The Future Classroom Toolkit and its Implications in Schools in Pakistan
Date: 26th June 2018/Tuesday
Date: 26th June 2018/Tuesday
My previous blog post was all about projects initiated by the European Schoolnet Future Classroom Labs, this post will look at another very important aspect of Future Classroom labs i.e the Toolkit. Lets begin by digging in and finding out what the toolkit is all about. The Future Classroom Toolkit is basically a collection of resources, tools and guidance for educators, school leaders, technology providers to bring innovation in schools. The toolkit consists of 5 toolsets, each set guides the educators through a series of steps on how to create a scenario. We will explore each tool set in detail below and then apply each in our Pakistani Schools and try to visualize impact.
What is important to remember here is that classroom here does not refer to a traditional four walled classroom but rather any space where learning takes place. The toolkit supports a whole school approach, it helps in building a vision, encourages involvement of all stake holders, focuses on innovative pedagogical practices, evaluating learning activities and designing innovative learning experiences using digital technology.
The toolkit could be used by school leaders and teachers in case they plan to bring a change in their schools, change could be in the curriculum taught, planning to introduce new innovative practices in schools or planning to introduce new technology in schools. It could be also helpful for policy maker or decision makers at the local, national or regional level to look at emerging technology trends, develop new strategies for deployment of technology across all schools, and to initiate a system wide change affecting a much larger audience. The toolkit can also assist technology providers and consultants for development new products and guiding schools in deployment of new technology.
Lets move to exploring the Toolkit. Each toolset has a set of activities that can be used during school workshops by teachers or trainers. These can be used either individually or as part of a system wide change process. For example the first toolset which talks about identifying trends and stakeholders, basically requires us to identify key people to be involved in the innovation teams at schools, people who ave diverse knowledge and can share different perspectives, these can be teachers, school head, students, parents, technology provider, government officials etc.
The Second toolset Modelling a Future Classroom basically requires us to assess the systems capacity to be innovative with support of technology, its basically a self review tool. Schools can complete a self review exercise comprising of 5 dimensions (learner, teachers, technology resources, learning objectives and assessment and school capacity) as the school moves up the level, the maturity level increases. Similarly schools can assess their maturity with regard to innovation using a self review guide which has 5 levels beginning from Exchange, Enhance, Enrich, Extend and Empower. The guide helps to understand that progression is not about quantity i.e no of teacher trained, frequent use of technology etc rather quality, deeper level understanding and broadening of the approaches. The purpose is to spark a discussion and reflection for scenario creation.
The toolset 3 Creating a Future Classroom Scenario basically requires us to write a future classroom scenario, scenario here is basically a description of the desired level of maturity that the school wants to achieve with respect to innovation regarding teaching and learning practices with support from technology. The toolset comes with a built in template to write the scenario with detailed guidelines. The toolset also talks about transversal skills required by learners in a future classroom, some of these are life skills like citizenship, sustainable development etc learning skills like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity etc working skills like communication, collaboration etc The toolset also provides links to existing scenarios, schools can adopt from these too.
Toolset 4 Designing Innovative Learning Activities basically requires us to create learning activities that can be part of the lesson plans, can be tested and evaluated later in actual classrooms. It takes us through the process of creating learning activities in collaboration with different teachers, in workshops. It provides teachers an opportunity to covert scenarios into actual classroom practice tasks/activities. The toolset 4 also introduces us to the Learning Designer tool, a web based tool for designing learning activities. It further lists various digital tools that can be used for creating learning activities, these include digital story telling tools, productivity tools, curation tools, LMS tool etc.
Toolset 5 Evaluation of learning activities in a class basically requires us to pilot, test and evaluate the learning activities, gather data, analyze and make further improvements. the purpose is to see whether the desired level of innovation has been achieved or not. Schools can use either an evaluation guide or rubrics to do the evaluation. The evaluation guide lists different tools of evaluation by observation, using checklists, questionnaires, rating scales etc. The second tool consists of 6 rubrics each represents an important skill for students to develop, these include rubrics for collaboration, knowledge construction, self regulation, real world problem solving, use of ICT for learning and skilled communication.
