Week 19 – Communities of Practice

Descriptive

Inquiry 1 – Flipped Learning

How do I implement digital tools and collaborative practices to promote and emphasise a flipped learning environment for my Year 4 class.

Communities of Practice:

Within my Year 4 class, that has a range of digital savvy children, their families encouraging the use of Google classroom to achieve a flipped environment where the learning is happening inside and outside the physical classroom. Also within my school, there are a few teachers, one of whom is a certified Google facilitator, who can help me to flip the learning in my class.

Inquiry 2:- Seesaw

How can I use digital tools and collaborative practices to improve the learning network for the teachers within my team and encourage them to build relationships with their families and whanau.

Communities of Practice:

The Year 4 syndicate is made up of 4 teachers, myself  and  another experienced teacher, a 2nd year PR Teacher and a 1st year PR Teacher. There are varying levels of talent and expertise, although there seems to be some level of reluctance. This year, the school has set up an online portfolio system to showcase the learning that is happening inside the classroom. A percentage of the teachers who use Seesaw regularly  now have developed positive relationships with their stakeholders.

Comparative

Views of others in Flipped Learning CoP

Google classroom has been away to establish flipped learning within the class. I have one parent upload photographs for his daughter to write stories on but all in all there has been some reluctance from the children and parents alike to add to the site, they see it as my domain. Although when I have drawn their attention to others comments, they seem willing at the time to add but at a later period. The children do visit the classroom quite regularly to revisit the learning and use it like modelling book.

Learning Theories Related to Flipped Learning CoP

In 2008, Bergmann and Aaron Sams began to embrace what they call the Flipped-Mastery model. This is mastery learning that used technology to time-shift the individual instruction. They created videos for each learning objective and posted these online so that as students moved through the content; they were able to move at their own pace. Technology freed up the teachers to individualize the learning for each student. (Bergmann, Sams 2012).

Views of others in Seesaw CoP

The views of my team can only be described as ‘the laggards’ (Robinson 2009) when using the school’s new initiative (Seesaw) as their data reflects this. They have avoided participation as they believe it has only added to their workload. There are teachers within the school who have acknowledged the benefits of using Seesaw and make valuable contributions to the wider community with little or no extra effort to their usual workload.

Learning Theories Related to Seesaw CoP

The theory of connectivism provides insight into learning skills and tasks needed for learners to flourish in a digital era (Siemens, 2004) which could be useful.  Aspects of Seely-Brown’s situated cognition learning theory could also contribute to this topic as learning while interacting with others through shared activities and language could occur for teachers (Olson, 2015). 

Critical Reflection

By applying the Spirals of Inquiry model to my thinking I can see that there are benefits to persevering with using a flipped classroom approach especially now that I nearly have ono-to-one devices in my class (22 devices for 28 children). I need to encourage the children to work with their parents and whanau at home to showcase the learning more, and to make it more challenging so that they seek help from each other.

With my Team, I need to work with them so that they can reflect on the purpose of using Seesaw to display the learning, not just a ’peek hole’ approach but to knock down whole walls so that parents and whanau can actually ‘see’ what is happening in the class. I can do this by ‘buddying them up with the early adopters to see how they are using the online portfolio and work with the leadership team to come up with ways that teachers can give specific feedback that will encourage and accelerate learning for our students.

Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2014). Flipped learning: Maximizing face time. Training & Development ,68(2), 28-31.

Nichols, D. (2012, September 18). Flip Classroom Instruction: How to Guide Part 1 -- Educational Technology Tips.

Olson, M. H. (2015). An introduction to theories of learning. Psychology Press.

Robinson, L. (2009). A summary of Diffusion of Innovations. Changeology. Retrieved from http://www.enablingchange.com.au

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. eLearnSpace. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm