High possibility classrooms : IL in action

Providing school students with an experience of learning that is both important and relevant to their social futures is a significant education issue. Better education cannot be more of the same: the focus of Innovative Learning (IL) is about the personal, the cognitive, the aesthetic and the moral, and the interplay among these elements. In this paper I focus on IL from the perspective of these four elements and some others in the actions of a group of exemplary teachers in New South Wales (NSW) government schools in Australia. The paper draws on snapshots of findings from a purposive sample of teachers and how they conceptualized their knowledge of technology integration in education contexts. The research was a series of case studies of teachers in classrooms (approximate ages of the students: 6-16 years) conducted in four phases across two years. Practice in the classrooms of Gabby, Gina, Nina and Kitty encompass many IL elements and as such act as potent scaffolds for the creation of what are termed ‘High Possibility Classrooms’ in schools. Such findings add to what is known about technology integration in IL and are of theoretical and practical significance to leaders, teachers, academics and policy makers in education jurisdictions