Teacher Education 2015

The beginning of semester looms and this is an exciting time in teacher education.

Despite the fact we are only about six weeks into the working year, I have taught in two teacher education programmes so far, and the third of my three online classes ‘went live’ in Moodle today. Alongside the teaching, I am pleased to have managed some research time, completing a substantial conference paper, wrapping up a journal issue, and participating in a couple of very productive meetings with colleagues about writing collaborations. It is shaping up to be a good year, and this is a good time to take stock and set goals. This post is about my priorities in a professional context, with a focus on teaching in particular. Thoughts about research can wait for another time.

I am in the midst of meeting the distance students from our MMP programme for the first time. This is a special time, and this morning I heard (and assessed) oral presentations from the brand new teacher education students, explaining what they see as the most important characteristics of the effective teacher they strive to become. With the invitation to link to life experiences and to self-knowledge and role models (as well as literature), this assignment was a very personalised challenge. The speeches were passionate, insightful and powerful, with a large helping of nerves. A good way to begin the course I think, as this expectation pushes new students to unfamiliar places by asking them to step up and articulate values and initial understandings about teaching. A tough ask on day three of one’s degree perhaps, but the career is full of tough challenges, and this one helps us to bond as a class community and to support each other through anxious times when learning is hard going.

The next step for the first year students is to start an eportfolio.

For this time around, we have expanded the number and range of entries, and will give teacher feedback on pairs of entries throughout semester, for formative purposes, while also incorporating peer feedback, prior to final submission. I am hopeful that the eportfolios will be established and maintained in a way that will support the students’ learning throughout their initial teacher education and beyond.

Alongside the eportfolio entries, we have the usual array of online discussion and in our third year class, we intend to extend the student leadership of online discussion so that students lead almost every discussion in the 7-week course. We have crafted assignments around discussion so that students will take turn selecting an article for critique, and leading their peers to unpack and debate the weekly theme. In the second half of the course, we are going to try an exercise entitled ‘Provocative Prompts’, inspired by McDonald et al’s protocols. In brief, the intention of this exercise is to engage with diverse perspectives, and students are asked to read widely and select quotes related to the weekly topic – For example, 'Teachers and professional ethics' looks set to be a relevant and thought provoking topic.

Students are asked to select a quote that is deliberately provocative – one they can imagine others either agreeing or disagreeing with. They enter discussion by posting the provocative prompt in its own thread, and their challenge is then to read and reflect on the quotes posted by group members.

That is, they make three further postings before the week ends:

1.   Agreement – post a response to a quotation that resonates with you. In your post, explain why you agree with the point made in the quotation. Justify your agreement. Provide evidence to support your case. Link to theory and to practice. Deadline: day 3. Title: ‘Agreement’.

2.   Disagreement – post a response to a quotation that irritates you. In your post, explain why you disagree with the point made in the quotation. Justify your stance. Provide evidence to support your disagreement and alternative position. Link to theory and to practice. Deadline: day 6. Title: ‘Disagreement’.

3.   New insights – On day 7, return to read and reflect upon the responses to your own quote, and to the quotes that resonated and irritated. Read all the responses from your peers. Make one final post in which you sum up in the ‘new insights’ thread in order to share any new ideas you have formed as a result of reading other perspectives on the quotes. You may link to further literature and practice at this point.

Criteria:

• Initial quotations are relevant to the weekly theme, and provocative in terms of inviting a range of viewpoints
• Quotations are correctly linked and referenced
• Dis/Agreement is illustrated clearly, with a high standard of reasoning and justification, supported by evidence
• The response demonstrates understanding of links between theory and practice
• New insights are perceptive, illustrate open-mindedness, and sum up ideas
• Postings are made by deadlines set – start, middle, day 6 and day 7
• Postings are within the word limit (quotes around 150 words, other posts 250 max)
• A high standard of written presentation, accurate spelling, punctuation, grammar, and paragraphing is evident.

