KEY NOTE SPEAKERS
Larry
Rosenstock
Keynote
Speaker 1
Wednesday
Re-imagining
Video ‘The
Lie’ 4th Grader video
Learning originated
through one on one mentoring. Organised and structured learning began in monasteries
and through isolation.
“I cannot
teach anybody anything, I can only make the think.’ Socrates
Through
various illustrations and anecdotes Larry begins by addressing the ‘closed
mindsets’ preconceived ideas, categories and prejudices of societies and ‘classes’.
Children
discover the joy of creation and learning becomes redefined as interpreted through
their experiences.
Cambell’s
Law - "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for
social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and
the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is
intended to monitor."
(Book – ‘Art as Experience’ Dewy)
Everything ‘here’
– content referred to and illustrations prior- based upon the questions of equality – Knowledge
is socially constructed.
What should
students learn- particular content is irrelevant. Dispositions are relevant. It
is how students respond, shape and articulate learning.
Students re-imagine their learning through exposure to real problems, real solutions,
real communities, genuine audiences and collaborative groups.
What would
happen in the absence of prescribed subjects?
Students develop
deep understandings through re-imagining content matter – understanding themselves
as a part of a human community.
We need to
change the trappings with which we surround education and students.
When we
learn – we transform the subject.
Keynote
Speaker 2
John Couch
Wednesday
New
Dimensions in Learning
Re-wiring
Education – Every Child Can Succeed
Steve Jobs
had a vision – he could articulate why ‘apple’ was doing what it was doing.
For example
a man riding a bicycle is amplifying his motion.
Creating
something to empower people to create.
Vision
clarifies one’s mission.
Apple
defied the traditional models for business – broke the rules and had a shared
vision- it was a model based on relationship.
Company
joining was based upon a shared vision not money making.
Learning –
skills through experience, discovery, community, the world as a context and
audience vs Education
Children
are growing up with a technology that is now to them their environment.
Classroom
of today should be: Relevant, Creative, Collaborative and Challenging
Our role as
educators – to find the unique gift that all people have and let them ride
their passion to success.
Content,
Community, and Context
Content
There is so
much content out there and it is free. If educators are just delivering content
that is already out there (readily available) then educators are obsolete.
Community
Learners
are already involved in many communities, more so in social communities than
learning communities. The more collaboration and exposure gained the greater
the individual students knowledge becomes.
“Knowledge
is not a commodity that is delivered from teacher to student but something that
emerges from the student’s own curiosity fueled exploration.”–Joshua Davis
Context
Challenge
based learning on a simple framework – feel, imagine, do, share.
(Learn,
Create, Share)
Everyone
should have the opportunity to create something to change the world – apple
software is based on this concept
This
generation is not satisfied with simply consuming information they want to
create it.
See ‘everyone
can code’ apple.com
Keynote 3
Michael
Fullan
Thursday
Leadership
Respect and
reject the status quo- acknowledge the good, acknowledge that there is a need
for change.
Be a leader
and an apprentice at the same time- acknowledge that there is something to
learn.
“If you are
the only one in the room then you better start listening”
Be a
learner because you need to build relationships to learn things you didn’t
know.
Commit to
getting it right – don’t walk away easily.
Dynamic duo
– new developments in neuro science of learning and new developments in
learning environments (societal learning environments) Connection to these two
are vital.
Ubiquitous
social media weakens hierarchies (opens up lateral solutions) distributed and
connected concentration is the new power – distribution/social media
The young are
the least committed to the status quo but the most connected. This young
generation can’t wait to do the new thing – innovation.
‘The job of
education is to produce better citizens for tomorrow, today.’
In the
future we don’t need better leaders we need better citizens.
Legacy
pedagogy:
teaching as
you were taught, slipping back into what you are used to
vs.
deep
learning:
deeper learning is a counter-cultural
exercise, going against the grain.
The
professional development system is broken – it needs to be professional
learning in the environment, making the change, collaboratively with feedback,
transparency buttressed by standards not the other way around.
