Monday, August 31, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Learning to be a New School
The report
Literature that discusses transformative change in schools typically draws on experiences of renewal and change in existing schools. This report explores the shaping of a new school with the intent, established at the very outset, of offering a curriculum for the 21st century. The report discusses four key aspects of curriculum innovation at this school, outlining the intent of each and then discussing issues and challenges encountered in bring each aspect to fruition as the school got under way.
In its third year of operation when this report was compiled, this senior high school has dared to be different, in the process riding a rollercoaster of hopes and dreams, expectations met and occasionally dashed, careful planning, ongoing troubleshooting and collaborative professional learning. Through the lens of complexity theory, the report discusses the learning and problemsolving processes the school has set in place, describing how they have acted as a key enabler of the school’s success in addressing challenges it has encountered to date.
The perspectives of all members of the school community are included in the report: senior leaders, teachers, students, parents and some members of the school’s board of trustees.
This report was funded by NZCER's Purchase Agreement with the Ministry of Education
Types of Leadership
- Autocratic or Authoritarian Style of Leadership
- Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralised in the leader. Leaders do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates. This approach provides for quick decision making but is generally not successful in gaining employee engagement
- Laissez-faire or Free-rein Style of Leadership
- A person may be in a leadership position without providing leadership, leaving the group to fend for itself. Subordinates are given a free hand in deciding their own policies and methods. This can sometimes be a positive leadership style if workers are responsible and self-starting and do not require a lot of supervision.
- Participative or Democratic Style of Leadership
- A participative or democratic style of leadership involves the leader sharing decision- making abilities with group members while also promoting the interests of the group members and practicing social equality. Employees will likely enjoy this style of leadership because it gives them a say in many decisions.
- Transformational Style of Leadership
- The transformational leadership style is one of the most inspiring leadership styles that enhances the motivation, morale and job performance of followers. The concept was initially introduced by James MacGregor Burns- a leadership expert and presidential biographer. According to Burns, transformational leadership can be seen when "leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of morality and motivation."
Leadership styles
Based on a three-year study of over 3,000 executives, Daniel Goleman identified six different leadership styles:
- Pace-setting
- Authoritative
- Affiliative
- Democratic
- Coaching
- coercive or commanding
Six Leadership Styles
- Pace-setting leaders expect excellence and self-direction, and can be summed up as ‘Do as I do, now’. The Pace-setter very much leads by example, but this type of leadership only works with a highly-competent and well-motivated team. It can only be sustained for a while without team members flagging. Like the Coercive leader, Pace-setters also show drive to succeed and initiative, but instead of self-control, these are coupled with conscientiousness.
- Authoritative leaders move people towards a vision, so are often described as ‘Visionary’. This style is probably best summed up as ‘Come with me’. It is the most useful style when a new vision or clear direction is needed, and is most strongly positive. Authoritative leaders are high in self-confidence and empathy, acting as a change catalyst by drawing people into the vision and engaging them with the future.
- An Affiliative leader values and creates emotional bonds and harmony, believing that ‘People come first’. Such leaders demonstrate empathy, and strong communication skills, and are very good at building relationships. This style is most useful when a team has been through a difficult experience, and needs to heal rifts, or develop motivation. It is not a very goal-oriented style, so anyone using it will need to make sure others understand that the goal is team harmony, and not specific tasks. It is probably obvious from this that it cannot be used on its own for any length of time if you need to ‘get the job done’.
- The democratic leader builds consensus through participation, constantly asking ‘What do you think?’, and showing high levels of collaboration, team leadership and strong communication skills. This style of leadership works well in developing ownership for a project, but it can make for slow progress towards goals, until a certain amount of momentum has built up. Anyone wishing to use this style will need to make sure that senior managers are signed up to the process, and understand that it may take time to develop the consensus.
