What lies ahead?

2018 - What lies ahead?

It's around this first week of the year that the whispers of New Year’s resolutions begin. Those promises to eat healthy, give up drinking and lose weight that you swear you are going to keep this year. I haven't set New Year’s resolutions for a long time probably because I never stick to them. However, it was over that New Year period when I saw an advertisement that said "What will you do different in 2018?'. This simple question resonated in my mind and got me thinking.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my immediate thought was 'nothing'. I had an amazing 2017! Professionally, it was the best in my working life. I achieved more than I ever imagined. I made gains and achieved things of which I am very proud and have set my career in a direction of my own choosing. I feel more enthused about my profession than ever before. So what else need I do? Surely after all that hard work I was entitled to rest on my laurels for a while.

That first thought was a lazy 'holiday mode' response. Did I really achieve what I had in 2017 with that attitude? Was I really going to rest on my laurels in 2018? No way! So, on reflection, the answer to 'What will you do different in 2018?' is… Everything I did in 2017 …but better!

A good lesson I’ve learnt in the last few years is the impact of surrounding yourself with like-minded people or people who challenge and inspire you. It’s like the saying, “You are who you associate with.” I am determined to make that happen this year. Spending time with like-minded people or people that challenge/inspire me has lifted my game on many levels. It has opened my eyes to better ideas, ways of teaching or thinking that are transferable to my classes. I have taken those ideas and tried to improve them or implement them in different ways. An important step in this process is to also share with the person who original shared with me to keep the cycle going.

Association with the people who share your passion brings with it open communication, feedback and reflection. Good communication is important in all areas of life and most certainly in the work life. Taking the time to share, discuss, brainstorm, listen, learn and contribute are the key factors in my approach to my work. Getting critical feedback and reflecting on it not only ensures the continuation of the quest for improvement but also  brings in others perspectives, values and ideas. What you do with this feedback is up to each individual but, for me personally,  it has provided me with some very different insights.

One of the big gains I have made in the last few years is the level of confidence I now have in my ability. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a definite link between that confidence and the people I have been fortunate enough to meet. Through their encouragement and advice I have not only been able to improve areas of my teaching but equally important I have received confirmation that I am doing some things very well. All too often teachers receive criticism of their profession so these affirmations are very much appreciated and a real confidence booster.

My new found belief in my own ability has fuelled my desire to share my passion for Design Thinking with the Senior Leaders, Parents,Staff and even beyond my school to interstate and overseas. Last year I presented for the first time at 2 different conferences and that has definitely left me wanting more. This is something that I would not have imagined that I would have had the confidence to do a few short years ago.

Of course the more you reflect, share, discuss with a variety of people, the more new opportunities arise. This may be in the form of ideas for lessons, resources, administration ideas, and other platforms for sharing and learning to keep the cycle going. So to those people who have shared their passions with me, taken the time to listen to my ideas and encouraged me each step of the journey - Thank you!

So what do I resolve to do in 2018?  Just watch this space!

The Value of Twitter

I used to think Twitter was just for celebrities and so I was a bit hesitant to join. However, last September 2016, I decided to take a closer look. I wasn’t sure of what to do so I took the lead from any teenage kid -  I signed up, gave it a go and was instantly hooked. Now as I’ve shared in previous blogs the last year has been a very rewarding time in my Teaching career and it is no coincidence that this corresponds with my new-found ability to tweet. Twitter has certainly played an integral part in my progress and I want to share what I’ve found beneficial.

Connections:

Teachers are very busy people - in our own classrooms, our own staffrooms or our own school grounds. We sometimes forget that there are thousands (or millions) of other teachers out there who have similar trials, tribulations, goals and achievements as us. Twitter makes it easy to connect to likeminded people anywhere, anytime. People that are willing to share, discuss, give feedback, compare, add to or collaborate on ideas. The more time you invest in Twitter the more you work out who the people are that are going to be most beneficial to you and those who would appreciate someone with whom to share.