Democratic
learning: explicit transparent and precise
(see photo
slide ‘new Leadership for deep learning’)
Big Idea 1
We know
students are agents of change – pedagogical, organisational and societal.
Big idea 2
Focus on
social capital first.
Simplexity
– taking something complex and making it simple – most people make it more
complex
‘Connected
systems create and surprise because so many pieces, passions and ideas are
running together’ – Ramo 2016
BREAKOUTS
Breakout One
‘Research
and Inquiry Symposium - Children’s Culture Identity and Thinking’
What’s the
‘Meta’ in Children’s Writing
Moira
Newton
Key Ideas:
Meta
linguistics = Thinking about language
Language in
children is not instinctual as otherwise thought. There is evidence of
abstraction and reflection, selection and control in children as young as two.
Meta
linguistics develops through multiple exposure to language experiences.
Children
with higher meta-linguistics and ability in writing show through think-alouds
that the number of ideas available to develop a piece of writing varies
greatly. (In the example given 12 vs 34.)
Meta-emotive
awareness
Emotional
links in writing, experience and language make a noted difference in
motivation, engagement and development in writing. Emotional links are key in extending
ideas and children’s meta linguistics.
Children
can only make sense of language in relation to the background of language they
have stored and known. Children need to be exposed to multiple modes of
language.
Conclusions
Slide:
-Children
who have lots of ideas to choose from make choices and write better texts.
-Children
are more able to focus on the rhetorical qualities of their texts if they have
automaticity of handwriting and spelling.
-More
advanced writers do not need to rigidly stick to the linguistic features of a
text type to write and effective text.
-Children
concentrate on their texts making texts comparing them to an idealised text.
-Children
are motivated to write about emotive experiences and focus on emotive language
both to express their emotional investment in the text to convey that emotion
to the reader.
-They want
the reader to share the experience and feel as though they were there.
Coconuts and
Cultural Competence
Keryn Davis
Key Ideas:
Growing a
child’s cultural competence involves experiences, exposure to multiple cultures
and nurturing security in a child’s own culture to enable understanding and
security when around difference. ‘Experience is the key to developing cultural
competence and relationship.’
It is very
difficult for the dominant culture to express and identify their own as it is
not challenged enough.
Identifying and defining the invisible.
The
dominant cultural needs to know, understand and own their own culture in order
to better support other’s.
A Working
Theory about Working Theories (Slide)
‘Working
theories are about thinking and acting in ways that work to express,
communicate, develop and strengthen ideas and understandings about the world.
Our ideas and understandings about working theories are not limited to
particular domains such as scientific thought, rather we were interested in
children’s creativity, imaginings, problem solving, theorising , acting and
interactions as they (the children) engage in everyday inquiries and
conversations with others.” (Davis & Peters, 2012)
It all
Starts with a Story
Bronwyn Te
Koeti
Key Ideas:
“If we take
a fish out of water…it dies. If we take a story out of the community…it is no
longer living.”
Learning is
about the relationship – both social and within its context, being within the
present
There is relational
value in narrative storytelling while fostering a love for language,
articulation and process of ideas and emotions.
Things to
think about:
What is our
knowledge and expression of our own culture?
The
Future of Learning and Neuroscience
The
Untimely Demise of Reading and Writing
Mark
Tredwell
How does
the brain actually learn?
What were
the implications in a macro perspective of all the inquiries into specific
parts of the brain connections?
Example:
half of child’s brain removed = no change a further part removed also no change
Implication:
Where is
our learning stored?
Is the
brain functioning through multiple learning systems?
The human
brain is completely different from any other species, evolving after birth and
going through significant changes at 8-9 years old.
Identity is
critical to learning because of self-talk -how we talk to ourselves is how we
learn
(eg. Having
a good mindset and attitude to learning)
Mark
Tredwell’s Competencies – as a reverse triangle
1 Identity
2Thinking
and Questioning
3Managing
Self
4Collaboration
etc.
