STEAM

STEAM

Our job as educators is to enthuse and encourage the curiosity within children and in parallel, build the skills and dispositions of developing good questions for inquiry, seeking out answers, generating solutions, testing hypotheses, justifying conclusions and exploring other questions generated during the inquiry.  The skills of inquiry learning are the building blocks for all learning. This approach actively engages and empowers children allowing access to transformational learning experiences.

A key message we keep hearing is that for New Zealand to improve its competitiveness in the global marketplace, we must foster creativity, innovation and enterprise in all aspects of society and particularly in schools.

STEM subjects are seen as core to the future. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.)  

STEM aims to foster inquiring minds, logical reasoning and collaboration skills. But, as we know the arts are also so important and are a conduit to the academics bringing many creative and higher order thinking opportunities. Thus for us the acronym STEAM is more apt.   

For many the arts are just a frivolous add on to the more important STEM subjects! However the arts play a powerful part in a child’s education. Many of the world’s greatest innovators including Einstein have stressed this.  Richard Florida, the famous USA economist and author said, “Integrating the arts into school life expands possibilities for learning and provides opportunities for problem solving, perceptual development, lateral thinking and imaginative action.”  

In reality best practice suggests teachers need to take this inter-disciplinary approach or an integrated curriculum view where all these subjects are linked together in a meaningful way. Learning contexts which are really powerful will be solution orientated solving authentic problems.  ‘Place -based’ contexts will help the children’s connection and add real motivation. For example, our school has a local estuary and “estuaries are some of the most productive and diverse ecosystems on Earth. They hold great cultural and economic value as food baskets and for their ecosystem services.” (1)

Starting with this knowledge and immersing children via a well prepared field trip experience, a teacher would be able to facilitate a wonderfully exciting and creative study involving all the STEAM subjects. The power of combining and integrating subject matter was promoted by one of the world’s greatest thinkers, Albert Einstein.

He said,  “For as long as I can remember — and certainly long before I had the term for it — I’ve believed that creativity is combinatorial: Alive and awake to the world, we amass a collection of cross-disciplinary building blocks — knowledge, memories, bits of information, sparks of inspiration, and other existing ideas — that we then combine and recombine, mostly unconsciously, into something “new.” From this vast and cross-disciplinary mental pool of resources beckons the infrastructure of what we call our “own”“original” ideas. The notion, of course, is not new — some of history’s greatest minds across art, science, poetry, and cinema have articulated it, directly or indirectly, in one form or another.” (2)

Capturing the love and passion for STEAM needs to start with our new entrants at school. STEAM using the core dispositions described in paragraph one, traverses all that we are and do as humans. Children love getting their hands and minds into these fascinating subjects and they link so well with other curriculum areas as well. It is a way of thinking, a way of viewing the world and something that you do, not something that you learn from a textbook.

Warren Owen

1. Science Learning Hub Newsletter – June 2017
2. Brain Pickings by Maria Popova --newsletter@brainpickings.org  June 18 2017.

Picture: Science Learning Hub Newsletter – June 2017

GIFTED and TALENTED

Historically schools have put in significant support for children with learning support needs. Sadly school budgets never stretch far enough to provide the level of support that schools would love to provide. This impacts both ends of the achievement spectrum. Unfortunately some of the ‘gifted’ or ‘talented’ children (known as G.A.T.E. children) become behavioural problems as they struggle to overcome their boredom and frustration.

The good news is that in the last decade greater education policy requirements have been placed on schools to address the needs of these children. However it is one thing to make policy but many schools find it difficult to find the expertise and resources to ‘walk the talk’.

In their bid to fulfil their responsibilities, many schools provide ‘pull out’ programmes grouping children together for a few hours each week providing some ‘one off’ stimulating activities that excite these very capable children. One very positive spin off from this approach is G.A.T.E. children get the chance to engage with like minds. Sometimes these children are put up a class level. It works for some but it is socially very risky. There are various ‘one day’ fee paying G.A.T.E. schools operating and some schools recommend parents enroll their gifted child(ren) into one of these.

