Another IOTY candidate

The next nomination for idiot of the year goes to Barry McGaw chairman of the National Curriculum Board for his statement "the new standards will clearly show what skills and knowledge a student should aim for at each year level, making it easier for teachers to identify student progress and to help them."

A co-nomination goes to Caroline Milburn author of the article in The Age that says "Teachers will no longer be the sole judge of a student's work, after a landmark decision by the National Curriculum Board to introduce year-by-year achievement standards for pupils. For the first time, all teachers in Australian schools will have to use the same achievement benchmarks to measure student progress."

We know from MCJ in WA and how league tables are used that standards do not make it any easier to identify student progress as variables that define student learning are (in general) too various to adequately define. The only thing that standardised testing has done has reduced many good schools to "teaching to the test". No test has a better idea of student progress than a good teacher.

Caroline Milburn you are just publishing sensationalist tripe, if history repeats itself, we will just be given a load of generalist edubabble descriptions and unusable work samples that produce unscientific and statistically unsound assessment. Not to mention that standardising results across Australia has minimal use or effect other than for systemic discussion (which has no place in the hands of the public - see below).

My rant earlier today on this topic on the Education Matters forum went like this..

"I thought that we had learned from the smartie chart fiasco [in WA] that standardising grades is an exceptionally stupid idea.

Student A is trying their hardest but has little support at home. They are in a low socio-economic school, have peers in similar situations and have no chance to compete with students from leafy green schools. So each year, teacher has to give them a 'D' or somehow find them a scholarship, remove them from their social peers and hope that they can handle the social stigma attached to being in a higher SEI school.

The student without a scholarship gets sick of receiving D's (despite their attempts at catching up and working really hard). This is the same student that given a higher grade would have caught up and done really well in senior school, be a TEE candidate and contribute to urban renewal in low socio-economic areas (this kid was me - which is why I am so passionate about the idiocy of standardisation in this manner).

It also works the other way around. Student B does bugger all in school, but achieves an A because they have reached the benchmark. Without the motivation to push themselves further they don't learn a good work ethic.. Two years later they fail senior school as they hit their ability curve and have no drive to fall back on. It is just such a b*llsh*t idea.

School is about excellence and doing your best - not about standardisation and "fairness" in grading. Anyone with half a brain can see the flaws in it. TEE examinations provide the cross school moderation and that is where it should stay. I fear though that the drive for standardisation comes from government fear of litigation and the need to defer risk to schools where legislation and procedure provide some protection."

and then again later..

"Standardisation creates the same issues under a different guise. It potentially dictates that I teach material that is clearly beyond the student capabilities. I have no problem with suggested standards nor syllabus (syllabii?) but I do have an issue where I lack the ability to modify it where required. To demand that I teach algebra in term 1 year 7 when my kids can't do simple operations means that I would waste two terms teaching inappropriate material. To have to fill out twenty pages of documents to justify the delay (I know I'm projecting here but I have some understanding of how bureaucracies work) would do my head in.

Whilst we are on the topic of standardisation, to give these same students a standardisation test that tells them they are below benchmark (translate that to dumb in kidspeak) and destroy fragile confidence because the test is effectively two terms early is also wrong. I'm not sure of the purpose of these tests other than to satisfy curiosity of head office and parents. If they were internal tools that we could use to gauge performance and modify curricula to suit I would support them - but as yet all I have seen is judgements made about students, niggling comments about teachers, and misapplication of developmental/environmental causes rather than teaching or intelligence based assessment.

Either we value the judgement of our teachers or we use standardised testing. To continue the devaluation of teacher judgement in lieu of creating a better system needs further analysis as I don't think we are doing the education system any favours by pursuing a course of teaching to tests and the associated pressure of high stakes testing on children. "

Now I feel better.

3A MAT Ex. 8B Annuities and Amortisation

Ok.. AP's and GP's are now a thing of the past (what?? huh?? when did that happen - in 8A of course!).. we're now onto applications of growth and decay.. nope.. (we did that in 8A too.. huh?? what??)..

MAT 8B We're now onto Annuities and Amortisation - growth and decay with payments.

The calculator handles this under the Financial, Sequences or Spreadsheet.

Starting with Financial:
Once in Financial, select Compound interest.

n - represents the number of installment periods
I% - is the interest p.a.
PV - is the present value (the initial investment)
PMT - is the payment per period
FV - is the future value (the investment at period N)
P/Y - is the number of installment periods per year (how often a payment is made)
C/Y - is the number of times interest is compounded

Let's look at a simple problem say 8B q.3 in 3A MAT. Kelvin invests $620,000 into an account giving 5.8% pa. interest compounded annually from which her withdraws $50,000 at the end of every year.

a) How much is left after 10 withdrawals (N=10, FV=?).
N=10
I%=5.8
PV=-620000
PMT=50000
P/Y=1
C/Y=1

Leave the cursor on FV and press solve (at the bottom left hand corner of the window)
FV=436670

b) For how many years will Kelvin be able to withdraw 50000 per year

Find when the account is exhausted of funds (eg. N=? when FV=0)
I%=5.8
PV=-620000
I%=5.8
PMT=50000
FV=0
P/Y=1
C/Y=1

Leave the cursor on N and press solve (at the bottom left hand corner of the window)

N=22.52 therefore for 22 years.

If anyone can explain why PV is negative I would be very appreciative. I know from last year's course that it is but have no idea why.

Now Sequence:
This could also have been done through the Sequence tool using recursion
a) Tn+1=Tn*1.058-50000; T0=620000. Find T10
b) Tn+1=Tn*1.058-50000; T0=620000. Find n Where Tn=0

I'll leave the spreadsheet method for another day.

Here is a link to other CAS calculator posts.

3A MAT recursive formula, AP's & GP's

Those of you attempting Exercise 8A without students with a thorough grounding in AP's & GP's in year 10 will be scratching your head at this chapter.

Q1: creating recursive formula from word descriptions

Q2 -5: creating sequences (tables of values) from recursive formula in the form Tn=...

Q6: identifying AP's, GP's or neither from sequences

Q7-9: creating sequences (tables of values) from recursive formula in the form Tn+1=...

Q10: creating sequences (tables of values) from recursive formula in the form Tn-1=...

Q11-12,15,16,17: creating sequences from multiple previous terms

Q13: recursive formula using the term counter(n) in the formula

Q14: finding unknowns in recursive formula

Q18-22: Growth and decay problems

My recollection of when we did this in Discrete was that these topics were covered over multiple chapters. When attempting 8A students faced difficulties in that the calculator has some limitations. I can usually maintain 1 chapter per lesson but in this case I let it run over three lessons and found some extra resources to supplement the topic as it left many students scratching their heads. This was hard as it chewed into the revision time I had left for exams.

Things to remember for next year:

1. Present multiple examples of recursive formula for the same sequence for Tn, Tn+1 and Tn-1.

2. Introduce the limitation that the calculator (in sequence mode) can only use up to two previous terms in its definition (eg. Tn+2=Tn+1+ Tn not Tn+3=Tn+2+Tn+1+Tn). We wasted a lot of time on this.

3. You cannot move freely between Tn-1, Tn, Tn+1 and Tn+2 representations if n itself is used in the formula. eg. Tn+1=Tn +3 is equivalent to Tn=Tn-1 +3 but Tn+1=Tn + n is not equivalent to Tn = Tn-1 + n

4. Be careful with the position when dealing with growth and decay. It is usually much easier to define T0 (Tzero) and Tn+1=.. as the initial value and formula. Thus when solving for n, n is the answer rather than n-1 (which caused no end of confusion amongst students).

