Key Competencies

30th January 2009Tony Ryan

Key Competencie

s

In this session

Clarifications and strategies for the

Key Competencies

Essential questions for you• Thinking: How will you advance your thinking

and learning this year?• Using language, symbols and texts: What

further texts / symbols / language (especially online) will you explore?

• Managing Self: How will you maintain inspiration for your work?

• Relating to others: How will you enhance your capacity to engage in professional dialogue?

• Participating and contributing: What will be your personal contribution to local and global causes?

Essential Questions for the Key Competencies

• Thinking: Is there evidence of intellectual depth in every learning experience?

• Using language, symbols and texts: Are students making meaning and application of quality language, symbols and texts?

• Managing Self: Is student attitude and behaviour self-regulatory?

• Relating to others: Is the learning characterised by an atmosphere of mutual respect and support amongst everyone present?

• Participating and contributing: Is there a focus on identifying and solving real-world problems?

Managing Self

How will you maintain

inspiration for your work?

• Don’t get worked up about little things – stress releases glucocorticoids, which can kill cells in the hippocampus• You need to use energy to create

energy• Are you fitter and healthier than most

people you know who are your age?

Energy for work and life

Inspired people are prepared to let GO and deeply commit to new

directions in their learning!!

• It’s not hard work that tires us out.

• It’s a negative attitude that tires us out.

• People make attitude choices in their lives:–Energy creators–Energy neutrals–Energy consumers

(Brighouse and Woods; cited in Fullan, 2005)

Watch the attitude

•Have a negative view of the world•Resent change and practice blocking

strategies•Use other people’s time excessively•Don’t feel good about themselves•Be able and unwilling to critically

examine their teaching practice•Appear not to want to improve on

their best

Energy consumers

•Competent sound practitioners•Willing to address the task•Good at ‘maintenance’•Sometimes uncomfortable

accepting examination of their practice by others

•Capable of improving on their previous best

Energy neutrals

•Are enthusiastic and always positive•Use critical thinking, creativity and

imagination•Stimulate and spark others•Practise leadership at all levels•Are able and willing to scrutinise their

practice•Wish to improve on their previous best

Energy Creators

A. Choose one aspect of your life (physical / social / financial / professional / spiritual)B. Respond to these questions:1. What do you need to achieve?2. What’s happening right now?3. What could you put into action?4. What will you put into action?5. What will be the process for implementation?6. How will you keep this going??

Adapted from ‘The Leadership Coaching Guide’

Finding motivation through coaching

•Start a lesson or unit well. The 1st 90 secs will often make or break it.

•Have a very specific wrap-up that consolidates the learning

•Conduct consistent inventories of student interests / skillsets / knowledge; and plan with that info in mind

•Get them on to a success spiral

Motivation for students

Why get motivated by the Key Competencies??!

•Critical question: What competencies will our students need in 2015?

•Answer (in part): The Key Competencies

•In our teaching, we must focus on:•1. The big picture (the Key

Competencies)•2. The parts (delivery of instruction

through the Learning Areas)

The Changing Face of Learning Delivery??

For You•Significant ongoing professional learning and

dialogue•Co-development of vibrant learning

communities•Understanding what effective pedagogy looks

like. Q. How do today’s students best learn? • Impetus for change arising from poor student

engagement •Building of quality relationships with students•Valuing of your professional expertise

For The StudentsOptions can include:•Individualised learning programs•Single advisory teacher for entire schooling career•Students placed in cohorts (of 60 or more) with small teams of teachers•Interdisciplinary approaches that focus on the Key Competencies•Strong emphasis upon meaningful inquiry-based assessment tasks•Deep integration of ICT into everyday learning

1. Conduct consistent research (inside and outside your school) on the KCs2. Develop a comprehensive criteria standards sheet for each of the KCs, and code your teaching practice 3. Develop a range of quality teaching strategies, and build them into daily lessons 4. Develop inquiry-based units that best apply the KCs

Key Competencies into everyday practice?

Some practical ideas for everyday

teaching •Focus on one KC / wk. Do one coding in a peer discussion during that week

•Develop some unit planning proforma that highlight the Key Competencies

•From the Strategies matrix, include the strategies in unit plans and daily lesson plans (use 2 coloured pens; one for your normal content planning; the 2nd for the strategies)

If you’re really keen…• Code your own lessons (video your

teaching); ask others to code yours; and develop a folio of this coding

• Introduce one new strategy each week• With each unit, write 5 narrative that

briefly describe how you will focus on each of the Key Competencies

• Critically analyse your practice via the Key Competencies, and consistently adjust your lessons to demonstrate your new learnings

Thinking??

How will you advance your thinking and

learning this year?

The Sleeper Curve – the advance in intellectual rigour in the popular culture (including games) of the past 4 decades13.8 pts increase in IQ in the past 45 yrs in the US population (The Flynn Effect)

‘Everything Bad Is Good For You’ (Steven Johnson)

The age of the intellect

Lessons from neuroplasticity

research• Age-related memory loss seems almost certainly reversible with the right mental exercises

• In action and imagination, many of the same parts of the brain are activated. That is why visualizing can improve performance.

• In middle age, many people have a tendency to deceive themselves into thinking that they are learning as they were before

• To keep the mind alive requires learning something truly NEW with intense focus

• Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 2008

•Creative (adapt, imagine, predict, invent, hypothesise, challenge, redefine, expand)

•Critical (synthesise, analyse, generalise, critique, examine, infer, interpret, classify)

•Metacognitive (evaluate, reflect, summarise, review, self-talk, develop plans, query)• Adapted from: Learner-Centred Assessment (Wilson & Murdoch,

2006); and, Thinkers Keys revised version (Ryan, 2007)

Skills for thinking

•How DO you best learn eg• In a session such as this?•When mastering a new piece of

technology?•What (entirely) new skill / experience

did you accomplish through 2008?•What (entirely) new skill / experience

do you intend to accomplish during 2009?

