Teaching and Learning

There are lots of inquiry models out there, and a lot of them require you to follow a step by step process from finding a question, researching that question, and then spitting out a presentation showing what you've learnt. 'Doing' research isn't that straight forward though, we know that simply from our own lives. Example. I was at the Louvre in Paris today, and being artistically and historically incompetent, I was looking at all the statues and thinking "how did they make those? What tools did they use? How long did they practice?" But the overwhelming urge for me was just to have a go at doing one. Just to have a go... Then I might do some research on better ways to do it... and then I might have another go... Then I might show someone, do some more research and maybe have another go. Some models try to cover for this kind of fluidity of research projects, and as they do, get extremely complex and confusing for both adults and students. In fact, people wor...

When I was younger, I played a lot of computer games.  Most of my days would go like this; struggle out of bed at 8am, get dropped off at school, go through the motions of school until 3:30pm, walk home as fast as I could, go on the computer, eat dinner, go back on the computer, go to bed. My dad used to say to me things like: "you're wasting your life" "get outside and enjoy the weather" "go and hang out with some real people" "you'll regret wasting all these years later in your life!" I think Dad eventually moved on from these things, whether he saw the benefit of games, or just gave up hope I can't be sure. All those years of playing computer, if they didn't give me anything else, gave me a interesting insight into teaching and learning... Runescape is a MMORPG - a massively multiplayer online role playing game - which started in 2001, which was when I started playing it. Runescape was an interesting, ground breaking game becau...

So I quit my job. I couldn't go on doing what I was doing, it was so against everything I believe in. I learnt a lot from it though; I learnt that doing the wrong thing because you have to can be soul destroying. I learnt that I am actually a very strong person. I can stand up for what I believe in, even in the face of people who have been there longer, or have a higher education. I learnt that I have some very strong beliefs about teaching. I learnt that I can't just go to any school, I need the right school for me. So I decided to write a new cover letter with all my philosophies on it, and decided that if the school doesn't want me from this cover letter then I don't actually want them, because they won't stand for what I stand for and it just won't work. My coverletter version 3.0: My name is Jonathan Broom and first and foremost I am an educator.  I have very specific philosophies in my teaching that are very progressive, innovative and i...

So I've been up on my mums parters farm for the last few days, and helped out a bit doing some fencing. I've never done any fencing before but I somewhat knew the process so I sort of knew what to expect. What I got though, was a reflection on teaching and learning that was pretty powerful and pretty inspiring. I use the word inspire because that's what Te Karaka Area School call it when kids head out for a day a week to experience authentic learning in the field.  While I was fencing I had to count out the distance between two strainers, divide it by the amount of gaps (not the number of posts) that we wanted between them, and then mark it out for Colin to drive them in. We had to make sure that the fence posts were 90 degrees to the ground, not vertical as first thought. They had to be half an inch away from the fencing, and they had have the flat to the wire, not skewed around. It was all pretty technical but I got more and more into it as we went along. When we'd fi...

So I've been trying something new out with writing recently, and it's made a few waves in my mind. I decided that actually what I was doing with my teaching was giving the children a learning outcome that I thought they should focus on, but they had no idea of what their next steps were, or why they were doing it, or how it would help them. Then I had an epiphany. I collected in the kids' goal books which had their writing goals in it anyway, and made sure they were showing the correct progress of each kid. Then I gave them back to them and explained it to them. I gave them a whole lot of story starters, and got them to write me a story - but they had to choose one learning outcome to focus on. After they wrote their stories they had to rate how well they achieved that goal. 1 - I did not achieve my goal. 2 - I tried to achieve my goal but didn't really. 3 - I occasionally achieved my goal. 4 - I mostly achieved my goal. 5 - I always achieved my goal. The ...

So I had an interesting idea the other day while in a staff meeting, Karyn pointed out that we need to give out kids learning choice in the classroom. I thought about the inquiry process I had set up and although I was giving the kids a wide range of learning area activities, I wasn't giving them as much choice as I could have. As I wondered about how I could fix this I thought about kids choosing which learning area they'd like to work in, and it got me remembering how I used to have choice in my childhood. My thoughts wandered to those pick-a-path books that I used to have when I was a kid - "Do you want to enter the fair ground? If yes, go to page 12, if no go to page 49" - and I thought... Could I use that in my teaching? If you had a big independent project, separated up into tasks, and for each task you gave the kids a range of curriculum areas to choose from - could you initiate choice that way? If you want to do an arts task, go to page 23. If you want t...

On Friday I went to a Maths Symposium with Morgan at Mangapapa School. Got some awesome stuff out of it, the first Keynote was mainly about problem solving. Among other things, word problems engage kids in maths without boring them to death with old fashioned 'number problems' all the time! Some websites to check out for help with making maths fun are: http://nrich.maths.org http://www.tetoitupu.org For a whole lot of problem solving activities for all ages check out http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/problem-solving For elaborations on what kids need to do at each level of the curriculum check out http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/nzc-and-standards I wonder how I can use E-ako in the classroom? Will it work on the iPads?   http://e-ako.nzmaths.co.nz