5. Make students do the examples without a calculator unless it states otherwise. A lot of time can be wasted trying to make Sequence mode do things it is not intended to do.

Sequence mode and Calculator usage (What not to do).

Most sequences can be done in Sequence mode. Some cannot. Here's how to get into Sequence mode.

Let's put in Tn = 2Tn-1 -5 where T1=3 (q.11 from 3a MAT). We are looking for T1 to T5. Press Type in the menu.

Figure 1.

You will notice that the notation to the text is different in that "an" is used instead of Tn. Ignoring that, you will also notice that there is no option for "an", only for "an+1" or "an+2". (Blogger can't do subscripts so just put them in where needed!).

In this case it is not such a problem, we can just transpose our equation to Tn+1 = 2Tn + 5 as n itself is not used in the formula; The given value T1=3 now becomes T2=3, remembering that we are looking for T2 to T6 now (which is really T1-T5 of the original formula).

So now we put in T2.. Easy no? NO! If you look at Figure 1 we have options for Tn+1 where we are given a0 (the zero term) or a1(the first term). No option for a2.

The Saddler text does a pretty good job of making the calculator look clumsy and painful to use compared to paper and pen.

Here is a link to other CAS calculator posts.

Me Tarzan.. You Jane...

Yep sure.. that's me big alpha male...

ha!

Went to get a flu shot today.. No man flu this year I thought.. No sniffling and whining about how sick I feel.

Anyhow, two minutes after the needle was put in (which took about a second and didn't hurt at all(really!)) I woke up on the ground. The nice nurse (who was a great grandmother) had to catch me and guide me to the ground as I was out cold.

What is it about men and needles? The nurse assured me that it was not at all an uncommon occurrence. I can stand in front of a bunch of hostile adolescents and win them over.. but can't overcome the fear of a one inch bit of metal stuck in my arm.

Next time I'll just take the flu.

Thinking back though, I didn't feel weak until I watched Kendra get her needle. I think the thought of a loved one being hurt is also a factor.. of course I could just be rationalising what is a pretty pathetic incident.

I still feel horrible.

And now for my maths joke so you can all feel terrible too..

If a five sided figure is a pentagon and a six sided figure is a hexagon, what is it when your grandmother passes out?

A Nanagon of course! (Not to be confused with a Nonnagon (an italian grandmother) or a pollygone (a missing parrot)).

Must be the residual chemicals in the system!

Turning around struggling schools

I read this article with interest about schools being turned around.

"The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values."

Duh!

To not provide strong behaviour models is to invite failure. The ethic that work = results = success is not inbred in these kids by their immediate environment. Developmental programmes for these kids are inappropriate as they do not have a drive to develop.. we must first create this drive.

"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes."

I like that.. "no excuses".. and it is so applicable to our public schools. In our society, everyone gets to have their say, anything can be rationalised as true and the time wasted unpacking excuses is.. well.. inexcusable.

"They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused."

Under the guise of political correctness and multiculturalism we accept a range of behaviours that interpreted under this model is inappropriate. Whether this is right or not is not a question I can easily answer but as a nation we need to decide what is acceptable behaviour and then teach it. Teaching a class of thirty under this model would require some bending of cultural mores in order to encourage a class environment of like behaved students rather than a group of individuals. To drive these kids towards developing the rigour for higher education would be fantastic.

"Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school."

I love the idea that those behind have to work extra hours.. how obvious.. if you're behind you need to do extra work to catch up, unlike our current policy of teach what you can in the time allowed which results in students that need more time to learn each topic falling further behind each and every day.

The sad fact is that creating a no excuse environment would take much commitment/courage and would create much heartache within the school community. I don't know if it could be done within the Perth environment with our inclusiveness of multiple cultures. It would be a move back towards creating "Australians" rather than a nation of multiple cultures. I don't think as a nation we have been driven to this yet.

If we could decide on minimum standards (minimum attendance requirements, obedience to teachers, zero aggression, completion of homework, minimum expectations of results before progression) perhaps it would be a small step to replicating the results found in Harlem.

Exercise bah humbug!

Over Christmas I stopped running in the morning. It took ages to get my fitness back to the stage of enjoying a run again and a whole heap of unadulterated pain.

Being someone that doesn't like pain and thinks that exercise is overrated, it was a big thing for me to get fit in the first place and rather unfortunate that I stopped exercise over the eating season. Hello 10 kg. Goodbye feet. My trousers are getting tight where I once needed a belt. It was probably time to do something about it.

My wife started hiding the chocolate biscuits. I had to do something.

Anyway, I had the bright idea to start running again.. so during the week I took out my running gear and each morning turned over and said to myself.. tomorrow is a good day to start again.

This morning I must have had some sort of brain malfunction and actually put the gear on and went for a run. It went great for the first 200m. The next 200m was getting tough. The next 2km was stabbing forks in my thighs and glass shards in my lungs. Unlike the propaganda for exercise (and consistent with anecdotal evidence of most unfit people trying to exercise), it was not fun, I do not feel good and wouldn't recommend it to anyone including the guy with a dog that poops on my lawn (well.. maybe him). Walking up the last hill, my legs were 200kg bags of cement and I could only breathe occasionally. When I finished I wanted to crawl into a small heap and moan at the moon.

What was I thinking??!?????

Will I do it again.. yes, probably.. like most addictions it crawls up at you and time to time demands that you again have a go.

Maybe I could just buy some new trousers....

One for Ornithologists

Was caught today using one of my lessons from uni. It is about drawing histograms and the following data was used:

score. f
1...... 2
2...... 2
3...... 8
4...... 2
5...... 1

It was quite funny then but not really appropriate for a maths class.

Being a know-it-all

Sometimes I read past entries and think that perhaps I said that a bit strongly, and what is an opinion is stated a bit too much like fact.

Well.. today I was caught by my own enthusiasm and after a little assessment have proof that some of the coursework was above the level of the students as I see retention of information from first term way below the level expected (On a scale of little recalled to perfect recall it fell off the scale in the OMG category).

As a new teacher, pitching classes at the right level is a little hit and miss at times (sometimes coursework is too easy other times too hard).. but oh boy.. this one was a doozy. It's not that the situation is irretrievable or that any real harm has been done (later learning will be done faster through introduction of the topic now) but it does raise the point that pre-testing and having the experience to estimate ability accurately is a real bonus once out of your initial years of teaching.

Pitching a lesson series at the wrong level creates a raft of issues. Firstly it damages the confidence of students. Secondly it upsets the sequence of learning and lastly it can cause behavioural issues as students turn off and look for other activities to stimulate them.

Being absent whilst baby was born hasn't helped either, as I may have caught the error earlier.

Bugger.

Literacy and the need for developing capacity

A common catch cry in schools is that we need to improve literacy. Each year the same old rubbish is wheeled out in the guise of cross curricula scaffolding, pro-forma templates and a bunch of clever sounding words that achieve little.

I think if we actually looked at what each learning area is actually doing, literacy is a common component that does not need to be explicitly looked at as a 'literacy' issue. Let's take mathematics for example and the current rhetoric.

