Activity 2: A Change in My Practice Towards Future-oriented Learning and TeachingHow has this course changed my teaching to date? I’m not totally convinced I have made any radical changes in my practices (yet), however it has made me reflect on my teaching and learning pedagogy and given it some credibility through research literature. The biggest “change” I am going through at the moment is all around the notion of knowledge. The more I read about 21st Century learning and future orientated learning, the more this concept of acquiring and using knowledge resonates with me. I have begun to critically reflect on my perception of knowledge in a classroom setting and how I need to change my program to incorporate more critical thinking and less knowledge acquiring. So that’s what I am going to base this reflection on today. During both my Leadership Assignment 2 and the course reading this week’s reading by the Ministry of Education (2012) Supporting Future-oriented Learning and Teaching: A New Zealand perspective I have had a few “a-ha” moments. I have learnt that knowledge and critical thinking is not about learning stuff and then regurgitating it, but turning it into something new. Which when I read it out loud it seems so simple, I wonder how I could not have made that connection sooner! I think on reflection I have always held strongly onto the idea that every unit of learning needed a “so what’ moment, a reason for the children to gain knowledge, but in recent years getting the children to know stuff seems to have become the “so what”. I feel I have taken the easy option of getting them to create a presentation, an iMovie or book in Book Creator to present their knowledge and I should have explored more opportunities for children to design or make something new. As discussed in the Ministry of Education (2012) knowledge should not been seen as the end result, but something that allows children to “do” something. I really like the way this article talks about knowledge traditionally is thought of as a noun, but future oriented learning changes it into a verb. Very clever... I am going to use this! When I think about this perception of knowledge, I can see how the Maker Movement really embodies future focus teaching and learning. Core Education (2014) talks about the maker movement “is all about putting the making back into learning”. Which is not a new concept if you look to theorist such a Dewey who was an advocate for hands on learning. Critical thinking or knowledge construction as discussed in the 21st Century Learning Design rubric (2012), requires children to do more than just reproduce what they have learnt. They should be encouraged to go beyond this to generate ideas and understandings that are new to them. I haven’t implemented this change yet, it’s a work in progress and I feel it requires more research and a deeper understanding of how to develop critical thinkers in a classroom. I know that my future assignment will help me gain this “knowledge” so that in 2018 I can turn my new understanding into action. I need to turn my knowledge from a noun to a verb. REFERENCE
Ministry of Education.(2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306 Core Education (2014) Ten Trends 2014, Retrieved from ,http://www.core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/2014/maker-culture/ ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research
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To me, critical reflection is a major part of my teaching practise, to be honest I can’t see how you could be a successful educator without it. Reading through the course notes, I know I don’t deep dive into the whole process and I certainly don’t have time to follow any models as such. However I know that over time I have become more effective at looking back at a learning experience, thinking about what went well and what I call “even better if”. I found the five levels of reflections described by Finlay (2008) a good way to evaluate on my own reflective practise. For me, a lot of my reflective moments are what Finlay (2008) describes as “rapid”, a quick analysis of how things are going and what I need to do make it work better. This is when I’m in class management mode, it doesn’t require deep thinking but more intuition. As an experienced teacher I feel these are almost second nature, when you are a beginning teacher it’s these decisions you tend to doubt. I wonder if this type of reflection could be mistaken for just knowing what worked well before therefore no real reflection is needed - like being on automatic pilot and not really changing your practise or looking for new solutions. When I work with children on their specific learning needs, my reflections need to be more thoughtful and directed. Just like rapid reflection, I do this in the moment but is not rushed or spontaneous, it requires thinking back to other situations that worked and applying the lessons learnt from that experience. This repair style reflection means that I would alter my behaviour depending on who and what I was working on. I think I do this type of reflection really well, however I know when I’m tired or stress that my patience and ability to empathise is greatly reduced. It’s harder to take the time to reflect when you feel you have exhausted all your ideas in the tool kit and frustration has set in. In that situation, I usually review what happened on my drive home where I can remove myself my the situation and look at it more rationally. This review style of reflection also happens in our team meetings but in reflection probably only at a surface level. Each week we sit together and korero about how our week has gone, children we are concerned about and we have the opportunity to share our thoughts and feelings. In theory this is a great opportunity for critical reflective practise, however we probably spend too much time discussing the what, who and how, while failing to go deeper by looking into the why and ways this will move us forward. If we spent more time thinking about the causes of learning deficiency then our solutions may be more long term. Finlay goes onto discuss two other levels of reflection that I know I could improve on in my practise one being research and the other reauthorizing and reformulating. Even though for my target learners, I would collect and analyse data over a longer period of time I don’t spend any time reading research or finding out about academic theories to critically examine my teaching practise. To be honest that style of learning doesn’t really interest me, I would rather go and speak to another college or observe someone teaching. I don’t think it really matters how you find your solutions, as long as you are always actively moving forward in your thinking by reflecting on your past and the lessons you have learnt. Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file… |
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