Articles – Page 9 – Shooting Azimuths

The Reflective Practitioner Examining the role of social media

What kind of teacher are you? Have you ever asked yourself that question? It’s trickier than you think. In his book The Good Teacher, Alex Moore offers a critique of the three dominant categorisations of teachers¹, on which the three descriptions below are based:

The charismatic subject – These teachers are born, not made. They do things their own way and don’t play by the rules. They are institutional rebels who rely on their natural ability to lead and engage their pupils. They only put together a lesson plan if there is an inspection, and that if they can be bothered. Think Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society effortlessly inspiring his students to a love of poetry.

The competent crafts person – These teachers are made, not born. These teachers beaver away in the staff-room behind piles of exercise books worried about the latest assessment for learning initiative. Their lessons are strictly timed and defined by carefully devised lesson plans. They read books on classroom management techniques and worry about whether their subject knowledge is good enough to teach at A-Level.

The reflective practitioner – These teachers are neither made nor born, they become. They question assumptions and established practices. They don’t treat pedagogical theories as gospel and understand that they and their students, who happen to be people as well, are in it together. They reflect and adapt their practice as necessary, even if school policy is yet to catch up.

Although categorisations such as these inevitably are generalisations, that is not to say they should be ignored. They are certainly thought-provoking: If charismatic teachers are born, does professional development not play a role? Are über-competent teachers so engrossed in becoming masters of their craft that they ignore the needs of their pupils?

The answer is, of course, no. Why can we not be charismatic, competent and reflexive all at once?

If I were to have to choose one of these categories for myself, I would definitely pick the third one. I would like to be a reflective practitioner.

But how does a reflective practitioner reflect? I find that I am relying more and more on blogging and micro-blogging – mainly on Twitter – to reflect on my own teaching practice. That doesn’t mean I eschew face-to-face exchanges of views and late-night pillow consultations. I just find that, especially by blogging, I can be more open – as well as truthful to myself – and lay bare my ignorance in the hope a kind reader might entertain a discussion that would help to fill the numerous gaps in my knowledge and understanding of the issues in which I take an interest.

It is therefore dispiriting to find myself often defending this most reflective of activities from those who think that only those who enjoy the sound of their own voices indulge in the ego trip that is blogging. Absolutely nothing further from the truth. In my experience, the teacher-bloggers I have met in person tend to be sensitive, thoughtful and considerate people who are committed to their profession, life-long learning and reflective practice.

In a recent blog post, Martin Weller wrote: “In terms of intellectual fulfillment, creativity, networking, impact, productivity, and overall benefit to my scholarly life, blogging wins hands down. […] Blogging tops the list because of its room for experimentation and potential to connect to timely intelligent debate.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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Moore, A. (2004) ‘The Good Teacher’: Dominant Discourses in Teaching and Teacher Education. London: RoutledgeFalmer. ↩

In Education

The Ideas of Others: Why We Really Loathe Innovation

I have recently been very troubled by the realisation that sometimes some people will not see past my peculiar name or my foreign accent and will make prejudiced assumptions about my competence in my profession or suitability for a role.

A thread I started on Twitter on this topic confirmed that, sadly, I am not only foreign educator working in the UK who feels other people’s perception of our competence is linked to factors beyond our control, such as our country of origin.

In Education, Educational Technology

An over-dose of scepticism When does a healthy dose of scepticism become an over-dose?

Languages, my own specialism, is a curriculum area which has traditionally spear-headed the use of innovative ICT and developed practice centred around its application in schools. Tape and then CD players, VHS recorders and DVD players have all been widely used, to great effect, in languages classrooms across the world.

Today, we would be hard-pressed to find teachers who would disparage the positive impact the application of such technologies has had in the field of languages teaching. Yet the introduction of these technologies was initially met with great scepticism, as they were deemed to be a distraction from real learning.

