What is learning through play?
We are excited to be exploring this learning path for our students and will certainly keep you informed of how this progresses. Links to research and articles around Learning through play Play-based learning can set children up for success at school and beyond. Article from NZ Herald - Setting Up children is Child's play
I last visited California in 2013 to explore their educational setting to get a compass as to what technological trends were emerging and how these trends might impact what was happening in NZ. The visit in 2013 was hugely beneficial for our school. Our Leamington Learner concept significantly developed, and the 6 C’s of our technologically capable learner evolved as a direct result of what we learnt. In fact, a large number of infrastructure decisions and concepts about the use of technology came from the 2013 experience.
My latest trip to California I have no doubt will be as beneficial and influential on helping to shape and provide clarity about critical paths we are walking as a school. It was an incredible privilege to spend two weeks talking with very switched on school leaders and teachers, unpack their thinking and understand the influences that have shaped the decisions they have made about their school direction. To see first hand what errors they have made, the successes they have won, and speak with students about the impact these decisions have had on their learning has been invaluable. It has allowed me to separate educational window dressing from some compelling educational possibilities which has left me in a fog that has taken some time to clear and gain further clarity. These lessons will save us months of discussions, errors, deadends and has provided a spotlight on concepts we are starting to talk about as a country that will no doubt be sticky concepts (ideas that will stand the test of time and become more and more significant over time.) But why go to California?
So what has changed? The most significant thing I noticed as having gone through rapid change is America is quickly becoming a cashless society. I recall from several years ago everything being cash. Now, every vending machine has apple pay, google pay, Garmin pay, paywave etc. Many eating establishments now have tablets on the tables where you order what you want, when you want it, you then swipe your “pay” system and the food or beverage just arrives - there is no need to ever go to the counter. Taxis are non-existent with Uber and Lyft cars everywhere and ordered from an app that tells you how much your fair will cost before you confirm your journey. It even shows you in real time the car coming to your location. Electric cars are noticeably present with charging stations for cars occupied more times than not. So what has changed educationally? The overarching takeaway theme from 2013 was California was exploring ways to use technology to transfer a “paper-based textbook centred” education system to a digital textbook format. Of the schools we visited, a significantly new direction has emerged. The discussions from each of the schools we spent time in centred around the urgency to have an education system that;
The children still needed to know "stuff" to get a space in college, but the way of teaching children has started to change significantly. Two quotes from teachers stood out for me “I used to be the smartest person in the room. Now, with the technology the children have at home, they are the smartest person in the room. They can now learn most of the things I used to teach them without me. My role now is to help them ask really good questions and connect with smart people outside of our classroom.” “Don't try and predict what opportunities the children may be missing out on today, rather help them to learn the skills that means they don't have to worry about what tomorrow brings.” For some of the schools we visited, these conversations are still in the early phases, while others are well down this track and are receiving a lot of attention and visitors from all over America - some even globally. A big takeaway is that the juggernaut of American educational culture is being reexamined and reimagined. Many of the educational improvements we are exploring as a country and school - they are now actively developing and are bringing considerable financial resources and personnel to bear to bring about shifts with urgency. Based on their district schooling model, when a district starts exploring an issue they often represent 30 000 students across 20 - 30 schools from Primary to Secondary (the number of districts we visited alone would have represented over 100 000 American students.) Flexible seating, teachers working together to exploit their strengths, learning through play, maker spaces, not teaching children based on one grade level, children having choice about their learning and being able to talk about their learning, being skills based rather than content driven, communicating across a range of mediums, using technology as an enabler rather than thinking of it as a magical tool that will cause children to learn better and make good choices etc. are just some of the big concepts that were not there five years ago and will likely be significantly more developed in another 5 years. So what does this mean for our School? None of these concepts are new to our school. We have been exploring these pedagogies for different periods of time. However, now we have more clarity about what is likely to be sticky, what deadends we can avoid, what errors we can leapfrog, what opportunities we need to amplify etc. Many conversations with a wide number of people need to take place to unpack many of these ideas and breath life into them within Leamington so we do not "splatter" new ideas recklessly. Exciting and challenging times ahead - it's going to be an every interesting next few years! This documentary movie was made about one of the schools we visited. It has been shared with me to be viewed by members of our school community exclusively. In recent times there has been a lot said, and a lot claimed about the impact of mobile devices and the impact of screen time on children. And rightly so, screens and their impact on our society are still in their infancy. However, the discussion about the negative impact of new technology on children is not new. The previous generation of parents had the same concerns about TV, the generation before Rock and Roll. In fact, the discussions we are having today has a literature base indicating that similar discussions were taking place with the advent of the street lamp and also all children required to attend school in the 1800's.
