post assignment links (2007-06-24)

excellent and thought provoking take on a number of theories:

http://www.learningandteaching.info/

Includes some good heterodoxy

T2W5 - Alan (2007-05-26)

Classroom Management

2 topics - dealing with children in pain, dealing with bullying

Moral Relativism? What right have we as adults to dictate what is right and wrong?

What is the basis of our ethics?

Plato, Aristotle, Socrates: 'Anything that enhances the goodness of a person'

Who decides what is good? Greeks concluded that Good is basically about relationships, and the quality of relations.

Hattie: 'the most important thing is the quality of the relationship between the teacher and student'

Important to be humble - nuturing, love, mentoring.

Where did we go wrong: over dependence on rules. The world of power and control.

Students: Lives are cluttered. Time is filled with television/sport/computers

Teacher: 'Clutter buster' - challenge students to be uncluttered in classroom and at home. Homework? how important? Surely we can fit all the learning into the time they are at school.

Ask students: 'who do you see yourself as now? where are you heading? what can you let go of?'

Every few years need a spring clean - things, people. What is worth keeping? Relationships and Love.

Are students heads so cluttered that they don't have room for new information?

Vygotsky - zone should include ensuring there is space for the new.

A good structured activity should inspire the student to choose to learn at home anyway.

Summary: To manage a class we need to put students into a place where they can learn - beautiful, empowering, place to be. Unfortunately there will still be some who still can't focus.
Are these students 'in pain'.

Managing children in pain

'Whole brain teaching' Relaxed state with no stress. Getting the WHOLE thing working at the same time reduces stress. WB emphasises active learning - learner makes connections that tap both hemispheres. (passive learning does not do this).

Good emotional management - avoid 'downshifting' to 'primal behaviour'.

Must relax the learners. Outdoor activity, Dance, Art, Wood/metal work. Short term physical goals. Clear goals - clear ways to get help. Imaging (good for concrete learners) is critical - imagining. Lots of stuff that makes sense. If in doubt, use lots of images. Visualise, draw use drama.

Teach emotional skills as an essential part of every course. Self awareness, Mood management, Self motivation, Empathy, Managing relationships.

Solution 1: Develop Emotional Inteligence. Meditations, Reflective activities, Think pair share, with pauses to reflect emotionaly. Make students aware of how their behaviour affects others.

'Graffiti' exercise - small group writes a response to a question, which is passed onto other groups to add their comments. Optional final stage is to get everyone to do their own summary.

Work on stuff when things are going well - not just at times of crisis.

http://www.bullyingnoway.com.au/

Dealing with bullying: Gather detailed evidence directly from the child.

Restorative Justice. Build partnership, balanced approach, preserve safety and dignity of all

"Restorative Justice is a return to aboriginal (commonsense) response where the commission of a crime is viewed as a lack of spiritual balance within the person and as an offence against human relationships rather than an act against the state.

Essence of emotional inteligence is to be able to step back and look at things objectively.

T2W2 Alan (2007-05-05)

Get into the mind of a child who is walking into a school that I know

They arrive in the classroom, or is it a learning place

What is the thought of the child as the lesson is about to begin - what have we done to grab the attention of the child

We have got to bring the child 'off the bus' away from the TV etc. Do they have their own place?

Book 'Twilight of Love' Robert Desade
'what makes civilisation?' 'In a civilised world we have "places"'. In uncivilised world it is nomadic and unfixed. Greek's set the trend, Romans took it on... where do we have our sense of home/place?

What are the special things that we have made in Shearwater that make it a home away from home

New theorists:

Dirkheim and Bourdieu

As humans we have to have a group within which we live. The group has a 'momentum' or coercive power over how we live - following 'patterns'. External control over our conduct. 'Norms', 'Morays', 'Folkways'

Dirkheim: In every human there are two consciences: External one imposed on you by the group. A 'Conscience' that is there. If you break the rules you are either a 'poor wretch/maverick' or the 'lunatic fringe'. Also there is the internal conscience. Everyone has their own understanding of right and wrong, what we like/dislike. We develop this to meet our internal needs.

External: Habitus - (latin) permanent disposition - way of thinking. Deep seated unspoken agreement about the way things are done here. Deportment. Posture.