Resources:

Twitter is a one stop shop to see and hear about the plethora of resources that are available. Props, people, information, technology. There is always someone out there who has tried and tested something before you. It’s not only a great place to access information regarding resources but also to allow you to see things people are using and doing for the first time. It’s a public noticeboard of conferences, web chats, twitter chats, webinars and professional development opportunities to participate in.

Inspiration

Not only does the exposure to resources provide motivation, people often post inspirational sayings, quotes, rhymes, etc. I know we’ve all seen these on social media and they can be ‘over the top’ and annoying. But take the time, be selective and you’ll find some gems. The first thing I do when I get home from a hard day is kick off my shoes and sit on my couch with my I-Pad to scroll through my Twitter feed. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve come home feeling exhausted or a bit down to find something inspiring on Twitter that picks me up, puts things into perspective or gives me a great idea to focus on for the following day. 

Self-promotion

There is no better way to promote the great work you are doing than putting it out there for the world to see. I’ve already discussed the benefits of sharing your work but there are many more benefits to self-promotion. Teachers work hard, so why shouldn’t we promote the good work we do. The worst case scenario is that you might receive feedback. Even bad feedback allows you to reflect, reassess and improve. Don’t wait for your boss to ‘talk you up’. YOU are the best person to promote YOU! Be proud of what you have done.

Learning

I've never read more! There is so much that grabs the eye and inspires you to look, read and read a bit more! Soon you find you are trying all sorts of crazy ideas in your classroom that challenge and delight the students. This then just stirs the hunger to find out more and widens the horizons of your knowledge. I’ve read articles and heard and been involved in conversations about whether or not Twitter is Professional Development. I believe that if you are getting ideas, being inspired to try something different, gaining knowledge, developing confidence or self-belief and ultimately using that to better educate your students and yourself, than that’s what’s important.

Sharing

Twitter is a sharing platform. It has been beneficial to me as a teacher because of the people who are willing to share their ideas. I try and share regularly so that I can hopefully contribute to this platform. When I am working on something different, I try and add pictures to highlight the ‘What?’ and ‘How?’ If I have implemented something that someone has shared with me, I always try and share that with that person. A colleague of mine once told me he loves to share what he is doing and is not afraid that someone would implement it in the their class or school and do it better. He sees that as affirmation that what he does is good and sees it as a challenge to improve it further. After all, the benefit to our students is what is important. 

I am constantly looking to challenge my students as I’m sure all teachers are. Twitter has opened my eyes to the many, many teachers out there who are willing to share, discuss and collaborate to make learning engaging, real and relevant. But you get out what you put in. Put aside the time to look at connecting with others. You can even do it in our pyjamas on your couch. I have developed an interest and curiosity around loads of things that I have tried in my classroom which have benefitted my students’ learning. I have discovered things that have taken me to conferences, allowed me to meet and chat with amazing educators and developed interests that have transformed my teaching. I have even taken up blogging! Give it a go. It might just be what you are looking for.

Critical and Creative Thinking.

A few weeks ago I attended a PD at QUT. In one of the sessions, the Question was asked, "How do you foster critical and creativity thinking in your classroom?" We didn't spend much time discussing it, but it was a topic that I kept thinking about and wanting to discuss further. On my return to school, I was discussing this with a colleague and it really got me thinking about how I encourage Critical and Creative thinking in my classes. Below are the things that I value.

Teacher Mindset – We have to have the belief in critical and creative thinking and its importance to our student’s education. Secondly we have to model it. Hopefully students will copy these behaviours. The language we use is imperative. Answering questions with questions. Challenge students with, ‘How could we...?’ or ‘Yes but…?’ or ‘What if’s…?’ Encourage students who ask questions. Take the time to talk this through with those students and validate the student creativity by recognizing the importance of that questioning. It’s also important that the teacher has a range of strategies that support critical and creative thinking and pass these onto their students. Brainstorming is a simple but effective way to think deeper about any topic. Group work is another simple but great way to get students sharing ideas, and giving and receiving feedback helps to challenge students thinking. It also pays to mix things up a little. Use props to introduce a new topic. Act something out or give clues as part of a game. Maybe hold back the task sheet and develop curiosity and ambiguity around the task before launching into it.   

