Savelina Lepou: Activity 6: Contemporary Trends

LearnerAgency and Maker Culture from Savelina Lepou on Vimeo.

Implications: Learner Agency

I have been working on addressing learner agency in order to shift the learners within my learning community from being passive, receptive learners to agentic learners in Mathematics. I have been using techniques such as Math Talk Moves and problem solving frameworks. These phrases and frameworks have helped my learners to self-regulate their thinking and actions when approaching mathematical problems. According to Toshalis and Nakula, it is necessary to teach students self-regulation skills in order to help them monitor their learning and change strategies as needed.

One thing I need to consider is how to include more student voice in my teaching, allowing my learners to make decisions about their learning. Bathhurst suggests using student surveys as a way of gathering student voice (p.16). In a case study of 19 school by the Education Review Magazine, there are many examples of schools gathering and using student voice effectively. Rhode Street School invite their students to staff professional development and learning sessions to input their ideas and suggestions. At Clevedon School they have identified the need to not only gather student voice but to also use it to inform practice.

Implications: Maker Culture

The shift from giving children answers to memorise to giving them problems to solve is a lot harder than it sounds. Now that learners have the capability to use technology to meet their needs, it is imperative that they are given opportunities to do so. Design thinking and processes need to be central to planning (Core Education).

While the thought of implementing the maker culture into the classroom programme seems daunting, I believe that it is something that you just have to try. Core Education has some tips for starting out:

Grab a little electronics starter kit and see what your kids can do with it.
Talk to your principal about getting a 3D printer.
Download something like Sketchup so kids can start playing around.

Richard Wells believes that Design Thinking is a great tool for students to think about and tackle problems at a deeper level. He has created this infographic as a guide to Design Thinking that can be used in the classroom. It splits the task into 5 stages.