Words, words between the lines of age (Neil Young)

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Seth Godin recently lamented the idea that silo subjects in the U.S. seem to exist independently of skills that he considers important. 

He poses the question: 

What would happen if we taught each skill separately? 

ObedienceManagementLeadership/cooperationProblem-solvingMindfulnessCreativityAnalysis

I thought about this for a week or so and wrote a reply to his blog:

Thought you may be interested to know that the NZ curriculum is based on five key competencies (skills) that are similar to 6 of your list. Obedience is not something that has a place in our curriculum. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) process in your country championed by Katie Novak does a lot of what you ask. Anyway - here are those 5 key competencies:  

• thinking.

• using language, symbols, and texts.

• managing self.

• relating to others.

• participating and contributing.

Those skills aren't addressed/taught separately but are incorporated into teaching programmes (please forgive the English spelling).

Not to say we've made much progress on multi-disciplinary approaches but that's next!

Warren

Seth's a great guy. Of course he wrote back! Saying: This is great, thank you!  

No, thank you, Seth!

It takes two to tango, like an orange and a mango (The Phoenix Foundation)

At ulearn14, Dr Katie Novak was a shining star. We all fell in love with her. 'We' being the fearless foursome from Woodford House.

Let me just dwell on that a sec: the foursome comprised three females and me; one mathematician, one scientist, one elearning/business studies expert and me.

I repeat: we all fell in love with Dr Novak! 

That's some feat. How the dickens did that happen?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides the answer. It hit a collective nerve.

So what is UDL?

The fundamental principle behind it is revolutionary - we are all different!

We all learn in different ways. We understand things in different ways so we all require different ways of approaching content. Some learn some things faster than others so providing options is essential.  

We all approach learning tasks in different ways. Some may be able to express themselves well in written text but not speech, and vice versa so providing options for action and expression is essential.

As learners we all differ in our engagement and motivation.  Some learners are highly engaged by spontaneity and novelty while others are disengaged, even frightened, by those aspects, preferring strict routine. Some learners might like to work alone, while others prefer to work with their peers. Providing multiple options for engagement is essential.

The solution according to Dr Novak is simple: adapt your teaching to cater for these differences in three ways:

1. Present information and content in different ways
2. Stimulate interest and motivation for learning
3. Differentiate the ways that students can express what they know

Dr Novak's slides from ulearn14 are here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-N5YOuC4JYtS3lLdXY5cmpBRDA/view

So - that's the orange. The mango?

Well, this all plays into our desire in the English Department at Woodford House to be much more flexible with programmes and approaches in 2015. See what I did there?

The only fly in the ointment, joker in the pack, gnawing voice in the back of my head is John Hattie and his meta-analysis regarding the effect size of inquiry based teaching as a strategy (in his book Visible learning for teachers). Inquiry based teaching intersects with UDL from what I can see.


That dilly of a pickle is explored in one of my next posts.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun (Pink Floyd)

I promised a post on Dr Harpaz's ideas on the ideology behind education (and Dr Novak - I haven't forgotten you either - will get there soon). 

[Both were stand out performers at the ulearn14 conference]

So here it is.

The Doctor tells us that there are three mutually exclusive* super aims of education.

*BTW many people at the ulearn14 conference didn't believe this - including Mark Treadwell, although they didn't articulate why.

When education serves the society, its aim is to adapt the students to society by imparting tools – knowledge, skills, habits, behaviors – that will benefit society. When education serves the culture, its aim is to cultivate the character of the students in the light of the values and truths which constitute the preferred culture. When education serves the individual, its aim is to 
enable him/her to fulfill him/herself.  

In the first type of education – socialization – The Educated Person is 
a person who is adapted to her society and directs herself within it successfully. In the second type of education – acculturation – The Educated Person is 
one whose character reflects the values and beliefs of the prevailing culture. In the third type of education – individuation – The educated Person is one 
who realizes her unique personality in her course of life. 

The ideology of socialization comes with the pattern of imparting, which is based on techniques of exemplification and practice; the ideology of acculturation comes with the pattern of molding, which is based on techniques of modeling and attraction; the ideology of individuation comes with the pattern of development, which is based on techniques of enabling and guidance. 

If you're super keen on reading more, the full text of the good doctor's thoughts on the subject are at http://yoramharpaz.com/publications-en/teaching-and-learning/good-teaching-or-good-teachings/

At the ulearn conference Dr H held a poll on what ideology we wanted at school and what we have as a default. Individuation was the overwhelming favourite for the former and in the overwhelming minority in the latter (Socialization won out).

The challenge for us in this 21st Googled/Twittered/Facebooked/Teched Up world we live in is choosing what is right for us and our students.

Again, according to Dr H 'Good teaching... involves constant care 
for the logical match between ideology and technology".

To me - individuation's time as (a dominant) ideology has come. I'm not sure, though, if schools can have their socialization cake and eat it up in an individuation way. I sense they can't but they'll try anyway in the special control freak way teachers and administrators have.

I'll be a keen observer and yes, as much of a mover/shaker as I can be, to see if we can free up our socializationistic rules and timetables and enable students to embrace Dr Novak's Universal Design for Learning (coming soon to a post/tweet near you). 

Some folks up in treetops just look to see the sights (The Grateful Dead)

My day three highlights package contains:

Best presenter of the day - Mark Treadwell. He's so damned likable and he stirs things up - to wit: maths as a subject is dead!

Best sights - the beautiful gardens in Rotorua. The township and shops are weird (no central hub or landmarks), but the gardens are spot on!

And so the conference came to an end.

Of course, the real challenge of being away at a conference starts when school hits again come Monday morning. Remembering all those big ideas and the inspiring thoughts that occurred during the keynote by...what was her name again?

I came to the ulearn conference with a goal, or maybe an aim...an objective? Yes - I came to ulearn with an objective - to get some validation and inspiration for our proposed changes to our senior English courses for 2015.

Oh boy did I get that! The talk of individuation (not a pretty word but a great ideology), Universal Design for Learning (UDL sounds like a finance company but is really the nuts and bolts of individuation), and the big project work at Hobsonville Point School were all directly relevant to our plans.

Hosannah!!

And so - it's back to school on Monday and some meetings with the English staff about where we go from here - not just to see the sights, but to put ideas into action!