The children in my Year 2 classroom loved to learn outside of the classroom - even if it was just out in the playground or in someone else's classroom. They loved hands on activities where they could make their own learning and ask their own questions. As soon as children knew where and how to access information, they would enthusiastically and independently go off in search of answers. They also loved to share their learning with other children so they became the experts.
My class (Junior) have talked a lot about how they like to learn 'with' each other. We have Buddies that we do writing with once a fortnight, and that seems to be working well with children making good progress. I think it would be good for us to utilize the school Buddy system to help with our inquiry based projects also.
Have recently started Inquiry learning. Students are still requiring support to undertake topic however are becoming more able to to think of a 'question' to study, and how to present their inquiries for an intended audience. They are also discussing their past learning throughout the year, and linking both knowledge and the process to other areas i.e. writing goals.
2.What would be a cool place to learn in?
One where students are motivated to learn, self-manage their learning, and behaviour. One where teaching staff are enthusiastic to teach to critically thinking students.
Every year I take my class to Zealandia. They are so excited and take so much in. This one trip permeates the whole year's learning, they refer back to it and what they know all year. I have one child 2 terms later identifying the birds around our school. They keep talking about the conservation side of it. WE are doing NZ in the Past now and it will be so valuable. "Remember what happened when ....?"
Positive Learning Environments: More power to these...fantastic way for students to interact, brainstorm! Forget about the rows of desks and students "doing what they are told!" Let the teachers fulfil the student's needs, not the other way around. Learn from the students how "they want to learn". Empower the students. No more sitting in rows, looking at the front of the room.
We are in the early stages of developing our inquiry approach. Our latest topic has been a focus on, 'Change' where we were developing student choice and open ended questioning. The main aspect was for the kids to show change over time. We are still working on the final presentations.
Our kids have finished an independent inquiry on the topic CHANGE!! They loved the fact that they were allowed to choose what they wanted to research!! Kids had to present their findings through a power-point, or in a poster form. The kids have now moved onto their new inquiry related to Health. They are creating a package that will have a healthy snack, and a jingle that will help sell their product to their chosen audience!! Kids love this learning... and so does the teacher!!
A cool place in which to learn would be any place which allowed the kids to be immersed in the topic without the distraction of the the 'full and busy classroom' (displays, resources, furniture etc etc...) for park/garden centre/forest to learn about growing things/trees etc or an art gallery to learn about paintings and artists.........or anything you care to mention.
I guess the thing that would help learning in that situation would be smaller groups, transport, willing and motivated others to help, an expert to provide motivation and answers. No shortage of money and a very flexible would curriculum would ensure one could make the most of 'the moment'
Adora is so right! Our PLD needs to start with the learners, our students. They can tell us what we are doing well? How we can improve? What is fun and inspiring? What environments they find learning easier in and how they feel successful?
We need to let our guards down, trust in our learners and develop true learning partnerships - having fun along the way of course! I am inspired by how our senior students have led learning in areas such as the Arts and Science and the overwhelming positive responses from their more junior peers. Of course teaching and learning doesn't need to be from the top down. Many of you will have experienced a wee 3 or 4 year old watching you do something... and probably thinking,'Really? That's a strange way to go about it!'
Creating learning environments that will stimulate the desire to learn for all our learners, such as inside and outside spaces that are conducive to learning.
Provide continuous opportunities for learning with our peers, teachers, and community.
Learning takes place when everything comes together. It is a mix of child/teacher/family/environment and for each child the needs are different. An environment that suits one child will not necessarily suit another so compromise and change needs to happen regularly to meet the needs of most students. Learning starts with the hands on activities and progresses to the more abstract, so any environment needs to provide opportunity to manipulate materials and real experiences to develop concepts. The environment needs to be a place were family members can be part of the learning process as this adds to the value of the learning taking place.
Learning takes place when everything comes together. It is a mix of child/teacher/family/environment and for each child the needs are different. An environment that suits one child will not necessarily suit another so compromise and change needs to happen regularly to meet the needs of most students. Learning starts with the hands on activities and progresses to the more abstract, so any environment needs to provide opportunity to manipulate materials and real experiences to develop concepts. The environment needs to be a place were family members can be part of the learning process as this adds to the value of the learning taking place.
As the New Entrant teacher we have had great chats about what we are interested in and want to learn about. Each student was able to draw a picture of what they were wanting to learn about and this informed our writing topics. They came up with questions they wanted to answer. All students are engaged in their writing because its something they are interested in.
At our school we have a very large vegetable garden and this is used as a real place for learning. From the garden we learn about gratitude, receiving and giving, working together, looking out for each other, what makes plants grow, composting, planting by the moon, cooking, sustainability, maths, compass points, mandela's, etc. From our garden we have set up other places of learning for example our knitting group, our Saturday afternoon gardening club for the whole community, our cooking club, our outside learning area from our makeover.
Our garden is really the main focus for our learning not the classroom and we all love this about our school.
I use inquiry learning in my room as does our whole school however after talking to my class they let me know that they wanted more work in co operative groups. I have done a lot of research and we are finding that co operative learning ensures that all the students feel valued and they are far more engaged. We are trialing different ways of working and so far it is proving very successful.
Our class have been thinking and talking a lot about our learning environments and 21st century learning. I came up with the idea that I want to have less work on computers and ipads because I think they are making us lazy. When we use these they give us the answers and i think we need to think more ourselves. I am in the gifted programme and i really enjoy thinking fo myself and not relying on devices.
Individualised activities to suit the kids needs and goals would be awesome for the kids. From experience, the kids really get a "buzz" out of bringing home what they are learning within the class room, and from their class mates.....I think it's really important for us as parents to be able to capture these moments and be able to offer support and further enhance what they are learning in the class room.