Student Choice and ownership – If students have a say in their learning they have to be interested, don’t they? Why would they choose a topic if they weren’t interested in it? Like relating learning to the real world, student’s choice and ownership has to help with engagement and engaged students makes our job much easier. Get to know and understand your students and their interests. What are they into at this age? What are the differences amongst them? What are the common interests? What drives their curiosity?  

Less Scaffolding – In earlier times when using Design thinking, I used to scaffold folios for our students a lot more than I do these days. Scaffolding is an invaluable process in the right situation. However, over time I have come to realise that by scaffolding less allows students to think more critically. It also allows students to be more creative. I firmly believe that Design Thinking as a problem solving process naturally allows creativity and critical thinking. But, if your prepared to let go (as discussed later) and lose the scaffolding and take a risk on the direction that the learning will take your students, then we all have more chance to exploit the critical and creativity thinking. The key thing to remember here is it’s not about what makes the class easy for you to manage. It’s what’s best for our students learning.

Not ‘Google-able’ – This is my new favourite term! Students have all the information they need on mobile devices in their pockets. It’s our responsibility to challenge them beyond a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer from Google or on an answer where they settle for ‘that will do’. It’s important that the tasks we set go beyond this. Tasks that encourage research, or collaboration with others. Tasks that stimulate curiosity and foster ambiguity in students to not just obtain but to understand and analyse information.

Authenticity - Real World. If students are engaged, they are likely to be interested in the learning. If the learning has some real world relevance, students can make the connection and understand the importance or relevance of the learning. Through the use of Design Thinking we often have the opportunity to make the task and learning real-world. Through Design Thinking we have a larger focus on the process rather than the product. This enables us to prototype more which allows the students to design and produce for example the airport of the future or a home room for senior students. The prototyping encourages the engagement but the task seems relevant to the students because of the ‘real’ task.

Letting go of control - In an earlier blog I wrote about a message board I designed with year 3 students. It was a task I tweaked to allow more creativity for the students. However, it also required me to let go of controlling the learning. I was nervous because I wasn't sure how it would end up. I wasn't sure I was going to have the time or resources at my disposal for individuals to design and produce solutions that were all unique. However, in hindsight it is probably one the best units I've written and taught in my career. Students took ownership of their learning. They collaborated and experimented and shared their learning with each other. But most importantly, they were engaged and loved being in control of their learning.

Classroom culture – As Teachers we all create a safe and inviting classroom for our students. A space where they feel comfortable to learn. But we need to focus on the culture as much as the space. We need to encourage students to feel free to express opinions and ideas and be able to receive feedback on those in a non-threatening manner. It’s also important that students are encouraged to have a go with the possibility of being wrong or failing. Developing the culture that ‘having a go’ or learning from mistakes is an important mindset for students to foster.   

Facing a future that will be different and more uncertain than ever before, we need to be preparing our students with skills that equip them for that future. Gone are the days when we taught content. Today’s students need to be prepared for an uncertain future. They need to be armed with skills that allow them to think creatively and to think critically. There is lots of research that suggest artificial intelligence will replace a certain amount of jobs in the future. But critical and creative thinking are not skills that robots or AI will be able to replace and skills that our students will need to shine.

Junior School Design Week

At St Paul’s school our vision is to be leaders in Education thinking and practice. As such we have rolled out five unique Learning Realms which support Teaching and Learning. These Learning Realms are Design Thinking, Creativity, Inquiry, Global Sustainability and Entrepreneurialism. As a Design Technology Teacher, Design Thinking fits within our Design Thinking Realm and I am an advocate & firm believer of the learning opportunities that exist within, for our students.

