Sue McL Education Blog: Energise Conference 2018 Day 1

An early start to the day saw me driving out to West Rolleston Primary School picking up a couple of other educators on the way - great to see Rachel Chisnall again and have a quick catch up before the day started. One of the things I love about these is the catching up with people and the day certainly gave me opportunity to do that.
These are my notes from the day - they are not edited, but give some idea of what was talked about, and a few links for further reading.

Keynote:

Ali Carr-Chellman

Engaging the disengaged learner

Difference between how boys and girls were treated.

Ted talk about this. What was happening for boys in schools

This is research after that

Tends to apply more to disengaged learners in elementary level

Bring back the boys

Active learners, we wish they looked like students who read, are engaged and are excited to be at school

Really, they are: gamers, play with guns, love super heroes, and they are disengaged. Favourite subjects pe and lunch.

In the US if you are a boy you are 3 times as likely to be: Expelled, suspended, in Special Ed, Leanring disabled or emotionally disturbed.

Even higher if poor

4x more likely to be identified with adhd.

75-80%of all adhd medications are given to boys. Are we medicating just because they are boys?

Medication used as a calming tactic

Pisa test results, low for boys in reading and girls in maths and science. About 7years ago the girls topped everything.

For every 100 women who earn a bachelors degree, only 73 men earn one.

Zero tolerance policies where you can't write about certain things, eg death, tornadoes etc

Compressed curriculum, in US they are teaching things earlier

Cultural differences from classroom to their lives. We spend time at school, then we come home and do our learning

Articles on this topic

Minecraft vs Minecraft edu, can't blow things up and no zombies. Took all the fun out of it

Games? What can we do with them to truly engage kids?

Wanted to disrupt culture

It's important to engage the disengaged population.

Could have opportunity to move as another way.

Teachers like games as long as they are not violent. They prefer collaborative games as well

Engerman,off the shelf gaming, Assassins creed.

Problem with gaming

Violence read Newkirk - Misreading Masculinity

Raising Cain video. Not allowed to talk about death. Would say boy is adhd, but only thing he wants to talk about is death.

Normal development stages

Mixed evidence in impact of violent video gaming. Less and less mixed.

Kids who play games are less likely to commit those acts as they are living it out and experiencing failure through playing games.

Normal stage of boy development is about death.

Clips of interviews with boys - about failing

Trying to give the person the answer that they want.

In a game it's all right to fail. At school it's not. You only get 1 shot at it.

Game culture vs school culture

Gaming helped them with 21c learning skills

Madden,American football learnt lots about patterns

Lots of girls game, they play different games online. Companies are wanting girls to get skills from Call of duty type games as girls need those skills.

Not educational games. They are not interesting.

Not gamification either.

Start where THEY are. Learn THEIR games. Sit with them and lean their games. Can you flip a classroom with games?

Map content onto games

Pop culture, movement, project based.

Using libraries to house gaming computers and they find other things while they are there

One Stone school. Student governed

Circleschool

Centre learning community school

How do you deal with parents?

Wouldn't suggest a game above the appropriate age level

Games can be addictive

There are behaviours you need to pay attention to.

Don't like the violent part, then allow those that parents say is ok to watch violent movie - written consent.

What about attention span?
Since Sesame Street there has been conversation about attention span.

All fast back then, but we can still do study.

What about social life? Letting them play games. They socialise in a different way. They are very social beings.

It's about adults changing their definition of social.

Research outcomes. What is it that they are learning? Ask them what they do, not what they learn.

Increases communication, leading teams and tribes.

Specific skills for specific games

Sid Myersgames, Civilisation

Doesn't want them in the classroom. Kids don't like 'educational games'

Screen time issues. Her kids all play but never worry about gaming time.

Key is making sure they have other activities. All in scouts, school plays.

If you let that get out of control it can. If they are not doing other things then it can be an issue.

Workshop 1

KateBrown, developing engaging integrated units

EduKateNZ

Works by herself

Supports school to develop curriculum that is relevant.

ICE

Important understandings for children

Connections need to connect with learning. They have to own it and connect to their world. How many times do we hear why are we doing this, will we need it?

Engaging and fun

Difference between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary

Multi means many, inter means going between.

