Week 15

LEADERSHIP - TEACHER INQUIRY INTO STUDENT LEARNING

Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning

This week, in this course we are covering Teacher Inquiry into Student Learning, and in the digital and collaborative course we are covering inquiry learning. Team Solutions (2009) make the distinction between them as follows:

Inquiry Learning (DIGITAL)	Teacher Inquiry (LEADERSHIP)
A process where students co-construct their learning in an authentic context	Where teachers inquire into their own practice and use evidence to make decisions about ways to change that practice for the benefit of the student

Critical Inquiry

In the Practising Teacher Criteria (Professional Knowledge in Practice), critical inquiry is part of the criteria (Education Council (n.d.) 

Criterion 12 is "use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice"

The key indicators are:

1. systematically and critically engage with evidence and professional literature to reflect on and refine practice
2. respond professionally to feedback from members of their learning community
3. critically examine their own beliefs, including cultural beliefs, and how they impact on their professional practice and the achievement of ākonga

Further details can be found on the Education Council Website. 

Teaching as Inquiry

The NZ Ministry of Education also has a series of web pages explaining what they define as Teaching as Inquiry

The Spiral of Inquiry

This is described on the MoE's TKI website as “a fresh rethink on the structure of teaching as inquiry.” (Ministry of Education, 2015). It emphasises involvement of learners, their families and communities and developing learner agency. It states that engaging in inquiry is a process of developing collective professional agency either within a school or across a cluster of schools. The approach is described in Timperley, Kaser & Halbert (2014). They emphasise agency and collaboration: "Engaging in inquiry is a process of developing collective professional agency either within a school or across a cluster of schools”, and “Nor can leaders decide what the focus of their inquiry should be. It is the collaborative inquiry process that matters”

A number of teachers use this approach rather than the Teaching as Inquiry cycle, described in more detail on the Ministry web site.

Preparing for your Research and Community Informed Practice Assignments - Suggestions for getting started

In the Research and Community Informed Practice course, you will be doing an assignment based around a Teacher Inquiry project, following on from a literature review that will ideally be on the same topic. Here are a few ideas that may help you prepare in advance, adapted from Hubbard & Power (2003).

• Keep a teaching journal for at least a week. What surprises or intrigues you?
• Brainstorm a list of 10 things that you wonder about in your classroom.
• Be specific in your concerns
• Write down your draft question, as fully as you need to
• Focus your question with stems like “What is the role of…?” “How do …?” “What procedures…?” “What happened when…?”

DIGITAL - INQUIRY LEARNING & ROBOTICS

Inquiry

Inquiry has been described  as “the organised pursuit of curiosity.” (Stenhouse, 1981)

Inquiry Learning vs. Teacher Inquiry

This week, in this course we are covering inquiry learning, and in the leadership course we are covering teacher inquiry. Team Solutions (2009) make the distinction between them as follows:  

Inquiry Learning (DIGITAL)	Teacher Inquiry (LEADERSHIP)
A process where students co-construct their learning in an authentic context	Where teachers inquire into their own practice and use evidence to make decisions about ways to change that practice for the benefit of the students

Slide Set for the Before/In Class Activity

For the before class activity, you should have contributed to the shared slide deck of models used in NZ schools: http://tinyurl.com/inquirymodel

We used Tiriti School's Inquiry Model to form our inquiry (Coggle picture) around the topic: Will robots/AI replace the need for humans as teachers?

Tools That Can Help Manage Inquiry Projects

Some tools we have previously introduced that may be useful for this week's In Class inquiry:

• Unitec Library Website
• Google Scholar
• Google News search

When using the library website, do not rely just on Articles-Express to find all the resources you need, since it does not cover the whole of the library's holdings. Also search the databases, e-journals etc.

Contact Unitec IMS support if your Library login doesn’t work.

When using Google Scholar, make sure that you have linked the Unitec library to your searches (Settings -> Library Links -> search for 'Unitec'). Remember that you can also save references to articles you have found in Google Scholar ('Save' -> 'My Library') and generate APA references ('Cite'). 

Fertile Questions

Here are some ideas from Harpaz (2005) on six characteristics of 'fertile' questions that might be used in an inquiry:

• Open - there are several different or competing answers
• Undermining - makes the learner question their basic assumptions
• Rich - cannot be answered without careful and lengthy research, often able to be broken into subsidiary questions
• Connected - relevant to the learners
• Charged - has an ethical dimension
• Practical - is able to be researched given the available resources

Which careers are a safe bet?

