Shifting from awareness to action

It seems clear we are in a period of rapid change. Technology coupled with broad changes in society is bringing new challenges to how we live and work. The skill which served us well in the days of the industrial revolution are rapidly approaching their use by date. The evidence is mounting and the narrative around education is shifting towards a story centred on long-life skills, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication. Success in the future seems to be connected closely to one’s capacity to innovate, to problem find and to make strategic decisions when confronted by unique situations for which we have not been specifically prepared. 
 
Data on the future of the workforce increasingly indicates that many of the jobs in high demand today will disappear. A CEDA (Committee for Economic Development of Australia) report indicates that "More than five million jobs, almost 40 per cent of Australian jobs that exist today, have a moderate to high likelihood of disappearing in the next 10 to 15 years due to technological advancements”. Globally a report by the Boston Consulting Group indicates that 25% of jobs will be replaced by robots and Stephen Hawking adds that "the automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining”. 
 

The future workforce might look like this - Servers running AI software

Most at threat are the jobs categorised as routine-cognitive tasks. Those which are easily replaced by computers and artificial intelligence. After a long period of decline in manufacturing jobs with human labor replaced by robots this sector has stabilised. Now is the turn of the office worker, the clerk, the desk jockey to be replaced by servers and AI. If your job involves processing information, evaluating forms and manipulating data you should be nervous. The wider effects will come as the number of people required to complete these routine tasks dramatically shrinks and the effects extend into all sectors up and down the career ladders of the corporate world. Only those who are employed on the basis of their ability to handle complexity, to find new problems and transform them into opportunities are likely to thrive in this new economy. 
 
The implications for educators of this shift are enormous and the pressure to make changes immediate. While the predicted transformations might be some ten to fifteen years away this equates neatly with the lead time for schools. The students entering kindergarten today will entire a workforce that is significantly impacted by the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence we are seeing today. Will they be ready for this future or will they have experienced a model of education that is better preparation for the age of the steam engine and the factory?
 
Here lies the challenge, to move from awareness of the future we are heading towards to an embrace of the change it requires. To shift from rhetoric to action. 
 
What do we place at the centre of our schools? Do we focus on the capacities for success in the 21st century or do we cling to the past and teach the skills required for life in the office? Do we value creativity, critical thinking, innovation and collaboration and if so how do we ensure these skills are experienced by every child and valued in every classroom? What values and attitudes do we instil and how do schools and the broader community prepare our children to lead balanced lives where success is measured in moments of joy rather than in dollars earned? 

Some teachers in Australia will be counting down the days to Vivid Sydney. In addition to the spectacular light shows which attract international visitors, Vivid Sydney has become an ideas festival. Through May and June intrepid educators have the opportunity to share strategies for embracing creativity with innovative trans-disciplinary thinkers. Sessions titled ‘How to Champion Innovation in your Team and the Workplace’, 'Creativity in Education Renaissance Souls’ and ‘Leading Teams for Creativity’ will entice teachers out of their classrooms and into the city. Ideas will flood back into schools and students will for a brief time enjoy learning alongside teachers passionate for change and empowered by new understandings. But will the change stick and will the change scale?
 
When the routines of the educational systems return, when curriculum pressures and the demands of external testing are felt, will we resist the urge to fall back into old patterns of action? Will the ideas of Vivid spread into every classroom or will we have bubbles of innovation? Research by Dylan Wiliam points to the significant impact that individual teachers have on the success of their learners. More than any other influence, getting the right teacher determines the growth experienced by students in any school year. The disturbing consequence of this is that for our future survival we are relying on the lucky chance of being placed with teachers who are active in transforming their practice for the times ahead. If your teacher is not connected, does not have a personal learning network, does not attend teach meets and events like Vivid Sydney, is not a 'self-navigating professional learner' (@mariealcock) will they have an awareness of what your future will be like and the capacity to take action to prepare you for it?
 
By Nigel Coutts

What messages are we sending about learning?

Some educators make you think, challenge your assumptions and leave your head spinning with questions. Mark Church of Harvard’s Project Zero is one such educator. I spent an afternoon with Mark recently and left inspired and keen to seek answers to the challenges he posed. This post is a reflection on some of the questions that arose throughout the afternoon. Hopefully you will find that many of these apply to your setting too and that looking to answer them might allow you to refine the messages you send.  
 
The big question posed by Mark is one that lies at the centre of the research of Project Zero; "What messages are we sending our students about what learning is and how it happens?” The trouble with a question like this is that reaches into every aspect of what we do as educators. Our public facing values and aims are where we are likely to focus our attention. We would hope that we are sending messages about the value of learning, that it is an active process and one that should be a life-long goal. Somewhere in there we will state that learning involves change; the adoption of new habits and dispositions. Learning will be explained as a consequence of thinking, a process associated with attention, effort and motivation. We will have rhetoric about growth mindsets and we will encourage our students to value deep understandings rather than learning for recall. In our public and conscious messages about what learning is we are likely to hit all of the right markers. It is what happens behind the scenes though that has the real impact.
 
What do we do when we ask our students questions? What types of questions do we ask and what kind of answers do they require? Are we playing a game of guess what is in the teacher’s head or is there scope for a multitude of possibly correct answers? Do we require our students to think deeply with what they know? Do we call on the first hand raised or offer the time required for a more nuanced response to bubble forth? And this is just scratching the surface of the messages we send with our questioning techniques during class discussion. 
 
Who does the talking in our classrooms? Who does the thinking? Did the best thinking take place while the teacher wrote the programme? Is it the teacher who talks the most or is it the students? The answer to this question will reveal much about who is required to do the thinking in our lessons and subsequently who is doing the learning. It will also reveal the reality of learning as an active or passive process in our classrooms. Do we require more from our students than active listening and how can we be certain that even that is happening? Is our classroom a place of rich debate where ideas are argued, analysed and torn asunder? Do we encourage our students to take risks, to share their ideas, to argue with evidence and show healthy skepticism or is it clear that there is but one source of truth in the room?
 
 
What do our assessment processes say about learning? Do our students leave our rooms excited by the new concepts and skills they have mastered or the percentage increase they achieved on an exam? Are our students evaluated by the teacher or is self-evaluation an essential part of their learning? Can our students articulate what they do well, what they can improve on and how they might do so? Are our students excited to receive feedback and value it as a part of their learning or do they dread the moment when papers are handed back? Are our assessments aligned with our beliefs about the conditions required for learning or an artificial subset of what it truly requires?
 
When do we talk with our students about how they learn? Do we empower them with tools for self-reflection and metacognition? Do we have rich conversations about the many factors which make learning successful? Do we share stories with our students about how we learn and what we do when faced with challenges and road-blocks? Do our students see us as learners or as ready-made experts in every field? 
 
What do want our students to do when they learn? This was Mark’s follow up question. Again it raises many questions but the key point is that we should seek to ask our students this question. Will they mention that we expect them to think, to pose questions, activate prior knowledge, seek collaborations, argue with evidence or will they believe that we want them to get the answer right and remember their homework.
 
How can we take more notice of the culture of our classrooms and what it communicates to learners about the value of thinking? - This question brought it into sharp focus. The messages we send to our students about thinking and with it learning are conveyed most strongly through the culture of our classrooms. Shiny brochures, mission statements and philosophies of education are all very well but the culture of our classrooms tell the truth. 
 
by Nigel Coutts

What do we need to know?

I keep circling back to this question of what do we need to know, or to learn. It comes up so often in conversations around education and is closely connected to what we hope to achieve for our students. It is a question whose answer shapes not only what we teach but how we teach and what we assess. It strikes at the heart of how we perceive the role of education in society and the way we answer it reveals much about our personal philosophy of education. 

In preparing for a presentation I sought out ideas that support the need to teach for agency. I wanted to understand and to demonstrate why teaching our students to identify with their capacity for goal directed action. Peter Johnston offers this advice “If nothing else, children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals”. Clearly Peter’s priorities for education are that it might achieve something other than a headful of knowledge. Ryan and Deci are inspiring and aspirational when they describe "The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly.” Spending a little time unpacking this reveals significant implications for education. What are the conditions required to encourage our young people to strive to learn, to want to extend themselves and to master new skills? How do we spark their curiosity and what role does self-motivation play within systems of rules, rewards and external assessments?

Deanna Kuhn asks to consider the questions we ask about how we teach in her article ‘Is direct instruction an Answer to the Right question?’. She argues that it is more important for us to look at what we teach than how we teach it. In debating against advocates for direct instruction, Kuhn indicates the importance of understanding the factors which motivate our students to be learners and to be clear on what skills/dispositions they will require: "the only defensible answer to the question of what we want schools to accomplish is that they should teach students to use their minds well, in school and beyond.”  Kuhn indicates the role of motivation in determining what we might attempt to teach our students and the need for them to see the value in what they learn. More than just the acquisition of knowledge long term success in learning comes from the individuals efforts to attach meaning and value to what is learned.  Kuhn proposes "that the most defensible educational goals are those that pertain to mental self-management—taking charge of one’s own learning—and coming to value learning and knowing and one’s self as learner and knower.”

In ‘Creating Cultures of Thinking’ Ron Ritchhart asks the question "What do you want the children we are teaching in our schools today to be like as adults?”. The common responses focus on dispositions and personal values which have little connection with basic skills or acquired knowledge. They are qualities of individuals who are confident in their capacity to learn and to grow, to interact with others positively and to communicate effectively. These are the so called soft-skills of the 21st Century, the ones which are difficult to assess. 

"curious , inquisitive, questioning, creative, problem solvers, risk takers, imaginative, and inquisitive, collaborative, empathetic, good listeners, helpful,
able to deal with complexity, analysers, makers of connections, critical thinkers, global citizens, members of a community, someone aware of his or her impact on the environment, effective communicators, compassionate, joyful"

For a long time our educational systems served the needs of society well. A structured and disciplined system of lessons and practice, based on a well defined curriculum prepared a workforce ready for the routines of the workplace. Employers knew what to expect from graduates and little other than a foundation in the three Rs of 'reading, writing and arithmetic' was all that was expected. The average graduate would be in the workplace for many years before they might be expected to think for themselves a reality assured by suitably defined policies and procedures. This is the world of dystopian representations of workers as little more than cogs in the machinery of industry and the rationale behind Pink Floyd’s assertion “that we don’t need no education”. 

'What do we need to know to pass the test?' might be the question students learn to ask from their time at school. The unavoidable exit slips that educational systems impose on learning. The need to assess the years of learning and to rank students as they move beyond schooling. Do these assessments reveal learners who are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills or do they capture our performance at one brief moment in time. What are the messages we send to our students about learning with systems that serve purposes seemingly at odds with the purposes for learning?

When we ask what should we teach? or what do we need to learn?, we unconsciously shape our thinking about education. The question itself impedes progress towards a focus on long-life skills and the empowerment of learners. It directs us to lists of content, to skills we can assess, to learning that becomes connected to the purposes of others. We need to ask better questions; ones which are linked to the cultures we create within our schools, to the dispositions and values we immerse our students in and to the conversations around learning that we might hope to inspire. It seems we are clear in what we hope to achieve but tied to our past by the questions we ask. 
 

Johnston, P.  (2004) - Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning. Stenhouse Publishers

Kuhn, D. (2007). Is direct instruction an answer to the right question? Educational Psychologist, 42(2), 109- 113. 

