Week 4 Mind Lab

Leadership Task:

Read the article on the portal "Research-Informed Teaching of Adults: A Worthy Alternative to Old Habits and Hearsay?" - in particular the first five and a half pages and the conclusion on page 15. 
Then consider whether teaching needs to be Research-Informed? 

1. research-led, where the curriculum content is based on the research interests of teachers
   
2. research-oriented, where the process of learning content is seen as important as the content itself and hence, an emphasis on learning inquiry skills
   
3. research-based, where the curriculum is based on inquiry-based activities rather than acquisition of content
   
4. research-informed teaching, which consciously draws on systematic inquiry into the teaching and learning process itself. 

• Teacher's philosophy may not be enough and their practice may not align with their beliefs despite their best intentions. 
• Teachers have been taught in traditional ways so they are socialised to teaching in a teacher directed style. 
• Teacher's may use their experiences rather than research to justify their practice.  
• There are alternatives to RIT such as we could identify effective teachers but what would be the criteria? 
• Learners perspective, peer assessment and learning based could also be used. 
• The benefits of using research is to be able to use teaching ideas from qualitative and/or quantitive data. 
• This means that the teacher would have to be impartial when assessing the effectiveness of our own and others teaching practice. 

If so, what parts of the article should you keep in mind when working on your assignments?
For my own assignment I need to collect data which is following an unbiased inquiry process. I need to collect data from a variety of sources.

Digital Task:

View the video 'Top 10 Learning Theories for Digital and Collaborative Learning'. 
Consider the differences between constructivism and constructionism and how collaboration relates to both. 
Create a diagram that captures your ideas on a single slide, then record a screencast of you explaining your diagram (2 mins max). 
You'll show this to another student in class, so you just need it saved on your device.

Collaborative, Constructionist and Constructivist Learning

Constructivism, constructionism and collaboration Task