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From the course by Commonwealth Education Trust
Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Planning for Teaching and Learning
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Commonwealth Education Trust
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From the lesson
What Do We Know About Teaching and Learning
In this week you will think about your planning from three perspectives: considering, reflecting, and understanding. You will use these three perspectives to better understand how you can use learning principles to incorporate different worldviews into your teaching. We are going to ask you to think about how you could weave together practices from these three perspectives in your own setting.
Meet the Instructors
Dr Judy HalbertCo-director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Leadership
Vancouver Island University, British Columbia, Canada
Dr Linda KaserCo-director of the Centre for Innovative Educational Leadership
Vancouver Island University, British Columbia, Canada
Professor John MacBeathProfessor Emeritus
University of Cambridge, UK
[MUSIC]
>> It's been intriguing over the last couple of weeks that
you've been talking about a whole range of things.
But one of the things you started with was this whole idea of mindsets,
which you obviously think is a particularly powerful notion.
So, what got you interested in this whole thing
about mindsets, and why do you think it's so important?
Who goes first? >> Oh, I'll jump in there.
I think, you know, clearly
we're interested in mindsets from Carol Dweck's work.
And when we come across, intellectually, something that just seems to make
so much sense of so much of our own experience, that's powerful.
Before that, though, Art Costa had done some very good work on habits of mind
and we have colleagues who really like that language.
I think perhaps as Western Canadians we
think the word habit, usually means bad habits,
so we like the mindset concept, it seems richer.
We also observed our strongest educators and they did seem
to have mindsets, a growth mindset but also some other
mindsets holistically that seem to really be somewhat different in
a good way from what some of their colleagues were doing.
And we also read Mintzberg's
work, "Managers not MBAs", and found that in
a leader point of view, he was working with
four or five institutions around the world on developing
business leaders and really, the notion was mindsets.
And then, once we saw that, we also found that work in Gardner's work.
So, you know, whether it's dispositions or mindsets or you
know, whatever terminology you like -
we like the richness of mindsets, because
we think it helps people think more holistically.
>> And I think for me, bringing it directly to
Carol Dweck's work and thinking about myself as a teacher,
the struggles that I sometimes had in understanding why some learners
were reluctant to take on challenges, they were so discouraged - and then
thinking back to my own-- the messages that I heard as a child
in my family growing up, that my brother was
the athletic one and I was the smart one.
And how unconsciously our parents
use these labels that actually narrow our potential in both cases,
and I've always thought about that and the
kind of messages that we give our children as
parents, and the kind of messages that we give our students are just so powerful.
And when we've introduced this work - introduced the work of Carol Dweck -
and asked teachers to think about a time in their own experience, they invariably
go back to a teacher who said something that limited their view of themselves.
So, I think
that's why for me it's just been so useful to provide a framework
for teachers to use in thinking about the language that they use with learners.
>> So, it's essentially a kind of a
frame that helps teachers to think about their practice
and reframe their practice.
>> Exactly.
>> So, it's very helpful to know the whole notion of framing.
>> Right. >> And reframing.
>> Yeah. >> This is the current framework.
Have we changed our thinking?
About that, you refer back.
quite often to your own experiences as a teacher.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And that wasn't something you were doing
then, was it, when you were a teacher?
>> No.
I would absolutely like to go back.
In fact, you know, I can think of a boy in
my grade eight, my first year teaching in grade eight English, who said
"I can't write" and
what I would do differently now as a result of knowing what I know now.
>> So, that time you just gave him a smack on the head...
So, it's how you-- you know, it's that whole thing about how you helped children
to think differently about their own ability, about their learning, about their
own empowerment. So, mindsets or
frames of mind, or habits of mind -
they're all very closely associated -
but I think what you're saying is
that these are absolutely critical for teachers.
They're not just nice academic theories.
>> Right.
>> And all your work
has really been fairly grounded in working
with teachers,
so have you seen positive changes in your work with teachers?
You're not going to say no, obviously.
But what kind of things?
>> Well, you know what, I mean, thank you for asking that
question, John, because really we're all trying - I think it's fair to say
that those of us who are fairly experienced teachers, and we would
put ourselves in that category and
we still see ourselves as practitioner teachers,
as well as, you know working in a university.
