Inquiry - Restating the Problem

 "How can I use and expand on existing platforms that the students are familiar with, to motivate them to be more engaged with their work."

At the start of the year, I had decided to focus on motivation and engagement for my inquiry problem. I have been making help videos and support material for all the activities that they have been asked to do so far this year. I have been putting this help on the class site and on the student workspaces, so it is all really easy to find. I have been emailing the direct links to this to the students. 

So far this year, this has been ok for those students who are engaging with communications from school (emails etc) but hopeless for those students who don't. If they don't check their emails, go on the class site or the workspaces, they are not engaging with the work at all. The videos and help have been really helpful for those students who are working form home for any period of time and for those in the class while I work one to one with others.

During some PD this week, I was listening to Subash Chander K from Ormiston Junior College
Youtube - infinityplusone
Twitter - @elsubash

He was talking about how he started a YouTube channel for Maths and the really positive affect it has had on students. This really clicked with me as I had already been ticking an idea over in my head about trying to reach the students in a different way, especially those who don't connect with the traditional channels. A really interesting question that he raised was, can education be on demand.

This links nicely with the Manaiakalani kaupapa of ubiquitous learning, anytime and any place. Also, after the last CoL meeting, where we were talking about how to use technology to support what we need to do, this seemed to fit really well. 

Another place where this fits well is from student feedback when i was talking to them about what they thought motivation was. - blog post here. One particular comment stuck with me from an especially unmotivated student. He said that he uses social media to learn new things. I had not looked at it this way before and it started a little kernel of thought at the back of my head. This came to the surface again this week while listening to the teacher talking about using YouTube channels.

So, I have a slightly different direction to go in now. It is still firmly based in student motivation and engagement but with a twist.