New year - new classrooms

This picture by Ben+Sam is from the wonderful pool of Great quotes about learning and Change on Flickr. It is a good reminder of the need to move forward from the old teacher-centred classroom into new learning environments that put the learners in the centre.

During the last couple of weeks of school before our Christmas break, I was part of a team of colleagues who were given the task of redesigning some of our classrooms, thanks to some surplus in the budget. Rather a challenge to be tackled in such a short time, but luckily we had preliminary plans from last spring that we could now put to use.

During the summer, the old language lab had been torn down (read the reasons in an earlier blog post) and turned into a new music class, which left the old music class empty. We had planned to turn that room into a small-group working space with some new technological solutions, too, but the funding had been missing until now.

We had three guiding principles for our plans:

1. pedagogical principles - our choices should support student-centred learning

2. downsizing - to make space for anything new in already too cramped classrooms, a lot of the old stuff would have to go

3. flexibility - the desks and chairs should be easy to move around and regroup into different formations

This is what the room looks like now. A typical desks-in-rows arrangement with the teacher, blackboard, screen etc. in front. There was also a huge TV and VCR contraption in the right-hand corner, but as you can see, the TV has already been dismantled and is on the floor waiting to be taken away, along with its metal shelving and the screen railings plus the OHP, (first part of the downsizing).

All the furniture will also be replaced by something like this:

There will be triangular desks that can be arranged either individually, in round groups of five as here, or in other formations depending on the needs of the lesson. The teacher's desk has been moved to the other end, even though the old blackboard will still stay in place. An IWB will be installed on one of the other walls, and the teacher will also have a spot table with a high bar chair- ideal to move around and use the new Airliner wireless slate on. Student laptops with some clever wiring from the ceiling will have to wait till a later date.

A small, 12-seat classroom will also get a make-over. Especially the teacher's end of the room has been a real nightmare to work in, although students haven't had much more room to move around either.

The whole room will be emptied and turned into a negotiation style space, ideal for small staff meetings, but also teaching small groups in a more adult setting, which suits our 16-19-year-old students quite well. Hopefully this will even help the students behave in a more mature way. The long oval table is put together of separate units that can also be arranged separately in a more traditional way.

We have definitely come to a point where 'a generation change' will have to take place as far as classroom technology is concerned. When computers and IWBs come in, last century equipment will become obsolete and will have to go. Or so you would think! We have already heard the first bouts of strong opposition from colleagues whose comfort zones have been shattered by these plans. I need to add that, in our school, hardly any teacher has the luxury of a classroom of their own, but we all go round the school teaching in different rooms, so classrooms will have to serve multiple purposes. Apparently, the upset colleagues' subjects are impossible to teach if students don't sit in rows of desks. In addition, they object to giving up their OHP transparencies, since learning to use a laptop and data projector or an IWB will take too much time and be too difficult. And lastly, how will they ever be able to teach that one course a year where they always show the same ONE clip on the VCR? Where their logic fails, is that it's all about TEACHERS and TEACHING!

Of course, ultimately it's not about classroom design or technology, but it is to be hoped that the new environment might open up some new perspectives. It's good for teachers to be forced to stop, think and rethink some old routines every now and then. If only we had had more time, we would have involved our students in the planning, but unfortunately school budgeting works in mysterious ways... I will post some more photos once the rooms have been completed. Let's see how many colleagues will be fighting for the chance to work in these rooms!

Stop whining!

Today I remembered this slogan, which was used in an MTV environmental campaign some years back. It came to my mind after our school development group meeting. The goal of the group is to get all our teachers involved in 'a campaign' to change some of our ingrained practices to be better able to help our students learn.

Since its inception back in 2002 our development group has worked hard to tackle problems, such as students' lack of motivation and aimless drifting at school, and consequent teacher frustration and cynicism. Over the year these problems have led to a culture of teachers whining and complaining about the recurring themes of  irregular school attendance, neglect of homework assignments and general apathy and low performance among students, accentuated by our aging and long-standing permanent staff. Year in and year out the staff room echoes with us listing the same problems again. Of course, every now and then, it is healthy to do a bit of complaining to vent out when you're feeling tired and fed up after a disappointing class. But to keep going through the same - largely structural or pedagogical - problems without seeking possible solutions, is useless and sets a vicious cycle of passive helplessness and shifting the blame. The unquestioned belief is that we teachers are doing the best we can, and even more, while it's the students who aren't pulling their weight.

There is an old wisdom that rings more true to me here: "if you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got." Why does this need spelling out? We need to break out of stuck-in-a-rut patterns. And for that we will need innovation and creativity to instill an environment of hope and enthusiasm instead of the eternal whining. Maybe it would rub off on our students, too, and we might witness unpredictable results.

In our meeting, we decided to create an online discussion forum to start actively looking for constructive solutions that would energize us all. In the forum complaints about the problems that we all recognize too well by now are strongly discouraged. I look forward to seeing the response from the rest of the staff.


Photo: IF YOU'RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION THEN... by Lulu Vision on Flickr

There is always a valid excuse

• So you say we need to change our schools and the way we teach. In other words you are saying that we have done it all wrong all these years?
  
• Who is going to pay for all the extra hours spent on redesigning courses, materials and lesson plans?


• None of these new methods or technologies are suitable for teaching my subject, just go ahead and use them where they are appropriate, but I will carry on teaching as I've always done - and with good enough results.


• So are you really saying that all through the previous centuries students didn't learn??


• If young people are left to decide what and how they want to learn they will become lazy or learn the wrong things.


• The fundamental responsibility of school as an institution is to pass on our cultural heritage from generation to generation.


• Global projects - what's wrong with learning about our village/town and our country/nation?
  
• You can't really dream of doing anything with a foreign language until you've learned all these hundreds of grammatical rules and exceptions.


• We need to make sure that young people are taught and memorize the basics of as wide a variety of subjects as possible - application of knowledge will come after school.


• Our main goal is to prepare our students to succeed in the national final exams.
  
• I have got too few lessons to cover the whole course book - it is totally impossible to ever think about any project work or hands-on activities.
  
• Theme day - not again, I can't spare any more lessons or I won't cover all the course contents!


• Online exchange of ideas among colleagues - so face-to-face communication is forbidden now?


• New pedagogical theories, all well and good for researchers at the university, but they know nothing about the reality of schools.


• I have only got 6 more years to teach until retirement, no point in starting to learn to use any new tools, all I need is a blackboard, chalk and a working OHP in my classroom.
  
• Those innovative ideas may work elsewhere, but we know how to do things best here in our country - let the PISA student assessment results speak for themselves!


• Groupwork desks - out of the question in my classes, I insist on having students sitting in straight, orderly rows.


• Paper and pencil never fail, why make things complicated with technology?


• I am a dedicated teacher, I work hard, I keep preparing worksheets and lesson plans to teach the students, I tell them the same things again and again - it's not my fault if they don't learn!


• We have one teacher who always introduces strange, new ideas - lucky enough he/she represents a minority, so business can go on as usual for the rest of us.
  
• Why can't we just be left alone to teach?


• Video conferencing with experts from different fields - too much trouble, and who knows, they might give the students the wrong information!
  
• More collaboration and sharing with colleagues - how about my personal right to academic freedom?


• Any changes - too time-consuming, too expensive, not part of the final test requirements.


• Why should WE change anything? It's even worse elsewhere! We are quite happy with the status quo of mediocricity.


• Why rock the boat, we can't possibly change the whole system anyway?
  

No wonder, shifting schools is painfully slow.

Photo: old school book and goodies by crunchcandy on Flickr