In 2015 the BBC set up a web page entitled "Will a robot take your job?" Try typing in job titles into the search box to find out the likelihood that they could be automated within the next two decades. tinyurl.com/willarobottakeyourjob (in class)

Library Website Feedback Survey

If you have encountered any issues with using the library website, please give your feedback at tinyurl.com/TMLlibrary

Edison

To program the Edison robot you just need to go to the EdBlocks site, you can program this robot in a web browser and that address is below:
EdBlocks: www.edblocksapp.com

If you choose to program the Edison in class, this short video will give some guidance. 

mBbot

To program the mBbot you will need the latest version of mBlock - version 3.4.11 (Windows and Mac). The respective link is the same for both.
Latest version of mBlock: tinyurl.com/TMLMBot (The respective link is the same for both)

This short video will be helpful when programming the mBots in class, it looks at how to generate Arduino code in mBlock and then upload the code to the robot mBot. 

MeArm

To program the MeArm robot you will need to have installed mBlock version 3.2.2 (Windows) or version 3.3.1 (Mac). The respective links are below:
Windows: tinyurl.com/TMLmBlockMac: tinyurl.com/TMLmBlockMac

To install on Mac you may have to change your security settings to allow downloads of apps that are not in the app store.

The program downloads as a zipped archive file. Make sure that after you have downloaded it, that you extract it to another folder before attempting to run it.

Do NOT update the version after you have installed mBlock

When you create the code for your robot, you will also need to use the mBlock project file that is included in the video about programming the robotic arm. Click on the link below, then download the file to a local folder. Then you can add it into your mBlock workspace (File -> Load Project).
Robotic Arm.sb2

If you choose to programme the MeArm robot with mBlock you should watch the following videos for some guidance on the different steps. 

Step 1 - Wire up your robot arm as described in the previous class video.

Step 2 - Programme the robot while viewing and pausing the video at each step in “Programming the Robot Arm with mBlock”. 

If you run into problems - think of why, try to solve them and learn. There is also a useful troubleshooting guide. 

References

Harpaz, N. (2005). Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 20(2), 136-157. Retrieved from http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/en_learning/teaching-learning.pdf

Healey, L. (2015). A Student-Led, Flipped, Inquiry-Based Learning Classroom Doing Authentic Work. Teachthought. Retrieved from http://teachthought.com/learning/student-led-flipped-inquiry-based-learning-classroom-authentic-work/

Stenhouse, L. (1981). What counts as research? British Journal of Educational Studies, 29(2), 103-144.

Team Solutions. (2009). Thinking about Inquiry. Retrieved from http://teamsolutions.wikispaces.com/Teaching+as+Inquiry

Week 14

DIGITAL-

Design Thinking 

Sir Ken Robinson described research that showed that young people lost their ability to think in divergent or non-linear ways, a key component of creativity (TESS, 25 March 2005). Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions.

Design Thinking has been implemented across many industries since the 1950’s as companies increase their understanding of, and need for, more divergent thinking and greater employee contribution to ideas and problem solving.

The process of applying a design thinking approach within the classroom increases student engagement, enables deeper dives into new content and greater comprehension and provides a important framework for specific learning tasks and outcomes.  

Design thinking by TMLU

In this week's session we'll try out The Mind Lab by Unitec Design Thinking Process + materials, which uses our 'kite' model

• Empathise
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototype
• Test
• Reflect

Change by Design

Tim Brown, the current CEO of IDEO, has written the book about Change by Design (2009). According to him, Design Thinking is Human-centered: ‘The basic problem is that people are so ingenious at adapting to inconvenient situations that they are often not even aware that they are doing so. Our real goal is helping people to articulate the latent needs they may not even know they have’. 

Observation is important too: ´When we observe people going about their daily lives, what is it that they don’t do or don’t say?´ as well as empathy, or as Brown calls it: 'Standing in the shoes of others'. Brown talks a lot about the importance of prototyping, because: ‘Like every other kid, I was thinking with my hands…’. If you want to hear him talking about his book, we recommend you listening to this radio show.

Making ideas tangible always facilitates communication

According to Brown 'Prototypes don’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. In fact, the opposite is better: Put as little time and effort into prototypes as you can and still generate useful feedback and drive an idea forward.'