This detail was important here to help readers develop a clear understanding of a Future Classroom scenario, the development process, stakeholders involved, resources involved, use of digital technology etc. We cannot implement FCS in our schools in Pakistan till we have a sound understanding of the whole process.
Lets begin by implementing the first scenario in Pakistan, to initiate a system wide change, we can begin by selecting a school. I had suggested an ideal Innovation team in my previous blog post about Future Classroom Labs in Pakistan, Schools like Beaconhouse can take such initiatives because of their vast experience in the education sector for almost good 40+ years, they can include people from the education ministry, connect with people from NUST, LUMS, Google for Education, University of Helsinki Finland, INTEL, Apple etc and form a strong innovation team. This team can identify trends in education. These trends can be in teaching and learning, about emerging education technology, trends identified by teachers and students. For example the innovation team after discussion and survey comes up with the idea of introducing BYOD in schools or introducing Google Chrome books in schools or introducing fabulous makerspaces in schools. They share the idea with the teachers and parents. Students can conduct a survey about BYOD, involve all stakeholders, compare their responses and feedback.
The second toolset can be very handy here, a self review of the schools capacity to innovate in teaching and learning using technology will help develop a realistic future classroom scenario. Both the self review guide and the online tool could be used to get a clear picture of the maturity level of the school regarding its learners, capacity for innovation, technology is used innovatively, technology replaces traditional approaches to learning and teaching, assessment goes beyond traditional boundaries, range of assessment approaches in use, role of a teacher is that of a learner, learning designer etc. Questions to be considered could be:
Toolset 4 could be then used to create learning activities keeping in mind the future classroom scenario. Teachers from school and from other Institutes can collaboratively come up with series of activities leading to a successful implementation of BYOD in schools. For example come up with different curriculum projects where BYOD could be extremely effective and lead to enhanced learning and teaching, to include description, list of technology resources, methodology, assessment etc. The Learning designer tool could be used to create activities here.
Toolset 5 could be used to review the impact of BYOD. Identify the strengths and weakness in the learning activities, challenges faced and impact of teaching and learning both. A number of tool could be used for evaluation (listed above), the results are the used to inform future decisions about innovation in teaching and learning. Some questions to be considered could be:
Though I still feel a lot of study still needs to go into the Future Classroom Scenario by European Schoolnet, the initial study has opened doors to some amazing ideas worth trying out in schools.
Hope you enjoyed reading till my next blogpost soon.
Happy Reading :)
Thanks and regards
Sheeba Ajmal
References
1. How to use the Future Classroom toolkit? http://fcl.eun.org/how-to
Accessed online 23rd June 2018
2. Future Classroom Toolkit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPSg3S_yA78
Accessed Online 26th June 2018
3. Future Classroom Maturity Model https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAacroUP0iU
Accessed Online 26th June 2018
Lets move to exploring the Toolkit. Each toolset has a set of activities that can be used during school workshops by teachers or trainers. These can be used either individually or as part of a system wide change process. For example the first toolset which talks about identifying trends and stakeholders, basically requires us to identify key people to be involved in the innovation teams at schools, people who ave diverse knowledge and can share different perspectives, these can be teachers, school head, students, parents, technology provider, government officials etc.
The Second toolset Modelling a Future Classroom basically requires us to assess the systems capacity to be innovative with support of technology, its basically a self review tool. Schools can complete a self review exercise comprising of 5 dimensions (learner, teachers, technology resources, learning objectives and assessment and school capacity) as the school moves up the level, the maturity level increases. Similarly schools can assess their maturity with regard to innovation using a self review guide which has 5 levels beginning from Exchange, Enhance, Enrich, Extend and Empower. The guide helps to understand that progression is not about quantity i.e no of teacher trained, frequent use of technology etc rather quality, deeper level understanding and broadening of the approaches. The purpose is to spark a discussion and reflection for scenario creation.
