Showing posts with label Autonomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autonomy. Show all posts
Monday, 6 June 2016
AEFES Home Education & Unschooling Festival
There is a new home education festival with a strong Unschooling ethos. Having been inspired by HESFES, many teens and young adults wanted to create their own festival and so AEFES was born. AEFES stands for Alternative Education Festival and so encompasses not only home education but many other alternative forms of education.They're a community of adults, teenagers and children all working in unity to create a festival where all voices can be heard, all opinions considered and all decisions made in a democratic setting. AEFES believe in trust, faith and community spirit. Working as a team to create something magical for everyone. Tickets can be purchased from http://www.aefes.co.uk/acatalog/AEFES_home_education_festival_tickets.html. If you want to join the community check out the facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/516810371859856/
Friday, 29 June 2012
An Example of Autonomous Self Directed Learning
So you might be reading our blog and thinking that a child wouldn’t learn anything unless they are made to in lesson? I thought like that too until we started to home educate and my children demonstrated to me that if I allow them to follow their interest (and facilitate their learning), then they can and will learn with a passion.
Here is one example of self directed autonomous learning.
Owen asked me “do animals have feelings?”. We looked up this topic on the internet and read about research into primate feelings, elephants who recognize the bones of their relatives and appear to grieve over the bones. We discussed the emotions of our pets. This led to a discussion on animal rights and conservation of animals. After this discussion Owen decided to adopt a Snow Leopard with £1 from his pocket money each week. After receiving this pack he went on to research endangered birds in the UK, red pandas, animals bought back from the brink of extinction and the categorization of endangered species. The discussion on red pandas also sparked a conversation about Fire Fox, internet browsers and internet politics including censorship of the internet in China. All from one question!
Here is one example of self directed autonomous learning.
Owen asked me “do animals have feelings?”. We looked up this topic on the internet and read about research into primate feelings, elephants who recognize the bones of their relatives and appear to grieve over the bones. We discussed the emotions of our pets. This led to a discussion on animal rights and conservation of animals. After this discussion Owen decided to adopt a Snow Leopard with £1 from his pocket money each week. After receiving this pack he went on to research endangered birds in the UK, red pandas, animals bought back from the brink of extinction and the categorization of endangered species. The discussion on red pandas also sparked a conversation about Fire Fox, internet browsers and internet politics including censorship of the internet in China. All from one question!
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Anya's Reading Takes Off!
Anya's reading has also started to take off now. Guess How? By being provided the time to pursue her interests and chat to her friends online. Anya's main interest at the moment is a game called Roblox.
Last year I spent a whole year offering Owen and Anya one to one learning. The sessions included reading books matching reading level and age level day reading, playing spelling games, playing reading base board games and working through reading programmes aimed at kids with autism. We did make some slow progress but the real progress has been made by the kids teaching themselves. They often ask me how to spell a word when they are chatting to their friends online. I have learnt to simply spell the word and not irritate them by trying to make their question into a lesson!
Roblox does market itself as an educational game with a belief that kids learn best by making things — by engaging in the creative and complex process of imagining, designing, and constructing. Roblox provides them with a safe place to build, gives them the requisite tools and lets them play. They say they are inspired by the educational theory pioneered by Seymour Papert of the MIT Media Lab. This theory — labeled "Constructionism" — holds not only that kids learn best when they are in the active roles of designer and builder, but that their learning is optimized when they're assuming these roles in a public forum.
Last year I spent a whole year offering Owen and Anya one to one learning. The sessions included reading books matching reading level and age level day reading, playing spelling games, playing reading base board games and working through reading programmes aimed at kids with autism. We did make some slow progress but the real progress has been made by the kids teaching themselves. They often ask me how to spell a word when they are chatting to their friends online. I have learnt to simply spell the word and not irritate them by trying to make their question into a lesson!
