The effects of standardised testing

I've been critical of the outcomes of standardised testing and its effects on teaching. I was reading the following and seeing some of my predictions come true in the US, home of the standardised test and the no child left behind program. We have only a limited time to reverse direction before we repeat the mistakes of others. I'm sure more articles like this will start to appear.

http://www.educationcrossing.com/article/470176/Is-It-Time-For-Teacher-Free-Agency/

No effective public school system will leave whole generations behind.

(I've rewritten this twice and can't seem to get rid of the double meaning. One meaning is that an effective public school system will prevent generations being left behind, the second meaning is that without a public school system generations will be left behind. It's interesting that they are similar in effect, but the second meaning implies that a loss of the public school system will result in a negative consequence - which was the intent of the sentence - I wonder how people read it!)

The power of encouragement

Regular readers will know I take inspiration from my 2 year old daughter. Yesterday, we were at the playground and she ran herself silly but was afraid of the slide. To be honest, it was high and a bit fast for her but I figured she went on a roller coaster, why not a slide.

The first time, I held her hand and let go half way down. We yelled whhheeee and clapped when she reached the bottom. Needless to say she was soon going down on her own and started attempting other things that were previously impossible like the climbing frame and firemans drop..

How many times have we, as teachers, faced students that refused to try because it was too hard. Maybe this is a wakeup call to provide more encouragement first, scaffold a little more initially and then let go for a while whilst watching and enjoying their progress.

Leadership breeds competition

Staff in an education environment have little reason to be competitive. There is little opportunity for advancement, extra work brings no monetary reward or toil and the more done, the more is expected.

There is a form of anti competition. Those that do succeed are compared to other successes and compared using the strengths of each. The perceived lesser of the two is denigrated and the greater of them is tall poppied.

I call teaching the pirahna occupation because it feeds on itself. It never seems to gain momentum to do the great things it has the promise to do. I fault here the leadership models it creates. Teachers are not great managers, managers are not great administrators, administrators are not great businessmen. Put this together and you get very average in most cases - especially when there is an unwillingness to learn new skills.

Leadership in a school environment requires a vision of the big picture and then a plan to enact the vision. Without a plan, progress cannot be measured and people can't be held responsible. Circuit breakers need to be kept in place to ensure that senior management is not restricting access to information, typically to hide inefficiency and incompetency in leading repair and refinement of the teaching model.

It's not rocket science, but it's not easy to overcome organisational inertia and friction either. Gaining momentum takes time and needs ongoing breaking of ground to keep going. Finding those willing to break ground for little reward is difficult, luckily there are still vocational teachers in the system - seeking stability and job satisfaction over monetary reward.

Thankfully when these people lead, others must follow or look lazy and incompetent. Loss of face is what pushes education forward more than PD or organisational goals. This is wrong but without structural changes, it's the main process for improvement. I don't think I have the answers, but I feel I am starting to ask the right questions.

Dropping the ball

I went to playgroup with my young daughter. A little girl tried to grab a ball that she was playing with. She pushed the girl away who then complained that my daughter wouldn't share.

Two minutes later I was playing throw with my daughter. The other girl, with tears in her eyes, came and joined us. We threw the ball between us and eventually I left them playing together. It was the first time I saw my little one enjoying playing with another child.

Getting kids to play nice requires help. Expecting appropriate peer interaction to appear miraculously is not appropriate. All too often we put kids together without supports where they can interact appropriately. The older kids get, the longer it takes to overcome negative behaviours and peer stereotyping.

A perceived benefit of the heterogenous class and middle schooling is improved peer interaction. The problem is that all too often the skills required by students to benefit from interactions is not explicitly taught. My view is that the heterogenous class is the domain of the experienced teacher and beginning teachers should be sheltered from their demands, allowing them to develop content mastery and classroom management skills first, teaching strategies/pedagogy second.

Revision strategy

This year has been a better year for planned revision. Courses ended on time leaving a gap where we could do some in class work. To give ownership of the process to students, we pulled out the syllabus and decided what would be done in class together and what would be done on their own.

For a change students have been completing miscellaneous exercises all year, which is helping considerably in reducing revision requirements as is the increasing use of journals to centralise student notes.

Next students were told to get their revision books and answer the first question in each section (to build confidence, these are usually the easiest). The OT Lee books are best for this but the Purcell ones aren't bad either. Then do q4 of each section, then focus on sections where students are having the most difficulty.

Next I did the normal printing out of exam papers. One of the other maths teachers provided this suggestion on how to use them that I thought was a vast improvement on the usual, "look at the question, look at the answer" model. He suggested for students to read the whole paper and identify which questions they could answer, then (before answering any question) go back to their texts and investigate each topic they could not answer questions for. Only then sit down and answer the paper. I think this is a great idea.

The 11s in particular have used after school classes in addition to revision processes to master key topics. Vectors in year 11 remains a draw on time and is something we will focus more on during summer school. This is the fifth year working on study skills and revision to bring a methodology to aid mid performing students, and I think we are identifying a winning formula.

I'm sure high performing schools have more structured and better processes in place, but these ideas are a vast improvement on what we started with.

Russ.

Portfolio Pathway

Many of our students are on Portfolio pathway - an alternate entry strategy for students to get into university.  I sat down with our careers adviser this morning to get an idea of what was involved in portfolio pathway.

The bottom line is that only two subjects are required to be passed (one of which is English) and the remainder of the application process is based upon community involvement.  It is a challenging idea  I'm trying to get to grips with how a student that can't pass school will be able to pass university.  It must be working to some degree as ECU is pursuing this strategy to get low SES students into university.  I imagine that they are banking on the idea that students in low SES schools develop late and with bridging courses they will be ok.

The reason I investigated further was that statements were being made that teachers did not understand portfolio pathway.  This I think is true.  Teachers in weeks up to mock exams are in a flap getting students ready for exams.   These exams are typically worth 25% of their year grade.  Following this is an external exam worth 50% of their year grade (I know this is a gross simplification but it illustrates the point).  If students are seen as putting non academic pursuits first in the weeks prior to mock exams academic teachers will be asking questions - especially if the school itself is encouraging students to pursue non assessment tasks in this time.

The portfolio pathway makes the exams for the majority of their classes largely irrelevant - a minimum amount of effort (to justify WACE grades) is sufficient.  If teachers are told a student is now on a portfolio pathway, a student is better off doing community events to bolster their portfolio for university entry than study to the extent required of an ATAR candidate.

Furthermore, if a student is on a portfolio pathway and unlikely to be studying to the level required of an ATAR candidate - this has the possibility to effect moderation by producing distorted ordering in the grade distribution.

The idea that our students can do external pursuits and academic pursuits is challenging as the best of us would struggle to compete with students without external concerns. It was put to me "a hockey student going to nationals will not put aside their hockey aspirations for their university aspirations - they will do both."  I don't know if this is true.  Many will hedge their bets and put sport aside in the weeks leading to exams and ensure they have a future going forward.  Elite athletes may make this decision but otherwise it seems to me a strange one.

I feel for people that see school events as huge events in their lives.  As someone that found life to be preferable to any events in school, I suppose I see the opening of opportunities post education greater than the impact of any singular school events.  I probably overestimate the contribution of MESS subjects to roles in life because of their contribution to my life.  Without my Math, English, Sose and Science teachers I never would have had the opportunities I have enjoyed.  My desire for my kids to have these same opportunities (and more) is likely similar to opportunities found by teachers in the school using skills from non MESS subjects.

Interactive Whiteboard usage

I have an interactive whiteboard in my classroom.  It's a 2.1m wide Promethean with a short throw projector.  I was reticent about getting an IWB as I had one in the past and it was smaller than a normal whiteboard, laggy, difficult to see in full light, was easy to cast a shadow upon while writing and had little in the way of usable technology for mathematics.

