Falling prophets

“Books will soon be obsolete in the schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture. Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years.”

So wrote the celebrated American inventor Thomas Edison in 1913. It's a well known quote, and is more representative of his fervour for the moving picture than it was of reality. His enthusiasm for the fledgling motion picture industry was justified however. It took the world by storm, but not at the expense of books. Motion pictures also failed to revolutionise school systems by the way.

Another well known quote from the Hollywood mogul Darryl F. Zanuck in 1946 reveals more about our tumultuous romance with technology:

"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." 

Like Edison, Zanuck had a personal vested interest in the future success of the motion picture industry, and viewed the introduction of the television as nothing more than an aberration. Yet just as Edison had grossly underestimated the power and appeal of the book, so Zanuck was proved wrong with about the demise of television. What can we learn from these earnest but erroneous predictions? Firstly, we need to be careful how we predict the future. We should pay more attention to context than content. Technology trends are capricious but our need to access information is a constant. We should understand that people are inherently curious, and will use whatever medium is available to satisfy their hunger for news, entertainment, and social contact.

The advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web has gathered all media together in one 'place'. The convergence of text, audio, video, and the emergence of hypermedia provide us with the ultimate playground. We no longer need to ask whether books are dead. If we like reading, then books will survive, whether they are paper based or digital. The same applies to any other medium.

Photo by Robert Parvlainen on Flickr


Falling prophets by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

New Zealand’s all but forgotten science research about valuing the both the views students hold and the process of learning to clarify their thinking – The Learning in Science Project. (University of Waikato Science Education Research Unit 1985)

What are students ideas about scientists. science. any concept?

I am in the process of trying to clear out the books and notes I have collected over the decades. A very distracting task but one that has to be faced up to.

For most of my career (now receding into the distance) I worked with  schools as a science adviser

and was later a teacher, an art adviser, a school principal and finally an independent educational adviser. Now I am happy just to think about education and limit my involvement to writing a regular blog.  I still find educational issues interesting.

From my early years I believed strongly in an education system that focussed on helping all students develop their gifts and talents making full use of the immediate environment. My own beliefs came from working with creative teachers I came in contact with –backed up by reading educationalists that supported student centred learning. I still think creative classroom teachers are where all the bes ideas come from - not distant experts who have little appreciation of the reality of classroom teaching.

The problem is, as I see it,is that student centred/creative learning is now under threat by a narrow instrumental education focussed on ( in New Zealand)  achieving arbitory National Standards. I  hope that there will always be a few creative teachers will  will be able to survive in such an environment.

In the 80s, along with the other Science Advisers, I was involved with the Learning in Science Project based at Waikato University School of Education.

The project arose when Dr Osborne a physics lecturer at Waikato University came to the conclusion that his students entered his class lacking understanding he thought ought be in place. After working with secondary science teachers however he found they were being taught appropriate physics but without real understanding. From this beginning Dr Osborne became interested in the often naive views students held – even after teaching.

The project starting in secondary schools was extended to the primary level and we were  involved in

How are voices made?

collecting data on students view about a range of science concepts. Around the world other researchers were also exploring the prior views students’ hold and how they modify and construct their knowledge and how , even after explicit teaching,  why students still hold on to their original view.

Common sense when you think of it. We are all involved in modifying our views through experience – and often refusing to give up on ideas we had before the experience. This makes teaching but interesting and challenging.

Knowing what students’ think before they enter a learning experience would seem sensible – and respectful. This was the basis of the Learning in Science Project ( LISP) extending into the kinds of teaching that help children change their minds.

The LISP research was focussed ‘on investigations to determine what learners bring to the classroom by way of word meanings, and explanations for why things behave as they do.’ It also focussed on how to help teachers assist their students in helping them construct ‘more scientific’ concepts.

How to shadows change?

The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum and recent research continues these understandings now referred to as ‘constructivist learning’ – or better still when working with teachers ‘co-constructivist learning. 

