Presentation on Flexible Learning Environments (Modern Learning Environments). Target audience was the staff of another school

1. MODERN LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS
@WS
Hokowhitu Staff Meeting Term 2 2014

2. OUr students will need to learn to
-deal with massive amounts of data
- self direct/self motivate/self
start/self regulate
-
organise/collaborate/plan/reflect/asse
ss
-have multi level relationships
- sustain their learning

3. OUr students will need to develop
- self motivation
- self discipline
- perseverance /commitment
- balance/sustainable
-coachable
-self managing
- courage, tenacity and drive
- social confidence
- high self esteem

4. Why?
There has been a shift in thinking about
education over the last 10 years.
In the 21st century knowledge has a new
meaning…
- is a process, not a thing
- does things, has an impact
- happens in teams, not in individual experts
- happens in the real world
- should be just in time learning, not just in time

7. • New approaches are needed if our
young people are to develop the
“dispositions” (to knowledge,
thinking, learning and work) needed
to productively engage in the 21st
century world. There has been a
change of how we think of
knowledge.
Why?

8. Awatea Team

9. NZ Curriculum

10. Why?
• Our NZ Curriculum states we want “ Young people
who will be confident, connected, actively involved
life‐long learners” (p. 7). “Learning to learn” is a
key point
• Personalising Learning is a key philosophy behind
effective teacher pedagogy and our NZ Curriculum
document. What does personalising learning mean
to you? What does it look like?

11. Why?
• Personalising learning means students:
• understand how they learn
own and drive their learning
are co-designers of the curriculum and their
learning environment

12. Why?
• Using effective teacher pedagogy means that
student learning needs, interests, and capability
determine the pace of learning. In a personalised
learning environment the learning objectives,
content, method, and pace may all vary. It is learner
centred - not teacher centred.

13. Our Journey
• We started with building our vision around what we wanted as a team and a school
We wanted our kids to:
• Be self directed learners
• Personalise their learner - work with the best teacher that suits the individual need.
Develop relationships with a range of adults and peers
• Work with/beside a wider range of peers
• Be more prepared - be in the right workshop, with the right equipment, at the right
time. Know what you are learning and why and where you need to be in order to
achieve your goals.
• Coaching/teaching and learning off each other

14. Our Journey
• We want our kids to be part of this fast paced,
technological world and be prepared for the
challenges that they will face on their learning
journey. Our students learn differently now - the
Centre recognises this and we do everything we
can to :
• empower, engage, enhance and awaken our kids

15. Our Journey
• So how was this going to look for us?
What were some key features of our set up?
What results did we have?

16. Our JourneySo… Big Picture …
• Kids run the programme, timetabling themselves and
collaborating with each other. Kids choose the best
thing for themselves to learn,where to learn, and the
best approach for them, to opt into workshops, to run
our curriculum.
• Teachers to work collaboratively. Power taken away
from the teachers and put on the students.
• We want to empower, engage, enable and awaken.

17. Our JourneySo how did we start?
-Traditional classroom programme - all did
writing/maths/reading together with ability grouping
- This got us used to the spaces we had and how we could
use them
-This also allowed the students time to get to know us as 3
teachers, and for us to begin to put other things in place
- Each teacher has a homeroom, whom they report on to
parents

18. Our Journey
Then what?
- Ran literacy/numeracy times as normal
- Ran workshops around needs we were seeing, within our guided
time in maths - students opted into those (so choice slowly
introduced)
- Starting doing the same thing for our guided reading time.
- Target groups were taken at whole group times i.e. when we had
the entire group for a sharing time, a target group was taken for
reading or maths

19. Our Journey
Then what?
- We got rid of ability grouping for maths and reading
- Students opted into books of their interest based
around our inquiry and one teacher took that group
- Maths - a maths board developed and kids began to
opt into their maths group around a particular area

20. Our Journey
- Got rid of the set times for all ares
- Students timetable themselves for the day
- Teachers offered workshops all day
- Really engaging independent tasks given for the
time students were away from the teacher

21. Our JourneyToday
Kids opt into all workshops (literacy/maths/inquiry)
Kids complete their own timetables
Kids track their activities (must do/can do’s)
Kids work with any teacher at any given time
Kids collaborate a lot, teach each other
Kids use technology to assist in their learning (things such as prior learning) to a
workshop
Kids are engaged, empowered, awakened and enabled

22. Our JourneyTeachers:
Plan together using Google docs
Share the load - teaching and learning
Make judgements about kids all the time
Plan day - to - day
Long Term Plan - there is a Key Concept only
Work collaboratively - professional talk is huge
Model for each other
Learn off each other
Constantly refine and adjust what we are doing, depending on the type of
kids and what we see

23. Navigator Centre voice
Year 8 Key Words:
One family, big home, connected
Trust/Collaborative/Confident/Social
Self Managing/Change/Timetable/Needs
Responsibility/ Freedom/Decision making

24. Navigator Centre voice
Year 6 Key Words:
Interesting/Choices/Making decisions
Mixing with older students
Self Managing/ Casual/Choice
Timetable / NOT TEACHER DIRECTED
Bigger space/different space
Working with different teachers - you can expand yourself more
Accountability
Creative

25. Navigator Centre Data

26. Navigator Centre Data

27. Assessment
• Different types
• Collaboratively
• Tracking
• Accountability
• Purposeful, on the go, feedback

28. Reflection?
• Constantly evolving
• Staff risk take, work collaboratively
• Staff learn off each other
• Students self manage
• Students engaged, motivated

29. Reflection?
• Are you doing these things well? Are you
empowering our kids to learn or just to do? Do you
believe you have a student centred classroom, or
are developing one, with high levels of student
direction? Are your kids actively involved?