 Hi, my name is Tracy Takahama-Spinoza and this is a video on authentic learning and how your brain actually processes that and what can we do as teachers to leverage that in our classrooms. Authentic learning is based on this core idea that it's easier to retrieve memories and facts and skills when they've been embedded in individually relevant and meaningful contexts. As always, it's important to remember is that there's great human variability. What is authentic to you might not be authentic to me, right? So we have to be very adept at identifying what is truly authentic for the majority of learners in our classroom. So since this concept of authentic learning has been bent on around for decades, I thought I'd highlight some of the definitions that have been used to bounce us around with you as far as the discussion point we'll meet up again. Some of the different components of authentic learning include the following. This is based on rules idea, which I'd like to bring up in our discussion later on because I think that there's some really nice and broad parameters that are placed on this concept of authentic learning here. The first is that for something you've considered authentic learning, it's really based on real world problems that engage learners in work of professionals. So basically allowing a kid to go out and be a surveyor of the land or an architect or to gather specimens as a biologist is one way we could consider things to be authentic in our classroom. The second way is that authentic learning components are based on inquiry activities that practice thinking skills and metacognition. So it's not something that is only experiential. Okay, yes, we went out and we planted the garden, for example, but did we challenge ourselves at a metacognitive level as well? The third point has to do with discourse among the community of learners. This big idea of one plus one is three. Was there exchange amongst the people in this context? It's not that anybody can have authentic learning in and of themselves, just doing things all by themselves, but that learning is innately social. And fourth, that student empowerment through choice is really evident. So that authentic learning includes a certain level of autonomy that it's not dictated by the teacher. I'd love to hear your ideas about that when we get together in class. Now most of us who use authentic learning are very much convinced about the benefits, but I thought that this video was wonderful in a great summary of concepts. And I'd like you to hear the range of ideas that this principal brings into this when she describes authentic learning, especially as they go from meeting the needs of state-based testing requirements. Think about this for a second. What I think is so powerful about this work is that the students really feel they are doing real authentic work and real authentic learning. The questions they come up with are questions that they come to because they come up with real life problems that they tie into the curriculum or that maybe come from the curriculum as a topic. So they come up with big questions they have and big problems they want to solve. They dig in very deeply and they have to become problem solvers in order to be successful at coming up with solutions. They can only meet with success because they're doing this together. And there's never a bad idea. It's only an idea that we can fail at and try again or we can improve upon. So their mindset now is as such that there is no right answer that I'm going to get to get an A. I can only improve upon an idea I had yesterday. And that really reflects the working world that we live in today, that we need collaborators to be really 21st century fluent. We need to be able to be creative, to collaborate, to work with others, to come to better understandings, to better our ideas and work forward. These students are going to be our people that we will need in our jobs in the future. They need to be able to attack problems and see themselves in the problem and see themselves in the solution. What I see with the students who are deeply into these using these tools is they are confident. They truly build upon each other as they speak. I witnessed some grade 6 students talking the other day and they were asked questions by adults in the room and they were so composed and so confident. And when one student would be asked they would start to answer and turn to another one who would say, and I'd like to add on to that idea or, you know, and I'd like to build on your thinking. So they are truly taking on those attributes of collaborative learners and see themselves that way and are reflective of their ability to do so. So they are now able to say, yes, we collaborated really well because we did X, Y, Z. And are building the success criteria for collaboration and problem solving as they engage in it. So they meet their targets. And a good teacher can also see that they're also meeting those expectations in the curriculum as they weave it into the learning of the students as they engage in those problems. So I think it is about real world. It's about teaching kids to be, to truly be thinkers, deep thinkers, problem solvers. To think outside the box. To see the viewpoint of others. That all people have ideas that are of value. I think it will take away from that conflict, that win, lose. You know, my idea has to be the best one that we often see in the world. And when students have learned at these ages to build things together we can only be building better citizens who will be more productive in the workplace as they grow and learn. So when we get together I'd really like to compare your ideas with her vision on authentic learning. It's also important to try to define this idea of what is an authentic learning environment. And so what does this mean in terms of context? And I want to show you multiple different visions of this and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this when we get together. One is that authentic learning is problem-based learning relevant to content domain. So that means that the problems that are discussed must be real things. So let's discuss trash collection in our city or the threat of the volcano or bullying in our hallways or the quality of the food service at school or whatever it might be, right? So it has to be a real problem. Another vision on this comes from Petroglia's idea that authenticity can either be predetermined or preordained. So it's all based on prior experience. So we can't really say that something is authentic without knowing the individual to whom it's just being prescribed. The third idea is that authenticity occurs not in a learner or the task or the environment, but the dynamic interaction among all of those components. So authenticity is really comprised of what the learner is bringing to the table, what it is we're asked to do, what the environment is that we created, the interaction, the dynamic of that exchange. And the fourth aspect is pretty interesting. And I think this is one I'd love to, you know, chew on a little bit more when we're together is that cognitive authenticity is more important than physical authenticity. For example, should you get kids dressed up to be Arthur or Walsh Waldo or should you be concerned more about what's going on in their own heads, not just that dress up experience or rather than taking them on that field trip, you know, which is physically authentic. Have we also assured that the conditions are cognitively authentic to that individual? Is it something that plants new ideas in their head? So what does it have to do with the environment? What's really the most important thing? Or is it what's happening in that individual kid's head that's most important? And finally, I'd like to introduce this interesting idea when we talk about what is an authentic learning environment now. Nowadays with technology, what does it mean to have an authentic learning experience? Must authenticity necessarily involve technology, for example? Or does authenticity have to do with the context of these days? I'd like to share a video by a very interesting teacher who talks about authentic learning at his school and what they've actually done to replicate conditions of a real