Teacher Only Day: Session Two

The 3 trends that will influence the future of education 

1. The change in the nature of students

Student are becoming increasingly:

- Tech savoy/plugged in
- Grown up 
- Fragile 

Technology has helped students to develop:
- Advanced fine motor skills
- Multi-divided attention
- Spatial awareness

Plugged in:
- This generation can and do learn with noise!
- However there is a distinction between noise and interruption

Grown up:
- We have a generation who know a lot more about adult content and ideas, with this comes adult issues (depression, anxiety).
- You can have deep and higher level discussions with students
- If you try to talk to 7 year old students the same way you did 20 years ago they will be disengaged because they are smarter than that.

Fragile:
- Students have become the opposite of resilient
- Older generations were taught life isn't meant to be easy, therefore life is meant to get difficult
- Advertising and pop culture have taught this generation that life is meant to be fair, easy, convenient and exciting
- This generation begins to think that when life gets hard, and it is meant to be easy, that there must be something wrong with the goal I have set
- If it is not easy then swap paths (new mindset trend)
- If life isn't easy and its not right now then there must be something wrong with me (new mindset trend)
- How do you build the capacity for resilience and persistence in a generation that has not be raised like this?
- Students are craving external validation and feedback - the internal sense of achievement and satisfaction (self esteem) is disappearing
- You are going to be a leader - every student is going to be a leader - this has created a dependency and need for constant affirmation
- We are in the era of self esteem
- Facebook and Instagram posts uploaded because they need validation - the fear has become to put something out and not receive any feedback
- Schools have stopped giving negative feedback because students don't have the self esteem to handle criticism
- The language we use has changed - it is not called failure, it is called deferred success
- You are now awarded for just entering the race


2. The Change in the Climate of the Classroom 

- Technology will change how the functional aspects of the classroom operate
- Teach students how to learn using the technology and tools they have
- Turn your mobile phone ON - this is the most powerful tool students have, they have more information in their hands than countries had in their libraries 100 years ago
- The focus has become how do we change our system of education to meet the needs of every student
- Student focused learning, rather than teacher and system focused education
- Teachers are losing their power and control in the classroom



3. The Change in the Nature and Expectations of Parents

- Helicopter parents = always hovering nearby, making sure their child is safe
- Curling parents = Making sure things are safe, protected and smooth for their kids
- These parents are the ones who were the self raised, independent children - they want to raise their children with all the things they never had, they do the complete opposite (Pendulum effect)
- These parents want to give advice to the teacher
- They keep a ledger of merit awards and parts in school plays - they are keeping teachers in check
- In the last ten years parents have been the number one headache for teachers, this needs to be a trend that schools are prepared for
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These trends will become an issue over the next few years. How will you start preparing now?

Books to look at:

Grown up digital
Free range kids

Teacher Only Day: Session One

Shift Happens: The Changing Face of Education 

Michael McQueen

Session One

School in the 60:

-  An orderly affair
- Uniform and compliance was the name of the game
- Neat rows, silence, windows so high you couldn't see out
- Playground games - elastics, marbles, hopscotch, hula-hoops and yo-yos
- Men worked, women at home
- Family the ultimate goal


Nowadays:

- You can discipline a child, that child texts home and a parent calls and involves a lawyer
- Youth are making unrealistic demands of what they think they deserve - where did this come from?


What has happened to our youth culture? What is changing?

5 Significant shifts that have dramatically changed education:

1. The way society approaches the notion of truth

- Modernist mindset
- Is what we are taught right or wrong?
- How we determine if something is right, proper, ethical and true?
- Manners, ethics, decorum, social norms, politeness
- 'SHOULD'
- The generation coming through is being told by society that truth is relative
- How do you teach truth in lessons, rules, principles and values to a generation where truth is not absolute?


2. Perspectives of the Future

- How do you connect to a post-modern generation?
- The generation where everything is up for negotiation - they will discuss everything
- This generation do not see the future as linear, they see it as mosaic - with many paths and options
- Their goal is to leave their options open till the very last minute
- Prepare for the future, not plan for it. Plan is linear and prepare leaves the door open - this will engage students


3. Approaches to Communication 


- Students fear being disconnected and out of range (Social media)
- FOMO = Fear of missing out
- FONK = Fear of not knowing
- Initialisms is their language that has been accepted by dictionaries - OMG, BRB, U,
- This language is creeping into all areas of communication
- This generation believes that communication is not driven by form (spelling, punctuation, grammar), it is drive by function
- Students are sleep deprived, due to their unwillingness to switch off - Where are their devices?
- Today's students display 40% less empathy than the generation 20 years ago, this is due to the digital filter. They can not read body language, expression and tone of voice because everything is done via devices
- Students are not realizing the weight of their words


4. Assumptions about Respect

- The notion that respect is given based on age, title, experience
- This generation believes that respect needs to be earned
- Respect goes both ways, and as the educator you need to make the first step
- Build relationships!


5. The notions of  risk and danger

- Accidents happen, sometimes in life things go wrong
- We have moved from accidents happen to lawsuits happen
- We are hedging against risk and litigation
- We have to let kids play - but principals are under immense pressure to protect students
- This aversion to risk is having a massive impact on students
- We have a generation of kids who are bored, their playground equipment is just too safe!
- Pain, risk and failure have become public enemy number one, and yet we learn best through these
- Students avoid academic and social risk
- This generation don't know their boundaries because they have never been able to test them
- Kids who are allowed to take some risks are actually safer than those who aren't able to take any risks at all
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Two Point Perspective Art

Last week I took an art rotation with each half of my class during our technology time. We looked at one point perspective art of a basic room. The technical drawing and language that the children used sold me on attempting this type of art again and extending their pieces.

With group one student's looked a two point perspective art of a country house and with group two student's looked at two point perspective art of a city. I am pleased with the outcome of their drafts. They are still in draft phase of these pieces at this stage, they discussed how two point perspective is much harder than one. Some students chose to leave certain features out of their art due to difficulty or no room based on where they placed their finishing points. 

Things the students noticed for their final pieces:

- Rulers are a must!

- Don't press to hard because you need to rub some lines out 

- You use a lot of lines in these pieces as a guide for windows, doors etc..

- Where you put your vanishing points will affect the size and shape of certain features 

- There is a lot of maths in this type of art

- Student's believe these art pieces look best in pencil form (most didn't want to add colour or too much detail because they thought it would take away from or ruin the piece)

Two Point Perspective City

Student Work:

Two Point Perspective Cottage

Student Work:

One Point Perspective Art

One point perspective art was our focus for today's art session. Students have had opportunities to create a range of colourful and expressive pieces of art throughout the year. I wanted student's to attempt something a little more technical and structured.

We began the session by looking at a range of perspective art works and discussing their key features. This prompted a lot of discussion and we talked extensively about distance and relationships between various objects, the vanishing point and perspectives from a range of angles.

Student's found this activity challenging at first. They needed a ruler, rubber, pencil and blank piece of paper. The confusion came from the angled lines that came from the vanishing point. It took student's a while to grasp the concept that all angles come from and go to the vanishing point.

I was impressed with the amount of Mathematics language they were using when discussing their pieces. They spoke about parallel lines, vertical and horizontal lines, angles, shape, distance and scale.

We used the following video as a guide for our first piece. Student's followed the instructions from this video as their first draft and introduction to one point perspective. They will be designing their own rooms using the rules from today's session to show their understanding of one point perspective.
Students will be adding colour to their pieces and their own uniqueness with what the put outside the window, in the paintings and on the walls.

Examples of student work:

This work is unfinished and in draft form