Identity
takes the most time to develop and thinking and questioning is only relevant
when you have some idea of your identity and self. Collaboration is underpinned
by self-management.
The brain
is not static it is continually evolving.
Astrocytes
– chemical in the brain previously thought irrelevant.
These were
randomly selected, extracted and mixed with mice embrios. A 200% increase in
intelligence/ learning occurred.
So what is
the implications?
What are
the implications for astrocytes over time?
Intelligence
is defined by memory – usually memory and recall of completely irrelevant data.
Units of
work that are completely irrelevant all encapsulated in ten week blocks.
Does this
make sense?
Most of
what we teach is a complete utter waste of time.
Learning
needs to be radically re-thought – example of PD one person brings back an idea
from PD and it is a nice idea but irrelevant. It makes no change.
Children are
streamed, changing classes, there is no consistency or collation.
A new born
child has around 18 senses- first learning is how to sense the world. Learning
to interpret what image, sound etc. means. Gluing these things together is a neural
process.
First
learning system is our senses.
Eg. Very
small focal distance the distance from the mother’s arms to her face – a child’s
speech development depends on how much time they get to view the mothers mouth.
Babies learn from watching the mouth not by listening. Example - of blind from
birth and deaf from birth speech development.
Many
neurons are required to make sense – understand and interpret the senses.
We sequence
mouth movements to learn to speak.
As soon as
we are born we start losing neurons in that they morph into astrocytes within
the space of 20minutes depending on what the brain needs. Our brain morphs – no
other brain does this. Every other brain gets what it is born with.
Human baby
brains structures its brain around the world/ environment it develops in.
Apprenticeship
model of learning – a sequence of tasks efficient when younger as in the
learning to speak through sequencing mouth movements the effectiveness of this
model decrease over time because mainly we have less neurons.
200 years
ago schooling became compulsory. This is something that has never been done
before ever. This coming from monastic people who never had children …ever.
First
learning experience in school is reading and writing.
Your first
learning experience usually determines your intelligence.
This is
usually dependent on the collative languages experiences of the family and
family heritage in language. Dependent on how many generations of readers and
writers are behind you.
What are
the implications of this?
Child’s
understanding of identity.
When the
child is born your brain’s genetic makeup is passed on through by the adult to
the child.
Learning to
read and write is learning by rote it is not learning by sequencing. Learning
off by heart requires no sequence (eg. The capital of England is London
therefore the capital of NZ is … )
It would
appear that if a person has a history of rote learning the child is a more
capable learner to fit the system.
(Example.
Clockwise and counter-clockwise roundabout in York. Central roundabout surrounded
by 5 others.)
Learning to
drive is cognitively more complex then learning to read and write. Learning to read
and write takes about 10 hundred times longer than learning to drive. Smart
kids vs intelligent kids show no difference in their ability to drive.
Increase in
hormones in excitement for motivation – It says ‘learn this right now’ this
only applies to astrocytes no neurons – astrocytes have hormone receptors.
Third
learning system is unique it is the ability to form ideas and concepts.
Intelligence
should be defined on our ability to recognise and map patterns.
‘The
undivided mind’ video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTwNT872ZAk
Jason
DaSilva – Shots for Awe
Example –
Bobby Mcferrin at a neuroscience conference
Pattern
mapping – example male learning to drive - knowledge required, hardly any –
The
excitement hormones trigger the astrocytes to cement learning the pattern
If school
were to teach driving – ten week blocks for ten years before hands on car
driving.
Last century
education convinced 80% of people they weren’t smart to fit the economy.
Status is
defined by our knowledge of reading and writing – teaching stuff vs. teaching
understanding
How do we
minimise knowledge so that it doesn’t impede children’s ability to learn?
Reading and
writing needs to be learnt of by heart -
Maths is
completely different
Example of
algebra – getting dressed in the morning vs. abstract variable where children’s
minds have not developed enough astrocytes to cope.
Forming
ideas and concepts is equitable for everyone. Example boys driving cars – If it
is exciting it makes a 30% increase in learning. Implications for the
classroom.
