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Lectures

Week 1

What do we mean by 'teaching the whole child?'

In this unit we take a holistic approach to a child's learning experience. As teachers we need to be mindful of how we teach children, the environment we put children in, their mental and physical experience (including safety), and how we organise the classroom. We take all these elements into consideration to arrive at a successful teaching and learning experience.

What is learning?

Let's begin by considering the term 'learning', which may already have some meaning to you based on your experiences in education or the workplace. We know that the ability to adapt and learn is one of our most important functions: without it our existence would be extremely limited.

Learning can be described as developing a new skill, acquiring new knowledge, making sense of concepts, or understanding a new perspective. We know it is learning because there is a change in our understanding or our behaviour. It is important to realise though that 'learning' means 'different things to different people and is used somewhat differently in different theories' (Shuell, 2013).

What are learning theories?

A learning theory is a conceptual framework which describes how information is absorbed, processed, and retained during learning. It is a way of explaining how learning happens and is based on observation, experimentation and/or reasoning. Learning theories give us a framework for developing learning processes and an idea of how we, and the children in our classrooms, learn.

Shuell (2013) notes that 'further difficulty in understanding similarities and differences among various theories results from the frequently overlooked fact that there are different types of learning. In many cases, the various theories are relevant to different types of learning and are not necessarily incompatible with one another. Rather, they provide different perspectives on the complex phenomena of learning and complement one another in their ability to explain different types of learning situations [thus] it is wise to avoid comparing apples with oranges'.

In this unit we will look at three learning theories that underpin contemporary primary education: behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism. As you read about these theories, note down the different kinds of learning they may address, as this will help develop your understanding of the ways the theories might complement each other. This will be more useful than undertaking a comparison of the theories.

Why learning theories are used

There are over 100 theories of learning. This infographic provides basic information about many of them.

In your readings you will come across a range of theorists and their theories. Here is an introduction to just two theories: behaviourism and cognitivism (Atherton, 2011).

As a teacher you need to have a good understanding of learning theories so you can draw on them in creating and understanding different teaching environments and experiences.

These theories will provide you with an array of tools to be used in teaching and open up a range of perspectives through which to view teaching. The next three weeks are dedicated to three major learning theories: behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism.

Different levels of learning

It is necessary, but not sufficient, for students to achieve minimal competence in areas such as reading, writing and numeracy. Beyond the achievement of minimal competence, students also need to develop what are often called ‘higher order’ thinking skills. These higher order thinking skills are more complex than lower thinking skills and involve greater cognitive processing.

One way of understanding the different thinking skills is through a taxonomy. The most common taxonomy is Bloom’s taxonomy but there are others, too. The SOLO Taxonomy, developed by Biggs and Collis (1982) is also very useful.

Transcript of the Week 1 podcast

Bloom’s Taxonomy and the SOLO Taxonomy

Just as ideas about learners have been subject to change, distinctions can be made between different kinds of learning. In developing the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Bloom, Engelart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956) outlined a way of categorising instructional objectives and assessment according to increasing levels of cognitive complexity. His classification system was based on the idea that different learning objectives are the result of different skills and abilities and that some objectives are easier or harder than others. Bloom’s Taxonomy classified thinking skills into six categories (using nouns), each of which was dependent upon the previous one: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Because each thinking skill was dependent on the one before it Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical structure. Partly to take into account the use of technology as a mode of instruction as well as objections to the use of nouns for some of the skills, Bloom’s Taxonomy was later revised to reflect the changes in the educational landscape (Anderson et al., 2001). The revised taxonomy replaced the nouns with verbs to form the following categories: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating. One of the issues with the Taxonomy (in whatever form) is that its use can lead to the belief that it is necessary to completely master the lower level thinking skills before moving onto the higher order ones. The obvious danger is that too little time and attention is devoted to the higher order skills. Nevertheless, Bloom’s work had a major impact on education as it introduced the concept of higher-order thinking skills. The recognition that there is a hierarchy of skills has led to the distinction being made between surface learning and deep learning.

 

The SOLO Taxonomy

The key to understanding the SOLO Taxonomy is that learning can be broadly understood as being either surface or deep learning. While most teachers profess that they want to develop a deep understanding, for many students success at school relates to adopting a surface approach to understanding how and what they should learn. For example, research has suggested that 80% of teacher questions (verbal or written) can be answered with surface knowledge and this leads students to learn strategically how to be successful in their studies.

Nevertheless, as learning progresses it becomes more complex. This is where the SOLO Taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982) demonstrates its value in terms of developing models of teaching and learning, understanding assessment and curriculum design. SOLO, which stands for the Structure of theObserved Learning Outcome, is a means of classifying learning outcomes in terms of their complexity, enabling us to assess students’ work in terms of its  quality.

The taxonomy takes note of the fact that learning is either surface learning or deep learning and that both kinds of learning inform the questions that students are asked and how they respond. The kinds of responses required from students can be described in this way:

· Prestructural response where the student has no idea about the material

Surface learning

· Unistructural responses requiring one idea

· Multistructural responses requiring many ideas

Deep learning

· Relational responses requiring students to relate ideas

· Extended Abstract responses requiring students to extend ideas

Surface learning is typically quantitative in nature where students recall facts or lists to put together. In contrast, deep learning is essentially qualitativewhere students are required to form judgements and think conceptually. The table below sets out, in general terms, useful verbs in association with the different levels of the SOLO Taxonomy

SOLO LEVEL	Verb
Unistructural	Define, identify, name, find, draw, label
Multistructural	Describe, list, outline, combine
Relational	Sequence, classify, compare and contrast, explain, analyse, organise, distinguish, relate, apply
Extended Abstract	Generalise, predict, evaluate, reflect, create, prove, theorise, plan, justify, argue, compose, design, construct, perform

The SOLO Taxonomy framework is useful for curriculum design, teaching and assessment. It provides a clear method for analysing the kinds of questions that are asked in class and in assignments and it also provides simple mechanisms to convert responses requiring students to use one idea to responses requiring many ideas and so on. 

Adopting the use of a Taxonomy has an impact on learning when it is used to challenge students to convert surface learning to deep learning.

Week 2

What is behaviourism?

Behaviourism 'is based on the belief that behaviours can be measured, trained, and changed. It is a theory of learning based on the idea that all behaviours are acquired through conditioning. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment. Behaviourists believe that our responses to environmental stimuloi shape our behaviours' ( Cherry , n.d.).

How we link stimuli to learning

Learning occurs (if we define learning as a change in observable behaviour) when an association is created between an observable environmental stimulus (S) and a response from an organism (R). If we convert this into a learning situation that we are familiar with, it might look something like this:

On the board, James sees "2 + 2" (the stimulus) and responds by verbalising the sound "four" (response).

To a behaviourist, this would epitomise learning by a simple stimulus-response (S-R) connection between the stimulus, which is clearly observable in the environment (2 + 2), and the organism's response, which is James saying "four" out loud. Behaviourists believe that if, as teachers, we strengthen this connection between the stimulus and the response, we then strengthen learning.

Classical and operant conditioning

The most well-known types of behavioural learning can be defined under either classical conditioning (you might have heard of  Pavlov and his dogs  (BullyingNewsVideo, 2008)) or operant/instrumental conditioning (you might have heard of  Skinner and his pigeons  (jenningh, 2007)). Both of these types of behavioural learning have been around for a long time, and are often used in classroom situations for either learning or classroom management.

