Many readers will probably have read this RNZ article (or heard the related interview), or seen calls for consultation on the Ministry of Education’s suggested changes to the number of subjects – and achievement standards – on offer to year 11 students.
I’ve been following (& participating, where I can) all this with colleagues and friends, and thought I’d share some of my thoughts here. But before I get onto that, I’ll point out that there’s been a fair bit of consultation even before we got to the point where these materials have gone out, in their turn, for feedback. That process began in 2018 and resulted in a “change package“. This was published in May 2019, and I really recommend reading it carefully as it provides the rationale for the latest 2 rounds of consultation (about the draft L1 Science standards & their supporting material, and about the number of individual subjects that should be offered to year 11 students.
In the interests of full disclosure, I’m a member of the Subject Expert Group (SEG) that is working on the draft L1 Science achievement standards.
So, the SEG members were tasked by the Ministry with developing four Science achievement standards (ASs), but that decision on the number of standards was based on a lot of feedback from a wide range of sector & interest groups, which signalled very clearly a need to reduce the complexity of NCEA & reduce the number of standards¹.
I’ll admit that one of my concerns regarding these two recent consultation rounds is the overlap between requests for feedback about the initial drafts of the Science material, and the announcement of consultation on the number of subjects on offer. I think it’s meant that people have conflated the two.
But – none of this is set in stone; it’s all draft material. Feel strongly about it? Then follow the appropriate links above, and be heard. And – read all the relevant materials before you comment.
One of the things I’ve heard quite often about the Science ASs is that the actual subject material is “hidden”. To some degree this might be due to people reading the headlines, and the ASs, and not also going through the supporting material: the learning matrix (which clearly identifies content) or the Teaching, Learning & Assessment Guide (TLAG for short). But from my perspective, the content material for biology, physics, chemistry, and earth & space science remains the same, and provides an essential context for delivering concepts and competencies relating to the Nature of Science strand in the National Curriculum document (NZC). Hopefully the next round of consultation documents will see the inclusion of some examples of teaching and assessment plans that show what this would look like in practice.
Thus, I think there does need to be an element of trust that teachers will continue to deliver content, & in fact – speaking personally – I would hope there will be a clear statement at some point about the need to cover content. However, I also think it’s important to remember that at the moment there are 31 standards available to schools delivering a year 11 Science program (which is almost all of them) and thus there is no guarantee of consistency now about what content students may or may not have covered.
I’ve heard a lot of concern about the need for professional learning development (PLD) opportunities for teachers. It’s a concern that I know is shared by all of us on the SEG, and it’s one that we’ve communicated to the Ministry. This is a shift in direction; it will entail a significant amount of work by classroom teachers; and there absolutely needs to be a substantial amount of PLD available well before implementation of any confirmed changes to the NCEA. (Not least, for science teachers, because the year 11 changes will probably flow down – to year 9 & 10 classrooms – and may have some impact ‘upwards’ as well.
But – & it’s a very big ‘but’ – I think that it would be easy to lose sight of the fact that the proposed standards are very much aligned to the NZC in placing the nature of science front & centre (its delivery to date, if present, has been largely implicit). As I wrote in my previous post,
Back in 2007 New Zealand implemented a new national curriculum. One of the features of the science component of that document is the overarching importance of students gaining an understanding of the nature of science (the “unifying strand” of the curriculum). In that context, it expects that:
students learn what science is and how scientists work. They develop the skills, attitudes, and values to build a foundation for understanding the world. They come to appreciate that while scientific knowledge is durable, it is also constantly re-evaluated in the light of new evidence. They learn how scientists carry out investigations, and they come to see science as a socially valuable knowledge system. They learn how science ideas are communicated and to make links between scientific knowledge and everyday decisions and actions.
And the document specifically adds that these outcomes are pursued through the following major contexts (the various science ‘subjects’) in which scientific knowledge has developed and continues to develop.
Given that currently about 60% of students in year 11 science don’t go on to further study in any of the sciences, I’d argue that while a scientifically-literate society does need some knowledge of science, it also requires a solid understanding of the nature of science itself.
¹ In my personal opinion, the inclusion of additional specific subject standards at year 11 would pretty much destroy the kaupapa of the SEG’s work, in that we would not see students gaining that key, core understanding of NoS. The nature of the 4 ASs currently out there for feedback was not determined randomly, but as the result of a fair bit of thought and discussion by the SEG members.