workplace. We have something at Stonefield School called Breakthrough and it is modelled on Google and 3M 20% time. We're basically 20% of the working week workers and in our case learners get to pursue their passions. So that could be anything from making rockets to computer programming to clowning to Rube Goldberg machine creation to digital movie remixing, music remixing. Yeah and that's our breakthrough time. I think probably if you asked our learners what their favourite part of being at Stonefield is and what we could improve, break through, break through, break through, break through, more break through, more break through. And I think it's incredibly beneficial for our learners because you get to see different strengths and different aspects of collaboration and some learners who just shine, who truly shine in aspects that you would never imagine, it's their chance to express that passion and that sort of authenticity for their learning. And it encompasses everything and it encompasses reading, writing, maths in its real world context, it's real learning and it doesn't stop at three either. It carries on at home time, you know, it carries on, we get kids coming and bringing artefacts from home and look what I've done, you know, look what I've worked on the weekend, I had someone sew over and we built rockets and we took photos and this is the learning and then we had to measure how far they fell, then we had to measure how high they went and you're getting things like velocity and things like that. It's absolutely fantastic because it's authentic to them. So an additional angle that this teacher brings into the conversation is transdisciplinary thinking. He's basically equating the idea of doing authentic learning to a way of integrating maths and writing and creative processes. I think this is something that I'd love to explore more with you because true authenticity then, does this mean that is it naturally linked to this idea of transdisciplinary thinking and problem solving, which is really the way most problems in the world are approached anyways, right? And the last big idea I'd like to bring into this discussion of authenticity has to do with authenticity today. Does this necessarily involve technology? And there are a lot of different research articles coming out now related to authentic learning and technology education and basically understanding how fieldwork or exploration is really the greatest experience in authentic learning and how could this be facilitated through virtual realities? Going on field trips or doing simulations. And there are several different businesses cropping up around this that have to do with looking at augmented reality experiences. One of them which I was able to see at the Reimagine Education Conference recently has to do with something called Labster, which is to use laboratory experiences but through virtual reality. This means that you do not have to invest a million dollars into a wonderful laboratory for your kids but could they actually have a similar experience just on their computers? Let's watch a short video on that. Welcome to Labster, a next generation virtual laboratory for teaching and learning life science. It engages students in the wonders of biotechnology and molecular biology. In the laboratory, students can perform experiments that are otherwise too expensive, time consuming or unsafe to perform in a school environment. It's great for prepping students before working in the lab and it can also be used to demo more abstract concepts in theoretical classes. Instead of performing experiments as if reading from a cookbook students actually reflect on the underlying theory. They can learn through trial and error and really comprehend concepts that would be impractical or even dangerous to teach in a traditional lab. A virtual laboratory is like a physical one only enhanced with bonus features. Institutions can introduce advanced concepts at a fraction of the cost. Students get hands-on experience in a realistic environment and engage in challenging exercises relevant to real-world situations. Furthermore, everyone uses lab and teaching time more effectively by virtualizing time consuming steps. Labster combines virtual lab exercises and quiz questions with game-like experiences as with this crime scene challenge where students gather evidence and analyze it in the lab in order to solve the case. Leading institutions around the world are leveraging labster to take their teaching and life sciences to the next level. Implementing labster is easy. Visit us at labster.com and learn how you too can create a virtual lab that matches your teaching program. Bring life science teaching to life with labster. So as you can see from that video and the list of participants so far this is being applied a lot to university laboratories but it can be used with younger students as well to teach lab protocol for example why is it that you can touch certain types of elements and not touch other things or well what happened if you did mix this that and the other thing you know how kids love explosions right in chemistry classes well this is actually showing them how you can mix and match different types of elements as well so it can be used with younger kids and so there is this element now does this mean that authenticity since kids live with so much in the digital age does it actually mean that doing things with virtual reality or augmented reality is going to play a bigger role in education and obviously it is but what does that mean for your particular school context and is that a welcome thing at your school or for you personally perhaps at this level of you know cost benefit things some people can't afford to install these very expensive labs or to buy tons of mice to do experiments and things like that in schools but would they be able to reduce costs and have a broader range of experiences through virtual reality that's a question for us okay so last big question related to risk factors of authentic learning most teachers buy into the idea that authentic learning is definitely important however then they still go back to their textbook and why did they do that sometimes there is a risk factor that people feel that they can't cover enough material due to time what I'd like to discuss with you is perhaps it actually saves time because you're not only doing the step-by-step content of what a textbook might have but you're actually broadening this use of integrated skill sets into a single experience resources do we really have enough resources my school can't buy that that particular program to do that virtual experience what does this mean in terms of resources does authentic learning actually require more resources than traditional textbook teaching and I want to throw out this last idea sort of as kind of like the gauntlet here maybe part of this is that we're changing the way we look at teaching we're actually challenging teachers then to say okay yeah authentic learning experiences are different it's very different to plan a class that has authentic learning going on than to just you know follow the steps that are that are suggested in the back of your textbook it requires a lot more imagination and is that maybe one of the challenges that we see as far as teaching is concerned nowadays in applying authentic learning context constructs environments and methodologies so I'd like to leave you with this quote by Steinbeck which is that I've come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there as few as there are any other great artists it might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit that's wonderful but I'd like to push back a little bit I don't think that great teachers in the sense are so rare I think though that using your imagination that incorporating authentic learning is a mind shift it's a different way to teach but it is well worth the effort and I don't think that will be as rare those of us who want to incorporate authentic learning won't be as rare as Steinbeck maybe hinted at many years ago okay so I'm going to leave you there I hope you have lots of great questions about authentic learning and that we have an active debate when we get together looking forward to seeing you