Will press lever for food (2012) <www.perspicuity.com>

 Readings

Read more about behaviourism in the following:

· Classical conditioning, operant conditioning  (Eggen & Kauchak, 2013, pp. 293-303)

· Chapter 9 'Behaviourist views of learning'  (Ormrod, 2011, pp. 284-315)

Technology and behaviourism theory

How do technological advances fit with a behaviourist approach? What technology can we use to develop a lesson using behavioural techniques? Behaviourism is a common method for helping the learner to learn. Interactivity is a key to encouraging learners to respond to stimulus and reward them for correct responses. There are many educational games that draw on this principle. 

What works best in the classroom?

Operant (or instrumental) conditioning techniques are regularly used in the classroom, generally by the use of reinforcements or rewards to "shape" the behaviour of the individual. However, it is important for a classroom teacher to understand how different types of reinforcement or rewards affect behaviour, and to understand how best to make use of them.

Week 3

This week we concentrate on some basic learning principles derived from cognitive learning theory, i.e. cognitivism. Cognitive learning theory deals with the internal psychological processes of the learner. Behaviourism ignores cognitive factors and focuses on observable environmental stimulus and response. Cognitive learning theory, as the name suggests, is concerned with cognitive factors. 

What are cognitive processes?

Cognitive processes are the processes of acquiring, interpreting, remembering, manipulating and making use of information.

These processes all take place out of sight: in other words, they are our thought processes.

Finger painting (2011) <http://bit.ly/1dJB6HS>

Remember, behaviourism ignored these processes because they were unobservable and out of sight. However, people began to realise that these were important processes that affect how we learn, and could not be ignored.

As more sophisticated experimental techniques have been developed, cognitive scientists have been able to explore these cognitive processes in depth.

 Readings

Read about the influences of cognitive processes in:

· Chapter 5 'Processing' (Loughran, 2012, pp. 78-90)

· Chapter 7 'Cognitive learning and human memory’ (Eggen & Kauchak, 2013, pp. 211-248)

Metacognition

Metacognition is an important cognitive function and plays a central role in learning. It is the ability to monitor and control one’s own processes of thinking. Being aware of your own thinking matters in terms of monitoring your learning.

Please listen to William Keane as he expands on the concept of metacognition.

Assumptions of learning according to cognitive psychologists

Cognitive psychologists consider six basic assumptions that make up the essence of cognitive learning theory.

Influence of cognitive processes	What is learned is dependent upon the type and amount of mental processing that has taken place. For example, if you are studying your notes for a test tomorrow and have just repeatedly read through them, there would be a different outcome than if you'd actively manipulated your notes by condensing them into the main concepts and then expanded them again. Encourage your students to think about their lessons in ways that help them to remember the content.
Selectivity about what is learned	We are selective about what we learn. There are thousands of stimuli around us every day. It is important as teachers that we help children to select what is important and what they should attend to, and then to process it at a deeper level. Some children will be better than others at selecting what’s important and what's not so important.
Construction of meaning	We use many pieces of information from the environment to create an understanding or interpretation of the world around us. Children will interpret what you deliver in their own ways, which can lead to information being misconstrued. Check regularly: listen to them, question them and converse with them to find out how they are actually interpreting the concepts you are teaching.
Active involvement in learning	We do not simply absorb information. To be effective learners, we must be actively involved in what we are learning. Learning requires a certain amount of mental work.
Role of prior knowledge and beliefs	Prior knowledge plays a major role in new learning. The understandings that children bring to the classroom are very powerful. Learners' existing understanding of the world shapes what they learn, and how effectively they learn them. Paying attention to children's false beliefs and incomplete understandings, help them to achieve a more mature understanding of the world and its concepts. · provide opportunities for experimentation · present the ideas of others · emphasise conceptual understanding · use authentic ideas · promote dialogue · create a community of learners.
Formation of schemas	Humans do not remember isolated pieces of information well. This is where schemas (or schemata) come in. We construct "mental models" of some aspect of the world – in other words, a collection of knowledge and beliefs that give the individual parts meaning.

Why is the formation of schemas important?

As you have seen so far, people tend to learn by actively gathering bits of information to make sense of the world. However, the final form of this sense-making is highly influenced by a person's prior knowledge and beliefs. The mental models that people construct as a result of this knowledge construction are called "schemata" or "schemas" (coined by British psychologist Sir Frederic Bartlett in the 1950s). Pieces of information tend to be incorporated into a schema to aid understanding.

Schemata are an effective tool for understanding the world. Through the use of schemas, we can negotiate new events or new information that we encounter, which is done by matching the new information to existing schemas to achieve our goal.

As an example of a schema, most people will have a schema for what a school looks like. (Probably a reasonably large building surrounded by fences with some pieces of grass and concrete surrounding it.) We will also be able to imagine the inside, and even what goes on inside. This is a model that we have in our brains for a school. If we see something different in a school, this will alter our model slightly and we may incorporate this new information into it.

The seven magical little words

However, schemata can also influence and hamper the uptake of new information, which is called "proactive interference". For instance, existing stereotypes may lead an individual to "see" or "remember" something that has not happened, because it is more believable in terms of his/her schema. For example, if a well-dressed businessman draws a knife on a vagrant, the schemata of onlookers may lead them to "remember" the vagrant pulling the knife. In this case, a schema is actually detrimental to the correct memory.

Transcript of the Week 3 podcast

Metacognition  In seeking to define ‘thinking’ Dewey distinguished between ‘streams of consciousness’ which he explained as “daydreams, reveries, castles built in the air and mental streams that are even more idle and chaotic” and what he referred to as ‘reflective thinking’ Thinking, therefore, could be messy and undisciplined whereas reflective thinking has purpose because there is control being exercised. Reflective people are more likely to be purposeful and self-directed and they are going to make decisions about their learning. This active control of thinking is called metacognition, a term first described by Flavell (1976) who defined metacognition as “the individual’s awareness, consideration and control of his or her cognitive processes and strategies” (p. 231). The feequently cited short term definition of metacognition is ‘thinking about your thinkin.’Metacognition is the ability to monitor and control thinking processes. Self-talk is the hallmark of metacognition and can be seen most readily in terms of questions we ask ourselves about a task such as: what do I do next? How well did I do? Understanding that there is this sense of executive control has been very important in terms of explaining our ideas about thinking and learning.

It can be useful to distinguish between cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies. This si whee the self talk comes in. Suppose I give a class a group of numbers to add up. The adding up is a cognitive strategy but the student might exercise metacognitive strategies such as writing the numbers down in a column or deciding to check the answer in order to complete the task. In terms of school work, often the larger or more complex the task, the more important it is for the student to apply metacognitive strategeis. For example, suppose you set an assignment on Australian explorers which requires the student to research the life and achievement of an explorer and present these to a class. All kinds of metacognitive strategies need to come into play. Imagine you are the student for a moment. Think of the questions you might ask yourself in preparation for this assignment: Which explorer will I choose? Is there a list? Where will I start? How will I research? Should I go to the library? What about the internet? What should go in the presentation? Should I use notes? What about visuals or the computer? What will I be marked on? And so on. It is easy to see that student might well be overwhelmed at the myriad of questions. This is where having strategies to cope with the demands of the work are very important to assist with their learning.

Week 4

This week, we consider the last of our theoretical perspectives in this section and look at constructivism. Constructivism emphasises the construction of knowledge from external and internal pieces of information. This is usually done through processes facilitated by working memory. Instructional practices within the cognitive realm emphasise clear structure and presentation that takes into account learners' prior knowledge and their individual differences. Both behaviourists and cognitivists think about learning and knowledge in objectivist ways: they emphasise knowledge acquisition whereby individuals accrue chunks of knowledge or record reality in some way. 