You’re probably aware that the Achievement Standards used to assess senior school students’ learning are being reviewed. Science is one of the ‘pilot’ subjects in this process, where a ‘Subject Expert Group’ has developed 4 draft Science standards¹ (a significant step away from the current 30+, and a response to advice from several high-level advisory groups). These drafts have been out for consultation, and are all intended to develop and assess students’ understanding of the nature of science, with subject content providing the contexts for this learning. (That is, the subject content has definitely not disappeared.)
Why is this important?
Back in 2007 New Zealand implemented a new national curriculum. One of the features of the science component of that document is the overarching importance of students gaining an understanding of the nature of science (the “unifying strand” of the curriculum). In that context, it expects that:
students learn what science is and how scientists work. They develop the skills, attitudes, and values to build a foundation for understanding the world. They come to appreciate that while scientific knowledge is durable, it is also constantly re-evaluated in the light of new evidence. They learn how scientists carry out investigations, and they come to see science as a socially valuable knowledge system. They learn how science ideas are communicated and to make links between scientific knowledge and everyday decisions and actions.
And the document specifically adds that these outcomes are pursued through the following major contexts in which scientific knowledge has developed and continues to develop.
The development of that list recognised that the country’s future prosperity depends on students continuing to study science and entering science-related careers. This is because – as the late Sir Paul Callaghan observed –‘rich’ countries depend on high-end science and technology, and NZ needs to invest far more heavily in these fields to maintain and enhance its standard of living. That is, we need more scientists, scientifically-literate politicians, and a community that understands what science is done and why it’s relevant to everyday life.
But in practice, since then we’ve probably focused more on subject content than on explicitly teaching what science is, how it works, why it is such a powerful tool for understanding the world around it, and that it is a human/social endeavour. (I’m sure it’s implicit in many programs, but things like this aren’t universally picked up by osmosis: practice reinforces learning.)
Does this matter?
Well, yes it does. Knowledge of content is important, but I’d argue that it is far from being enough. Around 60% of year 11 (NCEA L1) students won’t go on to take science subjects at year 12 or 13. They need – all students need – more than content to be science-literate (as this recent PISA document makes clear). To that end, the NZ Curriculum document asked that in addition to content knowledge, students gain the ability to critically evaluate science ideas and processes; to communicate about science; and to recognise that science is a human endeavour² (people develop our scientific knowledge and that their ideas change over time).
And having the knowledge, understandings, and competencies that should be delivered by a teaching & learning program assessed using these standards, students should then be able to critically engage with the various science-based & science-informed issues that they’ll encounter, now & in the future. (And to deal with claims such as “well, science got it wrong in the past, so it can’t be trusted now”; and “science is always changing its mind”, both of which are hallmarks of those arguing against established scientific knowledge.)
That’s what the draft standards are intended to deliver, together with the acquisition of content knowledge. And I think that’s a very good thing.
¹ disclosure: I am a member of this group.
² The concept that science is a human endeavour is explicit in the title of one of the draft standards.
Today I’ve been hearing from some very unhappy teachers. As in, teachers who are upset to the point of tears on behalf of their students. Excellent, very experienced teachers. The reason for their unhappiness? This year’s NCEA Level 3 (year 13) biology exam, sat by their students just a few days ago.
And at this point I should emphasise that the teachers’ concerns were focussed towards the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and not the individual examiner(s) who, after all, prepare these documents with advice and guidance from NZQA staff. Their concerns were focused on the system.
Now, it’s several years since I was an examiner at this level, and I know that the nature of the exam has changed. And of course the teachers themselves are well aware of what’s been expected in the past; they’re just taken aback by the nature of this year’s papers**.
Thing is, I was also involved in developing Scholarship-level exams and to me, while for some questions there’s quite a bit of resource material to get through in this year’s L3 exam, the amount of writing required of students seems an awful lot for level 3. The question-books for the exam (you’ll find them here) contain multiple blank pages for students to write their answers: the implicit message is that a lot of writing is needed. There are 3 questions like this in a book, so three essay-type answers for students hoping to achieve an excellence for the paper.
This may not sound like much – but the actual exam covers 3 separate achievement standards. So a student who’d prepared for all three (and most schools encourage this) would find themselves faced with writing up to 9 (yes, nine) extended answers over the space of three hours. (For comparison, a Schol Bio candidate would write just 3 essays in the same time frame.) In other words, the demands of this exam are such that it would quite likely preclude students from doing justice to all three papers.
