Assesment Post 4: Hattie

Hattie strongly believes in the Outcomes Based Education (OBE) model and feels that teachers should be held accountable if they are unable to get their students to accomplish the outcomes established by the board of studies. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/teacher-bonuses-you-do-the-maths/2007/02/23/1171734021135.html] According to Hattie, student feedback is essential for student learning. It should have positive reinforcement, a comment on how to further improve and should be meaningful. It’s useless giving limited and brief feedback such as “good job”. Feedback should be detailed and informative, provide positive criticism, and should clearly outline how a student can further improve. Whenever possible, finish feedback on a positive note, pointing out the positives of the assignment. For example “excellent essay with some well researched arguments, however, I felt that you could have elaborated further on such and such to better support your claims. Overall, it was an informative and enjoyable essay that well structured. Finally, Hattie identified 5 main characteristics that he thought distinguished expert teachers from experienced teachers. Expert teachers can: identify essential representations of their subject, guide learning through classroom interaction, monitor learning and provide positive meaningful feedback.
[https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/proflearn/docs/pdf/qt_hattie.pdf]

Assesment Post 3: Bruner

Jerome Bruner put forth that if students discover links/connections between what they have previously learnt and the new knowledge acquired, they will be able to make the content more meaningful for them and as such will to remember and recall the information more easily. This type of learning is known as Discovery Learning and recognises that we are able to remember and recall information, skills or content more easily, if we can form links with past knowledge/experience. One main feature of discovery learning is the inclusion of problem solving skills. When students are presented with a problem, they must evaluate the situation and develop an appropriate response. As a result, students are more motivated to increase their learning and apply it to new problems and scenarios. There are two types of Discovery learning, guided and open, both of these differentiated by the degree of assistance. Guided discovery Learning is problem solving accompanied by teacher direction, whereas open learning involves students learning on their own with minimal teacher interaction. [K Krause, S Bochner & S Duchesne, Educational Psychology, 2nd edn, Thomson, Melbourne, 2006, p.184]

Assesment post 2: Piaget

Jean Piaget was one of the 1st theorists to comprehensibly describe children’s cognitive development. As a constructivist, Piaget believed that children construct their own their own knowledge by modifying their schemes and this modification is achieved through either assimilation or accommodation. Assimilation is the incorporation of new learning into existing ideas (scheme), whereas accommodation adjusts existing ideas in order to make it compatible with the new learning. [Tony Fetherston, Becoming an Effective Teacher, Thomson, Melbourne, 2006, p.156] Piaget believed that as humans develop and mature, they move through a series of four stages, according to Piaget, these stages are universal (apply to everyone) and invariant (the order in which children pass through them cannot be varied). [K Krause, S Bochner & S Duchesne, Educational Psychology, 2nd edn, Thomson, Melbourne, 2006, p.45] The four stages of development are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete and formal operational.

Stage 1- Sensorimotor (birth-2yrs): Children begin to experience the world through their senses and begin interacting with objects and people. The critical aspect of this stage is the development of object permanence that is if something falls out of sight, the infant still knows the object exists.

Stage 2- Preoperational (2-6yrs): This stage is characterised by the acquisition of language and the emergence of egocentrism. Egocentrism is the child’s belief that everyone sees the world exactly the same way as they do. Furthermore, egocentrism involves the student ignoring the rest of the class and remaining focused on solely on their own work. Piaget believes that egocentrism is necessary for a child’s development and that this is a phase they eventually grow out of.

Stage 3- Concrete (7-11/12yrs): children begin manipulating symbols both logically and systematically and are able to categorise objects.

Stage 4- Formal Operational (12-adulthood): Children develop the skills in information analysis and evaluation and are able to consider abstract concepts and hypothesize future outcomes.

Assesment Posting 1 : Vygotsky

Vygotsky was a social constructivist who had a dramatic impact upon our current understanding of how children develop and mature. Vygotsky viewed social interaction as a key component of how knowledge is acquired, and it is through this social interaction that a child develops and matures. His most famous work, the zone of proximal development describes how children’s ability to process and comprehend information is increased through their social engagement with their peers and teachers. (Tony Fetherston, Becoming an effective teacher, Thomson, Melbourne, 2006, p.159)

According to Krause (2006), the zone of proximal is defined as the ‘distance between a child’s current level of competence on a task and the level they can achieve with support and guidance’. (K Krause, S Bochner & S Duchesne, Educational Psychology, 2nd edn, Thomson, Melbourne, 2006, p.71) This is important for teachers as it recognizes the importance of group work and class discussions and acknowledges that more intellectual and advanced students can have a positive influence on slower students within the class and can improve their current understanding. With this assistance, these less advanced students can improve their academic knowledge understanding and as such improve their overall self esteem. Some key points of Vygotsky’s theory include

* A child’s skills are better developed through social interaction.
* Social interaction is essential for cognitive growth

Selection of Graphics and Images

These collection of images are for visual learners and are an effective cognitive tool because they enable students to form a connection with what they have read about trench warfare. In addition to the text, these pictures will enable students to descibe and examine the conditions of trench life/warfare.

