Transcript Slide 1

Planning on purpose
Hal O’Neill SDPI August 2008
[email protected]
Outline
 Some thoughts on purpose
 Echoes and voices
 NCCA work with schools
– Assessment for learning
– Reporting on progress and achievement
– A focus on key skills
– Project maths
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Middlemarch – somewhere in central England
 George Eliot began writing it in 1869 – set in 1832
 ‘A study in provincial life’
 Education is an important theme in the novel
 Key characters embody different ways of looking at
the purpose of education
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What is education for?
Dorothea Brooke
Rev Edward Casaubon
Moral/Ethical: to make a
difference in the lives of
others – to be useful
Erudition: high knowledge
yet concerned with display,
competitive, fearful
Rosamond Vincy
Dr Tertius Lydgate
Accomplishment:
adornment, display pragmatic
Scientific: forward-looking,
anti folk wisdom, strong
moral purpose
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What is education for?
Mary Garth
Fred Vincy
Practical: vocational, downto-earth and deeply moral
Social advancement:
respectability and public
approval & acceptance
Will Ladislaw
Mr/Rev Farebrother
Progressive: idealistic,
humanist, personal
Commonplace wisdom:
ordinary decency [amateur
naturalist, clergyman,
gambler]
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Fethard – somewhere in central Ireland
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Change – unplanned and planned
 1868 – 1968 – 2008
 ‘We come to school because…’ – student
experience?
 “Remember, they are always learning – they may
not be learning what you think you are teaching
them…but they are always learning!”
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from ‘Education and Disarmament’ : Maxine
Greene, 1982
“In my view, education ought to be thought of as the kind
of activity that releases all sorts of human beings to
reach out from their own places, their own locations in
the world, to make sense of what they live and what
they encounter around themselves. I put great
emphasis on the importance of persons’ being present
to the educative situation-personally present,
empowered to interpret (with the aid of the schemata,
the constructs provided by their predecessors and
contemporaries) their experience. Reality, as I
understand it, is interpreted experience; and I would
want to put much more stress on the process of
interpretation than is ordinarily done, so that young
people become to some degree self-reflective about the
ways there are of making sense.”
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Other voices
 ‘Good schools if it was 1965’
 Changing Our Schools Louise Stoll & Dean Fink,
1996
 “What sort of a name is that?”
 Moving towards a department awareness –
responding to pressure, recognising a need
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Another view of moral purpose
 Far more important than our maths and science
scores is the involvement of the next generation in
maintaining our democracy and helping those
within it who need assistance…schools that cannot
turn out politically active and socially helpful
citizens should be identified and have their rates of
failure announced in the newspapers.
David Berliner, quoted in a letter from a school principal to The Irish
Times 19.12.2007 re the publication of a list of feeder schools,
showing a league table of university entry
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A simple reminder about learning
 …when we teach only for facts, rather than for how
to go beyond facts, we teach students how to get
out of date… When I look at the skills and concepts
I have needed to succeed in my own field, I find a
number that are crucial: creativity, common sense,
wisdom, ethics, dedication, honesty, teamwork,
hard work, knowing how to win and how to lose, a
sense of fair play, and lifelong learning. But
memorizing books is certainly not one of them.
