Mindfulness in the classroom...

This is our very last blog challenge, and that is a bit of a bummer. I think that is why I've been avoiding it, not wholly on purpose though, tiredness and other assignments also took precedence. I hope this still counts though, think it miiight be a tad late now. But let me get to it: 

The challenge was to consider Foley (2014) and Wills (2015) and "meditate on the meaningful involvement of learners in your classroom". What I think they are getting at has something much like mindfulness. (And may I just say, the idea that contemplation on a next lesson may occur at my pillow and not necessarily at my computer - resonates with my soul). 

...so, there is something there, in that when you get students to mindfully engage in an activity there is an emotional shift, and I believe that this emotional shift might have something to do with why they might remember better, understand better, think more clearly and even better apply critical thinking.   

From here.

I think how we do things, how we allow our learners to do things, has a tremendous influence on what they take from your lesson, from your subject, from their learning experiences. I like the idea of making a mindful involvement an intrinsic part of class culture. So much so that even when there is a disturbance in the mindfulness, the learners, so used to being aware and mindful, will notice and things will basically run it's course naturally as Wills (2015) says. 

...A mindful artist...
From the interweb...

This is my favourite challenge: 

"...discover the mundane moments and tasks in your own classroom that are just waiting for your creativity to transform them into mindful learning opportunities." (Wills 2015) 

As an art teacher.... which mundane moments could I turn into mindful learning opportunities.... certainly cleaning the brushes, cleaning the working areas. I'm falling into the deep end here but we can visualise the brushes as babies we have to take care of, be gentle but clean thoroughly. Handle with love and care. Cleaning up after a practical section. That can also take some creativity into turning it into a mindful learning opportunity. 

I am drawn to the idea of learners cleaning their school, so even just in the art classroom, that might be the best South African teachers could maybe 'get away with'. But in Japan it is the way it is, the ethos, if you like, that learners, (ALL of them!), clean their classrooms and schools (including bathrooms and hallways and stairways and what have you...) every day, the last 20 minutes before going home. My kinda-sorta-one-day sister-in-law, from Japan, said that is how it was at their school as well. It is the common standard in Japanese schools. I think it is a beautiful way of teaching kids to respect what is theirs and think mindfully. It is their school, after all. So just like that, I would try find creative ways to involve learners in cleaning their art work stations, and tools. 

I think important would also be, as Wills says "fearless contemplation on what is and is not working in the classroom". This I think should involve the learners. There should be an always-ongoing discussion of sorts of what works for them and what does not. Together with the mindfulness culture in class, their would be an honesty culture, and an ongoing growing and evolving and thinking culture that we would constantly be making our lived practice in (and outside of) our art classroom.

How exactly, you ask?

From here.

I think this is something to go ponder about, frequently with note taking, (dream journal, anyone?), and I think I should blog about it some more in future when I think of some awesome ideas. I have a feeling though, that actual teaching will do wonders for my creativity to flow and seeing what really does and does not works in my classroom with my learners... 

Till later then, it's been fun...

From... the interweb...

Turning the teacher-student dynamic on its head...

Firstly, it's after 6 pm.... again. 

From here.

So after watching The Independant Project and reading Hamilton (2014) these are my thoughts...

This is talking about turning the teacher-student dynamic on its head. When reading things like this I keep thinking okay but where do we, as teachers, fit into this? If this is the future, do we still have a place? If the purpose of teaching is not about your subject matter but about encouraging and motivating kids in their own becoming of who they want to be, and who they are meant to be, we still have a place in this new world. But as they say today many teachers are limited by standards, to me that means curriculum driven, and that is simply not enough. IF we were to teach children in the way children learn, and the way the children of today are on iPads before they can even properly walk or talk, I’d say that yes, there is a potential for technology-mediated self-directed distance learning. NO doubt about it.

Just looking at the Independent Project (2011) as such a pure example of the burning desire, within our children, to learn that is in so many situations oppressed in the school systems with their rigidness and rules, and these kids went and turned it upside down and started an initiative because they wouldn’t let flawed school systems take away their joy of learning. And as teachers in the becoming it is our calling to awaken the joy in children again, how do we do that? Speak their language. Give them the tools of their generation. Give them the opportunity to create their own tools, ask them what their ideal digital pedagogies are, and let them teach us how they learn so we can provide them with what they need in their becoming. If this is not our purpose, I don’t know what is.

A component of this student-directed learning must be making; creative and imaginative repurposing and renewing of old tools, concepts, and methods, and invention of new tools, concepts, and methods. Driving this relentless progressivism is the question: what technologies don’t exist, but could?

