This week we were all charged with a little research task of finding chemistry software on the internet. Thanks be to Kate, who set up the wiki this time! It's been brilliant adding to it!
Firstly, for every one bit of good software, there's at least 10 that seem like garbage! It makes finding the good ones a rather slow process.
Having said that, there are some astoundingly good pieces of software out there.
Here's the link to our wiki... http://edf4403.wikidot.com/
Whilst not a lot can be reflected on in the way of learning for me, I still found this a very practical use of time as when I eventually get to teaching, I doubt I'm going to have hours to spend searching for good websites - this will come in very handy.
The portfolio is still bothering me, btw!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The practicum experience & 18/9 tute
Chemistry Teaching Rounds
Well, firstly I thought it would be useful to put down my accumulated reflections of the chemistry teaching round experience.
I had a wonderful time! I was teaching a group of 9 girls, and they were just brilliant to work with. 7 of them were from NESB, and several of those really did struggle with English. This part of the teaching, which was less chem-specific and more communication oriented was very interesting & a bit daunting. I did a survey after the first lesson, to find a bit more about the girls themselves & also what they liked/didn't like about chem. One of the comments was that they liked the power point that I did, so I thought to myself 'yes, even though it's transmissive, for the significant number of students in the class who may need to go away and translate things, it might be useful'. So, I merrily made a short (10 - 15 min max) power points & related handouts for each 'teaching' lesson (note the quotes - all lessons are learning ones, some seem to need the teacher to talk a bit) for reference. At the end, I did another survey & guess what they said - 'less power points!!'. This is almost humerous, as I generally wouldn't do much transmissive type of teaching, & wouldn't even think about doing power points in my teaching, but I tried to use my knowledge of the students potential difficulties and fell short! I feel compelled to also say that these slideshows were pretty short - we did lots of examples, discussions, q & a, activities, working lessons, pracs etc etc so I really didn't just stand up there and drone on for hours (which would be boring for anyone and NOT a good way to teach!!).
So that was one mistake. I clearly need to research more about NESB and how to handle it in the classroom. Furthermore, I think these students have much greater difficulty with scientific language than students who've been brought up with English as a first language. Try explaining the difference between oxidant and oxidised....you'll see what I mean. The difference in the word is subtle, but the meaning is significantly different.
I also found a great context to try and bring into the Redox theme.....but it didn't even get off the starting block! I know the girls at this school go to GTAC in Y12 and look at the chemistry of alcohol processing in the body. So, I thought it would be fun to link Redox into this, and do a prac on alcolmeters and maintain a theme throughout on this (the textbook already covers mining, so why repeat this?). However, I couldn't use the chemicals involved as they were not in the school for safety reasons. I tried to get a breathalyzer kit through various places & failed & eventually I just ran out of time before I started the practicum to be able to get it together. So, the thematic approach was far more difficult than I had hoped. Instead, I ended up with a 'battery' theme, and the girls had a project to design & make a battery. I deliberately made this an open ended activity, and some students had difficulty with the concept of going off and researching how to build it themselves, where others did really, really well. Two girls in particular had the idea of daisy-chaining several galvanic cells together to get a better result. Others needed more support, which I know is a fairly common problem with open ended tasks. Still, they all got there & I believe learned quite a bit from the activity. It is quite difficult to teach a theme throughout - perhaps I should've been broader, but I managed somehow!
The girls also found optional lunchtime tutes really useful - it allowed those that were still coming to grips with parts of the topic to come and get a bit of extra help, whilst not holding back the others. I really struggle to find ways to differentiate the curriculm for kids in Chem. It's far easier in maths, although still not straightforward, but I need to work on this in Chemistry some more. I did it a bit, but I don't think well enough. There were two girls who seriously could've coped with much more than they got & I think next time I would make up 'extension' type sheets for students to optionally take, which would go into more detail than the Y11 curriculum required. The open ended assignment was certainly a good way to allow those students some lattitude, but it wasn't enough.
In Year 8 science I also did the 'sound off' trick on a video & it worked a treat! They found it challenging, but were clearly engaged and I ran the video again after we'd discussed everyone's thoughts & it was interesting to see the students' reactions to the original dialogue. Lots of "oh is that what they meant" moments - good thinking invovled! I also did a 'make a heart' modelling session (due to students frequently mislabelling parts of the heart in tests prior to my arrival) with red and blue playdough, which was very successful. The girls had to draw down the stages of their construction on an A3 sheet, and it was most interesting to see how much they discussed & learned from this activity. It was really valuable. They did much better on the next test too, which was great as it was the only thing they'd done on the heart inbetween tests, which proves this stuff actually works!
18/09 Tutorial
OK - now to last Thursday's tute.
We spent a looong time talking about our experiences, which was an interesting thing to be a part of. Some people sounded like they had a difficult time, and others had a ball. I Loved David's chemistry assignment - the CSI comic/poster/etc. I'll be taking that idea into classes in future, as it clearly contained all the necessary info whilst allowed for a great deal of individuality in the approach taken. I hadn't thought of a comic before!
The curriculum assignment is going to be very useful I think & I'm feeling impatient to get into it. I need to do them in order though, or else I'll get caught out.
Re: the portfolio discussion - I have to say I'm disappointed that Deb is disappointed that I think the way I teach chem is a subset of my overall teaching philosophy. There are certainly differences between them, but the overall aim is the same. Maybe I'm missing the point & the process of doing the portfolio will reveal that....
So, until next time, lovely reader!
M
Well, firstly I thought it would be useful to put down my accumulated reflections of the chemistry teaching round experience.
I had a wonderful time! I was teaching a group of 9 girls, and they were just brilliant to work with. 7 of them were from NESB, and several of those really did struggle with English. This part of the teaching, which was less chem-specific and more communication oriented was very interesting & a bit daunting. I did a survey after the first lesson, to find a bit more about the girls themselves & also what they liked/didn't like about chem. One of the comments was that they liked the power point that I did, so I thought to myself 'yes, even though it's transmissive, for the significant number of students in the class who may need to go away and translate things, it might be useful'. So, I merrily made a short (10 - 15 min max) power points & related handouts for each 'teaching' lesson (note the quotes - all lessons are learning ones, some seem to need the teacher to talk a bit) for reference. At the end, I did another survey & guess what they said - 'less power points!!'. This is almost humerous, as I generally wouldn't do much transmissive type of teaching, & wouldn't even think about doing power points in my teaching, but I tried to use my knowledge of the students potential difficulties and fell short! I feel compelled to also say that these slideshows were pretty short - we did lots of examples, discussions, q & a, activities, working lessons, pracs etc etc so I really didn't just stand up there and drone on for hours (which would be boring for anyone and NOT a good way to teach!!).