Ritchhart, R. (2015) Creating cultures of thinking: The eight forces we must truly master to transform our schools. SanFrancisco: Josey-Bass  

Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

by Nigel Coutts

Learning in the age of Social Networks

Learning, according to Vygotsky is a social endeavour. It occurs as a result of our interactions with others, within our environment and through an accumulation of contextualised experiences. We learn by watching others, by the immediacy of feedback in social settings and from the modelling of learned behaviours that we experience. When we are young we learn through play, through exploration and experimentation. Learning is natural and there are few barriers to our explorations. As we grow we increasingly rely on others for guidance, as exemplars and for feedback. We move from relying on our parents as the focus of our social world to an increasingly enlarged and networked social landscape. Entering school brings a host of new opportunities and connections. Learning becomes formalised and control shifts away from us as the sole arbiters of what we attend to as we engage with externally set learning priorities. As the formal education we receive continues, so too does the informal social learning that we engage with and that shapes our identities and understandings of our place in the world. Our priorities for learning are in a constant state of flux between the demands of our formalised learning endeavours and our social learning as members of networked communities. 

The social world in which we live has in recent years been transformed, expanded and exploded to a global scale. Where once our community was dictated by the scope of our physical connections, we today have the possibility to be connected on a near limitless scale. The opportunities for those who actively seek an expanded learning community are immense. Ideas generated in isolation may rapidly spread. Knowledge can be seamlessly shared, refined, expanded and distorted by the networks we create through our social circles. Our devices bring access to information on an unprecedented scale and we have the tools to add our voice to the collective wisdom. We are able to learn across borders, across oceans and cultures.

The challenges that this globally connected world brings are immense. We have access to so much information that our capacity to filter, process and respond is overwhelmed. We live in bubbles and rely on others to filter our world view by means we little understand. Our understanding of how to learn in this globally connected world is limited by our experience of learning. Our formal education has led us to believe that learning is something given to us. We are one step removed from the process of planning and regulating our learning for so much of our lives as learners that we become dependent on educators. We have powerful tools at our disposal and yet make poor use of them. Networks which should bring us closer together are used to divide and segregate. Instead of enhancing our collective understanding we are confronted by the challenges of alternate facts and fake news. We have an abundance of information but seemingly little wisdom and little understanding of who we may trust and how we may find truth. We need to be shown how to live and learn within the affordances of our globally connected communities and how to take charge of our learning. 

Our students have never known a time when their social network was constrained by their physical locality. They take for granted mobile communications, social networks and ubiquitous access to the internet. In their social lives, they have never experienced the constraints of a land-line telecommunications system, never been restricted by long distance calls, never known a time without on demand media. They take Facebook and video chat for granted, watch YouTube not television, shop online and publish their thoughts to world rather than refrigerator door. Only at school in their formalised learning are they required to disconnect, switch off and learn in isolation from their extended network. It should then not be surprising that they grow up with a poor understanding of how to utilise their social networks as tools for powerful learning.

In place of asking our students to switch off we need to show them how to use their networked communities as a source of knowledge. To empower them as media critics and creators who use the tools as their disposal to effect change. Learning needs to be placed inside the social world in which our students live. At the same time, we need to provide them with the tools and cognitive resources to thrive in this world. Just as we learn to live in our physical communities through experience, through exploration and play we need to learn to live in our globally connected online worlds. Just as we have models for learning in the physical world we require models for learning in our digitaly connected worlds. We need the safety of the sandbox, the caring guidance of the “more knowledgable other” to show us the way around. We need places to safely make mistakes and missteps and the opportunities to learn from experience. This requires teachers who are social contractors with expertise and experience in navigating a globally connected reality.

Learning is a social endeavour. Schools need to understand that for our students the social landscape has changed. Rather than turning away from this reality we need to understand what it means and what our children need to know and learn to safely maximise the opportunities it brings.

By Nigel Coutts

Teaching in the 21st Century

Last week I joined over five hundred educators from across the Asia-Pacific region to share ideas on education in the 21st century. The consistent message is that we are preparing our students for success in a world very different to that which was the norm only a short time ago. The implications of this change are immense and require a shift in our thinking about what matters most in our classrooms. Such is the pace of change that within any school there will be multiple generations who normalise different perspective on technology and its place in their lives. What becomes clear that the skills we most need within our schools at every level are those which are critical for individuals to be empowered, self-navigating learners. But what does this mean in practical terms?

For students, the shift in focus is from recipients of knowledge to being literate self-navigators of learning who are able to take charge of their own learning and are able to adjust their skill sets to suit problems as they evolve. In the model articulated by Dr Marie Alcock students are professional learners who are media critics and save media makers. Learning is an active process not something that happens to the individual but a process that the individual is in control of. Teachers are in the same boat and must see themselves as ‘Self-navigating professional learners’ who actively engage in professional learning, seek out appropriate learning opportunities and develop professional learning networks to facilitate continual growth and the capacity to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances. The contemporary teacher, according to Alcock, is a social contractor who uses their connections to enable learning for themselves and their students, media critics/creators who bring the mindset of the innovative designer to hacking the systems and structures within which they operate to better serve their objectives. All learners need to become globally connected citizens who are aware of network effects that come with connected technologies. We can publish to a global audience and share ideas at this scale but doing so requires new sensitivities and new literacies. 

An important final competency for modern teachers is outlined by Alcock when she calls for educators to become ‘Active Advocates for Education’. As teachers, we need to find our professional voices and utilise the networks and media at our disposal to advocate for the change in education we need. Without strong advocacy for innovative practices in education driven by an understanding of what our students need we should not be surprised if ‘back-to-basics’ rhetoric dominates the political debate. 

This shift towards student centred learning where the learner is empowered to take charge of their learning requires a shift at every point in the educational system. This brings challenges within typical systems of control and management. Educational systems at a district, state or national level become huge and control measures are likely to impede shifts towards individualisation. Administrators and politicians who are removed from the immediate routines and practices of the classroom have few options for control and those that have access to are unlikely to support individualised student-centred learning. Increasingly, assessment is used as a measure of control and accountability and governments seek measures of the effect that their budgetary, training and curriculum measures are having. 

Noam Chomsky is critical of a culture obsessed with assessing and ranking students and teachers. 

“The assessment itself is completely artificial. It’s not ranking teachers in accordance with their ability to help develop children who will reach their potential, explore their creative interests. Those things you’re not testing.. it’s a rank that’s mostly meaningless. And the very ranking itself is harmful. It’s turning us into individuals who devote our lives to achieving a rank. Not into doing things that are valuable and important.”

 The danger of this, according to Chomsky is that our obsession with assessment and ranking systems is that they rob teachers of opportunities to be creative and innovative and focus students on the achievement of goals which meaningless. Rather than pursuing educational goals which matter and which connect with personal interests we are forced to teach to the test and it is what the test requires that has perceived value. Carol Dweck agrees and asks:

“What is education for? Is it for pouring facts and formulas into students’ heads, or is it for creating learners? Research shows that an environment that emphasizes evaluation and testing creates a fixed [achievement] mindset. That is, it sends the message that intellectual abilities are fixed and that the purpose of school is to measure them. Students come to see school as the place to look smart and, above all, not look dumb— not a place to create and learn.”

Dr Yong Zhao encourages a focus on the control that educators require to innovate and meet the needs of their learners. He encourages bureaucracies to step out of the way of educators and allow them to get on with the job of educating students for their futures. "Finally, we should invest in education innovations to encourage educators and local schools to seek creative ways to deliver an education for the future…” 

 The net result is that these are challenging times for teachers but times that offer great benefits for those filled with a passion for education. The success of future generations will depend on the foundation they are given in schools. More than knowing we must empower our students with a love of learning and the dispositions they require to take charge of their lives as learners. The skills of learning that are so central to the art of teaching have the greatest importance in the lives our children are likely to live and it is our passion for these skills, the art of learning, which should be visible in every lesson we teach.  

By Nigel Coutts

Understanding understanding and its implications

There are terms within education that we use with reckless abandon and as a result cause great levels of confusion. Understanding is one such word and its usage and our ‘understanding’ of it can have a significant effect on the learning we plan, deliver and assess. With multiple definitions and its broad usage in curriculum documents, philosophies of teaching and learning and as an indicator of the quality or depth of student learning it is a word we should better understand. 

Simple usage of the term connects with the process of making meaning from the words we exchange in our communications. “I understand you” means that I believe I have correctly interpreted what you have said. At this level the skill of understanding relies upon ones capacity to translate words into knowledge. It is this usage of the word which later comes to cause difficulty as the cognitive powers required for this level of understanding are low compared to that required for what may be called “Understanding” in other contexts.

Even at simple levels we see that there can be difficulty in understanding one another. Misunderstandings occur frequently even when we are able to decode the messages being sent to us but miss the context, subtle nuances or hidden meanings of the message. Understanding rapidly becomes more complex when we are seeking to understand others whose context is different to ours. Culture, religion, ethnicity, gender and personal histories all impact the understanding that we are able to construct and we quickly enter a grey area where understandings vary from person to person. 

In curriculum documents the term is used in mixed ways also. Understanding can be seen as something which exists either beyond or perhaps beside knowledge. "Students develop knowledge, understanding of and skills”. Understanding is something that students “demonstrate”, develop and seemingly possess or apply as implied by "Why is an understanding of environmental processes and interconnections essential for sustainable management of environments?”. While its usage in this context or triad makes it clear that is something other than just knowing it is not defined within the curriculum documents produced by NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA) which prepares these documents. 

The situation is made more difficult when applied to assessment. A student might have knowledge of a topic, concept or ideal but an understanding seems to imply something else. Here we need to have a clear definition of what it means to understand something and a lack of such clarity naturally leads to confusion. In the NESA  Science K-10 syllabus  "Students develop knowledge, understanding of and skills in applying the processes of Working Scientifically”. A student would thus be able to describe or demonstrate recall of the processes and utilise the skills of the process; both of which are easily assessed or made visible. The complexity comes in the gathering of evidence for the understanding of the process.

To solve this dilemma one must look beyond the syllabus and the work of Harvard’s Project Zero offers a useful solution in their Teaching for Understanding research and methodology. Tina Blythe in "The Teaching for Understanding Guide” offers the more detailed definition of “Understanding" that is required; a performance perspective. “The performance perspective says, in brief, that understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-provoking things with a topic, such as explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalising, applying, analogising, and representing the topic in new ways.” This leads to a definition with a focus on the ability or even disposition to apply what one knows to new situations, alternate contexts or to solve new problems. An individual may be able to solve a particular mathematical equation when it is presented in a manner they have previously experienced and this would demonstrate knowledge. Being able to apply the mathematical principles behind this equation to a different set of circumstances that the individual has not experienced would require and demonstrate understanding. Practical examples can make this distinction clear. 

I can think of things that I know. I know that String Theory is one of the ideas presented to explain how all the little pieces of the universe fit together, but I know just as well that I don't Understand it. I know that Graham's number is too large to write on all the atoms in that universe and that it ends in a 7, but again I don't understand it. I have some limited knowledge but i am not able to apply or make use of this knowledge beyond a limited set of circumstances.

Alternatively, I know that in my class there are 25 learners and that each of them learn in different ways. I know that each of them have had unique histories and a vast range of experiences. I know that each individual will focus on different ideas in a lesson and will need different help. I Understand these things because in my teaching I am able to do something useful with that knowledge. I adjust how I teach to suit my learners.

