This week we
turn theory into practice by reflecting upon how we have changed to address
21st century education since we started our learning journey on The Mind Lab
DCL postgraduate programme.
Professional
learning - We engaged in professional learning and
adaptively applied this learning in practice.
If we believe that educations main role
is not just
to transmit knowledge but to also cultivate people's ability to
engage with and generate knowledge and the learner's main job is not
just to absorb and store up knowledge to
use in the future then we have to rethink our roles (Ministry of Education, 2012).
We need to open up space for learners and
teachers to see what learners are capable of.
I have
experienced this because of my Mindlab experience where I was mostly confronted
by new technology, which I had to experiment with, and horror of horrors – post
my work to be seen by the whole class or even other people who wanted to look
on the Tauranga G+ community.
I would return
to school after Mindlab and be full of my new knowledge. I would look at my
digitally native students and wonder what they were capable of that I did not
know about.
As I showed them my new skills at using an app
they always surprised me by being so quick to try anything and so good at
problem solving when they got into difficulty.
Just today I had a break through with a set of charts
showing the marine animals around the coast of New Zealand. These were sort of
interesting as we do a big fishing unit and take the children out for a day at
the Tauranga Harbour fishing every year. I get the posters out before the trip to show them
what types of fish we have in our coastal waters and they might glance at it
and go hmmm – that’s a fish – so what.
Well – using the QR code reader on the poster opens
many videos filmed around the coast of NZ – all made by a young girl and her
father. The web site contains a lot of interactive material for students to get
involved in.
One of my students has got very worried about the
plight of the turtles as they are being killed off by plastic bags ingested
when they think they are eating jellyfish.
On the poster, there are embedded videos on all
of the marine life made by the girl Riley and her father Steve. My two iPads
were in constant use as the children scanned the posters for a set of goggles
which meant a video was available.
The child so concerned about the turtles was
excitedly telling me what he had found out from watching the video. I never
knew such material was available and it would have been really helpful earlier
in the year as the lessons would have been so much more exciting. The posters
were sent out in the NZHerald to every household receiving the paper and I
doubt many people realised what it contained. My students are very quickly
finding more and more about marine life – the dead posters are down off the
wall of the classroom and being closely examined with the iPads. The children
have in minutes gone beyond my wildest dreams and are teaching those around
them how to use the app, talking about what they are finding out and spreading
the campaign http://www.seeturtles.org/ocean-plastic/
What
it has meant for me is that using what I have learnt at Mindlab, engages
students and rewrites our roles - I am learning alongside my students - they
are very supportive of me and open to change as I must be.
Amazing Marianne! You have certainly embraced the Mind Lab journey! Not only are you introducing the kids to the new knowledge you have, you have opened their learning up to include real issues that are global.
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