Learning for today

What we know about learning has increased dramatically over the last 20 years. As a school we are continually inquiring into practice through a future-focused lens and creating learning opportunities that harness and spark innovation, creativity, collaboration, digital literacy, and curiosity for the world around us. MRI scanning that allows us to see inside the brain as learning occurs, and landmark studies such as John Hattie’s Visible Learning (Hattie, 2008) mean that we now have a much better idea of how learning occurs. As a result of these developments and others, we know that quality learning is a combination of the following elements:
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  • Personalised learning: no two individuals learn in the same way, nor do they bring the same prior knowledge to a learning experience. The way we learn is as unique as our fingerprint.
  • Socially constructed learning (Johnson, 1981): the collaboration, peer-tutoring and reciprocal teaching that occurs when students work together results in a deeper understanding of the material being covered.
  • Differentiated learning (Bloom, 1974): the prior knowledge we all bring to a task means individuals require different levels of challenge, pace, content and context.
  • Learning that is initiated by students themselves (Ramey & Ramey, 2004): typically when a student initiates a learning experience or exploration, they learn more.
  • Learning that is connected to the physical world and authentic contexts: children learn through interaction with others and the physical world (Malone & Tranter, 2003). For example, learning about pond ecosystems is more powerful if students visit a pond in addition to learning about them in a classroom or textbook.

Most of New Zealand’s school buildings were built in a time when direct instruction was considered the only pedagogy that resulted in effective learning. “Factory-style’ learning (where all students learn the same things, at the same time, in lock-step fashion) has largely disappeared from our classes. However the actual classrooms largely remain as they were originally designed, and still retain the suggestion of factory-style learning. The collaborative practice inside our learning spaces is working to change that perception!
(Mark Osborne - Modern Learning Environments - April 2013) - click to download

Other Readings:
Transforming spaces for learning by Julia Atkin, Education and Learning Consultant
​A Rich Seam - How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning  by Michael Fullan and Maria Langworthy 
How can 20th Century Classrooms be modified for 21st Century Learners? by Helen Malcolm
The video linked above features the principals, teachers and students at Mountview School and Waipahihi School in Taupō talking about how they use their schools’ physical space for teaching and learning.
The video focuses on how the two long-established schools have reflected on, and adapted, their teaching practices and made changes to their property that support those practices. Both schools are striving to teach and encourage collaboration, self-management, curiosity and creativity and use their spaces in varied ways to support this student-centred and future-focused approach.

Learner Agency

One of the ways to grow an active learning culture is through providing our learners the opportunity to act and have more input into the decisions that surround their learning - this is called agency. ​
Did you know?

When learners have agency, they have the power to make decisions about their learning in areas such as goal setting, sequencing and prioritising. Increased learner agency leads to increased intrinsic motivation for learning, increased creativity, improved higher-order thinking and overall achievement. “Providing opportunities for choice, control, and collaboration are potent strategies for increasing academic achievement.”
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Link: Toshalis, E., & Nakkula, M. J. (2012). Motivation, engagement, and student voice.
Derek Wenmoth (CORE Education) describes this growing trend towards agency as having three important parts;
  1. The student using their ‘initiative’ to act - being independent and self starting. 
  2. The student also having an ‘interdependent’ relationship on others - both their teachers and their peers. 
  3. The student having an awareness that their decisions impact on them, others and their peers.