- Hamilton (2014) -

I think that tech-mediated self-directed distance learning does not mean taking away classroom teaching completely, but I think it is a way to go beyond the curriculum and encourage students to engage with new content on their own turf. It would be a way to bring back the joy of learning and breed creativity on a whole new level, and a way of cultivating the minds of tomorrow in a dynamic ever-changing creative whirlpool of approaches. Approaches that won’t necessarily be up to us, as teachers, but to the students as our teachers. I say we should be what they need, not what the system says we should be. Go beyond the curriculum. Go beyond our turf to theirs. So that we would live in a world where kids were taught how they learn and you would see it in the world and in humanity, because awesomeness, awesomeness everywhere.... 

#SocialMediaIt

Good afternoon *cough*evening*cough*, my fellow digital pedagogues in training, all ye digital P's and digital Po's and also, of course, everyone else!! 

So this week we had to read Davis (2014) and Provenzano (2015) and translate all their words "into [magical] ideas for [our] own curriculum specialisations". The PGCE pace is picking up at exponential speeds, and technology, oh technology....I know how many of my fellow student colleagues may be feeling right now, it goes a little something like this: 

From here.

But lets just take a deep breath (or twenty), we can do this! I totally feel what Davis says about ignoring social media equates to us not living in the reality of today - basically stop pretending that you're in the 21st century. BUT it IS the 21st Century, Welcome One and Welcome All! It's 2016 and we are young and alive, we need to keep up with the digital times cause if we fall behind now, imagine us in 10 or 20 years.... It'll be THIS all over again:

From here.

Actually, I think some of us feel like this now already! But let’s think… How shall we use this sorcery to our learner's advantage? My main focus curriculum study choice subject is Art, and I immediately think Instagram, blog, twitter posted notes....

Instagram:

I #LOVE Instagram, I even have my own account, check it out at sanmarivanwykfineartist. I think it’s a great visual tool for art students. I love the idea of the scavenger hunt, I imagine if we did a certain theme like identifying the subject matter and style of a painting, I would do a daily or weekly challenge like #figurative, also using a hashtag to link our class together, and then they can be on the look-out at home, around school, around their community and they must post at least one example with the hashtags. This will also help them develop the identifying skills they need and I can see if they get something wrong where they are struggling with and I can address those aspects then in class or extra classes. This is a high order though, concerning the requirement of a smart phone and I realise it won’t always work out exactly like this in all schools. But in situations where there are no smart phones, I can supply children with a little booky, glue, scissors, pens and piles and piles of art magazines and give the same challenge in class. Hashtags included. We can call it our #PaperInstagram.

From here.

Tweets as posted notes: 

This could be valuable in learning all those technical art terms. We can have different kinds of pictures of artworks pasted all around the class and learners can write short tweet like descriptive terms and sentences and go stick it up around their chosen work. We can then walk around and discuss these terms and add new ones as we go along. This is an exercise that can be repeated throughout the year within many different themes to help learners get use to the new language they are learning in the subject.

Blogging:

I would love to use the tool we are using weekly in our Digital Pedagogy class, doing exactly THIS (I am writing a blog after reading articles, engaging with them and thinking further and then engaging with other students about their thoughts etc.). In an art context for learners who are new to the art world, this would be a great way to get them to engage with the work. Especially if it is not counted for how perfect their responses but if you can see that the wheels are turning in their heads and they are thinking about the work and trying to figure it out and connect dots. It is a great and valuable tool. But WAIT! NO need to throw out the paper with the bathwater in our new technological world!

From here.

Yet again, even if it is in a classroom with kids with no internet at home or computers, I can hand out short readings (related to a current study theme in class) or material about artworks, or art criticism, or even art magazines and tell them to pick an article and engage with it on a piece of paper. They then hand in all there papers and either I can shuffle them and hand them out and then on another piece of paper they can engage with the work they are reading from someone else. It can be a lesson in how to respectfully engage with someone else’s work, in how to conduct yourself in public, in how to be honest without being mean, most of all, how to critically think about a subject, and about someone else’s opinion on a subject, and on their own thoughts on a subject. 

In conclusion...

Which social media strategies and/or devices would I like to use one day and implement in my lessons in order to encourage and help learners to engage and also to make learning easier and make the work part of their life worlds?

From here.

I’ll stop here for now though, cause you know, 400 words has come and gone long ago. But so many more options, and thoughts to go think about this. You know, in-between our Intro to Educational Research group assignment, preparing a lesson plan (ek glaskas volgende week –WooHoo!), our Governance assignment….and picking my Mom up from the airport tonight! YAY!!!!!

