TheFlippedScientist

I was just about to close my computer the last Friday of the term and I received a tweet from Kristina Miguel  suggesting I enrol for #ditchsummit .  The Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit was a nine-day, virtual event which brought together some of the brightest minds in education to discuss technology, pedagogy, inquiry and more. Being the sucker I am for learning of course I enrolled. Who needs a Christmas break anyway when you can learn! The first keynote was from Mike Soskil  discussing the use of Skype in the classroom to build global connections, so far so good. The second keynote was from Kasey Bell  discussing the use of google apps in the classroom, useful for those new to google in education. Then came the keynote from Alice Keller  and that is where it got really interesting for me. Alice's message was dealing with homework and whether it was of any use or needed to be re-evaluated. I disagreed with parts of Alice...

From the sage on the stage to take the not knowing position, these phrases permeate education. We as educators move from one approach to the next in an attempt to improve the educational opportunities for our learners. One of the ideas that have been embraced in the last 30 years has been that of student centred learning. The term student - centred learning refers to a wide variety of learning experiences and instructional approaches that are intended to address the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students and groups of students. The underlying assumption being by incorporating the interests of the learners and having them drive their education, that instruction will be more authentic, increasing engagement and hence enhancing the learning happening in class. This term is now synonymous with good teaching practice, but does the evidence stack up? Morgan et al (2014)  investigated the effect of different t...