“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” – Attributed to Confucius The EduFunding storm generated as a result of the leaked green paper, which I wrote about in yesterday’s article, continues on unabated. Yet it is also prudent, as pointed out by Corinne Campbell,to consider the now, especially when considering our students. My reading of Corinne’s article is that she was intending it to be taken as a factor in regards to our students; lives overall. My intention in today’s article is to to consider what I can do now, at the end of term, to strengthen my program from this term, in order to make flow smoother, be easier to implement, to be more beneficial for the students, and requires them to be more active in the learning process.
I was asked a few weeks ago how the program was going, and the first reply that came to mind was that there were lots of things that I would change if I was to deliver the program again. Things that did not quite work out as I had planned, technical issues that I was required to surmount, lessons that upon attempting to enact, I discovered that I had not thought through as well as I had thought and was left having to think on the fly. The barriers about which I could do nothing included the lost two weeks at the beginning of the term due to the horrendous storms which battered the region, and left significant damage to my school, the annual NAPLAN testing as well as having significant disruptions to my Stage Three classes due to a Year Five week-long camp midway through the term, and the Year Six Canberra excursion this week. These disruptions led to a loss of a fairly significant amount of learning time in their own right. As to things things that are within my sphere of influence, there are many. The most obvious thing is that I overestimated the current skill level and the time that it would take to get through the Fundamental Computer Skills (FCS) unit. My initial plan of working with small groups of students on their FCS quickly fell to the wayside. The videos that I had created were, generally speaking, above what the students was capable of doing on their own in the time frame I had allotted for each question, and I discovered that not all classroom’s had functioning computers. I was able to counter this by utilising the school bank of laptops, however there was only a sufficient number of those to allow one laptop between two students. This allowed me to work through the unit, however I had underestimated the rate of skill uptake. Each session would begin with a brief review of what we had learned the previous week, but I was finding that students were still struggling with some skills, or were going about things the ‘long way’ rather than using the more efficient method that I had explicitly taught. This realisation leads me to believe that I had only been imparting a surface level of understanding as opposed to a deep embedding of skills, which, as someone who has high self-expectations, is disappointing. Some of the fundamental computer skills that I have been working on include the basics of logging in, which is a genuine challenge for my kindergarten students, how to open and close programs, and practice typing. These are fairly basic skills and I am not sure what else I could have my students do, other than practicing the skills, that would embed these skills in my students. Beyond that, I have already written about my dissatisfaction with the lessons I ran discussing copyright and pirating, and I would very much like to hear from anyone with suggestions for rigorous, relevant and authentic lessons discussing those two concepts. I was happier with the lessons that I ran around digital citizenship that dealt with strong and weak passwords, cyber bullying and online privacy, once I worked out a few issues. I utilised an online game called RU a cyber detective, and initially, I asked my students in a combined year three and four class to work their way through the game in pairs on laptops. This brought up a range of issues, including some students not being able to navigate to the game in order to play it, the game not being particularly clear on what to do in order to begin it, which was fine for my Stage Three students, however my Stage Two students are not particularly adventurous and were worried about breaking it. Ultimately, the biggest issue I found was that I did not have the opportunity to spend the time talking to the students about the concepts, which is what I wanted. I ended up changing the way I used the game after I discovered that my Stage Three students were unable to complete a critical portion of the game on their iPads. I had the Stage Two and Three classews join me on the floor in front of the whiteboard / projector image / interactive whiteboard and we played through the game as a class. This worked fantastically well. The students were not anxious about the actual operation of the game, and we were able to have some very robust conversations about the different concepts that arose, including passwords and online privacy and cyber bullying, including a lengthy discussion about the hows and whys of dealing with cyber bullying and why protecting your privacy online is so important. There were other areas of my pedagogy that, upon reflection, need to be improved, within the FCS. It did not occur to me that as someone who regularly uses technology, that I needed to make the distinction clear when having kindergarten student type the old favourite the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs to account for the fact that I had typed it as normal in Microsoft Word, but that the letters on the keyboard were all in capital letters. It was not until near the very end of the lesson that I realised what the issue was. The students were correctly naming the the (lower case) letters on the whiteboard, and they were correctly name the (upper case) letters on the keyboard, but they were not linking the two types of letter as being the same letter in a different format. The next lesson, I was able to get access to alphabet strips, which showed the upper and lower case letters next to each other, and this immediately made a big difference. I commented to the classroom teacher when she returned from her break what had happened, and she indicated she had the same issue at the start of the year when she attempted to have the students do some typing on the computers. Currently, Year Six are away on the annual Canberra excursion, and I have been able to commandeer one of the Year Six classrooms, which has an interactive whiteboard. I utilised this when I had a kindergarten class this morning, and had each student name and type one of the letters using the on-screen keyboard. It is, I keep finding, the little things that make the difference. As always, thank you for reading, and I would like to hear from anybody who has realised things that they need to change in their pedagogy when teaching ICT skills, to any age group. Please pass this onto any pre-service teachers or newly graduated teachers that you know. I would rather they learn from my mistakes, than have to make the same mistakes themselves.
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“I want to have a direct relationship with the non-government sector…Having talked to the Prime Minister about this matter many times, it is his view that we have a particular responsibility for non-government schooling that we don’t have for government schooling.” -Christopher Pyne, Education and Training Minister Recently I wrote a series of articles regarding initial teacher education (ITE) (the first of which can be viewed here), which included an article discussing the public perception of education and teachers, and the relationship that education and the teaching profession have with the current Education and Training Minister, Christopher Pyne (which can be viewed here). This series generated some insightful discussion around ITE and the public perception of education, and I had intended for this article to be a continuation of that conversation, based on themes which emerged from responses I received. However a newspaper article has emerged overnight which has created a storm of controversy all over social media which requires discussion. My Twitter and Facebook feeds were inundated with postings of the article and comments regarding the decision which the government is considering adoption as to Commonwealth funding for education. If you have not yet read the article, here are the key points (in my opinion) of contention that have emerged:
It must be pointed out that the government has indicated that this is only a green paper. My understanding, and I am happy to be corrected, is that a green paper is an introductory discussion paper used to test the waters on a concept. It must also be noted that it is a green paper on Federation Reform generally, not education specifically. Even with that in mind, given the four options that have emerged from this green paper in regards to education, there is certainly cause for concern. This article will make a start on unpacking the potential ramifications for each of the emergent themes.
Ultimately, this latest political uproar raises further questions about what kind of society the Abbot-led government wants. They were thwarted in their attempt to push through a user-pays fee for our universal healthcare system last year, touted as a GP co-payment, and the deregulation of tertiary education fees is ongoing, and now this has emerged. My interpretation is that Abbot and co are attempting to return us to a time of aristocracy, with more distinct upper and lower classes defined by economic standing and education. It is an erosion of the basic principles of democracy as well; I highly doubt you will find many people who believe that withdrawing Commonwealth funding for our students education is a positive decision. This is a critical time to be involved in the education discussion. It is incumbent upon us all to be involved, and to be informed. Allowing the government to roughshod over the needs of the public in this case will have critical and dire affects on our country’s future, economically and socially. I implore everyone to contact their Member for Parliament (if you are not sure who your member is, click here and scroll down to the search box) and question them as to how removing Commonwealth funding, which seems to be the ultimate goal, can be beneficial for the country. Let them know that you want your child to have access to the same thing that we all did – free public education. To send a message via the GetUp campaign, click here. If you want to read a different perspective, I would suggest this article by Glenn Savage or this article by Stewart Riddle (re-posted by Corinne Campbell) Let your voice be heard. “Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” – Attributed to Jacques Barzun This most recent series of articles has been interesting to write, as it has required a significant amount of reflection on a range of areas that ordinarily would not receive a significant amount of conscious thought. The conversations that have emerged from this series of articles has also been intriguing and thought provoking. This was, according to the set of emerging themes I included in my original article, set to be the final article in this series. It is quite likely that a further article will emerge as a result of the conversations that have transpired as a result. This article will be examining the potential employment opportunities that are available in comparison to the number of graduates each year, and the number of active teachers not currently employed permanently.
