Using Sneaky Maths to embed Digital Citizenship

During this week's PGCE we needed to assess, to what extent, digital citizenship was embedded in our teaching.

Across the subjects I teach

It occurred to me that this subject is central to my teaching in a number of ways.

Each week, I teach these different lessons:-

1. Digital - including many aspects outlined in the UK Government's Education for a Connected World

2. The vocation course for Level 1 IT with business - a subset of whom will go on to higher levels and careers in the digital technology industry

3. GCSE Maths, where the central artificial intelligence tool, Century, is a compulsory part of the course.

4. Science, which has technology running throughout it, and in which I use technology as part of my teaching practise, especially in terms of connecting, assessment and collaboration.

So, from these four different perspectives, digital technologies run through my lessons.

The ability for my learners to become digital citizens is embedded, in different ways, in each.

In Digital and in IT with Business, digital citizenship knowledge and skills form the core of

what I teach. For example, aspects of digital citizenship are contained within the Laser Level 1 units. As an example, these are all separate units the learners need to complete; cyber bullying, online security, social media

This is by no means an exhaustive list - I teach 19 units in total. I teach these units with a strong bent towards constructivism, primarily using project-based learning throughout. I make use of videos, quizzes, online forms, team work etc to pull out the narrative for digital citizenship and how it applies to my learners. My PGCE scheme of learning is based on this IT with Business subject.

In my digital lessons I use the project vehicle "short film" and teach them digital technologies they need for each step of film development and production - from idea to final film.

For example, they use a Wakelet to capture their initial "one liner tagline" for their chosen film idea. Then, for the single page outline, they learn and use MS Word. For the storyboard, they learn and use MS Powerpoint, and for the film editing they learn and use Adobe Premier Pro. Throughout, they are working in a small team and collaborating by sharing documents on sharepoint, emailing each other and me, and printing out materials. They are learning management skills by casting actors, directing and editing.

In Maths and Science, learners are exposed to digital tools as enablers, however they still learn aspects of citizenship when interacting with these tools.

One of my Science Wakelets from the lesson "Is a Turkey Like a T-Rex?"

For example, if I am using a collaboration tool like Wakelet (I do this quite often), then my learners are developing their online personas as they comment on each other's ideas or on information they have collected from other sources.

The Essence of Sneaky Maths

In maths, my style of teaching is to use an overarching topic that I think may be of interest to the learners. For statistics I use Social Media as this topic.

Learning Objectives for my Statistics Lesson with Social Media logos front and centre

This gives me the chance to engage in the topic of digital presence and cyber bullying whilst teaching maths.

One of my slides from my Statistics lesson using Social Media as the "sneaky" vehicle.

Sneaky Maths for Digital Citizenship

It helps me a lot, because many of my (Lifeskills) learners are more interested in social media than in maths. But I sneak in some statistics and they "accidentally" listen, so learn it ("sneaky maths" (c) Sue Priest 2022).

Sneaky Maths for Other Enhancement and Enrichment

Sneaky maths has the capacity to introduce endless enhancement and enrichment as part of its nature. For example I lead the class in a discussion on the reality of gambling in my lesson on Probability, which I teach with the "sneaky" vehicle of Las Vegas.

I use this to talk about how gambling online is becoming more pervasive and is targeting younger people, yet it is a business which must make a profit - so in the end the House always wins.

I also introduce "Dodgy Doug" and his dice dive, where all the dice are loaded in favour of the house.

These are life lessons that, I hope, could make some learners see through the temptation to spend their money on potentially addictive and expensive online casino games.

Making Home Ed FANTASTIC

Warning: film spoilers

When Matt Ross wrote Captain Fantastic, he was talking with inside knowledge.

About an extreme home educator raising six children in the wild, the film tells the story of how that family reconciles their unique learning philosophy with the peer and social pressures of society.

Matt, himself, came from an unusual background. In an interview with YouandMeThisMorning, in 2016, Matt describes how he led a nomadic childhood - travelling from the US to Italy and England with a mother who was part of a 80's reboot hippy-commune style group in Northern California.

In an interview with Home, the same year, his answer to whether any real-life experiences had made it into the film, was:

Matt Ross, writer and director of Captain Fantastic

Yeah some. The clearest example of something that is purely autobiographical is that we lived in a teepee in the summertime and this family lives in a structure that’s partially a teepee.