Constructivism

Constructivists tend to think about learning and knowledge very differently. Piaget’s constructivist theory of knowledge (Bhattacharya & Han, 2012) has had a profound effect on the understanding of cognitive development and learning in education. Constructivist theory is based on the understanding that learning is an active process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it. The learner is not an "empty vessel" to be filled with knowledge. All knowledge is constructed from the learner’s previous knowledge and experiences when assimilating new to old information and accommodating old knowledge to new facts.

Social constructivism

There are many forms of constructivism: a prominent form is social constructivism. In this form, theorists believe the best way to construct reality is through social interactions. This approach is thought to have been instigated by Lev Vygotsky (McLeod, 2014). The learning context should be social, reflective, authentic, scaffolded, progressive and experiential. The idea of social constructivism emphasises learning through collaboration and cooperation. Although there are many variations on constructivist learning theory, the following have been selected because of their relevance to online learning. You may recognise some of them from your experiences in this unit.

Communal constructivism

Communal constructivism takes social constructivism a step further. eLearning provides tools for the acquisition of new information through exploration, experience and communication. It also allows this learning to be recorded by technology. For example, we can record our learning through blogs, podcasts, YouTube clips, wikis, and the like for the benefit of existing and new learners. Students share their learning locally and globally, create learning artefacts and a record of these interactions. The Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development provides an extensive array of innovative technology resources on their website (2013).

Transcript of the Week 4 podcast

Constructivism

            Constructivism has, as its core understanding, the belief that knowledge is actively constructed by the learner. Learning is something done by the learner, not something that is imposed on the learner. This understanding of learning can be traced back to two main sources. Piaget’s influential work focussed on individual learning and identified four distinct developmental stages from birth to adulthood. The first of Piaget’s stages is sensorimotor which lasts from birth to about two years. This stage is includes the development of simple reflexes, intentional actions and expressions amongst others. The preoperational stage is from two to seven years and includes the development of symbolic thought. The third stage is concrete operational and lasts until about 12 years of age. This stage includes logical thinking, conversation and a shift towards considering others. The final stage is formal operational from about 12 years and extends thinking into more abstract forms.

In contrast, Vygotsky was interested in understanding how learning was shaped by the social context. He proposed two stages of mental functions: the lower functions which are effectively inherited and the higher mental functions which are developed through social interaction. The most famous aspect of his work is the zone of proximal development. This can be understood as the gap between what learners can do by themselves and what they can do with others.

Piaget and Vygotsky are important because they can be seen as the forerunners of constructivism, which, as we have seen, can be understood as the process whereby learners construct knowledge by developing ways that allow them to add new information to existing knowledge in order to build understanding.

For many educators constructivism offers a common sense, easily understood explanation for how students learn. Constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge by developing mental schemas that allow them to build on prior knowledge and progressively add new information to what they already know. The result of this process is the development of increasingly complex cognitive structures – in other words, their personal understanding of concepts. This occurs as the student interacts with their environment through social and collaborative processes. Within this broad definition of constructivism there are various different forms but the key point about the student constructing their own understanding remains essentially the same.

While constructivism is a theory of learning, it is sometimes described as if it were a theory of teaching. It is when constructivism is used in this way that it is subject to criticism. People talk of the constructivist classroom, a term which has a variety of meanings. In the constructivist classroom, the intention is that the focus shifts from the teacher to the students. In this model the classroom is no longer a place where the teacher or expert pours knowledge into passive students, who wait like empty vessels to be filled. Instead, the students are urged to be actively involved in their own process of learning.  Essentially, the main activity in a constructivist classroom is solving problems. Students use inquiry methods to ask questions, investigate a topic, and use a variety of resources to find solutions and answers. As students explore the topic, they draw conclusions, and, as exploration continues, they revisit those conclusions. Exploration of questions leads to more questions. Collaborative learning is a very important part of this process. You will hear the familiar mantra that constructivist teachers do not take the role of the "sage on the stage." Instead, teachers act as a "guide on the side" providing students with opportunities to explore current understanding of concepts. The criticism of constructivism is that these methods do not appear to assist students to grasp the basics; moreover, more explicit and traditional, chalk and talk style methods seem to be more effective in improving student learning outcomes.

The link between constructivism and teaching is how a teaching environment can be constructed to support learning in a constructivist manner. The principles of constructivism include: Learning by doing Building individual meaning in a situation and learning with and from others.

Week 5

Direct Instruction is also used interchangeably with terms such as explicit teaching, traditional teaching, chalk and talk, teacher-centred education and whole class teaching to name just a few. Proponents of Direct Instruction argue that there are two main reasons why this strategy is appropriate.

Some use direct instruction because it gives them maximum control over what, when and how students learn. This, it is argued, is especially helpful when students are beginning a topic and is especially favoured in the teaching of Mathematics.

Others use direct instruction because it has strong research support.

Basic forms of direct instruction have been very popular approaches to teaching for many years — you have probably experienced them a lot — yet they are often criticised. The reason for this criticism is simple: when they are implemented poorly they can be very boring.

Transcript of the Week 5 podcast

Direct Instruction

In this podcast we will look more closely at Direct Instruction. Because Direct Instruction is often confused with didactic teaching understanding what Direct Instruction is vital to doing it well. When used effectively, direct instruction has the following important features:

• The learning outcomes and success criteria are made clear to students.  • The teacher controls the time for various instructional activities.  • The teacher organises and controls the sequencing of lesson activities.  • There is an emphasis on academic achievement.  • The teacher carefully monitors students' activities and learning.  • The teacher provides frequent clear feedback to students.  Proponents of Direct Instruction argue that it is often better for teachers to explain and demonstrate things directly rather than leaving learners to discover knowledge for themselves. This does not mean that direct instruction excludes the use of constructivist approaches to teaching. However, the argument is that students initially need careful guidance in order to be able to construct meaning from their learning experiences. Some of the advantages of direct instruction and some of the situations in which it is likely to be an appropriate choice of teaching strategy are summarised in the following list: Direct instruction can be an efficient way to introduce students to a new area of study by giving them a broad overview that defines key concepts and shows how they are interrelated. This helps students to develop the foundational knowledge that they need for later learning (possibly using student-centred strategies).  Direct instruction can be a very effective way of teaching factual information that is highly structured because compared with discovery approaches to learning, direct instruction reduces the cognitive load on students' working memory.  Direct instruction allows you to convey a personal interest in the subject (through an enthusiastic presentation) and this can stimulate the interest and enthusiasm of the students. Direct instruction allows you to highlight important points or possible difficulties for students so that their exposure to these things is not left to chance.  Direct instruction can be an effective way of demonstrating to students that there are alternative perspectives on issues. Demonstrations allow students to concentrate on the results of some event, rather than 
the technicalities of achieving the result. Many students learn more deeply from strongly guided learning than from discovery 
(Moreno, 2004).  Generally, direct instruction allows you to create a non-threatening (reasonably stress- 
free) learning environment for students. Those who are shy, not confident or not knowledgeable are not forced to participate and become embarrassed.  However, Direct instruction is not always the most effective way to help students to learn. Some of its limitations can be seen in the following:  Because of the teacher's central role in direct instruction, success of this strategy depends heavily on the 'image' that the teacher projects. Direct instruction relies heavily on students being able to assimilate information through listening, observing and note taking.  When the material to be learned is very complex, detailed or abstract, direct instruction (particularly in the form of a lecture) may not provide students with sufficient opportunities to process and understand the information being presented.  It is very difficult to cater for the individual differences between students' abilities, prior knowledge, interest in the subject, rates of learning, levels of understanding or learning styles during direct instruction, particularly in large classes.  There is some evidence that the high level of structure and teacher control that is characteristic of direct instruction may have a negative impact on students' problem- solving abilities, independence and curiosity.
 Direct instruction presents learners with the teacher's view of how the content is (or can be) organized and synthesized. If the direct instruction does not involve some student participation (such as asking and answering questions), their interest will be lost after 10-15 minutes, and they will remember little of the content.
 If used too frequently, direct instruction can lead students to believe that it is the teacher's job to tell them all they need to know – they may not be encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning.

