pedagogy

TEDEducation

Published by Nick

Some of you may be familiar with TED Talks “Ideas Worth Spreading”. A great site that provides short talks on a huge range of topics. The quality of speakers and talks that can be found on TED Talk is excellent. So now TED have created TED Education. A site that brings together outstanding lessons by educators all over the world and employs professional animators to then animate those lessons to produce a quality videos (no longer than 10 minutes) for you to use free in your classroom. This in itself is good but there are a number of other functions the site offers. You can customise (flip) the videos provided on the site to suit your class and track your students success/use of the video(s). The videos are accompanied by lessons which are not designed to replace good teaching but are there to supplement a teachers lesson. These lessons contain quiz questions, open ended questions and resources to dig deeper into the topic. This site has only just got up and running, at the time I posted this the video below had only been on You Tube for 15 hours. This means there are currently not a huge number of videos available just yet (62 at the time of this post).  I wouldn’t be put off by this however as I would be guessing this will increase rapidly over the next 12 months.

From the brief look I have had of the site it certainly seems to be more suited to secondary students.

Below I have embeded a couple of videos from Ted Ed including the TED Ed Website Tour plus one from Adam Savage (Mythbusters) who walks through two spectacular examples of profound scientific discoveries that came from simple, creative methods.

 

Click here to visit TED Ed Lessons Worth Sharing – put this site in your favourites!

Click here to visit TED Talks Ideas Worth Sharing – put this site in your favourites!

I use ego based feedback ……… a lot!

Published by Nick

During our recent student free day (term 1) part of my talk to staff was about ‘ego based feedback’ and ‘tasked based feedback’. Part of this revolved around the importance of task based feedback to assist with student learning. There seemed to be a general consensus that a combination of both was necessary. I do believe however that task based feedback is more important to learning but do agree that a combination is important. So after having raised this with staff it was interesting to listen to myself giving feedback to the receptions during an throwing activity I did with them. It’s amazing how many ‘good boy’ and ‘good girl’ statements I fitted into such a short space of time. Approximately a ratio of 14 good boy/girl statements  to 1 task based piece of feedback. I see a use for ego based feedback but would prefer the ratio to be weighted in the favour of task based feedback. I knew that I used ego based feedback quite a bit with the receptions but until I listened to myself was not aware how much. My aim now is to improve this ratio in favour of task based feedback during term 2.

It is amazing what we don’t pick up when we are in the middle of a lesson and what we can pick up when we use video or have someone observe our teaching.

 

Grades – do they define a child?

Published by Nick

Love the reactions (many and varied) in this video of students recieving their grades. Our system requires grades (for better or worse – depending on your view). From personal experience it is hard to shift a student from believing they are a ‘C’ student to believing they can be a ‘B’ student. Are there better ways to feedback to students how they have gone?

Finlands Education System

Published by Nick

The first video is from ABC’s Lateline. Finland’s director of education Pasi Sahlberg joins Lateline to discuss the nation’s world-leading education system.

 

The second video has nothing new about Finland’s Education system that I haven’t posted before however I did enjoy the presenter of the show. He goes to town on American education policy makers and America’s attitude in general to change (or lack of) in the face of mounting evidence about what makes a good educational system.

Does ‘Hands Up’ in a classroom have a negative impact for some?

Published by Nick

Love the faces of the teachers in the video when Dylan Wiliams is talking to them about ‘hands up’. I can’t believe how worried they look and apprehensive they are to something as small as using a different method for getting students to answer questions.

It would be interesting to hear what staff think about the concept of ‘hands up’ being detrimental to student learning (for those that don’t engage). I know Ed is having a go at this so it would be interesting to hear his perspective on how he thinks it is helping (or not) in his class.

Part 1

Part 2

AC/TfEL Staff Meeting Wednesday Week 9

Published by Nick

Just a reminder about our Australian Curriculum and TfEL meeting coming up next Wednesday (week 9).

Again we will just go straight into these meetings and if time is required afterwards for a short admin meeting (10-15min) you will be notified.