Digital P - unlearn - play - rediscover

Good evening class, I am Juffrou Gibson and I would like to begin by saying that the more I read about Digital P (My abbreviation for Digital Pedagogy cause it sounds so rad and like a Vitamin you should take that will make you spontaneous and fun!) the more it sounds like the art therapy of education, I quote, form Jesse Stommel's article: "Digital Pedogagy is less about knowing and more a rampant process of unlearning, play, and rediscovery" [Decoding Digital Pedagogy, Pt.2: (Un)mapping The Terrain - by Jesse Stommel]. Whilst the other article by Sean M. Morris talks about Pedagogy concerning itself "with the instantaneous momentary vital exchange that takes place in order for learning to happen" [Decoding Digital Pedagogy, Pt.1: Beyond The LMS - by Sean Micheal Morris]. Think about this for a second.

So, Morris just threw another curve ball our way, one I feel Fyfe also touched upon, it says basically that simply using technology does NOT make us digital pedagogues (Just when I thought I got the hang of the word Pedagogy...). And there is a difference between just being a teacher and being a pedagogue. I mean, a pedagogue is a teacher, yes, but not all teachers are pedagogues. What is a pedagogue? Morris explained, when you are just a teacher, teaching will inevitably begin with authority and expertise. When you are a Pedagogue, teaching will begin with inquiry. Throughout the articles I highlighted a few terms that for me stood out in describing a pedagogue and pedagogy and digital pedagogy, these included:

• Playfulness
• Improvisation
• Collaborative
• Dynamic
• Responsive by nature 
• Participative
• Catalyst
• Inspires
• Nourishing
• Mindful
• Facilitates

And I think probably the one that encompasses all of it the best:

• Can't be pinned down in a stable definition

I think this means it is what you make of it, as long as you know that as the same time that it shouldn't necessarily be anything specific, it should be ever-changing, like this world, like the kids we will be teaching year after year. I think that is why Stommel says that "....expert digital pedagogues learn best by forgetting - through continuous encounters with what is novel, tentative, unmastered, and unresolved." Because if we are going to get use to one way of doing things and keep doing it that way we are not going to reach the kids of tomorrow. And we might think we are young and hip we can do this digital pedagogy thing, no problem! But think about it, what about in 20 year, heck what about in 10 years, or 5 years! Will you be able to forget and reinvent you pedagogy, improvise, be once again spontaneous? But you JUST learnt how to awesomely incorporate holograms into your teaching practice to engage learners now that is boring to the new generation and you need to change your game, cause the playing field keeps changing. We can't even imagine the awesome tools we will be able to use in a few years time, and that is actually exciting.

Speaking about tools, this also stood out to me: That the best tools to use in digital pedagogy is tools that inspire you to even use it in ways that the designer never even dreamed of. AND it is very important not to become obsessed slaves to our technology/tools/machines or whatever, but at the same time that we should not be worshiping them we can also not just ignore them all together. Balance, balance, balance. We need to also use our noggins, think critically about the tools we use and how we use them, this makes so much sense, I mean it is no use just using a tool cause it is a tool. Why are we using it? For THIS specific lesson? How will it engage the learners? How will it inspire them? We have to think, how is this technological element going to ENHANCE the experience of education for my learners? Is it going to change anything? What if I use THAT tool instead, what would the different impact be?  Oh and remember, tools do not necessarily have to be technology or digital.

To end of, just a few more thoughts. If we are to be true pedagogues, and digital pedagogues at that, we should be ALWAYS adaptable, ready to improvise and respond to a new environment, happy to experiment. No, the only thing about this life is that nothing ever stays the same. Nothing. Everything is constantly moving and evolving and growing and shifting and twisting about, so the only place to be comfortable is in the knowledge that you will experience some discomfort as you witness your surroundings change in front of you with no chance of stopping it, so adapt, grow, change, improvise, be spontaneous. This extract out of Morris' article really speaks to me "The digital pedagogue looks at the options, willing to improvise, respond to a new environment, to experiment. "Her practice is mindful of the landscape". And as Morris says, Digital P is so rad exactly for the reason that is is our reminder that the (always) new landscape of learning IS mysterious and therefore also, (always) worth exploring. Go for it!

I'm going to end of with the the visual image of Pedagogy that Stommel describes, and I urge you all to look for this visual images in the students in front of you (and in yourself!) when you do your Glaskas,  "...a teacher or learner puzzled, hands-at-the-ready, mouth-agape, pausing just as they're about to speak or take action. It looks like careful planning without attachment to or fetishizing of outcomes. It looks like failure. And wonder."

