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What do we know? Let's start to explore...

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Learning theories.com defines 'Community of practice' as - “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”

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An interesting paper which looks to "argue that the change from CoP to PoC (practices of a community) continues the debate in progress by shifting attention away from the acting subject to the practices that perform a situated subjectivity." - Essentially meaning the paper is looking to take the concept into a deeper holistic view in that we are in tune with our practices naturally and that these natural skills will develop through community.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPmHh2ttb4 - 0:00 - 1:03

In summary, COP to me is what is stated in the video above in which a number of students, all attending a class measured to be at different levels or abilities can all work with each other to develop and learn. I believe this is true in all of our lives and I equate this to any subject. As children we were praised for getting things wrong. Through the praise and aid of our community (our parental guardians) we were encouraged to develop our language so that we could speak. I heavily equate this to music in that 'Jamming with professionals' (our peers, tutors) we develop our language regardless of subject.  "It's rare that I ever meet a musician who doesn't agree that music is a language. But it's very rare to meet a musician that really treats it like one." - (V. Wooten - The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music, 2006)

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situated learning theory posits that knowledge is best acquired through active participation and social interaction within communities of practice.

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1. Integrate Real World Simulations and Scenarios Using scenarios and simulations in your online training is one of the most effective and authentic ways to leverage situated cognition.

2. Encourage Communities for Learning and Practice .

3. Include Case Studies to Put Knowledge into Context .

4. Model Behaviors or Tasks .

5. Develop Engaging eLearning Assessments .

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Situated Learning Theory, the theory of unintentional discovery. This theory gives me the opinion that it’s more about discovery of things learnt rather than having everything explained to you in a structured way.

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Situated Learning Theory - Jean Lave (learning-theories.com)

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A community of practice (Lave & Wegner) is a group of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to better their practice.

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The term was first used in 1991 by theorists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger who discussed the notion of legitimate peripheral participation. In 1998, the theorist Etienne Wenger extended the concept and applied it to other domains, such as organisations.

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Three components of Community of Practice 

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Three components of Community of Practice 

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1. DOMAIN - A Community of Practice has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest for example Hull City fans or maths teachers etc.

2. COMMUNITY - A necessary component is that members of a specific domain interact and engage in shared activities, help each other, and share information with each other. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other.

3. PRACTICE - The third requirement for a Community of Practice is that the members are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources which can include stories, helpful tools, experiences, stories, ways of handling typical problems, etc.

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Communities develop their practice through a variety of methods, including: problem solving, requests for information, seeking the experiences of others, reusing assets, coordination and synergy, discussing developments, visiting other members, mapping knowledge and identifying gaps.

For Wenger, learning is central to human identity. A primary focus is learning as social participation – that is, an individual as an active participant in the practices of social communities, and in the construction of his or her identity through these communities.

People continuously create their shared identity through engaging in and contributing to the practices of their communities. The motivation to become a more central participant in a community of practice can provide a powerful incentive for learning.

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Situated Learning Theory - Jean Lave (learning-theories.com)

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How we can bring forward Community of Practice in our course..

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How we can bring forward Community of Practice in our course..

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Bringing ideas forward to engage in inspiring and helpful thoughts and experiences that we can carry forward to deliver new and engaging teaching methods.
By connecting with like minded people it will give individuals confidence in their learning practice and reduce the feeling of self doubt that can be a result if difficulties are faced alone.

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Situated Learning Theory emphasises the need for knowledge to be presented in authentic contexts - so in settings and situations where that knowledge would naturally occur. The theory itself works on two key premises - the idea that knowledge presented without context is more difficult to absorb, and that students learn best in collaborative, social environments.

The most widely accepted definition of this term is to "create a situational context for learning that strongly resembles possible application situations in order to assure that the learning experiences foster ‘real-life’ problem solving" (Renkl, 2001)

In essence, the idea is to foster a learning that allows students the opportunity to put ideas into practice - exploring situations where the learning has contextual relevance, in order to better understand what's being presented to them.

Situated Learning: Out of School and in the Classroom - ScienceDirect

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Situated Learning Theory - Dr Etienne Wenger

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Situated Learning Theory - Dr Etienne Wenger

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22:44 - 26:40

"We focus very much on the technical aspect of learning but we don't focus much on the meaning and the becoming. [We have] curricula that are very well structured but often leave students wondering [...] who am I? What does this have to do with me?"

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Dr Etienne Wenger: Learning in landscapes of practice

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What is a Community of Practice in Education? | Teaching Online Masterclass

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What do we know? Let's start to explore...

