1:1 thoughts and reflections
Kim Cofino blogged about her recent experiences at ASB unplugged and 1:1 programs. It caused me to reflect on what she wrote.
When we started our laptop program, we jumped in feet first with out real consideration of the depth of the water . The end result was for the first couple of years we were treading water, and even now 12 year down the track, I believe we are still playing catch up with some staff.
Fundamental to any program is the educational drivers or benefits – the What do we want our 1:1 program to achieve and the Why is this important. This must be the starting place for any discussion. We can not have a laptop program that is in place only because it looks good, to keep up with the school down the road or as a marketing tool. The goals must be to improve the education of our students.
Fortunately, these educational goals are easy to see. starting with preparing our students for a life with a increasingly digital content, to engage our students, to leverage the tools they are using and by doing this engage and motivate, to provide access to tools that enhance learning, improve teaching and learning, accessing and connecting to a changing knowledgescape etc.
Underlying all of these is a change in pedagogy, it is a shift from the stayed and traditional approaches to teaching and learning to, in my opinion, a more constructivist approach with an emphasis on higher order thinking skills, problem solving, real world contextual problems, timely and appropriate feedback etc. For me the constructivist approach inherent and core in project based learning is one of the key teaching techniques we can apply.
It is this change in pedagogy that is going to have the greatest effect and be the hardest to achieve, particularly when our school systems are underpinned by the need to achieve in an examination system focused on lower order thinking skills – namely the recollection and understanding of knowledge.
To have a successful program, in fact to successfully manage any change in schools, you need to have 5 different factors need to be aligned to achieve any the changes. They are:
- Vision – where are we going and what do we want to achieve
- Skills – what are the skills both technical and pedagogical that we will need
- Incentives – what will make the students abnd staff change
- Resources – what do we need to provide to encourage, faciliate and enable this change
- Action Plan – how are we going to do it and when
(Thousand and Villa – managing complex change in schools)
2 Comments Already
March 10, 2010 at 1:11 pm Permalink
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment on my post, Andrew – it definitely deserves it’s own post here.
I so appreciate the large-scale planning it takes to implement a 1:1 program – it goes so much beyond just the hardware. I know that our schools are often implementing these kinds of changes, but for some reason when it comes to tech, they don’t seem to follow the same kinds of thoughtful planning practices that are automatically assumed in other areas. Maybe it’s because the practice of buying the tools and just waiting to see what happens has become so ingrained in our culture.
I have shared your feedback with our Leadership Team and I hope that we look more carefully at Thousand and Villa’s process as we continue planning our 1:1 program.
March 10, 2010 at 2:59 pm Permalink
Hi Kim – thanks for your post – its good to have to reflect and consider what we are doing and have done.
There are often assumptions that the students and staff will quickly and easily pick up but the reality is its not that easy.
With out a structured process and a change in pedagogy such changes are fraught with stumbles, roadblocks and detours.
Cheers
A