I think that we really have seen powerful shifts,
and very experienced teachers being willing to shift from
people who mainly have you know more of a fixed mindset, more
of "Here's your grade" and then we would
say in the vernacular, "Suck it up, buttercup" kind of stance.
And much, much more of a transition towards a coaching model, a designing
of learning model,
a "let's get out and explore, you know, the
natural world" as a way of engaging young people in learning.
So, you know, through our networks we've seen really, I think,
significant gains and we have had some
colleagues who've been able to research that shift.
It's been exciting. We've actually seen people
shift their paradigms, and shift their mindsets.
And, then just one other thing -
and I think Judy will come in around this - I mean for us as, you know, our kind of
European-Canadian background people, for us to shift our mindsets
by acquiring an indigenous perspective is quite a big shift,
because it really does involve embracing an additional world view.
And not the one that's been dominant for us.
And we have seen, really, thousands of teachers and educators
generally in our province embrace that too.
And I know that's happening in the Yukon,
and I think that's a big change. >> Just help a minute -
sorry to just butt in there - but I think
when you talk a lot about indigenous peoples.
>> Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
>> And I guess we're talking to you in a Canadian context,
and people form all over the world will be looking at this.
>> Right.
>> Right. >> So, what are indigenous people?
>> Well, you know I think
that we have indigenous people in every country.
And there are significant issues in African
countries, in South America, in Australia, in New
Zealand, and in Canada and the US, that
there were people here before the colonisers arrived.
And what is their experience, and what can we learn from them?
And the very sordid
history in Canada was that we were to
eliminate and eradicate the cultures that came before.
And recently learned that is actually, well, a) a terrible
thing to do, and b) it's diminishing the richness for everyone. So, it's new
in some ways for us as, you know, colonising European educators
to be thinking about what can we learn
from the people who were here.
I just want to make another comment back
to mindset to give a very specific example.
In the first week of this course Linda showed a
slide of a girl and her mother and this is an
aboriginal learner from a Vancouver school and it was connected to
our big goal of every learner crossing the stage with dignity,
purpose and options -
which is a goal that is extremely ambitious, but it's also one
that there's sort of a moral oomph to it, as well.
And the story, the reason that we selected
that girl is that her math-- the teachers
at the high school, said "What is the
area that is causing the greatest obstacle to our
learners going on?" And it was mathematics.
And they said that, you know, "What is it that we're doing that's contributing to that?"
And so, you know to make a
long story short - they changed how they approached mathematics.
They said we will do everything that it takes,
including starting to work with the elementary schools in partnership.
So, that when the students come to their
first year of high school, they already know
the math teacher, they already have a connection
and then they provided all kinds of support.
We selected her picture because she was the first
Aboriginal girl in Vancouver to graduate with calculus and
to get a full ride scholarship into the mathematics
department at UBC. And that's a mindset story,
because it's the teachers
saying - instead of saying these kids can't or they won't - what is it that we can do.
So, it's important.
>> And I do like the technical term a moral oomph.
>> I hadn't heard that before, I thought that too.
>> So, the UBC, the University of British Columbia.
>> --of British Columbia, yeah.
Which is, you know, it's a prestigious
university and it was a huge accomplishment.
>> One of the things you were talking about there, drawing on
Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black's work with the no hands up protocol, if you like.
And you say that's had a powerful kind of influence.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Is that sustained?
I think often teachers just revert back, because it's the
norm and well, it's ingrained with kids themselves, isn't it?
They find it very difficult not
to wave their hands, put their hands up and be first to be asked.
Have you found that
kind of teachers are better at sustaining this practice?
>> Yes.
Now, not not every teacher, and not in every setting.
And not all day.
Sometimes teachers will say, "In this lesson, we're
going to work with a no hands up strategy".
So, and there's always the option for the kids to put up
their hand if they have a question.
So, it's no hands up, except to ask a question.
But we encourage teachers, try it for half an hour.
>> Yeah.
>> Explain to the students why you're doing it,
and then get their feedback as a result of trying this new approach.
What we've found is that when teachers have
taken this on, they've been surprised by the voices
that they hear that they don't ordinarily hear.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And that's transformative for their practice.
