Premier's Xstrata Coal Rural and Remote Education scholarship 2013 Tim Gorrod

1. Premier's Xstrata Coal Rural and Remote Education scholarship 2013 Tim Gorrod

2. Who am I? • a teacher • Ardlethan Central School • Katoomba High School • Forster High School • Great Lakes College • Bulahdelah Central School • a Learning Designer • Centre for Learning Innovation • a Stage 6 adviser • Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre • a Learning Designer • Learning Systems • and latterly, an evaluator • Business Systems

3. Why rural and remote education? Issues that need to be addressed include the need for: • equality of opportunity for all Australian children • rural teachers to be able to exercise their skills and talents • Australians to become engineers, scientists, programmers.

4. What did I hope to achieve? • Investigate the way in which ICT can be used to advantage those living in rural and remote communities. • Provide a report that • synthesises ideas on successful practice and research • provides advice to school leaders and teachers who want to increase engagement and participation • Disseminate findings in a toolkit that includes • research findings • ideas • practical advice including examples • contacts and links. • Publish online, in personal presentations, Scan, Side by Side, other professional publications.

5. The tourLondon I • British Educational Training and Technology conference (BETT) Other presenters: Bill Liao, Ian Livingstone, Brian Cox, Dylan Jordan Big ideas: Essential skills for modern learners – everyone has an opinion Common themes include the ability to think for yourself – entrepreneurship Professor Sugata Mitra (Google Sugata Mitra Ted) Presenters included Bill Liao, Ian Livingstone, Brian Cox, Dylan Jordan.

6. The tourLondon II • BETT gadgets

7. Happy snap The eye

8. The tourGlow • Glow is the world’s first national online community for education. It is SharePoint-based and contains a quite complete set of tools. There has been a considerable settling in period. Like the realignment, people may get used to it just after it’s replaced.

9. The tourBernera • Students from some of the most isolated parts of the UK use Glow to access the big picture while retaining their desired lifestyle. Bernera provides an example of students who are fully engaged with the world. One of the classes is conducted in Gaelic. • Project-based learning is a common factor.

10. Happy snap The loch at Clunie Beach on Lewis

11. The tourBig Picture schools, USA These schools have a remarkable record in communities of all kinds, including rural and remote in: • engagement • retention • graduation and post-school success. Big Picture characteristics include: • 9-12 cohort • accept anyone who wants to enrol • one adviser per group of students (15-20) for four years • students regularly present and defend their work in public – the exhibition • Relationships, Relevance, Rigour is a mantra • internship for all students, generally one day per week • regular pick-me-up (or kick-me out) activities • very high graduation and college acceptance rates • strong support from the superintendent BP schools exist in Australia

12. The tourLafayetteBig Picture school

13. The tourNewark Ironbound Big Picture school

14. Happy snap Out the train window

15. The tourThe Met Big Picture school The original BP school

16. The tourProfessor Yong Zhao, University of Oregon, USA Yong Zhao is Presidential Chair and Associate Dean for Global Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon. The conversation covered: • How can we come to trust students as members of a community rather than merely as consumers of information, especially remotely? A platform is available and evolving. It has these components: • a space for storage and development – which could be an e-portfolio • a space for connecting and social networking • a Moodle-based learning management system. • Do the short term efficiencies of a rigid system of testing come at the expense of curiosity? Research says that there is a cost. • PISA scores are negatively correlated with interest. • entrepreneurship refers to a person's ability to turn ideas into action.

17. Happy snap Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

18. The tourAASA conference The American Association for School Administrators is largely made up of district superintendents, and some school principals. Presenters: • Deb Delisle, Assistant Secretary of State for Education. • Mark Edwards, who turned around a large school district with a ‘digital conversion’. • Sue Szachowitz, the principal of Brockton High in Massachusetts. This school has turned itself from a self-described cesspool into one of the most successful schools in the US – on tests – by concentrating on a very specific literacy program. • Linda Darling Hammond, a leading researcher. • Yong Zhao. • Gretchen Shipley, an education lawyer who presented on digital citizenship. One of the big issues for American education is the introduction of the ‘Common core’ across 45 of the states. Discussion: What do we want from our education system?How does measurement impact on learning? It was fascinating to see powerful players in education robustly discussing these issues.

19. Happy snaps Los Angeles

20. The tourWestern NSW In New South Wales, excellent work is already being done in this area. I toured schools, interviewed teachers, leaders and the school community in: • the xsel virtual selective school, based in Dubbo, but distributed across 35 sites • E2, a shared classroom environment for low candidature senior subjects that operates at five Western region schools - Blayney High School, Molong Central School, Canobolas Rural Technology High School, Orange High School and Anson Street School (SSP) • In my opinion, success factors include: • high quality leadership, planning and support • staff chosen on their willingness to try new things and enthusiasm for the project • the platform – xsel uses Adobe Connect, which contains the tools you need • the hardware – most students use the same computers issued under the NSW Digital Education Revolution program • connectivity – at school, students have access to wired and wireless broadband. Success factors Success factors

21. Common factors • Self learning is best • Wanting to learn is best • Personalised learning is best • Relationships rule – “The relationship of the teacher and the student in the presence of content must be at the center of efforts to improve performance (Elmore)” • Teachers need to pose, big, interesting questions • This can work in the cloud

22. Challenging ideas • Education is designed to produce a global computer, made of humans (Mitra) • High school students should have one lead teacher, who is part of a team that provides subject expertise when needed (Big Picture, Sizer) • Knowing is obsolete (Mitra) • The Common Core Standards Initiative in the U.S. are not only futile but also harmful to preparing our children for the future (Zhao) • The classroom can really flip – Khan Academy and Veritasium are just the start 2:33

23. Thought provokers (3:00)

24. References • Theodore Sizer: Horace’s Compromise • Mark Edwards: Every Child, Every DayFuture scholarship holders – visit this school! • Yong Zhao: World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students • Richard Elmore: Usable knowledge • Derek Muller: Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education