Monthly Archives: March 2016

NEEDED: A STEADY STATE

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One of the things wrong with education is the constant chopping and changing of curriculum priorities and methodological preferences. No sooner is something introduced and implemented, often in a piloting manner, than change is on again. Nothing is bedded down before it is added to, subtracted from, replaced or just dumped.

Education is like a frog, hopping from one lilly pad of initiative to the next. There os often little connection between these initiatives. At best, linkage is hazy.

Rather than shallow exploration, education needs to embrace the metaphor of the duck, deep diving into the pool and exploring issues in depth and breadth terms. Educational practices should be more frequently consolidated and less frequently tossed aside in order to grab at some other approach.

We need progress and change. Equally, we need understanding and consolidation.

HENRY’S PRAYER

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May God bless all students and may they work their hardest to do their best, committing energy and effort to their studies. May all lecturers and all teachers be available to assist their students in every way they can, and not be so preoccupied with their open study and research regimes, they forget their student cohorts.

This is my prayer for tertiary education, but also for those who at lower levels of teaching and learning regime

TEACHER TRAINING – NEW DEVELOPMENTS REVISIT THE PAST

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TEACHER TRAINING – NEW DEVELOPMENTS REVISIT THE PAST

Training our teachers of tomorrow is a matter always uppermost in the planning minds of universities and education departments. Parents everywhere know that good teachers make a difference. Teachers who build student confidence and commitment toward learning, are remembered for decades into the future.

Academic aptitude is important. That is why students selected to train as teachers should be people who have done well in their own secondary years of education. While relatively low tertiary entrance scores were sufficient to allow students into teacher training programs, this is no longer the case. The Federal Government is keen to attract trainees who have finished in the top 20% of Year 12 students as prerequisite for training to teach.

Most recently, it has been determined that preservice teachers should pass literacy and mathematics competency tests that have been developed by the Australian Council of Educational Research. These tests will be mandatory for students who commence training from the beginning of 2017. They are recommended, but optional, for pre-service teachers who have started training programs but have yet to complete their degrees.

Test details are available online at https://teacheredtest.acer.edu.au/

The first tests will be on offer to those who register between 16 May and 6 June this year. It will cost student teachers $185 to sit the tests. Included on the ACER site are sample questions in both Literacy and Maths. I would recommend those interested visit the site and study these sample questions. Results will be widely circulated to universities and departments of education.

Teaching Schools

The model of teacher education has changed over time. Until ten years ago, the focus for teachers on practice was to be visited and advised on teaching methodology by university or training college lecturers. While lecturers still visit, the emphasis is now on quality partnerships between ‘Teaching Schools’ and universities. Teachers on practice work with students, supported by classroom teachers who are their advisers and mentors. In each teaching school, a member of staff is appointed as Professional Learning Leader (PLL). The PLL supports both mentors and students. Pre-service teachers benefit from the chance to learn about programming, planning and the application of teaching methodology in classroom contexts. A tutorial program is part of this approach. Assisting student teachers to understand testing and assessment requirements including test administration and recording results is included in this focus.

Part of that change is directed toward helping new teachers understand and meet graduate standards set by the NT Teachers Registration Board. Results of literacy and maths competence will now be included in registration requirements.

Given that maths, spelling, language, listening, speaking and reading tests were part of training programs in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, this is in some respects a ‘back to the future’ initiative. It will be an important victory change.

FITTING IT ALL IN

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It’s interesting to contemplate how much schools have to do, cover and undertake these days. A school day is five hours long. How is it to be done in terms of fitting in more and more and more and … ?

We need to get wise. Stop adding and adding AND ADDING to content. We need to drop things off. If we don’t curriculum content becomes back breaking and mind blowing staff. We finish up lost in a maze of priority suggestions and resources.

The school day is just over five hours long. Schools are not 24/7 operations.

Let’s get wise and learn to say NO to the incessant adding into our responsibility and accountability portfolios. Things need to be manageable for schools, teachers and students.

