Is Modern Learning a Fail? - Reclaiming Student Agency at St Joseph's

Is Modern Learning a Fail? 
- Reclaiming student agency at St Joseph's

In the years 2012-2015 at St Joseph's we formed a very clear idea of the skills and competencies we wanted our year 8 leavers to have.  The following two videos give some good examples of what this looked like:

Joel and Rhea explain Innovative Learning (2015)

Our students were raised on a consistent journey from year 4 to 8 where the senior teaching team had stable and well established practices of:

• key competency development, 
• individualised learning,
• collaborative learning, and 
• learning to learn strategies.  

The year 8 classes of 2015 and 2016 exemplify the success of this long term development.

The practice itself led naturally into the MLE-type changes in teaching and learning in 2015 which people have called "the hubs."  Unlike many schools which have MLE-designed buildings but have not developed the pedagogy, we had the pedagogy but not the buildings.  We chose to work around the buildings and do the best we could with them.

Children had a big say in designing how they would use their learning spaces.  The 2014 year 7 class designed them in Minecraft.  They set up their own Minecraft server and shared world which was our learning world for maths - measurement, direction and scale.  Here they talk about the design of the intermediate area for 2015:

What Happened?

Collaborative teaching and learning and flexible environments had been happening for several years already in our school but at the start of 2015 we had a tipping point with more staff ready for them than not and the decision was made to do it schoolwide.  Unfortunately it corresponded with a time when key staff moved on for promotions.  By mid 2016 the whole of the senior leadership team which had enabled this practice, including the principal, had changed, all securing promotions or sought after positions.

The outcome for teaching and learning by the end of 2016 was generally agreed to be a "fail."  The fail had nothing to do with learning environments or how the learning was structured.  All of our evidence over the period shows when key competency, collaborative learning strategies, and student understanding of learning rubrics, learning progressions and SOLO are in place, the students exemplify well managed, self-sustaining life-long learners who thrive in flexible environments.

I returned as principal at the end of 2016 and the community, teachers and many students were very vocal in letting me know the system had failed.  Just looking at it, I agreed.

I was able to establish through staff surveys, interviews and observations that what was really lost was:

• key competency development, 
• individualised learning,
• collaborative learning, and 
• learning to learn strategies.  

Without which there is no point attempting innovative learning.

So called "hubs" which we actually called Engaging Learning Spaces, evolved to meet the advanced needs of our learners and the pedagogy of some of our teachers.  Maybe the mistake we made was that it didn't suit the pedagogy of all of our teachers.   There was certainly sufficient in-built scope within the system as it was initially set up, to meet the needs of all of our learners.

Our 2015 and 2016 year 8 classes who had been well coached in these systems were a huge success for 21st century learning capacities.  This video shows how the children reflect on their readiness and how we structured the environment to support growth in self-management without forcing it past its limits:

In 2013-14 we worked closely with St Kevin's College in the Learning and Change network.  It has been inspiring to reopen these conversations with St Kevin's in 2017 and see how much they have taken from our learning practices at St Josephs.  They tell us these practices are highly successful for them and that they came directly from our collaboration in 2013-14.  Once again, these are to do with tracking the key competencies, knowing each learner individually, focusing on skills and processes and integrating curriculum.  All the things we are focusing on in 2017 for our rebuild.

Trish and Mannix present about our learning to teachers at St Kevin's College (2015)

If anyone doubts the necessity for collaborative learning and teamwork in the 21st century - have a look at my blogpost analysis of the requirements of the world's top employers: Its what we do together that sets us apart

These videos (with thanks to Jenny Jackson for taking and storing the videos) show this type of learning works for children who have been well-schooled in 21st century skills.

However, if these skills are weak, this type of learning system is not at all appropriate.

I am sharing this not because I have any intention of bringing back the "hubs" as people saw them.  We are talking with the diocese at the moment about a complete physical remodelling of St Joseph's and we will not be attempting to use our existing buildings as MLEs in the forseeable future.  We will not be attempting to do anything "out there" with our practice either.  But we will be bringing back the key things we have lost. We will always use our environment as an innovative learning environment though, as innovative learning is what we do once we get our key skills back together again.

At the moment we have children sitting in desks, in rows in many cases, well controlled by the teacher, and device-use limited.  This is a big step back towards 20th century learning and one we hope is temporary.  The needs of the moment dictate this response.  We need to start again.

