Week 12 -Innovative Learning Spaces / Maker Movement

Innovative classrooms reflect new ways of teaching and learning and they remove the focus from a teacher led environment to a space where teachers and learners collaborate.

These learning environments are much more creative, flexible and supportive of technology and are ideally designed to facilitate a more creative approach to content, and new ways to deliver the curriculum that encourages connections in content, encourages excitement and makes learning a transformational experience.

Our classrooms should support new ways of accomplishing the desired outcome that is more active and enables students to retain knowledge and expand on concepts beyond what is taught in the classroom.

Modern learning spaces should be bold and encourage risk taking and original thought through breaking rules around what a classroom should look like.

Week 10 Digital - Real World Learning and Crowdsourcing

Problem-solving tasks require students do some or all of the following investigate the parameters of the problem to guide their approach
generate ideas and alternatives
devise their own approach, or explore several possible procedures that might be appropriate to the situation
design a coherent solution
test the solution and iterate on improvements to satisfy the requirements of the problem.

Real-world problems are authentic situations and needs that exist outside an academic context
Real-world problems have all of the following characteristics:
Are experienced by real people. For example, if students are asked to diagnose an ecological imbalance in a rainforest in Costa Rica, they are working with a situation that affects the real people who live there.
Have solutions for a specific, plausible audience other than the educator as grader. For example, designing equipment to fit a small city playground could benefit the children of the community.
Have specific, explicit contexts. For example, developing a plan for a community garden in a public park in their town has a specific context; learning which vegetables grow best in which parts of one’s country does not.
If students are using data to solve a problem, they use actual data (for example, real scientific records of earthquakes, results of their own experiments, or first-person accounts of an historical event), not data developed by an educator or publisher for a lesson


Source: Innovative Teaching and Learning Research. (2013). 21st Century Learning Design. Microsoft. Retrieved from: http://www.itlresearch.com/itl-leap21


Supporting Diversity for Problem Solving
Set up a task with space for a variety of viewpoints
Help students access the existing established knowledge as and when it is needed to help solve their shared problem
Support students to build knowledge and capabilities
Provide opportunities for students to work with others
Ensure group diversity
Provide opportunities for diverse ideas to emerge and collide
Provide opportunities for collective knowledge building
Provide opportunities to revisit ideas over time
Source: Hipkins, R., Bolstad, R., Boyd, S., & McDowall, S. (2014). Key competencies for the future.


Where to start your search? Idea Springboard
Use this search tool (created for the Google Science fair) to help you come up with a project that you'll love working on. https://www.googlesciencefair.com/springboard/en/

Thingful
Thingful® is a search engine for the Internet of Things, providing a unique geographical index of connected objects around the world, including energy, radiation, weather, and air quality devices as well as seismographs, iBeacons, ships, aircraft and even animal trackers

Instagrok
Their mission is to help everyone discover the joy of learning and empower them to be lifelong learners. So we are dedicated to building innovative technology to enable engaging, safe and personalized learning. https://www.instagrok.com

Crowdsourcing for Problem solvingCrowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group for a common goal, such as innovation, problem solving or efficiency. It can take place on many different levels and across various industries. Thanks to our growing connectivity, it is now easier than ever for individuals to collectively contribute, whether with ideas, time, expertise, or funds, to a project or cause.
If you want to learn when 'crowdsourcing' became a trend, maybe you'd like to look at a real data Google shares with us? You could also combine that with other search trends? www.google.co.nz/trends/explore#q=crowdsourcing
Examples of Crowdsourcing platforms and projectsOpenideo
Uses the ideas of Design Thinking. Join a global community to solve big issues “How might we…” challenges for social good in different phases
InnocentiveTheir goal is to crowdsource innovation solutions from the world’s smartest people, who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges.
Hackidemia
A mobile invention lab that enables future changemakers to access and create a hands-on STEAM education that will enable them to solve specific challenges by developing and testing creative solutions and physical artifacts. Global workshops fostering collaboration between schools, tech companies and kids in the development of 3D-enabled curricula, tools, and learning environments for the 21st century learner.
DemocrasyOS
An open-source platform for voting and political debate that political parties and governments can download, install, and repurpose much like WordPress blogging software.
Global Lives ProjectA collaboratively produced video library of life experience around the world. Global Lives exhibits showcase unedited footage of daily life around the world, and they encourage students and teachers to study, discuss and reflect upon the startling differences and similarities between people from around the world.
HacKIDemiaA mobile invention lab that enables future changemakers to access and create a hands-on STEAM education that will enable them to solve specific challenges by developing and testing creative solutions and physical artifacts.
ZooniverseThis one claims to be the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. Research is made possible by volunteers—hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research.
Zooinverse projects have two distinct aims, (Masters, Oh, Cox, Simmons, Lintott, Graham, Greenhill, & Holmes, 2016) the first is to solve specific scientific problems through the use of citizen scientists. The second aim is to engage members of the public with real world science to educate and change attitudes towards science. Citizen scientists are members of the general public that volunteer their time to work and collaborate with professional scientists to collect data and solve problems on real scientific research questions. Citizen science is not a new concept but has become more accessible to people around the world through the use of the Internet. Edmund Halley used citizen science in 1714 when he got members of the public to report the total eclipse of the Sun across England.