In these ways, we are asking student teachers to lead and teach, and to take increasing responsibility for selecting content and peer mentoring. Importantly, we have established parameters and guidelines, and will be actively present to scaffold throughout the courses.

I intend to help students to structure their studies by continuing with weekly podcasts, including the fun and messy conversational podcasts with my colleague Bill. We chatted and blundered our way through our first Panopto recording for the year just yesterday, and I’ve put a few notes in Moodle to direct students to the link and to summarise the key content. Students in semester A, 2014, told us they enjoyed our casual yet informative weekly casts. I’ll also use Panopto to screencast instructions for the students who are using Moodle and MyPortfolio for the first time. Twitter will still be important, with class hashtags and regular synchronous tweetmeets this semester. POPLN will again be a feature of our communication technologies and lifelong learning option. I am hopeful that the students will find the revised assessments challenging, authentic, creative and a fair test of learning. I know I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with! It is sure to be varied and to contribute to my learning and enjoyment.

Have you documented some of your teaching and learning intentions for this coming semester?

Care to share these?

What I've been reading

I've been reading some texts that are quite old, in the scheme of published things. One of these is Putnam and Borko's (2000) What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? I was interested in finding out if these 'new views' had changed in the intervening 15 years. They discuss the idea of 'situated cognition' and its relationship to how people learn, and specifically, how teachers "themselves learn new ways of teaching" (p. 4). This, as Putnam and Borko point out, is relevant to inquire into if we are to think about initial teacher education as well as in-service professional development.

Of course they were writing in a context that did not yet have ubiquitous wifi or mobile devices you can put in your pocket and yet use as a computer. Good sense is good sense. How about this comment they cite from Pea (1993, p. 75): "Socially scaffolded and externally mediated, artifact-supported cognition is so predominant in out-of-school settings that its disavowal in the classroom is detrimental to the transfer of learning beyond the classroom". In classrooms with ubiquitous wifi and mobile devices, this 'disavowal' is much harder to sustain. In schools assuming a siege mentality of banning devices, this disavowal is not only strong but also disempowering for its inhabitants. Fewer and fewer of these exist, but in their place, should be practices that help learners become wise users of 'artifact-supported' learning.

Putnam and Borko then argue that:

The classroom is a powerful environment for shaping and constraining how practicing teachers think and act. Many of their patterns of thought and action have become automatic - resistant to reflection or change. 

They then argue that helping teachers break that chain is important if they are to see what they do through new lens. A Teaching as Inquiry process may help that, for it expects teachers to critically view what they do, seek documented evidence about this, and then ponder its significance and impact as a catalyst for future actions. Sometimes too, this means that someone outside the same context can help those teachers poke a stick at their own pedagogy to see it anew.

And when teachers within one school context participate in a learning community of sharing new materials, strategies and digital tools that support the kind of risk-taking necessary to investigate one's own practices, then the members of this community are able to "draw upon and incorporate each other's expertise to create rich conversations and new insights into teaching and learning". (p. 8).

I have the very great privilege to be working with teachers in a school where this is growing. These volunteers have decided they are willing to put their own practices up for scrutiny and to share those with peers. We are currently getting started. Soon, we'll be contributing to an appear.in meeting one evening where we'll discuss the reading I've provided as a GoogleDoc where they have comment rights only. They need to add their thoughts about the reading (about learning theories and digital technologies) as well as the strategy associated with the reading. This is a way of exploring what they might want to try with learners as they find their way with embedding digital technologies into everyday pedagogical practice, regardless of subject.  I can't wait to see what they think, and if Putnam and Borko's fifteen-year-old thinking is as useful as I think it still is.

You never know, my group of teachers might be keen on collaborating on a blog post sometime this year.

IJCEE, Social Justice and eLearning

I am an Associate Editor for the fairly new International Journal of Cyber Ethics in Education and recently put my first guest edited issue to bed, so to speak.