I know that we can get back to the place where we can have children engaging thoughtfully in the environment beyond the school, where they can engage in meaningful self-directed projects and where holistic, cross-curriculum learning reflects our Catholic worldview on social justice.  As our charter summary shows:

2017 - Consolidate Embed St Joseph’s curriculum and pedagogy Knowing our whakapapa: being a Dominican school High achievement, future-focused, making a difference, being Catholic

2018 – Platform for growth Using technology,, design processes, critical thinking and creativity in transformative ways,  to engage with a relevant, active, purposeful curriculum

2019 - growing Making a difference to our community and world through solving problems that matter

It is staggering to find how quickly good things can be lost and how hard we have to work to bring them back and rebuild a team which can do this together.  Luckily and, I believe thanks to extensive prayer, we have an amazing new team and we just need to continue to focus our energies on the task ahead:

Rubrics for pedagogy

These rubrics for pedagogy were developed in mid 2015 by combining the summary of findings from the OECD research into Innovative Learning with the Microsoft rubrics for 21st century learning.  This term we are working with Core Education on spirals of inquiry and we are using this rubric as a guide for what we want to achieve (double click on the image for a clearer view).

Comparison - traditional versus collaborative teaching

From: alisiaecameron.wix.com labelled for resuse

Here’s a scenario that my 14 year old son and myself made up to illustrate the difference between a traditional teaching model and a collaborative teaching model.  The difference that we were discussing between traditional and modern teaching is the traditional is based on the “one to many” model and the collaborative is based on “many to many” teaching, where the students themselves are teachers.

There are many shades of difference that we could have put in between the models and probably ones that go way beyond the “many to many” we’ve described.

This could be a level 4 social studies achievement objective: Understand how people participate individually and collectively in response to community challenges

Teaching Activity	Traditional – “one to many” model	Modern  - “many to many” model
Setting up the learning intention	We are learning Kate Shepphard’s role in shaping New Zealand culture through campaigning for women’s suffrage.	WALT identify effective responses to challenge and apply them in our own lives
Pre-lesson preparation	Teacher finds out about Kate Sheppherd.  Prepares work activities that help students learn about her life.  All the information will come from the teacher in the form of oral instruction, projected digital displays*, bookwork or worksheets. *The teacher may actually be a digital whizz and make fabulous digital learning displays but this does not necessariy make them a teacher who supports collaborative learning.	The teacher will spend time teaching the students how to: Do effective Google searches, Identify useful information etc according to my previous blog post: how to find information Then establish with the students some criteria for what useful information will look like in this context.  This will include some discussion on characters who have shaped history through responding to challenge. Students will be encouraged to follow characters they personally find interesting.
Seating plan	The students will need to get their information from the teacher so they will have to sit in rows or desks groups, or in a mat area where they can all clearly see and hear the teacher ie. traditional class structure.	It won’t matter where or how the children sit as they will be accessing their information from their devices. Their environment may well look like a café.
Where will the teacher be?	At the front	With the students.
Who will the teacher interact with mainly?	The whole class Individuals on an ad hoc basis	Individually as once the students start gathering the information via their devices the teacher will have access to their thinking processes beyond “real time.” In groups as students will be grouped to learn the skills (linked above) according to their needs.
Once the information is gathered/learned what will happen next?	There could be a test to find out how much the students remember about Kate Sheppherd. Or the students could make a presentation to share their learning.  This will be the re-sharing of information in a different format.  The most likely choices would be a poster, or a Powerpoint. There is some element of many-to-many learning if the students share their information back with their peers.  But not much because they all had the same information.	The teacher will move the children into “relational” thinking. This could be by identifying some challenging circumstances that people identified as shaping history have faced and comparing them with circumstances they have faced or could face in their own lives. The teacher could initiate this by modelling the process with a challenge from their lives. The children would need to be given tools to do this sort of comparison e.g. a venn diagram in digital format, or a Popplet where they can brainstorm and reorgnise information. They would need to be able to categorise aspects of a challenge – eg. People, conflict, physical hardship etc. At this point students would be accessing each other’s learning online and giving constructive feedback to each other according to co-constructed criteria.
And after that….	Summative achievement data is entered – students know x amount of information about Kate Sheppherd. The next unit is being planned.	Students will identify an area of challenge in their life.  If they can’t come up with one, their challenge could be about self knowledge – they don’t recognise challenge, or avoid it – the teacher might have to be a bit creative when helping these students. They can make a resolution to change one aspect of their behaviour based on what they’ve learnt and see how it affects their challenge. Extended abstract: They could then set up a challenge helpline or coaching service for younger students.  They could publish guidelines for identifying the aspects of challenge and giving strategic advice on behaviours which will help to meet different challenges.  This could be run through a blog.  Or it could be run in person on the playground like a peer mediation program. Or they could set up a challenge counselling program for their own class. Or they could identify a problem in their own school or community, analyse and categorise its components and use what they have learnt about people who shape history to apply positive action to the problem. OR they could write an app where people can enter information about their challenge.  The app will categorise aspects of the challenge and then analyse how historical heroic characters have met similar types of challenge and give feedback on strategies they can apply to their problems.  They could make a game app along similar lines. They could then sell their apps to Google and retire before they even finish school.  :)