Because direct instruction (particularly in the form of lectures and demonstrations) involves a lot of one-way communication, there may be limited opportunities to gain feedback about strident understanding. The teacher may not be aware that some students have developed misconceptions.  Demonstrations rely heavily on students' observation skills and, unfortunately, many students are not skilful observers. Hence, they may not see what you want them to see in a demonstration. 
 Some things, such as psychomotor skills, cannot be taught through direct instruction alone. 
 Making sure it all works: For Direct Instruction to be successful the following are crucial: The teacher needs to be well prepared, well organized, have a clear structure to the lesson and enthusiastic. There should be sufficient task orientation in order that the learning outcomes are clear. Crucially, rather than a passive lecture, students need to be involved through questioning, probing and feedback.

Inquiry learning

Inquiry-based learning aims to relate the curriculum to the world of the student and is associated with a constructivist model of pedagogy. Central to understanding inquiry learning is to appreciate that inquiry works to engage and stimulate student learning.

It is important to note how an inquiry approach to teaching differs from a traditional approach. For example, in a traditional model students are passive learners while the teacher provides all information. In an inquiry-based model students actively participate in learning and therefore are more engaged in the process and content.

There are various forms of inquiry learning. These include play based learning, discovery learning, project based learning and problem based learning. While each of these is based on the Constructivist theory of learning it is important to note that there are important differences between them.

Just as Direct Instruction can be confused with didactic teaching, inquiry learning can be sometimes very laisse-faire with learners left to create their own question. Whether this very open-ended approach is suitable for school students is open to some debate.

Transcript of the Week 5b podcast

Inquiry Based Learning  Characteristics of Inquiry-Based Learning The two key guiding concepts of Inquiry Learning are engaging the learner and from there inviting the learner to construct their understanding. We know that we learn more powerfully when we are engaged and interested.  As we have seen Constructivist theories of learning stress the importance of learners being engaged in constructing their own knowledge. One assumption of the inquiry approach is that the learners need to explore phenomena and/or problems with minimal guidance guidance. This assumption has been the subject of controversy and allows inquiry forms of learning to be characterised as very unstructured and therefore unhelpful to the learner. When students undertake an inquiry there are a number of specific learning processes that they engage in during inquiry learning including:

· Creating questions of their own

· Obtaining supporting evidence to answer the question(s)

· Explaining the evidence collected

· Connecting the explanation to the knowledge obtained from the investigative process

· Creating an argument and justification for the explanation

Therefore, inquiry learning involves developing questions, making observations, doing research to find out what information is already recorded, developing methods for experiments, developing instruments for data collection, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, outlining possible explanations and creating predictions for future study. Inquiry-based learning is understood as being strongly related to the development of higher order thinking skills. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information or new understandings indicates a high level of thinking. In inquiry based learning teachers should be encouraging divergent thinking and allowing students the freedom to ask their own questions and to learn the effective strategies for discovering the answers. The higher order thinking skills that students have the opportunity to develop during inquiry activities should assist in the critical thinking skills that they will be able to transfer to other subjects. Inquiry-based learning can be done in multiple formats, including:

· Field-work

· Case studies

· Investigations

· Individual and group projects

· Research projects

There are other names for learening based on inquiry. These are often used interchangably but there are differneces between them. The term discovery based learning implies that there is minimal guidance taking place in terms of the learning. It is precisely this aspect of minimal guidance which attracts criticism to the various forms of inquiry based learning, especially as applied to very young students.  Other forms of this kind of learning include project based learning and problem based learning both of which, rather confusingly, become PBL for short. Both of these kinds of inquiry methods are similar with the key point of difference being that problem based learning has what is known as an ‘ill structured problem with no ‘right’ answer. In all of these inquiry based forms of learning there is an expectation that students will exhibit research skills, design competencies, creativity, collaboration and problems solving skills. These are farily advanced skills – higher order ones in fact – so the questions needs to be asked about what kinds of skills students – especially primary ones – bring to the task. The other obvious question that this throws up is whether students have sufficient content knowledge to deal with the problem and how will students acquire the necessary knowledge if they are left to their own devices. So there are some issues to be resolved when going down the inquiry path. It is important to scaffold students to teach them how to inquire as it cannot be assumed that they know how to inquire without foundational skills. Scaffolding the students at a younger age will result in enriched inquiring learning later.  Perhaps two final words of caution. In scaffolding the task don’t make it purely about finding information as there is no inquiry or problem in that and don’t confuse asking questions on a day to day basis with an inquiry learning task.

Week 6

Discussions

This week we turn our attention to two very familiar teaching strategies: class discussions and group learning.

Productive classroom discussions — those that enable students to invent, create, imagine, take risks, and dig for deeper meanings—need to take place in a climate in which students feel safe to offer their ideas. Teachers need to create such a climate by being mindful of the essential conditions of interactive teaching. It is important that teachers be good at managing and facilitating discussions. Questioning techniques are effective for this. Two questioning techniques that teachers employ is to increase their wait time after questions are asked and to only ask one question at a time. This allows time for students to think and to make a contribution.

Most teachers are aware that getting students to talk, and keeping the discussion moving, can be problematic. Another common issue is long digressions or pointless arguments by dominant students or the whole group, which can throw a discussion off track. As a result of these common pitfalls, some argue that class discussions are a waste of time and that whole class instruction is a much more efficient method. This line of thinking is especially prevalent among those who are concerned at the amount of content that needs to be or is not covered. These critics also point to the fact that discussions are time consuming and often meander along with no real conclusion.

Transcript of the Week 6a podcast

Why use class discussions? Discussion lets class members work actively with the ideas and being pursued, and discussion sessions can be an extremely effective in exploring behaviour or attitudes. A discussion can be a good way of assessing where students are in terms of their understanding of the topic.  Some advantages of whole class discussions:

· Discussions help develop students’ communication skills and awareness of acceptable ways of interaction such as listening, speaking politely, stating their ideas clearly, respecting the views of others and responding appropriately;

· Discussions enable students to work together, share their ideas and reach a consensus.

· Discussions enable students to develop their understanding by drawing on their prior knowledge.

· Discussions enable students to see different points of view

· Discussions require students to practice developing their own ideas. This kind of learning can be motivating and is especially useful for very young students who haven’t developed their writing skills.

· Discussions help students to grapple with new ideas as well as seeing that there can be other ways of tackling a problem.

· Discussions assist students with the initial stages of a writing task.

· Discussions can foster a sense of group identity.

· Discussions can be exciting and show how learning is taking place.

· Discussions show teachers how students are thinking about a topic.

· Discussions can help students develop their metacognitive skills by helping them to be conscious of their thinking processes.

Some limitations of whole class discussions:

· Discussions may not be useful if students are not prepared.

· A vocal student who dominates a group is a common problem in discussions. Another problem can occur when the entire class hijacks the discussion and moves it on to another issue. It is important at this stage to intervene to control the discussion. However, there will be many chances in any discussion to wander off the topic but controlling it too narrowly can be a problem.

