Business As Usual

A little while back we had a gentleman from another school come and present to us regarding collaborative learning. It was really interesting and got me thinking about a unit of work I do in year 8 Geography on Polar Lands. With the green light from the boss to have a go and don’t worry if you fail I decided to see what we could do with a pretty dry part of the syllabus.

We are 3 weeks into the unit of work so after being encouraged by a friend and colleague at school I decided to blog about learning’s to date.

The idea surrounding the unit of work was to establish a link with a real audience. So often, if the task is NOT assessed for marks, the students struggle to get involved or motivated. As an aside, maybe the lack of motivation in students has nothing to do with the marks, it might also just be the way it is delivered!!! Just a thought as the aforementioned groan/whinge is an easy out for teachers.

Anyway, the idea was that we make a link with our Year 5 students who also do a unit of work on Antarctica, albeit at a more junior level. The groups came together and they were tasked with presenting something (and it could be anything) that was age specific for year 5 and would assist them in the lead-up to their in-class test. There were FOUR main areas of focus

1) Scientists & Explorers

2)Climate & Environment

3) Animals

4) Indigenous People

Presentation style examples provided for students to chew on ranged from the usual (and sometimes a bit boring now…or is that just me??) video documentaries to fake facebook accounts (where you might be a polar bear!!!) to radio shows recorded using audacity, songs about Polar lands with accompanying CD artwork, quiz shows, online board games, blog or website, a glogster poster, a 10 day-travel itinerary or a newspaper article. The options were endless but the rule was NO POWERPOINT because we left that back in the 20th century along with MC Hammer (surprisingly the kids did not get this!!!).

Once completed, the Year 8 students will decide as a class which presentations they would like to take up to Year 5 that best represents the effort and how they wish to be perceived by the younger students. The presentations will hopefully (if done to a standard) be of great assistance and help to the younger Year 5 students. It would also include 5 multiple choice questions for the year 5 students to answer at the end to assist the in their study along with a feedback form asking them to rate the best presentation based on how helpful they were. All presentations will be posted on Moodle and accessed by both year groups. We are not at that point as such but I thought it appropriate to pen some initial thoughts:

1) Don’t rush your planning on this…2 days is not enough DG.

2) Don’t give the students access to the computers from day one. Give them time to think and create as a group away from the technology…sorry techo boffins out there but quite simply, they become drones and don’t talk to each other once the computer is switched on. Also, take them out of the computer room once every while to re-focus. I really wish I did not have to write that one…need to work more at this point.

3) Teach them a lesson face to face on planning and storyboarding…don’t assume they get this…although some do.

4) Provide heaps more milestones and checkpoints to maintain momentum and assist them with staying on track

5) Set up a meeting with the audience prior to the end date so they can picture who they are working for

6) Have the students reflect on their learning each week in like a blog or a round table discussion…tough when you only have 2 periods per week and time is of the essence…must figure out a way

7) Come up with a question that needs solving. I think this is my biggest failure here. It currently feels like it lacks direction. The simple idea of presenting in front of Year 5 has kind of lost momentum over the past 3 weeks although it was really exciting for the students at the start. Thanks for the tip Jay!!!! I just need to figure out the question that would cover the necessary syllabus points (sadly) for this unit of work and would still be relevant to the audience at hand.

Don’t have the end-date near student exams!!!!They go all weird and anxious!!

9) Make sure you drive home the biblical reasoning and framework behind why we as a class are helping others and sharing our gifts for the benefit of others…it’s not just about marks and on purpose, it is NOT marked for grades.

I will report back once the presentations go through.

• Leave a comment... (0)

I have recently completed the first 2 subjects of my Masters Course with the National Institute for Christian Education (NICE). It has been a fantastic time of learning and reflection, along with many hours getting stuck into the bible. I feel very energised at the ministry that lay ahead of me in schools over the coming years. What a priviledge and responsibilty we have as Christian educators. I thought I might share some of the stuff I have been learning and writing about. Hopefully someone out there might benefit as much as I have. Simply click on the links below…and remember that it has been 10 years since my last essay so be nice!!!!

