There are some heroes in mathematics education in Perth. They're the ones that share their resources freely, commit to projects and help out. Most are quiet, private and retiring soon. I feel sorry for the public heroes like Rom Cirillo at Curriculum council who is trying to help everyone and is succeeding most of the time. If only there were four of him.
Then there's those that are paid to help and are more talk, little knowledge and bugger all action. I've labelled them the West Australian New Kurriculum Education Resource (the acronym is all important - feel free to put it after your name - no charge!). They join TDC's, MAWA and teaching groups and are paid to produce resources and assistance. All too often they send out untried resources that cause confusion and show their lack of knowledge, they provide advice that is the flavour of the month and denigrate anything functional (their favourite seems to be the Saddler texts). Their advice is ill researched and they often don't answer the question posed. I often have a good laugh at their email sigs that are fourteen lines long outlining their projects as if this means something.
Numeracy consultant, Leaders Facilitator, Specialist teacher, TDC coordinator (yawn - and all in one sig!). It seems rampant self aggrandisement. I've seen title based nonsense before in IT, it's not something we need in teaching. The word 'consultant' brings about shudders - tell me what you're doing and then I'll record it so that you will know what you are doing (and charge at $400 per hour), tell you how the latest fad might help and provide insanely conservative advice as any real advice I give could lead to litigation that might hold them responsible.
One only has to look at how well these experts do during in school PD to realise how out of touch they are.
No thank you.
To me - it makes more sense to signoff Mathematics teacher. Add BEd, if you need qualifications. Sometimes I might add senior school to make it easier to find me within the school. Anything more seeks to diminish the reputation of a classroom teacher.
Give me a teacher that can teach a TEE student and a year 8 effectively any day (or a primary equivalent).
Show me a "super teacher" and I'll show you an idiot. Teaching is too wide a profession with too many different contexts to be an effective specialist or specialist trainer. To specialise is to remove yourself from the coalface and limit your student involvement (eg. reduce your ability to teach). I fail to see how this is a good thing.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Creating a positive learning environment
Positioning kids for learning is an underestimated part of teaching programmes. If a student understands that creating a good impression is important, then this creates a pattern of behaviour that can continue throughout the year.
As a form teacher, it's important to remind kids of this, take a personal interest in their successes and reinforce disappointment when they step out of line. This creates a culture of success and reinforces the positives.
It can also snap a student out of negative behaviour before it becomes habitual.
Homework is one of those things that needs to be positioned early. It is time consuming to check homework daily, but initially there is no way around it. There needs to be real punishment for non compliance (I use check ability -> detention until complete -> blue note with letter for non-attendance -> phone call -> demotion to lower class). The letter part is my favourite as I can suggest a number of activities that might be suspended such as PS3/Wii/XBox, MSN, TV, sport, going out etc. until regular homework becomes established. Diaries and journals play an important part in this process to keep parents informed.
I have heard that imposing homework is too difficult (and it is difficult if done in year 10, without having the habit instilled earlier) but without it, we are expecting low SES kids to perform with potentially 3 hours per night less work completed compared to independent schools. This means state school kids are expecting to compete with 2/3 the effective work time.
As a form teacher, it's important to remind kids of this, take a personal interest in their successes and reinforce disappointment when they step out of line. This creates a culture of success and reinforces the positives.
It can also snap a student out of negative behaviour before it becomes habitual.
Homework is one of those things that needs to be positioned early. It is time consuming to check homework daily, but initially there is no way around it. There needs to be real punishment for non compliance (I use check ability -> detention until complete -> blue note with letter for non-attendance -> phone call -> demotion to lower class). The letter part is my favourite as I can suggest a number of activities that might be suspended such as PS3/Wii/XBox, MSN, TV, sport, going out etc. until regular homework becomes established. Diaries and journals play an important part in this process to keep parents informed.
I have heard that imposing homework is too difficult (and it is difficult if done in year 10, without having the habit instilled earlier) but without it, we are expecting low SES kids to perform with potentially 3 hours per night less work completed compared to independent schools. This means state school kids are expecting to compete with 2/3 the effective work time.
