Well firstly I have to reflect on the whole assessment marking stuff from session2.
Much of session2 was taken up with marking, and whether a numerical mark should be given for every assessment task or whether the focus should be on the feedback. I had come away willing to take all that on board and thinking that, as a teacher, I might try to wean the kids off the number and get them to concentrate more on the feedback and how they could improve.
However I recently got an assignment back with comments and essentially no mark...
Now the question I am asking myself is: what 'value' is the feedback. The teacher values feedback ( I know this) and is therefore more likely to put plenty in than the normal couple of words at the end. So is the feedback there to challenge me to think deeper, to push my boundaries that little bit more? Is the feedback there because I failed to cover important points or express myself clearly enough to the reader? Or is the feedback there simply to assure me - the writer - that my audience has indeed read the work and understood it.
My problem is that without a mark I have no idea. If it is the first scenario then presumably my work is of a high quality and the same level of thinking and research will get me a good mark next time. If its the second scenario then surely I need to know because I obviously need to improve. If its the last then the value of the feedback for all subsequent work is diminished and I still don't know whether my original output was of high quality, just acceptable or somewhere in between.
So I have sort of come back round to what was my original gut feel on the whole subject before the session 2 discussion - yes feedback is very important, but without that marking scale indication, it is very difficult to determine the quality of the work you produce.
Now on to session 3 - lab pracs.
Again the content knowledge evades me and my confidence in teaching anything other than general science to year 10 is shaken to the core. I am not the only one and at least I can get some sort of perverse reassurance from the fact that fellow students who are much more recently out of VCE or Bachelor courses are struggling with it too. Perhaps this is a sad indicator of the content knowledge of first year chemistry teachers... I hope not. I think there will be a hell of a lot of revision going on this summer!
I was quite surprised by Deb's comment (at least I think it was Deb) that kids don't really enjoy pracs. From the pracs I have taught or observed, the kids seem to enjoy getting some kit out, getting their hands dirty and actually doing something. Perhpas its the writing it up that takes the shine off.
I like the idea of some thinking questions at the start, however I am also aware of time constraints: if the prac is going to take 40 minutes, it would be unfair (and frustrating) to not allow enough time for the students to finish and double chem periods do not appear that often in timetables I have seen, and may not always coincide with the most approriate time to do a prac.
I desperately want to be able to implement some of the things we are learning into my lessons, but I feel there is something missing. I am not used to thinking or learning like this, and have not been 'taught' how to. I don't remember having lecture on how to plan an entire unit of work, how to be context based rather than content driven, how to make up interesting higher order thinking tasks around a topic. Yet this is what I am being asked to do. So I anguish over it, where to start, have I got enough context, does the question involve enough thinking? Will I get better over time - I certainly hope so.
Rather than increasing my learning I feel a bit like the holes in my learning are widening at the moment.
I will probably have more to add to this later...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
EDF4403 Session2
Another good morning.
Again its the discussions and HUGE variety of opinions and reasonings that make it interesting.
I'm not sure whether the whole assessment discussion was really what was due to be covered but it was extremely valuable. This is the main way that I pick up how other people would approach a topic. Some I agree with, some I really can't agree with, but the majority show that there is a huge variety of ways to approach a task and you don't have to teach the same way to every class in every lesson
I think at the end of the day variety is the key. Perhaps some tasks are better suited to not giving a final mark but offering plenty of feedback - gradually wean the students from their desperation for a number at the end of every test or assignment. Probably not a bad idea, and I have had my own issues with PGO subjects.
If I was to take one piece of information from this morning it would be Deb's comment of not giving marks out on the assessment but only providing feedback UNTIL the student has a one-on-one with the teacher - a nice mix of both worlds.
The movies idea was good, we covered a fair bit of this sort of thing in maths last year (it is amazing how many movies have maths buried deep in there somewhere), and I particulalry thought the idea of showing a video with either no sound or no vision particularly interesting. I reckon anything the keep the little darlings on their toes is good.
Naturally I found the creative writing task a challenge, but that in itself was interesting. Would I feel comfortable setting this sort of task? Moreso now that I've done it and realise that even if the words 'creative writing' send shivers down my spine, it can be a bit of fun. Of course without wanting to be 'mark centric' this was not a pass or fail task, and that took the pressure off. Would I want to set this sort of thing as a way of summatively assessing a topic of work instead of the good old exam, project or oral presentation? I don't think so. As a formative assessment to make sure we haven't lost anybody along the way - no problems. Again I like it because of it's 'out of left field-ness'.
