Indigenous knowing and understanding

This term started with Ways of Knowing – a staff leaning day focused on indigenous understanding. John Bradley from Monash University delivered the keynote focusing on ‘How do we know?’

He reminded us of the diversity of indigenous Australians and showed us a map of ‘Aboriginal Australia’.  There were at least 275 different languages : ‘if we accept Europe, we have to accept this … The distinctiveness must be acknowledged … ‘

He talked about the important relationship with ecosystems and language; their impact on each other. He showed us a map of the area he knows best, south of Arnhem Land and talked about the various overlays we could apply to our vision of that space. He showed us his mapping project that was intended to pass on indigenous knowledge from one generation to the next and a drawing project which he could not even get accepted into the local school curriculum.

Some of the key questions he raised were:

• ‘How in the world of western knowledge do we place this?’
• ‘Why does the west think its best?’
• ‘How do we undo our educational reliance on Descartes and the French Enlightenment?’
• ‘Diversity (of what we know, and now we know) is the key’.

It was a provocative presentation, particularly for me his defence of cultural norms that eclude women, but a very important discussion to have and a great start to the term.

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So, what have I learned?

I’ve certainly been in a number of sessions over the last three days, many of which I’ve blogged about here, but what have I learned?

It’s been refreshing to immerse myself again in the IB world and its vast labyrinthe infrastructure which only becomes (frighteningly) apparent at times like these. It’s been good to catch up with some familiar colleagues, spend some intensive time with a colleague from my own school and meet some interesting new people. I’ve had an invitation to a primary school in Bangalore, seen a new and interesting looking anti-LMS called ‘teamie’ and have had the new iPad Shakespeare app demo’d for me by a super-keen Cambridge University Press man. I’ve taken the subway to Chinatown (*like every other system in the world the ticketing system is better than Melbournes) gone to the top of the tallest (twin) towers in the world and enjoyed performances from a range of talented students who’ve been featured every morning.

And that’s without mentioning any of the sessions at all, including some great keynotes and a session on leadership lessons from Shakespeare’s Henry V that was entertaining and moving and had some good lessons from the leader’s experience of the ‘dark night’. (Interestingly, the sessions I took notes with the stylus using Penultimate haven’t really featured in the blog; I have to type them up again afresh and that seems an effort at the moment.)

I’ve been to some great workshops and some infuriating ones, have put my hand up to contribute only to be ignored for the keener student with the straighter hand at the front (oh yeah, that’s how that feels), have listened to some teachers and leaders who talk about themselves and their school but never their students and seen others who have made it their life work to change the world one conversation at a time.

Taking up my pet topic of technology I’ve been heartened to see more conversations that ‘get it’, and less that talk about how kids ‘only play games and muck-around with computers’ and only a few outright annoying ‘Google is making us all stupid (except me)’ presentations, warm, nostalgic and comforting to much of the audience as they are, like a nice cup of Ovaltime in your pyjamas in front of the fire.

There are problems with the IB; it’s huge Gormenghastian indifference, the transitional moments, the elitism, the dotpointing and the bureaucracy it serves, creates and fosters.  But, at the heart of it, there’s also some compelling learning that’s possible within the structure, and some passionate people working in it.

I fly home tomorrow, with only four days of the term left until Easter, and then back up this way to Vietnam for a holiday. I’ve been there before and was entranced. I hope to have some new learning there too.

Above and below: some images from a short time in Kuala Lumpur. Photos: Warrick. Below: Green view from the 22nd Floor

Below: Dr Paula Barrett talking about the importance of preventative work in mental health.

Below: Cooling down in Chinatown.

Below: View from the Two Towers

Below: Conference essentials.

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Why resiliency matters

Where Resiliency Matters

Professor Paula Barrett – Pathways Research Centre, ANU, University of Queensland

‘You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck’

Dr Barrett talked about the stigma of mental health and how severe anxiety and depression was much more common than thought; one in every five people will experience severe anxiety at some time during their life, particularly at transitional times in life.

