Next year at the school of which I am privileged to call myself Principal, the College will implement two initiatives in 2013. They are:
1. For Year 7, an inquiry based approach to cross curricular projects which result in richer, deeper learning; and,
2. For Year 11 SOR, a blended approach to learning which results in acceleration of the cohort to sit the HSC at the end of Year 11.
These initiatives will need to be supported with:
1. A group of teachers who are flexible, innovative and understand their role as one of coach and facilitator;
2. Student centred pedagogy within a guided inquiry framework;
3. Access to a reliable Learning Management System; and,
4. Effective and efficient timetabling.
Yesterday, I sent an email to teachers. Attached to that email were plans for agile, flexible and contemporary learning spaces. The email read as follows…..
Hello All,
Following on from our Briefing this morning, please find attached plans for G2.
At this stage…..
For 6 lessons per fortnight, Rooms 4,5,17 & 18 will be used for Year 11 SOR 1.
For 12 lessons per fortnight Rooms 4, 5, 6, 16, 17 & 18 will be used for 12 lessons of Year 7 (4 x Eng. 4 x RE & 4 x HSIE) per fortnight
For 6 lessons (3 doubles) per fortnight All G2, that is rooms 4,5,6,7,15,16,17,18, will be used for Connected Learning.
A total of 24 lessons. Hhhmmm, what to do with the other 26 lessons per fortnight?
For the remaing 26 lessons, who gets first choice to use those rooms? Will everybody want to use those rooms? What happened to the teacher’s desk? Will any teacher want to use these rooms, now? What if students want to use those rooms but the teacher doesn’t? What if the teacher wants to “go in there” but their class doesn’t? What does “in there” mean? What is “in there”? And before you say, “It doesn’t worry me because that’s not my room”, should there be questions about “room ownership”? Is it more about the room or about the Learning Space? How will this Learning Space change the way I teach? If there is no teacher’s desk, am I really the teacher, or am I just another learner?
Dear Sir and Miss,
Can you please guide me as to whether or not I am asking the right questions?
Regards,
Greg.