How to: Mindshift towards MLE

I'm a huge believer in the embracing of the Mindshift. I love this blog post regarding Modern Learning Environments vs Modern Learning Mindsets. Four Seasons in One Kiwi Blog Our journey, while it is part of a road towards a new build in post-earthquake Christchurch, is encapsulated by this idea. We have created flexible learning spaces within our old single cell classes. Yes, we now have holes in the walls... however we began the mindshift towards creating flexible spaces long before we left our single cells!

At the beginning of last year, just four terms ago, I too had name labels on desks. I had painstaking trawled over positioning of students. I over thought combinations and configurations. I spent hours perusing templates, inserting the perfect font, laminating and utilising the guillotine...

The initial process went a little something like this (insert background music here):

Step 1: Remove labels from tables.

Step 2: Rethink furniture. I hauled in a coffee table I'd made when I was about 17. As other classes were clearing out surplus furniture, I grabbed group tables as they were being moved out in order to replace my older flip top desks. A table with wheels that had previously been used to store art supplies on, was now a table for learners to work at.

Step 3: Justify. Every item  in the room had to justify it's place. I calculated how many spaces I had for learners (coffee tables could house two comfortably) I initially didn't count the mat as a learning space... I only counted table surfaces. Remove surplus desks - I'd always had a couple of independent desks people could opt to work at. Now these were incorporated within the 'seat-count'. The sudden realisation of space was invigorating! Yes, I encountered reluctance. With the move to tables and choice of seat, as opposed to the individualised desks, came the sudden problem of where to put all the stuff that was in their desks. Now, this seems like a really obvious thing to have had to consider... but I was in the throws of excitement in wanting to get cracking with this.

• I'd planned for books - I went back to using nail boxes like I had in a new entrant room! 
• Pencil cases proved a nightmare - I ended up putting them on a shelf at the back of the room.
• Library books - we tried a shelf with individual bookmarks; keeping them in their school bags... The perfect solution proved evasive...
• What to do with work that was in progress... - This was kept in their assessment clearfiles.

These were just a few of the things that initially cropped up. The biggest change was certainly within my own mindset. Every management strategy that was highlighted in Teachers College had to be reevaluated. 

Shift to Term 4...

Suddenly, I was fresh off the plane from ULearn... about to get 15 chromebooks in my classroom (meaning 1:1 devices); Hapara Teacher Dashboard; and straight into a three week syndicate stint in a newly created learning environment with three classes and three very different teachers. 

It was huge... It was mind-blowing... but it was incredible! (Why didn't I blog about it then! - probably because I was too busy!)

Hapara Teacher Dashboard got me through a few 

It was a fantastic taster towards moving towards co-teaching. We worked out the foibles that could make things fall over... and they generally had nothing to do with the actual teaching. Relationships, Assumptions, Fears/Insecurities... they appear to be the biggest hurdles.