Derek Wenmoth on "does a MLE suit all learners?"

Quite an interesting article with Derek's thoughts on if MLE's suit everyone.

Does a MLE suit all learners?

Education in the 21st Century, a few of our thoughts :-)

Here are some of our reflections following our reflection meeting last week.

I am excited about the direction we are heading in.

There were 4 key questions during this time, here is a summary of the responses.

1. What does teaching and learning in the 21st Century look like to you?

• Student led, increased student agency/ownership
• Open, flexible, responsive learning environments
• High use of technology
• Huge community involvement
• Students learning how to be successful, what is required
• Teaching and learning any space, anytime
• Collaboration within school, cluster, nationally and internationally
• Colourful, vibrant learning environment
• Team teaching, learning from each other, utilising strengths of individuals
• Power of 3 (3:75), options to adapt as pedagogy develops
• Multiple activities happening at once
• Children can choose a learning environment to suit the need

     2) What do we need within our school and environments to achieve this vision?

• Instant access to the required resource
• Development of collaborative pedagogy
• Flexible, easily adapted teaching and learning spaces that are responsive to the current need
• Keeping up to date through observations of other schools, research, readings etc…
• Spaces opened up
• A welcoming feel, wow factor within the school
• Well organised storage areas
• Strong relationships between staff, students and whanau
• A collective, clear vision
• Breakout spaces to cater for diversity
• A physical space that allows for modern learning mindsets
• Passion and a positive attitude to change

     3) How must the environment be organised? What must be in this environment?

• 3 : 75 ratio, Power of three
• Ability to change space to fit the purpose, responsive
• Resources immediately available
• Learning hub is self sufficient, place for bags, resources, etc…
• Every space is a learning space
• Quiet spaces that are visible
• Breakout spaces for wet activities, dry activities, arts, technology etc…
• Space to display student work
• Colourful and vibrant
• Better heating and light
• Partitions available to mark off space/areas as required
• Every space belongs to everyone

    4) What factors have the biggest impact on student achievement?

• The people working with the students
• Catering and encouraging individual learning styles and needs
• Quality of feedback given to students
• Community involvement
• Strong leadership
• Relationships and rapports
• Students feeling safe, comfortable in the environment
• Being time efficient
• Student engagement, choice and therefore ownership
• To understand how to be a learner, what this means
• Developing a growth mindset
• Knowing the learner
• Consistency, everyone sailing on the same ship

Carol Dweck- Growth v Fixed mindset and the Bridge to yet.

Carol Dweck is an american professor who has provided some amazing research on the development of children and their learning.   This TED talk looks at building growth mindsets in our students.

There is a link below to view the clip and a link to her wikipedia page.

Really interesting information.

TED talks have some fantastic educational clips, access this website through our links page on this blog.

Carol Dweck- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck

Carol Dweck- TED talk The bridge to yet

Please post any relevant comments or reflections on this clip.

An update...Where are we at???

Time to roar the blog back into life as there are many exciting things happening here @ Gilberthorpe. It is hard to know where to begin!

2015 is a huge year for us, we welcome 3 new teaching staff who have settled in very well and are making significant contributions to our school.  Our new caretaker has also been incredibly busy and is doing a wonderful job of making our place look fabulous.  We have a fantastic group of people involved with the school and the community and the outlook is incredibly positive.

Master planning for our re development
This is well and truly underway and we are now working with the architects and engineers to design a school environment that will fit our philosophy of teaching in the 21st Century.

Much discussion is happening among staff and the BOT about our teaching practice and ensuring that it is responsive enough to deliver a high quality teaching and learning programme for our students.

I will update the blog as this develops further.

Manaiakalani outreach programme
Our main professional learning development over the next three years will be based on the incredibly successful Manaiakalani cluster in Auckland.  manaiakalani.org
This is cutting edge professional learning that will ensure that our students are getting the best possible teaching programme. It has a strong emphasis on a Learn, Create and Share model that utilises technology both at school and in the home to create an anywhere, anytime learning environment.  This model has a had a huge impact on raising student achievement within the Auckland cluster and we look forward to benefiting from their knowledge.

Technology- Devices of choice...
As a school we have chosen to utilise and focus our energy into I pads for students in Year 0-3 and Google chrome books for Years 4-6.   Rimu class are currently 1-1 device and our new entrants/year 1 class are also virtually 1-1.  These devices are having a big impact on engagement levels. Later in the year all students in Year 4-6 will have the opportunity to lease to own their very own chrome book that will travel everywhere with them.

New furniture
We have had a lot of new furniture added to the classes and this is allowing the students to work much more collaboratively, it is interesting to watch how teachers and students are using this to reinforce modern learning pedagogy.

Modern learning
The dictionary states these definitions of "modern"

relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past: the pace of modern life | modern European history.

• characterised by or using the most up-to-date techniques, ideas, or equipment: they do not have modern weapons.

As a school we see the importance of having the highest quality teaching and learning programmes possible.  Keeping up with "modern" trends is top priority and we have excellent systems in place to do this.  Obviously the PLD plays a big part too.

Teachers have begun working collaboratively @ Gilberthorpe and this will continue to develop with time, next step is the buildings allowing this to happen much more easily.

Keep an eye on this site for more regular updates and articles, feel free to comment or contact us at anytime.

andrew@gilberthorpe.school.nz