So, here are some of the teachers’ concerns (I’m quoting with their permission):
for an ‘excellence’ response, a student had to demonstrate high-order analysis & evaluation skills, in an answer generated in just 20 minutes (less, really, because of the requirement to read the question & plan an answer first). This is a big ask.
students who were slower writers, or who had lower (but still OK) literacy levels would struggle to complete in a way that still allowed them to demonstrate their knowledge about biology and so gain an ‘achieved’. [And let’s remember that there’s a lot more to knowledge than simply being able to write a bunch of definitions.]
“all my students felt let down by this examination. All their hard work, dedication, and love for the subject were lost in those 3 hours.”
“I have seen a fair few of my students this week and they are so demoralised! Many are gutted they tried to do all 3 papers [because they] couldn’t do them justice- am gutted for them!”
“A Facebook comment stated, “OK, I will play their game and only do two externals next year”. What is happening to the integrity of our subject when the assessment is driving the whole course structure of Biology in schools throughout the country?”
“We are losing students because the subject is deemed too difficult. A colleague informed me that her daughter would not be taking Biology next year because it was too hard so she is taking Physics and Chemistry instead.”
Yes, this is anecdotal. But if these comments reflect a widespread reality, then science education in this country will be the loser.
** I was rather concerned about a particular question, too – but that’s best left to another post, on my ‘other’ blog.
Way back when I was a secondary teacher, & there were signs that the government of the day was looking at a possible move to performance pay, there were fairly frequent staffroom discussions discussions around how to assess the quality of one’s teaching. (There’s a much more recent report on this subject here.) One metric proposed was how many of your students passed School Cert. (I told you it was a long time ago!) That was all very well for those whose classes – we had streamed classes at my school – contained students who could mostly be expected to achieve rather well. I had one of those, but I also had the ‘problem’ 4th-form (year 10) class: kids who for a variety of reasons weren’t viewed by many as likely to pass.
I had no problems with that class. I had to teach them science, and so we ‘did’ science in contexts that they found engaging & relevant: the science of cooking, the science of cosmetics, & so on. We had a ball, & in the process they seemed to absorb some knowledge of science: what it was, & how it worked. But mostly they still didn’t attempt School C (the equivalent of today’s NCEA Level 1), & so by that rubric I’d have been judged a poor teacher. Perhaps, if we’d looked systematically at the level of prior knowledge those students entered my class with, and assessed the gains they made on that, both they and I would have been judged differently.
I was reminded of this during a discussion today about assessing the quality of teachers in a university setting. Now sure, we have a system of paper appraisals and teaching appraisals. But they aren’t shared with line managers as a matter of course, and so that can make things difficult during goal-setting and promotion rounds. For in the absence of that information, just how do line managers (& others) come to any evidence-based assessmentof a teacher’s abilities and performance in the classroom? I suspect the short answer is that they can’t, not really.
But even where the appraisal data are available, they shouldn’t be the only tool individuals (& managers) use to assess performance. I’m often told the appraisals are easy to ‘game’, although I’m not sure how correct that is; it does tend to assume that students aren’t able to assess papers and teacher performance reasonably well. I mean, statements like “this teacher made it clear what was expected of
me”, “this teacher made the subject interesting”, and “this teacher was approachable when advice or
help was required” are fairly objective, after all. But ideally they’d be just one element in an educator’s portfolio.
That portfolio could also include notes and commentary from an option that teachers in the compulsory sector will be used to: having a colleague sit in on a class and provide constructive feedback afterwards. In my experience this is rare in universities, which is a real pity, because both parties can learn a good deal from the experience. (We are accustomed, and encouraged, to have others cast a critical eye on our research outcomes, so why not our teaching?)
It could also include notes & reflections from the education literature. I firmly believe that while my teaching has to be informed by current research in my discipline (& I simply can’t imagine teaching the same thing, year after year!), it must also be informed by findings from research into pedagogy. Things change, after all. Teaching & learning methods that might have seemed to work for those who taught me at uni are almost certainly out of date in today’s classrooms. As regular readers will know, I put much of my own reflection into writing these blog posts: the blog makes up a largish part of my own portfolio.
