Jennifer Selinger – Head of Science | Year 12 Tutor

View from the Kleinlehrer Family Science Building

The Connected Learner

(The names have been changed to protect the innocent, and because I might not have quite got the conversation 100% verbatim!)

Michelle came to see me in the lead-up to the Chemistry HSC. She had a few questions, she said, and needed a hand. It came as a big relief to me, as I had not seen or heard from any other students up to that point and had the feeling that they must all be watching endless episodes of Grey’s Anatomy or playing endless games of Magic the Gathering.

The reason for the lack of contact rapidly became clear as the tutorial progressed. It began as normal; we flipped to the marked pages in the various tests and textbooks and got ready for our work.

“This question came from a paper on the internet. We couldn’t get the answer – is it us or is the answer incorrect?” As it turned out, it was the answer. How lucky that these students could access questions from across the state and around the world to help them to study for their HSC. This was just the beginning to the connectedness of this group of learners.

“Evan put this up on the chemistry group chat (on Whatsapp]) and we all had a big argument about which answer was correct. Please tell me it is answer C, since David said it was B and I disagreed. Who’s right?”

David was right, much to Michelle’s dismay. However the subtext to this was what thrilled me. Behind the scenes, connected by 0s and 1s, the students were arguing about chemistry. They could do so because their devices connected them up into a Group that could dip in and out of the conversation between other commitments, they did not have to be attached by a cord, talking in real time, their individual contributions could be made at any point that they had something to say and there is no doubt that the sum of all these arguments was much greater than any one student would have been able to think up on their own. The Whatsapp group allowed real, just-in-time learning, directed by the students with absolutely no input (or even awareness) from me.

The next question was a mathematical one. “Emily and I were doing this one on Facetime and we got to this point and then got stuck. We tried looking it up but we couldn’t figure out what to do next.”

They had missed one important piece of implied information. With this, Michelle could easily answer the problem. I remember doing geometry problems with my cousin, who was a year ahead of me at school, over the telephone. Without any way of sending images to each other, I had to painstakingly describe the diagram before she could help me work out what I had missed. How much better when the device essentially brings the learners into the room with each other!

Overall the impression I got was of my little group of students busily learning, discussing, commiserating, struggling and solving problems with each other on a variety of platforms, all humming with good collaboration. Phew – I felt much better! And a little jealous that I was missing out on the fun…