The Future is Now

The Future is Now

Greg Whitby

Learning is about:

Passion, precision and focus

It is not all about the kids but all about improving learning.

Innovation does not drop from heaven but comes from structure and planning.

Three focus areas – learning, leading , teaching

Technology change:

In  the past it was all very exciting because we went digital... but it then progressed...

Digital    –   E-learning: worksheets became digital

-       Me learning – kids can publish and create

-       We learning – connection and collaboration

This is not an experiment but the best of what we know of theory and practice:

We can't invent the future but need to learn the future. The question 'How will we make this work?' will lead to our adaptation and innovation.

It is the deep engagement needed around learning, leading and teaching.

Coming together as a team, principal and the team where there is dialogue. It can’t be just one teacher in isolation, removed from their class for PD.

People learn in

Context: your class, community, world

Connection: we have more powerful connections, teacher-student, student-student, expert-student

Metacognition: thinking about learning

These aspects are all essential in a continual dance of learning. The most powerful learning comes from a powerful context, deep connections or relationships and deep thinking about learning.

It is the deep engagement needed around learning, leading and teaching.

Coming together as a team, principal and the team where there is dialogue. It can’t be just one teacher in isolation, removed from their class for PD.

People learn in

Context: your class, community, world

Connection: we have more powerful connections, teacher-student, student-student, expert-student

Metacognition: thinking about learning

These aspects are all essential in a continual dance of learning. The most powerful learning comes from a powerful context, deep connections or relationships and deep thinking about learning.

How do we improve learning?

We have good teacher teaching them.

How do we get good teachers?

Constantly sharing, learning and growing as a teacher. Committed to own PD.

We need leaders who understand good learning.

Leaders who understand how to be collaborative.

We need to move from I Know to We Learn.

  

Three core strategies for precision – enabling strategies:

-         Data walls: collaborative access to the evidence on each child. The dialogue is around how we can improve student success.

-         Instructional Walks: Intentional, focused, well planned. Looking for evidence and making contact with the learners.

-         Case Management: The entire school is responsible for ‘At Risk’ students so the case manage these learners not leaving them to one person.

Roles of teachers in the future:

Prophet: Person who knows what the theory says and drive to make it happen.

Activator: Person who makes it happen.

Innovator: The person who looks for new ways to make things more effective.

We collectively have a huge depth of knowledge. We need to combine our knowledge to make a change.

Our next steps:

We need to make our projects authentic with links to the community.

Evaluate and adapt units so that they are more effective for the next year.

Reflect on our practise, including student voice, resulting in change.

Problem based learning big in OZ and Singapore.

We need to begin to do our own research to prove effectiveness.

This is all a it of a muddle of blogging while listening so my idea is to just get the essence of what I am taking away:

• Teachers to take on roles of facilitators & co-learners within project engaging and 'real' learning.
• We need to be bold and taking the step, do the research based on the theory and evidence.
• All learning is based on deep relationships.