TfEL

If staff looking at TfEL could meet in the staff room at 3:30pm. Staff in this group will be at one of two points – 1. Still undertaking the ‘Personal Reflection’ pg 10 and the ‘Self Review of Practice’ pg 11 OR 2. Based on your reflection you have decided on what one or two  Elements you would like to investigate and improve as part of your teaching. If you are at this point you will need the DVD. Download the resources for your Element(s) and start to investigate what these resources are about and what they have to offer. Remember there are PDF files (articles, questions etc) and MP4 files (video) which often link back to a PDF file. It is also important that you are documenting some of your progress (dot points?) as it should be forming a part of your performance management process.

Australian Curriculum

R-6 Maths -Meet in Kim’s room? I am assuming that primary staff are now looking at the Australian Curriculum: maths. I had a meeting with Trish Boschetti, one of three district Australian Curriculum officers in our area, and she is willing to attend some of our staff meetings where possible. She committed to come to this meeting in week 9 and also the first AC/TfEL meeting in week 2 term 2. I have suggested to Trish that she has a general discussion with you in next weeks meeting to find out where you are at and what your concerns are. Hopefully the next meeting in term 2 she can structure something useful for you based on your needs and bring along resources (she did mention she was keen on doing something around assessment and moderation).

My intention is to try and access Trish for the primary staff initially as they are on the tightest timeline having to plan, assess and report in semester 2 this year. My hope is that as we move into the end of term 2 and start of term 3 Trish will be available to work with secondary staff.

8-10 History (Justin, Rosalie and Nick) – Meet in library. My understanding from our last meeting was that we wanted to try and design a proforma that allowed for a more user friendly version of the Achievement Standards in history.

8-10 Science (Allan and Tanya) – Depending on where you are at maybe having a look at the portfolios of work for science at Years 8, 9 and 10. May be useful. Would be interesting to get your view point on the standard expected at a ‘satisfactory’ level at each year level.

I have not got around to staff to ask where they are at with the AC/TfEL over the last fortnight as it has been quite busy. I feel like I need to know where people are at so that when I am looking at resources or talking with district people like Trish I can access relevant and appropriate resources that link to where staff are at at that point in time. So if you get the opportunity to let me know where you or your group is at either face to face, email or even a comment to this post that would be great.

How do we measure the value of a teacher?

Published by Nick

Since standardised testing has made its way into the national spotlight through NAPLAN and the MY School website teachers have continued to discuss the issues of using these test results as a measure. Currently NAPLAN compares schools in a very public way. What would you do if that comparison was no longer the school but you? What if your name was published alongside your ‘value’ ranking (percentile) which was determined by how well your students did on their annual standardised test? What would you do if this result impacted on your job security and could get you fired? Would you narrow the curriculum to push your kids to achieve in the areas to be tested? I think I probably would! This is the case in some US States and educational districts. Below is a link to a thought provoking and emotional article by a teacher named Maribeth Whitehouse who ranked in the 99th percentile based on her students doing very well in the standardised tests.

Click here to read Measuring My Value.

The Khan Academy/Flipped Classroom

Published by Nick

The Khan Academy: The future of education? American 60 Minutes did a piece a couple of days ago about Sal Khan and The Khan Academy. The Khan Academy has inspired a whole new way of thinking called the ‘Flipped Classroom’ where students get the information at home through video and do their homework at school. The reasoning being that if students are accessing well thought out explanations about concepts and topics at home they are then prepared to do more activities and tasks in class with teacher help as opposed to ‘passively listening’ to the teacher explain concepts. I know Ed is using the Khan Academy videos with some of his students in Year 9 maths.

Here is the 60 Minutes segment. An amazing story of what one person has achieved (some of the software being trialled looks amazing).

 

A Fear of Failure

Published by Nick

Last week I posted about Assessment, Grading and Learning and got some responses from Ed, Paul and Kim discussing their thoughts on these things. Some of this post talked about failure and its links with to learning. To add to this discussion I have found two videos by Dan Haesler that discuss failure. Feel free to add your comment/views on failure and how you see it’s relevance in a classroom.