In 2014 there was a series of articles in the print and broadcast media that indicated that there is currently a glut of available teachers in comparison to available positions, such as this article and this article. This is in conflict with articles from a range of other sources that indicate there is a shortage of teachers, such as this article. Further reading indicates that the truth is somewhere in between, with a glut of primary trained teachers and a shortage of secondary teachers in specific Key Learning Areas (KLAs), as indicated in this article. The general consensus, based on reading these articles and similar sources, appears to be that the initial teacher education (ITE) programs are graduating between five and eight thousand new teachers annually. The Daily Telegraph, in July 2014 cited research conducted by BOSTES which found that at least one third of the NSW DEC approved employment list who are unable to gain permanent employment within four to five years, desist in their search, either remaining in the casual or temporary workforce, or leave the teaching profession. It has been my experience as well that a range of classroom teacher positions are held by teachers on temporary contracts, such as single or two year contracts, often serving in the same role on a year-by-year basis as temporary teachers for up to and longer than ten years. Another article indicate that the shortage of teachers is actually occurring in secondary education in science, mathematics and languages. There is little apparent research that examines the reason for the disparity in training and opportunity, why pre-service teachers (PSTs) seemingly gravitate to the primary education sector as opposed to the secondary sector, and I would suggest that these questions be examined as they would yield valuable results that would guide future ITE course capacities. The Herald indicated last year that there were around forty-four thousand teachers in NSW employed on a casual basis, and that only around half of the sixteen thousand graduate teachers from the 2013 cohort had secured permanent employment four months later. These figures, as a graduate teacher, are deeply concerning. I do not know what the situation in this area is across the rest of Australia, however, here in NSW looking through the weekly jobs listing would uphold the position that there is a shortage of teachers in specific KLAs in the secondary education sector. Each week, there appear to be a significant number of mathematics, science and language classroom teacher positions advertised, with a large number of them being in rural or remote NSW. The NSW Department of Education and Communities (NSW DEC) is not ignorant of this situation, with a range of incentives being offered in an attempt to attract teachers to these remote and rural schools. These incentives may include rent assistance, subsidies, additional professional development release time, additional leave entitlements, climatic entitlements and isolation from goods and services allowances. Personally, I would happily secure a permanent position in a remote or rural location if not for the fact that my better half currently has a permanent position in her industry, with an excellent employer and colleagues. Accordingly, and with regard to a desire to have family support available while we raise our own family, we have made the choice not to relocate at this point. In regards to the demand and supply imbalance, I believe that there are a number of options for approaching it. The first and obvious option would be to reduce the number of places in primary ITE programs. In conjunction with this, I have heard suggestions that the HECS debt for the secondary subjects suffering from shortages should be negated with the caveat that graduates are required to be employed for three to five years before the HECS debt is removed, and the HECS debt suspended in the intervening period. The lecturer from my EDUC2103 course, Schooling, Identity and Societies, Keith Crawford, spoke about a solution that the English Government took in regards to a similar problem. I must note that I have not been able to find any articles talking about this, but that he was a teacher in England at the time that this program took place. Keith indicated that young teachers were leaving the profession due to their inability to progress within their career via promotions due to the number of positions filled by older teachers and administrators who were still some years from retirement age. The approach taken saw a significant number of these senior teachers being offered early retirement packages. This had the impact of creating a number of vacancies, which allowed those suitably qualified to progress through the promotion chain. I could only imagine the cost of this program, however, it would have some significant effects, both positive and negative. Positively, it would create a number of vacancies requiring to be filled, which would of course create vacancies further down the chain as teachers, assistant principals and principals all progressed. It should have (I am unaware if it did or not) create a culture of change as those progressing through due to the new vacancies would hopefully come through with new ideas and a willingness to embrace change and pedagogical and technological advances, particularly in the areas of twenty-first century learning. Negatively, it would result in a significant loss of knowledge and experience, which would need to be addressed. This could be achieved through options including mentoring, a stepped handover period for each level of responsibility, and a potential short-term shortage of teachers at each level of the hierarchy. I cannot see the Australian government adopting such an approach, due to the significant front-end cost. That said, I believe that a mixture of the two approaches I have discussed, both the removal of HECS debt for specific shortages, and the voluntary retirement program adopted by the English government would have a very significant impact in regards to reducing the number of classroom teacher positions held by temporary appointments, improving the number of permanently employed teachers. As always, thank you for reading. I would very much like to hear from anyone who has a suggestion for how this issue can be appropriately addressed. It is not a simple situation, and I think that changes need to be made to the entire system. See here for the list of articles in this series. “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.” – Attributed to Carl Jung My previous article outlined a conversation I engaged in with Mark Johnson (@seminyaksunset) while he was the guest host for the @EduTweetOz handle regarding initial teacher education (ITE). As a result of this conversation, I felt inspired to write reflect on ITE in general and mine in particular and I identified six issues from that conversation that I wanted to address via this blog, which were as follows:
On Friday of last week (June 12), I posted the first article, addressing entry into ITE programs, and it generated some very interesting conversations and I received some very intriguing feedback, both in comments on the article itself, and via some Twitter conversations. My article today will address the issue of ITE structure and content. I will be dissecting my own ITE program and examining how the quality of teachers that it produces could be improved through modification of the structure and content. I also plan to include some ideas based on feedback I received as a result of my previous article. I completed my Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) / Bachelor of Arts degree through the Ourimbah campus of the University of Newcastle (Australia). I also want to say up-front that on the whole, I am quite happy with the program I completed, and that for me, personally, I found it to be satisfactory and that I am well-placed to be a good teacher as a result. From conversations with classmates during and since, there are of course those unhappy with certain aspects, and as I mentioned briefly in my previous article, there are entire expectations of being a teacher that weren’t discussed at all, but that, I suspect, is to be expected and would be consistent with the majority of universities. What I plan to do, is to outline the program that I completed before examining how I believe it could have been improved. My degree was a four-year (full-time) program consisting of two semesters per year and four courses per semester for a total of three hundred and twenty units of study. We were required to complete forty units of a discipline depth study (DDS), a Sustainable Community elective and in our third and fourth year or study we had the choice between undertaking the Special Education specialisation stream, the Honours (Graded) program, or an elective course. I moved a few things around and actually ended up completing three hundred and thirty units of study. I completed my DDS requirements under the mathematics and science umbrella and elected to undertake the Honours program. I also completed eighteen weeks of professional experience placements (two x four-week blocks and a ten week internship) as well as ten sessions of once a week for half a semester. The overview of my degree is below: The degree that I completed has since changed. Beginning at the start of 2015, all Bachelor of Education (Primary) degrees graduate with ungraded Honours. My understanding is that the ungraded Honours component incorporates concepts introduced in graded Honours, such as research methodologies, ethical considerations, epistemology, ontology etc. but that a research project is not undertaken nor a thesis written. If you are curious, click here to read more. How would I modify the program? I want to again state that overall I was satisfied with the ITE that I received. As with any situation, however, there are ways in which it could be improved, and below are the ways in which I would change my degree to make it more rigorous, and provide a greater level of preparation for teachers entering the profession. Year One Semester One
There were some interesting conversations, as I mentioned previously, as a result of my previous post. I was contacted on Twitter by Amanda Corrigan (@ajcorrigan) who is the Director of Student Experience, School of Education and Associate Dean (Student Experience) Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Strathclyde (Scotland). Amanda advised that Strathclyde University conduct interviews for entry to the second year of their ITE program, with questions based on the student-teacher's learning from the first year program. Students, both those who do and do not receive approval to continue, are provided with advice about next steps. All students undergo a first year placement which may be in any institution with children such as traditional educational institutions, but also prisons, asylum seekers, sports clubs etc. Amanda also advised that Scotland’s newest teachers also receive a guaranteed year in school, a mentor and reduced reduced class contact. This has the potential to allow graduate teachers to focus on improving their pedagogy and classroom management with advice and guidance from experienced teachers. I also received insight from Corrine Campbell (@corisel) and Sally-Anne Robertson (@eduemum) regarding their ITE, which you can read in the previous article of this series. The content and structure of ITE programs, whether it be undergraduate or post-graduate, needs to be more rigorous, with a greater focus on an understanding of how to read and use the curriculum document as a tool for programming, how to apply TPCK and SAMR models to technology considerations, and more rigorous and explicit teaching around how to teach the KLAs; in addition to teaching how to write programs so that the KLA’s are, where possible, integrated in authentic ways that allow content to be covered across broad swathes of the curriculum. These integrated units should be used where suitable to allow time for our students to go about the business of learning how to think. As I said in my final article from the Teaching for Thinking Forum review series: “…learning is the product of thinking…” (Dominic Hearne), that “…good thinking is a disposition as well as a skill set…” (Simon Brooks), that “…we need to explicitly teach and embed thinking skills, including the metalanguage of thinking and metacognition…” (Dr. Jensen) and finally, that “…our job is done only when we see evidence of students’ understanding and reasoning…” (Constantin Lomaca). Thank you for reading this long article. I would very much like to hear peoples thoughts and feedback on what I have written today, whether it be in the comments here, or over on Twitter. This series will continue with a new article tomorrow, which I will endeavour to keep a shorter length.