However these options do not deal with the fundamental issue. G.A.T.E. children deserve to have their educational needs, including social needs met every day. Their minds need to be challenged and engaged throughout their school life! 

This is very achievable when the curriculum is well understood, planned and differentiated appropriately. Schools must build on the interests of students providing them with the skills so they have more control over the topic or content they wish to pursue allowing the opportunity for individual and independent study. The exciting 21stC education technology rich paradigm supports and further empowers the learner. This interactive approach encourages creativity, deep flexible thinking and access to a broader range of higher level resources.

Sometime GATE children can fly ‘under the radar’ of teachers. They can ‘bomb’ in standardised tests because of cognitive processing challenges or for some other reason including issues around attendance or social problems. However, there is an abundance of research on what works for GATE children and how to identify them. Over the years experts have regularly referred to Renzulli (1978) who developed a definition of gifted and talented children based on the interaction of three basic clusters of human traits:

• Above average ability
• A high level of task commitment
• A high level of creativity

Renzulli and Reis (1985) claim that gifted and talented children “are those possessing or capable of developing this composite set of traits and applying them to any potentially valuable area of human performance.” (1)

It must be emphasised that all the characteristics above may not be highly advanced in equal proportions.

“It’s probably also true to say that whatever their area of ability, GATE children will tend to ask more insightful questions, be better than others at seeing relationships and patterns and at predicting consequences, be more curious and persistent in exploring concepts and seeking answers, stay focussed for longer and build up more detailed and ‘expert’ knowledge. “ (2)

It is an exciting time in education providing schools take up the opportunities available to unleash their students’ motivation and potential.

We are working as a staff to ensure all our children’s needs are met. It is a tall order to get this right 100% of the time but we are aspirational and will strive to do our very best including meeting the needs of our GATE children.

(1)  Renzulli, J.S. and Reis, S.M. (1985) The Schoolwide Enrichment Model: A Comprehensive Plan for Educational Excellence. Creative Learning Press.

(2)    Cathcart R.  May 1997  p. 6  Tall Poppies  NZ Association of Gifted Children

Picture from :  https://www.google.co.nz/gifted+and+talented+students

Go Outside and Play

                                                                          

Coming from a family of 5 children, ‘go outside and play’ was a common phrase I heard from my parents in the 1950s and ‘60s. I also heard this phrase many times when I went to stay with friends. Either innately these parents knew it was good for us to get out and make sense of our world, or they just needed their own space in a time of large families. One family I went to school with had 14 children!!

Since my arrival at Waterloo School (May 2016) Karen McMillan (DP), Team Leaders Becs Perkins and Vicki Barnes have been advocating introducing some ‘play based’ learning concepts. Over the years I have been very aware of the importance of play in a child’s development and for years many schools have used the ‘developmental’ time for children to not only have some choice in their learning week, but to have time to be creative, construct and learn to negotiate their activities and environment with other children.

The term ‘developmental’ is apt because as we know, learning is developmental. Not all children come to aspects of learning at the same time. Some children arrive at school reading simple sentences and in some cases children can read picture books with ease. Some children are very confident speakers with a large vocabulary, others with more limited vocabulary. Written language varies tremendously too with some children able to write their name and in a few cases, children can write simple stories with grand ideas.  Whereas, other children are not developmentally ready for reading and writing and will need time and support to do so.

If we try and ‘box’ these children into expectations that they should all be able to jump through the same learning hoops at the same stage and time, there is one thing for certain! We will crush many of their spirits and impair their confidence and potential for learning and set them back so they may not ever recover from this damage.

It takes great skill and professionalism to manage the diverse range of needs of these fragile souls so we can grow them into their potential. Some of these children will need special assistance in literacy and numeracy but treated with respect and understand,these children will later flourish.

I digress though because although this understanding of the developmental nature of learning is so important, I really want to talk about the importance of play in children’s development.

The following was written for our Waterloo School Y1-2 parents by Becs Perkins.

“Play Based Learning is the child-led ‘learning through play’ model that ECE (Early Child Education) is based on and has been proven to be a powerful model for child’s engagement and holistic child development.  

Current research and practises trialling in primary schools are showing how effective this model can be in especially in the development of the Key Competencies that underpin the NZ Curriculum.

This is a programme that we are continuing to develop across the Junior school to enhance the children’s agency (ownership) over their own learning as well as their independence and self-management.  

During the play based learning, teachers will be engaging with children as they play and carry out explicit teaching sessions e.g. reading groups, writing, etc whilst the children are playing.”

For those who are interested, these two theories(1) add further insight into why play is so important in a child’s development.

1.     Modern theories examine play from the perspective of how it impacts a child’s development. According to Dietze and Kashin, “The learner is no longer regarded as a passive receiver of knowledge, but as an active constructor of meaning”.^[12] This perspective is emphasized within the constructionist theory through experiential learning. Theorist John Dewey suggests that children learn best by both physical and intellectual activity; in other words, children need to take an active role in play.

2.     Contemporary theories focus on the relationship of play to diversity and social justice in daily living and knowledge. Children learn social and cultural contexts through their daily living experiences. The Zone of Proximal Development concept, developed by Lev Vygotsky, suggests that children require activities that support past learning and encourage new learning at a slightly-more-difficult level. Vygotsky believed that social engagement and collaboration with others are powerful forces which transform children's thinking. Urie Bronfenbrenner states that a child's development is influenced by both the person and the environment (which includes family, community, culture and the broader society).

Many adults view play as the opposite to work, yet to see a young child learn maths or coding (programming) via a game causes disruption to this idea.

We intend to go quietly as we construct meaningful activities / opportunities for children’s play but recognise that children need to go into that imaginary world of play to. Our challenge is to provide for the range of learning needs and ‘readiness’ for learning and ensure we personalise each child’s learning pathway. ‘Play based learning’ is a powerful and positive force in a child’s development as long as there is rigour and purposeful planning in setting the learning environment up for our children.

( (1)     Playing and Learning, Beverlie Dietze, Diane Kashin, page 46,Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN 978-0-13-512546-5

Cartoon: Maurice Sendak

If you would like further reading here are some links to help.

http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/blog/powerful-play-continuity-and-inquiry-children-starting-school

http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Ministry/consultations/Report-of-the-Advisory-Group-on-Early-Learning.pdf (Key point 14)

Warren Owen

Postscript: While I was writing this piece I happened to view the article below which shows the power of allowing children to play and dream. Two 8 year olds playing noughts and crosses started playing around with the format and created a new game which has been made into an app available in the Apple app store. Very cool.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/apps/91058615/eightyearold-wellington-twins-create-happy-portions-game-app

The Mathematics of Hope

I am delighted we are putting fresh energy into whole school maths professional development. We have engaged Louise Miller from Cognition Education to be our lead facilitator with a staff team in support.

For NZ teachers, maths teaching and learning has been confused via the numeracy project. Within the numeracy programme there is much to be lauded but it is definitely time to take stock and consider what is working and what is not. Teachers need to follow their gut intuition and use teacher inquiry to gather information, build on their findings and become passionate explorers of the most effective teaching methodologies that build confidence with their children.

As a staff we are being led through a series of key best practice principles of maths teaching supported by a range of research. In Jo Boaler’s article, The Mathematics of Hope   (see below for website link) she talks about how “mathematics, more than any other subject, has the power to crush students’ confidence.” Boaler refers to a myth historically propagated in classrooms that some people are naturally good at maths and others are not. She says “That this idea is strangely cherished in the western world but virtually absent in Eastern countries such as China and Japan.”

New scientific evidence shows the incredible capacity of the brain to change, rewire, and grow in a really short time (Maguire et al. 2006) suggesting all students can learn mathematics to a high level. “Students can grasp high level concepts but they will not develop the brain connections that allow them to do so if they are given low-level work and negative messages about their own potential.” (Boaler and Foster 2014)

Research has also recently shown something stunning—when students make a mistake in maths, their brain grows, synapses fire, and connections are made; when they do the work correctly, there is no brain growth (Moser et al. 2011). This finding suggests that we want students to make mistakes in maths class and that students should not view mistakes as learning failures but as learning achievements (Boaler 2013a).  When students struggle with mathematics, their brains grow; being outside their comfort zone is an extremely important place to be.

