Training and the professional practice of designers-these are principals that can be practiced.
Driven by design involves activities,decisions, and attitudes.
(Video-Human created design)
Observe and Feel
ascertain what it is that they don't do or don't say.
Feeling alongside others and experiencing things as they do.
(David Kelly-Empathy)
What they think and feel.
What they value as a culture.
4 principals of design thinking (Photo)
Prototype
Develop ideas faster.
Helps to drive an idea forward.
Generate successful feedback.
Designer thinking challenge
We have to work alongside someone that we did not know well or have not worked well with before.
Big Idea: "How might you succeed in the online part of your PG learning journey"
1: EMPATHISING
Whats the story?
Dig deeper
2: DEFINING
Observations about the problem.
User story statement.
3: IDEATING
Draw 9 RADICALLY different souluations for your user and capture feedback, comments, reactions.
4: IDEATING
Ideate a new solution.
5: PROTOTYPING AND TESTING
Build something your partner can interact with.
Pitch with your user story (Observe your partner and learn more)
Swap sheets (Give feedback and feed forward to the designer/s. What did you see, hear, feel? Where to next with this design?
Today on a Saturday morning session at Mind lab we started with a task where we had to find "Where's George Siemens" was. This was an interesting task for those of us who did not know much about this person. We had to use the internet to find out where he might be right now. We used a range of social media such as twitter, wikipedia, and you tube to find out latest information about this man and where he was.
For those that are reading my blog and do not know who George Siemen's is here is a little bit of information about this man.
George Siemens is a writer, theorist, speaker, and researcher on learning, networks, technology, analytics and visualization, openness, and organizational effectiveness in digital environments.[1] He is the originator of Connectivismtheory and author of the article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age and the book Knowing Knowledge
We then talked about if anyone in the group emerged as a leader in regards to this class activity.
In what ways?
If not, why not?
I found this task very interesting as I did not know much about this man and I found that the very first place that I went to find information about him was on google search and from there, Wikipedia. I then, because the task asked to find out where he could be right now, I retreated to social media such as his twitter feed and also you tube or his personal blog.
Next, we then went onto talking about Leadership and our mind lab leadership assignment 1.
Leadership is very board. Assessment 1: Leadership
In this video it talked about the 10 best known leadership theories. I have listed these below.
The great man theory.
The trait theory of leadership.
The skills theory of leadership.
The style based theory of leadership.
The situational leadership skills.
Contengency theory.
Transactional leadership.
Transformational leadership.
Leader-member exchange theory.
Servant leadership theory.
We then went onto doing our collaborative task where we had to explore one leadership theory. Here are some that we had to choose from. Our group chose to do Maori Leadership . I personally related to this as majority of my class are from a Maori background.
Servant leadership
Pedagogical leadership.
Transactional leadership.
Transformational leadership.
Maori leadership.
We had to then Identify some key aspects of this leadership theory create a set of resources. i have included our groups collaborative task on Maori Leadership below.
We then went onto looking at leadership theory VS Leadership style.
Leadership theory VS Leadership style.
How do they relate to practice
Is there one approach to leadership that would work in every situation?
Style: How you apply that theory and work in practice.
We were asked to do a leadership quiz to find out what leadership style we fitted into. I have included my results below. My leadership style which was participative style with fitted in with the famous Nelson Mandela. WHOOP!WHOOP!! He is an amazing man.
Leadership Quiz reflection results:
Your score is:
Authoritarian 27
Procedural 24
Transformational 42
Participative 44
Laissez Faire 35
Note down your scores then see below.
Theories
Servant leasdership
Pedagogical leadership.
Transactional
transformational
Maori medium
Styles:
Visionary
affilitive
pacesetting
coaching
democratic
commanding
Atrributes:
Key competencies
21st centuries skills
Growth mindset
Adaptive competence
Emotional intelligence.
Character qualities (world economic forum)
These are the things that we need to look at and reflect on in our leadership assignment 1(as per above).
We then looked at Emotional Intelligence. I have included a video below.
In this video is talked about these 3 emotional intelligence:
Symapthy
Empathy
Compassion.
Connected learning and connectivism (Digital)
Why connected learning?
Connected learning is when someone is pursuing a personal interest with the support of peers, mentors and caring adults, and in ways that open up opportunities for them. It is a fundamentally different mode of learning than education centered on fixed subjects, one-to-many instruction, and standardized testing.Young people learn best when actively engaged, creating, and solving problems they care about, and supported by peers who appreciate and recognize their accomplishments. Connected learning applies the best of the learning sciences to cutting-edge technologies in a networked world.
Optimal learning for each learner. Discovery, exploring that is driven by real world problems. Connecting learning to real world engagement. Making it more accessible for the students, young people and families.
Whanau concept of knowledge
-Regarded as belonging to the whole group, whanau rather then being individual.
Our task was to create a presentation on what connected learning looks like in our teaching practice.
I have included a link to my piktochart of what connected learning looks like in my practice.
Here is my link. Click on the link to view my connected learning piktochart.
We then looked at Connectivism. Below is a video on what connectivism is.
What is connectivism.
In the theory, learning occurs through connections within networks.
Siemen's Principles of connectivism:
Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
Ata Marie. This morning we kicked the lesson off by looking at this question. Is there such a thing as a digital tattoo? How does it affect students and teachers?
