Negotiation, Integration & Assessment

1. Negotiation, Integration & Assessment • Anda, Ellie, Jess, Leah, Luke, Michael

2. Outline • Negotiation • Integration • Physicality & Learning • Middle Years & Literacy Education • Teaching Approaches To Foster Engagement • Authentic Assessment (Take Note People)

3. Negotiation • ‘Negotiation – related initiative’ practices that you may have seen before that are not in the mainstream are: • Student Networks • Student forums, school parliaments and student councils • Democratic Classrooms • Everyone involved in the classroom participate in the process of decision making • Students are in a way responsible for their own learning and have a significant role in governing the school

4. Negotiation Cont. • Negotiating The Curriculum • The focus is on the teachers and students negotiating the content and process / strategies of what is to be learned to teach children and discover themselves as learners • Students As Researchers • Gain new ways of knowing and producing knowledge that challenge the common sense views of reality with which most individuals have grown so comfortable. Students making choices about how they learn but not always what they learn • Relates to the idea of positioning students more powerfully within schooling and is the notion of voice. So notions of students voice, student participation, student teacher collaboration, student engagement, and student power.

5. Activity... Values Walk

6. Integration • “An integrated curriculum give multiple pathways to different traditions and bodies of knowledge, even for those who might not usually ‘fit’ themselves into those disciplinary areas” Brennan & Sachs 1998

7. Integration Cont. • In Australia and all over the world there are calls for a middle school curricular that goes beyond the traditional subject boundaries. this is driven by new ways of thinking about knowledge and knowing, and the concerns about the diverse middle school population. • An integrated approach places the learner with nature. makes them aware of the implications of global and local conditions. • It is argued that such curricular should focus on big curriculum ideas, based on problems or issues of the real world.

8. Integration Cont. • Venville et al. 1999, give us a snapshot of 6 forms of curriculum integration they observed. So lets test your understandings of these!

9. Activity...Integration Mix & Match

10. Integrated Curriculum • Rich tasks are the focus of investigations by students • Authentic tasks that relate to their life worlds • Encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning • Focuses on promoting integrated and connected knowledge • Priorities group work collaborative problem solving

11. Integrating Subjects • Integrating different subjects together is beneficial for students as it gives them power over their knowledge and allows them to understand that subject is relevant to their lives and world. • This allows for further development of ideas and understandings about a subject

12. Integrating Subjects • As numeracy is an important skill for students to learn and develop a strong understanding about in all areas of life, teachers of all subjects need to not only be aware of this, but to accommodate for this in their classes. • In art... • In history...

13. Activity...Brainstorm how we can integrate different subject content together.

14. Activity Examples • Chapter Nine of Pendergast & Bahr:Integrating Numeracy Into Other Subjects- Art & Numeracy - Proportions and scaling- History & Numeracy - Timelines and scaling- Geometry & Numeracy - Conversion, scaling- Chemistry & Numeracy - Balancing of equations

15. Lets Get Physical (with Learning)

16. Some Quick Facts... • Roughly 25% of Australian children are overweight or obese • Currently, the amount of exercise / aerobic fitness a child gets is decreasing .4% a year • Between 1975 and 1997 obesity levels in the population doubled (obesity increased 2-4 times & being overweight increased 60 - 70%) (It’s not just increasing) • Continue at this current rate, and by 2020 (EIGHT YEARS AWAY) 80% of Australian adults, anda thirdof all children will be overweight or obese...

17. Where Does Teaching Come Into It All? • It’s not all about the ‘cult of the body’ • During middle school... • Physicality and us • We have a body too! (learning is embodied)

18. How Physical Fits? • The Good... • The Bad...

19. Gardner’s M.I • What does it have to do with physicality and learning? • The link towards authentic assessment (still to come)

20. Activity...

21. Middle Years & Literacy Education

22. The Issues of Engagement • Implication 1:Different constructs of identity carry their own ‘specific’ literacy practices that are not necessarily resembled or valued in school settings • Implication 2: Low levels of intellectual work required of students

