Kevin McLaughlin and I will be hosting a Google+ Hangout at 8pm on Wednesday, 25 April, to discuss our approaches to facilitating independent/personalised learning in our classrooms.
It has been apparent for some time that Kevin and I share a similar set of values with regard to education. Unwilling to be the ‘sage on the stage’, to spoon feed, teach to the test or over plan, we both practice (and advocate) a student-centred approach to learning in our classrooms. Yesterday, on Twitter we found ourselves (not for the first time) sharing our thoughts about what had been happening in our respective classrooms. In that moment we both had the same idea, to compare notes in greater detail. We have decided that the best place to do this would be in a Google+ Hangout. This will allow a few other people to join in with us, and for the conversation to be recorded so that it can be shared more widely afterwards.
Read about Kevin’s experiences, introducing his class to personalised learning, in the following posts:
Read about the research I have been doing into independent learning in the following posts:
- What does an independent learner look like?
- What is Independent Learning? <– The comments are definitely worth reading!
- #ukedchat: Session 67 – Thursday 13th October 2011: Can we really help our students to become independent learners or are there too many constraints?
- A short term investigation into the impact of a ‘holistic’ approach to Independent Learning within the AS Media Studies classroom.
If the ideas shared here or in the various posts resonate with you, then please consider tuning in via Google+ on Wednesday at 8pm. The link will be shared publicly on Google+ and via Twitter. We hope that the discussion will be a productive and valuable one.
[Update: Kevin and I were joined by Steve Philp and Spencer Cartwright. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues we were unable to record the Hangout. Nevertheless, we had a thought provoking chat about the approaches that Kevin and I have been employing to facilitate independent learning – culminating in a consideration of the barriers to fostering such approaches more widely.]