I have a Dream...

About September 2012 the decision was made to change from teaching 5 and 6 year olds.  The new challenge for 2013 was to teach 11 and 12 year olds.   I was excited.  My head was buzzing with ideas and plans.  I knew just how I wanted to transform the classroom into a Modern Learning Space with independent, motivated, self directed learners.  In the three years preceding this decision I had read many exciting books and attended conferences.   I was already using much of what I learnt with the 5 and 6 year olds but couldn't wait to really get my teeth into inquiry learning and higher order thinking.  I thought, “If my five year olds can work independently on literacy and numeracy activities how much more can I do with older, ict competent students.   So off I went to Ulearn 2012 and ICOT 2013 for more information.   I immediately made the plans and resources necessary to transform my teaching and the students learning.

 I decided that Lane Clark’s inquiry model and processes were going to be central to everything we did.  I wanted every student to be competent users of De Bono’s thinking tools.  SOLO (Pam Hook) was going to be used to structure our learning outcomes and reflection.  I was aiming for reflections to happen with every activity we did in class.  I wanted to have modeled and independent reading, writing and maths on a daily basis.  Dream’s are free.

Critical Mistake…what about knowledge of the learner and their community.  Even though I knew most of the children (it is my son’s class after all), I was not prepared for how little I knew of them as learners.   I even knew most of the parents, either through teaching their younger children or through living in the community for the last three years.  My awareness of the parents knowledge about education was to prove woefully lacking.  Note to self:  In the future don’t ever initiate change again without hosting an information evening for parents that brings them up to date with current research and the problems we are trying to fix or prevent.

Turns out the community here knew very little about the changes occurring in society because of digital technology.  They were unaware of how the job market has changed and the impact this has on what students need to learn.  Both parents and students are very limited in their ICT skills.  No digital natives living in this community!