Hold your ideas lightly

The history of teaching is littered with ideas that have come and gone. In their day each was the new bright hope, set to transform what we do as teachers and how our students learn. Each new idea had its supporters and detractors and each in turn was replaced by an alternative or simply disappeared from view. Those who have experienced this ebb and flow of ideas have learned to approach the shiny and the new with caution and yet we have all encountered ideas that are so compelling it is difficult to ignore. How might we approach new ideas and innovative practices in ways that ensure our students benefit?

Effective schools and teachers engage in a process of action research even if it is not thusly named. It is a process that can be as simple as identifying a need, imagining or identifying a solution, putting it into action and observing the results. Applied as a methodology for improving practice through cycles of research, implementation, evaluation and reflection it can provide valid research data. A key benefit of action research is that it is closely linked to practice and involves practitioners as researchers ensuring a close connection between the research and its implementation. In action research it is very likely that those implementing the new strategy will have a solid understanding of its research basis, the problem it aims to address and the result it should achieve.

Action research fits nicely into a design thinking approach. There is much in common between the two methods and one could see design thinking as a structure for action research. At the core of both approaches is the identification of a problem the development of a planned response, the implementation of the plan and deliberate reflection. Both should include opportunities to adjust the plan at various points and when looked at as a cycle it should be clear that the process need not be linear or have a set end point. Fluid movement between action, evaluation, planning and questioning phases allows both action research and design thinking to respond to discoveries mid cycle and for adjustments to be made.

For the evaluation of new ideas both models hold real advantages. Thinking outside the box is all very well but thinking is best when it has a degree of structure and some level of organisation and it is this that action research and design thinking provide. For collaborative efforts the structure provided and the labels attached to various phases of the process can help team members identify where they are in their endeavour and where they are headed next. A key ingredient is that in these models the process is highly iterative in nature and the ideal solution or even the clear articulation of the problem is not likely to occur with the first cycle. Understanding the iterative nature of action research or design thinking is critical for success and a contributing factor for long term group cohesion.

The sharing of ideas with colleagues is for many a process not undertaken lightly. The more of our individuality, passion and effort that is invested in the idea the harder this process of sharing can be. We want our ideas to be understood, appreciated and accepted. When we contribute ideas to an action research process it is natural to hope that they will be included in the groups planning. Feelings of disappointment when they are not are natural but this is not a productive response within an iterative process. We need to hold our ideas lightly.

Those of us empowered by a growth mindset are perhaps more open to sharing our ideas. If our idea is not what the group is looking for we are able to move quickly on to the next idea without a negative reaction. Our ability to let go of our ideas decreases as our commitment to them increases and this commitment is directly related to the time, effort and emotion we have invested. To this end Ewan Macintosh urges us to share our ideas early, before we are too committed to them to listen to constructive feedback. If we share early, at a point where the idea is developed sufficiently to be understood by others who can provide us with feedback we may be more open to incorporating these new perspectives into our thinking.

Sharing early requires more than individuals who are open to the idea, it must be backed by a culture that accepts ideas should be shared before they are fully baked. Such a culture accepts that ideas might have rough edges, missing details, errors and imperfections. Such a culture is a natural fit with action research as it is one that encourages ideas to be tested and worked on without fear of failure. If the culture of a place is not accepting of failure in its action research efforts, it is not possible to try truly innovative ideas and efforts at safe innovation are unlikely to produce significant changes worthy of the effort. Fear of failure amongst individuals on action research will produce other negative consequences such as group think where divergent ideas are kept private and staff fall into patterns of trying to guess what their supervisor wants them to contribute.

One effective strategy for action research within larger organisations can be to trial multiple competing solutions at once with teams testing different approaches to a common problem. This connects nicely to an iterative process and can accelerate the research process as multiple options are tested and understood in parallel. It can also unlock our competitive natures when the ideas are compared and evaluated. A clear understanding, that it is the idea being assessed and not the individuals who researched its application, is essential. In cases such as this teams must hold their ideas lightly and accept that ultimately not all ideas will transfer into policy or future practice.

A willingness to hold our ideas lightly may also help avoid the scenario where the ultimate solution is a hybrid of multiple ideas formed not for its best fit to the problem but as a compromise between divergent groups. A willingness to let go of parts or all of our idea and accept that it may not offer the best solution is not easy but a necessary step towards maximising the benefits of action research. Perhaps hardest of all is letting go of our ideas when we are the ones who must make the decision. For leaders this is part of the job; a willingness to accept ideas from all channels will allow us to respond in the best possible way and to select the right path even when it is not the path we had envisioned. The capacity of an organisation’s leadership to share ideas early, listen to feedback and respond accordingly will have a powerful effect on the organisation’s culture and ability to innovate.

In the spirit of holding my ideas lightly I invite comments or feedback on how this article may be improved or why it should be deleted. I look forward to the discussion.

By Nigel Coutts

Between the sprint and the marathon

The start of a new school year brings with it great excitement and just a little sense of panic and chaos. We have new students, new classes, new teachers and new challenges. We spend time getting to know each other and building trust. The first few weeks seem to fly by and despite our best efforts we never seem to achieve quite everything we imagined we might. Watch the start of a marathon and you see a similar scenario as runners jostle position and endeavour to gain an advantage in the first few hundred metres. The start is an explosion of adrenalin and colour as the planning and preparation that has led up to this moment is finally tested. But just like a marathon the school year is long and the initial panic of the start is soon forgotten as we enter the second phase between the sprint and the marathon proper.

While the start is important and we all like to make a positive first impression it is the accumulation of our efforts and the little things we do every day that matters most. In this early stage as we set up the patterns and routines that will see us through the rest of the year it is valuable to keep the ‘long game’ in mind. These early days are the time when we begin to understand our learners more deeply and gain a more complete picture of their needs. This is a process that is worth giving time to. Taking a slower more relaxed approach ensures we make the right choices and ask the important questions.

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 the promises that have been made and see if what we claim to value in our welcome speeches is evident in our actions. 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.

For students new to a school the next few weeks may be very important. The initial celebrity that comes with being new wears off and fresh friendship circles are rapidly forming about them. Some will negotiate this space 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.

The initial weeks of term are likely to be largely teacher directed as routines are set in place, although there is great advantage in giving students voice and choice early on. If we claim to value student agency in our classrooms we must give them a say in the management of our shared spaces. With this behind us we can consider the opportunities to ensure the learning that occurs in our classes is owned by the students. The classroom by now will be showing signs of occupation and the pretty store bought posters give way to items produced by the students. Evidence of the learning process will start to show through and students should be able to have a say in how their learning spaces are constructed and used. Choice in learning is something discussed previously on this site and it should extend to the way that students interact with the physical reality of their classroom.

Slowing the pace at this point in the year is essential too. 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 be in need of so much work; after all they are a full year behind but it is easy to forget this. The desire to bridge that gap as quickly as possible is natural but will not benefit our students. Taking a step back and identifying each little step towards our collective goals 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. We arrive back at school refreshed and renewed. 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 teams 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 keeps teams fresh.

It might be the start of the term that gains headlines but the coming weeks as we shift into marathon mode are just as vital to success at the end of the year. How we use this time, what we value from our students in these weeks, how we engage them in the process of learning and how we put our philosophies of teaching and learning into practice will set a tone that will carry us though the long weeks to come. This year’s journey has begun, now is the time to settle in and enjoy it.

By Nigel Coutts

Developing and Maintaining a Growth Mindset

For educators, parents and learners Carol Dweck’s research on the benefits of a Growth Mindset is naturally appealing. Those who have a growth mindset achieve better results than those who don’t, are more resilient and accept challenge willingly. In response schools have embraced the notion and classroom walls are adorned with posters identifying the characteristics of growth versus fixed mindsets. Teachers make efforts to shift their students towards a growth mindset and parents consider how they may assist in the process. After two years of incorporating a growth mindset philosophy we are finding that the reality of shifting a student’s disposition away from a fixed mindset and then maintaining a growth mindset is significantly more complex than at first imagined. Numerous forces and influences play a role and progress is unlikely to match a linear curve.

Where schools have made steps in the right direction, is in raising awareness of the two mindsets. In this regard the placement of posters and discussion around the role that our mindset has in our learning are steps in the right direction. Demonising the fixed mindset is perhaps an unnecessary step and our students may be better served by understanding that we all have times when we fall into a fixed mindset. Education of how we may recognise such times and apply strategies of mindfulness and metacognition would avoid shifting already vulnerable learners on to the circle of shame. Awareness is however far form the end of the journey towards reaping the benefits of a Growth Mindset.

Much of Carol Dweck’s research relates to the giving of praise and the manner in which we give and receive feedback. The fixed mindset is associated with beliefs that our ability is a fixed quantity and that effort is a sign of weakness. If I must try hard at something I am clearly not talented in that area. This mindset is reinforced by much of the praise adults give to children. The message we give is that they are intelligent, smart, artistic, sporty and this is interpreted as recognition of static, innate talents they possess. Children with a fixed mindset learn to crave this sort of praise and it becomes attached to their imagining of their self worth and secure feelings of attachment to those important to their emotional security. Sudden shifts to praise of effort can result in students questioning their self image and feeling that they have lost the confidence of those they relied on for signals of affirmation.

For some students a shift from praise of talent to praise of effort can be devastating. They do not understand that the change in language does not mean that they are viewed as having slipped in ability. They fail to recognise that their success has always been a result of effort as in many cases the reality is that they have achieved adequate success based on underlying ability alone; they have not had to try hard to succeed. Faced with new challenges and more complex tasks they now face learning situations where they must take risks and apply greater effort towards success. Failure along this journey becomes inevitable and with a mindset fixed by past success that came easily they lack the metacognitive process to push through these times. This realization is for many likely to occur at the time they enter adolescence where feelings of self worth, body image, socialisation pressures and physical and cognitive shifts place young people most at risk. Empowering young learners with a deep understanding of how fixed and growth mindsets interact and enabling a metalanguage for them to use as they describe their interpretation of their shifting mindset may help but will not be sufficient.

The cognitive disconnect that accompanies a sudden shift in language from praise of ability to praise of effort may be minimised by initially providing both. A student may be given feedback something like this; ‘You did very well on this writing task, you used your talent for writing well and you clearly worked very hard to include effective language and took some interesting risks with your word choices.’ Praise presented in a mixed form with traditional recognition of ability but with a gradually increasing emphasis on the actions which led to success and the effort applied to a task may ease the transition and avoid a decline in self esteem. Ultimately the goal is to move away from having to praise ability but doing so immediately after reading Carol’s books is not recommended.

Much of the difficulty experienced as we make efforts to change to and then maintain a growth mindset results from the mixed messages we send students. Ideally students will consistently receive feedback that points towards the things they have done well and things that they could do more of. Praise linked to actions rather than attributes allows the learner to focus on doing more of what leads to success and actions unlike personal attributes can be changed. The more consistently that feedback provides these cues the more effective it is likely to be and our students are more likely to inhabit a growth mindset as a result. Praise for ability is however, somewhat like candy, a little bit has a big impact and the work to shift students towards a growth mindset is easily undone. Kind words from adults give children with a fixed mindset the hit they have been looking for and causes them to question the growth focused feedback they have been given.

These mixed messages are reinforced further by the manner in which we formally assess and report on student achievement. Tests which present students with a single measure of their achievement do much damage to a growth mindset. A test score or report grade is too easily interpreted by a student as a measure of their fixed ability. No indication of the actions that led to the mark or grade is provided and no pointer towards future success is offered. More useful is a rubric that provides students with clear advice on what they did well and what they may do more of. As useful as Rubrics may be their ultimate success as a tool for learning requires careful design and considered choice of the language used. Rubrics are also of no value within a culture that translates indicators on a rubric into a single score by totaling marks across indicators. Use of Carol Dweck’s highly valued term ‘Not Yet’ is beneficial if students understand that this illustrates a belief that with continued effort they will be able to achieve the desired result.

