Using Hapara for Inquiry Learning and Learner Empowerment

I just watched a Webinar by Lenva Shearing of Hapara on Inquiry Learning and Learner Empowerment.  It was a great watch and can be found on this bit.ly link:  
bit.ly/inquiry_learning

The key points were the use of Workspace to facilitate authentic student inquiry. Hapara workspace allows a teacher to set up an inquiry process within workspace and for students to choose and then be grouped according to interest around a big idea. Students can also upload their own resources and learning activities.

She also discussed using Workspace to conduct Teaching as Inquiry projects too.

This is a quick blog post as it's nearly Christmas time and I'm going to attempt to switch off for a few days.

Disruptive Education

If you haven't watched this YouTube video yet, please take 14mins out of your day and give it a go.  It's challenging.  It's brave.  Taking time to challenge ourselves is something that teachers struggle to prioritise, with such a busy and full on workload. But I believe it's as equally important as exercise for wellbeing.  It's the only way that teachers retain passion and balance.

Nicola Ngarewa was the Principal at Patea Area School and has recently joined the team at Spotswood College.  She is a disruptive educator.  She challenges anything that gets in the way of students becoming successful learners, and she puts the responsibility for that solely at the feet of the school community.   She has ditched bells, rigid timetables and changed up start and finish times for students.  She's all about real life contexts for learning, STEAM, and an integrated curriculum.  In terms of inquiry, Ngarewa sets up a school where students inquire and act on problems they see around them.  She integrates litearcy and numeracy skills within these subjects and not as stand alone subjects.  She believes in growing successful global citizens. Powerful and brave stuff!

So what would it mean to be a teacher with leadership like this?  More collaboration and close relationships with students would be a must.  Teachers would need to work closely together and change up what they have done in the past.  They would be more responsive to the needs of students.  Plans would need to be fluid, but inquiry and learning to learn skills would need to be explicitly taught with high expectations put in place.  Once in a Lifetime | Nicola Ngarewa

If you want to learn what a classroom might look like in the early years, watch this YouTube clip:  Are you ready to disrupt learning?
You can see how technology, mindset, critical thinking, inquiry, innovation and creativity is important in the classrom.  But more importantly, it's about the teacher's approach and philosophy: the teacher is the learner too.  Both the student and the teacher learn and inquire together.  The teacher's role is to facilitate activities and projects, question students, creating engaging activities for critical thinking, creativity and innovation, prompt for links between knowledge and skills, make students accountable to showcase their learning and make it visible, to act on the inquiries, to provide links with the outside community and places. 

It's an exciting time to be a part of education.  I'm going to delve further into disruptive education and what it means practically in the classrom.  Watch this space.