Civilised: able to critically reflect

How can we make our space more civilised? Sense of place, creativity

French civilisation push: International Baccaulerate

Civilised society values learning, arts, place, temperance, justice, wisdom, rational addults, be aware of time beyond our own.

Barbarians - irrational, nomadic,

Theme 2 - beyond the here and now

look up 'Stephen Downes' - being connected to a larger community - knowledge, information, people in other times

George Siemonds - connectivism

Motivation Thread

Glasser - 5 things (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Therapy)

These needs are classified under five headings. The first is our primary and physical need for:

• Survival (including food, clothing, nourishment, shelter, personal security).

And the following four are psychological.

• Connecting, Belonging, Love (including groups as well as families or loved ones).
• Power (including learning, achievement and feeling worthwhile and winning).
• Freedom (including independence, autonomy, one’s own 'space').
• Fun (including pleasure and enjoyment).

Adler (from http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Dreikurs%2C_Rudolf)

Adler’s Basic premises (Dreikurs, 1972, pp. 8-9)

i) Man is a social being and his main desire (the basic motivation) is to belong.

ii) All behavior is purposive. One cannot understand behavior of another person unless one knows to which goal it is directed, and it is always directed towards finding one's place.

iii) Man is a decision-making organism.

iv) Man does not see reality as it is, but only as he perceives it, and his perception may be mistaken or biased.

Dreikurs (from http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Dreikurs%2C_Rudolf)

All misbehavior is the result of a child’s mistaken assumption about the way he can find a place and gain status (Dreikurs, 1968, p. 36).

Students’ goals that motivates misbehavior (Wolfgang, 2001, pp. 117-122) (Dreikurs, 1968, pp. 37-40)
1) attention getting
2) power and control
3) revenge
4) helplessness & inadequacy

Alan: students are driven by need to be a member of a group - fundamental driver of humanity
Glasser & Dreikurs go together.
Need to teach the students how to operate effectively in a group.

What do we need to do?
1) make sure the general environment is supportive of learning/cooperation/mutual respect
2) learning place - social groups within it - make sure they belong - need an activity that melds them into a grooup - story, common interest, pair them up, talking to each other in the ZPD
3) make sure every student have 5 glasser needs met

Glasser/Dreikers - 'leading them' - non assertive discipline
or Cantor/Skiner etc - 'pushing them' (won the battle, lost the war) - teacher dominates - assertive discipline.

Lee Cantor info here: http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/howteach/assertdisc.html

All about the rights of the teacher

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Week 4 ed 2135 (2007-03-31)

Piaget: Constructivism

Vygotsky: Social Interaction is king.

Piaget - knowledge is a scheme - we modify our scheme throughout our lives


Group discussion models:
Jigsaw
Think, Pair, Share

Group discussions: source of riots and wasted time if not managed

TPS:
Stage1: Thinking
Get the person ready to learn: into Zone of Proximal Development
- must get them to think to get them into the ZPD

What are the characteristics of a good, effective, efficient group discussion?

All of the members need to have a role, or something to contribute otherwise some will feel left out and will sabotage the group by being distracting, or deliberately provocative.

The topic of discussion must be relevant and/or interesting for the members of the group - or there must be some motivation to get involved (reward/punishment? eg 'will I look stupid if I don't put in here?')

To be effective the group members must have enough background information to enable them all to move forwards - ie they should be primed equally in some way. Members should be able to identify components, define terms - ie

To be efficient, there should be a clear expectation of realistic goals and timeframe for the discussion.

Members of the group must feel safe, respected, heard

Members should have practice in group work so they know how to stay on task, stick to procedure, record findings

Do groups need a leader - nominated/self selected?

Remind groups to stay on task/track

Better to select groups, than allow groups to self select - gets people together who are not normally together. Otherwise the points of view will be too similar





Good book
'Becoming an Effective Teacher' Tony Featherston
To be good, the participants need to leave the discussion going 'wow'.

