Featured guest at CEFPI event

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Mary Featherston

I’m very excited about the coming Lifting our Horizons event in Christchurch on Monday 30 September. Those attending will have the privilege of hearing internationally renowned designer, Mary Featherston, who has chosen to attend at short notice and share her insights and experience as an interior designer specialising in the design of learning environments for young people.

Participants in CORE Education’s recent MLE tour of schools in Melbourne heard her name mentioned frequently as they moved among schools, and saw the evidence of Mary’s influence and design thinking in many of the environments they visited.

The focus of Mary’s research and practice is the relationship between contemporary progressive pedagogy and design of the physical environment. Mary has designed responsive learning environments for early childhood services, schools, and cultural venues. Her approach to design of schools is holistic and involves consideration of all layers of the physical environment and how they interact to support social and learning relationships. Mary’s research-based practice involves intense collaborations with innovative educators, school communities, academic researchers, and policy makers.

Mary will be presenting alongside other international guests, including Ewan McIntosh from Scotland and Mark Trotter (CEFPI president) from Australia, plus a range of other learning space designers and educators who will assemble to share their experience and insights around creating modern learning environments.

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Ten Trends 2013: Thinking 3D

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Thinking 3D from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Our world has existed in three dimensions for as long as time has existed, but it’s only in recent times that we have become really enamoured with the idea of representing the world in 3 dimensions. This is going to become increasingly important for students in our schools. There has been lots of talk, for instance, about the making of 3D movie,s which are becoming quite commonplace, but there’s more to thinking in 3D than simply 3D movies.

Drivers for this trend:

Social:
  • Increase in need for 3D thinking in employment
  • Common use of 3D representations (movies, printers, games)
Technology:
  • Growth of consumer level 3D tools and applications
Educational:
  • Adoption of 3D.
  • 3D is a more authentic way to learn about the world because the world is 3D!
  • 3D gives the chance to work in the abstract. Virtual & imaginary worlds.

3D environments in education

Environments such as Minecraft are being used increasingly in education to provide opportunities for 3D representation of the world in a similar way to how children used to use Lego blocks. There are two significant benefits:

  1. students can work collaboratively with others on a global scale
  2. students can explore those worlds to incorporate infrastructure such as power and sewage systems, if they are building a world or the doors and windows that open in a building, and so forth.

In the world of 3D they cannot only build and represent walls, they can carry out walk-throughs to see what that representation will really be like.

3D Printers

Another area where 3D thinking is beginning to impact on education is through the development of 3D printers. We have had software such as Google Sketchup, freely available, that allows children to design and create and make things in 3D.  Now with the affordability of 3D printers we can see those things represented in simple ways using ordinary polymers instead of ink and paper.

And 3D printing is being explored to do much more than just the things that children might create in schools. There are now the first examples of 3D manufacturing plants that will ultimately result in 3D items being able to be printed at home.  For example if you broke the handle off your refrigerator you could simply go online, order a new one and it would print in 3D ready for you to screw on. Another area is the food industry where we see experimentation with the 3D printing of food, which raises all sorts of interesting and potentially exciting issues around the future of nutrition, and gaining access to the things we need to keep our bodies alive.

Medical field use of 3D and its ethical implications for education

The medical field is yet another area where 3 dimensional printing is having huge impact. We are seeing now 3D printing being used to formulate transplanted bone structures for example, and we are seeing the early adoption of 3D printing that might be used in the formation of biological components such as kidneys or livers, which could then be transplanted into human beings. Naturally there are ethical and social concerns that we need to take into account, and it is part of our responsibility as educators to be thinking about and raising these issues.

Summary: the two 3D areas to consider in education

In summary the two key areas I think we should be considering when considering thinking in 3D. The first is thinking about opportunities for students to experience the use of tools that will allow them to think in 3D, including the ethics and the social responsibility concerns. Secondly we need to be thinking about how we can appropriate 3D imagery into our teaching and learning now, and help to prepare students in this area as they prepare to go out to live and work in an increasingly digital world.

Implications

  • What priority do you give to providing 3D learning experiences for your students?
  • What sorts of experiences could you provide right now… and into the future?
  • What challenges does thinking in 3D raise in terms of assessment? How can these be resolved?
  • How many opportunities do students have to create 3D objects as evidence of their learning? 3D model of a house? A frog? An ecosystem?

Examples and links

Learn, participate, and share:

CORE staff are using Bundlr to collate links to articles and information relating to thinking in 3D in a Bundlr collection. There is the option for you to choose to follow the growing collection over the next few months.

<< Back to Trend 3: Data Engagement

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CORE Ten Trends 2013: Virtual Learning

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Ten Trends 2013: Virtual learning from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Drivers for this trend

Social:

  • An increasingly collaborative, team-based world.

Technology:

  • Affordability of and accessibility to technologies an broadband technologies

Educational:

  • Growing number of courses available online
  • Desire for access to wider range of curriculum options
  • Specialist teacher shortages
  • Constraints on time and budget for PD

When we think of virtual learning, many things come to mind. Most frequently we think of online courses. But virtual learning really embraces a much broader dimension for educators than simply online learning.