In the 60s a visiting educational physiologist to NZ David Ausabel said ‘first find out what the learners knows and then teach accordingly’. Good advice but by and large ignored by class teachers.

The LISP research showed that many primary teachers were insecure about teaching science for a variety of reasons – a situation that still exists today. Teachers' views about what science is was a variable as was their role in teaching science.

Today science, along with other learning areas, is being neglected as schools programmes concentrate on literacy and numeracy  to ensure their students do well on achieving  the counterproductive National Standards.

The concerns uncovered from teachers was that students might not learn much from activity based programmes ( added to by  problems of equipment and organisational issues) particularly since transmission teaching had been shown not to transfer knowledge to students.

The research showed dilemmas facing primary classroom teachers resulting from the lack of confidence about teaching science; many simply avoided taking science a situation that remains common today.

Not only  were student beliefs an issue but also the beliefs  of the teachers . Teachers beliefs about any learning area area, as stated ( in the LISP findings) by Postman and Weingartner , ‘The beliefs , feelings and assumptions of teachers are the air of a learning environment, they determine the quality of life within it.’

Teachers needed help  to develop positive beliefs about science teaching and this was the role of the  primary science advisers - disbanded  following the introduction of Tomorrows Schools in the 1980s.

What ideas do students hold?

Our current New Zealand Curriculum provides direction  for today's' teachers but the problems of implementation  still remain. 

Students need to be given  opportunities to raise questions and undertake investigations to find answers to their questions. The view of learning expressed in the curriculum is that  ,’learners construct meanings for themselves  by 'seeking, using and creating their own knowledge'  The 'construction of personal knowledge begins at birth and continues throughout life' (LISP).

Whatever students do in primary schools  LISP research shows they do not enter secondary education with blank minds  in respect to science concepts but unfortunately these intuitively constructed children’s ideas can have severe limitations. This, of course, applies to all areas of learning.

Science teaching in primary classrooms cannot be ignored or forgotten. Primary schools need to provide worthwhile challenges to stimulate and challenge children’s’ present ideas as well as  

How is lightning and thunder made?

providing  opportunities to 'learn how to learn'. Primary science, above all else, needs to encourage children to take an interest in their environment and their own learning, explore ideas, and seek and develop understandings about their world.

The process LISP encouraged was to present challenges to the students, to uncover and value the ‘prior’ ideas, help them explore the ideas of others (to challenge their current understandings) and  that scientists’ ideas should not be forced on students. Teachers need to help students clarify their ideas and if exposed to scientists' views at least will see that others hold different views

This ought to be the basis of all teaching.

This approach has come to be known as ‘interactive ‘teaching. An interactive approach combines providing the scientists views  at an appropriate stage( if known) and  an inquiry / activity model  to uncover and challenge student views.

Obviously children cannot be simply lefty to learn by themselves, neither can scientific explanations be simply transmitted. The real issue is one of valuing the students’ role in their own learning. An interactive approach is a good example of personalised learning. Students, it has been shown will only share their ideas if there is a supportive environment; and conversely some class environment inhibit students questions and  the expressing their views..

Lots of question, theories and things to try

Some of the ideas explored  by the LISP research to discover children’s questions, and prior views were identified by asking them for their ideas about : seeds, native plants, trees, hatching chickens; fruit, earthworms, wind, water, waves, floating and thinking, dissolving, melting; keeping things cold; keeping humans warm; shadows; mirrors; musical instruments; falling things; seasons.

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Identification of such students' questions and ideas, and how learning experiences has clarified and modified their ideas, ought to be a feature of modern classrooms

An amazing finding  from research at the time was that students from around the world hold similar views about such things such as: rocks,  what causes the wind, or how electricity works and also that there was a developmental process - ideas being modified with age.

What was important was the process developed to uncover such ideas and how explore such science topics ( or topics from any Learning Area) As in the 80s here is a need to find ways to ensure children’s’ questions have a more central role in primary school science ( or any area of learning).

The LISP research developed  a model of learning.( basically an inquiry learning model) that is relevant in today's' classrooms.