So that was one mistake. I clearly need to research more about NESB and how to handle it in the classroom. Furthermore, I think these students have much greater difficulty with scientific language than students who've been brought up with English as a first language. Try explaining the difference between oxidant and oxidised....you'll see what I mean. The difference in the word is subtle, but the meaning is significantly different.
I also found a great context to try and bring into the Redox theme.....but it didn't even get off the starting block! I know the girls at this school go to GTAC in Y12 and look at the chemistry of alcohol processing in the body. So, I thought it would be fun to link Redox into this, and do a prac on alcolmeters and maintain a theme throughout on this (the textbook already covers mining, so why repeat this?). However, I couldn't use the chemicals involved as they were not in the school for safety reasons. I tried to get a breathalyzer kit through various places & failed & eventually I just ran out of time before I started the practicum to be able to get it together. So, the thematic approach was far more difficult than I had hoped. Instead, I ended up with a 'battery' theme, and the girls had a project to design & make a battery. I deliberately made this an open ended activity, and some students had difficulty with the concept of going off and researching how to build it themselves, where others did really, really well. Two girls in particular had the idea of daisy-chaining several galvanic cells together to get a better result. Others needed more support, which I know is a fairly common problem with open ended tasks. Still, they all got there & I believe learned quite a bit from the activity. It is quite difficult to teach a theme throughout - perhaps I should've been broader, but I managed somehow!
The girls also found optional lunchtime tutes really useful - it allowed those that were still coming to grips with parts of the topic to come and get a bit of extra help, whilst not holding back the others. I really struggle to find ways to differentiate the curriculm for kids in Chem. It's far easier in maths, although still not straightforward, but I need to work on this in Chemistry some more. I did it a bit, but I don't think well enough. There were two girls who seriously could've coped with much more than they got & I think next time I would make up 'extension' type sheets for students to optionally take, which would go into more detail than the Y11 curriculum required. The open ended assignment was certainly a good way to allow those students some lattitude, but it wasn't enough.
In Year 8 science I also did the 'sound off' trick on a video & it worked a treat! They found it challenging, but were clearly engaged and I ran the video again after we'd discussed everyone's thoughts & it was interesting to see the students' reactions to the original dialogue. Lots of "oh is that what they meant" moments - good thinking invovled! I also did a 'make a heart' modelling session (due to students frequently mislabelling parts of the heart in tests prior to my arrival) with red and blue playdough, which was very successful. The girls had to draw down the stages of their construction on an A3 sheet, and it was most interesting to see how much they discussed & learned from this activity. It was really valuable. They did much better on the next test too, which was great as it was the only thing they'd done on the heart inbetween tests, which proves this stuff actually works!
18/09 Tutorial
OK - now to last Thursday's tute.
We spent a looong time talking about our experiences, which was an interesting thing to be a part of. Some people sounded like they had a difficult time, and others had a ball. I Loved David's chemistry assignment - the CSI comic/poster/etc. I'll be taking that idea into classes in future, as it clearly contained all the necessary info whilst allowed for a great deal of individuality in the approach taken. I hadn't thought of a comic before!
The curriculum assignment is going to be very useful I think & I'm feeling impatient to get into it. I need to do them in order though, or else I'll get caught out.
Re: the portfolio discussion - I have to say I'm disappointed that Deb is disappointed that I think the way I teach chem is a subset of my overall teaching philosophy. There are certainly differences between them, but the overall aim is the same. Maybe I'm missing the point & the process of doing the portfolio will reveal that....
So, until next time, lovely reader!
M
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Wikis for Group Work
Here are my thoughts on the effectiveness of using a wiki for the purposes of a group assignment (the unit of work) in Chem this past few weeks...
My main aim was to try it out on some adults, so we could analyze some advantages and disadvantages of the medium. Here is my list, for want of a better way to put it!
Disadvantages (either observed or I consider there's a definite potential for these issues)
- Too easy for a student to say they are confused by the technology and so not contribute properly. A new excuse for an old problem?
- Students may really be too daunted by the technology, and get bogged down with that rather than learning and contributing. Yes, these are two separate issues :-)
- If users don't log in, the changes made are not registered against anyone, which will make assessment difficult for the teacher (who did what?).
- It took too long to find a product and set it up. The free ones can't restrict visibility to select users only (perhaps a privacy issue here).
- Even though structuring of group assignments is always difficult, it was made more so with the wiki b/c it was slow to communicate & we assumed we could (in part) plan the assignment via the wiki. I don't think this part worked too well lol & it took a disproportionate amount of time in planning.
- Nobody likes to delete somebody else's work for fear of offending them, so the communication lines are not as effective when trying to chat largely via technology. I wonder if Gen Y or Gen C will experience this problem in the same way as we did...
- You still need to have plenty of face-to-face contact time, as the wiki doesn't help with planning assignments, it only caters for the actual 'doing' part.
This makes it sound like I'll never go near a wiki again, but actually, overall I thought it has great potential, with a little refinement.
- When students log in before editing the wiki, there are named, tracked changes to a single document. As a teacher, I'd like this kind of visibility particularly in group assignments where it's usually very difficult to know the break-up of work.
- As a student in group-work, you can all work on the same document without fear of version control (which inevitably goes pear-shaped).
- As a student, I liked being able to do the work in my own time and know where other people were at with their work. This visibility only really started happening about a week ago, but I liked it once it did. We live in a very 'now' society these days lol!
- I find this personally engaging as a medium, because it is different. Other people probably find the opposite but it shows this might appeal to some students simply for the sake of itself.
- I learned a bit more about wikis as a result of this, and am now thinking about how this technology will be useful in a variety of settings, including student group assignments (I had already listed it as one possible presentation method in the jigsaw assessment Kate!) and exactly this - units of work - for teachers in schools. I'm sure there's more...
Things that could be improved on when using it with students' group work
- Definitely pre-establish a wiki and load a broad structure for students. That part really was a time-pit & ineffective.
- Make up some clear guidelines about wiki etiquette (eg it's ok to delete other people's work in the process of improvement and refinement, as it's all recoverable via roll-back features anyway!).
- Do some simple training on the basics of how to use a wiki, so everyone feels capable of actually using it prior to undertaking assignments.