ED 2135 - Intro to teaching skills (2007-03-03)

Sat 3/3/2007

Australia falling behind in 26 country oecd education measure (pisa group)

Not teaching students to analyse, synthesize, evaluate, apply, creative solution (blooms)

Top - Finland (greatest number of students at the highest level)

Why do people come to small schools/steiner etc - more creativity, more activity, smaller numbers, energy

Must have a balance - need solid underpinning for creativity to work. English, Maths, Science, History, ICT (Labour party manifesto). For this to work the students need to work at the higher order thinking levels. Labour docs refer to the 'knowledge economy' which is old knews should be working towards the 'creative economy' (ala China)

Excercise 'Think, Pair, Share": looking at national education policy in an article in the Inquirer (Weekend Australian) March 3 - 4 2007 p25. 'Labor the lesser evil'

The article 'dams with faint praise'. The national curriculum as outlined be Labour seems to have lost all connections with creativity. True we do need strong foundations in Maths, Science, English, History. But if we don't have the ability to synthesise and be creative this knowledge stays dry and will not have the 'international competetive advantage' that Labor is looking for. Liberals seem to be even worse - not having a description of the detail of their national curriculum push.

The 'high' points of culture, Art, Dance, Drama, etc are early victims of a conservative squeeze. 'Back to basics' - good academic students = good workers = growing economy.

Creating a growing 'knowledge economy' which leads to a growing 'real economy' requires investment in job sectors - why study science if there are very few real jobs available?

Get back to the original source. Labor party document:

"New directions for our schools" - could not find this document on the ALP site.

www.alp.org.au

more on JIGSAW (tapping into anxiety to not look bad)

1. Establish six-member groups

2. Allocate a common task that students read and become familiar with

3. Each student in each group is given a topic (either by the teacher or group within the common task on which to become an expert.

4. After some time gathering information, experts with similar topics from each group meet to study further their assigned topic.

5. These expert students then return to their groups to share what they have learned.

Learning by Teaching - Integrate and synthesise in your own mind - forced into the highest order of thinking by having to teach it.

JIGSAW Exercise (2007-02-10)

Specifying intentions for a lesson - Ausubel

links:
http://www.ausubel.com/
http://tip.psychology.org/ausubel.html
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/pro_dev/teaching_online/how_we_learn/cognitive.html

Cognitive theory of learning

Learning dependent on:
How much processing of information - ie more/deeper
Relating new information to prior learning,
Organising, sorting, making connections

Emphasis on HOW the information is processed


Concept of 'Advance Organiser' - device or mental tool used to get a grip on the info


Rote V Meaningful - if the student is _actively_ doing things with the information it is more likely to be retained: eg filling in missing words, rearanging sentances, providing additional examples

the most important thing a child could bring to learning situation was what s/he already knows...

The most important element of meaningful learning is not so much how information (rote vs. discovery) is presented but how new information is integrated into an existing knowledge base.

http://chd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/strategies/cognitivism/AdvancedOrganizers.htm

One strategy - give students a preview of what will be learned - eg at the beginnging of the lesson say what will be covered before starting - this gives students a glimpse of the big picture.

from: http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Advance_organizers

Examples and Types of advance organizers

1. Advanced Organizers

2. Expository - describe the new content.

3. Narrative - presents the new information in the form of a story to students.

4. Skimming - used to look over the new material and gain a basic overview.

5. Graphic organizer - visiuals to set up or outline the new information.

6. Concept mapping

email blog address to acoman@nd.edu.au
assistant Belinda Stomeman - 02 8204 4200

ED 4238 Understanding and Managing Adolescents

03/03/07

Classroom management is for maximising learning of the higher order.

We have our own gifts - some are gentle, some more directive

"The art of war" (good book to read)

What kind of students do we have? 'Millenials' / Generation Y -

What are they like? (18-26yo) What satisfies them? What do they expect from employers?
1. Provide challenging work that really matters.
2. Balance claearly delegated assignments with the freedom and flexibility to produce resluts in their own way.
3. Offer increasing responibility as a reward for accomplishments
4. Spend time getting to know staff members and their capabilities
5. Provide ongoing training and learnng opportunities
6. Establish mentoring relationships
7. Create comfortable low stress work environment
8. Allow some flexible scheduling
9. Be personable and joke around with the staff, while still getting the job done
10. Balance the role of Boss with team player
11. Treat them as colleagues, not as interns, assistants or teenagers
12. Be respectful and call forth respect in return
13. Consistently provide constructive feedback. (Hattie - number one way to increase performance)
14. Let them know when they have done a good job.