- A coaching leader will develop people, allowing them to try different approaches in an open way. The phrase that sums up this style is ‘Try it’, and this leader shows high levels of empathy, self-awareness and skills in developing others. A coaching style is especially useful when an organisation values long-term staff development
- Coercive leaders demand immediate obedience. In a single phrase, this style is ‘Do what I tell you’. These leaders show initiative, self-control, and drive to succeed. There is, of course, a time and a place for such leadership: a battlefield is the classic example, but any crisis will need clear, calm, commanding leadership. This style does not, however, encourage anyone else to take the initiative, and often has a negative effect on how people feel.
Why Leaders Eat Last- Simon Sinek
In this in-depth talk, ethnographer and leadership expert Simon Sinek reveals the hidden dynamics that inspire leadership and trust. In biological terms, leaders get the first pick of food and other spoils, but at a cost. When danger is present, the group expects the leader to mitigate all threats even at the expense of their personal well-being. Understanding this deep-seated expectation is the key difference between someone who is just an "authority" versus a true "leader."
3:30 Happiness breakdown (4 chemicals)
5:53 1) Endorphins
7:16 Importance of endurance
7:59 2) Dopamine
8:19 Dopamine is to make sure get stuff done
9:10 Goals must be tangible - we have to see the goal to stay focused
10:17 Dopamine is dangerous when unbalanced
15:07 Feel safe
15:40 In our organization, danger isn't a constant it is a variable
17:05 The responsibility of leadership is 2 things: 1) Determine who gets in and who doesn't 2) how big do we make the circle of safety
17:33 Great leaders extend safety to the outermost of the org
17:53 3) Serotonin - leadership chemical
19:30 Trying to enforce relationships
22:22 Value of group-living
22:28 Being alpha comes at a cost
26:01 The cost of leadership is self-interest
27:15 Makes you feel safe
27:34 4) Oxytocin
29:03 Businesses aren't rational, it's about feeling safe. "It's human -- physical touch"
29:27 "Human bonds matter"
29:29 Act of human generosity
32:19 Leaders spend time/energy not money
37:30 You have to make sure you can trust others as leaders because you won't have time to help everyone
38:47 Cortisone - the feeling of stress and anxiety
40:59 Needs to shut down during times
41:42 Cortisone inhabits oxytocin
42:18 "Our jobs are killing us.. leaders are responsible"
43:12 Leadership is a decision, a choice.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Safe and Responsible Use of Digital Technologies in Schools
MOE Report
Education is changing. Digital technologies are everywhere and
they are impacting what, where, how and why students learn, and
who they learn from. Many schools are using digital technologies
like the internet, laptops and tablets to quickly, easily and cost-
effectively connect students with the huge range of digital services
and resources. However, the many benefits of learning with digital
technologies are accompanied by some challenges and potential
risks for students and schools. These ‘digital challenges’ are real and
present a dilemma to schools seeking to use digital technology to
enhance student learning.
Digital challenges can be broadly categorised as:
Digital challenges can be broadly categorised as:
-
Cybersafety: Involves conduct or behavioural concerns.
Examples include cyberbullying, smear campaigns, accessing inappropriate content, creating spoof websites or sexting.
-
Cybercrime: Involves illegal activity.
Examples include sexual offending, accessing objectionable content or online
fraud.
-
Cybersecurity: Involves unauthorised access or attacks on a computer system.
Examples include hacking into someone’s social media service account, launching a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack or loading malware onto a laptop.
In general, preventative approaches that rely on technical or other protections simply do not work. These methods have a role but must be balanced with strategies that promote:
-
development of skills and knowledge for safe and responsible use of digital
technology
-
opportunities for students to be involved in decisions about the management
of digital technology at the school
-
development of a pro-social culture of digital technology use, and
-
cooperation of the whole community in preventing and responding to
incidents.
Augmented Reality: An Overview and Five Directions for AR in Education
The Article
Keywords: augmented reality, AR, education, virtual reality, mixed reality
With AR tech- nologies becoming more and more integrated into individual’s non-academic lives, through mobile devices and AR real-world markup (AR RWM), making available location-specif- ic data, such as historical information, current social tweets, and real-time hazard data, the idea of ‘learning’ through an AR interface will eventually, and perhaps quickly, become some- thing that is taken completely for granted.
