Learning in the 21st Century

This is the slideshow that me and Carynn presented at the Cape Town Central GEG Meeting when explaining the ideas we used to run our Project Week as an initiative to get students experimenting with Self Directed Learning.

THE STORY OF PROJECT WEEK              Introduction  In September 2015 me and a colleague (C Underhill) decided we wanted to push the boundaries of our students learning. We wanted to give our learners a sense of what a more independent learning style looked like. A Project Based Learning week was the result, where learners were given far greater control over their learning than is normally the case. It was definitely an eye opener for us and we learnt a lot on the journey. Below are summaries and reflections of what happened and links to resources to assist any teachers who would like to try a similar initiative. Summary Video  Resources Podcast Reflecting on the Experience a Month After Folder with all Resources required for Preparation Examples of Work Produced   Individual Endeavour Instructions  Individual Endeavour Work Group Endeavour Instructions Part 1 Part 2 Part 3   Group Wor...

CHE’S WORKSHOP ON BUILDING A PLN

I have been thinking a lot lately about the fundamentals of education. There is so much written about new innovations or new ideas on the web these days and it’s easy to get overwhelmed as a teacher. It’s also hard to know how to capture the good stuff you see out there, and actually use it to make your the learning environment a more effective and exciting place to be. A strategy that I am being drawn to more and more is mindmapping excellent pedagogical content I see on the web to retain and process the information. I can then come back to it a later stage and customise it for my context and hopefully add even more useful information to this new resource that informs my ever growing skills as a teacher. I have a small example below taken from one of my favourite Youtube Talks done by Robert Duke. In it he mentions what he thinks are the fundamental skills of effective teaching. This is something all teachers would benefit from bearing in mind whenever they plan for learn...

My Take: A while ago, I saw a fantastic Ted Talk on how to give engaging presentations and I decided to make this mindmap to preserve the information in an easy to access format. It’s a great mindmap to glance over before giving a presentation, as it reminds you of a lot of the fundamental stuff you should be bearing in mind, if you want to reach your audience. Full Page MindMap Link Ted Talk Link

This is a talk I did  at a Think Tank  hosted by UCT's Etilab. I was invited by Professor Dick Ng'ambi to share on the experiments we were attempting  at WGHS, in an effort  to modernise learning at our school. cc

Introduction As I am stimulated more and more by the incredible ideas floating around in places like twitter for educational reform, I am struck by what a sweet spot we seem to be in, in terms of the possibilities for real improvement in the standards and usefulness of the educational system over the next decade. However when I revert to my day job as a teacher and I see the educational landscape in the country I am struck by how many world’s apart we still are in terms of implementation. In fact my fear is despite the opportunities available, if we do not begin to create real action plans for the change we believe is necessary the system will continue on as it always has and the chance for real improvement will be lost. My belief is that a lot of the raw ideas being generated need to be further refined into realistic goals, action plans and targetable outcomes that can be measured and assessed going forward. The start of this process is this shared document which throu...

WITH   KEITH COATES  FROM   TOMORROW TODAY Good Questions from Workshop What are the questions we should be asking, but aren’t? What is the most effective way to manage the schools information? What are the systems we have in place that are there but no longer contribute any value? Are we leveraging the power of the internet effectively? Why are we so scared of positive failures? Will all the staff buy in to this new way of educating? How do we harness the power of social media to revolutionise our teaching? How do we instil value for skills that aren’t measured in a matric exam? How do we get the buy-in from parents and girls? What is the most efficient way to develop short and long term plans for the school, where everybody feels a shared sense of ownership of those goals/plans .? Are we maximising  and leveraging the potential of the staff  in the way  we choose to  organise  ourselves? What is the...

In the Oct 2013 holidays I attended another Google conference at Parkland College in Cape Town and these are some of the slideshows from the workshops that stood out for me.

1. Is there anything special we need to know about your video My particular passion is the “Maths of the Real World” and opening the eyes of learners to the fact that Maths doesn’t exist in a vacuum as many of them imagine. This video is intended to give a taste of that as well as a sense of my creativity and humour as an educator. The video is primarily intended to motivate my application to the Google Teacher Academy. However, I also wanted to showcase the possibilities for basic storytelling (using free or relatively inexpensive digital media tools) in learning today. My particular passion is the “Maths of the Real World” and opening the eyes of learners to the fact that Maths doesn’t exist in a vacuum or textbook as many of them imagine. Rather, it is used actively in their lives on a day to day basis. This video is intended to give a taste of that as well as a sense of my creativity and humour as an educator. 2. Describe an obstacle you encountered in you...