Literacy Statement:
Gone are the days where you can teach and test a skill. To adequately support literacy in a school we need to implement literacy in every learning area. Texts used need to support literacy initiatives.

Maths Reply:
Mathematics is typically a text dependent subject. A good mathematics text typically has three components. Each section starts with explanatory text, an area where a student has the content explained - such as a worked example. Following the explanatory text is usually some form of text bank that identifies key words within a section and their meaning. Each word in the text is identified by the teacher and used in context to assist students expand their mathematical vocabulary. Following each bank of words is a section of practice starting with straightforward examples and leading to word problems that require varying degrees of English comprehension and analysis. Mathematical comprehension is verified against answers supplied to questions.

Literacy Conclusion:
Over time, whilst immersed in examples of the mathematical form, the student gains contextual understanding, developing processes and strategies guided by cues for usage. Students are encouraged to reflect upon the level of their skills through answer keys and response items in assessment. Students develop independent learning strategies through investigative tasks to extend their growing understanding."

At this point some people (predominantly non teachers and skeptics like myself) will go "what a load of BS". This is not "literacy" rocket science but just old fashioned teaching (no surprises here.. the maths response was teaching from a text with some testing).

Unfortunately a lot of the literacy movement seems to be just hot air .. a lot of documentation that outlines what we already do, with no defined outcomes or outcomes so unmeasurable that they are worthless.

When parents ask for literacy improvement they usually mean can my student paragraph, write a coherent sentence, deconstruct a problem, understand a text. These tasks are typically issues addressed in English departments as specific skills taught over five to ten years. In the same way we teach supporting mathematics for SOSE and Science, we need English to teach grammar, comprehension and reading skills to assist us. This seems to have been the first positive outcome from NAPLAN testing and the national curriculum debate.

The main issue with the literacy debate and to a lesser degree "the whole of language approach" is that core skills in English (and to a lesser degree other subjects) have been given a backseat to experiential learning and by distributing responsibility for learning language based skills we have watered down the ability and accountability for learning areas to deliver their subject specific content (and undervalued the real skill of English teachers). The value of cross curricula learning has been overestimated, with few realising the amount of work it takes to establish a working cross curricula programme.

As someone that couldn't write a paragraph properly until year 10 (when my English teacher forced us to write an essay every Friday afternoon last period for a whole year) I recognise that this is not a new problem.. but we have had 15 years since I was in school to identify the issue and pinpoint better ways of solving it than the current mess. When responsibility for written skills is devolved to many, responsibility for success is also distributed to the point often that no-one is responsible. Written skills (although supported by all learning areas) need to be the responsibility of English departments in the same way that mathematics is guided in a school by a Mathematics department.

I think that strong, visible and active English and Mathematics departments in a school are clear indicators of a good school.

We need to consider that developing capable English and Mathematics departments is not optional in schools.. it is a necessity and priority for success.

Why I teach..

There are times we wonder why we teach and today I thought to myself, why is it that I teach?

I know that for many of the kids that we work with, they will never understand why we are hard on them and push them to try harder.. why we argue on their behalf.. why we stick our necks on the line with unpopular positions in order to influence change.

I suppose it is because I was one of these kids.. and if someone hadn't pushed me regardless of how I was being a right little shit at times I wouldn't have had all of my worderful life experiences to date.

.. and I owe it to these kids to try and give them those same chances.

Memory

This year I was asked to assist the yr 11/12 students with life skills once a fortnight. The idea is to give the students some understanding of the skills required to succeed post school. Last week was a course on memory.

I started out by asking the students to listen to 15 two and three digit numbers. I then waited ten seconds and asked them to write down as many as they could remember. The frist time varied between 4 numbers and seven numbers.

We then talked about different ways of remembering things

a) chunking (eg it is easier to remember 9456 1426 than 9 4 5 6 1 4 2 6)
b) rhyming (During the depression I felt fine, back in old '29. or creating concentration cards)
c) acronym (NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)
d) pictorial (see below)
e) Look Cover Write Check
f) multi-modal delivery (Hearing, Writing, Reading)

The pictorial one was interesting as it struck a chord with many students. I drew a picture with a guy jumping off a waterfall, a Teddy bear, some stick figures lying on the ground, a guy jumping out of a three story window, an arrow pointing down. Then I asked students to complete the picture with other images of the great depression. They could see how interesting pictures could help them remember.

We then talked about how getting information into STM was not enough, STM information decays rapidly. For information to be recalled from long term memory reliably it has to be input many times to prevent decay. We discussed that we could apply the number test to learning.. If you hear 15 points in a class but don't attempt to remember them your brain will just forget them! If you spend some time trying to learn and recall the information you will have less decay of information and better recall. Revision of the same topic multiple times over multiple days is important. (I really like Saddler's miscellaneous exercises for this in mathematics!)

Over learning was also discussed. I often say to students we go through three phases when learning.

...duh?.............I get it!.............. I know it!
..............trying............practising

When students are in the 'duh?' phase they don't have a clue and nothing makes sense. If they try, they may enter the 'I get it!' phase where they can follow the teachers and do some work independently. To reach the 'I know it!' phase they have to practice and experience a range of examples and scenarios integrating their knowledge with other areas of discipline.

Overlearning a topic comes after this when knowing when to implement skill or knowledge occurs to the point of automaticity (instant recall without thinking). This can only happen when a student learns the skill and then actively seeks deep understanding of the topic, mastering the skill to the point where they will never forget through constant practice well after the 'I know it!' phase.

Interference was discussed and how Ipods and the like can be beneficial if used to block out background noise (eg with a song that is well loved but does not require active listening) as opposed to a new song that would "interfere" with the learning process.

I then asked the student to listen to the 15 numbers again. After the ten second wait they again wrote down the numbers.

I was astounded, 5 students had all 15 numbers correct. I've run this test a number of times to test transferral of information from working memory to short term memory(STM) but never with these results.

Some clever cookies here!

Here is another article on the topic.

Alternatives to chess club

Chess club has always been a good way to get students (typically boys) to think ahead before making a decision or committing to a particular path of investigation. Unfortunately it is seen as the forefront of nerddom. With some students nerdiness is seen as a badge of pride, but students today are very socially conscious and if we seek to capture students with ability in lower years we need alternatives to foster this skill.

There are a range of alternate games, not as elegant as Chess, but have similar outcomes. The ones that I have been investigating are Caracasonne, Ticket to Ride, Portabello market, BattleLore and Small World.

The last two BattleLore by FFG and Small World by DoW seem to have the most promise as they are infinitely replayable (like Chess) but have a different level of appeal. The main issue I am having is that they require a permanent home as a game tends to take longer than 45 mins.

BattleLore is a fantasy war game that takes about 30 mins to learn and up to two hours to play. It runs through different missions and lends itself well to a leader board type scenario. The downside is that it is only played by two players at a time. This is the main factor I rejected it as a possibility for the entry point game.

Small World is different in that it has up to 5 players and takes between 40 minutes and 80 minutes to complete a game. Its humorous and requires thinking ahead and is quick to learn (less than 5 minutes)

We have created a web server and found six desktop machines. We aim to create a mathematics lab for key senior school topics. One of the kids is formatting the boxes. Maybe we could even use my personal cals for AOE or RON to increase a session size to 10-15 students!

Things going ok.

I have a niggling sensation that although things seem to be going ok, that there's something wrong. I can't lay my finger on it yet but I feel I've been here before.