The implications of this are clear, if we are to teach for understanding we need to include opportunities for students to develop, apply and demonstrate their understanding. Understanding can not be delivered into the minds of the students by the teacher as the wise sage dispensing wisdom. It is constructed through active engagement and play with the concepts. Students need time to get inside the concepts and see how they work, to explore new contexts and apply their learning. Teaching for understanding requires more time and makes covering great swathes of content difficult. The pay off is that it promotes transfer of learning to new situations and better prepares students for the multiple contexts they will be confronted beyond school. 
 

By Nigel Coutts

Why do we teach?

I had the pleasure of spending my Saturday with a large group of teachers looking to learn more about their craft and how they might create a culture of thinking. Drawn by the opportunity to hear Ron Ritchhart of Harvard’s Project Zero share his research into the cultural forces that shape the learning that is possible in our classroom hundreds of teachers braved the wet Sydney weather on their weekend. Accompanying Ron were thirty teams of teachers who had taken the time to prepare ninety minute workshops. At the end of an exciting day we all left with new ideas, renewed friendships and bubbling with positive energy. 
 
Days like this renew our energy level and inspire us to persist in our efforts to meet the needs of every child we teach. They are opportunities to connect with colleagues, to share stories from the classroom and share ideas that work. It is the collective wisdom of the profession in action on days like this ensures educators are well supported in meeting the challenges that a rapidly changing society brings. Together we are stronger. 
 
Seeing this crowd of teachers gather and then disperse back to their schools with new wonderings and puzzles of practice in their minds led me to reflect on a question a parent had recently asked; “Why do you teach?”. It is a question we quietly ponder at times and one that those outside the profession occasionally ask as they consider the logistics of meeting the needs of a class full of overly excited children with vastly divergent learning needs. How we answer this question and the patterns that emerge reveals a lot about the profession. 
 
Often we recall those rare and special occasions when our actions result in a breakthrough moment for a student. Many years ago, I had a girl in my junior special needs class who passionately loved the colour purple. The staff of the school knew that wearing purple was dangerous. Her response to seeing the colour was extreme and at best would result in her throwing herself at whoever was wearing the purple item and clinging to them with all her might. At worst, it would be a catalyst for fitting and would end with calls for medical assistance. The special moment for us came one day when we were cleaning paint brushes in the sink. Blue paint mixed with red in the sink and the signs of over-excitability emerged as the water flowing down the drain turned purple. I removed one of the brushes and almost immediately the purple vanished and the water returned to a much less exciting colour. Reciting the mantra of “calm” I slowly returned the brush to the flow and the purple came back. Repeating the process a few times allowed the girl to enjoy her favourite colour without the usual dangers. By the end of that year her family was able to paint a wall in her bedroom purple. It remained her favourite colour but became one she could calmly enjoy. Moments like this are special but if we spend our time waiting for them we will rapidly lose interest. 
 
Teaching is something closely linked to our concept of self. We are teachers. It is part of our nature and our professional practice is an expression of who we are. It connects with a desire to share and to partake in something bigger than ourselves. An opportunity to make the world a better place by shaping the next generation. We teach because we believe what we do matters and has purpose. There are challenges here for some as the nature of teaching changes. For those drawn by visions of the wise professor dispatching words of wisdom with empowering speeches of wisdom the change to a ‘learner centred model’ disrupts their patterns of practice and self-concept. The move from the sage on the stage to the guide by the side brings new opportunities and, for those with a passion for learning, exciting times. 
 
We teach because we choose a career path where every day brings a new challenge, every day is different and our creative abilities are required. Teaching is an art form, a rich canvas for self-expression and imagination. We take the raw material from the syllabus, blend it with our understandings of our students needs and create patterns of learning that engage, inspire and empower. Our classrooms reveal our passions, our creativity and our values. We maintain a performance schedule like no other artist, with morning, matinee and afternoon shows every day of the week and frequent evening, pre-dawn and all-day events. It is no wonder that by Friday we are ready to collapse. 
 
Our roles are diverse. We are, on a daily basis a mix of administrator, counsellor, nurse, cleaner, photocopier repairer, data analyst, detective, consultant, curriculum expert, mathematician, entertainer, scientist, author and so much more. Learning new skills comes with the territories, adapting to change is the norm and it is this diversity that ensures we are never bored. We create learning environments and opportunities wherever we are. We work with limited resources and discover novel ways of turning every moment into a chance for learning. We are worn down by the challenges and built back up by the triumphs. At the beginning of the year we see the long climb ahead of us and yet we move forward knowing that at the end of the year the view from the top, the success and growth we achieve with and for our students will make every stumble worth it. 
 
Only those who have taught a class for a year, who have struggled with the challenges faced by students and who have shared in the moments of success will truly understand why we teach. Maybe that is why we seek out opportunities to gather and share what we do, to spend even a Saturday in the company of those who “get” what it is that we do and why we do it. Teaching is a beautiful thing to be a part of. 
 
 
 By Nigel Coutts
 
 

Teaching Dispositions for Learning

Increasingly we aim to teach dispositions but some care in the use of the term is required as it is easily oversimplified. While teaching for dispositions is encouraged it will have little effect if it means doing little other than engaging with the terminology. If we are to encourage the expansion of the desired dispositions, we must be sure to adequately unpack them and understand the implications in store for our culture of learning. 
 
Put simply a disposition is a pattern of behaviours which are utilised to serve our needs in a specified situation. Dispositions may be more accurately defined as "Acquired patterns of behavior that are under one’s control and will as opposed to being automatically activated. Dispositions are overarching sets of behaviors, not just single specific behaviors. They are dynamic and idiosyncratic in their contextualized deployment rather than prescribed actions to be rigidly carried out. More than desire and will, dispositions must be coupled with the requisite ability. Dispositions motivate, activate, and direct our abilities". (Ron Ritchhart - 2002)
 
This definition is expertly unpacked by Art Costa and Bena Kallick in their book “Dispositions”. Some key points from this are that dispositions are not patterns of behaviours we are born with; they are malleable and changeable and as such we can alter our dispositions. Dispositions are a complex interplay of behaviours, not a singular attribute or response. Learning as a highly complex act will comprise a combination of dispositions and each disposition such as creativity will demand multiple individual skills harnessed for a common goal. Perhaps most importantly a disposition is to be understood in sufficiently broad terms defined by no single list of attributes or actions. 
 
What is commonly missed when we teach for dispositions is that knowing the actions or skills associated with the disposition alone is not enough. To borrow from Costa and Kallick consider the disposition of skillful listening. It can be agreed that this disposition requires a certain set of skills such as attention to the speaker, reflective thinking, paraphrasing, turn taking, appropriate body-language etc. A skillful listener will have knowledge of these skills and each can be taught and thusly mastered but this alone does not make a disposition for skillful listening. The capacities required for a disposition alone are not sufficient. 
 
This is where the triadic model of dispositional theory become important. For an individual to fully benefit from a disposition they require the capacities which it demands but also the desire to employ them and an understanding of when the disposition is required. We have all encountered the individual who has no awareness of when they should be employing their skills as a listener and the person with no desire to listen.
 
This model has implications for us as teachers. Not only must we teach the skills but we must also provide the required sensitivities of when a disposition should be activated and the desire to do so. While the skills may be very concrete and easily mastered the translation of skills to dispositions requires a more nuanced approach. Our students will require extensive modelling of the disposition along with opportunities which demand its application. In learning the what, the when and the significance of dispositions our students will undoubtedly make many missteps but only through repeated exposure to the ideas and with opportunities to reflect on their efforts will the desired dispositions be acquired. 

 
There are multiple sets of dispositions we might wish to utilise or identify for our students. One set is that described by Costa and Kallick as the Habits of Mind. This set of sixteen dispositions has become popular in schools as they cover the dispositions most needed for successful learning. With the triadic model in mind the website RediQuest was developed to provide teachers and students with information about each of the sixteen habits. It uses three questions to focus attention on each element of applying a disposition. What does it mean? draws attention to the actions, beliefs and understandings which make up the disposition. Why does it matter? develops an awareness of the dispositions significance and may encourage a desire to apply the disposition. When should you use it? points to the important aspect of sensitivity to opportunities which require the disposition. 
 

By Nigel Coutts

Striving to preserve Truth

What purposes does education serve? What needs of humanity does education serve? What might the product of our labours be like and how might our efforts contribute to the greater good? These are questions we have long struggled with but with but it seems that in the current times we might need to rethink how we answer these questions. 
 
For the longest time education was all about the transfer of knowledge and skills. What was known and understood by one generation was passed on to the next. Each generation added to the pool of what was known and the scope of what must be taught grew. Those with a wanting to go beyond knowing engaged in the study of philosophy and dove into the metaphysical. Others looking to unlock the mysteries of the universe studied the sciences and for those with more aesthetic or romantic notions the arts provided a rich and diverse field for exploration. With medicine and psychology, we came to understand the inner workings of our bodies and minds. The scope of education was broad and prepared us to engage with life beyond the realms of formal education and with tools to share our deepening understandings. 

If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand - Gotthold Lessing

In the information decade parts of this model came to be challenged. Knowing lost its value. So much of what was studied in school, the pearls of wisdom passed on from teacher to student became content for the rapidly growing internet. All that we could know or want to know was placed very literally at our fingertips. With this change came shifts in the nature of work and the roles we had imagined we would take on beyond school disappeared. A new order of essential skills emerged and we required an education which would allow us to be critical and creative thinkers, collaborators, communicators and compassionate members of society. Our value was determined by our capacity to learn, unlearn and relearn quickly and our dispositions for agentic action and problem finding gave us the edge. 
 
Somewhere in the past twelve months an essential aspect of this relationship shifted. Knowledge might be everywhere but somehow ’truth’ seems to have vanished. Knowing which sources of information might be trusted has always presented a challenge and with greater access to information comes an increased possibility for errors and miscommunication. Educators dealt with this by teaching students to look for multiple sources, to use reputable sources and when possible to go to the original source. The challenge to truth today goes beyond trusting in sources, we are confronted by an outright attack on what ‘truth’ is. 
 
The aim of science has always been to accurately describe and where possible, explain the world about us. The principles of scientific inquiry served to remove bias, remove observer error, overcome the limitations of our understanding and uncover a truth about the world. Philosophers have always viewed ‘truth’ in a different light. For the philosopher ‘truth’ is a notion to be understood and analysed. Rather than trying to find true facts, philosophy has been about uncovering an understanding of how we define, describe, and delineate 'truth'. The search for universal truths, those which are constant regardless of perspective has occupied the pages of many tomes. 
 
Now the very ideal of ‘truth’ has been reappropriated to become a term more equitable with opinion, fabrication and falsehood. In the era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternate facts’ we are confronted by an attack on our most fundamental beliefs about ‘truth’. Truths and facts have little value when they are easily traded, contradicted and ignored. When the powerful, the rich, the loud and the numerous meddle with our definition of truth the call to speak ‘truth to power’ is more prescient than ever and yet those who aim to do so are left with few weapons. 

"[Ideology] always stands in virtual opposition to something else which is supposed to count as truth" Michel Foucault 'Truth & Power'

Here then lies the challenge for educators. How might we prepare our students to confront these deliberate and sustained attacks on truth? What are the dispositions they will require to confront coordinated attacks on truth? 
 