5 years later and things have changed.  My old whiteboard was only marginally larger than my new IWB.  The lag is gone (.. well .. nearly).  The short throw projector casts a minimal shadow.  The basic software is more functional than ruler and pen.

I'm not singing the praises of Promethean, I haven't used a Smartboard or its software since my awful introduction to IWBs five years ago.  I can just see how it helps deliver my material.

I can step forward/backward through slides
I can draw axes, coordinates and lines with ease
I can annotate graphs (such as those drawn by Autograph) for regression/seasonality and functions work (with a little difficulty)
I can share and store successful lessons more easily
I can write solutions digitally for sharing for small group moderation
It saves a few dollars in whiteboard markers (but will probably cost more in power and projector globes)

The advantages make my day more pleasant.  The downside is that lessons take considerably more time to prepare initially because you have to think of ways to use it effectively, whereas those methods already exist with a whiteboard.

There is also a short term motivational increase evident in student behaviour (which I expect to dissipate with familiarity).

I am guilty of not using the IWB to its fullest, but after 1 term, it is proving to be an integral part of my classroom, being used in every class.

The apple macbook powering the board has caused some problems.  The obvious being the difficulty in running PC software (such as FX draw and Classpad manager).  These we're slowly overcoming.  A big advantage of the mac is the fast powerup.  I have a backup PC on my desk and the thought of waiting for SOE4 to boot is enough for it to be an absolute last resort.

The big question is does it improve the results of my students?  The answer is.. well.. maybe..   I can more easily use some interactives for aid in learning but I haven't seen any great improvement in results.  The cost to implement is around 7-8K at present which is not a huge impost (compared to some of the money the government is throwing around) but as an insight into department funding - it is more than the entire 8-12 math budget for last year.  I couldn't really use student improvement as a justification for installing IWB's in schools - there are more reliable ways of raising student performance than IWB's.

Implementation (after installation) has gone smoothly with good support from the school technician.. I won't say great support or he might get slack :-)..  Now as a mature technology, opportunities are available to improve teaching practices further and collaborate with a much wider group of teachers.

I would probably still get an IWB if I was given the option.  The collaborative opportunities are just too many to ignore and are relatively easy to implement, even if the student benefit is harder to quantify.  Reviewing student board work or examining teaching pedagogy in particular becomes much simpler and is more easily recorded.  Unlike 1-1 laptop rollouts, surprisingly I think I currently fall in favour of IWB rollouts.

Making best use of teachers

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.

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.

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.

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.

Responsible learning

There are many ways to motivate students to learn.  A common way is to provide extrinsic reward - "the bribery model".  This is a technique that is especially effective to provide short term performance gains, especially where the skill is not particularly exciting.  As the name suggests, its underlying value system is "I do something, I get something".  Immediacy is important as proximity to the reward  maximises the effect.  It is very now in its approach and is appropriate in many cases to kick start a learning programme.

A second model is an intrinsic goal oriented model, "education as a pathway".  It is the typical education model used by parents for the past 1000 years.  Be educated, have a future.  It is longer term and has elements of risk/reward.  Implicitly it has delayed gratification built in.

Where students do not value the goal oriented model and only work to instant gratification, the ability to maintain motivation fails.   The wall is hit earlier by students in an education lifecycle and the ability to be determined and seek excellence/success is greatly reduced whilst apathy or resistance to education grows.  Lacking resilience, the student is unable to bounce back fast enough after failure (a real issue caused by the no fail model at least until primary, if not middle school) and we produce students unable to cope with reality or that rebel not understanding options before them.

Part of the downfall of the intrinsic goal oriented model in WA is the failure to provide honest feedback regarding performance and the lack of effective career counselling (career structures have changed significantly in the past 15 years and schools lag this change).  Students are not aware of the possibilities in front of them and the consequences of their actions regarding learning in lower secondary.  Where all students pass, school graduation is not an indicator of an employable future.  Graduation becomes a hurdle rather than an enabler to access to the workforce.  Furthermore, the reduction in streaming takes away an important success indicator to students of their pathway towards employment and thus conceptually to their developing a concept of self (contrary to many views on streaming).

Discipline and setting clear behaviour boundaries (not just expectations) are safeguards to the success of the goal oriented model.  These are also being challenged by the incremental approach to discipline.   Students never reach boundaries thus have diminished ability to cope with limits.

To strengthen the goal oriented model we need to develop a range of appropriate pathways and more accurate indicators for students that they are on a pathway to a successful future.  National curriculum may provide some of the solutions together with positioning vocational studies properly within a school; strong leadership within schools, the department and universities need to provide the remainder.

Independent Public Schools

Now that the majority of government schools are either independent or becoming independent public schools, the rush is on for schools to examine their current practices as restricted by the department and seek ways to differentiate from nearby schools.

I welcome some things about independent public schools.  Without school boundaries, schools will live or die by their academic reputation.  This requires a broad strategy to ensure that students are enticed to each school.  NAPLAN scores, school reputation in the community and reputation with nearby primary schools will form a part of the drive of students towards a school.

Staffing will be a key issue moving forward as schools need to examine both their entry processes and how they wish their organisations to evolve.  The need for stability with driven, dependable, clever and caring staff will test the ability of schools to evolve into independent entities.  Promotional opportunities and the introduction of fresh staff with fresh ideas will be a key change issue in managing staff and developing the organisation.

It will be interesting to see how schools focus on both the long and short term requirements of keeping public schools as going concerns.  Schools that do not take a business approach to education may find that a superior academic programme is overshadowed by a lack of marketing ability.  Gloss and glitter, marketing tricks, making known extra curricular activities and wearing out shoe leather going to feeder schools may be required until parity is regained with the private sector.

I also wonder if short term focus on marketing will overshadow curriculum initiatives.  Ultimately short term tricks will not undo the damage done to education in the public sector through underfunding, mismanagement and poor curriculum direction.  Schools need to look to core business and identify how to raise education standards beyond that found in private schools.  Here again leadership will play a critical component in examining initiatives, encouraging successful attempts and marketing these successfully. Contrariwise unsuccessful initiatives will need to be redirected or discontinued.  Spending will need to be carefully evaluated in a way often ignored within schooling - often to the complete dismay and astonishment of observers from outside the system.

Do we need independent public schools?  Probably not... but we do require change and schools that can make the best of the opportunities have potential to benefit.  Now that the idea has had time to bed down, hopefully (fingers crossed) those that enter in the second and third rounds will not have too many transitory issues.

Games in mathematics

Developing strategic thinking in students is an emerging issue.  Living in a world of instant gratification, the ability to think is less prevalent in classes today.  The need for general knowledge seemingly has passed and rote learning tasks have been removed from WA curriculum.  There is little need to compete as everyone has access to the same information, gathered by Google, edited by Wikipedia.


In comes boardgames.  To play a boardgame a player needs to learn the rules and then work within the rules to seek advantage over competing players.  There is no prize other than the pleasure of learning and succeeding.  To succeed players must learn to strategise.

More than a few think I'm a more than bit nutty about games.  What I have found is that to engage students requires a wide variety of games and getting them to the point where they can open a box, read the rules and immerse themselves in a game is equivalent to the difficulty of getting a student to enjoy reading.  Similar to reading, success is based upon finding a related context.  Simpler gateway games can lead students to a love of thinking, not just success and winning.




To aid this below is my list of games that have been used successfully:


Gateway games
Pitchcar (7 players, <30 mins) 
Citadels (7 players, <30 mins)
7 Wonders (7 players, <30 mins)
Claustrophobia (2 players, <1hr)

Say Anything (5 players, <1 hr)
Apples to Apples (8 players, <1 hr)
Nuclear War (4 players, <1 hr)
Dixit (5 players, <1hr)
Lupus in Tabula (10 players, <1hr)
Carcassonne (4 players, <1 hr)
Ticket to ride, Europe (5 players, 1 hr)
Illuminati (7 players, 1+ hours)
Munchkin (7 players, <1 hr) 

Strategy Games
Through the ages (5 players, 3 hours) 
Indonesia (5 players, 3 hours)
Battlelore (2 players, <1 hr)
Space Hulk (2 players, <1.5hr)


Games currently under evaluation
Troyes (5 players, <1 hr)

Many games have been evaluated in establishing this list.  There are game links on the right hand side to help find and investigate these games further.

