Getting there. (Yes, finally!!!) - Research in Education

Oh wow! I have worked my little brain off this morning.

It was with some trepidation that I started my Week 20 Mindlab work today. The LOOMING question was: how to narrow down and focus on one idea for my teacher inquiry project and the up and coming literature review?
In last week's blog I recorded so many possibilities for my teacher inquiry that my head was spinning. So... after watching all the videos and reading (most of 😇) the readings, in a roundabout way I have come back to two key features I am REALLY interested in exploring and applying in my practice, that I had recorded in last weeks blog:

Design Thinking in education and Learner Agency.

I fell across Core education's website regarding top ten trends in Education for 2016 and 2017 and after a morning of scribbling down ideas and processing my thoughts, am really excited about how I can combine these ideas together to benefit my students and their learning for next year's class.

My beginning scrawlings.

Getting closer!

So why have I chosen to focus on these areas?

During my Mindlab experience for last year, my colleague and I created a learning unit where the students (after a lot of teaching and preparation) created and designed a digital television episode that they shared with our families. In that, I really got to experience students having and taking ownership of their learning, some elements of design thinking, experiencing the 'messiness' of learning and not rescuing students from finding their own solutions to problems.

At the heart, though I would like to explore learner agency more, helping kids have the mindset that it's okay to not have the answers, to fail and to persevere with their learning. I want to look at who really owns learning- who comes up with what is to be learned and why? I want to look at learner engagement over entertainment, as I see a bit of that going on and have probably been guilty of this myself at times. Something one student in my class last year would do was rate the learning going on by it's fun-level. I could have used that as a learning opportunity but want to explore that with my students next year. How can students really use technology and create with it? Collaboration is real and tangible in our classrooms so how can we apply these ideas to a new classroom and continue to grow the collaborative skills in a new group of students

So to me, Design Thinking with its:

• humanistic elements 
• students and teachers learning alongside one another 
• explorations of multiple perspectives and collaboration 
• creating and testing ideas
• problem-solving focus  
• future focus- 21st Century skills

is a great fit. I don't know enough yet but think this will work in beautifully with our school inquiry model. 

So what is my question at this stage?

Please feel free to comment and critique my question:

• How can student/learner agency and engagement be fostered through Design Thinking?

Communities of Practice

Curious minds coming together for a shared purpose, to grow and extend their (and other's) learning, AKA Communities of Practice.

Well, that's my definition of this concept. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a social anthropologist and an educational researcher and practitioner respectively, were the first to coin this term (Wenger Traynor, 2015).

Wenger (2002) highlights three key elements of a CoP

• Joint enterprise: is a shared domain which is the “collectively developed understanding of what the community is about”. The topic of interest shared by the group. 
• Mutual engagement: the members engage through interactions within the community, building mutual trust in the relationships. The shared activities and interactions members have concern the domain. 
• Shared repertoire: is “the communal resources” that the community of practice produce (Wenger, 2000, p.229). Shared tools, language, and practices of the community etc.

I personally find being involved in CoP's important. Not just for the personal and group growth of knowledge and learning, but for the other aspects as well. Being involved in a mutually respectful team with people who have similar passions helps to motivate and drive the profession (or interest) forward. These sorts of organic groups are vital (in my opinion) for personal satisfaction and the challenge they can provide. There also seems to me, to be a vital element of choice within a CoP which makes the CoP seem more a more authentic group to participate in. The domain is not mandated by 'others' but driven by participants themselves to improve their 'practice'.

My main CoP would center around the Year 8 team members I work with, in my school. We are a very collaborative group and gain a lot from sharing our teaching and learning experiences together. We are led by a very capable leader who helps push and challenge us. We have a group vision based around doing the best we can for our students and who they are as people. Within this CoP and throughout our school other CoP's occur based on interest and need.
So how does teacher inquiry contribute and link learning in our CoP?
By interacting and endeavoring to learn, working together, sharing, researching and discussing we will construct new knowledge and understanding which should work towards improving our practice and the outcomes and benefits for our students.


Issues (or ideas for exploration) in my professional practice:

• As a team, we are always looking for ways to authentically engage our students in their learning. To grow and foster their academic and social growth. 
• Using digital learning tools in more creative ways. 
• Continuing to develop more opportunities for students to create digital content instead of mainly consuming content. 
• Using and applying higher levels of the SAMR model within classroom practices. 
• Helping students understand that mistake and decision making, as well as forging their own learning pathways is a key element to their learning. 
• Improving student autonomy and agency. (Probably a bit broader than the idea above). 
• Developing programmes that employ more problem solving and 21st-century thinking skills for students to engage with.

After sifting through a multitude of ideas (and believe me there were MANY) I have narrowed my inquiry ideas down to the following:


1. How can Augmented Reality be used to enhance student learning and curiosity during inquiry?

2. Can design thinking processes be used to improve student autonomy and agency within the classroom? 

Each of these topics for inquiries can be used to grow the shared understanding and knowledge of our CoP and address some of the issues currently faced. Moving forward from this and applying Kotter's change model (Kotter, 1996), early adopters will also be keen to take on and use what has been found out to help make the technological changes that can help grow our CoP's teaching/knowledge repertoire. This, in turn, should help equip students with more if the 21st-century learning skills (Lichtman, 2013) and fulfill the expectations of the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) that have been highlighted as being so important for students have and use in their futures. There will be both short and long term benefits.


What will we need to be aware of in a CoP?