Step One:  put children into an interesting situation which stimulates the children to ask questions.

Step Two:  Gather and record students’ questions. Questions and prior ideas will arise throughout the study. Students will need help to refine /combine questions for research. It was found that students initial questions were often superficial and more valuable questions crystallize as the study progresses.

Step Three:  Gather /record children’s suggested answers to their questions- their ‘prior’ ideasStudents may well change or modify their ideas during this process

Step Four: Develop children’s; research proposals. Students work individually or in groups to develop research proposals – how they plan to go about finding answers. Proposal will need teacher approval before embarking. Teachers found that best student planning occurred  after teacher discussion. Some children/groups will need more guidance than others.

Step Five: Children undertake their research activities – using experiments or by consulting other sources. At this point teachers need to interact to guide and challenge students. Teachers might find it valuable to have students  discuss  their research plans ideas with the whole class  As required or groups could  report their progress  to the  class.

Step Six: Completed  Research Reports. These to be shared with class and may include further ideas to investigate. It is important to avoid ‘cut and paste’ answers in reports. Reports ought to include phrases such as ‘what I thought before’ ,’ what I found out’, ‘what I think now’ ’,’ I am uncertain about and further questions to think about. A good model for teachers' to hold in their minds are the exhibits student develop for science, technology or maths fairs. Students need to be able to explain and defend their findings.

Completed studies could be  loaded up to an ongoing electronic portfolios.

The LISP approach relieves teachers of having to have the ‘right answers’ before undertaking the study – they have the opportunity learn along with their students. Teachers  no longer have to see themselves as ‘experts’. which was a problem with traditional/transmission teaching.

The LISP research developed material for teachers to use that showed for selected topics the kinds of questions and prior ideas students had been shown to have. Such resources would be valuable today.

Ideally teachers would 're frame' their literacy time (and where appropriate numeracy time) to ‘frontload’ appropriate inquiry/literacy /numeracy skills to be used during  content study time.

Creative teachers see the inquiry topics as central to their class programmes – with literacy and numeracy providing the ‘foundation ‘skills.

Such classrooms are true communities of inquiry.

Today there are moves to develop communities of schools to share ‘best practices’ but it would seem that current proposal  will result in conforming ( to Ministry targets)  rather than sharing  the ideas of creative teachers.

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The best ideas in education most often come from teachers working at the edges and could  be at risk in this proposed way of schools working together. They key is tapping into and haring the ideas of  creative outliers.

At the end of our tether

What does mobile technology have to do with academic freedom? Read on...

'A person's freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic that his freedom of speech.' This remark from John Holt epitomises progressive education. Holt could easily have gone on to argue that freedom of learning should also include choice of location. He died in 1985, before the era of the Web and mobile technology, but the thought was undoubtedly already there. Being able to choose when and where to learn is part of the freedom to learn. It is not just about freedom of thought and freedom of speech, but also freedom of space and place. It is about choice. The is academic freedom.

We have no excuse now. We are living at a time in our history where the small device in the hand of the student is able to provide opportunities for any time, any place learning.

The fact is, untethered learning is evident all around us. Increasingly, people are learning informally through their mobile devices. Tethered technologies such as fixed line telephones are on the wane, while for the first smart phones are now outstripping those from personal computers and are have overtaken laptops as the most popular means of going online. Many are grasping the opportunity to go mobile, using their smart phones, tablets and e-readers to learn while on the move, at a time and pace that suits their lifestyles.

Traditional, formal education is playing catch-up... or in many cases not playing at all.

The significance of the mobile device cannot be underestimated. In the last decade personal, mobile technology has gained a dramatic purchase on western society. It has driven many social, economic, political and, yes - psychological changes. The relative benefits and limitations of these changes can be debated elsewhere, but fundamentally, educators need to recognise something significant. In comparison to other sectors of society, where mobile technology adoption is concerned the world of formal learning is lagging so far behind, if it were an Formula 1 racing driver, it would be in danger of being lapped.