I think it is important to remember though that in mixing things up and doing something different like creative writing, there is the danger of losing kids who do well (and understand not just remember) because all of a sudden one teacher takes them outside their comfort zone. How is the student who is used to 90%+ in every 'old fashioned' test they have ever taken going to react when all of a sudden they are confronted with a completely new type of assessment task or heaven forbid just get a pass or fail? Many kids (particularly accelerated students) are completely focussed on marks and competing, and marks are just as important to the parents. Do I want to be the only teacher (and a graduate teacher at that) at a school to push the boundaries of the education they are used to? I don't know whether I'm brave enough.
As to assessing creative tasks, I may be in the minority on my views I'm not sure. Yes I believe we are all teachers of literacy and numeracy, yes I will correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and give feedback on structure, but I would hesitate to deduct marks (again I don't want to be mark centric - I am talking of marks either public or private here) unless it was absolutely appalling or the task criteria specifically stated otherwise. My placment school last year was full of kids with very limited English and it seemed to be accepted by teachers that many of these kids do maths/sciences because in some ways it doesn't depend so much on language skills.
I was also uncomfortable with the notion of marking kids on their personal progress and improvement. If we are to teach using real life contexts then perhaps we should also judge work output with a similar real life context.
Finally the on-going homework of planning the topic of work. ...
I am amazed at how much new stuff is in the curriculum. I'll certainly learn a lot from doing the task, but I have difficulty in trying to ensure it is the context which drives the learning and not the content driving the teaching. Deb spent time explaining this to my group and she made it seem so easy - will I ever get there??
I usually have trouble scraping 200 words together on any one topic and here I am with over 700!
Again its the discussions and HUGE variety of opinions and reasonings that make it interesting.
I'm not sure whether the whole assessment discussion was really what was due to be covered but it was extremely valuable. This is the main way that I pick up how other people would approach a topic. Some I agree with, some I really can't agree with, but the majority show that there is a huge variety of ways to approach a task and you don't have to teach the same way to every class in every lesson
I think at the end of the day variety is the key. Perhaps some tasks are better suited to not giving a final mark but offering plenty of feedback - gradually wean the students from their desperation for a number at the end of every test or assignment. Probably not a bad idea, and I have had my own issues with PGO subjects.
If I was to take one piece of information from this morning it would be Deb's comment of not giving marks out on the assessment but only providing feedback UNTIL the student has a one-on-one with the teacher - a nice mix of both worlds.
The movies idea was good, we covered a fair bit of this sort of thing in maths last year (it is amazing how many movies have maths buried deep in there somewhere), and I particulalry thought the idea of showing a video with either no sound or no vision particularly interesting. I reckon anything the keep the little darlings on their toes is good.
Naturally I found the creative writing task a challenge, but that in itself was interesting. Would I feel comfortable setting this sort of task? Moreso now that I've done it and realise that even if the words 'creative writing' send shivers down my spine, it can be a bit of fun. Of course without wanting to be 'mark centric' this was not a pass or fail task, and that took the pressure off. Would I want to set this sort of thing as a way of summatively assessing a topic of work instead of the good old exam, project or oral presentation? I don't think so. As a formative assessment to make sure we haven't lost anybody along the way - no problems. Again I like it because of it's 'out of left field-ness'.
I think it is important to remember though that in mixing things up and doing something different like creative writing, there is the danger of losing kids who do well (and understand not just remember) because all of a sudden one teacher takes them outside their comfort zone. How is the student who is used to 90%+ in every 'old fashioned' test they have ever taken going to react when all of a sudden they are confronted with a completely new type of assessment task or heaven forbid just get a pass or fail? Many kids (particularly accelerated students) are completely focussed on marks and competing, and marks are just as important to the parents. Do I want to be the only teacher (and a graduate teacher at that) at a school to push the boundaries of the education they are used to? I don't know whether I'm brave enough.