Essay #1 (ED500) – Biblical Foundation in Christian Education – Focus on Hebrews

Essay #2 (ED500) – Biblical Foundation in Christian Education – Focus on Exodus

Essay #1 (ED501) – Worldview – Focus on Worldview Scenarios

Essay #2 (ED501) – Worldview – Focus on Teaching Practice

Essay #3 (ED501) – Worldview – Focus on a Teaching Curriculum document – Stage 6 Business Studies

Don’t fall asleep reading these…DG

• Leave a comment... (0)

Students never seem to stop surprising me with what they come up with and how they respond to new and varied experiences. As I work hard at getting organised for next year with a major focus on IT integration and utlising the opportunities available to us in a school blessed with all the latest gadgets, I thought to myself, it is probably a good idea to do what any good businessperson would do and speak with my stakeholders about the upcoming changes and what that might mean to them. I was both surprised and challenged by what students came back to me with. I put the following question to them:

What is your current experience of having IT in the classroom and what are your thoughts of computers and associated technologies playing more of a role in the classroom into the future?

My reading, discussion and everything related to the above mentioned topic drove me to believe that the response would be one of both excitment, joyand great expectation…..how wrong was I. The feedback was lukewarm at best, angry at teachers who have already started the process and very reticent to such a move…..mmmmm…words such as lazy teacher and boring kept creeping in to the response……mmmmmm…..so what do you want? The trend in responses from students was that teachers do one thing for them – engage me with face to face and speak to me. Create an environment for me where I want to learn, want to relate to you and pretty please don’t send me off on my own for weeks on end ‘discovering the big wide world on the internet’. The idea of being sent off to do a directed learning task on a personal laptop did not rate anywhere near as well as I had presumed….weird

Now, I suppose one can respond to such feedback in a number of  ways. Here are 3.

1) Take the students response and paint a wide brush stroke across all technology and stay back in the 20th century of teaching which I am sure will be the easy option;

2) Ignore the students and just press on because they will get it eventually or;

3) Think of really smart ways in which the technology can be used alongside that personal relationship that so many of them seem to be craving.

For me, it’s all about option 3 but a good reminder to always think about your number one stakeholders…..who always seem to come up with something surprising.

I would be keen to see what your experience is with speaking to students?

• Leave a comment... (3)

Well it’s been a while since my last post as I have been busy getting my year 12 guys through their HSC. Such a relief to have them through it now. As this is the first lot who I have had all the way through since year 11 I felt so linked to them and almost repsonsibile for their performance. I suppose because I am…anyway, it was so nice that after the event I received a number of really nice heartfelt thankyou emails from the students. The best thing that came from this feedback was not the deep down soft and gooey feeling of self-worth that a compliment can bring but the fact that all the students were reflecting on the fact that they had their first experience of business studies through Christian eyes. Did I actually manage through god’s grace to teach them a secular subject like Business Studies from a Christian perspective? Not sure if it was done too well but at least I know that when the small % who will go and do business full-time at uni they will hopefully walk into that lecture theatre with a very different view to the majority. I am so stoked to have been part of that process and although my teaching practice will grow and the Christian element will flow more freely with time and experience, this lot will remain with me for a while because they were the guinea pigs and surprisingly they actually survived…if your reading team…I will miss you guys…Mr G

• Leave a comment... (0)

Been doing so much thinking lately and am now in the middle of actually putting all this thinking down on paper. One of things I decided to do before committing to any changes in my teaching approach was to actually go to the source and ask my students what they thought of my thinking on the topic of Christian education and learning through an online portal such as Moodle. It was great to get their feedback as after all, these are the guys we are doing this for in the long run so their opinion and buy-in really does matter. Thankfully some of my more experienced collegues have already been working hard on technology development in class (click here for more info) and so they have been exposed to a bit of this style of teaching already where Moodle really comes into play. Key learning points from the students were:

1) If you are going to ask me to work more independently and interact with content online, please spend some good quality time introducing the topic because I sometimes feel a bit lost and its a bit overwhelming. Part of me agrees with this but some of me is excited that they are out of their comfort zone. This creative tension is important.

2) Please ensure you keep reminding me where I am at in the process. I really want to see milestones along the way.

3) Please bring this into the real world for me. Take me away from the textbook and make it real.

All very wise points from some very thoughtful young people. You have to love the 21st century learner. What a priveledge to be invloved in it.

So, back to the drawing board for me as I continue to plot out my course for next year. So much to do but so many advantages when the time is put in to think it through.