A true definition of virtual learning

At its heart virtual learning is about the learning that takes place outside of the school, or bringing what is outside of the school into the school. So, we are thinking about the online environment as a way of connecting students who may be located physically in a school with their learning that is somewhere else.

The benefits and impact of virtual learning

There are many ways we can think about the benefits, or the impact, of virtual learning technologies and their use in schools. The first is obviously the area of online learning that I just referred to—where we see happening around the world, as well as in New Zealand, opportunities created to access learning from outside of the school that a student is participating in.

A good example of this in New Zealand is in the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), where, throughout the country, we have teachers who are teaching students in schools other than the school the teachers are physically located in, and students accessing the learning from teachers who are not located in the schools that they are attending. So, we are seeing opportunities created to address the drivers that are occurring, where we don’t have specialist teachers in many of our rural, or smaller, secondary schools. This is also occuring in some of the urban areas. Through virtual learning, therefore, we are creating opportunities for students to connect to the learning that is important for them.

Virtual learning is not bound by a venue or time

Another area that virtual learning is impacting on is the connection between school and home. This may not seem to meet the virtual learning definition on first impression, but, if you think about it, we have historically talked about home-work and school-work. In the online world that distinction disappears. And so, the connection between home and school becomes something that is quite seamless—whether it is home, as in the physical home that the student lives in, or outside-of-school places such as the local library, local café, a friend’s house, grandma’s house that they might visit after school. The fact that they can continue with their learning in a seamless way and connect with the work that they are doing in online worlds makes the use of a virtual learning environment very high impact.

Virtual learning has greater global reach

Another factor about virtual learning is the global reach that’s now possible for students. Once they had to rely on resources from the local library. Or, from time-to-time, a visitor to the school could provide them with a feel or an insight into what it might be like in other lands or countries that they might be studying. Now, global reach means that they can reach directly into the lives of those who live in some of those countries and lands. They can talk to experts who have visited there, and are familiar with the geography, the terrain, and some of the social issues that might occur there. And they can connect with learners in those areas to collaborate on projects, to look at topics that are germane to them. So, the global reach is becoming increasingly important as students become prepared to be citizens in a much more globalised society than they have previously.

The benefits of virtual learning for teachers

And lastly, when we are thinking about virtual learning we can’t forget about the impact on the teachers themselves—the impact that virtual learning opportunities are having for teachers in their own professional learning and development. Many schools are starting to see that engaging in virtual professional learning and development is of benefit to both the school and teacher—not only in the cost-saving from days off, teacher-release days, and travel, but also the benefit of continuity. Where the investment may have been made simply to get to a one-day course, seminar, or workshop, now, teachers can have access to their professional development over many weeks or months, for a similar size investment. What’s more, it connects them with other educators doing similar things that they are, and who are looking for ways to improve their own professional activity and professional futures in that way.

So, virtual learning has a very broad application. It’s not only about online courses, but also about the way that we extend what is happening in the premise of school—way beyond the school gates.

Links:

We invite your comments below

Check out all the Ten Trends on the CORE website

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Trains or planes: Building a successful schooling system

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Photo of progress from trains to planes

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on CORE’s mission: to ‘push the boundaries of educational possibility’. Most of the work we do at CORE involves working with educators, schools, and government agencies to introduce innovative approaches to what they do. Of course, the innovation itself isn’t the end we’re looking for, but is the means by which we are attempting to make a contribution to an education system that is relevant, future-focused, and ‘world class’.

So, we are looking for a 'world-class' education system

The concept of how we develop a ‘world-class’ education system is high on the agenda of governments and education leaders  around the world. An obvious and appropriate measure for this is based on measuring student performance and success—as illustrated by the approach taken by the OECD with its PISA studies.

I blogged earlier this year about Andreas Schleicher who spoke on the background and findings of the PISA studies. Schleicher challenges us to think about how this data might be used to bring about change at a whole-of-system level, rather than at an individual school level, and points out that the bottom line for where we put our energy and resourcing must be related to understanding what we value most about education.

What we value is closely aligned with the beliefs we hold about education, and the mental models we have developed as a result of these beliefs—which exist for all of us whether we are conscious of it or not. Often, these values and beliefs lie below the surface, the product of the modeling and ‘conditioning’ of our own school experiences.

Agendas for change

When working with education leaders—at school or national level—one thing I find is that the language used to describe what they’re doing in their efforts to bring about change reveals two quite different perspectives—what I call agendas for change.

The first is what I refer to as the ‘improvement agenda’, where the assumption is that what we are doing is fundamentally OK, but needs to be refined, adapted, modified in some way to improve it in areas of poor performance—a little like tuning a motor car to get better ‘miles per gallon’ in performance. The motor and the car it propels are essentially the same—but performance has been improved through adaptations to the way the fuel feeds through the carburetor, or with ‘spoilers’ added to the bodywork to improve airflow around the vehicle for instance.

