Visited my new school today, met my colleagues, saw my new classroom, received my timetable and the plan for the first few weeks of school.
SOOO relieved to be at an organised school, which clearly cares about its students, is up to date with new technology, has lovely welcoming staff and a clear agenda. Long live public education.
Also SOOOO nervous about actually being responsible for students of my very own. WAY more nervous than I was for either of my student teaching placements, which doesn't seem to make sense - shouldn't I be feeling more confident, instead of less?
For all you out there reading this (I know you're there!) any advice for a nervous first year teacher is greatly appreciated.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
I have a job!
Well, it's official. I have been offered a job. In the interests of protecting students' (and my own) privacy I won't include the location here, but suffice to say I am really pleased. It's a school I'm familiar with, which eliminates at least some of the fears and challenges associated with my first full-time year of teaching. It's in a pretty convenient area for me, with a demographic context that I feel I 'fit' in, and although I don't know the specifics of what I'm teaching yet, I'm at least confident that it's in my discipline, which is a relief as well. So all in all I'm going into the summer holidays feeling pretty excited and not as nervous or stressed as I thought I'd be!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
STS E-Portfolio
Critical Incident
I have chosen to explore this critical incident as for me it is an example of "an incident that had been particularly successful, unsuccessful, surprising or revealing" (Hammerness et al, 2001, p. 6). This incident was, for me, all of the above. My success was in making history interesting and engaging for my students. I was unsuccessful, however, in assessing whether my students really learnt what I intended; and in managing their behaviour. The incident was surprising in that it revealed to me the extent to which I must focus on providing high quality scaffolding, even for senior students; and revealing in that on reflection, it has shown me both my strengths and my weaknesses.
My mentor teacher taught a senior (years nine and ten) elective History class called “Medieval Life” and asked me to design a three-week unit to teach between units on castles and food. This gave me the opportunity to determine what content I believed was important to an understanding of medieval history, but that was missing from her semester-long course. I elected to construct my mini-unit on Medieval Medicine, in which the students learnt about the Galenic theory of the four humors, common medieval illnesses and remedies, and the Black Death of 1346-51. This unit would address the following outcomes, taken from the placement school's course outline:
"The student:
- Understands the relationship between geographical context and particular world issues and events
- Identifies sources and collects data and information in systematic ways
- Manages, organises and evaluates data and information in order to draw conclusions consistent with this data"
The unit also worked towards standard outcomes including:
"6.LA.1: routinely use ICT to enhance their ability to research and learn through inquiry, with an understanding that using ICT can enable broader inquiry and access to a wide variety of information, opinions and perspectives
2.LA.11: draw conclusions that are consistent with the data or information and provide evidence or supporting details
23.LA.5: the relationship between geographical context and particular world issues and events"
(ACT DET)
My critical incident took place in the second week of the three-week long unit. To see the lesson sequence, click here.
The content was intrinsically interesting for most students in the class, who were particularly interested in the many implausible medieval treatments. As the class was made up of many verbal and kinesthetic learners (Gardner, in Krause et al., 2003, p. 201), I designed two role-play activities in which students took on the role of a medieval European. The first, which I entitled "Medieval Medical Marketplace", is the focus of this assignment. Roughly one-third of the class were given the part of various healers, including surgeons, nuns, apothecaries, blood-letters and the like, whilst the other two-thirds played patients with bubonic plague, St. Vitus’ Dance, leprosy, an injured arm, St. Anthony’s Fire, and so on. I distributed the roles strategically, giving the healer parts to the most engaged students in order to extend them.
The students were given two lessons of research time in the computer labs in which I presented a short-list of recommended websites on the class’s homepage and a list of "Research Goals" (questions based on their character in the role-play, such as "How did I learn my profession?" and "What are the selling points of my approach?"). I collected the students' books after the research lessons in order to assess the depth of their research, before returning them for the role-play.
For the next lesson, we rearranged the classroom furniture into a U-shape to create a marketplace in which each of the patients spoke to each of the healers, gathered information on each healer’s practice and recommended treatments, and judged which healer they would prefer to treat their affliction. The patients then reported to the rest of the class which healer they chose and why. I took a tally of the business gained by each healer, and the most successful healer was rewarded with a small toy.
The Medieval Medical Marketplace activity was, I believe, valuable for illustrating to the students the nature of medieval medical knowledges. The requirement for all patients to speak to all healers meant that every student was exposed to many medical traditions and methods, much like in an “Expert Groups” style cooperative learning activity. The patients were required to report to the class at the end of the role play, with the healer they had chosen to treat them, and their reasoning. This report functioned as a formative assessment for me, in the same way that the various healers’ diagnoses and prescriptions demonstrated the depth of their understanding.
Mentor Teacher's Feedback
My mentor teacher provided feedback after the first of the research lessons, intimating that there was a lack of appropriate scaffolding in my preparation of the lesson. Many of my recommended websites were text-heavy, which proved to be a challenge for the students. Some prior discussion about appropriate reading strategies for websites would have been beneficial, to remind students to skim their websites, assess the importance of elements of the text and focus only on those areas they deemed important. Instead, many students focused on only one website's information, when my aim was for them to visit many sites and therefore gain a much broader picture of medieval medicine. For this reason I booked a second research lesson in which I further refined my instructions and highlighted for the students that they would not need to read everything on the websites. During the second lesson I also provided more explicit information on the purpose of their research, giving them specific questions to answer rather than the first lesson's overly simple instruction to take notes on their role.
My mentor's feedback on the role play lesson itself was brief but encouraging. She focussed on the behaviour management challenges which I will explore later in this assignment, but did not discuss my pedagogy or assessment strategies, which are the focus of this assignment.
Interpretation of Critical Incident
My initial reflection on this incident is represented here (click to view larger):
The class were predominantly white students from middle and lower socio-economic status families, and, being aged between fifteen and sixteen years old, were in transition between Piaget's concrete operations and formal operations stages of development (Krause et al., 2003, pp. 47-53). My decision to use a role play activity was based on the knowledge that a large number of my students were what Howard Gardner would call verbal/linguistic and kinesthetic learners (Krause et al., 2003, pp.201), and several also had strong interpersonal intelligence. We also had one student with an undiagnosed learning difficulty and one student from a language background other than English; my intention was that the activity would provide these two students with a 'break' from what had been a fairly listening and writing intensive unit, with plenty of new vocabulary to digest. I took care when distributing the roles to give these two students roles that would link to their existing knowledge. The first student's low literacy level impeded her research somewhat, but I feel the role-play exercise benefitted her as she was exposed to the results of all the other students' research as well as her own, and her verbal/oral processing is sound, meaning she learnt more effectively from the other students' presentations than she would have done from her own research. The second student had an opportunity to talk about our content matter with his peers, in a safe and supportive environment that allowed him to show his understanding without the impediment of written language to slow him down.