· Some students may be reluctant to participate for fear that they might be made be ridiculed. Dealing with this is perhaps the most important role for the teacher.

· There is a danger that discussions can become very emotional with students involved in vying for recognition and affirmation. In this instance it is important to focus on the learning outcomes.

· Discussions are, by their nature, time consuming. There is no problems with this per se so long as students are learning but this needs to be factored in. There is nothing worse than a kind of pseudo-discussion. Students quickly come to understand that this is just going through the motions.

· Patterns of participation tend to be fixed quite early on in the year so it’s important to try to encourage everyone to participate.

· Self-esteem plays an important role in students’ participation in a discussion. If they are prevented from contributing or their contributions are not valued their self-esteem may suffer.

Making the discussion effective Effective discussion leaders know their students' skills and perspectives. When managing a discussion it’s important to pause long enough for participants to think and respond; this is referred to as "wait time". Not waiting long enough after posing a question is one of the most frequent errors by beginning teachers. Make sure you build on a student's point and withhold judgment. In a discussion it is not helpful to label something as wrong.

To be effective, each discussions need to work within the curriculum as a whole. Never operate without some kind of a curriculum-related plan. Sometimes, your students will comment or raise questions in class that will make you adjust the discussion's objectives, but without a plan to begin with, it is difficult to make these adjustments or even to know you are making them.

Group work

Group work is another very familiar teaching strategy and, in many ways, it feels a very natural way to work. There would be plenty of people who would argue that working together is a natural human trait. For our purposes here it is useful to distinguish between what might be thought of as casual sharing which occurs when students discuss the work they are still doing individually and more formal group work.

In formal group work there are a great many challenges for the teacher and, for that matter, for the students. The choice of the task is important, as is the formation of the group. Do you allow peer group selection or manage the groups in some other way? How do you manage tensions within the group?

Understanding how long the task will take is one of the major challenges when assigning group work. Too short a time frame and the whole idea of working in a group is compromised; too long and students can get off track easily. Perhaps, though, the greatest problem with group work is a fair spread of the workload. Do not underestimate the significance of this issue as educators from primary school to tertiary institutions grapple with this issue and students at every level complain about equity. Perhaps it is natural in groups that some will always believe that they have made a greater contribution than others.

Transcript of the Week 6b podcast

Group Work

            Group work is such a staple of school education that it’s sometimes taken for granted. In fact, in most primary school classroom that room is physically set up so that students are arranged in groups.

Why use group work? As we have seen, the important of group work has its origins in the Constructivist movement and especially the work of Vygotsky and the concept that there are limits to what children can learn on their own. There is the point where they need the help of others. In this sense learning is very much a social construct. Group work build on this central idea in that it allows for an interchange of ideas and a development in learning not achievable in a classroom where the transmission of knowledge is all one way. Some benefits of group work include:

· Students are encouraged to become active rather than passive learners by developing collaborative and co-operative skills, and lifelong learning skills.

· The focus is on student centred approach to teaching and learning, and assessment.

· Students are involved in their own learning.

· It enhances social skills and interactions.

· It encourages the development of critical thinking skills.

· It requires the establishment of an environment of support; trust and co-operative learning can be nurtured.

· It promotes student learning and achievement.

· Students have the opportunity to learn from and to teach each other.

· Large numbers of students can be catered for and work on task simultaneously.

· Deep rather than surface approaches to learning are encouraged.

· Quiet students have an opportunity to speak and be heard in small groups thus overcoming the anonymity and passivity associated with large groups.

· Teaching, learning and assessment options are increased.

· Students get the chance to work on large projects (larger in scope or complexity than individual tasks).

· Students from diverse backgrounds are provided with the opportunity to be heard, share experiences and skills, and to participate in unique ways (may provide a new perspective).

· It can save time and requires a shared workload.

· Alternative ideas and points of view can be generated.

· Students develop and practice skills in: decision making, problem solving, values clarification, communication, critical thinking, negotiation, conflict resolution, and teamwork.

Limitations of group work

· It is difficult to create genuinely collaborative structures

· Groups can be dominated by one or two loud voices

· Group work can be difficult to assess

· Groups can easily move off task

· Students may lack the skills necessary to successfully participate in group work

· It can become a kind of default response for a variety of situations some of what may not be appropriate activities for group work

· Forming groups can be tricky. Do you go with friendship groups? Teacher-selections? Have team captains? How large should the groups be for comfort? Again, this is likely to tie into the question of what the group should produce.

· Some students just do not function well in a group situation.

· You have to be aware of the inter-personal dynamics of the students in your class.

· How do you balance the need to scaffold knowledge with allowing the group to work independently?

· Group work is time consuming. 

Too often group work can be a kind of default option in terms of classroom practice and while it is worthwhile doing, it works best when it is done well. Ideally, the groups work well, the dynamics are considered and the aims are well thought out. Group work, at its best, is highly collaborative leads to results that might not have come about with students working alone but this result doesn’t just happen. The teacher plans a significant part in planning and monitoring what is taking place in order to enhance learning.

Week 7

Differentiation

At its most basic level, differentiation consists of the efforts of teachers to respond to differences among learners in their classroom. When a teacher varies his or her teaching in response to the needs of an individual or small group in order to create the best learning experience possible that is an example of differentiated instruction.

Teachers can differentiate the content that is being covered, how it is being covered, the conditions in the classroom and the kinds of work that students complete. Given that students come into the classroom from very diverse backgrounds and with different prior knowledge and, perhaps, skills in the area, differentiation can be a powerful instructional strategy.

Differentiation should be distinguished from practices such as extension work. Reading and mathematics provide interesting examples of contrasting practice.  No one would dream of discouraging students from reading more advanced material or trying to keep everyone reading the same material. Reading is, therefore, commonly differentiated at this basic level so that advanced readers can look after themselves.

Now take the case of Mathematics. In the past it was common for advanced students to be asked to complete all of the work and then undertake extra work. The question is: why should they? Would it be better if they had different work? These are important considerations for teachers.

Transcript of the Week 7a podcast

Differentiation             Like so many teacher strategies differentiation has been described in a variety of ways and approaches. It is often misunderstood as simply providing different work to different groups within a classroom. While providing different work in this way can be part of differentiated practice, its full impact requires more carefully structured practice.             There are three dimensions in which differentiation can be distinguished. Firstly there is the curriculum dimension. One way of envisioning curriculum is to think of it as what teachers plan to teach—and what they want students to learn. A good curriculum has clear goals for what students should know, understand, and be able to do as the result of any segment of learning. It follows that a teacher would then want to know how each student is progressing toward achieving important learning goals—and going beyond. Assessment becomes a diagnostic process in the classroom as it is in a good medical context. The teacher simply must have a regular and evolving sense of a student's academic progress to plan for that student's academic health. For differentiation to be effective, teachers need to know, for each student, where that student begins and where that student is in the individual journey toward meeting the criteria of the lesson or unit In other words, assessment is crucial for planning in a differentiated classroom.             If curriculum and assessment are important dimensions of differentiation, instruction is the final piece of the puzzle. Curriculum refers to whatteachers teach or what students should learn, instruction refers to how teachers teach or how students will experience learning. Instruction or pedagogy is the key to a differentiated classroom as the quality of teaching is more important than the curriculum. A number of researchers argue that instruction is more powerful in student learning than is curriculum.  Indeed, instruction is at the core of differentiation because the ultimate goal of differentiation is to ensure that each student has the best possible learning experiences in order to move students ahead from where they have started.  Differentiation makes good use of different assessments to see where students are in relation to what they need to know.              As working in groups is fundamental to a differentiated classroom it is important that grouping is flexible. This is an important aspect of classroom practice for a number of reasons but an obvious one is to avoid the stigma of being in the ‘dumb group’ or the different pressure of being in the ‘smart group’.  It is equally important that the different tasks are equally engaging and that there should be challenge within each task or set of tasks.             Differentiation is not a different lesson plan for each student each day, nor is it something to do all day every day all the time. It is not assigning more work at the same level to high–achieving students or a normal assignment to most students and a different one to the advanced learning. Importantly, it is not a matter of just using the differences in student responses to the same class assignment to provide differentiation. Differentiated learning does mean having high expectations for all students; permitting students to progress at their own pace through new material as well as providing different avenues to make sense of ideas. It involves providing multiple assignments within each unit, tailored for students with differing levels of achievement.  It is commonly argued that within any classroom there might be anything up to five years in development difference between the most and least advanced of the students. If this is the case it is clear that students do not all begin at the same place when a topic is introduced, so they are not all going to comfortably work in the same way though the topic nor arrive at the same place at the end. Differentiation is a way of dealing with this situation.