I have on my bookshelf a book by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto titled simply “Truth”. Its back-cover claims that ‘We need a history of truth . . . We need it to test the claim that truth is just a name for opinions which suit the demands of society or the conveniences of the elite. We need to be able to tell whether truth is changeful or eternal, embedded in time or outside it, universal or varying from place to place.” It is a book written in 1997, it is one I feel compelled to read today perhaps more than ever. We need a history of truth; we need an imagining of the future of truth and we need the will to struggle to seek it out and keep it safe from those who wish to pervert it for their private causes. 

by Nigel Coutts
 

The BIG Three for Managing Change

Understanding responses to change is critical and with the predicted future of education increasingly being linked to innovative practices which prepare students for an unknown future change is a central theme. A short search online, through libraries or in book stores reveals a great variety of texts claiming to uncover the secrets of the change process while others claim that is a process too complex to be managed and that the best we can hope for is a subtle shift either towards our goals, away from our goals or in an entirely unexpected direction. Ignoring for the sake of the possibility of action, there are some broad trends which emerge from the research and a set of conclusions which may serve to guide those implementing organisational change.
 
The first understanding to emerge is that change is rarely accomplished easily and cultural change that reaches to the core of the organisation is very rare. Those who fail to understand this fail to lead successful change because they underestimate the level of input required at each stage and point of contact with the process. The change is introduced with insufficient fanfare, a sense of urgency never develops, ongoing support is sporadic or non-existent and the little steps are not celebrated. Readers of Kotter & Cohen’s work “Understanding the Heart of Change” will recognise these steps and recognise that underestimating the importance of each step can only result in a failed effort.
 
Kotter identifies and stresses the importance of a vision for change and the notion of a compelling vision that is articulated to its audience with clarity and passion is a common property of strategic approaches to change. Simon Sinek writes of the need for a compelling ‘Why’. A clear reason for why the change should be undertaken that is easily articulated and provides compelling motivation. Sinek’s ideas have been broadly adopted and like so many ideas promptly misunderstood and poorly applied. As with Kotter’s notion of a compelling vision the ‘why’ of an organisation must be one that has genuine significance and can be communicated in ways that individuals and groups of them are inspired and engaged to a far greater degree than is achievable with external incentives. 
 
The next factor to understand is that individuals are motivated to a large part by the degree of autonomy they believe they have in a situation. Highly controlled, constrictive and micro-managed situations will only result in minimal levels of motivation. A compelling vision delivered prepackaged and with no scope for individualisation will be as morale damaging as any forced change. Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, Dan Pink all show that autonomy motivates. For educators, this is particularly significant as we confront change efforts imposed from above by legislature, curriculum requirements, accountability and registration programmes and increasingly controls imposed through standardised assessments. Change leaders are encouraged to understand the importance of providing genuine opportunities for the voice, mind and heart of individuals to be heard and to influence change. 
 
Balancing the desire for autonomy against the organisational desire for consistency is difficult. Those responsible for change in most instances are driven by a belief that their vision and the new ways of operating that come with it will bring genuine benefits for the organisation and those that it serves. A school may wish to introduce a new research based pedagogy, a change in technology or alternate reporting processes and to do so in a manner that brings consistency such that a continuum of learning is achieved for students across classes and year levels. Against this initiative is the need to incorporate into the change meaningful opportunities for all stakeholders to play a part in shaping the change such that it is not a top down imposition but an opportunity for individuals to exercise agency in how they shape their interactions with the organisation. 
 
Lastly the importance of a sustained and broad effort to sustain the change effort is essential. The most compelling and engaging introduction to a change effort will produce no result if it is not backed by ongoing support and nurturing. Consistent ongoing messaging in alignment with the change effort from every point and every opportunity is essential to building and sustaining momentum. Where the change involves shifts in practices that require staff to operate in new ways appropriate and continual professional development is essential.

The manner in which these forces for change are approached will influence the response of individuals. Without a compelling vision individuals are likely to sense that the change has little to offer them. Change is broadly feared and with no compelling reason to change most individuals will resist it whenever possible. Metaphors derived from Newtons First law of motion and change are natural as just as is the case for the heavy stone, people are unlikely to move unless sufficiently compelled to do so. Resistance is also much more likely if the change is seen to be forced upon someone. Individuals are shown to be more likely to embrace change if they believe they played a part in designing the change. Interestingly, this applies even when the change that results from an organic process of ideation from within an organisation closely aligns with the strategy previously identified in a much more bureaucratic top-down manner. Applying a final metaphor, change initiatives can often be like a the ripples of a stone thrown into a pond, overtime they fade away and the pond returns to its natural state of rest. Spend enough time in most organisations and you come to understand that time is the ultimate panacea to uncomfortable change initiatives. Without ongoing communication and support change efforts will dissipate and while in the early days emotions may become highly charged, unsustained changes will die in a pool of apathy. 
 
In no way does this cover all of the essential aspects to be considered when implementing change; however, these three factors of a compelling vision that is clearly articulated, opportunities for individuals to play their part in the process and sustained action for the change play an undeniably essential role. While the literature on change offers many insights and powerful advice on the process of managing change these factors stand out and change leaders underestimate their effect to their peril.  

By Nigel Coutts

Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.American Psychologist,55(1), 68-78.

Sinek, S. (2011) Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Portfolio Penguin: London
 

Helping students to become problem finders

For students engaging in creative personalised learning projects such as a ‘Genius Hour’ or ‘Personal Passion project it can often be difficult for them to uncover the right project. Students have become so reliant upon their teachers to pose them problems that when they are given the option to explore one of their own design they don’t know where to start. This is indeed a significant challenge as we know that our students will enter a workforce and world of learning beyond school where they must be active problem finders. How then might we provide the support they require without removing the opportunity for truly personalised exploration.  

Starting at the cause of the problem is worthily. Many students struggle with tasks requiring them to develop creative ideas of their own. This is a common experience teachers face when allowing students to engage in entirely open creative writing tasks. While some students start immediately some deals starting for an extended time and even then, have not been able to identify a suitable spark for their writing. A common fear is that they will pick the wrong idea or that their idea will not be perfect. An easy strategy that often works in this scenario is to set a clear limit and an almost ridiculous expectation for the number of ideas to be generated in that time. As the time pressure mounts students move away from a search for the perfect idea and jot down any and many ideas. This list can become a staring point from which ideas are refined and synthesised. A similar tactic works for problem finding or research question development. 

For those making use of thinking routines in their classrooms there are a couple of excellent options to exploit here, the first is a little like the mass idea generation idea above: 

Options Explosion - Begin by listing the obvious solutions or Options. Now brainstorm all the other options, generate as many options as you can, combine ideas to create more, allow your creativity to run wild and tap into your sense of wonderment and awe. Review the list of options and identify the ones that are most intriguing. Use the ideas generated to consider new possibilities and new solutions.

Creative Questions - A good routine for developing ideas and for training your mind to think differently. Use it to generate creative questions to explore by following these steps:
Pick an everyday object or topic and brainstorm a list of questions about it. Transform some of these questions in imaginative questions such as:

• What would it be like if . . .
• How would it be different if . . .
• Suppose that . . .
• What would change if . . .
• How would it look different if . . .

Select a question to imaginatively explore. Write a story, draw a picture, invent a scenario, conduct a thought experiment or dramatise a scenario. Reflect on your thinking and the new ideas you have generated. Develop those which seem most useful.

Another take is borrowed from the writing of Warren Berger and ‘A More Beautiful Question’. The idea here is that students generate big ‘Why . . .’ questions which identify a problem they have encountered. From here they move to ‘What if . . . ' questions thinking individually or in collaboration and pose possible solutions. With a list of interesting ‘what ifs’ they move to ‘how might’ questions where they focus their thinking on a gradual move towards implementing a possible solution. A nice way to introduce this is with examples from the world of start-up companies which have exploded on to the market thanks to thinking differently about common problems. Starting with a ‘Why’ question like ‘why can I not get a cab when I need one’ led to the founders of Uber asking ‘What if I could pay for one of the many empty seats in the cars driving past me’ and then on to the ‘How might we turn empty seats in cars we don’t own into a global business’. Similar examples can be found in the story of Air BnB among others and a list of such ‘Beautiful Questions’ can be found on Warren’s site: A More Beautiful Question

Even when students have an idea for a topic they can struggle to turn that into a project or to see the value in their idea. Going from an idea to a worthwhile research project, framed in terms that others will understand and value is not easy and is a challenge for PHD students, let alone sixth graders. To assist with this George Heilmeier working with Advance Research Projects Agency (the people who developed the internet) proposed a set of questions to be used to frame all projects submitted for research grants. Known as the Heilmeier Questions this set of prompts will have students looking beyond the surface of their ideas and getting quickly to what is most important in their investigations.  

1. What are you trying to do? State your objectives using absolutely no jargon.  What is the problem?  Why is it hard?
2. How is it done today, and what are the limits of current methods?
3. What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
4. Who cares?
5. If you're successful, what difference will it make?   What impact will success have?  How will it be measured?
6. What are the risks and the payoffs?
7. How much will it cost? (Time, money, resources, environmental costs, alternatives)
8. How long will it take?
9. What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?  How will progress be measured?

The pay offs for getting personalised inquiry projects happening are significant as they can develop essential dispositions for the future while offering engagement enhancing opportunities through autonomy and investigations aligned closely with purposes that matter to the students. Ensuring the right level of scaffolding as students design their projects and gradually removing teacher direction towards the use of these ensures students develop mastery of the problem finding and solving process.  

By Nigel Coutts

Banishing The Culture of Busyness

At the start of each year we arrive back from our break hopefully rested and energised. The new year brings many new opportunities including new students, new team members and new teaching programmes. We begin again the climb up the hill with a fresh group of learners arriving at our doors full of excitement who will rely on us to meet their learning needs in the year ahead. All of this means we are at risk of starting the year with a certain level of panic. There is so much to do, our students are not accustomed to our routines, we don’t know each other well, there are parents to meet, assessments to be done and before we know it we are back to being busy. 

Being busy is rapidly and disturbingly becoming the new normal. Our days seem to get shorter and while we feel like we are fitting more in we also seem to get less of what really matters to us done. Like poor Bilbao Baggins playing riddles in the dark “We need more time”. And yet all this busyness is perhaps the biggest part of our problem. Increasingly those how are interested in time-management, mindfulness, human performance and leadership are offering research that reveals the damage our cult of busyness is causing. The upshot of all this is that to get more done and to start the year positively we need to include time to slow down, switch off, let our minds rest and rebuild our cognitive capacity. Not only does this down-time allow us to better cope with the challenges of the times when we need to be on, it is in these down-times that our brains process and synthesise new understandings and generate creative ideas. Einstein understood this and said ‘Creativity is the residue of time wasted’, revealing the importance of giving our minds time to process thoughts in the background of our subconscious.  

Last year at this time I compared the days at the beginning of the year to a sprint and the weeks that come afterwards as the marathon. The initial pace we set for ourselves in these early days as we rush to do all we can as quickly as we can clearly cannot be sustained. The year ahead of us is much more like a marathon and we know we will need to conserve our energy for the many challenges that lie waiting for us; however, there is more to how we approach the start of the year than just conserving our energy for the mid-year reporting cycle. How we start will determine how we finish and wise carefully considered decisions now will set up positive patterns for later in the year.  