More recently, advances in computing and almost ubiquitous internet access have heralded the arrival of the next logical stage in the evolution of teaching and learning. New technologies are conjuring up new and innovative pedagogical practices and questioning traditional teaching and learning paradigms. For example, the application of these technologies allows us to depart from the convention that pupils must be at school in order for them to learn or be taught or for teachers to be able to assess their progress.

Yet, despite the huge pedagogical potential unquestionably present in the effective use of these technologies, many teachers still harbour considerable doubt as to technology’s utility in the teaching and learning context, remaining unconvinced of the benefits the web may be able to bring to their classrooms. It appears that sceptics – as they always have done and always will – attack the adoption of new technologies on the same, familiar grounds: they’re a distraction from real learning.

So, it begs the question: What exactly is real learning? In languages teaching, taking it again as a case in point, the definition of real learning has alternated over the last few decades: first there was a focus on grammatical rigour, then came an emphasis on communicative skills; first there were lists of words to be learnt, then came a focus on the skills needed to put those words together. What is certain, however, is that the essence of what real learning means to many teachers, of any specialism, hasn’t altered considerably: real learning occurs when the teacher is firmly in control¹ and when tried and tested practices are used with which teachers are familiar.

This may go some way toward explaining why many teachers see the implementation of new technologies as a capitulation to what they perceive as a lack of discipline, absence of self-control and preference for immediacy among the current generation of students² , establishing, in my view, a false dichotomy between technology implementation and academic rigour.

Teachers clearly remain split in their acceptance of the different educational paradigm new technologies provide us all. In the meantime, our students – for whom digital technologies, being online and participation in the social media environment are a by-product of living in the developed world³– look on at us in bemusement.

So, when does a healthy dose of scepticism become an over-dose?

What do you think? Conversations are always welcome.

Photo credit

ATHERTON, J S (2005) Learning and Teaching: Behaviourism Online ↩
BARNES, K, MARATEO, R C and FERRIS, S P (2007) Teaching and Learning with the Net Generation Online ↩
SHIRKY, C (2010) Cognitive Surplus, Penguin ↩

In Education

Knowledge is a journey Are we keeping true to the spirit of enquiry?

In his book The Good Teacher, Professor Alex Moore explores the importance of reflection and reflexivity in good teaching practice. Moore divides teachers into those who place emphasis on being vs those who focus on becoming.

In his view – applied to the teaching profession – being is static and finite, whereas becoming is fluid, infinite and ever-developing. I like to think of being as the end of a journey and of becoming as the journey itself.

Whilst Professor Moore’s remarks were made in the context of describing the dominant discourses within teaching, it struck me that our education system as a whole generally places a huge emphasis on being, promoting an old-fashioned concept of knowledge, that is to say: knowing static and finite facts, rather than on becoming.

Tests, examinations and certifications subconsciously encourage us to be satisfied with what we know and discourage many of us from continuing the journey. We all have had pupils who have asked Do I need to know that? or Will that be in the exam?

David Weinberger, in an article in the New Scientist titled Why untidiness is good for us, picks up on how the web is challenging traditional concepts of knowledge. Weinberger claims that a scalable, hyper-linked knowledge “is fast reshaping itself around its new networked medium” and becoming “truer to the spirit of enquiry”, a spirit that cherishes the end of every journey as the start of a new one.

The new “networked medium”, i.e. the web, thus redefines knowledge as a journey, an infinite progression and an unfinishing as well as unfinishable process. This is the notion we need to cultivate in ourselves and in our students: what to know is second in importance to how to know.

Is this a good thing? “In the internet age [this] is what knowledge looks like, and it is something to regret for a moment, but then embrace and celebrate” asserts Weinberger.

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In Education, Educational Technology

It won’t always be dark at six… Doom, gloom and light at the end of the tunnel

As somebody who hails from more Southern and sunnier latitudes, I’ve never really got used to just how early night falls in the late Autumn and Winter months in these Northern parts. After just a few weeks of driving to and back from school in the dark, we can all be forgiven for thinking that it will ever be thus.

