Learning for the future

Over the past few months I've been reading a lot about where people consider the future of education to be heading. I find it interesting to delve into the various perspectives about what education might look like in the future and would like to share some of these.

The first is a summary of some key points from a webinar discussion between two key players in the world of education and learning, Ken Robinson and Peter Senge. Their discussion was entitled 'Learning for the Future' and offered the following snippets:
- Schools are still the answer. What we have to re-think is what a 'school' is.
- It's not that (some) students don't want to learn, its that they don't want to learn the way that we're teaching.
- Schools as communities of learners: We learn from each other - learning is a social act. It is deeply personal and inherently collective (I love this quote). Learning for the future involves learning what it means to think together, to act together.
- Schools are organised the way they are because of the technologies available at the time.
- Just as in an agricultural model of farming, too much emphasis on the yield, output and results will eventually destroy the soil and land beneath the surface. The same metaphor applies to learning. Too much focus on output, results and the yield will eventually destroy the 'story of learning' that exists as part of the culture.

I'm also currently reading through Future Wise: Educating our Children for Changing World by David Perkins. He offers the following six broad trends that are pushing the boundaries of what's taught and the way it's taught:

(1) Beyond basic skills - 21st Century skills and dispositions: There appears to be a global trend converging towards the cultivation of critical and creative thinking, collaborative skills and dispositions, leadership, entrepreneurship and the related skills and dispositions that speak strongly  to living and thriving in our era.

(2) Beyond the traditional disciplines - renewed, hybrid, and less familiar disciplines: Themes such as bioethics, ecology, recent ideas from psychology and sociology, and other areas that address opportunities and challenges of our times.

(3) Beyond discrete disciplines - interdisciplinary topics and problems: Many curricula introduce students to daunting, contemporary problems of an emphatically interdisciplinary character, such as the causes and possible cures of poverty or the trade-offs of different energy sources.

(4) Beyond regional perspectives - global perspectives, problems, and studies: Attention not just to local or national but also to global matters, for instance, world history or the global interactive economic system or the possible meanings of global citizenship.

(5) Beyond mastering content - learning to think about the world with the content: Educators are encouraging learners not just to master content academically but also to notice where content connects to life situations, yields insights, and prompts productive action.

(6) Beyond prescribed content - much more choice of what to learn: In some settings, educators are supporting and coaching learners in choices about what to study well beyond the typical use of electives.

I find it an interesting exercise to reflect on how many, and to what extent, my school is enacting these 'six beyonds'. For some schools, these have been a part of the conversation for many years, yet progress is limited. Others have been shaping the path for some time. It seems to me that more and more these sorts of attributes are becoming more common in school frameworks.

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Who is the self that teaches?

I've spent the first part of this school year delivering some IB workshops and am currently preparing to deliver a couple more in the next few months. Some interesting things that I've been reading about lately relate to the idea that the more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more sure footed our teaching and living becomes.  As important as teaching methods and strategies may be, perhaps the clearest indicator of one's ability to perform is an insight into what is happening inside them as they do it. With that in mind, it can be useful to consider the following profiles and to decide which one best aligns with each individual.

The following were developed by Art Costa and Robert Garmston as part of Cognitive Coaching. Credit is also due here to JoAn Radojkovich and Julian Edwards for introducing these to me in this context.

As an educator, what do you believe your role is?
 

Cognitive Processor: To develop students' ability to think clearly, to use intellectual reasoning to solve problems and to make rational decisions.

Self-Actualizer: To nurture the individual child's unique potentials; to allow full development of his/her creativity and sensitivity, and to encourage personal integrity, love of learning and self fulfillment.

Technologist: To diagnose the learner's needs and abilities, to design instructional strategies which develop skills and competencies, and to produce trained people who are able to function efficiently in our ever-changing technological society.

Academic Rationalist: To transmit to young people the basic knowledge, skills, traditions, academic concepts and values necessary to interpret, participate in and further essential content of the disciplines.

Social Reconstructivist: To create a future world condition of peace, harmony, equality and love; to foster a new society with humans who can live together in balance with their environment and with each other.