For our students, this is the time when they learn to trust us as the guide they will require for the year ahead. Across the days and weeks at the start of each year they are told what to expect and what is expected of them. Promises are made and exciting opportunities for learning are outlined. In the coming weeks, they will judge the reality of their experience. Handled well the result will be students who feel known and trust that their teachers will meet their learning needs; handled poorly and the damage can be hard to undo. If we move too fast now, make quick choices, react rather than taking the time to reflect and get things right the first time we miss opportunities to model to our students our fullest understanding of what it takes to be a learner.  

For students, new to a school the next few weeks may be very important. The initial celebrity that comes with being new has worn off and friendship circles are rapidly forming about them. Some will negotiate this with ease but many will find challenges here. This is the time when our pastoral care programmes earn their keep and a culture of acceptance and inclusion pays off. It is also a time when they need opportunities to switch-off and experience moments of quiet calm. They will rely on their teachers to set this tone and create these spaces for them.  

The initial panic at the beginning of the year is often a construct of our fear that we have so much to achieve and so little time to do it. Compared to the students who have just left us this new group naturally seems to need so much; after all they are a full year behind. The desire to quickly fill that gap is natural but will not benefit our students. Taking a step back and identifying each little step towards our goal for the year is important. This is also the ideal time to remind ourselves that learning should be more about the journey than the destination. Our students might need to be ready for high school or final exams or even University in just twelve months’ time but they also need to enjoy where they are now with their learning.

For us as teams of teachers the start of the year also brings new challenges. Some of us will be new to the school, others will be in new teams and some will be renegotiating well known connections. At the start of the new year a period of ‘storming' within our teams is typical as relationships are tested and negotiated. Beyond this phase comes a somewhat dangerous period of ‘norming' where team cohesion appears. This can be a time of calm as much of the stress of the initial weeks is put behind us and the team’s natural rhythm surfaces. The danger is that too much cohesion can lead to 'group think’ where divergent thinking disappears. Effective teams should be able to shift back and forth between divergent patterns of thinking where new ideas explode into possibility and convergent patterns where the best of those ideas are put into place. Throughout the marathon that is a school year including opportunities to shake things up with some quality divergence can keep teams fresh. 

To maximise the benefits of divergent thinking, innovation and creativity will require that all important down-time. Our busy, always connected lives mean that we are more likely to react to divergent thinking badly, more likely to reduce the space available for creativity in our teams and are less likely to personally engage in innovative thinking. If we hope to have innovative organisations or we desire to produce a culture of learning where new ideas are embraced, we must respond carefully to divergent thinking. Rather than worshiping at the altar of busyness we need to respect the times we spend quietly, calmly and reflectively ‘wasting time’. 

By Nigel Coutts - Adapted and updated from - Between the Sprint and The Marathon

To better understand the cult of busyness join me in reading "Too Fast to Think: How to reclaim Your Creativity in a Hyper-connected Work Culture' by Chris Lewis

Rethinking Mathematics Education

Mathematics holds an important place at the core of all curriculum models for good reason. The traditional focus on Literacy and Numeracy reinforces the special place that Mathematics holds in our educational thinking. The importance of Mathematical thinking to our daily lives is arguably increasing as we rely on computational models and large data sets. Industry, according to multiple reports requires more graduates with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) background and the M in STEM is seen by many as providing the glue which holds the model together. Despite the importance of Mathematics and the high esteem it holds as a discipline too few students are pursuing it as a pathway beyond school and many people report a fear of Mathematics. 

According to Stanford professor and author Jo Boaler mathematics requires a mindset makeover. “Mathematics, more than any other subject, has the power to crush students’ confidence’. (Boaler. 2009) What is needed is a deliberate shift away from perspectives that make it OK to believe that one is not good at mathematics. This perception of mathematical abilities as a fixed set of attributes which some possess and others do not is a significant hurdle to be overcome if we are to encourage all learners to achieve success in the subject. A first step towards this goal is for teachers and parents to adopt the language of a growth mindset for mathematics and ensure that their children and students are not exposed to negative attitudes of fear or failure that many adults carry forward from their experience of school mathematics. 

A recent ‘Guardian’ article by Bradley Busch offers advice for teachers when responding to students about their mathematical achievements. He describes the ‘comfort strategy’ that is often applied when students underperform in mathematics. The comfort strategy tells students that their results, even when they are low, is not something to worry about, that mathematics is hard and that not everyone can be good at it, or that you are good at other things. The opposite approach offers strategies for improvement. The research cited by Busch shows that students offered the ‘comfort strategy’ tend to estimate that they will maintain consistent results while students offered a ‘strategy focused’ response believe they will improve. 

How we learn mathematics is just as important as our attitude towards the subject. Boaler cites research she conducted as part of the last round of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) which looked not only at achievement scores but asked how students learned in mathematics. The clear finding was that countries with a focus on memorisation underperformed, countries which achieved positive results focused on problem solving, number-sense and challenge.(Boaler & Zoido. 2016) Boaler’s long-term research supports this finding with case studies that compare schools teaching through challenging problems linked to the real-world use of mathematics with traditional classrooms with a focus on mathematics as a set of rules and processes to be memorised. Classes which produced the best results, the students with the most positive attitudes towards mathematics and the greatest equity of learning where those where mathematics was taught in richly collaborative settings, where mathematical dialogue was the norm and where students embraced challenge. Beyond a focus on the repetitive manipulation of algorithms and manual calculations, successful mathematicians learn to use multiple representations (including pictures, diagrams, charts, tables, graphs and physical representations) of mathematical concepts that assist in the development of ‘number sense’ and particularly the understanding that numbers can be readily decomposed and recomposed. 

The role of challenge in mathematics is important and the research shows that traditional approaches that seek to make mathematics easy by deploying rules, mnemonics and ‘simple’ processes are doing learners a disservice. Research by Manu Kapur (2014) shows that students are better able to develop a deep understanding of mathematical concepts when they are allowed to fail on their first attempt to learn new ideas. The experience of failure better activates prior knowledge and prepares students for subsequent instruction. This requires that students are presented with sufficiently challenging material and that it is presented in ways that allow for failure. Kapur (2015) also suggests that students are best served by opportunities to generate problems as a part of their mathematical learning and that doing so assist with conceptual understanding and transfer of learning to new situations. Boaler’s research supports this and shows that “our brains grow when we make mistakes because it is a time of struggle, and brains grow the most when we are challenged and engaging with difficult, conceptual questions”. (Boaler 2009) Steven Strogatz (2015) of Cornell University adds “This is not the way math should be taught, even at an elementary level. There really ought to be problem solving and imaginative thinking all the way through while kids master the basics. If you’ve never been asked to struggle with open-ended, non-cookbook problems, your command of math will always be shaky and shallow.”While we believe we showing care for students by making mathematical learning easy and by removing challenges from our students pathways (particularly those labeled as low ability) we are inhibiting their learning. 
 
Boaler and others are concerned that the Mathematics is a diluted version of the real subject. This dilution of Mathematics to a set of rules to be mastered and applied robs the subject of its true beauty and real power. Conrad Wolfram as the founder of ‘Wolfram Research’ a company dedicated to mathematical applications is well placed to describe real world mathematics, the sort we should be teaching. "At its heart, math is the world’s most successful system of problem-solving. The point is to take real things we want to work out and apply, or invent, math to get the answer. The process involves four steps: define the question, translate it to mathematical formulation, calculate or compute the answer in math-speak and then translate it back to answer your original question, verifying that it really does so.” Conrad advocates for teaching that makes use of computers for much of the calculating that is required for problem solving just as is the case in the real world “In the real world we use computers for calculating, almost universally; in education we use people for calculating, almost universally”. Conrad has launched a site advocating for “Computer Based Math” as a solution to the crisis he perceives in mathematics education. 
 
What becomes clear, as you dive further into the emerging research that connects what we know about learning, mindsets, dispositions for learning and the development of mathematical understandings, is that a new approach is required. We need to move away from memorisation and rule based simplifications of mathematics and embrace a model of learning that is challenging and exciting. We can and should be emerging all our students in the beauty and power of mathematics in learning environments full of multiple representations, rich dialogue and collaborative learning. 

by Nigel Coutts

References & Resources:

• Bradley Busch (2017) Growth mindset: practical tips you may not have tried yet. The Guardian 10th January 2017 - https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/jan/09/growth-mindset-practical-strategies-classroom
• Jo Boaler (2009) - The Elephant in the Classroom: Helping Children Learn and Love Maths. Souvenir Press, UK
• Boaler & Zoido (2016) Why Math Education in the U.S. Doesn't Add Up. Scientific American November 2016 - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-math-education-in-the-u-s-doesn-t-add-up/
• Manu Kapur (2014) - Productive Failure in Learning Math. Cognitive Science 38 pp1008-1022
• Manu Kapur (2015) - The preparatory effects of problem solving versus problem posing onlearning from instruction. Learning and Instruction 39 pp23-31
• Steven Strogatz (2015) cited in The Problem with Math Problems: We're solving them wrong. by Jessica Lahey -  https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/the-problem-with-math-problems-were-solving-them-wrong
• Conrad Wolfram - School Math is the Wrong Subject via "Assorted Stuff” by Tim Stahmer  http://www.assortedstuff.com/school-math-is-the-wrong-subject/
•  Conrad Wolfram - Computer Based math - http://www.computerbasedmath.org/ 
   

• YouCubed - https://www.youcubed.org/
  A mathematics resource from Stanford developed by Jo Boaler author of Mathematical Mindsets

• With + Math = I Can - https://www.amazon.com/gp/withmathican
  Site promoting a growth mindset for mathematics. Support for a positive mindset and resources

Learning to learn with a MakerSpace

Making, Maker Centred Learning and STEAM fit neatly alongside Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) for many schools. Commonly this approach includes a constructivist view of knowledge and teachers seek to establish conditions which allow students to explore questions and ideas with greater independence than may occur in the traditional classroom.  Learning becomes a collaborative partnership between teachers and students with a clear focus on a learner centric approach. These core beliefs are enacted through a combination of scaffolds such as those developed from the research of Harvard’s 'Project Zero’ where cultural forces, thinking routines, and an awareness of habits of mind focus the learner’s efforts on developing positive dispositions for learning while building deep understandings. In such an approach to learning Making becomes a pathway to developing the dispositions required for success in the 21st Century and a way of demonstrating one’s competence within a creative and collaborative environment. 
 
This philosophy of teaching and learning has significant implications for the nature of inquiry and Making in schools. Student projects are developed as responses to the problems, wonderings and questions which result from the student led inquiry process. The long-term goal is that students become effective and tenacious problem finders and solvers and this requires that students have a sufficient degree of freedom to identify the problems and subsequent projects which they explore within the necessary constraints of the curriculum. Success in this goal is indicated by the degree of autonomy evident in the student’s projects; the deviation from the norm present in each response and the variety of processes used in achieving a final solution. This brings challenges in terms of resources, project management, time-frames, lesson planning, assessment and evaluation. For teachers with experience in a traditional classroom each of these challenges require an adjustment to not only how they teach (pedagogy) but to how they perceive and value what they teach (curriculum) and significantly the place that assessment has in the teaching/learning cycle. This shift most critically requires teachers to place greater value on the processes of learning (the capacity for empathy, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity their students develop) rather than the product produced or the knowledge retained. This is made increasingly difficult given the current quantitative assessment and accountability frame through which educators, schools and systems are evaluated.
 