As we were experimenting & none of us had done anything like this before, these issues couldn't have been foreseen, but I'm glad we tried it out, as I feel I know much more about wikis and their potential now. It's not just a hype word to me anymore (does this mean I'll be less engaged next time, by definition?) :-)
In general, my thoughts on working through the content of the assignment are overall that this was a difficult but very good learning activity. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this was how challenging we found keeping a constant themed context right throughout a single unit of work, and in hindsight I think this reflects our own lack of depth of knowledge about chemistry in the world around us. I am very committed to bringing context into my science classrooms, and am slowly building up a bank of context based activities to use, but this was quite a bit more challenging than that. At first the idea of a thematic context distracted us from the chemistry, but in the end we came back to the ideas behind a CoRe and considered what the important concepts were and what content students needed to know, then found examples to demonstrate with in our chosen context . I still think we could have covered this a bit better, but it was a very beneficial process for us to go through. Apart from learning a bit of chemistry in the world around me, I also encountered the significant workload involved in generating a single unit to teach. In reality, I consider the unit we created still needs further work before it could be used to teach with, although it is a very good start. In addition, we all encountered having to negotiate the most appropriate approach to teaching the unit, which involved each of us having to step back from some of the ideas we individually had to find a common ground. I suspect if this were a real teaching situation, I would be less likely to negotiate on some of my viewpoints, which would make the process even more challenging than it already was. I wonder how my partners felt about it....
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Following Chem Workshop 3
Another terrific workshop! We did pracs :-)
It's been soooo long since I actually participated in a chemistry prac, and it reminds me of why I loved them back in the dark ages when I studied chem. I like the 'doing' and the unpredictability (say, of power cords catching fire, spectrometers not remaining calibrated etc.) and the fun of trying to find work-arounds to these problems. I like the measuring, and the uncertainty of doing something but not quite knowing for sure if it's right....in a word, exciting.
The biggest thing to strike me was the excellent way of changing pracs around to get students thinking harder. The group I was in was not given the procedure up-front; we had to work out what was going to happen in the prac before we ever got near the steps to follow. How much more thinking did we do - heaps! I'm going to try to sabotage all pracs from here on, b/c this was so much more effective in employing the higer-order thinking. It has similarities with POE in this regard.
I thought it was interesting how many people seemed instantaneously frozen at the 'emergency' of our plug catching fire - I suspect as science teachers we probably need to expose ourselves to emergency situations and find ways to quickly solve them. I really don't think fire drills cut it! It reminds me that I should know where every plug, tap and off switch is in each lab....
I had a really good discussion with Deb about assessment. It's been a common theme bugging me for a bit, and now I think I've come to a place where I'm comfortable. Assessment is against the learning continuum - that is, it's OK to mark a student harder than their peer for equal content work, if I set personal learning goals for them that is individualised based on what I expect they might be able to achieve. In the end, I will be reporting about where they are in respect to the continuum, and the brighter kids will end up further up on the dots than the kids who are struggling. If both groups work hard and make a quantum leap in understanding, they need to be rewarded for that in terms of marks. However, where they are in the continuum is the over-arching assessment that allows them to see where they are in respect to the standards for their year level. The trick will be to make that explicit, b/c you don't want little Johnny's mum coming in and blasting you for giving him good passes, but showing him only just at or below the VELS level for that year.... This approach sits well with me - I have tutored kids privately in maths, and have wondered how to incorporate the personalised learning that they do in that setting back into the classroom. Last year I had all but been convinced that you can't do that, but I have reverted back to being a believer in individualised learning plans. It will be effective for the students (although rather tiring for me!!). Feeling happy about that :-)
Somehow I thought we had another two weeks until full time placements, but my diary and Deb seem to think otherwise lol! The project is coming along, although it is a challenge. I was hoping that the wiki idea would minimise the amount of face-to-face time we need, but interestingly I don't think it works as well on that front due to dependencies on people working in order on their respective bits. The key advantage that I see is that we can all see the final project in one spot, vs. the usual email mess that has issues with which version is right. The other is that it is easy to track who has been doing the work, which I think is important from an assessment perspective. I realise we're going to have to work a bit like this once we're planning with colleagues in the workplace, but I suspect it will have a different dynamic. It's difficult to make progress - we spent much of Thursday's hour still talking about structure, which I really thought we should have had bedded down by now. The other downer is that Kate is the only one presenting our work next week - I have an all-day meeting on the project I'm working on and Julia flys out on Tuesday. In reality, we need to get this finished by Tuesday & I feel very guilty that Kate is being dumped with the presenting (and also crummy that I'll miss out on hearing the feedback!). Anyway, for those interested in looking at what we're doing (which is a bit sketchy at the moment), the wiki site is.... http://edf4403.scribblewiki.com/Main_Page. If you want to comment, could you leave it here on the blog rather than on the project for the moment though, as we are trying to keep the project to just us 3 temporarily.
Will add more to the journal as I go...
Cheers!
It's been soooo long since I actually participated in a chemistry prac, and it reminds me of why I loved them back in the dark ages when I studied chem. I like the 'doing' and the unpredictability (say, of power cords catching fire, spectrometers not remaining calibrated etc.) and the fun of trying to find work-arounds to these problems. I like the measuring, and the uncertainty of doing something but not quite knowing for sure if it's right....in a word, exciting.
The biggest thing to strike me was the excellent way of changing pracs around to get students thinking harder. The group I was in was not given the procedure up-front; we had to work out what was going to happen in the prac before we ever got near the steps to follow. How much more thinking did we do - heaps! I'm going to try to sabotage all pracs from here on, b/c this was so much more effective in employing the higer-order thinking. It has similarities with POE in this regard.
I thought it was interesting how many people seemed instantaneously frozen at the 'emergency' of our plug catching fire - I suspect as science teachers we probably need to expose ourselves to emergency situations and find ways to quickly solve them. I really don't think fire drills cut it! It reminds me that I should know where every plug, tap and off switch is in each lab....