As to assessing creative tasks, I may be in the minority on my views I'm not sure. Yes I believe we are all teachers of literacy and numeracy, yes I will correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and give feedback on structure, but I would hesitate to deduct marks (again I don't want to be mark centric - I am talking of marks either public or private here) unless it was absolutely appalling or the task criteria specifically stated otherwise. My placment school last year was full of kids with very limited English and it seemed to be accepted by teachers that many of these kids do maths/sciences because in some ways it doesn't depend so much on language skills.
I was also uncomfortable with the notion of marking kids on their personal progress and improvement. If we are to teach using real life contexts then perhaps we should also judge work output with a similar real life context.
Finally the on-going homework of planning the topic of work. ...
I am amazed at how much new stuff is in the curriculum. I'll certainly learn a lot from doing the task, but I have difficulty in trying to ensure it is the context which drives the learning and not the content driving the teaching. Deb spent time explaining this to my group and she made it seem so easy - will I ever get there??
I usually have trouble scraping 200 words together on any one topic and here I am with over 700!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
EDF4403 Session 1
I really enjoyed this session.
The main nugget that came out of the session for me was the discussion about the progression points and the fact that these are not the curriculum.
This was interesting for me for two reasons.
Firstly it related to discussions I have had with people previously about progression points and how students can be assessed against them. Deb’s point that if you teach to the progression points then it would be impossible allow for those students who had already grasped the main concept and were ready to move on, made it very clear to me the importance of the ‘curriculum continuum’ in relation to the progression points.
The second interesting point for me was how the concept of the progression points in VELS differs between subjects and how this difference could affect the way I teach.
The progression points in the mathematics domain seem to me to be a reasonable indicator of a students’ progress and would probably closely match the text books and the expected progression of learning. I can imagine it would be easy for a teacher used to using the progression points to drive teaching, to do the same in chemistry. Yet it is obvious that the progression points in the chemistry domain do not form a logical progression of chemistry learning (eg they seem to imply that learning content must come before learning context).
So the two most important ideas for my future learning were:
1) To be aware of the total curriculum in order to cater for all levels of learning in the classroom
2) Understand that my approach to one subject may need to be different to how I approach other subjects.
Since the start of this course I have always known that my chemistry content knowledge was weak. This was highlighted when going through the Chemistry Unit 1 and 2 textbook to find a topic to plan for our homework. The amount of extra content that is now in the curriculum is amazing and I am going to have to do some serious reading if I want to feel any sort of confidence in teaching any of this.
I don’t think I will ever be entirely comfortable with all the reflection stuff, but I think I probably was making it too complicated and trying too hard. I think if I just try to concentrate on the most importance pedagogical information that I get out of the sessions and explain why they were important and what I want to do with the information I might just get there.
The main nugget that came out of the session for me was the discussion about the progression points and the fact that these are not the curriculum.
This was interesting for me for two reasons.
Firstly it related to discussions I have had with people previously about progression points and how students can be assessed against them. Deb’s point that if you teach to the progression points then it would be impossible allow for those students who had already grasped the main concept and were ready to move on, made it very clear to me the importance of the ‘curriculum continuum’ in relation to the progression points.
The second interesting point for me was how the concept of the progression points in VELS differs between subjects and how this difference could affect the way I teach.
The progression points in the mathematics domain seem to me to be a reasonable indicator of a students’ progress and would probably closely match the text books and the expected progression of learning. I can imagine it would be easy for a teacher used to using the progression points to drive teaching, to do the same in chemistry. Yet it is obvious that the progression points in the chemistry domain do not form a logical progression of chemistry learning (eg they seem to imply that learning content must come before learning context).
So the two most important ideas for my future learning were:
1) To be aware of the total curriculum in order to cater for all levels of learning in the classroom
2) Understand that my approach to one subject may need to be different to how I approach other subjects.
Since the start of this course I have always known that my chemistry content knowledge was weak. This was highlighted when going through the Chemistry Unit 1 and 2 textbook to find a topic to plan for our homework. The amount of extra content that is now in the curriculum is amazing and I am going to have to do some serious reading if I want to feel any sort of confidence in teaching any of this.
I don’t think I will ever be entirely comfortable with all the reflection stuff, but I think I probably was making it too complicated and trying too hard. I think if I just try to concentrate on the most importance pedagogical information that I get out of the sessions and explain why they were important and what I want to do with the information I might just get there.
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