• Time limitations- teachers are busy people and making an inquiry a priority can be challenging. 
• Researching and inquiring broadly (thanks lit review!). At times CoP's could be in danger of being 'blinkered' because those involved often think and act similarly, (Hodkinson and Hodkinson, 2004), we (or I) will need to stop and check in for academic rigor in the work done and the knowledge grown. 
• Critiquing work, highlighting potential biases and expanding perspectives. 

References:

Hodkinson, P., & Hodkinson, H. (2004). A Constructive Critique of Communities of Practice: Moving Beyond Lave and Wenger. (Seminar Paper). Retrieved December 4, 2017, from Oval Research 2004 website: http://hdl.voced.edu.au/10707/18014

Knox, B. (2009, December 4).Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk

Kotter, J. (1996). Leading Change. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.

Lichtman, G. (2013). What 60 Schools Can Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skills: Grant Lichtman at TEDxDenverTeachers [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZEZTyxSl3g

Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/

Puzzle [Digital Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/phcommunities/resourcekit/intro/cop_approach.html

Too Many Choices [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2017, from http://awordywoman.com/1102/

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.

Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice. Retrieved December 04, 2017, from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

Future Oriented Learning and Teaching

Today students face an uncertain and ever changing future (2Revolutions LLC, 2012). Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall,Bull, Boyd & Hipkins (2012), note that a paradigm change in education is needed to help students meet these demands; “The old understanding of knowledge is no longer sufficient” p. 14. How we use, apply and think of knowledge has changed. Students need to be actively involved in their learning rather than passive recipients of content.

The 2012 report written by Bolstad et al, Supporting Future-oriented Learning and Teaching - a New Zealand Perspective, outlines key themes for educators to work towards to help prepare students for 21st century life.

1. Personalising learning 
2. New views of equity, diversity and inclusivity 
3. Knowledge to develop learning capacity 
4. Rethinking learner and teacher roles 
5. Continuous learning 
6. Partnerships and relationships 

Two sub-themes also flowed through their work:

1. Current and emerging technologies 
2. The role of the collaborative process 

I found it difficult to not see the connectedness between these themes. The Ministry of Education (2012) also commented on this; “What is needed is, not more effort focused on the parts of this system, but strategies designed to put these ideas together: to join all this up in a way that is driven by a coherent set of shared ideas....”

At the heart of my change in practice since working with Mindlab, has been a focus on ‘knowledge to develop learning capacity’. This moves away from traditional subject/ content/ learning area focus towards a shift in thinking to ‘knowledge as a verb’, Ministry of Education (2012). Creating and using new knowledge to solve problems and find solutions, with ‘just in time’ teaching and learning.

A colleague and I created a learning experience to develop our students’ collaboration skills. Although this was our focus, the learning outcomes were much broader than we could have ever imagined.
So what did we do?
Noticing a lack of student voice in our community correspondence we implemented HTV - a student-led and designed digital television programme. As educators, we wanted to allow our students to take charge of their learning, work collaboratively and leave their mark. We put a lot of work into the foundations of this project. Setting up a shared vision and purpose of HTV, establishing an understanding of collaboration, co-constructing success criteria, and setting up frameworks to support students as they took over the running of the project through agile and design thinking learning processes.

Then...we handed the reins over. This involved a rethink of the roles of both teacher and learner. Together we were learners. Students were in charge of organising their learning, making decisions, sorting out disagreements, researching and finding solutions about how to do things. They had use and apply their digital learning in a professional way to create the HTV episode and hold a premiere evening for whanau and caregivers.

Was this the regular and tidy learning programme- no?! It was messy at times and pushed me out of my comfort zone. I had to stop myself from directing students and allow them to make mistakes. If I did that it would take away their decision-making processing, their autonomy and their voice; and that was really challenging! I became the question asker- what do you think, can you look at this in another way, who else could help with this etc?

My students too, found this very challenging - why wasn’t I playing the game? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to just say what to do or give an answer? Some students found it very hard to make decisions in case they were ‘wrong’. Others didn’t seem comfortable having to think for themselves. And on the other hand… some students just flew- they relished in the opportunity and surprised us with how they worked, what they learned and the skills they demonstrated.

Constructionist theory (Papert & Harel, 1991) underpins this learning. Bers (2007) outlines four key elements important to constructivism in the classroom.

1. Learning is designed in communities, is interactive and students evaluate, assess and debug their learning as they go. 
2. Technological tools are used for collaborative teamwork and feedback. 
3. New ways of thinking assist in the creation of powerful ideas which have a personal connection for students. 
4. Learning about learning through technology. Students use technology safely, make positive contributions to themselves, their community, the world and technological development. 

So what have I learned from this?
Students need to be challenged and given more opportunities to think for themselves, to create together, to give back to their community. Messiness is okay (truly it is) and the learning gained from this can be uncomfortable at first but is so empowering. That way we can more fully prepare students for their futures.

References:

2Revolutions LLC. (2012). The Future of Learning. [Online Video]. 1 March 2012. Available from: https://youtu.be/xoSJ3_dZcm8. [Accessed: 30 November 2017].

Bers, M. U. (2008). Blocks to robots: learning with technology in the early childhood classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & 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

Build Learning Capacity [Digital image]. (2010, October 14). Retrieved December 1, 2017, from https://pt.slideshare.net/StonefieldsSchool/community-consultation-14-october

Creative Clip art Thinking Cap [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2017, from http://moziru.com/explore/Creative%20clipart%20thinking%20cap/#gal_post_4664_creative-clipart-thinking-cap-1.gif

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

Papert, S. & Harel, I. (1991). Constructionism. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing