Teachers are required to complete a range of duties other than face to face teaching time. Assignments and tests take time to be written and marked, programmes take time to be written, lessons need to be planned for, revision materials gathered, student teachers mentored, behavioural issues resolved, discussion is needed between moderating partners, coordination required for consistent judgements of student work. The first three alone take much of the time. You can normally spot an overloaded teacher because they are starting to wing more lessons and reduce the amount of assessment done or are reusing materials without tailoring them to the cohort.
Classroom first was a policy that quarantined teachers from duties other than that directly required by the classroom. It was a push back onto admin. It seems that that push back is starting to unravel and DOTT time is again being used for a raft of other things. The latest salary negotiation seems to be wrestling with getting teachers to do more.
You can't get blood out of a stone. We have high utilisation of teachers compared to OECD countries (see here page 406, albeit more appropriate statistics exist). Better lessons, better outcomes are not achieved by pushing untested rollouts, extended workdays, ill prepared curriculum directives and larger class sizes. It's done with effective management, good marketing and long/medium and short term planning with strong leadership and good morale.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Teachers work too few hours
Bethany usually writes well thought out pieces, but I don't understand the reasoning behind today's West article. If the intent was to start another round of teacher bashing then it will probably succeed. After all, teachers work between 9am and 3pm, forty weeks of the year. What a bunch of bludgers!
There are some flaws in this argument. Entry cost is high, with a four year full time course with practicum times devoid of income and a high attrition rate during university and in early years of teaching. The level of individual responsibility is high, including responsibility for curriculum, behaviour and teaching methods plus liasing with parents, teachers, CC, admin and other schools to maintain teaching programmes. Burnout is a constant risk, varying with the level of admin and collegiate support. Pay is not in this case a simple case of salary divided by hours worked.
When I hear an argument about teaching conditions I ask the following, "what would you have to be paid to give up your job for four years and then... work with reticent kids in a public school?"
I think many think I am mad and perhaps I am. A few of my friends that try and consider teaching as a possible profession, fall down when they consider that they present for six hours in front of an audience in an interactive manner. Imagine entertaining and engaging adolescents for forty weeks. The breaks are not optional, you can't do it without them. It's recovery time.
The problem is not being overpaid, it's establishing a fair equity position for teachers. It's not a job everyone can do, and to keep the good ones, they need to be paid enough to re-enter the trenches each year and seek the best for our children.
Populist arguments supporting positions that degrade working conditions and teachers position in society is not the pathway to a public education sector that can compete and contribute to education in WA. It's the path to a society where income governs your level of education - even more so than today. If we make teaching uneconomical or where the salary does not justify the conditions, it is unlikely we will end up with many vocational teachers in public schools. It will just get too hard for too little.
There are some flaws in this argument. Entry cost is high, with a four year full time course with practicum times devoid of income and a high attrition rate during university and in early years of teaching. The level of individual responsibility is high, including responsibility for curriculum, behaviour and teaching methods plus liasing with parents, teachers, CC, admin and other schools to maintain teaching programmes. Burnout is a constant risk, varying with the level of admin and collegiate support. Pay is not in this case a simple case of salary divided by hours worked.
When I hear an argument about teaching conditions I ask the following, "what would you have to be paid to give up your job for four years and then... work with reticent kids in a public school?"
I think many think I am mad and perhaps I am. A few of my friends that try and consider teaching as a possible profession, fall down when they consider that they present for six hours in front of an audience in an interactive manner. Imagine entertaining and engaging adolescents for forty weeks. The breaks are not optional, you can't do it without them. It's recovery time.
The problem is not being overpaid, it's establishing a fair equity position for teachers. It's not a job everyone can do, and to keep the good ones, they need to be paid enough to re-enter the trenches each year and seek the best for our children.
Populist arguments supporting positions that degrade working conditions and teachers position in society is not the pathway to a public education sector that can compete and contribute to education in WA. It's the path to a society where income governs your level of education - even more so than today. If we make teaching uneconomical or where the salary does not justify the conditions, it is unlikely we will end up with many vocational teachers in public schools. It will just get too hard for too little.
Labels:
daily reflection
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Laptop rollout in high school
I've made a number of attempts to utilise laptops within my classroom. The first three times were fraught with IT issues. The last time was not, but failed to be more effective than a teacher directed lesson.
I discussed this with Apple distributors today and they acknowledged that maths was a difficult area to implement laptops effectively for teaching purposes within the classroom.
It's not hard to imagine why.
The input mechanism (keyboard) does not lend itself well to handling symbolic expression, from fractions forward. Word is clearly inferior to paper/pen in terms of flexibility and execution time.