Should education go completely mobile? No, and in most cases it won't. Should schools ignore mobile completely? Definitely not, but many do. A blended approach is needed, where the optimum mix of mobile and tethered learning can be supported. Yes, there is a place for tethered learning, as can be evidenced in many subjects such as science and the arts. But so much more can be learnt outside the four walls of the traditional classroom.  Here are just three strategies teachers can adopt to promote this mix:

1) Create opportunities for learners to use their personal, mobile technologies inside the classroom. There are endless examples already available of teachers who have incorporated mobile technologies into their classrooms, for voting, collaborative learning, capturing data, creating content and interacting with specific environments.

2) Provide content that can be accessed by learners both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. This provision should be seamless, and should be accessible and usable on tablet and phone screens. The mobile content should be interactive and (at the appropriate level) challenging, and learners should be able to interact with their teachers and peers too.

3) Ensure that learners are active in the creation on course content themselves. They know their own personal technologies intimately (they chose them) and don't need to be shown how to use them. They will need support though, in determining how best they can and should employ their mobile tools to discover, create, share, re-purpose and remix content.

In this way, we might see the end of tethered learning, as we move toward a more flexible, personalised, blended learning that is location agnostic.

Reference
Holt, J. (2012) The right to control one's learning. In J. W. Moravec (Ed.) Knowmad Society, Charleston, SC: Education Futures.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


At the end of our tether by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Over the handlebars #blimage

I vividly remember learning to ride a bicycle, even though I was quite young at the time. I remember Mum buying me some 'stabilisers', a small pair of extra wheels that were attached either side of my rear wheel to allow me to keep my balance. I rode around on these for quite a while before I eventually gained the confidence to ride without them. I wonder how much longer it took me to learn to ride because of those stabilisers?

To help my kids when they were learning to ride, I would run alongside them holding the frame, acting as their support until I thought they were ready to ride on their own without falling over. They learnt a lot quicker, partly because they were unaware when I had let go. When I was learning, my stabilisers were conscious scaffolding, and I knew when they were gone. It took me a lot longer to gain confidence and I tended to rely on those little wheels a lot more than I should have.

My kids on the other hand, gained confidence in riding because they assumed I was there supporting them, when in fact I had already let them go. Acquiring skills is like that. Students are often more capable than we think they are. Providing too much scaffolding can be counter productive, and learners can take a lot longer to gain their confidence. The quicker a learner becomes independent, the more confident they will become. Provide them too much support, or intervene too frequently, and they will take longer to discover their own balance.  
No amount of scaffolding or support could have prepared me for the incident that occurred when I was 18 years old. My mother had asked me to take a carton of fresh eggs to her friend, who lived a few streets away. I cycled over holding the eggs in my left hand while steering my bike with my right hand, which also controlled the front brakes.

As I approached the lady's house, a sudden gust of wind blew hard, and I veered into the kerb. Automatically, I grasped the front brakes with my right hand, and the bike stopped. I however, continued, over the handlebars, and both I and the egg carton went up in the air.

Oh the irony. My fall resulted in a fractured collar bone and I spent 24 hours in hospital while the doctors observed me for concussion. The eggs however, were unharmed. Make of that what you will, and then, if you are up for it, write a blog using this image for the #blimage challenge:

Photos by Darren Johnson (courtesy of David Hopkins) and Steve Wheeler


Over the handlebars by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England as a part of the #blimage challenge and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Education Readings -Einstein/ Edison/ NAPLAN /Project Based Learning

By Allan Alach

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz

You can do it, baby!

Interesting observation on the ‘you can be anything you like’ messages that children receive.

“‘You can be anything you want to be’ is pithy advice that isn’t helping most of the young launch careers or find satisfaction in life. If we really think about it, few of us mean it literally. Twenge has told her daughter that ‘when people say you can be anything, it’s not true. For example, you can’t be a dinosaur.’ Perhaps what we’re really trying to say to our children is that we trust in their ability to build a meaningful life.”

http://bit.ly/1CTna1K

A Myth for Teachers: Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet

We’ve often heard the phrase “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . “ and I must confess I’ve used it myself. However….