Sound files caters towards musical intelligence and enables students to work on their assignments whilst listening to music. This ICT could be implemented as a good cognitive tool by getting students to reflect on what they have heard.

Causes of WWII mind map (graphic organiser)

This mind map also known as a graphic organiser, allows students to visualise the causes of World War Two in a clear and concise manner. This style of learning caters towards the visual/ spatial learners. This ICT could be implemented in the classroom as a cognitive tool for learning because it allows students to view the information in a simplified manner and draw links with prior learning.

How to add audio

Inserting audio clip into the posts
Place this code in the edit html page of your post
You may vary the height and width to suit your posts
You can place this code at any postion of the post content ..just move this code around.,.and see where it fits best
The advantage is..the audio clip plays in the same window ..ie.. does not open another annoying pop-up window

Global Warming Game

This is a complex interactive game involving global warming. It gets students aware about the concerns of global warming (catering towards naturalistic intelligence) and its impact on the environment. Whilst students are participating in this game, it gets them reflecting on the key issues, (intrapersonal intelligence) through: moderate graphics (visual intelligence), sound files (musical intelligence) and statistics and charts (logical/mathematical intelligence). Finally the last intelligence this game caters to is linguistic intelligence. Throughout the game, information frequently appears with deatailed specifics of the impacts of global warming. This game could be implemented as a cognitive tool for learning as it engages students in problem analysis and the development of suitable solutions. Due to the complexity I cant actually post it on my blog so therefore I have provided the hyperlink.

http://www.globalwarminginteractive.com/simulation/sdev/CO2Fx_main.html

Global Warming

Multiple Intelligences

How to add video into your blog

http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/2007/01/editing-template-in-new-blogger-blog.html

BOS Course Performance Indicators

'Course performance descriptors have been developed for each Stage 5 Board Developed course.'

'The descriptors describe the main features of a typical student's performance at each grade measured against the syllabus objectives and outcomes for the course. In applying these descriptors, teachers should interpret them in terms of standards that can be achieved by School Certificate students within the bounds of the course.'

'Teachers should use their professional judgement in applying the course performance descriptors. It is not intended that the course performance descriptors represent a checklist, or provide a comprehensive description of student performance at each grade level.

The descriptor that provides the best overall description of the student’s achievement will determine the grade awarded.'

http://arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/go/sc/sc-grading/cpds/

BOS Assesment Support for the New HSC

Specimen papers endorsed and developed by TheBoard of studies for the new HSC. 'provide teachers and students with a guide to what to expect in the first
examinations for the New HSC '

'The principles provide a common framework for aspects of examination design such as coverage of syllabus content, level of difficulty of the paper, paper format and length and question structure and language. '

'Exams will allow demonstation performance across all levels of the performance scales.'

'All papers are to have a standardised format and layout, consistent language and instructions: the layout of the examination papers will assist students in working through the paper. '

'Optional choices are to have a similar degree of dificulty and are to marked using the same criteria for core questions. '

'Definitions of instructions such as describe, analyse, synthesise and evaluate will be used consistently and appropriately in order to assist students in understanding what is required.'

And Finally

'Marking guidelines are to incorporate the generic rubric: The guidelines provide an indication to the candidate of what is required in answering a question.'

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/setting_exam_papers.pdf

BOS Assesment Standards Referenced Approcah

A Standards Referenced Approach is based on the Outcomes Based Education model present in Australia and most western countries. In this approach, students must succesfully complete or achieve a set of standards or outcomes in order to pass their respective subjects. The standards or outcomes students are expected to achieve are presented in a rubric matrix within the syllabuses so that the teacher and the student knows what is expected.

Downes mentioned that as we approach the new millenium there is an increasing immergence of the new digital generation known as Digital Natives. These digital natives :"operate at "twitch speed," expect instant responses and feedback, prefer random "on-demand" access to media, and likely to create their own media (or download someone else's) as to purchase a book or a CD". I found it interesting that Downes stated that Learning is characterized not only by greater autonomy for the learner, but also a greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and participation playing key roles, and on changing roles for the teacher.

Thinking about Downes' presentation, ( http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/slideshows ) what are the issues for you? What Qs do you have? Does any information in this presentation connect you with what you already know?