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Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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Right-brained? Left-brained? Take the brain test!

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Which side of your brain is more dominant?
The 30-Second Brain Test

In which direction is the dancer turning?

Choose the color, not the word. You have 4 seconds for each task.

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participation.
We welcome your feedback.

The brain test is a fun and insightful game that helps us learn more about ourselves and the way we think. There are no right or wrong answers, it merely tests the balance between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The brain test doesn't measure knowledge like a brain training game does, and it is not designed for brain development, however it does tell us a lot about our brains; the result reveals to users how much they use the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Simply complete the quiz to get the result. Have fun!

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Right-brained? Left-brained? Take the brain test!

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Which side of your brain is more dominant? Take the popular ③⓪-second brain test and compare the result with your friends! ☕ Start your brain test now "

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Teaching the pupils hockey today instead of making the pupils watch I got them to get a stick and a puck and as I was telling them how to do the activity I was actually doing it and the pupils followed me instead of watching me do it they participated and controlled the puck better then whacking it across the room 😂

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When we require models for therapists assessments set a standard for how we should talk to clients and build trust so that can be followed though when working in the industry/salon.

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As this is usually part of a number of learners of different levels, its essentially a hierarchy of SOL, in that the perceived amazing guitarist is what to aspire to. In practice however its the perceived weaker guitarists that will gain the most knowledge in comparison. So in fairness I do try and promote this perhaps from the ideas of SLT and COP, in that all of them define me as the unconsciously knowing person in the room. This is often shown through the same exercises for all regardless of level as everyone should try to recap and strengthen their foundational knowledge regularly.

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Showing a broken-down/shortened demonstration of a particular treatment and getting learner's to imitate step-by-step and going over any problem areas

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In a session I taught today, I had my students work in groups to analyse a specific extract from a play. I modelled this first, by picking out some key words that represented key areas of tension in the text. I then let them work collaboratively, encouraging discussion, and allowed them to choose who got to feed back at the end of the activity.

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There are chances to engage students in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering where was can have the students as a team build structures using Lego. It will then be possible to allow them to hang a weight onto a structure to see which is the best supported structure in practice.

They will be able to question each other and additionally, the students will be able to see why the concept of bridge design is specifically relevant to the maths/ science they will be applying.

It can bring students out of their shell and help with teamwork/ applied science in learning.

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https://www.playguitarlive.com/the-4-levels-of-awareness-for-musicians/

This is literally one of my main points of conversation with all my students every year and feel this fits perfectly here, and potentially for other disciplines and subjects

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Anthony Wellington has a great lesson when it comes to learning how to play an instrument. His approach involves 4 levels of awareness that musicians find themselves in. What's great is being able to identify your level of awareness so that you can take appropriate action to reach the next...

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My activity would be open discussion.
1. Start with open discussion of classes existing knowledge and gauge levels of awareness.
2. Individual research activity presented for students to define the word 'Festival' and list as many 'types' of festivals and what defines the 'Types' e.g Food festival, Music festival,
3. Individual then divulge their findings to the group.
4. Teacher then defines groups (pairs or more) each with a festival 'type'. With further task to design a festival based on research; including branding, colour schemes, locations type (a field, a venue) and presents their designs to group again.
5. Tutor comes in to then summarize concepts on stereotypes and how this links to image and genre in music.

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My idea is to begin a discussion with the group on what they have seen before on tv related to festivals?

For me a most common theme is festival flags.

They are a great method of self expression and for people to showcase things they are passionate about.

Each learner would be given a piece of paper/kebab stick/glue and coloured pencils then get to work on creating your own festival flag

Each learner will then talk us through their idea and this will have hopefully created a positive, fun activity.

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Understanding of a Festival - Constructivist Approach

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Understanding of a Festival - Constructivist Approach

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My activity for this task would be creating a mind map of what a festival is and deciding what your ideal festival would be

Firstly, I would have an open discussion with the group about their existing knowledge of festivals and gauge which students have more/less knowledge on the topic

I would then show the learners a short video of the most popular UK festivals and get them to take notes of anything that stands out to them from the images shown as well as the short summaries of each festival in the video. I would also ask the learners to write down the festivals which appeal to them the most based on their personal preferences

I would then get the learners into small groups (pairing less knowledgeable learners with more knowledgable learners where possible) and ask them to create a mindmap of what they think a festival is, with the help of headings such as music, colours, food, activities, genres, clothing etc.

