Week 3 Mind Lab

Will a robot take your job? http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34066941
Great site to check out.  I think we need to do more work with students around what the current digital disruption will mean for them.  In particular our current Y12 and Y13 students are sitting in our classes with plans already in place to "go study law," what are we doing to prepare them for their futures.

Putting in my subject area into the above calculator shows there is a 95% chance of the job of an accountant becoming automated.  So why am I teaching Accounting??

Yes I believe that it is important for students to master the skill set of understanding numbers and financial information, but to me it is a lot more than that.  Is Accounting the subject just the vehicle that I use to teach the real stuff? The 21st century skills?  Hell yeah!  After studying the subject I believe my students have had opportunities to: develop their resilience and problem solving skills; work out appropriate forms of communication dependent on the audience; be exposed to entrepreneurial ways of thinking and experience the ups and downs of collaborating with classmates.
I also hope they learn the importance of following your heart when working out what you want to do and that hard work and passion make a great team.

But the question remains - is the best way to do this by teaching my subject in isolation?

Week 2 Mindlab

What a revelation!  I had not come across the Innovative teaching and Learning ITL research.

The guide which has been developed by Microsoft partners describes six rubrics of 21st century learning, each of which represents an important skill for students for develop:

· collaboration

· knowledge construction

· self-regulation

· real-world problem-solving and innovation

· the use of ICT for learning

· skilled communication

The focus is on  the connection between the design of the learning activity and the skills the students are building.  Although you could be cynical about the fact the research is by Microsoft I do believe the rubrics are very useful.

As the mind lab states:  We are extremely optimistic about the potential for deep learning in digital environments, but caution the designers of these environments that such outcomes do not "come for free" just because technology has been added to the mix. Instead, designers of all learning environments must take account of the affordances of their resources and design with the core competencies - cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal - in mind.

So this weeks reflection is around which 21st skills relate to an area of practice that I would like to focus on for the first assessment.

Real world Problem Solving and Innovation
Does the learning activity require solving authentic, real-world problems?
Are students' solutions implemented in the real world?

This rubric examines whether students’ work involves problem-solving, and uses data or situations from the real world. The strongest learning activities for this rubric:

· ask students to complete tasks for which they do NOT already know a response or solution

· require students to work on solving real problems 

· represent innovation by requiring students to implement their ideas, designs or solutions for audiences outside the classroom.

Problem-solving involves a task with a defined challenge for the student. Problem-solving happens when students must:
 develop a solution to a problem that is new to them
OR complete a task that they have not been instraucted how to do
OR design a complex product that meets a set of requirements.

Learning activities that require problem-solving do NOT give students all the information they need to complete the task or specify the whole procedure they must follow to arrive at a solution. Often, problem-solving tasks require students do some or all of the following:

· investigate the parameters of the problem to guide their approach

· generate ideas and alternatives

· devise their own approach, or explore several possible procedures that might be

appropriate to the situation

· design a coherent solution

· test the solution and iterate on improvements to satisfy the requirements of the problem.

From <https://app.themindlab.com/media/19751/view>

So my plan is to use this rubric to plan an authentic real world challenge for the girls in code club.
The situation they will be presented with is this: 

The Waimarama junior surf programme has grown so much that they are having trouble utilising the data and information they collect from their members.  Therefore they have approached our code club girls to see if they can come up with an innovative solution to make the collection of, accessing and application of the information easier.  The club would like to have something to present to the board at a monthly meeting by the end of the term.

In terms of the rubric it satisfies the requirement that the real-world problem is an authentic situation which exists outside of an academic context.  It will require the students putting their ideas into practice in the real world.The challenge will allow the opportunity to reach the highest goal of the rubric which is:
The learning activity's main requirement IS problem-solving
AND the problem IS a real-world problem
AND students DO innovate.  They ARE required to implement their ideas in the real world, or to communicate their ideas to someone outside the academic context who can implement them.

·

Mind Lab Post grad Cert Week 1 Reflections:

My reflections on week 1 from Mind Lab Hawke's Bay course

So if role of education as Biesta states is to fuel the desire in students to want to exist in the world in a grown up way ie. Be in the world without being in the centre of the world.  To be eccentric centred as opposed to child or curriculum centred. Does this fit with the challenge that we need to transform education (Robinson, 2009)?

Yes I think it does as the statement that we need to focus on the over needs of people - not just as students resonates with me.

How do the 7 essential skills for students fit into this philosophy?

What do I consider a good leader to be like?

I gain a lot of my inspiration from George Couros and his blogs as The Principal of Change

Simply put, people don’t buy what you are saying, until they buy you.  

So my top 5 attributes of a good leader are:
1. Integrity: my most important attribute so one I look for in others

2. Empathetic: truly trying to understand those that you serve. 

3. Good communication skills: listening is an important component of communication

4. Ability to develop those around them: It is more powerful to develop the team with you than to forge the way on your own.

5. Risk taker and models learning themselves: I have these two combined because I believe you need to take the risk of letting your team know you don't have all the answers and are not afraid to make mistakes and learn alongside others.

Final reflection regarding how the tango is a great metaphor: I was a limp follower in the first large group activity.  When faced with a couple of large personalities I chose to withdraw firstly intellectually then even physically.  What will I do differently next time?