Metacognitive Musings

I’ve been thinking about thinking, learning and change a lot lately. I’d started writing a post but got snagged on this thinking about thinking thing again. So I decided to get this stuff off my chest first.

I think that perhaps my thinking about thinking is somewhat flawed – a snapshot into the mind of someone with slight perfectionist tendencies, raised on a diet of critical thinking (not so bad) and most likely saddling a fair share of self doubt that comes naturally to most women. But I figure that if I can dissect it, I can start eradicating the not-so-helpful bits and start honing the good stuff. So here it is, My Slightly Ridiculous Personal Learning Cycle:

Here’s a breakdown of the process:

Critical Absorption: This is the starting point (sometimes…often it starts at the Guilt point). This is where I hear or read lots of new ideas. I call it critical absorption because I reckon I’ve got a pretty good way of sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of evaluating sources of information.

Ideas Overload: Much in the same way as I approach the salad bar at Sizzler, I stand at the smorgasbord of ideas and binge myself silly. I love it. I’m inspired. I think an MRI of my brain at this point would look like the Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

Brainfuzz and Mild Insanity: If Ideas Overload were the fireworks, this phase is the post-firework fog that leaves everyone coughing and spluttering and makes their eyes itchy and watery . There’s been so much zip-zapping around my head that  I can’t make any sense of it. Any attempt to make sense of it all just makes me want to go “WAH!” and crawl into the foetal position. I’ve learnt to go and take a nice long bath and get myself a massage at this point :P

Breathe….and Ponder: Once the fog lifts, I can start making sense of the new ideas. This is rational thinking time, splintering the ideas into pros and cons and interesting stuff. I start thinking about practical applications.

The Bollocks Filter – Grizzletime: This is where I say “Hang on a minute, this idea isn’t all rainbows and sunshine like they’re saying it is”. I start picking at the flaws and sometimes I get really cranky if it’s something that’s being touted as the hot new thing that everyone should be doing. It’s when I unleash the little Oppositional Defiant child within. This is something that I’ve probably always done internally, but have always questioned myself thinking that maybe I don’t understand it fully or maybe I’m wrong.  Well, that’s only ever ended in frustration, so I’m learning to conjure the courage to question, clarify and contest.

Dissection Dialogue: This step has changed for me a bit. It used to be a bit of an internal dialogue, but I bit the bullet and now happily bore others to tears with my questions, clarifications and debates. It helps a LOT that there are now online forums in which I can mix with other people who want to be as boring reflective as me :P  Having this blog also helps…although it’s probably just another incarnation of my internal dialogue, it makes me scour my thoughts a bit more knowing that it’s not just confined to my own headspace and others may see it.

Cherry Picking: Once I’ve had a good rational think, then a good long nitpick, I start to really think hard about how I can use these new ideas in a practical way in my current situation. I cherry-pick the best aspects and find a way to weave them into practice that best suits me and the kids I’m working with.

Kidlet Application: What it’s all about! Applying these ideas in the classroom. I say kidlet application, but it also applies to the application of the ideas of any setting (teacher PL etc.). This step is often a revolving door of do-reflect-tweak-do. A mini-cycle within the cycle.

“Man, I Can Do This So Much Better” Guilt:  After a while, with the new ideas implemented, I often get a sense of guilt, even if  the ideas and applications have been successful. I think back to the slew of ideas I had back at the beginning and about how much stuff I left out when I ‘cherry-picked’. And usually by this time a whole new batch of ideas and ‘next big things’ have arrived in my inbox to once again make me feel like I’m not doing enough. The cycle begins again.

If a clinical psychologist ever read this, I’m sure they’d tell me I was some kind of oddbod. That’s OK. I don’t mind being odd :) But I think it’s really important for everyone – teachers in particular – to take some time out and really think about how they think, learn and change. Some might say that it’s a little self-indulgent…perhaps it is. But I think if we map our own thinking/learning cycles – and particularly if we shared them with one another – it would give us greater insight into planning educational experiences for our kids and also help us streamline our own thought processes.

So if you’re one of the 2 people who read this blog post, I’d really love to hear about your own Slightly Ridiculous Personal Learning Cycle. :)

Inspired!

I’ve just spent two amazing days  at the South West Sydney Region Inspire Innovate Conference. The best word I can use to describe how I feel right now is ‘buoyant’. Not only did I get to meet a whole bunch of fellow teachgeeks, but in terms of food for thought, I had a binge session. To begin with, I’m going to jot down three little things that I want to do/change after having my head filled with lots of stuff. I could probably make a list of 20, but I’ll keep it short and doable. Then I’m going to have a stab at another blog post that’s going to scratch an itch that’s been emerging over the last two days.

So, here goes.

Three Little Things 

1. Peer Coaching: A great presentation by Pip Cleaves on peer coaching really hit the spot with me. Like most people, I work in a school filled with teachers who have a diverse range of tech skills. PL is a tough thing. My current school is at least making at effort to differentiate tech PL, but even that seems a bit ineffective. I think peer coaching will be a fantastic way to provide personalised, just in time PL, utilising a distributed leadership model. It ticks all the boxes for me so far. I’m going to learn more about it and look at whether it would be a suitable fit for our  school – I reckon it will be.

2. Adobe Captivate: I’ve been putting off the DIY Captivate training for a while now, but today’s session with Laurens Derks was the boot up the backside that I needed to put it on the ‘holiday learning’ agenda. I can see real potential here for not only creating inclusive, supportive learning and assessment resources, but also to streamline assessment processes and make them more time efficient. As an aside, I think one of the things that really made this session stand out was that the presenter had lots of ready made resources which he shared (giving him both credibility and kudos as a ‘sharer’!). Also, the fact that he provided resources for us to dip into for just in time support while giving us time to explore the software on our own made a real difference in terms of relevance and thus engagement. This session was valuable not only from a content perspective but from a metacognitive one as well.

3. Toontastic: So an app is just a tool. I get that. But this was one that I came across during the two days that I think could be really powerful in my classroom. Things that are great about this app are: It has a nice narrative scaffold; There’s the option for kids to draw their own pictures or use pre-drawn graphics/animations – inclusive!; I can see it has the potential to encourage some really good conversation about scripting/planning text, as well as speech clarity/volume etc; you can connect beyond the classroom to view videos from all over the world and submit your own for others to see. Overall, a great app that I’m really looking forward to using in my classroom to stimulate literacy learning.

So they’re three little things that I think I can easily do/change as a result of my two wonderful days at Inspire Innovate. The one other thing that I learnt is that I need to regularly surround myself with people who ‘get it’. My previous post about the digital divide in teacherland perhaps hinted at the frustration I was starting to feel by encountering a few too many “can’t do” people.  Being in a room with a huge number of “can do” people and seeing how they’re dealing with the “can’t do” people was the perfect antidote for this frustration.

Yay for teachgeeks.

The Digital Divide in Teacherland

I’ve always been a bit of a netnerd, but only in the past year or so have I been utilising my netnerdiness for work purposes. This has opened up a whole new world for me, and in many ways has made me enjoy my work more because I get to share and interact with a global network of inspirational educators who will happily talk teaching ’til the cows come home. I like to refer to this crew as teachgeeks. :)

In a regular staffroom, you’d find a handful of teachgeek kindred spirits, but with the advent of social media, there’s a world wide web full of them. They’re there 24/7, sharing links, anecdotes of victory and defeat, new ways of doing things, brainfood…and it’s all GOOD STUFF (well, not all, but a lot of it, and a good set of critical digital literacy skills and a PLN of critics tends to annihilate the dodgy stuff).

The upside of this is that reflection on my own practice is enhanced by additional voices, perspectives and the wisdom of others. My teaching practice improves because I get to see what others are doing and can cherry pick bits and pieces to weave into mine. I can also put my own practice out there for constructive criticism. As a teachgeek, I’m constantly reinventing the way I’m doing things and always on the lookout for the next thing to challenge me.

However, I’m starting to notice a real downside. When I leave my virtual staffroom and head back into the real one, it’s almost like stepping into a parallel universe. When the vast bulk of your professional dialogue is around topics such as game-based learning, problem-based learning, student-directed learning, differentiation and ICT integration, it’s really difficult to engage in collaborative planning with teachers who are still back at chalk-and-talk (or e-chalk-and-talk, in the case of IWBs) and really quite comfortable there. Finding a middle ground is getting harder and harder.

