In school research

I started my studies for my masters this year and it's good to be doing something thought provoking again. There's a bit of a rush on post graduate studies at school at the moment, with many feeling more comfortable to start now that many NCOS subjects are bedded down. Lots by coursework, I think I am the only one doing it by thesis.

This term I'm looking at group dynamics and seeing how student/teacher interaction can be made more fruitful. Everyone that I explain my topic to seems to think I'm trying to do groupwork with my students (and I get a lecture on the validity of groupwork and assessment). These discussions have helped crystallise my resolve to assist students use their classtime more fruitfully and have students engage in meaningful conversation with a wider range of students. It's not really about collaboration and groupwork in the "put four people in a group and watch one do the work" mould.

It goes back to the 60 minute period - ~20 minutes instruction (10+ 10 or 7 + 7 + 7) and 40 minutes intervention time. In a class of 20, if all students are relying on the teacher for help, that's two minutes per student and a lot of time wasted waiting for the teacher, in a class of 30 it's worse.

A few minor issues have arisen that has forced me to widen the scope of my project. The first being that I need benchmark information at the start of the year but classes are fluid until week 4 when streams are set in stone. The second being the raft of hurdles that need to be jumped before research can begin.

The hurdles thus far:
Acceptance by university into the Masters course (a discussion, two phone calls and an email).
My WACOT registration expired whilst the transition from registered teacher occurred (and was an absolutely painful process to resolve with the same document lost multiple times by WACOT).
My WWC expired during the break (and required signing by the principal before a new one could be applied for and something that the screening unit needs to consider)
Approval by the university that the topic would comprise valid research (relatively painless as was done as part of a summer school unit)
Human Research Ethics Committee approval from the university (relatively painless as was done as part of a summer school unit)
Approval to proceed by the department (this was the big surprise - Policy and Planning at DET are a well oiled machine and made this a really pleasant experience with a fantastic turnaround)
Approval by my site manager (our principal).

Still to go:
Approval by parents
Approval by students
Approval by staff

The good thing is that now I have passed all of the third party stakeholders, I only need approvals directly related to the participants.

IOTY nomination 2010

The first IOTY nomination for 2010 is Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia and general all around idiot.

First we had to put up with Rate-my-teacher, a website prone to defamatory comments. At least with rate-my-teacher a comment could be challenged and removed.

Now our good-time-guy, hop on the 9 million hits bandwagon Prime Minister, has proposed to add parent comments to the myschool website.

There are so many issues with this idea it is laughable. Anyone that has run a public company and knows the issues around "running stocks" would identify the main problems with this idea.

a) the person running the myschool website would have to ensure that it is a parent making the comment, not a disgruntled student (authentication).
b) if it is a parent, there are a lot of parents with rose coloured glasses and interesting opinions of their little darlings that do not relate to their actual behaviour in class (authenticity).
c) a skew of opinions tend to occur, as happy parents rarely put their statements online (bias).
d) ensuring that malicious and slanderous comments are removed without damage to the reputation of teacher or school is a full time job (for just one school), it would be near impossible for 10,000 (legal liability and overhead).

These issues alone are enough to make this idea stupid. Another government idea taking pot shots at a system nearly destroyed by government curriculum policy. The resilience the system has shown in trying to compete with independent schools has been astounding to watch. It would be nice to get a break from those putting the boot in now and again.

If this is the government's way to take the mind of voters away from rising interest rates and climate policy issues, it is a poorly crafted stunt.

Kevin, you are the first IOTY nomination of 2010.

Link to media statement here.

First Day of school tomorrow

All fired up.. lessons planned.. preparation done.. Let's go!

Rubrics

I sat through another round of someone extolling the benefits of rubrics/analytic marking keys/explicit marking keys. There was no doubt a lot of effort went into constructing them, but the usual issues were there amongst the generic template.

Assessment is supposed to be Fair, Explicit, Comprehensive, Educative, Valid

Rubrics vary between too vague to be of benefit (fails the explicit test - makes marking easy but cannot be easily connected to assignment without 'dejargoning') or so explicit that most students can get an A if they put some effort in (fails the comprehensive/valid test - can a student do it without the rubric??).

The position put forward was that marking should be quick. I'm afraid I can't see how this is true. The only comments students read, are ones in red pen. If you circle where students lie in a marking key, they normally just skip to where the final grade is. Students will read every line written in red pen and ask for clarification of it.

This is where investigations today fall down a little. Typically we guide students through the investigation (so that it becomes more like self teaching than investigating) - but the other side of the coin is that students can't be expected to rediscover what mathematicians took millenia on their own. We need to find a middleground.

We have collected a wide range of investigations, categorised and standardised them. I must admit I have struggled with selecting, generating, marking and guiding students with regard to investigations and marking keys. It needs more work and thought.