Which profile do you most align with?

Which profile do you think best aligns with your parent community?

Can you belong to more than one profile?

Is it possible to shift from one profile to another? Does the experience of a teacher define which profile they are most likely to identify?

When would this sort of information be useful for schools? For teachers? For prospective employees or clients?

Photo Credit: harry harris via Compfight cc

The power of the PYP

Our school year here at Branksome Hall Asia finished on Friday for students. Of the many highlights throughout the year, two stood out for me during the last week - Grade Five and Six graduation. This year we have transitioned Grade Six out of the Junior School and into the Middle School. The knock on effect of this is that everything that the Grade Six do in their final year had to be doubled as it was also the final year for the Grade Fives.

As the Grade Five and Six students reflected on their achievements and highlights throughout the year, many of their speeches mentioned the Exhibition as a defining moment for them. This is unsurprising - it is a major event for Junior School students. One speech in particular really stood out for me and I asked her permission to share it here.

Jiyeon only joined BHA this year. I covered a lesson for her class teacher earlier in the year and not long after she arrived. At BHA we have a very high number of English language learners - about 98% of our student population do not have English as a mother tongue. So the fact that Jiyeon didn't speak much English when she first arrived wasn't a major concern. What was causing a few alarm bells to sound off was her lack of engagement and apparent interest in even trying. The class teacher and I were concerned that, given she would be leaving the Junior School at the end of the year, we may not be able to provide Jiyoen with the best possible opportunities for success. What a difference three months makes. Jiyeon not only presented this speech in front of her graduating peers, parents and teachers, but she also had a speaking role in the school production and presented with her Exhibition group to students from other schools in Jeju.

Graduation speech

 Hi, I’m Jiyeon from VF, and I’m here for graduate my short 6^th grade. I came this school in this year, and my English skills grow quickly. At first day of this school, I was really nervous. I think I only said maybe 3 sentences in class. I thought I don’t have enough English skill to study in this school. Well, that was fact.

 But, my school life changed when I did exhibition. I learn very many things, and I did very many new things. I wrote my first English script for presentation, and I wrote my own English essay. Actually, my writing skill grows in fastest speed. Before exhibition that was hard to write only 1 or 2 sentences. But now, I can write 23 pages of narrative, and half page of speech. I am very proud of myself.

 In 6^th grade, I learned that we need to be a risk taker. When I see the IB learner profiles, I always think [I want to be a risk taker]. Because I’m not a risk taker, and I think that is most important thing in my life. In class, I don’t put my hand up when teacher ask some question. Because I always worry about when my answer is wrong, and when teacher doesn’t pick me to answer. But, when I take a risk, all things changed, and I realized. I need to take a risk! But that is hard. I think this is something that I need to improve on when I go to 7^th grade.

 After summer vacation, all 6^th grades become 7^th grade, and start learning MYP program. We will never forget our grateful 6^th grade teachers, parents, and friends.

 Thank you.
This speech has so many wonderful messages. The impact that Exhibition has. The benefits of risk-taking and the connection between the Learner Profile and learning. The power of reflection (and it is clear that Jiyeon is very reflective). Huge credit to Jiyeon for the amazing progress she has made this year - surely great things await in her future. Our Grade Six teachers also deserve to revel in our praise for it is their support and encouragement that has helped this to occur. If there was ever an example of the power of a growth mindset coupled with a PYP education - this is it.

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Reimagining our Early Years program

This year at BHA we have several professional learning communities operating in unison. I'd like to touch on one of those in this post. The team of five teachers in the kindergarten, plus any other teachers interested in learning about the early years, are currently in the beginning stages of redeveloping their approach to teaching and learning. They're working through the valuable and collaborative process of developing a shared image of child. I was lucky enough to be able to be part of a group that went through a similar process in my previous school and found the conversations both challenging and rewarding.

So far this group has examined their own personal opinions and ideas about children. They were asked to share what they thought a child was and these responses were collated and discussed. Teachers were given the opportunity to highlight which elements of everyone's statements they agreed with and which parts they still had questions or other wonderings about. This required further discussion to unpack and will be useful to re-visit later in the year once everyone has had the opportunity to reflect on their own and others' ideas.

