This post is in response to an article in the Weekend Australian Magazine: Funky School (Overington, 2011). It foregrounds the move by numerous schools across Australia towards learning in agile spaces; that is, spaces where students can choose what they learn, with whom they will learn, and where they will learn (inside the classroom or outside). Naturally, these spaces are conducive to the use of mobile technology: laptops, iPods, iPads. Whitby (Executive Director of Schools for the Diocese of Parramatta, as cited by Overington, 2011) argues as does Davidson (2011, p.12), "[our] economy ... has been transformed irrevocably by globalisation and the changes wrought by the information age. If kids must face the challenges of this new, global, distributed information economy, what are we doing to structure the classroom of the twenty-first century to help them?"
The answer at Our Lady of Lourdes School, in Sydney, is to have these open spaces with 120 students and three teachers working together to learn.
The concern raised in the article centres around the experimental nature of the spaces. "Walls came down" in the 1970s and open learning spaces were all the rage; until the walls came back up because the spaces were considered a failure. Donnelly (Director of the Education Standards Institute in Melbourne, as cited in Overington, 2011) explains that the reason open learning failed was because students, especially primary aged and particularly boys, require structure, direction; they need rote. Overington (2011) goes on to report that this time around it is different; technology has changed how these spaces can operate. Although she does not report how technology has changed the use of open learning spaces, she does allude to how students appear engaged and focused on learning activities when she does visit these spaces. However, those who are hesitant about these areas state that evidence is required to substantiate such assertions. Indeed, how will relevant outcomes be determined? From where will this evidence come? NAPLAN? Most realise that there is more to learning than can be examined by such a test.
Teaching is more complex than just having access to technology, infrastructure or spaces. Poor pedagogical practices cannot hide behind technology. I heard a story about a young teacher who complained to the Directory of Studies at her school, "I can't teach. My laptop's not working." One thing is certain though; I agree with Turner (cited by Overington, 2011) when he states that spaces, technology or infrastructure alone will not deliver results. He explains that it is about the teachers, the quality of the pedagogy in the classroom, "If you can get that right, you can pretty much teach in a tent." However, throw in WiFi and that tent looks more attractive.
What do you think?
The answer at Our Lady of Lourdes School, in Sydney, is to have these open spaces with 120 students and three teachers working together to learn.
The concern raised in the article centres around the experimental nature of the spaces. "Walls came down" in the 1970s and open learning spaces were all the rage; until the walls came back up because the spaces were considered a failure. Donnelly (Director of the Education Standards Institute in Melbourne, as cited in Overington, 2011) explains that the reason open learning failed was because students, especially primary aged and particularly boys, require structure, direction; they need rote. Overington (2011) goes on to report that this time around it is different; technology has changed how these spaces can operate. Although she does not report how technology has changed the use of open learning spaces, she does allude to how students appear engaged and focused on learning activities when she does visit these spaces. However, those who are hesitant about these areas state that evidence is required to substantiate such assertions. Indeed, how will relevant outcomes be determined? From where will this evidence come? NAPLAN? Most realise that there is more to learning than can be examined by such a test.
Teaching is more complex than just having access to technology, infrastructure or spaces. Poor pedagogical practices cannot hide behind technology. I heard a story about a young teacher who complained to the Directory of Studies at her school, "I can't teach. My laptop's not working." One thing is certain though; I agree with Turner (cited by Overington, 2011) when he states that spaces, technology or infrastructure alone will not deliver results. He explains that it is about the teachers, the quality of the pedagogy in the classroom, "If you can get that right, you can pretty much teach in a tent." However, throw in WiFi and that tent looks more attractive.
What do you think?
I completely agree with your statement “teaching is more complex than just having access to technology, infrastructure or spaces. Poor pedagogical practices cannot hide behind technology”. I was reading an article in this weekend’s The Weekend Australian (“Let’s Bring Classrooms into the 21st Century”) that talks about just this. Rupert Murdoch wrote the article and says:
ReplyDelete“…if we attached computers to leeches, medicine wouldn’t be any better than it was in the 19th century, when doctors used them to bleed patients. The same goes for education. You don’t get change by plugging in computers designed for the industrial age. You get it by deploying technology that rewrites the rules of the game by centring learning around the learner…” (2011).
