Oh, the Places You'll Go, When You Know What Will Flow...

"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go." 

- Dr. Seuss

In order to create an environment that encourages learners to participate, we need to be mindful of what makes them feel comfortable, interested and welcome to share their views and opinions. Building a good rapport with your learners will aid you in identifying when they are losing interest, why they might be feeling uncomfortable and what would make them hesitant to participate. If you are able to succeed in this, you are likely to gain your learner's trust and support, which will ultimately enhance your teaching and their learning experiences.

So how do you achieve this relationship of mutual understanding between you and your learners? Foley and Wills offer similar and yet very different methods of obtaining this goal. Foley suggests that you should always be available and accessible to your learners when they are struggling to understand certain concepts, This creates a space where your learners feel welcome to share their thoughts and ideas, because they know they will never be shut down. 

You should be motivating your learners to keep trying. 
Rather than saying:

"No, that's not right. Who has the correct answer?" 

Why not try:

"Interesting idea, why do you say that?"

It is possible that this will enable learners to think critically about the way they answer questions and still feel safe if their ideas are not 100% accurate. They will understand that if they get something wrong, you are there to guide them in the right direction, providing them with the necessary tools to move forward.

On the other hand, Wills encourages us to recognise when certain teaching methods are not working with a group of learners. When these moments happen (which they certainly will), you should not stress, get worked up and end up taking your frustrations out on your learners. Instead, go home, take a deep breath and think about how you could approach the situation differently next time.

Throughout our PGCE course so far, we have learnt that there are numerous different pedagogical tools and practices. All of these methods will assist us in times when we feel as though we may be "losing" our learners... But the key to success will be identifying which methods work for a certain group of learners and which methods will be a less effective. 

Should We Encourage Independent Learning?

“There are always going to be people that are nay sayers to stuff because it rocks the boat, it upsets the status quo. How do we know that you are actually doing something meaningful...” - The Independent Project

What makes an environment conducive to learning and what incites leaners to work hard, is finding/creating a space where they feel comfortable and fanning the flame of their developing passions and talents. The Independent Project was created by students for students inciting students to venture down the path they want to follow and lead them to the holy grail of learning. The project hit the nail on the head. Students are more likely to work hard for something they truly want and are passionate about as opposed to being forced into confined learning areas, where knowledge is jam packed into their minds, culminating in fading pits of imagination. When people find their niche, they are faced with an emporium of opportunity, which encourages them to strive for the best. This allows imagination and creativity to dance and flourish, climaxing with exceptional work that exceeds any and all expectations.

Technology has opened the doors and shone a light of possibility to enhance student-directed learning. Hamilton claims that "just in playfully experimenting with digital stuff, discoveries are happening, inquiry is happening, learning is happening. Knowledge is happening, and that knowledge cannot quickly or rightly be categorized as reading or art or science or any of the core subjects to which this knowledge is meant to supplement.” When learners are exposed to new and exciting technology, they funnel their interest into understanding how their new laptop, tablet, phone (or any other technological product) functions. If this interest is then carried through to gaining a better understanding of a topic that spikes their interest, according to Hamilton it can be considered learning... We just need to find a link that will tie this technological interest into developing the necessary skills for success in the future workplace.

If we can find a happy medium between old pedagogical methods and student-directed, technology-based learning, we will be on the right path to meeting the needs of an ever-changing world. If The Independent Project was able to provide a successful learning environment, where students were able to learn whatever interested them and come out with the skills to produce a decent quality project, then surely this is a sign that this is a successful method of education. I do, however, still believe it would be essential to have some form of teacher-figure in this educational environment. They provide a blanket of guidance, encouragement and leadership, where a simple nod of approval may instil a sense of confidence in a student’s ability to complete a task.

 

Why don't we socialize at school?!

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow." 

- John Dewey

In the hopes of keeping my primitive technological background under wraps, I will start by saying I matriculated before Facebook was in full swing. It was the time when MySpace was still the go-to social media platform and (needless to say) Twitter and Instgram were still unborn ideas in the minds of their creators. It is with these premises that I have always imagined school as a technologically challenged domain... But it has no reason to be! With technology and DigPed tools readily available on so many levels, we are able to integrate social media techniques into even the most technologically deprived school environments. I believe it is important to guide our learners and enable them to use networking platforms to their advantage.

From Day 1 of the PGCE course, we have been encouraged time and again to "clean-up" our Facebook and Twitter profiles, in order to create a more "hirable" persona for the profile-stalking job sharks. This could imply that we use a pseudonym for our social profiles or simply ensure that we keep our current profiles free from any undesirable content. Whatever the case may be, if it will aid our learners to excel and succeed in the technology-driven modern world, why shouldn't we encourage and therefore teach our learners to be techno-savvy (is this term even used anymore) from the get-go?!

Take it from someone whose friend experienced a real-life "catfish" situation. The techno-generation need to learn how to identify falsified personalities when they encounter them and how to protect themselves against them. With this in mind, I am all-in for teaching with social media if it means assuming the 'in loco parentis' role and improving the cyber-safety of our learners.

Let's address the "Social Media Myth"... As a generation Y teacher-in-training, you cannot deny that you browse your Instagram, Facebook or Twitter newsfeed at least once in a day filled with  lectures from dawn to dusk. How then can we expect the next generation to leave this at the metaphorical classroom door?! Because, let's face it, it's going to happen one way or another, whether we like it or not. Then, since it's going to happen anyway, why not benefit from it and use social media as part of your DigPed tools? And while Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat may not necessarily be the best tools, there are educational equivalents available to bridge the communication divide and build a connection between you and your students. This will hopefully provide learners with the essential tools required to stop and think before posting an impulsively overcritical comment or status on their preferred social media platform.

Provenzano and @coolcatteacher suggest numerous benefits for using social media in the classroom, but I personally loved the demonstration @kijiaoshou gave us. I think it will be highly advantageous for you to be able to test your students' knowledge by having them tweet answers to contextual questions using an allocated #hashtag. This will enable you to check their understanding of the subject matter. 

These are just a few examples of how social media could be effective in the classroom and we shouldn't hide from it purely because we were not taught in this manner... We should rather embrace change and teach our learners to to use these social media platforms in a careful and thought-out manner.