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).

Term 2 Science Inquiry

Term 2.2016 Science Inquiry

BIG QUESTION: God gave us the earth and all that is in it.  Our job is to look after the earth.  How do we look after our earth?

We are using a traditional inquiry model with a SOLO twist to help us support the children's independence

First 3 weeks

 Second 3 weeks

Third 3 weeks

Student Agency - a starting point

Our March 2016 staff meeting.  Student agency is the underlying focus of our inquiry/SOLO based learning and our digital PLD in 2016

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

Students map and plan the new learning environment at St Joseph's Oamaru

Our year 7s mapped out our learning environment as it stands now.  They looked at all the things they need to do when they're learning and decided how we could use our space to meet these needs.  These maps are on paper and annotated with Thinglink.

Tannah's version of our learning environment

Tim and Saluni's version of our learning environment :

Makeisha and Alyssa's version Maria's version Aarran's version

Our Learning Environment Modeled in Minecraft

Our year 7s mapped out our learning environment as it stands now.  They looked at all the things they need to do when they're learning and decided how we could use our space to meet these needs.  The environment is modeled using Minecraft.

Zach, Maddison, Nina, Ardan, Tess, Siva:

Ben, Jordan, Abigail, Joel, Tyler:

Laura, Daniel Mannix, Charlie:

A machine for learning part 2

The next step in our "Machine or Learning" inquiry (see Machine for Learning, previous post) was to map what we already have.  In term 3 children mapped our intermediate department and although it was very good, it didn't look quite right because it wasn't to scale.  This term the children measured our spaces accurately and decided on a scale so that they could model the space.  Fifteen children chose to work in three groups sharing Minecraft worlds to model the building.  The remaining children looked at other 3D modelling tools and in the end they have drawn a 2D paper plan.

The next step will be to make recommendations for how our space can be improved for the type of learning the children have already identified.

A machine for learning

A MACHINE FOR LEARNING

(thanks to Mark Osbourne for sharing the term: Machine for Learning, and the link he made to le Coubousier, which we’ve used in our inquiry - environments for learning)         

St Joseph’s Year 7 students consider what their learning is actually like and what ideal spaces for this could be like - this is a brainstorm from the whole class in a shared Google doc (it is not crafted writing).     

WHAT DO WE DO WHEN WE’RE LEARNING?	WHAT WOULD A PHYSICAL SPACE FOR THIS LOOK LIKE?
concentrate and communicate with others listen and discuss your ideas with the people being on task and giving 100% and not giving up sitting down somewhere and listening to each others ideas we learn from our mistakes we debate and share our ideas we take notes and learn from what others have learnt as well put your heads together and discuss ideas with each other. we think that its import to participate  and contribute ideas even if its wrong we share our ideas, discuss our options and our needs and also relate to others, listen, focus, look, think, come up with new ideas,    we like to talk and  listen to each other….and be good friends think, discuss, sing, we argue, we work with others, we get things wrong, we get to try new things. get confused but work it out understand others. we talk to others and ask for advice for good ideas to make our work even better we help with problems and answer things we talk together and help each other to get the job done we get to choose our working space. we discuss our ideas. share our ideas. we get  to  debate we work quietly we learn from our mistakes we concentrate We use MINECRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to try to answer a problem. we do drama and we do acting AND WE WRITE SONGS AND WE AND WE ENJOY USING OUR DEVICES FOR LEARNING. WE RECOMMEND THAT WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO USE MINECRAFT MORE (NO ONE USE IDEA)   talking sometimes helps if it is on task! say what we want to we help people that need help at the moment when they are  stuck enjoy and get new knowledge do acting, have debates, songs, learn new things and new instruments or activities make sure that everyone is joining in the convo and that people are included in it. Also to encourage others to give 100% and to not give up. Learn to accept a mistake, Good attitude listen, discuss, read, write, search, explore, trial and error, make new options, design new things, brainstorm, invent, create, concentrate, play games, field trips, writing brainstorming we can read, write, do pe ,E.O.T.C, camps, maths,search, new things, discuss between  us, brainstorm, make mistakes and try again and again, listen, stay on task, do field trips watching other people   learning new ideas and facts. writing songs crafting silence and concentration, watching and learning from mistakes learning from elders... singing-writing songs debates performances , plays , silent working or dramas different types of formal writing arts and stuff, crafting your imagination stories and making it better. try over again, learn from others, songs and  performances, being silent               we think create, communicate, share, learn We can make everyone happy to learn	sitting facing each other at the same level (communicating) peaceful and secure, fancy, computers, taking turns talking have our own little bubble to work in we work together as a team and sensibly share our ideas man’s cave and a girl hangout room for year 7s and 8s change resource room into music room for intermediate department gym for senior school whole school computer room to work in quietly having your own office or bubble to stay in but still communicate with each other or talking . having a quiet space for yourself or others’ private spaces have a musical room where people can sing and learn instruments. a game room-a man cave for boys and a girl’s room. dancing room where their dancing can express their feelings. sports room where people can have fun and play with other people      we could have a couple of cubicles we could use so that we could have our own space and we could work quietly. we could split a room into a couple of spaces that are soundproof and will not bother anyone else! we work as a  team        you get more action and ideas and information.You have more fun talking to your your friends. in a place where you can concentrate. TEACHER’S NOTE: Its interesting - you write a lot about collaborative learning how we can learn from each other and through discussion.  At the same time you say that its important to have your own space where you can be quiet.  You show this because when we have a lot of space upstairs, you spread out and fill it all and you still stay on task and do all the things you wrote in column 1. When you make your recommendations for what we can do with our spaces, please think about how we can use what we have to make all these things happen.  LFR
What different learning styles are there? watching other people   learning new ideas and facts. writing songs crafting silence and concentration, watching and learning from mistakes learning from elders... singing-writing songs debates performances , plays , silent working or dramas different types of formal writing arts and stuff, crafting your imagination stories and making it better. try over again, learn from others, songs and  performances, being silent               we think create,communicate,share,learn We can make everyone happy to learn We stay on task and brainstorm as many ideas we can think of. We also participate and contribute many ideas. We do the learning properly we listen so we know what to do. When we don't understand we ask the teacher for help