He’s discussing the fact that we claim to be aiming towards a 21st century classroom, we equip these classrooms with 21st century technologies and then deliver the curriculum with 20th century pedagogy. I guess this is the concept of having Information Technology as the only subject that utilises modern technologies, rather than such technologies being embedded throughout all KLAs.
Murdoch believes that the majority of classrooms reflect the old fashioned, teacher directed classroom, where the teacher has the knowledge and as such, is the main source of information for students. There might be occasional computer lab booking made (after all, teachers get tired and want a bludge lesson too), but the Personal Technology Device statement clearly states that all such mobile devices have no place in the classroom.
Murdoch claims that the reason the education system hasn’t seen drastic improvements in educational outcomes, despite the amount of money being pumped into it by governments, is the lack of differentiation in teaching instruction. As a current, practicing teacher I would love to be highly offended by this, and list a variety of ways in which differentiated and relevant instruction takes place at the school at which I teach.
But I can’t.
Murdoch, R. (2011, October 15-16). Let’s bring classrooms into the 21st century. The Weekend Australian. P IQ 17
Thanks for this comment Wendy. My son is currently attending a school that is equiped with 21st century technologies but the curriculum, in part, is still being delivered using 20th century pedagogy. We are paying $800 extra per year for our son's laptop. Last term he came home with a task which required him to research a topic, word process his findings, print these, cut them out and paste them onto a cardboard poster. Clearly, there is an issue with the take-up of this technology by his teacher. Laptops were rolled out three years ago; this is my son's first year with one.
ReplyDeleteThe whole school from the administration down needs to share a vision of what our 21st century classroom should look and feel like. A large part of realising that vision has to be not in the physical resourcing of the space but in the human resourcing. Teacher-librarians are pivotal here. Teachers should feel like they can rely on such colleagues for collaboration on unit planning and preparation, professional development, and delivery of plans into the classrooms. Without such resourcing, work intensification will burn many teachers into an early retirement.
Perhaps my son's teacher may have considered using Glogster (to name but one tool out of the 1,000s of others) if she were so resourced. Resourced with a teacher-librarian who could have delivered for her an alternative to the poster, empowered her with the professional development in how to use such a resource with her class and who could convince her that in setting an assignment using a Web 2.0 tool such as Glogster would not only make her student's mother feel better about the money she is spending on the laptop but would also be developing her student's digital literacy, then the learning experience would have had more chance of being relevant in a digital age.
I absolutely agree with Turners’s statement that a student’s ability to learn cannot be just about technology and infrastructure, these tangible qualities alone will not deliver results. The most important factor is the classroom teachers and the quality of their pedagogy.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that teachers need to be able to connect, engage and excite their students – but how is this possible with a class of 28 individual learners?? Technology is certainly a tool that will assist to put students at the centre of the learning process and allow them to build on their prior knowledge as well as expand their knowledge base, but what else is needed??
Wendy’s response explains that Murdoch believes what we need is ‘differentiation’ in teaching instruction’. ‘Differentiation’ is a buzz word that is being bandied around at my school and I’m sure many others with the National Curriculum due for implantation in Queensland Government schools next year. The new C2C units (Curriculum into the classroom) have a blank section where teachers can add their responses for how they plan to differentiate within their classroom.
At a recent conference I attended we were given Carol Ann Tomlinson’s definition of differentiation which was ‘a teacher’s planned responses to a range of student learning needs’. We were also told that to effectively differentiate we needed to:
Know our students
Know the curriculum intent
Vary the pathways
Teaching certainly is more complex than just having access to technology and infrastructure the most important component remains the ‘human’ component – the knowledge and connection teachers have with their students.
One final note - I love Turner's idea of teaching in a tent, it sent my imagination into overdrive and made me think of Dr Sesus’s 'Oh! The Places You'll Go!' ........
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
And Dr Sesus didn’t even have WiFi for his adventures – ahh the endless possibilities of mobile learning.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowledge Anton and Wendy.