There’s only two other bits that really come from my life: I celebrate Noam Chomsky Day which I think I invented in my family, and I retroactively realised that the closest thing to me personally was probably the fact that when I was a kid I lived in such an isolated way and wanted very much to leave the forest and be around kids my own age, which I was not at all.

What is interesting about this last comment is that it was Matt who wanted to leave the forest and be with kids his own age. So the ending of the film fulfils this personal need in him. Yet, balanced with this, is the first half, where we fall in love with Matt's setup of a family, led a father who teaches his children how to survive in the wild, be physically fit, learn about the world; academically and in so many other ways. He is the perfect home educator. Captain Fantastic.

Education and Philosophy

I thought this film gave an example of all the good things about “unschooling” or EHE as we call it at Activate Learning – electively home educating.

The children had an educated, motivated, engaged and loving father who taught them well in so many ways – academically, how to be independent, how to have debates, be resilient, critical thinkers – the whole lot. Learning how to survive in the wild and being treated like adults in terms of discussion and respect does not happen in the state education system, to my knowledge.

The children, themselves, ended up asking to go to school (they are "Matt", of course), and they did. Eventually a hybrid version of the ideal home education emerged. The good things remained, but the children got that extra dimension they were looking for.

Developing the ideas around this film from our PGCE session this week, here are more thoughts about how education and society mingle, the purpose of education and whether I personally think Home Ed is a good thing.

How does society affect education?

Freire and Hooks

Freire believed that. Education makes sense because women and men learn that through learning they can make and remake themselves, because women and men are able to take responsibility for themselves as beings capable of knowing—of knowing that they know and knowing that they don't.

Bell Hooks

Bell Hook's pedagogy is one that is responsive to the specific situation of each particular group of students and she sees education as taking place not only in the classroom but also wherever people are. She refers in her new book to 'communities of resistance' as places where democratic educators can work.

Notions of unschooling - John Holt

Holt coins the term "unschooling" to emphasise how different from state based education he feels it should be. His philosophy is:

• Closely aligned to constructivism

• Echoes of Captain Fantastic

• All the benefits cited that I have listed, below, for EHE students

My own Educational Philosophy

Looking at my current approach (following a lot of change, over the months of my PGCE), I would categorise my own educational philosophy as a hybrid of humanist/constructivist with growth mindset underpinning it.

Student at the GCSE Maths 2021 Festival

I feel this philosophy has these benefits:

• Focuses on the person – engages the learner

• Enables existing learning or ideas to provide access points to new ideas and knowledge

• Enables practical real-life scenarios to permeate the curriculum

• Makes meaning

• Supports social and team-oriented interactions

• Promotes diverse approaches to problem-solving

• Supports and extends critical thinking, resilience, holistic education

... in my view!

The home school debate versus institutions

I teach 14-16 yr old EHE students (electively home educated) maths and science on Thursdays and some IT with Business on Mondays.

Here are my personal observations of my learners - of course I am using extremes to make my point.

If they have the “right” HE parents

(Well equipped and prepared, educated, motivated, curious, engaged, committed, loving…)

Children of such parents tend towards these traits:

PROS

• Advanced learning

• More “grown up” critical thinking skills

• More knowledge outside curriculum – relevant to real life

• Often have a clearer idea of what they want to do as a career

• Parents arrange outings with families of other EHE children to cover the social skills gap

• More “interesting” opportunities for learning

  • Eg Science Club over summer

  • Spontaneity - let’s just go to the forest / zoo / museum / beach today

“CONS” (or are they..?)

• Can find it more difficult to follow “rules”

• Critical of silly rules (this is not a CON!)

If they don't have the "right" HE parents

(Poorly equipped and ill-prepared, ill-educated, unmotivated, close-minded, uncommitted…)

Children of such parents tend towards these traits:

• Poor grasp of even the basics

• No enrichment

• Poor understanding of society

• Poorly socialised with peers

• Anxious of groups

• Uncertain of how to follow rules

• Ill prepared and not resilient

So - What is the purpose of Education?

My (Sue Priest’s) view is that the purpose of education is to encourage curiosity and independence; enabling a person to reach their potential; academically, socially, spiritually and emotionally by providing opportunities for learning and removing barriers to learning.

Love has the final word

A final word. Hooks and John Holt both spoke about love and education.

Holt says,

It is love that lies at the heart of true learning

and Hooks says,

To choose to love is truly heroic - "why are we calling war mongers heroes?"

