I don't know why - throw it out and keep it in (Nirvana)

Welcome to the next edition of my bookmark cleanup. Five more for you to chew on:

1 Twenty one ideas to help students keep their momentum
This Te@chthought article is a useful run down of what it says on the tin. It's a site to dip into from time to time and I use it as a bit of a reminder.

2 and 3 Blended learning
A twofer: first an article from Mind/shift on blended learning. I'm a fan! I wrote a post using some key ideas from this but here it is again for your consideration.

Then one from eschoolnews, again looking at blended learning programmes.

4 Reinventing school
Another Mind/shift article - this one spoke to my strong desire to move away from industrial model education and embrace inquiry learning.

5 The science behind great teaching
I can't remember how or why I stumbled upon this one but an interesting article on what makes great teachers great is always going to hook me by the lapels!

Girls on fire, boys on fire, It's out of control (Jefferson Starship)

Help! My educational bookmarks are getting OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!!!

In an effort to wrestle a semblance of order from the chaos (you really have no idea) I have decided to list some of these and dispense with them over a few posts (and delete them from my bookmarks as I go).

Sorry to do this to you but I see no other way around it.

Awriight - strap in, here we go...


1 The curious incident of the novel chosen for study
This one is pretty funny - a study which indicates that NZ English teachers have no consensus about the novels that should be used!

Teachers have widely differing views about the appropriateness of various novels and the year level at which particular titles should be studied, which has lead to inconsistencies and inequity in the types and difficulty of novels studied in schools across New Zealand.

Genius - as if NZ teachers, better than that - ENGLISH TEACHERS - would ever agree on one text that everybody would use. Amazing.

2 Why students should take the lead in learning conferences
Mind/shift are responsible for a lot of my problem - they have such great articles! Here's one about, um - just read the title again...

3 Jigsaw
I like the jigsaw (cooperative learning technique) technique. I bookmarked this article to remind myself why.

4 Another mind/shift
This article is one I think I may have used in a post on inquiry learning. Some great video articles with American students.

5 Habits of mind
I bookmarked this from the Art Costa centre on the 16 habits of mind because I needed to attach the habits to pastoral care learning sessions.

I'm not sold on this, however. Why am I suspicious? I don't really know. I guess it feels a little new agey to me, putting these kinds of labels of things.

...and that will do it for this edition. Don't worry - I have more (a LOT more).

Alright, hold tight, I'm a highway star (Deep Purple)

A recent story about Finland did the rounds at school. Seems they've boldly done away with subjects! Yahoo! This is something I thought may have eventuated in NZ when we moved to standards based assessment with NCEA. But, no.

I thought about Finland and NZ's NCEA when I read a recent post on mind/shift. It was written by Thom Markham. During his post he asked this great question:
Are we making 21^st century competencies the centerpiece of instruction? 

The inquiry method places 21st century competencies bang in the middle. As Mr Markham says:

Inquiry isn’t designed to teach information; it’s designed to set up the conditions under which students become more skillful. That’s why it’s inherently student-centered. Successful inquiry requires skillful competencies, which are a deep amalgam of habits, personality, and an experiential knowledge base.  

The NZ curriculum set out a number of skillful competencies, five in fact:

• thinking
• using language, symbols, and texts
• managing self
• relating to others
• participating and contributing

that suit perfectly the inquiry method.

To me this equals Synchronicity Part... um, I forget what number we're up to, but it must be a lot!

Suddenly subjects DON'T matter. Skillful competencies do.

Your witness...

Revelation reveals the truth (Bob Marley)

This one will sound like a no brainer but, what the hell... it turns out that building a culture of collaboration, respect, and trust is key to a successful blended learning/ student driven inquiry classroom. 

I'm finding after a term of a blended learning classroom that the key word in there (apart from 'culture') is TRUST. 

I operate on a high trust model in my classroom. Until a student abuses that trust - I will go the extra mile for them.

Now, clearly: computers (BYOD), Schoology and blended learning methods have the power to transform the classroom but it won't do much without the right culture of trust. In fact, it is the change in culture that will make the difference.

I saw the following acronym recently on the Mind/Shift web page: each letter stands for an important part of the blended learning classroom culture.

T = trust

R = respect

I = independence
C = collaboration
K = kindness

I'm not a huge fan of acronyms (hahahahaha he said through gritted teeth) but I liked this one because IT BEGAN with trust.

Trust in this case means the students trust each other to help in the learning process and I trust the students. The boundaries need to be established early. The key to building trust is to actually trust the students. If they let me down - well that's a learning moment for both of us! 

All this means putting students in situations requiring them to think for themselves. They may stumble and have difficulties, but the key is to support them in their efforts while letting them solve the problem themselves. This builds trust in themselves, in the class as a whole, and between me and the students.

Sounds simple right? Well that's because...it actually is!

Many miles away something crawls to the surface of a dark Scottish lake (Police)

These two vids are in synchronicity. 

One outlines what students expect. 

I have long been an advocate for student voice (my current students KNOW what they like and what they want and they are NOT shy about telling me).

It's about giving the students control of their own learning.

The other one - how we'll do it and not only that -how we'll use an inquiry method to do it!

It's about giving the students control of their own learning.

Awesome dude!

What if the water and wishes appear? (Bob Mould)

I've spent a lot of the last week thinking about our senior English courses for next year.

It became time to finally move from the theoretical to the practical and actually design the courses with my colleagues.

We ended up introducing a potential student inquiry/thematic aspect to the year's programme (and deliberately separated internal NCEA standards and external standards so that all the internally assessed work is done early in the first half of the year).

I like our aim for these courses: 

This course aims to cater to student diversity, creativity, collaboration, and to foster and reward student curiosity. A student driven inquiry in Terms 1 and 2 may be used to include the internal standards.  

With that in mind I have now turned my attention to creating a framework to help students engage their creativity and curiosity. I found this cool diagram via Twitter:

It's that first column- posing real questions, that I'll be working on next week at school using, as a starting point, a powerpoint that a colleague is designing to help students understand the possibilities on offer. 

My excitement and own creative juices are flowing!