Labels:
teaching
The need to stop and rethink
Sometimes after assessment you need time to stop and rethink. When a course of work has succeeded for a number of years and fails spectacularly with a particular group, it's a good thing to reflect on what has happened.
If a group of students can't follow instructions to complete a task the underlying issues should be examined.
a) Has your teaching changed(content/pedagogy)?
b) Are the students somewhat different to other groups and how(ESL/refugee/migrant visa/disaffected/gender specific/generational change/indigenous)?
c) Has the environment changed (bullying/timetable/family/schooling structure)?
This happened to me recently and I learned a lot from it. My final conclusion in this case was that the kids had changed - I had a weak group, caused by frequent absenteeism over many years and a raft of 'community' issues. These were kids lost in the system. I became a better teacher as I had to think of new ways to teach content that I had taught successfully a number of times before. In a heterogeneous class, I never would have had the time to backtrack, but in a streamed class destined for 1B in year 11, just this once I had the time these kids needed.
I had to diagnose the core issues, backtrack and reteach basics that are normally assumed to be in place since primary school. This in itself was a new experience as teaching solely upper school classes removes you from some of the resources and skills necessary for primary content.
I had to face issues similar to I imagine that of low literacy English classes, where finding age appropriate basic reading materials for adolescents can be difficult.
After they had learned the basic materials, I had to consider topic fatigue and put the desired year 10 learning aside for a time, giving them a break whilst they digested the new material. This gave me time to retest for retention, to make sure this time the learning 'stuck'. I had to be careful that the prerequisite material had actually been learned where previous teachers had been unsuccessful. For some, the motivation to retry a topic failed (where they had multiple failed attempts over multiple years). It was a lot to bear, difficult for them to face and hard to kick start. Kids are proud and rarely want to accept that they can't do something their peers can do readily. In a large class, it's easier to give up and hide in the sea of faces.
The turning point was when we finally revisited the topic and we looked back and could say, 'that was pretty easy now I know how'. Like with most things, unless the end point is well defined (the goal) it's impossible to see when something is achieved.
It's a real reason why wafty curriculum fails inexperienced teachers.
If a group of students can't follow instructions to complete a task the underlying issues should be examined.
a) Has your teaching changed(content/pedagogy)?
b) Are the students somewhat different to other groups and how(ESL/refugee/migrant visa/disaffected/gender specific/generational change/indigenous)?
c) Has the environment changed (bullying/timetable/family/schooling structure)?
This happened to me recently and I learned a lot from it. My final conclusion in this case was that the kids had changed - I had a weak group, caused by frequent absenteeism over many years and a raft of 'community' issues. These were kids lost in the system. I became a better teacher as I had to think of new ways to teach content that I had taught successfully a number of times before. In a heterogeneous class, I never would have had the time to backtrack, but in a streamed class destined for 1B in year 11, just this once I had the time these kids needed.
I had to diagnose the core issues, backtrack and reteach basics that are normally assumed to be in place since primary school. This in itself was a new experience as teaching solely upper school classes removes you from some of the resources and skills necessary for primary content.
I had to face issues similar to I imagine that of low literacy English classes, where finding age appropriate basic reading materials for adolescents can be difficult.
After they had learned the basic materials, I had to consider topic fatigue and put the desired year 10 learning aside for a time, giving them a break whilst they digested the new material. This gave me time to retest for retention, to make sure this time the learning 'stuck'. I had to be careful that the prerequisite material had actually been learned where previous teachers had been unsuccessful. For some, the motivation to retry a topic failed (where they had multiple failed attempts over multiple years). It was a lot to bear, difficult for them to face and hard to kick start. Kids are proud and rarely want to accept that they can't do something their peers can do readily. In a large class, it's easier to give up and hide in the sea of faces.
The turning point was when we finally revisited the topic and we looked back and could say, 'that was pretty easy now I know how'. Like with most things, unless the end point is well defined (the goal) it's impossible to see when something is achieved.
It's a real reason why wafty curriculum fails inexperienced teachers.