I had a really good discussion with Deb about assessment. It's been a common theme bugging me for a bit, and now I think I've come to a place where I'm comfortable. Assessment is against the learning continuum - that is, it's OK to mark a student harder than their peer for equal content work, if I set personal learning goals for them that is individualised based on what I expect they might be able to achieve. In the end, I will be reporting about where they are in respect to the continuum, and the brighter kids will end up further up on the dots than the kids who are struggling. If both groups work hard and make a quantum leap in understanding, they need to be rewarded for that in terms of marks. However, where they are in the continuum is the over-arching assessment that allows them to see where they are in respect to the standards for their year level. The trick will be to make that explicit, b/c you don't want little Johnny's mum coming in and blasting you for giving him good passes, but showing him only just at or below the VELS level for that year.... This approach sits well with me - I have tutored kids privately in maths, and have wondered how to incorporate the personalised learning that they do in that setting back into the classroom. Last year I had all but been convinced that you can't do that, but I have reverted back to being a believer in individualised learning plans. It will be effective for the students (although rather tiring for me!!). Feeling happy about that :-)
Somehow I thought we had another two weeks until full time placements, but my diary and Deb seem to think otherwise lol! The project is coming along, although it is a challenge. I was hoping that the wiki idea would minimise the amount of face-to-face time we need, but interestingly I don't think it works as well on that front due to dependencies on people working in order on their respective bits. The key advantage that I see is that we can all see the final project in one spot, vs. the usual email mess that has issues with which version is right. The other is that it is easy to track who has been doing the work, which I think is important from an assessment perspective. I realise we're going to have to work a bit like this once we're planning with colleagues in the workplace, but I suspect it will have a different dynamic. It's difficult to make progress - we spent much of Thursday's hour still talking about structure, which I really thought we should have had bedded down by now. The other downer is that Kate is the only one presenting our work next week - I have an all-day meeting on the project I'm working on and Julia flys out on Tuesday. In reality, we need to get this finished by Tuesday & I feel very guilty that Kate is being dumped with the presenting (and also crummy that I'll miss out on hearing the feedback!). Anyway, for those interested in looking at what we're doing (which is a bit sketchy at the moment), the wiki site is.... http://edf4403.scribblewiki.com/Main_Page. If you want to comment, could you leave it here on the blog rather than on the project for the moment though, as we are trying to keep the project to just us 3 temporarily.
Will add more to the journal as I go...
Cheers!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Following Chem workshop 2
Wow! This was a brilliant workshop & it's been a real pain having to wait until now to get to write about it :(
Let's see...where to start. Assessment, I think! What a lively discussion we all had, but I am still undecided about what I will take from Uni as a whole in regard to assessment. The unit we covered last semester really appealed to my statistically focused background, in that rubrics, clear criteria, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability checks etc etc all provide a dependable framework from which we can fairly and consistently report on each students' skills. The volume and variety of assessment is also important, to ensure a diverse enough range of data to be able to make correct inferences on student learning. This is all clearly really important, but I do hear the comment that students don't actually receive the feedback they need from this type of reporting on assessment. Are they going to improve when they receive a result of 69% or a circle on a rubric? Not likely. I found it personally dissatisfying as a student too. In reality, teachers do much thinking about what they read of a student's work - this also needs to be reported and from the student's perspective, it is what allows them to improve. So, this is the multiple-focus of assessment - one is to reliably allow the teacher (then parents and other stakeholders) to concisely identify whether a student is reaching expected learning goals for that year level (lots of words is just too difficult to monitor), and the other is to provide information to the student about where they went well, and where they can improve/further their skills. The mark is important though - it is a quick indicator for the student to see if they're on track. For eg - if a student gets 90% on an assignment along with a whole bunch of comments suggesting where they can improve, the student will understand those comments are based on a more individualised learning plan, but that they are tracking very well with regard to year level expectations. I see them both as being important - the highest achievers are often very self-critical and I can imagine self-efficacy being undermined if they aren't made aware that they are "performing" well. Perhaps Deb's idea of the mark being handed out after comments have been read and discussed is a key here....unfortunately I can appreciate both sides to the assessment debate so this may end up being my middle ground. It was a very interesting and worthwhile discussion though & I am very glad we all had it - it's challenged my ideas just a bit (lot!).
The creative writing task was hilarious, and I can easily see it's value in determining student understanding. What a brilliant idea, and I am hoping to see an opportunity to use something similar to this on practicum :-) In terms of assessment, I see VELS as providing a really clear framework for marking this type of thing - it's interdisciplinary in that language and science domains should both be assessed. As the science teacher, I am going to be focussed on the student understanding of key science concepts, and think it should be marked accordingly. I could also provide a different mark for the language component, or better still, involve the English teacher and allow that person to use the task as part of their overall assessment of the student. As Oosterhof pointed out - items that are unrelated to instructional objectives should be excluded from grades (p222) and I really think that marking a student down for language troubles (for whatever reason) in a science class is unfair as it's assessing something unrelated to what we are intending to teach. If a student struggles in English, they need extra help, not marking down in every subject for it. There is another angle to this type of task - how do you assess from it? In theory, we're supposed to have criteria set up front, and correct the work accordingly. If it was formative assessment, would this really be necessary in a formal sense? A broad rubric identifying the key ideas expected to be demonstrated, with a HML assessment might be adequate....I need to see when I try it myself. Does the absence of comment on a particular scientific idea indicate lack of understanding, or creative omission because it doesn't fit with the storyline - could be either & therefore the task would be of limited value summatively (or even formatively). Hmmm....
I liked Deb's idea about interviewing technique - one to remember! Write the comments in pencil so parents can't look over the table and read what you've written. Also, identify ahead of time which parents are teachers, and which ones are on school council. Good political advice there!!
Next topic - movies in chemistry education. Actually, turning off the sound or video (not both lol!) was such a good idea! I have personally zoned out on many a DVD in classes - a moment to relax and not think too hard, so I can't imagine it's all that different for other students. The pedagogical ideas that we're encountering are so brilliant - I just don't think there will be enough time to learn them all before we're teachers ourselves, at which time I worry that we won't have a source of new tricks. Maybe I'll be lucky & get a helpful mentor in year 1.
List of good movies noted in class for chem and science ed - Contact, The Dish, I am legend (start off on cancer), Happy Feet (about Antarctica), Mad Max, Harry Potter (Biol & Chem - good descriptions of animals eg scrute, how might we create that spell), James Bond (Die another day has a disappearing car - physics), Indiana Jones (How have we changed our science?), Outbreak (biol), The Matrix, LOTR, Mythbusters (what is a valid test?), No reservations (chef).
Reminder to self - borrow the VisChem DVD from Deb (if she doesn't mind!) as I really loved the representation & want to see all that's on it...
Science Learning Hub website - http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/ is a really good website that Deb mentioned! If anyone reads this who hasn't checked it out yet, then go take a look!
On to the project - we're in the midst of trying to muddle ours in a Wiki format, which is kind've interesting & it will be fun to see what the other people in my group think of it. I like it so far, but will really jump in later tonight, once I put some real content up myself.
Anyway, enough blogging for now. See you next instalment!