And of course, if you’re dipping into the literature, and attending seminars or workshops from your equivalent of our Teaching Development Unit, then you’ll pick up all sorts of other, informal, tips for gaining feedback on how things are going in the classroom. It’s worth linking back to a guest post from a my friend & colleague Brydget, as she summarises all this very well.
The trick, of course, is to work out how to present that information to one’s line manager :)
Dear readers – what follows is a much longer post than I would normally write (& yes, at times I write some quite extensive posts!). This is because the current post constitutes my ‘portfolio’ to support nominations from my students for an e-learning award offered by my institution. I decided to write the portfolio in this form because blogging is a medium that I feel comfortable writing in, & because it’s so easy to add hyperlinks, files etc. (Consequently many of the links lead to my own reflective writing elsewhere on this blog, and to presentations I’ve given.) Plus I would really very much value feedback & comments – I don’t regard myself as anything approaching an expert (or even a journeyman) in this field and I know that my future practice will benefit from your insights.
That said, please do read on!
Technologies such as Moodle, panopto, AdobeConnect & the like allow access to learning opportunities in a much more flexible way than the ‘traditional’ university environment, and this is going to become more and more important in the future as student demographics change. For example, as the number of people in the 18-25 age group continues to decline while the 50+ cohort continues to grow, then we will need to offer education to ‘non-traditional’ students and in ‘non-traditional’ ways. From an institutional perspective, using learning technologies in an interactive way can also help to ensure that we enhance retention and meet graduate profiles. For example, the graduate profile for our BSc says that students can communicate using a range of methods including multi-media (which includes web-based resources and activities), can work cooperatively, and have the skills necessary for self-directed learning: acquisition of all these attributes (plus the more usual acquisition-of-knowledge outcomes) can be supported by learning technologies, particularly those that are interactive.
So then, what does this look like in the context of my own teaching practice? I know some people see me as an ‘early adopter’ of classroom technologies like these, but on reflection I think my activities in this area have grown organically – much like my teaching career, I suppose.
RELECTIONS ON APPLYING TECHNOLOGY TO TEACHING & LEARNING
Moodle and Facebook:
Alison is constantly introducing new ways for us to learn through technology. From educational videos and other resources on Moodle to an accessible Facebook forum for students to share their own passion for biology, she has been experimenting successfully with the digital resources available to teachers at the University of Waikato.
Great at technology, innovative ideas (eg facebook page for 101)
Very helpful both during lectures and tutorials. Very active on Moodle, promptly responds to forum questions, has created a Facebook page for the paper.
(Student nominations, 2014 e-learning award)
I’ve used Moodle ever since it became available: paper outlines, study guide notes, powerpoints of lectures, assessment materials, quizzes, discussion forums, useful links & readings – it’s all there. Once panopto came on-stream, links to lecture recordings went up on moodle as well, thanks to the WCeL wizards. I’ve always encouraged students to ask questions, join discussions, and post materials on Moodle (I have colleagues who’d rather receive individual emails but honestly! why answer the same question multiple times?) but interestingly, it was the first-year students who were most active in doing this.
However, in the last couple of years I’ve seen this activity drop right off, and it’s been something of a concern. Being asked for feedback on Moodle as part of the University’s process of identifying a new student management system really made me reflect more closely on this, partly in light of my own use of other on-line communities (not least of them, Facebook). From talking with students I gained the impression that moodle can be very ‘clunky’: it takes at least a couple of steps to arrive at a resource, whereas on FB links are right there and obvious. The students complained that they were continually having to log in to moodle during the day, in contrast to remaining logged in on FB, and that they preferred the FB notification system. This got me thinking about how best to use this as an additional way of supporting my students’ learning and increasing their engagement. (This is not to say that they don’t use Moodle: a recent survey I carried out with our 2nd-year students shows that they clearly do – but they just don’t engage to any great extent.)
There’s a lot of literature available now about using Facebook to support teaching and learning. Fittingly, I was introduced to some of it through the Ako Aotearoa Academy FB page that I administer, but I’ve since talked more widely about it with colleagues at other institutions and started delving more deeply into recent publications; for example, Dougherty & Andercheck, 2014 (my reflections on that paper are here), and Kent & Leaver’s 2014 e-book, “An education in Facebook?”. And I sounded out my students, who were extremely positive about the idea. The result: we have a Facebook page for the first-year biology class, where they regularly post material & start discussions, and where I post course information and questions or polls (all mirrored on our Moodle page), along with links to other, science-based, FB pages.
