Session 2: Game of Thumbs

This session considered the 21 Century Skills that students are now expected to cover.  It let to interesting debate around the fact that many of those skills are still embedded in 20th Century skills.  We agreed that 21st Century skills do not stand alone, rather they maintain a foundation in 20th Century skills.

It is somewhat ironic that students are still coming to terms with 20th Century skills let alone developing 21st Century ones.

Below are key elements of the ITL research rubrics:

• Collaboration

• Knowledge construction

• Self-regulation

• The Use of ICT for learning

• Skilled Communication

• Real-world problem-solving and innovation

We were then required to take one of these skills and present a short video clip on how the rubric associated with it could be implemented.  A lot of fun ensued as a result.

From here we considered how the key competencies:

• Thinking

• Using language, symbols & texts

• Managing self

• Relating to others

• Participating and contributing

- can be applied to leadership by selecting one of them in small groups and explaining how we see it being implemented in both positive and negative ways.  For us we selected "Relating to Others" and talked about how, often, as people move up the leadership chain, they are perceived as becoming increasingly distant from the classroom and classroom practice.  As a result, they are often tagged with statements such as, "you don't know what it is like", when trying to implement some form of change.  It extends further into how we role model these positions of leadership.  Do we role model our positions as attractive?  Are they something to aspire to?  Do we make it seem manageable (work/life balance)?

It was a fast and frantic session.

Post session we had to produce a short video that shows how we implement to 21st Century Learning Skills into our teaching/leadership (with a focus on one skill using the ITL rubric).

Teacher Criteria:

Teaching:

Teach in ways that enable learners to learn from one another, to collaborate, to self-regulate and to develop agency over their learning.

Leadership Criteria:

Professional Relationships:

Actively contribute, and work in a collegial manner, in the pursuit of improving my own and organisational practice, showing leadership, particularly in areas of responsibility.

Session 1 - Fun with Playdoh

How to Conceptualise the NZ Curriculum

Part 1:  The Purpose of Education:

The course has started and almost immediately, it was refreshing to note the following:

1.  Pedagogy comes first and this is the focus of the course.  
2.  Technology is a tool/means for delivering that pedagogy.
3.  You do not not have to be up with all the latest apps and software to engage.
4.  The course is highly reflective.

It started out with a consideration of knowledge and what the purpose of education happens to be.

Our initial playdoh construction had us considering knowledge as being an infinite loop of information.  Some of which we pick up along out journey and some we do not.  The 'divergent tree' represented that knowledge taking us in different directions.

However, it soon became apparent after considering what knowledge is that information requires us to interact with it and filter it in various ways in order to become "knowledge".  Knowledge requires a degree of understanding.  As a result, we changed our concept of knowledge to a more scientific view.  In the case of the conceptualization below, the purple blobs represent information that is filtered through the funnel.  The filter s are our values, schools, peers, social media, education, culture etc.  Out the other end, comes knowledge.

The other group considered the purpose of education.  Their conceptualization involved education as developing a toolkit to prepare young people to be well rounded members of wider society - explained in the video below.

Biesta's assertion that the purpose of education is concerned with preparing young people to be able to engage with the adult world was succinct and honest.  The question now becomes, "what is our role in this"?  This prompted some interesting discussion around how Primary and Senior Secondary differ in this respect.  Senior Secondary is very qualification driven and has less of the qualitative values of education in it compared to Primary.  It is very content and outcome driven.

 Part 2:  Leadership:

A consideration of the basics of leadership and followship.  We are leaders but we also need to be followers at some stage so we can see things from the perspective of others and give others the opportunity to lead.  We can be more dynamic in that case.

PTC Integration:

Teaching:

Use an increasing repertoire of teaching strategies, approaches, learning activities, technologies and assessment for learning strategies and modify these in response to the needs of individuals and groups of learners.

Professional learning:

Engage in professional learning and adaptively apply this learning in practice.