After this has been completed, I would get the learners to present their findings to the group with the help of their mind maps

I would finish with a discussion on the learner's findings and a question and answer session of why certain festivals appeal to certain learners

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The best UK festivals | Condé Nast Traveller

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I thought I'd prepare an activity to learn about the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
It is a command in the Torah (which is also in the beginning of the old testament of the Bible) to observe and participate in a yearly festival where Jew's create shelters made from palm branches to remind them of God's provision.
It takes place at the end of the summer harvest.
It starts on a friday evening which is when the Jews have a weekly "rest" (Shabbat) of their work that usually lasts 24hours. The Jewish week starts on a Sunday so the Shabbat is the way they end their week.
The Sukkot is a week long festival that involves spending as much time during that week as possible with your family in your own shelter. At the very least, every meal is eaten in the shelter.
It is customary to decorate it lights. It is a reminder that God provided for the Jews while they were wandering in the desert for 40 years following being slaves to Egypt and before they reached the promised land of Israel. They use four "Kind's" as prescribed in the command. This includes citron, palm branches, myrtle and willow. They thank God for these every day during the festival.
I would plan an activity to build a shelter and decorate it in the way the Jews would.
It is also cusomary to eat flat bread dipped in honey. I would therefore plan for the lesson to include this.
I would prepare the four Kinds and demonstrate how the Jew's would thank God for providing for them.
I would then have a meal for the students to eat within the shelter.
I believe this style of learning would be constructivist and provide a scaffolding for the students to associate their learning of the festival to an experience that has been framed on History and tradition.

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https://youtu.be/pza-KUzFfRU?si=9oWd_VyaE9bT1klL

My festival would be obviously P.E based! I’d start off by getting the pupils ready for the festival and we’d get ready to go, I would set that up by putting hoops around the sports hall floor there the pupils rucksacks. I’d print a load of resources off like pictures off essential items and luxury items and put them in the middle of the floor, I would then set a timer and the pupils have to run and grab the items and put them in their rucksack in the allotted time, we would then look through the rucksacks and chat about what we would take.

After that activity we would play 2 variations of tig. The first one being stuck in the mud and then the second one being toilet tig (toilet tig- once tug you squat in a sitting in a toilet position with your arm out if someone who isn’t tug pushes your arm down to flush the toilet and then your free) as there is a lot of mud in festivals and the toilets are grim it will be a fun engaging activity for the pupils and there can be added humour to this.

Using the YouTube video above we would dance to music following a the screen at first then we would introduce music in where the pupils can create or do their own dance moves to add a dance element to the session and festivals are all about music!!

Finally after a lot of running around and laughter the last link is chilled music where we would finish off with some meditation as festivals are so busy it’s nice to unwind and chill out weather you sleep or not 😂

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🌟 Just Dance 2017: Don't Stop Me Now by Queen - 5 Stars 🌟

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Out of all the education graphics that exist, none has gripped the imagination and attention of educators more than the pyramid.

Be it Bloom's Taxonomy, Dale's Cone of Learning or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, it seems that pyramids are the predominant concept. But is their place in education justified? Are they accurate? And do they potentially do more harm than good?

Bloom's Taxonomy
What is Bloom's Taxonomy?
Bloom's Taxonomy was first published in the mid 1950s and went on to become a staple part of initial teacher training for many years, despite its many issues and flaws. It was designed with the intention of helping develop students "higher-order" thinking skills and as a way to design and assess learning outcomes.

What's the problem with Bloom's Taxonomy?
Bloom's Taxonomy places "remembering" significantly lower down than "evaluating" or "creating". This has led to many interpreting the latter two being more important and of higher value than the former.

But this is a false dichotomy, as remembering, or essentially having large amounts domain-specific knowledge, makes high quality evaluating and creating possible. Even the best "evaluator" among your students would struggle to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the deaths of Ophelia and Juliette without knowing the details and context of William Shakespeare's plays.

Furthermore, when you take it to its natural conclusion, the downgrading of knowledge in favour of skills becomes incredibly problematic. This culminates in favouring a more discovery-based and inquiry-learning approach - in theory, this would allow to spend more time practising these higher-order skills.

Unfortunately, research suggests that this approach is not beneficial for novices, who do not have a rich schema in place to help them mentally connect these dots. As a result, it places a heavy toll on their working memory, which can hinder the transfer of information to their long-term memory. This can lead to a cognitive overload, which ultimately increases stress and reduces learning.

Finally, it is interesting to note that it isn't technically a taxonomy, which is the scientific classification of things. In the 60+ years Bloom's "Taxonomy" has existed, methodical research on cognitive science and learning has come on leaps and bounds, and it does not support the idea that the different levels described are separate and isolated. Instead, they interlink and work in tandem to support one another.