My thoughts after a semester? Yes, it’s a bit of additional work, because notices, polls and so on must be posted in two places rather than one, and because there’s the need to interact with other posters. It would be good to see more students there – at present just over half the class is present and at least observing on FB – but (and it’s a big ‘but’), commenters are far more lively and engaged than on Moodle, which seems to be reserved for ‘serious’ questions. That engagement is important, as it contributes to enjoyment and performance. Plus there’s also evidence that engagement (or lack thereof) with study, with teachers, and with the institution – can affect student retention.
As an aside, the lack of ‘personal’ feel to many MOOCs is a shortcoming of this method of content delivery; as the author of this blog post has said,
I think most MOOCs are just textbooks for the Internet age. A brilliantly delivered lecture or a brilliantly written book are both good content delivery systems. But without interaction, feedback, and mutual accountability that is all they can be.
We have to ensure we deliver that personal touch!
Anyway, next year I’ll be more systematic about my use of Facebook in relation to my teaching, in the sense of examining whether there is any correlation between use of the page and academic outcomes. And I’ll use tools like ‘question of the week’ – on both Moodle and FB – to try to lift engagement further.
Panopto
I leaped early into the panopto pool, and I’ve been splashing around in it ever since
Incorporates technology. Records every lecture for panopto and makes good use of moodle.
regular and helpful facebook user. encourages students to get involved in various online activities.
(Student nominations, 2014 e-learning award)
Panopto’s a tool for capturing classroom teaching and making it available on-line for students to access whenever they please. I first became aware of it when the University was gearing up for its i-TunesU presence, and decided that the technology had a lot to offer me and my students as a tool to enhance teaching and learning practices. (I am definitely not a fan of technology for technology’s sake – it needs to have a pedagogical benefit.) And I’ve been using it ever since – for lectures, for podcasts, for catching up when I’ve had to cancel a lecture due to illness. I promote it whenever I get the chance, in tearoom conversation but also at conferences and symposia (e.g. Fun with panopto). (I also use it to review and reflect on my own classroom performance; the recordings are really useful when considering whether something could have been better communicated, although they are certainly unforgiving when it comes to things like mannerisms and use of voice!)
Students certainly value this technology. It gives them the flexibility to balance workloads, manage lecture clashes, revise for tests and exams, and to be absent due to illness or family commitments. Of course, it also gives them the ability to simply skip class and promise themselves that they can catch up later, something the literature shows doesn’t necessarily happen. I believe that we (academics) need to be more forthright in communicating with students around this, but that’s not to say that we should reduce our use of lecture recordings!
Able to pause and go over things i don’t understand. Can also do them in my own time.
For me, Panopto is most valuable during study week for revisiting explanations rather than for catching up on missed lectures.
Usually if I don’t watch an entire lecture on panopto it was because I preferred the text-book or other material to the lecturer’s style of teaching, or because the lecture recording failed, or because I listened to the lecture on podcast.
(2014 student feedback via surveymonkey)
There’s a lot more to lecture recordings than this. They can be used for ‘catch-up’ snippets – recordings of the slides at the end of the lecture that you didn’t get to because there were concepts that needed additional explanations. But panopto also supports more active learning techniques such as flip teaching, where a lecturer can prepare a short recording for students to watch ahead of class, and the actual classroom time is used for group discussions and problem-solving. For a couple of years now I’ve been running ‘Design-an-animal/Design-a-plant’ classes (described in the previous link) to consolidate student learning in a fun and cooperative way, during the A semester.
(2013 student feedback: Aspects of the paper that should be maintained)
The design a plant exercise. This exercise ties the knowledge we have acquired in past weeks, producing a comprehensive well developed understanding of the adaptations and functions of different plants
the “designing a plant” was a great activity that was very interesting and exciting
the flip class which was really fun.
And in the B semester this year we had a session on DNA technology, where the class decided they’d like to hear more about GMOs: I provided short explanatory clips on gene cloning and PCR & DNA sequencing for them to watch ahead of time, so that we could spend the ‘lecture’ on discussion (and a very wide-ranging discussion it proved to be!).
Educators aren’t just using techniques like this simply because the technology has become available. There have to be positive outcomes for the students. I touched on some of these at the beginning of this post, in the context of ensuring that students have gained the attributes we describe in our graduate profiles.
