MLP- modern learning pedagogy: part five

MY NOTES ARE PRETTY SCATTY:

KEY NOTE 2: ADAM LEFSTEIN-

RULE #1- Don’t talk about pedagogical problems. The norms of privacy are obstructive in the development of MLE. Staff room talk is often about VENTING, consolation, or sharing of materials.

RULE #2- Don’t mind the gap between teaching aspirations and classroom realities.

The huge gap between what happens in the classroom and the way we talk about the classroom. We don’t talk honestly about our practice. We end up talking ASPIRATIONALLY about it. This makes it difficult to have real discourse.

RULE #3- DICHOTOMIZE. Content vs process, achievement outcomes vs values education & old edn vs new edn. There’s no individual without culture. 

RULE #4 TRUST YOUR OWN UNIQUE EXPERIENCE

RULE #5- NO PRECISE PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE.

The teaching profession has a discourse that can easily be understood by people from a range of backgrounds. 

RULE #6- HYPERCRITICISM

RULE #7- Don't over tweet on tweet deck and pay attention to the key note speaker, otherwise you'll miss out on rule #7.

RULE #8- FOCUS ON WHAT’S MISSING: Hold a conversation about ‘what could have happened’.

RULE #9- TRUST OUR FEELING AND INTUITION

RULE #10- EVERYTHING IS DUE TO THE TEACHER: Pupils shape teaching no less than teachers do.

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PROFESSIONAL CONVERSATIONS-

Classroom practice is key.

Hold deep conversations about the representations of practice.

Adopt an inquiry stance: describe and understand before attempting to judge or solve.

Balance the critique.

Focus on issues and dilemmas, and move between specific instances and general principles.

A POSITIVE DISCOURSE GROUNDED IN CLASSROOM PRACTICE. The honest convo allows both sides to have a say. DELIBERATIVE LEADERSHIP- say what?

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I WISH I HAD RE-READ MY U-LEARN NOTES BEFORE STARTING 2015.

It's obviously clear that we've focussed on issues and dilemmas. We constantly have been fixing our mistakes as we go. I like to think that being organic about how we problem solve is vital. There have been many times that we have sat and tried to preempt situations with forward planning. But as collaborative teachers we're pretty good on our feet. The awesome thing is that we also trust each other too.

I have an open approach to leadership. Sharing the lead is crucial, we three have strengths in various educational areas, not just in curriculum but also our combined knowledge is varied. I know this might sound like a lazy leadership approach, however, if there are strong leadership skills in both of my co-teachers, why wouldn't I allow them to naturally lead a conversation or development of a planning document, or assessment method. Yes, being deliberate about leading is just as important too. I need to focus on focussing our MLE. I want to know that by year's end that I have steered us toward aligning our programme with our school's vision and learning process, but with a unique twist, our MLP will flavouring.

As co-teachers, we have always talked about what we want to see if our learners, whilst our pedagogy is similar, we still are driven by core principles, which are apparent through many conversations. One of my colleagues is quite driven about providing U.D.L (more on this in my next post). So many of our planning meetings contain this element, it is so important to allow students to present learning in a way that they choose. This practice should be interwoven into our MLE. My only reservation, is how well have we set up the students to present their learning in various forms. If we say, sure make a video. Do they know how to? Will that mean we need to instantly run a workshop on making videos on chrome books or imacs. Will this cloud their presentation of the actual learning content. I want to provide this opportunity to freely present learning in their own way, but SCAFFOLDING must occur in advance. It needs to be set up in a way that we can definitely say we've set them up in a few forms of representation. So if we said, this concept we've been learning, such as Te Ako Ritenga, you're all thinking about it, you know lots about it, it's now time to go and work on how to present it to us. We would hope that the quality of their presentation would highlight their learning rather than their lack of knowledge of their chosen form of expression. Just this week gone, my co-teacher highlighted 'I students to be successful, I want to set them up for success'. My sentiments exactly. Getting to this point will take time. Do I believe that UDL is important? DEFINITELY. Do I want students to be successful? OF COURSE I DO. Getting there requires scaffolding.

Grounding our conversations in professional discourse, strengthens our co-teaching relationship.

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