Self-Directed Learning

What skills will I need?

At the start of the academic year I encouraged students to consider 21st century reality in terms of both the professional and the personal sphere. We outlined how life today differs from the reality of say 3 or 4 decades ago, and how in the coming decades it will likely continue to evolve or radicallyContinue reading “What skills will I need?”

The Flipped Classroom

A lot of my efforts have a common denominator: moving away from the teacher who tells, to the enabler who’s students are doing. That sounds prosaic I suppose, but generally as I plan lessons one of my guiding questions is: ‘what are the students doing for most of the lesson?’ If the answer involves somethingContinue reading “The Flipped Classroom”

Beyond Copy/Paste

Introduction One of my major concerns is helping my students improve at research: facile as it seems, they need to be able to not only find and copy/paste information: they need to be able to filter and apply information to synthesise their own work. I have tried to engage students with research work in variousContinue reading “Beyond Copy/Paste”

Computer Games

A teaching activity designed to give just-in-time knowledge can keep learning relevant to a problem being tackled and the sandbox in the early stages of learning can give students the confidence to experiment…and that is essentially the type of learning games provide. Hence, I like to introduce students to a topic via a game. OftenContinue reading “Computer Games”

Our Blog

Our blog runs in the background of our lessons and activities. It is very much the class notebook and has many functions: It is a very useful tool for mixed-ability learning as it allows one to make a variety of activities available to students, creating a more flexible lesson; It provides students with links relevantContinue reading “Our Blog”

Using Padlet

Introduction Some months ago, I decided to use a Padlet-based discussion for a Year 11 topic tackling the effects of computers on society. I expected this to be a topic on which all students had points to share and focussed on creating a discussion where all students had the possibility of sharing their points. PadletContinue reading “Using Padlet”

You made it!

One awesome thing about having internet-enabled devices at hand is that it is so easy (and affordable!) to implement a ‘take your own route to making it’ approach to assessment, allowing students to work their way towards correct answers without being penalised for their mistakes on the way. Of course the element of trial-and-error necessitatesContinue reading “You made it!”

Blog 4 Coding

Teaching coding to a mixed-ability group can be very challenging. However our blog allowed me increased flexibility as outlined here. Providing resources for self-learning Self-learning is not only a 21st century skill but a particularly key skill for any programming. This lesson structure allowed me to encourage self-learning in my students, started from the veryContinue reading “Blog 4 Coding”

Trivial Pursuit

In ‘A New Culture of Learning‘ the authors highlight how play is not only key to childhood but can be central to adults thriving in the twenty first century: and this is just one of a myriad arguments for a gamified approach to learning. A sense of continuity and purpose to students’ work is aContinue reading “Trivial Pursuit”