We need to know what we are dealing with... fundamental difference? Totally connected iPods, mobiles, online games - change in functioning of the brain? Multitasking. Superficial learning - no time to reflect? Networking essential - hard to sit on one's own. Teach to use stuff correctly?

research on gen Y:

Affirmation, thorough knowledge, appropriate relations with students, who am I???

What is my learning style? Gardner test


In Australia in the late 90s there was a movement away from Behaviorism to Constructivism. This culminated in the writing of the 'Adelaide Declaration:'

http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/national_goals_for_schooling_in_the_twenty_first_century.htm

Juicy quotes:

Australia’s future depends upon each citizen having the necessary knowledge, understanding, skills and values for a productive and rewarding life in an educated, just and open society. High quality schooling is central to achieving this vision.

....

It acknowledges the capacity of all young people to learn, and the role of schooling in developing that capacity. It also acknowledges the role of parents as the first educators of their children and the central role of teachers in the learning process.

Schooling provides a foundation for young Australians’ intellectual, physical, social, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development. By providing a supportive and nurturing environment, schooling contributes to the development of students’ sense of self-worth, enthusiasm for learning and optimism for the future.

Following the declaration, the states each formulated their own, with mixed success:

Queensland: "Productive Pedagogy" - Deep Learning caused/enabled by Critical Reflection
NSW: BOS, 'Quality teaching document'

https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/proflearn/docs/pdf/annbib.pdf

2007: courses: " ED2429 Classroom Management" 1st Sem

Practical experience - place in other schools - not Steiner

Course Dates for 2007

Sat 10-02-07
Sat 03-03-07
Sat 24-03-07
Sat 05-05-07
Sat 26-05-07
Sat 16-06-07
Sat 28-07-07
Sat 25-08-07
Sat 15-09-07
Sat 27-10-07
Sat 10-11-07
Sat 24-11-07

Classroom Management

Most pastoral care happens in good classrooms with good lessons (if there is a massive detention system then perhaps the classrooms/lessons are not up to scratch)

One technique: The JIGSAW model see: http://jigsaw.org/

1. Form into small groups (six is a good size) - breaking up normal grouping (eg by numbering 1,2,3... and then getting all '1's together etc

2. Allocate a common (meaningful) task to the whole class (eg 'what is a good lesson')

3. Each student in each group is given a task/topic

(eg task1: Gagne's events of instruction, task2: Merrill's first principles of instruction, task3: Specifying intentions for a lesson - Ausubel, task4: Taxonomies - Bloom, SOLO, task5: Objectives using Gronlund's approach, task6: Catering for diversity - Gardner)

4. Each student does their own research - gathers information for 20 - 30 minutes (or a week - topic dependent)

5. 'Experts' (now) on each task/topic meet to discuss and study the topic further - each person becomes an expert.

6. Experts now return to their original groups and teach the other members about the Topic they have studied.

Giving responsibility to each member to go back and teach the team - the student does not want to look foolish, and will be trying hard to do a good job.

(for us - use tech to capture the information - create a new blog, make all members authors of the blog.)

Octopus (2006-06-24)

The eclectic nature of the construction of a piece of work.

Ok, a recent piece of work that I did was a three week (12 x 1.5hours) Mechanics course with Class 9.

Descriptive reflection:
The intent of course was to give students and overview about vehicles with a large hands on component. Several car engines were dismantled in the classroom by students. Students changed a flat tire and some also changed the engine oil and filter in their parents car. The 'hidden agenda' was to improve students practical technical drawing and communication abiliby. The students were to become familiar with 'exploded diagrams' and 'cross sections' by talking about car components/systems, unbolting things physically on the engine and drawing and labeling them. Click here for the student information handout that I wrote (word format created in Open Office). I used a couple of the fabulous 'Secret Life of Machines' videos (by Tim Hunkin) to reinforce the content.

The 'formal' assessment task I set for the studens involved designing a 'future vehicle', for which they could use internet resources to inform their design.

So it was intended from the start to be eclectic - a good dose of hands on, some visual media, some chalk and talk, some drawing, and research on the net. I was concerned that the girls might be less engaged through our car cultural biases, but could only think to ensure the girls had their own engine to dismantle without time pressure from the boys. It was compulsory for all students to change a car tire - and this proved to be particularly empowering for the girls. The practical work was done in groups - I wanted them talking and working out stuff together.

