Social Networking a clip for those who are sceptics!

Posted on March 9, 2010 by mwalker

I’ve written a few posts recently on cyber safety or its inverse cyber bullying after some workshops I’ve run with students from Years 3-6. In the workshops I ask students do they use social networking sites and 65% of students indicated yes in a hands up survey.

At that point I didn’t ask students if their parent/s knew about their activity on the web or how they got around the 13 year old age declaration which is on most social networking sites e.g. Face book or My Space.

This clip supports the view of the increase in social networking, not only the young the research says but those over 50, particularly women.

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I’m disappointed to read our P…

Posted on March 8, 2010 by mwalker

I’m disappointed to read our PM Mr Rudd quoted as saying the National Curriculum is back to basics – what about back to the future.

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Is it that important to build teacher efficacy?

Posted on March 8, 2010 by mwalker

“Well, what are the most important things to achieve in the strategic plan this year?”

This question was posed recently at a school council committee discussion on strategic plan accountabilities. While I was initially challenged to say everything in the document was important I got to think a little deeper on this whilst planning the finer details of staff meetings for the year.

To say that the meeting agendas for the year were over flowing would be to understate the situation. We have booked one facilitator, Muffy Hand, for 8 workshops at staff meetings this year on building teacher efficacy.

Wow – that’s a lot I heard myself internally muttering. “Is that really so important?” What about more teacher workshops on maths education [one of our core improvement targets] – more internal talk.

I also heard self talk on professional learning needing to occur outside meetings – in coaching and mentoring situations – true I said to myself – but who are the coaches? External experts, and we have had a few experts coaching teachers over the past few years did have an immediate impact but long term did we create a culture of dependency?

So is this efficacy so important and what exactly is it?

According to Bobbett, Olivier, and Ellett (2008) teachers’ efficacy beliefs and teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are distinctly different constructs. Specifically, teacher efficacy or teachers’ sense of efficacy refers to “teachers’ beliefs in their abilities to affect student performance” (Dellinger et al., 2008, p. 753) whereas teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs refer to “teachers’ beliefs in their capabilities to perform specific teaching tasks at a specified level of quality in a specified situation”.

So what are we dealing with here when we talk building efficacy in our strategic plan  – my self talk tells me its teacher self- efficacy –  building teacher beliefs about specific tasks at specific levels of quality i.e. teaching maths in certain ways to a level of quality.

So how does one build this?

Muffy Hand suggests that the best way to achieve improved self efficacy is for teachers to work in effective teams. Muffy spent the first staff meeting session setting the context about how teachers needs including self efficacy might be met by working in effective teams.

Session two was how to go about setting up effective teams – defining purpose and protocols for working . She said some things that stood out for me:

  • Effective teams have shared accountability – “it’s not OK that people don’t share”
  • Effective teams have standards of excellence – “it’s not OK to be ordinary”

So I think I get this now we must deliberately build teacher efficacy at the same time as building teacher instructional skills and deeper understandings of the disciplines we teach. They are not separate but intertwined. They are both important

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-08

Posted on March 8, 2010 by mwalker
  • Teaching teams held parent information sessions this week about curriculum expectations for the year – 35% of parents attended, successful? #

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Teaching teams held parent inf…

Posted on March 6, 2010 by mwalker

Teaching teams held parent information sessions this week about curriculum expectations for the year – 35% of parents attended, successful?

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-01

Posted on March 1, 2010 by mwalker
  • Talking with colleagues from schools and looking at eps it appears many schools are holding ballots for council elections – puzzled why? #
  • The pressure on reducing class sizes continues unabated in schools – do student outcomes improve? Jury still out on connections here. #

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Using data to improve teaching – a work in progress.

Posted on February 25, 2010 by mwalker

I don’t think many teachers would disagree with the idea that its a good thing to use student assessment data to try and determine what students need to learn next, at least in Victorian schools – or would they?

