Parts, People, Interactions (for exploring complexity) – I have used this routine before to teach the causes of the First World War (it didn’t work too well when I only had one lesson on the topic with Year 9, when I had a few weeks with Year 11 it was perfect).
Voice and Choice (for developing a sensitivity to what and who is not represented)
“As it turns out, the answer is not that simple. You see, Sir Professor Isaac of Newton was so clever, he was born in BOTH 1642 and 1643…”
Taken from the current issue of the Visual Thinker. You can subscribe here.
You can use this image for free without changing it as long you include the at…
I really enjoyed this account Bryan. I have found the challenge associated with supporting my daughter intriguing. Sadly, coxing her down rabbit holes has been a bit of a challenge as I am not her ‘real teacher’. Although she has enjoyed diving into Minecraft which has been her supposed bonus passion project.
How might we create a report that aligns with what we believe about learning? What if we report on what we really value in learning? What if we elect to report only on transferable skills? What if we let go of expected ‘levels’ (real or imagined) and pay more attention to who each child is as a learner? What if we focus on assessment FOR and AS learning, rather than only assessment OF learning? How might we support students and parents to value and reflect on skills that really matter?
We can ignore the tools that we have access to. We can fear them. We can understand them.
(And, after we understand them, we’re able to hire someone else to use them on our behalf.)
We can even master them.
Thoughts are with all the Victorian students and teachers as onsite learning resumes today. The world has changed and it will be a different space to be in. I imagine there will be a lot of anxiety, excitement and apprehension in the air, however the balloons being put out at my children’s school this morning were a thoughtful gesture. Reminds me that there are some things we can change and it is useful to start there.
To complete this cycle (ongoing and iterative), we must be willing to not only learn, but also create cognitive space for new learning by intentionally unlearning the knowledge, behaviors, understandings, assumptions, and misconceptions that are not only no longer useful or valid, but tend to keep our mental models suspended in the status quo, hurtling towards future irrelevancy.
It will only be through this cognitive intentionality, combined with a greater awareness towards present changes, as well as a forecasting of possible disruptions that loom on the horizon…
That we can begin to determine our learning voids, as well as a unlearning needs.
David, this reminds me of Tom Barrett’s discussion of innovation compression and the importance of taking something off the plate when adding something new.
Austin Kleon shared a link to John Holt’s newsletter and some thoughts on learning at home. One of the issues I have had is that it is a contested space. Although I have been supporting my daughter while she has been learning at home, creating the space, allowing her to explore, the problem I have had is that I am not her teacher, I have no agency. This is why Kleon argues that the current context is not ‘homeschooling’. I consider it a blend of the worst of both worlds.
What if school, in fact, isn’t the best place for your kids to learn? What if you didn’t try to replicate school at home? What if you had the opportunity, now, to try something else? What if we saw this time as a radical opportunity to let our kids learn and explore their interests unfettered by the demands of the classroom? What would happen if you stopped worrying about teaching them and gave your kids the time, space, and materials to lead their own learning? What would happen if you let them in on your working life, let them see you working, involved them more deeply in the work of keeping up a house?
Sarah aside – and you go, girlfriend – what have you learnt?
That you’re a little more prone to anxiety than you thought you were? That being an extrovert doesn’t shield you from loneliness? That being an introvert doesn’t shield you from loneliness?
I have learnt that there is no ‘deep work’ without a wife, especially when you are working in a shared space.
What schools do best is create community, they create space for people to just be. We want to provide spaces where all children and adults feel like they have equal and equitable opportunities to learn but more so equal chances to be seen and heard and to belong.
In moving schools online in the face of this crisis, most seem to have learned how to put that metaphoric square peg in a round hole. That’s not a bad thing, but as with the astronauts, it’s just life support, a way to survive this momentary disaster. But the discussions we have and the decisions we make when the dust finally settles from the Coronavirus disruption will determine whether or not our schools and our students will just survive this moment or whether they will actually thrive in the future. For the best chance at the latter, those discussions and decisions need to be held through the lens of how powerful learning actually happens in each of us in the real world, not how we have long tried to force learning to happen in this thing we call school.
With the incredibly rapid move to online learning teachers have scrambled. FAST. It’s been tough, it’s been stressful, there’s been quite a few late nights. And in the process we’ve all got a little taste of what mountain climbers call TYPE II fun.
It is expressed in many different ways, all of which all boil down to the conclusion that everyone likes hard challenging things to do. But they have to be the right things matched to the individual and to the culture of the times. These rapidly changing times challenge educators to find areas of work that are hard in the right way: they must connect with the kids and also with the areas of knowledge, skills and (don’t let us forget) ethic adults will need for the future world.
Thinking about such ‘fun’ is it fair to say there is always a level of agency and autonomy involved. The choice to use Kahoot! or the choice to run a marathon. I wonder what opportunities can be provided for students at the moment to engage in Type II fun?
Life is about compromise. For a while Ms4 has been having her nails painted when we cut them. This morning she flaunted them in front of Ms9. I asked Ms9 if while learning from home she wanted to paint her nails? She quickly responded that it was against school policy, only to then follow up with the realisation that she wasn’t required to wear her uniform while at home. Had me wonder about the challenges to the grammer of school because of the current pivot to online learning and the challenges this raises when students return.
One of the silver linings of the current crisis has been the opportunity to work more closely with my daughter as she learns from home. One thing I have been trying to encourage has been a space of experimentation and exploration. One interest has been the cooking of cakes and cookies. The other day she decided to make a batch of ANZAC cookies to make sense of social distancing.
It turns out that learning isn’t in nearly as much demand as it could be. Our culture and our systems don’t push us to learn. They push us to conform and to consume instead.
The good news is that each of us, without permission from anyone else, can change that.
Some children and adults too perhaps, have not yet been able to take ownership of their learning. But even that statement can probably be argued. Whether your 5, 15 or 55, you probably have used the internet in some way shape or form to drive your own learning. That’s online learning at its best.
Dean Shareski adds to the discussion about what constitutes online learning. He suggests that learning itself has not changed, what has evolved has been the act of teaching.
Now is the time to get meta with parents, students, and teachers about learning. And we can do it in the service of learning about learning. Whether through survey or live Zoom discussions or email or whatever else, right now is when we need to be asking these questions and engaging in these conversations:
When is your child most engaged with their online school experience? Why? What drives that engagement?
When is your child bored or disengaged? Why?
When do your children feel joy in learning? What circumstances lead to that?
What are you learning about your children during this experience? How does that learning happen?
How are your children’s learning skills improving during this time? What’s changing about them as learners?
I’m sure there are others, and we can vary them for the audience, but you get the idea. We can collect and share these answers at the appropriate time as a way of sparking a larger conversation about what learning really is, what aspects of school really aren’t working, and how we can bring more joy and love of learning to “real” school moving forward. And it would be a spark built on our personal, collective experience as qualitative researchers asking relevant, important questions about our kids.
We put together a 30 Days of LEGO Play calendar. It’s a great way to really challenge kids (or yourself) to create something new with their LEGO bricks!
Along with drawing, another great activity for learning at home is Lego. This calendar provides a useful balance between constraints and creativity for makers to work within.
I think most educators innately know about the importance of play but according to many of them, they don’t have the time during the school day to permit kids to play outside of recess . . . but I ask, “What are the costs of not permitting them to play?”
