First Year Madness

I came into Mindlab back in March, what feels like forever ago . At the time I thought the hardest part was going to be the 4 hour sessions, and yet instead I was challenged with trying to stay on top of the workload, incorporate what I had learned into my everyday teaching, and constantly reflect in a constructive way. It wasn't easy, and I don't think I would have got very far without my community of practice , but here we are. Final blog post (for now!).  The first key change that was brought about came from the very first few weeks where we discussed the ITL Learning Rubrics. Such a simple document completely overhauled the way I evaluated the extent to which I was enabling my students to become 21st Century Learners. It made me realise that chucking an assignment online doesn't create digital learning, and that forcing kids to work in groups does not mean they will become collaborative (obvious for some, but sometimes a reminder is helpful). This document is one th

Encouraging students to see the world holistically, through different perspectives beyond their own, is a key aspect of using an interdisciplinary approach to teaching. At school we try to do this through our inquiry units that require students to draw on different areas of expertise in order to broaden their understanding. By teaching students in this the way it is argued that we can increase their empathic horizon (sense of understanding) and develop a system to interact with others. For an understanding of the world we need to stretch our empathic horizon beyond ourselves, and around others (Thomas McDonagh Group, 2011). This brings up the importance of teaching students a shared language to communicate and work with those who have an understanding and knowledge base different to our own.  As teachers to support students to carry out interdisciplinary work we need to explore the concept ourselves. At school we explore this by drawing on different team members' expertise in or