See here for the list of articles in this series. “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth’.” – Dan Rather The last few articles that I have published have been an examination of emerging themes from a Twitter conversation regarding pre-service teachers (PSTs) and initial teacher education (ITE). The conversation can be viewed in the original article in this series. There have been some thought provoking responses on Twitter and in the comments section on the various articles. Thus far in this series, I have written regarding ITE courses and ways of making the entry to those courses more rigorous, the value of teachers and teaching as perceived in the public sphere and the role of the Education and Training Minister and his/her (currently his) stance towards education and teachers and the way the Education Minister is perceived by teachers. This article will discuss the integration of graduate teachers into the wider profession at the culmination of their ITE, from a collegiate point of view.
The way that a teacher is integrated into the teaching profession will vary according to how they are engaged – permanent, part-time or casual, and for casual teachers, according to the view of casual teachers from the school with which they are engaging. My experience has generally been positive and I have felt like a valued professional in the majority of my engagements as a casual teacher. There has been, however, little support by way of integration offered in regards to an invitation to attend professional development sessions when they are conducted on the day I am in that school (only received from two schools I was engaged with), advice and feedback, whether constructive or positive, regarding my work (I utilise a template I designed when in a school on a casual basis that allows me to indicate what was done during the day within each KLA and asks for constructive or positive feedback to be sent via e-mail) or general advice in relation to such areas as playground duty expectations, how to deal with minor injuries students acquire whilst playing, how to engage with or avoid staff room politics or the realities of dealing with the paperwork and administrative requirements of teaching. Casual teachers, l believe, fall through the gaps in regard to professional development, particularly those graduate teachers who are in the early days of their career and are trying to get their foot in the door. Greater efforts need to be made by the relevant bodies (NSW DEC, BOSTES AITSL etc.) to ensure that graduate teachers who are still operating casually receive assistance with finding their feet in the teaching profession. I should point out that the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) did put on a casual teachers seminar on the Central Coast earlier this year that was open to all casual teachers regardless of the time in teaching. This seminar was beneficial but I felt aimed more at casual teachers hero had been in the system for a while and had a good understanding of navigating their way through acquiring work etc. Casual teaching can be very lonely, given that day to day you may be in different schools, let alone different classes. Additionally, casual teachers in general and new graduates specifically may be somewhat isolated as many school staff rooms are devoid of life during break times due to playground duty personnel requirements, sporting and other extra-curricular activities or those teachers who elect to remain in their classroom to complete marking or other similar duties. I know that at my current school, if there are more than three or four people in the staff room it is unusual. That has been my experience as a casual teacher across a range of schools. I dropped off a one page resume with copies of relevant documents such as my approval to teach, my Working With Children Check, my anaphylaxis training certification etc. attached, to twenty schools. I did this based on advice from a friend who is a Deputy Principal and indicated that many schools will not contact you at all for any number of reasons including but not limited to not needing any additional casual teacher on their casual list, teachers arranging their own casual cover as opposed to a central person within the school, not liking the font you used, that you emailed it as opposed to dropped it off in person and not liking the way you have set your resume out. Some of these are valid reasons, some of them are rather petty, but they are all reasons I have heard at various points. The experience for those who receive permanent positions straight out of university is markedly different. The summary of that experience is based on what I have been told by some classmates who were in such fortunate positions. The initial phone all with the offer of a position is rather exciting to receive, of course, and those whom I know in such a position have all indicated that they were told what year group they would be teaching and were invited to attend during the summer holidays at some point to visit their classroom, meet colleagues, begin planning and programming and to begin the administrative process required to become a permanent employee. The main issue that I am aware of, again, from conversations with friends, is that there is no advice given as to the paperwork process that is required. A classmate was advised she had a permanent position, met her colleagues, saw the classroom was asked to begging planning and programming with but said to me that she had not received or signed a contract and was a little worried about that fact. Clarity would no doubt have been appreciated from her as to what was happening. I learned, after asking the question at a local branch NSWTF meeting that “on boarding” was a lengthy process and that no contract would likely be seen until the paperwork had all been completed. The anxiety felt by my classmate would no doubt have been alleviated by a thirty second conversation that contained words to the effect of “the paperwork is being processed and it normally takes … You will receive your contract when it has been processed.” I want to reiterate the point that this summary is based upon what I have been told, not my own experience and that the classmate in question was feeling rather overwhelmed at this point. On the plus side, as a targeted graduate, my friend received an additional session of relief from face to face (RFF) each week to provide her with additional time to plan and prepare as well as general guidance from an Executive Teacher. My understanding is that she was generally quite happy with the support she received, however was left feeling overwhelmed with the unanticipated responsibilities and duties that were not fully explained, either in description of in explanation of the time investment required to complete them. I received my temporary engagement after having been working on a very regular basis in my school as a casual teacher for most of the year to that date, however, my understanding is that for temporary teachers, the experience of transitioning from pre-service teacher (PST) to teacher falls somewhere in between that of casual and permanent teachers. I would very much like to hear from you as to your experience transitioning from PST to teacher and the support and guidance received from more experienced teachers and the various bodies to which teachers are required or encouraged to join, or for those of you who are in senior positions within schools, the systems or processes in place to integrate new graduates into the teaching profession and assist them with finding their feet. Thank you for reading today, and I look forward to hearing people’s opinions on this topic, particularly anyone who came out of their ITE with a permanent or temporary position and can shed more light on the experience of transitioning form PST to either of those roles. See here for the list of articles in this series. “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Attributed to Henry Adams This is the third part in a series of reflections on initial teacher education (ITE). The opening article in this series focused on options to change the way that pre-service teachers are brought into their ITE programs with a view to lifting the quality of teachers. This is, of course, a difficult task and furthermore is a very contentious topic. The follow-up article was an examination of my own ITE program and ways in which it could have been strengthened with the view to improving the quality of graduates by making it a more rigorous program, and by better preparing graduates for the real world of the teaching profession. Today’s article will combine two of the topics originally listed in my opening article as they are heavily intertwined; the value of teachers and teaching as perceived in the public sphere and the role of the Education minister and his/her (currently his) stance towards education and teachers and the way the Education Minister is perceived by teachers.