While many influencers and forces play a role in forming an individuals mindset three agents are perhaps most significant for schools to consider. Central to any discussion of mindset is the individual themselves. Empowered by an understanding of fixed versus growth mindsets the individual may begin to consciously reflect on how they interpret and attribute their success. Recognising the mindset they bring to a task, understanding how they react to challenges and how this varies across learning scenarios gives agency to individuals and protects them against external influences that may shift them towards a fixed mindset. Teachers have vital roles to play in the development of growth mindsets but must do more than advocacy. Providing our students with the reflective and metacognitive skills required to modify their mindset is an effective use of our time. Analysing the nature of our feedback and praise across all interactions with students combined with sensitivity for those presently locked in a fixed mindset is essential. This analysis should include all processes and systems that exist around praising student success. Parents and carers have significant roles to play and collaborations with schools are likely to maximise the benefits of any mindsets programme. Consistent messaging around the controllable factors which lead to success is essential.

Research and classroom experience show real value in efforts to shift students towards a growth mindset. The simplicity of the idea however hides a greater complexity experienced as teachers and parents design and implement programmes deliberately targeting a change in mindset. As with all aspects of education there is no easy fix here and results will unsurprisingly take effort and understanding. Consistent, considered approaches that recognise the many factors and involve all agents which shape our mindset are likely to bring the best results.

By Nigel Coutts

Connections:

A 'Habits of Mind' recipe  for a Growth Mindset - Persistence + Open to Continuous Learning + Taking Responsible Risks + Metacognition

Constructing a positive classroom culture

With the start of the year and a new group of students it is natural to consider the year ahead and what we might hope to achieve individually and collectively. As we build connections with our new students and build an understanding of their needs we begin to imagine the many strategies we will employ to support the learning. Beyond getting to know the individuals we also start to form a picture of what our classes are like and this brings us to questions of culture. What will the culture of our class be? How might we shape that culture and how will we understand the many forces at work? Understanding the culture of class or perhaps even a school is an important element of our teaching but realising the complexity of this task must come first.

We all have in our imaginations a picture of what our classroom culture will be like. More than likely it is embodied in sets of values displayed proudly on classroom walls and shared with parents through letters home and information evenings. We imagine a culture built upon mutual respect, honesty, a love of learning and questioning attitudes. Through the values that we identify and describe we make efforts to bring this culture to life. All of this is essential to the construction of the culture we hope for and yet none of it guarantees that our imagination will match reality. There exists within any group of people at least two cultures; that which is imagined and that which is lived.

As teachers we play an important role in establishing the culture of our classroom. What we name and value are likely to become parts of the lived culture but our interpretation of this and its expression in the real world can differ widely. Ultimately the culture of the classroom will be the sum total of the lived experience of its members. Every experience, every individual’s action and responses act to shape this and with a full class of empowered actors participating in its construction, culture quickly becomes a messy field.

Our first task needs to be understanding the culture that comes to our class with the students. Their history with schooling will frame how they begin to engage as a group. The particular mix of personalities, dispositions, beliefs, values, norms and attitudes present will begin to emerge. This is the clay with which we must begin to shape that classroom culture we imagine and just like an artist we must understand the material we have to work with. This idea of working with the already present culture of the class is critical, efforts to impose a culture on any group through authority is doomed to fail. A culture of respect can not be constructed on a foundation of fear.

The point at which we imagine we have understood the culture already at play is also the ideal time to stop and look again. Culture is not easily read and the danger at this early stage is that our initial impressions will prove false. Sociologists understand the difficulties of reading a culture form a privileged position of power or authority and who is a more privileged reader of classroom culture than the teacher. Exploring what the students have to say about the culture of the classroom and learning to truly listen to what they have to say with both their voices and their actions is critical. So to is understanding how the students read us by what we say, what we value and what we do.

A good example of how our words, our valuing and our actions combine is seen in the measures required if we desire to build growth mindsets. Carol Dweck’s concept of a growth mindset is alluring and easy to get wrong. Giving students positive feedback is not the answer. To be clear students need to be told what they have done well but they must be shown with every turning that their success is a result of their actions and of actions they might control. This message is all too easily undone by kind words that reinforce a belief that talent is a personal quality. If growth mindsets are the goal, then having this entrenched in the lived culture of the classroom through every action and reaction is a must. It is a difficult goal but one worth the effort.

Talking about the two cultures of a classroom is one strategy that might bring the desired results. If culture is partly what we name then doing this allows discussion of those areas where the lived culture may not match the imagined culture. If all members are able to describe the imagined culture of the classroom and understand how making it real brings benefits for their daily lives they are more likely to adopt behaviours that are supportive of the desired model. This assumes rather optimistically that our students are able to translate ideal values into behaviours. Where students are able to identify the values but not the behaviours that accompany them, opportunities for teacher intervention may be found.

Circle time is one effective strategy for discussions of culture. In ‘Circle Time’ the structure of the circle and its simple rules for open sharing without negative reactions encourages students to speak about the culture of the classroom. Deliberately making this discussion an agenda item and taking time to share what culture is are important first steps. Students too often see culture as something that happened long ago or is something they were born into. Helping them to understand that culture is the word we use to describe our day to day lives and interactions with each other will help them to make sense of the topic. Letting them know that we all have a place to play in constructing the culture of the classroom can be a strategy for empowerment.

Although culture is complex it behoves us to take action to construct a culture in our classrooms that is close to what we desire it to be. Understanding that it is a construct of multiple actors is crucial and that as such we must allow each to play a part. Many have said that culture trumps policy and it is true too that culture will trump class rules. By all means take time to imagine the ideal classroom culture but then take the time and effort required to make it real for every member of the class, for it to become a culture that all involved own and value.

By Nigel Coutts

The new concrete materials for mathematics

Since the time of Cuisenaire rods or before that counters and buttons students have benefitted from the use of concrete materials in their mathematical learning. The combination of strong visuals and the ability to physically manipulate groups of objects has allowed students to move from purely physical representations of number concepts to increasingly abstract representations. This pattern of first experiencing a concept in the physical world before shifting towards symbolic representations has allowed countless students to grasp the fundamentals of mathematics. Effective teachers have always been able to maximise the benefits of this pattern ensuring that their students can not only produce the right answer but have a solid understanding of the mathematics behind it. 

In the age of computers and now tablets there have been many efforts to transfer this effective learning pattern into the digital world. Skeuomorphic representations that take digital renderings of real world objects and place them onto screens for manipulation through the computer interface have had some success in this area but an additional layer of abstraction is added that purely physical manipulations lack. Shifting the physical objects into the digital world may bring new affordances to the devices used but fail to transform the learning that was already possible with concrete materials. What was needed was a relationship between the digital and the physical that would enhance the quality of learning possible. With new tools such as easily coded robots, augmented reality and 3D printing this is a possibility that is beginning to emerge. 

One interesting option is the iPad system and related Apps made available by ‘Osmo’. In this the camera on the iPad is reconfigured to capture images from the area immediately in front of the device as it sits in a stand. The software allows for virtual objects on the iPad screen to appear to interact with objects placed or drawn in front of it. One of the Apps available presents the challenge of manipulating the trajectory of a virtual ball using objects placed or drawn in the real world space in front of the device. Students learn through an iterative process of altering angles of incidence and by adding or removing objects how the trajectory of an object can be altered. The software allows for complex interactions to be simulated and tested with immediate feedback provided on the screen. Other Apps allow students to manipulate Tangrams with added benefits occurring as a result of the augmented reality. Another App bridges the gap between the physical and the abstract by allowing students to manipulate real objects while the device reveals the associated abstract representations. Osmo brings an added dimension compared to purely digital Apps that attempt to do the same thing as its physical dimension invites collaboration. Students will want to sit and play with the physical objects and though the manipulations of these experience gradually increasing levels of engagement with symbolic representations.  

Learn more about Osmo

Sphero is another interesting way to take mathematics out of the digital world and allow it to blend with the physical. Sphero is a small spherical robot that can be controlled directly using a phone or tablet, can be programmed or can be used as a controller or interactive object with augmented reality games. Beyond the fun that comes from using Sphero like a remote controlled toy is the potential to use it to explore concepts within mathematics. This process is likely to begin with lessons that require students to programme their Sphero to complete a maze. Constructed on the floor with tape, cardboard or with a mixture of made and found obstacles mazes allow students to explore aspects of measurement of length, area, angles, time and speed. Unlike purely digital solutions that target these concepts Sphero brings a real connection between the code and the movement of the robot. Students engaging with Sphero will take measurements in the real world with traditional tools such as metre rules and protractors (preferably oversized ones), use that information in the digital code environment and then make adjustments based on the path taken by the robot. Again success is supported through an iterative approach with immediate and natural feedback. These feedback loops where the students are quickly shown what works and what does not are judgment free and ensure continued engagement with the problem and with each failed attempt revealing something new about the task while allowing the students to laugh at their robots misadventures. That students are learning to code while they are developing their understanding of mathematical concepts is further bonus. Beyond the maze activities are options for an exploration of how the robot may be programmed to complete artistic pieces that combine its movement and ability to change colours into robotic ballets that could include collaborations with other robots.  

Learn more about SPHERO

You can’t mention links between digital worlds and physical reality without mentioning 3D printing. For explorations in STEAM the increasingly affordable 3D printer brings the opportunity to design objects in a physical world and then print a real model that the students can hold. So many mathematical concepts from mass, volume, capacity, scale, ratio, and 3D shape can be explored in this way and links across key learning areas can be readily explored. For design thinking tasks the potential to have a physical prototype of an idea brings a tangible dimension that reveals ideas in new ways showing how imaginings in the virtual world translate into the real world. Increased accuracy of 3D printers is allowing for objects with great precision which means it is possible to print parts of machines with moving and interlocking cogs. Software is available now that will show how these moving parts will interact in a virtual world thus enabling testing of designs in this space prior to printing.  

In each case here there is a linking of learning in a digital space with the manipulation of creation of real world objects. instead of moving further away from the use of concrete objects blended environments suggest that mathematics teaching may be most successful when a mix of digital and physical is enabled. It may not be time to throw away those Cuisenaire rods and oversized set squares just yet, they may have a new part to play in the emerging terrain of mathematical learning.  

By Nigel Coutts

Trust No Sources - Books vs Internet

A question that is repeatedly faced by educators and students is how can we know whether to trust a source of information or not and what sources should we value. I wonder if at some point not long after Gutenberg’s invention of the press if educators debated the merits of printed works over handwritten. Were students admonished for ignoring scrolls in favour of books and was paper derided as an inferior source to wax tablets? Such is the dilemma faced in the digital age as we struggle with the question of books versus the web or libraries versus the internet.  

It is a question with perhaps no clear answer for the moment and yet a sense of inevitability that the future will be dominated by the delivery of information in digital formats. With the convergence of mobile devices and ubiquitous access to the internet just a short promise away it seems that the potential to carry entire libraries worth of books and reading matter in a pocketable device should send printers out of business. The ease of purchase and wide selection of books available online is already making it most difficult for bookstores that are not able to value add to their customer’s experience. For larger stores unable to offer a bespoke shopping experience to a community of readers this has already occurred, remember Borders? But beyond books the internet places at our fingers a wealth of information and resources that few but the largest of libraries may ever hope to match and across formats and media. Why then do Libraries and with them books persist? What is it that makes books continue to appeal not just to a few as may be the case with vinyl records but to many? 

There is something magical about opening a physical book. The mystery that is exposed and unpacked with each turning of the page. The feel of the pages, its weight and its shifting balance as you progress page by page towards its ending. Time in a well stocked library is like a walk in a forest of potential ideas, you feel their possibility through your skin and breathe in their vapours. On my shelf I have two volumes from 1886 written by James Martineau and titled ’Types of Ethical Theory’. Perhaps not as prestigious as the copy of Freud’s ‘Interpretation of Dreams’ that lies in its modern cover beside them but more special partly for their age and partly as they hold the handwritten notes of their previous owner (Frederick Wearne)  from 1945. These are books with a history of their own and I like to imagine why they may have been selected reading at such a significant time in world history. 

