Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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stem stories of Mr Ewing.
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Welcome to part three of our journey into this magical
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unicorn year.
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I'm lucky that when I said three, I normally do
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that. Not quite sure why.
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That's probably what we need to understand what it means
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to be a learner and you learn why I do
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that. But I want us to again throw away all
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our preconceived ideas and notions on what it means to
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be a learner, because right now we understand that in
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the classroom, with a lot of hands on experience in
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project based learning, we're creating an amazing generation of learners,
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learning in a very different way than a lot of
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us had opportunities to learn from.
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Unless we just had, like, myself, some amazing educators along
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the way.
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That did a lot of this work way before it
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was deemed like the thing to Dio.
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Um, and I'm hoping that by seeing what some educators
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did wait for us that we're able to emulate, mimic
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what we were able to experience an embrace, that we
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have a new generation of learners and you know, we
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work with our learners in the classroom, we will teach
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them to collaborate with his, teach him to communicate and
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have discourse and team together.
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And, you know, just do all kinds of things that
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are those soft skills that help develop learners on top
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of the hard skills that we teach them.
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So there's those hard schools and soft skills, and if
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you're not sure what I'm talking about, do a quick
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search on that.
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But we know that in the classroom, and even in
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a virtual world that, um, are learners, learn together better.
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There's they're stronger when they're learning together.
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But I wanted to put these two pictures side by
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side. Which group of kids do you think is learning
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better in a collaborative way?
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In my preconceived idea, I would pick the picture on
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top because to me, there are actually working together.
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But this generation of learners that we're working with are
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actually guiding us.
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They could all be communicating with each other because this
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is the way they communicate, and it's OK because that's
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what they've chosen.
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It's not the way I would do it.
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It's not If I was in a room with people
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and they were all communicating through their devices and not
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talking with each other.
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I would be incredibly uncomfortable, but that's because that's not
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how I do it.
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So I can assume I can't sorry persuade a generation
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to do something that they're comfortable with.
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This is how they do it.
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So I need to embrace the way they do things
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instead of trying to force them to do things the
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way I want him to do it.
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That's a huge, huge point to make about understanding what
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makes a learner.
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And remember learning her learner's aren't just learning in the
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classroom. They're learning every minute of the day, and we
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get to be that guy while they're in our classroom.
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Remember, there's a whole lot of people guiding them and
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through their learning.
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So I want to take a step back and understand,
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Go back to the point of those people working Are
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the kids that were on their phone?
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Um, when I was a school, we actually took typing
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class, and I know there was probably a generation that
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when typewriters first came out, I thought one part was
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like, Yeah, this is gonna make our life really easy.
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But I'm sure there was a group of people that
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said it's never going to replace pencil on paper or
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pan and paper.
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This is something that's just going to be for businesses
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like understanding the keyboard.
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But if you think about technology and a lot of
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teachers have their feelings about technology, but at some point
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the pencils we use was an innovative technology.
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It was replacing ink pens where we had a dink
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dipping inkwells, and I'm pretty sure there were people that
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were against it and said it will never catch on.
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And people probably said the same thing about typewriters and
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people, and I know they do this talk about the
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same thing with computers.
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It's never going to replace something.
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Well, it already has, and our students have already replaced
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it because that's the way they learn.
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There are different generation of learners We have to stop
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Thinking of of our learners is the way we learned
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and embrace the way they learn.
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Here's a fun thing.
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Have you ever seen a kid, a student by scholar
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from this generation sit down in front of an old
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typewriter? First of all, they don't know what it is.
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It's sort of like showing them a landline phone no
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clue but having to sit down and I will tell
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you I can guarantee you that they're gonna pick it
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up way quicker then we ever would or ever did.
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Because there are generation of inquisitive learners, they're fascinated by
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new. They're not afraid of it because they're constantly seeing
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new in a way that we never saw.
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It took years and decades for something new to come
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out where it takes months.
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Now think about our phones we use.
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How often are new phones coming out with crazy new
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inventions and APS and features that you know this generation?
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They take it for granted.
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They're expected.
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So this generation of learners expects change.
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So this is a really good picture of how even
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myself is.
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An educator sometimes gets frustrated by the way I think
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they should be learning.
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And students are getting justice frustrated.
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They're like, we don't learn this way.
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So sometimes there's this butting of heads that is happening,
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and it's OK because we need to be in a
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position of disequilibrium to get to that place of balance
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and understanding because they embrace it.
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Our students are incredibly resilient.
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They are flexible, they're pliable they are thirsty for new,
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and we need to embrace that.
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This is the type of learner that is this generation,
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not the learners, that we think they are learning so
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much more than we could possibly understand.
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And an incredibly early age.
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They're learning things in a much faster rate than we
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ever learned it.
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And it's okay.
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Sometimes we just need to get out of the way
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because they're gonna learn they're gonna learn a lot whether
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we're there or not.
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So if we embrace that this is a style of
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learner that we're working with inspiring, leading whatever you wanna
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call it.
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We're going to be much better at the work we're
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doing. We need to know that during this magical unicorn
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year, we have a chance to change our idea of
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what a learner is, what a learner looks like and
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how they just super important because we actually need to
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be the ones who change.
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They've already changed