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My mind bubbles when I think about all the potential inquiries and tangents that I could explore due to my Mindlab journey. An issue in my practice is often I look for the new and exciting and embrace it without fully understanding what it is. The idea of failing fast is not always the best practice for the classroom. I really enjoy talking about changes in my practice with others and me and colleagues are in a constant cycle of reflection.
Two inquiries that I am thinking about looking at are:
“How can Agile Methodology be applied to the classroom to effectively increase students self-management?”
Or
“How can gamification be effectively used to increase skill mastery in Mathematics?”
These topics may be helpful for my community of practice (COP). #Bafflegitimize is a cross-curricular professional learning group that I belong to in my school. Our domain of interest is increasing student engagement in the classroom. We have regular meetups in a work setting, informally and digitally. When we meet we spend time talking about what we notice in our classroom common problems we have experienced with our learners and what we new strategies we have tried. It can be difficult to meet due to some members being part-time and the busy nature of our work but we are a tight and non-judgemental team with the best in mind for our learners.
I am often viewed as the one who seems to be trying out something new and the group would label me as “future-focused”. I do not know if the community of practice would be so receptive to these inquiries. Due to the changing nature of our workplace words like “agile” and “gamified” can often be seen as fad like. Like everything else, this too will pass. We have used Kahoot, Quizlet and other learning games but they have their limitations and students can quickly tune out. Learning sometimes has to have the necessary academic rigour is also a critique that has been levelled at these concepts. I also know that my COP is willing to attempt the new and would love to see how they could possibly develop the practice in their classroom. Being a cross-curricular group will it work in subjects like Dance, Spanish, ESOL, PE and Economics?
It actually surprised me when I started looking at the idea of the Agile classroom that there is so much research out there. The beautifully entitled paper at referenced at the bottom talks about the friction between cyclical and transformative change and this echoes deep within my COP. We struggle to let go of old systems and feel there is a value in them. I think another important thing for my COP to understand is that the Agile methodology is not about technology but it has humans at the core of its method. Imagine how much improvement we could make within our weekly retrospectives both as a team and our students.
As for gamification, we could see more of a need for this in mastering Maths skills. It is very interesting to read about the use and success of the Math Land project on students with Emotional and Behavioural issues. Though from the research it does seem to lend itself to skill mastery well would it result in the deep learning we may require from our students?
So I guess it is time to think about which pathway I will venture down and how many of #bafflegitimize will travel with me. Personally, I am very excited by this journey into the unknown and know where ever I am heading student engagement is the aim.
References
https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/api/publications/document?id=2b0d6ac4-e97c-6578-b2f8-ff0000a7ddb6
Explorations into becoming new, radical, and quite possibly dangerously progressive within an Aotearoa New Zealand context
Dunham, Nicola; Owen, Hazel; Heta-Lensen, Yo
https://medium.com/laboratoria/the-agile-classroom-embracing-an-agile-mindset-in-education-ae0f19e801f3
https://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-schools-education
Bozarth, J. (2017). Nuts and Bolts: Communities of Practice. Retrieved from https://www.learningsolutionsmag.co m/articles/2400/nuts-and-bolts-communities-of-practice
Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A Step-by-Step Guide for Designing & Cultivating. Retrieved from https://net.educa use.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0531.pd...
Cavage, C. (2016). Utilizing an Online COP: Family, Community, School. Retrieved from http://blog.tesol.org/utilizing-an-online-cop-family-community-school/
Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.