“This is a claim used to justify dumbing-down, the idea being that if technology changes working life really quickly then there is no need to teach content as it will be irrelevant by the time our students get to the workplace. The widespread use of the claim in educational environments can almost all be traced back to the “Did You Know?” or “Shift Happens” videos that went viral among fashionably minded educators some time back. These consisted of a variety of poorly sourced and dubious claims about the future accompanied by enough bright colours and loud music to hypnotise the congenitally gullible.”

http://bit.ly/1KpmvVK

We need more misfits in #education

“Misfits don't see a problem with asking 'why' and asking for justification and misfits don't base their actions on what is safe and what is 'status quo.’”

http://bit.ly/1TXNv35

Encouraging the Einstein and Edison in Everyone

I’m a little dubious about the long term effectiveness of these kind of approaches but then again they are better than all the nonsense associated with ‘raising achievement.’

“The 21st century will require solutions that are fashioned differently from how the problems were made. The solutions of this century will come from creative people who are willing to look at doing things differently. As such, the future will need more Albert Einsteins and Thomas Edisons -- and by the way, there is a bit of them in all of us. Here are some ways to nurture both in all of your students.”

http://bit.ly/1DDDM8D

Whose fingers on the button?

Here’s an article by Seymour Papert (acknowledged as one of Piaget’s protégés) that was written in 1998 about the use of digital technologies in education.  Papert’s book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, published in 1980, is still extremely relevant and should be on your ‘must read’ list.

“From this follows a political aspect of child power as a factor in the interplay of change and resistance to change in education. For if the computer industry, the education establishment and the politicians have a common vested interest in keeping school as it is, children do not. And if just 10 per cent of children came to school with the experience of far richer learning outside, and with the expertise to show the school how to do it better, the pressure for change would quickly become irresistible.”

http://ind.pn/1DEjpIj

What I’m really thinking: the soon to be ex-teacher

Is this familiar?

“A bloated body of managers, many of whom haven’t taught in years. Driven by data and every new initiative, they have lost touch with where they came from. Without teachers who prioritise their rapport with pupils and make learning a fun, collaborative experience, the school is losing its soul.”

http://bit.ly/1Iob5SB

NAPLAN: Shakespeare would have failed the year 9 literacy test

Thanks to Phil Cullen for this article that discusses an unexpected outcome of Australia’s national testing programme. I suspect similar comments could be made about other national testing regimes.

“In online sample tests [of the year 9 NAPLAN], 25 of the 50 questions relate to spelling. It is a fair

bet that Shakespeare would have done very poorly on these. He would probably not even have understood why the questions were being asked. He would have performed better in the section in which students are required to complete sentences, but his approach to punctuation would almost certainly have been considered substandard. He would have excelled in the grammar section, and easily identified metaphors, alliteration, similes and rhymes. But overall he would either have failed or scored a very poor mark.”

http://bit.ly/1DWYRLw

This week’s contributions from Bruce Hammonds:

Three Traits of the Best Principals.

Bill Ferriter:

“Let me start with a simple statement of truth:  I am JUST a classroom teacher.  

I've never worked as a building principal -- and my knowledge of the principalship is limited to tons of reading, tons of conversations, and my first-hand experience working with tons of different principals and assistant principals during my 20+ years of teaching. What I DO know is that regardless of their unique sets of strengths and weaknesses, the best principals that I've ever worked for shared three traits.”

http://bit.ly/1LMJ6gC

The Secret Power of Differentiated Instruction

If Bart Simpson understands the destructive use of ability grouping teachers ought to as well.

“Do we separate students based on ability and continue to let the best ones in the other class get ahead while the “special” students fall behind because of a lack of ability? Bart Simpson said it best: “Let me get this straight. We’re behind the rest of our class and we’re going to catch up to them by going slower than they are?”

http://bit.ly/1IUJj2n

Project-Based Learning Activities—on a Budget!