It might surprise some people that when it comes to the impact of technology on children and their development, there is very little agreement among experts about if technology has a positive, neutral or negative impact. There are many pieces of research that point to correlational links between the use of technology and the positive, negative and neutral impact findings that follow. Unfortunately, in most instances, only the negative correlational links of the impact of technology are reported and capture our attention. However, there is a body of research literature that most experts agree on regarding the negative impacts of screens on young people. This literature base does not relate to the use of mobile devices directly, rather to the impact of TV. It is surprising that since studies conducted in the 80's about the impact of TV on young people, the vast body of research, including the more recent studies that include brain scans still study "passive screen time" impacts. It is widely agreed by experts in their field that passive screen time probably needs to be considered differently to interactive screen time. Passive Screen time is when children view a screen, like the TV, that requires no input from the viewer. Interactive Screen time requires the user to make decisions and cognitively respond to the stimulus on the screen. So what do most researchers agree on? If screen time causes reduced sleep, then that will have a negative impact. If not managed correctly, screens can affect sleeping patterns and the amount of sleep one has. There is a body of literature that shows a correlation between children having a TV in their room and reduced sleep, and a reduction in the amount of deep sleep. There is over 50 years of literature that documents the effects of sleep deprivation, including the negative impact on children. A major study in the 1980's indicated a strong correlation of screens in bedrooms or sitting close to a TV screen and reduced sleep. It is believed that when our eyes are close to screens, the light they emit and the amount of light our eyes then collect affects our internal body rhythm which causes us to think we should stay awake. Also, when what we are viewing on screens contains a lot of stimuli before sleeping, it also affects the amount of dopamine and cortisol in our system which again does not help sleep. Most experts agree that minimising the impact of screens before sleep will reduce any possible negative impact. This is not limited to screen use however, it includes anything that causes an increase in dopamine and cortisol. However, the dose is the poison. One-off events are not going to cause harm, rather ongoing occurrences do. Anything that causes a cumulative sleep reduction is a bad thing. Obesity When children are involved in prolonged sedentary activities two things happen. The first is children do not move as much which affects muscle and bone development as well as the number of calories burnt. The second is they tend to eat more than they normally would. This applies to any sedentary activity that is prolonged over a cumulative period. Change to reaction when exposed aggression - coming in my next post! Be cautious of any statement that includes "the research says..."
For those of us in the education profession we continually look to educational, phycological, medical and neuroscience research to guide and inform what we do within our school. With the availability of research allowing people to "self diagnose" through a google search there is no shortage of "the research says" claims! Pshycology tells us that only research that paints a negative picture, captures the most shares on Facebook, populates the first pages of a google search or causes people to talk with others, gains attention. Unfortunately any literature that gets the most "likes" quickly carries influence, no matter how accurate it may be. If others think something is a risk, then it must be a risk - right? Just like the 6 o clock news, the positive or inconclusive stories never make headlines because they do not capture or easily hold attention. This is a biological necessity that has helps us survive the dangers around us. As a species, those who did not pay enough attention to dangers around them did not survive. (You can only afford to make a mistake spotting the sabre tooth tiger once!) Coupled with this, if others tend to think something, we tend to also, as again, we relied on those around us to inform us of any dangers we might have missed. This predetermination to pay attention to dangers or sudden movements or unexpected sounds is essential even today and can be seen in babies from the earliest days. Driving a car for instance relies on the driver continually scanning for dangers, quickly moving over and disregarding the vast majority of things that pose no risk. Shopping at the supermarket relies on us searching for and focusing on those things we are after and disregarding the thousands of other products on the shelves. As a person who looks to research almost daily to inform our practice, it is important to be able to navigate "research claims" and "research evangelists" and ask certain questions before paying too much attention to any claims. What makes the whole "the research says" debate more difficult is that the vast majority of research that is considered valid, rather than popular or feed our predetermination to seek things that cause harm, will not appear on a google search. These research findings sit behind paid subscriptions to onlline journals, University libraries, paid online papers etc and are invisible to normal search engines. The most important words to look for in any research literature is "cause" vs "correlation" vs "indicates" vs "suggests." Researchers use the word "cause" differently to the rest of us. From a research lens, a causal effect means that A causes B without any shadow of doubt. Researchers use the word "cause" very carefully. Anything with a causal effect means that all the experts agree that A causes B. Its a claim of absolute certainty. Correlation by contrast means that there might be a link, in some cases, in some conditions, but there are many variables that are as yet unknown and their influence is unclear. Most of the research that we come across reveals correlational links that then relies on the researcher to infer what variables has caused the correlation. For instance, there is a correlational link between the amount of ice cream sold and crime rates. Does eating ice cream cause more crime? Or is it that during the summer months people tend to eat more ice cream, be outside more, be away from home and leave windows open? We like to say cause as it helps to simplify complex and hard to understand concepts that makes it easier for us to understand! The questions I find most helpful in helping to consider any research claims or findings are below. Hopefully these might help the next time anyone says "the research says" to help us be more equipped to make up our own mind about its validity.
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AuthorMike Malcolm - Principal of Leamington School Archives
August 2019
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