Citizen Science"Engaging in citizen science allows people to experience first-hand the scientific process and engage scientific thinking at the same time as increasing their knowledge of the specific research topic (i.e. their knowledge of scientific content.(Masters, et al., 2016, p.1)"
Through platforms like Zooinverse citizen scientists are able to view, record, analyse, process and answer incredibly large amounts of data that would not be possible by the scientists doing the research alone. The first project Galaxy Zoo received 70,000 classifications per hour and more than 50,000,000 classifications in the first year (Graham, Cox, Simmons, Lintott, Masters, Greenhill, & Holmes, K, 2015)

Week 7 - Blended Learning

Blended Learning
The definition of blended learning is a formal education program in which a student learns: (1) at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace; (2) at least in part in a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home; (3) and the modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.

Blended Models (see http://tinyurl.com/tmlblended)
These blended learning models come from the Clayton Christensen Institute
Rotation model
Station Rotation
Lab Rotation
Flipped Classroom
Individual Rotation
Flex model
A La Carte model
Enriched Virtual model

Flipped Classroom
The idea of the flipped classroom as first developed in 2007 by Bergmann & Sams (2012), who describe their experience in their book "Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day". The idea behind a flipped model of education is that much of the content is covered outside of the classroom through bite sized (under 10 minute) video clips, quizzes and collaborative discussions. Subsequently deeper learning can occur in the classroom through face to face discussion which can apply, evaluate and contextualise the content as well as enhancing collaborative activities, strengthening relationships, developing communication skills and other key competencies. The pedagogical approach has to be adapted and the mode of teaching must change to a more student orientated practice as the content (often teacher led) part of the session has already been covered. A flipped method fits in extremely well with many different learning areas but particularly links well and supports active learning experiences; more time for hands on learning and less time stuck in the classroom.

One interesting approach suggested by Schell (2013) is that it is best not to t tell students you are “flipping” or “experimenting” since they might be resistant to the idea. Instead, just go ahead and do it (stealth flip'). She also suggests that just flipping the classroom is not enough; you probably also need to rethink your assessment practice.

In-Class Flipping (See http://tinyurl.com/tmlflip)
Besides the fact that it avoids the home-related problems of a traditional flip, the In-Class Flip has other advantages as well:
The teacher can observe whether students are really watching.
The initial exposure to the video content has a better chance to sink in.
Hardware is (presumably) safer.
In-Class Flipping is not without its own challenges:
It doesn't make for tidy one-period lesson plans.
More preparation is required at the beginning. .
Technically, you don’t "gain" more class time.

Tools for Creating Content for Flipped or Blended LessonsEdPuzzle
A simple tool to add content to existing videos. Can use video content from multiple sources within the site, or upload your own video. It’s also easy to “crop” videos so you are only showing the section of the video you want students to watch instead of the whole thing. Insert questions anywhere in the video you want and have multiple choice questions automatically graded. Teacher view shows you which students have watched the video and how they fared on the questions. https://edpuzzle.com/

TED-Ed
TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. Using any video on TED-Ed, TED Talks or YouTube, teachers can create and customize lessons for their students. There are four elements, Watch, Think, (teachers can create multiple choice or short answer questions), Dig Deeper, (provide more information), and Discuss (prompts for online discussions). http://ed.ted.com/lessons

BlendSpace
Blendspace is an easy-to-use platform for creating multimedia lessons that can be accessed online. Using a drag-and-drop interface, can organize videos, text, links, images, and quizzes into cubes, then organize them to create lessons, or "canvases, " for your students to complete independently. https://www.tes.com/lessons

Week 4 - Digital Collaboration Learning Theories

Notes:

Top Ten Learning Theories for Digital and Collaborative learning 2015

Dr David Parsons, National Postgraduate Director, The Mindlab by Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand


Instrumental conditioning Burrhus Skinner (1904 - 1990)
Behaviour leads to reinforcement
needs rapid feedback and work at own pace
Positive Reinforcement

Connectionism Edward Thorndike (1874 - 1949)
Law of effect: reinforcement increases the strength of a connection, punishment does not change it.

Progressive Education John Dewey (1859 - 1952)Co-operation between school and home
Hands on learning
" Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing this is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results."

Constructivism - social development Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934)social learning precedes development
"the teacher must adopt the role of facilitator, not content provider"

Constructivism - Equilibration PiagetEducational environments should provide the opportunity for discovery by students.

