Evolutionary post #1!

It’s been interesting to see the digital native versus digital immigrant debate evolve over the last ten years. By virtue of my age, I’m a member of the generation who technically have a foot in each camp – depending on who you ask – and I am particularly interested in seeing where the majority of researchers will place me in five years’ time.

In the meantime, it is equally fascinating to observe the debate around how to best educate those who don’t have this ambiguity surrounding them. Those who are unequivocally digital natives have an understanding of ‘tech’ – not just the internet – that far surpasses that of my contemporaries and me – so how do you teach them? Is it even possible?

In 2012, Wan Ng of UNSW produced a fascinating article entitled ‘Can We Teach Digital Natives Digital Literacy?’ He poses a Venn diagram to consider: the space where socio-emotional literacy, informational literacy and technical literacy overlap is where the nirvana of digital literacy can be found. Theoretically, that means that yes, to an extent - I should be able to teach some form of digital literacy. We teach students how to research, filter and extract information. We teach students how to block code, how to use Raspberry Pi and Arduino, how to code using Java. We teach students how to communicate clearly to different audiences in collaborative documents. We teach them what ‘just playing’ on a device at home does not – how to use technology in an educational setting, which then develops into vocational training. Yes, we teach students to be digitally literate.

But what about us as educators, we who are theoretically native? We aren’t through with our learning journeys yet – how easy is it to teach us? We generally have a pretty good opinion of our own capacity for tech, let’s be honest, but our students are moving quickly to catch up – and there is constant pressure to keep up with the latest trends and apps and programs.

Fortunately, Wan’s research concludes that we are capable of picking up the various forms of digital literacy and embrace it eagerly, which is reassuring. When we see how it all fits together with the wider global context, and how embedded in our daily lives various forms of technology have become, especially for the younger generation with whom we spend so much of our time, it is difficult not to. If we can transfer this attitude to our students we have made a flying leap towards teaching them the core concept of digital literacy – to remain literate requires constant learning.

Or else, I suppose, we risk getting stuck on our tiny part of the world wide web, doomed to wither into irrelevance.

Ng, Wan (2012) Can we teach digital natives digital literacy? in Computers & Education 59 (2012) 1065-1078.

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.

Don’t Flip Out! – Part 2

Image courtesy of GoodReads

After devouring Berghmann and Sams’ epic regaling their journeys in flipped learning, I was keen to learn more about what had worked for teachers in different curriculum areas and at different levels of schooling. I’m P-12 trained, so I needed breadth of practical suggestions as well as plenty of pedagogically sound depth to back up my choice to flip my classroom. Once again, my Kindle came to the rescue! Amazon pointed me towards ‘Flipping 2.0’, edited by Jason Bretzmann, as the ‘next step’ in my reading.

In his foreword, Bretzmann refers to going beyond watching videos for homework and doing homework in class as the ‘2.0’ of classroom flipping. Interesting, I thought. Parallels between this and Web 2.0? As it turns out, yes! In Flipping 2.0 there is emphasis on the quality and increased accuracy/sophistication of output by students after a change in teacher input, much as the Web 2.0 movement emphasised creation and dissemination of information rather than simply the absorption of information curated by others.

Various education practitioners collaborate in this anthology of recommended practices. Some suggestions are more practically usable in different contexts than others, but there is a relatively even spread across all curriculum areas and from both highly experienced and dynamic graduate teachers – making it widely accessible, useful and sufficiently empirically based for many.

The book is more heavily weighted towards being of assistance to secondary teachers than those in the primary sector. However, this could be seen as a bonus in making it more viable for teachers to extend their brightest students at their own pace, with practical tips for how to further their subject-specific learning beyond the scope of the primary curriculum. Interestingly, the book also includes a section on flipping the classroom as a part-time teacher which may also be of interest to those working in tutoring, private education providers or governess positions.

This book was, to me, a really logical follow-on to my first foray into literature regarding flipped classrooms. Have you read it? Do you agree? I’d love to hear! Leave a comment below.

Bretzmann, Jason (2013). Flipping 2.0. Bretzmann Group LCC. Pennsylvania: USA.

Don't Flip Out! - Part 1

Photo courtesy of GoodReads

I’ve done a fair bit of reading about flipping one’s classroom over the last few years. While I was at MPS, I was encouraged to start developing asynchronous units of work for my students – which, after completing some study on virtual classrooms with Coursera, I realised was me unwittingly taking the first step towards flipping! How exciting! I turned to my trusty Kindle to find out a bit more.

The first book I ‘picked up’ was Flip Your Classroom by Jonathan Berghmann and Aaron Sams, two gentlemen credited by some as being the grandfathers of flipping classrooms. It discussed their respective journeys in developing a flipped model that worked for them, in their contexts, and offered pedagogically sound advice about how to develop your own.

I finished the book with mixed feelings. Having worked in remote, rural and regional schools, it was wonderful to hear that provisions were starting to crop up to maximise the time some secondary students spent commuting to and from school and their extra-curricular activities. The Montessorian in me was rejoicing over the possibilities for students to learn at their own pace, with as much repetition as they needed through an engaging medium. And the graduate in me – struggling to fit everything into the day for her students - was overjoyed that there was a possibility to combine the concept of meaningful home learning with more efficient use of face-to-face instruction time. Streaming or downloading instructional videos seemed like an excellent option.

