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Rosemary HipkinsNew Zealand Council for Educational Research

Weaving the curriculum togetherWeaving the curriculum together

Introduction to PPTA workshop, April 6 2009

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WHY

HOW

WHAT

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Why change anything?Why change anything?

Interwoven themes from the future focused literature:

• Knowledge society (global scale of issues, communications technologies, multi-cultural societies, identity etc)

• Complexity, emergence, non-linear systems (climate change, financial crisis)

• Changing patterns of work and living require new competencies as well as traditional ones

Have we taken the time to examine our own assumptions about what matters in learning and why?

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Changing work-related valuesChanging work-related values

• School/work distinction

• Follow instructions

• Memorisation, standardisation, reproduction of knowledge

• Focus on individual work

• Lifelong learning

• Show initiative and self reliance

• Creativity and finding the point of difference

• Focus on team work

www.coe.ilstu.edu/rpriegle/wwwdocs/hidden.htm

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The vision statement reflects change imperativesThe vision statement reflects change imperatives

Actively involved

Participants in a range of life contextsContributors to the well-being of New Zealand – social, cultural, economic, and environmental

Lifelong learners

Literate and numerateCritical and creative thinkersActive seekers, users, and creators of knowledgeInformed decision makers

Confident

Positive in their own identityMotivated and reliableResourcefulEnterprising and entrepreneurialResilient

Connected

Able to relate well to othersEffective users of communication toolsConnected to the land and environmentMembers of communitiesInternational citizens

But how do we help our students to BE the vision?

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Designing a principled curriculumDesigning a principled curriculum

• High expectations

• Treaty of Waitangi

• Cultural diversity

• Inclusion

• Learning to learn

• Community engagement

• Coherence

• Future focus

HOW?

All of these can be interpreted in different ways

Part of our planning job is working out what they could mean for the “how” of our practice

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““How” messages about teachingHow” messages about teaching

Shared learning

Opportunities to learn

Making connections

Enhancing relevance

Reflective thought and action

Supportive environment

Maybe, this time, the change is as much about reviewing how we teach as what we teach?

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We have to make sense of how the bits can be worked together to deliver the big picture goals

The “front end”

• Vision

• Values

• Principles

•Key competencies

• Pedagogy

A potentially transformative package

The “back end”

8 levels

8 learning areas

8 sets of AOs per level

The revised package

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What: changes in ways we What: changes in ways we useuse content will be content will be controversial!controversial!

Knowledge and its organisation

Teaching OF subjects

A change of emphasis! From the horses’ mouth:[learning area] statements should be the starting point for developing programmes of learning suited to students’ needs and interests. Schools are then able to select achievement objectives to fit these programmes (p.38)

Based on Reid, 2006.

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The “so what” message in the essence statementsThe “so what” message in the essence statements

In science, students explore how both the natural physical world and science itself work so that they can participate as critical, informed, and

responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role.

How will students see the “so what?” in what you plan to teach?

Can you find ways to put them in the driving seat of their own learning more often (without in the process abdicating your role as the more knowledgeable leader of learning)?

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Have you considered the implications of the Have you considered the implications of the expanded learning area statement:expanded learning area statement:

My question: what is the relationship between the first two (traditional “having” knowledge outcomes) and the second two (anticipatory “using” learning outcomes)

Concepts and theories(content)

Ways science works (“investigating”)

Problem solving, building new knowledge (“research”)

Informed decision making, sustainability

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Thinking KC (as an enabler)

Lifelong learners – the vision

Learning to learn – the design principle

Essence statements – the why and what

Guidance on the reasons for content inclusion – supported by the Achievement Objectives, in combination with relevant values

Opportunities to practice (we can’t get competent for students)

New assessment practices – how we will know if it worked

Which bits are missing from my unit plan?