 Personalized learning

There is a recurrent theme in discussing these teaching strategies in that they are capable of begin defined in a number of ways. Personalised learning is another example of this with the term sometimes defined as meaning the creation of individual learning plans and catering for minority groups within a classroom or school setting.

For the purposes of this discussion personalised learning is defined in the same terms as used by the then British Minister of Education David Miliband as “an education system tailored to the needs, interests and aptitudes of every single pupil”. In this sense it is very similar to differentiation. In some respects personalised learning is not exactly a teaching strategy, more an approach to teaching and learning.

There are a number of key aspects to understanding personalised learning. These include placing the needs of the learners front and centre in the educational process. This includes a commitment to lifelong learning in a community of learners as well as the development of different pathways. Central to this process is the use of ICT as a key enabler of personalised learning.

Transcript of the Week 7b podcast

Personalised Learning with ICT As an important educational perspective personalised learning has emerged only recently and is defined in a variety of different ways. In personalised learning there is a focus on the needs of the learner so that one of the first principles of personalised learning is that learners are central. You can see from this that personalised learning belongs to that set of educational perspectives that connect strongly to constructivist thinking. This belief in the centrality of learners leads in turn to the view that there should be lifelong learning with flexible pathways into the future for these learners. Importantly, much of this recent thinking about personalised learning is only really possible because of the potentially transformative power of ICT. ICT is a key enabler of personalised learning because it allows each pupil greater diversity for learning as it has the potential to

· enhance the interactivity between individual students and individual teachers

· provide a space for personalised, flexible learning beyond the classroom walls

· allow students to live locally whilst learning globally - through the use of external resources accessed via the world wide web.

Appropriate use of ICT allows every pupil to progress at their own pace, delivering creativity to match the way different pupils learn, and allowing pupils to link study at home with school work in clear and easy ways. Many proponents would stress indispensability of ICT as a tool to support personalising learning. Effective ICT use provides choice and opportunity for students, particularly in remote areas and ‘greatly enhances the ability to personalise learning for each student in ways that have not been seen before. While E-learning is seen as having the potential to revolutionise teaching and learning, ICT use is, in many instances, not exactly cutting edge. The SAMR Model developed and enhanced by Puentedura (2011) helps to explain ICT usage in learning as it divides technology usage into four distinct levels. In this model, substitution is the lowest level of technology usage where it is used to simply replace whatever was being done without that technology. At the next level, augmentation is where the technology acts as a direct tool with some functional improvement. These two levels of technology use are defined as the enhancement stage. Whereas, in the enhancement stage, the task could have been completed satisfactorily without using technology, at the modification level the task becomes something quite different. The final level of redefinition is where the technology allows for the creation of new tasks previously inconceivable. These two levels, modification and redefinition are identified as the transformative stage. It is argued that teachers use the higher levels of the SAMR model in relation to technology adoption as their framework to improve student outcomes.  Personalised learning requires the connective power of ICT to develop ways of thinking and learning which empower the learner. It is true that in many schools ICT is increasingly available and the take up by teachers and students is growing. Thanks to recent government policies ICT is abundant in secondary schools but it is also readily available in many primary schools. However, as the SMAR model demonstrates ICT can be used in a range of ways, much of which will, in effect, only support learning as opposed to transforming learning. It is important to carefully consider what kind of ICT activities you are designing and how you might scaffold them, in order to try to gauge the extent to which the activities  might really personalise learning.

Week 8

Some of the traditional assessment types will be familiar to you. They include essays, tests and examinations, and are used to evaluate student learning. They are examples of assessment  of  learning.

Assessment  for  learning is different as it is used to help learners learn better.

Assessment  for  learning helps both students and teachers to see:

· the learning goals and criteria

· where each learner is in relation to the goals

· where they need to go next

· and ways to get there.

To learn more on assessment for learning, watch the video to the left.

Last week you learned that assessment for learning can greatly aid the learning process, as the evidence gained enables the teacher to adapt the teaching to best meet the learners' needs. Assessment for learning is known as 'formative assessment' and differs from 'summative assessment', which is assessment of learning and tells us what someone has achieved.

It is important for teachers to understand several types of assessments used in the classroom, both formative and summative. The feedback that arises from assessment is key to learning opportunities and is explored in this week's learning materials.

 Reading

Read about the similarities and differences of formative and summative assessment in Chapter 5  Formative and summative assessment: 'We need to talk'  (Butt, 2010, pp 49 - 63).

Feedback

Feedback is powerful!

Feedback is probably one of the most powerful influences in the teaching and learning cycle that you will encounter. Without feedback, most teaching sequences will fall short of their desired objectives. It is therefore vital to understand how important feedback is to your students.

Without feedback, the learning opportunity will be greatly reduced. Hattie and Timperley (2007) define feedback as "information provided by an agent (e.g. teacher, peer, book, parent, self/experience) regarding aspects of one’s performance or understanding that reduces the discrepancy between what is understood and what is aimed to be understood" (p. 81).

John Hattie and Helen Timperley have analysed the impact of feedback and created a model that identifies the characteristics that make it effective. Read their article and use what you've learned as you undertake the activity this week.

Week 9

Pastoral care of students was not always a priority in schools. Some agreed with the old adage ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Charles Dickens gave us an insight into how some children were treated inNicholas Nickelby. You can see an extract from a film adaptation below and think of how differently we would do this today.

In more recent times we have emphasised the importance of pastoral care for students. Pastoral care can be defined in a number of different ways and includes several areas of what is often described as well-being. A common feature of most schools, whether primary or secondary, is that there is a place where students feel welcome.

In the primary setting that is typically the classroom where the teacher will take an interest in their welfare. This can take various forms and often has an impact on teaching and learning as well.

Moreover, is quite common to have a pastoral program of some sort which might cover various aspects of student safety and relationships; when it comes to particular programs there is no shortage of possibilities.

In terms of the basics, though, pastoral care in schools encompasses a number of elements including:

· Promoting and monitoring the personal and social development of students

· Ensuring student safety in a healthy environment

· Delivering programs designed to assist students with important life issues

· Entailing a whole school approach to what can be described as student well being.

