can remote teaching lead to deep learning?
TRANSCRIPT
Can Remote Teaching Lead to
Deep Learning?Paul Woods, Former British Council
English Adviser, Uruguay
What my bosses in London thought I did
What my mates thought I did What I thought I did
What my parents thought I did
What my wife thought I did
What I really did
Can Remote Teaching Lead to Deep Learning?Paul Woods, Former English Adviser. British Council Uruguay
New Pedagogies
Much more than ‘flipped’ classrooms or MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) where content information and existing knowledge are ‘delivered’ online.
“Simply adding a layer of expensive tools on top of the traditional curriculum does nothing to address the learning needs of modern learners.” Will Richardson
Deep Learning
• The explicit aim is deep learning that goes beyond the mastery of existing content knowledge.
• ‘Creating and using new knowledge in the world.’
• Technology has unleashed learning, and the potential for students to apply knowledge in the world outside of school
• New pedagogies leverage this in the formal learning process.
(based on Ramsden, 1988)
Deep Surface
Focus is on “what is signified” Focus is on the “signs” (or on the learning as a signifier of something else)
Relates previous knowledge to new knowledge
Focus on unrelated parts of the task
Relates knowledge from different courses
Information for assessment is simply memorised
Relates theoretical ideas to everyday experience
Facts and concepts are associated unreflectively
Relates and distinguishes evidence and argument
Principles are not distinguished from examples
Organises and structures content into coherent whole
Task is treated as an external imposition
Emphasis is internal, from within the student
Emphasis is external, from demands of assessment
“Learning” means different things to different people. Säljö (1979) interview-based study, 5 categories:
1. A quantitative increase in knowledge - acquiring information or “knowing a lot”
2. Memorising - storing information that can be reproduced.
3. Acquiring facts, skills and methods that can be retained and used as necessary.
4. Making sense or abstracting meaning - relating parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real world.
5. Interpreting and understanding reality in a different way - comprehending the world by re-interpreting knowledge.
There is a clear qualitative shift between conceptions 3 and 4.
1, 2 and 3 are views which underpin surface learning strategies
4 and 5 relate to deep learning.
The 6 C’s of 21st Century Education
Plus character education and citizenship
Teaching• Teaching shifts from focusing
on covering all required content to focusing on the learning process, developing students’ ability to lead their own learning and to do things with their learning.
• Teachers are partners with students in deep learning tasks characterised by exploration, connectedness and broader, real-world purposes.
LearningLearning outcomes are measured in terms of: • Students’ capacities to build
new knowledge and to lead their own learning effectively,
• Students’ proactive dispositions and their abilities to persevere through challenges, and
• Students’ development as citizens who are life-long learners.
Roles of teachers• Build trusted relationships with students and peer teachers; seek good mentors • Help students find and build on their interests and aspirations through deep
learning tasks • Require challenging learning goals, tasks and success criteria for self and students
that require creation and use of new knowledge • Develop repertoire of teaching strategies; use different strategies to activate
learning • Provide high-quality feedback and encouragement, especially when students face
challenges in learning• Collaborate with other teachers and leaders researching the impact of different
learning strategies on students • Model a proactive disposition towards learning• Use digital tools and resources to explore new concepts and ideas, challenge
students to create new knowledge, accelerate students ability to drive their own learning
Roles of learners• Build trusted relationships with teachers and peers; seek good mentors• Explore own interests and aspirations in learning goals and tasks • Develop capacity to define learning goals, tasks and success criteria, partnering in
the learning process• Develop capacity for reflection and perseverance in the face of challenges;
provide high quality feedback and encouragement to others• Provide feedback to teachers and peers on the learning process and one’s own progress• Discover and create digital learning tools and resources to explore new content , concepts, information and ideas, using these to connect with peers and experts throughout the world
Fullen M and Langworthy M (2014 ) A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies find Deep Learning
Remote teaching in Uruguay
• 4000 remote lessons per week taught by remote teachers using hi-tech VC equipment.