Often teachers disagree on what student assessment data they find useful for one reason or another or they may argue about the relative worth of time spent on one on one interviews as opposed to online assessments with instant results.

I think the sharing of assessment data in teams is a real cultural change for us,  as we try and figure not only what the students need to learn but also what is it about our teaching that’s effective, or not as the case may be.

What’s becoming obvious is that we need to continue to support teachers to use data more effectively and when its best to use certain tests, online assessments or protocols for looking at student work.

We recently had Philip Holmes Smith [pictured above] workshop teachers on what some of our data sets meant for teaching and learning and how we might go about determining students zones of proximal development [ZPD]. This zone indicates the sorts of learning challenges students are capable of achieving successfully.  The developmentof ZPD’s  is a work in progress.

What I found very useful was ws the development of software enabling us to track students over several years and plot their levels of development in easily identifiable ways. The software enables us to pose some challenging questions about whether students are progressing below or above the expected levels of development and what are we doing about it.

We have started using Philip’s SPA site to do this tracking and analysis of student progress and whilst this is our first year its already supporting us in holding those teacher discussions about student progress.

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Cyber Safety – a bigger issue in homes than in schools?

Posted on February 25, 2010 by mwalker

At the start of the school year I’m teaching a series of workshops on cyber safety for students from Years 3 – 6 . These workshops coincide with the distribution the annual student Internet Agreement that parents and students sign.

Part of the agreement that parents and students sign is that they have had a conversation about cyber safety at home. We provide notes for parents to support those conversations with possible scenarios that might be encountered at home.

In the first of the cyber safety workshops for Years 3 to 6 students I was keen to conduct some research on student usage. I used data from the ACMA’s 2007 report: Media and Communication in Australian Families as a baseline on student usage and whilst the research methods were different [my method was a simple hands up survey after some clarifying questions] the results of the survey do have a consistent trend.

Questions 2007 ACMA 2010 Elsternwick PS
Do you use the internet to play online games against other players? 32% 79%
Do you use the Internet to complete homework? 23% 82%
Do you use a mobile phone for talking? E.g. to friends and family 16% 55%
Do you use the computer for messaging? 10% 69%
Do you use the computers to watching / listening to media? E.g. Youtube, DVD’s 8% 85%
Do you use computers for social networking? E.g Skype, Face book, My Space, MSN 7% 65%
Do you own a mobile and use it for text messaging? 5% 10%

I don’t think I was surprised by the significant increase in the use of computers for entertainment represented by the use of online games and watching media: DVD’s and downloading music.

The students talked about games they buy or get as presents and one of their major selection criteria is the ability to play against other people online and talk to them as they play.

I wasn’t at all surprised at the increase of students in using computers to watch DVD’s or download songs for ipods  etc… although the popularity of you tube at years 3 and 4 did raise an eyebrow. A question on downloading movies and showing them at school was raised to which I said NO.

I think the trends in lots of ways reflects the increased power of computers in homes to handle life like screen graphics and download media quickly .

What did surprise me was the huge increase at this age range in social networking and messaging. Social networking according to these 8-12 year old students included using: Skype, Facebook, MySpace and MSN. The fact that all these students using were under 13 years of age and some were using using MySpace or Facebook raised my eyebrows. It does prompt an article for parents in a future newsletter.

Cyber safety it seems from this data is a bigger issue at home than at school – no surprise there. Most students agreed they have more time on the computer at home than at school and use online programs currently banned or not available at school [e.g. Face book].

This does pose a question on should we be banning these programs or teaching students, certainly in secondary schools, how to use them responsibly.

I also got the impression that many students thought I as an authority figure would automatically think that using the internet for anything other than homework was a bad thing. This did prompt other questions about the perceived digital divide but at this stage I didn’t go there.

What I did promise students is that I would provide links for them to short videos I used to discuss issues around cyber bullying. Whether the videos are used to have a conversation with their parents or they just want to watch them again I’m not sure but it cannot hurt to reinforce some messages no matter what.

