This presentation was delivered at the CESI Conference, Dublin 4th March, 2017. The theme of the conference was Making Connections: Transformation Through Technology and Teamwork. The objective of Connecting the Unconnected invites teachers to go back to basics and to reflect on the primary function of learning, which is the relationship between the teacher and student. The presentation suggests that technology and learning will only be successful when we as teachers truly understand the communities we are tasked to serve.
1. Joanna Norton
Connecting the Unconnected
Using the community as a learning canvas
University of the Arts, London
MA Applied Imagination
‘How can we re-create canons of knowledge to include the
voices of the voiceless?’
Connecting the Unconnected #CESICon @joannapnorton
2. Diversity of student cohort
1. New analysis from the Demos Integration Hub
shows that ethnic minority children now represent
26 per cent of all school students in England
(Burgess, 2015).
2. 90% of teachers are white, middle class and
predominately female (DfE, 2011)
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3. Knowing my students
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At the University of the Arts, I now teach the children of the super-rich.
Connecting the Unconnected #CESICon @joannapnorton
5. Your community as a resource
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How can we remove barriers between the school and the community
to allow for the free movement of learning?
Connecting the Unconnected #CESICon @joannapnorton
6. Connecting the Unconnected
Make connections between concepts
and contexts and consider how to
apply to practice.
A Morning of Inspiration
Walking Mathematically
Exploring connections
between mathematics and
innovation.
Fashion’s Biological Future
Exploring human
reproduction, wearable
technology & photography
Applied Creativity for Teachers and School Leaders
Use the community as a learning
canvas. Drifting to engage with the
student voice.
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Connecting the Unconnected #CESICon @joannapnorton
7. Task 1
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You will see images of four different projects.
Decide what the projects are and how you could use
them in your own context?
12. Turn to the person next to you.
Discuss activities/strategies you use for getting
to know your students.
How often do you use getting to know you
activities?
How well do you know your students?
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13. How do you get to school?
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15. Let’s take a break
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Find an object.
Close your eyes.
Compose your shot using sound rather than vision.
You have two minutes.
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17. Left-field Questions
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How often do you ask your students left-field questions?
What are the benefits of such random questions?
How often does your research take you beyond the
curriculum?
23. Drone Port Rwanda
Local solutions to local
challenges:
Concept design
Product design
Graphic design
Engineering
Mathematics
Architecture
Sketching/drawing
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24. The poetry of code
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Despite my experience as a teacher, I find I spend even more time getting to know my students. Many of my current students live in the most expensive parts of London/the world, while I live in deindustralised city, one of many that voted for Brexit. The differences between the teacher and student are stark.
In my own teaching context, BYOD is simply standard practice. While there is no shortage of technology, there is a clear lack of critical thinking. My practice therefore has gone back to basics – what is thinking?
If the current education system is failing vast numbers of children, how can we re-connect with these communities for teaching and learning purposes?
This slide offers an outline for the CPD in Applied Creativity for Teachers and School Leaders.
Paris is committed to reducing greenhouse gases by 2050. This is a mockup from the architect Vincent Callebaut on the role architecture will play in this process.
The Surrogate Robot by the artist/designer Keith Kamholz. This will be used for exploring the ethics of robotics.
Drone Port Rwanda will use Drones to transport goods and medical supplies between villages at the same price of a motorbike.
One of the learning outcomes will be to plan a concept for a photoshoot based on learning that has taken place. This is a model that will be offered to teachers and students.
If you take the same route to the same school everyday, how well do you know the communities that you are tasked to serve?
Psychogeography will be used as a method of re-creating schools with their communities.
An example of a left-field question given to students.
While the activity can be percieved as a creative exercise, it has been inspired by the work carried out by photographers in The Blind Photographer. How can we take approach SEN teaching from different perspective?
Typical answers include shapes, circles, rules and pasta.
I use pasta to introduce geometry. I want to prepare to students to re-design their communities. Even the poor have access to pasta.
The inspiration for this approach came from Poundland, which is located within my own deindustrialised town. Here people can buy two bags of pasta for £1.
Students can therefore take the concept of pasta, geometry and start to describe where students live. This is then used to redesign their home/community.
Futurice provides a great model for this.
Drone Port Rwanda offers local solutions to local problems. Given the large numbers of African children in British schools, we are able to introduce positive models of innovation from Sub-Saharan Africa in the classroom.
At an introductory level, given the growing interest in coding, this model is designed as a collaborative model between coding and English poetry.