However, another big plus for digital learning technologies is the way in which they allow us to meet the different learning needs of students. (I’m inclined to agree with the author of this post regarding different learning styles, mind you.) For example:
They really open up the options for students for whom work commitments, or geographical isolation, mean that they can’t attend classes in the ‘normal’ university hours.
For all students, the ready availability of lecture recordings means that they can review a class, or part thereof, as often as they need in order to gain understanding of concepts and information.
Students who are ill, or have lecture clashes, or sudden family commitments, don’t have to stress too much about missing classes (but see the following paragraph :) )
The fact that recordings are downloadable as mp4 files means that students can use them pretty much where & when they choose – on the bus, perhaps, or sitting in a comfy chair at home.
It’s easy to incorporate video clips, or even music (albeit with a scientific message) into classes. This opens up a whole new range of resources to use with our students (and breaks up the ‘lecture’ format, re-energising the classroom). This has occasioned some ‘interesting’ discussions over the use of such material from other institutions: it’s not “our” learning material, and students should be seeing our resources and ideas. This is true, but why re-invent the wheel? If an excellent resource exists, then use it! – and enhance the role of facilitator of learning, rather than simply someone delivering facts.
Technologies also empower students in ways that we might not always consider – for example, setting up a Moodle discussion forum for anonymous use means that someone who might be too shy to speak up in the lecture theatre can ask their questions, & make comments, in a less-threatening environment.
And having just attended a session on the use of AdobeConnect, I can see (& will make use of) the potential in being able to set up a ‘virtual’ pre-exam tutorial, synchronous with an actual class, for students who can’t make it onto campus for that particular session: they can see & hear what’s going on & ask questions of their own, for example. (It looks like panopto on steroids so I will admit that I’m left wondering what will happen to the latter in the future.)
I feel very strongly, however, that while we definitely need to provide learning opportunities for academic staff around learning technologies, we also need to educate students around their use. Despite the frequent use of the term ‘digital natives’ in discussion around our students and e-learning, the description really doesn’t fit our current cohort particularly well, and there’s a very interesting discussion of the term here. (It may be another story when the current crop of under-5s reach tertiary classrooms as many of them have truly grown up immersed in and using on-line technologies. And having said that, we also need to remember that there remain sectors of society who simply cannot afford to access the hardware to enable such learning. How do we enable them?) This means walking the class through what’s available on moodle, for example, or how to download an mp4 file of a panopto recording. But it also means discussing with our students – very early on in the piece – the perils and pitfalls of relying on recordings as an alternative to actually being in class eg the frightening ease with which you can fall behind in watching lectures after the event. This should be done with all first-year classes: many of this cohort have difficulty adapting to the different requirements, expectations, and learning environments of the tertiary system as it is and, lacking time management skills, can very easily fall off the wagon – something that has implications for both completion and retention.
She is very helpful and she knows her topic well. Very organised and goes beyond her duty to make sure students are getting everything in order to succeed.
I think she is a really great lecturer and has used a range of different tools to help us learn in her lectures such as a drawing tool on the computer and has also created a Facebook page for BIOL102 to make it more interactive and fun to learn for everyone enrolled in the paper.
She is a really great lecturer, who makes a lot of effort to ensure her students get all the information they need to learn about what she is teaching. she also takes the time to make sure that students questions are answered, and always keeps in mind that because students have different learning levels, that she gives all the information required.
Demonstrates a real passion for what she teaches.
(Student nominations, 2014 e-learning award)
e-LEARNING & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
As I said earlier, I definitely don’t see myself as an expert in this field! This means that I frequently reflect on my classroom practice and the things I’ve learned (the focus of many of the posts here on Talking Teaching!), and I take advantage of professional development opportunities as often as I can. In the past I’ve attended quite a few workshops on various aspects of Moodle (and the on-line support materials are very useful too; thanks, WCeL team!). The university’s Teaching Development staff run regular Teaching Network sessions, where participants learn from each other on a whole range of teaching-related issues, & I go to these at every available opportunity. The most recent session, by Alan Levine, introduced the idea of pechaflickr as a tool for engagement and for learning, and that’s led me to think about using a pechaflickr session in tutorials, as a fun change of pace but also of a means of checking understanding of particular concepts. Definitely one for next year.
