In the second week of the holidays I attending the ULearn conference in Rotorua. The over-arching themes were connect, collaborate and innovate. It was three days of intense professional learning. As I sit here and look back over my notes I am reminded of a quote I read recently...
Larry Rosenstock : It's Time to Change the Subject
Larry is the founder and CEO of High Tech High in America. In his keynote he spoke about the school's project based learning which is guided by four principles: equity, personalisation, authentic work, and collaborative design. He spoke of the need to develop "soft skills" such as curiosity, persistence, problem solving, and resilience, to name just a few.
In the evening I went to see the screening of 'Most Likely To Succeed' and saw High Tech High in action. It's a must see movie for all educators.
John Couch: New Dimensions in Learning
John works in the Education division at Apple. The key message of his keynote was that we need to "rewire education." He began by sharing a story about when he was in college. He was given a spinning top problem where he had to describe the motion of a spinning top in free space, but because there was no exact answer he was unsure how to go about solving it. It was not something you could simply study for and memorise the answers. It was at this point that he realised that 'knowing' as no longer going to be enough. It was this experience that set him on a path to learn coding and programming which led him to work for Steve Jobs at Apple.
Later in his keynote he focused on leadership. He believes that effective leadership starts with WHY? The 'why' is the vision. Visions are inspirational and mission statements focus on the goals and measurable outcomes of the vision.
He challenged us to be able to articulate the WHY? .....or are we still focused on WHAT?
He talked about the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) programme and a the findings of the longitudinal study.
- Engagement is the key to success and technology aids engagement.
- Education is the process of gaining skills through experience.
He reminded us of the SAMR model.
John encouraged everyone to view Todd Rose's Myth of the Adverage TED talk. It is a TED talk that I am very familiar with as it links to UDL which has been the focus of my NAPP inquiry this year. By designing learning for the "average" you in fact design for no-one. Learning needs to be personalised to meet individual needs.
He left us with a question:- Are we in schools that are like the Pony Express (preparing students for the current state) or schools that are the Telegraph (preparing students for the future)?
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