I have been told that the position of Education Minister has not always been the popular and visible that it currently is, and that education as a topic of social discussion has not always been the ‘hot-button’ topic that it has been in the last ten to fifteen years. A brief Google search with the terms improve teacher quality brings up these results. A quick perusal of the search results reveals that there is a general call to improve the quality of teachers. Searching within a variety of topics within the sphere of education allows you to see the discourse of dissatisfaction emerging. This can be seen in educational topics such as NAPLAN results, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and the creative arts. It is my belief that the news industry is responsible, in large part, for shaping public perception around the value and quality of education and teachers. Personally, I believe they do a reprehensible job of representing the teaching profession and the education industry through the continual publication of articles that decry the effort, the worth, the value, the training and quality of teachers. The other side of it is the now high-profile portfolio of Education and Training Minister, held at the time of writing by The Honourable Christopher Pyne MP, also wields a great deal of influence in the shaping of public perception in regards to the education sector. There has been an increasing interest and importance attached to the annual NAPLAN testing as a supposed measure of teacher and school quality. I am unsure whether this has been socially driven by parents concerned about the education their child is receiving, or whether it has been as a result of ongoing politically determined importance. Wherever the impetus for the increased misplaced focus on NAPLAN testing comes from, it does seem to have originated, at least initially, with the (then) Education Minister Julia Gillard’s unveiling of the MySchool website in 2010. In 2009, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) was established to oversee the implementation of the planned Australian Curriculum. The rationale behind this appeared logical; to allow greater consistency in skills and concepts taught nationally, thereby simplifying the process for students and teachers to move interstate. There was an underlying issue with this premise. It is not a truly national curriculum. I am unsure as to other states, but the current curriculum documents here in NSW are not the Australian Curriculum. According to the NSW BOSTES site, “New South Wales joined with the Australian Government and all other states and territories to develop an Australian curriculum…[t]hat incorporate agreed Australian curriculum content.” This Australian Curriculum, as of today (June 16, 2015) has not yet been fully endorsed or rolled out. Yet in January of 2014, Education Minister Christopher Pyne announced a review of the Australian Curriculum, despite not all curriculum documents having been written, endorsed or rolled out. The results of such a far-reaching review would realistically not be expected for perhaps eighteen months after the announcement, to allow time for a proper establishment of the frame of reference, receipt of submissions from stakeholders, analysis of the data, synthesis of results and formulation of the resulting Review Paper. You would be incorrect in expecting that, as the Mr Pyne released the final report in October 2014, merely nine months later. The Twitter conversation that sparked this series of articles included a comment from myself that “…we need an Education Minister who genuinely cares.” This was perhaps rather harsh on my part. I do not doubt that the Mr Pyne cares about his portfolio. The response I received was that “…I would like an Ed Minister (and this is fantasy) who relentlessly and publicly supported the teaching profession.” My immediate thought and my subsequent response to this comment was “…excuse me while I laugh at the absurdity of that ever happening.” It is sad that the Education Minister is not perceived as being supportive of teachers. It is sad that the immediate response to an expressed desire such as that which was expressed to me is immediately met with sarcastic derision, as that is the perception that successive Education Ministers have fostered about their regard for education and teachers. I am unable to take seriously an Education Minister who instigates a review of a curriculum which has not been fully rolled out, let alone been in place for at least one full calendar year. I do not know how to repair the relationship between the Education Minister and the teaching profession. I suspect that the views held by Mr Pyne are binary to those held by many teachers. What does need to happen though, is a cessation of Education being used as a political football to score points with the voters with disregard for the impact on the education sector, on students and on teachers. I would very much like to hear any suggestions as to steps that can be taken to help repair the relationship between the Education Minister and the teaching profession specifically and the education sector in general. Thank you for reading this article, and sticking with me after the mammoth article yesterday. See here for the list of articles in this series. “The evolution of social media into a robust mechanism for social transformation is already visible. Despite many adamant critics who insist that tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are little more than faddish distractions useful only to exchange trivial information, these critics are being proven wrong time and again. ” – Attributed to Simon Mainwaring The @EduTweetOz Twitter account describes itself as a “RoCur for Aussie educators to share ideas, experiences, q’s & passion. Building community. New host each wk” and is a very worthwhile Twitter account to follow. Each host brings with them a new topic and their own perspective on that topic to the table for discussion, and each host is also given an introductory interview blog on the EduTweetOz blog site which allows the accounts followers to gain an insight into the week’s host. The beauty of the account is that it is open to nominations from educators from any sector of the industry, which keeps the discussion topics from the account fresh and interesting. You can nominate yourself to be a guest host by clicking here. Recently, the account was hosted by Mark Johnson (@seminyaksunset) and I stumbled onto a conversation regarding pre-service teachers partway through the weekend, and joined in, as you can see below: There are a few thoughts that arose from this conversation which I believe are important to discuss and if I provoke some constructive dialogue, whether it be in comments to this article here on the website, or alternatively, on Twitter or Google+, I believe that I will be happy. There were six main ideas or topics that I drew from the conversation with Mark, and this article will address the first of them, with others emerging over the course of the next week.
I certainly do not believe that I hold the answers to any of these issues, though I certainly have some opinion. However rigorous discussion around some of these issues appears to be sparse in their occurrence, despite the level of importance to which society as a rule attaches to education. The above issues are all, to a certain degree, inter-related, so their may be some topic-jumping, however I will do my best to keep this series of articles on topic.
I do not agree with the premise that increasing the entry score for ITE courses will necessarily equate to a raising in teacher standards. I strongly believe that there are too many variables in play, as with any sort of standardised testing regime for the overall mark awarded at the end of a students secondary education when they are either seventeen or eighteen to be any indication of the kind of teacher they will be later in life. I pointed out that as a secondary student, I performed poorly in my final secondary education exams, receiving a University Admission Index (UAI, currently known as the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) in NSW) score of only 55.55. There were a number of potential reasons for my low score, which are ultimately irrelevant in this conversation, but I entered university as a mature age student, put in much more effort than I ever did in my secondary education, and came away with Honours Class I, the Education Faculty Medal and will be the Graduate Speaker at my cohort’s graduation ceremony in July of this year. My UAI was no indication of what kind of tertiary student I would be, and my tertiary academic results are no indication of what kind of teacher I will be. So I do not believe that relying solely on an arbitrary ITE entrance score would necessarily have any real impact on the quality of teachers that graduate. My initial response, that ITE should move towards an entrance model akin to the medicine entrance model that combines entry score requirements with an interview and personality test would only help to a degree. For someone who wished to enter the teaching profession immediately out of high school in their late teens, the interview process would serve well to weed out those who only want to enter the ITE courses as they see them as an easy option. This may sound a little silly, but I distinctly recall hearing two classmates during my undergraduate state that they were only doing the course because their parents said they had to go to university after high school and teaching was easy to get into. However this alone would serve to reduce the number of disinterested teachers entering into the profession and that reason on its own, to me, seems to make introducing entrance interviews worth examining further. Another measure that I believe could be added into the entry process is perhaps more controversial. I am aware from conversations with a number of my classmates that many of us feel that nothing in our ITE properly prepared us for what teaching is actually like. I was not offered a permanent position under the NSW Department of Education and Communities Targeted Graduate Program (TGR), and to be quite frank, I am rather thankful for that fact. I picked up some casual days early this year at a local school where one of my classmates received a permanent position under the TGR and when I asked how she was finding the position, she commented to me that, and I’m paraphrasing from memory here, “…[she] was not ready for a full-time spot straight out. There is so much stuff that was not covered [in our ITE]; even just the admin requirements alone, forget the need to interact with parents.” This is a sentiment that I can sympathise with. I do agree that there was a lack of understanding imparted to us as to the way in which teaching can consume you if you do not take steps to prepare yourself, and the requirements outside of the purely teaching that are placed on teachers. A teacher friend of mine, who is currently in an Executive position, commented to me during a conversation one afternoon that “…teaching is a twenty-four hour job.” A sentiment which my classmate, and myself, are only just starting to properly grasp to truth of. This knowledge, this understanding needs to be made more explicit somehow during the admission process. Whilst it may scare off some who would in fact be excellent teachers, it would also scare off those who think that teaching is a nine-to-three job, and allow prospective teachers to go in with, if not eyes wide-open, than at least somewhat aware of the enormity of the role which they are undertaking. There are a few ways in which this could be done, such as requiring prospective teachers to spend time with a teacher, not just in the classroom, but attending staff meetings, professional development session, report writing, planning and programming in an attempt to understand the workload that is placed on teachers. However, something such as I have just described could not realistically be expected to occur before the commencement of the ITE. I am not sure what measures, other than introducing an interview process or perhaps some sort of requirement to spend time in a classroom prior to commencement of the ITE, could be introduced to the front-end of the ITE the system that would actually enhance the quality of teachers that graduate at the back-end. I would very much like to hear from anyone who has ideas to achieve this, either in the comment section here or alternatively on Twitter or Google+. Thank you for reading my semi-organised thoughts on ITE today. The next article, which will be published on Monday, will discuss the structure and content of ITE courses in general, and mine specifically. See here for the list of articles in this series. “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Attributed to Bruce Lee Today’s article is the final in the review series from the Teaching for Thinking Forum held last week at St Leo’s Catholic College, and focuses on Constantin Lomaca’s concluding presentation titled Towards a Thinking Curriculum. If you have not read the articles covering the previous three speakers, I would recommend you do so, by clicking here for the first presentation. Constantin is the head of Teaching and Learning at St. Leo’s, and opened by thanking everyone for their attendance, and promising that he would push through quickly to preserve the question time that was planned for the end of the evening. Constantin entry point into the discussion on thinking and philosophy in education was reminiscent of components of the previous speakers’ messages; the current curriculum is crowded, the pressure on teachers stress to “…get through all the content…” and the ensuing stress as we seek to achieve this leads to our students having little time to think and to process the discussions and learning in which they engage; and this on the back of us, as teachers, having only a small amount of time to plan and prepare inside school hours, being forced to take work home far too often. “By the ‘time our students reach senior school, they have not acquired the tools or dispositions for “thinking through” problems, concepts and ideas independently, which impacts their HSC performance, particularly at the higher bands.” As a primary teacher, I do not necessarily see the end results that Constantin is referring to. What I do see, however, is the effects he is implying when it comes to NAPLAN. Students that do not ‘get’ the answer, or think of the answer within the allotted time (often only a few seconds) and are thus used to being supplied with the answers to ‘problems’ are being asked to think for themselves and this is causing anxiety and stress.