The special issue on Social Justice in eLearning has been placed into the publication process. The call for papers asked authors to consider human concerns arising from the use of ICT in education. Priority has been given to submissions that highlight ethical dilemmas relating to the socially just use of learning technologies, with implications for improved practice and pedagogies.

Social justice is a commitment to equality and fairness alongside recognition that human rights are not in reality shared by all of society due to persistence of power differentials. Marginalization, oppression and discrimination are ongoing factors in the lived experience of some people and groups. Not everyone has a voice or equitable access to educational opportunities. 

• In what ways can elearning exacerbate or effectively address pre-existing inequities?
• What new human concerns arise from the use of ICT in education?
• How can we act to ensure that elearning is a solution to social injustice?

I am grateful to the authors who responded, in some cases after chatting with or hearing me present my own research at conferences like Ascilite (or after I attended their presentations and practically begged them to write up and submit their excellent work).

I am similarly grateful to the reviewers, without whom the process would have stalled completely. Peer review is an essential core to our academic work, and the means of quality assurance and critical appraisal that is precious to the academy. Reviewers from the universities of Waikato, Otago, Massey and overseas institutions gave freely of their time and insight to enhance the quality of work in the special issue. This was a tremendous effort and highly valued.

My first attempt at editing a special issue of a journal was much harder than I anticipated. Challenges included:

• The paperwork required to address publishers’ requirements

• Enticing authors to write and submit work

• Juggling time pressures: Everyone is too busy and deadlines are always too tight

• Record keeping was a tough ask due to the need to keep track of multiple versions of articles, reviews, blind copies and so on. Usually, being systematic is not a problem for me but I found it a challenge in this instance – I have multiple files of articles, reviews, blind versions, second and third revised copies, copyright agreements, bios, checklists and so on. Next time around, I will be very systematic about record keeping.

The low points were time pressures and doubt over whether the issue would eventually come together.

The easiest and most fun part was coming up with the concept for the special issue.

The highlights occurred each time I read a contribution from an author, and when the edition finally came together.

I have put a lot of myself into this issue as I proposed the theme, solicited the papers and the reviews, reviewed and edited each paper personally and wrote the substantial preface and a book review to round off the issue.

Recently I was asked by another journal editor in chief to edit a special issue for an elearning publication, and I suppressed an almost-hysterical giggle as I politely declined (for now). No, I won’t rush back into this immediately. But, given time, like the pains of childbirth and doctoral thesis, this too will fade. And as with the former, I have learned a lot on the way through.

In the meantime, I look forward to welcoming, along with our whanau of authors, reviewers, the editor in chief and publisher, the upcoming special issue on Social Justice in eLearning in the International Journal of Cyber Ethics in Education.

One of my goals is that this special issue will prompt discussion and further contributions, in relation to subjects like:

• Online teaching as a caring and ethical practice
• Equitable access to elearning opportunities, and inclusive design and practices
• The realm of technoethics: Humanity, technology, moral responsibility and cyberactivism

I encourage others to undertake this challenge. The IJCEE is now calling for articles and proposals for special issues. I hope others will take the plunge and embark on the opportunity to construct a special issue in this vital space. You can be assured that the support from the editor in chief and publisher will be forthcoming, and that the journey will be a rewarding one.

Thinking about teaching and learning

I've been reading Claire Amos's most recent blog post about doing something different this year. It got me thinking about a few things about how risky it feels to try new stuff.

We like certainty, don't you think? As educators, it's good to feel in control and knowing what we're doing. I can truly feel for initial teacher education students, for they don't have any of that certainty about pedagogical practice - they are starting at zero in that regard. They are in the scariest place, for they don't know what they don't know, and often don't know that they don't know. I'm not suggesting they know nothing - for they know an awful lot - about their subject/field passion (which is why, I'm guessing, they want to teach, particularly in secondary schools - to tell others). What they tend to be unaware of, is that knowing a subject isn't the same as know about and understanding pedagogical design, and how to leverage a range of strategies in the service of developing students' knowledge.