With AR tech- nologies becoming more and more integrated into individual’s non-academic lives, through mobile devices and AR real-world markup (AR RWM), making available location-specif- ic data, such as historical information, current social tweets, and real-time hazard data, the idea of ‘learning’ through an AR interface will eventually, and perhaps quickly, become some- thing that is taken completely for granted.
20 Ways to Ue Augmented Reality
The Article
Second Life proved an incredibly valuable tool for educators hoping to reach a broad audience — or offering even more ways to learn for their own bands of students.
Augmented Reality Development Lab:
Affiliated with Google, Microsoft, and Logitech, the Augmented Reality Development Lab run by Digital Tech Frontier seeks to draw up projects that entertain as well as educate. The very core goal of the ARDL involves creating interactive, three-dimensional objects for studying purposes.
Reliving the Revolution:
Karen Schrier harnessed GPS and Pocket PCs to bring the Battle of Lexington to her students through the Reliving the Revolution game, an AR experiment exploring some of the mysteries still shrouding the event — like who shot first! Players assume different historical roles and walk through everything on a real-life map of the Massachusetts city.
PhysicsPlayground:
One of the many, many engines behind PC games received a second life as an engaging strategy for illustrating the intricate ins and outs of physics, in a project known as PhysicsPlayground. It offers up an immersive, three-dimensional environment for experimenting, offering up a safer, more diverse space to better understand how the universe drives itself.
MITAR Games:
Developed by MIT’s Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade, MITAR Games blend real-life locations with virtual individuals and scenarios for an educational experience that research proves entirely valid. Environmental Detectives, its first offering, sends users off on a mystery to discover the source of a devastating toxic spill.
New Horizon:
As a smartphone app, it takes advantage of built-in cameras to present animated character conversations when aligned with certain sections of pages.
Occupational Safety Scaffolding:
Professor Ron Dotson’s Construction Safety students receive a thorough education in establishing safe scaffolding space through three-dimensional demonstrations incorporating the real and the digital alike. A simple application of AR, to be certain, but one undoubtedly possessing the potential to save lives and limbs alike.
FETCH! Lunch Rush:
Education-conscious parents who want L’il Muffin and Junior to learn outside the classroom might want to consider downloading PBS Kids’ intriguing iPhone and iPod Touch app. Keep them entertained in the car or on the couch with a fun little game for ages six through eight meant to help them build basic math skills visually.
Field trips:
Augmented reality museums guide students and self-learners of all ages through interactive digital media centered around a specific theme — maybe even challenge them to play games along the way. HistoriQuest, for example, started life as the Civil War Augmented Reality Project and presented a heady blend of mystery gaming and very real stories.
QR Code scavenger hunts:
Smartphones equipped with a QR code reader make for optimal tools when sending students on scavenger hunts across the classroom or school. The Daring Librarian, Gwyneth Anne Bronwynn, sends kids on an augmented reality, animated voyage through the library to figure out where to find everything and whom to ask for assistance.
Mentira:
Mentira takes place in Albuquerque and fuses fact and fiction, fantasy characters and real people, for the world’s first AR Spanish language learning game. It intentionally mimics the structure of a historical murder mystery novel and allows for far deeper, more effective engagement with native speakers than many classroom lessons.
Driver’s ed:
Toyota teamed up with Saatchi & Saatchi to deliver the world’s cleanest and safest test-drive via augmented reality. While the method has yet to catch on in the majority of driver’s education classes, it definitely makes for an impressive, effective alternative to keeping and maintaining a fleet of cars.
Geotagging:
Classrooms with smartphone access blend Google Earth and web albums such as Picasa or Instagram for a firsthand experience in geotagging and receiving a visual education about the world around them. More collaborative classrooms — like those hked together with Skype or another VOIP client – could use this as a way to nurture cross-cultural, geopolitical understanding.