Lately I have been reading books more frequently, it was habit I had moved away from relying instead on podcasts for ideas. At first I relied on audiobooks and still do but often I wanted to read a piece over and over to parse its meaning and at other times I wished to quote from what I had read. Often I would supplement my listening with the purchase of a digital copy of the book for reading on a device; a routine I am sure the publishers and online sellers appreciated. Increasingly I found I wanted to share my reading with colleagues and while sharing is becoming a possibility with digital books it relies on a degree of tech savviness not all have and of course access to an appropriate device. For ease of sharing a physical book has digital licked and so I have been purchasing some books in old fashioned paper version such that they may be handed on and have their ideas spread. Maybe this why books are not going away. 

What is interesting is the debate that occurs around the choices young people apparently make around their sources of information. ‘They just ignore the books’ is one often repeated claim or “they just go straight to Google and find the answer’. Not always but often the underlying message is that by not using books they are at great risk of being misinformed and led astray by poorly sourced information from the likes of Wikipedia. There is a reality that students are often poorly equipped to use the information available to them on the internet, rely too heavily on the first results provided by their favourite search engine and rely too much on a small selection of sources. They make poor use of the tools available to them and even when they do stumble upon the best sources use them poorly. I see many students skip away from an excellent source because it fails to answer their question with a snappy graphic and requires some detailed reading. But then did we not do the same thing when all we had were books? Were we all highly capable users of the Dewey system with well honed skills for skimming and scanning pages of information? As Alan November states our goal should be to equip students with skills to find and use the very best information available to them, not to advocate for use of one media over another with no good reason.  

At the core of the issue is one of trust. Can I trust this source of information over another? On the surface level this too frequently becomes a discussion of the media used for the information. The internet versus books. The questions should go much deeper. Can I trust the research methods used? Is this author reliable? Is the information accurate and a true reflection of some version of reality? Does it relate to my inquiry? Has the research been repeated and if so by whom? Is there a bias in this writing or is it politically motivated? So many good questions to ask about every source of information we rely upon and ones that have little to do with how we access it. In a time when journalism, publishing and advertising go hand in hand these are questions we should ask often. There is much more to be explored here than a question of books versus the internet and our students deserve to be provided with the skills and dispositions required to ensure they can and do make use of the very best information available to them. 

By Nigel Coutts

Revealing our Lifelong Learning

Few would argue that life-long learning is an unworthy goal without real benefits for our long term mental health and happiness. Engaging with new ideas, concepts and ways of doing things is the ideal strategy for a healthy mind and a disposition towards better understanding the world and challenging our entrenched beliefs. According to many life-long learning is also an essential disposition for coping with a rapidly changing world. As teachers the notion of life-long learning has an additional element as it is both a personal goal and one that we set as an outcome of our teaching. We hope that our students will leave school with a desire to continue learning long after we have said our farewells. Perhaps the best way we may achieve these goals is to allow our students to see us as learners who seek new learning and enjoy the challenges that this brings.

During the summer holidays I enjoy taking on a project. With long days and free time available a project has been the perfect way to keep productive while learning a new skill set. A chance to do something I would not normally do as part of my teaching routine. This break I have been constructing wooden workbenches and even though it has been a project for school it is one that has challenged my minimal carpentry skills. I have mastered the shaping of mortise and tenon joints (having cut eighty of them), developed an appreciation of applying repeatable processes and enhanced my understanding of the properties of different timbers. I have aimed to make each workbench slightly different and this has led to some creative re-purposing of materials and storage containers. Each bench has something that it makes a little bit unique and quirky and each includes elements that should make it a functional combination of storage and workspace. Hopefully when they are placed into classrooms the students enjoy using them and they encourage some effective making. I also hope that over time the students adapt them to their needs and add ideas of their own.

Part way through this process I read an article by John Spencer on his Blog in which he argues that ‘Teachers need a genius hour, Too’. Such a concept is an ideal way to tackle the challenge of being a life-long learner amidst the business of our lives. The key is that it is time set into our schedule and it is for us to achieve learning important to us. John stipulates that this time is not to be used for anything work related, that it is time dedicated towards personal learning not professional development. John describes how his family has been able to make adjustments to accommodate this time and ensure it is a part of their schedule. Just as for students the choosing of what this time is used for is an important element of its success. It is interesting that an idea that started with adults working in industry has migrated into schools and is now being appropriated by teachers in their personal life.

Spending time on Twitter reveals a small ocean of people who are engaging with their personal learning and sharing its benefits through their networks. The value of our personal learning networks is a combination of avenues for sharing our learning and for engaging with the learning others have undertaken. Social media has opened new realms of shared experiences around and through learning but much of it occurs away from where it may be spotted by our students. There is a danger our well crafted personal learning networks serve to reinforce the notion that we are experts who know the right way to solve any challenge we face in the classroom without the need to learn. If only our students saw how hard we work behind the scenes to learn and enhance our craft.

If we want our learning habits to rub off on our students then we need to ensure they catch us in the act of learning and that we describe our processes for learning to them. Metacognitive reflection on our teaching practice is all very nice but it is more likely to influence our students if we share the process with them. For this to happen we need to move past the fear that if we are not seen as experts with all the right answers chaos will ensue. This challenge extends to school leaders who should be encouraged to share their stories of learning with their teams without fear that they will be viewed poorly for admitting they are continuing to learn and develop.

In an environment that encourages a growth mindset it may be essential that students see their teachers struggling to overcome challenges. Talks about the need to embrace failure and to see obstacles as a learning opportunity seem hollow unless they are linked to personal experience. Bringing stories of our personal learning into the classroom adds a new dimension and honesty to our discussion of how we may best attack challenges. Letting our students see us struggle with a challenging problem takes this to a higher level, allowing them to offer suggestions goes even further to sharing the reality of a shared learning environment.

Google is widely cited as starting the trend of giving staff time for personal projects. Their ‘20% Time’ model has been copied and borrowed widely as a way of encouraging people to pursue projects they are passionate about but not at the core of their responsibility. In schools this type of personal learning could be the way to allow students to see their teachers learning and problem solving. Just as we may model reading habits during quiet reading times, taking on a Personal Passion Project in parallel to our students may bring new opportunities for shared learning and a greater appreciation of the benefits of life-long learning.

By Nigel Coutts

Predictions for Education in 2016

The start of a new year brings the perfect opportunity to consider the time ahead and make some predictions for what might be the next big thing. With change as inevitable as taxes a new year is likely to see new ideas bubble to the fore and some old ways of doing things shift into the background. The danger with making predictions is the unpredictable nature of change in education coupled to the pace of technological evolution that continues to bring new opportunities.

On the technology front much of what has been important to our implementation of ICT should be disappearing from view. Creating Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, webpages and even video will remain a part of the educational landscape but the maturity and simplicity of modern computing platforms and particularly tablet computing should mean these skills require little direct attention in the classroom. What was once a cutting edge use of technology can now be taken for granted. With this can come a focus on how these and other technologies for presenting ideas can empower learning. What should become more prevalent is an emphasis on collaboration beyond the walls of the classroom. A spin off the increase in ‘connected educators’ will be the opportunities for global collaborations between classes. For this to happen schools will need to look to the potential for sharing of ideas across cultural boundaries and with flexible approaches to time and place of learning.

With the increased popularity of ‘MakerSpaces’ and an understanding of the learning power that making unlocks this is a trend that is set to go mainstream. With close connections to creativity and innovation making allows students to realise their ideas in three-dimensional realities and engage with a whole new set of problem solving opportunities. Making supports integrated problem based learning scenarios where students combine STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art & mathematics) with their imagined solutions to real world needs. The ‘MakerSpace’ is core to this approach as it is the place that unlocks the imagination and encourages exploration and play. 

The modern ‘MakerSpace’ will be nothing like the old wood-shops many of us remember. Making today is a blend of hands-on tooling with digital production methods enabled by 3D Printing and CNC devices. 3D printing has been a growth area for a number of years now but until recently cost was inhibitive and the machines required a dedicated user to keep things on track. With costs stabilising at an affordable level and sophistication increasing to a point where machines can be described as reliable 3D printing is another trend that should be mainstream by the end of 2016. What we need now is an affordable option for laser cutting to emerge in a form suitable for use in schools. Current costs for this sort of machinery puts it out of reach of all but large secondary schools, lower costs could put this on the budgets of primary schools and increase the size of the market and thus bring further cost reductions.

Growth Mindsets has emerged in the past two years as a significant trend and one that continues to grow favour. The danger is that it is a seemingly simple concept that hides degrees of complexity. It is not enough to say a school is going to develop a culture that promotes growth mindsets and then do little other than put up the posters. Understanding the power of the subtle messages we send through our feedback, reporting measures, assessments and praise takes time and careful consideration but are essential elements of a culture that genuinely supports a growth mindset. We need to raise awareness of how our thinking about our success and failure impacts our future learning. We are also seeing increased discussion of ‘Mindfulness’ as a strategy for reflection and self-awareness. Mindfulness and Growth Mindsets could become a merged field during 2016 as individuals seek to better understand how their mental states can be influenced and shaped by the way we think about our thinking. 

Thinking about our thinking or metacognition is by no means new and yet despite years of good research into the benefits of learning to think the evidence is that we continue to have deficient models for thinking. Perhaps a personal hope is that in 2016 thinking gains more of a focus in schools and we begin to aim at producing students who are intelligent as described by Jean Piaget because they 'know what to do when they don’t know what to do’. This will require attention to teaching students more than just content but the skills and dispositions required to do something useful with what they know. Maybe 2016 will be the year when we realise that filling the minds of young people’s heads with information they can readily locate using the devices they carry with them everywhere is not an efficient use of our time or theirs and we begin to focus on what can be done with the knowledge we have ready access to. Why teach thinking?

2016 is likely to be the year where ‘Innovation’ becomes the new buzz word. Schools have been innovative for years now but in the past that innovation was about what the teachers and faculty did. Innovative schools were the ones that tried new ideas and emerging technologies to achieve largely the same goals traditional schools were achieving. Now ‘Innovation’ moves from being about how we teach to becoming what we teach. Thanks to Sir Ken Robinson creativity has been on the agenda for some time now but it was an idea that often needed some clarification as to what it meant. Combine creativity (the development of ideas in our imagination) with innovation (the implementation of ideas into real solutions) and students have a process for problem finding and solving that can be implemented beyond their school years. All this creative innovation is going to need a process to help students track their progress and ‘Design Thinking’ is likely to emerge as the preferred structure for this sort of thinking.

As we continue to develop our understanding of how we learn. Informed by brain science we are moving towards a point in time where we are able to base our teaching on a clear and accurate picture of how the brain functions for learning. With an awareness of neural diversity and cognitive architecture brain science offers an opportunity to bring a new level of scientific efficiency to our teaching that should allow all students to reach their potential. 2016 is not likely to be the year where we gain and implement perfect knowledge of how we learn but a growth in teacher and student awareness of the factors behind our learning should help.

by Nigel Coutts

Lessons Learned from Genius Hour

After eight years of engaging our students with a Personal Passion Project during Term Four we shifted to a ‘Genius Hour’ model for 2015. In the end the results from the students were impressive but along the way some lessons were learned and we are looking forward to making some minor tweaks for 2016 that should further enhance the learning opportunities. What remains clear is that students given the opportunity to bring their passions into the classroom produce results that go above and beyond expectation. It has also been obvious that success is linked to the establishment of conditions that encourage risk taking and reinforce the importance of learning and design as an iterative experience.

The key difference from previous years was that students started their projects late in Term One and had time each week during Terms Two, Three and Four to develop and then implement their plans. An hour was allocated in the timetable for this and we were able to have all five Year Six classes working on their Genius Hour projects at the same time. This allowed opportunities to combine as a year and to share ideas across classes thus creating opportunities for students to share ideas with colleagues who had a common interest. It also allowed us to invite guest speakers to visit the Year Group and share ideas from their careers. To facilitate this, we reached out to our school community and had offers of support from project managers, technologists and graphic designers. Each visiting expert added a new dimension and deeper understanding of the process that the students would be engaging with while revealing the real-world applications of what the students were doing; finding questions, imagining solutions, developing plans and managing projects.