This graphic was created to help make visible the key words about image of child that the group valued as a collective.

The session today was spent looking at these words and talking about what they meant. There were some comments about similarities between words, about which words were by-products of our images, and which words were useful to help support the creation of our image.

The next steps for this group will be to narrow down the words to a smaller selection - we're thinking between 5 and 10 - that truly sum up our thoughts about our image of child. From this list they will map out what it is that they believe they should be doing in order to foster the growth of this image of child in their classrooms (and across the school).

It promises to be an exciting year for this group of teachers (along with the rest of the faculty of course!). We're lucky to be hosting a regional IB conference in November and all of these teachers will have the opportunity to attend workshops that will help grow their understanding of a play-based curriculum. We'll also be looking to connect with like-minded schools in order to share ideas, practices and strategies. I'm very much looking forward to being part of this process.

How not to be ignorant about the world

I had the pleasure of seeing Hans Rosling some years ago at a conference that I attended. His engaging presentation style matched the thoughtful information that he shared. I found this talk to also be interesting.

Twitter as a PD tool

A little over 2 years ago I created my own Twitter account. I was encouraged to do this by a friend of mine. She told me that she found Twitter to be the best way to stay abreast of latest trends, information and ideas. Since then I have created a PLN that stretches across the globe and have learned a great deal as a result.

People use web 2.0 tools in many different ways. I know teachers and schools that use Facebook to help in their learning. Pinterest, Slideshare, Livebinder, Prezi, Glogster - the list goes on and on. Personally, I use Facebook for my personal life and Twitter for my professional life (although sometimes the two combine).

#Pypchat is something that I've become closely involved in this year. I've been following it for a while, but had never participated in a chat because I lived in Europe and the #pypchat was run on a timezone in Asia so I was always too late. I've since found out that there are other #pypchats sprouting up all over the world (Europe, Americas) so are opportunities wherever you live.

Twitter also provides me with countless links, feeds, trends and articles that have helped grow my understanding of a great deal of topics, as well as quick connections with educators around the world who are very generous with sharing their expertise.

Sometimes I feel like Twitter gives me too much information to keep up with - we do live in the New Media Age after all! Luckily there are options that help to filter information so that you can be more accurate in both your search for and contribution to certain topics. TweetDeck is one that I've used before (although there are may others) and it works well for me. Twitter also uses hashtags (#) to help categorise information - like #pypchat.

I believe that Twitter has a real place in the classroom and can help to contribute to authentic learning engagements. I try to incorporate it into my classroom wherever possible so that my students can also benefit from it. Last year one of my Gr. 3 students received a tweet from Zlatan Ibrahimovic during our UOI on role models - he was chuffed!

Twitter has transformed the way I access information and collaborate with others. Best of all, it offers me fantastic professional development on a daily basis (and its free!).


If you would like to learn more about #pypchat then you can find out about it here.

A question of mindsets

I'm currently reading Mindset, by Carol Dweck. It's a book that I've been meaning to read for quite some time now, having heard much about the ideas in workshops and from other colleagues. Our Middle and High School Head asked her faculty to read it as part of their professional reading this year and I was able to get my hands on a spare copy.

The general idea is fairly straightforward. There are two mindsets (the view or attitude that someone adopts) about oursleves: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. Fixed mindset people believe that you are born with a specific amount of talent and ability for something and that no matter how hard you work you won't be able to really change this level. They believe that 'abilities are carved in stone' (pg. 6). Fixed mindset people constantly feel as though they have to prove themselves. This is because if they can't appear clever and smart then the only alternative is that they appear dumb, seeing as they can't do anything about their current ability levels. Therefore, they generally choose tasks that are just difficult enough for them.

