L2 Sciences Workshop

1. L2 Sciences Workshop Term 2 2012

2. Welcome

3. MoE Focus 2012 • Raising Middle Leader capability • Raising achievement & developing pathways for target students - Maori, Pasifika, special needs • Implementing NZC & realigned NCEA stds • Designing coherent programs that reflect the intent of the national curriculum • Developing literacy & language knowledge & skills

5. Outcomes Today By the end of today’s workshop expect to: • Better understand how to write/adapt a task for an assessment in your subject • Have some new literacy strategies to use in preparing students for externals • Better understand culturally responsive pedagogy • Have shared programs for your subject

6. DEVELOPING VALID AND ENGAGING ASSESSMENT TASKS Terry Burrell Kate Rice

7. Unpacking Achievement Standards • What does the std define? • Title? • Extended sentence? • Achievement criteria? • Explanatory Notes • build understanding of requirements/contexts, focus areas for assessment

8. Developing The Task Select a context that • is relevant to the students • provides opportunities for students to apply their knowledge to a new situation

9. Key Elements of the Assessment Task • Teacher guidelines • Student task information • Assessment Schedule

10. Teacher Guidelines • Enable teachers to carry out valid and consistent assessment • Teachers need to be very familiar with the outcome being assessed by the standard • Make sure crucial info in the title, extended sentence, achievement criteria and the explanatory notes is taken into account

11. The Student Task • Must clearly identify • Std number, Title • Resource ref (if exemplar) • Resource title • Credits • Assessment criteria • Essential Headings • Introduction • Task • Resources

12. Have a Go • Develop a task from scratch OR • Amend a task you already have OR • Amend a task that was used to assess against an old std

13. Share Programs • Please talk about more than just assessments • Don’t forget to also include • Strengths / needs in your students • Big ideas / key concepts • Contexts • NoS • Why you decided on the course you did

15. Raising Maori Achievement

17. karakia kaumatua kuia kawa tapumihiwaiata

18. Jigsaw activity Give out a different section of the article to each person in your Home Group. Shift seats so people with the same article sit together. In these Expert Groups answer the questions for your section. Move back to your Home Group and share answers for each section of the article.

19. Expert Groups • Read the article through • Answer 2 questions (to report back to your home group) : - • What teaching practices does the reading say help improve engagement of Maori students? • What does the article say or imply can sometimes be barriers?

20. Home Groups • Share your answers to the 2 questions for your section til all have an overview of the whole article. • So, how to increase engagement & reduce barriers in science? • Where can you see each in this article? • How might you investigate raising Maori achievement with your staff?

22. Literacy

23. PISA • Program for International Student Assessment • To assess how well countries are preparing their 15 year old students to meet real-life opportunities and challenges • Assesses reading, mathematical literacy and literacy in science each time with a focus on 1 • Focuses on students’ ability to apply knowledge and skills and make decisions • Every 3 years – last one in 2009

24. NZ’s Performance • OECD mean = 493 • NZ mean = 521 • NZ Pakeha/European mean =541 • Asian mean =522 • Maori mean =478 • Pasifika mean =448 • 4,643 NZ students from 163 schools

25. PISA Reading Literacy The reading tasks covered 3 dimensions: • Knowledge (the form of the reading materials) Continuous texts, non-continuous texts, mixed texts, multiple texts • Competencies (type of reading task or process) Access and retrieve, integrate and interpret, reflect and evaluate • Context (the use for which the text is constructed) Personal, educational, occupational, public, scientific

26. Findings: Continuous vs non-continuous texts • NZ students performed strongly on tasks related to non-continuous texts (lists, diagrams, graphs, tables) – 532 points • Not as strong on continuous texts (sentences, paragraphs) – 518 points • 14 ptdiff cfmost countries diff <10 • Females out-performed males in both types but the gap was wider with continuous texts

27. Improving achievement in sciences for all students through addressing literacy and language demands

28. Literacy Outcomes Participants/Teachers will • have an increased awareness & understanding of the skills students need to read complex text in sciences • trial some approaches to develop students’ reading of texts in sciences and report on their application at the following workshop

29. Questions To Consider • What are the central literacy issues in your learning area? • How could you work with your teachers in relation to these issues? • What specific literacy support do you need?

30. Engaging with literacy and language How important is reading in your science area?

31. How do you approach unfamiliar texts with students?

32. Common Approaches that do not Help • Leaving literacy to the English department • Minimising opportunities for students to read independently • Simplifying the texts that students read and write • Summarising the text for students e.g. providing notes to copy • Scaffolding ‘in’ but not scaffolding ‘out’ • Providing isolated activities without a clear purpose

33. Students in a particular class begin the year with lower reading comprehension than their peers in another class In response, their teachers give them fewer opportunities to read, and when they do, the texts are simplified So, the gaps in reading comprehension between the two groups get even bigger Therefore, they get less exposure to rich and authentic texts than their peers

34. Literacy Strategies for Reading • What approaches would you use to help students engage with the texts provided? • What questions would you ask? • What are the skills of an effective reader? How might we help students develop these?

35. elaborate – give more detail, apply – to related situations, justify – give reasons, evaluate – how significant are results? compare and contrast, link – to other scientific ideas or principles 3 Level Reading Guide read beyond the lines -IMPLICATIONS(excellence) explain meaning – how or why relate to evidence - data read between the lines -INTERPRETATIONS(merit) identify, name, describe, draw what the text says - FACTS(achievement)

36. KDLH strategy

37. Level 2 NCEA Questions • A sample of butane burns in air with a yellow flame, while a sample of methanol burns in air with an almost invisible flame. Compare and contrast the combustion of these two fuels. 90932, 2011 • Describe what each of alpha, beta and gamma radiation is AND discuss what happens inside a nucleus when it produces each of the 3types of radiation. In your answer, you will need to state what happens to the atomic (charge) no. and the mass (nucleon) no. 90256, 2011 • The South Island takahē (Porphyriohochstetteri) is the largest living member of the rail family of birds. It is flightless. It is thought that the takahē has been in NZ for around two million years. Discuss how biological factors have contributed to the evolution of the South Island takahē so that it is now large and flightless. 90772, 2009

38. KDLH strategy

39. Homework • Try a literacy strategy • that you have not tried before • with at least one class • targeting reading skills • The Effective Literacy Strategies resource book may be useful • MoE customer services Ph0800 660 662 Item Number 30320

41. Leading the Learning How are you going to help the staff in your dept learn from today?

42. Before We Go • Feedback please on evaluation sheet (2 sides!) • Anything we have forgotten to come back to? • Any other issues we need to address? • Have we returned everything? • Any general notices? Thanks