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malcolm.mcinerney@flinders.edu.au

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Teachers are designers. An essential act of our profession is the design of curriculum and learning experiences to meet specified purposes. We are also designers of assessments to diagnose student needs to guide our teaching and to enable us, our students, and others (parents and administrators) to determine whether our goals have been achieved, that is, did the students learn and understand the desired knowledge?

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

Understanding by Design, backward design!

In recent years the area of designing curriculum has become of prime importance in schools. This is particularly critical as schools begin to become familiar with and deconstruct the Australian Curriculum for the purpose of designing appropriate learning and teaching program for their students. The theory which has been adopted as the way to go is from the work of Wiggins and McTighe in the area of Backward Design. Everywhere one goes, where curriculum is being developed and implemented we hear the term UBD or rather Understanding By Design.

Backward Design planning is a rather logical and reasonable idea which has always been the way of operation for many teachers, but not all.

By clearly articulating the UBD process, Wiggins and McTighe have created a way of thinking which has had great penetration into the area of curriculum planning and in turn pedagogy.

A few observations and gems of comment from the readings on Wiggins and McTighe

• Teachers are designers.

• "Clarifying the desired results of our teaching, how will we ever know whether our designs are appropriate or arbitrary?"

• How will we distinguish merely interesting learning from effective learning?

• Good design, … is about learning to be more thoughtful and specific about our purposes and what they imply.

• The shift involves thinking a great deal, first, about the specific learnings sought, and the evidence of such learning, before thinking about what we as the teacher, will do or provide in teaching and learning activities.

• "The challenge is to focus first on the desired learnings from which appropriate teaching will logically follow."

• “...best designs derive backward from the learnings sought.”

• “...too many teachers focus on the teaching and not the learning.”

• Content focused design versus results focused design.

• Answering the "why?" and "so what?" questions as the focus of curriculum planning.

• Twin sins:
* activity-oriented design might be called "hands-on without being minds-on" primary-middle years)
* aimless coverage (upper secondary)

• Students require clear purposes and explicit performance goals.

• Grasp the key idea that we are not coaches of their ability to play the "game" or performing with understanding, not tellers of our understanding to them on the sidelines.

• Three stages of Backward Design = Identify desired result - Determine acceptable evidence - Plan learning experience and instruction.

A related reading on progression was also set for this week’s workshop. Here are some comments from the work of Hoodless: Planning for progression and opportunities for the development of key skills

• Long, medium and short term planning.

• Australian curriculum is taking care of the long term planning?

• Key questions to draw together medium term planning.

• “...link the skills. concepts and factual content together around a central question, which is likely to interest the children.”

• “Short-term planning refers to the planning of individual lessons by the class teacher.”

• “Objectives, often expressed as key questions, are the knowledge, skills or understanding which you will want the children to have learned by the end of the lesson'

• Planning process = Previous knowledge and understanding - Specific learning intentions - Planned learning experience.

• "Hierarchy of thinking skills, which interact with language, and also depend on maturation; learning is seen as a developmental process."

• The thinking skills listed:
* Information processing
* Reasoning
* Inquiry
* Creative thinking
* Evaluation

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Assessment and curriculum making

Image above: The Geography Association in the UK. An amazing resource and the leaders in the concept of curriculum making.

Related sites to Humsteach blog
Spatialworlds
Australian Curriculum Portal
Geogaction
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia

Scoop.it

http://www.geography.org.uk/cpdevents/curriculummaking/curriculummakingexplained

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it
Just real interesting Scoop.it

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malcolm.mcinerney@flinders.edu.au

What do you think about HASS

The Bali 9 prisoners should have been executed

http://strawpoll.me/3843004

I read the Backward Design article

http://strawpoll.me/3843042

I find education theory really

http://strawpoll.me/3843034

The thought of teaching my first class by myself

http://strawpoll.me/384305

In relation to the lecture this week, I

http://strawpoll.me/3843065

The issue of assessment

* Thanks to Sue Jones from the DECD assessment and reporting team for helping out with our lecture and tutorials this week on assessment. Here is the link to the DECD assessment engagement resources.

* Here is the link to the Powerpoint to this weeks assessment lecture. Have another look at the lecture and think about your assessment philosophy.

Curriculum making

What is curriculum making?

Curriculum making is the creative act of interpreting a curriculum specification or scheme of work and turning it into a coherent, challenging, engaging and enjoyable scheme of work.
Curriculum making is a job that really never ends and lies at the heart of good teaching.

When educators talk about curriculum making we refer to the creation of interesting, engaging and challenging educational encounters which draw upon teacher knowledge and skills, the experiences of students and the valuable subject resources of the subject. Curriculum making is concerned with holding all this in balance and as a teacher you play a key role.

Why curriculum making?

The potential and promise of a subject is compromised if it is seen only as an inert or static 'knowledge-to-be-delivered'. Covering the syllabus is just the mechanics of teaching and is not the same as making the curriculum.

Curriculum making is about bringing a curriculum alive. It is about enacting the curriculum and giving it purpose. Geography and history are resources that can enable students to better understand the world and their place in it. It aims for a deep understanding.

The inquiry-led approach lies at the heart of teaching and learning in the Australian Curriculum: geography and History. Humanities teachers perform a delicate balancing act, drawing upon the student's experiences, the subject resource and their own knowledge and craft skills.

The essence of curriculum making

The following diagram captures the essence of curriculum making. Think of the diagram as a kind of 'corrective', always aiming for somewhere in the middle. Engage with the subject, listen to your students and question the value of what you are teaching.