Those who hold a growth mindset believe that you are born with a specific level of talent and ability for something but this can be altered by practising and honing your skills, knowledge and understanding of particular disciplines. They don't believe that your traits are 'simply a hand you're dealt with and have to live with' (pg. 7). Growth minded people believe that a person's qualities can  be cultivated through their efforts and that everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

When I first heard about these two mindsets, and as I began reading the book, I considered myself to be firmly in the 'growth' party. I definitely believe that I can improve myself by working harder and thrive on challenges to my thinking and abilities in the work that I do. This is also recognisable in the people that I choose to associate closely with. My wife is an amazing woman. But I'm not attracted to her purely for her gorgeous looks, fabulous singing voice and sense of humour. She is someone (probably more than anyone else) that sees my faults and helps me to work on them, challenges me to be a better person and encourages me to learn new things. She doesn't undermine my self-esteem but she does foster my self-development. I also thrive on learning opportunities. This weekend we have an EAL expert coming to our school to run a workshop on EAL learning styles and to give us some ideas and techniques about how to teach EAL students. Some of our teachers are upset that they have to give up their weekend. Sure, this is an inconvenience for all of us. But Dr. Rojas has a busy schedule and cannot come at any other time. Even though it is on the weekend, this is still a great opportunity to learn and improve our skills, knowledge and understanding of teaching EAL students - and our entire student body are EAL (save a handful of students). These are all attributes of someone who has a growth mindset. I will say though, that I don't always adopt this stance. If I'm confronted with difficulties in things that I'm not passionate about then I'm far less inclined the put the effort in to improve, especially if my starting point is fairly low. Anyone who has seen me dance would agree with this.

I'm only part-way through the book, however, and I'm starting to discover some interesting elements to the mindsets. Perhaps I'm not as growth oriented as I first thought. Apart from choosing particular tasks that allow them to prove themselves to their peers, fixed mindsetters also regularly ask themsleves evaluative questions such as: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser? They feel smart when something comes easily for them (and others struggle with it), when they finish something and its perfect, and when they don't make any mistakes (pg. 24). I can admit to asking myself these questions and I definitely feel the same way about some of the answers above that have come from people with a fixed mindset. Does this mean that I'm not a growth-minded person after all? Probably not. The fact that I'm even asking myself these questions indicates that I don't believe that someone is born one way.

Carol's message is at the beginning of the book is that 'everyone has the ability to change their mindset'. My current stage of understanding is that I appear to be on some sort of mindset continuum. I would predict that I'm more towards the growth end of the spectrum, and I don't feel like there's a clear cut position of being totally in one or the other (for me at least). I do feel smart when I can do things that others have difficulty with. But I also believe that this is a result of the hard work that I've put in over many years - it hasn't just happened. I also don't feel that because I can do something well that it doesn't mean that I can't still improve at it.

So this all points to me having more of a growth mindset than a fixed one. I am curious to find out more about the intricacies of each mindset and I wonder if, as my understanding of each continues to develop, my idea of where I place on the mindset continuum will change?


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What is Learning?

I've been following a string of blog posts that have asked the question: What is learning? These have really sparked my thinking and over the past week I've tried a few things out in my classroom. Sam's post quotes the statistic that close to 100% of schools fail to have a shared, common understanding of what they believe valuable learning is. Without this, he goes on to say, parents can't decide if it's the right school for their child, teachers can't decide if this school is right one for them to teach at, leadership can't decide if they're doing a good job and, most importantly, students can't decide if they are being successful. 

When I read this post we were just at the end of our first week of school. There is always a lot going on at this time and, in order to foster a collaborative environment, one thing I wanted to do was to establish our class essential agreements. This year I tried a different approach to the creation of these agreements. I spent the first week having the class engage in a couple of different scenarios that addressed concepts such as communication, inclusivity and decision making. I attended an interesting workshop with Bill Powell and Steve Dare over the Summer break and was keen to translate a few of their ideas into practice in the classroom. So we worked through and reflected on those few engagements. I wanted the students to consider the feelings and thoughts that they experienced during the exercises when they made their agreements. The night before I was planning to get the students to decide on the agreements I read Sam's post and thought that this was something that simply had to be included in the build up. In one minute I had changed all of my plans! 