My rapport with kids is going well, no complaints.. students engaging with coursework and some seemingly really positive results. Attendance is up, kids are completing work. No real behavioural issues.

The timetable is travelling pretty well with six weeks to go of semester one.

Maybe it's the lack of that "let's attack a problem" that I'm feeling. Usually at this time of term I'm trying to be proactive about something but I haven't found that thing that has school support. It's a bit of a case of do what you're doing. There's nothing really wrong with what you're doing but conversely nothing really all that right either.

My tens proved the "when you think they know something do one more lesson" again with distance between two points. They couldn't do it on Friday.. they sortof had an idea on Tuesday but by Friday they had no trouble with key concepts such as naming coordinate pairs, calculating distances between two points graphically and algebraically, labelling axes, plotting points and the like.

Students were liking 3A MAS again now that we had finished vectors and were finishing logarithms. The usual complaints about worded problems but they are slowly getting better.

Perhaps subconsciously I'm thinking that if I'm not being encouraged to push myself I'm being directed to have a look at my teaching methods and results. Maybe I do need to be more self critical.

My experience in teaching is that asking questions like this of peers causes people to question your competency, which is hardly a path to improvement.

It's a feeling of being a bit bland ...

... and I don't like it.

Education matters

Best of luck to the new education forum in Perth created by regular posters from the Plato forum.

The link is here.

Big shoes to fill!

Teaching moments

Occasionally in teaching you have a moment that stays with you. On this particular day I was chatting with a student that was having a hard time relating to teachers. I said to her, "nice people associate with nice people." Her response was, "but how do you meet nice people?"

That has stuck with me as it says a lot in a few words. It said how she wished to be a nice person - although she had been referred to as a little shrew. She didn't think she knew very nice people and didn't really think she had much in common with nice people. She was about to graduate year 12.

It was a profound moment as by intuition I realised that many of these kids had no idea of what nice was to judge themselves by. Where in our curriculum do we examine truth, justice, honesty, doing good to others, teamwork, selflessness? Our curriculum is embedded with feminism, eco-friendliness, multiculturalism and many other analytical topics (areas where we analyse how things come about in small contexts). The loss of a true History and Geography course, English literature at many schools, discussion and debate of critical formative topics is a real loss to our society.

When students tell me what they get up to on the weekend (knowing that I will stick my hands in my ears and go lalalala when getting to the relationship stuff), I tell them that I only envisage them going home and playing with trucks and dolls. To me the males are gentlemen and the girls are ladies. That is always my image of them. I always maintain that they are, in fact, nice and that someone values them doing/being good. I remind them that their parents are their greatest allies and that they may have to depend on them (and statistics say live with them) well into their late twenties. To them this is another lifetime!

What do we give students that make them feel good about themselves? Do we show them value of the family unit, of co-dependence, of selfless giving? Do we show them the negative aspects of capitalistic dogma and expose the generation Y fallacy that life is about fame and fortune? What do we give them that helps them see that they are in fact nice.

Something to think about.

Idiot of the year award for 2009

And the first nomination for the Idiot of the year award for 2009 goes to Julia Gilliard for her school performance reports that are not league tables.

... and would anyone like to guess how long it will take newspapers to collate and release the data in league table form? My guess is not much longer than it takes me to write this blog.

Well done Ms Gillard, what a fair and equitable system you are creating for working class Australia that cannot afford private education.

I won't even start on what I think about 6 week teaching courses.. if Ms Gillard had suggested teaching apprenticeships on the other hand (we all recognise that practicum is the most useful part of teacher training).. but could teaching practitioners handle being referred to as a tradies (other than the shed boys) instead of as professionals??

Here's a link to an article with mock ups of school performance reports. See for yourself.

"In Camera"

In reading about SSTUWA, a lot of material that should be public or at least explained to supporters of the executive is labelled 'in camera'. A term like 'in camera' should be anathema to a public organisation that is elected to be representative of members.

Wikipedia defines "in camera" as

"In camera sessions, also known as executive session which are a common point of order during board meetings, where information is provided that is not reflected in the minutes, and not available to the public. Some topics that may be discussed during in camera sessions include personnel decisions, financial decisions that must be kept secret (for example, where an organization is contemplating purchasing land but does not yet want competitors or the public to know about this strategy) or other sensitive issues related to the organization."

It is the last part of the definition that is misused as anything can be defined as "sensitive to an organisation" as the organisation must define how sensitive that it is. Members of the union are misusing this principle in order to make active members of the executive look inactive by disallowing public release of their attempts at change within the organisation.

Furthermore the definition goes on to say:

"Otherwise, justice in free countries operates under the principle that in order for justice to be done, justice needs to be seen, and the admission of the public to the court is considered a right. It is also used where one party claims some sort of privilege against a document (such as attorney work product or attorney-client privileged communications) while the other protests it, whereby the judge reviews the document and determines its admissibility."

The "in camera" definition raises the point that the members are, in the case of the union, the judge is the 'union president' and the public are the members of the SSTUWA. To misuse the powers of the union president in calling for 'in camera' discussion could be seen as seeking to actively mislead members through misdirection and deceptive conduct. Justice needs to be seen, that is the role of minutes and to limit the ability of members of the executive to discuss issues and develop their viewpoint with members seems decidedly undemocratic. You would think that in times like now, where little is being actively sought, would be a public breeding ground for new ideas and direction for the union. A rebirth as such of a well directed, robust and open organisation.

The 'in camera' discussion (and the 'poncyness' of anyone using it to confuse the masses and engage in legalese for the sake of it) I found irritating from the onset and I could not for the life of me discover why. Intuition is a wonderful thing.

The involvement of Marko in the union seems to finally be opening doors to a more active union. We should all be encouraged by perhaps finally having a more representative body and stronger leadership developing.

3A Mathematics Specialist Course

Well I sat down today and finished my worked solutions for the 3A MAS course for Saddler's text. The most difficult part seems to be the Vectors component as the other areas are quite simple in their delivery.

I suggest to students to get a hold of the OT Lee text and do extra examples of these vectors questions. A couple of examination preparation books are also available from Academic associates and Academic task force. I was lucky to have been given the West One 3A CD that also has some great material to supplement the standard text.

A problem that I have seen in the class is getting students to understand the nature of vectors, especially the idea of magnitude and components. I even have to think twice when wind problems are involved. I need to amend the programme and structure it more to vectors and away from logarithms.

My advice for all starting out teachers is to do the hard yards and complete any exercises set for students before asking students to complete them. This is especially true for mature age teachers with long gaps between completing high school maths and teaching it.

One useful thing I did was mark stop points against the work where I felt I'd had enough before starting again. Although I completed the text in a couple of days, it was in multiple sittings. I'll use these stop points as indicators where I can slow the programme down.

The TDC assignments to date have been well received by students. They have been able to complete the assignments and have been positive in their feedback. If the TDC can keep supplying quality assessment then that will reduce the assessment problem for teachers starting to teach yr 11/12 specialist courses. It is daunting for starting teachers to identify good assignments/investigations.

The MAT course on the other hand so far is a bit of a doddle given the work we did with students last year.

Fractions

Primary parents are always asking about ways of teaching fractions. The main thing I tell them is to spend time with their kids and work through their own thinking. One of their main concerns is that they do it differently to the teacher and don't want to get their child confused.