“Project-based learning activities can be daunting for a teacher new to the concepts. If you are new, here are some key issues to know about real project-based learning:

1        Project based learning begins with an inquiry into a real-world problem.

2        Learning often takes place incollaborative groups, where students build a sense of community.

3        Research into the authentic problem involves going beyond the textbook, and involves activities such as interviews, web searches, and inviting guest speakers to class.Keeping in mind these criteria develop some great project-based learning activities on a budget?”

http://bit.ly/1MIF4r9

Personalised Learning - an idea for its time or just another buzz word

“I was re-reading Sir Ken Robinson’s latest book (which must be a must read for creative teachers looking for inspiration in this age of educational conformity) and was captured by his thoughts about the two worlds students live in.  One world – the personal one – all but ignored in classrooms. It is this personal world that was/is the world that creative teachers help students value and explore.”

http://bit.ly/1IojYbg

From Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’ file:

Learning is about constructing meaning.

Marie Clay and constructivism

“Marie Clay - more than just about reading. In most teachers’minds mention Marie Clay and they think of Reading Recovery. To me, I attribute to her the remark that, 'if a child hasn't learnt to learn something we haven't yet found the way to help him or her' or that, 'all children will learn

with the right task, the right help and enough time’. Marie Clay was a 'constructivist' or more accurately a 'co-constructivist' believing, like such researchers as Jerome Bruner, Piaget and Vygotsky that students create their own meanings and that this is best achieved by sensitive teacher interaction, always leaving the responsibility of learning in the child's hands. Holdaway (79)calls this need to make meaning a 'semantic drive' - one that it put at risk by insensitive teachers who do not value student creativity as the source for all learning.”

http://bit.ly/1kV5g08

Time to throw a spanner in the works!

“It is not hard to see secondary schools as artefacts of the 19th C.They so much resemble the Industrial Revolution on which they were based. They may be kinder gentler places today – for some students that is debatable, but they retain the features of a true industrial aged hierarchical organization or, worse still, a factory!”

http://bit.ly/1MsDxUZ

Transforming schools through Project Based Learning (PBL) .

Thomas Markham

“The 21stC will require a personalisation of learning and the cultivation of student talent and creativity. It is important for a country like New Zealand for schools to encourage such innovation and creativity but to achieve this will require considerable transformation of the current system.American educationalist Thom Markham is an enthusiast for Project Based Learning (PBL) and believes that the most important innovation schools can implement is high quality project based learning.”

http://bit.ly/18lBlLJ

The Right to Learn - an agenda for the 21stC; challenging the status quo.

“As we enter the second decade of the 'new' millennium what has changed in education? Not much.We can do a lot better.What is needed are fresh perspectives.So far reforms have not changed the basic assumptions of traditional schooling. A new vision is required. We need to let go of what has gone on before and think of how to use technology to re-imagine the experience for learners.”

http://bit.ly/Tr45hy

Sir Ken Robinson and Jerome Bruner.Personalised Learning-tapping the personal world of the learner.

A must read!

I was re- reading Sir Ken Robinson’s latest book (which mustbe a must read for creative teacherslooking for inspiration in this age of educational conformity) and was captured by his thoughts about the two worlds students live in. 

One world- the personal one – all but ignored in classrooms. The other the world they live in.

It is this personal world that was/is the world that creative teachers help students value and explore. This the world that pioneerteachers like Elwyn Richardson described in his recently reprinted book ‘in theEarly World’ and the world that Sylvia Ashton Warner used to write her Maori students reading books.

Elwyn - NZ pioneer teacher

And it is the world that would provide a fertile world or teachers to explore with students who are seen as failing today – students whose lives are not capitalised on in the way that Elwyn and Sylvia did.

It was Dr Beeby, the Director of Education, from 1939 who first encouraged New Zealand teachers to recognise their students as individuals.

