Reflective Entry 1

Identify a research topic that is relevant to your area of practice and relates to Digital and Collaborative Learning. Reflection 1 - Identify a research topic that is relevant to your area of practice and relates to Digital and Collaborative Learning. “Mum, what do you think I should be when I grow up?” When I posed this question to my own mother some 45 years ago, the answer would usually relate to my interest at the time. A ‘hairdresser’ perhaps, after the Barbie doll had suffered another shearing with the scissors. A ‘vet’ following the time I handcrafted a splint for a suspected broken leg on a hamster. Always specific jobs with their own specific title and set pathway to achieving them. More recently when my own daughters have asked this question, my responses are less clear-cut. I find myself referring to the job clusters (outlined in the Foundation for Young Australians 2017 report) of carers, artisans, designers, technologists, generators, co-ordinators, and informers and the skills they have or need for these roles. This has led me to reflect on what skills our students will need to flourish in these roles. As a primary school educator, I have long been passionate about ‘21st Century Skills’ and when they were included in my classroom pedagogy last century, they were even futuristic! However, now that we are 21 years into the 21st century, I find I am frequently pondering the use of this term as outdated and how these skills should just be embedded into our classrooms as essential life skills. The 4Cs of collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication are integrated into our school’s student inquiry cycle and fostered in the mission statement of “Creating a broad range of opportunities for curious, critical thinkers who continue to learn and make a difference in their world”. Therefore when considering research that promotes innovation in my area of practice, I need to look at not just having and executing an idea but also addressing a real challenge, that adds value and has a different perspective (Sillicorn, N. 2016, March). Google Education’s Future of the Classroom: Emerging trends in K-12 Education: Global Report, identifies Computational Thinking as one of these emerging trends. According to the report, “globally, 92% of future jobs will need digital skills and 45% of jobs will require workers who can configure and work confidently with digital systems and technology.” Relating this to the FYA study above, highlights the importance of students developing these generic, transferable skills required for future work. The report estimated that Australians will make 17 changes in employers across five different careers. So why is Computational Thinking relevant to my practice and setting? I see it as a key component of not just digital technology but it also requires the development of skills in problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. This is evident in Core Education’s 2016 Ten Trends Report that identified Computational Thinking as a way for “students to develop better ways to approach and think about problems, which is just as valuable as the technical skills themselves.” This evidence combined with the need to successfully integrate Computational Thinking (alongside Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes) into our local curriculum delivery and being a leader in that area my research topic is funnelling into ‘effective ways to integrate Computational Thinking into classroom programmes as part of our school’s local curriculum’. The research topic would look at ways to improve student outcomes as well as the PLD aspect of improving teacher awareness and confidence. Currently, the digital technology curriculum that is delivered in the school tends to stand alone rather than being connected to or integrated with student inquiry and other learning. Wing highlighted the challenge that the “tool shouldn’t get in the way of the understanding of the concepts.”(Wing, J.M. 2008). She uses the example of using a calculator without knowing what mathematical operations to use or why. The concepts or transferable skills being taught are more important than the digital tool. I believe that the unplugged aspects of Computational Thinking work well to address this challenge. Creating algorithms, debugging, problem-solving, decomposition, and logical reasoning can all be applied in unplugged activities without putting off students and teachers with the idea that they need to know ‘computer science’. Bell et al (2009) capture this in the creation of their Unplugged Project based at the University of Canterbury, “having activities away from computers is effective because children generally know the computer as a tool or toy, rather than the subject of study in itself.” Technical experience is not required which can be appealing for some of us 20th Century teachers! Computational Thinking at its best in the classroom would be used to solve real-world problems as part of our local curriculum. I am now wondering how we can ultimately incorporate computational thinking to also create richer learning opportunities. References Bell, T., Alexander, J., Freeman, I., & Grimley, M. (2009). Computer science unplugged: School students doing real computing without computers. The New Zealand Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology, 13(1), 20-29. Core Education. (2016) Ten Trends. https://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/2016/computational-thinking/ Foundation for Young Australians. (2016). The New Work Mindset. https://www.fya.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/The-New-Work-Mindset.pdf Google. (2019). Future of the Classroom: Emerging trends in K-12 Education: Global Edition. http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/future_of_the_classroom_emerging_trends_in_k12_education.pdf Skillicorn, N. (2016, March). What is innovation? 15 experts share their innovation definition. Idea to value. https://www.ideatovalue.com/inno/nickskillicorn/2016/03/innovation-15-experts-share-innovation-definition/ Wing J. M. (2008). Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, 366(1881), 3717–3725. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2008.0118