M
Let's see...where to start. Assessment, I think! What a lively discussion we all had, but I am still undecided about what I will take from Uni as a whole in regard to assessment. The unit we covered last semester really appealed to my statistically focused background, in that rubrics, clear criteria, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability checks etc etc all provide a dependable framework from which we can fairly and consistently report on each students' skills. The volume and variety of assessment is also important, to ensure a diverse enough range of data to be able to make correct inferences on student learning. This is all clearly really important, but I do hear the comment that students don't actually receive the feedback they need from this type of reporting on assessment. Are they going to improve when they receive a result of 69% or a circle on a rubric? Not likely. I found it personally dissatisfying as a student too. In reality, teachers do much thinking about what they read of a student's work - this also needs to be reported and from the student's perspective, it is what allows them to improve. So, this is the multiple-focus of assessment - one is to reliably allow the teacher (then parents and other stakeholders) to concisely identify whether a student is reaching expected learning goals for that year level (lots of words is just too difficult to monitor), and the other is to provide information to the student about where they went well, and where they can improve/further their skills. The mark is important though - it is a quick indicator for the student to see if they're on track. For eg - if a student gets 90% on an assignment along with a whole bunch of comments suggesting where they can improve, the student will understand those comments are based on a more individualised learning plan, but that they are tracking very well with regard to year level expectations. I see them both as being important - the highest achievers are often very self-critical and I can imagine self-efficacy being undermined if they aren't made aware that they are "performing" well. Perhaps Deb's idea of the mark being handed out after comments have been read and discussed is a key here....unfortunately I can appreciate both sides to the assessment debate so this may end up being my middle ground. It was a very interesting and worthwhile discussion though & I am very glad we all had it - it's challenged my ideas just a bit (lot!).
The creative writing task was hilarious, and I can easily see it's value in determining student understanding. What a brilliant idea, and I am hoping to see an opportunity to use something similar to this on practicum :-) In terms of assessment, I see VELS as providing a really clear framework for marking this type of thing - it's interdisciplinary in that language and science domains should both be assessed. As the science teacher, I am going to be focussed on the student understanding of key science concepts, and think it should be marked accordingly. I could also provide a different mark for the language component, or better still, involve the English teacher and allow that person to use the task as part of their overall assessment of the student. As Oosterhof pointed out - items that are unrelated to instructional objectives should be excluded from grades (p222) and I really think that marking a student down for language troubles (for whatever reason) in a science class is unfair as it's assessing something unrelated to what we are intending to teach. If a student struggles in English, they need extra help, not marking down in every subject for it. There is another angle to this type of task - how do you assess from it? In theory, we're supposed to have criteria set up front, and correct the work accordingly. If it was formative assessment, would this really be necessary in a formal sense? A broad rubric identifying the key ideas expected to be demonstrated, with a HML assessment might be adequate....I need to see when I try it myself. Does the absence of comment on a particular scientific idea indicate lack of understanding, or creative omission because it doesn't fit with the storyline - could be either & therefore the task would be of limited value summatively (or even formatively). Hmmm....
I liked Deb's idea about interviewing technique - one to remember! Write the comments in pencil so parents can't look over the table and read what you've written. Also, identify ahead of time which parents are teachers, and which ones are on school council. Good political advice there!!
Next topic - movies in chemistry education. Actually, turning off the sound or video (not both lol!) was such a good idea! I have personally zoned out on many a DVD in classes - a moment to relax and not think too hard, so I can't imagine it's all that different for other students. The pedagogical ideas that we're encountering are so brilliant - I just don't think there will be enough time to learn them all before we're teachers ourselves, at which time I worry that we won't have a source of new tricks. Maybe I'll be lucky & get a helpful mentor in year 1.
List of good movies noted in class for chem and science ed - Contact, The Dish, I am legend (start off on cancer), Happy Feet (about Antarctica), Mad Max, Harry Potter (Biol & Chem - good descriptions of animals eg scrute, how might we create that spell), James Bond (Die another day has a disappearing car - physics), Indiana Jones (How have we changed our science?), Outbreak (biol), The Matrix, LOTR, Mythbusters (what is a valid test?), No reservations (chef).
Reminder to self - borrow the VisChem DVD from Deb (if she doesn't mind!) as I really loved the representation & want to see all that's on it...
Science Learning Hub website - http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/ is a really good website that Deb mentioned! If anyone reads this who hasn't checked it out yet, then go take a look!
On to the project - we're in the midst of trying to muddle ours in a Wiki format, which is kind've interesting & it will be fun to see what the other people in my group think of it. I like it so far, but will really jump in later tonight, once I put some real content up myself.
Anyway, enough blogging for now. See you next instalment!
M
Friday, July 18, 2008
Following Chem workshop 1
Hey, I'm back :-) Looks like another fun semester of blogging, so strap yourselves in folks. I notice for no good reason there's been another 6 visitors to the blog since last semester (the counter went on for the final post), so hello to all those bots out there too lol!
OK - on to more serious business. The first chemistry workshop - it was really good. The irony of my saying in week one that I'm a bit relieved there were other people besides me in the class who clearly felt their content knowledge wasn't as tight as it could be doesn't escape me. Deja vu from week 1 of science ed! Content knowledge is extremely important, and I know expectation is that we are all experts in this. For my own sanity though, I need to keep reminding myself that my observation over the last year and a half is that I can remember quickly what I thought I'd forgotten & in many ways I seem to put more perspective around it through refreshing. Another observation is that I still need to refresh what I really did think I knew, as to teach requires a different perspective than to learn and do. So, I must stop worrying so much, and trust a bit more in myself I think!
I found the like/dislike/remember/don't remember discussion we had interesting. Not remotely surprising that the outcome highlighted we all have different personal preferences, but I did think it was interesting that pretty much everyone audibly *groaned* over at least one topic in chem. Why is this? Who is so passionate about chemistry in the room that they could say 'I love it all' (besides Deb!)? I wonder if you'd get this for every subject in teacher education. I don't think I could put my hand up to disliking *anything* in maths (not even calculus, which seemed to amuse Kate!), yet there are certainly parts of chemistry that I felt were a drag & had to be tolerated to get to the good stuff. I need to think about why this is so a bit more, because it smells of being important when it comes to inspiring my own students. I need to find something to love about every aspect of chemistry, before I can bring it all to life in the classroom. This would need to be part of the 'refresher' I'm undertaking!!
It's good to see Shulman's seven knowledge domains link back into this unit. It makes very good sense & particularly the idea of PCK resonates well with me. This is where I need to focus some attention this semester - *how to decide* which is the best way of teaching various topics of chemistry. Are there any specific pedagogies that are used well in chemistry - I felt I was making progress w.r.t. maths and general science, but I need to do a mental shift to notice the ones that work well for chemistry specifically.
