GANAG - The Digital Way!

Way back in my graduate days, I worked at a school that subscribed to the GANAG lesson planning and delivery model created, tested and refined by Jane Pollock. The model worked well for me, both when working in a Montessori classroom and when delivering content in a mainstream classroom, and still stands me in good stead when planning and facilitating workshops for gifted and talented children, and is backed by their Hattie-style data detailing effect sizes for high-yield strategies (Marzano, Pollock and Pickering, 2004) and the value of feedback by and of students (both on their learning and the effect of the educator) (Pollock, 2011) - but up until recently, it was still very much rooted in the person-to-person, offline-learning, traditional-classroom realm.

I5 has brought it up to speed.

Last year, Jane Pollock and Susan Hensley released a book that synthesized Pollock's earlier research into classroom practice with 21st century learning and the virtual education/digital literacy revolution. The i5 Approach: Lesson Planning That Teaches Thinking and Fosters Innovation asserts that following a path of information, images, interaction, inquiry, and innovation students will be encouraged to develop fluency in selecting, analysing, collating and creating authentic (read: meaningful and relevant) digital artefacts that not only demonstrate rigour in their thinking but also flexibility in their interpretation of others' thinking.

Pollock continues to substantiate their recommendations with research into neuroscience and take the time to demonstrate how to link them pedagogically with existing practices in many schools (most overtly, inquiry-based learning - but also flipped or blended learning classrooms and other mastery learning models). Examples from teachers trialling and refining their recommendations of how to implement I5 across a number of different schooling levels and subject areas render it a practical handbook as well as a good crash course on how to take GANAG to the next level.

A must have for any teacher at a school in the GANAG network - this will be the logical step for schools to take in 2018.

Marzano, Robert; Pickering, Debra and Pollock, Jane (2001). Classroom Instruction That Works: Research Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Pearson. New Jersey: USA.

Pollock, Jane (2011). Feedback: The Hinge That Joins Teaching And Learning. Corwin Publishing. California: USA.

Pollock, Jane and Hensley, Susan (2017). The i5 Approach: Lesson Planning That Teaches Thinking and Fosters Innovation. ASCD. Virginia: USA.