I chose the role-play activity with an eye to exploring forms of cooperative learning. I was influenced by methods such as Jigsaw and Expert Groups, which require all members of the group to have completed their individual contribution for the good of the whole group (Krause et al., 2003, p. 185). I felt that this approach would be an efficient way in which to cover a very broad area of knowledge, since the content could be stretched in a number of different directions. Specifically, I intended on covering the medieval Catholic Church's beliefs about illness and healing, the similarities and differences between medieval and modern-day healing, the barter system, the range of choice available to the ruling classes and the lack thereof for peasants. This widely varying content could fill much longer than my three-week unit, so I elected to present it in this Jigsaw-style role play activity to allow students to become 'experts' in one area, and receive other experts' knowledge about the other areas.
My school subscribes to the "Learning By Design" theory of learning, so in an effort to ensure consistency for my students, and expose myself to a new theory of curriculum design, I approached this learning activity with the Learning By Design principles in mind. Our prior discussion of superstitions, as well as our "Noisy Round Robin" brainstorming exercise on medieval medicine, linked to the students knowledge in what Learning By Design refers to as "Experiencing the Known" (see the Learning By Design planning placemat here). This involves creating links to what the students already know about a topic to "switch them on" and prepare them for new information. I found this was particularly important to this unit of work, since medieval medicine is far removed from the students' everyday lives in many ways, and their previous exposure to it was almost non-existent.
My research lessons were based on the Learning By Design "Experiencing the New" principle, as students' research goals were grounded in finding out new information about their profession or illness. There was an element of linkage to their prior knowledge built into this lesson, since the patients were instructed to research the modern-day treatment for their illness as well as the medieval treatment, and for many of them that treatment was somewhat familiar.
The role-play activity was a combination of "Applying Appropriately" and "Analysing Functionally and Critically". The healers applied what they had learnt in the research lesson by acting out their role, employing the knowledge they had gathered in the research lesson to explain to patients the advantages of their treatment, their personal history of how they came to know their profession (for example, "My father was an apothecary and I worked with him from when I was eight years old") and to "sell" their services. I framed the exercise around the need to "sell" their services in order to highlight the credibility or validity of the various medical traditions. The students had hitherto been highly critical of medieval treatments, to the point of derision. Asking them to identify at least three benefits of their profession's approach therefore required them to think more positively about their topic - akin to them donning de Bono's yellow hat (see de Bono Thinking Systems).
The patients analysed the new information presented to them in the process of evaluating their healers' services. At the end of the activity they were required to explain to the class the healer they had chosen and why, based on the "sales pitch" that the healers had presented. This choice required evaluation of the effectiveness of the various healers' approaches, which the patients based on their understanding of both medieval and modern-day medical treatments, which they had learnt in the research lessons.
Although the lesson was relatively successful, I identified plenty of room for improvement, most importantly in the areas of assessment of learning and behaviour management. The lesson was under-scaffolded and lacked accountability measures. If I were to conduct this lesson again, I would provide the patients with a proforma on which to record their consultations and to help them evaluate the healers. This could then be submitted at the end of class, allowing me to assess the depth of their thinking during the activity, and also communicating to them that there is an element of accountability. This would then, hopefully, motivate them to stay on task, and give me tangible proof of their learning.
Behavioural Theories:
My mentor teacher advocated use of Glasser's "Choice Theory" for behaviour management, and also recommended low-intensity responses to misbehaviour, but I found neither work very well for me. I think part of the reason may be that I lack the requisite Referent and Position Power as the teacher (Olsen & Nielsen, 2009). Over the course of my placement my students responded less and less to my low-key responses and two individuals were engaging in attention-seeking behaviour that escalated to power struggles with me. Stepping back to consider what had gotten us to that point, I believe there are actions I could have taken at an earlier stage which may have prevented the deterioration of our working relationship.
As a humanist teacher, I place great emphasis on attending to students' needs (Krause et al., 2003, p. 173). I believe my greatest challenge in teaching is behaviour management, and I see clear links between the behaviour of some of my students and my inability to cater to their needs. Specifically, I believe a number of my students required greater attention to their need for belongingness and love (see Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, in Krause et al., 2003, p. 174). According to Maslow's hierarchy, this need is more basic than the need for knowledge; meaning until a sense of belonging is established, learning cannot take place. Below are a couple of examples of how I saw this theory evidenced in my classroom.
Z* had recently moved to our school after leaving two local independent schools (I suspect for behaviour-related reasons). This was the first time that Z* had been in a co-ed school, and the novelty of being around the opposite sex had not worn off. But in addition to the novelty of a co-ed school, and I believe more importantly, Z* was still establishing his sense of belonging both in the school and in our classroom. If this fact had occurred to me earlier I would have made more of an effort to help Z* establish his place in our class.
On the day of the activity, Z* and two other students in our class were involved in an external issue which caused a significant distraction. This issue resulted in the removal of one of the other students, which was unfortunate as she had previously been quite engaged and had compiled very useful information during her research. She would have been a valuable contributor to the group activity had she been able to stay. This issue created for me a feeling of powerlessness. It reminded me that I only see my students for one twenty-fourth of their day; and that much that happens in their lives is out of my control. I have struggled to identify any measures I might have taken to minimise the impact of this scenario, save removing the students, which works against my wish to promote their sense of belonging, and also precludes any chance of them learning from a "live" activity such as this. Thus I find myself caught between pragmatism and idealism - according to my ideal, I would rather keep the students in the class and foster a safe and secure environment, however when the need arises to take action against a behaviour concern, my options in terms of practical measures clash with my ideal.
B* also could have benefited from a stronger sense of belonging. Unlike Z*, B* had been at the school for some time, but did not value education as being relevant to his life. B*, with support from his family, was "riding out" his time in compulsory education and was as a result chronically disengaged. That said, since this was an elective unit B* must have had some interest in the content to have chosen the unit in the first place. I would have liked to have connected to his interest more effectively and hope that would have gone some way to re-engaging him. Unfortunately, he seemed to have developed an active dislike of me, which my mentor teacher suspected was rooted in his need for predictability and stability, which my arrival had upset. Perhaps with more time to establish a relationship and get used to each other, B* and I could have had greater success, but in three weeks that was not to be. In the context of this learning activity in particular, had I taken greater care with my distribution of roles, B* might have been tempted to engage with the activity. As the distribution fell, B* received the role of priest, which did not interest him. Had I given him a gorier role such as blood-letter or surgeon, he may have been more interested in his part.
The "Medieval Medical Marketplace" activity, or my implementation of it, also had an effect on the class's behaviour. Ordinarily the class is arranged in a teacher-mandated seating plan, which my mentor had implemented prior to my arrival. Under the seating plan, the students were arranged at desks of four, separating gregarious or disruptive students. By contrast, on the day of the activity I had the furniture arranged into a U-shape, to be more reflective of a market environment and more conducive to student movement around the "market". Unfortunately an unintended side-effect was the sense of freedom that the lack of a seating plan seemed to give the students. This freedom, combined with the fact that the class was the last for the week, at 2pm on a Thursday, led to a general air of frivolity. Had the task been more heavily scaffolded and required a greater measure of accountability, I might have counteracted this atmosphere; but my own lack of scaffolding undoubtedly led to a general feeling that the lesson was not "serious".