I have quoted my boss, Lucy, at Activate Learning before on this topic, but it seems appropriate to do so again now. When I first joined she told me about the different behavioural issues I would encounter as a teacher and said,

Whatever they do, whatever they throw at you in that room - always reach out to them with love.

Marketplace Heroes

This week's post is a reflection on our recent team-based activity to create Learning Theory materials for serving up in a "Marketplace" format.

• What did we focus on?

• What went well/could be improved next time?

• Would I use the approach myself in a lesson?

• Which other teams' theories appealed to me?

Our Focus

My team consisted of Jess, Ricky and myself. We focused on CONSTRUCTIVISM, suggested by the work of Piaget and championed by Dewey.

Our Team approach

My team used the collaborative functions provided by the edtech app: Wakelet. Each of us worked as individuals, initially, and populated the "workings" Wakelet with information we found individually useful, or ideas we thought would work. We then worked together to present these materials to each other and decided on a set of core deliverables with owners.

We made a second Wakelet to store the resulting materials. This was shared with the class and tutor during the remotely run (thanks to Covid!) Marketplace activity. We presented as a team.

Screenshots of the two Wakelets are below, and a link to the final "deliverables" Wakelet is here: https://wke.lt/w/s/8XdsbU (Links to an external site.)

We produced 5 items of materials to give access to learning in different ways.

1. Poster - the basics - Jess

2. Leaflet - the detail - Ricky

3. Cube net - make and keep with aspects and examples - Sue

4. Role play - give it a go - Jess

5. Debate topics in speech bubbles - Sue

Our Collaborative Wakelet

The screenshot, below, shows the body of research we produced, as a team!

Our "Deliverables" Wakelet

...and here are the final deliverables - click here to examine in detail.

Jess' Poster

Here is the poster put together by Jess - in the conference call she was pretty poorly but still managed to talk through key elements - well done her!

Ricky's Leaflet

The Leaflet produced by Ricky folds "concertina-wise" into a 6-page booklet, containing a lot of the detail we had produced together, such as Strengths and Weaknesses, QR codes to a video and a podcast about Constructivism and other gems of wisdom.

Click on the arrows to see all 3 shots of this masterpiece!

Making my "Constructivism Cube"

Here's a video of me making - and explaining as I go - the cube. The idea was that face-to-face, the students would construct a constructivism aid - as it were - thus using the physical element of the theory. The bonus was they got to take home this little "gift" and hopefully use it to spark their own constructivist ideas for teaching their students. They will all receive a printed copy next time we meet in Oxford and thus make this fine specimen their own!

Click on the play button and forgive the wild hair and very unforgiving camera angle!

What went well?

As a team we worked well together - there was mutual respect and all had a good level of input at every stage. We played to our strengths - so I did the printing using my plentiful print credits, Ricky used his Leaflet software to format the leaflet, Jess designed a role play as acting is her forte and I produced a cube net with my maths bent, and we all agreed on a consistent style and colour scheme to use throughout.

We came across a technical issue with sharing the Wakelet link - and it took a lot of time to sort out, but between us we got these. This was the icing on the cake for me; not giving up and seeing that your team mates were as committed to getting it right as you yourself.

I feel the quality and quantity of information we were able to present were good.

It would have been a lot better if we had been in person, as the speech bubbles represented an opportunity to provoke debate and would have been accompanied by blank flipchart sheets so the other students to write down their response to the questions.

Would I use the Approach Myself?

I very much enjoyed the experience as a student, and do use it with my own students. I already use Wakelet frequently in my Science lessons for collaboration, and have done physical marketplace activities in my IT with Business course, however the latter is done as individuals running their own business. I will try it out with teams next.

Which other Theories Appeal to Me

In a previous Blog post, I said I was looking forward to understanding more about Humanism, and I did! I was very interested in the alignment between the "ideal self" and the real self-image. I will have to think carefully about how this applies to a real-life teaching situation, but it is there in my mind now, so I am sure my creative juices will start to flow. I also liked the idea of Connectivism - and indeed I am a frequent "magpier" of online information even during conference calls. Cognitivism made sense to me and had a lot in common with Constructivism.

One of the approaches I liked much less was the behaviourist one. I did not feel it encouraged an independence of thought and felt it just manipulated students in a not ideal way.

But my verdict? I am still a firm fan of Constructivism and will continue to build it into my maths and other lessons. But perhaps I will also bring some of those other theories to play as well.

Shout out to Some of the other Heroes...

...though. Why are they all men?