Mindlab - 21st Century Learning in the Classroom

The 21st Century Learning skills that we learnt about in our Mindlab session were the following:

• Knowledge construction
• Self-regulation
• Real-world problems / innovations
• ICT for learning
• Skilled Communication
• Collaboration

After re-reading the class notes ,I know that children need to be able to work collaboratively and this a life long skill. One of the Key Competencies that the NZC asks schools to be aware of is Relating to Others, in my class I know this  a quality I set out to achieve and I am mindful of this when planning.  I am not so good at monitoring this and I need to find ways of ensuring that all students take responsibility for the learning when working collaboratively and  make decisions together as a group. The children need to make decisions that are independent and it is a team process.

How will I plan for more collaboration?

• Use Google classroom and docs to share the learning activities around our current topic.
• Encourage children to give feed forward and feedback using Seesaw
• Give pairs of children a question to research and get them to use Google slides to share what they have discovered and upload to Seesaw for commenting on by a wider audience

During my session at Mindlab on Wednesday, I worked with 3 others to produce a video that explained self regulation. It was interesting to see how far I have come in regards to this even though I still believe that I need more student agency in my class. My evidence for this is in my latest observation where the children still say that the teacher chooses the learning. The lesson observed was for observation purposes not for the learning - more teacher focussed. I work with the children to set their weekly SMART goals and the teacher I share my class with, works with the children at the end of the week to reflect on how they went. I need to explicitly make more reference to their goals as the week progresses.

How will I plan for more self regulation?

• Refer to Learner Pathways when creating weekly SMART goals
• Use specific learning opportunities that relate to Learner Pathway
• Record progress on Learner pathways using Seesaw more - be specific

Knowledge construction is going beyond knowing about something but to 'think critically', to use information - interpret, analyse, synthesize or evaluate information or ideas.  As part of my PaCT end of year assessment, I had to assess the children's ability to think critically as it is essential to the children's progress.

PaCT - Making sense of text: reading critically - 4th aspect - Big idea

• The students can identify specific devices that the writer has used to influence the reader or convey a particular point of view. 
• The students evaluate the writer's use of language to influence an audience in relation to a particular purpose. 
• They can identify the difference between fact and opinion.
• The students can draw conclusions or generalisations about the writer's intention and can form their own opinions about the underlying message, theme or point of view which the writer is conveying.

How will I plan for more knowledge construction?

• Use google slide show to analyse our Year 5 production from the construction of props, script, acting skills, dancing and singing
• More work on construction of SMART goals - and review.
• Use learning activities that have learning goals in more than one subject

tive decisions

MIndlab - How the purpose of education is visible in my classroom.

"Education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn on their own. . . "says renowned linguist, philosopher, historian, and scientist,  Noam Chomsky


In my classroom, you will see the purpose of education through the classroom environment and my teaching.
Children are encouraged to problem solve, lead their learning and grow their knowledge and skills to become learners who love to learn.
My philosophy is to grow learners who take responsibility, persevere and find out about they are interested in. I do this by giving them a scenario where they can think beyond the boundaries and come up with a range of possibilities.

I have changed my pedagogy this year, to using a whole class approach where the children are encouraged to work collaboratively and share their thinking and then to apply what they have learnt from others in a similar situation. 

I have been doing this by asking the children to NOTICE when given an exemplar, this could be sample of writing or a word mathematics problem. This activity creates discussion about what is within the exemplar - helps co-construct success criteria with the children.

The next part is to THINK, the children compare and contrast the exemplar with another similar exemplar or possible solution from the children. This also creates discussion and can add to the success criteria. After this phase the children are given more examples to practise, with those children who require more help with the learning are encouraged to work with a buddy or come to a workshop with the Teacher. To ensure those children who need more help are present, I will ask them to come to the workshop.

The next session involves IMITATE phase, the children practise the learning with a similar exemplar and with more independence. Another workshop is available but the children are encouraged to practise on their own and share back and reflect on how they went at the end of the session. The sharing back session encourages the children to use the success criteria to reflect on how they went.

Using the children learner's pathways, I encourage the children to investigate the what they have learnt and how they can use this learning in another way. This is the INNOVATE phase, the whole process involves more student agency and gives more purpose to the learning.

I hope to develop this more where the children are self reflecting and finding out what "they" need to learn.