We also had a very useful discussion about VELS - the idea that the progression points don't actually constitute part of the standards is just amazing to me, and to be honest, a relief! I really didn't think they had much guidance for science when we looked at them, so I'll be very glad to not have to stick to them too rigidly. It'll be a very painful thing to have to report against them though (ugh!). I need some good skills w.r.t. how to design lovely open ended tasks in chemistry that will allow students to shine at their real level of knowledge (& VELS level!!). I wonder if there's a chemistry educator's book that can give examples, which might help me shift my thinking to how to construct really good questions that promote higher level thinking, whilst at the same time cateing to varying levels of ability and knowledge. Peter's one for maths has been very enlightening, but I'm struggling to know how to do this for such a practical subject as chem. I'm thinking in particular of two girls in year 8 that I think would've benefited from better questions than the ones I put forward in my last teaching rounds. Deb says the key 'thinking' questions should be created before the lesson, which I did, but I need to improve them to stimulate every student & not just 'most students'.
I liked the idea of the different faces of chemistry (which was also in the notes from Blackboard). The scientific face, technological face, the craft face (eg cooking, art, making beer!) and the magical face (eg SFX). I suspect it might be an inverse relationship to engagement for many students - the magic and craft is much more fun that the science and technology at first.
The model put up from Morene-Dershimer & Kent regarding the progression from PK to PCK is thought provoking. Right now I think I'm somewhere just to the left of the middle arrow....developing the context specific PK. The boxes on the right are still entering the equation for every lesson I plan, but they are much more challenging to incorporate, so I think I'll stick with assessing myself as being mostly in the middle at the moment. I still think the word 'reflection' should appear more than it does though - I would think as a teacher you'd need to reflect on whether your content knowledge is current (journals etc to be kept up with), whether your curriculum knowledge is current, whether the assessment was most appropriate etc etc etc. Everything will need reflection, not just the PK as these boxes would imply.
As an aside - one student put up An Oil Rig Cat as an acronym for Anode, Oxidation is loss, Reduction is gain, Cathode. Quite nice :-)
The activity - planning a unit. One thing I really like about this is that it's *not* marked, because I truly loathe group work being marked, but I do like group work! The activity will be really useful & I'm so glad it's all being shared on Blackboard!
OK - now let's see what the questions I'm meant to be answering are, since I've finished my brain-dump of the lesson!
Have a good week :-)
M
OK - on to more serious business. The first chemistry workshop - it was really good. The irony of my saying in week one that I'm a bit relieved there were other people besides me in the class who clearly felt their content knowledge wasn't as tight as it could be doesn't escape me. Deja vu from week 1 of science ed! Content knowledge is extremely important, and I know expectation is that we are all experts in this. For my own sanity though, I need to keep reminding myself that my observation over the last year and a half is that I can remember quickly what I thought I'd forgotten & in many ways I seem to put more perspective around it through refreshing. Another observation is that I still need to refresh what I really did think I knew, as to teach requires a different perspective than to learn and do. So, I must stop worrying so much, and trust a bit more in myself I think!
I found the like/dislike/remember/don't remember discussion we had interesting. Not remotely surprising that the outcome highlighted we all have different personal preferences, but I did think it was interesting that pretty much everyone audibly *groaned* over at least one topic in chem. Why is this? Who is so passionate about chemistry in the room that they could say 'I love it all' (besides Deb!)? I wonder if you'd get this for every subject in teacher education. I don't think I could put my hand up to disliking *anything* in maths (not even calculus, which seemed to amuse Kate!), yet there are certainly parts of chemistry that I felt were a drag & had to be tolerated to get to the good stuff. I need to think about why this is so a bit more, because it smells of being important when it comes to inspiring my own students. I need to find something to love about every aspect of chemistry, before I can bring it all to life in the classroom. This would need to be part of the 'refresher' I'm undertaking!!
It's good to see Shulman's seven knowledge domains link back into this unit. It makes very good sense & particularly the idea of PCK resonates well with me. This is where I need to focus some attention this semester - *how to decide* which is the best way of teaching various topics of chemistry. Are there any specific pedagogies that are used well in chemistry - I felt I was making progress w.r.t. maths and general science, but I need to do a mental shift to notice the ones that work well for chemistry specifically.
We also had a very useful discussion about VELS - the idea that the progression points don't actually constitute part of the standards is just amazing to me, and to be honest, a relief! I really didn't think they had much guidance for science when we looked at them, so I'll be very glad to not have to stick to them too rigidly. It'll be a very painful thing to have to report against them though (ugh!). I need some good skills w.r.t. how to design lovely open ended tasks in chemistry that will allow students to shine at their real level of knowledge (& VELS level!!). I wonder if there's a chemistry educator's book that can give examples, which might help me shift my thinking to how to construct really good questions that promote higher level thinking, whilst at the same time cateing to varying levels of ability and knowledge. Peter's one for maths has been very enlightening, but I'm struggling to know how to do this for such a practical subject as chem. I'm thinking in particular of two girls in year 8 that I think would've benefited from better questions than the ones I put forward in my last teaching rounds. Deb says the key 'thinking' questions should be created before the lesson, which I did, but I need to improve them to stimulate every student & not just 'most students'.
I liked the idea of the different faces of chemistry (which was also in the notes from Blackboard). The scientific face, technological face, the craft face (eg cooking, art, making beer!) and the magical face (eg SFX). I suspect it might be an inverse relationship to engagement for many students - the magic and craft is much more fun that the science and technology at first.
The model put up from Morene-Dershimer & Kent regarding the progression from PK to PCK is thought provoking. Right now I think I'm somewhere just to the left of the middle arrow....developing the context specific PK. The boxes on the right are still entering the equation for every lesson I plan, but they are much more challenging to incorporate, so I think I'll stick with assessing myself as being mostly in the middle at the moment. I still think the word 'reflection' should appear more than it does though - I would think as a teacher you'd need to reflect on whether your content knowledge is current (journals etc to be kept up with), whether your curriculum knowledge is current, whether the assessment was most appropriate etc etc etc. Everything will need reflection, not just the PK as these boxes would imply.
As an aside - one student put up An Oil Rig Cat as an acronym for Anode, Oxidation is loss, Reduction is gain, Cathode. Quite nice :-)
The activity - planning a unit. One thing I really like about this is that it's *not* marked, because I truly loathe group work being marked, but I do like group work! The activity will be really useful & I'm so glad it's all being shared on Blackboard!
OK - now let's see what the questions I'm meant to be answering are, since I've finished my brain-dump of the lesson!
- What happened/what did I do....covered ("check")
- What was important - actually edit above - I only write about what I think was important. Yes, we did roll-call. It was important for Deb, but not for me so I don't generally blog about it. So "check".
- Which goals, resolutions or learning wishes does this give rise to? Included above where I thought of them.
- What was I thinking...well, at the time I'm not sure, except I've included all the relevant thoughts as I recalled them.
- What was I feeling? Wow - well, a little unsure of myself at first. Still am, I suppose. Happy to be diving into a worthwhile activity, as I always learn something from them. Happy that I know a couple of faces in the classroom, and that Deb is very approachable. Enthused.