Dow Day:
Jim Mathews’ augmented reality documentary and smartphone app brought University of Madison-Wisconsin students, faculty, staff, and visitors to the year 1967. As they traveled campus, participants’ smartphones called up actual footage of Vietnam War protests corresponding with their current locations.
SciMorph:
Using a webcam and printed target, young kids in need of some science (although, really, everyone is in need of some science) interact with the cute critter SciMorph, who teaches them about gravity, sound, and microbial structures. Each lesson involves exploring a specific zone within the game and opens users up to questions, quizzes, and talks.
Imaginary Worlds:
With PSPs in hand, Mansel Primary School students embarked on an artistic voyage, where downloaded images and QR codes merge and provide challenges to draw up personalized environments. The journey also pits them against monsters and requires a final write-up about how the immersive experience left an educational impact.
Sky Map and Star Walk:
Available on Android and iWhatever devices, these deceptively simple applications pack a megaton punch of education via an innovative augmented reality approach. Both involve pointing the gadget to the sky and seeing the names of the currently visible stars, planets, and constellations pop up, along with additional astronomical information.
Handheld Augmented Reality Project:
Harvard, MIT, and University of Wisconsin at Madison teamed up with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and nurtured science and math skills to junior high kids using GPS navigators and Dell Axims. Moving through the school meant moving through a synched virtual environment, with each area presenting new challenges they must tackle before pressing forward.
Project Glass:
One of the most ambitious augmented reality initiatives comes straight from Google, who believes its Project Glass holds potential far beyond the classroom. Notoriously, it requires a pair of glasses versus the usual smartphones and laptops, and current experiments involve placing users in first-person extreme athletic experiences, snapping photos, and more.
Augmented Reality Development Lab:
Affiliated with Google, Microsoft, and Logitech, the Augmented Reality Development Lab run by Digital Tech Frontier seeks to draw up projects that entertain as well as educate. The very core goal of the ARDL involves creating interactive, three-dimensional objects for studying purposes.
Reliving the Revolution:
Karen Schrier harnessed GPS and Pocket PCs to bring the Battle of Lexington to her students through the Reliving the Revolution game, an AR experiment exploring some of the mysteries still shrouding the event — like who shot first! Players assume different historical roles and walk through everything on a real-life map of the Massachusetts city.
PhysicsPlayground:
One of the many, many engines behind PC games received a second life as an engaging strategy for illustrating the intricate ins and outs of physics, in a project known as PhysicsPlayground. It offers up an immersive, three-dimensional environment for experimenting, offering up a safer, more diverse space to better understand how the universe drives itself.
MITAR Games:
Developed by MIT’s Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade, MITAR Games blend real-life locations with virtual individuals and scenarios for an educational experience that research proves entirely valid. Environmental Detectives, its first offering, sends users off on a mystery to discover the source of a devastating toxic spill.
New Horizon:
As a smartphone app, it takes advantage of built-in cameras to present animated character conversations when aligned with certain sections of pages.
Occupational Safety Scaffolding:
Professor Ron Dotson’s Construction Safety students receive a thorough education in establishing safe scaffolding space through three-dimensional demonstrations incorporating the real and the digital alike. A simple application of AR, to be certain, but one undoubtedly possessing the potential to save lives and limbs alike.
FETCH! Lunch Rush:
Education-conscious parents who want L’il Muffin and Junior to learn outside the classroom might want to consider downloading PBS Kids’ intriguing iPhone and iPod Touch app. Keep them entertained in the car or on the couch with a fun little game for ages six through eight meant to help them build basic math skills visually.
Field trips:
Augmented reality museums guide students and self-learners of all ages through interactive digital media centered around a specific theme — maybe even challenge them to play games along the way. HistoriQuest, for example, started life as the Civil War Augmented Reality Project and presented a heady blend of mystery gaming and very real stories.