Math is highly skill and practice based rather than research and report based. The time to find applications specific to each skill exceeds the benefit able to be provided by an active teacher.
I did identify some areas where they may be beneficial.
A) repetitive simple skills such as tables
B) statistics in conjunction with autograph and Excel
I found propositions put forward by the distributor more marketing based than based in productive high school teaching practices:
A) As an alternate assessment tool(recording writing and reviewing) to judge performance (unlikely to be done other than as a gimmick or as part of formal research).
B) To implement a programming class (underestimating timetabling and student demand requirements)
C) To implement problem solving investigations (I think this still suffers the symbolic issue in non stats based investigations - particularly senior school ones)
D) As a way to promote cross curricular applications (with large time overheads to set up with questionable benefits).
E) That the focus needs to be middle school as the application in senior school was more difficult and required follow through from middle school. (I agree but am still struggling to justify the effort required for such low utilisation)
The meeting left me questioning whether anyone had anything more than a very superficial implementation of laptops at all. The distributor stated about 50% usage was possible across all learning areas (I would hazard to guess as a wordprocessor in most cases) and my guess is less than 5% in mathematics. Given the ATAR exams are written, I'm not sure promoting typing over writing and editing/ re drafting over planning/writing is a good idea.
Some things have worked. Mathsonline has more penetration. Kids are more likely to have a computer at home. They can complete homework using the digital copy of the text on the laptops. Once networking issues are resolved I could put worksheets and notes directly on their computers. I can dump Khan academy files for their review.
On the whole I felt that we were looking for a market for a product, rather than a product aimed to satisfy a market, indicating that the whole 1-1 student computer idea is a bit of a lame duck. I think the government has been suckered in by the promise without having an idea of what it could deliver in real results.
Given my background, I want to be positive about this idea. I haven't heard anything to date that justifies $100,000 per year of taxpayer dollars per school thus far. I hope someone can show me where to go next.
I discussed this with Apple distributors today and they acknowledged that maths was a difficult area to implement laptops effectively for teaching purposes within the classroom.
It's not hard to imagine why.
The input mechanism (keyboard) does not lend itself well to handling symbolic expression, from fractions forward. Word is clearly inferior to paper/pen in terms of flexibility and execution time.
Math is highly skill and practice based rather than research and report based. The time to find applications specific to each skill exceeds the benefit able to be provided by an active teacher.
I did identify some areas where they may be beneficial.
A) repetitive simple skills such as tables
B) statistics in conjunction with autograph and Excel
I found propositions put forward by the distributor more marketing based than based in productive high school teaching practices:
A) As an alternate assessment tool(recording writing and reviewing) to judge performance (unlikely to be done other than as a gimmick or as part of formal research).
B) To implement a programming class (underestimating timetabling and student demand requirements)
C) To implement problem solving investigations (I think this still suffers the symbolic issue in non stats based investigations - particularly senior school ones)
D) As a way to promote cross curricular applications (with large time overheads to set up with questionable benefits).
E) That the focus needs to be middle school as the application in senior school was more difficult and required follow through from middle school. (I agree but am still struggling to justify the effort required for such low utilisation)
The meeting left me questioning whether anyone had anything more than a very superficial implementation of laptops at all. The distributor stated about 50% usage was possible across all learning areas (I would hazard to guess as a wordprocessor in most cases) and my guess is less than 5% in mathematics. Given the ATAR exams are written, I'm not sure promoting typing over writing and editing/ re drafting over planning/writing is a good idea.
Some things have worked. Mathsonline has more penetration. Kids are more likely to have a computer at home. They can complete homework using the digital copy of the text on the laptops. Once networking issues are resolved I could put worksheets and notes directly on their computers. I can dump Khan academy files for their review.
On the whole I felt that we were looking for a market for a product, rather than a product aimed to satisfy a market, indicating that the whole 1-1 student computer idea is a bit of a lame duck. I think the government has been suckered in by the promise without having an idea of what it could deliver in real results.
Given my background, I want to be positive about this idea. I haven't heard anything to date that justifies $100,000 per year of taxpayer dollars per school thus far. I hope someone can show me where to go next.
Labels:
daily reflection
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Afterschool classes
The Maths Dept runs four after school classes, two on Monday and two on Tuesday. All classes are optional. Students come that need help in particular topics, split by 9/10 and 11/12. The senior school classes typically are seeking consolidation and the 9/10 class is typically those seeking extension.
Many afterschool classes are now becoming compulsory, especially at the end of the year. I wish teachers wouldn't do this. School is a complex organism and when you take freedom away, students are forced to make ill advised decisions.
