Learners at the Centre

Agency, Engagement and Authentic Learning 

The steering committee - behind the GEGNZ student summit
 Hobsonville Point Primary School (HPPS) 

Thanks to a dedicated and passionate group of educators, a dream was turned into reality...the inaugural #GEGNZ student summit happened on Wednesday, attended by Year 0 -13 students from schools across New Zealand. Daniel and his team at HPPS also need to be mentioned - thanks for being so welcoming. I was fortunate to attend as part of my role at Core Education, plus as a Mum whose son and three classmates were presenting.

The Highlights:

Keynote speaker, Toby Carr, provided students with a succinct, clear message which included: following your dreams, be prepared to help out others, and make the most of school and teachers.

Next, the students themselves were leading the learning, with learners having the opportunity to select, attend and participate in workshops of their choice. These ranged from robotics, creating animations and i-movie to filming studios, create your own Streetfighter with Scratch and Powtoon!

Click here to see the Google+ story from the day. The four boys from Glamorgan School shared their experiences of Science Week. Each class member chose an aspect of Science they wished to explore, plus the way in which they wanted to present it. The key aim was that they needed to teach the rest of the class what they learnt.

Science Week - Callum's 5 days of Science - https://goo.gl/DvRadq

Dylan, Ryan, Callum and Joshua with Mr Van der Hoorn, DP

Here are some photos of the students teaching the participants:

Robotics

Year 1 & 2s - Animating Google Slides

Creating an Inquiry Script

What the students say?

"best most awesome day ever" 

(Hugo, aged 10)

"A great experience - I liked that not only did we get to present, but we also got to choose sessions to learn cool things" 

(Callum, aged 9)

"It was a really fun day of learning. The presentations were really interesting

That was so cool. It was so much fun! The whole day was really amazing!
Hope I get to go next year! Loved the robotics"  

(Ryan, Dylan & Josh, aged 10, 11 & 9)

What the research says?

This quote from Bruce Feiler (2013) resonates well, affirming my stance both as a parent and an educator: 

Children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules and evaluate their own work, build up their frontal cortex and 

take more control over their lives.

Special moment - proud of Callum and his team - facing the fear and making it happen!

How might you empower your students/children to have agency over their learning; to be authentically engaged; and learner centred?