Teaching and Learning

I wrote this blogpost last year but never actually posted it. At the start of this year we started doing flow inquiries with students. Flow inquiries are an inquiry into whatever they want to learn about. Many of the students at this point replied to our idea with "I dunno what I want to learn about." or "I dont really want to learn anything." or "I just won't do a flow inquiry and will just do what you tell me to do." Slowly over the year, these reluctant students watched others in the classroom become engaged in their flow inquiries and started to experiment with their own ideas. Now two of the most disengaged students that we had at the start of the year are making the most creative things in the classroom. They are having a resurgence of passion into their learning. A resurgence of creativity that has really come into it's own, and students are starting to take control of their own learning again. The traditional school system that they...

Engagement is a key word in todays pedagogical discussion around education. Engagement, or the lack of, is one of the key reasons that so many schools in New Zealand are now transitioning into "modern learning". It is not the spaces that define whether students are engaged in their learning or not, but the teaching. Malone and Tranter (2003) discuss authenticity of learning and it's role of engaging students inside the classroom. Learning must be connected to the physical world, and through the eye of authentic contexts. Students must have meaning in their learning - their learning must be geared towards an authentic purpose. In a classroom (and Mike Scaddon would say above year 4(ish) where students are starting to read to learn rather than learning to read) concepts should be a focus. The Glossary of Education Reform suggests that "...a well-planned curriculum built around authentic-learning experiences can cover all the academic subjects and concepts that stu...