These statements are taken from Learner Voice, a handbook by Futurelab
• letting learners know why something is important to learn
• showing learners how to direct themselves through information
• relating the topic to the learners’ own experiences and background
• understanding learners will not learn effectively until they are ready and motivated to do so
• helping learners to overcome inhibitions, behaviours and beliefs that may represent a barrier to their effective learning.
Richard Millwood has developed his thinking from the New Learning Landscape into an analysis of delight. He defines various loves that can be enlivened through learning. It seems the next challenge is agreeing that learning is the purpose rather than future economic prosperity and then second considering how we communicate to ALL learners that this love is for sale.
http://blog.richardmillwood.net/2008/05/15/an-analysis-of-delight/
I have wondered whether buying 30 Nintendo DS would be a good idea for a daily mental maths development with Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training. I thought if there were quick mental maths questions wrapped in the alternative package of a Nintendo DS then maybe we might raise table knowledge or quick calculation. Children can also compete in groups of 15 which is also interesting. This review http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92874 isn’t too complimentary because it says it could have been more entertaining. Will it last just long enough to keep the children motivated until their maths improves?
I had wondered whether to give children The Hundred Cell Calculation Method on paper might do the same job for less.
This article from the GLEF presents the case for beginning with real world purposes instead of the abstract knowledge needed to create or develop in the future. Quoting Seymour Papert, “So much better to have the first-grade kid or kindergarten kid doing engineering and leave it to the older ones to do pure mathematics than to do it the other way around”.
It then presents the kind of activities seen in the Futurelabs/Microsoft Project Enquiring Minds which lead learners through their own self directed projects towards answering their own questions. We have been thinking about providing space in our curriculum for this kind of project but with some specific teaching to scaffold this approach according to the independence of different learners.