I wanted to ask the students to consider what learning was for them. My plan was to spend some time reflecting on what learning was and then share each other's responses. I predicted that this would help everyone see that (i) we all have different needs, values and perspectives and (ii) that there are some core attributes of learning that apply to everyone (or at least most people). I adapted the ISB model that I saw in another of Sam's posts to read as three categories: Sound, Feel, Look. So each student was asked to find a quiet place and think about what it felt like for them when they were in the moment of learning something; what someone would see if they looked at them when they were learning; and what someone would hear if they were listening when they were learning something (there's a lot of they's there, does it make sense?!). I also asked them to consider what someone wouldn't see and hear if they were watching them learn; and what learning doesn't feel like for them. The answers were interesting and pleasing:

After I scribed all of the students' ideas down we saw that a lot of the answers given for 'sounds like' were reflected in the 'looks like' answers, so decided to condense that category into one. There were clearly some clashes of ideas: 'learning doesn't look like wandering around' vs 'learning does look like experimenting and asking other people'. When talking about the 'sounds like' ideas, there were a lot of different opinions. One student said 'learning sounds like jazz'; another said 'learning sounds like silence'; and yet another said 'learning sounds like rock music and lots of noise'. Obviously some different learning styles there!

This was a great way to allow the students to see that they all had similarities and differences in their learning. It was also good because it bought to the forefront of our decision making the single most important thing about school - student learning.

Photo credit: I Learn

Quad Blogging action research

Quad Blogging is an activity which involves four classes communicating together by commenting on each other’s work. The process works by each class taking it in turns to comment on each other’s work. In advance, the teachers nominate one class to be the focus each week and students from the other three classes browse through the work providing quality comments as they go. Then the focus rotates to the next class and you carry on in that pattern. 


Over the past four weeks my class has been involved in a quad blogging action research project that has included students from Grades 3 - 5 from schools in Thailand, USA, Czech. Republic and Switzerland. Along with Maggie Hos-McGrane (the IT Team Leader in the Elementary school), who has been acting in a coaching role for me and my students, we have guided the students through the processes involved with the quad blog. During this time we have been observing, discussing and researching whether or not this experience can improve the writing skills of students, and offer new ideas and insights for teachers into the instruction of writing in (and out of!) their classrooms.

Quad Blogging Trailer from langwitches on Vimeo.


Some potential roadblocks that were suggested at the beginning of the project were that whether or not I would be able to incorporate blogging experiences into my daily language time in the classroom. Good blogging requires first  having to read the posts you are looking at before you decide either what to comment on, or whether or not this post might inspire or encourage you to write a post of your own. Luckily, I didn't find it difficult to dedicate time in my schedule to allow for reading of the blogs. I found that the skills required for quad blogging are transferrable to other forms of writing so didn't see this as an 'extra' thing to add onto the timetable. My students were enthusiastic about reading their peers' blogs because they had an authentic purpose and and also made personal connections throughout the quad blogging process.


The writing side of the experience related to the reading in the sense that many of my students wanted to leave comments on people's blogs that they'd viewed before, or if that person had written on their blog previously. By having a contextual purpose for their writing, they not only thought carefully about what they were writing (in terms of content), but they also showed great enthusiasm to write. Many students chose to comment on several other students' blogs as well as their designated buddy. 


We were also able to refer to two rubrics that highlighted some important aspects of both blogging and commenting. These rubrics allowed the students to self-extend their own writing by reflecting on whether or not they had included all elements that were required to be an 'expert blogger'. Several students also commented in their reflection that they felt that by having the rubric accessible to them (I posted it on the class blog), they were able to take their time and think about what certain things meant. This helped them to understand more about blogging. 


The students also reflected on some other things that they felt like the process helped to improve their writing: 

• "It allowed me to get some more feedback about my writing"
• "It helped me to learn new words"
• "I improved at writing because I had to make sure my spelling and grammar were aways correct because everyone was reading it"
• "I became much better at keeping a conversation going, which I wasn't good at before"
• " I was able to make some connections to my other writing. Like, when I write a story and in the story there is some information about something, it's like in blogging when I make a hyperlink to another blog post"
• "It helped me to read some other blog posts so I could see what good writing looked like"

Although at the start of this project I predicted that it would help my students to improve their writing skills, I never expected it to be this successful. The comments and conversations provided by my students showed to me the widespread impact that this has had on their writing. By providing a real purpose for the students, the volume of their writing increased dramatically. Perhaps not as much for the students in my class who were already prolific writers, but for those who are sometimes reluctant to write it gave them a great opportunity and purpose. It also incorporated several other useful skills, such as meta-cognition, time management and collaboration. By having this during the second half of the year, I was able to ensure that my students were tech-savvy enough to be able to self-monitor their own blogs, although I believe that this could also have been done during the first half of  the year as most students are familiar and capable with this sort of technology - it's part of their everyday life. 


