A key point of discussion that came out of yesterday was about our pedagogy. It was clear from the discussion amongst and across teams that pedagogy is key in the transformation happening in our schools and what is the place of technology in this. Richard Olsen raised some key points at the end of the day:

• We need to start with our pedagogy,
• we do things for pedagogical reasons, moral reasons
• we know that technology makes a difference, morally we need to be innovative and we need to build on the strengths we already have in schools

For me one of the main things that resonated from what Richard said was his comment about our precision with pedagogy and how we need to use this same precision with technology. It has started me thinking about our practice and how we are really using technology. Are we being precise with it? Do we need to be precise?

What are your ideas?

I found this YouTube clip after reading a Tweet from a teacher. This clip is from a Victorian school in Castlemaine and I found this a wonderful example of how one class uses Google Docs to collaborate in order to improve their writing.

Students would collaborate “online” before posting comments to their blog, effectively seeking feedback as part of the “publishing” process. 

This really challenges us to think about the notion of publishing student work and how we can now not only publish to a global audience, but challenges what “publishing” means.

We once thought of publishing as the final step in the writing process, but we can see in this video clip that we can now publish in order to seek feedback. Publishing becomes part of the process and as we learn from others in a collaborative way, it is not the final step in the publishing process. “We correct our mistakes and make improvements”, one student says.

What a wonderful opportunity we now have to use ICT to enable a completely different approach to learning and Google docs is just one tool that enables us to work and learn in this way.

How are you using ICT to challenge the way you learn or teach?

Schools and teachers collect a range of student data and share this as part of evidence based conversations around teaching and learning. In an effort towards transformation of teaching and learning, the use of data to inform teacher practice and to identify areas of improvement, needs to be valued and embedded in an ongoing capacity.

Some of these conversations have been to determine where students are at in their learning for moderation purposes, to group students according to similar groups and skills and to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards for reporting to parents.

The NMC Horizon Project Short List (2013) suggests that there is still an assessment gap in how changes in curricula and new skill demands are implemented in education and that there is a lack of innovative uses of digital media in formative assessment.

As we build our awareness of and progress towards new operating paradigms my interest is two-fold and I welcome responses to the following questions:

• How can we move from point in time reporting to culminate practices?
• What are we valuing and communicating about the data and evidence we are collecting and how is this personalising learning

Teachers as researchers: it is what we do every day: design and implement a plan of action, observe and analyse outcomes, and modify plans to better meet the needs of students (Amy Anderson, An introduction to Teacher Research).   We should be constantly working to be better at what we do. It comes back to the bottom line – improving student learning.  So in our professional learning teams we begin our professional inquiry by questioning how we can improve student learning.  We implement strategies, reflect and build on the strategy or decide that it is not appropriate to continue with the original thinking.

But what happens when we hit a brick wall?  How then, do we, as researchers and leaders, get the inquiry back on track; how do we navigate around the brick wall?  Firstly it is important to develop an inquiry habit of mind; when research comes to a dead end, probe further.  Secondly, relationships of respect and challenge need to be nurtured.  “Blame and shame are counterproductive” (Helen Timperley, Realising the Power of Professional Learning).

So I am interested in how you are building relationships of respect and challenge amongst your staff.  Have you got any suggestions of how to construct Professional Learning Communities both face to face and online that foster and encourage respect and critical engagement?