What some also asked was to learn things like how to use spam filters so I promised some links here as well – a little later.

http://www.wiseuptoit.com.au/

I used Laurens clip to discuss password security.

For the senior students I also used an award winning British clip on the effects of cyberbullying on a boy called Joe from http://www.digizen.org/cyberbullying/fullFilm.aspx

What I have learnt is that we need to come back to these issues again and again to support our youth as they grow up in the digital world.

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Chinese New Year hits Elsternwick Primary

Posted on February 25, 2010 by mwalker

This year we celebrated Chinese New Year.

Thanks to our new Mandarin teacher students this year had a week long celebration of Chinese New Year. Students learned Chinese cultural dances, made lanterns and the week ending with the traditional dragon dance.

I think its important as students learn a language to understand the culture – besides it was great fun.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-15

Posted on February 15, 2010 by mwalker
  • According to the Age Newspaper directives to teach for the Naplan tests has started in Victoria just 8 days after results get published. #

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Online Safety

Posted on February 15, 2010 by mwalker

Last week I sent an email to the middle and senior team leaders offering to take the students from years 3-6 for an online safety session. This was partly a response to several incidents that occurred last year with students. The fact that most of these incidents started offsite was I think in the end a moot point.

What were we going to do about it?

After discussions with some parents, teachers and school council we adopted the following strategies:

  • to update our internet safety policies and student agreements for 2010.
  • to update our cyber bullying policies.
  • to organise a parent information / training session with an “expert” which in the end has taken some time to organise as there are few “experts” out there. We have obtained a mid year booking for 2010.

So what was missing?

 Well a recent Ofsted report published February 2010 titled “The safe use of new technologies” makes some some very points for schools and several key recommendations.

I was struck with this point:

The five schools where provision for e-safety was outstanding all used ‘managed’ systems to help pupils to become safe and responsible users of new technologies. ‘Managed’ systems have fewer inaccessible sites than ‘locked down’ systems and so require pupils to take responsibility themselves for using new technologies safely.” [p4]

We have a new statewide internet service with Netspace and I myself have found several sites blocked which has been frustrating – so now I’m wondering about just how ‘managed’ this service is. 

“The weakest aspect of provision in the schools visited was the extent and quality of training provided for staff. It did not always involve all the staff and was not provided systematically.” [p7]

Teacher training was not an action we choose to take in 2009. I do wonder whether my actions by offering to take the classes is a stop gap measure till staff are trained  – or is it on the job training for teachers and students?

While we are busy developing training for staff for the new Ultranet systems we don’t specificaly have an e safety curriculum or teacher training program. We may need some help here to do this.

I really liked some of the definitions the report used namely the purpose of new technologies and what safety is:

“New technologies are central to modern life. They enable people across the world to have instant communication with one another. They allow for the rapid retrieval and collation of information from a wide range of sources, and provide a powerful stimulus for creativity. They allow people to discuss sensitive topics which, face to face, they might find difficult. However, these technologies are also potentially damaging. They can give access to harmful and inappropriate materials and, because of the anonymity offered, vulnerable individuals may be harmed or exploited.” [p7]

and its definition of safety:

“The report of the Byron Review discusses the difference between being safe and being responsible. Children who hold a parent’s hand every time they cross the road are safe. However, unless they are taught to cross the road by themselves, they might not learn to do this independently. A child whose use of the internet is closely monitored at school will not necessarily develop the level of understanding required to use new technologies responsibly in other contexts.” [p8]

This example of the difference between being safe and being responsible  makes sense to me. Like the report most of the incidents for us involved chat sites students were using at home or texting / photos on mobile phones. It raised questions about students under 13 illegally having facebook or myspace pages.

I know my e safety sessions will at least covered:

  • not to reveal personal details when using the internet
  • not to give their password to other people
  • to report any suspicious sites
  • to ensure that any mobile devices that they might wish to attach to school equipment were free of viruses
  • not to make defamatory comments about others online.

