Activity 2: A Change in My Practice Towards Future-oriented Learning and Teaching
Changing the Script: Rethinking Learners’ and Teachers’ Role.
- Theme 1: Personalising learning
- Theme 2: New views of equity, diversity and inclusivity
- Theme 3: A curriculum that uses knowledge to develop learning capacity
- Theme 4: "Changing the script": Rethinking learners' and teachers' roles
- Theme 5: A culture of continuous learning for teachers and educational leaders
- Theme 6: New kinds of partnerships and relationships: Schools no longer siloed from the community
- Subtheme 1: The role of current and emerging technologies
- Subtheme 2: Role of collaborative practices
Whenever starting to learn something new or that give put up walls, you would usually do as much research as possible before beginning, to be one step ahead and have prior knowledge. I did this before beginning Mind Lab, as I am sure many others did. Throughout my time with Mind Lab, each week we were provided with a short video explaining what the week's focus will be and given “Flipped Learning” to do before hand. When reading “Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching - a New Zealand perspective” one of the themes that stood out for me was Theme 4: Changing the Script: Rethinking learners’ and teachers’ role. When I think of this, it remembers me the Labour Party. They are now in the position to “change the script” of education in New Zealand. The now have the power to develop an educational system that is not only judge on reading, writing and maths.
As for the classroom teacher, I see one of the biggest ways in changing the script in their classroom, is to remove the concept of traditional homework / home learning to flipped learning and preparation. During our time in the Mind Lab, we have been provided with flipped learning before meeting up. Why do teacher waste their time and their students time with worksheets that probably have no real educational benefit. “The challenge is 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” (Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd, Hipkins, p. 42, 2012). I see real positive benefit from the flipped learning approach. There is so much content online that as educators we should be tapping into more. How often as teachers have we try to explain something in front of a group of children and they just don’t understand it. Get them to watch a video and they are more engaged. Get the children to develop their own videos explaining their strategies and thinking and share them with the class. We all know how effective it is children learning from each other. We are living in such a fast pace world, that teachers should be using every tools that is going to support them in their teaching and students learning.
I would be interested to hear from people that have used or are using the flipped classroom approach.
I have included two youtube clips of flipped learning:
Reference:
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., & Hipkins, R. (2012) Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching - a New Zealand Perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education.
Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306
I have found this an interesting read Joshua. I too have explored the flipped classroom concept in my room this year. It would be good to work together next year to continue our learning and how it adapts to our classroom.
ReplyDeleteThanks Debbie,
DeleteFlipping my classroom is going to be one of my major focusses next year. I really see the positive and effective benefit from this approach. The classroom is such busy place now, with children coming and going all the time, especially in the Year 6 area that I teach, with different children in and out of the room with different extension classes. By implementing the flipped classroom approach those children will never miss out, as they will have a video that they can watch and know what is happening. I think a really brave move would be recording some of my lessons and uploading them, so that they children can re-watch what is being taught - it would also be interesting for myself to watch to see how I can engaging and interacting with the class.
I have found this really interesting youtube clip by Hip Hughes called I Flip, You Flip, We All Flip: Setting Up a Flipped Classroom. It is a bit long, but well worth a watch for those that are thinking about starting to flip their classroom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRvmjjeZ9CA&feature=player_embedded
Hope it helps.
I love the idea of the flipped classroom. I am considering moving to a similar aspect with my students (specifically my junior classes) in the future. think that I find difficult with senior students is the completion of tasks at home. A lot of students have sporting commitments and jobs after school and on weekends and find it hard completing larger tasks. It is very important to create good study habits and the flipped learning style could be a way to combat this. Starting with videos at the junior level and moving towards tasks that support project based learning in the senior school.
ReplyDeleteIs there a way that you can ensure that your students will complete the required viewing before class?
That's a good point Vanessa, about ensuring that students view the video before school/lessons. This year I have had a very proactive and capable class of using digital devices. I think a beneficial way is to get the children to complete a question on a Google Form from the video, it will show teachers who has and hasn't viewed the video. One piece of advice would be to start small with flipped classroom learning. Stick with one or two subject at the start, until you feel comfortable and more capable of producing videos. I think that it is also just as important to view what is already on youtube. There are a large number of effective videos already developed.
DeleteI do enjoy the idea of flipped learning in the classroom. The biggest challenge for my students is they need lots of support in understanding and making sense of the content. High numbers of our kids have low literacy so communicating their ideas needs work. Not sure about primary school, but in high school if our students don't feel like what they're doing helps them get NCEA then they will chose not to put in any effort. Thats why we are looking at motivation through gamification. Our experience has shown us that as students reach milestones and progress towards some type of intrinsic rewards, they stay engaged and feel motivated to keep on succeeding. Success breads success.
ReplyDelete