Transcript Weaving the curriculum together

Weaving the curriculum together
Introduction to PPTA workshop, April 6 2009
Rosemary Hipkins
New Zealand Council for Educational Research
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WHY
HOW
WHAT
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Why change anything?
Interwoven themes from the future focused
literature:
• Knowledge society (global scale of issues,
communications technologies,
multi-cultural
societies, identity etc)
• Complexity, emergence, non-linear
(climate change, financial crisis)
systems
• Changing patterns of work and living require new
competencies as well as traditional ones
Have we taken the time to examine our own assumptions about
what matters in learning and why?
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Changing work-related values
• School/work distinction
• Lifelong learning
• Follow instructions
• Show initiative
reliance
• Memorisation,
standardisation,
reproduction of knowledge
• Creativity and finding the
point of difference
• Focus on individual work
• Focus on team work
www.coe.ilstu.edu/rpriegle/wwwdocs/hidden.htm
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and
self
The vision statement reflects change imperatives
Confident
Positive in their own identity
Motivated and reliable
Resourceful
Enterprising and
entrepreneurial
Resilient
Connected
Able to relate well to others
Effective users of
communication tools
Connected to the land and
environment
Members of communities
International citizens
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Actively involved
Participants in a range of life
contexts
Contributors to the well-being
of New Zealand – social,
cultural, economic, and
environmental
Lifelong learners
Literate and numerate
Critical and creative thinkers
Active seekers, users, and
creators of knowledge
Informed decision makers
But how do we help our
students to BE the vision?
Designing a principled curriculum
• High expectations
HOW?
• Treaty of Waitangi
• Cultural diversity
• Inclusion
• Learning to learn
• Community
engagement
• Coherence
• Future focus
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All of these can be
interpreted in different
ways
Part of our planning
job is working out
what they could mean
for the “how” of our
practice
“How” messages about teaching
Shared learning
Opportunities to learn
Making connections
Enhancing relevance
Reflective thought and action
Supportive environment
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Maybe, this time, the
change is as much
about reviewing how
we teach as what we
teach?
The “front end”
The “back end”
• Vision
8 levels
• Values
8 learning areas
• Principles
8 sets of AOs per level
•Key competencies
• Pedagogy
A potentially
transformative package
The revised package
We have to make sense of how the bits can be worked
together to deliver the big picture goals
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What: changes in ways we use content will be
controversial!
Knowledge and its organisation
Based on Reid, 2006.
Teaching OF subjects
A change of emphasis! From the horses’ mouth:
[learning area] statements should be the starting point for developing
programmes of learning suited to students’ needs and interests. Schools are
then able to select achievement objectives to fit these programmes (p.38)
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The “so what” message in the essence statements
In science, students explore how both the natural physical world and
science itself work so that they can participate as critical, informed, and
responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role.
How will students see the “so what?” in what you plan to teach?
Can you find ways to put them in the driving seat of their own
learning more often (without in the process abdicating your role
as the more knowledgeable leader of learning)?
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Have you considered the implications of the
expanded learning area statement:
My question: what is the relationship between the first two
(traditional “having” knowledge outcomes) and the second two
(anticipatory “using” learning outcomes)
Concepts and theories
(content)
Ways science works
(“investigating”)
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Problem solving, building new
knowledge (“research”)
Informed decision making,
sustainability
Lifelong learners – the
vision
Essence statements
– the why and what
Guidance on the
reasons for content
inclusion –
supported by the
Achievement
Objectives, in
combination with
relevant values
Learning to learn –
the design principle
Thinking KC (as an
enabler)
Which bits
are missing
from my unit
plan?
Opportunities to
practice (we can’t get
competent for students)
New assessment
practices – how we will
know if it worked
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One example of alignment
Key competencies as
weaving materials
Putting it all together to refocus
learning opportunities
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The “front end”
The “back end”
• Vision
8 levels
• Values
8 learning areas
• Principles
•Pedagogy
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Might key competencies be
the “glue” that brings all8 sets of AOs per
these pieces together?level
Reid’s model of curriculum implementation
What do we want our kids to be?
Capabilities
Teaching through knowledge FOR
capabilities (i.e. key competencies)
Knowledge and its organisation
Disciplinary knowledge is the basis through
which we teach for capabilities (as outcomes in
their own right)
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KCs can be taught as well as caught
Thinking as an example
• Active practice in cognitively challenging tasks;
• Learning a variety of thinking patterns and skills;
• Opportunities to transfer thinking skills from one
context into different contexts;
• Specific feedback on progress in use of thinking
tools and approaches;
• Freedom to think and learn from mistakes.
Gaining language tools to think about thinking;
Zohar and Schwartzer, 2005
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Some of our learning so far…
• Relationships and connections really matter building links and weaving webs of meaning
is an active, dynamic, personal process
• Contexts are integral to learning and should
be never be taken for granted
• Meaning-making is not self-evident –
students need to be shown how it works in
different disciplines and settings
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Knowledge about knowledge could sit at the
intersection of ULST and Thinking KCs
•
knowing how different knowledge areas ‘work’;
•
knowing the sorts of assumptions that underpin each
knowledge area;
•
knowing how ‘experts’ generate and justify new knowledge in
specific knowledge areas.
Experts say working theories of knowledge are essential for
participation in the knowledge age, but how do we help students in
an area that is likely to be somewhat new for many of us?
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Putting the meaning-making on the
outside..
What might this look like in your
subject? This is an important way to
understand “Using language,
symbols and texts”
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Learning about history as a discipline
To research like a “real historian” requires:
• Learning to choose and evaluate sources
• Learning to compare and contextualise multiple sources of
information
• Learning to corroborate information from different sources
• Weaving a story based on the sources - learning to generalise
What are the equivalents of this in your subject area?
What might we need to do differently so students have powerful
and authentic experiences of knowledge building?
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Reviewing what KCs can do
• Drive front end ideals into the different learning areas by
changing pedagogy
• Act as both means and ends for learning - they are always all in
play, but one might be fore-grounded for explicit development
• Focus us on the how not just the what of learning
• Focus on the how not just the what of knowing
• Help students take ownership of their learning
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Making space in a crowded curriculum
I believe there is an
urgent need to
address the
“so what” question
when retaining
traditional
“content”.
If there are truly fundamental
principles in science, then the
extended study of any few topics in
science will eventually bring
students into contact with those
principles. (And if not, then they
were not really so fundamental,
were they?) Jay Lemke, 2005
Do we need to reduce content in our curriculum area?
If yes, what principles should we use to decide what stays and what
goes?
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Rethinking assessment practices
• What is being assessed?
• What evidence are we planning to gather and what
will we use it for?
• How integral are our assessment plans to the
teaching and learning intended?
• Are there ways we can put students into the
assessment driving seat more often?
• Do our students really know what quality work looks
like and why we value what we do?
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References
Gilbert, J. (2005). Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Society and
the future of education. Wellington: NZCER Press.
Lemke, J. (2005). Research for the future of science education: New ways of
learning, new ways of living. Opening plenary at VIIth International Congress on
Research in Science Teaching, Granada, Spain http://wwwpersonal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/papers/Granada%20Future%20Science%20Edu
cation.htm.
Reid (2007) Key competencies: a new way forward or more of the same?
Curriculum Matters, 2, 43-62. (Journal available on subscription from NZCER)
Zohar, A., & Schwartzer, N. (2005). Assessing teachers' pedagogical knowledge
in the context of teaching higher order thinking. International Journal of Science
Education, 27, 1595-1620.
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