Thinking about thinking, learning about learning

The book Technology Together - Whole School Professional Development for Capability and Confidence refers to the metacognitive approach to technology learning, one that guides teachers to articulate their own learning goals and encouraging them to be self-directed in identifying what they need to learn and how they go about it.  Today I'm planning for our second meeting with our new technology integration coaches, which will take place tomorrow, and I'm thinking about the conversations we will have around their learning goal.

We often refer to the zone of proximal development when talking about the place where children learn. It's the same with adults too:  it is when we encounter difficulties that learning occurs.  The Technology Together approach is interesting for me when considering what we need to tell our new coaches about their role - and how important it is to have them move away from making learning easy.  They need to understand that it's the difficulties and challenges that their teachers will face that will be the real places where learning will occur.

Photo Credit: Keoni Cabral via Compfight cc