Only two or three years ago I would have thought it impossible for schools to be opening Twitter and Facebook accounts to interact with the wider school community – including their pupils, of course. Such was the negative feeling among teachers that I would have been derided and lampooned -and indeed I often was- for having the deluded audacity to suggest that social networking could be harnessed by schools to be potentially beneficial to both teaching and learning.

Two or three years down the line, there are more and more schools and teachers using Twitter accounts and Facebook pages who are being bold and and have taken the plunge. For example, where I work, in the private sector, it is becoming ever rarer to find a school that does not have a Twitter account, a Facebook page or both.

I would be disingenuous if I proclaimed that today’s prevalent means of communication – social networking – is well established even in those schools experimenting with its potential. There is still a vast majority of teachers who remain deeply suspicious or, worse, simply uninterested in the way their students communicate.

We could be forgiven for assuming that nothing much has changed. Oh but it has. It’s much harder to lampoon twittering teachers now even the Head Teacher tweets. The old rhetoric of sexual predation that used to surround the use of social media seems utterly unreasonable now the Maths department challenges their pupils to solve problems collaboratively via their Facebook page and the Physics department gets their students to film experiments that are then published on Youtube.

Even those teachers who remain suspicious of the potential of new technologies are beginning to tweet their condemnation of social media and blog about the unsuitability of social networking, mostly blissfully unaware of the irony.

Times are indeed changing. Although there will still be those who firmly believe in the good old ways, they now coexist with those who are beginning to realise that effective use of communications technology can support and enhance teaching and learning in ways that we are only beginning to imagine.

There is plenty to look forward to, for it won’t always be dark at six.

What do you think?

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In Education, Educational Technology

Trick or Treat? The Fear of Innovation

It’s Halloween soon. For some it’s time to carve pumpkins, dress up and get some treats ready for the kiddies. For others, it’s time to barricade themselves in their houses and pretend there is nobody at home when the bell rings, whilst wishing Halloween had stayed across the pond, where it surely belongs.

Indeed, many people’s rejection of this relatively new event in British calendars seems to be based on the grounds that Halloween – as we know it today – is an American import. But never mind the fact Halloween is actually an ancient Celtic tradition and never mind the fact that most of the other, so called, native British traditions – from tea drinking (China, 18th century) to Christmas trees (Germany, 19th century) – are both imported and properly foreign. Why such visceral rejection of a new trend?

I think the answer is that we seem to be hardwired to be suspicious of the different and the new. I think this is why new trends are slow to be accepted: it is, after all, someone else’s idea and not our own – innovation’s number one stumbling block.

In my mind, one can easily draw parallels between our instinctive reaction to the new and different at a cultural level and the adoption of innovative teaching practices in our schools: an initial adverse reaction, followed by grudging adoption and finally culminating in acceptance in the isn’t-it-great-this-was-my-idea-all-along fashion.

Take social media as an example. Schools, by and large, tend to reject its use. Much like Halloween, it is seen as a threat to our own way but, much like Halloween, schools are grudgingly starting to adopt it as they realise the truth that was staring them in the face all along: all our students are already on board.

Right then, off I go to carve some pumpkins with my children…

What do you think?

In Education

Chimps and Ants: The Politics of Innovation

Innovation is defined as making changes in something established by introducing new methods, ideas or products. The very definition of innovation allows us to glean what problems an innovator might encounter as they strive to do things differently.

Trying to change the way things have always been done provides would-be innovators first of all with a political challenge, for persuading colleagues that change is both necessary and beneficial is no easy task.

Every single educational institution is governed and shaped by macro- and micro-politics. Innovators will find hurdles in both spheres, but it is the micro-politicking that takes place in the staff room, among colleagues, that worries me the most.

Simon Baddeley and Kim Jones very effectively described political behaviour within organisations using their Owl, Fox, Donkey and Sheep model. It is really difficult to read their evocative descriptions and not come away having mentally ascribed each of your colleagues to one of their zoological categories. You should try it, if only for fun.

