Help Gifted & Talented students with technology
By Tom Edge
Sharing Good Practice
Extending students in lessons requires thought ; ensuring they apply and transfer their learning in a variety of ways can often require more . Students who are able to quickly complete planned activities often need exposure to an open task where there is a more significant focus on metacognition , creativity and autonomy .
Bloom ’ s Digital Taxonomy organises the nature of thinking , learning verbs and apps , which are best suited for various activities . A student , who has been exposed to these apps and knows what can be achieved with them , is ready to incorporate autonomy into his / her learning .
Inspiring choice and evoking creativity , App Autonomy inspires choice and evokes creativity . It provides freedom to select how best to achieve the desired outcome . Before this can happen , students must have a secure knowledge of the apps available to them . Mark Anderson ’ s revised Periodic Table of Apps is a great base for this . Students are able to experience new functions and develop their ability to make suitable choices . With this in mind , the learning objective must provoke thought process .
A pitfall of choice can sometimes result in a lack of focus and effort .
Monotonous tasks may lead to uninterested students who will not travel along the intended learning path . Therefore , engaging hooks to learning need to be reciprocally selected in order to increase motivation . Consequently , open-ended questions will stimulate metacognition , encourage independence and develop critical thinking skills :
• Will this achieve what you want to achieve ?
• How is this going to impact what you want to find out ?
• What would be the best way to start the task ?
Understanding by Design is a method of working backwords with learning . A teacher will know the desired outcomes and work backwards to identify the best pathway for success . Once choice is given through app autonomy and students are able to adopt a more cognitive approach to learning through engaging tasks , students are in a position to take ownership . This may look like a laissezfaire style of teaching , but what can be learnt , achieved and created as a result , promotes a deeper level of learning , which allows students to enhance their critical thinking skills .
I once asked a group of students to
tell me how WWII started . I was quite impressed when they produced a pic collage which coined the phrase App- Smashing . They had used word clouds , time lines , a comic life and mind maps to explain and detail events , mindsets , reasons and choices . I was then drawn to 2 QR codes : one directing me to a video , providing their thoughts on the research , using Telagami , Puppet Pals and several annotated pictures with voice over . The other was a quiz on Office Forms to test my knowledge and understanding based on their poster . Not bad !
More ever than before , schools are asking teachers to nurture a generation of risk takers and innovators . Using these approaches , students are able to develop and analyse their risk taking as part of a reflective process , which creates a platform for innovation .
‘ A camel is a horse , designed by a committee .’
The freedom to choose and be creative , combined with the ownership of stimulating tasks , encourages students to go beyond expectations and learning outcomes . Sometimes , we limit our children with the work we set . Sometimes it is best to let go , and see if they can design a camel that is better than the horse you wanted .
Class Time
| | Mar - Apr 2017 |
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