I think that it's a really great idea for the kids to work in groups with similar learnings or understandings so they feel more comfortable to ask questions if they need to.
Being able to encourage each child's potentials is unlocked in the classroom environment.
I believe an innovative learning environment at school is not all about digital tools and exciting physical learning spaces - although these can certainly help. But they only help if other things are in place first.
Learning needs to be Inquiry based, and needs to build on kids strengths and interests. Kids need to have choices and opportunities to learn about things that really interest them. There needs to be strong learning partnerships between all - kids, families, teachers and leaders, with all of these people being active in the learning.
It's about knowing where to find info, knowing the sources of information available (both online, in the home/community, at school and elsewhere) and being able to select the appropriate source for the task. Innovative learning environments will have kids thinking critically, and using other higher order thinking skills; it will have kids driving their own learning more (but will have a range of teacher led learning, co-constructed learning and student directed learning).
Innovative learning environments will have kids buzzing about their learning, will have their families and their teachers buzzing about learning, will have everyone continuing their learning at home and in the community.
To create an innovative learning environment, there needs to be a major shift so all participants are active in their learning. This means change at all levels. Many things that we currently do as leaders have been creating passive teachers, and likewise with some of the things that teachers do- it's been creating passive students. We need to rethink our whole way of working. It's scary, but it's also exciting!!
A cool place to learn would be a place of curiosity and questions, where student interests and passions are the driving force of the learning through interaction and co-operation with each other. It would be a place where connections are made between students' interests/passions and the world they live in, where experts are invited to share their knowledge, and where students determine a social response to their inquiry as part of the learning and knowledge acquisition. A cool place to learn encourages students to create new knowledge through research, discussion, questioning/critique/reflection and presenting. It's a place of structure, that provides a safe place for students to take risks and where they and their teachers can learn together.
Having spent some time reading and reflecting on the various 21st century thinking about technology in the classroom, I know what has really supported inquiry in our classroom this year, has been access to a variety of tools: Laptops, desktops, tablets and books. The children have made their own decisions about which tool or combination of tools best supported their inquiry. What would further support the learning would be PD on developing inquiry learning in the classroom and using the inquiry to really develop active/critical thinking in the students.
A great place to learn is in the environment, outside the classroom, on a farm, in our Church and at the library. We came up with these ideas because when you are outside you learn about the environment around us. We are looking at our school environment this term and taking action. We have a school garden and we are planting vegetables. We have been down to Te Wakaiti and explored the farm. It would be cool to learn at the library because it is a quiet place and peaceful. Our parents help us in our learning.
We have found that we all have differing views and ideas about a good learning environment. Some of us believe that having somewhere to work outdoors would be cool. Some of us would like low tables and the ability to work off the floor or bean bags. Some would like quiet individual spaces to work quietly in, and others would like comfy couches. Some of us like bright spaces while others of us would like more muted colours.
Obviously the theme here is that we all like a variety of spaces in a learning environment, so a modern classroom needs to be pretty versatile.
It is great to see so many learning formats in the class - the children get to use computers, Ipads but also class discussion and library are just as important. Mixing things up always keeps interest up.
The inquiry learning that happens gives the children a sense that they are really involved in their learning and have direction over what they learn.
A good learning environment is often about a changing environment - often it is just a different classroom or another part of the school inside or out. Listening to other peoples experiences and also having people come into the classroom from outside school is positive.
Great places to learn/teach in would be: outside, places that are relevant to what we are learning/teaching. The world of the 'Magic School Bus'!
What would help us as teachers is to have 'Experts' to ask the next hard questions to. The questions that we have from; now what? I have tried? Where to from here? The evidence tells me this, but? What I don't know?
We think digital devices are helpful for learning and we want to have more of them for research, creating, photography, gaming and games for practicing learning.
Group work is a way more effective way of working and learning as we can share strategies and knowledge, support and help each other. We think groups should be mixed ability and hope that everyone can help each other in different ways.
We think if there are desks and tables in the classroom, they should be placed in groups, not rows. This would be more helpful for working together.
Learning should not just happen in the actual classroom. There are other places in the school where learning can be found eg some of us have been working in the school garden and learned about planting, how to care for them, what they provide for us, food, maths etc all took place outside.
Inquiry learning always us to learn more about the wider community. We need to get into the community more...learn from it and add to it. there are heaps of places and opportunities for learning out there!
Knock out the walls between some classes and join the students from both rooms together. Share the teachers between all the students and get them to share their strengths - one might do all the literacy teaching and the other might do the maths, then mix it all up for all the other curriculum areas.
We think there should be more parent helpers in the class room and teacher aids.
We think there a few things that would help make school a cool place to learn at.
It would be really fun if we all had a LOT more technology in the classroom. At the moment we only have a couple of laptops so we always have to share and we don't get to use it every time we need it. Some classes use it for every subject but some only get to use it in Topic and Reading. If we had extra laptops, IPads, Iphones, tablets we'd be able to look up answers to our questions straight away and wouldn't need to wait for a turn. We could take photos and videos with the IPhones if we were doing projects and add them to it. It'd be good if every person had something to use.
We think our learning environment would be cooler if we were allowed to bring our own technology to school. We could bring laptops and IPads to school. We could keep all our learning in the one place on our own IPad. You would be able to research stuff straight away. It would also be great because we wouldn't have to do as much book work.
The second thing that we think would make school a cooler place to learn at is if we got to choose more what we had to learn about. For our last topic we had to choose a question and then research to find out the answer. It was fun because we were learning about something that we were interested in, not something that the teacher chose... and that's sometimes a bit boring.