Having the IT help was certainly beneficial. I'm reasonably competent with the technology we were using so this allowed Maggie to take on more of an observing role, which was great for the assessment process. She was able to capture the students on video going through the processes in real time and this helped to provide a great insight into their thoughts and understandings. She also went through each student's blog and took screen shots of each of their comments. This allowed us to compare their writing at the beginning and end of the process - and the results were clear to see. However, for those teachers not confident with this sort of technology then this coaching role would look different.


Although I would have previously already recommended quad blogging to any teacher, now I am thinking that we should be really insisting that something along the lines of this sort of learning experience really should happen in classrooms. The benefits were clear to see and I'm looking forward to continuing this with other classes that I've connected with before.

The Power of Reflection

Metacognition refers an awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes. It is a valued part of the inquiry learning philosophy that underpins the PYP and people should expect to see examples of this in a PYP school. Dylan Wiliam summarises metacognition in this short video:

More of these clips can be found at the Journey To Excellence website.

Reflecting is the most common way that most teachers help to foster meta cognitive skills. A summative task will inevitably include some form of reflection, as will a culmination of a unit of work. Unfortunately this can sometimes only be token reflection - seen more of a 'tick the box' task rather than a true reflection on the learning process.  Paying mere lip service to a completed task or unit is something akin to immersing children in a fact-based curriculum that sacrifices conceptual understanding. It is important that teachers recognise the power of reflection and help to scaffold and encourage this development throughout a child's education.

As Wiliam states in the video, children can be taught the processes of reflection. The reflective process, like other skills, can develop over time and as students become more comptent at it they take less time to consider the elements that they think about - it becomes more natural. I certainly agree with this and can recall many students that I have taught who have excellent meta cognitive skills. There can be a noticeable difference between students who have been educated in an environment where reflection is valued, compared to those who have rarely reflected in the past. Clearly, reflecting well is not as easy as it sounds. If this ability level can be reached earlier on in someone's life then it can have positive impacts on their learning.

Teachers can help encourage the reflection process in many ways. Harvard University's Project Zero has developed several thinking routines, some of which are linked directly to reflection. I have used some of these in the past and have found them to be very effective. Through activities, such as blogging, the use of Web 2.0 tools can also encourage reflection. This blog has certainly helped me to reflect on my own practice and has also enabled me to gather feedback from other educators around the world. This can be easily transferred to the classroom as students can have their own blogs or twitter accounts (another way to enhance the reflection process). Blogging isn't the only way though - there are many different tools that can help encourage reflection. For some other ideas check out this blog post or re-cap the recent #elemchat on Twitter.

My final thoughts are concerned with how and what we should reflect on. Reflecting on key and related concepts for a unit or piece of work is a good way of helping to assess students' understanding. Sure, we structure our work around concepts but do the kids really 'get' it? Do they know that they are discussing perspectives, connections or responsibilities? Not all the time, I don't think. Good reflection can focus students' thinking onto the big ideas that they might not realise they're working with. Secondly, negotiating the curriculum with students is a key element of inquiry learning. If students have ownership over what they are learning then they are more engaged and this makes the reflection process both easier and more relevant. A final element to consider is to ensure that reflection is a perpetual process. This is a personal goal of mine as I feel that I don't give my students enough opportunity to reflect at the end of a lesson (or in the middle of a lesson). Reflecting only at the end of a unit, while important, doesn't give students the chance to adapt their learning throughout the process. If they're not learning from their learning then they're not extracting everything that they can from their work.