A MakerSpace brings with it new affordances and this is reflected in the projects undertaken by students. The most significant use of the space that I share with my teaching team thus far has been that associated with the Year Six, ‘Personal Passion Projects’. In this, students are given time across a semester to develop a project that extends their interest in a personal passion. Many of the projects undertaken included an aspect of making as a way of concluding the project and sharing a solution to a problem defined through the initial planning phases of the project; the ‘Why?’, ‘What if?’ and ‘How might?’ questions that students started with. The diversity of Maker Centred projects undertaken was significant and included items of furniture, mixed material artworks, clothing/fashion projects, sporting equipment, instruments, games/toys and basic electronics. With this diversity came the use of a wide range of materials, processes, tools and subsequent skill development.
 
This diversity shone a light on the challenges to pedagogy, curriculum and assessment identified above which result when students are given autonomy in their pursuit of inquiry based learning but this was largely overcome by measuring the success of each project against the broader skills which were involved. In each case the student projects offered clear evidence of learning associated with project management, problem solving, application of a design process, attention to detail, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication. Teachers quickly found that they became ‘insiders’ with students on the projects and from this perspective as co-learners and collaborators a very clear view of the learning that was achieved by each student was evident. In many respects the Maker Centred Learning environment is an opportunity to make visible the student’s ability to take charge of the inquiry process and all that it entails from initial ideation to concluding performance of understanding.
 
Parallel to the development of the ‘Makerspace’ has been the enhancements made to the ‘Media Lab’. While the Makerspace supports projects which are large and messy, the Media Lab caters for projects which are born out of digital explorations and designs. The addition of two 3D Printers to this space and a campus wide subscription to Makers’ Empire has allowed Year Five students to include a maker aspect to their study of ‘Space Exploration’. Using the Makers’ Empire students design vehicles and environments that reflect their understanding of the challenges of exploring other worlds. The designs are 3D printed and students use these as they explain their research and understanding to an audience of parents and peers. A similar process was undertaken by Year Six students who used the software to create models of great buildings from the cities they studied in Term Three. In this instance the technology was supporting student understanding of mathematical concepts such as 3D Shape, scale and ratio. Two laser cutters are also available and it is hoped they will play a larger part in Making projects throughout 2017 as students explore options for the accurate cutting and engraving of lightweight materials with CNC accuracy.
 
Working with younger students, the level of scaffolding required for effective learning increases and with this the degree of autonomy offered seemingly decreases. Working with sticks, leaves, soil and recycled cardboard, students in Year Four have explored the construction of houses from the Australia of the mid to late 1800s. The use of common materials and methods resulted in projects with many common elements and presentation. Looking more closely and listening to students explain their designs and the processes they used reveal that even here students have brought individuality to the projects and achieved varied learning goals. Bringing Making to the younger years as an introduction to Maker Centred Learning, Design Thinking and as an extension of existing models for ‘play’ with loose and found materials should serve to strengthen what students are capable of producing as they move into Stage Three and beyond.
 
A current limitation to the projects undertaken in the Makerspace is that created by the knowledge, skills, imagining and comfort level of the teachers and students using it. Presently there is a bias towards projects which use timber and associated construction methods; advanced craft projects with additional tools and jointing methods. Some projects extend this into the use of plastics and composite materials (fiberglass) and there is some limited exploration of electronics including the use of ‘Littlebits’. This bias results from a variety of factors but most notably from teacher expertise and familiarity and the influence that early starters have on the projects which other students subsequently mimic. This bias has been identified and efforts will be made in 2017 to broaden teacher understandings of the sort of projects which can be attempted in the hope that this filters into the ideas explored by students. Late in 2016 the Year Six teaching team attended a workshop offered by ICT Educators NSW on the use of Arduino boards and other forms of physical computing within Maker Centred Learning as an evaluation and initial exploration of this for inclusion in student projects throughout 2017. While this offers new possibilities and would allow Making to move into new areas such as Internet of Things (IOT), data harvesting and automation it brings with it a need for greater professional development and new costs in providing suitable development boards and ancillary equipment.
 
The question of how to fund Maker Centred Learning in schools requires consideration. The materials used in many cases cannot be re-used and in essence become the property or valued trash of the students. Particularly where students are not creating the same product, where they are using widely differing materials, and where they may require relatively expensive materials the question of how this is to be funded cannot be easily answered. Providing a pool of resources to be used is a partial solution but ensuring equitable access to this brings new difficulties. Equity issues are exacerbated when the quality of the finished work is a consequence of the materials to which the student has access and even though teachers are evaluating the processes and thinking behind the product the final display is judged by its audience as an amalgamation of inputs both human and physical.
 
In looking for evidence of successful STEAM and Maker Centred Learning projects in the wider community there is evidence that many schools are not offering students significant autonomy in how they respond to or develop design challenges. While there are interesting projects being undertaken, the final results often have a very similar look and feel. Instead of an inquiry process driven by student questions, that results in a diversity of ideas, the projects on show resemble colour by number artworks where the real thinking and learning occurred before the students become involved. It is also disappointing to note that very few of the STEAM projects involve the unique DNA of each discipline. Rather than a rich intermingling of ideas revealed by a multitude of lenses, STEAM projects can frequently be typified as amusing technology or simple engineering projects. An important goal for the Maker Movement and STEAM will be to ensure student projects are driven by student ideas and require them to embrace the values and value of each discipline under the unifying umbrella of STEAM.

By Nigel Coutts

Maker-Centred Learning & STEAM

In 2016 we embraced the new possibilities that come with having a dedicated Maker Space and students in their final year of Junior School were the first to fully benefit from this. The Maker Space allowed for a significant expansion of the Maker Centred Learning which was already a hallmark of the Personal Passion Projects and many students developed projects which pushed at the limits of what was possible. The Year Six rooms and Makerspace were a constant hive of activity as students rose to the challenge and teachers endeavoured to ensure safety, respond to questions while facilitating ongoing inquiry and as all sought to solve complex problems. The process was richly collaborative, enormously creative and tremendously energising while also somewhat all consuming. That the day to day running of the school, the daily demands on teachers and the constant struggle for a work-life balance did not go away during this time meant that by the end of the term all involved were ready to collapse. Spectacular learning of this sort is demanding of teacher energy levels and there are no easy days. That said, all involved are keen to be involved in this style of learning again.
 
There is however,  a degree of resistance to this maker-centred style of learning and that must be acknowledged and overcome if it is to thrive. It is considered by some to be lacking the rigour associated with traditional learning methods and is not deemed to be an efficient method of learning the content so valued in the traditional classroom. Traditional curriculum, pedagogical and assessment models favour particular modes of learning and forms of knowledge. High-stakes testing reinforces this and encourages teachers to devote time to teaching facts, developing skills for communicating those facts in the ascribed method and assessing the ability of students to do exactly that. Making by contrast is messy, noisy, complex and difficult to assess. The challenge is to build opportunities for teachers (and parents) to see that Maker Centred Learning develops dispositions for learning far beyond the superficial skills required for a task. Our goal is not produce a nation of carpenters or crafts persons but to provide opportunities which demand creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication such that our students become agentic life-long learners. Making is one part of this process. The hands on nature of the projects, the natural feedback that is provided when an idea falls short of expectation and the very real challenges which are encountered, immerse students in a learning environment that prepares them well for the diverse challenges they will encounter beyond school.
 
The greatest challenge to change in schools, is our exception of what school should be like based upon our experience of it. This is true for teachers, parents and even students. There is an expectation that we go to school to sit in class and to be taught. Learning is something that happens to us, as a consequence of the actions of others. Teachers are experts who have all the knowledge we require and are skilled at transferring this into our heads. These notions are increasingly challenged by a growing understanding that this model of teaching and learning is not fit for the world we live in nor the world we will enter beyond school. The challenge when seeking ‘buy-in’ from the school community with non-traditional methods (IBL, PBL, learner centred models, making, tinkering, play) is to encourage a new understanding of the purposes of education. In 'Future Wise’ David Perkins challenges readers to seek learning that is ‘life-worthy’, that is learning that is likely to matter in the lives learners are likely to live. 
 
Similarly for STEAM, further challenges exist as teachers are asked to teach across disciplines and to integrate learning time and goals across departmental boundaries. The economies of time which come from an integrated approach to curriculum delivery, the enhanced transfer of learning that it affords and real world applicability of cross disciplinary tasks are countered by fears of less face to face time, dilution of content, redistribution of budgets away from traditionally vaunted disciplines of mathematics and science and reduced rigour. STEAM will require the development of respectful collaborations, evolving understandings of the place that the traditional disciplines play in society and new approaches to pedagogical content knowledge. In Primary Schools, STEAM is easily accommodated assuming adequate professional development is provided such that teachers may develop programmes based on strategic integrations of the disciplines where the learning outcomes achieved are enhanced as a result. In Senior Schools and Tertiary Institutions STEAM faces the additional hurdles posed by timetables and interdepartmental rivalries.
 
The most significant challenge facing STEAM, Making and Maker Centred Learning is undoubtedly access to suitable professional development. In addition to building an understanding of what is possible in this area teachers need to be exposed to the maker mindset. Sharing what it means to be a maker, to see the world of products and environments as a canvas or set of obstacles to be overcome and hacked to serve new purposes is a key part of this process. Professional development that takes teachers through the Design Thinking process and shows them how this approach is broadly applicable will encourage wider experimentation and begin to shift teachers away from valuing the products of learning over the processes. Methods of planning for Maker Centred Learning, pedagogies for making and for STEAM and effective assessment strategies which adequately capture the breadth of learning which occurs for students within these programmes is vital but largely lacking. What exists presently is centred around guiding teachers through the specific details of a particular project where teachers learn to make a specific item and then run that same project with their students. Beyond this are projects which teachers or schools can buy into that provide students with a formulaic challenge and prescribed set of processes with which to develop a solution. As these projects are often associated with an inter-school competition the rules which are aimed at ensuring a level playing field serve to also limit true innovation and the resulting products are consequently identical in all key dimensions.
 
A broader approach seems to be offered by ‘Agency by Design’, (ABD) a part of Harvard’s Project Zero. A multi-year research project, it seeks to answer three essential questions:

1. How do maker educators and leaders in the field think about the benefits and outcomes of maker-centered learning experiences?
2. What are some of the key characteristics of environments in which maker-centered learning thrives?
3. What kinds of educational interventions can we develop that support thoughtful reflection around maker-centered learning and the made dimensions of our world?

From this starting point the project has evolved and is increasingly looking at how maker-centered learning can have broad-scale and long-term relevance to the education field through strategies for documentation, assessment and making thinking and learning visible, this resulted in three further questions:

1. How can learners make visible their ability to look closely, explore complexity, and find opportunity?
2. How can teachers qualitatively measure students’ performance within the realm of these three core maker capacities?
3. How can we collaborate with students and teachers to design a suite of practical documentation and assessment tools best suited to the development of maker empowerment?

In addition to the just published results* of this study ABD offers an online course for educators looking to add Making to their repertoire.
 
While there are a wide set of resources, books, magazines, teach meets and faires which support Making and Maker Centred Learning translating these resources and opportunities into professional development is not easy. While changes to accreditation processes for teachers through Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) require teachers engage with set hours of professional development not all hours are created equal. There are limits to the number of hours which can be recognised as self-identified and this includes attendance at non-accredited courses, Makerfaires, teach meets and engagement with professional reading. Thus while there is a broad range of supports for teachers, there is a reduced incentive for engagement compared to what would exist with officially sanctioned courses.
 