Diagram from the Geography Association UK

The inquiry approach contains four central aspects including the creation of a 'need to know' through the use of an engaging stimulus. It then develops through the collection and use of data, processing and making sense of that data and finally reflecting on learning in order to apply it to future enquiries.

This process has been captured in a single diagram (adapted from Roberts, 2003).

During the tutorials we will use the deconstructing triangle for geography and history to start the exciting process of curriculum making within the context of backward designing the curriculum.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

What do you think - value free??

Image above: Cultural differences.

Related sites to Humsteach blog
Spatialworlds
Australian Curriculum Portal
Geogaction
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia

Scoop.it

http://strawpoll.me/6943470

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@flinders.edu.au

* The PowerPoint for the tutorials commencing on 22 February 2016

* Course details on FLO

You think what?

"A curriculum is not value-free, as values and attitudes cannot be divorced from content."

The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Geography January 2011

HASS subjects and their teaching is not value free. It is almost impossible not to be political in some way when discussing HASS topics.

As Robert Butler was quoted as saying in the Economist in 2010:

“It is getting harder and harder in conversation to raise one or other of the most basic subjects in geography—agriculture, glaciation, rivers and population—without a flicker of panic crossing the other person’s face. You are no longer talking about a neutral subject.”

HASS has the potential to be relevant, dynamic and challenging for students in the classroom through providing the opportunity to develop a political frame around what is taught. How can we teach about water, population, migration and climate change for example without challenging students to place the discussion in a political context – that is, what do you believe is right and what are the justice and ethical beliefs that guide ones opinion on an issue.

Here are two excellent classroom polling tools to have a look at and use to get discussion started.

* Straw Poll

What are your responses to the following following questions re: HASS

Click on the URL's below and select your response.

What subject of HASS do you like best?

http://strawpoll.me/6943450

Did you like Society and Environment at school?

https://strawpoll.me/6943458

Are you looking forward to teaching HASS?
http://strawpoll.me/6943465

Do you enjoy discussing issues?

* Poll everywhere

A digital tool that is a wonderful way to get students involved (all students, not just the vocal and uninhibited) in discussion of a contestable nature is Poll Everywhere. The brilliant aspect of this program is that it is easy to use, is anonymous and inclusive of all, can be used and developed in real time in the classroom and provides instant feedback (graphs, word walls etc). The program gives all students a voice so that they can express their opinion without ridicule or embarrassment. The resulting graphs and graphics provide data for class research and discussion and can be archived for comparison over time presentations. As a tool it is a great interactive way to involve the geography class in some high order thinking and discussion.
The brief video on the Poll Everywhere Home page gives an introduction to this free digital tool which can be used not only in the geography classroom but also with teachers in their professional learning in geography. Here is a Poll Everywhere document I recently used with a group of teachers working on the concepts in history and geography. All they had to do was type the URL http://www.pollev.com and start submitting their response to the questions in the document by using the codes (each code is unique and can be used only once specifically for the question - called a poll) generated by the teacher/facilitator of the question. Poll Everywhere is a great way to get discussion started in any gathering. It is certainly worth the 30 minutes to get acquainted with the tool and make the learning more interactive for participants and create some inclusive and comprehensive data for contestable discussions.

PollEverywhere responses

Go to PollEv.com/mal2013

or Text MAL2013 to +61 429 883 481

Why do we study HASS?

Can you list some HASS issues?

Is there any one issue that really interests/enthuses you?

Do you have any concerns about this class and how you may proceed/succeed?

Do you have any questions re: HASS before we continue?

TodaysMeet

Check this tool out and think about how you could use it in the classrtoom and
how we could use it in our tutorial. If you have already used it, be prepated to share yot thoughts.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

HASS SA Conference

Image above: The HASS concept wheels.

Conference presentations

Civics and Citizenship concepts and resources

Integrating Geography and Civics and Citizenship

HASS thinking

Related sites to Geogaction blog
Spatialworlds
GeogSpace
AC History Units
Geogaction
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Legal Education Teachers Association SA (LETASA)
Business Educators Australia

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@sa.gov.au

* The Australian Curriculum Portal

A selection of HASS resources and links

* Being a Citizen: a resource developed by AGTA

* South Australian Parliament teaching resources

* DECD Australian Curriculum Implementation guidelines

* Discovering Democracy resources

* Parliamentary Education Office resources

* GeogSpace: the resource from AGTA and Education Services Australia (ESA) to support the Australian Curriculum: Geography

* AC History Units: the resource from HTAA and Education Services Australia (ESA) to support the Australian Curriculum: History

* DECD Australian Curriculum: HASS resources

The DECD "Making the Australian Curriculum work for us' resource has been designed to support the teaching and learning of the Australian Curriculum: HASS.

As you can see below the resource to date includes a creative animation, broadsheets on the curriculum, sound bites and 'talking heads'.

The Story of the learning areas animation. An excellent animation on 'What is Geography for'.

The geography curriculum, year by year, all on one page in the Learning Area Explorer.

Bringing it to life resource (BitL) geography

The Sound bites

* Achievement Standards Chart and activities for HASS from DECD

Assessment activities are at:

http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/assessment/default.asp?navgrp=Leader

The RSLSA Virtual War Memorial

A great resource for commemoration activities, historical research and work on Australian identity in the Civics and Citizenship curriculum.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Things are changing