She argued that, unless people had life skills, anxiety can lead to depression. However, she also argued that there were proven clinical interventions that can now help although very few people actually get help.

She also spoke of the problems some students, especially able ones, have with ‘perfectionism’ and that sometimes these anxious students are very able, thoughtful, aspirational, articulate with good family support.

Her argument was that we should aim for prevention, and equipping young people with the skills through curriculum development and gave examples about skin cancer and dental health program that worked. The same is true for mental health.

She talked about ‘human capital investment’ – that, ‘the best investment every government can make is the implementation of evidence-based social and emotional skills programs in the school curriculum’ (James Heckman – Professor of Economics, Nobel Prize winner, 2000)

She argued for the positive psychology approach about resilience – ‘the ability to bounce back in the face of adversity’ and of building on strengths, not just compensating for weaknesses.

Her approach is for schools to deliver social and emotional resilience skills in an engaging way.

She spoke of risk factors and protective factors.

I was a bit worried at the lack of interesting slides; she talked a lot, without helping the audience much, but the content was strong enough to sustain it, and she spoke without notes and with good detail about some of the key factors that she had obviously researched for years.

One interesting thing was the link between physiological evidence and anxiety. One in five babies are a lot more sensitive to things like noise and light, and get distressed quickly and stay distressed for longer. She seemed to be arguing that these were the same children who were prone to anxiety although there are protective factors that are at work here too.

She then moved to the protective factors and why they were important, and how easy they were to implement in schools. ‘Attachment is the most powerful protective factor in life’ (Barrett)

Another important protective factor was ‘attention style’ or what’s sometimes called ‘Mindfulness’. This did resonate with me (it’s a bit like meditation) and it’s an approach that some schools (like mine) have begun to take up, for every student, more purposefully.

The three most important health factors she talked about were: sleep, diet and staying active every day; move for an hour every day.

Finally, she spoke about the future resiliency model she saw that all schools would be offering in twenty years time, if not now.

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Face to face or online learning? The case for blended learning?

ABSTRACT: What is the picture of a student’s intellectual future? How is online learning transforming learners and the ways in which learner’s learn? There is no turning back, to the pre-internet world of learning and inquiry. Our minds are changing as we interact with the tools of learning, and as the structure of our brain changes, so do our thoughts and experiences.  What do we stand to lose by constant connectivity, instant and unlimited information? For a talent lost or diminished there will be another one that is gained. As educators continue to nurture student’s minds, they need to tread carefully and perhaps adopt the evolving ‘ Blended learning’ model of education, the combination of traditional bricks and mortar and online delivery. This presentation will cover the impact of the Internet and its tools on learners, the different approaches and models of Blended learning, how the IB is leaning towards a blended learning environment and practical insights into what makes it work

This session opened with a disturbing metaphor: ‘the internet the invading our world’.  It didn’t improve much when we then went into the ‘what is the internet doing to our brains’ and then showed a whole lot of pictures of young people texting. However, she twisted the narrative by then showing a picture of the conference from the day before; a whole lot of educators on their ipads and computers (and iPads are everywhere here)

Unfortunately, it was then back to neuroscientists and ‘What the internet is doing to our brains’ and the Nicholas Carr book, ‘The Shallows’. Our brains are changing apparently, being constantly rewired and neural pathways and synapses are working all the time. We used to call this ‘learning’ by the way.

This presentation argued that there is no turning back, but then went back to what we might lose by constant connectivity. So far, so negative. It was nice to see some of the participants questioning back: ‘how is this different from the way the brain is rewired when you learn French?’ Yuzzah. You go you. The session threatened to get feisty when one man said that the way he had to deal with 150 emails a day and didn’t read the same anymore, and that was because of this (gesturing at the screen with the word ‘internet’) And there was a bit of back and forth. Nice to see.

But then it was back to us losing the skills of ‘concentration, contemplation and reflection’. And (no irony at all) an argument that we should go back to the blackboard. I’m not joking.