Assessment of Learning:
My assessment of the students' learning during the role-play was based on their verbal interaction. I roamed around the classroom during the entire activity, systematically working my way around the room to ensure I overheard every student. R*, who was the most successful healer, illustrated his grasp of his role well, prescribing treatments for patients that were generally realistic, though perhaps too closely related to modern day treatments to fully demonstrate his understanding of the medieval apothecary tradition (for example, applying ice to an injured arm).
T*, a boisterous and distractable student, was unfortunately absent for the two research lessons, but still managed to display some evidence of his learning from the previous week of the unit during the activity. When I asked T* midway through the lesson how he was going, he said "I've got my roof fixed and dinner cooked for a week!", by which he illustrated his understanding of the economic system in which a medieval apothecary operated. He had bartered these services as payment for his treatments of two patients. I found this a very encouraging comment, as it illustrated his grasp of the commercial nature of his profession. Considering he had missed out on the research lessons, I was pleased at his performance and his understanding, if not of the methods an apothecary used, then at least of the bigger picture.
Overall, I felt the "Medieval Medical Marketplace" activity was a useful critical incident for me to analyse because it was a combination of success and failure. Although the transformation of my content knowledge into a teachable activity was a success (Nilsson, 2009, p. 241), the incident illustrated for me the practical results of my own weaknesses, such as how a lack of scaffolding and accountability risks behavioural challenges that can threaten to sink an otherwise effective lesson plan.
Attachments:
Lesson Sequence
Mind Map
Powerpoint for "Body Count" narrative exercise
Example of student's creative response to "Body Count" exercise
References:
Australian Capital Territory Department of Education and Training, (2008) Every Chance To Learn Curriculum Framework http://activated.act.edu.au/ectl/resources/ECTL_Framework.pdf
Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., & Shulman, L. (2001) 'Towards Expert Thinking: How Case-Writing Contributes to the Development of Theory-Based Professional Knowledge in Student-Teachers'. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 10-14 April 2001
Krause, K., Bochner, S. & Duchesne, S. (2003) Educational Psychology for learning and teaching. Southbank: Thomson Learning
Learning By Design (2008). http://newlearningonline.com/learning-by-design/
Nilsson, P. (2009) 'From lesson plan to new comprehension: exploring student teachers' pedagogical reasoning in learning about teaching', European Journal of Teacher Education, 32:3, 239 - 258
Olsen, J. & Nielsen, T.W. (2006). Holistic Discipline . Pearson.
Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. (2008) 'Making Thinking Visible', in Educational Leadership, February 2008, Volume 65, Number 5, pp. 57-61
Shulman, L. (1987) "Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform". Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 57, No. 1, February 1987.
William Glasser Institute. (2010). http://www.wglasser.com/
I have chosen to explore this critical incident as for me it is an example of "an incident that had been particularly successful, unsuccessful, surprising or revealing" (Hammerness et al, 2001, p. 6). This incident was, for me, all of the above. My success was in making history interesting and engaging for my students. I was unsuccessful, however, in assessing whether my students really learnt what I intended; and in managing their behaviour. The incident was surprising in that it revealed to me the extent to which I must focus on providing high quality scaffolding, even for senior students; and revealing in that on reflection, it has shown me both my strengths and my weaknesses.
My mentor teacher taught a senior (years nine and ten) elective History class called “Medieval Life” and asked me to design a three-week unit to teach between units on castles and food. This gave me the opportunity to determine what content I believed was important to an understanding of medieval history, but that was missing from her semester-long course. I elected to construct my mini-unit on Medieval Medicine, in which the students learnt about the Galenic theory of the four humors, common medieval illnesses and remedies, and the Black Death of 1346-51. This unit would address the following outcomes, taken from the placement school's course outline:
"The student:
- Understands the relationship between geographical context and particular world issues and events
- Identifies sources and collects data and information in systematic ways
- Manages, organises and evaluates data and information in order to draw conclusions consistent with this data"
The unit also worked towards standard outcomes including:
"6.LA.1: routinely use ICT to enhance their ability to research and learn through inquiry, with an understanding that using ICT can enable broader inquiry and access to a wide variety of information, opinions and perspectives
2.LA.11: draw conclusions that are consistent with the data or information and provide evidence or supporting details
23.LA.5: the relationship between geographical context and particular world issues and events"
(ACT DET)
My critical incident took place in the second week of the three-week long unit. To see the lesson sequence, click here.
The content was intrinsically interesting for most students in the class, who were particularly interested in the many implausible medieval treatments. As the class was made up of many verbal and kinesthetic learners (Gardner, in Krause et al., 2003, p. 201), I designed two role-play activities in which students took on the role of a medieval European. The first, which I entitled "Medieval Medical Marketplace", is the focus of this assignment. Roughly one-third of the class were given the part of various healers, including surgeons, nuns, apothecaries, blood-letters and the like, whilst the other two-thirds played patients with bubonic plague, St. Vitus’ Dance, leprosy, an injured arm, St. Anthony’s Fire, and so on. I distributed the roles strategically, giving the healer parts to the most engaged students in order to extend them.
The students were given two lessons of research time in the computer labs in which I presented a short-list of recommended websites on the class’s homepage and a list of "Research Goals" (questions based on their character in the role-play, such as "How did I learn my profession?" and "What are the selling points of my approach?"). I collected the students' books after the research lessons in order to assess the depth of their research, before returning them for the role-play.
For the next lesson, we rearranged the classroom furniture into a U-shape to create a marketplace in which each of the patients spoke to each of the healers, gathered information on each healer’s practice and recommended treatments, and judged which healer they would prefer to treat their affliction. The patients then reported to the rest of the class which healer they chose and why. I took a tally of the business gained by each healer, and the most successful healer was rewarded with a small toy.
The Medieval Medical Marketplace activity was, I believe, valuable for illustrating to the students the nature of medieval medical knowledges. The requirement for all patients to speak to all healers meant that every student was exposed to many medical traditions and methods, much like in an “Expert Groups” style cooperative learning activity. The patients were required to report to the class at the end of the role play, with the healer they had chosen to treat them, and their reasoning. This report functioned as a formative assessment for me, in the same way that the various healers’ diagnoses and prescriptions demonstrated the depth of their understanding.
Mentor Teacher's Feedback
My mentor teacher provided feedback after the first of the research lessons, intimating that there was a lack of appropriate scaffolding in my preparation of the lesson. Many of my recommended websites were text-heavy, which proved to be a challenge for the students. Some prior discussion about appropriate reading strategies for websites would have been beneficial, to remind students to skim their websites, assess the importance of elements of the text and focus only on those areas they deemed important. Instead, many students focused on only one website's information, when my aim was for them to visit many sites and therefore gain a much broader picture of medieval medicine. For this reason I booked a second research lesson in which I further refined my instructions and highlighted for the students that they would not need to read everything on the websites. During the second lesson I also provided more explicit information on the purpose of their research, giving them specific questions to answer rather than the first lesson's overly simple instruction to take notes on their role.
My mentor's feedback on the role play lesson itself was brief but encouraging. She focussed on the behaviour management challenges which I will explore later in this assignment, but did not discuss my pedagogy or assessment strategies, which are the focus of this assignment.