- What did I do - I think this repeats question 1?
- How can I use the sessions to practice the type of behaviour I want to learn? Another good question - I imagine the development of the unit in conjunction with others will be reflective of what could happen in schools, so this is great practice. Also observing Deb's teaching pedagogies will be useful (eg. the 'best worst remember forget activity). Hmmm - one to think about!
Have a good week :-)
M
Friday, May 23, 2008
Following lecture & Tute 7
The Lecture
The focus for the day was pedagogical content knowledge, but I'm going to start by talking about transmissive teaching (because it came up as pretty much being the opposite teaching style).
Here's a question. If the lecture we attended was a transmissive style of teaching, and transmissive teaching = 'comparatively poor' teaching, how can we (as learners) have gained so much from it? What has sparked that question in my mind particularly is one of the students in my tute explaining that she loves sitting in lectures to learn - transmissive teaching works for her as a learner.
I can tell you when I think lectures work for me. Firstly, Mandi's deliberate pauses for us to discuss thoughts amongst ourselves was brilliant as a medium to express the inevitable questions that pop into my head during hour-long listening sessions. I often forget these thoughts, except this time I didn't because of the opportunities to discuss them and write them down. Incidentally, the usual lack of pauses is why I get frustrated by lectures that are designed around students copying notes down, as personally I don't have time to write notes + thoughts and I struggle to let go of the former (which I probably should) to make sure I record the latter. The pauses was very powerful & I will make a point of doing this if I ever use powerpoints in my own classrooms. Mandi, if you do read this journal entry, can I ask how terrifying as a lecturer it is, handing over to students to discuss their thoughts independently of you? How do you know they are on task properly, given the volume was so loud I could barely hear the person I was talking to (so I assume you were in the same boat)?
Secondly, lectures are like reading very directed books to me. They give me the opportunity to hear expert opinions on a topic that is 100% relevant to what I am learning at that time. In honesty though, it depends on my mood & what else is happening in my life as to whether I then go away and properly think about them, or if I need a task to consolidate the content. This journal, for example, forces me to do that even in my busiest moments of time. But, I have heard enough students complain about the journal to know that it doesn't work for everyone. I also know not everyone is actually doing them, so they miss out on the potential benefit. These are thought provoking concepts - if some of what we must teach is transmissive (because it would seem sometimes inescapable) how do we best overcome the problems associated with it? Pedagogy, by the way, is probably going to be the key theme in my meta-reflection!!!
OK - PCK. What a clever trick, linking two words to be deliberately uncoordinated to say, so that people will have to think about them to remember it. Another cool thing to remember.
I liked Mandi's comment that 'the essence of PCK is active teaching'. Somehow, this came through in the readings and in everything that was discussed throughout the lecture & it really resonates with me as something to strive towards. When you break it down, there is SO much knowledge over and above the content that is needed to teach students really well (Kate and I jotted down 12 different points, but I'm certain there's hundreds). To me, PCK = excellent teaching, and it is going to require an enormous amount of thought before each and every lesson to make sure I do the best job I can. Will I ever be satisfied that the best job I can do at that time is the same as the best job I will ever be capable of? Will I ever master it to my satisfaction? Sounds a bit tormenting :-)
Tute
Speaking of enormous thought, I foolishly thought that the table Mandi popped up, detailing 'big ideas' vs. teaching & learning factors would be pretty straightforward to fill in, if a little time consuming. However, it turned out to be a terrific activity that highlighted just how difficult it is to even work out the big ideas, let along the teaching and learning aspects. Erin & I didn't finish it, but we both wanted to so I'll try to do it before next Thursday to share with her. It would seem a very good tool for distilling your thoughts on teaching & I can see it being useful when topic planning with other teachers.
However, this is discussing the tute in reverse, so I shall go back to the beginning.
I agree with Deb - I don't at all look like the photo on my student card, but I blame the *high quality* webcam that took it :-) Hehe. Her comments on who looked like their photos, and how many Jessicas there are in the class really remind me of how I feel when I am coming to grips with who is in my class on placement. It takes me ages to work students out, and after 2 weeks at Fintona I can't say I know every student from any of my 4 classes (less than 5 hours total exposure to each class), which bothers me. How many students did Deb feel she knew by the end of the tute? I'll wager more than I would've in her shoes. How am I going to get better at that initial student assessment?
In an over-simplified summary of lecturer's teaching styles in tutes, I'd say Mandi likes to create discussions, Deb likes to have a good debate and Keasty likes to put students on the spot (they all get a chance of the spotlight). They are all really effective, but incredibly different teaching styles which absolutely highlights for me why this course cannot spoon feed the students with a 'right' way to teach. I think I'm just getting tired, but my patience is wearing thin on how many times I've heard other students complaining that they're not getting 'answers' - there honestly isn't one answer, there's hundreds. Best practice is an open ended activity - there's loads of different but equally correct outcomes. I might've grumped at one of the other students in tute a little b/c of these thoughts (I'm vowing to keep my mouth shut tight next week!).
I was very, very happy to have a group discussion that had such a focus on VCE. It bothers me enormously that it is usually taught in such a transmissive way, but hearing Deborah agree that it shouldn't be is really liberating. The challenge for me is to find a way to teach it differently, when I have had no example of how to do this either from my own learning background, or in any placement situation. I feel like I'm going to be making it up, which is really scary because the consequences of me getting it wrong are huge for the students & there's no time to backtrack at this level of education. The other influence is that students, parents and colleagues may not like me approaching it differently to the 'usual way', which will be even harder to overcome as a beginning teacher. A comment that Helen Forgasz made last year w.r.t. maths was that we have to teach 'smarter' - activities that are well designed will produce learning outcomes that are superior and more engaging to traditional methods. I have seen examples of this at work for junior/middle level maths, but again, not for VCE, although I now think I understand how to apply those concepts at any level in maths. Not so with chem, but perhaps I'll gain skills next semester in this regard & hopefully the book I borrowed from Deb (THANK YOU) will give me some good ideas for context driven activities. I also need to look at PEEL more - maybe there's some good year 12 stuff there so I don't have to become some creative genius (which I am certainly not!!).
I also liked the concept that if you teach year 12 chem well & the students learn well, the exams will be straightforward - that is, you don't need to teach to the exams. However, I don't think everyone was so convinced of this - even me to an extent. I think there's a happy medium - explicitly pointing out what may be of relevance to the exam would surely be helpful for students, but I don't want it to be restricting my teaching methods too much. The exams are an unfortunate fact of life & regardless that only 30% of students go to Uni, the mark at the end of their year is very important to many students, as well as knowing the content. I think balance is the key word, and it might take me quite a while to work out what that actually means!