Simon commented in his presentation that “…learning is the product of thinking…” and Constantin extended this statement. To learn something is to understand it, intrinsically; to be able to transfer the knowledge across domains, and therefore “…[u]nderstanding is NOT… a precursor to application, analysis, evaluating [or] creating, but a RESULT of them. Thus UNDERSTANDING is the outcome of Thinking” and accordingly, it is only when students have demonstrated with evidence their understanding and reasoning behind a specific concept that our job is done. Constantin’s statement regarding the lack of dispositions for thinking also hearkens back to a comment by Simon, in his presentation, that without the disposition to think, it is irrelevant how much explicit teaching of thinking [tools] we provide. Constantin echoed Dr. Jensen’s call that thinking skills need to be explicitly taught, and time for authentic practice given, however it is not enough, I believe, to provide time for practice of thinking skills and strategies. The discussions that were engaged in during the evening indicated that there was a general awareness and understanding of this point, and the pedagogical strategies that have been put in place to support the implementation of the explicit teaching of thinking skills and strategies. Constantin continued his presentation with a brief overview of how St Leo’s were utilising a process to program and plan called Understanding by Design, or UbD, to facilitate the inclusion of thinking skills. I had not previously heard of this programming method, but based upon Constantin’s explanation, it does sound somewhat similar to a process that was introduced to me during my undergraduate degree as backward mapping, which is also known as Backward Planning or Backward Design. Constantin expanded upon how this process was being used to implement teaching for thinking and to make thinking visible within the context of his school, and concluded his presentation by inviting three students to make a presentation based upon their learning during the year thus far. The students demonstrated an awareness of the basic principles of critical thinking skills, and the historical providence from the Age of Enlightenment and other thinkers throughout history, which despite some obvious nervousness from the students, flowed well and was tightly structured. The Forum at this point, after some closing remarks from Constantin, and an invitation to join himself and others for a meal at a local venue, broke up, with a number of small groups forming to digest, discuss and reflect with each other upon the evening. Given that my mode of travel is motorbike, and that at this point it was around 7.30pm, cold and a little windy, I made the decision to opt out of the dinner in order to make the approximately forty-five minute trip home. The Forum was, in my mind, absolutely worth attending, and each of the presenters linked in with each other on various points. There was a lot to get excited about, a lot to take back into the classroom and put into action, much to ruminate upon and plans to consider for future action. I was excited by the results of the two philosophy courses being implemented at Waverley College, and am eager to visit and see some of those classes in action, in order to extrapolate some of the pedagogical strategies backwards to put into place with my Stage Three students. I am also beginning to make explicit thinking time part of my pedagogical practice when asking students to engage with concepts. So far, in the week since the Forum, this has met with mixed responses from students, but I am confident that as it becomes more and more common and that as we continue the conversation about why thinking is critical that more students will get on board with the practice. Finally, I very much want to spend some time considering how, when I do have a full-time class, I can embed the teaching for thinking principles within my class, my pedagogy and my students, to achieve the goal of creating life long learners and thinkers. I will leave you with a final comment, a reminder that “…learning is the product of thinking…” (Dominic Hearne), that “…good thinking is a disposition as well as a skill set…” (Simon Brooks), that “…we need to explicitly teach and embed thinking skills, including the metalanguage of thinking and metacognition…” (Dr. Jensen) and finally, that “…our job is done only when we see evidence of students’ understanding and reasoning…” (Constantin Lomaca). As always, thank you for reading, and my thanks go to St. Leo’s Catholic College for organising and hosting this event, to the speakers for their time, energy, expertise and ideas, and to my fellow teachers, who gave of their Thursday night to open themselves up to concepts and ideas that can be challenging in the face of needing to “…get through the content…” See here for the list of articles in this series. “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” – Attributed to Henry Ford My previous two articles in this review series from the Teaching for Thinking Forum have examined the presentations by Dominic Hearne and Simon Brooks. This article follows on with a review of the first presentation after the networking and reflection break, which was delivered by Dr Britta Jensen of Marist College presenting under the title Community of Inquiry – teaching methodology for the thinking classroom. Dr Jensen opened her presentation by making a statement that I agree with wholeheartedly; “[t]hinking skills should be explicitly taught and practiced,” a statement which harks back to Simon Brooks’ comment that “learning is the product of thinking.” Dr Jensen produced a non-exhaustive list of thinking skills and some of their applications, which I have included here.
You can see how many of these relate to the Four C’s as previously introduced by Simon and also back to the examination of generalisations and of underlying assumptions that Dominic Hearne spoke about in his presentation. The introduction of thinking skills, particularly the explicit engagement with the meta-language of thought, may increase the quality of class discussions (and as an aside, when combined with other strategies, may reduce the incidence of the Hermione effect) and increase the awareness of the thinking strategies which students are engaging with in a variety of contexts, that is, of meta-cognition around thinking skills and strategies which they are employing. Dr Jensen then produced the brief version of five steps for a community of inquiry:
Dr Jensen played for the audience the trailer for Sur le chemin de l’école and then we, as an audience, generated questions that arose from the brief clip (included below). The underlying aim of the exercise was to demonstrate the ease with which a questioning and thinking exercise can be initiated in a classroom. Dr Jensen followed this up by showing us a stimulus that had been used with a Stage One class: This stimulus generated a significant level of conversation with Stage One students, and the responses were quite articulate and demonstrate a high level of awareness when it comes to questioning and thinking. There are a range of potential benefits to explicitly teaching and practicing thinking skills, some of which Dr Jensen elucidated on, including the ability to contribute, constructively, to discussions, the ability to refine ideas and arguments upon the reception of new information (a skill which will carry across to the scientific domain), and very importantly, it teaches students to respectfully disagree. This last skills in particular is a critical skill for all students, indeed, all adults, to possess as it will be required, essentially, throughout their lives as a skill to avoid creating arguments and disharmony in various contexts. Dr Jensen closed with discussion of two schools in Australia, Buranda State School in Queensland and Bondi Public School in NSW, both of whom have introduced explicit teaching of philosophy and thinking, which has had a flow-on effect on NAPLAN results. Dr Jensen was quick acknowledge that NAPLAN is merely one way to measure, and that there is knowledge of any other programs that may have been put in place by those schools that may have assisted with the results. Dr Jensen provided some links to other resources for anyone interested in further development and using philosophy and thinking their teaching, as well as some links to academic resources:
Academic References
I would like to hear from anyone who has implemented explicit teaching and practice of thinking skills in their classroom, and the problems that were encountered and strategies for solving them, as well as the success stories with using explicit teaching and practice of thinking skills. As always, thank you for reading, and tomorrow will see the last article in this series on the Teaching for Thinking Forum, a review of Dean Lomaca’s presentation under the title Towards a Thinking Curriculum. See here for the list of articles in this series. “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Attributed to Albert Einstein I like to open each of my blog posts, where appropriate, when I type it at the desktop computer (as opposed to the iPad) with a quote that is somehow relevant to the topic of that particular article. Today’s quote is, I believe, particularly fitting as the topic of this article is the presentation titled Why and How might schools build cultures of thinking? by Simon Brooks from Masada College as delivered at Thursday’s Teaching for Thinking Forum (#T4TConf) hosted by St. Leo’s Catholic College. If you have not read the introductory review article from that conference, I would recommend you do so by clicking here. Simon opened his presentation with the statement, and I am paraphrasing here; “…learning is the product of thinking, and that for those teachers who hold that they are unable to take on new educational fads, such as allowing their students time to genuinely think and reflect about their learning because “…we have to get through all the content…” then it has to be asked, what does getting through the content look like? This was a very interesting statement, as it is one that I have heard numerous times throughout my undergraduate degree from lecturers and tutors at university and from many teachers with whom I interacted whilst on various professional placements. I have found that this statement is elicited by teachers being advised that they need to undertake a particular professional development activity, or in relation to the use of technology in the classroom . Simon then led us into the first of his four focuses, a poem. Specifically, The Schoolboy, by the poet William Blake. I love to rise in a summer morn, ,Simon prefaced his reading of this poem by very briefly introducing us to the thinking routine known as the four C’s with the side-note that we would be returning to it reading through Blake’s words. The four C’s is a thinking routine that can be deployed in any context and which encourages the user to think critically. Specifically, the four C’s consists of the following thinking prompts:
My initial connection was with the third-to-last stanza, and it took me to the very structure of education and its relationship with the origins of education in the industrial revolution, a topic that was covered extensively during my initial teacher education, and the dichotomous relationship that is shared between early-childhood and primary education structures, and indeed, between primary and secondary education structures and then following on, between secondary and tertiary education structures. Focusing on the first, the structure of early-childhood education (or my understanding thereof at least, I am sure that my readers involved in that sector will disabuse me of any misconceptions) is that learning is largely play-based and more free-form than it is structured. Upon arrival at ‘big school,’ we expect students to stand in two straight lines, adhere to rigid structures administered by bells, eat when they are allowed to, go to the bathroom during specific breaks, sit at their desks in chairs and utilise pencils, all in ways that would be as alien to them as the concepts of neurological surgery would be to me. The obvious challenge from this connection, then, is why is education structured in such a way? Why, two hundred years after the industrial revolution, have there been so few changes to the way in which we structure our children’s education? Why is the assumption that all students should be grouped by age still prevalent, other than convenience? The key idea from this is that education, or rather, schooling, is something to be abhored and avoided in favour of the summer morn’ and that changes need to be made, effectively, to change this mindset. “Cultures of thinking are places in which a group’s collective as well as individual, thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all the group’s members.” This exercise started the audience along the pathway of thinking, and of questioning what they were reading, and Simon lead on from this by posing that there are a total of eight cultural forces, that are entirely unavoidable, that impact upon our thinking and that a culture of thinking is apparent when all eight forces are aligned and directed towards encouraging and appreciating thinking. These eight forces have been identified by Ron Ritchart in his 2002 publication Intellectual Character and can be directed towards thinking as indicated below: Returning to the notion of there being no time for thinking because “…we need to get through all the content…” SImon made the point that it is in the time of thinking and reflecting that the richness of understanding develops, and further posited that our classrooms walls be used not just to show off students’ completed works, but their in-progress works, to demonstrate, and to empower our students to think of thinking as being an on-going process, a tool for them to deploy, rather than being the goal for them to achieve.