Interpretation of Critical Incident
My initial reflection on this incident is represented here (click to view larger):
The class were predominantly white students from middle and lower socio-economic status families, and, being aged between fifteen and sixteen years old, were in transition between Piaget's concrete operations and formal operations stages of development (Krause et al., 2003, pp. 47-53). My decision to use a role play activity was based on the knowledge that a large number of my students were what Howard Gardner would call verbal/linguistic and kinesthetic learners (Krause et al., 2003, pp.201), and several also had strong interpersonal intelligence. We also had one student with an undiagnosed learning difficulty and one student from a language background other than English; my intention was that the activity would provide these two students with a 'break' from what had been a fairly listening and writing intensive unit, with plenty of new vocabulary to digest. I took care when distributing the roles to give these two students roles that would link to their existing knowledge. The first student's low literacy level impeded her research somewhat, but I feel the role-play exercise benefitted her as she was exposed to the results of all the other students' research as well as her own, and her verbal/oral processing is sound, meaning she learnt more effectively from the other students' presentations than she would have done from her own research. The second student had an opportunity to talk about our content matter with his peers, in a safe and supportive environment that allowed him to show his understanding without the impediment of written language to slow him down.
I chose the role-play activity with an eye to exploring forms of cooperative learning. I was influenced by methods such as Jigsaw and Expert Groups, which require all members of the group to have completed their individual contribution for the good of the whole group (Krause et al., 2003, p. 185). I felt that this approach would be an efficient way in which to cover a very broad area of knowledge, since the content could be stretched in a number of different directions. Specifically, I intended on covering the medieval Catholic Church's beliefs about illness and healing, the similarities and differences between medieval and modern-day healing, the barter system, the range of choice available to the ruling classes and the lack thereof for peasants. This widely varying content could fill much longer than my three-week unit, so I elected to present it in this Jigsaw-style role play activity to allow students to become 'experts' in one area, and receive other experts' knowledge about the other areas.
My school subscribes to the "Learning By Design" theory of learning, so in an effort to ensure consistency for my students, and expose myself to a new theory of curriculum design, I approached this learning activity with the Learning By Design principles in mind. Our prior discussion of superstitions, as well as our "Noisy Round Robin" brainstorming exercise on medieval medicine, linked to the students knowledge in what Learning By Design refers to as "Experiencing the Known" (see the Learning By Design planning placemat here). This involves creating links to what the students already know about a topic to "switch them on" and prepare them for new information. I found this was particularly important to this unit of work, since medieval medicine is far removed from the students' everyday lives in many ways, and their previous exposure to it was almost non-existent.
My research lessons were based on the Learning By Design "Experiencing the New" principle, as students' research goals were grounded in finding out new information about their profession or illness. There was an element of linkage to their prior knowledge built into this lesson, since the patients were instructed to research the modern-day treatment for their illness as well as the medieval treatment, and for many of them that treatment was somewhat familiar.
The role-play activity was a combination of "Applying Appropriately" and "Analysing Functionally and Critically". The healers applied what they had learnt in the research lesson by acting out their role, employing the knowledge they had gathered in the research lesson to explain to patients the advantages of their treatment, their personal history of how they came to know their profession (for example, "My father was an apothecary and I worked with him from when I was eight years old") and to "sell" their services. I framed the exercise around the need to "sell" their services in order to highlight the credibility or validity of the various medical traditions. The students had hitherto been highly critical of medieval treatments, to the point of derision. Asking them to identify at least three benefits of their profession's approach therefore required them to think more positively about their topic - akin to them donning de Bono's yellow hat (see de Bono Thinking Systems).
The patients analysed the new information presented to them in the process of evaluating their healers' services. At the end of the activity they were required to explain to the class the healer they had chosen and why, based on the "sales pitch" that the healers had presented. This choice required evaluation of the effectiveness of the various healers' approaches, which the patients based on their understanding of both medieval and modern-day medical treatments, which they had learnt in the research lessons.
Although the lesson was relatively successful, I identified plenty of room for improvement, most importantly in the areas of assessment of learning and behaviour management. The lesson was under-scaffolded and lacked accountability measures. If I were to conduct this lesson again, I would provide the patients with a proforma on which to record their consultations and to help them evaluate the healers. This could then be submitted at the end of class, allowing me to assess the depth of their thinking during the activity, and also communicating to them that there is an element of accountability. This would then, hopefully, motivate them to stay on task, and give me tangible proof of their learning.
Behavioural Theories:
My mentor teacher advocated use of Glasser's "Choice Theory" for behaviour management, and also recommended low-intensity responses to misbehaviour, but I found neither work very well for me. I think part of the reason may be that I lack the requisite Referent and Position Power as the teacher (Olsen & Nielsen, 2009). Over the course of my placement my students responded less and less to my low-key responses and two individuals were engaging in attention-seeking behaviour that escalated to power struggles with me. Stepping back to consider what had gotten us to that point, I believe there are actions I could have taken at an earlier stage which may have prevented the deterioration of our working relationship.
As a humanist teacher, I place great emphasis on attending to students' needs (Krause et al., 2003, p. 173). I believe my greatest challenge in teaching is behaviour management, and I see clear links between the behaviour of some of my students and my inability to cater to their needs. Specifically, I believe a number of my students required greater attention to their need for belongingness and love (see Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, in Krause et al., 2003, p. 174). According to Maslow's hierarchy, this need is more basic than the need for knowledge; meaning until a sense of belonging is established, learning cannot take place. Below are a couple of examples of how I saw this theory evidenced in my classroom.
Z* had recently moved to our school after leaving two local independent schools (I suspect for behaviour-related reasons). This was the first time that Z* had been in a co-ed school, and the novelty of being around the opposite sex had not worn off. But in addition to the novelty of a co-ed school, and I believe more importantly, Z* was still establishing his sense of belonging both in the school and in our classroom. If this fact had occurred to me earlier I would have made more of an effort to help Z* establish his place in our class.
On the day of the activity, Z* and two other students in our class were involved in an external issue which caused a significant distraction. This issue resulted in the removal of one of the other students, which was unfortunate as she had previously been quite engaged and had compiled very useful information during her research. She would have been a valuable contributor to the group activity had she been able to stay. This issue created for me a feeling of powerlessness. It reminded me that I only see my students for one twenty-fourth of their day; and that much that happens in their lives is out of my control. I have struggled to identify any measures I might have taken to minimise the impact of this scenario, save removing the students, which works against my wish to promote their sense of belonging, and also precludes any chance of them learning from a "live" activity such as this. Thus I find myself caught between pragmatism and idealism - according to my ideal, I would rather keep the students in the class and foster a safe and secure environment, however when the need arises to take action against a behaviour concern, my options in terms of practical measures clash with my ideal.
B* also could have benefited from a stronger sense of belonging. Unlike Z*, B* had been at the school for some time, but did not value education as being relevant to his life. B*, with support from his family, was "riding out" his time in compulsory education and was as a result chronically disengaged. That said, since this was an elective unit B* must have had some interest in the content to have chosen the unit in the first place. I would have liked to have connected to his interest more effectively and hope that would have gone some way to re-engaging him. Unfortunately, he seemed to have developed an active dislike of me, which my mentor teacher suspected was rooted in his need for predictability and stability, which my arrival had upset. Perhaps with more time to establish a relationship and get used to each other, B* and I could have had greater success, but in three weeks that was not to be. In the context of this learning activity in particular, had I taken greater care with my distribution of roles, B* might have been tempted to engage with the activity. As the distribution fell, B* received the role of priest, which did not interest him. Had I given him a gorier role such as blood-letter or surgeon, he may have been more interested in his part.