We eventually got on to ‘blended learning’  - ‘a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, pace etc.’ For schools, surely this is the future I think; the mix of ‘brick and mortar’ and online learning model. She argued for a ‘self-blend’ model for IB where students take an online course in their regular school schedule and students work with a site based coordinator.

Blended learning provides a nice convergence of online and face to face. She gave some good tips including the importance of the dedicated site coordinator, sharing student weekly progress using Google Docs, setting up collaborative student teams, making tutorial or help sessions available, student counselling in and out of the program, limit of one subject per student, the importance of educating parents and students, providing hard copy text books and doing regular surveys of student opinions and interests.

On the other hand this was pretty much the only session I’d seen so far where the presenter demonstrated good design skills with some good images, and very little text. And she handled what I would probably have regarded as challenges, really well.

Below, a key diagram from the presentation, which argued for the self-blend model.

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Where is the IB heading?

I thought I should take the opportunity to acquaint myself with current IB strategic directions and how the organisation saw itself, so I got into a session at IBAC2013 on this topic Here’s what I found out:

Where is the IB heading?

The IB is three years into a five year strategy, looking ahead to new directions especially regarding digital technologies. We were given a break-down of the kinds of new directions that the IB is looking at currently. I haven’t included notes here on the MYP or PYP programs specifically.

IB Alumni Network

The IB now has nearly 30000 students in an Alumni Network, helping with university recognition and research participation.

myIB – Promoting IB Success

A promotion to personalise the impact of IB for personal stories

World Student Conferences

Global learning opportunities to bring students together. In 2012, 561 students from 49 countries attended a conference in Segovia, Spain. There will be four more in 2013: Hong Kong, Canada and in the UK. (more at www.ibo.org/wsc)

MyIB Digital Toolkit for IB World Schools

Advertising and communication tools to inform (and persuade) parents and students

IB Continuum

More linking of the program contexts

Revised IB Learner Profile

Will stay as 10 attributes with revised descriptors and clarifying relation to international mindedness.

Approaches to teaching and learning across DP

Trying to make the Diploma teaching more focus and coherent, featuring best-practice pedagogy. New Global Politics subject.

Online diploma courses for students

Over 1000 students, 260 schools already involved, expected to double. The idea of ‘open world schools’ for external students

IB Career Related Certificate (IBCC)

A new program providing multiple pathways

University Performance

Increasing data showing higher results, completion etc in university for IB graduates.

e-Assessment

Moving from paper to digital. May 2013, 97% of scripts e-marked, with quality assurance through pre-marked random ‘seeding’.

Photo: Twin towers at night by Warrick

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Shaping Innovative Futures

This was the first keynote at the IBAC Conference

Shaping innovative futures
Sohail Inayatullah 
http://www.meta-future.org

This session opened with the affirming, ‘If you try to predict the future you get it wrong; the answer is that you need to promote resiliency and adaptability.

‘The future is an asset, a resource and a narrative to be used with intelligence and wisdom’ See things from different perspectives.

He showed how change actually happened, including examples:

The change of doctors from recommending ‘Camels’ to recommending complementary medicine and meditation.
The growth of geo-medicine
Young single women earn 8% more than their male peers in large American cities.
Asia-Pacific leads the world in female participation in leadership.

In a message that would recur later, in other presentations: How we imagine the future is critical, to that future.

Stop “othering”, nations are constructs, what IB learning does is open that thinking up. 
But
Old behaviours dies hard – the used future (the old future that others have already and challenge the notion of who’s in charge. He argued for a move from reactive to proactive – towards prevention 
“If you have too much history, you often can’t innovate “
European universities blesses and burdened by 1000 years of history 

Why do so many projects fail? – “culture eats strategy for breakfast”

One key message: we need a compelling narrative – new metaphors to overturn the weight of the factory model on the imagination of the school of the future 

His Waves of change 

(I heard threads from Al Gore’s new book in some of these)

Climate
Peer to peer – from Britannica to Wikipedia (flatter)
Artificial intelligence leaving the web (everything is hyperlinked)
Transparent and flexible brain (meditation)
Smart, green cities (emotional maps)
Demographic shift
Rise of Chindia
Long GFC

It was a  nice way to start the conference; playing with alternate futures.