This year I introduced a Design Week into our school calendar not only to support the Learning Realm, Design Thinking, but also to celebrate all things Design. This inaugural event was implemented in our Junior School with a range of activities, displays, competitions and professional developments.

Although our participants were our Junior School students, throughout the week we had Parents, Industry experts, past Students and our Middle School and Senior School student’s mentor and host events. This was an amazing opportunity to forge connections with our wider community but also for our students to collaborate and learn in a real world context.   

Some of the activities throughout the week were:

Junior Architect – Designing a house using Google Sketch Up

Design for Drone - designing a Drone course for a drone to test

Putt for Glory – Designing a life size Putt Putt Golf course

Design from Scratch – Designing a simple game using Scratch coding

Comic Capers – Designing electronic Comic strips

How High Can You Fly – Paper plane ‘design & fly’ competition?

Exciting Electronics – Building simple electronic circuits

Farm Puppets – designing a puppet & a puppet show.

Students across all Year levels in our Junior School had opportunity to participate. Even our Early Learning Centre students didn’t miss out. They participated in seeing how our school Media group put together a News piece and even got to experience the roles in front of and behind the camera. We also had numerous displays of Design Posters, Great Designers and of course, the finale, of showcasing the work of our very clever and determined design students.

Throughout the week students, staff, Parents and Family could also vote on specially printed postcards, what they thought the World’s Greatest Invention was. It was wonderful to see nearly 500 postcards hung and displayed as a Gallery Walk through our Junior School walking paths. It was interesting to read different suggestions across different age levels but the Prep students who voted for the rainbow because it makes the world colourful and pretty was a favourite. 

The week was a wonderful example of how Design has an impact on all of us. How Design is all around us in decisions we make everyday. It was also an example of how through Design, we can share and learn together. In 2018 we hope to expand this event across all our year levels and invite more of our school and local community to take part, to make this even bigger and better!

Justin Hill 

Perspective

My Grandfather died this week at the respectable age of 95. He – my Poppy - was the most laid-back person I knew. He never got worked up about little issues and always seemed to have a different perspective, from just about everyone else, on most things. But this never bothered him.  Attending his funeral this week gave me the opportunity to chat with the family and the many friends he had and to listen to their stories. Everyone had a story about Poppy. And as sad as it was, it was a great opportunity for me to reflect on my relationship with him and the way he had chosen to live his life. This then led me to contemplate my own life.

At the start of this year I had very specific goals and things that I wanted to achieve. We are nearly 3/4 of the way through the year and I have already achieved most of those, plus more. I have happily put in lots of extra time and thought into my projects and experimented with some creative learning opportunities for the students, their parents and, even the staff. Professionally, I am very proud of what I am doing and where I am headed. But perhaps I have let other areas go unattended.

In my haste to forge ahead, I haven’t taken the time to reflect on where I have been. While I pride myself on being an innovative Teacher, always looking for ways to make my lessons more exciting and engaging for my students. However, taking more time to reflect on what we did in class and points which can be improved, might just make those lessons more innovative, engaging and exciting - adding a little more clarity and refreshing the ideas. Just last week I read the book, The most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires to my Pre-Prep class.  It is a story about a girl trying to invent something magnificent but struggles for ideas. Finally, she goes for a walk, taking the time to reflect and consider what she has done and what she could do. Suddenly I realised that this simple lesson from a picture book was one I could take on board myself. 

On my desk I have a quote from George Couros. It says “In a world that is constantly moving forward, if you are standing still, you are falling behind.” I love this because it gives me motivation to keep pushing to be a better teacher for my students but this is only part of the story. Instead of blindly surging forward I need to learn from what I have done and from what my students have taught me. Perhaps a better quote for me would be one from U.S. businessman, Peter Drucker, which says: Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. Definitely worth thinking about!