I relate to this as many times as teachers we have to think if we have broken it down far enough to promote thinking. Sometimes having a framework is handy with steps to teaching a concept or skill. Here's an ebook that does that (it's not perfect but it could help).

There are many other ebooks on mathematics found here

Happy and sad event

The guys on the Plato website today have announced that they will be winding it down stating that Platowa had achieved its objectives. I think all of us in the teaching profession in WA have a big thank you to say to these guys and what they have achieved over the last four years (especially in making the union a relevant body again). If Marko was president of the SSTUWA even a hardened anti-unionist like myself would join.

It has been amazing to watch technology used in a way that achieves an outcome, and equally amazing to see people put their jobs on the line over an ideal and principle. Agree with them or not you have to appreciate their efforts. It will be interesting to see if a lobby group like this will ever again be as powerful within the teaching fraternity (are you watching this space MAWA?).

If and when Plato is retired, I will miss reading the forum about WA education from the minds of teachers, parents and interested parties. Without it, we would not have seen into the politics of teaching. I am glad that they feel they have achieved what they set out to do. It is rare in life that we have time to reflect upon actually reaching our goals.

Four days to go...

The countdown is on to the next break.. four days to go.

The last week of term is a time of wind down, with students in upper school focusing on their ball on Thursday and those in year ten disappearing on holidays before the end of term.

I'll gather in the last of the test results from this term and celebrate getting through another week eight of term. For me, week eight is always a milestone, each week eight signals getting through the goals of a term and getting that much better at teaching.

One interesting experience last week was a student that despised my teaching method last year actually sitting for two hours with me conquering a topic - at her request. Hopefully she can keep this up - it would be wonderful if she could, the re-engagement of a student into education is something that should be celebrated, too often students are lost in year 10, on the verge of starting a run at university. It signalled what we all know deep down, that a student should never be given up on, you need to be on the lookout for ways and means to repair damaged rapports.

The last week was a good one, with many signs of students understanding what senior school is all about, smiles and students seeing success in their progress.

I'm really looking forward to the break.. and some baby time. She's growing up so fast. Now that we've figured out that the expressed bottle is causing the colic.. she's another baby (and a wee bit quieter and happier!)

We reached a few milestones with the blog too, 1100 visitors this year (the same amount as the whole of last year) and over 3300 pages read. Many thanks to those that have left words of encouragement.

:-)

Three steps forward...

There are times when I wonder, 'what have we been doing for the last two weeks?' My year tens are at this stage right now. We've been going through linear algebra for two weeks and it's clearly beyond a good dose of my students.

There are a number of issues:
a) They have weak self esteem and give up before trying
b) They have a low work ethic
c) Their algebra skills are weak-non existent (transposing to find c in y=mx+c is heartbreaking)
d) Their operations are weak (explaining gradient in terms of rise/run leads to all sorts of issues)
e) Their understanding of negative numbers is suspect

So I have two choices, teach them the topic and hope that the students get something from it to help them on their next iteration of learning or try and fill the gaps that 9 teachers before me have tried to fill with limited success.

Current thinking would say cater to individual differences and backtrack. I'm not sure that this is the right thing to do. By teaching the topic it gives the students an opportunity to 'get the gist' of what is being achieved (associate linear algebra with lines and equations, learn about gradient and slope, be able to find the y intercept and the like) and then hope that when they do 1B or 2A next year they can use this knowledge to properly participate in class.

I don't know.

Ten Tips for Practicum Students

I remember being on practicum and had my collection of nightmares and successes. After recently having a practicum student, it reminded me of some of the things I learnt while on practicum. There are lots of things that you are told at uni, but here are some of the more obvious that you may not be told.

1. If you are going to talk to the class, ensure that all students are ready to listen. Don't talk until you have full attention of everyone in the class. Create a spot at the front of the class so that students know that you are waiting to start.
2. Don't talk to the board while writing on it. There aren't any students behind it to hear you.
3. If your practicum teacher tells you to do something, do it. Write it down so you don't forget.
4. Appreciate your practicum teacher. The $12.50 per week and the aftermath is not worth it. They are doing it for the right reasons.
5. Don't have another job outside of school whilst on practicum. You are making a hard job harder.
6. Don't get lazy or cocky.. when you think you are prepared, prepare a little more.
7. Make sure students have been taught enough to complete any task you set them.
8. Do any exercise/task yourself first before you give it to students.
9. Have a clear introduction and conclusion to your lesson (keep an eye on your timing!).
10. Take praise and criticism well from students and peers. Reflect, learn from mistakes and grow thick skin where required.
11. Be rested, eat well and look after yourself.

Ok, it was eleven.. shoot me.

:-)

Variables on the classpad

There has been some confusion about how to define variables on the classpad in my class. Here is what we have discovered.

If we use a variable found under the mth tab -> var on the soft keyboard (the variables that are italicised) it is treated as a normal pronumeral in algebraic equations (multiplication is assumed with adjacent pronumerals). The x,y,z on the keypad is also treated this way.

eg x = 10, y=20; therefore xy=200

The multiplication sign is automatically added.

If we name a variable using the abc tab in the soft keyboard(the variables that are not italicised) then we are naming a variable that has multiple letters.

eg xy =10; x & y are undefined.
m = rise ÷ run



Potential Gotcha!

We have to be careful not to confuse functions defined under the mth tab (eg. trig ratios) and variables that we have created when using NumSolve. One of my students entered this on their calculator.

Cosθ=adj÷hyp

It would return the fractional value adj÷hyp rather than the value for theta. This is because the student had defined a variable "Cosθ" by typing Cos via the soft keyboard rather than entering the function Cos via mth->trig->Cos.


Superscripts and Subscripts

Later on students will want to use subscripted characters when creating variable names. One example is the gradient formula.

m=(Y2-Y1)÷(X2-X1)

The subscripts are found in the soft keyboard under abc->math at the bottom of the screen. Superscripts are on the line above it. Only numbers at this stage (more will be possible as more fonts are released) can be superscripted or subscripted as far as I can see.



Here is a link to other CAS calculator posts.

Trigonometric equations and the CAS calculator

There are lots of ways of solving trigonometric equations on the Classpad but I have avoided using Trisolve as it takes away the thinking aspect of trigonometric equations. Instead I focussed on setting up equations in eActivities with the intent to complement them with the Geometry section later.

eActivities are a great place to store frequently used equations. In this instance, I wanted to keep all of the trigonometric and circle equations in one place ie sine, cosine & tan ratios, sine rule, cosine rule, sector, segment equations, circumference, area.

To do this I opened an eActivity from the main menu.

Then I started a new eActivity by going File -> New. Then I saved it by going File->Save. I called it Trig Formulae.

So then I inserted a Numsolve strip to hold my equation.

Once the strip was added I used the soft keyboard to name it the Sine ratio. Then I pressed solve to put the equation in.

Using the mth tab in the soft keyboard and then selecting the Trig option at the base of the soft keyboard I entered 'sin('. Directly below the mth tab, the theta button can be found and then closed the bracket. Don't type the word 's' 'i' 'n' using the soft keyboard as it won't work - it will treat it as s x i x n.

Then using the 2D tab, I created a fraction and using the var option entered o ÷ h. I hit exe, then closed the equation using the x at the top left hand corner of the window.

I then tried it out using the example opp=7, hyp=14, theta = ? I left theta blank, made sure the angle was selected (with the dot next to it coloured in) and pressed solve in the toolbar. Viola, theta = 30°. If you get some weird answers check that the calculator is set in degrees mode. If the answer is still weird, reset the calculator and it seems to work.

