme to another level!

Today's ICTs are making a big impact on the way we teach and learn. This workshop will explore some ideas for making the maximum influence with your student's and their achievement. We will look at different tools through the lenses of the SAMR model of technology integration and see how they have the potential to revolutionise our teaching practice.

That's a pretty lofty goal, I know! But why not aim for the stars. Here's the presentation.

If you were in the workshop - my apologies for going overtime - mostly because we missed the last few slides! There I promote some amazing resources for more links and tools and mostly because I didn't have time for my Twitter promotion - my best bit. If you're not on twitter and connecting with other like minded, passionate educators then... you are seriously missing out.

(But that's another workshop...)

This is the Hexagons brainstorm* (See Pam Hook's site for more info on this great tool) we made before we started. We had a quick look at the kinds of tools we are using, and saw some of the barriers / frustrations. 

Slow connectivity was a major theme... interesting!

*I've uploaded the image into skitch and added the categories.

My Word for the Year!

With a new year ahead our staff have decided to have one word - one word to reflect on and set our teacher inquiry goals towards. My word for this year is...

For the last 7 out of 9 years as a teacher I have been pretty passionate about developing young people as independent learners. I first saw this in action with a legendary teacher next door who I hold in VERY high regard to this day. She was, and still is, a master at shaping and inspiring children to take more responsibility for everything they did. And BOY did they ever. Even when their learning went pear shaped they somehow all had an internal drive and resolve to be better next time. Isn't this what we want for all of our students?

Over the holidays I found this chart, from the engagedlearning.co.uk site that was the challenge and inspiration for this year's word. Not only was it the first time I had heard of anything beyond 'Pedagogy' in the classroom but I was also incredibly challenged about the practice I foster in my class. It also gives me 2 more words to throw around when I want to sound smart.

It seems to me that one of the differences between a teacher led approach and a self determining one are found in the answer to, 'Who owns the learning?' It also seems to me that if a student is going to be truly motivated then they will have found ownership of it, whether they have prompted it or not.

So, the drive for me this year is to develop new approaches that will scaffold and assist students to make progress towards truly owning their learning. I'm becoming fully aware of two possible tensions.

1. Maintaining a balance between being 'the teacher' and 'a coach.' 

There is a great debate amongst teachers about how much knowledge you should be passing on to students and how much you should be leaving them to discover for themselves. Are we the sage on the stage or the guide on the side. I am a great believer that there are things that students simply don't know- and they usually don't know that they don't know. This year I'm going to be searching for the balance or the sweet spot between these 2 approaches.

2. Inspiring parents and their children that this is possible.

I believe that every child has a certain amount of potential to take ownership of their learning - at 9 and 10 years of age. I know a great many students who are in our class this year who already do just that. I also know that many children are more ready to reach this potential in a few years time. What I will be working at is demonstrating to parents that I have the systems and support in place to meet every child where they are. If they need more support then we will have that for them. In the posts to come I'll be sharing some of the systems that have worked in the past and also some of the initiatives we are working on.

But here are a few of the things we'll be working on.

• Holding reading / writing / maths groups as self selected workshops for students working across curriculum levels but with a common learning goal.

• Developing eportfolios and reflective journals using Ultranet and Google Apps / Hapara.

• Visiting forward thinking schools and classrooms using similar learning andragogy.

• Integrating student passion projects into our weekly learning programmes.

Bring on 2014!

What's your Dream Class?

If you could run a dream classroom programme... what would it look like? Imagine an unlimited budget and the freedom to follow your own pedagogical path! This was a provoking thought I've come across lately and I thought I'd share a glimpse into what I think would make a great 2013 with my students!

Tips for ICT momentum in schools

I was asked the following question on twitter today..

...so I thought I'd post some things that have helped (or not helped) our school and the schools I have worked in. These are also quotes I've picked up along the way that help guide our school when making decisions.

Digital Modeling Books

My teacher inquiry this year this about creating parent windows into our classroom. Our school focus is to develop a personalised learning pedagogy across our school (in an abreviated 'nutshell') and my contribution is to investigate some methods that will enable parents to engage with their children's learning.

My latest trial is what I'm calling our 'digital modeling books.' I wanted to give parents the opportunity to browse through our workshop modeling books when ever they wanted but I realise that for most of them it's not possible to drop into the classroom. So, I began to drop our paper books (which were the usual scrapbooks that I've used for years) and replace them with an ipad and a few handy apps.

Here are the links to our digital books - Literacy and Maths. they are linked off our class blog and created using the following apps.

Showme - Connecting any time, anywhere.