Russ.

Professional Development

Any long time reader knows that I am a big critic of scheduled professional development days..  Most tend to be filled with administrative tasks and very little professional development is actually done.  Well, here I am now having to deliver a session to the local primary schools and I sit in the position of many presenters of not knowing what is expected by the primary teachers and having little time available to prepare a presentation of worth.

It's not that being asked to do it is a bad thing.  I am really looking forward to it.  My concern is that I could lose an opportunity to do it regularly by not being adequately prepared.  It's a bit of a fishing expedition as to how to create a closer relationship with the local primary schools.

On paper it should not be too hard.  Three of the five members of our maths department grew up in the area and two of them went to our school.  We relate to our kids.  The student profiles of our schools are very similar.  The results of both our schools are above like-schools in numeracy.  We both cater to the far ends of the student spectrum and have issues in the middle/bottom quadrant....  and we've taught much of the material now being pushed into primary.

I keep telling myself that it's only an hour.  It's an hour that could attract some of their top end to our school and give us an opportunity to do some extension work in primary.     I haven't done any adult training in the last five years other than practicum students and it's a little nerve wracking..   I hope at least some of the primary teachers are not as burned out with bad PD as I am and will see my ideas as worthy of consideration.

We'll wait and see.

Proofs in the classroom

Many of us have bad memories about proofs in the classroom and learned to switch off whenever they arrived.  After all, they were never assessed and the skill required always followed shortly after.   In texts today, the proofs are often missing and skills are instantly presented as the required content.

When writing assessment I tend to struggle with testing deep understanding vs trying to trick students into making mistakes.  I've read many external tests and they mainly use methods aimed at testing minute bits of content, "corners" of content areas rather than whether a topic is understood.  The wide splash of content that we are required to teach lends itself well to this method of assessment and it is quite easy to get a bell curve from it.

This is great for students that study hard and do lots of different types of questions.  It must be incredibly frustrating for naturally gifted mathematics students, the ones that enjoy delving into a new topic. I think this is where proofs need a more detailed treatment and where investigations in lower school can be repurposed.

The opportunity for delving into a topic is there for the picking.  Proofs for completing the square and Pythagoras' theorem are great ways of developing connections between geometric proofs and skills taught in classroom.  Developing conjectures about number patterns develops the idea of left hand side/right hand side of an equation and the setting up equations to solve problems.  Congruence, traversals of parallel lines and similarity are other topics that lend themselves well.

Having only taught upper school for awhile, it is interesting to see where the core ideas of geometric proof, exhaustion, counterexample, formal proof/conjecture/hypothesis and even induction can be introduced before year 11.  If 2C students can learn the idea of all but induction, there is little reason why we can't teach reasoning a little earlier.

Perhaps if they could reason more effectively they could then challenge their own results and complete investigations that developed into lasting learning events.

Last day of term

The last day of term was a lot of fun.  The praccies wound up their classes and went off into the wide world.  Students went off for break... .. and a long two terms finished on programme with tasks completed.  All good so far.

We were very lucky this time with two great practicum students in Math, both very different and bringing something special to the profession. I said to mine about half way through prac to name ten things that she did better than me.  She never came back to me with that list but here is what I came up with.

She has strong organisational skills
She creates a fantastic working rapport with students
Each task is well monitored for progress (macro)
She reflects diligently on each lesson
She actively seeks to monitor the progress of each student (micro)
Colleagues enjoy interacting and assisting her with issues she has identified
She thoughtful and caring
She is fun to work with
She is prepared and willing to take risks to promote learning
She has a great and appropriate sense of humour

As you get further into teaching, sometimes it gets harder to maintain these things..  It can be great to look back and see how bright and bushy tailed you were when you started.  When times get tougher, you can reflect upon areas to focus upon to regain that initial vigor.  Be confident and know that those awful teenage years finish, slowly you gain confidence and independence... things improve as you go through your twenties and thirties (I can't speak for the forties!).

After talking with the maths department, I won the praccie competition this term.

Well done you two..  We look forward to hearing about your progress.

Russell.

Developing educators

I've thought for a long time that we fail to appreciate that there are a range of teachers required in education as different teaching styles benefit different students.  Our teaching practicum system has a tendency to promote outgoing, gregarious teachers and discourage practicum teachers that are not.  This is a real shame as those that take time to build their skills and have a calling to teaching may need more help to get over that initial hurdle of conquering teaching practices and behaviour management but then excel in creating engaging, caring and developmentally appropriate learning environments.

I was once told that I had a lifetime of occupations crammed into my twenties, but even with this I barely made it through my ATP.   My final practicum was a train wreck (my only pass grade of my degree) but does this define me as a bad teacher five years later?  Well.. I'm still here and still improving my teaching.  I'm no teacher of the year but my classes are well defined, my students are achieving and as a team we are moving forward.  My growth from that point on ATP has been linear and I expect that to continue.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that the best teachers are not necessarily those that found things easy, but those that really had to deconstruct a problem, seek to understand it deeply and then work with others to find a solution.  This creates an understanding of the difficulty of capturing the nature of the learning problem.  It's hard to get this point across to practicum teachers as many come in expecting it to be as easy as we sometimes make it look, not realising that getting kids to the point where they engage fully may have taken a term (or in some cases a few years) of hard work, organising resources has taken hours of planning and that skills and knowledge used in the classroom took years of experimenting until things came together.  Reflection is a key component in this growth.

The first five years in teaching for me wasn't easy, but after the first couple of years, with good support it certainly is becoming easier.  It's one reason why I say seniority has its place.  You don't survive as a classroom teacher unless you can handle the pressure most of the time and have management structures to relieve the pressure for the remainder of the time.  Without a hierarchy of some nature, we can't give teachers time to grow, nurturing them in soft classes, mentoring them through difficulties without fear and then developing them into true educators.

Perhaps after a few more practicum students I'll think this is a load of drivel and that the system is right..  but I hope not.  I'd like to say that we can develop a system where students, teachers and administrators see teacher diversity as a key goal within the system.

Funny

http://www.theonion.com/articles/department-of-education-study-finds-teaching-these,18461/

Saying what we would like to say.. Even if it is a little exaggerated.

My interactive whiteboard

The school has recently sprung for an interactive whiteboard for my classroom.  A Promethean 2.1m wide board.  We purchased it from Concept AV, who have successfully added themselves to my list of inept IT organisations.  At this stage, I can't recommend them.  In fact I probably can't recommend getting far enough away from them.. but that is my general comment about all IT people. 

To start with they didn't return calls.  We called them and said we had a budget, how much and when can you install.  "We'll get our sales team to call you."  Four calls later someone responds.  The salesperson comes and we explain where we want the points and where the board is to go.

Two guys turn up and it's a bit of a Laurel and Hardy show.  I'm not getting involved, I point them at the room and go to lunch.  I have no idea how they managed to get it up the stairs in one piece.  It's delivered but not installed.

We say to them, install on any day but x, because on that day we are having exams.  "Sure," they say, "We'll be there on day Y."  I move shelving (and 300 or so books and files) and move all my classes for the room to be free on day Y, lugging 30 texts from one room to the next.  Needless to say, no-one showed.

The next day we call them and find out that they are now coming on a new day.  No prizes for guessing which one - yep.. on our exam day.  After some gentle persuasion they say they'll come on another day.