>> Well, often described as the easy riders
I was one of them. Some of the subjects I did,
I could hide in the back, when the history
teacher said "Read the book", and I was
in the back row, and I could go
straight through every single history lesson and never be asked anything.
>> Yeah, yeah, I think my response to
that, in addition, would be, John, and it relates
to some of the work that you and Mary James did
in exploring, in a British context, those people who got the spirit of
the work, as opposed to the people who got the letter of the strategies,
and did more perhaps in a routine and less adaptive way.
And, I think the spirit of no hands up is that you are going to be held responsible,
having been given some opportunities to have dialogue or
to write or to think or to move around
and work with a partner for participating, and that's
going to make a much richer learning experience for everybody.
And I think teachers who capture that, and one thing in our context
that really helps, we think, is the framework of the learning principles,
because the fact that assessment for learning is in there, as one of the key
innovative working environment principles,
means that people don't abandon,
you know, assessment for learning, which some people call AFL.
So, you know, we're going to finish that, then
we're going to move on to the next thing,
right, and the fact that it's there as
the next thing around innovation as a powerful practice.
I think it's helpful not to have people just abandon it.
>> It's interesting the seven, isn't it?
The seven principles.
We can hang onto them.
They talk about the seven golden slots of memory, and so on.
Can I just turn you to one sort of last area, where you talk
about the curriculum, you were talking about learning, and you
referred to fine art and music and drama and so on as teachers who--
they're able to have a kind of a whole different mindset, if you like
because of the subjects they teach.
And it's always-- when I go to the schools, those are the places I like to visit.
I love to go into the art department, and I love to go
into the music and things because they all
start from a different paradigm in a way,
don't they? They sort of see everyone as a
learner and everyone has talents and so on.
How do you-- in your work, have you used some
of the kinds of principles you get from those departments, or
helping, let's say the maths teacher, English teacher, history teacher,
to have some kind of collaborative work with those in fine arts and elsewhere?
I mean, that cross-curriculum.
>> Mm-hm, mm-hm.
>> Is that something you've embedded in your work?
>> Increasingly
we're looking for ways - you know, the seventh learning
principle for the OECD is building horizontal connections, and that's
both across curricular areas, and with the community.
So, some of the exciting work
that we're seeing is where we're seeing those blends.
And we're going to be talking about that more later on in this course,
but one example that I would just give is that
there's a secondary school that's developed a nautical understanding course,
where the students for a full semester
are working on the water, on five sailboats, and they're getting
credit for depending on, you know, what
it is that they need, it could be physics, chemistry, mathematics, drafting,
construction - so it's a blend of learners with time.
And I think that it's proving to be an enormously
rich experience both for the learners and for the teacher.
So, you know, we have to find ways I think of creating those connections
so that we're not seeing-- so that we're seeing learning as
a whole as opposed to a set of individual boxes.
>> I think that principle that you're talking about there, which
was very much a key principle in the progressive movement, the Dewey movement,
and everything else, that kind
of centre of interest learning which
brought together everything in a holistic way.
I think it's incredibly powerful.
But I want to really just look ahead to the next bit
because I think we're going to go on now to the next section.
In brief, in 30 seconds or so, just, where do we go from here?
>> So, where we're going next is
around the role of teacher as a professional learner.
So, we're going to be spending some time looking at the
principles of teacher professional learning
that make a difference to learners.
And, we think that as teachers, we need to take
control of our own learning, and how can we apply that?
So, that will be the first step.
And then the second major piece that we're looking at is a framework
for classroom teachers and whole schools to use called the "Spiral of
Inquiry" that Linda and I have developed with Helen Timperley from New Zealand.
That we're seeing is having quite a positive and very helpful impact,
just as a way of helping teachers design learning experiences
for their learners.
And then finally we're going to end with taking a look at what we can learn from
the innovative learning environment work that's
taking place in countries around the world
and how we can draw on some of the very interesting case studies
in our own contexts, as varied as they may be.
>> You go on learning.
You haven't finished yet.
>> Absolutely. >> Great.
Thanks very much we look forward to the next
bit of the story.
[MUSIC]
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