One thing I say each year to the new cohort, is that the question you ask when you sit yourself down to plan any learning, is crucial.   If your question is "what am I going to teach today?" then your focus is likely to be on yourself as the teacher and what you do. If your question is something like "What do my students need to learn today?" then that is likely to engage quite different pedagogical thinking. You are more likely to take into account what you know are sticking points in your students' learning, and think deeply about how to try something else to change what you had observed from previous experiences with learners. And the 'today' bit has to be seen in your wider context of the skills and abilities and concepts you want your students to be capable of by the time the year ends.

An orientation centred on what your learners NEED, is I hope, a much more profound way of thinking about learning and teaching. It implies that you know what students have trouble with, what needs building, altering, or starting in terms of skills, knowledge, conceptual thinking and what needs more practise. For example, if your classes have been notorious in their reluctance to read or write stuff, do you avoid those difficulties, or see them as necessary skills of and for learning? Do you re-interpret difficult text so they don't have to, or spend time on strategies that help learners overcome that reluctance and make sense of difficult texts? Do you find ways of engaging them in writing and reading anyway (perhaps using digital technologies instead of paper and pen)? When students experience learning success, they consider that to be 'fun'. They feel pride. So should you when you know you have done the right kind of pedagogical facilitation. Your students will be keen to repeat learning success.

That means educators must continually strive to try out different approaches with different resources, in order to come at difficult ideas/concepts in lots of different ways so that over time, students 'get it'. We strive for those 'ah ha' moments for our learners - these sustain our drive as educators; we need  lots of these moments.

The down side, is that we too must continually experiment with what goes on in our classrooms. We too have to feel the fear and do it anyway, but by doing something out of our comfort zone, we must be alert to what it might teach us. We must use the Teaching as Inquiry process to document what went on and what our students learned and experienced. This documentation means we can reflect on it and make meaning about what we should strive for next.

We can do this within individual lessons, with specific classes - it doesn't mean we do it every day with every class - we would drown under the weight of it. Pick the class, the topic, the resource or tool or strategy you want to do differently, and only concentrate on that one thing to gather data about. You might try, for example, one digital technology at a time, but with different classes. The learning purpose might be different or similar in purpose, but either way, you will get to understand possible effects on learners' engagement and consequent outcomes of their learning across specific classes. Over time, these single interventions build a body of knowledge about your practice that enriches both this practice and pedagogical content knowledge. This makes it far easier for you to assert your expertise to others because you have evidence beyond an anecdote to go with your knowledge.

A key mission for every educator - and I'm referring here to Claire Amos's clarion call -  should be something like: what will I do differently this year, how will I predict it will help my students learn, and why should I do it? These can then feed into your "What do my students need to learn today?" question and your longer-term learning goals for your class.

Summer Reading & Intellectual Character

At a recent session for our Teaching Advocacy Network (TAN), tertiary colleagues were invited to select and review a text about teaching that resonated with them. Over wine and cheese, a few of us got together late last year to talk teaching and recommend good reads on teaching issues.  A reference list of recommendations follows this piece.

As we talked, common themes related to what we think about when we approach our teaching: How we reflect, big questions and provocations around philosophy and very human concerns about purpose, values, beliefs, goals, soul and identity. The digital made an appearance with digital literacy and protocols for online learning. Dispositions like curiosity and wonder were centre stage, along with creativity and critical thinking.

I chose to follow up a few of the texts recommended by my learned colleagues, and thought I might blog briefly in relation to each, starting with Ritchhart (2002). 

Ron Ritchhart tackles the notion of ‘Intellectual character: What it is, why it matters, and how to get it’. A colleague of Howard Gardner’s from the Harvard Graduate School of Education & Project Zero, Ritchhart wrote this text more than a decade ago (2002), yet the insights are pertinent still as educators and students continue to wrestle with the tensions between deep and surface learning, personalized learning and test scores, cultivating curiosity for lifelong learning and acquiring skills and knowledge.