The second is what I call the ‘transformation agenda’, where there is a conscious effort to question the existing paradigm and propose alternative models or approaches. The differences between these two agendas are illustrated in the summary table below—which I’ve blogged about earlier this year also.

 

Improvement

Transformation

Basic premise

Making what we already have and do more effective. Improving the status quo.

Questioning the current paradigm, proposing alternative models/approaches .

Education

Broken, but can be fixed with strategic interventions.

Long term investment in the future for society as a whole.

Schools

Location for physically delivering education, competitive, insular.

A context for education, collaborative, networked.

Technology

Drives change.

Enables, supports and accelerates change.

Teachers

Focus on becoming effective.

Supported professionals—co-creating the future

Learners

The future workforce, need for basic skills and knowledge.

Future (global) citizens.

Innovation

Happening on lots of fronts at once.

Must be scalable and sustainable.

Success

Meeting standards, passing tests, measuring performance.

Wider, long-term benefits, developing dispositions.

Curriculum

Standardised, defined, ‘packaged’.

A framework to guide and support schools and teachers.

The reason for trains and planes…

To go back to my transportation metaphor—consider the difference between trains and planes. The fundamental problem they are seeking to address is the same—how to efficiently and cost-effectively transport goods and people over long distances.

 Over many years improvements were made to the rail systems in countries around the world—from steam, to diesel to electric, from narrow gauge to wider gauge rails etc. All of which provided faster, more efficient service in the transportation of goods and people—provided they were on a rail network and bound by the geographical boundaries of the continent on which they were located.

Then came planes. Not only could they do everything that trains could do, but they were able to cross the boundaries of continents separated by vast oceans, and could also change route to land in different places without the need for a rail system to get them there. Planes were transformational. In the world of air transportation we now enjoy holidays in Australia or Paris, and have food in our supermarkets from dozens of countries all over the world.

…education faces the same challenge

This is the challenge in our education system. In seeking to establish a world class approach, where learners are equipped to live and work as citizens in a globally connected, increasingly digital world, we need to consider how appropriate our current structures and systems are — whether they are ‘fit for purpose’ in the 21st century. Consider things like the hours in the school day, the division of tasks among teachers, the grouping of learners according to age, and the building of schools as blocks of ‘egg-crate’ classrooms etc.

This is not an easy thing to do, as there is a lot of emotional attachment associated with what we’ve done in the past, and a lot of our sense of identity and worth can be tied up with that. But that’s about us — our focus needs to be on our learners and their future.

We can focus purely on improvement—in which case we’ll end up with shinier, faster, more effective versions of our current schools. Or, we can be transformational, and think more ‘out of the box’, imagining what the experience of education might be like if we simply removed all of the existing structures and systems we have.

The challenge is ours for building a 21st Century School System—will we be building trains or planes?

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CORE’s Ten Trends released for 2013

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CORE Education 2013 Ten Trends: showcasing the future from CORE Education Digital Media on Vimeo.

CORE's Ten Trends 2013 launched at ICOT

The recent ICOT conference in Wellington provided an excellent forum to launch CORE's Ten Trends for 2013, with an audience comprised of educators from around New Zealand as well as a number of international delegates.

Approach to the ten trends

This year we have worked hard to develop the trends further, attempting to distinguish them from the 'predictions' published by many other groups and sites. Rather than focus specifically on particular technologies or 'fads' in and of themselves, we've used these things to help illustrate our trends, and to provide examples of how we see things developing. Thus, our Ten Trends headings describe broad, yet significant movements that are impacting on our work as educators.

A useful way of thinking about this is to consider a photograph of a river. A snapshot will provide a clear focus image of the river, captured in a particular instant of time. A time exposure provides you with an image of the pattern forming as the water flows. We want our trends to be more like the latter, providing teachers and school leaders with ideas and examples to enable them to begin thinking about the impact that some of these things may have in their particular context, and, more importantly, to be thinking 'ahead of the game' in terms of how they might respond to these things as the trends continue to evolve and become mainstream.

Nothing to be scared of. Let's discuss the trends and their implications

The trends are not intended to provoke alarm or reaction, rather, they are intended to provoke discussion and future-focused thinking. The examples and illustrations provide a mix of future-focused thinking with examples of things that are happening currently in schools that are leading the way in some of these areas.

Please feel free to use the Ten Trends slide show, the videos, and the matrix in your staff meetings or more widely with community groups and students, and if you'd like to have any of the CORE team come and provide further input, please don't hesitate to ask.

Unfolding detail and resources

During the course of the year we'll be publishing further information about each of the trends, with more examples and illustrations, and an opportunity for you to contribute your thoughts and ideas through the forums we'll be hosting online. In addition, the Ten Trends will be a focus of CORE's breakfast sessions in regional centres around the country, providing an opportunity to engage in discussion in these forums also.

It's important to remember that these are not predictions, they're trends. We'd really love to hear from you about things you consider could be used as examples or illustrations, or of areas that you consider we should be thinking about as we develop our trends in future years.

Further information:

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