My teacher inquiry this year is to provide the parents of my class as many opportunities to be a part of the learning with my students. I suppose I 'm trying to widen our learning community beyond being just my students and I'm assuming that this will help them achieve - so far it definitely has!

One of the things I've been doing is to give the students access to teaching from home - not from a worksheet but through interactive games and videos.

This isn't anything radical but, like any good elearning practice, the effectiveness is enhanced when teaching pedagogies and media are mashed into a workable system. One that is student centred and personalised.

An example of this is our basic facts blog. Here the students are working through a series of steps on a basic facts ladder (designed by advisersplus in the Hawkes Bay) using some links to interactive games - and some videos created on a great ipad app called showme.

Showme has been a fantastic way to record some teaching steps for a particular skill that the student can access at any time. Some parents have told me that THEY"VE found them helpful when they've tried to help their child master a particular skill.

Here's a video explaining more about how it came about and the impact it's having in classrooms across the world.

There are lots of uses for this great little app. I've used to remind students on our classblog about the scientific method - really helpful when they're working in groups and unsure about a step in their experiment, and last year my students became quite handy in making their own showmes to explain and demonstrate their learning about all kinds of things we were doing in class.

Here's a showme that I made to explain how to find fractions of a whole number. The small group I was working with was able to show their parents at home and consolidate their learning even more.

How are you providing opportunities for your students and parents to continue the learning?

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.

Improving our teaching practice

Ever since I started training as a teacher I realised there was lots for me to learn. Now that I've been teaching for a while I've realised that I didn't know the half of it! Any teacher who thinks they know it all - or even feels satisfied with their own practice - probably looks like this guy!

There's a saying I started using a while ago (and have probably used on this blog a few times over the last three years) and repeat often - 'Every teacher has a veneer of confidence covering a sea of insecurity!' Every time I use it with another teacher I see a wry smile of familiarity with a touch of relief thrown in that says, 'Oh, ...I'm not the only one!' We feel insecure, I think, because teaching is such an art with so many constantly moving variables... many of which are out of our control. But - many aren't, which is why we are always learning and striving to be our best - or should be.

This year our ICT cluster has begun a journey of using the Teacher Inquiry Model to improve the use of eLearning and ICT in our classrooms. The focus is the area of student learning we would like to see developed with improved outcomes while the strategies are the tools / practises or techniques we will use to achieve those outcomes. The shift that many teachers are making this term is seeing an ICT tool as the strategy, not the focus. So, podcasting becomes a strategy to improve my focus of engaging reluctant writers rather than wanting to use podcasting in my class and seeing how it benefit the students writing. This has been an important part of the process and many teachers are beginning some amazing projects - from yes, podcasting to blogging and all sorts of other 'mashups' of technology that are looking like making some fantastic gains for our students.

This graph, below is something I've been creating in popplet - a mix between wallwisher and mindmeister (or a graphic organiser and online yellow stickies). It's been a brilliant tool for guiding a teacher to create some strategies they will use to help them achieve their focus. The inside (coloured) ideas are some different forms that strategies could take. The outside (grey) ideas are the kinds of eLearning strategies that could help those strategies.

This example of the popplet is just a screen shot of the dynamic version - which you can embed into a blog and people can add to. Because I'm adding to it as we go I've posted a jpg as an archive. I imagine that this chart could be used to reflectively examine our teaching practice at any time, regardless of whether we are completing a formal teacher inquiry or not.

Some questions to ask...

- in what parts of our practice are we simply missing the mark?

- what kinds of strategies could we try using to improve it?

- what or who could help us?

- how are you sharing / reflecting your ideas?

What's eLearning?

I get asked, 'What do you think eLearning is?' all the time on my travels and it's been great PD for me to have these conversations. It's a concept that's evolving almost as fast as the technology that's driving it (both in terms of the tools that provide the learning 'opportunities' and also the societal factors that make it 'imperitive')- and it's an understanding that's CRUCIAL for teachers to make the paradigm shift from a tradition mode of teaching to a modern one.

Here's a slideshow (by Jacqui Sharpe) that makes a great attempt to define it as it stands at the moment. I hope it will be used as resource to help us define the concept for ourselves.

The question for us is, 'How could it look it MY class?' - What's you next step?

The e learning classroom

View more presentations from Jacqui Sharp

eLearning in Schools - Vision and Philosophy

I've started collecting some resources that will help schools develop their own vision and philosophy of eLeaning looks at THEIR school. It's great to see so many putting their spin and flavour on a powerful emerging pedagogy.

I'll hope to add to this over time.