Update (25/3/09): After using this with the class for a few days (especially with radians) I noticed a few strange results where the calculator would return unexpected answers (eg for the above example -330°). To fix this, set the Lower bound to 0 and the upper bound to 180 (for degrees) or pi/3.14159 (for radians) and the results will appear as expected.

I then set about putting in the cosine ratio.

It's a great tool for things like the cosine rule where students find it hard to transpose equations and forget negative signs or for circle, segment and sector equations that are commonly forgotten.

Here is a link to other CAS calculator posts.

Favourite places to eat in Perth

A bit off topic today, but as I live north of the river there are a number of places that I love to eat. There is no real order to them as we like them all depending on what we feel like.

T5 Expresso, Joondalup: Sub $10 breakfast, great coffee, nice people, not too busy. Cosy little place to start the day found in every city around the world, other than Perth. Until now!

Bistro 38: Joondalup Country club. Great buffet during summer and if you can catch one of their special nights with entertainment it's a great time for two. Even their naff Christmas in July was great (where two years of ballroom dancing lessons came second to a drunken wife doing the pointy dance (I'll point at you.. pose.. I'll point at them.. pose...). I think we've sent at least two letters to Bistro 38 complimenting them on their excellent service.

Sensations 43, Ocean Reef: A little restaurant serving pizza, pasta and other cafe dishes. We can go there before 6.00pm with bubs and not have to worry too much about annoying other patrons or go during the day and have a coffee. The owners are lovely once you get to know them, friendly and inviting.

Shennai Tandoori, Ocean Reef: A local restaurant that has great Indian/Pakistani food tailored to the anglified palette. I think we have gone 200 times and ordered the same meal - Papadums, Chicken Tikka, Lamb Korma, Chicken Korma, 2 Naan, 1 large Pilaf Rice - which is enough for dinner and breakfast. Ask for booth 7.

The Grapevine Restaurant, Heathridge: A hearty Italian meal, a little dearer than we usually spend but we always expect to be stuffed by the end of it. Service is great (we're not partial to being in the alfresco area as it tends to be a little hot and loud) and they even drove us home one night when we couldn't get a taxi.

Conti's Restaurant, Wangara: This is a lovely quaint restaurant, we've had many a great anniversary dinner there. Don't be put off by the location. The steak and peppercorns (the carpetbag or 'Madagascar' from memory) is great, as is anything else on the menu. The 'Coles tray' for the vegetables seems strange, but keeps the vegetables nice and warm. I love how the lights dim every so often for no real reason. It's easy to get absolutely stonkered as you spend a leisurely evening.

Friends Restaurant, Perth: This is one of our favourite restaurants, with Clive and Lesley being two of the nicest people in the world. This, to my mind, is what we compare any other restaurant around the world (in fact the only other restaurants we have enjoyed to their level is Francois' mussels in white wine sauce on Melbourne's Toorak Rd and The Loose Box in the Mundaring (insert any dish on the menu here).) Mortgage your house, order some expensive wine and/or Champagne and enjoy.

Cocos Restaurant, South Perth: I must admit it's been ages since we've been, but I have very fond memories of the Tempura Whiting and having coffee overlooking the foreshore. A bit of a place for Perth's movers and shakers (Probably why I haven't been for ages!).

Kings Park Tea Rooms: OMG.. the service is ordinary, but with a glass of wine and a light meal during spring, for a lunch catchup few places are its equal.

There you go.. with the exception of home dinners and family invites which ALWAYS take precedence (coming from a family and extended family of awesome cooks and chefs) this is where we like to go!

Bon Appetit!

Time.

Time doesn't seem to be my friend at the moment. I wake up, feed Mackenzie when I can, go to school, tutor my year 11's, take my classes, wait on the phone for 15 mins, complain to payroll that they forgot to pay me last week (I have to wait another fortnight for it to arrive as it was a stuff up), teach my classes, come home and crash on the couch for 3 hours and here I am. Baby exploding with poop.

I have so much stuff to write..

e-activities in the CAS calculator are a great place to hide all the trigonometry formulas (sine rule and the like) using "Strips" and Numsolve - Updated 22/3 click here to see how.

The verify function in the main pane (bottom cell of the right icon in the toolbar 'f(x)') is a great way of testing what part of an equation has been incorrectly simplified, expanded or factorised.

My polar coordinates and vectors is rusty so I've had to sit and do the exercises in the book..

Tests to write, assignments to mark, programmes to amend..

Need to go back to sleep!

Phones, Cameras and Facebook.

Not so long ago, the fight club issue was raised with kids after school organising fights and filming them. The infamy caused through posting these film grabs on u-tube and the damage to local schools needs to be acknowledged. It took these incidents to change the current policy (or perhaps enforce an existing one?) on mobile phone use in schools.

When mobile phones were first allowed on campus my initial thoughts were that this was a bad idea. It has proven true with sms bullying, filming of teachers and posting them on the Internet, sms'ing during class, loss and theft of phones and the like. Teachers spend a portion of each day confiscating phones and returning them, facing a barrage of abuse and pleading from students.

Information technology and personal technologies have other negative influences. The insular antisocial behaviour such as being constantly on an IPod cannot be measured. In many cases it is a way of managing a lone student (allowing them the dignity of choosing to be on their own) rather than facing the real issue of an isolate in the playground and assisting with social integration. The lone student is often subject to the worst kinds of bullying in the form of exclusion and schools must respond to this kind of treatment or face the extreme measures taken by lonely students in other areas of the world.

Facebook is another tool that causes concern. I started my own Facebook page and have had 'friend' requests from students. I declined these obviously, as a teacher is not a friend. A friend has to face issues that a teacher does not and vice-versa. To transcend this relationship is fraught with danger. Yet I had to think - am I being old fashioned? Has friendship been redefined by Facebook and become some sort of watered down acquaintance? Could it be a way of hearing about their successes and failures post school? Being conservative by nature, my original position stands.. as a male teacher, I don't think you can be too careful - watered down friendship or not.. it crosses the line.

The Internet itself in general is the great time-waster. Setting firm guidelines is required to keep students on task and maintaining standards of behaviour requires strong penalties. Yet the greatest penalty (denial of Internet) is often removed as an option as multiple classes require students to use the Internet and the same student performs the same misdemeanors in each class as they know the penalties are light.

Technology is a wonderful thing but to use it effectively is a skill. I am not sure education institutions have spent the time to master this skill and I would like to see some real evidence of where and when it is used to improve results of students.

Mackenzie Surprise

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I have a predilection to a Big Mac. Some wag at Kendra's work seems to know this and has started referring to my wee dear as Little Mac.

Anyhow, she seems to have a new game that I am told is common to all babies. It's 1.30 in the morning and we're doing the late feed. She commonly needs her nappy changed at this time, and it's normally the gross one smeared all through her nappy.. That's ok.. you get accustomed to it..

So you unfasten her clothes, take off the nappy, wipe off the poop, clean her up, put on the nappy cream reach for the nappy and...

whammo..

you're swimming in a tide of Mackenzie pee.. a wonderful 20 sec gush.. all over the change mat, all through her clothes.. in her hair.. and to top it all she just rolled the back of her head into that toxic nappy.

oh well.. off with the rest of her clothes.. I needed that fifth shower today anyway..