Early on we introduced students to the importance of finding the right project to explore. To do this they needed to identify their personal passion and then connect this with a question that had real significance. We introduced students to ‘A More Beautiful Question’ as a resource and shared examples of questions that led to the discovery of new ways of solving challenges. With an understanding of the process and the seed of an idea students spent the next few weeks planning their projects. In keeping with the application of a ‘Design Thinking’ approach these plans remained open to change throughout the year and the final products and solution in many cases showed significant diversions from what was originally imagined. Understanding that this is inevitable is something we will cover in our initial introductions for 2016.

The diversity of student projects was one of the highlights. We had a number of students who selected projects connected with novel writing and the results were impressively evolved and interesting works of fiction. A group of students with an interest in fashion and fabric crafts emerged and supported each other in the process of learning to sew. While their projects had some common elements differences in approach and desired result showed the complexity of the projects the students imagine. We are fortunate to have expertise in this area amongst our staff and are able to call on specialist teachers from our Senior School to fill in the gaps. More importantly the projects create real learning opportunities for all involved as problems emerge and solutions are discovered through a collaborative learning experience. The danger of teacher expertise stomping on student discovery never became an issue partly due to careful teaching practice in not revealing the answer too early in the process but also through a genuine need for shared learning that resulted from the originality of the projects.

Some rather unique projects emerged and presented interesting learning opportunities. One boy wanted to construct a set of shin guards that would combine fiberglass and foam to offer an increased level of protection and comfort. With no prior experience of using fiberglass, teacher and student had to combine our learning skills to discover a process that would work. Plans were made and changed, and evolved as we experimented with options and relied on internet sources to discover a workable solution. In the end he had a pair of shin pads that met his original expectations and show promise as a new design. Another novel project was a dog sitting service loosely modelled after ‘Air BnB’ that through a website connects people requiring dog minding with people willing to provide such a service in their homes. The aim is to provide pet minding services in locations where there is presently nothing available and at a low cost.

A number of students took on artistic projects. One of the standouts was a book of candid portraits taken of students as they worked in class. The portraits reveal the subjects’ characters and emotions as they engage with their learning and were beautifully presented in a printed book. One student imagined a tree made of recycled chop-sticks. This project took on rather massive proportions and involved hundreds if not thousands of carefully washed and assembled chop-sticks. Other projects included photographic collages, hand crafted lamp shades and a collection of purses woven from plastic shopping bags. We had students working on electronics projects, go carts and a snowboard adapted for use on a trampoline.

With all of this making happening it became clear that we were a little unprepared from a tool and resource perspective. This will be partly solved for 2016 with the creation of a Makerspace with enhanced access to the resources required. We will also have a set of tools and a mobile workbench available for each of our Year Six classes. These additional resources will bring a need to up-skill the students in the use of new tools but should also allow them to imagine new solutions. Understanding what is possible is one area that some students have struggled with in the past so we plan to include an introduction to making as part of our planning process for the future.

For some students the process of implementing their plans presented new challenges. Obstacles and failed prototypes were not always seen as a step towards success. This demonstrated the importance of understanding that design is an iterative process with failure as a necessary and unavoidable component. Such experiences bring opportunities for a practical application of our ongoing conversations about the benefits of a ‘Growth Mindset’. A benefit here was that the making process provides inherent feedback as to what doesn’t work. The challenge has been to establish a culture that supports experimentation with a suitable expectation of quality. The expectation of quality was supported by the looming reality that the projects would be presented to a real audience at the end of year ‘Gallery Walk’.

Throughout the year we were able to make some little tweaks to the way that ‘Genius Hour’ functioned. One was that we were able to add extra time in Term Four beyond the prescribed hour and this allowed students to spend longer blocks of time on their project works. The planning process we had imagined did not suit all students and this was modified and adapted as we went. For 2016 we plan to further modify our use of this time with students completing three projects throughout the year rather than one. Students will begin with a short research based project in Term One in which they select the topic and method of presentation. In Term Two students will explore through de-construction a product of their choice and then collaboratively design an improved version. With these two self managed projects behind them students should be well prepared for a larger scale project in Term Three and will again benefit from additional time in Term Four to complete their ideas.

With each iteration we learn more about the inclusion of Design Thinking, student passions and project based learning within our yearly programme. Each year the students amaze us with what they produce and they leave us with greatly enhanced confidence in their abilities to manage difficult and complex learning experiences. Running a ‘Genius Hour’ project can at times be exhausting and messy and challenging for all involved. The pay off is a learning experience on a grand scale that provides a solid platform for future growth.

By Nigel Coutts

With thanks to Clare McPhillips, Amber Bidwell, Jo Robinson & Jake Turnbull 

Creating a Generation of Innovators

Innovation is very much on the agenda in Australia and globally. The OECD publishes lists of nations most likely to succeed through innovation and nations seek to encourage increased innovation to maintain their competitive edge. The result of this in Australia is the recent launch of a new ‘Innovation Australia’ policy with wide reaching measures to encourage and foster a culture of innovation. Education has a role to play in this process acting an an enabler of innovation that builds capacity in future generations. 'Our education system, therefore, must equip students to be successful entrepreneurs, hold a diverse number of jobs or work across a number of industries.’ (www.innovation.gov.au)

STEM is one of the key enablers identified by the government and an area to be targeted in efforts to enhance the nation’s capacity for innovation. Along with Digital Literacy and programmes specifically targeting STEM to girls, it is clear that innovation is seen in a somewhat narrow way. What is needed is a broad culture of innovation where diverse skills and dispositions merge to offer the best chance of a unique idea emerging and importantly making it to market. Significantly the definition of innovation very much includes the ability to deliver on the imaginative ideas Australians are known for but are presently handing off to international developers to capitalise on. For schools such a definition is useful as it encourages a shift away from vague conversations about creativity and imagination and looks at how these skills can be used in ways that bring about change. With a shift to innovation we should see students engaged in a process of ideation that results in practical solutions to problems they identify and engage with. A creative process powered by imagination, inquiry, design and a well considered ‘So What’ question that encourages students to do something innovative with their ideas.

But all this talk about innovation in schools brings a new set of challenges to already time poor teachers. What will this look like in the classroom? What skills and dispositions will our students require? What strategies might we employ to foster innovation?

Innovation requires a pedagogy that values a student focused learning processes over teacher directed transfer of knowledge. Teaching for innovation is by nature messy and imprecise. In the short term results on traditional assessments may not be what we would expect from traditional methods but if we desire to produce innovators this needs to be accepted. It is also to be expected that learning to think innovatively will initially unsettle some learners, some who may have thrived under conditions where learning routines and adding to their knowledge bank was the norm. This will need to be accommodated and while challenging for all lets not pretend that traditional methods were providing the conditions necessary for every child to shine.

The key elements to aim for might be something like the list below. These are the elements of effective teaching with an aim to encouraging students to find and solve problems. Innovation is likely to be enabled in classrooms that promote these ways of thinking and learning. Nothing here is new but it is interesting to bring together a set of ideas discussed elsewhere on this site around the theme of innovation.

1. Student Choice - Students are not likely to develop innovative ideas in an environment where the ideas and the focus of their thinking is dictated by their teacher. Students need to make choices about what they are learning and how they are learning for at least part of their day. Choice allows students to pursue their passions and that brings a greatly heightened level of engagement.  – For more read ‘Learning by Choice: 10 ways choice and differentiation create an engaged learning experience for every student by A.J. Juliani’
2. Question Finding & Ideation - Students need opportunities to seek out big meaty questions that matter to them. True innovation comes from finding answers to questions that have not previously been answered, questions that may not have been asked. Encouraging students to find their ‘Beautiful Question’ should be one of our prime goals if we hope to build innovators. – For more visit - 'A More Beautiful Question' or 'The Questions that Matter Most' or 'Questions that Encourage Deeper Thinking'
3. Risk Taking and Failing - A Growth Mindset - If the goal is innovation you are unlikely to get it right the first time. Our students need to understand that failing and learning from our mistakes is an important part of the process of innovation. Building a ‘Growth Mindset’ will help build the required resilience and allow students to see their failed attempts as a rewarding part of the learning process. – For more visit ‘Promoting a Growth Mindset’ 
4. Turning Ideas into Reality - Making Mindset and Toolset - Creativity and imagination are wonderful and should be encouraged but innovation is driven by putting an idea into practice. More often than not this process is going to involve making something and it is in this process that we find out if our great idea is going to work or needs some more planning. Students need experience with making to have an understanding of the processes that go into the products we use. Thinking with your hands brings a new way of seeing the world and for innovators that new perspective can lead to the required breakthrough – For more visit ‘Making as Problem Based Learning’ 
5. Creativity & Critical Thinking - Essential elements for innovation and it is not an accident that they are often lumped together. The trick is to know when to let our creativity run the show and when to allow our critical brain to put the brake on. For more visit - 'Creating & Innovating'
6. Collaboration - We have a vision of innovators working in isolation. The lone genius who discovers the next big thing. Innovators like Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison are largely to blame for this concept but the reality is even they worked as part of a team. Collaboration and the ability to develop ideas in a team is essential and something our students need practice at. For more visit 'Thinking Interdependently'
7. Thinking Skills and Metacognition - Thinking in general is something we do not do well but it is a skill that can be improved. Habits of Mind, Making Thinking Visible, Thinkers Hats and Keys are all tools that will allow students to develop their skills for thinking. Metacognition or ‘thinking about thinking’ will help students to analyse their thought process and understand the decisions they are making.  – For more visit ‘Encouraging Metacognition for Learning’ or 'Thinking about your Thinking'
8. Understanding of Design Cycle and Valuing Process over Product - The design cycle is used by innovators because it works. Having a structure for the process of innovation brings focus and helps us to stay on track. We often say we need to think outside the box but as Ewen McIntosh points out ‘We need the box’ if the box is a structure that helps us develop our ideas from raw imaginings into something useful.  – For more visit ‘An Introduction to Design'
9. A STEM Foundation - This might not be required for every innovative idea but increasingly it will play a part in many of them. Understanding the fundamentals of STEM, knowing what is and isn’t possible and being able to speak the language of technologists and engineers will ease the process of bringing many ideas into fruition.  – For more visit ‘Is STEM the Key?’ 
10. Role Models - If our students are going to think like innovators they need exposure to innovative thinkers. As teachers we need to allow our students to see the innovative thinking we do. Along with this they need to see us make mistakes and engage in a process of evaluating where things went wrong. Reaching out to the community, making connections with universities and industry are other ways of bringing innovators and innovative thinking into the classroom. One easy way towards this is through the CSIROs ‘Scientists and Mathematicians in Schools’ programme. For more visit ‘Creativity in Science and Technology: CREST’ 
11. Empathy - Lastly but possibly most importantly our students need empathy. If we are to innovate towards a better world it starts with empathy. For more visit ‘The Cultivation of Empathy’ 

Developing an innovators mindset takes years of exposure to this way of thinking. After years of teacher led learning in school and then university it is too much to expect a young graduate to suddenly shift gears. We need to allow our students to experience the innovators mindset while they are young and we need to enrich our students' capacity for innovation before they enter High School. Our students start school with the imagination they need for innovation, we need to add the processes that will allow them to turn their ideas into the next big thing.

Does Mathematics Education need a re-think?

Once upon a time Mathematics was easy to teach. A typical lesson would begin with a direction towards a particular page of the text book and would conclude with the ceremonial marking of the answers. This process was repeated over and over, year after year and in the end students would be able to repeat the required method with a satisfactory degree of accuracy. Understanding was not a requirement and as such the teacher needed to know only a little more than the student or perhaps only have ready access to the answer page. But times change and today Mathematics is an area of study that requires a deeper level of understanding from both the student and the teacher. This change is the result of numerous factors each demanding a rethink of our pedagogy for mathematics and has led to calls for specialist teachers and professional development for teachers of mathematics in Primary schools.