Ministry of Education Publication - 'Enabling the 21st Century Learner'

George Greens School

Albany School

Havelock North Primary School

"Trends that define the future of teaching and learning" - mindshift.kqed.org

Becta PDFs - school guidelines for digital management, UK - see downloads page, also.

Educational Leaders Site - NZ

Defining what is and isn't eLearning!

Elearning is REALLY hard to define! Almost as hard to explain what makes excellent teaching - you often just know it when you see it and there are many facets to it.

In the early days of eLearning (and I like using a small 'e' - it makes the learning part the focus) the phrase was used to describe any type of classroom experience with an 'e'lectric device. I think now, however, most would admit that an 'eLearning' pedagogy has emerged.

But how would you explain it? It is about creating, communicating and collaborating but I''ve designed a model that explains it as I see it.

The venn diagram below is my attempt to show three sides of this new pedagogy and how they can interact to form this emerging teaching practice.

(Click to enlarge) Download blank version pdf

The three parts are Social Construction, Feedback and the Digital Element. Any part of the learning experience could fit into one, two or even three parts of the venn. So blogging, for example, can be a digital element when a post is written by someone on their own but, when they work with a partner it has the social element. It then becomes part of the feedback element when the post receives a comment.

Here's another example. A class is set an inquiry problem to redesign an outdoor area for their school that would benefit other students. They work in co-operative groups and research some solutions to the problem, based on what other students would like (Social Construction). After working through a technology design process that involved using Google Sketchup to design some plans and Skype (Digital Element) to interview a landscape designer they then build a garden for students to spend some quiet time in. They then take photos and a small video of their garden and post them to their blogs, asking for some ideas from other students in other schools about how they could improve the garden (Feedback).

This example is very close to an inquiry my class took part in last year - all except for the final part.

On the flip side, I think this venn could also be used to explain how a learning experience isn't the best example of eLearning. Taking a photo and putting on a blog fits within the digital element. But, if the post gains some constructive comments then we have two of the elements.

I'd also suggest that for an experience to be truly an eLearning one then it would involve all three at some stage of the process.

What do you think?

Post script - I discovered two other ideas for what the 'e' could stand for in digging around for this post

- 'e'nabling - the ability for the student to do things and putting them at the centre of the creating and learning.

- 'e'verywhere learning. This is probably my favourite take on it, especially with the growing smart phone movement. It's all about wireless and mobile!

Digital Native my .......!!#@%

If you want to get some 'tech minded' teachers stirred up... all you have to do is talk about today's students being digital natives!

The term, 'Digital Native' was invented in 2001, (wikipedia) and was used to describe a generation of people who have grown up with technology and are comfortable in that environment.  In educational circles it's often used at conferences by speakers trying to convince an audience to use elearning and web 2.0 tools in the way they teach.

Last night I had another great chat about the idea with some teachers on Twitter.  Here's the argument:

 - Today's students aren't really digital natives cause most who don't know about html and rss.  If you challenge them with something that's digital and time consuming they run a mile. 

I replied with the possibility that this could be a developmental problem, not a generational one - they're just being teenagers and naturally averse to any form of hard work.  I don't think the phrase ever tried to describe D.N.s as experts with technology, just familiar with it but is there any truth in it - sure.  How many teenagers and children have to show their parents and grandparents how to set the DVD recorder?  How ever you roll, I think a lot of educators are realising that generations can't be put completely into boxes.  There will always be exceptions but the basic tenant can't be ignored.

The phrase I heard at this year's ulearn10 conference was 'Digital Learners'.  I like this concept because it puts the learner at the center and the focus of the idea back onto the pedagogy - how will we teach this generation differently to the last?  Here's my brief and not exhaustive list of implications of D.Ls in our schools;

1.  Students immersed in a digital world shouldn't have to leave it behind when they enter our classrooms (described as, 'powering down')

2.  Digital tools can lead to motivated and engaged learners who otherwise would be unfocused and disruptive.

3.  Technology allows student to develop their creativity and collaborative skills for a digital world that demands these dispositions.

Don't you think we are morally bound and professionally inept if we don't provide opportunities for these digital learners?

(Photo by Creative Commons - posted by  mharrsch - flickr.com)

Creativity and Educational Change..how?

Most of us in schools have seen or heard of Ken Robinson.  His ideas about creativity and changing the educational paradigm are often ringing in my ideas.

I'm sure he'd like the adaptation of one of his speeches by thersa.org.  In this video he shows how he sees a need for schools to competely change the way we do school.



What stands out for me the most how some research that was done (a longitudinal one - added that word to my lexicon!) that showed how being 'educated' ruins our ability for divergent / creative thinking!  We get trained into believing that there is one right answer.