Situated Cognition/Learning John Seely -Brown (1940) Allan Collins, Paul DuguidLearning is embedded in the activity, context and culture it was learned.
Learning while interacting with others through shared activities and language
Learning is about performance in situations rather than accumulation of knowledge.
"instead of pouring knowledge into people's heads, you need to help them grind anew a set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way."

Community of Practice Jean Lave and Etienn Wenger (born 1950s)three components
1. domain
2. community
3. practice
Learning is unintentional and situated within authentic activity, context and culture
Learning based on social relationships; co-operation

Olsen, M.& Hergenhahn, B. (2013). An Introduction to Theories of Learning (9th ed.) Boston, Mass: Pearson



Constructionism in 21st Century classrooms (Video)A brief overview, by Margaret Pierciey, of constructionism, as outlined by Seymour Papert and Marina Bers. Covers the 4 basic subconcepts of:
Learning by designing within a community - initiate and design projects which are meaningful or useful to themselves or communities. Taking time to discuss along the way gives opportunities for new thinking. (debugging). Sharing what they have learnt and letting them inquire about what they need to know gives rise to an emergent curriculum. Interact and collaborative - peer mentors
Technological tools for learning
Powerful ideas and wonderful ideas- power of computers in the classroom lies in their potential to assist children in encountering powerful ideas and engaging them with experimenting and testing their ideas.
Learning about learning with technology - documenting and sharing the successes and achievements of a constructionists learning experiences are important 

Collaborative LearningCollaborative learning is a learning process that brings learners together (including the teacher) and enables students to be responsible for their own learning as well as the learning of their peers.
Collaborative learning is aimed at having students fully appreciate the process of building knowledge together and improving learning outcomes by collective knowledge and collective capability.

Dillenbourg (1999) identifies the difference between collaboration and cooperation as defined by a degree in the division of labour. In cooperation, partners split the work, solve sub-tasks individually and then assemble the partial results into the final output. In collaboration, partners do the work 'together' (Dillenbourg, 1999). Similarly, Kozar (2010) uses the analogy of a pot luck dinner where cooperation is defined as the guests bringing separate dishes to contribute to the meal, and collaboration as a messier chaotic process where guests cook together to create the meal, but gain new knowledge or experience from the interaction.

Dillenbourg P. (1999) What do you mean by collaborative learning?. In P. Dillenbourg (Ed) Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Oxford: ElsevierKozar, O. (2010). Towards Better Group Work: Seeing the Difference between Cooperation and Collaboration.English Teaching Forum, 48(2), 16-23.

Learner at the Center of a Networked World
1. Learners need to be at the centre of new learning networks.
2. Every student should have access to learning networks.
3. Learning networks need to be interoperable.
4. All learners should have the literacies necessary to utilize media as well as safeguard themselves in the digital age.
5. Students should have safe and trusted environments for learning


Aspen Institute Task Force on Learning and the Internet, Learner at the Center of a Networked World, Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, June 2014.

Week 4 - Leadership Research-informed teaching

Notes:Research-informed teaching enhances the student experience, improves student learning outcomes and enriches the education experience.
Developing Research Informed Practice Develop a personal commitment to review research to determine what is likely to works best and to determine what ‘best-practice’ models exist.
Encourage your peers to work with you to empower a collective of teachers who collectively participate in research and literature reviews.
Disseminate information and research findings with your students and your peers to raise awareness of research informed practice and decisions in your school.
Encourage your students to be reflective of their actions and decisions so that they learn to self critique and take greater responsibility for their learning outcomes.
Develop a class culture of referring to credible sources of data and let the class develop a sound understanding of how to evaluate data/content soruces.
Be a consumer and promoter of evidence
Pose questions without pre-determined answers or expectations. Identify ways to enhance a commitment to investigation.





Creativity and InnovationAccording to Tucker (2008), there is a relationship between being creative and innovative. Creativity helps coming up with ideas and being innovative means bringing them to life. Hatching ideas is the ‘creative’ part; bringing them to life successfully in the form of a new product or service or management method is what makes a raw idea an innovation.

Warlow (2007) defines the following attributes of an innovator:
Curious; constantly questioning things
Open to new ideas; putting oneself in situations where one can receive stimulation
Dare to be different; being prepared to act against accepted or conventional wisdom and challenge the unchallengeable
Be ready; as innovative ideas can strike at any time, there is a need to capture them before they disappear from the mind
Persistent; time is needed in finding the solutions which are innovative
Collaborative; ideas can be thought of when working with others

The World Economic Forum (2016) in analysing 21st century skills, identified creativity and collaboration as competences, but curiosity is a character quality, as is initiative. To be innovative, we need not only competencies but also character qualities.


