The Organic Learning Blog will showcase some of the school-based research we are undertaking at St Mel’s Campsie. Whilst our research began in 2015, we have not captured any of our progress until now.

Organic Learning is the synthesis of ideas, practices, risks, innovations, and reflections borne out of our inquiry learning journey shared with our critical friends at NoTosh Consultancy. As our students began to engage in Design Thinking, seeds of tension were gradually being uncovered in our perception of learning, in particular, the principles of learning.

As our competence in using Design Thinking with students increased, we began to experiment with the same processes for our own learning as teachers. We established a Bunker Room for collaborative planning and critiquing and applied the use of Hexagons to create a visible, tangible year-long curriculum map for each stage of learning (more to come on Hexagonal Curriculum Mapping in a later post).

The idea of aligning how we work as teachers to how we engage students in learning made complete sense and encouraged us to explore how we might replicate this for our Leadership Team. With limited resources, we created a 3.6m wide learning wall made from black magnetic glass that we named The Provocation Space. It is used to capture our thinking, planning, observed tensions, and crazy ideas. It is visible and open to critique.

We are aware that these are mere tools and it is what you actually do in the Bunker Room and what you do with the Provocation Space that demonstrates the quality and depth of learning, but for our community, it highlights the start of a self-determined learning journey.