What are we doing to encourage creativity in our classes?  One small thing I use is Tony Ryan's 'Thinkers Keys.'  (I heard Tony give a presentation at the Ulearn10 conference this month and his blog is full of fantastic ideas for 21st C learning.)  The challenge, as always, is to reform our classrooms within a system that has certain requirements and mandates.

Who's going to be brave enough to completely reshape our schools?  I wonder if starting a new charter school, based on a new teaching and learning philosophy is an answer?  Just putting it out there!

NB:  I just found this resource of Tony's to use in class.  Now... to get some cash.

The Homework Myth

I've been listening to some interesting podcasts while running away the summer days. One with short, interesting interviews is Steve Decker's , "Educational Insights".

This podcast, 'Homework, is it good?' is an interview with Alfie Kohn about his book - 'The Homework Myth'. He seems to have written a very balanced, well researched critique on the merits of what he calls, 'getting kids to do a second shift.'
His book states;
1. No research has ever found homework to improve academic ability.
2. Homework can lead children to resenting school and could lessen their love of learning
3. There are better ways for parents to encourage discipline and hard work in their children

It makes me think about my own classroom. I provide options for those who want it, (I do expect them to be reading and taking responsibility for things like spelling and basic facts) but, otherwise, I limit homework to personal investigations and class 'overflow' activities. The book would seem to validate my practice.

What do you believe about homework?

NZ schools face a 'Tech' flight

I came across this post on Drapes Take that struck a chord over my morning coffee. He quotes some research from 2000 that shows the importance of school administrators and leadership 'modeling' effective use of technology for school's to really move effectively in a tech direction.
I made this comment - something I think will be a REAL issue for schools in the next 10 years. What will be the flow on effects of a 'Tech Flight' in NZ?

"I would absolutely agree with the comments above and the post. In New Zealand we're seeing schools with a strong tech direction, and then some with one computer in the corner of class rooms not even connected to the net!
We had something called 'white flight' a decade ago where affluent families left less affluent schools for private ones. I'm predicting a 'tech flight' of younger, progressive teachers leaving these 'regressive' schools in favour of ones with a tech postive administration. I know I would never join a school that wasn't on the digital move.
This will only create an even bigger gap as these regressive schools with 20th Century administrators and teachers (and there MANY of them around) become even more entrenched. What is the solution? The best remedy at the moment are parents - putting pressure on their community's schools to provide education in and for a digital world!"

Changing Our Spaces

There's something hardwired in me that responds well to change. There is no doubt that our schools could improve the way we do 'school' and the most of the dialogue at the moment is around the role that technology can play.

But what about the role of architecture and what I've seen phrased as 'spatial politics?' This slideshare, by Esltechnology, (an ESL teacher at a middle school in Eastern Oregon) shows what can be the future of all schools if administrators are committed to a new, 21st Century pedagogy.

Levels of ICT teacher Integration

View more OpenOffice presentations from Jacqui Sharp.

I can imagine so many different ways that students could be learning in these spaces. I wonder how differently I could teach in spaces like these. I think I would be amazed at how much my own teaching is defined by the space in which I teach. The challenge for me, and others with a similar mindset, is to keep confronting and questioning my own beliefs and teaching practice - while remaining in a pretty traditional classroom space.

I could see how easily you could operate a 'self directed' classroom and encourage student collaboration and independence. This challenge would require me to push the boundaries of my physical space and act as we would as if these spaces were ours now. Is this possible?

I can see three hurdles to overcome for the potential of self directed learning to be realised.
collaboration.

1. A desire by schools to risk the abuse of student trust. I have seen schools that allow students to use a variety of classroom spaces to work and learn in - libraries, small offices, playgrounds, utility rooms etc, which can often be unsupervised. With trust and responsibility comes the thin wedge of risk and abuse. I'm encouraged to see many school administrators making this move and enjoying the benefits.
2. A misunderstanding community. It's not hard to anticipate parents who are unsure of the amount of work that results from this style of learning. The challenge to this hurdle lies in open, honest communication. It's too easy for teachers to forget that parents don't have the insight into how education is shifting in our schools. When parents are shown the quality of learning that occurs, as I've been told from one school, they are usually quick to support it.
3. Teachers who are unwilling to relinquish the control that comes with 20th century pedagogy. It's with us, as teachers, that the hurdle would appear the largest and there are as many reasons for this reluctance as there are teachers - and there are many. The control that this style encouraged was due in large part to the limit of resources that students could use but technology has released these resources. Unfortunately, for the students, the control has remained. It's with us, as teachers, that the hurdle seems the highest.

So, to come full circle - How does my classroom space reflect my goal of inspiring student responsibility and control in their learning?