(Social Media)
We also looked at:
Is there a difference between digital citizenship and cyber safety? Digital Citizenship:A digital citizen refers to a person utilizing information technology (IT) in order to engage in society, politics, and government participation
Cyber Safety: Cyber safety is the safe and responsible use of information and communication technology. It is about keeping information safe and secure, but also about being responsible with that information, being respectful of other people online, and using good 'netiquette' (internet etiquette).
We then went onto discussion about what tools we can use to facilitate online discussions. Here are some that we came up with in class as per below:
Second life
edmodom
facebook,
world warcraft in schools.
G+
todaysmeet
Blogger.
google docs,
Disqus.
Some of these tools were new to me as I had not used them before, but am looking forward to trialing them out.
We then talked about Why would you want to lead an online discussion? Some of the ideas that came up in class regarding this topic were:
-Saves record of your discussion.
-If you are not confident in speaking face to face then you are more comfortable in sharing your ideas and thoughts online.
-You get more hits about a topic online through people.
Some other information that I found regarding this topic while exploring and researching were:
Students are more likely to utilize critical thinking skills
Students to read other perspectives and carefully consider a
response.
• Online interaction allows for further discussion of a topic. It also provides students with “think time” to reflect on
course material and post more thought-out comments to the discussion board.
• Students and instructors often think of comments or questions after the lecture and can post them and discuss these
inquiries online.
•
Students expand their personal knowledge-base through the back-and-forth engagement and interaction with other
classmates sharing insights, perspectives, points-of-view, as well as their personally held information and knowledge.
• Effective forum topics are open-ended and designed to encourage students to take a position on issues. To respond to a
forum topic requires organized thought and synthesis of concepts introduced in class. If a student's views were
challenged, he or she typically adds carefully considered reasons to back up previous comments.
• Because the forum discussions occur completely online, students have the flexibility to add their input when they are
prepared. Some choose to answer questions immediately, while others prefer to consider the responses of others first.
Undergraduate students are often much more comfortable discussing topics online after reading the viewpoints of the
more experienced students. Students are encouraged to revisit past topics during the course, as their opinions changed.
Students participate more regularly and in a more thoughtful manner than they would normally do in a face to-face
instructional setting, especially in large-enrollment classes.
Students develop a stronger class community.
Students are more likely to cite research and class readings
Students achieve greater cognitive and exploratory learning.
Students benefits from more individualized learning without instructors having to provide individualized
instruction.
Students have a greater sense of race and gender-based equality.
We then went onto leading online discussions. Here are some aspects that we came up with:
Set guidelines
Make connections
Challenge students to think critically
Encourage participation.
Praise discussion posts.
Guide conversations back to the question at hand.
Use real world experiences.
Hesitate before interjecting.
We then looked at what is a wicked problem?
A Wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve.
We then went onto a collaborative task that we did in groups. We looked at what is a wicked problem that we have encountered in our practice? We were then asked to create a mess map on a sheet of A4 paper regarding this topic. Here is our groups messy map that we created together.
We had some fantastic and deep critical discussions regarding our wicked problem. Our wicked problem was on Mobility (movement) in terms of target children's achievements in education.
We then looked at Distributed leadership-What are the key aspects of Distributed leadership. Below I have included a couple of images that represent what distributed leadership is.
My understanding of what distributed leadership is that Distributed leadership is primarily concerned with the practice of leadership rather than specific leadership roles or responsibilities. It equates with shared, collective and extended leadership practice that builds the capacity for change and improvement. The emphasis is upon interdependentinteraction and practice rather than individual andindependent actions associated with those with formal leadership roles or responsibilities. So in summary, it is about collaboration. It is where groups work together rather than having one central leader. Google work blog
We then went onto looking at Flipped classroom and what is involves. This was very interesting to myself as again this term was new to me so it was very interesting to find out what a flipped classroom is all about. I have included a video below about what this involves.
Here is a blog on a flipped classroom. blog on flipped classroom . In this blog it talks about WSQ tool. This means, Watch, Summarize and Question. This tool helps teachers to;
Organize content and materials.
Hold students accountable for actually watching.
Give structured processing time.
Gather feedback from students.
Prepare for and facilitate discussion among students during class time.
It gives teaching and learning more meaning and also makes it more purposeful. As students are NOT just watching a video, they are critically thinking and deep learning is taking place. I cant wait to use this in my classroom.
What are the relative benefits and constraints of each type of rotation?
Select one of the models to use next.
Before moving on, we will share our insights into our chosen models.
Blended task #3
Create an amazing blended lesson using your digital lesson tool (blend space, TED-ED, EDpuzzle , or another similar tool) appropriate for your rotational model.
We looked at blended learning tools which were new to me and was very exciting to explore. I can really see the children in my class engaged in their learning using these tools.
I have included an example of a lesson on Empathy using EDPuzzle which was done with Jane, my colleague from Mind lab. Lesson on Empathy using EDpuzzle. -Click on the link to view the lesson.
I also went home that day and thought I would explore these blended learning tools more and so I designed a lesson plan using another tool called Tes teach on the water cycle. I honestly. had a lot of fun creating these lessons and I know my children would really enjoy working through them as they are meaningful, interactive and purposeful.
Overall, I found week 7 of the mind lab session very very useful and I felt that I have learnt a lot that I can take back to my classroom and implement in my classroom.