The "Medieval Medical Marketplace" activity, or my implementation of it, also had an effect on the class's behaviour. Ordinarily the class is arranged in a teacher-mandated seating plan, which my mentor had implemented prior to my arrival. Under the seating plan, the students were arranged at desks of four, separating gregarious or disruptive students. By contrast, on the day of the activity I had the furniture arranged into a U-shape, to be more reflective of a market environment and more conducive to student movement around the "market". Unfortunately an unintended side-effect was the sense of freedom that the lack of a seating plan seemed to give the students. This freedom, combined with the fact that the class was the last for the week, at 2pm on a Thursday, led to a general air of frivolity. Had the task been more heavily scaffolded and required a greater measure of accountability, I might have counteracted this atmosphere; but my own lack of scaffolding undoubtedly led to a general feeling that the lesson was not "serious".
Assessment of Learning:
My assessment of the students' learning during the role-play was based on their verbal interaction. I roamed around the classroom during the entire activity, systematically working my way around the room to ensure I overheard every student. R*, who was the most successful healer, illustrated his grasp of his role well, prescribing treatments for patients that were generally realistic, though perhaps too closely related to modern day treatments to fully demonstrate his understanding of the medieval apothecary tradition (for example, applying ice to an injured arm).
T*, a boisterous and distractable student, was unfortunately absent for the two research lessons, but still managed to display some evidence of his learning from the previous week of the unit during the activity. When I asked T* midway through the lesson how he was going, he said "I've got my roof fixed and dinner cooked for a week!", by which he illustrated his understanding of the economic system in which a medieval apothecary operated. He had bartered these services as payment for his treatments of two patients. I found this a very encouraging comment, as it illustrated his grasp of the commercial nature of his profession. Considering he had missed out on the research lessons, I was pleased at his performance and his understanding, if not of the methods an apothecary used, then at least of the bigger picture.
Overall, I felt the "Medieval Medical Marketplace" activity was a useful critical incident for me to analyse because it was a combination of success and failure. Although the transformation of my content knowledge into a teachable activity was a success (Nilsson, 2009, p. 241), the incident illustrated for me the practical results of my own weaknesses, such as how a lack of scaffolding and accountability risks behavioural challenges that can threaten to sink an otherwise effective lesson plan.
Attachments:
Lesson Sequence
Mind Map
Powerpoint for "Body Count" narrative exercise
Example of student's creative response to "Body Count" exercise
References:
Australian Capital Territory Department of Education and Training, (2008) Every Chance To Learn Curriculum Framework http://activated.act.edu.au/ectl/resources/ECTL_Framework.pdf
Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., & Shulman, L. (2001) 'Towards Expert Thinking: How Case-Writing Contributes to the Development of Theory-Based Professional Knowledge in Student-Teachers'. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 10-14 April 2001
Krause, K., Bochner, S. & Duchesne, S. (2003) Educational Psychology for learning and teaching. Southbank: Thomson Learning
Learning By Design (2008). http://newlearningonline.com/learning-by-design/
Nilsson, P. (2009) 'From lesson plan to new comprehension: exploring student teachers' pedagogical reasoning in learning about teaching', European Journal of Teacher Education, 32:3, 239 - 258
Olsen, J. & Nielsen, T.W. (2006). Holistic Discipline . Pearson.
Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. (2008) 'Making Thinking Visible', in Educational Leadership, February 2008, Volume 65, Number 5, pp. 57-61
Shulman, L. (1987) "Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform". Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 57, No. 1, February 1987.
William Glasser Institute. (2010). http://www.wglasser.com/
Monday, October 25, 2010
Fearing the demise of a long-beloved friend
I'm feeling a little defeated this afternoon, by the one thing that's never let me down before. Reading.
I am a voracious reader. I love it. I can't sit down for breakfast of a morning without something in front of me to read, whether it be the newspaper, a magazine, junk mail, random letters, anything. I deliberately choose certain toilet cubicles based on the knowledge that they have advertising material on the back of the door, or a large amount of graffiti on the walls. I used to go to the library during recess and lunch when I was in primary school. Come to think of it, I did it a fair bit in high school too. My mother had to complain to the principal when the librarian tried to close the primary school library at recess, because I was so distraught. I exhausted my borrowing quota at primary school, and started hiding books strategically behind other books, so that nobody else could borrow them while I was reading them.
I. Love. Reading.
Now I'm teaching at a school that encourages students to read by enforcing a thirty minute "Silent Reading" period at the beginning of every English class. When I first started I thought this was great. But I'm increasingly wondering if it's actually having the reverse effect from that it's intended for. A number of the students, and the number can be quite large on any given day, hate Silent Reading and make it a chore for most of the half hour allotted to it. They complain that all the books in the room are boring, or that they hate reading. Some would rather sit and stare blankly into space for half an hour, than read. This breaks my heart.
But, I'm wondering if MAKING them read, FORCING them to read, is the answer. What if they respond to it in the same way I responded to forced physical education when I was in school, and never go near it again after their schooling is done? Are we doing them a disservice by forcing reading down their throat?
I think we are. But that doesn't mean I don't think we should be making them read - we just have to find a way to make it more meaningful, more accessible, more enjoyable. For one thing, by broadening the range of texts substantially. Their choice is pretty much limited to teen/young adult fiction, mainly novels. What if there were a selection of other texts at their disposal? There are a couple of comics, but what about graphic novels, short stories, poetry, information texts, travel writing, biographies, histories, other non-fiction?
Would the broader choice be enough to lure them back to reading? Or is something more required?
I am a voracious reader. I love it. I can't sit down for breakfast of a morning without something in front of me to read, whether it be the newspaper, a magazine, junk mail, random letters, anything. I deliberately choose certain toilet cubicles based on the knowledge that they have advertising material on the back of the door, or a large amount of graffiti on the walls. I used to go to the library during recess and lunch when I was in primary school. Come to think of it, I did it a fair bit in high school too. My mother had to complain to the principal when the librarian tried to close the primary school library at recess, because I was so distraught. I exhausted my borrowing quota at primary school, and started hiding books strategically behind other books, so that nobody else could borrow them while I was reading them.
I. Love. Reading.
Now I'm teaching at a school that encourages students to read by enforcing a thirty minute "Silent Reading" period at the beginning of every English class. When I first started I thought this was great. But I'm increasingly wondering if it's actually having the reverse effect from that it's intended for. A number of the students, and the number can be quite large on any given day, hate Silent Reading and make it a chore for most of the half hour allotted to it. They complain that all the books in the room are boring, or that they hate reading. Some would rather sit and stare blankly into space for half an hour, than read. This breaks my heart.
But, I'm wondering if MAKING them read, FORCING them to read, is the answer. What if they respond to it in the same way I responded to forced physical education when I was in school, and never go near it again after their schooling is done? Are we doing them a disservice by forcing reading down their throat?
