The Learning Process

During week 5, 6, 7 of Term 4, I was asked to join the Skippers team to start to trial the Shotover Learning Process with students who were already half way through their concept for their Science Fair.  The Skippers team would be presenting their science investigations in Week 8.  The students were interested in learning about how hydroelectric dams work and had completed some research and brainstorming of ideas in the beginning few weeks of Term 4, developing a big question with their learning mentors.  We were also trialling a teaching kit.  From the kit we created a model turbine. We attempted but found great difficulty in creating a generator (the kit had not instructions or the right tools) and we briefly explored conductivity and insulation with squishy circuits.  Below is my reflections on the work that I supported them with.

What's happening?

• discussion around the language of the learning process (connect, create, communicate)
• connecting - asking questions, watching video clips, creating and organising notes
• creating - made a water turbine, investigated insulation and conductivity with squishy circuits
• communicating - via movie and through science board
• reflection on the learning process 
• understanding of how a turbine works

Lukas & Lucan from Shotover Primary School on Vimeo.

Squishy Circuits - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

What's not happening?

• deep/powerful learning around the generator and how electricity travels 
• understanding | independence in communicating via a science board/display

Graham Nuthall in the Hidden Lives of Learners states that students need to experience the complete set of information at least 3 different times to understand the concept.  In addition to understand new learning we need to:

• Make connections to prior knowledge - stored in their working memory
• Evaluate the new experience and what it implies to their prior knowledge
• Integrate into into our prior knowledge - changing it, being changed by it

Nuthall goes on to state that new concepts are not created and transferred to long term memory until enough information has accumulated in working memory to warrant the creation of a new concept.

How will I influence what's not happening?

With Nuthall's research in mind the students would benefit from:

• further investigations into how electricity travels from the power station e.g. a variety of different 'hands on' science investigations into insulation and conductivity

Work with teams at the beginning of concepts / projects to collaboratively 'nut out' and decide what the following points would look like for students at different ages and stages of learning within their habitats:

• teaching modelling/scaffolding in writing/science how to present information in a written format - breaking down each aspect into manageable bite size chunks with a greater defined success criteria
• develop visual presentation skills - colour theory, how to trim and present work, how to use a glue stick etc. Why?  It forms part of the communication aspect of the Shotover Learning Process  and is part of the English NZC

JPEG of Lucan's Google Doc - Clyde Dam Research.  The Google Doc was smart shared via Hapara Dashboard.  Within his document all the blue underlined questions/ sentences are hyperlinks.

PL with Tony Burkin

Last week I was part of 3 professional learning session on leadership with Tony Burkin.  From the session I had two take aways which resonated with me around developing my own growth in leadership.

TWO TAKE AWAYS:

1. Monitor - knowing which areas of my leadership I have fixed or growth mindset in
2. Intelligent failure - innovating, tweaking, piloting, trialling

Below are my notes I made in the first PL session with Tony.

Leadership is not planned - you can be blindsided!! Experience, wisdom and insight can help!

• how do we respond to feedback - is often a fight / flight response 
• feedback needs to be an honest conversation
• growth .v. compliance - how do we support are people to grow?
• we need to develop people to be leaders and not managers
• provocative / honest conversations grow capacity
• being collegial to work for the greater good of the community / culture of the school
• how do we create a school where staff and learners grow - invest in others
• high level of trust - hold yourself accountable (managing self)
• we are often relationally driven rather than living moral integrity and being honest

Mindset clashes - Affirmation (positive) .v. Developmental (negative)
“Assuming everyone has a growth mindset - help me when you ask me for feedback - lets establish the ground rules - give me 2 numbers e.g. +ve 40 / -ve 60 but you are asking me to be dishonest” Praise is different to feedback.

Mindsets can change - we can be both depending on the context - self management is key - as leader we have to monitor those moments - can learn from mistakes - knowing which areas of our leadership we have fixed or growth mindset.

3 types of failure

1. preventable - should never have happened as preventable - recipes, laws, guidelines, best practice teaching (recipes to success e.g. John Hattie)
2. complex failure - no quick fix
3. intelligent failure - innovating, tweaking, piloting, trialling (learning pit) - GROWTH MINDSET - where we want to fail!

Pedagogy verses Andragogy

Who gives feedback e.g. leader, teacher, student? Different rules apply to adults.

After the PL decided to brush up on my understanding of androgogy and found an interesting article from eLearning Industry based on Malcolm Knowles' "The Adult Learning Theory - Andragogy". My key takeaway from my readings is how adult learners need agency over their learning.

Knowles’ 5 Assumptions Of Adult Learners

1. Self-concept - As a person matures his/her self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being
2. Adult Learner Experience - As a person matures he/she accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.
3. Readiness to Learn - As a person matures his/her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his/her social roles.
4. Orientation to Learning - As a person matures his/her time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his/her orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject- centeredness to one of problem centeredness.
5. Motivation to Learn - As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal (Knowles1984:12).

Knowles’ 4 Principles Of Andragogy

1. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.
2. Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for the learning activities.
3. Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life.
4. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented. (Kearsley, 2010)