A Change in My Practice Towards Future-oriented Learning and Teaching

Week 18: A Change in My Practice Towards Future-oriented Learning and Teaching

Theme 3: Personalising learning

Theme 4: Changing the script: Rethinking learners and teachers roles

Over the past years I have been introduced to terms such as learner-centred, student advocacy, student voice, learner-driven. I have heard these terms used at PLC’s, QLC’s, PLD’s, and in MLE’s.  I heard it in conversations with colleagues and seen examples of the many interpretations of it on many classroom walls …and I have felt gladdened and very challenged by it.

In my quest to ensure the learning of my new entrant students is learner-driven I have tried a range of different approaches – Daily Five, student goals, annotated writing exemplars on the walls, math stage posters on walls, modelling books, math stages broken down into fine-grained progressions, WALTs, student created success criteria, asking questions designed to support student self-regulation, thumbs up, down, sideways, models of what ‘good’ looks like, student inquiries, and play-based learning - all with various degrees of success but all with little understanding of ‘why’ and a complete lack of understanding regarding ‘how’ to make this happen in my new entrant classroom.

Being involved in Mindlab has been like finding that pivotal jigsaw puzzle piece which helps the picture make more sense. My journey of change in my classroom began with my introduction to 21st^t Century Learning, particularly the ITL learning rubrics ( ITL Research, 2012). I started to see the links between the thinking behind the ‘buzz words’ (student advocacy, learner-centred, etc) and the need for my students, regardless of their young age, to be developing the skills and understandings they need for their future success in a world we can’t yet imagine.

In our classroom collaboration is beginning to look like collaboration not simply cooperation and I am starting to look more deeply at all aspects of my teaching practice for example:

·       Working from a student’s strengths rather than filling gaps or overly focussing on needs.
·       Inquiry rather than prescriptive content driven units of learning.
·       Co-construction as opposed to teacher constructed.
·       Student advocacy/voice is more than goal charts on the wall and reflective questions asked       at the end of learning just because they are required to be asked.
·       Ipads are beginning to look like tools for learning rather than a replacement for a piece of           paper, a book, a game or another activity on the task board.

With the learning I am doing in Mindlab, lots of talking with my students about their learning and thinking, and through reading research literature such as the “Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective (Ministry of Education, 2012)”, I am slowly developing new understandings about what it means to be a teacher in the 21st^t Century.

I still have a long way to go.

My challenge is, as stated in Ministry of Education (2012, p. 42),

“to move past seeing learning in terms of being "student-centred" or "teacher-driven", and instead to think about how learners and teachers would work together in a "knowledge-building" learning environment. This is not about teachers ceding all the power and responsibility to students, or students and teachers being "equal" as learners. Rather, it is about structuring roles and relationships in ways that draw on the strengths and knowledge of each in order to best support learning.”

References:

ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

Ministry of Education.(2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306