This Mathematics of Hope article is just one of many our staff are reading and discussing. Some of the ideas are challenging us to make significant changes to our teaching and learning. It is an exciting ride and just shows, ‘we are learning too!’  We as a staff are modelling that we are life-long learners searching for best practice to make a real difference for our students.

The key advice to teachers in the article is summed up in this diagram.

STOP	REPLACE WITH:
Frequent timed tests	Number conversations
Grades	Diagnostic feedback
Speed emphasis	Time to think slowly and deeply
Ability groupings	Heterogeneous and flexible groupings

Boaler says that currently three fifth of USA students fail maths and that it is a harshly inequitable subject. She argues that when the USA classrooms change—when students are encouraged to believe they can be successful in maths and are taught using the high quality teaching methods they deserve, the landscape for maths success will change forever.

This goes for NZ as well and we are very motivated to make a difference for our students. I do encourage you to read Dr J. Boaler’s article.

http://www.heinemann.com/blog/the-mathematics-of-hope-moving-from-performance-to-learning-in-mathematics-classrooms/

Homework-The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A number of researchers are saying homework makes no difference to primary school students’ achievement. If anything it helps bright children the most and for the others, it just reminds them that they cannot do a task. Some academics argue that there is zero evidence supporting the idea it teaches time-management skills.

There is no doubt in my mind that homework can be very stressful and destructive when it just amounts to ‘busy work’ that intrudes on family time or is not differentiated for the varying ability levels so mum or dad are pressured to step in and do the homework for their child.

Highly regarded education professor, John Hattie says the thing he detests the most about homework is ‘long term’ projects as in many cases, all this does is measure the parent’s skill.

So what’s the good news! Consistent parent feedback over many, many years suggests that children who make the transition into college well do so because they have sound work and study skills helping to boost their self efficacy. Their experience of good work routines and a work ethic have given them ‘a head start’ at college. The positive outcomes of appropriately pitched homework include work and study skill development such as time management and learner agency benefits.

Homework can be a parent’s ‘window’ into their child’s strengths and needs as a learner.  Fostering learning should be a shared role between home and school providing children with ‘life-long’ learning skills.

The reality is we are living in an age where learning is ubiquitous. This is often simply defined as learning anywhere, anytime and is therefore closely associated with mobile technologies. Learning doesn't stop and start at the classroom door and when homework is ‘pitched’ appropriately both in terms of duration and challenge it can be a powerful factor in consolidating learning, igniting inquiry and the development of independence. 

Confidence is everything and children quickly come to realise that practise and a bit of ‘graft’ usually brings improved outcomes. In my mind, reading for pleasure every night should be part and parcel of a child’s home learning experience. Reading not only ‘feeds and engages the brain’ but builds a life- long love of books.

Ideally homework should not be poorly targeted drudgery but be engaging for the child providing a balance of open-ended, creative and practical life skills tasks.

Schools Need to Be Fearless

There are many conflicting pressures that need consideration when trying to establish and maintain a rich learning culture.

I was taken by what Iain Taylor (President, NZ Principals’ Federation) wrote in this week’s Principal’s Matter column.

“We want to develop kids who have ambition and acceptance of diversity and are disruptive thinkers, so we have to advocate for policies that enable those things to happen. If I have learned one thing this year, it is that we really do need to stop the over-emphasis on assessment and data and take control ourselves, in each of our schools, to ensure we give kids full access to a broad and exciting curriculum. We can and should be doing this. We are preparing kids for an uncertain future. Endless data gathering won't enable our teachers to be the dynamic teachers we need to help our kids be the disruptive thinkers and questioners our world requires!”

Over the last 5-10 years there has been an enormous amount of hype in the business and education world around the pace of change and what this means for our young people.