Robert J. Sternberg, 2007
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Messages from ESRI research
 Schools do make a difference
 Setting aside the socio-economic and gender
factors, there are differences between how schools
‘perform’
 School policy in areas of curriculum planning can
have a real effect
 How we teach makes a profound difference
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Assessment for Learning 1
 Focus initially on post-primary junior cycle
 Small network of 12 schools
 Essential element: Sharing:
– Learning intention
– Criteria for success
– Feedback related to the criteria
 Teaching approach and a reflection tool
 Formative use of summative tests – the purpose of
assessment
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Assessment for Learning 2
 Reflecting on standard
 Planning with standard-sharing in mind
 A good way of unlocking teaching/learning
priorities
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Subject networks
Samples of student work and teacher comment
www.ncca.ie
ACTION website
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Reporting to parents – primary + transition
 Report card templates (See www.ncca.ie )
 Three school networks
 Consensus
– Learning across curriculum
– Child as a learner
– Child’s social and personal development
– How the parent/s can support the child’s learning
 Link with transition to post-primary
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Primary Curriculum Review and a post-primary
interface
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Planning for transfer – lessons from ESRI research
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Reporting is a good starting point for reflection on transition
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A primary schools network
– Languages
– Assessment and sharing standards
– Professional learning community
– Methodologies + thinking skills
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Senior Cycle Developments: Key Skills
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Students should be able to…
develop a line of reasoning from
prediction/evidence/conclusion
understand the need to isolate and control
variables in order to make
strong causal claims
Hypothesising and
making predictions,
examining evidence,
reaching conclusions
describe the relationship
between variables
point out the limits of co-relational reasoning
draw generalisations and be aware of their limitations
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Findings
 The five key skills are relevant to each subject
‘surprised how key skills appeared when structure
and methodology are changed’
 When key skills are the focus in planning for
teaching then teaching becomes more learnercentred
‘Using the key skills encouraged me to teach
specifically to the individual, now I am more
focused on the students not the content’
‘students take more responsibility, are more positive
and very cooperative’
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 Teachers’ success in embedding the key skills relates to
their understanding and practice of the key skills
themselves
‘I stopped working on ‘auto-pilot, it made me focus more
on thinking about the lesson before going into class and
planning different approaches’
 The successful embedding of key skills requires
curriculum and assessment change
‘There is little point in teaching our subjects with key skills
embedded unless the method of assessment at the end
is also key skills compatible’
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Feedback from the Key Skills Network
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Classes are more enjoyable for everyone
Group work needs to be planned
Students like well-planned group work
Relationships in the classroom are better
Longer class periods are needed
Students are reluctant to change at first, but are
glad when they do.
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Project Maths – background
Concerns in relation to
 Student uptake for FL, OL, HL
 Low student achievement in tests and examinations
 Lack of understanding and the ability to apply
mathematics in unfamiliar contexts
 Emphasis on rote learning of procedures
 Nature of assessment and its backwash effect on
teaching and learning
 Attitudes to mathematics
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Mathematics syllabuses
 Common bridging course in first year
– progression from the primary mathematics curriculum
– building on the knowledge, understanding and skills developed at
primary school
 Two JC Mathematics syllabus levels  OL and HL
– Ultimate target: at least 60% of cohort at HL
– FL examination remains, based on revised OL syllabus
 Three LC mathematics syllabus levels  FL, OL, HL
– ultimate target: at least 30% of the cohort at HL
– changed emphasis; context, applications
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Phasing of developments
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5 strands for all syllabuses
1. Statistics and probability
2. Geometry and trigonometry
3. Number
4. Algebra
5. Functions
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Phased introduction of changes (1+2, 3+4, 5)
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Initial group of schools (24)
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Supporting the change (1)
 Change in parallel with senior cycle developments
– development of understanding and key skills
– incremental revisions to syllabuses and assessment
 Teachers involved in the change
– school-based initiative; lesson development
– feedback to curriculum development
– immediate start-up and ongoing involvement
– improving the culture/attitude
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Supporting the change (2)
 Teacher Education Section of DES to administer
the project
– Project Maths Development Office/Team
– Funding
 NCCA responsible for directing
– curriculum and assessment development
– teacher professional development
– review and evaluation
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Project Maths – next steps
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Ongoing publication and dissemination of information
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Syllabus strands and sample resource materials will be
available on the web (www.ncca.ie/projectmaths)
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Assessment
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draft questions for revised strands; consultation and
refinement; assessment advice from the NCCA
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sample paper from the SEC (+ trial in schools)
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And finally…
Many thanks!
Hal O’Neill
[email protected]
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