Increasingly Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are viewed as focus areas for national growth and the emergence of an innovation driven economy. Most recently in response to the Australian Federal Government’s ‘Innovation & Science Agenda’ the Office of the Chief Scientist released a paper that specifically calls for enhanced teaching in Mathematics. 'Mathematics is central. Student success in STEM is dependent upon an understanding of mathematics and the ability to apply it.’ (OCS 2015 p4) This paper points to research that shows teacher education candidates have ‘either a poor mathematical background, or significant gaps in their mathematical knowledge’ and 'displayed significant levels of ‘mathematics anxiety’ (OCS 2015 p3). This finding is backed by primary principals who report 51% of graduates ‘could not teach mathematics to a reasonable level’ (OCS 2015 p4). While at a secondary level students encounter specialists in Mathematics and Science, research shows that students make choices about their career pathway during their primary years (Broadley 2015). The lack of exposure to teachers who are confident in the delivery of Mathematics education or who are not passionate about the subject is likely to hamper continued study in STEM fields. Beliefs about the level of ability required to cope with Mathematics or STEM courses at more advanced levels of study plays a role here and anxiety about the content is transferred from teacher to student (McDonagh & Ferguson 2015). 

In response to this deficit the Office of the Chief Scientist (2015) calls for a three pronged attack; increase the prestige of teachers by lifting entry requirements for teacher education along with the provision of specialist teacher support and enhanced professional development programmes for pre-service and existing teachers. The report looks to the practice of high performing systems such as Singapore that provides 100 hours of professional development to its teachers every year. Importantly the report identifies the role for Principals in driving STEM innovation; ‘Change begins at the top, requiring an understanding from principals that STEM is vital; that teachers require time to master it, and to collaborate; and that progress can be achieved and ought to be expected through a whole-of-school approach.’ Such commitment to change needs to be built upon a clear understanding of what quality age appropriate pedagogy for STEM and in particular Mathematics is and within existing systems this knowledge is rare. While teaching in Science, Technology and Engineering may be largely absent from Primary Schools, Mathematics teaching is well entrenched and occupies a significant part of any school’s timetabled learning. Bringing about change in the practices utilised will require a shift in thinking about the nature of mathematics not just more of the same. In many instances our current approach to mathematics is deeply flawed. 

One critic of existing mathematics education is Conrad Wolfram the founder of Wolfram Research Europe and brother of Stephen Wolfram, maker of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha. It is a family with maths running through its veins. Conrad identifies a problem in how we teach mathematics 'Those learning it think it's disconnected, uninteresting and hard. Those trying to employ them think they don't know enough. Governments realize that it's a big deal for our economies, but don't know how to fix it. And teachers are also frustrated'. (Wolfram 2010) The problem comes from the underlying beliefs about what mathematics education should be about and the disconnect between this and maths outside of schools. Mathematics education in schools is comprised of 'dumbed-down problems, lots of calculating, mostly by hand.’ (Wolfram 2010) In the real world according to Wolfram maths is very popular but it is used by people for a purpose, not pure mathematics and not the calculation heavy model of schools. The short answer is to move away from a desire to make the simple aspects of mathematics hard by preventing the use of tools that do this part of mathematics very well. Teach a mathematics that leverages the power of computers and in doing so shift the focus onto the mathematical thinking that is essential for deep understanding and real world applications. As Wolfram puts it 'Stop teaching calculating. Start teaching math’. (Wolfram 2010)

What this means is that we should be spending more time on developing the ability to ask mathematical questions, more time on checking that a mathematical solution is viable and relevant to the problem and then spending more time on making sense of the answer. Between the asking of mathematical questions and making sense of the result lies calculations but Wolfram is emphatic that this step should not occupy the 80% of maths learning presently devoted to it. The use of computers and calculators in mathematics education has always been contentious. Most students of mathematics will at some point argue that they should be permitted to use calculators in their lessons. Hand calculation is believed to enhance the recall and understanding of mathematical concepts but perhaps we are focusing on the wrong concepts. Empowered by computers and calculators we should expect students to engage effectively with Mathematics at a deeper level with greater levels of real world application than is enabled by repetition of algorithms or manipulations of arcane formulae. To what end do we labour table-facts at the expense of engagement with a mathematics that is genuinely relevant and of use within a STEM context?

Beyond shifting our focus from teaching calculations to teaching maths is a world of new possibilities for the learning of mathematics through emerging technology. Mathematics is essential to STEM as it plays a role in all disciplines but it is in the integration of mathematical learning with the other disciplines that new opportunities emerge. Taking mathematical thinking and combining it with robotics, computer coding and engineering brings new layers of meaning and engagement. A child solving a problem within a robotics project will be forced to apply mathematical thinking but is unlikely to identify the task as boring or irrelevant as it is immediately relevant to the task. An example of this can be seen when students are given the task of programming a SPHERO robot. SPHERO is a small acrylic ball that uses a combination of motors and gyros to move from place to place. It can be controlled directly from a smart-phone or programmed to follow coded instructions. An engaging challenge for students that SPHERO makes possible is programing it to complete a maze. This engages students in calculations of speed, distance, time, angles and acceleration. The device provides immediate feedback and students are able to quickly test multiple iterations of their code. In a collaborative environment ideas and learning are shared and students quickly fine tune their programmes.

Increasingly schools are experimenting with ‘Making’ and with this, further opportunities for mathematical thinking emerge. Through projects that incorporate traditional timber crafts, 3D printing, small scale manufacturing, electronics and computing the world of making presents boundless new challenges for educators. In this sort of environment mathematical learning is one of the tools to be mastered and its relevance is inescapable. This is the sort of environment that all students need access to but it is an environment that is still uncommon in Primary schools and one that challenges teacher abilities. As schools begin to pursue new options in this sphere great care must be taken to support teachers as they move their teaching into these new domains. Without the relevant pedagogical content knowledge ‘Makerspaces' are likely to be little more than extra-curricular add-ons with only tenuous connections to the real curriculum.

What is needed is an ongoing conversation around what Mathematics education could and should look like. Conrad Wolfram poses questions about the teaching of Mathematics that should be considered in this conversation; 'Why are we teaching people math? What's the point of teaching people math? And in particular, why are we teaching them math in general?’ In seeking answers to these questions we may better understand what it is about Mathematics that makes it worth learning and with that answer in mind a clear vision for what it means to 'learn' mathematics might emerge.  

by Nigel Coutts

Kate Broadley (2015) Entrenched gendered pathways in science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Engaging girls through collaborative career development Australian Journal of Career Development Vol 24 (1) 27-38

McDonagh, M. & Ferguson, T. (2015) Accenture finds more than half of 12-year-old girls in the UK and Ireland believe STEM subjects are too difficult to learn. Accenture Accessed online 1.11.2015 

Roslyn Prinsley and Ewan Johnston (2015) Transforming STEM Teaching In Australian Primary Schools - Office of the Chief Scientist 

Conrad Wolfram (2010) Teaching kids real maths with computers. TED Talk

The Joy of Teaching

For teachers in Australia the year is drawing rapidly to a close. It is a time for packing away classrooms, taking down displays of student learning and saying farewell to students as they move on to new classes. It is also a time for reflecting on the journey that has led to this point and the adventures that have occurred along the way. This annual cycle of endings and new beginnings is one of the unique aspects of teaching; one of the many opportunities and challenges that make teaching somewhat different to other professions.

To the general public the appeal of teaching is too often simplified to the benefits of the vacation time available. To teachers these days are understood as the much needed time to recover from a performance schedule that places great demands on our mental and physical resources. Each day in classrooms across the world teachers are doing their act, performing for their audience and using their understanding of pedagogy and curriculum to provide learning experiences that meet the needs of every student. At the ending of one year it is worth taking a moment to ponder what is so remarkable about teaching as a profession.

The new year will bring with it a new beginning, with new students and families to know and understand. It will bring with it patterns that are well versed around programmes that have survived the yearly review, events such as camps and routines of meetings and interviews. We begin the uphill climb again with new students and some new turnings along the way. The path to the top is never quite the same but we pass familiar places along the way. This mix of the familiar with the ever changing nature of teaching and learning ensures boredom in the role of teaching is easily avoided. Meeting the unique set of challenges our students bring with them, forces us to continually invent new solutions. Change is an inevitable part of teaching.

Beyond the changes that each new set of students bring with them comes the opportunities for change that new technologies and teaching methods bring. The affordances of technology bring new opportunities and effective teachers and schools will strive to evaluate the options as they emerge and integrate those with the greatest promise. The challenge is to pick the real gems from the assortment of shiny new options that are quickly found to be lacking real merit. Education’s rapid embrace of fads is well noted and yet difficult to avoid. Some emerging trends are showing great promise but require a significant shift in how we engage our students. Shifts towards STEM or STEAM bring challenges to our pedagogical content knowledge and our operational structures. For many the ongoing roll out of the National Curriculum brings another set of challenges as we interpret the new outcomes and blend these with our existing practice.

Each year also seems to bring a more detailed and scientifically based understanding of how we learn. This expanding science of learning informed by MRI based brain research is changing our view of intelligence and revealing brains that possess a potential for change and malleability that we previously felt was not possible. This brings a need to shift our thinking about what intelligence is and how we may facilitate the greatest success of all our students. Integrating this research with understandings of leaners uncovered in the classroom presents new challenges for teachers and ensures there is always something new to explore.

New students, new methods, new technologies and new understandings mean teaching is a career that should never be routine. While a few teachers cling to their long favoured programmes and methods with unwavering commitment such behaviour is increasingly uncommon. Evolution, revolution and innovation is increasingly the norm. A key driver of this is the spirit of collegiality and sharing that is such an essential element of the profession. Teachers have always loved talking about teaching; just ask the non-teacher friends who get stuck at social events amidst a group of teachers. This collegiality has gained a boost from social networks such as Twitter and FaceBook. Social networking has made it possible to build connections with teachers at a global scale and ensures ideas spread alongside meaningful evaluations of what works and does not. The image of an isolated teacher alone with a class should exist no more as we make connections and share our experiences.

Every job brings with it elements we wish we could spend less time on and teaching is not immune. It is a profession under a public spotlight with a role to play within politics and in the shaping of society. Our schools and our teaching plays an important part in creating the future and preserving the past. Accountability and external control are inescapable elements of the education landscape. How we respond to these pressures and the manner in which we frame our profession requires care and vision. If the shape of education is to be determined by teachers and not the whim of politicians then we must more effectively communicate how we may best meet the needs of all stakeholders.

While change is unavoidable the most rewarding aspect of education as a profession seems to remain constant. As a group teachers are a wonderful set of people to spend time with. Maybe it is linked to the factors that bring us to the profession in the first part, that desire to help others to improve. Maybe it is the shared experience that comes from the challenges we face in the classroom. The heart of every school is its people and it is the communal spirit and common purpose that unites us as a profession.

Looking back at the end of the year allows for reflection on the greatest reward teaching brings. Across the year our students transform in front of our eyes and while the day to day change is too small to notice the cumulative effect from the start of the year to the end is plain to see. Few professions allow you to play such a significant role in the growth and development of an individual as teaching does. Our efforts directly influence the direction our students will take, the futures they will live and the ideals they will value. Those moments when you are able to see the influence you have had are the most valuable and the ones that bring us back each year with fresh enthusiasm.

What does intelligence look like?

How might we define intelligence? What do we mean when we speak of intelligence and what evidence do we seek when we look for it? Is it a singular, fixed attribute determined at birth or does it vary across time and environment? These are questions educators have struggled with for years and thanks to improvements in brain science are questions that today can be given more complete answers. But away from the world of high-tech laboratory research and MRI analysis or neural patterns what evidence of intelligence is seen by teachers and what does this tell us about how our students learn and how we may maximise their potential?

