Welcome to my report from the National Future Schools conference in Melbourne in 2019. A fantastic opportunity to connect and learn from the best thinkers in education in Australia.
His engineering skills have been put to use providing solutions for handicapped children to use thought to control a wheelchair and eye movement only to drive a car. Seriously. The use of tech has certainly changed lives in this case.
That 3D printer at school that takes 14 hours to print a small golf ball - in China this man 3D printed a HOUSE in 14 hours for less that $70 000!
Her centre of resource excellence CORE program focuses on work that is Contextual, authentic, relevant, meaningful and applicable (CARMA)
One of the most insightful observations Chris made was about how we do group work. Looking at the groupings below we can see that none of the groups represent the diversity of the whole.
If instead we allow a more free flow of ideas and interaction, the strengths of the whole group are maximised:
A simple chart that can be used while groups are working on ideas:
For her staff she has the idea of an "Edternship" which connect staff to the same sources as students so they too can become learners.
Students have been involved in community activities and designing spaces in conjunction with the local council. Other ideas she touched on included service learning and developing co-learning spaces.
Some resources she shared included:
http://moralmachine.mit.edu/
http://www.machinam.com
EngQuest
StarPortal
TeachEngineering
It is difficult to distill two days learning into a few statements, but overall my takeaways and questions were:
Jordan Nguyen
A highly impressive mid-30s with a stack of achievements, engineer, TV presenter, changing lives for disabled people with tech solutions. I definitely feel I must have wasted a lot of time! Jordan's message was personal and clear:One life. Persist to Improve many.
His engineering skills have been put to use providing solutions for handicapped children to use thought to control a wheelchair and eye movement only to drive a car. Seriously. The use of tech has certainly changed lives in this case.
That 3D printer at school that takes 14 hours to print a small golf ball - in China this man 3D printed a HOUSE in 14 hours for less that $70 000!
He also spoke about a group of Year 4 students who's task to build an app led them to creating an Augmented reality app that read rips in the sea and overlaid a visual display of dangers on your phone. Yes Year 4!
A great thought to finish which captures his energy:
It’s brave to dream, even braver to act
Suzy Urbaniak - A CoRE learning journey #therealclassroom
Suzy shared her passion for authentic learning for her students and cited the wonderful connections she has made over the years with students who still report in on their work.
Her centre of resource excellence CORE program focuses on work that is Contextual, authentic, relevant, meaningful and applicable (CARMA)
Andrew Fuller - brain based learning research
Andrew presented some fascinating ideas around how the latest education research on the block (neuroscience) can help students understand and leverage their learning strengths.
Chris Clay - To Infinity and Beyond
Chris' presentation was one of the highlights of the conference for me. He started by making the obvious but though provoking observation that the future has not arrived yet, it only exists in our minds and is ours to influence and shape. National education curriculum policy statements suggest a version of the future that assumes exponential growth will continue in the use of technology - but that may not turn out to be true!
Source: “Thing from the future” (www.situationlab.org)
I think this sums up the feeling that the 21C is not as simple as Learn to Code = success and happiness
One of the most insightful observations Chris made was about how we do group work. Looking at the groupings below we can see that none of the groups represent the diversity of the whole.
If instead we allow a more free flow of ideas and interaction, the strengths of the whole group are maximised:
A simple chart that can be used while groups are working on ideas:
As Chris said, the future is not set and schools can play a role in determining what that future will look like.
Claire Amos Getting your school ConnectED
Claire is a bit of a rock star for me - the first school I saw anywhere who really changed the way the timetable looked was the school she was a Deputy at. It has been a source of inspiration for years. It was great to hear her clear and passionate vision as a Principal now.
Her message centered around giving students contextualised learning experiences based on authentic real-world situations in their communities. Her students have all Wednesday to work on a project of their choosing.
For her staff she has the idea of an "Edternship" which connect staff to the same sources as students so they too can become learners.
Students have been involved in community activities and designing spaces in conjunction with the local council. Other ideas she touched on included service learning and developing co-learning spaces.
"We need to get better at connecting" Claire implored. We need to hustle!
Paul Watson - Managing change fatigue
Paul gave a sobering presentation on the signs of when staff are wearied with change. He spoke of people who are resistant to change and are the first to challenge new ideas.