(Re)capture the Creativity of your Childhood

de Saint-Exupéry (1943) wrote a story about The Little Prince where he tried to showcase that as we age, how we see the world changes. It is the rare person who is able to hold on to the sense of wonderment, of presence, creativity, or of sheer enjoyment of life and its possibilities that is so apparent in our younger selves. As we age, we gain experience and we become better able to exercise self-control. We become more in command of our faculties, our thoughts, our desires. But somehow, we lose sight of the effortless ability to take in the world in full. The very experience that helps us become successful threatens to limit our imagination and our sense of the possible. When did experience ever limit the fantasy of a child? 

One part of the story of Little Prince also relates to customer communication, and to latent needs. At one point, the little prince is asked by a boy to draw a picture of a sheep. After several attempts that fail to meet with approval, the little prince just draws a box with holes in it:

"‘This is only his box. The sheep you asked for is inside.’ I was very surprised to see a light break over the face of my young judge: ‘That is exactly the way I wanted it!’".

Like the little prince, you don't know what your or your customers want and neither do they - until you show it to them.

LEADERSHIP- Diffusion of Innovations and Design Thinking for Leadership
Innovators - 
Early adopters - trendsetters, easy to please and don't need much persuading.

Week 13

DIGITAL - 
Video: Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee
Talks about changing the tests and assessment to challenge the learners.
Games can be used to enhance learning and engage learners.

What games do you play?
- Skip Bo
- Candy Crush
- Dots
- Word cookies

Games can be used for a range of things - time filler, as a relaxation tool, education etc.

The link between games and learning 

The link between games and learning is not a contemporary phenomenon, nor a digital one. ...Froebel’s invention of kindergarten in 1840 was premised in large part on the integration of learning through games and play. (Salen, 2007).

What type of player are you?

Are you are a griefer/killer (hack / cheat / heckle), achiever (win / challenge / compare), socializer (share, comment, help) or explorer (investigate, create, discover)? Test your "Gamer Psychology" with the Bartle Test: http://tinyurl.com/TMLGamer

Even if you don't play online games, you can still see what you would prefer to do in such an environment.

Reflection on playing games

Read through the spreadsheet that has the responses from the 'before class' survey on Playing a Game. Discuss what it is about games that makes them engaging. 

Reflection on flipped preparation

On a scale from "No, does not inform at all" <- - - -> "Yes, informs fully", 

where on the spectrum of one of these 4 key points from the homework reading do you individually stand in relation to your teaching practice? What is your justification?

1. Time on task = quality of learning
2. Rewards (dopamine release) are important in learning
3. Setting the right level of difficulty sustains motivation
4. Learners must know skills before moving on to next level

Game thinking

Marczewski (2016) explores the following types of game thinking:

• Game inspired design: This is where no actual elements from games are used, just ideas such as user interfaces that mimic those from games, design or artwork that is inspired by games or the way things are written.
• Gamification: Extrinsic gamification is the sort that most people are used to, where game elements are added to a system. Things like points, badges, progress bars etc.Intrinsic gamification is more about using motivation and behavioural design to engage users.
• Serious games: These may be teaching/learning games that teach you something using real gameplay, simulators that provide a virtual version of something from the real world that allows safe practice and testing, meaningful games that use gameplay to promote a meaningful message to the player, or purposeful games that create direct real world outcomes.
• Play (games / toys): Play is free form and has no extrinsically imposed goals. It is done for fun or joy. Games add defined goals and rules to play (such as challenges). Toys are objects that can be used in play or games.

Some examples of serious games

• Sparx  
• Quest2teach.
• Tinnitus game)
• Cancer Research UK's game Play to Cure: Genes in Space
• Gamefroot
• Sploder

Educational game model

According to Amory (2007), Educational computer games should:

• Be relevant, explorative, emotive and engaging
• Include complex challenges, puzzles or quests
• Be gender-inclusive and non-confrontational
• Provide appropriate role models
• Develop democracy and social capital through dialogue
• Support authentic learning activities
• Support the construction of tacit knowledge

Educational games need all the usual qualities of games, plus they should not contain any socially undesirable features (racism. sexism, violence, etc) but provide positive models, plus they have to have some embedded pedagogy. Maybe this explains why successful educational games are so hard to create.

Kupu Hono

You can try out a basic demo of Tyne Crow’s Kupu Hono Maori language learning game that is an example of a learning game designed for mobile devices that uses a virtual game world.

Where could you employ some aspects of gamification?