Ritchhart writes about productive patterns of thinking, dispositions and habits of mind, including curiosity, skepticism and open-mindedness. Importantly, he queries the messages that teachers send about the types of thinking that are valued and expected. For Ritchhart, education is not about compliance and outcomes. Rather, the aim is to generate a culture of thinking. In this vein, I was particularly drawn to chapter 5 of the text, looking at ‘Thinking Routines: Creating the spaces and structures for thinking’.

As someone who values structure and routine, but often as a foundation from which to branch out flexibly, I was intrigued to learn more about Ritchhart’s ideas on thinking routines, and to consider whether and how these might inform my own thinking and influence on students’ thinking. I have a hunch that routines are a bit like habits, and that these formations, along with the other structures and spaces we build, can be enabling or disabling. After all, we can usually recognise a bad habit when we see one, or work to replace our bad habits with good ones. It is possible to become locked into unproductive ways of thinking and behaving, just as it is possible to learn (unlearn and relearn) new and more positive approaches to learning and life. With these thoughts in mind, I settled in for a closer read of chapter 5.

Ritchhart  quickly modified my assumption that habits and routines are similar, by asserting that habits emerge over time through preference and familiarity, whereas routines are more explicit, deliberate and goal-driven. The way routines are conceptualized in this text is quite specific and associated with particular forms, functions, and criteria. In a nutshell, routines are instrumental and simplified to just a few steps for ease of recall, teaching/learning, application and repetition. Despite the simplicity however, the power of thinking routines is not to be underestimated.

A key idea here is that thinking routines are used to promote discussion and exploration of ideas, to probe for evidence, to expose reasoning, and to enable evaluation. The thinking routines discussed in the chapter include the use of journals as a means of documenting thinking so as to free up mental space, to promote connections and elaboration of ideas.

Two parts of this chapter resonated with me:

1.  How being told the answers, or lectured on content, detracts from thinking and

     “affords students little opportunity to develop their skills in thinking. Furthermore, when this routine dominates the life of a classroom, students’ inclination to think is not only neglected but also suppressed. When all one needs to do is to wait for the teacher to deliver the goods, thinking seems to have little payoff” (p.107).

2.  This is about how students come to know, and is followed by a good example of the use of writing as a routine for coming to know: where learners write before and after reading literature. Pre-writing enables formulation of questions and wonderings. Follow-up writing reflects on developing understanding. In each case, writing involves organization of thoughts and preparation for discussion. In contrast to ‘teaching as telling’, the thinking routine and use of class discussion conveys the idea that “in this class questions aren’t so much answered as they are investigated” (p.108).

Overall, Ritchhart’s chapter on thinking routines makes a case for the enculturation of a disposition to think, and suggests ways in which teachers can promote a thinking space through questioning, discussion, exploration of ideas, evidence, reasoning, and cognitively active learning, in contrast to waiting for the teacher to deliver.

The takeaway message here is to ask ourselves: 'how are we promoting thinking?'

I recommend Ritchhart’s book to teachers in all sectors.  I’m grateful to my colleague, Bill Ussher, for bringing it to the TAN summer reading group. I hope Bill and others will respond with their thoughts and with further text recommendations.

TAN Summer Reading List follows. Have you read any of these? Which should I tackle next?

Artzt, A. F., & Armour-Thomas, E. (1999). A cognitive model for examining teachers' instructional practice in mathematics: A guide for facilitating teacher reflection. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 40(3), 211-235. [recommended by Brenda Bicknell]

Artzt, A. F., Armour-Thomas, E., & Curcio, F. R. (2007). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher: A guide for observations and self-assessment. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [recommended by Brenda Bicknell]

Claxton, G., & Carr, M. (2004). A framework for teaching learning: the dynamics of dispositions. Early Years, 24(1), pp. 87-97. [recommended by Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips]