School in the Park Augmented Reality Experience:
Third graders participating in the 12-year-old School in the Park program engage with AR via smartphones as they explore Balboa Park, the San Diego History Center, and the world-class San Diego Zoo. Not only do they receive exposure to numerous educational digital media resources, teachers also train them in creating their very own augmented reality experiences!
Third graders participating in the 12-year-old School in the Park program engage with AR via smartphones as they explore Balboa Park, the San Diego History Center, and the world-class San Diego Zoo. Not only do they receive exposure to numerous educational digital media resources, teachers also train them in creating their very own augmented reality experiences!
QR Code scavenger hunts:
Smartphones equipped with a QR code reader make for optimal tools when sending students on scavenger hunts across the classroom or school. The Daring Librarian, Gwyneth Anne Bronwynn, sends kids on an augmented reality, animated voyage through the library to figure out where to find everything and whom to ask for assistance.
Mentira:
Mentira takes place in Albuquerque and fuses fact and fiction, fantasy characters and real people, for the world’s first AR Spanish language learning game. It intentionally mimics the structure of a historical murder mystery novel and allows for far deeper, more effective engagement with native speakers than many classroom lessons.
Driver’s ed:
Toyota teamed up with Saatchi & Saatchi to deliver the world’s cleanest and safest test-drive via augmented reality. While the method has yet to catch on in the majority of driver’s education classes, it definitely makes for an impressive, effective alternative to keeping and maintaining a fleet of cars.
Geotagging:
Classrooms with smartphone access blend Google Earth and web albums such as Picasa or Instagram for a firsthand experience in geotagging and receiving a visual education about the world around them. More collaborative classrooms — like those hked together with Skype or another VOIP client – could use this as a way to nurture cross-cultural, geopolitical understanding.
Dow Day:
Jim Mathews’ augmented reality documentary and smartphone app brought University of Madison-Wisconsin students, faculty, staff, and visitors to the year 1967. As they traveled campus, participants’ smartphones called up actual footage of Vietnam War protests corresponding with their current locations.
SciMorph:
Using a webcam and printed target, young kids in need of some science (although, really, everyone is in need of some science) interact with the cute critter SciMorph, who teaches them about gravity, sound, and microbial structures. Each lesson involves exploring a specific zone within the game and opens users up to questions, quizzes, and talks.
Imaginary Worlds:
With PSPs in hand, Mansel Primary School students embarked on an artistic voyage, where downloaded images and QR codes merge and provide challenges to draw up personalized environments. The journey also pits them against monsters and requires a final write-up about how the immersive experience left an educational impact.
Sky Map and Star Walk:
Available on Android and iWhatever devices, these deceptively simple applications pack a megaton punch of education via an innovative augmented reality approach. Both involve pointing the gadget to the sky and seeing the names of the currently visible stars, planets, and constellations pop up, along with additional astronomical information.
Handheld Augmented Reality Project:
Harvard, MIT, and University of Wisconsin at Madison teamed up with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and nurtured science and math skills to junior high kids using GPS navigators and Dell Axims. Moving through the school meant moving through a synched virtual environment, with each area presenting new challenges they must tackle before pressing forward.
Project Glass:
One of the most ambitious augmented reality initiatives comes straight from Google, who believes its Project Glass holds potential far beyond the classroom. Notoriously, it requires a pair of glasses versus the usual smartphones and laptops, and current experiments involve placing users in first-person extreme athletic experiences, snapping photos, and more.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Threshold Concepts Rebecca Tushingham
Threshold Concepts
‘A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period of time, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome. Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people ‘think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally)’
Meyer and Land, Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines, 2005
‘A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period of time, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome. Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people ‘think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally)’
Meyer and Land, Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines, 2005
‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: implications of course design and evaluation’ provided me with the detail that I need which I have slimmed down into a summary for my own learning and maybe yours:
Jewels in the curriculum
The importance of engagement
Listening for understanding
Reconstitution of self
Tolerating uncertainty
Recursiveness and excursiveness
Unintended consequences of generic ‘good pedagogy’
Good table in article for planning concepts.
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