On the new day, the installer turns up and insists that the point needs to go directly beneath the board (as opposed to the position discussed with the salesperson) and that it will cost extra to put it near the computer that will run the board.  "But that's ok, you can just run a cable around the edge of the room."  No it's not ok, the idea is that it is tidy and has as few visible cables as possible.  A workaround is devised using a double adaptor, more cost and some extra ducting.

I sit down to read the manuals supplied to learn how to use the board.  The aspect ratio isn't set correctly for my laptop and sound isn't working.   RTFM Russ..  but that's right, I can't.. they haven't left them or any other documentation on how to use it - all they have left is a software CD, some cables that won't work with my mac, the projector manual and its remote.  Rummage around on the web, locate the amplifier button (which is wedged against the shelving in a place I can't see without a mirror) and then play with the projector remote to fix the aspect ratio.  Installer says can't use USB for audio with mac.  BS, it does if set correctly and the amplifier is ON.  Go to the shops and buy the mac adaptor for video.  A whole heap of frustration that could have been avoided and prevented hours of fiddling and searching.

Two days later I inspect the setup and realise that there is no RCA adaptor for external video such as used by DVD players or games consoles despite the panel being designed to be used in this way.  "Why only a monitor port when the projector supports a range of outputs?" I ask the installer, "That's the way we do it in all schools".  Can I respectfully suggest it's a bloody stupid way.  So now I have to get up onto the projector, standing on a chair on a desk and run a cable down to the amplifier and the console for our Singstar competition at the end of the term.

In his technical wisdom he suggested using an analogue to digital converter and run the signal along the monitor cable.  Oh yes, and I used the last one I had of those just lying around yesterday nor does the Dick Smith shop around the corner have one.  I wasted another hour checking.

Next, I found that working on the laptop could be a pain especially when the laptop locked and required a password.  As my computer faces the room I needed a fliptop head to put the password in.  Solution: buy a wireless keyboard, $79.

Next challenge.  How to use the board effectively.  It's dropping some of my writing due to lag (it wasn't before, I don't know what's changed, my new mac pro seems fine), so I suppose I'll have to figure out what is causing that too.

So, tips for those getting an interactive whiteboard working.

a) find an organisation that returns calls
b) be very clear about where you want your computer and the connection point to go and request to get it installed there
c) ensure that they install it where your want it
d) ensure you have all the cabling you need to make it work
e) find someone that knows about the board and get them to show you how it works
f) get an RCA cable run from the connection point to the projector and the amplifier on the whiteboard
g) get a wireless keyboard (the apple one is great)

It just reminds me that getting IT implemented so that it works is not a simple task and requires someone with IT skills to be working on both sides of the equation - someone knowledgeable is required on both the buyer and sellers side to get an effective solution.

State of mathematics education

Interesting article on the state of mathematics education in the SMH.

National Curriculum and reporting

The lack of curriculum standards in WA worsens with the implementation phase of National Curriculum continuing to be a lukewarm affair.  Schools continue to drag their feet with implementation for fear of 'disadvantaging' students that have received an Outcomes based education over the past generation.  It is very clear now when comparing to national curriculum standards that WA education in mathematics has fallen behind other states. 

Report time has illustrated that next tier of issue in WA during National curriculum implementation.  The ongoing issue of students being given A grades that clearly have not met the C grade descriptors continues as schools grapple with how to assess their students.  A student that has not passed a test all year is given a C, students that have not reached 75-80% are given A's.  We no longer can say someone reaching a certain 'level' is an A (OBE levels have been abolished), nor can we say students are meeting C grade descriptors (these relate to national curriculum and students are clearly not reaching these - and schools are generally resistant to make the required changes to curriculum, homework and discipline policy to reach these new standards).  The Curriculum Framework gives little guidance to grading years and assessment.  The scope and sequence is a document rarely referred to.  The exemplars are sparse and difficult to apply over a range of years where schools vary greatly in materials taught from term to term.

Some areas (including large amounts of algebra and geometry) are missing from student capabilities as they have not been taught to any standard from years 7-9.  This is not good enough.  I would suggest it is not that students cannot learn this material - teachers lack guidance on what should be taught.

If your student has been taught and is not fluent in linear algebra in year 9 they are not a C student.  Ask them to draw y = 2x +1 for you or for the same equation find y if x = 4 or state the coordinate where it intersects with y=-x.  Similar tests can be made in quadratics in year 10.  Try some basic geometry with traversals and parallel lines.  If you really want to see the issues in WA mathematics test order of operations (2 - 4 ÷ 8 * 2 + 3 = ) across year 8 students and staff at a school.  I know I did and was horrified.

It is no wonder that students are not getting the intrinsic reward for effort to gain an A (it takes little effort and little demonstrated competence for a student with some ability in middle school classes) and these students cannot clearly relate to their grades - there is simply little direct reward for effort and little real consistency from year to year.  I may be a national curriculum skeptic, but we need to escape this no mans land we live in at the moment.  Implement it or not - but make a choice and let's get on with it.

Oh - and the answer to the order of operations problem above is 4.

Hierarchy

Schools have usually had quite fixed hierarchy, with about ratios of 1:7. Each 7 people have a direct line manager. In recent years I've begun to suspect that this is breaking down into more flat management structures.

In mathematics departments there are a number of structures that can be put in place. A common and traditional approach is to have a head of department(HoD) responsible for managing staff and curriculum(gaining .2-.4 FTE to do so) and then each year group being allocated to a teacher. The HoD manages performance issues, consistent judgements, liasing with admin and some behavioural issues. The HoD position is a level 3 position of responsibility within a school.

An emerging approach (in the last 10-20 years) is appointing a teacher in charge (TiC) and devolving responsibility for curriculum leadership, staff management and all of the HoD roles to admin staff such as team leaders. TiCs handle budgetary matters and the day to day issues of a maths department. No FTE is applied to such a position and a small monetary amount is given in addition to wages. Although this approach works in the short term on the momentum of past leadership (or if a person is found wiling to work a HoD role under the auspice of a TiC), it falls short when leadership is required to implement change. This model tends to lack responsibility for identifying and rectifying issues, leading to direct confrontation with admin over key issues where normally they would be resolved intra department. It also has the potential for conflict if the TiC is seen to be overstepping the bounds of their role.

A third model, worse than the TiC model is to rely on the professionalism of each individual teacher to self manage and monitor all processes via admin. The main issue with this model(prevalent in very small schools) is that admin does not have the skill to ensure that relevant curriculum is being followed, causing disjunct programmmes from year group to year group. It also causes feelings of isolation and dislocation from the collegiate group.

If regular time is not allocated to making a department work, they can be seen as dysfunctional rather than lacking leadership.

Streaming

From hits on previous pages, this is an active topic in teaching.  Leaving teaching college, we were all informed of the negative nature of streaming and how research showed that there was no benefit to students.   As discussed previously Hattie's extensive research showed that the benefit was small in mathematics.  Yet teachers of mathematics continue the demand for streaming and respond with extensive anecdotal evidence that shows otherwise.

Like many mathematics teachers I now agree with the anecdotal evidence.  If we don't stream, the average effect for all students is probably the same or better than streaming.  This, for catholic schools is a sensible position, where the rights of the individual can be compromised for the rights of the whole.

Yet, contrariwise, streaming has a detrimental effect on our top students as behavioural and academic requirements of the next tier, take away required teaching time, curriculum focus and effort from the top tier of students.  Only a small percentage of experienced teachers can prevent this effectively.  My observation is that top students, in an environment of top students, excel in a way that they cannot in heterogenous classes, especially in senior school when maturity kicks in.  It is not such a problem in higher SES schools as the gap between higher and lower performing students is much smaller.  It makes little sense not to stream in state schools as in upper school our marketing is driven by the performance of our elite (eg in league tables and media reporting) rather than by performing social good (as is the drive in other education sectors).

