Activity 2: A Change in My Practice Towards Future-oriented Learning and Teaching

Change... 

This is something our school is currently undergoing; a change towards integrated curriculum through inquiry. This year I have been a part of a lead team of teachers who have been involved in PLD around integrated curriculum. We have begun supporting all staff in this change with the intention to roll out our framework next year. 

Thus, after looking at this week's reading I have chosen to reflect more deeply on...

Theme 3: a curriculum that uses knowledge to develop learning capacity

Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins (2012) talk about 21st Century skills as already happening, not a vision for our future. I tend to agree, but rather than 'already happening' I think they are present in our school, but not yet explicitly taught to prepare our young children for the unknown future. To me, key competencies are a direct link to developing learning capacity.

Currently at our school, we mostly teach content knowledge, especially in our 'Topic.' For example, what makes an insect an insect in our learning around insects in our Term 1 topic this year. Thinking and Managing Self are key competencies in our school curriculum, we plan for and attempt to teach key competencies but I believe in my teaching, I give more weighting to content. Why? How important is it that children know what makes an insect an insect? How does that support them in their future? 

There is a shift in our school's thinking around what is knowledge and the idea of explicitly teaching key competencies and dispositions or skills in our new inquiry framework alongside content. The ideas around 21st Century skills in Mind Lab, triggered deeper understandings for me about the relevance of key competencies and dispositions and their purpose or importance in teaching and learning. These ideas helped me to make sense of our new inquiry framework and planning template.

An example of our integrated inquiry planning template with content, key competencies and skills clearly defined - Trudy Francis C21 Learning Ltd, 2017.

Earlier in my teaching career at my current school, we underwent PLD around the use of key competencies in writing with the same facilitator taking our current PLD - Trudy Francis. This is a step in the direction of developing learning capacity. Instead of a focus on content in writing, I changed my practice to include ideas like persisting to edit writing or taking a risk to share writing and accept feedback. A lot of my writing 'content' was based on writing about persistence or risk taking and then applying it to the writing process. This was a huge shift in my practice towards future-oriented teaching and learning and the change in student voice, student participation and students seeing themselves as writers with a voice were huge! Not only did I see children begin to use the language of key competencies, but their success in writing increased too. I am unclear why this was... did children develop the skills that enabled them to become better writers? If so, when children's learning capacity is developed through skills or key competencies, they are more successful. 

We already have the knowledge and understanding of 21st century knowledge. It's there; it's a part of our talk, a part of some of our planning, a part of our professional development, and a part of our writing programmes but it's still hiding. It's not visible, children do not explicitly understand the skills/dispositions or how to use them. Coaching staff next year in this change is my chance to greater develop my understandings in developing children's learning capacities and also support staff to change their practice in doing this.

Bring it on!

Reference:
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Educationve. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Francis, T. (2009). C21 Learning Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.c21learning.com/cms/page.php?view=home_page