I think we are. But that doesn't mean I don't think we should be making them read - we just have to find a way to make it more meaningful, more accessible, more enjoyable. For one thing, by broadening the range of texts substantially. Their choice is pretty much limited to teen/young adult fiction, mainly novels. What if there were a selection of other texts at their disposal? There are a couple of comics, but what about graphic novels, short stories, poetry, information texts, travel writing, biographies, histories, other non-fiction?
Would the broader choice be enough to lure them back to reading? Or is something more required?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Mid-Prac Exhaustion
I'm three weeks into my prac, with two weeks to go. I'm feeling flat tonight, having sensed my mentor teacher's possible disappointment with some aspects of my performance. There's no doubting I put the hours in when it comes to preparation - I have my lesson plans chunked down into 10-20 minute intervals, addressing learing outcomes, taking inspiration from my school's favoured unit planning framework, allowing space for reflection, and so on. But my weak point appears to be behaviour management. It's not so much that I don't know what to do, but that in someone else's classroom, with someone else's rules, I don't feel comfortable enforcing my expectations.
In my placement I'm teaching two different teacher's classes; one teacher is laid-back, cruisy, with a level of patience I envy and a seeming ability to tune out from the noise level of the classroom. Her students are boisterous, chatty, cheeky, and often just plain rude - but loveable nonetheless. My other teacher seems to accept less "problem" behaviour, and expects me to as well, which is fine by me - but I don't seem to have the control I need in her classroom. Students disregard my instructions or answer back, and I'm reluctant to escalate my response to the point of a power struggle, when a low-key response should be enough.
*sigh*
I'm also finding that I need to provide far more scaffolding than I anticipate - even for older students who I would have thought were capable of being more autonomous than they are. I seem to keep failing to chunk tasks down into small enough bites for them to manage - but I feel like I'm holding all their hands through tasks that really shouldn't need as much structure and scaffolding as I have to provide. What I'm wondering is, at what point does scaffolding become hand-holding?
In my placement I'm teaching two different teacher's classes; one teacher is laid-back, cruisy, with a level of patience I envy and a seeming ability to tune out from the noise level of the classroom. Her students are boisterous, chatty, cheeky, and often just plain rude - but loveable nonetheless. My other teacher seems to accept less "problem" behaviour, and expects me to as well, which is fine by me - but I don't seem to have the control I need in her classroom. Students disregard my instructions or answer back, and I'm reluctant to escalate my response to the point of a power struggle, when a low-key response should be enough.
*sigh*
I'm also finding that I need to provide far more scaffolding than I anticipate - even for older students who I would have thought were capable of being more autonomous than they are. I seem to keep failing to chunk tasks down into small enough bites for them to manage - but I feel like I'm holding all their hands through tasks that really shouldn't need as much structure and scaffolding as I have to provide. What I'm wondering is, at what point does scaffolding become hand-holding?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Mini-Lesson Reflection
What Happened?
I opened the lesson with a brief review of the questions history students should ask about a source. The questions were presented on a Powerpoint slide and I briefly read them out, before moving on to the new question for the day, which was “What is my attitude?” This question was designed to get students thinking about their own perspective and how it affects their interpretation of a historical source.
The lesson activity involved considering the same quote, as though it was spoken by a number of different historical personalities including Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Jnr., Germaine Greer, and others. The activity progressed well, with almost all of the students contributing a view on one or more of the subjects. Their views varied sufficiently to illustrate the extent to which our individual opinion of a speaker influences our interpretation of their quote, actions and motivations.
After discussing the hypothetical speakers and unveiling the true identity of the source (Adolf Hitler), I asked the class to pair up for sixty seconds and brainstorm some of the factors of their life that contribute to their individual perspective. After the minute was over, I asked students to name some of these factors. Fortunately most of the factors named were ones I had prepared for my next slide; although I had a couple that the class did not name, such as our chronological context (referred to in the lesson as ‘time’ or ‘era’) and nationality (though this was touched on in terms of ‘place’).
Following the brainstorm, I asked students what good historians, when considering a source, should do with the factors that make up their perspective. We agreed that you could not get rid of them entirely, but I suggested that they “pack them away in your prejudice box” in an effort to be as objective as possible. At this point I ended the lesson.
What worked?
My repeated linkage between the activity, the quote and the overarching unit of Revolutions was good for reiterating for students the relationship between concepts.
I responded well to Steven's "bowel movement" comment about Andy Warhol, and the ensuing laughter. By laughing along with the students and thanking Steven for using a euphemism, as well as rephrasing his comment to suggest his opinion of Warhol’s art influenced his perception of the quote, I did not allow a minor disruption to become a classroom management issue.
Similarly, I recast Tom’s comments about Constantine to reflect his opinion of the quote – that is, his skepticism of the quote being attributed to Constantine.
My response to Tahlia’s comment on Martin Luther King, Jnr. worked to lead her into continuing to explain her position. Rather than moving on to the next student, I allowed her time to further explore her thoughts on King’s actions and get a little deeper into her perspective on King.
Two students made unexpected contributions to the discussion about Hitler, noting that his definitions of “popular” and of “human” differed from those we would expect from other speakers, such as Martin Luther King, Jnr. The students’ knowledge of Hitler’s actions clearly affected their interpretation of his language, on a word-by-word basis, which was a perfect example of perspective for this exercise.
The class was clearly surprised to learn that the quote was in fact from Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf. This reaction was exactly what I had hoped to elicit by showing them how positive and inspiring the quote can sound when attributed to someone that the average Australian has respect for (such as Martin Luther King, Jnr.) and how manipulative and ambitious it sounds when attributed to someone that we are taught to deplore, such as Hitler.
Since the class had fortuitously also been presented a mini-lesson on Nazi propaganda before my mini-lesson, I was able to link the subject quote to their prior learning a number of times, particularly when discussing the totalitarian leaders Mao Zedong and Hitler. This was not a planned link, but one that I was able to make on the day in much the same way as I would in a real classroom, linking to units that I was aware the students had covered, not only in SOSE but in any other discipline area or in their everyday lives.
When I asked the class to pair up and discuss their perspectives, I gave them a time limit of only sixty seconds. This was deliberately short, as I only needed each pair to come up with one or two factors that affect their perspectives, and I wanted to ensure they stayed on-topic and that their discussions did not have time to stray beyond the task. I find that students are often given too long to discuss content in groups, and after the first minute or so they begin to get off-topic. I would rather ask after sixty seconds “Are we finished?” and be asked for longer, than to let discussions ramble on for five minutes with no deeper learning achieved.
I made a positive statement in response to most student’s contributions to the class discussion, giving them recognition for their contributions and thanking them for their comments; however, I need to broaden my variety of responses beyond “Very good” and “excellent”, which I over-used.
Giles made an interesting observation about how our “immediate context” affects our perspective. I asked him “Can you elaborate on that?” which I think was a good response to encourage him to clarify and expand on his comment. This sounds better, to me, than “What/how do you mean?”