• Leave a comment... (1)

A collegue at work sent me the following link and I really like the way he has captured the current political environment. I find it funny that when teaching year 10 commerce politics I have also been caught up in all this drudgery. His article cries out for a saviour…I wonder who that may be?

• Leave a comment... (1)

As you can see from my blog (if you could be bothered to read it), this year has been one where with a massive 18 months experience in teaching my mind has run at 100 miles an hour. Some of that has been productive thought and at other times I have just kind of sat there doing nothing much…maybe that is a good thing. Anyway…sat down the other day and asked myself this question:

How do I assist my students to think Christianly?

This is what came of that:

1) By knowing, reading and living my bible daily

2) By ensuring every appropriate opportunity finds its way back to Christ

3) To enage the students at their levl, their experience and not at mine

4) By providing engaging, relevant and well-timed assessment (technology can help here)

5) By setting up a framework to my classrooms that challenge secular thought from the get-go

6) By critiquing outcomes and not settling for what has always been done (technology can help here)

7) By allowing students opportunities to reflect on the information before them (technology can definitely help here)

By setting up a classroom that embraces drivers, detours and destinations

9) By enabling and providing for a classroom that encourages both inductive and deductive thinking to occur (technology can help here)

10) By trusting God more

11) By working harder than the average teacher and setting the agenda for schools around our area

12) By being open and honest with students as to what I am trying to achive within my classroom

13) By being organised and planned out (technology can help here)

You will notice that technology trails many of these thoughts. At one stage I had technology sit as a stand alone assister of Christian thought but upon reflection believe this is misguided. Technology, like a white board or a DVD is simply another tool that can be used to assist with the end goal of Christian education.

• Leave a comment... (1)

So, do our students think for themselves and more importantly, when or if they think, do they do it within a Christian framework? Recently been reading more from ‘Teaching Redemptively’ by Donovan Graham and was challenged by chapter 17 as it worked through the idea of deductive vs inductive thinking.

Deductive being to begin with the abstractions and general principles and move to the working out of specific instances that reflect those general principles.

As Graham states, to teach inductively is to move from specific observed facts to general principles that are tested over time.

Deduction and induction are two complementary and necessary ways of experiencing life in all the fullness that God intended as per pg 164 of chapter 17.

When it all comes down to it, deductive is quite a bit easier to administer than inductive learning as inductive requires a real trust in the students to discover on their own. My questions that rise from this is often when given some leeway to think more creatively the students don’t know what to do with it and they crave to go back to deductive (tell them) style learning. I think that for inductive type/style of teaching/thinking to occur, it is going to have to be back in the teachers court to really drive it and build a culture that challenges the norm. Failure in the early days is inevitable. We just have to try something new once everywhile and see where it takes us.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to see the wider student body approach learning with the knowledge of their bibles in the back of their mind that informs and drives their inductive thinking as they perform their role as image bearers of an infinite God.

As a teacher, I must set the tone of this discovery and our teaching programs must reflect a combination of both inductive and deductive thinking practices. What this looks like, as per my past few posts…still not sure…arrgghhhh the joy of being a newbie.

X Thinking X Deductive X Inductive X Christian Framework X Teaching Redemptively X Donovan Graham

• Leave a comment... (3)

So, been to the conference, enjoyed my first week of Masters study, been chatting with a heap of teachers about Christian education and yet it’s like I am stuck at the starters block, not knowing my next step. So much good lliterature and advice but no real vision from me as to how that will look like in MY classroom. Like my post below, tension is good, I am grappling with it and for now, I do not know what to do with it yet. That is fine with me for now…Toirtoise/Hare approach.

My constantl however, must be with head in bible because I am positive…and it is the only thing I am really 100% on at the moment re education is that my knowledge, love and response to the bible must be at the forefront. Failure to do this and alll these discussions in my mind are wasting time and effort. What a great challenge to have. The more I read the word of God the better it becomes. So much more to read.

With that in mind, I was challenged the other day from a secular writing about marketing in the social media space. No need for details but to cut a long story short, the following proverb came up and I think it can be applied in some manner to teaching. Once more, don’t know what it looks like yet in practice, but it went like this:

Tell me and I will FORGET

Show me and I will REMEMBER

Involve me and I will UNDERSTAND

Something in that for my next steps…I wonder what it will look like…technology  has to be in there somewhere…

• Leave a comment... (2)