In low SES public schools, it also raises an equity position, as the brighter students are negatively effected by students that have no wish, need or demand for higher education.  For a considerable time, looking after our high performing students has been difficult as demands for average results has driven teaching away from the demands of excellence.  Furthermore, the retaining of ill suited students into traditional upper school classes has had a detrimental effect whilst schools devise suitable courses and exit points for these students.

At the other end of the spectrum it also raises equity issues for underperforming students that have little or no hope of meeting C grade standards (without help beyond that which is typically available in a heterogenous classroom).

It is a shame that this is not as readily recognised, as it is only from a drive for excellence does the majority have an aspirational goal and those in direst need receive the attention they require.

Retaining specialist teachers during half cohort changeover

Retaining specialist teachers when the half cohort reaches senior school is another challenge for state schools across WA.  Small schools will reach critical numbers where staff/student ratios will fall below that required to run core subjects.  Where year 11/12 student levels drop below 150, it is difficult to create a staffing profile in low SES schools that allows for students to access a range of stage 3 courses and also importantly for teachers to have access to these classes to ensure career progression.

A simplistic scenario for a maths team in a small school.

15% of a cohort is capable of completing stage 3 courses.

15% of 150 is about 23.  Assume all students are in a maths course.

17 in 3AB MAT combined year 11/12 (1 class)
6 in stage 3 3CD MAT year 12 (1 class)
 
3 in 3AB MAS combined year 11/12 (1 class)
3 in 3CD MAS year 12 (1 class)

To run these courses requires .8 FTE.

Assume all remaining students complete a maths course

62 in 1BC/CD MAT year 11/12 (3 classes)
42 in 2AB/2CD year 11/12 (2 classes)
22 in 2CD/3AB year 11/12 (1 class)

To run these courses requires 1.2 FTE (assumes 1DE/2AB does not run)

3 year 10 classes ~ 90 students

To run this requires .6 FTE.

Total 2.6 FTE (if MAS classes are allowed to run 2.2 otherwise)

This requires loss of a senior school teacher (.6 to be made up by teachers teaching out of area) or a senior school teacher teaching .4 in lower school.

This leaves schools in a precarious position of having limited capacity to overlap in cases of sickness or unexpected absence, limits subject knowledge into the hands of relative few and places load on senior teachers with regard to curriculum requirements such as small group moderation, curriculum monitoring, student preparation for exams and subject guidance.

I think to some degree risk management of increasing dependence of some schools on relatively few staff is an issue that requires urgent attention.  Where schools decide to drop MAS subjects, the ability for the school to direct students at earlier stages in preparation for these subjects diminishes as teachers may be unaware of the curriculum links to MAS courses.

When the half cohort passes through and senior school numbers again rise(and we now face the case of multiple half cohorts due to the lack of a decision to move year 7 to high school), we will also face the issue of a need for teachers in senior school, but will lack the numbers of experienced teachers to fill the roles due to teachers in the system lacking opportunity to teach upper school classes during half cohort years.

It is concerning.

Graduation figures

Maintaining 100% graduation is a constant battle in state schools.  It is a combination of students understanding expectations, good subject selection practices, identifying students at risk, providing intervention to put students back on the path to passing and providing effective alternate paths for those that will not pass regardless.

If any of these practices fail, 100% graduation becomes unlikely.  It is not something that is easily rectified when it fails and if anyone in the process underestimates the importance of their role, the graduation measure falters.

Some would say that 100% graduation is a furphy and strictly speaking it is.  All students should not graduate.  There are those that are intellectually incapable of reaching any standard set, those with insufficient support at home, those with behavioural and motivational issues, those that have failed due to sickness should not pass.  Seeking high graduation rates has one positive effect in that it promotes support for those that need it most, those most likely to fail.  Seeking 100% graduation in low SES schools is an incredible drain on resources and to my mind a bit of a folly.  Low SES schools face too many of the issues every year raised above and without parachuting every student out that looks like failing (which I think is wrong because struggling students deserve a chance to defeat the odds if they are determined), low SES schools are unlikely to consistently reach 100%.  Anything in the high nineties would seem acceptable.

One issue that is often grappled with is late assessment and avoidance of assessment.  Common strategies to overcome this include parent contact, mentoring, detention, suspension, deputy intervention.  Older style strategies (used in years prior to year 12) such as deducting marks for lateness and requiring medical certificates are pursued less often as this puts students at risk far quicker than allowing students extra time to complete stage 1 assignments, especially if they are likely to reach the required standard by the end of the year (but have only failed due to penalties).

I have grappled with the fairness of this approach for a number of years and have come to the conclusion that allowing students more time (and giving more "incentive" to complete assignments) is fair.  Students in low SES schools lack academic, intellectual and emotional development.  The extra time allows development to take place and maturity to kick in for many cases (and thus we do get them over the line).  It's a lot of extra work for senior school teachers to coerce, coach, encourage and force students to complete work at the end of the year - but it means that students leave school with their year 12 certificate, something that is difficult to get later in life if they don't pass the first time.  Repeating year 11 and giving students time to develop further is another effective response.  Students that do their work, are still likely to do better and will go on to greater things.  Those struggling do not deserve to be punished further.

It's counter intuitive, but I do believe it is right.

A good day

I don't normally look forward to being left in charge of the maths team but in short spells it can be quite enjoyable. There was a nice feeling in the team today that was jovial, yet productive. There was a combination of teaching students, assisting colleagues, developing skills in student teachers, finalizing marking prior to reporting and generally working collaboratively to promote learning.

The feeling of collegiality is something that can be lost under the pressure of deadlines. Opportunities to work together in a fun environment can be lost to immediate demands. It's nice to finally reach that time in my career where content and instruction practices become easier to achieve, freeing time such that intervention becomes more of a focus.

It's hard for practicum teachers to see the road ahead. We look at them and see the types of teachers they are growing into, a horizon they can't always see. If they can better understand how it gets simpler(if not easier), perhaps we can improve the retention rates of our young teachers. We need to make that collegiate environment that aids their transition.

Russ.

Leaving marking behind cont..

It was a nice idea leaving marking at school rather than bringing it home.. but it hasn't worked..

I'm just sitting here thinking about it.

bugger.

Taking marking for a holiday

A common problem of many teachers is taking a wad of marking home over the weekend and my best solution to date has been to bring it back unmarked and untouched. It's the 'taking exam papers for a holiday' solution.

Being focused on improving the middle can be a trying task. I really enjoy marking.. I really do.. Those around me though... not so much...

I've tried getting up early, doing it late at night, whilst the baby sleeps, a bit at a time, reserving a whole day. Marking the best ones first, last, randomly. They all end with foul tempered dad, saying multiple bad words with lengthy time considering how to improve mean scores further, talking to myself like the mad cat lady.

But.... I think I have finally solved the problem...

Don't take it home!!

Duh!



...I feel better already :-)

The importance of tone and volume

The teacher voice is something that many teachers are told they need to learn.  I think sometimes the 'teacher voice' is a catchall phrase that practicum teachers can have some difficulty learning.. I know I did as a practicum teacher.

Being soft spoken, it is something that I had to approach.  My first teacher instructor was a shouter - to her classroom control was maintained through a combination of fear and volume.  It was something that I was poorly suited to and found difficult to emulate.

My second teacher instructor maintained her classroom through warmth and caring.  She had an ability to develop a rapport with her students and her classes liked her - much of this I would attribute to her sunny, kinaesthetic Phys Ed inspired background.  Not being the warmest of people myself and a little awkward at times in new social occassions,  it too proved difficult to emulate, although I did take much away from that practicum that I have tried to incorporate into my teaching.  I could see how her approach made it easier to break down barriers and reach that zone of intervention.

My third practicum was nearly my undoing, where the teacher instructor was a disciplinarian - a person I highly respect for the results he achieved in his classroom.  I also taught the class next door once a week and found enforcing this approach was difficult - as setting bounds on classes not seen often was difficult - and is a regular issue in teaching high school.  Whilst being observed in this class, my practicum nearly terminated after a lesson failed to achieve lesson outcomes due to behavioural issues.