23. “Under performing middle years’ readers must first be motivated to engageandre-engage with texts. Specific reading skills can only develop as an outcome of that engagement. Engagement is an interactiveprocess. It requires teachers to have a closeknowledge of studentsand their reading, and so be able both toprovidesufficiently challenging learning experiences as well as the necessary supportfor those experiences toensure successful learning.Student engagement can only occur as they recognise that they can be successful partners in this process.” • http://www.myread.org/BELIEFS.HTM#belief5 Give them a voice

24. Teaching Approaches To Foster Engagement • For Implication One: Alternative Identities • Have a personal appreciation and knowledge for literacies as a ‘Sociocultural’ practice • In order to do so, teachers must familiarise themselves with the ideas and world views of their students • How? • Give frequent opportunities for students to voice themselves and have a say in ‘what makes school interesting’ for them. • Conduct student surveys or interviews

25. “Interests of the students can provide a basis for curriculum development, extension exercises and independent studies. • Developing a student profile helps to provide a deeper understanding of an individual's unique interests, styles andabilities. By gathering information from a variety of sources, teachers and school-based teams are in a better position to make educational decisions that will enhance the student's development.” http://www.saskschools.ca/~ischool/adapthandbook/learner/interest.html

26. For Implication Two: Ensuring high levels of intellectual work • Incorporate all four areas of the four resource model in literacy education • 1) Code Breaker - The Language • 2)Text Participant - The Tools • 3)Text User - Info Use • 4) Text Analyst - Info Management • http://www.myread.org/how.htm (go to this link to view lesson plans / guides that apply the four resources model to different styles of learning experiences)

27. How? • “Middle years learners thrive in active learning environments” (Hannon 2005) • What is meant by active? Opportunities that...- Enable students to generate and share their ideas about texts- Support development of critical awareness of what students read, view & hear- Connect literacies across different contexts eg: School and wider community- Give all students a role / purpose to contribute to their own learning • Guided reading / cooperative reading type activities can still have great relevance in middle years literacy programs • Click links to see how Guided &Cooperative reading incorporates the Four Resources Model • http://www.myread.org/guide_guided.htm , http://www.myread.org/guide_cooperative.htm

30. Links For Reading Interest Surveys and other Student Interest Surveys http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/bookzone/survey.html (online survey) http://www.mrhazzard.com/workshops/reading%20survey%20lesson.pdf http://www.liberty.k12.ga.us/jwalts/reading%20materials/Elementary%20Reading%20Attitude%20Survey.pdf http://www.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/s/SB1711%20Dec_3-5_ReadingInterest_LO1.pdf

31. Authentic Assessment

32. What Is It? • A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. (Jon Mueller) • Holistic assessments that are embedded in classroom contexts and enable children to demonstrate learning by integrating and applying knowledge and skills to real-world tasks. (Goodwin & MacDonald, 1997) • Authentic assessments are those tests which are used to see if students can apply the knowledge they have learned in a real-world setting. (Frey & Schmitt, 406)

33. Why Use Authentic? • Dede (2002) suggests assessment must become more complex, to measure higher order thinking, rather than regurgitated facts (Higher-order thinking, Pendergast) pg 252 • Authentic assessment allows for a variety of assessment instruments, such as a performance-based tasks that are more relevant to students and more reflective of practitioners work in the field.(Higher-order thinking, Pendergast) pg 245

34. Traditional Vs. Authentic • One way to understand the distinction between traditional and authentic assessments is by comparing the tests given to receive a driver’s license. The first part of the test is multiple choice (traditional assessment). The second part is the actual act of driving a vehicle (authentic assessment). (McAfee & Leong, n.d. 2-3) • Authentic assessments “examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks”, whereas traditional assessments simply require the ability to recall knowledge. (Wigging, 1-6) • http://www.coastal.edu/honors/theses/2009/NikkiBrawley.pdf • http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm

35. Authentic Assessment & Rubrics • Rubrics scaffold and assess students’ thinking skill development in the broader context of an integrated curriculum... • Hurley & Weldon (2004) point out that this assists students in taking ownership and responsibility for their thinking and learning.

37. Activity...Rubrics - Each student will complete a rubric assessment of our presentation... *Please be kind*

38. Recap... • What is one thing you remember from todays lesson? Randomly selected, so we hope you were paying attention!!! • Do you want a copy?