 Transcript of the Week 9 podcast

Pastoral Care

            The concept of pastoral care has its origins in what can be described as ‘values education.’ There was a need to look after the moral and spiritual education of the child. Implicit in this kind of education was the understanding that there was more to a child education than academic knowledge. From this beginning developed the view that a child’s learning was tied into their well-being. In simplistic terms a happy, healthy child is more likely to learn than an unhappy, unhealthy child. Other ideas have flowed from this; one being that it is possible and desirable to develop positive concepts in children through some kind of pastoral care program. Perhaps, though, the flip side to this are the fairly constant calls for schools to provide programs to cover a whole range of social issues.

            Perhaps the best way to conceptualise current thinking about pastoral care is to think of it as being concerned with the health of students in an holistic way. This is neatly summed in the Health Promoting School Model from the World Health Organisation (WHO)which states that: “Health promoting schools are schools which display, in everything they say and do, support for and commitment to enhancing the emotional, social, physical and moral wellbeing of all members of their school community” (Global School Health Initiative, 1999).

            Attempts to further define pastoral care can involve a degree of complexity, largely because pastoral care is so broad in scope. How schools go about pastoral care depends on how they conceptualise the work of teachers on the one hand, and how pastoral care fits into the curriculum on the other hand. There are some challenges here. Certainly, in most schools, there will be a pastoral care program in the curriculum in some way but there will also be expectations that pastoral care in terms of the needs of students will extend beyond the curriculum.

            There is a danger, then, that pastoral care can be poorly understood because it is too broadly defined and too extensive in scope. It is helpful to try to understand the approaches that schools take to pastoral care.

The most obvious sign in a school is the management and administration of pastoral care. This will include the basic structures in the school to support care such as the class group where, typically, the class teacher is the first point of contact for concerns. There will be planning and policies – especially around first aid and anaphylaxis – which will be highlighted.

            Flowing from this will be the promotion and maintenance of an orderly and supportive environment where the emphasis is on building a community within the school, through extra-curricular activities, the creation of supportive systems and positive relations between all members, and the promotion of a sense of community. Sport, camps and school productions all have their part to play in this.

Schools will often have a developmental pastoral curriculum that is designed to promote the personal, social, moral, spiritual and cultural development and wellbeing of children through distinctive programs designed to enhance student well being.

In a similar way there will often be proactive, preventative pastoral care programs in a school. This kind of program includes a focus on issues which could develop into ‘critical incidents’ in children’s lives. Obviously a key part of the purpose here is to prevent these critical incidents or at least minimize the harm that might be done. Drug education and on-line safety are just two of the many possible examples which might be included in a program such as this. The final and most singular component of pastoral care is reactive pastoral casework:undertaken on a one-to-one basis in response to children’s problems problems of a “social, emotional, physical, behavioural or spiritual nature. In these instances, pastoral care is often related to the school behavior management policy and can be linked to various outside and supportive agencies. While such external support is sometimes necessary and can make a vital contribution to a school’s pastoral care program, one of the main criticisms of this approach is that it is seen as something that happens outside the everyday school routine, and reinforces the belief that this is outside the teachers control or sphere or expertise. Preventative measures are, therefore, preferred but this creates the issue of what to include and what to leave out.

    Pastoral care, rather than being based on a curriculum, involves the development of an overall strategy or ‘standard’ to be employed by schools to help them understand and meet the needs of children. In this way it is a very complex activity requiring a multi level and multi component approach in order to be effective.

 

Student safety

Student safety is an important aspect of effective pastoral care. It is easy to identify safety in those situations which entail physical safety. These instances can include potentially risky activities such as crossing the road to school, sporting contexts and excursions.

Health safety is also important and schools are required to have policies and procedures to do with a range of health issues such as anaphylaxis.

The importance of safety extends beyond the obvious questions of physical safety to include safe learning environments both in the classroom and on-line.

Next session we will look at the on-line environment when we look at bullying and cyber-bullying. For now, though, we will look at the issues and challenges facing teachers in creating a safe classroom environment which promotes learning.

Watch this video on inclusive play from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

Week 10

Bullying

When it comes to providing pastoral care for students one of the greatest challenges is dealing with bullying. Bullying is not a new phenomenon; indeed the fact that it has been around for a long time in one form or another means that sometimes people have dismissed concerns about bullying as a normal part of growing up. This attitude is changing as the community comes to understand the high cost of bullying in schools and workplaces.

There are several aspects of bullying. Traditional forms of bullying can be direct or indirect. Direct forms of bullying are relatively open attacks on the victim while indirect bullying takes the form of social isolation and intentional exclusion from a group.

For an action to be bullying it needs to be repeated over time. One dispute or conflict does not qualify as bullying behaviour; the repetition is a key part of the definition. Another key aspect of bullying behaviour is that the bully is more powerful that the victim.

Dealing with bullying can be very difficult. Strategies like fighting back, trying to bully the bully or just ignoring the problem have very limited effectiveness. The best things that schools can do to deal with bullying include being proactive in creating and fostering a supportive learning environment while, at the same time, reducing anonymous spaces in the school. Having an anti-bullying policy is important so that the school can respond appropriately. As a teacher, the most important thing is to be proactive in fostering your own positive classroom climate. Nevertheless, when bullying does take place it is vital that you take action to address the issue.

Cyber-bullying

Cyber-bullying is very similar to bullying. Like traditional forms of bullying (where technology does not play any part), the victim is repeatedly exposed to negative actions by one or more people, and there is generally an imbalance of power where the victim has trouble defending him/herself.

While traditional forms of bullying and cyber-bullying share the common characteristics of intentional harm, imbalance of power in favor of the perpetrator and the repetition of victimization there is an argument that the imbalance of power is not so straight-forward in cases of cyber-bullying.

The traditional categories of superior strength, age or status do not so easily apply. It may be the case that cyber-bullying creates the conditions whereby some perpetrators are able to bully victims they would not be able to in a more traditional situation. If this is the case then technology might well be fuelling an increase in bullying.

The obvious difference between traditional bullying and cyber-bullying is in the usage of technology as a tool to perform these aggressive acts. Cyber-bullying includes two additional characteristics: anonymity of the perpetrator and the ‘public versus private’ nature of the bullying, where victims often feel that an act that is in the public arena is more serious than anything that is done in private.

Transcript of the Week 10 podcast

Cyberbullying Bullying amongst students has been around for years and its features are well described. As technology has become more accessible and more prevalent in society, one of the things that has happened is that the technology has been used to fuel bullying. Traditional forms of bullying and cyberbullying share three common characteristics: intentional harm, imbalance of power in favor of the perpetrator and the repetition of victimization.  The one variation to that is that the cyber bullying perpetrator might be able to bully victims they would not be able to in a more traditional situation. If this is in fact the case then technology could be said to increase bullying.  Repetition of action is another area where there can be differences between traditional forms of bullying and cyberbullying. In the digital environment a single aggressive action can lead to an immense number of repetitions by others without further contribution by the perpetrator.  Given the involvement of others in repeating the original video/image or text, there is a need to include bystanders in the definition of repetition in cyberbullying. In contrast to traditional forms of bullying where the number of people who were involved in the bullying was limited, there is, theoretically no limit to the number of people who can be affected in some way by a cyberbullying attack. There is a wider audience that can know about the attacks through social media, uploading of videos, the transmission of emails, SMS’s or the creation of webpages. Videos can be repeatedly watched, words can be read and re-read and easy transmitted to others, as can pictures.  Anonymity can be a factor in promoting cyberbullying. The perpetrator can hide behind the technology to remain anonymous. In some cases, perpetrators who would not otherwise engage in traditional forms of bullying such as face-to-face bullying may be drawn to cyberbullying precisely because they can remain anonymous. An important distinction between victims of traditional forms of bullying and cyberbullying is that cyberbullying can take place anytime of the day or night and is, in fact, more likely to occur when students are not at school. The use of technology means that the attacks are persistent and constant (24/7) meaning victims can find it hard to find a safe place to get away from the attacks. As cyberbullying frequently occurs outside of school hours (it might seem clear that cyberbullying outside of school hours is a matter for the home. This is not so clear when students come to school the next morning upset or ready for conflict. It’s then hard to argue that the bullying has nothing to do with the school.  For this and other reasons schools should develop a holistic approach to cybersafety so that students develop strategies for personal safety and privacy. Dealing with cyberbullying is, therefore, a whole school priority.  Teachers in schools are often at the coalface when it comes to dealing with the fallout from cyberbullying. Teachers have a crucial role in monitoring cybersafety, especially in their own classroom. Sometimes teachers have concerns about the digital environment. For example, if the use of blogs is required, but a free site is littered with inappropriate advertising, then the teacher should seek educational sites that facilitate blogging. Similarly, there are alternative social networking sites such as such as Fakebook, which is a website that “allows teachers and students to create imaginary profile pages for study purposes” (Classtools.net). Other alternatives for sharing material on-line include NINGs which have limited memberships. As well as ensuring a safe environment with respect to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the classroom, teachers need to understand the use of ICT in the classroom and be able, at the proficient level, to integrate ICT into their teaching and learning so that their students are competent users of technology. Teachers play a crucial role in dealing with issues in the digital space and especially cyberbullying.