Dahlberg, G & Moss, P. (2005) Ethics and politics in Early childhood education. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Farmer. [recommended by Simon Archard]

Doyle, C., & Hoben, J. (2011). No room for wonder. In J.L. Kincheloe and R. Hewitt (eds.), Regenerating  the philosophy  of education: what happened to soul? (pp. 115-127). New York: Peter Lang. [recommended by Pip Hunter]

Gilster, P. (1998). Digital Literacy. New York, NY: Wiley. [recommended by Tracey Morgan]

Lang, J. M. (2013). Cheating lessons: Learning from academic dishonesty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [recommended by Mel Chivers]

McDonald, J.P., Mohr, N., Dicter, A., & McDonald, E.C. (2013). The power of protocols: An eductor’s guide to better practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. [recommended by Dianne Forbes]

McDonald, J.P., Zydney, J.M., Dichter, A., & McDonald, E.C. (2012). Going online with protocols: New tools for teaching and learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.[recommended by Dianne Forbes]

Pink, D. (2005). A whole new mind - moving from the information age to the conceptual age. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. [recommended  by Maria Persson]

Ritchhart, R. (2002). Intellectual character: What it is, Why it matters and How to get it. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass. [recommended by Bill Ussher]

I've been thinking about...

It's a new year, and the sun is shining. For many people, this is unremarkable.

For those of us living in this long, thin, cloudy and shaky set of islands at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean (Aotearoa/New Zealand), the weather is a frequent topic of conversation. I remark on this because even discussing the weather (or not) is a cultural practice. During last year, we had two guests staying with us (at separate times, from Thailand and China). Both of them commented on how changeable the weather was from day to day, and even during a day (sometimes four seasons in one day). To them, this was a strange experience. In Thailand, the weather is hot: hot and sunny, or hot and rainy. There is little to talk about - there's a rainy/monsoon season and then there's the rest of the time. In Beijing where our guest was from, the weather is similar - hot, or hot and wet.

Our experiences thus cloud how we understand our known world - sorry about the weather pun. I introduce this week's post with this because it directly links to a conversation before class with a few Masters of Teaching and Learning students as we discussed learning mathematics. One said that she loved the way you could find patterns in maths - that once she knew this was possible, it opened up an exciting world for her. Another observed that the way the subject was now taught in primary schools was light-years away from her own experiences. Together we talked about how these examples identified different ways of coming to the learning. I commented that it was a pity my experience of learning mathematics at secondary school was so alienating. I couldn't remember my primary school mathematics learning - I guess it was too long ago last century!

At secondary school, mathematics was an almost complete mystery to me. As a words person, I kept getting hung up on them. I could never understand why I would ever need to know how long it took men to dig a hole, and I certainly never understood how you could turn people into numbers and find an answer to such a question. And I always wanted to know what the words meant in trigonometry and geometry: how did they get there? Why these words and not others? These questions were meaningful to me. However, I never asked them - instinctively, I knew they would never be answered because this class was about numbers, not words, and, because I was in one of the 'clever' classes, I was already supposed to know. Words were never addressed in mathematics, except to name things.

These are all an introduction to my wondering: In a digitally 'on' world, in what ways do secondary school mathematics teachers regularly explore the words of mathematics to help introduce concepts as a means of better connecting with learners whose orientation and world experience is not numbers-based, but words or even images-based? Which mathematics teachers think about the words of mathematics and focus on helping kids understand them? How do these teachers go about this?

Take this pattern from Maori as an example, taken from THIS site:

Other examples could easily be accessible from Islam and the Pacific Island countries. For example, I used Google to find 'mathematical patterns+Islam'  images, and easily found THIS site. Changing it to Pacific Islands and click on an image took me HERE to an exploration of Lapita patterns. Getting into mathematics from real world applications would more likely have hooked me into how the numbers worked as patterns. This may be a fascinating entree to the mathematical world and a great problem-solving task. What do mathematics teacher do to use digital tools (beyond computational tools) in the service of mathematics?

