Which one should I pick?

Source: Flickr

I went to ULearn15 with this question in my head:

"Out of all of the future focused practices swirling around right now, which one should I be focusing on?"

I do get quite excited about current trends and am always willing to give something a go but I fear that this puts my practice at risk of seeming like I just jump into things without thinking. 

I currently love what I do around Maker Culture, coding, and using SOLO for self reflection. I am getting more interested in gaming in education and design thinking.  So basically my question comes from me reflecting "is this too much?".

Thankfully I had a chance to reflect on this question while attending a session at ULearn15 with Karen Melhuish Spencer titled "Transforming our Students' Experiences: Future Focused Learning Design".

Karen led us through a simple model for reflecting on practice which allowed us to deeply think about what the values and beliefs are about learning and what principles of learning inform our practice. A simple model yes, however when you really start to think about unpacking the layers then much thinking and much discussion must occur.

Through this process I realised that I was able to connect those areas of my practice that I like back to my values and beliefs about learning.  For example, my Makerspace is about learners at the centre and I inherently believe that students should feel empowered. The word empowered also leads itself to thinking about choice, student voice, student knowledge and tuakana-teina. I also value many learning dispositions such as resourcefulness and resilience which underpin the Makerspace idea too.

Once you start thinking about the why and the what it immediately strengths what you do in your practice.  I feel confident in being able to articulate to somebody questioning my practice. I also realised that those "trends" that I am currently following or exploring I have thought about. That I am not doing things without that deep thought. That my practice is well informed and I can link it back to my values and beliefs about how children learn.  However I may need to make this more explicit.

The OECD 7 Principals of Innovative Learning are worth having a look at. This article on MindShift is a good one to read.

1. Learners have to be at the centre of what happens in the classroom

2. Learning is a social practice and can’t happen alone.

3. Emotions are an integral part of learning.

4. Learners are different

5. Students need to be stretched, but not too much.

6. Assessment should be for learning, not of learning.

7. Learning needs to be connected across disciplines

(Taken from Mindshift article)

How are others choosing what to do? Are you focusing on one thing or combining or have you focused on the pedagogical/philosophical basis first?