What I would do differently:
At the opening of the lesson, I should have involved the class in the review of the previous lesson, by asking them to contribute the questions they should ask about sources. Each of the four questions I had on the Smart Board could have been contributed by one of the students, rather than me, which would then have made this introduction a chance for formative assessment of the previous lesson.
I feel that I need to be more physically animated and project my voice more. In a well-behaved university group, my voice is fairly audible; but in a normal secondary school class I would expect more background noise to be competing with my voice. I also need to make an effort with my body language to create a more engaging and interesting “performance”. I had my hands in my pockets quite a lot, which gave the effect of me looking unenthused with the subject matter, which is not the case.
My mini-lesson lacked a substantial conclusion, which I have known is a fault in my teaching since my first practicum placement. I seem to find it hard to conclude effectively, and my lessons seem to end quite abruptly. Part of my lesson planning in future will have to include a concluding statement to help prompt myself and train myself into a habit of properly concluding activities and lessons, reviewing the contents of the lesson, foreshadowing the next lesson, assigning homework or raising anything else that needs to be discussed before releasing students.
My Thinking
This mini-lesson on Perspective was designed with both the ACT’s “Every Chance To Learn” curriculum framework, the “Problematic Knowledge” component of the Quality Teaching Model (McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 51) and the National Curriculum’s history skills in mind. The activity, which calls on students to examine how their own attitudes affect their interpretation of historical sources, was designed to encourage students to think about their own thinking, and learn to analyse their own thoughts as well as source materials. This analysis would form part of their growing metacognitive ability.
The lesson was developed in order to present information in a variety of modes – verbally, written and with visual images, and through both whole-class and small group discussion. This was not designed with an eye to catering to different “learning styles”, as criticized by Scott (“The enduring appeal of ‘learning styles’”, 2010), but rather with the intention of creating an interactive and engaging classroom dialogue.
The lesson required minimal resources. It was delivered with a Powerpoint presentation projected onto the classroom’s interactive whiteboard, but the entire lesson’s activities could have been performed without ICTs if they were not available. Photocopies of the quote could have been distributed; and images of the hypothetical speakers were intended only to help prompt students’ memories in case the names were not enough, but were nonetheless included as supplementary, rather than necessary, material, and as such could have been omitted if resources were an obstacle.
The group discussion depended upon a certain level of prior knowledge amongst the students for conversations about the various historical personalities to successfully take place; however, it was designed to form a part of a unit of work on Revolutions which would have introduced many of the personalities mentioned. I also chose personalities whose place in history I felt I could “sum up” for the students in a single sentence if they were unfamiliar with the personality. The repetition of the activity also allowed for skipping a personality entirely if students could not contribute to an informed discussion about the hypothetical speaker, and the activity could easily be edited to include more recognizable speakers if required, for instance in a mixed-ability class that lacked the prior knowledge, or if students lacked the cultural capital to take part.
The whole-class and small group conversations were intended to take place within a quality learning environment (McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 46) in which students felt they were safe, respected, and that their opinions were valued. The concept being taught, “Perspective”, was also chosen to support the values promoted by the Quality Teaching model, such as “recognition of difference” (McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 46). The concept also provides an opportunity to develop and encourage the values promoted by the “Values for Australian Schooling”, particularly that of “Understanding, Tolerance and Inclusion”, and also reinforcing the value of “Freedom” as defined by that document. (Australian Government, Department of Education, Science & Training, in McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 139) The use of hypothetical speakers such as Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler serve to strengthen students’ value of democracy and freedom by providing a contrast to the Australian way of life.
Sources
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2009). Draft Australian Curriculum. www.acara.edu.au
Australian Capital Territory Department of Education and Training. (2010). Every Chance To Learn: Curriculum Framework for ACT schools preschool to year 10. http://activated.act.edu.au/ectl/resources/ECTL_Framework.pdf
Marsh, C. (2008). Studies of Society and Environment: Exploring the Teaching Possibilities. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.
McLeod, J. H., & Reynolds, R. (2007) Quality Teaching for Quality Learning. South Melbourne, VIC: Thomson Social Science Press.
Scott, C. (2010). The enduring appeal of ‘learning styles’. Australian Journal of Education, Vol. 54(1), 5-17.
I opened the lesson with a brief review of the questions history students should ask about a source. The questions were presented on a Powerpoint slide and I briefly read them out, before moving on to the new question for the day, which was “What is my attitude?” This question was designed to get students thinking about their own perspective and how it affects their interpretation of a historical source.
The lesson activity involved considering the same quote, as though it was spoken by a number of different historical personalities including Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Jnr., Germaine Greer, and others. The activity progressed well, with almost all of the students contributing a view on one or more of the subjects. Their views varied sufficiently to illustrate the extent to which our individual opinion of a speaker influences our interpretation of their quote, actions and motivations.
After discussing the hypothetical speakers and unveiling the true identity of the source (Adolf Hitler), I asked the class to pair up for sixty seconds and brainstorm some of the factors of their life that contribute to their individual perspective. After the minute was over, I asked students to name some of these factors. Fortunately most of the factors named were ones I had prepared for my next slide; although I had a couple that the class did not name, such as our chronological context (referred to in the lesson as ‘time’ or ‘era’) and nationality (though this was touched on in terms of ‘place’).
Following the brainstorm, I asked students what good historians, when considering a source, should do with the factors that make up their perspective. We agreed that you could not get rid of them entirely, but I suggested that they “pack them away in your prejudice box” in an effort to be as objective as possible. At this point I ended the lesson.
What worked?
My repeated linkage between the activity, the quote and the overarching unit of Revolutions was good for reiterating for students the relationship between concepts.
I responded well to Steven's "bowel movement" comment about Andy Warhol, and the ensuing laughter. By laughing along with the students and thanking Steven for using a euphemism, as well as rephrasing his comment to suggest his opinion of Warhol’s art influenced his perception of the quote, I did not allow a minor disruption to become a classroom management issue.
Similarly, I recast Tom’s comments about Constantine to reflect his opinion of the quote – that is, his skepticism of the quote being attributed to Constantine.
My response to Tahlia’s comment on Martin Luther King, Jnr. worked to lead her into continuing to explain her position. Rather than moving on to the next student, I allowed her time to further explore her thoughts on King’s actions and get a little deeper into her perspective on King.
Two students made unexpected contributions to the discussion about Hitler, noting that his definitions of “popular” and of “human” differed from those we would expect from other speakers, such as Martin Luther King, Jnr. The students’ knowledge of Hitler’s actions clearly affected their interpretation of his language, on a word-by-word basis, which was a perfect example of perspective for this exercise.
The class was clearly surprised to learn that the quote was in fact from Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf. This reaction was exactly what I had hoped to elicit by showing them how positive and inspiring the quote can sound when attributed to someone that the average Australian has respect for (such as Martin Luther King, Jnr.) and how manipulative and ambitious it sounds when attributed to someone that we are taught to deplore, such as Hitler.
Since the class had fortuitously also been presented a mini-lesson on Nazi propaganda before my mini-lesson, I was able to link the subject quote to their prior learning a number of times, particularly when discussing the totalitarian leaders Mao Zedong and Hitler. This was not a planned link, but one that I was able to make on the day in much the same way as I would in a real classroom, linking to units that I was aware the students had covered, not only in SOSE but in any other discipline area or in their everyday lives.
