Improving the learning with Web2.0 tools

By Robin Sutton, Senior Master @ Christ's College of Canterbury...
@suttonr2002 or rsutton@christscollege.com

The teaching profession is filled with good people, well intentioned people, people who want the best for the students that sit in front of them. These are people who would often almost literally give the shirts off their backs for their students.

Yet these are also all too often people who fill their daily working lives with practice based upon little more than mythology. Challenge it and the response is all too often that wonderful professional 'put down' - 'well of course it works, and you'd need to be pretty stupid to think otherwise.'

That observation leads to more than a touch of nervousness when I start to describe the impact of what we might call 'Web2.0' tools in the classroom. In between those bouts of Senior Management 'stuff' that fill my day, I teach two Level 2 Economics classes, and over the past 5 years I have progressively brought several new tools into the class repertoire. The focus of the work has been on developing students' ability to think critically, and to express that thinking in writing. It is no coincidence that the three external Level 2 Economics standards now count towards UE literacy (writing) in NCEA terms,  a commentary on the reasoning and writing expectations of these standards.

I now have a well established pattern of development through the year. Running in amongst the more traditional 'direct instruction' I begin by developing students' ability to reason and write with the use of online discussion forums. I moderate these carefully, giving every student detailed feedback on their posts (perhaps one of the more powerful differentiation tools?) before setting them to the process of constructing and deconstructing argument with each other.

As students develop confidence in their ability to argue, and to record those arguments in writing, I then transition them to more formal writing using GoogleDocs. I create a writing structure using the SOLO framework, ensuring that their written work closely matches the expectations of the NCEA standards and assessments. Each piece of work receives detailed feedback from me in writing.

While content tends to be developed through more than traditional direct instruction, I often use GoogleForms to elicit responses to content related questions. I gather this data under 'test' conditions. This provides a rich array of thinking, not all of which is correct. Students then take this response data (which I have shared back with them) and in groups co-construct the correct answers to a range of questions that help them to develop their understanding of subject content. Throughout all of this classes are engaged with the use of Twitter both inside and outside the class.

I am also teaching specific writing techniques (in particular the Statement, Explanation, eXample/evidence structure with which our English colleagues are enamoured).

Finally, because our external assessment system still requires students to sit examinations in which they write their answers using traditional pen and paper, I then start on the final transition to answering questions on paper.

What have I found? I can hear the voices (quite rightly) calling 'where's your data?' I have no reliable, authentic, replicable data on the outcomes.  I have some observations to make.

Consistent with international research (Goldberg et al), students in my classes write more and write better than they ever did before. Whereas 10 years ago on paper they might have written a paragraph of 5 lines, now they will write anything between 15 and 30 lines in explanation (mostly - there are ALWAYS exceptions). The reasoning is clearer (in general) and the examination results improved. The students are now more often writing responses  that I would classify as Relational and Extended Abstract as they respond to questions. A class taught without these approaches over the same period saw reasonably static results.

This year for the first time I ran an NCEA internal assessment using GoogleDocs. The results were dramatically different. The overall pass rate went from 55/75% to 94%. There is almost no evidence of collaboration (the task had to be completed independently). The answers were fuller in nature, the reasoning clearer and more accurate with most students. I have clear evidence of metacognitive thinking. As I supervised one of the 'in class' sessions of this assessment I watched over the shoulders of students as they used the comments function to pose questions of themselves on what they had written, ready for review later before they submit their work. Interestingly (perhaps??) this was not something I'd 'taught' them to do.

I see great engagement amongst students with both the class work, and the subject. The use of Twitter has been enlightening as students pose questions, offer answers to questions (both in and out of class), and tweet interesting resource material to me and the class. I run a unique class hashtag for each class.

Is any of this conclusive? NO!!! Is this any better than the mythologising of which I accused too many colleagues at the start of this post? Probably not.

It is quite possible that the results have nothing whatsoever to do with the technology. What is needed is some quality research. I'm a numbers man, I need quantitative data. I have little other than probably meaningless word and line counts (there are the NCEA achievement stats for both internals and externals), but I am not bold enough to try to suggest cause and effect yet. That's next year's Teaching as Inquiry project.

References

1. Goldberg A, Russell M, and Cook A "Meta Analysis: Writing with computers 1992-2002", Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative, Boston College.
2. Hattie J "Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning", Routledge, 2012.

Choose to be More at Clarkville

What’s it taken to CHOOSE TO BE MORE at Clarkville?

From Pene Abbie, Principal, Clarkville School

We are a small, semi-rural school on the outskirts of Christchurch, people used to say they wanted to send their children to our place because of this – being small and rural!

It seemed that these two traits immediately determined a culture of great learning.

Those of us on the inside knew it took more than this and we have spent the last seven years “reshaping our learning culture.”

So what does this mean – and why, if our learners are doing pretty well, would we want to do anything differently?

The process of reshaping the learning at Clarkville has required deep scrutiny of all we believe about great learning and all we know about great teaching. It has required us to consider our world and the world of our children and look beyond what we already know and into what we have no clue about.

The result of this thinking and dissecting and inquiring has been to firmly place the learner at the centre of all we do, be and understand.