One example of alignment

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Key competencies as Key competencies as weaving materialsweaving materials

Putting it all together to refocus learning opportunities

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The “front end”

• Vision

• Values

• Principles

•Pedagogy

The “back end”

8 levels

8 learning areas

8 sets of AOs per level

Might key competencies be the “glue” that brings all these pieces together?

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Knowledge and its organisation

Capabilities

Teaching through knowledge FOR capabilities (i.e. key competencies)

Disciplinary knowledge is the basis through which we teach for capabilities (as outcomes in their own right)

Reid’s model of curriculum implementation

What do we want our kids to be?

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KCs can be taught as well as caught KCs can be taught as well as caught

Thinking as an exampleThinking as an example

• Active practice in cognitively challenging tasks;

• Learning a variety of thinking patterns and skills;

• Opportunities to transfer thinking skills from one context into different contexts;

• Specific feedback on progress in use of thinking tools and approaches;

• Freedom to think and learn from mistakes.

Gaining language tools to think about thinking;

Zohar and Schwartzer, 2005

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Some of our learning so far…

• Relationships and connections really matter - building links and weaving webs of meaning is an active, dynamic, personal process

• Contexts are integral to learning and should be never be taken for granted

• Meaning-making is not self-evident – students need to be shown how it works in different disciplines and settings

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Knowledge about knowledge could sit at the Knowledge about knowledge could sit at the intersection of ULST and Thinking KCsintersection of ULST and Thinking KCs

• knowing how different knowledge areas ‘work’;

• knowing the sorts of assumptions that underpin each knowledge area;

• knowing how ‘experts’ generate and justify new knowledge in specific knowledge areas.

Experts say working theories of knowledge are essential for participation in the knowledge age, but how do we help students in

an area that is likely to be somewhat new for many of us?

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Putting the meaning-making on the Putting the meaning-making on the outside..outside..

What might this look like in your subject? This is an important way to understand “Using language, symbols and texts”

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Learning about history as a disciplineLearning about history as a discipline

To research like a “real historian” requires:

• Learning to choose and evaluate sources

• Learning to compare and contextualise multiple sources of information

• Learning to corroborate information from different sources

• Weaving a story based on the sources - learning to generalise

What are the equivalents of this in your subject area?

What might we need to do differently so students have powerful and authentic experiences of knowledge building?

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Reviewing what KCs can doReviewing what KCs can do

• Drive front end ideals into the different learning areas by changing pedagogy

• Act as both means and ends for learning - they are always all in play, but one might be fore-grounded for explicit development

• Focus us on the how not just the what of learning

• Focus on the how not just the what of knowing

• Help students take ownership of their learning

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Making space in a crowded curriculumMaking space in a crowded curriculum

If there are truly fundamental principles in science, then the extended study of any few topics in science will eventually bring students into contact with those principles. (And if not, then they were not really so fundamental, were they?) Jay Lemke, 2005

I believe there is an urgent need to address the “so what” question when retaining traditional “content”.

Do we need to reduce content in our curriculum area?If yes, what principles should we use to decide what stays and what goes?

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Rethinking assessment practicesRethinking assessment practices

• What is being assessed?

• What evidence are we planning to gather and what will we use it for?

• How integral are our assessment plans to the teaching and learning intended?

• Are there ways we can put students into the assessment driving seat more often?

• Do our students really know what quality work looks like and why we value what we do?

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ReferencesReferences

Gilbert, J. (2005). Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Society and the future of education. Wellington: NZCER Press.

Lemke, J. (2005). Research for the future of science education: New ways of learning, new ways of living. Opening plenary at VIIth International Congress on Research in Science Teaching, Granada, Spain http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/papers/Granada%20Future%20Science%20Education.htm.

Reid (2007) Key competencies: a new way forward or more of the same? Curriculum Matters, 2, 43-62. (Journal available on subscription from NZCER)

Zohar, A., & Schwartzer, N. (2005). Assessing teachers' pedagogical knowledge in the context of teaching higher order thinking. International Journal of Science Education, 27, 1595-1620.

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