Month: May 2012

Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong

This is one of my favourite TED Talks. It gets to the heart (IMO) of one of the biggest problems (and challenges) we currently face in education.

We know, deep down, that the way to succeed in life is to make mistakes and learn from them. Yet, we continue to facilitate a system that rewards students who never make mistakes, and teaches that those who do are lazy and unintelligent?

Moreover, we try to make students feel as thought they are right, even when we (and they) know they are wrong?

In the short term, this may help to boost a student’s self-esteem. However, in the long term, it teaches them to be afraid of failure; creating a climate of fear.

And fear is the enemy of learning.

Students find themselves paralysed, unable to commit pen to paper, unless they have received their latest hit of positive reinforcement from their teacher.

Instead, we need to create a climate in which students are not afraid of failure.

It’s time we let students err; teaching them to acknowledge their mistakes and learn from them.

It’s time we encouraged them to say: “I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong?”

[TeachMeet Clevedon] AfL & Google Docs

Yesterday evening, while I was participating in Year 10 Parents Evening, a fantastic set of educators convened on Clevedon School for TeachMeet Clevedon. Organised by the inimitable Mark Anderson (@ICTEvangelist), the event was packed full of innovative and thought provoking talks. You can watch a number of these presentations on the TeachMeet Clevedon YouTube channel.

Unable to attend the event, I recorded a video, presenting the work I have been doing with Google Docs to enhance Assessment for Learning. (Point of note, for someone who suffers from perfectionism, presenting live is so much easier than recording something in advance.)

Slides (Click on the cog for download options)

You can read my M.Ed research here: Does the collaborative functionality of Google Docs allow educators to better put formative assessment at the heart of their students’ learning?

A series of blog posts about my experiences, using Google Docs in the classroom, can be found here:

Part 1: Signing Up
Part 2: Collaboration
Part 3: Assessment
Part 4: What’s Next?

All of my work is published under a creative commons licence. You are free to use and share it, all I ask is that you acknowledge me as the source. Feedback is always welcome.

Independence & Community (The Purpose of Education)

purposed-badgeSince contributing to the original #500words campaign, my thoughts about the purpose of education have become less cogent. I still want to “bust a hole in the wall”; wishing to place learner independence and preparedness for life long learning at the heart of the debate. However, as I have continued teaching, researching, discussing, debating, I have found that my advocacy for student centred learning is paralleled by a growing belief that schools should be placed at the centre of the community. At times it feels as if these ideas should contradict each other, but I believe that they actually compliment each other. Here, I offer a list of connected (and disconnected) assertions, ideas and questions that are currently resonating with me. I hope that in sharing them, I can begin to form a more coherent thesis.

  • Learning needs to be student centred. Education should offer choice and provide opportunity, not limit it.
  • Schools need to offer a personalised curriculum. One that is adaptive, malleable… designed by learners themselves.
  • There should be parity between subjects. But, should learning be structured in subjects?
  • All learning needs to be encouraged – gaming, exploration, trial & error (when did we decide that getting things wrong was no longer part of learning?). Moreover, I’m concerned that the school system appears to be geared up to remove play, creativity and individuality as learners get older.
  • Schools should be able to acknowledge and accredit all learning (formal and informal). Badges?
  • We need to better prepare young people for the models of learning they will be engaged in after school. This means encouraging learner autonomy as well as co-dependence. The era of ‘sage on the stage’ is dead. It’s time to establish ‘guide on the side’ in all classrooms.
  • We need to stop labelling students; and we need to stop allowing them to label themselves. A learners ability is not genetic; it is not pre-determined by us or anyone else.
  • Education is not about grades or league tables. They are a meaningless, extrinsic motivator; and are detrimental to fostering effective learning.
  • Learning is not linear. Learning is messy!
  • School is not a bubble. Boundaries between learners and the real world need to be removed
  • Libraries should be at the heart of schools and their respective communities. Libraries should be like this one. And in the 21st century, they are about much more than books.
  • Schools need to recognise that Online is ‘now’ NOT the future. Technology should be seamlessly integrated in to the learning experience. There needs to be overlap between physical and virtual spaces – opening up further opportunities for a personalised curriculum.
  • Education needs to be wrestled out of the hands of governments. Communities need to take ownership of learning… freeing education of the fads and whims of politicians. Learning needs to be open/democratised.
  • Schools should be charged by their communities to provide education that is relevant and creative.

This post is my contribution to #500words – Take 2; the latest Purpos/ed campaign, asking the question: What is the purpose of education. Check out purposed.org.uk to see how you can join the debate.