However, when it comes to innovation, I would describe just two different categories of people: Chimps and Ants.

I am a Chimp

Chimps are innovators by nature. Always tinkering with sticks and stones trying figure out new and better ways to get to those tasty termites… figuratively speaking, of course.

Chimps are those teachers committed to their jobs and their schools, permanently striving to develop themselves professionally for the benefit of their pupils. Teaching is their vocation: Chimps live to teach.

Chimps are likely to discuss lesson strategies and outcomes at break with colleagues or online and ask themselves searching questions about the effectiveness of their practice.

Chimps are likely to partner with other teachers and engage in mutually beneficial lesson observations and to actively seek student feedback to inform their future lesson planning.

Chimps are not afraid to try to put new thinking into practice. Chimps are not afraid of failure, they see it as a learning opportunity.

I am an Ant

Ants work hard to preserve the status quo react adversely when their single files are disrupted by stick-wielding chimps… again, figuratively speaking.

Ants are those teachers who teach for a living and see professional development as a chore and another hoop to jump through.

Ants are as likely to ridicule and taunt Chimps at break as they are likely to deride and blame their own students for their inability to do well in their subjects.

Ants prefer to do things the old-fashioned way and rely on experience, not as the seed of innovation, but rather as the justification for their own indolence.

Ants loathe innovation because changing the way you do things is too much effort. Ants fear being derided and ridiculed by other Ants, they fear failure.

Caveat

Think you’re more of a Chimp? Think I don’t like Ants? Think again. We can all be Chimps or Ants at different times, depending on our circumstances. We tend to be Chimp-like when it comes to our own innovative ideas, but Ant-like when considering the ideas of others.

Many thanks to Ryan Berry for his fantastic photo titled New Ideas Are… Encouraged

In Education, Educational Technology

Why your school should embrace social networking New ways of gathering together and getting things done

Clay Shirky captures the essence of social networking rather succinctly: social networks facilitate the creation of groups and the exploration of “new ways of gathering together and getting things done”.

Theories about socio-cultural situated learning have deep reaching consequences in the appliance of social networking as the principal means of communication, collaboration and cooperation in an educational setting, not just for individual students, but also for the whole school community. Interaction between individuals, teachers and students, co-operating in a community lies at the heart of social cognitive learning theory.

The importance of community to learning is always implied but rarely stated as a significant context in education. We all understand at an implicit level that interaction between members of the school community deepens their understanding of each other and leads to learning.

So, is a social network a substitute for community? Would the use of social networking be detrimental to the wider school community? The answer to both questions is no. Of course not. If the concept of community were not important for learning, schools and universities would have little reason to exist. The critical role of interaction in learning is reinforced by the addition of social networking to the school community, not undermined. Therefore, the addition of the social learning network augments the learning community rather than provides an alternative to it, resulting in the overall enhancement of the learning environment. It also – very tantalisingly – points towards how teaching and learning within this environment can be transformed into previously inconceivable practice, not simply enhancing it.

Research suggests that individuals join social networks to associate with others of like interest or vocation, or who know more, or who would like to learn similar things. This contrasts sharply with schools’ imposition of learning management systems on their students. Some educators have pointed out that many students tend to avoid using the school-managed virtual learning environments because they either find it difficult to use or irrelevant to their daily learning needs. It would appear then that a loose network of willing participants is better able to guarantee the commitment and engagement of the vast majority of our students.

Using social social networking, students all over the world are forming online communities which seem to be augmenting, not replacing, the more traditional concepts of community. They see the virtual world as an extension of the real world, not as its surrogate. These networks of similarly minded and often indirectly connected people contribute to the acquisition of knowledge of individuals by creating awareness between its members and making such knowledge transparent to the rest of the community.