Playing games are positive and good and can encourage children's learning.

One teacher used Minecraft for Maths Measurement to replicate their school..

Video where a child used a famous poem and Minecraft to retell the poem.

The Fiction Engine 

One school used 'Does gaming help you learn?' as a hypothesis for a Science Fair topic.

Action Bound - Great tool to use for spatial awareness, games, fun, quizzes, group or individual games..

SCRATCH - Create a school studio where all the children can look at it.

Week 12

LEADERSHIP - Innovative learning spaces


Papamoa and Rolleston College -
S - Flexible station rotations, Modern learning environment, easily move furniture according to groupings, colourful and visually appealing. Simple structure in learning - 3 lessons a day
W - Costly upgrading and purchasing new classroom furniture etc
O - More collaboration between learners, teachers can facilitate the learning more effectively and efficiently, set up for both group and pair learning.
T - Saying that all schools should be like this..


DIGITAL - Maker Movement

Maker Movement

There is a lot of interest in learning through making, focused on the social construction of artefacts. While this might appear to echo earlier formal apprenticeship models of learning, it is good to know that the emerging ‘maker culture’ especially emphasises informal, networked, peer-led, and shared learning motivated by fun and self-fulfillment.

Whakataukī

Kaore i a te rakau whakaaro, kei te tohunga te whakaaro.

The wood has no thoughts, such only belong to its carver, or designer.

Related Standards for the Teaching Profession

Professional Learning
Be informed by research and innovations related to: content disciplines; pedagogy; teaching for diverse learners, including learners with disabilities and learning support needs; and wider education matters.

Video from portal: Kim Baars - Maker Culture
Maker classes/spaces

• Looking at a problem
• Ideating Testing problems
• Problem solving
• Making something else

You plan and structure to a certain extent but it is student-centred and led by the students.

Combining skills/talents to create a Maker project that supports the literacy, maths and curriculum programmes at your school.

Mindlab Kids 
Mind Lab Kids is a great site to use for learners as is App Inventor.

Week 11

DIGITAL - Agile and Lean Education

This Week’s Software

We will be using Lucidchart for one of the activities in this week’s session. If you want to take a look at this tool in advance, please take a look at the resources on this web page:

https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/beginners-guide-to-lucidchart

We will also be using Trello. The getting started guide can be found at: 

https://trello.com/guide/getting-started.html

View the video 'Lean Education, which discusses how lean concepts from manufacturing and the software industry might be applied to education. 

What was the most challenging idea? 

• Muda (waste) and identifying what is waste and what is valuable to my learning system.

What idea could you most easily use in your practice?

Lean Production

According to Barney and Kirby (2004), educators can learn from lean production the importance of empowering teachers by training them to problem-solve and then expecting them to be self-reflective and to continuously improve their practice.

Kanban

One of the ideas that has been taken from Lean Production by agile practitioners is Kanban - which means 'visual card' in Japanese.

For an example of how Kanban boards can be used to help children plan, see Princess Kanban. This is on the agileschool blog, which you may find interesting. More recent materials are now on the Agile Classrooms site.

Trello

Trello is one of the tools that can be used to create Kanban style boards online. It is an easy-to-use, free and visual way to manage your projects and organise anything. Naturally there are other tools too, but this one seems to be the most popular right now, and amongst teachers and their students too. 

LEADERSHIP - Agile and Servant Leadership

How would you rewrite the agile manifesto?

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentationCustomer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

Week 10

DIGITAL - Real World Learning and Crowdfunding

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group for a common goal, such as innovation, problem solving or efficiency.It can take place on many different levels and across various industries. Thanks to our growing connectivity, it is now easier than ever for individuals to collectively contribute, whether with ideas, time, expertise, or funds, to a project or cause. (Crowdsourcing Week, 2017).

If you want to learn when 'crowdsourcing' became a trend, take a look at the real data that Google shares with us: www.google.co.nz/trends/explore#q=crowdsourcing

You could also combine that with other search trends.