This week I had to speak for students with excessive afterschool comittments, students that had options subjects in year 12 encroaching on class time (I doubt whether the student would appreciate my help either) and in study time. I try and be supportive of options teachers and allow students to participate in extracurricular requirements but... stage 3 students in year 12 should be quarantined from them in the weeks leading to mock exams. I'll be hard pressed to accept any argument that tries to say otherwise no matter how talented they are (or untalented in maths for that matter).
My thinking is this. Students get into university based on an ATAR score or through portfolio entry. Options subjects (at least at our school) are 2A or below in year 12. Thus they are supporting cast when calculating an ATAR score. 3A scores are not, even low ones. If we had stage 3 students in non MESS subjects that weren't scaled to useless, my position would be far different.
The argument that students will lose enthusiasm if not allowed to participate does not hold water either. As a teaching body, it is our job to work with teachers to make sure these predictable situations do not occur. It was a questionable teaching decision that put students there in the first place.
A student should participate because "they are helping market the school" is not acceptable either. Year 12 mock exams are the culmination of 12 years study. To jeopardise this by moving focus away from study lacks a little foresight and is not in the best interest of the student.
Don't think that I don't admire the option class teachers. They are passionate about their subjects and passionate groups (even us maths dinos are passionate about our subject) will strive for what they think is right. I'd rather have passionate groups striving for excellence than rampant apathy. If people weren't discussing matters and pushing envelopes I'd be more concerned. There are times where students can only continue in the academic subjects because they can vent using emotional and physical outlets.
MESS subjects do stupid things too. We shouldn't be loading the end of the year with excessive assessment. Identifying areas of weakness two weeks before exams is probably too late and of minimum benefit. The words appropriate levels of study and revision need to be in the forefront of our teaching minds. Student anxiety levels need to be kept at appropriate levels.
Coming back to the original point, this is why mathematics afterschool classes that I run are optional. Students can choose whether they need the help or are in a position to enjoy extension. They can prioritise their learning and optimise their potential. Forcing a student to do something at this stage of the year is only creating a problem somewhere else. Being able to make a decision is an important part of growing up, as is ensuring safeguards are in place when lack of maturity jeopardises their potential.
Many afterschool classes are now becoming compulsory, especially at the end of the year. I wish teachers wouldn't do this. School is a complex organism and when you take freedom away, students are forced to make ill advised decisions.
This week I had to speak for students with excessive afterschool comittments, students that had options subjects in year 12 encroaching on class time (I doubt whether the student would appreciate my help either) and in study time. I try and be supportive of options teachers and allow students to participate in extracurricular requirements but... stage 3 students in year 12 should be quarantined from them in the weeks leading to mock exams. I'll be hard pressed to accept any argument that tries to say otherwise no matter how talented they are (or untalented in maths for that matter).
My thinking is this. Students get into university based on an ATAR score or through portfolio entry. Options subjects (at least at our school) are 2A or below in year 12. Thus they are supporting cast when calculating an ATAR score. 3A scores are not, even low ones. If we had stage 3 students in non MESS subjects that weren't scaled to useless, my position would be far different.
The argument that students will lose enthusiasm if not allowed to participate does not hold water either. As a teaching body, it is our job to work with teachers to make sure these predictable situations do not occur. It was a questionable teaching decision that put students there in the first place.
A student should participate because "they are helping market the school" is not acceptable either. Year 12 mock exams are the culmination of 12 years study. To jeopardise this by moving focus away from study lacks a little foresight and is not in the best interest of the student.
Don't think that I don't admire the option class teachers. They are passionate about their subjects and passionate groups (even us maths dinos are passionate about our subject) will strive for what they think is right. I'd rather have passionate groups striving for excellence than rampant apathy. If people weren't discussing matters and pushing envelopes I'd be more concerned. There are times where students can only continue in the academic subjects because they can vent using emotional and physical outlets.
MESS subjects do stupid things too. We shouldn't be loading the end of the year with excessive assessment. Identifying areas of weakness two weeks before exams is probably too late and of minimum benefit. The words appropriate levels of study and revision need to be in the forefront of our teaching minds. Student anxiety levels need to be kept at appropriate levels.
Coming back to the original point, this is why mathematics afterschool classes that I run are optional. Students can choose whether they need the help or are in a position to enjoy extension. They can prioritise their learning and optimise their potential. Forcing a student to do something at this stage of the year is only creating a problem somewhere else. Being able to make a decision is an important part of growing up, as is ensuring safeguards are in place when lack of maturity jeopardises their potential.
Labels:
daily reflection
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