Brian's Blog

The premise of this post comes from my own classroom activities and research on the best practices educators use to engage and create rich and meaningful learning. They are not limited to the areas I write about but begin a conversation. I would invite you to add your own ideas by leaving a comment and participate in the discussion “What does a post-industrial class look like?” Why use video? The use of video in the context of a lesson has significant impacts on both content retention and student engagement with McInerney & McInerney (1998) claiming that the technology provides students with ‘greater control over their own learning’ with benefits amounting to enhanced understanding resulting in ‘self-confidence, independence and autonomy’ within learning experiences. In the realm of language education, a key component across all key learning areas (KLA), Mejia (1999) extols the use of video as ‘valuable tool that can enhance a classroom experience’ through the acq...

Just over 18 months ago I was exposed the programming process of "Design Thinking" and "Problem Based Learning". Design Thinking The term was originally coined by Peter Rowe in his 1997 "Design Thinking" book. In this he described the methods and approaches used by urban planners and architects. This concept has been more recently been adapted for education by the REDLab Group from Stamford Universities Graduate School of Education . It is a method of planning, goal setting and creating creative solutions for problems to improve future results. Design thinking is regarded as solution focused thinking where the starting point is the goal and then uses backward mapping to fill in the details. "A key component of the process is fostering the ability not only to solve a problem, but to define the problem. This seemingly subtle shift can energize one towards empathetic action and innovation." (REDLab, 2009) Design thinking encourages divergent thin...