:-)

Change management and the half cohort

When I heard the 'local solutions for local issues' chant last year, a siren went off in my head saying here comes another case of pushing responsibility down the line. The half cohort has been mismanaged thus far and schools now have to find 'innovative solutions' to maintain student levels and thus staffing levels.

Knowledge management is a key aspect in any organisation. If we let an ill thought out decision and implementation (like the half cohort) damage our long term ability to provide a service, this is a very poor management decision. Yet this is what we are faced with. When smaller numbers come in next year, schools face losing FTE. With a loss of FTE comes a loss in capability to deliver and retain content and a loss of knowledge of how to manage our students.

Innovative solutions typically means something experimental cobbled together with a low chance of success, with little forethought. This is because true innovative solutions requires a lot of work prior to implementation - after all, if it was easy everyone would be doing it already and it would not be innovative.

Once we have identified possible solutions we than have to consider how that change will occur. Managing change requires patience, skill and understanding on part of the participants. Change is a technical problem - not a people problem as too often people see it.

Steps in change management are:
a) determining the need for change
b) determining the obstacles to change
c) implementing change
d) evaluating change
(Human Resource Management, R.J. Stone, 2002)

In this case a driver for change is that we need to reduce FTE in 2010 and preserve school capability post the half cohort with fewer staff to share the load. Potentially the reverse issue happens in 2011 as the students held back in 2010 will appear in 2011. Using that knowledge (on face value) change may not be required as although retaining staff is more expensive than letting staff go, schools face the issue in 2011 of trying to restaff. A second driver for change is to re-instate job security. Whilst this issue is over the head of staff, good staff are more likely to consider opportunities elsewhere in case the job axe reaches them.

We then reach the second test, 'how to implement change'. Schools are now looking at where the 'fat' can be trimmed. Timetabling in this aspect is one of the biggest concerns. If a teacher leaves/retires/is let go organically another teacher of similar ability is rarely available on staff that fits the timetable to teach the topic (and if they do, they leave another similar hole elsewhere on the timetable). As restaffing is not an option, the solution here is usually a teacher teaching out of area or an 'innovative solution' to be used such as using leftover capability of various teachers to share a class, multi-age grouping (MAG - eg. grouping yr8/9 classes together) or integrated classrooms (eg. combined English/S&E classes).

The third test is the biggest concern where innovative solutions are bandied about. There is no doubt in my mind that given time and money, any solution can be made to work. My concern is that neither time nor money are available for such. For example, integrated classrooms may take up to five years to get right with dedicated staff committed to the project - one out of the box cannot work as student content and contextual entry points are different at each school. Furthermore staff that can create and plan these engaging projects are few and far between. Leftover capacity is nearly always a poor option. MAG streamed classes require a lot of skill to teach and have issues attached related to differences in work ethic and have the tendency to be taught to the middle (or bottom). MAG unstreamed classes exacerbate developmental, context ual and content issues thus requiring even more from the teacher than streamed classes. If we consider that the main issue resolves itself after 5 years we need to again ask whether these solutions warrant the change requirements for implementation.

The fourth test is the big one. If we are truly contemplating change we need to evaluate current performace before change has occurred, such that we can check later that the change has been positive. It is this step that shows good management from poor management. Pre-defined outcomes need to be set if we are to avoid 'crisis management' and move to structured 'change management'. NAPLAN is not the answer (though it can be one measurable) as it only measures what can be assessed in a snapshot test. It does not take into account staffing issues, affective requirements and behavioural response. More so it does not predict or respond to the potential success or damage to students in upper school (as is seen in some poorly managed middle school programmes). To realise the perils of over reliance on NAPLAN take a look at year 8 NAPLAN results and map them to senior school students. Ask yourself what happened to the block of students that did well in year 8 but were lost by year 10.

Furthermore if we instigate change 'from the hip' it makes it much more difficult to learn from our mistakes. If we know what we have done poorly, we can then do it differently in the future. This need to reflect is the key to success and to my mind, when this occurs, it is true 'change'. Something we need to consider more when defining future success.

Story of Mackenzie's birth

Wednesday Feb 18.
Baby late for appointment.. Doctor says will induce on Tuesday.

Monday Feb 23
5:59am Baby decides it wants to choose its own birthday and it's time to take a walk on the outside. Contractions 10 mins apart.
10:00am Doctor calls and suggests it might be a good time to come in. Kendra decides that she needs to clean house, do makeup and drop the rabbit off.. Contractions 8mins apart. Russell's heart rate at stroke levels.
10:08am Russell able to teleport wife to hospital 23km away. Contractions 4 mins apart.
11:00am Contractions 2 mins apart. Topped up oxytocin to speed up contractions. 0.5mm dilation. Doctor puts in epidural.
1pm Baby changes mind and decides it's too nice a day to be outside (this is where we should have realised baby was a girl). Sets up camp and goes nowhere. 1cm dilation.
5pm Doctor decides its time to come out. Wheeled into theatre. Doctor realises epidural put in wrong place - it's doing nada other than making one leg numb. Tries something else. This seems to work better.
6pm Doctor cuts hole in abdomen and reaches for baby. Doctor calls baby a scallywag. Wedged under Kendra's 6pack and won't come out.
6.05pm Kendra complains she's feeling cold. That's because her bp has dropped to 50. Madly having 3 bags of saline pumped into her.
6.45pm Kendra's 6pack becomes a 4pack - Baby pulled out with gouged eyeballs, growling, wedged no longer. Doctor holds up gruesome blood encrusted baby. Husband of year says - "gees that's an ugly baby"...
7.00pm Baby cleaned up. Husband says "gees now she's all pretty" and gets a nice cuddle. Kendra's lippy is still on and she looks suitably glam during both labour and major surgery - what a marketing opportunity for Revlon!
8.00pm Kendra back in room and says she is feeling sore - told that she can have a Panadol for the night. Pain score 4-5

Tuesday Feb 24
8.15am Husband goes to work after paying $115 to lie on the floor.
9.00am Kendra complains pain worse than contractions. Nurse rereads chart and realises that it should have been Pethedine not Panadol. Pain score 8 without Pethedine. Pain score now "Happy smiley face" with Pethedine. Birth forms explained and completed under the influence. Baby name now AppleMoonbeamFlowerChild.
3pm Russ renames child Mackenzie Trudy.


Wednesday Feb 25
Learning about baby language.
Going pink - hungry
Going pink - hot
Going pink - needs nappy changed
Going pink - needs cuddle
Going pink - wind
Looking forward to romantic dinner provided by hospital on Friday. Husband still paying $115 per night to sleep on floor, grumpy and giving out high number of detentions at school. Kicked in head by nurse in morning. Mackenzie eats, poops and sleeps. Is suitably adorable. (update 28/3: Hospital acknowledges fee is exorbitant and agrees to waive it.. yay!)

Thursday Feb 26
9am Moved to nice room with bed for two. Mackenzie eats, poops and sleeps. Still adorable.

Friday Feb 27
5pm Romantic dinner set up. Comprises plastic flowers, plastic tray and red tablecloth. Can't stop laughing. Russell realises that he has been doing it wrong all these years. Promises to buy plastic flowers in future and some plastic trays. Mackenzie eats, poops and sleeps. Even more adorable.

Saturday Feb 28
5pm Go home. Mackenzie decides she has slept enough and goes pink at irregular 2 hr intervals. This adorable thing doesn't seem to wear off. Parents realise that they are clueless but are enjoying the ride.