Dale's Cone of Learning
What is Dale's Cone of Learning?
Dale's Cone of Learning, initially called the Cone of Experience, aimed to inform teachers of how much their students would remember depending on how they presented information to them.

What's the problem with Dale's Cone of Learning?
Dale's Cone of Learning is arguably one of, if not the most shared education graphic. For many years, it was displayed without objection or critique, in a sort of Bandwagon Effect that assumed its popularity meant accuracy. Sadly, this is simply not the case.

As with all edu-myths, Dale's Cone is a bit like the Magic Eye posters that were popular in the early 90s: if you squint and try really hard, you can probably find something in it. For example, some research did find support for teaching others as an effective technique (known as the Protégé Effect).

Sadly though, the truth is that there is no evidence to support the figures often associated with Dale's Cone. Rather tellingly, Dale did not include any numbers in his original graphic (these were added some years later by a Mobil Oil company employee in a non peer-reviewed journal).

The first clue is that those numbers are too neat. A sceptic would point out that you should always be cautious of round numbers, as research (especially into something as complex and messy as student learning) doesn't lend itself to clean-cut, well-rounded numbers.

Additionally, pyramids are sequential - one would expect that to get to the next level, you have to complete the previous one. This is clearly not the case for Dale's Cone, as to complete it would amount to learning 275% of a piece of information.

Furthermore, the layers used in this graphic suggests a very defined and structured hierarchy of effectiveness. As with the figures themselves, no such research paper has ever been published to support the exact order of the learning strategies used in this graphic.

The final criticism of this graphic tends to be true of most pyramid-shaped graphics in education. They are confusing as they send mixed messages. On one hand, the base of the pyramid makes it sound like it is the foundation that all other areas are built on. On the other hand, the top of the pyramid is often viewed as the pinnacle. All in all, it's probably fair to say that the sooner Dale's Cone of Learning is left in the past, much like those Magic Eye posters, the better.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
What is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has by and large stood the test of time. It was first released during World War II and sought to explore the direction one goes through for personal development. Essentially, it suggests that one's physiological and primary needs must be met before one can meet the "higher-order" psychological needs.

Find this graphic and many more in our latest book, Teaching & Learning Illuminated!
What's the problem with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
Sounds logical, right? Well, all is not rosy in the Maslow garden. Many other researchers have since commented that it is probably more accurate to think of each level as overlapping and at times interlinking instead of separate and perfectly sequential. Like most pyramid-shaped graphics, it may be more complex than the simplistic presentation may suggest.

A lesser-known fact about the Hierarchy of Needs to be aware of is that a more detailed update published just before Maslow's death exists. It includes additional layers, one of which places "Transcendence" at the peak instead of "Self-Actualisation".

It has been reported that Maslow felt his original model was " too sloppy and too easily criticisable" and that he " meant to write and publish a self-actualization critique, but somehow never did." Transcendence includes helping others develop their potential, whereas Self-Actualisation tends to focus more on realising one's own individual potential.

Overall, this model certainly isn't perfect. It has its flaws and weaknesses and, like all pyramid models, is too neat to be considered true. That being said, it is worth knowing about - it does provide a strong platform to help initially understand a range of areas such as intrinsic motivation, psychological safety and attachment in students.

Final ThoughtS

Illustrations have the ability to illuminate and explain complex systems and ideas. However, they should always be viewed with scrutiny, especially if they either suggest a clear hierarchy or present suspiciously neat and round numbers as fact.

Hopefully this blog goes some way to help paint a clearer picture.

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Be wary of pyramids: the problem with Bloom, Dale and Maslow

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Infographics can make complex topics accessible in education, but they're often simple to a fault. We take a look at Bloom, Dale and Maslow's limitations.

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Developing an Understanding of a Festival - Constructivism

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Developing an Understanding of a Festival - Constructivism

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Initial Task – Show students several images of different festivals (music, food, religious, art) and ask students to think about what these images have in common. For those who might be struggling, provide sentence starters such as "In this image I can see..." or "The people in this image are..."

Ask students to feed back their ideas, developing this into a group discussion about festivals and their purpose. To stretch, ask students to consider whether the context of the image changes their initial perception.

Students will then be split into groups and each group will be given a festival theme to research, producing collaborative mind-maps about the activities, attire, purpose etc. of their given festival.

Main Task – Students will produce a short piece of creative writing about a festival, using the round robin method. Each student will write a few introductory sentences, then pass their writing around the table to the next person. This collaborative approach will encourage students to read and analyse the work they've been given, challenging their creativity and ability to generate ideas under time constraints.