Roblox does market itself as an educational game with a belief that kids learn best by making things — by engaging in the creative and complex process of imagining, designing, and constructing. Roblox provides them with a safe place to build, gives them the requisite tools and lets them play. They say they are inspired by the educational theory pioneered by Seymour Papert of the MIT Media Lab. This theory — labeled "Constructionism" — holds not only that kids learn best when they are in the active roles of designer and builder, but that their learning is optimized when they're assuming these roles in a public forum.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Autonomous Self Regulated Learning - How Does it Work?
Autonomous education was one of the first words I was introduced to when we began our home education. My friend, who has been home educating her children for 6 years (now aged 8 and 12) explained that her children do not attend lesson, all their learning is self directed. Her children seemed bright, had great communication skills and seem very knowledgeable in a broad range of subjects. She said her children have learnt to read by being read to. She noticed that they both started to follow where she was on the page. They were not taught to read using phoenix but I suppose more by word recognition. I was skeptical about how a child could possibly learn anything without lesson styled learning.
At the time, I was sitting down with Owen and Anya for a few hours each day to cover English and Math. The lessons were informal and the kids didn’t seem to mind but didn’t seem to engage in the lessons with any passion. Both of them were barely reading and writing when they left school. They both refuse to read books even though I have tried hard to find books with an interest level at their age but a lower reading age. They both hate books which I suspect is a result of the atrociously boring books they were made to read at school. We used a specialist software application called Wordshark which is designed to help dyslexic children learn to spell. Both Owen and Anya tolerated 30 mins a day using this software but it didn’t seem to create any real interest or pride in reading or spelling. I noticed Owen had started watching Japanese Manga films with subtitles and seemed to be following the plot. Owen started to ask me how to spell words having shown no previous interest in spelling correctly. He was very interested in an online game called Roblox and was chatting with his online friends. I sat down with him to watch him play. He was typing at a tremendous speed with amazingly accurate spelling. So I decided to abandon the Wordshark and allow him to watch Manga subtitles for 30 minutes instead. His reading now seems pretty good (not brilliant but okay) and his spelling is very good. He still isn’t interested in reading books but is able to read whatever he needs to on his computer. He uses the internet to research and look up all sorts of information.
At the time, I was sitting down with Owen and Anya for a few hours each day to cover English and Math. The lessons were informal and the kids didn’t seem to mind but didn’t seem to engage in the lessons with any passion. Both of them were barely reading and writing when they left school. They both refuse to read books even though I have tried hard to find books with an interest level at their age but a lower reading age. They both hate books which I suspect is a result of the atrociously boring books they were made to read at school. We used a specialist software application called Wordshark which is designed to help dyslexic children learn to spell. Both Owen and Anya tolerated 30 mins a day using this software but it didn’t seem to create any real interest or pride in reading or spelling. I noticed Owen had started watching Japanese Manga films with subtitles and seemed to be following the plot. Owen started to ask me how to spell words having shown no previous interest in spelling correctly. He was very interested in an online game called Roblox and was chatting with his online friends. I sat down with him to watch him play. He was typing at a tremendous speed with amazingly accurate spelling. So I decided to abandon the Wordshark and allow him to watch Manga subtitles for 30 minutes instead. His reading now seems pretty good (not brilliant but okay) and his spelling is very good. He still isn’t interested in reading books but is able to read whatever he needs to on his computer. He uses the internet to research and look up all sorts of information.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
The Power of Autonomous Learning
We have been moving more towards an autonomous unschooled approach to our education. The change in direction has been influenced by studying the many and varied books and articles written by a variety of authors including John Holt, Roland Meighan, Jan Fortune-Wood, John Taylor Gatto, Linda Dobson, Ken Robinson. However, the main reason for our move towards autonomous education is the astounding improvement in Owen's reading as a result of his interest in Roblox and subsequent online chatting. Both his reading and spelling have improved so significantly that he has even started to watch subtitles Manga cartoons. His improvement in reading and spelling as a result of online chatting out ways any of my attempts to improve his spelling with Wordshark or the books aimed to match interest and reading levels. His improvement in reading and spelling is down to his obsessive interest in Roblox and endless game designing and online conversation. I simply allow him the time in indulge in this interest.
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