The course went OK. There was a limitation because the school did not have enough tool sets for more than two groups to work on engines at once. There was a certain amount of general background information that I wanted the students to understand but did not have time to do other than draw it on the board and get them to copy it into their lesson books. I have had a nagging suspicion for some time that most of the 'chalk and talk' stuff is transferred directly from the visual cortex to the muscles controlling the pen without lodging in any meaningful way in the learner's memory. When completing a small written test at the end of the course most students knew more about half of the information that was in the test that they had written down. How much they would remember in a year's time I do not dare to speculate.

Self Reflection

Crowd control is THE biggest issue with year 9. Engaging content is not only a nice idea and good for students, it is a survival tool. If the students are not engaged it is ten times the mental and emotional stress to survive the lesson.

The lesson was a step in the right direction - students were to some degree following their own path to knowing - but I am still bugged that it could have been better.

Critical Reflection

Piaget, Vygotsky, Gardner, Bruner

I think Bruner would have aproved of the level of 'enaction' and 'iconification' going on in this course. My intent with the group engine dismanteling component was to include a degree of 'self discovery' for the students. The requirement to manipulate engine components physically and to draw and describe components that the students worked with was intended to make the task satisfying for the students. The subject was weak on the logical/symbolic side - although mechanics always ultimately involves problem solving of some sort. Limitations on tools, space, teaching resources and time meant that it was unlikely that most of the students entered into a decent problem solving mode during the course.

The ZPD was not consciously assessed when I developed the course - though I will certainly consider it for future courses. The class contained a range of pre existing knowledge of mechanics, though the majority of students had little direct experience with car internals or with describing machines graphically. The 'knowlegible peers' forming the upper potential of the zone were myself, my co-teacher Brigid, The workshop staff, the student's parents and the Internet. The scaffolding provided was the varied/fun/interesting/challenging tasks (engine, wheel change, future vehicle task) in a controlled/supported environment, combined with some background 'chalk and talk' about what the students should expect to find in an engine.

The multiple inteligences were partly addressed. Linguistic tasks were there by default but not strongly emphasised (kind of an educational 'positive discrimination'). Spatial/kinesthetic tasks were there, Inter and Intrapersonal challenges were generated by the group work. Ethical and environmental issues were discussed at a linguistic level. Missing were musical, movement/dance, and mathematical challenges.

Were the tasks appropriate to the students cognitive development? Class 9 students are 14 turning 15, and should, according to Piaget, be well into their Formal Operational development. The content of the course did touch briefly on abstract concepts such as energy and inertia. It also covered social questions about vehicles place in society and their evolution - which is largely abstract and conceptual. However, by including a hands on 'Concrete' component hopefully a balance was struck between the needs of any concrete-operational students with the developing formal operational students. Certainly the risks of presenting material that is not cognitively appropriate is small for students at this age. The main concern would be if there was not enough conceptual/abstract content to engage and challenge students.

Roadmap to improved Mechanics:
So Next time around - be bolder and try to be truly constructivist. Include tasks to cater for l to more of the intelligences - poetry, fiction, painting, environmental, existential. Attempt to bring more resources to the course both to increase access (DLE) and to provide a larger ZPD and more scaffolding. ICT could provide some affordable and available resources for this.

What could I/students do with ICT in mechanics? Create animations of engine systems. Create/edit instructional video on changing a tyre, explore music influenced by cars, or digitise car sound to make car music. Do maintenance schedules for vehicles using spreadsheets. Calculate energy efficiency of vehicles and plot using graphing software. Using a datalogger record temperatures and co2/co levels and plot using spreadsheet. Analyse car ownership and usage statistics from the ABS.

It is all possible, and would I am quitely confident that it would be more fun, and more would actually learned.

And Chips

Mmmm - a quick mindmap of some ICT options for a mechanics course. Some of the nodes should link back to other nodes - eg the Datalogging node has obvious links to spreadsheets, and video, animation, CAD and music all have some links to each other.

Gills

Very useful for breathingSample spreadsheet showing measures of vehicle fuel efficiency that a student could undertake as part of a Mechanics activity.