For much of its history schooling has been obsessed with one type of intelligence as evidenced by what is given time within the learning day and that which is the focus of assessment. Indeed, pedagogy, curriculum and assessment within schools has delivered a clear and consistent message about what constitutes intelligence. Knowledge, defined as the recall of information, literacy, defined as the ability to read and write and numeracy, defined as the ability to calculate, have formed the pillars of educational systems and have both framed and been framed by our view of intelligence. Further that which is worth knowing has been determined by cultural and socially constructed beliefs that value particular knowledge over others. This introduces a whole debate about the social construction of curriculum as a tool of power and control that is beyond the focus of this posting. The result of such a narrow definition of intelligence is that it has benefitted those who fit the definition and disadvantaged those who do not. Some examples from the classroom make this point clear.

Recently our Year Six students have been completing their 'Genius Hour’ projects. As is the norm for this style of project students have imagined and implemented their own projects centred on areas of personal interest. The diversity of projects as been immense and the results displayed at the final ‘Gallery Walk’ were impressive. Throughout the span of this project we noticed that some of our more ‘traditionally' capable students were struggling while others who found routine academic tasks difficult, were shining. We saw that students who thrived in an environment of direct teacher instruction concluding in a summative assessment task lacked the resilience to independently problem solve towards a solution. Meanwhile the physical dimensions of many of the projects combined with inherently immediate feedback of what works and does not work suited others who would switch off in traditional lessons. Undaunted by failures and mistakes some of the students rose to the challenge and overcame obstacles while others looked for external assistance, direction and affirmation. It was clear that for many of the ‘Genius Hour’ projects 'traditional intelligence' was neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for success.

The same can be seen on the sporting field. I recall coaching a Soccer team some years ago in which, as is often the case, one player stood out from the rest. This particular year we had an unusually strong team and many of our games were won by a large margin and yet this boy rose above what was clearly a talented group. It was more than his skill with the ball but his ability to read the play many moves ahead and then use that understanding to control the flow of the game. They say good players don’t go where the ball is, they go where it will be. This boy went a step further and through his action dictated where the ball would go so his team could capitalise on the evolving play. In class he struggled to keep up. His results on assessments were never great and on traditional measures his intelligence was low. However, if you analyse the complexity of manipulating to your advantage a field of twenty-two players, a ball, a referee, a complex set of rules and varying pitch conditions you must conclude that this boy was demonstrating a high level of intelligence. Just not the sort that matters in a typical school day.

For years now we have noticed a similar pattern during school camps. Those who seem to do the best while learning in the outdoors are not always those who do best in the classroom. It is more than just knowledge of camping skills but an intelligence that allows problems to be solved, group dynamics to be balanced and leadership to emerge. The performance differential for some between the week at camp and the week before at school can be immense. You have to wonder how impressive these students learning might be if the environment they experienced on a daily basis was more like camp.

The same story can be told for our dancers, who like the young girl in Sir Ken Robinson’s story need to move while learning and find the confinements of desk and chair restrictive and limiting. We see it in students who demonstrate advanced learning in ICT but then go beyond having knowledge and assume a leadership role they would normally avoid when presented with the right environment. Through the use of video we have unlocked the story-telling potential of students who find writing difficult. With the use of iPads in mathematics we have uncovered layers of understanding previously hidden by a poor recall of multiplication tables. Through the use of ‘SketchNoting’ to share understandings of new concepts we are uncovering a deeper learning than was revealed by a traditional essay response and from students who we previously believed had missed the point.

In special education 'Universal Design for Learning’ (UDL) is seen as a way to allow students to achieve despite identified learning difficulties. If we see intelligence as a diverse domain that is variable and manipulable through modifications to the learning environment, the learning task and the mode of engagement, then UDL should be seen as the norm not the exception. Instead of a deterministic one-size fits all approach to education based on a singular model of intelligence, we should always be seeking ways to engage our learner’s potential and empower them to leverage and importantly expand their strengths.

If you want to develop a more complete understanding of intelligence and its changeability and variability read 'New Kinds of Smart: How the science of learnable intelligence is changing education' by Bill Lucas & Guy Claxton It will help you to see and value the many forms of intelligence that exist within your classroom.

By Nigel Coutts

Suggested Readings to Inspire Teaching

With the end of the year approaching and holidays looming for some now is the ideal time to share some suggestions for books and papers to read. A great book can provide the inspiration required to begin the new year positively and this list includes some of my favourites from 2015. In no particular order here is my list of top ten reads to inspire quality learning and promote discussion. 

1.    Future Wise: Educating our Children for a Changing World by David Perkins
How do you answer the 'uppity question’ from a student who wants to know why they need to learn what you are teaching? Do you reply that they need it to do well in the test or are you confident that it is learning they will need to do well in life? In this book Perkins examines what we teaching in schools and makes recommendations for a shift in focus. A key idea introduced early and unpacked throughout the book is the idea of ‘Life Worthy’; learning that is 'likely to matter in the lives learners are likely to live’. Future Wise is jargon free and a great book to share with colleagues, it will help you rethink what you spend time on in class and clarify how you see the role and purpose of education. 

2.    Who owns the learning? Preparing students for success in the digital age by Alan November
The title alone is worth pondering, ‘Who does own the learning?’ If the best learning occurs while the unit is being programmed, if the students have little say in the direction their learning takes then how are we preparing them for their learning futures. Alan has a solid understanding of the implications of technology for learning and combines this with student centred pedagogical approaches to describe a model of education that empowers young learners to take charge of their learning. For teachers the challenge is to get out of the way of the spectacular learning that their children are capable of. 

3.    Learning by Choice: 10 ways choice and differentiation create an engaged learning experience for every student by A.J. Juliani
Students appreciate choice just as much as adults do and are more likely to engage with the learning they choose. Inflexible curriculums full of content that is not personally meaningful is hard to sell to students but a ruler understanding of the purpose of the curriculum and a desire to include choice can transform this. Through the inclusion of passion projects, twenty-percent time and genius-hour teachers are giving students choice in their learning and the benefits are enhanced learning and highly engaged students. If you are looking to give your students choice then this book is the perfect starting point.
 

4.    The Smartest Kids in the World: and how they got that way by Amanda Ripley
Globalisation of education and the rise of international assessments such as PISA has lead to comparisons of national education systems. In this book Amanda Ripley investigates the experience American exchange students have learning in some of the worlds top-ranked educational systems. The experience they share reveals that the true nature of the success of these systems can not be found in the league tables. From South-Korea to Poland to Finland each system has particular advantages and disadvantages and there are no quick fixes to be found. Beyond the hype of global education leaders this book paints a more human story of schools around the world through the eyes of the students.
 

5.    Creative Schools: Revolutionising Education from the Ground Up by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica
Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 TED Talk has reached and inspired a global audience on a new scale for educators. It has inspired teachers to seek ways to educate that do not kill creativity but it has one missing piece, the how to element. In ‘Creative ‘Schools’ Robinson sets out to make the process of school transformation achievable in a practical manner. With advice and strategies ranging in scale from the classroom to the system this book is an ideal tool for any teacher inspired by Robinson’s speeches. 
 

6.    New Kinds of Smart: How the science of learnable intelligence is changing education by Bill Lucas & Guy Claxton
Intelligence is neither fixed or a unitary concept, it is changeable, learnable and varied. Understanding what this mens for education should have a profound effect on how we teach and how we see our student’s abilities. The book explains what intelligence is how, the varied forms it takes and offers practical advice on how new research can provide insights for how we learn. The authors deserve praise for the way they present complex material in such an accessible way that is entirely readable by time-poor teachers. 

7.    Reading the Visual: An introduction to teaching multimodal literacy by Frank Serafini
 We live in an increasingly visual world and this requires a new literacy that combines the various elements of the visual into a compoundable text. Serafini’s book is full of practical advice for teachers of visual literacy based on a clear understanding of how multimedia texts are constructed and are open to various readings. With a set of model units for teachers to follow the book is sure to enhance your teaching of Visual Literacy. 

8.    Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools by Ron Ritchhart
In this book Ron Ritchhart outlines the eight cultural forces required for successful schools and the development of thinking cultures. Understanding get eight forces is the first step towards school wide transformation. For schools with an interest in 'Making Thinking Visible' or 'Habits of Mind’ the eight forces are an essential element that take these already effective strategies to a higher level where they can be fully embraced. 
 

9.    Rethinking National Curriculum Collaboration: Towards an Australian Curriculum by Prof. Alan Reid
If you are interested in knowing what the Australian Curriculum could have been like then you should read this report. It presents a view of curriculum in which the content is a vehicle for learning of broad skills and dispositions that are widely transferable. In this model students would learn twenty-first century skills through content. This shift away from content as the goal of teaching would have allowed a curriculum with flexibility to respond to local need and individual needs while ensuring that essential aspects of a long-life education where adequately addressed. Reid’s model provided us with the ‘General Capabilities’ of he present curriculum but shows how these could have been the essential ingredient of a modern curriculum. There are lessons here for anyone with an interest in curriculum design. 
 

10.    Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential by Carol Dweck
The notion of fixed vs growth mindsets has become a common feature in educational dialogue but the implications of this are not always fully understood. This book is essential reading for teachers looking to achieve the maximum benefit from Dweck’s ideas. Beyond the oversimplified explanations often shared this book takes you into the true nature of the mindsets and shows how the reality of their interactions and the potential for transforming one’s thinking is more complex. 

Also worth a look: 
1.    Creating innovators: The making of young people who will change the world by Tony Wagner
2.    Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing our kids for the innovation era by Tony Wagner & Ted Dintersmith
3.    Invent to Learn: making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom by Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary Stager
4.    Limits to self-organising systems of learning—the Kalikuppam experiment by Sugata Mitra & Ritu Dangwal

And something Different

5.    Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

by Nigel Coutts

Making as Problem Based Learning

Recently many of our Year Six students have been involved in projects that require them to utilise the brain of a maker. Facing challenges involving the exploration of how everyday objects are manufactured and while responding to their ‘Genius Hour’ ambitions they are facing a new set of problems and discovering the joy that comes from solving these with their hands as much as their brains.

The shift back towards a recognition of the importance of making is an interesting phenomenon to observe. Children have always enjoyed opportunities to make and through this explore ideas and solve problems. Today framed as a Maker Movement it is easy to forget this long tradition that led to the global success of companies such as Lego and Meccano. In part this movement comes from the emergence of new tools that elevate the options available to makers above what was previously possible into a realm of quasi-production. Digital tools, small-scale computers and open source software combined with 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC machines bring new options and exciting possibilities. However, even without the fancy new tools students can learn a great deal when they are offered opportunities to explore a makers mindset.

Seymour Papert, seen by many as the father of the modern Maker Movement, had it right when he wrote ‘The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge’. This captures the nature of the challenge we have faced as a group of teachers in designing a project where students would explore every-day objects; we had no idea what they might choose or how they may interact with their items but the task certainly provided the conditions for invention. Our students were given the following instructions at the start of the unit:

Using a Collaborative Inquiry process you will analyse a product that you use and consider the many decisions and processes that went into creating that item. Having analysed your chosen products and shared your knowledge with an audience, you will apply a design thinking method to develop improved and enhanced designs based on the original product that demonstrates your understanding of product design.

With that we let the students at it and over the next few days they selected their products. We did set some conditions to avoid students wanting to disassemble expensive home-goods or anything potentially dangerous. In the end the ultimate challenge was to submit their modified designs to the manufacturers of the original item and this proved to be a significant motivator towards quality and carefully considered designs.

The diversity of products discussed as possible candidates was immense and we soon had many small groups of students collaborating around the tasks of disassembling their products and determining, from the clues they found combined with access to the internet, how the product might have been manufactured. This introduced some special moments for learning that present differently when a maker mindset is applied. None of us knew how to disassemble a padlock, how the eyes on a teddy bear were applied or the best way to access the innards of an alarm clock. Immediately it became obvious that both students and teachers were learning and problem solving together. Interactions between group members and teachers centred around ‘What if . . ?’ and ‘How might . . ?’ questions. Trial and error became the norm.

This was the point where the immediacy of feedback inherent to making tasks came to the fore. Imagine a strategy, test it, does it work? If not try a different strategy. This immediacy of feedback not from a teacher but from the task itself allows for rapid iteration and with no value judgement associated with the feedback fear of failure rapidly dissolves; either your plan works or it doesn’t. The second element that ensured success was that the students were highly engaged by the challenges they faced. They had been given choice in the articles they explored, choice in how they would explore the items and choice in how they would share their learning. They were working collaboratively with their classmates but also with their teachers. Realising your teacher is just as stuck as you are turned out to be a powerful motivator towards resilience.