Nothing linking in multi, still silo

Beyond a topic into a concept

Want them to understand about this world and transfer into other contexts.

Understanding is the context and all subjects connect

Can use different contexts to give evidence as to what change

Concepts of change

Part present future, Seasons, School environment, Life cycles, Social, Physical, Technology, Agricultural, Entertainment, Why things change, Social justice, Politics, Food choices, Environmental, Family, Gaming, Resources in the future

People think in their subject area.

Planning unit around conceptual design. Context can be student choice. Can be challenging. Students tend to do a factual report so having the same context creates depth so they have to go back to the conceptual understanding.

When understand change they can learn how to deal with it.

Kath Murdoch Connections book

Strategies for integrated learning

If you want integrated learning or needs to be relevan to all subjects

Learning areas that drive understandings of the world are generally social sciences, science, health and pe, some tech.

Where we communicate is English, maths and stats, arts, tech, or and language.

Need all working together.

Not just about doing a pretty project

Developing conceptual understandings requires the learner to :

Construct meaning

Make sense of things

See things from a different perspective

Develop deep understandings

Used to assess on what they knew and what they did.

Now 3d with understanding

Facts and concepts

Apply learning to different contexts

Why math concepts are so important. Water slide into paddling pool

Friction, materials, distance, physics,

Nothing we do where we only have to deal with one concept.

Using lots of combinations of concepts

Time required for collaboration. Expertise of teams is worth it

Direct acts of teaching are important sometimes.

How do we do this and relate to NZC

A concept is an abstraction which pulls together a number of facts. Concepts grip certain facts together

Lynn Erickson. Transitioning to concept based curriculum and instruction.

Transferable

Timeless

Universal

Abstract to different degrees

Not locked in place time or situation

We were given some pieces of paper to look at clarifying which were concepts and which were not - our group had a few we were unsure of.

Is space a concept or not, is both.

Prose has rules around it so not a concept.

Fiction. There are things that are and aren't. So not a concept.

When you don't understand a concept it is generally because you don't understand the language.

Could look at Anzac through the concept of conflict

Start with something the students can relate to. Still need to have some facts.

Connect the concept to the student first. Conflict with other students

Then go local. What is in your community? conflict with Cathedral

Then national

Then global, Syrian civil war

Young students start with just personal and local

Need an emotional connection to learning

We then worked in groups and looked in a bit more detail around the concepts of:

Conflict

Technology and Ethics

Innovation

Environment

Structure

Then looked at the planning of these concepts:

Select the concept, for example systems

Develop the understanding

Unpack for students

Guiding questions

Why is questioning difficult for students once they start school? They are good at it age 3 and 4!

Hands on activity to construct a meaning for themselves

Tall about classroom or school as a system then ask these questions.

Then go to NZ curriculum

Learning areas and achievements objectives that relate to concept

There are AOs that relate.

We select which ones we want to use.

Schools are doing 1 or 2 concepts a year. We have been in the habit of doing too much

Then use AO to turn into understanding

We don't use the AO enough with the students. Conceptual understanding is success criteria

Can use across curriculum levels - example of Community as a concept across Levels 3,5,7

CherylDoig - Provocations

Cheryl led us through 6 provocations and we then had the opportunity to go and write our thoughts on each. A great opportunity to think outside the box and look at some different ideas and thinking.

What do you think is happening here - Painting in background and students on phones

They are engaged or they are not. Could be art gallery process of learning? Lots of possibilities

What is the relevance of the painting?

Let me invite you to believe pigs can fly. What are the possibilities for education?

1. "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got".

Create a solution that pushes the boundaries of creativity

2. If you were the boss of education in NZ what would you do first?

https://conversation.education.govt.nz/

Go online and respond

3. Give young people more choice, more access to technology, more and varied opportunities especially for independent learning while keeping each schools character and motivating is to learn. Just don't allow today's reality to limit tomorrow s possibilities.

How might we create a city that is #oneschool?

4. 21c skills

www3.weforum.org

How might we map student learning in ways that we haven't yet considered. Foundational literacies

The x prize www.xprize.org

Human Ai collaboration to tackle the world's grand challenges

Harvest water from thin air

Online

Bit.ly/mlparents research of evidence and success, share resources

Emma Planicka

Where to start with the digital tech curriculum