Okay, we are beginners at this but hey, Challenge Accepted.

My thoughts on Digital Pedagogy Unplugged, by Paul Fyfe.

Okay so for those who don’t know, I am doing my PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) with the aim of becoming the most awesomest art teacher. I can go on and on about how this decision came to existence and how I ended up on this path and how magical I think creative expression is and how I think all kids should have a space where they can express themselves and so on it is just unbelievably good for them (young and old!)(maybe in another post!) if you’ve read my blog before, or my bio, you know! But this post is for my subject Digital Pedagogy, we were tasked with reading THIS article and write a blog post on it. SO here goes (and expect more to come, as we are receiving one once a week!)

In Digital Pedagogy Unplugged, Fyfe argues for a ‘digital pedagogy’ on a whole new level and it really makes you think.

From here.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I completely agree with Fyfe that we will be (severely) limited if we keep “digital pedagogy synonymous with tools to utilize”, there is no going around the facts that there will not and cannot always be the technological tools available to every school and every child, at least in the foreseeable future, agreed? But, on the other hand, there is also this:

From here.

Yes, we can definitely not just ignore technology/social media/the existence of digital devices, either! SO what do we do? What are our roles as the next generation of teachers (Oh, yeah!). Not only is there a definite inequality in digital/technological resources in schools but our dearest Eskom ensures that we can NEVER ([fading gradually]…Never…never…) truly trust that our technology will actually be able to come through for us. So as teachers, we SHOULD be prepared and we SHOULD be equipped to practice digital pedagogy, unplugged. I love this concept.

In class last Thursday Mr. Knoetze demonstrated this concept (without us even fully grasping the concept yet), when he had us compose short messages on posted notes, AKA tweets, and stuck them up all over the walls or wherever, in a public space where anyone could read them. It got us active and buzzing and out of our seats and engaged in the learning process. Fyfe also touches on some examples, like the text mining and the ‘No-Reading Fridays’. What else can we do to practice a digital pedagogy without technology, and what does it mean? 

From here.

I understand it to some extent as the concept of using the same strategies or processes as you would with some technological devices, just, without those devices, to engage learners with a subject matter in a manner where they can touch base with it and perhaps in some way find it relatable and perhaps also more understandable. Especially if it is the start of a difficult or complex new concept it could be a good way to introduce it in an easier manner or kick-start a curiosity about it within the kids. I think this forms part of the idea of what Fyfe calls ‘edu-hacking’? I have only ever mostly heard of the word ‘hacking’ in a negative context. The idea of ‘hacking education’ is just brilliant.

I think we will be better teachers and better human beings, for that matter, if we work on acquiring the skills (current skills, future skills, always working on acquiring new skills) of ALWAYS preparing/being prepared for the expected unexpected. I also think that sometimes this might seem impossible, or unattainable. I also think we should keep trying. We might fail sometimes. (Life happens!) But we definitely need to keep thinking of new ways we can achieve this (sometimes seemingly unachievable) aspiration. Would it not be our duty as teachers? 

I really like the idea we were given in Curriculum Studies: Life Orientation (Psychology) of always having a little booky with you and jotting down whenever you get some inspiration for an awesome activity that will help your learners grasp the concepts you are trying to teach them in class. Now just like that maybe we could try keep a book of interesting, innovative and new ways we can be unplugged ‘digital humanists’. Always keep it on-hand so when inspiration hits, when you see, hear or think of something you can quickly make a note of it and explore your ideas. Maybe work out lesson plan ideas for using technology and digital devices and media (with digital pedagogy!) and alongside it an unplugged version (or two or three) (am I being too optimistic?)

From here.

Oh, oh, and and, let’s not forget you can have a COMPLETELY boring and unengaging class with technology and what Fyfe says about it being “irresponsible to teach with technology without a digital pedagogy” just makes it so clear you can have technology without actually having a pedagogy, so you aren’t even teaching really. (JUST reading from a PowerPoint, anybody?) And how true is it that if we pull the plug we can go back to basics of engaging learners in the act of learning? And blessed are we in an age of technology and strategies teachers to generations before us could only ever have dreamed of. The buzz about creativity is growing stronger and stronger and I think teachers of ALL subject fields will have to tap (nurture and grow) their own creative banks for ways to engage learners with a pedagogy that speaks to them in this age we live in today. Whilst always keeping in mind, tomorrow will, inevitably, be different.

From here.

What do you think?

Love and sparkles,

San-Marí

xOXo