Simon continued by introducing us to six contiguous key principles for a culture of thinking, which are expanded in an article by Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins.
A comment that Simon made on a number of occasions throughout the night, and I think one that is fitting with which to close out this article is that a culture of thinking is not something you do. Simon related that he often hears teachers say to him that they are “….doing this culture of thinking thing” and Simon responds that you do not do a culture of thinking, you are and you have a culture of thinking. Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read, and I would very much like to hear from my readers in regards to where the four C’s took them after reading The Schoolboy by William Blake, and strategies that have been used in your school or classroom to create a culture of thinking. See here for the list of articles in this series. References Ritchhart, R. (2002), Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get It, San Francisco, California, United States, Jon Wiley & Sons. Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. (2008). Making Thinkin Visible.Educational Leadership, 65(5), 57-61 “Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.” -Attributed to Thomas A. Edison The teaching profession, I have often heard, and am discovering for myself, is often about the networking you have done and the connections you have forged through a professional learning network (PLN), both online and offline.Or, to put it in the vernacular, it is all about who you know. The only reason I heard about the Teaching for Thinking Forum, that was hosted last night by St Leo’s Catholic College in Wahroonga, was that my sister-in-law is a teacher there and shared the flyer on her Facebook wall, which is yet another indicator for the need for teachers to have a professional presence online, but I digress. This particular conference was aimed at showing how a culture of thinking can be and has been applied, and the beneficence of stretching our students to think in genuine ways, and the beneficence of us, as teachers, allowing time and appreciating our the output of our student’s thinking. To this end, the four speakers targeted different aspects of thinking and how they have been implemented in their schools. The night was arranged with two speakers on either side of a fifteen minute networking and refreshment break. At the conclusion of the forum, there was a further opportunity for networking and conversation with many attendees going for dinner together at a nearby eatery. The first speaker, and for me personally, the most engaging and motivating speaker was Dominic Hearne, the Head of Learning Enrichment and the Head of Religious Education at Waverley College. under the heading A model of / for Gifted and Talented Education (as used at Waverley College). Dominic outlined a BOSTES approved series of courses that that they developed and targeted towards those students who sat in the 80% – 95% range across key learning areas as a way of extending those students and providing opportunities for them to be challenged. Dominic’s first point was a discussion of the models of extension that are traditionally utilised which tend to fall into one of two buckets. The first bucket that Dominic identified was where those students are withdrawn from the regular classroom context and provided with either one-to-one or small-group learning situations where they are extended and stretched in their particular learning area. It was pointed out that this can create further difficulties in itself, as the student is then required to catch-up on the learning they were not present for as a result of their extension opportunities. This can have the flow-on effect of creating additional stress for the student, which is of course not a desirable outcome. The alternative that is often implemented is team-teaching, whereby a second teacher enters the classroom and provides one-to-one instruction that is aimed at extending the student. This however has its own pitfalls. In the early stages of such a practice, it can often be a source of much distraction to other students, as the new sounds, the discussion of the teacher and the student being extended, in provide an undercurrent of noise to the primary teacher delivering instruction to the majority of the class. Dominic indicated that Waverley College wanted to combine the beneficial aspects of both practices, and developed two courses which they have been approved by BOSTES. ‘Learning Enrichment’ is now compulsory for Years Seven and Eight, and ‘Human Society and Applied Philosophy’ is now an elective for Years Nine and Ten. “Pure philosophy scares the [students]. Learning Enrichment dresses it up in respectability” –Dominic Hearne Taking a step backwards, Dominic indicated that when they, as a school, identified that they wished to provide stretch learning opportunities for those students who were between the average and the top end of the academic bell-curve, the first thing that was done was the removal of the term Gifted and Talented as there is an extraordinary amount of baggage and expectation attached to that label. The use of Learning Enrichment as an alternative is not simply a case of ‘the same thing dressed differently’ but is an opportunity to widen the catchment net and enable those students who may not ordinarily be considered for a Gifted and Talented program, to be considered for this ‘Learning Enrichment’ opportunity. The entry course, Learning Enrichment, delivers explicit teaching in critical thinking skills, and forward-maps the current learning to the future, explicitly, so that students understand why they are undertaking the project. The statement is put to them that they are the future leaders, and that in ten years they will have graduated, not only from high school, but from university. This creates, immediately, high expectations, by saying to the students that you will graduate from university, rather than you might graduate from university. In addition to this, all members of the school executive are expected to engage with the delivery of this course as a matter of fact. “If students are not engaging with the [higher order thinking skills from] Bloom’s Taxonomy, that indicates a problem with the pedagogy, not with the student.” -Dominic Hearne The first unit, Dominic related to us, was an examination of epistemology, delivered as if it were a one hundred level undergraduate course, and done so without apology. Other units included were Problem Solving Skills, which was largely based on the concepts of the Future Problem Solving Program, in which students were expected to identify and solve a problem that was present within the school. This has result in presentations to the school business manager of how solar power can be utilised to save money, a presentation that included costings, and which has since acted upon with one building’s roof now being covered with solar panels. Dominic gave us an example of how the Applied Philosophy course is delivered to Year Nine and Ten students, by asking us as an audience a question he asks those students: what are the life lessons we can learn from Bugs Bunny? If it has been a while since you have watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon, here is a clip from YouTube from the fiftieth anniversary of Bugs Bunny featuring highlights of fifty years of Bugs Bunny in three and a half minutes: The question was hat are the life lessons we can learn from Bugs Bunny? Some of the responses that were offered up included that Bugs is always right, that animals can talk, that having a speech impediment is normal (think about how many of the core Looney Tunes characters have one), that cross dressing is normal (think about how many times you have seen Bugs or any of the others cross-dressing), that all skunks are French and are lechers and that death is not real. The point of the exercise is that the life lessons we learn from watching Bugs is that we create, in our minds, a universe which we accept without question. I remember watching Michael Jordan in the movie Space Jam, and not even blinking when Michael Jordan fell from the sky into the Looney Tunes world without getting hurt, because that is the world which my mind has constructed and accepted based upon years of watching cartoons. This line of thinking then gets applied to our own world, and leads the way into questioning our assumptions and beliefs, and to becoming critical thinkers, and is an exercise I would like to undertake with some of my Stage Three students to get them thinking about critical thinking and questioning assumptions. Other units throughout the program include a study of the Art of War and the Ethics of peace, an examination of St Augustine’s concept of a Just War leading into an examination of what happens when the war stops, and questioning why are some wars not really wars, why does the war on terror, need the ‘on terror’ designation and what that mean for the supposed war, and what happens when the Peacekeeping forces and humanitarian agencies enter after a war has concluded. “Gifted and Talented is perjorative and we wanted to avoid that due to the loading and expectations already found. Learning Enrichment widens the net.” –Dominic Hearne The last aspect of the course was the literary study and, to be quite honest, sounds more difficult than what I was required to do in order to attain Honours Class I at university. Students are required to submit a three thousand word literary study, that is not about the story, but that is about the subtext of the story and the social, political and economic times in which the story was written, and in which the story is set. The student is then required to conduct a viva-voce, consisting of a fifteen minute presentation of their thesis and a fifteen minute defence thereof. This creates a mindset and a skillset in the students where they are required to thoroughly know and understand and be able to apply their knowledge and the concepts within their thesis, in order to adequately defend it from the questioning of their peers. It forces students to be able to organise their writing and their notes, and finally it forces them to be able to think on their feet. All of these are skills they will need to succeed in academia, both at the senior High School level and at the tertiary level, and are skills that will be useful in later life. It also creates a mindset for the students upon entering university that a fifteen-hundred word essay is nothing to sweat over, which puts them ahead of their peers. I took a lot from Dominic’s presentation, and much of what he talked about is very similar to what I hope to achieve with my primary students during the research project. Dominic kindly provided a copy of the Human Society and Applied Philosophy course outline to the audience, which I will be reading with great interest. I spoke briefly with Dominic afterwards, and will be contacting him to arrange a suitable time to visit the college and observe a lesson, and speak further to determine ways in which I can adapt the pedagogy and the concepts of the course to be suitable for my Stage Two and Stage Three students. If you are teaching explicit philosophy or applied philosophy, I would very much like to hear from you in regards to the pedagogical strategies you are using to allow the students to understand the complex concepts contained therein, and then apply them critically. My next article, on Tuesday (delayed due to the long weekend here in NSW), will focus on the second speaker, Simon Brooks, the Head of Teaching and Learning at Masada College and his presentation entitled Cultures of Thinking – An Introduction to the Why and How. Until then, thank you for reading, and my thanks again, to St Leos Catholic College for organising and hosting such a wonderfully inspiring and challenging conference, and to the speakers for giving up their time. See here for the list of articles in this series. “The best part of learning is sharing what you know.” – Attrbuted to Vaughn K. Lauer My regular readers would be aware that I am delivering profession development sessions to colleagues around the use of technology in the classroom. This afternoon will be the second session in this series, and will be focusing on developing a greater knowledge in using the Google Apps for Education (GAfE).