Collage from Malaysian Tourist Commission promotion.

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Connected learning

I saw this on Twitter this week and shared it with some people at school.It’s from Sheryl NussbaumBeach @snbeach What do you think? Too zealous and idealistic? As a teacher I like the idea of ‘messy learning’ and the ideas of the teacher as interventionist in a collective and collaborative learning world. As a teacher-leader it’s also a bit confronting; how we can be sure we’re going to get something beautiful out of this messed up stuff, and not simply a mess?

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The Trend towards Open-Ness

A new Ted video from the venerable Don Tapscott, that I saw over on Derek’s blog today. I saw Tapscott present last year, and  he was impressive. The world moves towards open-ness, and we fight our own little battles for that direction in our schools everyday.

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Stephen Heppell at the The Schools Network Learning Technologies Conference

Late last year I blogged about a short session I attended with Stephen Heppell on technologies in learning, which I enjoyed a lot. So, I was pleased to find a video of Heppell presenting much the same presentation I saw. So, I embed it here for your viewing pleasure. Some interesting points relating to ‘bring your own technology’ around the 19 minute mark and also on classroom design from a student perspective beginning around the 21 minute mark.

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learning:now

I enjoyed a short session this week UK educator, Stephen Heppell, under the heading, ‘learning:now’. It was a kind of meandering tour of projects he’s been involved in, with a particular emphasis on learning spaces and some key messages that resonated with me.

I liked the way he used his desktop as the presentation tool, (see his website image above for a sense of that) pulling up images and doucments and movies as he thought of them (or that’s how it seemed) and now a powerpoint slide in sight. It did mean that at times the talk lacked the dotpoint focus that comes with those tools, but it was a lot more interesting and engaging for it.

He showed lots of learning spaces he’d been involved in co-constructing with students, or he just thought showed the kind of surprise and delight that thoughtful spaces give us. I liked his image of the UK system of everyone stopping for lunch at school at the same time (‘the only place in London where you can seat 1000 people for lunch is the Dorchester and every high school’) and what that meant for how the day involved. He was all for immersive learning, teach the first week of February for a month, and time at task.

The classroom spaces he showed were ‘shoeless’ places, often where every surface is a writing surface and where the student work was celebrated and maintained. He wanted places where students could sit, perch, slump, lie (did anyone ever choose to sit up straight to read a book he asked?) And what was the point of staff rooms, he asked. If we’re all learners, why have a special space for old learners?

He talked a lot about a classroom space at Lampton, UK, that the students had designed: mood lighting, writable surfaces, skype enabled but, signficantly, the students didn’t want the room filled with technology. We’ll bring our own, they argued, and plug in. That way it will be up to date! He drew a lot on the idea of family, showing us a school that had a bread oven near the entrance so that students could smell that fresh bread cooking as they arrived and talked in this way of ‘a learning family, not a learning factory’ and schools that moved beyond placement of students in age-related groups to peer support and peer learning. He argued for ‘in-betweeny’ time, keeping the day fresh and inviiting and playful ways to do the hard stuff.

He was in favour of social technologies like Skype and Twitter (he tweets here) and flipping the classroom, so that the routine work was done at home and the interesting and challenging stuff done collaboaratively at school. He showed us some slides of stupid things that schools ban, mostly mobile phones which were often the most powerful computers in the room, turned off or banned completely.

And he DID have some key messages that resonated with me:

• Listen to the students
• The most risky thing you can do as a school or a system is to do nothing.
• Teachers needs to lead this discussion – the future competitors to our schools will be Pearson
• If you can astonish kids with the place you create and the expectations you bring, they will astonish you

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