Tucker, R. B. (2008). Driving growth through innovation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.Warlow, R. (2007). Being an innovative entrepreneur. Retrieved April 2, 2010 from http://ezinearticles.com/?Being-an-InnovativeEntre...

Knowledge is adaptive"Early in the 17th century, two astronomers competed to describe the nature of our solar system. Galileo built a telescope and found new planets and moons. Francesco Sizi ridiculed Galileo’s findings. There must be only seven planets, Sizi said. After all, there are seven windows in the head—two nostrils, two ears, two eyes, and a mouth. There are seven known metals. There are seven days in a week, and they are already named after the seven known planets. If we increase the number of planets, he said, the whole system falls apart. Finally, Sizi claimed, these so-called satellites being discovered by Galileo were invisible to the eye. He concluded they must have no influence on the Earth and, therefore, do not exist (National Institute for Literacy, 2010, p. 2)." (as cited in Benseman, 2013. p.15)

Knowledge is adaptive, as Benseman (2013) states "what is self-evident today is tomorrow’s fallacy or tale of ridicule" (p. 15). In sum, the quality of Research informed teaching (RIT) evidence is ensured by accessing peer-reviewed literature "Although the research evidence is rarely clear-cut or irrefutable, it does provide a sturdier platform to base our teaching than the alternatives of old habits and hearsay” (p. 15).

Benseman, J. (2013). Research-Informed Teaching of Adults: A Worthy Alternative to Old Habits and Hearsay?. Unitec ePress. Number 2. Retrieved From http://www.unitec.ac.nz/epress/index.php/research-...


The case for evidence based teachingKrokfors et al. (2011, p. 2) quotes Griffiths (2004) who identified four main ways that research relates to teaching:
1. research-led, where the curriculum content is based on the research interests of Teachers
2. research-oriented, where the process of learning content is seen as important as the content itself and hence, an emphasis on learning inquiry skills
3. research-based, where the curriculum is based on inquiry-based activities rather than acquisition of content
4. research-informed teaching, which consciously draws on systematic inquiry into the teaching and learning process itself.

Although teachers’ responses in their interviews suggested they wanted to be learner-centered, our classroom observations quite clearly showed that instruction was highly teacher-directed. If teachers controlled the classroom, and they intended to be learner-centered, how could a teacher-directed system of instruction result? Our answer harks back to the concept of socialization. We concluded that teachers are so intensely socialized into a teacher-centered form of instructing that they teach in teacher-centered ways, despite intentions to be learner-centered (2001, p. 110)


One possibility is to identify ‘effective teachers’ and study their teaching for indications of what effective teaching involves (see for example, Benseman, 2001; Looney, 2008; Medwell,Wray, Poulson, & Fox, 1999). The challenges of this approach lie in the question of who identifies the effective teachers and the criteria for their selection.

draw on learners’ perspectives on what they see as effective teaching/teachers. These studies survey large samples of learners about what they believe helps them learn most effectively. They can identify particular characteristics (such as the ethnicity or gender of the teacher), their teaching behaviours (such as specific teaching methods) or their learning environment (such as various aspects of logistics in educational settings) that learners identify as helping them learn

Learner-driven studies are particularly useful for showing us what learners value and are therefore probably useful for telling us what factors are likely to increase their participation rates and retention for example, but they also have their limitations. The difficulty with this approach is that learner ratings (typified in smiley-face type evaluation sheets) do not necessarily indicate learner impact in its entirety as measured in other outcome indicators(Scriven, 1994)

The justification for this strategy is usually expressed as ‘common-sense’ or a vague“research tells us that people learn in different ways and they prefer different learning styles” (Apps, 1991, p. 40). However when learning styles research is examined more closely,a quite different picture emerges.

Week 2 - Digital Collaboration 21st Century Skills

Reflection:Which 21st Century skills related area of your practice would you like to focus on in your Assessment 1? Why? Would your students agree? How do you know?
Collaboration
Knowledge construction
Self-regulation
The Use of ICT for learning
Skilled Communication
Real-world problem-solving and innovation

The key findings in the ITL Research were that innovative teaching supports students’ development of the skills that will help them thrive in future life and work. However, students’ opportunities to develop these skills are typically scarce and uneven, both within and across the sample of schools in the study.

The skill that I feel would help develop my practice and which I feel needs work on is Collaboration. Collaboration is encouraged in my classroom and children are often working on tasks together. However, I feel that they are more cooperating rather than collaborating as they do not have shared responsibility. When asking my students what they thought collaboration was, most of them thought it was just working together, helping each other or doing the same thing. A lot were not even able to tell me what collaboration was. This shows me that although I thought that we collaborated in the classroom, that in fact the children didn't know what we were doing and why we were doing it in that way. I need to construct a way of making the class more collaborative where activities require students to make decisions together and have shared responsibility.