Building close connections with the school community, industry and tertiary education can facilitate a richer understanding of what is possible and desirable within STEAM and Maker Centred Learning. If schools are to become centres of innovation and creativity we will need to understand what these ideas mean and how they are interpreted beyond school. Since Ken Robinson claimed that schools kill creativity efforts have been made to better understand how we might teach for creativity. A desire to understand how creativity is encouraged and facilitated has resulted in significant interest in research in this area and increasingly teachers are seeking answers to questions such as ‘What is creativity?’ and ‘How might our schools promote this?’. The answers to these questions have relevance beyond schools and there is an extensive cross pollination of ideas here between educators and industries looking to enhance the creativity of their workforce. Encouraging collaborative research between all those who have an interest in understanding and facilitating creativity, innovation and critical thinking is essential. 

The establishment of innovation centres, the adoption of design thinking and a general awareness of the value of creative collaborations is increasingly the norm in industry and this echoes the efforts made in schools as they develop MakerSpaces and strive to teach for innovation. Undoubtedly within our parent bodies lies expertise that can inform our teaching or provide access to Role-Models and Mentors to both teachers and students. Access to mentors can have direct benefits for the students in multiple ways as it expands the overall awareness of what is possible, provides access to technical knowledge and real world expertise in problem solving and potential access to resources and facilities typically not found in schools. Fears that insufficient numbers of students are pursuing STEAM pathways throughout their schooling and that there is gender bias in this area can be addressed through the provision of positive role-models who are able to share with students the exciting career prospects available. For girls in particular it is important that they have access to positive female role models at an early age if they are to see a STEAM career as a viable option. Research shows that girls make their career choices early, before age 14 (Broadley, 2011) and possibly before they move into High School. Peters (2013) shows that girls interest in STEM careers as they exit school was best predicted by interest as they entered Secondary School. This means that schools need to ensure that girls are receiving affirmative messages about the potential of STEM pathways while they are in Primary school.

There are opportunities here for formal collaborations and for industry to develop programmes connected to their ideals of civic responsibility and community connectedness. Mastercard’s ‘Girls4Tech’ programme is one model of this and one that offers staff an opportunity to enthusiastically share what they do back into the community. Other opportunities are made possible through the CSIRO’s ‘Scientists, Mathematicians and Engineers in Schools’ programme which connects schools with industry experts and provides resources and training to facilitate this. Greater success will occur in this area as industry and schools work in close collaboration to develop programmes which leverage the pedagogical, curriculum and assessment expertise of educators along with the entrepreneurial understandings and business acumen that industry can offer. These collaborations will be to the benefit of all involved as educators have much to offer industry in regards to specialist knowledge of learning, thinking and personal growth which can directly inform programmes within industry. Further to this, as educators increasingly develop research based understandings of the creative processes of problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration and develop practical methods to enhance the capacity of individuals and groups to do so, the value of their expertise to industry is enhanced. 

*'Maker-Centered Learning: Empowering Young People to Shape their Worlds' By Edward P. Clapp, Jessica Ross, Jennifer Oxman Ryan, & Shari Tishman

By Nigel Coutts

Engaged by, in and with learnng

As teachers we hope our lessons are engaging and that our students are engaged. We understand that positive learning experiences are more likely to occur when we are engaged cognitively and affectively by what we are doing and that when we are, new ideas and skills are more likely to stick. Engagement is an important consideration in learning and as such it is worth taking time to consider what it means to be engaged and perhaps how we bring the benefits of engagement to our teaching and our learning. 
 
In schools, engagement occurs in multiple flavours dependent upon perspective. From the teacher’s perspective we hope that our students are engaged by the lessons that we plan and deliver. This is an important goal and one that we cannot take for granted. In a time where we are competing against a vast array of powerful distractions, entertainments and even alternative sources of learning the task of engaging our students is increasingly difficult. Being aware of the factors which intrinsically motivate us is one step towards success. Understanding that we are more likely to engage with learning that is relevant to our daily lives and where we can see opportunities to develop mastery in domains that matter helps. As teachers we must have good answers to the student question which we so often face ‘why do I have to learn this?’. At one point it may have been enough to reply because you need to know it for the test, or you will need to know this later in life but if our goal is genuine engagement then we must do better. Our students are more likely to be engaged by our teaching when we understand the true value of what we are asking them to learn, are passionate about the teaching of it and show our students the relevance of it to their lives.  
 
One way to view engagement is to consider it as a consequence of interest. “If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”  (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology Of Engagement With Everyday Life) In this way engagement is not only a consequence of what we find interesting but also of our conscious decision to show interest in a subject. For teachers this is an important notion for much of our role is bringing our students to ideas such that they may engage with them even where the student had not previously imagined them as interesting or engaging. This introduces the perspective of the student who is engaged in learning. Here we move beyond engagement as something that others provide for us and see that we can make the choice to be engaged in our learning. Students who value learning, who see it as a personal life-long goal are more likely to actively seek engagement. For this to occur students need teachers who value learning as a process, who celebrate the embrace of positive dispositions for learning and who encourage a growth mindset.
 
We can also consider learning as something that we need to engage with. This affirms that learning requires active participation and mindful effort towards the goal of learning. Learning is not something which can occur as a consequence of our passive involvement or exposure to a set of experiences but is one that requires our fullest attention. Learning is a process that we can control; a result of our active engagement with the process of learning and a consequence of deliberate application and reflection. As a process, it is one that we can learn to do and as such our engaged practice in the learning process is one that may be enhanced through our choice to actively engage with understanding how we learn. For students, having teachers who understand how we learn and devote time to teaching the processes of learning will have positive impacts. This can include the use of scaffolds for thinking, reflective practices that encourage students to become mindful of how they learn and opportunities to share learning practices with fellow learners. 
 
We can see implications here for the choices made about the type of learning experiences we offer students. Students are more likely to engage with concepts that matter to them and to this end autonomy or choice in the topic can assist. Topics which are relevant to the students’ daily lives will promote engagement and this can be often achieved by making meaningful connections between prescribed content and local or national issues of import to the students. Revealing the applicability of an historical issue to today’s politics or the usability of a mathematical concept to real world problem solving are simple examples of using relevance to enhance engagement. Engagement with learning can be enhanced through the use of problems and provocations which lead students into a problem solving or inquiry based learning environment. Problem solving and inquiry are active processes of and for learning and once a learner has bought into the need to find a solution learning can easily become self-sustaining as the challenge inherent to the task drives engagement. Sharing our processes of learning and inviting our students to collaborate with us on learning tasks shows that learning has real value, supports the development of a culture of learning and encourages a life-long engagement with learning. 
 
 By Nigel Coutts

Holiday Reading List

For those in Australia the end of the teaching year has arrived or is just around the corner. With holidays approaching now might be the perfect time to find a good book to read and reset your thinking ahead of the start of a new year. Here are my favourite reads from this year. 

1.    King Arthur’s Round Table: How collaborative conversations create smart organisations - David Perkins

Understanding how the conversations we have within our organisations shape them and help us to achieve our goals is the focus of this book by Harvard’s David Perkins. Readers will explore how to shape positive conversations, the challenges that organisations face, the nature and benefits of different leadership styles and how the many pieces can be aligned to create an organisation that fosters success. Told through stories and with the tale of Arthur’s Camelot woven throughout this is a must read for anyone interested in organisational leadership, change and collaboration.  

2.    The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the power to think differently - Sunni Brown

Why do we insist on having our students demonstrate their understanding through the traditional essay? Why is note taking a dry process that produces pages of text we never return to? How do the tools we use to organise our thinking constrain the results? The Doodle Revolution aims to undo all of this and shows us that we can all use doodling or sketch noting to organise our ideas, reflect on our learning and demonstrate understanding. Sunni Brown’s book makes doodling accessible to all and challenges the notion that it is something for the visual thinker or artist.  

3.    The Sketchnote Handbook: The illustrated guide to visual note taking - Mike Rhode

If Sunni Brown inspired you to start doodling, this book and its related workbook will take you to the next level. Full of ideas for how to use sketch noting and with tips to make your notes masterpieces of style and clarity Mike’s book is the perfect guide for the budding sketch noter. Follow the tips and your notes will quickly be transformed into artistic works you will be happy to share and that your audience will appreciate for the understandings they reveal.  

4.    Visual Tools for Transforming Information into Knowledge - David Hyerle

Sticking with a visual theme but moving in a slightly different direction is this book by David Hyerle. The focus here is on how we might use strong visuals including mind maps, flow charts and diagrams to better understand and represent information such that it becomes useable knowledge. If you think you know all there is to know about mind maps you need to read this book, it will show you a whole new set of possibilities and bring clarity to an often oversimplified domain.  

5.    The Art of Tinkering - Karen Wilkinson & Mike Petrich

This is a beautiful book that takes you deep into the world of making and tinkering. With good advice on why we should encourage our learners to tinker the book begins with a compelling case for this style of learning. Beyond the theory it invites you to explore a host of projects that are bound to inspire. From creating flying cameras with re-cycled goods to and electronic scribbling machine or an astounding set of improvised instruments the book overflows with projects that will have you thinking 'what if?' and 'how might?’.  

6.    Innovation and its Enemies: Why people resist new technologies - Calestous Juma

If you are wanting to understand why change and particularly new technology is resisted and even feared this is a must read. This book will challenge your thinking about the role of technology in society, our perception of it and our responses to it. In a time where technology touches so many aspects of our lives and change occurs at a seemingly exponential rate understanding the enemies of innovation is vital for all and especially for those charged with teaching the next generation of innovators.  

7.    Maker Centred Learning: Empowering young people to shape their worlds - Edward P. Clapp, Jessica Ross, Jennifer O. Ryan, Shari Tishman

If you are looking to understand the educational implications of making, makerspaces and maker movement this is the book for you. The result of a multi-year study by Harvard’s Project Zero and the Agency by Design team this book shares the learning that has occurred and offers clear guidance to maximise the benefits available from a hands-on, minds-on, student centred pedagogy.  

What the Agency by Design research team quickly discovered was that, while making in the classroom was not a new concept, maker-centered learning suggested a new kind of hands-on pedagogy— a pedagogy that encourages community and collaboration (a do-it-together mentality), distributed teaching and learning, boundary crossing, and responsive and flexible teacher practices.

8.    Participatory Creativity: Introducing access and equity to the creative classroom - Edward P. Clapp

Anyone interested in teaching for creativity, anyone inspired by Sir Ken Robinson’s claim that schools kill creativity or any teacher who imagines they don’t have a creative genius like Steve Jobs in their class should read this book. Creativity is not what we thought it was and teaching for creativity requires a participatory, collaborative and richly social environment to thrive.  

9.    Innovation: How innovators think, act and change our world - Kim Chandler McDonald

If we plan to teach for innovation, we should understand what it is. In this book the author presents a series of over 100 interviews with innovators and from this frames what innovation is and the conditions which make it possible. The author has assembled an impressive set of insights and the book is an easy read that will encourage you to think differently and establish the conditions for innovation in your organisation.  

10.    Solving Problems with Design Thinking: 10 stories of what works - Jeanne Liedtka, Andrew King, Kevin Bennett

The use of design thinking as a strategy for problem solving in a complex environment continues to gain momentum. In this book the authors explore diverse examples of the use of design thinking and share strategies and tools that bring results. For teachers considering a design thinking approach in their teaching or for the management of change in their organisation this book is compelling reading.  

