Moderating a Twitter Chat
This has been a super charged week of late nights, early mornings, head abuzz with ideas on #rethinkinghomework for the digital classroom, a non-stop desire to add #asiaED to the end of everything, major juggling, lots of engaging online professional dialogue and connecting as I have been moderating a chat on Twitter.
It has been an amazing full on learning experience. I do enjoy taking part in Teaching and Learning chats on Twitter as educators share so much good stuff and I just love learning. The highlight so far was definitely when we tackled the question about how best to integrate technology into the learning; a very fruitful discussion with teachers agreeing that the learning outcomes have to be at the core of any task, followed by differentiation and personalisation strategies with tech being used to support, challenge or extend the learning. Tech tools can be great for Fliiping a lesson and for AfL tasks; they offer students an opportunity to create their own learning in their own way; this learning can then be shared with a wider audience. We discussed how homework can be perceived in a negative manner by parents, students and teachers and that by allowing an element of choice and thus creating ownership of the task it is possible to move away from this negativity where the same homework task is assigned to all. Over the week we have looked at research in the field and I now believe that homewrok is vital for KS3, 4 and 5 students as they need to develop independent learning habits and more importantly for the learning to grow, students need to engage with it. Homework is set in KS2 but it needs to be more flexible and creative that allows for young children to interact with their surroundings and their family members.
Time is a key factor in homework - so a teacher needs to know how long a child will need to complete the task.
A good homework task has a good learning outcome at the core, the success criteria is clear and success rubrics have been shared and co-constructed with students; the task uses Bloom's Taxonomy to ensure that Higher Order Thinking Skills are targeted and then there is careful consideration of the SAMR and the TPACK framework to ensure that the tech tool is not just a shiny add on but something that is allowing students to really redefine their learning experience. As students start creating videos, podcasts, infographics, books, comics, journals, newspaper articles, blog posts etc it is vital that they also understand the qualities of these products and what is necessary to make them effective.
There was quite a discussion based on the word Homework itself as it is open to negativity and does not necessarily reflect what we do in the class; during lesson time students are engaged in learning tasks and we felt this needs to be reflected in what we ask them to do at home; so, these were some of the suggestions: Independent learning, Home Learning, Learning consolidation / extension / preparation / application / support, Flipped learning, Personalised learning, Invest in your learning, Learning MAP (mastery, autonomy and purpose) and my personal favourite Show whatcha know.
There are so many good chats going on every day on Twitter and I personally feel this is a great form of PD and personal professional growth. I hope to be able to moderate more chats in the future.
Now back to #asiaED and #rethinkinghomework