When I asked the class to pair up and discuss their perspectives, I gave them a time limit of only sixty seconds. This was deliberately short, as I only needed each pair to come up with one or two factors that affect their perspectives, and I wanted to ensure they stayed on-topic and that their discussions did not have time to stray beyond the task. I find that students are often given too long to discuss content in groups, and after the first minute or so they begin to get off-topic. I would rather ask after sixty seconds “Are we finished?” and be asked for longer, than to let discussions ramble on for five minutes with no deeper learning achieved.
I made a positive statement in response to most student’s contributions to the class discussion, giving them recognition for their contributions and thanking them for their comments; however, I need to broaden my variety of responses beyond “Very good” and “excellent”, which I over-used.
Giles made an interesting observation about how our “immediate context” affects our perspective. I asked him “Can you elaborate on that?” which I think was a good response to encourage him to clarify and expand on his comment. This sounds better, to me, than “What/how do you mean?”
What I would do differently:
At the opening of the lesson, I should have involved the class in the review of the previous lesson, by asking them to contribute the questions they should ask about sources. Each of the four questions I had on the Smart Board could have been contributed by one of the students, rather than me, which would then have made this introduction a chance for formative assessment of the previous lesson.
I feel that I need to be more physically animated and project my voice more. In a well-behaved university group, my voice is fairly audible; but in a normal secondary school class I would expect more background noise to be competing with my voice. I also need to make an effort with my body language to create a more engaging and interesting “performance”. I had my hands in my pockets quite a lot, which gave the effect of me looking unenthused with the subject matter, which is not the case.
My mini-lesson lacked a substantial conclusion, which I have known is a fault in my teaching since my first practicum placement. I seem to find it hard to conclude effectively, and my lessons seem to end quite abruptly. Part of my lesson planning in future will have to include a concluding statement to help prompt myself and train myself into a habit of properly concluding activities and lessons, reviewing the contents of the lesson, foreshadowing the next lesson, assigning homework or raising anything else that needs to be discussed before releasing students.
My Thinking
This mini-lesson on Perspective was designed with both the ACT’s “Every Chance To Learn” curriculum framework, the “Problematic Knowledge” component of the Quality Teaching Model (McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 51) and the National Curriculum’s history skills in mind. The activity, which calls on students to examine how their own attitudes affect their interpretation of historical sources, was designed to encourage students to think about their own thinking, and learn to analyse their own thoughts as well as source materials. This analysis would form part of their growing metacognitive ability.
The lesson was developed in order to present information in a variety of modes – verbally, written and with visual images, and through both whole-class and small group discussion. This was not designed with an eye to catering to different “learning styles”, as criticized by Scott (“The enduring appeal of ‘learning styles’”, 2010), but rather with the intention of creating an interactive and engaging classroom dialogue.
The lesson required minimal resources. It was delivered with a Powerpoint presentation projected onto the classroom’s interactive whiteboard, but the entire lesson’s activities could have been performed without ICTs if they were not available. Photocopies of the quote could have been distributed; and images of the hypothetical speakers were intended only to help prompt students’ memories in case the names were not enough, but were nonetheless included as supplementary, rather than necessary, material, and as such could have been omitted if resources were an obstacle.
The group discussion depended upon a certain level of prior knowledge amongst the students for conversations about the various historical personalities to successfully take place; however, it was designed to form a part of a unit of work on Revolutions which would have introduced many of the personalities mentioned. I also chose personalities whose place in history I felt I could “sum up” for the students in a single sentence if they were unfamiliar with the personality. The repetition of the activity also allowed for skipping a personality entirely if students could not contribute to an informed discussion about the hypothetical speaker, and the activity could easily be edited to include more recognizable speakers if required, for instance in a mixed-ability class that lacked the prior knowledge, or if students lacked the cultural capital to take part.
The whole-class and small group conversations were intended to take place within a quality learning environment (McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 46) in which students felt they were safe, respected, and that their opinions were valued. The concept being taught, “Perspective”, was also chosen to support the values promoted by the Quality Teaching model, such as “recognition of difference” (McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 46). The concept also provides an opportunity to develop and encourage the values promoted by the “Values for Australian Schooling”, particularly that of “Understanding, Tolerance and Inclusion”, and also reinforcing the value of “Freedom” as defined by that document. (Australian Government, Department of Education, Science & Training, in McLeod & Reynolds, 2007, p. 139) The use of hypothetical speakers such as Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler serve to strengthen students’ value of democracy and freedom by providing a contrast to the Australian way of life.
Sources
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2009). Draft Australian Curriculum. www.acara.edu.au
Australian Capital Territory Department of Education and Training. (2010). Every Chance To Learn: Curriculum Framework for ACT schools preschool to year 10. http://activated.act.edu.au/ectl/resources/ECTL_Framework.pdf
Marsh, C. (2008). Studies of Society and Environment: Exploring the Teaching Possibilities. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.
McLeod, J. H., & Reynolds, R. (2007) Quality Teaching for Quality Learning. South Melbourne, VIC: Thomson Social Science Press.
Scott, C. (2010). The enduring appeal of ‘learning styles’. Australian Journal of Education, Vol. 54(1), 5-17.
A Critical Friend's Response To My "Perspective" Mini-Lesson
"As a student in Shannon's lesson on perspective I responded positively to the lesson and its format. Shannon has a very friendly, but calming manner.
Shannon used the smart board and included visual stimulus so that each time she introduced a new historical person the students could put a face to a name. This was an effective tool to use.
Shannon engaged the class through prompting questions. When brainstorming with the class Shannon encouraged the students to share their ideas and praised their responses. This enabled a positive classroom environment and also helped students to feel that she valued their opinions as an integral part of her teaching.
A couple of points of reflection for Shannon: I would suggest moving around the classroom more. This helps to engage the students more and make them feel like it is more of a relaxed atmosphere.
In terms of the activity I would have liked to have seen more scaffolding around the task. At times I got a little confused about what exactely we were doing each time the quote came up.
I think I would have been helped if Shannon had have had an individual slide that clearly articulated exactely what the task was.
Lastly, I did not have much knowledge on who Constantine was. For next time, maybe it is worth having famous people that year 9 students would definately have know and potentially studied previously."
Shannon used the smart board and included visual stimulus so that each time she introduced a new historical person the students could put a face to a name. This was an effective tool to use.
Shannon engaged the class through prompting questions. When brainstorming with the class Shannon encouraged the students to share their ideas and praised their responses. This enabled a positive classroom environment and also helped students to feel that she valued their opinions as an integral part of her teaching.
A couple of points of reflection for Shannon: I would suggest moving around the classroom more. This helps to engage the students more and make them feel like it is more of a relaxed atmosphere.
In terms of the activity I would have liked to have seen more scaffolding around the task. At times I got a little confused about what exactely we were doing each time the quote came up.
I think I would have been helped if Shannon had have had an individual slide that clearly articulated exactely what the task was.
Lastly, I did not have much knowledge on who Constantine was. For next time, maybe it is worth having famous people that year 9 students would definately have know and potentially studied previously."
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