Week 18: Reflection: A Change in my Practice

Activity 2: A Change in my Practice Towards Future-oriented Teaching and Learning

What is the purpose of teaching and learning in the 21st Century and beyond? What do we want for our young people? The often quoted line from the Vision section of the New Zealand Curriculum sums it up for me: young people  who are 'confident, connected, actively involved, and lifelong learners'. 

For this week's reflection, I have chosen subtheme 1: The role of current and emerging technologies. I believe they are a vital tool in enabling the transformation of education for the future, through personalising learning, enabling students to be actively involved in creating new experiences and allowing learners to go beyond the borders of the classroom.

One of my main reasons for participating in the Mindlab course was to learn more about digital tools and how I could use them to enhance student learning.  This was an area that I did not feel confident in ,yet, my students relished every opportunity to use their phones and other devices  in class. Before the course, I was making some limited movement in my use of ICT; for example, moving from using Word with my students to using google docs where I could give faster, sometimes instant feedback and feedforward. I used youtube clips and some websites with my French and English classes but that was about the extent of it. Over the thirty years I have been involved in education there has been almost constant change but none so great as the 'paradigm shift in practice' (Bolstad et al 2012)that is occuring now.

Since starting this course,  I have been introduced to the Constructivist Learning Theory of  Vygotsky (somehow my year at Teacher's College in the 80's  overlooked this) which suggests that the more active involvement a student has in their learning, the more likely it is that he/she will remember and  learn from it. I was also introduced to Knowledge as a 'verb', the idea  that  it should be active - something we do, rather than passive. I have become familiar with the SAMR model and I now have a better understanding of the progression of ICT use  that with the aid of digital tools students' learning capability can be transformed as they can create and use new knowledge. Reflecting on my practice using the model, I understand that prior to Mindlab, I mostly used digital tools at the substitution (word processing) and augmentation levels of SAMR (youtube).

 The Digital and Collaborative assignments gave me an opportunity to reflect on my use of ICT.  One of the most exciting things was setting up a virtual exchange between my Year 7 French students and a class in New Caledonia using Jitsi and email. This might have been more successful if the New Caledonian students had had better access to technology. The NC students were only allowed to use their school intranet so emailing was difficult but it was a taste of how technology enables students to go beyond the classroom walls and connect with other communities.   I have also used google classroom with all of my English classes. Students have submitted assignments and work on google docs is automatically saved . I will continue to use this next year so that students can collaborate on documents (modification). 

Next year, our school will become a one-to-one device school which will make it easier to use the technology and allow for more personalised learning using a flipped classroom approach. This will give me more time in class to spend with individuals on what they find challenging. From my use of google cardboard VR on the course, I can see that the use of  virtual reality can enable students to  have a greater understanding of other places for example, in French to visit the Eiffel Tower or the Champs Elysee in Paris,  or English students to tour the Globe Theatre. I still have much to learn about digital tools but I now have questions to guide me as to how to choose the 'best tools for the best practice'.

References:

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Educationve. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

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Claxton,  G.  (2007).  Expanding  young  people’s  capacity  to  learn.  British  Journal  of  Educational  Studies, 55(2),  115-134.

ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

Ministry of Education. (2007b). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.

Puentedura, R. (2006) SAMR model. Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Teacher-inquiry/SAMR-model

Roessingh, H. (2014). Teachers’ roles in designing meaningful tasks for mediating language learning through the use of ICT: A reflection on authentic learning for young ELLs / Le rôle des enseignants dans la conception de tâches pertinentes en apprentissage des langues. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology / La Revue Canadienne de L’apprentissage et de La Technologie, 40(1). https://doi.org/10.21432/T2PP4M

Week 17: Reflecting on My Reflective Practice

Looking into the Mirror

If 'experience is a wet cloth’ and the ‘purpose of reflection is to wring every last part of learning out of the situation', (SkillsTeamHullUni, 2014) I need to wring harder. When evaluating my practice using the survey in the Mindlab class notes, I understand what critical reflection is; I discuss experiences and ideas with my colleagues and reflect on my own – often late at night or in the wee small hours of the morning. As for data gathering and research, I sometimes do this. An example would be when I was trying to improve the writing skills of my Year 9 students. I surveyed them to see what they thought their problems were and almost all said the most difficult thing was coming up with ideas to write on. I then did some research and came up with ten strategies for getting ideas for writing. We used these strategies in writing exercises and applied them to creative writing. This was a successful experience for the students and me as they responded positively and were able to choose a strategy rather than complain ‘I don’t know what to write.’ Their feedback supported this. I knew the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ and I was starting to think about the ‘so what?’ What did this imply for future learning?

Zeichner and Liston’s five levels of reflection – How do I rate?

Rapid reflection – if I feel that something is not working, I am prepared to change or adapt, sometimes in the middle of a lesson or a unit of work – I think a lot of my actions have been instinctive.

Repair – again this is something I do instinctively such as allowing students to present their work in a different format or having more choice in the selection of texts.

Review –Although I am often reflecting mentally, or with others, I rarely write a reflection, unless it is for my one focused teacher inquiry for the year and is required for the registration process.

In terms of the last two of the five levels: Research; I sometimes gather data and read theory, but rarely retheorise and reformulate. As part of my experience on the Mindlab course, I have a better understanding of how research and gathering data is important to improving my teaching and to challenging my existing assumptions. Thus far, I think I have been better reflecting immediately, ‘reflection-in action’, rather than taking the long-term view ‘reflection on action’ Finlay cites Schon, (1983).

A 'powerful tool to examine and transform practice' (Finlay, 2008, p.8)

Although I have found it challenging to write a blog and expose myself to the world (or at least to the members of my Mindlab class), I can see the merits in having a place to reflect and share ideas with other teachers. Writing my reflections down will help me to reflect on a deeper level and discover lessons for myself as a learner and look ahead for implications for my professional practice and so, time poor as many teachers are, I will try to establish the reflective blog habit.

The model that I intend to use is Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988). I like that it links well to the Spirals of Inquiry (Timperley, 2013) and the steps are clear. One of the steps in the Gibbs model is ‘feelings’ and L’Arrivee (2000) sees the importance of reflecting critically on the impact of assumptions…, feelings, behaviour’. A key point in the process for me will also be the analysis and taking the time to do this at a deeper level so that I can indeed ‘wring every last bit of learning from the situation.’ A critique of the model could be that it is not wide-ranging enough in terms of the Action plan stage. e.g. How could the new learning be applied to other areas? In my opinion, it is important to be flexible in the use of the model and I would incorporate that question into my action plan when necessary.

Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle

References:

Finlay, L. (2008). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file…

Timperley, H., Kaser, L., and Halbert, J. (2014, April). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Centre for Strategic Education, Seminar Series Paper No. 234.

Larrivee, B. (2000).Transforming teaching practice: becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1(3), 293-307.

Ministry of Education.(2009). Teaching as Inquiry. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Case-studies/Teachers-as-learners-Inquiry/Teaching-as-inquiry

Schon, D.A. (1983) The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books

SkillsTeamHullUni. (2014, March 3). Reflective writing. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v+Qol67VeE3ds