Crowdfunding

With crowdfunding, an entrepreneur raises external financing from a large audience (the “crowd”), in which each individual provides a very small amount, instead of soliciting a small group of sophisticated investors. Provini (2014) provides the following ideas for how you might raise money for schools with crowdfunding: 

1. Use crowdfunding for specific projects or needs, rather than general fundraising
2. Identify a safe, flexible and transparent platform
3. Start with reasonable goals
4. Break large projects into smaller steps
5. Prepare workgroup members to do intensive marketing
6. Marketing messages matter!
7. Target different levels of donors (alumni, community members, parents, local business owners, etc.)
8. Consider offering rewards and incentives for larger contributors
9. Offer students leadership opportunities and take advantage of teachable moments

Crowdfunding in New Zealand

• http://idealog.co.nz/venture/2014/02/ultimate-guid...
• https://www.snowballeffect.co.nz/
• https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/
• https://givealittle.co.nz/ (just donations and fundraising for causes and charities) 
• http://www.pozible.com/collection/detail/109 (Environmental Crowd funding projects in Australia and around the world)

Building an understanding of business

More and more young people are using crowdfunding platforms to gain public support to seed fund new start ups and early expansion plans for businesses.

Other ideas that students can use to build an understanding of business, entrepreneurship, marketing, target markets, sales, budgeting and economics include:

1. Creating a online shop on a low cost platform such as etsy.com. Online shops can allow students to sell items as diverse as art, crafts, digital assets such as Minecraft characters and simple services eg. car grooming, garage sorting, pet minding etc
2. Set up a school-wide or community-based pop-up fair where parents with businesses can sell slow moving or end of line products by hiring a stand where the community can shop.
3. Create a community garden at the school and grow vegetables for sale at farmers markets or to parents. Choose seasonal items that make for great after school snacks (for parents to buy) such as strawberries and carrots.

Resources for teachers and students

Young Enterprise offers a range of enterprise programmes and financial literacy resources that can be used by teachers throughout New Zealand. Each resource is designed for a specific age group, and aligns to the New Zealand Curriculum. http://www.youngenterprise.org.nz/

OpenIDEO - Can be a part of a global community working together to design solutions for the world's biggest problems.

• Use design thinking for issues you care about.
• Exchange ideas with people everywhere.
• Help projects get off the ground.
• Connect with others in your community.

LEADERSHIP - Entrepreneurialism

What do entrepreneurs do?

• They have innovative ideas about making money.

• Take risks.

• Leadership - share their ideas.

• Anyone - who has a passion for something.

• Because the world has opened up - things are changing.

• Making the world a better place to live in.

• Support entrepreneurs, their innovations and thinking.

Look at the skills the students need for the future.
Identify a passion with students and get them to drive their own ideas and businesses.

Who can be an entrepreneur?
Why is this so powerful now?
What must we do as teachers?

Education for Enterprise is about promoting an approach to learning – one that is real, relevant, and gives students responsibility for their learning.

The Vision of NZ Curriculum (2016) is for young people who will be creative, energetic, and enterprising, who will seize the opportunities offered by new knowledge and technologies to secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future for our country

Entrepreneurial Skills

According to Aileron (2017), the top skills every entrepreneur needs are

• Resiliency. 
  • The ability to weather the ups and downs of any business since it never goes exactly the way the business plan described it. This skill enables the entrepreneur to keep going when the outlook is bleak.
• Focus. 
  • After setting a long term vision, knowing how to “laser focus” on the very next step to get closer to the ultimate goal. There are so many distracting forces when trying to build a business that this skill is not easy to master.
• Invest for the long-term. 
  • Most entrepreneurs are not patient and focus only on what comes next, rather than where the company needs to go. Overnight success may take 7 to 10 years. Entrepreneurs need to stop, pause and plan on a quarterly basis.
• Find and manage people. 
  • Only by learning to leverage employees, vendors and other resources will an entrepreneur build a scalable company. They need to learn to network to meet the right people. Entrepreneurs strive to guarantee they will get honest and timely feedback from all these sources.
• Sell. 
  • Every entrepreneur is a sales person whether they want to be or not. They are either selling their ideas, products or services to customers, investors or employees. They work to be there when customers are ready to buy. Alternately, they know how to let go and move on when they are not.
• Learn. 
  • Successful entrepreneurs realize they don’t know everything and the market is constantly changing. They stay up to date on new systems, technology, and industry trends.
• Self-reflection. 
  • Allow downtime to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Always working only leads to burnout physically and emotionally.
• Self-reliance. 
• While there is a lot of help for the entrepreneur, in the end, they need to be resourceful enough to depend on themselves.

• 

Social enterprise is an organisation that applies commercial strategies to maximise improvements in human and environmental well-being - this may include maximising social impact rather than profits for external shareholders. Social enterprises are part of a continuum of enterprise types with different agendas.