Our policies set out clearly the consequences of breaching the regulations including banning pupils from using the school’s computer system for a defined period.

If there is some e safety training program for staff that is tailored to the different levels of understanding and application – please can someone send me the link or contact details?

In the meanwhile I will keep you informed on the student questions and feedback.

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What are the big ideas in maths that students need to know – in the Early Years?

Posted on February 9, 2010 by mwalker

At the start of the school year most of the local primary schools got together to hear Di Siemon from RMIT speak about the big ideas in mathematics education. Di really challenged some of our teacher ideas and spoke about the big ideas in mathematics that all students need to learn. Some of the ideas here will challenge not only teachers but also parents – which is in part why I’m writing about this.

Di quoted the research by McIntyre and Melville [2005] who estimated the economic costs of failing to address the issue of the long tail of underachieving students in mathematics at $2.6 billion per year.

She argued that for too long mathematics classes have been about students solving written computational equations that few see the relevance of. Maths should be more argumentative [convince me style] with rich tasks, extended investigations, visulaisation, mental computations, use of hands on materials till well into secondary school. You learn a concept by experiencing and discussing it [I would add including reflecting upon its uses]. 

I am breaking up the article into 3 separate posts

Early Years Ideas

Di spoke about the importance of numeration in the Early Years [being able to model, name,write, read, interpret and use numbers] from 0-9 as all other numbers are based on patterns. She advised teachers to use the same colour counters as colours can distract younger students.

One of her ideas was the concept of building mental objects [visual imagery] so that students could recognise numbers without counting all objects – “subitising”. She believed that all students need to work on this almost daily up to year 4.

Subitising charts for 9 and 5.

I’d be interested to know of other teachers experiences here?

Posted in curriculum, Instruction, Mathematics, Teaching | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

The eyewriter!

Posted on February 8, 2010 by mwalker

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Thanks to Julie O’Connell I came across this cheap use of open software that has changed the life of at least one person.

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Teach to the test – what’s next?

Posted on February 8, 2010 by mwalker

Well, as reported in the Age Newspaper, it didn’t take long for some directive to teachers to teach to the Naplan test. We all know you get some short term gain for 1 year and as the article points out what do we drop from the curriculum.

Is this a sign of the pressure schools and teachers will be under now that national tests assume greater significance in the high stakes accountability game. There are other assessments that which give teachers feedback that enables responsive teaching?

Two recent newspaper reports question the school comparsions and point to a potential hazard – the narrowing of the curriculum:

Collier’s article provoked some harsh responses from the comments and went so far as to suggest it the first step in relooking at the funding formula for private schools as it was hard to argue that they needed it the most on the Naplan results.

Perhaps the final word on all this is best said by the principal of Melbourne High School reported as the one of the best performing schools

My School purports to offer for the first time a means of comparing the performance of “statistically similar schools” by use of the ICSEA index. It is pleasing to see that those responsible for this clunky measure already concede that it has its problems. In effect, it is a “you-are-where-you-live” methodology that is based on census district profiling. This amounts to: All children in this district are orange. You live in this district, therefore you are orange.

As I doubt this logic would convince a grade 3 student, perhaps it should be included in this year’s NAPLAN test? It is ironic that the federal government has telegraphed that it wishes to abandon a similar “you-are-where-you-live” formula that has for too long been used as the basis for overfunding private schools, yet has sought to perpetuate its use here.

Our students come from almost every postcode in the Greater Melbourne area, yet the ICSEA index fails to take into account the only common characteristic that accounts for their outstanding academic performance: that they were selected for their exceptional academic ability through a statewide entry test.

It is therefore unsurprising that as a cohort our students are ranked as “significantly above” all others across every NAPLAN domain. But it is facile and misleading to attempt to compare this to other “statistically similar schools” while failing to take into account the most important characteristics of our students.

We are not the exception that proves the rule. The students and communities of every school have unique characteristics that blunt indices such as this cannot hope to quantify.