What we know is it is no longer enough to fill up a child’s day with learning activities or fill up a child’s head with knowledge- school is no longer the bastion of learning so instead, what we must provide is experience based in relationship, authenticity, choice and high expectation.  A day full of richness that causes engagement and motivation and results in achievement!

So what do we believe?

WE ARE PREPARING OUR LEARNERS FOR THE FUTURE

We will be people who know what to do when we don’t know what to do

This means we will provide learning experiences that

•       encourage and inspire creativity

•       demand collaboration and connection

•       enable personal academic success

•       help us to be adaptable self managers

•       challenge our thinking and make us wonder

•       require us to problem solve and take risks

•       promote effective global and digital citizenship

THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO LEARNING POSSIBILITIES

We recognise and seek the learning opportunities in every experience

This means we will experience learning that is

•       anywhere and anytime

•       lead by anyone

•       personalised and authentic

EFFECTIVE LEARNING IS INFLUENCED BY ENVIRONMENT

To meet our needs we develop and use learning spaces in innovative and creative ways.

This means our learning environments

•       promote collaboration, sharing together and working independently

•       allow for flexibility and choice,

•       are defined by all of us

•       exist within and beyond the school boundaries

•       develop a legacy for the future

WE ALL BELONG HERE

Our sense of belonging and ownership comes from having strong learning-centred relationships

This means as a community we will

•       Know you and value what is important to you

•       Build, enhance and restore relationships

•       Communicate effectively and openly

•       Expect to work together successfully (no matter our age, position or ability)

Nice rhetoric you may say but what might that look like? What evidence do we have?

We regularly host visitors interested in our learning culture. Our MINT think tank students act as tour guides for these visitors. The tour begins in our junior team where our five and six year olds start the day ( at whatever time they get to school) with ChILL in the morning. This is a self-regulated, inquiry learning based discovery time. Children make choices, justify these choices, engage in activity supported by teachers, parents or peers and then reflect on what is new or refreshed for them today. They don’t wait for learning to happen! There is no bell, no gathering of groups for explanation and instruction, no waiting for all learners to be present or organised, learning is just happening.

The Tour would then proceed through our other three learning teams where you would see groups

of 40-60 students with 2-4 staff co-teaching across traditional single cell learning spaces. The learning that is happening is deeply embedded in the key competencies, strongly self-regulated and personalised according to individual needs.

Teaching comprises running workshops, which children choose to participate in – if that sounds a bit free range what needs to be understood is the depth of expectation on the learner to be accountable for their progress and achievement.

You will see children managing their learning virtually and in real time. You will see learners moving, collaborating, and choosing a space that best suits their learning needs.

At times you will see vertical groupings, teachers teaching all learners across the school, whole school inquiry contexts and shared rich language learning experiences within and beyond the confines of the school.

You will not see Modern Learning Environments- although two team spaces have now been renovated to allow flexibility and collaboration. But you will see contemporary teaching and learning practice.

But  most importantly is what you will hear – particularly from our learners. The following quotes have been taken from feedback and reflections given by visitors at our place in the last 12 months.

“Student voice is powerful at Clarkville. Students are involved in the planning process, as part of a team made up of students from years 4-8. They will even attend BOT meetings as necessary. Younger students often get to contribute their ideas as well”

“Students are very aware of their achievement. They have learning pathway folders that contain their goal sheets and reflections, peer feedback, learning maps and learning stories. A Year 8 student explained to me that he knew how to read his Asttle data in order to know his next learning steps in Maths. Students opt into workshop style learning as necessary. Teachers are not necessarily teaching groups of students, they are teaching based on the student's next learning steps” ( MLE PLG Blog post)

“The children were our tour guides as we moved through the “Discover”, “Explore” and “Aspire” groupings, where the involvement and ownership of the self-directed, guided inquiry program was truly stunning. Without exception the children I spoke with clearly expressed what they were doing and learning, and where it connected with the whole plan for the day, week or even the year.  How the children could readily talk about their learning with enthusiasm, wonder and a strong sense of purpose was the most impressive aspect of the whole experience. They loved talking about what they were learning! It was more than just the normal question answer thing, it was an interesting conversation.” ( Masters students – Transforming Education in Christchurch Masters paper University of Canterbury)

“These articulate confident, patient students answer our questions, show us their work, discuss their learning goals and keep us to time. Impressive young leaders! We glean information about their current Inquiry, the positives of modern learning for them and their views on book storage, BYOD and beanbags!” ( Hereora Cluster Newsletter)

We are passionate about how we work at Clarkville, we love the engagement and motivation the learning experiences engender in our young people. We are aspirational and focused on “CHOOSING TO BE MORE” BUT we are not “the way”; we are “our way” and although we are described as an MLE using MLP there are two things that are very apparent.

-        This has been a six year cultural transformation not an overnight airplane flight to a new destination or new building.

-        and the more I hear about MLE and MLP the more I think this is really about great teaching, great learning experiences , strong learning based relationships and recognising and valuing the influences our learners have beyond the world of school. We have a responsibility to be engaging, authentic, connected and inspiring and that is a much more complex job than it was last century. If you make the investment – its worth it.