I call this a ‘digital divide’ because even though the differences may be around non-tech pedagogy, I think it’s the digital explosion that’s making the gap wider. Teachgeeks are getting online, tapping into their ePLNs, and their knowledge is expanding and morphing exponentially. The cross-pollination of ideas is high, and the information transactions are lightning fast. Compare this to the knowledge expansion of teachers who aren’t connecting beyond their school staffroom – they rely on being dripfed by the teachgeeks  at their schools and make do with measly dishes of local PL (plenty of which is your stock-standard Death by PowerPoint and hardly modelling best practice). There’s not going to be much movement at the station with that approach.

There’s probably always been a pedagogical divide in teacherland, as the profession has evolved and things have moved on. But I think the new digital divide is going to be a particularly challenging one as its being driven by rapidly changing technologies, and there really is a radical shift in the way we’re communicating with one another on a global, local and personal level.

My biggest concern about this digital divide is the potential impact on kids. In the past, if a student had a ‘dud teacher’, it would always seem to even out in the end. But a year with a resistant, dripfed teacher is a really long time in our brave new world.

How are we going to manage this? How are we going to shift reluctant teachers into the 21st century? Sharing the love is one way – something the teachgeeks desperately try and do each and every day – but I think the leap seems too far for many teachers, despite plenty of patient scaffolding. So maybe there needs to be some systemic impetus? From my experience, there isn’t a lot of that right now – some schools may be doing it really well, but there’s no top-down push to get teachers engaged in the digital world. Sure, there are more requirements for teachers to fill out stuff online and online social networking tools are being provided (amongst other things) – but there’s no ‘boot up the bum’ to give reluctant teachers the idea that hey…you really DO have to start coming to the party on this one. I reckon these could be a few ways to boot people up the bum:

  • ICT integration as part of TARS.
  • Compulsory sessions on ePLNs or digital literacy for all staff to attend each year, like the compulsory Emergency Care or Child Protection training.
  • More educational leaders setting the example and creating an expectation of online interaction and digital literacy. I mean, for goodness sakes, we work in a system where the fax machine is still a core communication device.
  • ICT should be part of the general selection criteria for all executive positions, the way they have the Aboriginal education criteria.

I think the digital divide is such an important issue to address that it shouldn’t be left to chance by leaving it in the hands of individual schools and the teachgeeks within them. The transition into the brave new world needs to be an across-the-board expectation; something that’s acknowledged as being uncomfortable and scary for some, and so suitably scaffolded and supported, but something which is inevitable, unstoppable, and crucial in the education of future generations.

It’s Great to be a Nerdy Teacher – Reflections on TeachMeet Sydney

So, it’s been a long time between posts, I know. My new role, on top of my regular teaching addiction, has been consuming my life, and my blogging mission has slipped down the agenda a little bit. Woops.

However, I have to record and share my inspirational experience from last night.

Last night, I joined a LOT (200+? Not sure what the final numbers were, and probably more involved via ustream) of public and private school teachers who voluntarily committed 3 hours after school on a Friday to professional learning at a fantastic TeachMeet event. If you’re not familiar with what a TeachMeet is, it’s essentially an event where teachers share things that they’ve been doing with technology in their classroom in short 7 or 2 minute presentations. So in one evening or afternoon, you’re exposed to a whole lot of bite-sized bits of inspiration and come away with a head full of ideas and a peek into other people’s classrooms and schools.

As I sat in the theatre listening to the early presentations, I looked around me and realised that this was what teacher professional learning should look like and feel like. I was swimming in a sea of teachers connecting via phones, tablets or laptops, making notes, clicking on links or tweeting responses to presentations. Unlike traditional TPL, I didn’t have to sit there as a solitary, passive recipient of information, with my seedlings of thought stunted in their growth. Instead, my thought seedlings were allowed to grow rapidly as I tweeted them, got responses, instantly checked out links being spruiked and Googled ideas that sprung to mind when inspired by what others were saying. As a result, I was highly engaged for the entire three hours, because I could essentially self-differentiate my PL, as well as participate in social learning.

