Tag: teaching

Make room

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I love planning, I do. My kids’ birthday parties are legendary among their circles and a good friend has even advised me to write a book about them. When my youngest turned 6, you know what she asked?

“Can we have free play?”

Free play? As in, “do whatever you want?” Apparently, my parties were so structured with a tight schedule and the kids just want to device their own games, happy to be together.

Studying to be a teacher involved planning lessons (and units), including using a template scheduling how much time to allocate for each part. I was in my element! Planning, I could definitely do.  And students? Well, they couldn’t ask for “free play”, could they?

But, times have changed, because I have learned to …..

2012_007 by malynmawby, on Flickr

 

That’s it, I’ve learned to relax. I still plan – parties and lessons – to a (rough) schedule but I have learned to “let go” or be flexible (read: I schedule in free play). Plans can change and they do and they will. Part of this metamorphosis-of-sorts is playing with different teaching approaches that necessitate such flexibility.

I think Mary Ann Reilly said it well in this post, “When I make art my head gets calm”.

I think about the grand schemes and plans that get made (like the one I did) and how the lived moments in the classroom must trump the pre-made plans.

“the lived moments in the classroom” – YES!

On the same day, Phil Beadle said in  this interview on ABC Radio,

 You can be charismatic. You can be entertaining. But you must not be so big as to have no room in the classroom for the children.

The classroom is a shared space where interactions take place; some of them are meaningful, some of them can be life-changing (though we may never know), some of them are fun, some can be harrowing. But the “lived moments” are the most wonderful part of teaching…even better than planning. How I’ve changed!

Do you make room?

Recommended reading:

(Post update to show there’s more than one way to tell this story – more for my reference but see for yourself)

Teaching and Learning: The having of wonderful ideas by @cpaterso

Sometimes you have to stop teaching to learn the lesson by @erringreg

Don’t try too hard by @johntspencer

My students made me cry

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Term 2 2012 was spent as a relief teacher, teaching Computing Studies to mostly boys in years 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12. When I started that journey, I had a dream of Students as Teachers, a post I ended with:

Students will learn. This time, I’ll let them teach…each other…and quite possibly, me.
With changing perspectives, (my) teaching is evolving and I find that exciting. For the record, I’m also a little scared it’ll fail, i.e. that I can’t facilitate my students to teach. I’ll try anyway.

I have blogged a fair bit about this 9-week journey and how I was such a GBL n00b, took risks with teaching and learning, “flirted” with Inquiry-based Learning via Clouds and Dreams, and generally just explore different teaching approaches (or styles).

I was always mindful about covering the required content BUT  I knew I wanted MY students to get more out of their time with me. I wanted them to learn so much more than the bullet points on a syllabus document. The thing is, they do anyway, from most teachers, if not all. It’s just that we’re often not explicit about it nor give students time to reflect on their learning as well encourage questions and conversations (see related post, Not Much).

While I played with different teaching approaches, there were common themes: self-directed, specific and regular one-on-one feedback (face-to-face, written, online via Edmodo), do what you ask the students to do, and a driving mantra of “get to know the kids”.

But with my year 11s, I did one thing differently – and that’s to regularly give them time to reflect, in writing or online, on their learning: what they learned, mastered and struggled with. I think that this has helped them learn to learn. Here’s a snapshot of some responses to my end-of-term survey:

Student preferred activity

[Click to enlarge]

This was a class who initially answered the question “what have you learned?” with “Nothing” to “not much”. Now, I got: “we used an example to help explain tasks focused on in class .. very good tactic” and “Allows us to think about our future, as well as learn about Information Processes.”

Of the activities mentioned, you can read about “Can we trust the cloud?” and “What price a dream?“. The IPG challenge veered away from Inquiry-based learning as a competition designed to cover the rest of the syllabus content really quickly. Each group was assigned an Information Process to research on. Every lesson, the topics were swapped and each group then had to find mistakes, add more information and report plagiarism (it’s amazing how quickly they realised how easy it is to spot!). At the end, each topic was presented to the class. The prize was a free lunch from me – which turned out to be a class party where they all willingly chipped in ….it coincided with the end of term and my time with them.