This brings me back to the beginning of this post. In what ways could all teachers, regardless of subject, context or education sector, better use digital means to use culture, prior knowledge and experience to bring learners closer to the kinds of conceptual understanding that matters to those passionate about their subject?

I'm looking forward to your thoughts.

2014: Retrospective

This blog started six months ago, arising from a staffroom conversation where we decided we would establish a blog. Why? To write about matters in education that matter to us. To write critically, creatively, systematically and intuitively, and in my case – just to write. Blogging is my attempt to increase fluency and the ease with which I put words on a page in the hope that this will translate into confident and increasingly prolific writing for publication.

From these beginnings, we have attempted to write weekly posts, alternating responsibility between us. This approach is intended to help us to sustain our blogging commitment, while making it more manageable rather than a burden among the list of other chores compelling projects. A blogging partnership also enables us to review each other’s posts and to tackle different angles on educational issues.

For the most part, our first six months has been successful – at least if success is to be judged by the achievement of limited and modest goals like:

•  posting regularly and sustaining momentum
• writing to reflect on matters of education importance
•  experiencing a degree of satisfaction and enjoyment

In terms of audience, we sense that there are a few people reading our blog. Possibly tweeting the links to new posts helps with this. A number of supportive and encouraging colleagues have commented on posts, sometimes here online but also sometimes at the lunch table. We attracted a mention during connected educators month (Oct, 2014), and a couple of international citations from interested colleagues. A few of our students have read our blog, which is wonderful and we might dare to hope that some will do so willingly rather than out of a feeling of duty. In any case, we appreciate the interest shown.

As 2015 dawns it is time for us to look at where we have come from, to take stock of our emerging identity as bloggers and to look ahead to our future focus.

Revisiting the blog posts from our first six months, I can identify a few salient themes that have preoccupied our attention and kept us writing.

Among these,

1.     Practical approaches to online teaching: assessment, formative feedback, eportfolios, social media in tertiary education (Becoming a Connected Educator; Connected Educators, Connected Students). I have discussed a few of my approaches to teaching online, and in particular, some of the experimentation I carried out last year. I am interested in ideas for moving my teaching forward and for enhancing student learning, particularly in online classes.

2.     Response to media coverage (Schools policing uniforms and hair lengths;  Beyond the Bandwagon)  and to various reports (e.g., Digital technologies in NZ Schools) and guidelines related to digital technologies and education: critique, questioning assumptions, seeking evidence, digging beneath the surface, debunking myths such as the emphasis on devices, drill and low-level skills, and the digital native/immigrant dichotomy. These are the kinds of posts that are Noeline’s speciality as she reads and reviews with a critical eye for rhetoric and unsupported hype.

3.     Problematizing discourses: education vs training
 

4.     In relation to learning, what matters? Thinking, inquiry learning, digital literacy, and higher-order thinking involving a range of technologies and sharing with authentic audiences; depth, discernment, ethics and creativity. 

5.     Human rights and social justice - power struggles, control, regulation, resistance, inclusion.  
In whose interest?  

6.     Open access – TEC-Variety, Networking, Digital Smarts
 

7.     Student perspectives: agency, impact - Schools policing uniforms and hair lengths; Connected Educators, Connected Students; Continuance theory
 

8.     Implications for teachers - active professional learning, teaching as inquiry

While our thinking may have moved on, we continue to welcome responses to any of our posts. Let us know that you are reading, how you might apply some of our ideas, or how your own thinking differs.

As we enter 2015, we will continue to respond to media and government reports, and to relate practice and research. We’ll also keep you up-to-date with the progress of our Digital Smarts work. I am keen to share some summer reading, my ongoing adventures with teaching and social media, and my own learning along the way. 2015 is shaping up as another good year of conferences and professional learning events, starting with WCELFest in February, where I intend to talk about peer review of online teaching, and will certainly craft a blog post in association with this.

Happy new year to all, and please let us know that you are reading!