Labels:
teaching
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Belief in teaching
We have a building crisis in confidence in our teachers, a crisis coming about to deflect blame for poor government curriculum decisions and poor staff management procedures over an extended period of time.
It seems we are forever looking for magic bullets, where only hard work and dedication will bring about lasting results. It seems counter intuitive to expect hard work and dedication when your federal minister releases press on a regular basis about how improvement is needed - creates metrics to measure improvement but offers little in proven programmes that bring about that improvement.
I wonder how long it will take the penny to drop that the difference in student performance is rarely school performance but is actually the difference in parental support. This accounts for the difference across postcodes in a way that blaming schools does not. It's not parents fault either - their education level is what it is, generational change is the only thing that will eradicate the issue.
Until then, these kids need more time and instruction to succeed - yr 13, university bridging courses, after school tutoring, summer schools. To have effective courses we need a bunch of people that care about students, are motivated, skilled, nurtured and valued. These people have always been called teachers, lecturers, youth workers, aides, social workers, librarians and more recently chaplains. To continue to score political points against teachers is to shoot people that can make a difference.
Do the world a favour and encourage those making a difference. Chucking around money like confetti rarely brings this about. In fact it usually starts attracting vultures and those without community values that firmly have profits in their sights. The ABC Learning centres fiasco should have brought the effectiveness of profit driven public service firmly into the light.
We know our kids lack values, values previously imbued by parents and religious backgrounds and ethics. Today we need the people willing to set an example and do superhuman things with groups of kids that most people would fear talking to for 5 minutes, heaven forbid five to seven consecutive years.
Technology in the short to medium term can't fill this role. A new curriculum or statistical analysis will not fix the problem. Perhaps we should accept that social change is not the sole role of schooling and put the boot away for a while whilst the community pulls together and is assisted to do what is necessary in a practical, tried and accountable manner. Stop trying to make teachers and schools scapegoats.
Yes Ms Gillard, I mean you.
Updated 13/2/10: Here's another media release about a scheme to 'improve teacher quality' and improve 'teaching standards' (more than likely by those same teachers that require improvement) without details on how it will be done - but with wads of money attached to do whatever it?!? is.
It seems we are forever looking for magic bullets, where only hard work and dedication will bring about lasting results. It seems counter intuitive to expect hard work and dedication when your federal minister releases press on a regular basis about how improvement is needed - creates metrics to measure improvement but offers little in proven programmes that bring about that improvement.
I wonder how long it will take the penny to drop that the difference in student performance is rarely school performance but is actually the difference in parental support. This accounts for the difference across postcodes in a way that blaming schools does not. It's not parents fault either - their education level is what it is, generational change is the only thing that will eradicate the issue.
Until then, these kids need more time and instruction to succeed - yr 13, university bridging courses, after school tutoring, summer schools. To have effective courses we need a bunch of people that care about students, are motivated, skilled, nurtured and valued. These people have always been called teachers, lecturers, youth workers, aides, social workers, librarians and more recently chaplains. To continue to score political points against teachers is to shoot people that can make a difference.
Do the world a favour and encourage those making a difference. Chucking around money like confetti rarely brings this about. In fact it usually starts attracting vultures and those without community values that firmly have profits in their sights. The ABC Learning centres fiasco should have brought the effectiveness of profit driven public service firmly into the light.
We know our kids lack values, values previously imbued by parents and religious backgrounds and ethics. Today we need the people willing to set an example and do superhuman things with groups of kids that most people would fear talking to for 5 minutes, heaven forbid five to seven consecutive years.
Technology in the short to medium term can't fill this role. A new curriculum or statistical analysis will not fix the problem. Perhaps we should accept that social change is not the sole role of schooling and put the boot away for a while whilst the community pulls together and is assisted to do what is necessary in a practical, tried and accountable manner. Stop trying to make teachers and schools scapegoats.
Yes Ms Gillard, I mean you.
Updated 13/2/10: Here's another media release about a scheme to 'improve teacher quality' and improve 'teaching standards' (more than likely by those same teachers that require improvement) without details on how it will be done - but with wads of money attached to do whatever it?!? is.
Labels:
teaching
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