When you’re
first born – no astrocytes so therefore no ideas and concepts- they can only
process one context at a time – they don’t have enough astrocytes to recognise
the pattern.
Girls get
this better because they talk more, sit in groups more etc. and therefore they
are swapping their neurons for astrocytes and building their ability to form
concepts and ideas.
What are
the concepts children need to understand?
Development
of metacognition is dependent on the development of the brain and its neurons
and astrocytes. (See transference to pedagogy vs. andrgogy)
See Global
Curriculum Project
Agency –
children don’t know how to do it! They need to be able to develop the ability
to solve simple silly problems themselves (eg. Ruler, stressed teacher example.)
4th
learning system is the ability to be creative.
We are
creating people who are not fit for purpose. They end up being useless and they
continue their uselessness at university. They are not competent.
The
standards can’t change. We are testing rote learning. No matter how hard we
teach reading and writing it will not improve. There is far too great a
biological and genetic compound.
Breakout 4
Thursday
What doesn’t Kill You Makes YOU stronger
Bit.ly/HSSawesome
What are
the kids going to do if you are not in the classroom?
How much of
what the children do is because you have directed them to do it?
Who does
the problem-solving in my classroom?
How do
children cope when their initiative has been squashed?
How do we
teach initiative?
Ask the
class:
Point to
the person in charge of your learning – Hmm
What are
our children’s roles in their own classrooms?
Once
children start changing their ideas and behaviours toward school we begin to
see change in the way the parents perceive school and the shift from
traditional learning.
Teaching
questions are more important than teaching answers – the world is not a place
to be memorised.
Multiple
modes of learning and integration makes it very difficult to keep track of the
children’s learning and to assess.
Grows
children’s confidence – perceiving children’s achievement as through their
ability to manage the key competencies.
Addressing
those teachers who are ‘scared’ to begin the journey. Knowing why – You need to
start with the Why. Teacher’s need to believe and see that they are going to
make the change and how it can happen. We need to see beyond the concepts and
ideas that have been formed by a culture before us. We can begin to create
these concepts and ideas of our own. It is an extremely stretching exercise to
begin change a culture. ( See Mark Tredwell - )
We have
been told that a great teacher is well planned, well organised and has
assessment checklists. A good teacher scaffolds children through the hard bits.
What we really want them to learn? The integration of ideas and subject areas. The
key competencies don’t fit into a WALT and checklist. What happens if an incredible
amount of learning happens in communication, interpretation and it doesn’t fit
into the WALT?
Who does
the thinking? Who does the problem solving?
As a
teacher who should be directing driving my teaching?
-answers
from the floor:
-children,
self, colleagues, parents,
Stages of
Change
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Video - The
three carriage train
Students
must believe in a growth mindset, self-efficacy, relevance, and sense of
belonging.
How do you
teach initiative?
Making learning visible
Setting
deadlines for projects
Allowing
floor-time for children to share – plan this into your day (eg. This is what I
did today? Well actually I did nothing today… ) children begin to anylse the
implications of this, others help them to come up with strategies.
Rich
learning tasks for maths.
Mixed
ability groups
Personalised
mixed ability reading
Idea: Have
circle time at the end of the day as well.
Encourage
children to teach others – teach a maths workshop then as a follow up have the
children teach the strategy to another.
Ask your
children – Why are you doing this?
Ask the
children for evidence? What evidence do you have for your learning over this
hour? What have you done? Nothing – What are you going to do about it?
Explicitly
explain to the children about flow and what it is. Teach them how to recognise
and maintain flow.
Whole first
term is teaching the children the curriculum – Eg, this is how you use it, this
is what you need to know in year 5 and 6.
Year 5 and
6 class doing near whole term project – they pick the passion project and
select progressions then choose what they want to do in maths and literacy to
show evidence – these get put onto a presentation which the children take about
10 mins each to present – this work also goes on their blogs.
(Link to Mark Tredwell’s -girls talk to each
other more.)
‘In the
cave you fear to enter lies the treasure you seek’
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