Five Fundamental Features of Modern Learning
There are five fundamental features of what is termed "modern learning".
Students decide:
What learning to work on
Who to work with
Where to work
What platform to use to effectively complete their learning
When to complete work.
Lots of teachers find this scary, for many reasons. Some of the most common are:
How will students decide to learn the right things?
They won't. The students deciding what learning to work on doesn't mean they decide by themselves and teachers have nothing to do with it. Teachers need to guide students into it by giving them options of mini cross curricular projects to choose from, by co-constructing deep cross curricular projects for students to complete, and by skilfully guiding them towards AO's and LO's.
What if students decide to always work with the same people?
This relies heavily on the classroom culture. The classroom needs to be set up to be an inclusive environment. Students choosing different people to work with needs to be in their best interest. Teachers could create some loose rules about working with people, for example: "This task needs to be completed in 3's with at least one person you have never worked with before." but really, students need to be taught to work with others effectively.
What if students decide to work outside/hide away all the time and just muck around?
There needs to be a system of accountability for students. They need to learn work ethic, and stickability, and teachers need to keep track of how much work they are doing. If students are consistently failing to complete work in the required time then some of their freedoms can be restricted for a small amount of time, for example; the freedom of choosing where to work. As well as simply losing freedoms, students need to be specifically taught the skill of time management, and teachers need to actively work with students to engage them in their projects.
What if students just choose to use technology for everything?
Then the student is not making good decisions for equipment based on individual task need. There needs to be some specific teaching for that student around choosing the right equipment for the task.
If students can choose when to complete work, then how do we get things done?
This doesn't mean they can do it if they want to this month, or maybe next... it means during the day students can choose when to complete their tasks. For example, if one student wants to do their maths/science/technology project in the morning, and one wants to do it in the afternoon, then they have that flexibility.
Accountability is key. Your students need to be accountable for their actions and if they are consistently unreliable, or they have unsatisfactory work ethic then some of their freedoms can be restricted and they need specific teaching around the skill they are lacking.
Students decide:
What learning to work on
Who to work with
Where to work
What platform to use to effectively complete their learning
When to complete work.
Lots of teachers find this scary, for many reasons. Some of the most common are:
How will students decide to learn the right things?
They won't. The students deciding what learning to work on doesn't mean they decide by themselves and teachers have nothing to do with it. Teachers need to guide students into it by giving them options of mini cross curricular projects to choose from, by co-constructing deep cross curricular projects for students to complete, and by skilfully guiding them towards AO's and LO's.
What if students decide to always work with the same people?
This relies heavily on the classroom culture. The classroom needs to be set up to be an inclusive environment. Students choosing different people to work with needs to be in their best interest. Teachers could create some loose rules about working with people, for example: "This task needs to be completed in 3's with at least one person you have never worked with before." but really, students need to be taught to work with others effectively.
What if students decide to work outside/hide away all the time and just muck around?
There needs to be a system of accountability for students. They need to learn work ethic, and stickability, and teachers need to keep track of how much work they are doing. If students are consistently failing to complete work in the required time then some of their freedoms can be restricted for a small amount of time, for example; the freedom of choosing where to work. As well as simply losing freedoms, students need to be specifically taught the skill of time management, and teachers need to actively work with students to engage them in their projects.
What if students just choose to use technology for everything?
Then the student is not making good decisions for equipment based on individual task need. There needs to be some specific teaching for that student around choosing the right equipment for the task.
If students can choose when to complete work, then how do we get things done?
This doesn't mean they can do it if they want to this month, or maybe next... it means during the day students can choose when to complete their tasks. For example, if one student wants to do their maths/science/technology project in the morning, and one wants to do it in the afternoon, then they have that flexibility.
Accountability is key. Your students need to be accountable for their actions and if they are consistently unreliable, or they have unsatisfactory work ethic then some of their freedoms can be restricted and they need specific teaching around the skill they are lacking.
Comments
Post a Comment