In a rapidly changing world, the influence of technology has never been more evident. The demands of this changing landscape require serious consideration and timely action to ensure our schools, our staff and our students are able to engage with a future that will demand and celebrate creative problem-solvers, innovators and entrepreneurs.
From 2016, all State Schools in Queensland from Prep through to Year 10 will commence offering Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies as part of their curriculum. Schools will be supported through a number of departmental initiatives including:
Curriculum into the Classroom (C2C) materials
Queensland Coding Academy (for students).
Both these initiatives are central to the Advancing Education action plan in which Coding and Robotics are identified (in paper #codingcounts ) as key to developing the capacity of our students as future digital thinkers, creators and innovators.
When discussion started about flexible learning spaces it was an idea to address some of the issues around differentiation and also modes of teaching across teams or cohorts. There is plenty of research and exciting ideas about flexible learning spaces and I know I have shared some but I thought I would share some more from different perspectives. I am happy to trial it where you might think everyone is ready. I don’t want to just jump at something because it is a bit of a fad…the latest trick from your latest Principal 🙂
Let’s have a look at some research:
A growing body of educational research has indicated that we have reached the limits of educational reform with current strategies (Dumont and Istance 2010; Allegre and Ferrer 2010; Fullan 2005). Learning theory now focuses on the significance of the relational. The connections between learning and positive social interactions with learners and teachers (Hattie 2003; Aten Lee 2003, 2006), requires a broader conceptualisation of the notion of ‘learning environment’.
Promoting flexibility and spatial diversity appears to be an appropriate solution, but how much flexibility and diversity is too much? Allen Abend says, “flexibility…while good in concept often results in generic, single-space classrooms with uniform ceiling heights…While such “flexible” spaces may accommodate many functions, they do not serve any one function well.” For example, upon occupying Netley the staff has said the high level of flexibility “contributes to a lack of order in the teaching environment.” Additionally, individuals with autism often exhibit a strong aversion to change. If the environment is too flexible an individual might live in constant fear that the environment will suddenly be changed.
Lastly, because individuals with autism often struggle with executive functioning, transitioning from one activity or environment to another could be made more difficult in spatially diverse environments. Aitken Turnbull Architects tackled this issue by creating threshold spaces or ‘lay-bys’ between each small six-student classroom and the potentially busy and large circulation space at the New Struan Centre for Autism. Inside each small classroom the scale is broken down again to include a small one-on-one room. It is hoped that this progression of scale will aid in transitioning from one space to the next.
An essential question to consider when designing learning spaces is what type of learning do you value and want to encourage?
21st century learning encourages the use of a variety of teaching methods to meet the individual needs of students and the type of teaching and learning occurring at any one time.
What spaces and resources will you need to do the following:
• Social and collaborative learning?
• Integrated curriculum?
• Student-directed/ teacher-directed learning?
• Independent learning?
• Project work?
• Direct instruction?
Flexible or open learning spaces are hard work. It is a challenge for teachers to adapt their practices, it is a challenge for students to adapt their behaviour. The benefits are unparalleled though, and can be translated back into any learning space.
Teachers working in teams is a significant benefit that arises from teaching in an open learning space. Teachers have the opportunity to learn from others in the following ways:
simply by observing excellent practice
being motivated by a great idea
if one or two teachers have developed a unit which is online, all aspects of a great lesson can be online and available not only to students, but also to teachers.
behavioural expectations can be set up for an entire group of students, teachers with different abilities to manage student relationships (behaviour) are supported by the development of a culture that is greater than the individual class culture they could have produced.
The notion of the classroom teacher becomes quite fluid – any teacher can take any class and still produce positive learning outcomes.
Experts and Special Needs teachers can enter the learning space and not be a distraction to students.
Special needs teachers can work with groups of students from a few classes and increase their influence
Special Needs teachers can work not only with students, but also with teachers. Teachers who typically remain content experts can transform into facilitators as they learn to communicate in ways that are developmentally appropriate.
Teachers working in teams provide a richness of experience for students and for each other.