Questions such as:  How do we prepare our young people for a world beyond our imagination? How do we craft a student’s learning journey towards a job that has not yet been created?

So what are these skills or dispositions and what is the journey we need to take children on to give them real learning power?

They are a collection of attitudes and behaviours. Skills such as perseverance, flexibility, questioning, curiosity, creativity, abstract thinking, reflection, resilience and optimism.  I like Guy Claxton’s metaphor of a school as mind gym v an assembly line. The concept of imagining the mind as a muscle you can build is appealing. This is not about getting rid of content but going deeper and providing a broader utility.

We want to prepare our children to become brave new explorers in this exciting fast paced world. A few years ago an old boy of a school I was at, won a scholarship to study in the USA for his masters in political theory.  Before he left I got him in to speak to a group of 11 year olds. He spoke about what he valued most when he was at school which was being taught to always ask questions, to be curious. He talked about his love of sport but most of all his love of art where he was encouraged to explore and create and to be fearless.

He said, “I’m extremely excited to live in one of the world’s greatest cities. (New York) And I’m confident I can foot it there. And a lot of that is because of what I learned at school, and in particular there is no such thing as a bad idea, and what I think matters. I believe what you guys think, matters too. So I say be fearless. Whatever you do, do it fearlessly.”

This of course applies to us as educators. We must not be swayed by fads or pressure to do things for the wrong reasons but follow what our hearts, experience and quality research is telling us. Data is so important!  Good teachers are natural ‘inquirers’ constantly gathering important qualitative and quantitative data because they know this will provide rich information so they can provide the best programme possible. They are not driven by top down expectations unless of course it makes good sense.

However if data is just gathered to meet managerial expectations it becomes a ‘box ticking’ exercise stealing precious time , energy and motivation from already over stretched teachers trying to provide a future focussed curriculum. Any assessment and related data gathering has to be for the right reasons. So I really do relate to what Iain Taylor has said and encourage all of us to ‘be fearless’ and allow experience, best practice and common sense drive the learning programmes in schools.

'Need a job? Invent it!’

A little while ago an old student of mine sent me a New York Times article written by Thomas L. Friedman entitled, ‘Need a Job? Invent It!’ This provocative title deeply resonated with me as it is clearly apparent that the days of assuming our young people will transition from school or university into jobs has long gone. It’s tough out there and the ‘playing field’ has changed.

Friedman quotes an executive he interviewed as saying, “We can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think-to ask the right questions-and to take initiative.”

People like Edward de Bono have always believed thinking and creativity are skills that can be taught and learnt! This is very evident to us as well and we believe the exponential change our children will face, demands that these skills have the same focus and currency as the core skills of numeracy and literacy.

After saying that, we can’t underestimate the importance of the basic skills and these need to be fostered with rigour drawing on the best practice available. We need a school system that values questions above answers, creativity over fact regurgitation and excellence above mediocrity.

What is exciting, is that once this is recognised, across the board academic outcomes trend upwards.

According to Friedman, Finland is one of the most innovative economies in the world and it is the only country where students leave high school ‘innovation-ready’. They learn concepts and creativity more than facts.” Intelligence is not enough. Creativity, or the ability to think divergently, can be developed and improved. It’s a learnable process. 

Good questions to ask ourselves as educators are: How do we prepare our young people for a world beyond our imagination? How do we craft a student’s learning journey towards a job that has not yet been created?  What are these skills or dispositions and what is the journey we need to take children on to give them real learning power?

We believe they are a collection of attitudes and behaviours. Skills such as perseverance, flexibility, questioning, curiosity, creativity, abstract thinking, reflection, resilience and optimism.  I like Guy Claxton’s metaphor of a school as a mind gym v an assembly line. The concept of imagining the mind as a muscle you can build is appealing. This is not about getting rid of content but going deeper and providing a broader utility.

We want to prepare our children to become brave new explorers in this exciting fast paced world. The learning to learn skill set described so far are not new features of ‘best practice’ education but they do need ongoing honing and consideration on the best way to facilitate them to our children.

Learning should be ‘hard fun’ where there is engagement, passion and purpose.