• Teachers are located in Uruguay, the UK, Argentina and The Philippines
• Teachers collaborate closely with class teachers who do 2 practice lessons per week
Collaboration• Collaboration in learning is easy to consider on
the surface, but tough to do well in practice. • One of the most complex transitions for
students and teachers to make is the move from a pedagogy that centres on individuals demonstrating their learning to a pedagogy that embraces groups demonstrating their learning.
• Yet in modern workplaces, success most often depends upon the ability of everyone to work together to integrate complex parts and ideas into a coherent product, solution, policy or program.
• This requires individuals to share responsibility for the ends of their work, to make substantive, negotiated decisions together, and to work interdependently
Digital tools and resourcesenable :• the discovery and mastery
of new content knowledge;• collaborative, connected
learning; • low-cost creation and
iteration of new knowledge;
• use of new knowledge with authentic audiences for “real” purposes; and
• enhancement of teachers’ ability to put students in control of the learning process, accelerating learner autonomy.
Collaboration Using OLPC Laptops
Every child in state schools in Uruguay has a laptop or tablet
This greatly facilitates collaborative groupwork and project work and the development of learner autonomy through doing simple research
Critical Thinking
“Engaging students in ongoing, cognitively
challenging (reflection) activities”
From : “Integrating technology with student-centered learning”A Report to the Nellie Mae Education Foundation 2011Prepared by Babette Moeller & Tim Reitzes . http://www.nmefoundation.org/
www.posterenvy.com
•BIG questions are “open” questions and cannot be answered with a yes or a no or a small phrase.
•BIG questions require multiple resources to be answered.
What is a BIG question?
challenges assumptions
generates energy
focuses enquiry and reflection
touches a deeper meaning
evokes related questions
is thought provokingFrom “Asking Big Questions”, A Catalyst for Strategy Evolution, by Juanita Brown, David Isaacs and Nancy Margulies http://www.theworldcafe.com/articles/askingbig.pdf
A Powerful question….
Communicationgenuine questions vs.
display questions“Display questions are questions you ask to see if the person you are speaking to knows the answer. In an ELT classroom, this normally means questions teachers ask learners to see if they understand or remember something”.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/display-questions
Very sad. My dog died.
Excellent answer!
How are you?
“RT refers Ss to the other column and models the role play activity with the CT, asking him/her questions to complete the corresponding column. RT invites Ss to work in pairs and complete the second column with information about their partners. Ss engage in the pair work activity”. Lesson Plan, Week 28
AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK, 14% OF MY TEACHERS LET ME CREATE SOMETHING NEW WITH TECHNOLOGY….
Creativity
Using new knowledge in real contexts
• In deep learning tasks, the goal is to develop new knowledge, through the integration of prior knowledge with ideas, information and concepts, into a wholly new product, concept, solution or content.
• In good deep learning tasks, students also go beyond creating new knowledge to doing something with it – to using that new knowledge in the world.
• In this sense, deep learning tasks have a constructivist orientation, with an emphasis on the application of new knowledge in real contexts.
Creativity – an example:My Favourite Australian Animal Project
So, yes, remote teaching can lead to deep learning!
• It depends on the teachers and having excellent coordination between remote teacher and class teacher
• The Ceibal English project could make better use of the OLPC laptops by integrating creative deep learning tasks using the laptops more comprehensively into lesson plans.
• This was not done earlier, (because of doubts about whether every school would have wifi), but now that we know that the technology works, this is a logical next step
Thank you for listening!
For more information on the Ceibal English Project, contact:• Graham Stanley, British Council Director Uruguay
Fullan, M and Langworthy, M, (2014 ), A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning, Pearson.Tochon, F V, (2014), Help Them Learn a Language Deeply, Wisconson, Deep University Press.Mira, M, E, (2014), Focusing on Quality Interaction in Remote Teaching, Unpublished powerpoint presentation.Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching; Deep and Surface learning [On-line: UK] retrieved 4 April 2015 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/deepsurf.htm