LITERACY

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Literacy needs to be taught, not assumed to somehow evolve into the psyche of our growing up young. Teaching is more than chance and absorption of understanding by osmosis.

If there was less emphasis on naval gazing and more emphasis on the essence of literacy, including more teaching and less pontificating about comparative methodology, childen might be a lot better off.

LIVING THE LIFE

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May all young people olf the world be blessed and given the wisdom to discern the right pathways in life’s world. May those of us who are senior do the right thing by the example we set to following generations. This is one of the very important elements of awareness and need that should be part of the motivation and the psyche of all teachers. I include teachers in our schools and staff in our universities.

Teaching is an important part of the role we fill. Of equal importance has to be the example we set. What we do and the way we live validates or discredits the teaching messages we espouse.

My hope and wish is that all educators be remembered with appreciation and respect.

TEACHER TRAINING – NEW DEVELOPMENTS REVISIT THE PAST

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While written with the Northern Territory and Australia in mind, I would suggest the thrust of this paper has tenability in other systems.
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TEACHER TRAINING – NEW DEVELOPMENTS REVISIT THE PAST

Training our teachers of tomorrow is a matter always uppermost in the planning minds of universities and education departments. Parents everywhere know that good teachers make a difference. Teachers who build student confidence and commitment toward learning, are remembered for decades into the future.

Academic aptitude is important. That is why students selected to train as teachers should be people who have done well in their own secondary years of education. While relatively low tertiary entrance scores were sufficient to allow students into teacher training programs, this is no longer the case. The Federal Government is keen to attract trainees who have finished in the top 20% of Year 12 students as prerequisite for training to teach.

Most recently, it has been determined that preservice teachers should pass literacy and mathematics competency tests that have been developed by the Australian Council of Educational Research. These tests will be mandatory for students who commence training from the beginning of 2017. They are recommended, but optional, for pre-service teachers who have started training programs but have yet to complete their degrees.

Test details are available online at https://teacheredtest.acer.edu.au/

The first tests will be on offer to those who register between 16 May and 6 June this year. It will cost student teachers $185 to sit the tests. Included on the ACER site are sample questions in both Literacy and Maths. I would recommend those interested visit the site and study these sample questions. Results will be widely circulated to universities and departments of education.

Teaching Schools

The model of teacher education has changed over time. Until ten years ago, the focus for teachers on practice was to be visited and advised on teaching methodology by university or training college lecturers. While lecturers still visit, the emphasis is now on quality partnerships between ‘Teaching Schools’ and universities. Teachers on practice work with students, supported by classroom teachers who are their advisers and mentors. In each teaching school, a member of staff is appointed as Professional Learning Leader (PLL). The PLL supports both mentors and students. Pre-service teachers benefit from the chance to learn about programming, planning and the application of teaching methodology in classroom contexts. A tutorial program is part of this approach. Assisting student teachers to understand testing and assessment requirements including test administration and recording results is included in this focus.

Part of that change is directed toward helping new teachers understand and meet graduate standards set by the NT Teachers Registration Board. Results of literacy and maths competence will now be included in registration requirements.

Given that maths, spelling, language, listening, speaking and reading tests were part of training programs in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, this is in some respects a ‘back to the future’ initiative. It will be an important victory change.

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE THE NUMBER ONE EDUCATIONAL ISSUE

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Closing the educational gap means that Indigenous Australians have to grasp the nettle

A quality called ‘self help’ needs to be part of the equation. Closing the gap on education and everything else is not going to happen until and unless Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Communities get behind their challenges and commit to improvement. Sitting back and waiting for this to somehow evolve will not work and is not working.

I believe self-help is happening in some instances but by no means in the majority of cases. There are reasons for why this is an ongoing issue. The matters are not going to be solved until such times as non- Aboriginal persons in authority stop appealing to indigenous people in term of asking ” have you got a problem I can own?”

A case in point is the issue of school attendance. No attendance = no school = no learning. So the Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, senator Nigel Scullion, came up with the idea of employing Indigenous Truancy Officers in the NT and other parts of remote Australia to get children to school. The overall cost – well over $50 million.

