Leading the Future -Article Review Middle Syndicate

Below is a transcript of the Middle Syndicate Quality Learning Circle with regard to an article by Carolyn Stuart, 2007. Generally the article was intriguing to read and provided in-depth analysis of the change occurring throughout the world.

We also discussed the learning was not all there yet with regard to ICT and others commented on the role of leadership to treat Staff Meeting as Professional Development for ICT. The comment regarding "walking the talk is critical to change" was discussed and a heightened level of excitement was generated.

In order to prepare our children in the future, they will need to be able to do a job that may or may not exist today. For this to occur teachers need to be up skilled and eventually all teacher planning will be online. Assessment information will then be placed online and grades will be available for parents to access as soon as the test has occurred.

Web 2.0 learning has revolutionised the teachers' pedagogy, with questions like "what do you want to learn?" in order to make learning valuable. This is engaging when incorporated with Inquiry Learning and ICT.

The idiom of "the world is flat" was acknowledged as an important ideology that has made New Zealand virtually closer to its neighbouring countries and further beyond. Links were made to the Teacher Only Day with Pam Hook regarding the importance to:
Ask the kids
Ask the parents
Ask the teachers --------What do you not want to learn? What do you want to learn?

This generates a purpose for students and clear before you want continue with the context and content. Linear teaching was previously taught and the ICT tools and Web 2.0 tools have created an edge for new learners in society.

New ICT tools have converged and web2.0 is growing exponentially. Students are now able to collaborate with classes in the next room, school and country in real time with audio and video capabilities. This is truly where the real learning is occurring and students are engaged and enthusiastic about the new forms of interaction and learning.

Junior school, Aug. 08

Key Competencies
Reading 1
Looking at learning intentions under the key competency headings
Rubric - Structured well – given in child speak and ordered in a way easy to follow
Reporting to parents – current reports are not in line with key competencies
Key competencies are more about the whole person and their strengths
Assessing key competencies is contextually bound – within the bounds of the subject area you are working – therefore tracking the competencies can be difficult ie some one might be good at participating in Music but not necessarily in maths – so we would need to assess across more than one area
Key Competencies are dispositions not capabilities
Key competencies can be demonstrated across curriculum areas
Assessing key competencies requires more self and peer assessment
Do we think some of these KC are more suited to our junior area – maybe, I wonder?

Reading 2
Children need capability of applying knowledge and disposition and personal attitudes to become life long learners.
Competencies are important across many areas of life – key for having a prosperous, happy life.
Some of the things that make up competencies require skills – we need to be careful not to focus on the these skills and remember to attend to the dispositions required
Critical to learners development that they build a concept around the competencies that they are able to ask questions around their thinking, learning and behaviours

Establishing Key Competencies

Ingrid summarised the article as developing key competencies as a form of instilling a desire for life-long learning.
Vanessa E stated the article summarised the key areas based on the OECD study; those being social aspects, literacy and communication.
Nicki stated the article identified the e-portfolios and the benefits these brought to informing parents and teachers alike in the childrens' learning abilities. Vanessa E discussed the assessment of key competencies and the difficulties in being able to do so; assessing is not necessarily testing. Ingrid said the Key Competencies are difficiult to assess also.
The diagram 24.4 was identified as being fantastic summary of lifelong learning creating a movement from andragogy to pedagogy. The tables 24.2 and 24.4 used fantastic language in order to assess key competencies.

Middle School Readings

The process: How the school introduced key competencies- A case study.
Sheryl summarised the article anddiscussed how key competencies were implemented in schools. Vanessa stated that the way we assess currently will need to change in order to meet the needs of our children.
Sheryl enjoyed the Rubric for 'managing self' and identified the significance for level 2 columns.
Shelley thought it was interesting the support staff were using the same terminology and created a sense of homogenety amongst the members of the school team.
Sheryl analysed the steps at which we were at as a school and our next step was to add this to reporting times with parents.

Assessing Key Competencies

When we assess I always ask what value is this for moving my students on in their learning.
We need to blend the best of what we already know with what is new.
The assessment needs to be relevant and effective, providing them with the next steps of learning.
Learning happens in many places, not just at school.
Children need to develop multi literacies for learning.
New learning challenges us with a call for creative problem solving.
Students need to know what sucess looks like but also how to assess themselves against a criteria.
Working with others is central to life-long learning.
We need to know what life long learning is; it is so vast. It is like the end product.
Page 10 and 11 gave us strategies to think about. Wendy really liked the idea that the students are involved in selecting work to share with home about their learning.

enGauge

Junior SyndicateKaye said: She found it enlightening that the students that had internet access, obtain better results than those who didnt as they spent less time watching television.Sue said: It is challenging for teachers to be invloved in such a rapid technological change, and extend their skills to maintain their cycle of learning rather than clusters of knowledge. " Wonderfully beneficial to the terrifyingly difficult."The implications for us as educators are:- Understanding not just what the children are learning but how they are learning it.- Instilling the basic literacy skills still remains our core focus, as a foundation to all other learning. Concern was expressed that a particular child, who is computer literate, has severe concerntration issues.- The children do not want to wait and there is so much visual language coming at them, they do not want to sit their watching when they could be involved (because they can).- The corncerns of the parents and the limitations that they enforce on us as educators of their children. - Multiple and varied assessments needed.It was raised that what we decided we wanted our learners to look like, were reflected in the enGauge 21st century skills.

"enGauge"

Duncan says that children are getting more involved with their own assessment, such as 3-way interview which will help foster lifelong learningNick thinks that although it is a great idea, and as we can teach 30we can’t feasibly mentor 30 children; especially in terms of time.Paul agrees that e-Portfolio is a great idea, such as the example we were shown from Red Beach School. "New assessment methods, online…" And Helen echoes with this new wave of education but added her concern that we teachers need to do many tasks along with conferencing and editing with children on their e-Portfolios.On the other hand, Wendy is positive about the new trend, and wishes to urge teachers to change the old way of teaching.Douglas likes the ideas of the reading yet agrees with all discussion points raised. He wants others to ponder on this: "As much as we have been thinking about what we want the new learners to look like when they leave school, have we actually asked how we want the teachers to feel and look like in this modern era of education? Like what sort of supports and needs they have and should get in order to carry out their tasks and still be able to enjoy this teaching profession sanely and realistically."Overall, the team likes many great ideas implicated in both the readings but we all understand that there have been very limited guidelines & support on the implementation side of the issues… i.e. e-Portfolios & individual mentoring. These ideas need to see more realistic aspects of the teaching & learning practice in classrooms.