Last month I was fortunate to hear Mark Treadwell [pictured above] speak to a group of aspirant leaders I am mentoring. He had some I think important things to say about learning and I think leadership.

He began the morning making the case for a new paradigm shift for learning. He quoted the work of Robert Branson from Florida University saying the last paradigm shift in the 1400′s was caused by the technology of the prnting press which moved us from an oral centric to a text centric paradigm. The chasm between paradigm shifts was the need to learn to read and write. This eventually lead to schooling becoming public and paradigm reached its efficiency and effectiveness limit in the 1960′s.

The graph from Mark’s site shows the technology of the Internet will cause a new paradigm shift in learning from the “knowing and recalling” of the text centric paradigm to the “understanding and applying” of the Internet paradigm.

So what does this mean for our work as educators?

I know a lot of literature is saying that the  ’anyone, anywhere, anytime’ access of information via the Internet will eventually mean the demise of school as we know it now. I would like to think that the work of educators in schools will adapt to this ’understand and apply’ paradigm where the emphasis will be on just in time learning rather than the just in case learning that occurred in the old text based paradigm of knowing and recalling.

This chasm won’t be an easy space to cross for it requires a rethinking of the way learning occurs in schools and our roles in the teaching process. The old image of the teacher as the sage on the stage, as the deliverer of information via a dominate direct instruction methodology [note here I am not saying that some direct instruction does not benefit students] will not suffice in the demands of the new paradigm. A variety of new teaching strategies will need to emerge focused on both the academic and social cultural learning needs of students.

It won’t be easy as there are external political pressures for a knowing and recalling paradigm. Governments continue to mandate and publish national test results largely based on this old paradigm of knowing and recalling. We will need new ways of testing for and valuing the understanding and applying learning needed in the Internet paradigm [again note that I am totally dismissive of the need to quiz for recall of information].

These political measures also create local community expectations of schools and teachers to prepare students to perform well on national tests. This sets potential clashes of ideologies and expectations around the purpose of schooling.

I think the challenge for educators in school leadership positions is to help teachers and communities cross this chasm of the Internet paradigm. We must continuously state our new pedagogical understandings based on a shared dream for our youth and their future.

I know my work this year will now include a renewed focus on a pedagogical plan shared across staff and the parent community. Perhaps this is where Mark was beginning to take us as school leaders that morning.

Over the past 3 months I have been honoured to observe instruction by teachers in classrooms across a number of schools. One of the indicators of effective instruction is that each lesson has a clear learning intention stated up front to the students in the class. In most classrooms I visited the learning intention was also written for students.

I was able to ask some students about why they learning this lesson and was puzzled by what I saw as a gap between students knowing the learning intentions and understanding the purpose of the lesson.

After lots of reflection and some reading it appears to me that lesson intentions that focus simply on the skill/s being taught [note I'm not assuming being learned by students here] miss the connections or concepts students need to learn to apply these skills in new settings.

A learning intention might be written as a skill - today we are learning the “cr” letter blend - or as a concept – today we are contuining to learn that good readers stretch out common letter patterns like “cr” when they come to new words. Please forgive this rather feeble attempt but I think you get the idea.

So why is this important?

Well if you were to read a previous post on a new Internet learning paradigm you would see that we are trying to provide a conceptual framework for students to be be able to understand and then apply new skills or information.

Yet again why is this important?

I referencing Mark Treadwells presentation notes here:

In the new model for how the brain learns the brain has three reasonably autonomous but interoperable learning systems.

•Remembering content via ‘rote’ learning and knowledge creation via epigenetic processes in the 7% of brain cells that are neurons

•Building and automating conceptual frameworks of understanding via the interplay of astrocytes (75% of brain cells) and neurons

•Combining those conceptual frameworks of understanding in different ways in order to be creative via brainwaves

It turns out that the brains processes for knowledge creation and memorising is nowhere near as efficient and effective as its capacity to form and apply concepts. It is this recent realisation and the overwhelming volume of knowledge that could be learnt that has led to the need for and the development of a concept based curriculum.

So what does this mean for teachers when planning lessons? Most teachers have been trained to think about planning lessons that cover the content of the course as a starting point rather than for whom the lesson is intended, why they need to learn this new skill or understanding and how can they apply it in new settings. I think most teachers I know want better value for their hard endeavours and planning leassons that students can access greater proportions of their brain is certainly as they say: “a no brainer”.

Mark Treadwell continues to make this point about a different way of thinking in this new pardigm shift when he talks about personalised learning:

Personalised learning is about moving away from
what we teach, how we teach it, why we are teaching it (vague and undefined) it and finally whom is the recipient of that teaching and is this teaching appropriate

to

Making sure we know whom is front of us and where their understanding is at for each idea they are required to understand, why they are learning (clear learning intentions), how they can learn the ideas in the most efficient and effective way possible , making sure they are engaged and finally what knowledge to they need to know in order to build that required understanding.

The second process is a complete reversal of the first

In publishing this reflection I hope to support teachers in thinking about new ways  to approach learning and definitely new ways to phrase learning intentions so that students make sense of their work.

Recently Elsternwick Primary hosted what’s now an annual event with the local Bayside Council who sponsor the event a talk by Kathy Walker on school readiness. This is always a popular event with over 50 people present.

Kathy Walker is a noted early years educator who works in schools and kindergardens. My intent in writing this posting is not to summarise Kathy’s presentation but rather make a few reflection on the issue s that Kathy raised. These are the same issues I’m asked on school tours.

School is not Kinder.

School is a lot more formal with bells and many routines children are expected to just master day 1. There are many ways of working [by yourself on a writing task, learning to read in a group with 3-5 other students, and in other groups on investigations] and while we prepare students for these activities they all require a certain level of social competence, organisation and resilience.

In other words its not alright to hide under a table when the teacher calls your name or throw down your work or bang your fist on the table when you don’t get your turn right away, or refuse to follow the teachers direction and come in from play, or take someones play lunch because it looks nice or you couldn’t find your own, or ask the teacher to blow you nose with a tissue, or continually call out and not let others have a chance to think and share.

Each year we get a child or children who struggles with these expectations and we wonder how did this child slip through our transition program and why didn’t we notice these behaviours or why wasn’t an earlier assessment made on school readiness for the family. We are working on a readiness checklist for our prep teachers in 2011.  

Kathy did challenge parents about a clash of values between home and school or other economic factors that might be in play with this decision to start school ‘early’ [when I say early I'm referring to the stage of development here not age related earliness].

Some parents indicate when these signs of readiness are not evident that just want their child to repeat year prep again the following year.

The research on the advantages of repeating a class are little if any at all. Often these children’s stage of development is such that they need another year of play based learning not formal learning and to repeat a year of formal learning doesn’t match their needs – just their frustrations.

Lets aim for every school day for the full 13 years to be an enjoyable one starting with a stage of readiness to start prep.

For further information:

school readiness information by Kathy Walker

What’s the fuss about school readiness article by Kathy Walker

podcast

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Call to ban alcohol at school fundraising activities is naïve and dangerous http://bit.ly/eeBNMa