So it was another interesting, thought provoking lecture and tute that has left me with more questions and some answers. I'm getting an idea that this might be how I muddle my way through actual teaching!! Poor kids loool!
The focus for the day was pedagogical content knowledge, but I'm going to start by talking about transmissive teaching (because it came up as pretty much being the opposite teaching style).
Here's a question. If the lecture we attended was a transmissive style of teaching, and transmissive teaching = 'comparatively poor' teaching, how can we (as learners) have gained so much from it? What has sparked that question in my mind particularly is one of the students in my tute explaining that she loves sitting in lectures to learn - transmissive teaching works for her as a learner.
I can tell you when I think lectures work for me. Firstly, Mandi's deliberate pauses for us to discuss thoughts amongst ourselves was brilliant as a medium to express the inevitable questions that pop into my head during hour-long listening sessions. I often forget these thoughts, except this time I didn't because of the opportunities to discuss them and write them down. Incidentally, the usual lack of pauses is why I get frustrated by lectures that are designed around students copying notes down, as personally I don't have time to write notes + thoughts and I struggle to let go of the former (which I probably should) to make sure I record the latter. The pauses was very powerful & I will make a point of doing this if I ever use powerpoints in my own classrooms. Mandi, if you do read this journal entry, can I ask how terrifying as a lecturer it is, handing over to students to discuss their thoughts independently of you? How do you know they are on task properly, given the volume was so loud I could barely hear the person I was talking to (so I assume you were in the same boat)?
Secondly, lectures are like reading very directed books to me. They give me the opportunity to hear expert opinions on a topic that is 100% relevant to what I am learning at that time. In honesty though, it depends on my mood & what else is happening in my life as to whether I then go away and properly think about them, or if I need a task to consolidate the content. This journal, for example, forces me to do that even in my busiest moments of time. But, I have heard enough students complain about the journal to know that it doesn't work for everyone. I also know not everyone is actually doing them, so they miss out on the potential benefit. These are thought provoking concepts - if some of what we must teach is transmissive (because it would seem sometimes inescapable) how do we best overcome the problems associated with it? Pedagogy, by the way, is probably going to be the key theme in my meta-reflection!!!
OK - PCK. What a clever trick, linking two words to be deliberately uncoordinated to say, so that people will have to think about them to remember it. Another cool thing to remember.
I liked Mandi's comment that 'the essence of PCK is active teaching'. Somehow, this came through in the readings and in everything that was discussed throughout the lecture & it really resonates with me as something to strive towards. When you break it down, there is SO much knowledge over and above the content that is needed to teach students really well (Kate and I jotted down 12 different points, but I'm certain there's hundreds). To me, PCK = excellent teaching, and it is going to require an enormous amount of thought before each and every lesson to make sure I do the best job I can. Will I ever be satisfied that the best job I can do at that time is the same as the best job I will ever be capable of? Will I ever master it to my satisfaction? Sounds a bit tormenting :-)
Tute
Speaking of enormous thought, I foolishly thought that the table Mandi popped up, detailing 'big ideas' vs. teaching & learning factors would be pretty straightforward to fill in, if a little time consuming. However, it turned out to be a terrific activity that highlighted just how difficult it is to even work out the big ideas, let along the teaching and learning aspects. Erin & I didn't finish it, but we both wanted to so I'll try to do it before next Thursday to share with her. It would seem a very good tool for distilling your thoughts on teaching & I can see it being useful when topic planning with other teachers.
However, this is discussing the tute in reverse, so I shall go back to the beginning.
I agree with Deb - I don't at all look like the photo on my student card, but I blame the *high quality* webcam that took it :-) Hehe. Her comments on who looked like their photos, and how many Jessicas there are in the class really remind me of how I feel when I am coming to grips with who is in my class on placement. It takes me ages to work students out, and after 2 weeks at Fintona I can't say I know every student from any of my 4 classes (less than 5 hours total exposure to each class), which bothers me. How many students did Deb feel she knew by the end of the tute? I'll wager more than I would've in her shoes. How am I going to get better at that initial student assessment?
In an over-simplified summary of lecturer's teaching styles in tutes, I'd say Mandi likes to create discussions, Deb likes to have a good debate and Keasty likes to put students on the spot (they all get a chance of the spotlight). They are all really effective, but incredibly different teaching styles which absolutely highlights for me why this course cannot spoon feed the students with a 'right' way to teach. I think I'm just getting tired, but my patience is wearing thin on how many times I've heard other students complaining that they're not getting 'answers' - there honestly isn't one answer, there's hundreds. Best practice is an open ended activity - there's loads of different but equally correct outcomes. I might've grumped at one of the other students in tute a little b/c of these thoughts (I'm vowing to keep my mouth shut tight next week!).
I was very, very happy to have a group discussion that had such a focus on VCE. It bothers me enormously that it is usually taught in such a transmissive way, but hearing Deborah agree that it shouldn't be is really liberating. The challenge for me is to find a way to teach it differently, when I have had no example of how to do this either from my own learning background, or in any placement situation. I feel like I'm going to be making it up, which is really scary because the consequences of me getting it wrong are huge for the students & there's no time to backtrack at this level of education. The other influence is that students, parents and colleagues may not like me approaching it differently to the 'usual way', which will be even harder to overcome as a beginning teacher. A comment that Helen Forgasz made last year w.r.t. maths was that we have to teach 'smarter' - activities that are well designed will produce learning outcomes that are superior and more engaging to traditional methods. I have seen examples of this at work for junior/middle level maths, but again, not for VCE, although I now think I understand how to apply those concepts at any level in maths. Not so with chem, but perhaps I'll gain skills next semester in this regard & hopefully the book I borrowed from Deb (THANK YOU) will give me some good ideas for context driven activities. I also need to look at PEEL more - maybe there's some good year 12 stuff there so I don't have to become some creative genius (which I am certainly not!!).
I also liked the concept that if you teach year 12 chem well & the students learn well, the exams will be straightforward - that is, you don't need to teach to the exams. However, I don't think everyone was so convinced of this - even me to an extent. I think there's a happy medium - explicitly pointing out what may be of relevance to the exam would surely be helpful for students, but I don't want it to be restricting my teaching methods too much. The exams are an unfortunate fact of life & regardless that only 30% of students go to Uni, the mark at the end of their year is very important to many students, as well as knowing the content. I think balance is the key word, and it might take me quite a while to work out what that actually means!
So it was another interesting, thought provoking lecture and tute that has left me with more questions and some answers. I'm getting an idea that this might be how I muddle my way through actual teaching!! Poor kids loool!
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