Last week, I introduced them to Google Apps for Education, and delivered the session via Google Classroom. This afternoon, I will be spending further time with them looking at ways that Google Drive can be used in conjunction with Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides in the classroom, and as tools for collaboration. On that note, here are some ways that you can deploy Google Docs in the classroom.
Those are a few simple ways that Google Docs can be used. As always, thank you for reading, and I would like to hear from anyone with ideas on how you use Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Class or Drive in the classroom or for staff Professional Development. “The copyright bargain: a balance between protection for the artist and rights for the consumer.” – Attributed to Robin Gross Copyright is a confusing and complicated area of law for adults. This is especially so given that copyright laws have not kept up with the proliferation of digital media and the realisation of many that music and movies had been, for many years, incredibly overpriced (which is a separate conversation in itself). However, copyright is still an important concept to understand, particularly with the burgeoning use of tablets in the educational context, and the increasing of access to the internet for children.
Having completed the introductory unit focusing on fundamental computer skills with my Stage Three students last week, I am now looking to begin teaching copyright concepts to those students. In preparation, I spent some time examining the content on the CyberSmart for Kids website, and felt that it was very superficial and did not deal with the concept with any genuine effectiveness. I looked elsewhere, and could not find any Australian content that I felt was effective at dealing with the concepts and implications of copyright for students. I ventured overseas, and after much much searching, have found and am using the iKeepSafe content to deliver these concepts. Today was the first lesson, and even with some good quality resources to back up the delivery, it was a complicated lesson. I would very much like to hear from anyone who has treated this concept with the students, and how you explained and differentiated copyright, fair use, creative commons, public domain etc. in such a way that students were able to engage and understand the concept. The TED Talk phenomenon has been an incredible revelation over the last few years in spreading ideas across the world, particularly when coupled with YouTube as a content dissemination platform. This evening I watched a TEd Talk by Pranav Mistry from November 2009. The opening is a little dry, however the technology that is demonstrated, technology known as Sixth Sense Technology, is absolutely incredible. The Sixth Sense augmentation technology makes use of some reasonably basic technologies, but it is the way in which the technologies, including a projector and a camera, are utilised that is revolutionary. Pranav explains the development of the technology, and thought dry, is quite interesting. I include the video here for your perusal, and I would very much like to hear from anyone who has encountered or used this technology, particularly if you have done so in an educational context. The annual EduTECH conference is on this week in Brisbane, and it promises to be an excellent event, with some great keynote speakers, and of course the large range of exhibitors. I would have liked to have gone, but am unable to do so. If you are interested in following the happenings, keep your eyes open for #EduTECH and if you are at EduTech, then make sure you get along to one of the #TMEduTech sessions. I would particularly like to hear about Monika Kern’s two minute session on The RAT model – an alternative to SAMR. If you are unable to make it EduTech, consider sending an RSVP to the email on the bottom of the below invitation to attend the Teaching for Thinking Forum at to St Leo’s Catholic College this Thursday at 4.30. The agenda looks interesting, and I will either live tweet (look for #TeachforThink) or write a review the following day. Have a great week everyone, and as always, thank you for reading. “You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.” – Attributed to Tom Brokaw As my regular readers would be aware, I completed my four year initial teacher degree last year, and did so with substantial academic success. Graduating with Honours Class I, the Education Faculty Medal and a GPA over six is something I am rather proud of achieving. This afternoon I received a phone call from the Graduation Office, asking if I was planning on attending my graduation ceremony in July this year. I indicated that I was, and the person with whom I was speaking followed up with anther question.
“You’ve been recommended to be the Graduate Speaker, is that something you would be interested in undertaking.” Certainly not an honour I was expecting, and I have accepted the offer to undertake this prestigious job. If someone told past-Brendan that he would achieve everything current-Brendan has achieved, past-Brendan would have laughed uproariously. Now to write the speech! “Part of the problem, we argue, has been a tendency to only look at the technology and not how it is used. Merely introducing technology to the educational process is not enough.” -Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054 Today was the first of a series of professional development sessions that I will be delivering to my colleagues over the course of this term, and potentially further, depending on interest. The purpose of today’s session was to introduce TPCK and SAMR as frameworks for thinking about the use of technology in the classroom.
The first activity that I had my colleagues undertake was a formative assessment task using Google Forms, to gain an understanding of what my colleagues thought and felt in relation to the term twenty-first century learning, in relation to the use of technology both as a consumer and as a teacher, and then in relation to what technologies my colleagues wanted to learn about. The responses were very interesting. To the question what do you think of when you hear the phrase twenty-first century learning, the responses varied, from simply help, to computers, to concerns about those with additional learning needs being left behind and finally to the increase in the requirement for students to learn and use critical thinking skills as teachers increasingly become facilitators of learning; the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage. We moved from that to an introduction and explanation of both the TPCK and SAMR frameworks, and discussed some examples of each of the levels of the SAMR model through the use of well known examples and video demonstrations sourced from YouTube. I have attached a copy of the presentation, for anyone who is interested in viewing it, to this article (Rethinking EdTech Presentation), and links to the videos that were used are embedded within that document. Today was an introduction to these concepts, and next week, we will begin to delve into practical examples of technology utilised at the various levels of the SAMR model. On that note, I would be very appreciative to anyone who can offer examples of how they have used technology in the classroom at the four levels of the SAMR model. As always, thank you for reading. “Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” – Attributed to William Arthur Ward A new, exciting and potentially highly beneficial opportunity came to my attention recently. There is a research project that was trailed in some Central Coast high schools last year, that is about to trailed in some Central Coast primary schools. A presentation detailing the project was given today by the research coordinator, and it sounds like an excellent opportunity.
The project is called Central Coast Cloud School, and is aimed towards disengaged Stage Three students, in an attempt to reengage those students in mathematics and/or science and/or HSIE through flipped learning and game inspired learning. I am highly interested in submitting an Expression of Interest for one of the three teacher positions for this project, which is anticipated to consist of two days of intense professional development, five weeks of online classes and presumably some debrief and reflection time afterwards. My only concern is that my proverbial plate is full enough, and I am not sure that I can put anything on my plate. That said, when I described the opportunity and what it involved to my wife, she was encouraging of me putting an application in. The project takes what I am doing in my current position a step further than what I had planned to attempt for this year, it ties in directly with my professional development plan, and it potentially will assist in my eventual academic career by providing me with experience in a funded educational research project. I am very much leaning towards submitting an application, and am currently attempting to determine what competing time sinks I could divest myself of, to afford me with the time needed to participate in this project. As always, thank you for reading. I would be interested to hear what process you go through to determine which activities you can disengage with to free up time to engage with alternative activities. “The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.” – Attributed to Peter Drucker Productivity is an interesting concept, particularly in the context of a classroom. As teachers, we often find ourselves asking students to work harder, to put in more effort and to stop being distracted. How many classrooms still expect students to be still and silent in a classroom and are surprised when there is the constant susurration of whispers?
