I would like to introduce you to a Coursera course that comes highly recommended by a number of our teachers who have already taken it. This course will help not only help to further your knowledge for our movement towards becoming a Positive Education School but will also add more knowledge to help you take control of your own thinking and living.
Here is the link to the course https://www.coursera.org/learn/positive-psychology The new course starts on the 11th of April, so you can register now. If you want to get ahead and do some listening and watching course videos you can preview and download the first week from the left hand side of the site. As you will see looking at this 6 weeks course it reinforces beautifully where we are aiming to go both as a school and as a professional community of learners.
This has been shared with all teachers and it would alsobe great if large numbers of parents could find the time to take this course because it further builds on Step one of Positive Education which is about our own learning and understanding of how we can behave.
I am sharing this video by Will Richardson as I hope it will encourage your thinking about education. The video is from a conference which had a number of other excellent speakers including Sir Ken Robinson and Tony Wagner who also talk about the need for education to be transformed so that it reflects the needs of the 21st century. Once you have watched this video I hope you will feel confuses as to why more schools aren't looking more closely at what and how they teach our 21st century learners today.
Two years we sat down as a faculty and identified that school is for learning and yet we hadn't defined what this really meant. Here is a TED talk that raises questions about learning in modern schools and how it isn't aligned with the realities of modern students or their world. Below are the ISHCMC Learning Principles that we developed two years ago and keep referring back to in our classrooms.
ISHCMC LEARNING PRINCIPLES
·All learners are capable of achieving their goals in a
guided environment where there is an appropriate balance of standards,
challenge and support.
It is
expected that all students will make the effort to progress in their learning
and achieve their goals. Clear learning goals and performance objectives will
be set for and by students. These objectives and goals involve meaningful performance criteria
and answer genuine questions that challenge students to make an effort to attain
their goal. A growth mindset will be
purposefully developed by teachers in the classroom as they nurture curiosity
and higher order thinking in their students. Students will be provided with
exemplars, models and formative rubrics to support their learning.
·Learning builds on prior knowledge and experiences and
is contextual, meaningful and social.
Students do not learn isolated facts and theories
in an abstract state of being separated from the rest of their lives: they
learn in relationship to what else they know, what they believe, their
prejudices and their fears. Learning should be purposeful, age appropriate and
personal to the students, drawing on and valuing their prior knowledge and
experiences. The more students know, the more they can learn. Prior learning
provides a context to new learning whilst at the same time providing a degree
of ownership of the learning process. It
is expected that students use what they already know to construct new meanings.
Teachers will model effective questioning routines for and with
students to construct meaningful, trans-disciplinary learning experiences in
order to guide the student to see the value of what they are learning in the
wider world and ask students to demonstrate
their understanding through “real world” applications that genuinely use the
knowledge and skills that have been acquired in an authentic setting.
·Learning is an active process that requires practice,
making mistakes, reflection and self-adjustment
It is generally accepted that learning is not
the passive acceptance of knowledge which exists but that learning involves
the learner engaging with the world through real world applications of their
learning. For significant learning to take place it is important that students
are given plenty of time and the opportunity for trial and error, practice, pondering, reflecting,
drafting and redrafting their ideas. Reflection and
metacognition will be required of all students. This should be guided by the
teacher, be meaningful, natural and lead
to progression of learning through continuous self-assessment and
self-adjustment. Learning
is seen as a continuous process that when effective produces life-long
learners.
·Motivation is a key factor in learning
Motivation is
seen as essential for learning. Learners’
motivation to learn and sense-of-self affects what is learned, how much is
learned, and how much effort will be put into the learning process. Three
important components of motivation are: Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery. Hence,
it is important that teachers explain clearly the learning objectives of each
class, provide opportunities for students to learn independently and at their
own pace, whilst providing students with the opportunity to display their
learning in different ways. In order to maintain student motivation it is
expected that teachers will provide authentic feedback that students can use to
build their mastery of concepts and knowledge.
·Learning is most effective when differentiated
It is
important to recognize that learners have different strategies, approaches,
patterns of abilities and learning styles. Hence, learning is most effective
when it is differentiated. Learning activities and assessments should
accommodate individual differences, drawing upon a rich repertoire of teaching
and assessment strategies matched to learning goals. Teachers should develop innovativeways of teaching
using: learning styles, multi-sensory approaches, experiential learning,
providing student choice and engaging minds as well as hands.
·Learning should take place in a safe engaging
environment
Learning is a
social activity that is most effective in a safe, scaffolded environment that
encourages students
to: feel able to take risks, collaborate, be creative and learn from each
other. Social interactions exert an influence on learning. The teacher should
create a socially, emotionally and physically welcoming and inspiring environment that
encourages the well-being and flourishing of students through the use of
positive language and expectations. The teacher will encourage learning by
providing regular and timely formative feedback to students that drives
continued engagement and growth.
·Learning should
encompass the personal, local and global, aiming to make for a better world
By relating
learning to real world scenarios and asking students to use their understanding
and skills to problem solve, students become more engaged in the learning
process. This process is best achieved if one begins with the “”I and moves
systematically to the “us” and the “we”. Through this experience students will
develop a greater empathy and compassion for others as they develop their
international mindedness. Teachers can facilitate this growth by using inquiry
pedagogy; valuing student experiences; introducing global examples; inviting
outside consultants to share their knowledge and connecting students to
communities beyond the classroom.
The ISHCMC have recently been involved in sharing a series of videos about the Earth and its sustainability. The sharing began with Al Gore's new TED talk about optimism regarding global warming and how the world's governments have responded and the improvements that we are making regarding CO2 emissions etc.
The challenge then started, "have you seen this documentary, Cowspiracy" it shows that much of Al Gore's ideas about the origins of Global warming were ill founded in his first talk, An Inconvenient Truth. They are not talking about his statistics but the root cause of our issues. Here is the trailer to Cowspiracy. Unfortunately, the live streaming of the full movie cannot be obtained now on youtube but if enough parents want to watch it I am prepared to show it one morning at school. As with other documentaries in my list they now seem to have been removed from their source where I was able to watch them a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps somebody doesn't want an informed population. So I have resorted to sharing trailers that you can then use to find other sources of the documentaries such as Amazon etc.
This link will take you to a short video that captures many of the statistics that are used in this documentary. Following sharing the above documentary I was introduced to another, Racing Extinction, that again identifies the crisis that is going on regarding the Earth and all its inhabitants, big or small.
Then finally when I thought this must be all the recent documentaries about our Earth and what we are doing to it I discovered this 14 minute youtube clip about our oceans. This documentary as I write this post is still available to be streamed.
This is not supposed to depress you but rather to inform and make us all think, is there something that I can do about this situation. I am a great believer that if each one of us takes a step in the right direction all those steps can and will make a difference for our children's futures. It is clear from these documentaries that we don't need to depend on politicians or industrialists to help mother earth, we can do it ourselves by making lifestyle and dietary changes. During Earth Week this year we will be trialing a meatless Monday to see if this might be just a small start towards changing how the next generation looks at its food supply.
I am just adding an extra video that ties all the above together......a promise to love our Earth