A more extensive version of the process has occurred for many of the students as they work to complete their ‘Genius Hour’ projects. For this students have developed intricate plans linked to their personal passions and some of these have involved the design and construction of new products. We have a room full of seamstresses discovering a myriad of problems associated with the making of dresses, learning to think inside out and remembering clothing needs to come on and off. Other students have been shaping timber for skateboards and billy-carts. Solving the problems of steering and braking has led to a mix of novel solutions. Another student has decided to craft a set of shin-pads using a design that utilises foam embedded with in fiberglass to provide better protection. Many of these students are exploring tasks that their teachers have almost no experience with and as a result we are learning together. Our combined thinking skills have been challenged, we have had to think in new ways about the resources we have at our disposal and call on expertise from outside the classroom. Often the best solution has been one offered by the students as they dive into the challenge they have set for themselves. For the teachers one of the best parts of this unit has been the puzzled looks shared between all involved and then the joy when a plan shows signs of working.

When given opportunities to reflect on their learning the students have been overwhelmingly positive about the experience. Even when things have not worked for the most part they have remained resilient and enthused by their learning. They have risen to the challenge and now as we near the finish line are enjoying the fruits of their labours. We have all learned a great deal this semester and much more than how a padlock works, how to size a dress or how to mould fiberglass. The true learning has been linked to how we might approach new learning situations in the future, how we might solve problems we have never encountered before and that we can trust in our ability to cope when we are stuck. If as Jean Piaget claims 'Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do’ then we have all made good use of ours.

By Nigel Coutts

Ten ideas from Eye on the Future

On Saturday I had the opportunity to join a group of very enthusiastic teachers to hear Alan November and Carl Jarvis speak at North Turramurra Primary School. That so many educators from across Sydney were keen to give up a Saturday is a testament to their desire to improve their teaching but also a measure of the respect these speakers garner.

Alan November is the author of ‘Who owns the learning?’ a provocative book that encourages teachers to consider who they may best ensure their students are the ones doing the learning. Alan encourages a re-assessment of how we structure our classrooms and our lessons to place the student at the centre of what is happening rather than to continue in the model where the teacher plays the role of the sage on the stage. He points to the ways in which teachers inhibit student learning when we try to take control and prevent access to the powerful learning tools that all students should have access to. Carl Jarvis is a respected educator who has shown how a passionate leader can transform a school. His story of the transformation of a school from fifth worse to outstanding is compelling. Together this pair ensured a rewarding day of learning and chance to consider how we may enhance the learning that occurs in our classrooms. Here is a little taste of what was shared.

1. Our students need to be able to publish their ideas to real audiences - This was a recurring theme that was perhaps best illustrated by the example of Miller Wilson a boy from the Australian bush who was discovered thanks to his YouTube channel by Ellen DeGeneres. His latest video on catching eels has had over 200,000 views. The other amazing example of students using YouTube to share their learning with a real audience is mathtrain.tv a student created series of mathematical tutorials where the success of the content can be measured by the thousands of people viewing each video. 
2. There are amazing learning resources just waiting for you to find them - Harvard’s most popular course ‘Introduction to Computer Science’ for example is available online and free. edX offers course in a wide range of disciplines from Architecture to Law to Social Sciences and they are all free and online. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is available and students in schools can and do make use of these courses. The question is how does your school’s computer science course measure up? How will you compete and why would you try?
3. Wolfram Alpha is a massively under utilised tool for learning - If you have not explored Wolfram Alpha with your students you really should. Not just for its amazing computational engines utility for mathematics but for how it brings a new level of analysis to all manner of learning. Try asking it to analyse ‘Romeo & Juliet’ just as an example of how a computer makes sense of a piece of literature in ways a human can’t. it brings a new perspective.
4. Prism brings collaborative interpretation of text to the classroom - Around the world right now countless students are reading texts and highlighting the parts they find interesting, the parts they don’t understand and the parts they might plagiarise later. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could make visible the highlighting of your entire class in a way that revealed what areas of the text gained the most attention. This is exactly what Prism does. You set it ups with the text and highlighting scheme for the class to use; maybe red for 'I don’t understand', orange for 'I think I get', green for ‘I understand'. Students read the text and use the highlight function to respond and then Prism shows you a colour coded word cloud where the frequency of highlights corresponds to the relative size of the words. - View Online
5. We are not very effective users of Google - How often do we type in a search term and then just use the top two or three results ignoring the 897,791 other options. Do we know how the results are generated or how reliable they are? Do we know how to refine our results so we are finding what we really want? Alan November encourages us to use Google to find the best information in the world and showed the audience how to do. One of the keys is using Googles sixteen operators to refine your search. Fortunately Google is keen to help its users become more effective and empowered users and as such provides guides - View Online
6. Learning is more important than knowing - How do you respond when confronted by a question that you don’t know the answer to? Do you see this as an opportunity for collaborative learning with the person asking the question? A chance to show that you are both teacher and learner? If we value learning more than we value teaching then the difficult question will never cause us fear. this approach can be extended to the use of technology and allow you to accept a students Minecraft project even if you don’t fully understand how they did it.
7. 78% of students don’t enjoy school - This is rather frightening statistic shared by Carl Jarvis. He adds that more testing is unlikely to change this figure. But learning is powerful motivating force in itself and humans do love to learn, it is what makes us human. So why don’t children enjoy schools? Does it have something to do with who owns the learning?
8. Use Twitter to share your classes learning with the world and to see how the world is learning - A class Twitter account allows you to connect with a mixture of school around the world and enables a shared learning experience for your students. The real power comes when your students ask you ton include the learning experiences they have seen other students enjoy through their online connection.
9. Six strategies for school transformation from Alan November:
   1. Teach web literacy in assignments
   2. Ask deeper questions and encourage and teach the students to do the same
   3. Use Making Thinking Visible
   4. Encourage authentic conversations
   5. Allow students to make a contribution - to the class and globally - knowledge construction
   6. Show students the best in the world - knowledge, ideas, learning
10. Be brave and confront change - Use your support network to help you confront change and help you push through your barriers. Change occurs at the point where you force your brain to create new connections and new pathways but fear stands in the way of this and it is too easy to return to your default position.

Thanks to the team at North Turramurra Primary School for a great day of learning and to Alan November and Carl Jarvis for their time and commitment to education.

By Nigel Coutts

Collaboration & Connectedness the Key to Quality Teaching

Most teachers recognise the potential for collaboration between students and the importance of it as a component of a 21st Century education and yet many do not take full advantage of the opportunities they have for collaboration as teachers. Others have found the benefits and willingly share ideas gathered from their personal learning network and contribute to Twitter chats and attend Teach Meets. For those who have discovered the possibilities that come from being a connected educator this story may help to affirm your participation, for those yet to join the discussion you may just find that spark that encourages your involvement.

Twelve months ago inspired by a course based on ‘Making Thinking Visible’ a group of teachers decided to use Twitter to share their journey towards a ‘culture of thinking’. An online chat was created to facilitate this using #cotchat to bring educators together and share stories of how visible thinking routines were used in their classroom. Over time this became a termly meeting of minds and after each session all those involved went back to their classrooms invigorated by new ideas. From this I have discovered new routines, refined my use of some old favourites and discovered ways to use thinking routines across disciplines based on the expertise of subject specialists. That this group was a mix of Senior School and Primary School teachers only acted to open new avenues for exploration. Those new to the use of thinking routines undoubtedly gained confidence from these chats and were able to have their questions answered.

Most recently cultures of thinking became the focal point for a Teach Meet and this provided an opportunity to meet face to face those with whom we have shared a year long learning journey. Teachers do love the opportunity to share stories from the classroom and thanks to the growing number of Teach Meets this is becoming easier. No longer is there a need to feel isolated within your classroom or even school.

During the most recent #cotchat discussion I floated the idea of having students draw what their thinking looks like. I had seen a similar method used years early when working with a group of teachers implementing a Middle School model. As a team building task we each drew our brains. It was an interesting way to share our thinking and feelings as we embarked on the adventure of creating a school within a school. More recently the idea of using drawings as a window into student thinking about the use of technology was encouraged by our IT coordinator. This was based on a paper by Walt Haney, Michael Russell and Damian Bebell of Boston College. The authors describe a long history of using student drawings within research and as evidence for analysing the effect of educational interventions. They conclude that using drawings can be a powerful tool for documenting and making visible student thinking and feelings. Such an idea fits well with visible thinking where the desire is to make visible the thinking of the students in diverse ways, recorded for future discussion and as a part of the assessment process. In visible thinking students will often use mindmaps, diagrams, notes or drawing to illustrate their understanding of a concept. In this instance I was looking to engage them in a metacognitive process of reflecting on how they think and learn. This was the seed of the idea but a piece was missing.

Teachers who have spent time online have probably encountered the sketch-noting skills of Sylvia Duckworth. Sylvia has a great skill for representing complex ideas in easily understood drawings that are at once comprehensible and beautiful to look at. This was the style of drawing I imagined would perfectly suit the task of students drawing their thinking and I shared this thought online. Thanks to the collaborative utility of Twitter this idea was spotted by Sylvia who most generously shared a slideshow she created as an introduction to sketch-noting. This all occurred in a matter of minutes and the next day I was armed with the resources I needed. That morning I shared the slideshow with my class, told them of how Sylvia used sketch-noting and how I wanted them to borrow ideas from the slideshow to share with me what their thinking or learning looked like. The results were so much more involved and revealing than I had expected and I am certain the students would not have been able to engage with the task as they did without the samples from Sylvia.

Impressed by the results I shared some samples online with the #cotchat community and by the end of the day was able to share Sylvia’s response with the class who were most excited to hear that their thinking had been seen by the teacher who had inspired their drawings.

This is in many ways a simple story of sharing an idea online, having it validated by colleagues and through that connection finding the right resource to make the idea happen. It fits into a bigger story of how we become a stronger profession when we connect and share our ideas. It shows the real benefits of collaboration and connectedness for our students and reveals how thanks to the tools made available by social networks it becomes possible to make real connections with teachers across the globe. It also reveals that even little ideas are worth sharing and hopefully encourages more teachers to share their little ideas so that others may benefit from the many great things happening in schools everywhere.

By Nigel Coutts with sketch-notes by the students of 6C

Ten reasons to teach thinking

The teaching of thinking is a critical endeavour for teachers and one that brings enhanced learning opportunities for students. Unfortunately thinking is not something that we naturally do well and as a consequence it is a skill we need to learn. Understanding this is the first step towards establishing a culture of thinking in your classroom but encouraging an entire school to get on board with this can be difficult and given our already crowded curriculum anything that seems to add to the load is likely to be resisted. Here then are ten arguments to use with colleagues, parents and most importantly students that might help you convince them of the need to learn how to think.

One

Normal education does not improve general reasoning - However; In programmes that target reasoning with specific elements, reasoning is improved - David Perkins

The best programmes are integrated with the standard curriculum, they are not an optional extra - Robert Swartz

Two

Teaching students what to do in the world, what to know, how to behave is EBNE - Excellent But Not Enough - Edward De Bono

Students require opportunities for:

• acquiring and integrating knowledge
• extending and refining knowledge
• using learning meaningfully

Robert Marzano

Three

What makes the good creative ideas stand out from the 3000 others, what do the creative people behind the good ideas have that others don’t:

• Curiosity
• Problem Solvers - This is the easy part
• Problem Finders - This is the part that differentiates them as it is finding the right problems (hard) and then solving it (easy) that means you have a chance of changing the world

Pick the right thing to do and then work hard

Ewan McIntosh

Four

Our lessons should always include Content + driven by the students finding the SO WHAT? - Now you know it SO WHAT? or Now you know it what are you going to do with it or about it?

The 'So What?' leads to student initiated inquiry out of the prescribed content and brings the students passions into the classroom and takes their learning into the world.

