New pedagogies for a new journey

 

 

This is a very provocative quote from Michael Fullan and Maria Langworthy which headlines a new project into the development of new pedagogies to promote “deep learning”. It might sound like bog-standard education rhetoric to many teachers who constantly reel from one initiative to another.

But digging deeper into this new project has gotten me very excited. The cluster of schools which my current school is part of has been lucky enough to find a place on the exciting new global project which aims to bring experience and research across diverse education systems to build global collective capacity to pursue “deep learning goals”. The more I read about the project the more excited I am at leading this initiative in our school.

The New Pedagogies for Deep Learning project takes as its focal point the implementation of deep learning goals enabled by new pedagogies and accelerated by technology.

In many ways the deep learning goals will be familiar to many involved in the development of vision for 21st Century learning. Indeed they skills described mirror aspects of such frameworks as the PYP Learner Profile, The Key Competencies in the NZ Curriculum and the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. This will allow educators across a diverse range of learning contexts to be able to see connections between their own vision for students and the vision of the project.

As a team our school is already exploring new ways of working and discovering how the changing roles of teachers are evolving as we grow our understanding of modern learning practices. We are in the middle of developing a personalised vision for modern learning. In this time of change I can see a window of opportunity to not only rethink our learning programme but radically reshape our vision for our students and place them at the centre of everything we do as a school. Working together as a team both at our school, across our cluster and as part of a global project – what an exciting, rewarding and challenging learning journey!

National Standards and the damage done

Many schools around New Zealand still struggle to align the strange dichotomy of a curriculum that embraces our understanding of the developmental growth of children and National Standards which are completely arbitrary. The New Zealand Principal’s Federation have produced a substantial amount of information to try and make our concerns known since 2009 when they were first introduced. Now the results of a major research project have raised considerable concerns over the effect that the initiative have had on teachers and schools. With the current government pursuing the use of data as a way of evaluating schools ( and probably teachers in the future ) there are grave concerns for how this process will further complicate and alienate the education community from the political powers.

“National Standards are having some favourable impacts in areas that include teacher understanding of curriculum levels, motivation of some teachers and children and some improved targeting of interventions. Nevertheless such gains are overshadowed by damage being done through the intensification of staff workloads, curriculum narrowing and the reinforcement of a two-tier curriculum, the positioning and labelling of children and unproductive new tensions amongst school staff.”

A very astute quote from the Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) Project, Waikato University. The paper is aptly titled “National Standards and the damage done…”

For more info you can visit the Wilf Malcom Institue of Educational Research website.