Presentation to South Canterbury R.E. Cluster

I was stoked to have the opportunity to present to the SC cluster and I hope that many productive conversations come out of what we covered today.

Can teaching in RE have open-ended content?

Specific Content - Our knowledge and understanding of our faith comes from three sources:

Where is the space for open-ended content?

The Bible Church Teaching Religious tradition and practice

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church Part One, Section 1.2 32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe. As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7 And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8 33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. the soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material",9 can have its origin only in God.

So we can know about God through direct interaction with Creation and through our own human nature which contains God's stamp.

There IS a place for open-ended content in RE because EVERYTHING is RE.

From: www.zimbra.community.com

adapted from Staathof, 1999, p132,  L Frances-Rees, 2004

A quick overview of what effective internet use looks like and some of the background teaching needed

This link is to support my presentation at the SC RE cluster meeting.

Using the Internet - for every subject - this process is needed for high school, higher education, and life in general - year 7 & 8 children can do this effectively and consistently - then work backwards putting the skills in place back to year 1

• Safety stuff in place - understanding of digital citizenship - lots of resources available to help with this.  At a school level - need to develop community understanding of digital citizenship.
• Teaching in identifying keywords and finding synonyms for them 
• Putting those words into a search term 
• Scanning the search findings to find ones that might work 
• Quickly dumping anything not useful 
• Specific guided reading teaching in identifying bias 
• Scanning - contents, headers, key words 
• Skim reading - quick reading to locate key words and get an “overall” feel - taught through guided reading. 
• Find a selection of possible sources (5 or 6) - reference them, one sentence summary of the gist. Choose the best three and read in detail - taught through guided reading. 
• Take notes - key words and phrases - taught through guided writing. 
• Construct sentences from keywords and phrases - guided writing 
• Plan effectively with main ideas and supporting detail - guided writing etc through the writing process. 

Developing this capacity through the primary years:
Years 1-3 - learning how to read and write - apps to support that learning - e.g. handwriting app on the ipad with a stylus - immediate feedback for errors in constructing letters.
Years 4-5 - guided - laying the groundwork to be an effective independent researcher. Breaking down the list above and guiding through the process.
Years 6-8 - Integrating the process and becoming independent (by mid year 7).

 From years 4-8 - RE can be included as a subject for investigation - as part of an inquiry curriculum.

Action Research

Action Research into Digital Learning

Action research was carried out during 2013 at St Joseph's School Oamaru. These conclusions are based on: Digital Action Research 1 - using online videos to support maths teaching and SOLO  for thinking development Action Research 2 - does the motivation of choosing own project and pathway help inconsistent writers  produce more consistent writing Digital Action Research 3 - does the teacher as "guide on the side" help to improve learning outcomes in children's own choice projects?

Action Research 1, 2013

THE LESSON SEQUENCE

YouTube Video
YouTube Video		Practice
YouTube Video		Practice
YouTube Video		Practice

	Manuka students sharing their understandings - private content
	Create two different word problems involving mixed numbers and improper fractions.  The answer to both problems must be:             6 4/5You can write the two problems on your wikipage

Action Research 3, 2013

Initial observations:

Children were allowed to take breaks during the project when they needed them - instead of asking for more breaks, many chose to stay in at their playtimes to work - this indicates they were engaged and interested in their projects.