The toolset 3 Creating a Future Classroom Scenario basically requires us to write a future classroom scenario, scenario here is basically a description of the desired level of maturity that the school wants to achieve with respect to innovation regarding teaching and learning practices with support from technology. The toolset comes with a built in template to write the scenario with detailed guidelines. The toolset also talks about transversal skills required by learners in a future classroom, some of these are life skills like citizenship, sustainable development etc learning skills like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity etc working skills like communication, collaboration etc The toolset also provides links to existing scenarios, schools can adopt from these too.
Toolset 4 Designing Innovative Learning Activities basically requires us to create learning activities that can be part of the lesson plans, can be tested and evaluated later in actual classrooms. It takes us through the process of creating learning activities in collaboration with different teachers, in workshops. It provides teachers an opportunity to covert scenarios into actual classroom practice tasks/activities. The toolset 4 also introduces us to the Learning Designer tool, a web based tool for designing learning activities. It further lists various digital tools that can be used for creating learning activities, these include digital story telling tools, productivity tools, curation tools, LMS tool etc.
Toolset 5 Evaluation of learning activities in a class basically requires us to pilot, test and evaluate the learning activities, gather data, analyze and make further improvements. the purpose is to see whether the desired level of innovation has been achieved or not. Schools can use either an evaluation guide or rubrics to do the evaluation. The evaluation guide lists different tools of evaluation by observation, using checklists, questionnaires, rating scales etc. The second tool consists of 6 rubrics each represents an important skill for students to develop, these include rubrics for collaboration, knowledge construction, self regulation, real world problem solving, use of ICT for learning and skilled communication.
This detail was important here to help readers develop a clear understanding of a Future Classroom scenario, the development process, stakeholders involved, resources involved, use of digital technology etc. We cannot implement FCS in our schools in Pakistan till we have a sound understanding of the whole process.
The second toolset can be very handy here, a self review of the schools capacity to innovate in teaching and learning using technology will help develop a realistic future classroom scenario. Both the self review guide and the online tool could be used to get a clear picture of the maturity level of the school regarding its learners, capacity for innovation, technology is used innovatively, technology replaces traditional approaches to learning and teaching, assessment goes beyond traditional boundaries, range of assessment approaches in use, role of a teacher is that of a learner, learning designer etc. Questions to be considered could be:
- What should be priorities for investment in schools?
- Impact of BYOD in schools?
- Would students and parents be wiling to BYOD? why? why not?
- Would teachers be willing for this change?why? why not?
- Will this effect classroom teaching?how?
Toolset 4 could be then used to create learning activities keeping in mind the future classroom scenario. Teachers from school and from other Institutes can collaboratively come up with series of activities leading to a successful implementation of BYOD in schools. For example come up with different curriculum projects where BYOD could be extremely effective and lead to enhanced learning and teaching, to include description, list of technology resources, methodology, assessment etc. The Learning designer tool could be used to create activities here.
Toolset 5 could be used to review the impact of BYOD. Identify the strengths and weakness in the learning activities, challenges faced and impact of teaching and learning both. A number of tool could be used for evaluation (listed above), the results are the used to inform future decisions about innovation in teaching and learning. Some questions to be considered could be:
- Did the use of technology provided opportunity for knowledge construction or content creation?
- Did the use of technology help solve a real world problem? were students required to implement solutions?
- Did the use of technology provide students the opportunity to work together? share responsibility? take decisions? etc
Though I still feel a lot of study still needs to go into the Future Classroom Scenario by European Schoolnet, the initial study has opened doors to some amazing ideas worth trying out in schools.
Hope you enjoyed reading till my next blogpost soon.
Happy Reading :)
Thanks and regards
Sheeba Ajmal
References
1. How to use the Future Classroom toolkit? http://fcl.eun.org/how-to
Accessed online 23rd June 2018
2. Future Classroom Toolkit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPSg3S_yA78
Accessed Online 26th June 2018
3. Future Classroom Maturity Model https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAacroUP0iU
Accessed Online 26th June 2018
Nice posting. Thank you for sharing.
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