Innovation Profile 090

Be cruel to be kind

Some pupils in class will pester their teacher with questions. It may seem to the pupil that the teacher is cruel if they refuse to answer and tell the pupil to find the answer themselves.

Pushing children to be independent learners is an important part of teaching. But it must be possible for the pupils to find answers or this will have a very negative effect on their learning.

It is not just access to ICT tools that matters in enabling this. The organisation of the classroom and the teaching style must permit the pupil to go and find the answers they want.

This can be started from an early age. Look, for example, at 'Worldwise' from Sherston Publishing Group - http://www.sherston.com and select products and Worldwise. This highly interactive atlas is designed for use by 8 year olds and older children. This is not just a reference work. It includes powerful tools such as zoom, a search engine, distance measurer and latitude/longitude indicator.

As powerful tools like this change approaches to learning there are important pedagogical implications. When pupils' learning-to-learn capabilities grow they will increasingly not expect their teacher to know the answers to questions. They will expect help in finding answers and exploring ever more deeply. This leads to research and greater pupil choice of what to explore and learn in depth.

The organisation and structure of classrooms and schools needs to change too. Where will interactive tools like this be located? - on pupils' tablets?; on computers in the classroom?; in the library? And will pupils be permitted to move from their desks to access these tools?

These questions are very challenging for primary schools and teachers.

But perhaps there is a more challenging question for secondary schools.

If your primary feeder schools have enabled pupils to develop extensive learning-to-learn skills using ICT, and organised the school and teaching to permit this - what will happen to pupils' progression in learning if they are unable to exercise these learning skills in the environment of the secondary school?

The Sherston Company Profile on our web site will give you an overview of the company and a list of other Innovation Profiles connected with it.

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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