All children negotiated useful learning goals which covered the core curriculum.

They were using technology to support their learning in a variety of areas and some chose not to use digital technology.  Some children listened to music as they worked and were reluctant to stop working.  Eating was happening but not getting in the way.  At this stage there was high productivity and engagement.
Lots was happening at this stage: researching, practising, investigating and progress seemed very positive.  Incidental reading and writing was of a good standard.
Interpretation:
The children were engaged in their projects and performing well in the mode of gathering information / doing the project.  They are very comfortable with this mode of operation and in a more teacher-directed environment they are usually scaffolded to take more steps to add depth and "so what?" to their learning.
Further observations:
The children did not seem to realise when they had reached the end of this cycle and at this stage they began to become aimless.  They needed direction to begin to synthesis, analyse or evaluate their progress.  Most children barely responded to feedback, only doing a minimal amount so they could move on to "presenting."  In a normal class situation I would have brought this back for some whole class teaching and guided them in specific process but I was still wanting to see how the motivation of their own interest would help them push for achievement.
Many children used their time very unwisely at the end and did not finish their projects to a high standard.
RESULTS:
The project was divided into sections and achievement points awarded per level.

ACHIEVEMENT 
The total possible points was 12.  I made an OTJ on each child as to whether they were in general above, at, below or well below the overall year 7 level.

OTJ	Average score

Above	6.4
At	6
Below	8.4
Well Below	10

Possibly the sample was too small to make generalisations.  However there was a similar pattern for the "above" children in their science fair work.  
The children "well below" showed the highest levels of concentration, commitment, self management and willingness to accommodate feedback ie qualities of 21 century learners.
The children "above" on the whole did not make meaningful learning intentions and only superficially engaged with the negotiated intentions.  Similarly they only superficially engaged with cues towards deeper thinking. 
THE PROCESS

Part of the process	Average score out of 3
Beginning -	2
Middle -	3
Ending	1
Product	1

The higher average score for the middle part correlates to the observed enthusiasm and success at this stage of the project.

The difficult parts were: 

• children owning the negotiated learning intentions - some felt this detracted from their project,
• children doing something meaningful with their gathered resources/experiments/information,
• quality of the product.

Many of the children saw no value in working on their projects to put in their own creativity or critical thinking.  When left to their own devices there was a very prevalent Powerpoint mentality (gather and regurgitate).  It is clear that moving beyond this, at this stage, for these children, needs to be teacher-directed.

To become more active learners these children need to see achievement in terms of their learning agency and cognitive engagement.  E.g. an active learner considers and responds to feedback and shows how they have integrated this into their work.

I believe we could look at this as a whole school and see what sort of progressions we can put in place to grow more active learners.  For my own class this project has shown me that the children are comfortable with the researching/gathering phase and a lot of reading learning has taken place to make this happen.  In their next project, I am going to provide these children with information and scaffold two relational thinking processes to help them handle the information.

This video shows the students' self-evaluations and some of their reflections on the project.  It is a private video and St Joseph's staff can view it by emailing me for a link.

SOLO Development 2013, St Joseph's School Oamaru

There is a saying, "Knowledge is power."  That used to be true when only certain people in certain situations had access to knowledge.  It is no longer true.  Knowledge is freely available through the Internet.  It is no longer a significant currency.

What matters now is what you do with knowledge, how you gather, analyse, create and evaluate.  What difference does it make?  This is why we have been working with a cognitive taxonomy - a way of helping our students get beyond the facts and opinions.

It doesn't really matter what taxonomy we use as long as we are consistently and systematically challenging our students to go beyond.  This page shares some of the things we have done with the SOLO taxonomy in Religious Education in 2013.

Some comparisons (relational thinking) from year 1:

Some extended abstract thinking from our year 8s:

This You Tube Video shows some of the extended abstract work our intermediate students did about what it means to be like Jesus in our world today.  They looked at peaceful ways people can protest about injustice and one of these was by using protest songs.  So we learnt to play and sing a protest song.

Year 7s think about their Young Vinnies community visits:

The Terrific Thursday's group is our New Entrant class and our visiting 4 year olds.

YEAR 6 - extended abstract questions about the God of the Old Testament

Why does God of the Old Testament change?
Why would God ask them to sacrifice and kill animals when he created them?