Great curriculum

 Personalised learning moves well beyondindividualising learning. I have given up looking for such personalised learning in our current schools even though the New Zealand Curriculum  ask s of teachers to ensure their studentsare ‘seekers, users and creators of their own knowledge’ 

Personalised learning takes into account the thoughts, and feelings  of the students- individualised learning simply takes individuals through preconceived learning . Students learning through the internet is individualsed.

'Two worlds'

Sir Ken writes as human beings ‘we all live in two worlds. There is the world that exists whether or not you exist.’ And ‘there is another world that exists only because you exist; the personal world of your own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, the world within us. We only know the world around us through the world within us, through the senses by which we perceive it, by which we make sense of it’.

All students’, he writes, ‘are unique individuals with their own hopes, talents, anxieties, and aspirations. Engaging them as individuals is the heart of raising achievement’. ‘How we think

about the world around us can be deeply affected by the feelings within us, and how we feel may be critically shaped by our knowledge, perceptions and personal experiences.’

The trouble is the conventional curriculum pays little attention to this inner wold and we see the result disengagement t in this in our classrooms. , Sir Ken writes, ‘making education personalised has implications for the curriculum, for teaching, and for assessment’.

‘He  continues, ‘ human achievement in every field is driven by the desire to explore, to test and prod, to see what happens, to question how things work, and to wonder what if’. ‘Developing young people’s creative and scientific abilities is central to a worthwhile

education.  Elsewhere Sir Ken has written that ‘creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy but this emphasis is not to be seen in our schools where ‘literacy and numeracy, as a result of National Standards, have all but gobbled up the entire curriculum’.

While clearing out my bookshelves I came across a book by Jerome Bruner (Towards a Theory of Instruction) which also focused on

What are the school's teaching beliefs?

the valuing of students feelings, questions and theories they hold and how to challenge and clarify them. His thesis in his book that schools do not have a coherent theory of instruction to underpin their teaching/learning and while published in 1966 I believe this to still be the case; when I check school websites  such beliefs are noticeably absent. 

Bruner writes that growth occurs when students can move away from ‘just in time responses’ to making reflective decisions based on prior experiences. Students move from actions to a means of recognizing patterns and expressing them symbolically to finally understanding them abstractly.  If teachers rush students through this process students fail to learn. They end up with what some call fragile learning – learning they are not confident to use. Much maths teaching falls into this category. With appropriate dialogue (personalised help) young students can ‘discover things of great depth and wisdom’

What's on their minds?

I wonder how many classrooms reflect this depth and wisdom. How much evidence the use of ‘notebooks, the sketch, the outline’ showing tentative thinking and reflective work? I wonder if teachers can show how students’ prior ideas have been recognised and changed through teaching. 

Bruner believes that such an open exploratory approach to education needs to be part of the class culture. Culture counts. Classrooms should be communities of inquiry. This is in conflict with current models of teacher determined intentional teaching. Mental growth according to Bruner is not a process of reaching defined standards but more a matter of ‘spurts and rests’. It is a series of self-rewarding sequences related to the needs and gifts of the student with the reward of deeper understandings. Learning starts with uncertainty leading to curiosity and a resolution of the problem and there is no unique sequence for all learners.

 ‘Knowing’ Bruner writes, ‘is a process not a product’ Bruner writes, If we do nothing else, we should somehow give to children a respect for their own powers of thinking, for their power to generate good questions, to come up with informed guesses’ and later ‘to leave the student with a sense of the unfinished business of learning’ It is all about protecting /amplifying the will to learn.

Competence develops when students put the energy into things they see the point of. ‘We get interested in what we get good at’. The problem is that the intrinsic will to learn can be a problem when students are expected to follow content they have no interest in acquiring and such situations ‘school often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learning –curiosity, a desire for competence’

The teacher’s role is vital in personalised/creative .inquiry based classroom. Bruner has written, ‘teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation’ and, I would add, an appreciation of the diversity of thought and creativity of every student an also the appreciation also of the role of emotion in learning.  Students need to develop a positive feeling for any learning.