Some of the symptoms include:
- Loss of focus
- Absenteeism
- Irritability/anger
- Anxiety
- Checking out
- Just hanging on
- Abivalence
He said the biggest concern for any organisation should be when their most passionate people become quiet.
In a letter to a school the Old Boys President said
"In my opinion when a school diverts from its fundamental purpose of education and nurturing to one of business, its culture starts to break down"Consultation and collaboration are parts of the solution.
Louise McWhinnie - The way forward for education: but what is forward?
Louise is a University professor where she teaches students studying for a Bachelor of creative intelligence and innovation - what a great degree!
Louise shared a great graphic that explained the difference between multi disciplinary, cross disciplinary, inter disciplinary and a new way of looking at this - transdisciplinary.
Michael Cocks - Letting students choose their own lesson
At one of the roundtable discussions, Michael (fellow MIEE) explained his way of introducing a quasi-flipped learning model that foregrounds student learning styles. To his great credit, he prepared different versions of the same lesson based on:
- A PowerPoint
- A research task
- A reading task
- A task about finding sources
- A task that involves watching a video/documentary
Regardless of the lesson they choose, the students complete the same quiz at the end (and need to score 100% to prove they have understood the material)
This is for a History class, but the concept could be transported with adaptation to any subject.
AR/VR resources
Another roundtable focused on implementing AR and VR and some of the workflows that allow students to be a part of the process of creation.
Resources are here https://bit.ly/ARVRfuture
Felicity Fury - Critical and creative thinking from real world examples
Felicity is an Engineer and is passionate about sharing the kind of thinking the engineers enage in to solve problems.
Some resources she shared included:
http://moralmachine.mit.edu/
http://www.machinam.com
EngQuest
StarPortal
TeachEngineering
Jocelyn Brewer - Stop counting digital calories: Beyond screentime and the case for virtual vitamins
Another great session that challenged the norm of only looking at the quantity of screen time students have instead of other metrics about the quality of that time. These slides sum up her thoughts.
Julie Lindsay - The Global Collaborator Mindset
Julie's encouraged us to think globally in out approach to education and connecting students to others around the world. The affect, she said, is a more tolerant, understanding and less ethnocentric world.
Her dispositions for a Global collaborator mindset included:
- Connection
- Openess
- Innovation
- Autonomy
Vanessa Pirotta - a passion for education
Vanessa was amazing in her passion for whale snot (too long to explain) but the message about following what you love to do was the clear message.
Amanda Third - Young+Digital: Notes from the field
Amanda made the case that the word "digital" in front of a lot of things was confusing to a lot of young students who have only known the digital world.
She commented that we teach kids the problems but not the potential and positives of technology in our Digital citizenship education - an astute and accurate observation.
Tonia Gray - Gone Rogue: An educational revolution happens when we transform together
Is the something amiss with our system? Tonia made the point that more important than marks and grades are the fundamentals - relationships, resilience, reflections, respect.Backflipping - a new model of flipped learning
Although I have heard of this idea from Alan November, I had not heard a name attached to it. In the "Backflipping" model, students are the ones who create the video content for other students. Although the quality control process is not clear, the idea of students as teachers is a powerful one.
How might we support and start this idea? We need a clear method for
- Screencasting - use Loom
- Making the videos available - with the video on Loom the teacher would just need to create a link gallery for other students to access
Doug Thomas
Doug outlined the challenges as a Principal to create and maintain a culture of innovation in a school. One of his messages was that we need to tell our story - again and again and again! Communicate often!
Another idea that arrived during his session - how might we create and support a centre for PL for other teachers at our school?The displays and vendors were dominated by future-thinking ideas around STEM (lots of robotics), gaming (Minecraft), and 3D Printing
It is difficult to distill two days learning into a few statements, but overall my takeaways and questions were:
- There is a united focus and theme of future-wise skills and attributes that include collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving. Where do we see these being developed? How do we name these?
- How do we engender more real-world learning in our context?
- How can I get students creating video to demonstrate their understanding and share these with others?
- Do we have the ability and desire to create a centre of professional learning?
- Students are at the heart of everything we do