The interesting thing about this high engagement factor is that I was already quite familiar with a lot of the tech stuff that was being presented, so there wasn’t a lot of ‘new’ knowledge on that front. But the engagement factor came from seeing how this technology was being used in different ways, and also seeing technology use validated by such a large number of inspiring teachers. I don’t know about other people, but I sometimes get to a point at school where I start to doubt myself and my use of technology, because quite often it feels like you’re a bit of a lone wolf. Despite seeing results and high engagement, I sometimes fall prey to the Am I Doing the Right Thing? mindset. Well, thank god for TeachMeets, because they remind me that I am.

I would have loved to have seen all the presentations in all the rooms, but my little batch of presenters gave me insight into:

  • An international shared history learning journey between students at SHORE school and a school in Turkey, examining World War 1 and the ANZAC tradition. Plenty of evidence that kids were grappling with problematic knowledge and using global connections in a meaningful way. (From Cameron Patterson at SHORE School)
  • How to turn your IWB into a giant on-the-wall iPad. The most awesome thing about this presentation was that it was delivered by a Year 9 student. (From Nick@nickstechspace.net)
  • A fantastic new collaborative K-6 resource-sharing site called teachertime.com.au. The concept is similar to what I was trying to achieve with The Sharespace, but done far less clunkily. I just hope that it’s fuelled purely by love and not eventually for money (though I do wonder why it’s easy for a teacher to come up with a simple, manageable interface for resource-sharing in their spare time, whilst some nameless government organisation invests oodles of dollars into creating resource-sharing infrastructure that doesn’t work. An argument for ground-up development, perhaps?). (From Jesse Black @ TeacherTime)
  • The folk over at Northern Beaches Christian School gave us a peek into their Audacious Classroom (here’s a great blog post by HappySteve with videos and descriptions). Essentially game-based learning in a flexible learning environment. I have my questions about this approach (particularly in terms of how kids with particularly disabilities would function in this environment) but it was so inspiring to see a group of teachers willing to throw out the rule book and do something so innovative.
  • Stanley Yip, over at PLANE  took us into his 3D virtual world learning environments. One of his slides alluded to a virtual world called Action Research Project Island, which sounds particularly interesting to me, given that I’m keen to embark on an ARP.

There were many other excellent presentations, but these ones stood out for me the most.

During the night, I tweeted that I wished the Luddites at my school would come along to an event like TeachMeet. I am sure that the enthusiasm would be contagious and they’d find at least one thing that makes them think “I’d love to do that with my kids!”. It really is a fantastic feeling to be in a room with a whole bunch of other people who have the same passion for education, the same excitement about integrating technology and the same willingness to share. It reminds you that it really is great to be a nerdy teacher :)

To read the Twitter feed, search for the #TMWR2012 hashtag.

 

 

 

 

Dear Website

Dear Website,

You’ve been a loyal companion for many years, and I am sorry that I have neglected you in recent times. I thought you’d really love your Joomla makeover all those years ago, but to be honest, Joomla just required way too much ubergeeking and I just didn’t have the time to ubergeek. I’m sorry that I let the weeds grow wild over your backend and the tumbleweeds roll through your databases.

Poor little neglected website, I promise to make up for my years of neglect. See, I’ve already given you some friends to keep you company. There’s Ms Twitter and Mr Diigo over to your right, who’ll bring you lots of exciting things to see and do. Though I do have to warn you that I will be spending time with some other websites as well – I hope that you’ll be OK with that.  But Google and Collectorz and Scribd and all the blogs and wikis I visit are just fantastic, and I’m sure if you just take some time to get to know them, you’ll love them too.

I hope that you’ll enjoy your new WordPress outfit – I really enjoyed being glued to the computer all day in my PJs, designing and creating and problem-solving and tweaking so it fits you just right. I’m sure you’ll let me know if there’s something you don’t like.

Anyway, it’s now been 12 hours without food. If that doesn’t show you how dedicated I am to making up for lost time, I don’t know what does. Although I’m in no danger of fading away to nothing, I think it’s time to step away from the computer for a bit and enjoy the rain for a while.

But it’s OK, website. I’ll be back. Lots of exciting things to share this year.

Signed,

Miss Field.