My School’s claim that it can “fairly and meaningfully compare” schools is untenable. So let the gnomes abandon this useless quest for fool’s gold. There are more meaningful stories to be written as we start a new school year.

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League tables

Posted on January 26, 2010 by mwalker

Over the past week newspapers all over Australia have featured articles and editorials on the Federal Governments new tax payer funded website “My School” which will allow parents [and others] to see how their schools rates against the national average in a series of tests [NAPLAN] and benchmarks [ i.e. retention]. The site allows parents to compare up to 60 schools with similar social and economic profiles.

The site becomes live this coming Thursday January 28th just before students start the new school year.

The Herald Sun write that “the most controversial element of the website will be the ability to automatically display the outcomes of individual schools against the performance of up to 20 nearby schools effectively providing a localised ranking list”.

Teacher Unions across the country are threatening to boycott the implementation of the 2010 national tests to protest against the publication of league tables. The Age newspaper featured an editorial column saying:

“Many will feel some sympathy for teachers about their suspicion that national literacy and numeracy tests are the forerunner of school league tables. Such tests have been linked to school funding and teacher bonuses in other countries as diverse as Britain and South Korea, with devastating effect, resulting in principals setting aside broader education to storm the tests. League tables produced from simplistic comparisons of narrow data, without taking into account student backgrounds, can have demoralising results and actually reinforce disadvantage rather than helping equalise opportunity.”

It concluded saying teachers boycotting the tests was misguided however if Ms Gillard really wanted an education revolution, apart from providing computers and new school buildings, she needed to build human resources so that teaching was a prestigious vocation sought by the top graduates.

Teachers and teacher unions in other countries like Britain have expressed similar concerns as show by a recent article in the Guardian written by John Bangs, National Union of teachers:

“There is only one answer to the annual traditional hunt for “the worst school in the country”. Governments now and in the future have to drop their deeply ingrained habit of naming and shaming schools as their principal method of school improvement.

Currently, our high-stakes test results and inspection-driven system are damaging not encouraging improvement, particularly for the very children who most need the best education.”

Education Minister Julia Gillard has been quoted as saying that the transparency agenda would shine a light on the best practices. I would ask how it shines light on best practices for it just publishes results which can be misleading and need analysis?

The Australian newspaper published a piece saying league tables won’t work unless the government gives school principals more autonomy to manage their schools and parents vouchers to decide which public school they attend. Unless I have missed something parents already have the right to choose which public school their children attend and school funding is already tied to enrolments or bums on seats.

Yesterday the Age Newspaper published a piece saying that a recent poll said that most of parents were in favor of the website

A Sunday Age readers’ poll found 60 per cent of parents thought the My School website, which goes live this Thursday, was a good idea and 90 per cent believed they had the right to know how their child’s school compared with others.

And finally today in the Age Newspaper

“Barry McGaw, the chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which has created the My School website, said it would show which schools in affluent areas were ”coasting” – performing above the national average but not as well as other schools serving similar student populations.”

The Victorian’s Government’s response to the transparency agenda was to publish school data in context last year.  The website makes it difficult to publish league tables yet conveys data about school performance comparing it to state benchmarks and similar schools. Did this state government site about school performance create the same amount of press coverage? The simply answer is no – so parents have access to school data already.

So what is the agenda if school data is already available – perhaps what happened in NSW over 10 years ago when a newspaper used some leaked data sets to name and shame a local school portrays the real agenda – improvement through public shaming? Currently its illegal to publish league tables of school results in NSW.

I await the results but accept the political reality that I must continue to brief staff and the school community on our response to published school data, namely:

  • students assessments including NAPLAN tests are used as diagnostic tools to plot individual student needs and inform our curriculum planning. We have used a range of tests for a number of years and continue to update our assessment tools on an annual basis.
  • that we already have a strategic plan which is committed to maintaining our high standards in literacy and improve student performance in mathematics over the next 4 years
  • that the annual report published on our school website has lots more information for parents to access about school performance.
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