Yet from each I was able to take a little bit of what I wanted to do (and what not to do) and established my own style of teaching, authoritarian but with a degree of warmth used to encourage students to achieve above their own understanding of their ability.  Raising my voice a little into assertive tone brings attention quickly - raising my voice above this brings looks of shock and silence for half an hour.  I think my students realise that I care about their performance as long as they are pursuing the methods I describe for success and realise that I care about non compliance when it effects their grades.

Anyhow, assertive delivery is a powerful tool in the arsenal of a teacher.  Use of the tone usually requires a number of things

1. establishment of an attention spot at the front of the room
2. a quick scan of the room (seeking eye contact and indication that instruction will follow)
3. a pause (to give students an opportunity to finish and look up)
4. a statement to gain attention (eyes front, pens down, look here or similar statement) delivered without intonation at a slightly high volume level than instructional voice (a voice that can be heard at the back of the room).
5. a second scan of the room to identify non compliant students in conjunction with a number of low key responses for students that need additional attention (hand signals, name, indication to neighbour)
6. a willingness to discuss consequences with students and move students permanently that do not respond after multiple processes

Once attention can be gained and maintained easily, delivery of materials becomes considerably easier.  It's not really the obscure secret many teachers make it out to be nor is it an optimal strategy for all teachers.  It is one of the more successful strategies for practicum teachers to use during practicum where more reliable and effective rapport based strategies really take too long to successfully implement.

Being predominantly a rapport based teacher, I do empathise with practicum teachers that are not 'type A' individuals sport stars and fashion victims that students immediately warm to.  My fear with the current practicum system is that many of the highest potential teachers are lost to the system as they do not have the time to develop a reputation amongst the student population as a great teacher rather than as a new cool teacher.

I love being a math teacher - as sportiness and fashion are rarely problems for us.  No expectation of being cool here :-)

Practicum Teachers

There is another side of taking practicum teachers - the side where the teacher instructors benefit.  A good practicum teacher is worth their weight in gold.  Some of the reasons for taking a practicum student:

• They are the bees of education, cross pollinating ideas from one school to another and from their own educational background
• They bring enthusiasm into the classroom
• They are an extra pair of eyes, ears and hands
• They lack pre-conceived notions and challenge the status quo
• They bring fresh ideas, a level of innocence and hope
• They lack some of our cynicism and crustiness
• It forces us to re-evaluate our own teaching practices
• They bring youthfulness into teaching staff
• It provides some longevity to our own learning when seen in their teaching

Most of all they can be a lot of fun. Once in your fourth or fifth year, I'd heartily recommend taking one for a term.

Lesson plans

I think every practicum teacher goes through questioning why lesson plans are useful.  Some find them odious and don't see the value of creating something that rarely executes as expected.  As a teacher instructor, I find lesson plans a real insight into what is intended by a practicum teacher.  As a tool it forces the practicum student to think about what they intend to do, before doing it.  The lesson plan also provides an opportunity for feedback between the teacher instructor and practicum teacher that can be done before a lesson is run (rather than the trite comment given by teacher instructors with the benefit of hindsight after the lesson).

A quick look at a lesson plan can provide a teacher instructor a wealth of information about how a practicum teacher is travelling.  Here are some things that I look at within a lesson plan.

• Has the teacher connected the lesson to prior learning?
• Is timing adequately considered?
• Is the scope of the lesson being managed?
• Are the main teaching points identified?
• Is the level proposed appropriate for the students?
• Is there adequate opportunity for students to demonstrate competence?

Without a reasonably detailed and well thought out lesson plan, practicum  teachers are placed on the back foot, forever reacting to issues rather than predicting issues and developing skills and knowledge to compensate.  By setting clear goals for performance before a lesson practicum teachers are able to see improvement measured against the goals of the lesson plan.

A note of warning, lesson plans on practicum have a finite life, as practicum teachers start taking full load, timing constraints limit their effectiveness (and can cause burnout towards the end of ten week practicum if detailed lesson plans are pursued).   The full benefit of a lesson plan is gained whilst a practicum students is ramping up. Even with this limitation, lesson plans (for all their odious nature), tied to reflective practices after a lesson, provide practicum teachers a platform to develop their fledgling skills into skilled teaching practitioners.

Classroom presence

I asked a colleague to talk to my practicum student about teaching.. Often a colleague has different viewpoints on teaching and can get to the nub of a problem faster than I can. There was some great advice about establishing presence in a classroom.

Establish space between the whiteboard and the class >1.5m
- use this as performance space. Move towards the class for emphasis and towards the board when teaching.

Establish modes of voice.
- develop a range of tones that can be used to indicate pleasure/displeasure, tied to a range of volumes

Develop affectations to your teaching
- Tapping a whiteboard marker can be more effective than shouting, as can removing or looking over your glasses.

Change your travel path
- ensure that your travel path is giving attention to all students and is not just a convenient way to travel a room.

All of these things will change your presence in the room and were good ideas. I would add a few more - wait for quiet before starting instruction (be patient.. 5 seconds is longer than you think), establish a spot so students know to be quiet when you are standing in it when waiting for attention, ensure that you are giving positive and negative feedback, be warm but not overly friendly and welcome students on entry.

I'm sure there are many more!

Practicum teachers & Teacher instructors

Practicum is the gateway to the profession.  It ensures new teachers have the experience to have their own classroom and sets clear expectations of performance outside of an tertiary academic environment.

Practicum teachers are a resource that is relatively infinite.  Good practicum teachers are not.  Teaching is an attractive profession to students as it is a familiar environment and one where students see infinite room for improvement.  This gloss can come off to some degree during practicum.

Teachers instructors come in a range of colours and shapes.  Aggressive/passive, lazy/committed,  skilled/enthusiastic (grin),  assessment driven/programme driven and with a range of teaching styles.

Good/bad teacher instructors are relative judgements. They make and break practicum teachers.  Let's see some of the pitfalls for practicum instructors

• Providing insufficient opportunities to fail
• Giving insufficient guidance on expectations
• Providing inadequate encouragement
• Assuming complete content knowledge
• Providing inadequate written response
• Creating insufficient opportunities to show initiative
• Insufficient direction/focus
• Insufficient guidance on required scaffolding
• Overestimating diagnostic abilities
• Assumption of teaching skills (photocopying, marking, using equation editor, CAS calculator usage, fxdraw, whiteboard usage, interactive whiteboards)

When we look at an incomplete list such as this and then overlay behavior management (which is the usually the primary focus of practicum) we start to realise the hurdle that practicum teachers face.  When I hear about accelerated teaching programmes that reduce the time for undergraduate teaching degrees I fear that policy makers are underestimating the impact that good teacher instructors can make.  Furthermore they are underestimating the impost of the shifting of responsibility from the student during practicum, to the teacher during their first year of teaching.  This will be borne by experienced staff and administration dealing with issues typically dealt with on practicum.

Good teacher instructors are using their full range of abilities to ensure that practicum teachers are maintaining their confidence at appropriate levels and by ensuring student learning is continuing.  The ability of the system to identify good potential teachers is based around the practicum system and bypassing this system has potential for lowering teaching standards further.

Apologies where due.

After re-reading my last post, I had a think back to my last performance management review.  Being a male, performance reviews, when I did them, focused on performance.  What had a person done, how had it been done, how could it be done better.  It focused on skills had, skills developed, skills required and skills gained since the previous review.

I learned something from my last performance management.  I lacked soft skills when performance managing.  A good manager knows their staff and steps in to remind them when they are not looking after themselves and can step in and make changes.  I always did this under my management premise rather than under performance management - but I can see how it could fit here too.  If a staff member is not looking after themselves, if home life is not taken into account - performance will suffer.  By talking through the issues (rather than just making the changes) a staff member can become empowered to better manage themselves.