So this might be a bit of a lengthy post but I thought it would be an opportunity to get all the information to you so we can discuss at another time. This saves us wasting time in another staff meeting when we can just get on the with the business at hand. I have added some links to resources also that might be of interest to help with understanding some of the facts or possible resources we can use to develop our key strategies. I have organised your points and mine for facts under the headings on our TeamSite…
Facts:
Teaching & Learning
Opportunities to collaborate are necessary
Review curriculum collaboratively
Consistency of practice
Balanced English Program (R2L an element)
Review collaboratively the Pedagogical Framework
Assessment & Feedback
Review assessment and develop targets (term > semester > year)
Moderate within school and cluster
Induction program required
PD Plan targeted for Teachers and Teacher Aides
Use of data for a purpose (data informed not data driven)
When I came to Payne Road State School in an attempt to outline the current levels of intervention and to determine who did what I developed this upside down triangle to outline the different levels of “differentiation” or “intervention” that students received. In reviewing this and from ongoing conversations since the full school review it is becoming more obvious that this diagram does not quite outline procedures or give you all an idea of what level of support there is available or when you access that support for the students in your class. Now I know that no diagram is going to make that suddenly fall into place but I am hoping that it can at least point you in the right direction. So in the interest of looking at this I have begun drafting a new procedural diagram (is that even a thing?) with some feedback already from support staff and using a model based on Simon Sinek’s work outlined in a previous post. This model starts with the “WHY”…because we have to ask the question why do we look for these interventions or differentiate our curriculum…in my model I have added a simple statement here:
“Supporting all students with diverse needs to succeed”
This might not be our overall reason for doing what we do and I would appreciate your feedback. The important word for me in this statement is “succeed”. My intention for this is to remind us that success for different students is different…The rest of the model will include (when completed) would include the “HOW”, as in how this is achieved. and the “WHAT”, as in what resources and processes will support that in your classroom…this will provide more collaboration to get this right. At this point it does not have details but I would like it to include elements of literacy and numeracy intervention, SEP intervention and the connections to our planning and data collection processes.
Flexible or open learning spaces are hard work. It is a challenge for teachers to adapt their practices, it is a challenge for students to adapt their behaviour. The benefits are unparalleled though, and can be translated back into any learning space.
Teachers working in teams is a significant benefit that arises from teaching in an open learning space. Teachers have the opportunity to learn from others in the following ways:
simply by observing excellent practice
being motivated by a great idea
if one or two teachers have developed a unit which is online, all aspects of a great lesson can be online and available not only to students, but also to teachers.
behavioural expectations can be set up for an entire group of students, teachers with different abilities to manage student relationships (behaviour) are supported by the development of a culture that is greater than the individual class culture they could have produced.
The notion of the classroom teacher becomes quite fluid – any teacher can take any class and still produce positive learning outcomes.
Experts and Special Needs teachers can enter the learning space and not be a distraction to students.
Special needs teachers can work with groups of students from a few classes and increase their influence
Special Needs teachers can work not only with students, but also with teachers. Teachers who typically remain content experts can transform into facilitators as they learn to communicate in ways that are developmentally appropriate.
Teachers working in teams provide a richness of experience for students and for each other.
From Nick Hornby – About A Boy “Suddenly I realized – two people isn’t enough. You need backup. If you’re only two people, and someone drops off the edge, then you’re on your own. Two isn’t a large enough number. You need three at least”
There are a lot of elaborate theories and vogue words that try to describe what good teaching entails. Sadly, some of them have little, if any grounding in evidence at all. Others do, but they are difficult to carry out and their effects are small.
A teacher has limited time, and this makes your time a valuable commodity. When you choose to spend your time on one thing, there will be other things you end up not doing. Therefore, it is essential that you know what teaching strategies have the most impact on student learning. Collectively, I call these strategies the foundations ofgood teaching.
Personalized learning is something that educators have talked about for a long time, but I am really struggling with the term. I have talked about the idea and differences between “individualized and personalized” learning before, but really, all learning is personal.
Think about this scenario…
I recently spoke to approximately 200 school leaders (at all levels) over a three day period. Each group had people in similar positions, but from different schools, programs, etc.. After about 35-40 minutes of talking to each group using the same slides and ideas, I asked them to reflect in a google form about what they wanted to learn and their takeaways. Although the talk was the same over the three days, their responses were so different from one another. We have to realize that this is the norm, not the exception, but why is it the norm?
Here are three reasons that struck me upon reflection of this experience.
Doesn’t this to apply to all teaching and learning whether it is from the curriculum, delivered in a workshop, or watching it on a YouTube video?
We should focus less on all people learning the same thing, and more on all people learning forward. There is a difference.