Beyond the classroom, I need to take the time to count my blessings for the wonderful opportunities afforded to me and for the people in my life who take the time to encourage and support me. Without them I would not have had the confidence to move beyond my comfort zone and grow as both a person and a professional. Once again life keeps moving forward and all too soon the moment to say ‘thank you’ has passed and so this is another area of my life on which I would like to reflect.

My Poppy was not an educated man. He worked hard his whole life but he also took time to enjoy his life. By the time I came into this world, he already had 50+ years’ experience and so, to me, he always seemed to have his priorities sorted. He appreciated the simple things in life and took the time to enjoy them. Poppy made time for others, not just to have a chat but to really listen to what they had to say. In short, Poppy took the time that I have often thought I don’t have. So, although it has been a sad week for me, it has been in reflecting on my Grandfather’s life that I have learnt a great deal about my own. Thanks Poppy!

Design Thinking in Pre Prep...How???

Let Parents be involved.

Let parents be involved!

In my very first blog, I wrote about relationships and their importance to our kids’ education. This week, I spent some time working with parents, developing relationships between home and school and I thought this was a good opportunity to expand on that blog, in particular, the Parent/Teacher relationship. 

Early in Term 1, the Junior School invited the parents into the classroom to introduce themselves and their classrooms. On this particular evening, the creative subjects set up a market stall to showcase what we do. As such, I set up a display of work and photos. The volume of parents I had lined up to talk with me was overwhelming and the encouragement and support I received from them planted a seed. It was clear that the parents wanted to know more about 'Design Thinking' and the learning dispositions being fostered within my subject. Many said it was often a topic of conversation that their kids initiated and, so naturally the parents wanted to find out what was sparking this enthusiasm. Thus, the ‘Parent Design Thinking Boot Camp’ was born! 

I saw this as an opportunity to share with our parents what their kids do, but also to get them on board to further support the relationship between class and home. It was important to me to try to install in my audience the same excitement that they had seen in their kids so the ‘talk and chalk’ method of instruction was not an option. I had to get these parents to not only understand Design Thinking but to experiencing exactly what their kids were doing in my classroom. So, I set up a quick design challenge for them.

I had 2 hours and I wanted it to be busy, fast paced. I wanted the parents to learn through participating. I wanted them creating, out of their comfort zone. I wanted them sharing collaborating and making. But most of all, I wanted them to be curious, experimenting, failing forward, being optimistic, empathetic and iterative. I wanted them to ‘low definition’ prototype, draw, share, scribble on whiteboards and play with materials the way their kids did. I wanted them to experience all this to not only value the process, but experience how their kids are engaged and learning throughout the process. I had set myself a large task.

Firstly, the parents were organised into small groups with people they didn’t know. The challenge was introduced to them and then I shared with them the Design Model we use. Then, they were presented with a provocation to work through using the Design Model. As they worked through the process, strategies for each step were added. Eventually, the group had designed and created a solution to the problem. The groups were then invited to share their creations. Even though their creations were quick prototypes, the thinking that had gone into them was inspiring. The presentations were a chance to have a laugh at their own creations but also explain the thinking behind them. I think the group surprised themselves with the creativity they had displayed! Overall it was an informative but fun night and one which was very rewarding for me personally.

In an earlier blog, I stated that, “Parents can be a challenge… but they can also be great allies, supporters, volunteers and sources of expertise”. This event has further reinforced my thinking. Since the Boot Camp, I have had parents donating materials for our Tinker Club and offering their expertise to assist in various fields. Parents are regularly emailing me asking if I need certain things, offering industrial waste materials from their business or telling me about something they saw or read that might assist in my classes. However, more importantly parents are having discussions with their kids about what they did in the session and what their kids are doing and working on.

Sure it took a little bit of effort to make this happen but the benefits have been well worth it. I’m now looking forward to other ways I can include or collaborate with parents and the community to provide better learning opportunities for our kids. I’m excited about the possibilities!