Revising my original statement, under my usage of performance management, admin is poorly suited to analysing content provision and pedagogy due to time and skills constraints.  Using their experience to assist in management of self is a good use of their time, as they see continuous snapshots of staff behaviour and can spot when a staff member is struggling.  Reviewing how often this is occurring is a valid use of performance management time.

I'm lucky in this respect as my line manager (and even indirectly my principal) has had to step in a number of times to remind me of my limitations before I started something I couldn't finish.  For that I am thankful.


Russ.

Rewards for great teachers

Money for teachers.. Aimed at rewarding 10% of teachers.  For what?  Great teachers?  My issue with this idea is that government couldn't recognise a peer recognised 'great teacher' if peers erected a 60 foot high arrow above the teacher's head. I have real doubts at the success of this Commonwealth initiative.

Here are the proposed criteria for rewards circulated by Ms Gillard:

• Lesson observations
• Student performance data (including NAPLAN and school based information that can show the valued added by particular teachers)
• Parental feedback
• Teacher qualifications and professional development undertaken.

It seems the majority of the criteria is through administration based appraisal.  Staff who have been through an appraisal process know why teachers are cynical about their effectiveness.  The general summary is that deputies cannot assess subjects out of their own prior learning area on anything but behavioural matters.  These processes are time consuming and have little priority.  Outcomes from these meetings are negligible.  They are a hoop to jump each year.  I'm not having a poke at admin, they're busy and have a job to do - staff appraisal is not one well suited to them.

Lesson observations are generally futile given the amount of feedback that comes from them.  Without HoDs or subject superintendents, lesson observations only assess classroom management and this can vary greatly from day to day based on happenings within the school or within the home.  They are snapshots done maybe once a year.

How does the government expect this whole process to happen?  Who will pay for the time to collect this information, analyse it and present it for "approval" by government?  Where is the incentive for teachers that make huge differences in childrens lives outside the academic sphere?

Here is a cynical look at the process for gaining the money: 

Step 1: Prepare a lesson with little effective learning that is flashy
Step 2: Overteach NAPLAN and identify students that you can make large value adds and teach the class at that level
Step 3: Make sure parents put nice things about you on a "rate my teacher" type website (the alternative is ridiculous as it is near impossible to get a detailed questionnaire filled in a low socioeconomic school).  Challenge every poor parental response vigorously
Step 4: Seek spurious professional development to bolster your claim
Step 5: Fill out a wad of paper that takes inordinate amounts of time away from the classroom.  Sing your own praises until you sound like God's gift to teaching.
Step 6: Wait 8-24 months for your application to be appraised by a highly efficicent organisation such as WACOT.  Wait another 8-24 months for it to be approved.

I see absolutely nothing here that actually improves student performance, that leads to to gaining employment or higher education.  If the government wants to see this failed model in action - go seek out L3CT's or the WACOT registration and renewal process (that this sounds very similar to and has similarly been highly?? successful).  It's not the best teachers that succeed in these process, generally it's those with a lot of time on their hands and those willing to gild the lily.

This needs to be reconsidered and focussed on where a difference can be made.

Reward those that teach at the highest level (stage three subjects). Reward those in specialist programmes for disengaged students. Reward those in special needs areas. Reward those that consistently get students into university, apprentiships and TAFE courses. Reward those that go beyond their teaching requirements and still do an admirable job in the classroom.  Reward those recognised by peers as exemplary teachers.  Make people aspire to these levels to improve their teaching. There is nothing else easily measurable that teachers do.

NAPLAN in particular does not measure what one teacher has achieved.

Rewards should be an incentive to continue doing a good job.  If people keep doing a good job, keep rewarding them year after year after year.  Strangely enough, seniority captures this more effectively than performance management (generally, teachers that have taught longer are better teachers - those that can't quit or are encouraged to move on).  Couple seniority to more flexible staff movements and a better mix should be possible.

If the government wants change, improve teacher training (increase the subject specific content level appropriate for teaching), recentralise staffing with a focus on school performance rather than 'bums on seats' (moving these higher paid expert teachers into areas they are most required) and install monitors on learning areas such as subject superintendents for each region and HoDs in schools.  Improve pay rates and ensure that schools have the ability to move staff on.  Allow schools to focus on become specialist learning institutions to compete with private schools.  Provide assistance to deal with difficult students outside the general education system (this is where private organisations should be funded - to do the work government doesn't/can't do - rather than becoming a dumping ground for private schools).


The media release is here for those that want to poke a stick at it.

IOTY nomination 2011

The IOTY has been won by Julia Gillard before, but she continues to make a fool of herself to draw headlines away from real problems, by creating new ones.

Her latest brainwave is to reward teachers that improve NAPLAN scores.  Hey, I'm all for taking money from the government for doing nothing.  Let's see how it will work.

Year 7 teacher gets a bunch of students that have fallen behind.  He works hard with them but he has no hope of preparing these kids for massive improvement before the test.  They are tested in May 2011 and perform miserably compared to their 2009 Year 5 NAPLAN scores.  Sorry.. no bonus for you.   Regardless, with the support of a great administration he continues to work with his kids and they improve dramatically.

The next year the year 8 teacher is good too and the kids continue to improve in 2012.  Sorry... no bonus for you. We don't test NAPLAN in year 8.

One year nine teacher focuses on teaching the kids how to solve NAPLAN problems.  These kids do very well at NAPLAN in May.  Job well done, the teacher plays guitar the rest of the year, the kids learn very little and the teacher gets a nice fat bonus.  Upper school?  That's someone else's problem.

Another year nine teacher for similar kids focuses on what year 10 students need to understand and provides a sequenced course.  Her NAPLAN scores are not as good but are a more accurate representation of the level of the students.  No bonus for you.  She is invited to find a new job next year as she is under performing despite being popular with kids, parents and upper school teachers.

Upper school teachers get jacked off with the system and start applying for middle school roles.  Teachers in the upper school become less skilled and results suffer.  Nobody really cares because school performance is measured primarily through the 10 months of NAPLAN teaching rather than over the whole 5 years.

Of course this is based on gross speculation, but considering her past performance and lack of ability to heed advice or public opinion, a more than likely scenario.

Julia Gillard, you truly deserve to be renominated as Idiot of the Year for 2011.  You are an idiot.

Marble run

Spending time with my daughter has been fun and inspiring. Today we were playing with her marble run. Best $40 I've spent for some time.. She fed the run for at least half an hour. I'm guessing she likes the feeling of starting something that continues for some time without any real effort.

Teaching is like that sometimes.. The summer school started three years ago and I was unable to participate this year, yet it continued. Similarly I am now working with the maths academy kids trying to set something that will grow into a lasting benefit to the school. The programmes we wrote are still being used and adapted. I think the knack is to take ownership until it is working and then gradually step back, keeping an eye and maintaining the vision of the project. If you don't do this you are not really contributing to the school, just your own resumes... The project will die as soon as you leave.

Hopefully the same will occur with the Naplan analysis that we are doing this year.

Similarly, starting things and expecting others to finish it is a common path to failure. A lack of adequate committment and management results in underdeveloped projects with resentment by the participants - those thrown into the breach. Worst of all are the managers that take credit when the project succeeds despite the odds through someone else taking ownership.

Russ.

Emergent vs Divergent curriculum

Early learning in Australia has a great focus on Emergent learning.  I know little of this idea but I see clear parallels between it and failed OBE approaches.  Yet those that go back three years in my writing know that I actually support the ideals of OBE, just not its implementation in WA.

If (as I suspect) emergent learning focuses on letting students travel in directions best suited to their current status as a learner, I would draw notice again to the frailties of this model.

