Pedagogy

Evidence of my professional accomplishments as they relate to:

Pedagogy

In the Ronald Dahl novel ‘Matilda’, the Principal of the school, Mrs. Trenchball writes across the blackboard, “If you are having fun you are not learning.” It is my intention as a teaching to always include an element of fun. This stems from a belief I have previously mentioned that everyone enjoys learning when it is engaging, has an appropriate level of challenge, is connected to the real world and has clearly understood outcomes. My desire to see learning take place in every class challenges me to reflect on practices that work and develop new skills. Quality teaching relies on developing good relationships and this is particularly true of teaching in a girls’ school. I have included the following examples as evidence of this in my teaching practice.

Lego

One class I look forward to each year is the ‘forming conceptual thinking’ class where I use a Lego activity. This activity is based upon the notion that students need to have an opportunity to think globally and develop visual representations of their learning. The Lego activity takes place in the context of Conflict in the Pacific HSC course, after students have spent considerable time understanding the experiences of civilians on the home front in Japan and Australia. Students were grouped together and asked to use Lego to represent the home front in either Japan or Australia. Students were given 20 minutes and as much Lego as they needed. Random elements were included such as a flower or a colour. Students then moved around the room explaining to others what their creation represented and how each element reflected a particular understanding about the experience of the home front for civilians. The thing I love most about this task is that it brings to life the creativity and deep understanding the students have. It challenges them to think in the abstract and make assessments about factors such as the use of propaganda, slave labour, government controls and changes in civil rights. This is also a fun activity. Using the Lego brings out a sense of fun and freedom. I have to say that without doubt there is a definitely a learning buzz in the classroom when the Lego comes out.

Cross Curricular English/History Project

As a school there have been regular discussions on the merit of cross curriculum programs. From my visit to the Northern Beaches Christian School I was introduced to their Learning Matrix program. I could see the advantage to students of connecting the skills and knowledge of one subject with another. Naturally if this made sense to me, theoretically there was good reason to have a go and see how it worked at school. I spoke to the English teacher who shared the same class as my History class. A brief conversation revealed that there was an opportunity to combine skills and knowledge in the next units studied. In English students were studying script writing, in History they were studying North American Contact History. We designed a task to be developed across each subject that would involve students writing a radio play script based upon their understanding of the Thanksgiving story. Students were given time in both classes and the task was grouped according to ability and differentiated with extension activities. This has been a highly valuable experience as it has challenged me to understand the workings of another KLA. It has also provided opportunities for reflection within my class on how subjects such as English and History often cover similar skills and knowledge. I have introduced this project at the Curriculum meetings and will be presenting the student evaluations later this term. I have attached the task, the Wiki screen grabs and the student’s work to date as evidence of this task (see Appendix).

HSIE the Next Step – Literacy

In 2007 I participated in a CEO professional development opportunity called HSIE the Next Step. The focus of the training was developing an understanding of functional grammar so that it could be applied in the classroom to improve literacy. This course was action research based and I was expected to develop a unit of work using the specific strategies taught throughout the program. The unit I developed was based on People Power and Politics in the Post-war Period, Stage 5 Australian History syllabus. I developed a range of literacy strategies that explicitly taught students how to read inferentially (between the lines). I also incorporated the use of language grids that supported students understanding of the difference between writing descriptive texts and texts that explain the relationship between factors. The activities I developed then I still use today. In teaching the language of cause and effect I developed a series of statements and asked students to link these statements using the language grids. Students worked individually at this task for a set period of time and were then given time to share in pairs to improve their responses. I am proud to say that I have had a number of students remark to me that they had previously not really understood what the difference was between description and explanation and that these tasks and the language grids have really made a difference to the way they write. I believe that this has had an impact on students HSC results, as one clear distinction in the marking criteria is the ability to link factors rather than just retell events. This emphasis has been supported by my experience of HSC marking.

Taking a Stand Activities

In my classes I hope to draw out every each student’s thoughts and ideas not just those that are confident speaking in groups. As previously mentioned I know that research suggests being able to move around in class adds to the effectiveness of the learning. I combine these in my ‘taking a stand’ activities which are a regular part of my classes. These activities require students to form an opinion on aspects of their learning. For example, as part of the Year 11 Preliminary course I teach courses on the great forces and ideas of the 19th century. One of these is liberalism which promoted the rise of individual rights and freedoms. Students were asked to ‘take a stand’ on a variety of statements such as, ‘People should be able to say what they think’. Students move around to different points in the room in agreement or disagreement. Taking a stand challenges students to take responsibility for their learning as they had made a choice. All students are then required to justify this choice based upon evidence. They are also expected to challenge views different from their own in a respectful and scholarly manner. This activity sometimes comes into play when a class is needed to consolidate an area of learning. It is always followed by a reflective writing exercise so that students develop their ability to communicate ideas in written form. I have taken this particular strategy into my Second Life project, which will allow students to fly to different points on the island. I also use movement to make human timelines, which are a time-based challenge.

Using Think Time

Through my participation in an ESL Stage 3 to Stage 4 in-service in 2007 I developed a keen understanding of the need for students to have time to think, to discuss and then to write. I involve these principles in many of the classroom strategies I use. For example I regularly use the notion of ‘think time’ developed by Roger Stahl which allows students time to think about their response to a question before being asked to put up their hand. His research suggested that in a typical question and answer situation students disconnect with the question once they see someone’s hand go up. This person, being the first, has often not thought deeply about their response. In order to truly challenge every student in the room I pose the questions and challenge every student to spend 30 seconds coming up with an answer. I then ask for a show of hands. Invariably this leads to a much higher number of students offering a response and much deeper and more critical responses. The volume of responses also means that I can ask for multiple responses and ask students to challenge each other’s assumptions.

I have also included a lesson plan, which illustrates an early focus on questioning and movement in the classroom. This has been part of my teaching practice since I became a teacher (see Appendix,).

Finally I would like to include in this section a brief description of activities that I have planned and implemented which have aimed to set students thinking outside of the school’s walls and sometimes beyond their own experiences. In 2007 I planned an excursion, taking Year 11 Society and Culture from Casimir Catholic College in Marrickville to a cross cultural learning experience at Monte Saint Angelo College in North Sydney. The focus of the excursion was to provide students with the opportunity to meet peers that whilst similar in age have had somewhat different experiences of growing up. I have included some photos of the students working together in the appendix. The success of this day led me to look for other such similar experiences. This led to my application for the SKYPE project to SKYPE students from different regions into our classroom in 2008. Currently I am working on using Secondlife to connect students, mentors and experts together in our classrooms. I have been working with a Northern Beaches school to trial how students will work together in this new learning environment. I have included an outline of the Secondlife project and the work I am doing with the Australian Catholic University in the Appendix.