It is interesting that there is a good spread of what activity each student liked the most. Some obviously preferred to work in groups. A few enjoyed competition. Many liked the personal and individual work. Regardless, the ability to articulate thoughts about their learning had improved for most students. And, none of these activities go towards their marks/grades.

I found that moving because that was a realisation of my dream; they were learning and teaching each other…me, too. As if that was not enough, read through some of the general comments.

Student comments

[click to enlarge]

And that’s how students made me cry! *at home*

I used to be embarrassed to say as a teacher, “I’m not passionate about teaching but I am passionate about learning”. Not anymore. I was designing learning experiences – very rarely did I “teach” the class collectively. Edna Sackson articulates this so well in this post: From Teaching to Learning.

I am accountable to cover syllabus content and I can’t let that go. What I have let go of is “control” because I can’t control learning. In letting go, I have allowed myself to explore other ways for the content to be learned….and maybe I was just lucky but this year 11 class engaged with the content more than I thought they would, and certainly some more than others! and that’s okay.

In a nutshell, here are what worked and I’d do again:

  • diversified approach
    • I’m really loving inquiry-based learning
  • give time to reflect on learning
    • talk about it, promote it
  • get to know the kids
    • design activities to accelerate the process. with my year 11s, for example: About Me wiki, one-on-one time in class, prompt/honest feedback on work, Dream document. As one student said before saying goodbye: “you found something good in all of us” – and why not? This is what makes people tick.

 

Not much

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As previously blogged, I’m doing Inquiry-based learning with my Year 11 Information Processes and Technology (IPT) class. Our topic now is Analysis and our focus question is “What price a dream?”.

The class has been working on this for a few lessons now and yesterday I asked if they felt they were learning. One responded with “Not much“. I didn’t take offence because it is literally better than “nothing” (what they used to say until I got them to reflect regularly, i.e. stop long enough to think of what they have learned). Besides, the relevant syllabus content really isn’t difficult; if I were to teach it lecture-style, I would cover in 1 lesson, what has taken us 4, so far.

Anyway…..

I got thinking…..

and this is what came of it…..

I started the lesson with this on the board:

Inquiry-based learning

  1. contextual (inquiry)
  2. self-directed
  3. personalised

I told them that when I started, I found them unmotivated and disengaged (also mentioned in my Inquiry-based Learning post). I mentioned that doing Inquiry would perhaps get them engaging more with the content. So the first one was on Cloud Storage and this one now on a life dream for Analysis. Many students nod at this stage realising that indeed they engaged with the syllabus content within the said contexts as well as that their inquiry journeys were largely self-directed and personalised.

I then drew this, explaining as I went:

For all those examples, I named names. I identified students who were showing learning the syllabus, extending their learning, and even abstracting. Seeing individual faces light up as their little gems were acknowledged is priceless!!! (#youmatter) As it turned out, students loved these “shout-outs” (as they call it).

It’s probably best to just “quote” myself here:

If you think you haven’t learned much, it’s because you haven’t pushed yourself enough. My job as a teacher is not to just tell you about things but to give you contexts for learning, opportunities to learn, challenge you and give you feedback. Self-directed learning requires discipline and motivation.

I’m here. Are you asking enough questions? When you ask questions, I answer back – often with a question. But, I meet you where you’re at. Some of you work harder than others, and that’s ok. And those of you who’ve sought my feedback have learned more.

So, are you asking enough questions? Because really, if you’re curious enough, there is no limit to what you can learn.“

To be honest, I lost a few along the way but many stayed with me through my mini speech cum reflection cum challenge. One even applauded. Not surprisingly, it was the one who said ‘not much’ yesterday; and today, he got more than he ever expected to learn in an IPT class. In fact, he even asked if I had different approaches for different classes (sounds familiar, yes?) I answered him and added, “Inquiry seems to be working best for me and that means this class“. One of these days, I will post about the “how” I’m doing this with my year 11s.