• In general, it is very difficult for any but a highly skilled practitioner to maintain an individual focus on a classroom of children - especially in the first five years of being a teacher.  The skills to diagnose, resource, devise, integrate and execute multiple programmes in a room is near impossible for a learner teacher.  It is a sure path to burnout and disenchantment with the profession.
• Students resist learning in lieu of fun.  If left to their own devices they will not learn optimally.  Pacing a course at the speed requested by a student will ultimately fail the student.  A highly motivated student is a challenged student, not necessarily an 100% happy one.

I would be a poor educator if I didn't offer an alternative, especially for our practicum and graduate teachers.  I call it a divergent curriculum and again I don't doubt it has been suggested before, though it hasn't been brought to my attention.  If we want more teachers that can embrace the best of OBE or Emergent curriculums, then I would suggest this approach.

• Create a baseline syllabus that dictates 80% of the course, when, what and how it should be taught for all teachers under 5 years of experience.  Have these teachers mentored, assisted and monitored by experienced teachers (5 years+) regularly.
• In the remaining 20% allow for remediation and extension. 
• The teacher must return to the syllabus each time a new topic is encountered.
• Experienced teachers that embrace emergent or variant curriculums are reduced to .8, have increased pay, given EA support and set high performance metrics in order to renew courses.  If courses do not meet metrics teachers return to the syllabus.
• Results are centrally coordinated and used to justify changes to the syllabus or suggested alternate programmes for special needs areas or developing teachers.

Thus the curriculum is only allowed to diverge by 20% unless the experienced teacher judges that more is necessary.  The load for curriculum design in the early years of teaching is reduced and by the end of five years the 20% "focus" becomes the resource for when syllabus restrictions are released.  Only teachers with experience to create emergent or purely outcomes based curriculum are allowed to do so (as they have a thorough understanding of what needs to be taught and a baseline for how long it takes to teach it) and it is closely monitored.

If we want to draw a line in the sand of where teacher pay rates should increase, it should be here.  Some might be cynical and say choosing five is because I am five years out.. but being more cynical, even if this idea was embraced, it would take another five years to implement and gain momentum.  I have no idea what I will be doing by then :-)

Learning as a parent

I have a two year old and she is too often my teacher. I learn more about myself through our interactions than through hours of teaching. At the moment she is going through a "wake up at four" phase, waking up screaming (thus the 5am blog). Normally, I'm tired and half awake so I bring her in with us. Being on holidays, I sat with her and after much screaming of "big bed" she let me give her a cuddle and said "scared daddy". So I sat with her on the chair in her room, closed the cupboard door and she fell asleep in my arms.

I wonder how many times a student has felt scared of a new Maths topic and I have gone into autopilot and shortcut the issue by providing a question specific solution that does not generalise for the elementary problem. Rather than giving the answer, I should allow a student to elucidate what the issue is and then provide abstract tools to prevent it happening again. Time notwithstanding, I think this is what maths should be more about.

Experts in their field

According to the Australian council of professions, a profession is:

"A disciplined group of individuals who adhere to high ethical standards and uphold themselves to, and are accepted by, the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognised, organised body of learning derived from education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to exercise this knowledge and these skills in the interest of others.

Inherent in this definition is the concept that the responsibility for the welfare, health and safety of the community shall take precedence over other considerations."

As a computer programmer, analyst and manager, I had a group of skills and worked ethically to provide a service.  There was both an effort and reward to what was being sought and achieved.  I was paid well for my knowledge and was accountable for any advice given.

As a teacher I bring my old skills and have a set of new skills, yet demand for this knowledge is limited to submission requests by national curriculum, moderation requirements by curriculum council and occasional tutoring programmes.

As teachers, the transition from seniority based government workers to teaching professionals is not being well managed.  Career progression is poorly defined and clearly needs additional work.  It's in nobody's interest to address this issue as it will make a large workforce considerably dearer to work with.

What no-one is considering is that the increasing requirements on teachers to perform to metrics is creating a specialised workforce that will increasingly require differentiation and alternate wage scales to retain key performing employees within the workforce.  When this starts to happen the knowledge of key employees will gain value, diminishing the willingness to share knowledge especially where a market advantage is gained by the organisation.


It reminds me that when WACOT release ethical standards for teachers (after they finish that wad of registrations that is their revenue source), we need to be certain to ascertain how limiting they are to ensure that the remuneration is consistent with expectations.

Specialisation and professionalism needs to be properly re-established at the teaching training level.  The image of a  teacher in a mortar board and gown, cane in hand, standing over students studiously working on chalkboards, feared by parents, admired for their knowledge is long gone.  Perhaps, with the rise of an 'education first' approach to teaching training, a teacher delivering developmentally relevant content to a group of engaged students that understand the consequences of under performance on their future vocations, teachers will become again become valued members of a community. Maybe this person should be paid more.

A teacher that performs at a high level within a community and is visible in promoting education of parents' children may even become respected again.  Maybe this is a viable pathway to raising the profile of groups of teachers in the profession at a local level.  Maybe these people should be paid more.

A teacher that brings a wider knowledge of life through experience would help make better citizens.  Maybe this person should be paid more.

Maybe when those in high places actually consider the fiscal issues of a metric based educational economy they will reconsider this whole notion.  Who is looking after or taking chances on the kids that don't make good metrics?

Teaching is and should be always be a vocation well supported by all so that what needs to be done, gets done.  Let's hope it stays that way.

Russ.

More work not less

Students in low socio-economic areas need to do more work in high school despite behavioural distractions.  I've listened to colleagues that studied in NSW espousing the benefits of a multi stage course in senior school. I've never really bought into the argument for the majority of students, but for our top end I'm not so sure.

We have the maths academy twice a week after school.  The year 10 students are a keen bunch and are willing to work.  Taking out the two advanced students (and placing them in with year 11 and 12's), the majority of the rest have shown a vast improvement through the extra two hours a week.

This attention for the middle has raised class averages from sixties to eighties (resulting in an avalanche of praise) something I have never been able to achieve before.  Given the statement - students that are behind have to work harder (such as in areas where students start with a social disadvantage) and the fact that extra attention can work for these students (who come in their own time for nothing but the potential for a better grade), it identifies an equity issue that is difficult to ignore.

We put vast amount of effort (and money) into students with behavioural issues - but in many cases we ignore those with academic needs because they cause little trouble and parents are unaware of their potential.  With the lack of performance data in this area - I would say not only parents are unaware of actual potential, I would say schools, teachers, administration and society are also unaware of this potential.  Since our middle management and bureaucracy comes from this pool, we endanger future performance with this neglect.  We are creating a large welfare/low income group onto which we will have to support well into the future.

Teachers are in some part to blame for this - as we individually protect these students by investing our own time, allowing the system to abuse the goodwill teachers have towards their students.  Why pay teachers for putting in extra time if they are willing to do it themselves?  Private schools take this one step further and write donations of family time into school time as a part of extra curricular requirements.  Good people enter teaching - and as such set themselves up to be burned out by unscrupulous employers.  It takes other teachers within the system to identify when this is happening as teacher management itself is near non-existent (as management focus is placed on behavioural issues with students rather than optimising teacher delivery).  If teacher management is attempted it usually a band aid prior to slingshotting them into another role or school.  Result - students fall through the cracks (chasm) on a regular basis.

Once upon a time schools protected academic performance as the core business of a school.  Since losing this focus schools now have other metrics such as attendance and suspensions (resulting in lower crime figures) and year 9 performance on standardised tests (resulting in funding advantages).  Neither of which examine the output of a school vs the input of a school.  It is difficult to take a snapshot of a school as the main metric is measured over 5 year periods.  During this time anything could have changed - especially as student performance can be greatly modified through teacher, principal or community involvement (positively or negatively).

Where schools seek to keep out of the news and have a status quo with students, rather than seeking excellence and pushing them to their limits, it raises students with little resilience and little understanding of their own capabilities.  This is a poor outcome for everyone.