Week 11

The promotion of pupils’ health and wellbeing has long been identified as a key challenge in schools. While health and wellbeing has long been seen as incorporating elements of personal, mental, social and emotional wellbeing, rather than merely an absence of physical illness, issues of health and wellbeing have often been separated from other aspects of school life such as teaching and learning.

In Australia this has waxed and waned somewhat. People in their 50s will remember the hearing and vision tests, not to mention the daily milk for students as a way of ensuring the health of students. Responsibility for health then shifted back to the family before settling into the more recent arrangements, which tend more to favour partnerships between school and home. Increasingly there are strong policies about physical health and student safety as shown by various government policies about, for example, anaphylaxis.

Mental health and wellbeing generally are regarded as very important for students. It is argued that there is a strong link between mental health and academic outcomes.

All aspects of a student’s life need to be considered when it comes to their wellbeing.

Konu and Rimpala developed a model of wellbeing in schools which highlights the inter-relationship between different aspects of school for a student. This is the model to the left. Click the image to enlarge it.

Reference list for all the weeks

Week 1

Atherton J. S. (2011) Learning and teaching: Angles on learning, particularly after the schooling years. Retrieved from http://wwwlearningandteaching.info/learning/

Biggs, J. & Collis, K. (1982). Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy. New York: Academic Press.

Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Human learning (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Shuell, T. (2013). Theories of learning. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/theories-of-learning/

Smith, M. K. (2003). The encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/b-learn.htm

Rouch, D. (2011). Bloom's taxonomy according to Seinfeld [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/embed/NsBna5IVBYg

Images

Effron, S. (2012). Bloom's revised taxonomy [image file]. Retrieved from https://saraeffron.wordpress.com/tag/blooms-revised-taxonomy/

Holistic Approach to Technology Education. (2013). Learning theory [infographic]. Retrieved from http://hotel-project.eu/sites/default/files/Learning_Theory_v6_web/Learning%20Theory.html

Read, C. (2010, January 28). C-Wheel [web blog post]. Retrieved from http://carolread.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/c-is-for-c-wheel/

Week 2

Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (2013). Educational psychology: Windows on classrooms (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Lapic, S. (2009). Positive reinforcement: The Big Bang Theory [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA96Fba-WHk

nessymon. (2012). Behaviourism 101 [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU0zEGWp56Y

Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Human learning (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Images

Swanson, C. (2012). Will press lever for food [image]. Retrieved from www.perspicuity.com

Week 3

Brainrulesbook. (2008, February 5). Schema [video file]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzbRpMlEHzM&list=UUbWA8Xkwm1xQFNGDm6obyEQ&index=49&feature=plcp

Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (2013). Educational psychology: Windows on classrooms (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Loughran, J. (2010). What expert teachers do: Enhancing professional knowledge for classroom practice. New York: Allen & Unwin.

Images

Trygga Gamlestaden. (2011). Finger painting child's hand [photograph]. Retrieved from www.tryggagamlestaden.se/category/kultur/

Week 4

Bhattacharya, K. & Han, S. (2012). Piaget and cognitive development. Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Piaget%27s_Constructivism

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2013). Innovation in education. Retrieved from www.education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/resources/technology.htm

Hein, G. (2012). Constructivist learning theory . Retrieved from www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/constructivistlearning.html

McLeod, S. (2014). Lev Vygotsky. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

Woolfolk, A. (2005). Educational psychology (9th ed.).  Allyn and Bacon/Pearson

Images

kris_p_kreme. (2011). The networked teacher [Image]. Retrieved from http://profilesgooglecom117337703.blogspot.com.au/2011_03_01_archive.html

Week 5

Luke, A. (2004). On explicit and direct instruction. Australian Literacy Educators' Association. Retrieved from http://www.alea.edu.au/documents/item/861

Murdoch, K. (n.d.) Inquiry learning: Journeys through the thinking process. Retrieved from http://www.kathmurdoch.com.au/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/inquirylearning.pdf

pmw8000. (2011). "Anyone, anyone" Teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA

Images

Ronald Grant Archive (2012). Goodbye Mr Chips. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/jun/23/secret-teacher-gove-gcses

Sincero P. (2006). Inquiry-based learning. Retrieved from http://www.inquirylearn.com/Inquirydef.htm

Week 6

Images

Online discussions. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://onlinelearningtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/jumpstart-online-discussions.jpg

Roles in group work. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/119486196336549509/

Week 7

Dodge, J. (2009). 25 quick formative assessments for differentiated classrooms. New York: Scholastic.

National College for School Leadership. (2005). Leading personalised learning in schools: Helping individuals grow. Retrieved from http://www.dow.catholic.edu.au/Corpus_Christi/Leading_Personalised_Learning.pdf

Images

Beaufort Primary School. (2013). A pedagogy of personalised learning. Retrieved from http://www.beaufort.surrey.sch.uk/personalised-learning

Week 8

Butt, G. (2010). Making assessment matter. London: Continuum.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), pp. 81-112.

Spence, J. (2011). Assessment for learning [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OEBTtm5yG0

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2004). Working inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(1), pp. 8-21.

Images

Purposes of assessment. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/support/pages/advice.aspx

Authentic assessment. (2010). Retrieved from http://a100educationalpolicy.pbworks.com/w/page/4076732/Policy%2520Research%253A%2520Authentic%2520Assessment

Week 9

Atherton, J. (2013). Learning and teaching: SOLO taxonomy. Retrieved from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/solo.htm (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2014). Inclusive play [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/illustrations-of-practice/detail?id=IOP00220

Movieclips. (2014). Nicholas Nickleby (2/12) - Squeer's schools for boys [video clip]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgSS_lMllOw

Youngquist, M. (2010). Stupid lasts forever [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_neu5UcGU3I

Week 10

ABC. (2009). Cyber-bullying [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s2564784.htm

Images

Cyberbullying. (2014). Retreived from http://www.respectu.com/home/index.php/category/cyberbullying/

Week 11

Images

Konu, A., & Rimpala, M. (2002). The school wellbeing model. [image]. Retrieved from http://www10.edu.fi/hyvinvointiprofiili/info-eng.html