Also worth a look: 

‘Flow: The psychology of happiness’ and ‘Creativity: The psychology of discover and invention by Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi 

'Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us' by Daniel Pink 

‘The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon’ by Brad Stone 

‘Grit: The power of passion and perseverance’ by Angela Duckworth 

‘The Accidental Creative: How to be brilliant at a moment’s notice’ by Todd Henry 

by Nigel Coutts

Learning vs Work in a Culture of Thinking

Earlier this year a group of teachers I work with explored the ‘Eight Cultural Forces’ identified by Ron Ritchhart of Harvard’s Project Zero. In doing so we decided to focus on our use of the term learning instead of the word work. Our goal was to bring our language choices into the spotlight and explore how a more deliberate focus on learning might alter the culture of our classrooms. Two terms later this focus persists and it is worth reflecting on the effect that this has had.

Within ‘Cultures of Thinking’ the things we name and value play an important role in shaping the culture in which our students engage. Language is one of the eight cultural forces and it is one which teachers can have very direct control over. The choices we make around language frame what is valued and both consciously and subconsciously influence the dispositions of our learners. The Language of learning powerfully permeates each of the other cultural forces, giving them power and acting as one of the tools we have to shape them. Language also plays an important role in communicating the expectations we have for our students and this is very clear when the goal is to focus students on the learning vs the work as was ours. 

We began by becoming aware of the frequency with which we used the word ‘work’ and shared words that could replace this. We moved from telling the students to ‘start working’ to ‘start learning’, we made conscious choices about the way we framed tasks and identified the ‘learning’ that was expected rather than focusing on the finished product. We embraced the ideal that our goal was learning and that this would mean mistakes, errors and failures. We saw these not as something to be avoided but as steps towards learning. We asked our students questions like 'what are you learning now?’ instead of ‘what are you doing?’ and in these ways we shifted the way that we understood what was occurring in our rooms. For both teachers and students a subtle shift was occurring.

We now started to notice how pervasive the term ‘work’ was. We saw it in assessments, reports, letters home, in praise of students and in reprimands. We saw it in the way we described what we did as teachers and recognised that how we talked about what we do shaped our attitudes. We started to replace ‘work’ with ‘learning’ in our conversations around the challenges we faced as teachers and in doing so subtly shifted how we valued what we do in these circumstances. 

As our language shifted so too did our practice. We have long been a team of teachers who feel safe with not knowing the answer to every question our students ask. We are happy to search for the answers with them rather than handing them out like candy, but our embrace of ‘learning’ allowed us to take this further. By referring to every member of the community as a learner we ascribed them with permission to be a learner. We as teachers transformed into learning partners with our students and this allowed us all to happily embrace a collaborative learning journey. Our interactions with students focused on our learning. We became models of learning habits and attitudes. We shared opportunities to learn as we took on projects that required us all to learn. We openly accepted the chaos that comes with exploring the unknown in ways only possible when the pressure that comes from the role of the all knowing seer is removed and replaced with a valuing of our skills as learners. Our students saw this and understood that what their teachers had some heightened skill in was learning, not knowing. Importantly our students also came to see that learning is a powerful tool and a tool they can master. 

What was initially considered a subtle change has had a significant impact. It is an ongoing journey and it requires ongoing attention to detail. Slip ups are easy and old patterns of language easily return. Our experience with this change has revealed how a deliberate effort to shift our expectations for students and to shape the cultural forces which give voice to the culture of our classrooms can bring valuable results. 

by Nigel Coutts

Playing with Habits of Mind

What are the mindful habits of successful learners and how can an understanding of these habits help us better achieve our learning goals? This is the question Art Costa and Bena Kallick set out to answer with their study of the Habits of Mind. In 'Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind' Costa and Kallick identify sixteen habits which when utilised promote deeper understanding, unlock creativity, encourage reflective thinking and scaffold problem solving for individuals and groups. Exploring the Habits of Mind leads you away from definitions of intelligence as a fixed unitary attribute towards an understanding that it is a diverse set of traits and dispositions and that its growth is within the control of the individual. The implication of this for educators is made clear by Costa & Kallick; 'We need to develop learning goals that reflect the belief that ability is a continuously expandable repertoire of skills, and that through a person's efforts, intelligence grows incrementally.’
 
A more detailed discussion of the expandability of intelligence is presented in 'Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind’ and builds on the thinking of Arthur Whimbey who argues that intelligence can be taught. This coupled with an understanding that intelligence comes in multiple flavours is covered in great detail by Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas in ‘New kinds of Smart’ and reading this is recommended to any educator with a desire to better understand the role they can play in expanding the intellectual capacity of their students. 
 
Once we accept that intelligence is neither fixed nor unitary we are obliged to do something with this understanding. This is the point where the ‘Habits of Mind’ play their part. Incorporated into a culture of thinking the Habits of Mind provide insights into the patterns of action which result in intelligent thinking and acting. The Habits go beyond theory into readily applicable action theories that show individuals and groups how they may act in particular circumstances to achieve the desired results. In many respects the habits of mind are what intelligent actors deploy when they don’t know what to do and are the sort of actions required by the challenges of twenty-first century thinking and learning. 
 
A common misunderstanding can occur when teachers attempt to deploy the ‘Habits of Mind'. Out of fear of overwhelming our students we feel compelled to introduce the habits gradually. A small number are often identified for targeting in a term and with these come the focus of thinking throughout that time. This is not an entirely bad thing but it means we miss out on many opportunities to identify the habits as they are being used within the class. The truth is we do not use a subset of the habits in our daily lives instead using a mix of many of them as the situation demands. Costa & Kallick identify this reality 'These Habits of Mind seldom are performed in isolation; rather, clusters of behaviors are drawn forth and used in various situations.’ Claxton and Lucas write of an orchestra of Habits in which at times one instrument comes to the fore while at other times more than one plays an essential part. 
 
I like to use the metaphor of a recipe where each habit is an ingredient in the meal we are producing. Faced with a situation which requires us to act intelligently we call upon a range of habits as we initially encounter, analyse, understand and solve the problem we are confronted by. Intelligent actors are able to consciously determine which habits they are using at any point in time and also are able to call on the habits which will best serve their needs. The habits we deploy are determined by our understanding of their utility to the situation we are in.  We mix and match ingredients to suit our needs and can then describe what we used and why.
 
The challenge for teachers is to build this understanding in our students. Our task is to enable their intelligence by helping them to understand the habits of mind and to then empower our students to make intelligent choices about the habits they deploy. 
 
With this goal in mind I developed a website that explains each of the Habits, provides examples and questions to shape one’s understanding of each and connects them with thinking routines. The goal is to have a resource that teachers can use with students as they take on the challenge of identifying the right mix of habits to use and while reflecting on their current use of the habits. This site can be found online at - http://www.rediquest.com/
 
The next evolution of this idea is to create and share a set of ‘Habit Cards’ that students and teachers can use to readily construct representations of thinking recipes. Each card describes the Habit accompanied by an image that helps younger audiences understand what the habit is about. On the back are questions to ask about your thinking and thinking routines. The cards can be laid out on a table in the order they were used and can become a talking point in reflective practices. A student might begin by placing the ‘Responding with Wonderment and Awe’ card on the table and could describe how the stimulus material used in the lesson made them feel. Next that might identify their use of ‘Questioning’ to unlock their wonderings about the topic or problem being explored before ‘Applying past Knowledge’ as a habit to engage their memory. The cards bring a physical dimension to the reflective practice and would allow students to compare the habits they use with the patterns chosen by others. Not only will students discover new ways of approaching problems through the process of sharing the habits they are using they will develop a deeper understanding of the choices they are making and the choices they have available. 
 
The cards are at a first draft stage and I warmly welcome feedback.  

Download your copy of the Habit Cards
 

By Nigel Coutts

 Costa, A. & Kallick, B. (2008) Learning and leading with habits of mind: 16 essential characteristics for success. ASCD, USA

Learning to love teach meets

There is a growing momentum in education driven by a desire to share our practice and learn from our colleagues. Increasingly teachers are finding ways to break free of their classrooms and share their ideas. Collaborations in the interests of unlocking the collective potential of the profession are spreading within and importantly between schools. For many these collaborative endeavours and desires are satisfied by online communities but for many the possibility for a face to face conversation is more alluring.
 
This is where 'Teach Meets’ come into the picture. Originating in the mind of Ewan McIntosh the first teach meet as it came to be called occurred in Scotland a little over ten years ago. Since the first meeting the idea has been to provide a venue for teachers to gather in and to discuss and share their practice. The simplicity of the idea has caught on and teach meets are now an important source of professional learning for teachers the world over.
 
A small degree of structure brings a level of predictability to teach meets. The normal routine is a brief introduction by the host followed by a series of short presentations around a pre-selected theme. Presentations typically are in one of three lengths, two minutes for quick snapshots of practice, five minutes or seven minutes to allow for more complex ideas. The relative brevity of the presentations and the option for the quick two minute one removes the anxiety and need for detailed preparation that comes with longer, more formalised presentation models. Naturally the rules are there to be broken and bent to the needs of the community. Some teach meets are followed by a teach eat which is not as frightening or cannibalistic as it sounds.
 
And it is the community that matters most. Teach meets are a construct of the teaching community, relying on hosts and presenters from within it. More than likely if you attend a teach meet presented by a particular teaching community you will find yourself attending others by the same group. In the times between the teach meets social media plays the role of maintaining and strengthening the connections between community members. A popular model is for a teach meet to be followed by an online Twitter chat where participants reflect on what they have learned from the teach meet. 
 
Attending your first teach meet can be a little daunting. Joining a community of unknown teachers can be a little frightening, as is joining any new group. What you will find is a collective of passionate teachers keen to expand their learning community and eager to share and embrace new ideas. On your first visit you may choose to just attend, sitting in the audience and joining the conversation afterwards. Making the move from a member of the audience to a presenter is highly recommended and requires little else than an idea worth sharing and the understanding that if you found it valuable, so too will others. Remember that teach meets rely on community participation and the willingness of its members to share. 
 
The rapid spread of teach meets ensures that you are likely to have access to one in your area and in most cases to have access to one that specialises in areas of education that you are interested in. Searching online for teach meets will produce a list of results and there are sites such as TM Sydney where communities can publicise their events. If you are looking to host a teach meet publishing the details through social media with a #tag relevant to and used by the community, you are targeting will bring attendees. Adding the details to online lists will help too. If starting out be prepared for a slow initial growth that gradually accelerates; don’t expect 100 teachers to attend your first event. Much of the charm of teach meets comes from the smaller size of the groups and the close knit communities that they create.  A real benefit of the teach meet community will be the connections that you make.
 
With increasing demands on teachers to involve themselves in documented professional development teach meets are now a way to engage in learning by choice. A typical teach meet will last about two hours including time before and after for discussion. Most teach meets are free and the cost of hosting one is minimal; a little catering. For the host comes the opportunity to support the community and to bring teachers into your learning environment. For schools interested in encouraging their teachers to attend teach meets being a host can be a positive first step and an accessible one at that.
 
Over the past two years I have attended many teach meets and made numerous friendships and collegial relationships along the way. My teaching practice has improved as a result and I have shared my ideas with real audiences who have provided valuable feedback. The team of teachers with whom I am lucky to work have embraced teach meets too and the collective experience has strengthened us as a team and allowed us to better see ourselves as a community of learners. 

By Nigel Coutts