I love the idea shown (click the picture for instructions), which gets students to create their own dodecahedron. This is one example of integrating visual arts with mathematics and science. There are many others.
The Academic Curriculum in largely focused on girls and what girls are more likely to be better at. Why is writing the main form of showing what you know, when it is more important to engage students, excite students and see them develop as a person?
Teenage boys are more likely to underachieve at school than their female counterparts, but more likely to go on to study science and maths, an OECD report says.
The Sydney Morning Herald has published an article on the importance of Mathematics for Preschool aged children. The key here I believe is that we need to be sending our youngsters to a proper preschool with a preschool program and a trained teacher rather than hoping that the long day care, which has become all to prevalent 'won't do any harm'.
Really, what do we want for our children - not any harm - or do we want them to flourish? I know what I want for my children, 3 (3 day preschool) and 5 (Year 1).
Rather than "Mathematics", engaging in Numeracy is actually explained in the article as what we need to be encouraging for our youngsters. Getting that number sense.
Here are the ten tips from SMH:
Observe numbers and shapes in everyday situations: on street signs, in the park, at the supermarket. How many cars can you see? Are there more or fewer than before?
Count steps as you're going up stairs.
Play outside with water or sand. Use scales and/or measuring containers of different sizes.
Play with blocks and use the opportunity to point out the sizes and shapes, the number or any patterns. Problem-solving can also be introduced through blocks by identifying the best ways to stop towers from toppling.
Bath time offers the opportunity to observe volume and metrics using cups filled with water.
Sorting the laundry is a chance to ask your toddler to help you sort socks into pairs, or count the number of T-shirts. Which pile of clothes is the tallest? Which is the shortest?
When making lunch discuss with your child as you cut a sandwich into halves, quarters or thirds. How many pieces do you have now?
Do a puzzle and point out sizes, shapes and colours. Where are the corners? How many are there?
Use a tape measure to find a child's height. How does their height compare with other members of the family? Who is the tallest and who is the shortest in the family?
Bake together. What ingredients need to be measured; what is the order of ingredients? How many cupcakes are there? Should we make fewer large ones or more small ones?
It is important with all of these wonderful suggestions, that we don't get to the point of seeing our children as 'a project' and we need to subtly make numeracy a part of their lives without 'doing an algebra lesson' as the article points out.
How does your school compare with the view portrayed below? I think many independent schools pride themselves on their music programs, but are we working towards creating Mozarts and Beethovens rather than focusing students on listening.
Comprehension through listening and creating a sense of abstract is a pervasive idea that should cross over all subject areas.
Professor John Hattie is well known for having done significant meta-analysis research. It is not what we may expect of successful schools. Watch the video below for a quick 15 minute summary.
One of the key things of successful teachers is that they are collaborative and want feedback.
In speaking with a colleague recently, he indicated that there were seven aspects of schooling that are seen by the public as imperatives for school. I have slightly modified them.
High expectations of students
Clearly showing students the what and how
Giving effective feedback to students
Using data to identify problem areas and improve
Classroom management and discipline
Student wellbeing
Collaborating with colleagues
How are you going in your school context with these?
For a full list things that we need to be mindful of as teachers, see the classroom practice descriptions from AITSL or the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
In my first year of teaching, I remember my very first lesson. I had my keys to the classroom, walked in and had the students stand behind their chairs, shut the door and the following thought went through my mind:
No-one knows what I'm about to try and teach these kids, am I really accountable and who gave me permission to do this?
It is a curious thing that is such a people focused profession, we close our doors to our colleagues. How was I to improve in my practice without knowing how I was doing?
My first step into collaboration with colleagues, was actually sharing what I had done in the hope that others would share back with me. To be fair, a number of teachers did share things with me but they were often sheets photocopied from old textbooks.
As things progressed, I began to work more collaboratively with one colleague in particular and we were constantly in each other's classrooms, encouraging each other to try new things, to improve. This would not have happened if I had not been willing to put my pride aside and open my door.
Teachers need quality feedback to improve. Golfers record themselves to watch their swing to see how to improve it, they also have a coach to watch and critique their swing - in order to be better at what they do. This all happens without judgment - you never hear "you're a bad golfer" so we need to be recording our lessons (with a swivl) and having colleagues, professionals and experts help us to improve.
Watch below for Bill Gates and his urge for feedback for teachers.
Two of the most effective strategies to continually monitor students' learning are "traffic lights" and "fist to five", Shardlow says.
With "traffic lights", students are given red, amber and green disks of paper and teachers get feedback on how students are tracking in their learning by asking them to hold up the appropriate colour to indicate their level of understanding: green for "OK – I could explain this to someone else", amber for "I'm not sure – I get most of it but not all yet" and red for "help – I am lost".
"Fist to five" is similar to traffic lights, but students hold up a number of fingers to indicate their level of understanding.
Since the review of the Australian Curriculum, there has been some concern among teachers regarding yet another syllabus to program for in the near future and whether there would be an increased focus on Australia's Anglo-Christian heritage (yes, this does appear to be a political football).
There are some changes in Australia that Christopher Pyne has announced which involves a streamlining of HSIE subjects in primary schools. Specifics for NSW have not yete been released, but even though it has been signed off by all states, experience would indicate that this will take some time before it hits the classroom in NSW.
It doesn’t matter what age you are, there’s nothing quite like losing yourself in a good book. But, did you know that reading for enjoyment is also associated with higher academic achievement?
A recent large scale study concluded reading for pleasure has ‘a powerful influence on children’s learning’, particularly in developing vocabulary, but also on spelling and maths skills. ‘Reading for pleasure made a substantial difference [on intellectual progress] – the difference made was around four times greater than the difference made by having a parent with a degree’ (Sullivan, 2014).
Michele Bruniges encourages us to ask the following questions to develop quality pedagogy:
What do you want students to learn?
Why does that learning matter
What are you going to get the students to do or to produce
How well do you expect them to do it (near enough is almost always good enough)
I think that collaborative conversations between colleagues is vital to improving teacher quality and professionalism. We need to carefully structure conversations to promote positive collaborative learning environments. The questions above provide one possibility to discuss this. Another that I have seen used recently is answering the following two questions when observing lessons:
What worked well (WWW)
Even better if (EBI)
Have a ccollaborative onversation with a colleague today!
Technology should allow us to improve teaching and learning in the classroom and broaden it beyond the classroom. When we seek to do this, we need to have in mind the dispositions of learning - what do we want students to leave our classes with? A specific small set of facts or do we want to foster curiosity, creativity and critical thinking?
Technology can be a tool to engage, or it can be something else that has to be learnt and used. Students treat it as we treated a pen when we were at school (or the ink well in my parents schooling days)
If students in their own time can access highly relevant, engaging, content that they are passionate about at just a few taps of the screen, then how can they see the teacher as the keeper of knowledge of the 1800s?
Michael Fullan in the video below explains the six C's, which are deep learning goals:
Critical Thinking
Communication
Creativity
Collaboration
Character Education
Citizenship
Making learning irresistably engaging!
As students move through school, how do we increase engagement or at least maintain engagement rather than at present see a decline in engagement?
The Flipped Classroom
Fullan Speaks so the teacher's role in the classroom as being a change agent or activator.