Guy Claxton & Lane Clark

Five

If nothing has changed in long term memory then nothing has been learned . . .

An instructional recommendation that does not or cannot specify what has been changed in long term memory; or that does not increase the efficiency with which relevant information is stored in, or retrieved from, long term memory is likely to be ineffective. (Sweller, 1988)

Understanding cognitive architecture allows us to better understand how we learn

Lane Clark

Six

Cognitive Load Theory

Three loads to consider in planning for learning:

• Intrinsic load - inherent intellectual complexity of the task, you can only reduce this so far without the task becoming meaningless
• Extrinsic load - how material is presented, environmental factors, modes of responding, you can make real differences here
• Germane load - motivation, interest, task relevance, buy-in. This is all about engagement and learning that matters to the learner - life worthy learning according to David Perkins author of 'Futurewise'

Three questions to ask that enhance learning:

• How can you decrease intrinsic load?
• How can you decrease extraneous load?
• How can you increase germane load?

Seven

Cultivating learning habits depends on:

• How you talk (what you name)
• What you notice (and ignore)
• What you display
• How you design activities
• How you design space
• How you assign time

A culture is a ‘nutrient medium’ for nurturing growth

Cultures of thinking are places in which a group’s collective, as well as individual thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted as part of the regular day-today experience of all group members

Guy Claxton

Eight

A Metalanguage of Learning

Successful schools create a common language for learning and thinking through a process of collaboration that involves students, teachers, parents and the community and is the foundation for metacognition - A shared language for talking about learning and thinking is an essential step in building a culture of thinking.

Nine

Students have impoverished models of what good thinking is like . . . therefore:

• We need to teach our students to think
• We need to teach our students how to think
• We need to teach our students to recognise the need for thinking 
• We need to empower their thinking with tools, strategies and scaffolds and overtime allow them to select the right tool for their thinking
• We need to ultimately produce students who can and who do think who have a disposition to quality thinking

Ten

Children who have become:

• resilient - have a growth mindset
• imaginative
• curious
• collegial
• and enthusiastic readers

fare better in life AND do better on the test

If we teach our children to think then they will do better on the test and they will do better in life.

by Nigel Coutts

Revisiting Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

In 2001 Marc Prensky divided the world into two broad groups, Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. His idea struck a chord with popular culture and has become a dominant paradigm in education. Since then the concept of Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants has been widely discussed, debated and through this much of what was originally stated by Prensky has been misunderstood while other parts have been shown to not quite fit reality. Given the core concept remains a feature of educational dialogues it is worth re-visiting and seeing how the idea might evolve to better serve our needs and understandings of how people born after the internet, learn with and think about, technology. 

Core to the concept is the construction of a group of people termed Digital Natives, describing those who were born into a world of digital technologies. 'Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.’ according to Prensky. This idea of young people being native speakers is essential, it impacts how they approach learning tasks, social interactions, multi-tasking, distractions and gratification of needs. This group of people take technology for granted and have expertise 'acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice’. By comparison Digital Immigrants are those born prior to the widespread dissemination of digital technologies. They will at best come to see the affordances of this new technology but will as Marc describes retain an ‘accent’ that gives them away. This accent is seen in their propensity to utilise digital technology after trying other methods, of falling back on old ways of completing tasks and of relying on the habits from a pre-digital age. 

As with many ideas which may be simply stated Prensky’s world of ‘Digital Natives and Immigrants’ has been oversimplified and misunderstood. In part this is the danger that comes with relying upon a cultural metaphor and a consequence of society’s love affair with neat dichotomies. The reality of cultural groupings is always more complex than can be readily described and subcultural leanings and individual dispositions towards their cultural heritage significantly influence ones personal cultural narrative. A closer look at our Digital Natives and Immigrants reveals unsurprisingly a wide variety of narratives centred around engagement with technology and when applied to the classroom these narratives tell a story of how technology will fit with the learning that occurs. 

Perhaps the first story to be told is that our Digital Natives do not all experience or value technology in the same ways. Prensky’s natives seem to come from a world dominated by fast paced gaming and MTV. This is clearly not the case for all natives and in a world where social gaming is becoming dominant the pace is changing alongside new styles of interaction. There is also the gendered aspect of this description as ‘fast-twitch’ first person shooter type games were never the norm across genders. Nor has the experience of technology remained constant across the years. Young people born today might take technology for granted but they very much expect it to fade into the background. At its extreme there is almost a counter culture emerging against pervasive technology that is not in the service of individual needs. Shiny new toys do not have the alure that they once did and technology that gets in the way, requires any degree of learning curve or is not built into an existing ecosystem is shunned. For another emerging group of students, a division between technology as a social tool and technology as an unwanted or unappreciated aspect of their learning can be seen. Students who are happy to use technology to message their friends but fail to see the utility, that same technology can bring to their learning, are becoming a larger group who need to be reminded that they have access to all the worlds information in their pockets, if they just choose to use it. 

Much of the assumption around the Digital Natives is that they should be able to call on their vast experience with digital technologies to learn and collaborate in new and exciting ways. That the only obstacle to this is that their Immigrant instructors stand in the way of this occurring. The reality is that our Digital Natives do not have experiences that allow them to learn in the wider sense required for todays creative and innovative world. They may in some cases have skills required to learn new tools but they combine that skill with impoverished models for thinking and inquiring that prevent them from using their digital skills in meaningful ways. They rely on instant gratification from game play but lack the required grit and resilience to move forward when this is lacking. Our Digital Natives still need to be shown how to learn and how to use their digital tools for learning.  

On the other side is the oversimplification of the place that technology plays in the lives of Digital Immigrants. Prensky kept this at the level of an ever present accent that can be detected by the native speaker. This interpretation is not common and the term Digital Immigrant carries with it an assumption that members of this group just don’t get technology and that the older you are the less likely you are to use technology. The reality is that it is not one’s age which determines one’s level of engagement with technology but one’s disposition towards it. Some of the most successful integrators of technology I have encountered are (in my politest voice) ‘older members’ of the profession. They see the affordances of the technology and are able to weave its use into their teaching in meaningful ways. Whats more, they ensure their students are active partners in learning, their classroom is a shared space and they allow at every turn for quality learning to be owned by the students. Like all effective teachers they use technology to enhance long-life learning and they help their students to recognise the many tools they have available. They may retain an accent as Prensky describes but counter to the implications of many of the oversimplifications of his writing, they do not present a qualitative divide. 

We are beginning to see the first Digital Natives return to our schools as teachers and while they bring with them an experience of schooling arguably tainted by the beliefs of Digital Immigrants we could expect to see a difference in approach. As with all individuals the differences between new graduates has more to do with their individuality than with their membership of a particular group or more importantly their birthday. Yes, they assume access to the internet, they are aware of certain digital tool sets but they are also unaware of many of the skills and tools considered important for success in a digital age. Coding skills remain rare for example and strategies for the use of technology for critical thinking and innovation are as wide spread in this group as amongst their older colleagues. Clearly their is much room for ongoing learning and the construction of a pedagogy with technology at its core is yet to become a natural part of teacher training programmes.  

Prensky’s analysis continues to spark debate and that is a positive thing. The reality of how our supposedly Digital Natives or Immigrants engage with technology and learning reveals a more complex landscape than a simple dichotomy allows for. A richer subcultural analysis is required where individual narratives of technology's meanings may be revealed.  

By Nigel Coutts

Marc Prensky, (2001),"Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1", On the Horizon, Vol. 9 Iss 5 pp. 1 - 6

Education: Competition vs Collaboration

In a time where much of the debate around education is linked to performance on national and international assessments such as PISA, TIMMS, PIRLS and in Australia, NAPLAN combined with calls for market-driven reforms there is a danger that a climate of competition between schools and systems will grow. Such competition while potentially inspiring systems to identify areas for growth may also give rise to a desire to keep ideas that deliver results a secret. What is most interesting is that this potential for competitive secrecy occurs at a time when teachers are increasingly empowered to share and collaborate across schools and systems on an international scale.

Attend a teach meet and you will see many of the strengths of educational systems on display. Firstly, teachers are passionate about what they do and bring creativity, innovation and evidenced based practice to the solution of every-day challenges faced. Teachers are enthusiastic sharers and see the benefits of collaborations within the profession. Teachers are appreciative and supportive of the intellectual activity of their peers and provide nurturing feedback that allows good ideas to become great. Teachers are highly professional, committed to learning and dedicated to ongoing professional development that will deliver results in their classrooms. Lastly it is always apparent that there exists a wealth of amazing ideas within the educational community waiting to be shared and that by engaging in this sort of collaboration you are highly likely to find that solution you have been looking for.

Physical teach meets are great but with social networking the opportunities for virtual collaborations continue to improve. Twitter, Skype, Facebook, ScoopIt, Google Apps for Education (GAFE) all offer opportunities for sharing and collaboration on a global scale. Thanks to such tools it has become feasible that educators can source all of their learning and teaching resource requirements from a pool of ideas created, evaluated and curated by teachers. Such a body of resources is placing pressure on publishers of text books and related resources as teachers increasingly find better options available from colleagues and shared at no cost. The development of this shared tool set requires ongoing two-way collaboration where the value derived from sharing a resource comes from the access it provides in return.

This is where competition is potentially most harmful. If my access to a resource provides my students and my school or system with an advantage am I more or less likely to share that in a competitive market-driven economy? Beyond this is a system likely to invest in developing new programmes that involve an element of risk compared to adopting a widely used commercial solution already adopted by those viewed as competitors? In the world of IT the saying ‘No one was ever fired for buying IBM’ reflected not that they had the best option but that this was the safe option. Competition in a market where success or failure is determined by a narrow, clearly defined measure such as that provided by national and international assessment programmes is unlikely to ever deliver innovation.

The use of these measures not only stifles creative teaching but limits student exposure to creative learning. The trend to following the leaders in the league tables on PISA has most recently shifted the focus from Finland to China. Yong Zhao, Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon and influential speaker on education advises caution. China’s success on PISA has come at a high cost to its students and within China there are calls for a more human approach to education. Zhao shares concerns over the demands and pressure that stellar performance on high stakes testing places on students. 'That’s the secret: when you spend all your time preparing for tests, and when students are selected based on their test-taking abilities, you get outstanding test scores. But is this what we want for our children?’ (Zhao, Y 2010) Further analysis of PISA results reveal a negative correlation between results and confidence in entrepreneurial capabilities (Zhao, Y 2012) indicating that what these tests measure and create may not equate with the ideal graduate disposition innovative industries are hoping for.

Further the sort of competition driven by these ‘High Stake' assessments hides the underlying social, racial and gender issues that allow a system to produce great results for some but not all of its students. Sue Thomson writes 'The results from the latest PISA assessment have shown that Australia does have a world-class education system - for most students - but there's much work to do to raise the achievement level of Indigenous, remote and poor students.’ A nation’s results on PISA readily hides the results it achieves for its disadvantaged and the trend to blame teachers and schools for dips and defects at a national level shifts the blame away from deeper socio-economic factors. Raewyn Connell shares that educators know how to deliver effective education across diverse environments and needs but that this is of little use if the agenda is already set; 'contrary to the rhetoric of ‘evidence-based policy’, neo-liberal policy-making proceeds as if it already knows the answer to policy problems.’ If that answer is pre-set as market-driven reform targeted at driving improved teachers, teaching and schools the underlying inequities will go unnoticed.

Connell concludes that 'Therefore, one of the most important things that intellectual workers concerned with education can now do, is to build alternative spaces - spaces in which critique is possible, practitioner knowledge can find expression and other trajectories for education are proposed.’ I agree, now is the time for educators to collaboratively affirm what education can achieve. To work as a profession together, united in the goal of achieving excellence for all students and to do so through the sharing of our collective wisdom.

By Nigel Coutts

References

Connell, R. (2013) Why do market ‘reforms’ persistently increase inequality? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol.34(2), p.279--285.

Thomson, S. (2008). International league: Australia’s standing in international tests Teacher:The National Education Magazine, February 2008 40-43