Bruner’s book is ‘about how to stimulate thought in school, how to

Kid's views recorded

personalise learning, and how to evaluate what one is doing’. 

‘Children , like adults, need reassurance that it is alright to entertain and express highly subjective ideas, to treat a task as a problem where you invent an answer rather than finding one out there I the book’, and today I would add the internet. He adds ‘children in school expend extraordinary time and effort figuring out what the teacher wants’.

Bruner write teachers need to ‘establish in the child’s mind his right not only to base his own private ideas but to express them in the public setting of the classroom’. And of course this applies to personal language and artistic expression.

Let's value 'their' ideas

It is time for teachers  to work out what personalised learning really means and  to appreciate the great value it offers to provide real learning for their students – learning that values their feelings, attitudes, talent  and gifts,  the questions and prior ideas of their students and how  their ideas change through  creative teaching.

Sir Ken Robinson’s book could well be the basis of a Bruner’s ‘theory of instruction’ for any school who feel the need to break out

Great book

of current formulaic imposed ‘best practice’ teaching.

Practical ideas (and methods to enrich any schools ‘theoryof instruction) ae to be found in ‘teaching Best Practices – Methods that Matter'.

New Zealand teachers might be able to access information onthe Learning in Science Project which provides ideas for teachers to recognisestudents prior ideas in science education.

The Pedagogy section of the New Zealand Curriculum is wellworth a re-read as it provides an ideal ‘theory of instruction’.

And there are plenty of excellent book to provide further inspiration.

A lot of balls

Three things.

Firstly, if you tried to pick these balls up, you might do yourself a mischief. They are heavy, because the sculpture is a whole load of tennis balls bonded together, and they are fixed to a solid wooden plinth. If they were individual tennis balls, you could pick them up more easily (a few at a time, like the tennis players do).

If they were separated they probably wouldn't look as impressive, because clearly, this structure is attractive, whereas a pile of tennis balls are... well, just a pile of tennis balls.

If you tried to bounce it, you wouldn't be successful. Individual balls have a certain freedom that this cube does not. They can be hit or thrown in any direction, and you can put a spin on them. These balls have been glued together, forced into a configuration. Personal learning is not something that should be ordered. Learning is always personal, and messy .... and occasionally chaotic. This cube of tennis balls represents anything but personalised learning.

Secondly, the balls are tethered to a surface. They aren't going anywhere soon. Immobility has been imposed upon them. This is important to maintain the integrity of this sculpture, but tethering is increasingly a problem in education. Tethered learning may be convenient for schools to manage, but it's not optimal. Having students sat in orderly rows or tiers (tears) may be easier for the lecturer or teacher to manage, but for the students it's not always a good scene.

I never liked having to sit at my desk and face the front for hours on end. I wanted to get up, get out, and explore. I still think more clearly and solve problems faster when I'm pacing around, wandering through libraries or moving across uncertain terrain (literally or metaphorically). I am not comfortable in meetings when I have to sit for long periods at a table.

Tethered devices are not much better. The desktop PC keeps you in one place, and limits your posture. Mobile devices allow learners to take their connection with them, discover for themselves, and to learn on the move. That is situated learning, where what is being learnt is in its context, and it's a lot more effective for many students.

Thirdly, this configuration of balls is not a network, it's a cube. If it were a network, the nodes would be more separated, but there would also be more connections. In its present configuration each ball can be connected to no more than 6 other balls. In a network, connections are virtually infinite.

The power of the network is in the exponential nature of the connections that can be made, and thence in the amplification power this affords. Learning networks find their power in the number of connections, as can be demonstrated by the way neurones within the human brain connect to each other. This cube of balls is absolutely the antithesis of a network, because connection is so limited.

The future of learning is where all learners are connected to as many other learners and teachers as possible, so that learning is mobile, personal, limitless and unconstrained by configuration. The future of learning is connected, social, mobile and personal.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


A lot of balls by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England as a part of the #blimage challenge and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.