Collaboration in learning
Mal Lee
August 2013
Overview
•Solitary insular teaching - that of paper based world
•Collaborative, networked 24/7 – that of digital and networked
•
•Concomitant change of mindset
•Structural impact of digital operational base
•Awareness of macro trends and natural growth
•Ever lessening importance of the physical place and ‘its’
boundaries
•Increasing centrality of Web and demise of school walls,
•Shift – logical extension of wider societal developments
•About readying your school, staff and community
School teaching today
•Insular, conducted behind closed doors of physical place
•Within set hours – for less than 20% of learning time per year
•Mass, class group based
•Paper based – paper technology shaping nature of the teaching and school
organisation
•Constancy and continuity – 50/60 years largely unchanged
•Solitary teachers – closed classroom doors – teacher as gatekeeper controlling teaching and assessment
•Distrust – cyber walls to ‘protect’ young
•Pronounced focus on cognitive/the formal curriculum
Out of school teaching
•By default left to parents/children
•In context, anywhere, anytime, 24/7/365
•Pronounced impact of learning culture of home/parents
•Networked, collaborative, connected
•Normalised use of suite of digital technologies
•Universal nature evidenced since mid 90’s
Out of school teaching
• Personalised, largely self-directed
•Increasing self-teaching – with peer and network support
•Constantly evolving, ‘buzz of the new’
•Unfettered exploration of ever-evolving opportunities
•Intrapersonal, interpersonal and to a lesser extent cognitive
development focus (Pellegrino and Hilton, 2012)
•Trust and respect
Collaboration between home - school
•Rhetoric and reality – miniscule
•‘One – way collaboration’ (Grant, 2010)
•Tokenism
•Unilateral control with schools/teachers/bureaucrats
•Parent/student disempowerment
Collaboration between home - school
•Pronounced turnaround with digital normalisation and move to
networked mode
•Teacher willingness to collaborate – when school has astute
principal
•Why – yet to be researched
•Uncertainty re need for digital normalisation by school
•Natural growth in school’s desire to collaborate
Teaching in pathfinder schools
• Experience of pathfinders in UK, US, NZ and Australia
• Early days - relative rarity
• Across socio-economic, size, location, sector spectrum
• Visionary leadership
• Digital operational base
Teaching in pathfinder schools
• Willing staff
• Conducive learning culture
• Willing and capable community
• Apposite digital infrastructure
• Concern to provide apposite C21 education for every
child
• Recognition of out of school learning
• Ever more integrated ecology
Nature of the collaboration
• Multi-faceted, networked and unbounded
• Networked mindset
• Using resources beyond school gates
• Using community as a teaching space
• Authentic and inquiry/project based learning
• Collaboration across professional teaching community
• Collaboration with other professionals
• Collaboration with families – parents, carers and grandparents
Evidence for collaboration
• Parents as prime teachers – from birth onwards
• Grandparents/community elders as teachers
• Students as their own teachers
• BYOT – 24/7/365 learning
• Student attainment and home-school collaboration
• Potential for more personalised learning
• Bridging home-school divide/practises
• Streamlining and improving teaching
• The untapped potential
Connected learning
• Enhancing the sophistication of the young’s ‘out of school’
connected learning
• Building on near 20 years evolution
• Bringing the networked mode into the school
• Recognising individual children’s preferred mode of learning and
building upon
• Impact of current laissez faire approach
• Propensity for the educationally advantaged to be continually
advantaged
• Vital need for astute teacher intervention
Connected learning
• Enhancing the sophistication of the young’s ‘out of school’
connected learning
• Building on near 20 years evolution
• Bringing the networked mode into the school
• Recognising individual children’s preferred mode of learning and
building upon
• Impact of current laissez faire approach
• Propensity for the educationally advantaged to be continually
advantaged
• Vital need for astute teacher intervention
24/7/365 teaching
• Merging of the ‘in’ and ‘out’ of school teaching trends
• Shaping apposite 27/7/365 holistic education for life and work
• Involving all the teachers of the young – from birth onwards
• Who best teaches what, when and where?
• A curriculum for a networked world
•
The teaching mode of the networked world – that is already
transpiring
Connected learning
• Enhancing the sophistication of the young’s ‘out of school’
connected learning
• Building on near 20 years evolution
• Bringing the networked mode into the school
• Recognising individual children’s preferred mode of learning and
building upon
• Impact of current laissez faire approach
• Propensity for the educationally advantaged to be continually
advantaged
• Vital need for astute teacher intervention
Questions?
• Presentation posted – http//www.malleehome.com
Contact
Mal Lee – 02 44 717 947
mallee@mac.com
http://www.malleehome.com
http://www.byot.me
PO Box 5010 Broulee NSW Australia 2537