Activity 8: Key change in my professional practice
Activity 8: Key change in my professional practice
1) What?
Reading other teachers' themes from Hack Education I really fall in the line of "in the future, education will be more collaborative through digital technologies, thus breaking down silos in departments. "
This course has opened my eyes to linking my subject (Mathematics) into other subjects. I have had a chance to collaborate with two great teachers from my school and to reflect the integration of student collaboration with the use of digital technologies. Taking away the subject I have looked in depth toward a focal point of student engagement and transference of knowledge via a digital innovation.
2) So what?
Looking at my practice and using Osterman and Kottkamp's (2015) cycle of experiential learning, I have almost completed my reflective journey.
Stage 1: My problem was my close-mindedness of utilizing outside social media to strengthen and broaden possible digital technologies into my subject. I also did not seek out other faculties and collaborate with them. Addressing this helps me move toward the role of the Education Council in that they "will support system changes that improve the quality of teaching and educational leadership."
Stage 2: I utilized student voice and took the opportunity to observe other teachers across all subjects as part of my CoL leadership position. This gave me the opportunity to see other teachers in practice and literally retool their pedagogy tools into my own teaching. It put a focus in the areas I was lacking in, for example creativity toward interactive scaffolding techniques and color coding student writing so they were able to identify what areas would be Achieved level or Excellence level.
Stage 3: Bellanca and Brandt (2010) mention that the 21st century is much different than the 20th century as millennials are now in "the emergence of very sophisticated information and communications technologies". Sharing knowledge through digital technologies is the big movement in this world. Work spaces are becoming open-plan to instill and create a collaborative environment among workers. Our school even has a mandatory staff inquiry session. This allows teachers from other departments to share ideas on a new pedagogy strategy and reflect on it.
Stage 4: I have started using Padlet, Turnitin, and google classroom to move students into a collaborative environment. They have embraced the sharing of ideas and resources and having very positive outcomes with their writing and class discussions. Fellow teachers also have access to a Team Drive where they add their own resources, contributing to the shared best practices.
3) Now what? The next steps is to gather the shared resources on the Team Drive and formulate a course layout for individual topics that highlight the most promising lessons. The reflection on the student voice will be necessary to sift through the lesson plans and create an engaged, digitally active environment that will be less work for a teacher and more self regulated for the students. Also, sharing these ideas with other departments will be very important so that there are no more silo structures within schools. Thus mimicking the open-plan work environments and fostering student education for a 21st century world.
Also, this small excerpt from the reading helps me to put things into perspective for the future: "Cooperation between group members was at risk because of this perception of unfairness. Social interdependence theory recognizes a type of group interaction called ‘positive interdependence’, meaning cooperation (Johnson and Johnson, 1993, cited by Maughan and Webb, 2001), and many studies have demonstrated that “cooperative learning experiences encourage higher achievement” (Maughan and Webb, 2001)."
References:
Bellanca, J. and Brandt, R. (2010). 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn. Solution Tree Press.
Ministry of Education (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards
Osterman, K. F., & Kottkamp, R. B. (2015). Reflective practice for educators: professional development to improve student learning.(2nd ed.) New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
Rolfe et al.’s (2001) reflective model
I found this post a really interesting read, especially ideas around the cooperation side of collaboration. Cooperating during this course has been really useful to my own development and I agree that getting to discuss idea with you and Dean has made me think about how to continue doing this.
ReplyDeleteI think meeting up to discuss how to promote self regulated learning, as you mention, through course planning would be useful, and this course has perhaps shown us the importance of stepping outside of the silos you mention to learn from each other.
How do you feel about planning a unit round self regulated and collaborative learning? Does it excite you scare you?
Thanks for that, it feels good to use an online blog site and have someone say what I wrote about was interesting. As for the cooperation and collaboration side of developing learning in a classroom, I would really enjoy to try and plan out a unit around self regulated collaborative learning. The thought of it does create a bit of anxiety, but the challenge of creating something new with the skills I have gathered from this course fills me with excitement!
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