Lifelong Learning

This weeks blog I am critically reflecting on how two potential and inspiring digital and/or collaborative learning related teacher inquiry topics would contribute to my Communities of Practice. Topics that I would really like to investigate further are 21st Century skills in particular ICT and Student Inquiry learning. I also wonder how a growth mindset can be incorporated. I am often hearing comments “I don’t know what to do, I can’t do it”, along with students not trying, or giving up to name a few. As Dweck (2006) says people with a growth mindset believe they develop and grow their abilities and intelligence. A growth mindset encourages learning. “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”—Etienne Wenger A Community of Practice (CoP) has three distinct elements. 1.Community (mutual engagement). My senior syn...

Week 18: Reflecting on changes in my future oriented teaching practice. The purpose of this week’s blog is to critically reflect on how I have positively changed my practice during the postgraduate journey. I will be using the Gibbs’ Reflective cycle when undertaking this reflection. I want to share with you the changes that have been made in the two classes I am in weekly, namely using Chrome books in varied ways and student-led learning. With both of these changes there has been a shift in the teacher/student roles. Coggle, which is a mind mapping tool, has recently been introduced. The goal for students is to mind-map collaboratively using different devices. Now I don’t have a depth of computing experience, so I was both excited and apprehensive when introducing my students to Coggle. It was new to me and I hadn’t had the time to explore it thoroughly myself. However, I jumped in and found sharing the learning proce...

I have used the Jay and Johnson reflective model (Jay and Johnson 2012) to examine my current reflective practice in teaching. This model starts with the descriptive phase: what’s happening; what’s working; how do I feel; and what don’t I understand. So, for me, there is a lot of solitary reflection taking place. When I am reflecting I am re-playing lessons and specific events that have occurred in the classroom; analysing what has happened; and thinking about student learning, engagement, and behaviour. I am asking myself questions and pondering not just what happened, but why and how things could have been done differently or better.  My process is an individual one but I am definitely “applying a thinking approach to my practice” (Jay and Johnson 2012, pg2). I can be reflecting on my practice any time of the day and night, in the shower, while driving (safely!) or later in an evening when there is finally peace and quietness. I haven’t developed a habit to record my thoughts...