Deborah's reflections

I agree with Carolien that our education system is contradictory. 21st Century skills are not the current focus on accountability. The Department of  Education needs data in order to direct funding and focus for future directions. At the moment NAPLAN and the HSC are our major drivers and students who perform well are directing their energies towards these formats. At my workplace Guided Inquiry is encouraged however it sits within the tradition teaching strategies rather than redefining our whole program. A more recent change however is the STEM kits that are on loan for schools to try. We had the WeDo lego kits and beebots last term and they have enthused teachers and students alike. Staff and student collaboration was common. Teachers learned alongside students and all could race ahead or stop and redo their projects without feeling ‘left behind.’ There was maximum participation and we were all learning. Next term we have the green screen for creating videos and movies and it will be set up in the library. As yet, my colleague (TL 5-6) and me (TL K-4) know nothing about how it works so we have the holidays to dip our toes in. We have started to propose simple projects that tie in with themes and have started to look at timetabling and available space. We haven’t looked inside the large boxes yet…

This collaboration has been difficult. Playground duty, sport training, part time staff etc inhibit a meeting time and some teachers are just not interested or don’t know how. Finding a time for us to ‘play’ with the equipment and make our own movie would be invaluable to help our students trouble shoot when they meet a problem. Some staff meeting time has been allocated but more is needed as we have a vast range of levels of experience of ICT among staff. This opportunity does however allow us to evaluate equipment and its value in our school so we are better placed to decide products that have the most value for us in terms of our limited budget. For some of us though, we are like a child lost in a toy shop….

Victoria_Borodinova / Pixabay

https://primo.csu.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=sciversesciencedirect_elsevierS0740-8188(11)00002-8&context=PC&vid=61CSU_INST:61CSU&search_scope=CentralIndex&tab=Everything&lang=en

The article link above describes the study of a Project Based Learning (PBL) unit taught in a Hong Kong primary school. Four teachers were involved including the TL. The teachers planned the 10 week unit beforehand and inserted two online assessment tasks throughout the unit. A control group was carried out using more tradition teacher directed research techniques. The results showed that students’ grades were significantly higher for all students in the PBL group than the control group. Students also reported their enjoyment of the project was higher and parents commented their students were engaged with the search process and collaborative nature of the assignment. Of interest for me was the attention the TL paid to scaffolding search techniques for the students prior to the project and the teachers and parents only stepped in to assist when students were unable to help themselves within their group.