There are ways in which school attendance can be managed, so that attendance is enhanced. Throughout my years as a school leader in remote area schools in both WA and the NT, attendance issues were managed in a way that minimised the problem. The matter was my responsibility and I worked to sell the need for regular attendance to the community. People came on board with my selling of the attendance message.

I smile inwardly – and with some sadness – when hearing of the ‘Nigel’s Army’ of truancy officers approach. That initiative costing close to $40,000,000 over two or three years has, in overall terms, made only a sight indentation on the attendance issue. I believe another $28 million or thereabouts has been promised to extend the program. There are reasons why this approach has not worked. Part of that has been the absence from duty of some truancy officers! I believe a solution exists but for it to work would require a U-turn in present policies.

TIME CONSTRAINTS CHALLENGE DIFFERENTIATED TEACHING

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“Differentiation … means teachers plan for the children who are actually in their class, instead of designing lessons for their idea of the “average” child.” (Graham, L., and Cologon, C., ” … What is differentiation and why is it so important”, The Conversation, March 8, 2015.)

This is a telling article, and covers the topic fulsomely. One point that needs to be taken into account is that of ‘time’. Preparing for each individual and meeting by the needs of children in solo specific manner is almost a utopian ambition. In practical terms, when teachers have classes approaching 30 chiildren in number, this ambition becomes almost impossible to fulfil.

The fact that teachers want to be 100% differentiators between children and the realisation they can’t because of time constraints, can lead to feelings of professional melancholy. That can escalate to educators suffering from self doubt and feeling guilt about the jobs they are doing.

Limitations have to be realised. Self flagellating because of not beiong able to meet the impossible should be avoided. In is in this environment that collegiate encouragement and professional support for those doubting themselves is so important.

HOMEWORK – A VEXATIOUS ISSUE

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The issue of homework is eons old. This papers considers pro’s and cons along with the purpose and function of homework. While set in terms of the Northern Territory environment, there would be parallels to and in other locations.

PROS AND CONS OF HOMEWORK

Homework is an issue that continues to do the educational rounds. Some educators believe in homework while others would like to discount it altogether. Similarly, some parents appreciate homework while others would like it to be abolished. Those in favour of homework believe it reinforces and consolidates learning through extra practice at home. Opposition to homework comes from those who think ‘enough is enough’; that beyond the school day, children should be freed from learning tasks.

Some parents and commentators suggest that homework is the teacher’s way of handing their responsibilities to parents. Homework should never be offered as a substitute for teaching. Lessons taught at school can however, be consolidated and reinforced through follow-up tasks completed at home. Homework can be a link between home and school, in helping to keep parents informed of what their children are learning and how they are progressing.

It is important that parents know assignments are set for children, rather than believing tasks are set for them to complete on behalf of children.

Primary students

For primary aged children reading, spelling list words and practicing their tables at home, reinforces basic learning needs. Rote methodology is a part of learning and homework set around basics, helps ingrain key understandings.

A comments sheet which can be signed off and commented upon by both parent and teacher, may be attached to these tasks. This simple communication helps keep parents aware of children’s academic development. Progress charts kept by some teachers remind students of their accomplishments. Homework should have relevance and meaning to children and parents. It must be more than busy work set by teachers.

Homework might ask for the completion of a research project or construction task. Requirements ought not be so complex or time consuming that parental intervention is needed to complete the exercise. Homework is for children, not an assignment for parents. Homework tasks set for students should be acknowledged, marked and outcomes recorded. If that doesn’t happen, children lose interest.

In some primary schools, outside school hours care programs offer homework support for attending children. This may include supervised after hours access to the school library. The City of Darwin Council also makes its library facilities available to children for homework support purposes.

The establishment of homework habits for younger students stands them in good stead for their later years of secondary and tertiary education. It builds within them confidence and independence, together with the knowledge that study at home is part of their educational contract. It can also be one way of parents keeping in touch with the learning and progress of their children.