Our brains are highly active beasts, and like to fill in the void created by silence with something, whether it be a catchy song that we’ve recently heard, or a conversation that we’ve had and are replaying, or a conversation that we are preparing for. I see this at night if I am not completely exhausted and drop off to sleep straight away when I go to bed and turn the light out and it is silent. My thoughts turn to songs, conversations, television shows or similar to create some sort of noise. How much of this is natural, and how much of it is as a result of the rewiring due to the continual use of devices in the current age, I do not know. However, the continual need for noise is certainly something that seems to be embedded in our psyche, and our brain fills in the blanks when the environment does not. When I am at home working on material for my teaching, I often do not have music on, so that I can focus, and so that the audio of the song is not competing with the audio of the video I am working on. I have found that in this environment, I am as easily distracted as I am with music or the television on. I have been looking for something to fill in the blanks, a source of white noise as the sources I used to use no longer fit the bill and have recently discovered Rainy Mood. The Rainy Mood website plays the sound of rain falling, and scattered throughout are thunderstorm sounds. It works, for me, very effectively, as there are no patterns for my brain to latch on to, the sounds are natural, which I find quite relaxing in general, and the volume and intensity of the rain does vary as you listen to it, simulating a real storm. As a source of white noise, I find it very helpful for my own productivity, and whilst I understand that there are going to be some who find it as distracting as any other source of distraction, I would encourage you to try it out if you are looking for something to use whilst studying, planning, programming, marking, writing reports or even trying to get to sleep (I have used set it to run on my phone at night on a few occasions and it works quite well). As a teacher, I would very much like the opportunity to try this out in a classroom, to see if it helps to increase focus and reduces the amount of distracting chatter that students engage in. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has done this, or anyone with any other techniques or tools that people have for filling in the sound void to maintain their own or their students’ focus. As always thank you for reading, and good luck for the week. “A day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Attributed to Nicolas Chamfort Today is Friday, the day that everyone regards as being an awesome day, as it is the beginning, for most people, of the weekend, of two days of not being at the work place. It is an odd day in many respects, as whilst it may be the end of the work week for some, that also means that it is now time to undertake the various chores around the house that have accumulated throughout the work week. I find myself feeling inspired and motivated today, which is somewhat bizarre. On Wednesday, and again yesterday, I found myself feeling very lethargic and lacking in motivation, and I do not feel as if I achieved anything. Today, despite the fact that it has rained all day, despite the fact that I have had a number of interruptions due to various things, I find myself feeling motivated and energetic, and I feel that I have completed a respectable amount of work today. One of my interruptions today was having the NBN (National Broadband Network) connected inside the house. I wanted to test the difference, and so ran the Ookla speed test which showed a very large improvement (ADSL: 21ms ping, 5.95 Mbps DL and 0.85 Mbps UL. NBN: 4ms ping, 23.72 Mbps DL and 4.85 Mbps UL), however I wanted something more visible, so I went to YouTube to see how long a video would take to buffer. The first video that popped up was Kid President’s Pep Talk video, and it downloaded incredibly quickly, however I decided to sit and watch it. It really is a very powerful video, and I felt it worth sharing on this wet and windy Friday afternoon. Remember, be more awesome this weekend. Be awesome to your friends, your family, your neighbours and keeping being awesome on Monday. Who inspires you to be awesome? Let me know in the comments. It is report time here in NSW, and teachers everywhere are busy trying to put together the finishing touches to a document that many parents look at once, and then file in the bin without much more thought than being happy, or not, about the results. I know that for some parents, there is more focus on the grade awarded to effort and little awarded to the overall grade.
I have completed my reports for this semester, and will be submitting them through to my supervisor to double check and then disseminate to the various classroom teachers to whom they belong, and it was a nice feeling to close the last set. I am wondering what strategies other classroom teachers have for getting through the stressful period of time, whether it is to complete a whole report before moving on, or whether to complete the whole class within a single segment before moving on. Beginning next Wednesday afternoon, I will be running a series of after-school workshops to help up-skill my colleagues in the authentic use of technology in the classroom. Thus far I have had fifteen of my colleagues indicate they will be attending, and some others indicate that they would attend if they did not already have commitments after school on Wednesdays.
I have a rough outline in my head of the concepts and skills I wish to explore of the course of the sessions, and am putting together a rough outline of the scope and sequence I will be using. The first thing I will be covering will be a survey using Google forms to determine some of the preconceptions and fears that my colleagues hold around using technology as a pedagogical tool. After that, the plan at the moment is to introduce the TPCK and SAMR as the theoretical framework for considering the use of technology in the classroom. The idea is that with an understanding of both concepts, we will be able to brainstorm a range of lesson ideas using the school bank of laptops as the technology to cement the concept, but to also allow staff to brainstorm a range of ways that they can use the laptops beyond the substitution and augmentation levels, and to take students to modification and redefinition levels. I would be interested in hearing back from anyone who has ideas about how I may implement some technology in-servicing based on their own experience. As always, thank you for reading. I write this post on my new iPad, whilst waiting for a series of apps to download, after a bittersweet day.
As my regular readers are aware, I am currently engaged on a temporary block for this term. I received word today that my temporary block has been extended through to the end of the year, which is good news. The bittersweet aspect comes from the fact that it means that I will be engaged temporarily rather than having been successful in my application for a permanent position. On the one hand, I’m not too concerned as about it as I now have confirmed work through til the end of the year. On the other hand, however, to gain permanent employment would be nice. The feedback was excellent, and I was beaten out to the position by someone with more experience with teaching literacy and numeracy, which given that I only completed my teaching degree at the end of last year, is not particularly surprising. Thank you for reading, and tomorrow we will return to more regular discussions. I had a well thought out and well structured post all typed up, but a WordPress error caused it to disappear into the ether, despite having clicked on Save Draft, my post is nowhere to be found. The short version of what I had typed is that after realising I needed to float over the top of my videos to allow more space to be used for whatever it is that I am showing, I ordered a green screen (chromakey) kit, which arrived a few days ago. Having today off provided me with an opportunity to experiment, and I have been playing around with it for a little while now and have put together a very short test video. It is certainly not perfect, I need to work on getting the lighting right behind my torso to prevent the shadowing that occurred, but I am reasonably happy with it as a first effort. I would love to hear from anyone who is using chromakey techniques in the classroom, and what obstacles you have come up against, and what strategies you have used to circumnavigate those obstacles. “A broad education in the arts helps give children a better understanding of their world…We need students who are culturally literate as well as math and science literate.” –Attributed to Paul Ostergard, Vice President, Citicorp As I believe I have previously written, Thursday is my day where I get thrown around class to class according to where extra relief is needed. I may say thrown around, but I do enjoy the variety, and often it is a nice break from my own program, as I often am asked to teach from the classroom teacher’s own program. It is a nice way to end my week, usually, and today was no exception.
Today started out with plans for navigating around the final day of NAPLAN, with my original timetable modified as a result of NAPLAN, but actually working out quite well. I had one particular class today, and it was the first time that I had had them for a decent block of time. I had them for an hour with the laptops, and then again later on for another hour in the school computer lab, and it was absolutely fantastic. We were able to achieve so much, and when I showed the class the spreadsheet with the achievement dates in it at the start of the second session, and showed them how much we had achieved, the students got quite excited and were quite well focused for the second session as well. Being open with the assessment strategy in this case, helped with the engagement levels. My afternoon session was great, I had a year one class who has been learning about the weather, the different seasons, the types of weather that occur in the seasons etc, and today’s lesson was to do with rain. We spent the afternoon creating blue sponge-paintings as backgrounds for the crayoned umbrellas.I have not, up until now, done a painting session with any class, so it was quite the experience, however I was able to avoid getting any point on my clothes, and only a small amount on my hands. It was, however, a lot of fun, and the students were able to explain a fair bit to me about the weather, which demonstrates that the knowledge and the concepts of weather and their relationship to the seasons has been absorbed and retained. As always, thank you for reading, and have a great weekend. I’m heading home now to start creating some more videos for my program (which I will be doing all day Friday and Saturday). |
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