On the flip side (see what I did there?!), I was aware of my urban-dwelling students’ diverse home backgrounds. Some had no access to internet. Some had no guaranteed access to a laptop or tablet. Some didn’t even have ready access to a library as a back-up (too far to walk by their primary school selves). Remote, rural and regional students in Australia, I realised, have patchy reception on their phones (sometimes in their homes). The bandwidth they have comes at a significant cost – and not all families can prioritise that above other day-to-day living costs, even if it is for their child’s education.

So what have I taken away from the book? That the model most commonly purported as the grail of flipped learning is not necessarily the best or most practical the world over. Berghmann and Sams seemed to know I was going to come to this conclusion, though, and provide a plethora of practical suggestions to trial in developing a model that worked for me and my students. Additionally, they discuss how their ‘flipped mastery’ model (regardless of how it is ‘technified’) dovetails with other best practices in education in terms of learning theory. Good for those who can implement it in justifying their choices.

If you’re after a great overview of flipped learning and how to get started in developing your own workable scheme, this is the book for you! Have you had a read? How are you going with your flipped journey? Leave a comment below!

Bergmann, Jonathon and Sams, Aaron (2012). Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student Every Day. International Society for Technology in Education. Virginia: USA.

Coursera for PD

\PD (professional development) is hard to do sometimes, as a teacher. The best courses are in the holidays, are affordable, and are applicable straight away. Flexibility is a bonus, because as with every occupation - and life in general! - things crop up and the weeks get busy. Providers like Open Universities are great, as their courses are recognised as formal qualifications here in Australia. So are standalone or non-award units from bricks and mortar universities, and short courses through TAFE or CAE.

Me, I've chosen a slightly different route. Mum put me onto Coursera about two years ago, and I kicked off by doing a short art appreciation course before starting on education-based courses. You can do courses on just about anything! Art was great but you can study IT, business, marketing, engineering, health sciences - you name it, someone has probably put together a course on it. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are easy for universities to run once they've set them up, because they're asynchronous and assessments are automated or peer marked, so many very reputable higher education providers are putting them together. They're a bit of a cash cow when they're set up through Coursera, too, I would imagine - you can get a verified certificate for a small fee, though you can still do the course for nothing if the certificate doesn't bother you.

After my art course, I hooked up with the Virtual Teacher Program, a specialisation (series of related courses) run by the University of California Irvine Campus. I've currently completed the first four modules and am waiting for January when they will run the final unit (the Capstone Project) over four weeks. I'll be completing it while on the road on our summer trip, so I'm proving the flexibility of the courses first-hand! I've been able to complete the rest while working full time (and studying another course or two part time!).

MOOCs were intially designed for adults, but there is a movement towards them diversifying to be accessible and appropriate for children, such as the Stakers and Brain Chase. I feel like it's the next step in online learning for children - recently someone said 'If there's an internet connection in your classroom, you're no longer the smartest person in the room!' and it's true - it's really true. The MOOC movement makes learning available to all - in the education industry, that includes children seeking different knowledge presented in different ways than what's available in their learning environment, and includes teachers seeking flexible, affordable PD solutions.

Check out Coursera, and also this article which talks about child completion rates of age-appropriate MOOCs. Fascinating stuff.

MAV - Lectures and Support

When they redeveloped Docklands here in Melbourne, they built a beautiful library on a dock. They weren't brilliantly imaginative when they named it, but it doesn't seem to have mattered too much - The Library At The Dock is proving to be a great hub for all sorts of learning communities that can converge on the city.

One of those communities is the Mathematical Association of Victoria. Each year, they host a series of free lectures for anyone interested in Mathematics. Last year, knowing our school was looking into branching into 3D printing as a Design and Technology and Mathematics endeavour, I was looking for professional development to help me work out what direction this might take in my classroom.

MAV came up on a Google search, and I registered for a free lecture on 3D printing and Mathematics as presented by Dr. Burkard Polster and Dr. Marty Ross. It was a great afternoon, with lots of interesting information about the evolution of 3D printing and how 3D printing gets used now. While they were presenting, I was making some connections to curriculum links, and I came out of it with some really interesting ideas and new concepts to chew over.

MAV offers really interesting topics for their lectures. Last year they also offered 'Was Pythagoras Chinese?' and 'The Mathematics of Futurama'. This year, so far they've done 'The Mathematics of the Simpsons' and 'Footy Maths', and they still have 'Calculus In One Easy Lesson' and 'Yin and Yang Maths' coming up.

If you're interested in changing up how you think about maths in the classroom, as well as updating your own mathematical knowledge and understanding, you can register for the remaining lectures here. MAV also offers support to teachers with lesson plans and resources for differentiated instruction under the 'Teach Maths for Understanding' or 'TM4U' package as part of their membership.

New School Year... sort of?

It's an interesting time of year for educators. Here in Australia, we're racing towards the end of Term 3, which means beginning our work on reports, assessment, online and offline student folios, PDPs, and job applications for next year. On the other side of the world, though, our North American counterparts are heading back to school - and that's great news for us. Not only are there an abundance of sales on online resources and subscriptions, just in time for a new year of planning, there are also about a million parodies out there about back to school scenarios.

Most of what I post here is professional and digitally minded, but today's post is lighthearted and fun. My two favourites from this year's parodies.

One Day More by the Des Moines School District

I Like Big Buses