Sunday Mar 8
It's great to be home.. We're having a special time and Mackenzie has been wonderful spending much time hiccuping and creating frothy milkshake pants. She's so cute albeit we are a little biased. Russ denies being wrapped around Mackenzie's little finger, he just does whatever she wants, whenever she wants. He has taken a couple of weeks off to care for Kendra during her recovery, and then Mackenzie's wonderful doting grandparents will stay with Kendra until the school holidays. We're learning all her little messages and enjoying her windy smiles.

Life is good.

Putting urgency back into the curriculum.

The developmental curriculum has slowed the pace of the curriculum to the desired pace of students. As far as I can tell, the desired pace of a good many students is a slow crawl (perhaps even falling backwards). I lay the blame for this at the idiotic levels based assessment programme that has finally been turfed.

The idea of standardised grades across the state is plain stupid as it prevents some students ever having success in their reports. It is no wonder that motivation for these students that face constant failure is low (despite achieving during term and learning at an appropriate rate). The obvious solution is to use NAPLAN to gauge state-wide performance and normalise class grades.

The need now is to forget the pace students desire (in too many cases it is slower than what they can actually do) and create a pace that is optimum for learning. Despite hearing comments otherwise, they are not the same thing. To say that a child (with no experience of what they can do) should set the pace of their learning is wrong. An programme/syllabus of work that has been tested and improved through years of experience is bound to have a higher proportion of success than a one off experimental curriculum by inexperienced teachers solely based on the current cohort. Teachers need a syllabus well paced and sequenced to assist students complete the programme required for school leaving and thus assist in identifying when remedial or extension action is required to assist students (preferably with a streaming mechanism to reduce performance pressure) - this would be a far better result than drifting kids bobbing at the same level for years at a time.

The programme drives the class, and the urgency created by a required pace of work provides the anxiety required for proper learning. The pendulum swings and again teachers can focus on teaching to a programme rather than facilitating what students see themselves able to do. After all, students in the workforce need to manage their work to meet deadlines, where better to learn than through assessment in school.

Hooray!

Does all this mean that I am against OBE? Not really. I have always liked the idea of outcomes as a guide for a programme of work. It is like the backbone of a programme showing what needs to be taught. It's also all I've been taught via tertiary study. Tied to scope and sequence documents and Progress maps, OBE concepts are a good thing - give me anything that helps me understand the underlying concepts and ideas behind the curriculum. OBE is not a panacea - clearly it has shown to be poor for grading assessment, poor in promoting homogeneous classes, weak when promoted with collaborative learning and negative when tied to a developmental programme with weak students.

Wind..

Poor baby Mackenzie couldn't sleep the other night. We now know there is another pink she can turn.. WINDY! Now I have some incling of what Colic is.

She's sleeping great again.. And if she's having trouble nodding off I sit and play nursery rhymes to her on my guitar (as long as the song doesn't have an F or B flat I'm ok) and she nods off. Magic!

Might go catch a few minutes kip between feeds.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzz...........

24 hrs without sleep. Head feeling a bit wonky.

So this is why you would discourage young mums from coming to school.. And kids staying up all night playing WoW.. grrr...

Slowly learning baby talk.. Going pink.. needs feeding.. or going pink.. too many blankets on.. or going pink.. needs nappy changed.. or going pink.. feeling grizzly..

zzzznnnkkk. (sound of head hitting desk)

Baby Mackenzie & Paternity Leave

Our wonderful baby girl Mackenzie was born on Monday.. After sleeping on the floor in the hospital for three days, I'm glad to be home. Working this week was hard, with little sleep and wanting to spend time with Mackenzie but I know being able to help when the baby goes home is more important after watching other mothers struggle without the assistance of the hospital midwives. My students were understanding and my colleagues supportive so that was good!

I suppose the downside is that I'm not as prepared to help with our baby as I would have been if I had been at the hospital all week. Dr says I need to take two weeks to help with Mum's recovery. I may need to have two weeks recovery from the fluff Mackenzie just did!

Organising leave has been a bit of an experience. The new EBA has clause 34.1 that allows partners to have five days paid leave. Payroll (after initially saying it was like carer's leave and I directed them back to the EBA to check) acknowledged that this was not a sick leave allocation and it was an additional leave allowance.

This raised a second issue that there is no code in HRMIS for relief to be allocated against when I am on Partner leave. AFAIK HRMIS has not been updated for the new EBA leave requirements. Multiple calls to district office has left this unresolved.

All this checking and outlining requirements to relief teachers chewed up my DOTT making it difficult to create enough time to adequately prepare relief lessons and get back to the baby quickly after school to give my wife some respite. I didn't anticipate needing to take off more than a few days. I'm am going to owe some chocolate to our great relief teachers.

Interim reports are due next week, so I need to do them at home between sleeps. Since my HoD is taking my level 3 classes (these classes I know will be ok - albeit they may be more judgemental of my teaching style), I can mark my tests today, collect my Modelling assignments on Thursday, look in on my 10's some time next week and all should be right when I get back.

There's nothing worse than going back after an extended leave and there being a heap of mess, unsettled students and lagging programmes to fix. Hopefully I've done enough.

The big news of the week is no more levelling for assessment. Yay for the minister!

Now to focus on the family for a little while. She's soo cute!

The big day...

The big day has arrived and we're getting ready to go to the hospital. Fingers crossed all goes well. We have no idea what we're supposed to do today except wait for contractions to be 10 mins apart... They're about 12 now. Very nervous.

but... Yay!

3D trig, bearings and angle of elevation have proven themselves a stumbling block again. Once a diagram was constructed from a worded problem, students were able to complete problems. Walking students through constructing answers seems to have raised their confidence. Next year I will suggest adding a full lesson to just constructing (not solving) 3D, bearing and angle of elevation problems.

Oblivion has me hooked again. That stupid game is a weekend wrecker.

A generational approach vs the "me" generations

Baby boomers and generation y have a lot in common. Both have come in boom times and both are self centred. It is no wonder why they have such difficulty relating to their parents and their social responsibility.

I look forward to the slow shift where we look to setting up future generations and not just where we have enough loan capacity available to get our next plasma TV and leaving debt to future generations.

How can you expect to have loving relationships when your personal philosophy centres around the pleasure principle? The decline in birth rate and the fact that couples are deferring having children gives me hope as it indicates that current relationships are starting to understand the responsibility required for a happy family, and seek to raise children in an environment free of the financial and emotional strains seen in their divorced parents. I for one am one of those - paranoid about debt levels and very cautious before embarking on child raising.

For me it was a case of taking a holistic approach to our future, considering all aspects and trying to balance them - career, marriage, security, need for purpose, even spiritual requirements. Teaching was great as it was something I enjoy doing, is relatively stable, has a greater purpose and allows me time with my family +1 - to provide them with support. It did take ten years of work in other industries to be able to afford to enter teaching.. but it was time well spent as I can use this experience to help my students. Hopefully as my child grows up, our well established relationship (now in its 13th year) and my new educational knowledge will help raise a well adjusted and capable child. In time, all that I have will be theirs and hopefully they will continue and mark their mark on the world (I can hear you laughing - but I can try!).

You can't plan for everything, but to not plan is to never fully appreciate success or to learn effectively from failure. Only a few days to go before the baby arrives... Yay!