Transparent information and cooperation among individuals foster the creation of personal learning environments in which participants wish to engage due to the potential benefits each can acquire. Schools and other learning outlets have thus far shied away from encouraging the development of such personal learning environments using the host of Web 2.0 and social media tools available, preferring instead to impose learning management systems – virtual learning environments (VLEs).

VLEs do have their strengths: they do foster dialogue and collaboration. However, a virtual learning environment which consists solely of students and is, by and large, managed by teachers cannot profit from the benefits derived by a social network because it lacks transparency of information and deep engagement between students and teachers.

In my own experience, VLEs quickly become repositories of institutionally approved teaching materials and effectively discourage cooperation and interaction among students, fostering instead less meaningful, transactional interaction such as the setting or handing in of student work or the communication of assessment grades. Less often do students appear to willingly engage in more meaningful forms of cooperation such as peer review and assessment of each other’s work.

The adoption of social networking can, therefore, provide the school community with a low-cost / high-value platform in which teachers and learners can remain in close contact and interact beyond the constraints of the school walls, and within which the teacher would be able to provide the learner with further personalised feedback and support to that already provided in the physical learning environment. A social network expands the learning environment to wherever the learner happens to be and acting as a bridge between school and home, between formal and informal learning.

With this in mind, an obvious symbiotic relationship between social media and learning begins to become apparent. It then becomes relatively easy to imagine the transfer of this kind of passive co-operation to the school context, where students and teachers can share information transparently using social media and networking sites to filter internet content and direct users to relevant, commonly interesting material.

Personal experience supported by well-established learning theory assures me that learning by doing and learning from one another are the deepest forms of learning our students ever experience. When social networking is effectively implemented, schools can separate the notion of safety from that of appropriate behaviour, allowing them to tackle these issues independently so that the pedagogical potential of social networking can be explored in depth.

Photo by tanakawho

In Education, Educational Technology

Books that glow Is the future digital for textbooks?

Digital textbooks are to textbooks what the iPhone was to phones. Five years ago, making phone calls and sending text messages was just about all I could imagine that I could do with my mobile phone. Then along came devices like the iPhone and the game changed: phone calls and text messages gave way to email, social networking, internet browsing and just about anything else you could find an app for.

When I say digital textbooks, I am not referring to Amazon Kindles. Useful as they are, I am certain Kindles will end up, sooner rather than later, in a cupboard alongside the electronic typewriter, the fax machine and the floppy disk. The reason why I think this is the case is that Kindles are intermediate devices that have been developed to suit already existing content.

South Korea has announced recently that, by 2015, all the information that would once have been in paper textbooks will be delivered on screens. These digital textbooks will be available on computers, tablets, smartphones and even internet-capable TVs. Note how here the emphasis is on the content and not on the device: they want the content to be suitable for the devices, not the other way round.

When we think of digital textbooks today we tend to think of little more than books that glow. We generally fail to see the point because we tend to envisage the same content that was previously available on print delivered on a screen. I am certain this is not what the South Korean Minister for Education has in mind. By focusing on the development of new bespoke content that is designed for delivery on devices like the iPad, the South Koreans are putting the horse before the cart.

Over here, however, we are more likely to throw iPads at our students without having really thought about what they could do with them once they hit the on button. We may be putting the cart before the horse and giving fodder to those who think that digital textbooks are nothing more than books that glow.

This video of a TED talk by Mike Matas about the digital format of Our Choice, AlGore‘s sequel to book An Inconvenient Truth gives you and idea of what can be achieved when you adapt the content to the device, and not vice versa:

Putting aside the rather gimmicky wind blowing, the potential to transform the way we deliver content to our students quickly becomes apparent. Just like making phone calls on the iPhone, reading text is simply one of the options available to the learner. Not only are graphics brought to life before our very eyes and the boundaries between learning and playing blurred, but also, the content can be adapted to exploit all the other nifty things a tablet like the iPad can do.

So, just like the iPhone is so much more than just a phone, digital textbooks are so much more that just textbooks.

The future of education is glowing… in more ways than one.

What do you think?

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