Your thinking and learning??

• An assessment task that focuses strongly upon an inquiry / research / experiment

• Will often include:• High levels of intellectual rigour• A performance to demonstrate

understanding / application of their learning• Formative assessment processes, linked to

student monitoring of performance• A unit / focus question

For them: Inquiry-based thinking

tasks?

• English: A blog for exploring your own thinking (and challenging others) during a novel study

• Social Sciences: Researching, and creating, a YouTube video on homelessness that will score one million hits

•Math: A wiki about financial rip-offs •Music: A piece of music that will be created

by 20 students from 5 different countries• Science: A website that will challenge adult

perspectives on global warming

Some digital examples??

•How could your video score at least one million hits on YouTube?

•How does art reflect the history and traditions of a culture?

•How can we use algebra to help describe the physical world?

•How do chemical reactions affect everyday life?•How do you plan a trip to a foreign country?•How did a book impact you or change your

outlook on life?Intel Education: Designing Effective Projects

Unit / focus questions

Creative inquiry process

1. Do your research2. Work out the REAL problem3. Brainstorm solutions4. Choose one (or some) of the solutions5. Put it (them) into action

Using language, symbols and

textsWhat further texts / symbols / language (especially online)

will you explore?

•20th C - Behaviourist / Constructivist / Cognitivist?

•21st C - Constructivist / meta-cognitivist / Connectivist?

•e-Curriculum? e-Pedagogy? e-Assessment? e-Reporting?

•If you employ digital learning processes, they must advance student learning. Otherwise, why bother?

Digital Literacies??

21st C intellectual engagement ??

• Conventional v twitch speed• Step-by-step v random access• Work oriented v play oriented• Individual v connected• Text-based v highly visually literate • Like to be told v learn better through

discovery / inquiry

Your learning dilemma!!•Some (many?) of your students have more

time than you do to skill themselves online•Some options:•Develop a series of ICT-intensive inquiry-

based tasks that respond to their interests (if possible)

•With your own ICT learning, steadily take on one new skill at a time (NB Age has nothing to do with whether or not you can accomplish this. It’s your attitude)

Some 1st step options for you?

• Set up your own blog (edublogs.org)

• Develop a wiki (wikispaces.org)

• Make a simple podcast (Audacity or GarageBand)

• Explore:• del.icio.us

• Google Apps

• twitter.com

• ning.com

Online options• educationalwikis.wikispaces.co

m/• http://bookleads.wikispaces.com

/• edublogs.org/• 9english08.edublogs.org/• stumbleupon.comstumbleupon.com• tonyryan.com.au tonyryan.com.au • tonyryan.edublogs.org• del.icio.us/TonyRyan1• ted.com

•Many Y and Z Gens are predominantly visual learners

•Use every possible IWB, data projector, computer screen and chart that you can find

•Visual aids (eg graphic organisers) free up short-term working memory

•Use your own visual collection to reinforce your lessons

Developing visual literacies

Relating To Others

How will you enhance your capacity to engage in professional dialogue?

Our professional dialogue is the key to quality practice in a

school

•Your EI will strongly influence the classroom dynamic

•If your students can control your emotions, you are in trouble!

•Identify your feelings; and take responsibility for them

•Respect is something you earn, not demand

Relating To Students

•5-word requests: Daniel, your coat on, thanks

•Maybe / and•Ask for their perspective, and

paraphrase at the appropriate time

Proactive Dialogue

•The core skill with listening is paraphrasing•Use words such as: “So, you said

that.....”•Keep it short; and only do it

occasionally•Listen for the key intent of what

he/she is saying

Paraphrasing

Participating and contributing

What will be your personal contribution to local and

global causes?

The 50:50 balance in life (Self:Others)

As well as your professional work, how do you intend to offer support to others?

‘Helpers High’ is good for your health

The Ripple Effect: The influence of everyday actions

Everyone?? Every One !!

Your contribution this year??

Key (Life?) Competency questions for you

• Thinking: How will you advance your thinking and learning this year?

• Using language, symbols and texts: What further texts / symbols / language (especially online) will you explore?

• Managing Self: How will you maintain inspiration for your work?

• Relating to others: How will you enhance your capacity to engage in professional dialogue?

• Participating and contributing: What will be your personal contribution to local and global causes?

Essential Questions for the Key Competencies

• Thinking: Is there evidence of intellectual depth in every learning experience?

• Using language, symbols and texts: Are students making meaning and application of quality language, symbols and texts?

• Managing Self: Is student attitude and behaviour self-regulatory?

• Relating to others: Is the learning characterised by an atmosphere of mutual respect and support amongst everyone present?

• Participating and contributing: Is there a focus on identifying and solving real-world problems?

Sustaining today’s learnings

• Revisit the notes for just 5 mins

• Two days from now

• One week from now

• Follow-up at least twice over the next month. Ask questions in faculty meetings such as:

• What have you put into action? What worked? Why? What didn’t? Why? What will you do next?

• Include something (anything!!) new in your diary each day for the next two weeks. Use a brightly coloured pen to write these changes.

After the break•Small discussion groups•Critical question: What are the key

practices, understandings and skills required by student thinkers in the 21st Century?

•During the dialogue: Paraphrase; and keep all comments succinct

•Place your group responses on a large chart

•After 45 mins, an analysis of the responses from other groups

Final Thoughts

•Some extra material•[email protected]•Remember that you work in

the most important profession on the planet