 

What’s your (teaching) style?

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Today, one of my year 12 students asked if I taught all my classes using different methods.

Serendipity right there as I was thinking of blogging about the different teaching styles (the term pedagogy gags a bit) I’ve been using with 3 of my classes. In fact, I’ve blogged about all of them already:

Project-based Learning (PBL) – Year 12 Information Processes and Technology

Inquiry-based Learning – Year 11 Information Processes and Technology

Games-based Learning – Year 9 Information and Software Technology

Apart from PBL, I’m a newbie to the other two styles and totally loving the whole experience. It feels good to try different ways of teaching and expanding my pedagogical (gag) repertoire. I do believe a diversity in approach keeps me interested and ditto for the students. A win-win in my books.

I have no preference as such, as each approach has its strengths. I think what makes them work in my meagre experience is that each one is all about the learning, fostered through a regular dose of feedback (teacher-student, student-teacher, student-student). It is a community built on relationships built through constant connection. All approaches focus on the instructional core: student, teacher, content – and the interactions thereof.

I do not see myself as an innovative educator – that really is  not my aim. I daresay I am a learning (vs learned) teacher, with an eclectic approach to teaching and learning. Yep, that’s my style. What about you?

I like this “doodle” by Giulia Forsythe. Though I don’t claim to to pursue innovative pedagogy, there are some interesting points here methinks.

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Is this Inquiry-based Learning?

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One cannot have a conversation with Edna Sackson (@whatedsaid) and not be excited about the potential of Inquiry-based learning. Excited I am, for sure. Trouble is, I don’t know much about it really other than that learning is driven by inquiry.

So, that’s what I tried to do, ie. design a unit around a driving question (DQ). It had elements of Project-Based Learning (PBL). I borrowed ideas from Bianca Hewes (@BiancaH80) through her blog, PBL workshops and edmodo.

I found my year 11 Information Processes and Technology (IPT) students rather unmotivated. Filling in for another teacher for a few weeks, I did not have the luxury of getting to know them well enough to be confident in designing something engaging around their new topic Storing and Retrieving – a topic I personally found rather tedious. I thought, “If I can’t even enthuse myself, how on earth will I get these kids on board?”

It was truly an inspired moment when I hit on the driving question of : “Can we trust the cloud?”

The task in a page - Can we trust the cloud?

Inquiry as context for learning

In just over 2 weeks, we studied our topic via the DQ: Can we trust the cloud?. The students went on to explore various aspects of cloud storage. Groups of 2 or 3 looked at several services: DropBox, iCloud, Google Drive and the internal Sharepoint-based intranet. They analysed the hardware and software involved as well as the issues relating to their chosen service provider. It was not surprising for them to conclude anyone’s personal data storage strategy should include more than one approach, ie have a variety of options such as portable hard disks, etc.

Ultimately, we covered everything in the syllabus and more besides. In fact, they also learned about the:

  • issues of working in groups
  • challenge of presenting in front of an audience
  • opportunities to teach and learn from each other
  • benefits of regularly reflecting on one’s work
  • benefits of regular feedback from the teacher as I checked in on their progress (I asked lots of guiding questions)
  • collaboration via the wiki
The wiki was another inspired move. None of them have ever contributed to one. So, I set up a sandbox version first, called About Me. I put my own entry as an example and got them to create their own pages. This allowed them to play with the Sharepoint wiki features as well as give me a quick way to get to know them. The lesson allocated to this “play time” was well worth the benefits. It was a good investment. In the end, the class had shared notes on the topic that each of them contributed to (granted in varying degrees of quality).
For a task that had no grade attached, I was pleasantly surprised and moved at the level of engagement. They worked; some harder than others but they all worked. Can they do better? For sure! I am so happy with and for them.
But my question remains, is this inquiry-based learning?
Is that question even important?