Sharing is good. And so I promote these technologies when I get the chance :) This year I facilitated a session on flip teaching at our annual WCeLfest (where I gained a lot from the participants’ feedback), but was also invited to take part as a panellist in a discussion of what our university might look like in a future where distance and blended learning make much more use of digital learning & teaching technologies. And I’ve previously shared their application at other conferences – in a 2013 discussion around how teachers’ roles are changing from disseminators of facts to facilitators of learning, for example. In addition, I led a discussion about MOOCs at a UoW Council planning day earlier this year, which also formed the basis of this particular post.
Learning technologies also have huge potential in terms of outreach to the wider community. For example, since 2005 I’ve been running Scholarship Biology preparation days for students – and their teachers – preparing for the Scholarship Biology examinations, which has involved travelling to deliver sessions in the Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Auckland and Hawkes Bay, as well as in Hamilton itself. (I also write another blog, originally intended to support these students and still containing a considerable amount of material that’s useful to them and their teachers.) But these face-to-face sessions are one-offs, as it were, so this year I decided to set up a Facebook page so that interactions and support could continue. Feedback from the teachers is very positive. Sadly, the students have not been so engaged on the page, although the teachers tell me their students are definitely using material from the page in class, which is a great outcome from my perspective. I’ll leave this one up and running and hopefully, as resources build up and teachers encourage their students to use it from the beginning of the year, we’ll start to see some more active student participation. I can also see the value in using AdobeConnect to run occasional virtual tutorials for this far-flung group of students – it would be particularly valuable for those students who are the only one at their particular school sitting this exam, as they’d get the opportunity to interact with others (&, if I can work out how to set it up!) work cooperatively with them to solve problems in an on-line active-learning world.
If you’ve read this far – thank you for staying with me :) I appreciate your company on what is for me a continuing journey of self-reflection and learning around my teaching practice. I’ll be grateful for your feedback – and I do so hope you don’t feel you’d have been better off sitting at home in your bunny slippers :)
I first wrote about charter schools just over a year ago. At the time I was commenting on statements that such schools would be able to employ as teachers people who lacked teaching qualifications, wondering how that could sit with the Minister’s statements around achieving quality teaching practice. But I also noted concerns that charter (oops, ‘partnership’) schools could set their own curricula, as this would have the potential to expand the number of schools teaching creationism in their ‘science’ classes.
Well, now the list of the first 5 charter schools has been published: two of those schools is described (in the linked article) as intending to “emphasise Christian values in its teaching.” By itself that =/= creationism in the classroom – but yesterday Radio New Zealand’s Checkpoint program (17 September 2013) reported that the school’s offerings will probably include just that.
In addition the prinicipal has reportedly said that the school will teach “Christian theory on the origin of the planet.”
The Education Minister has conceded there’s nothing to prevent two of New Zealand’s first charter schools teaching creationism alongside the national curriculum.
Two of the five publicly-funded private schools, Rise Up and South Auckland Middle School, have contracts that allow a Christian focus.
The minister, Hekia Parata, said on Tuesday that none of the five schools would teach creationism alongside or instead of evolutionary theory.
But on Thursday she told the House two of the schools will offer religious education alongside the curriculum.
Ms Parata did not specify how the two would be differentiated in the classroom.
South Auckland Middle School has told Radio New Zealand it plans to teach a number of theories about the origins of life, including intelligent design and evolution.
Point 1 (trivial, perhaps?): South Auckland Middle School needs to look into just what constitutes a theory in science. (Hint: a theory is a coherent explanation for a large body of facts. “A designer diddit” does not remotely approach that.)
Point 2 (not trivial at all): Why do people responsible for leading education in this country think it acceptable for students to learn nonscience in ‘science’ classes? After all, the Prime Minister has commented on “the importance of science to this country.” Evolution underpins all of modern biology so how, exactly, does actively misinforming students about this core concept prepare those who want to work in biology later? Nor does teaching pseudoscience sit well with the increased emphasis on ‘nature of science’ in the NZ Curriculum.
This is really, really disappointing. We already have ‘special character’ schools which teach creationism in their classrooms (see here, here and here, for example). It’s irking in the extreme that state funding will be used to support the same in the new charter schools.
We’ve been trialling some software for on-line paper/teaching appraisals & I got my results back the other day. The appraisal form included open-ended questions where students could give extended feedback on particular issues that concerned them, & I’ve been going through it all so that I can give feedback in my turn, thus ‘closing the loop’. (This is something that I believe is absolutely essential: students need to know that we value their opinions & that, where appropriate, use them to inform what we do.) I’ve been interested to see that some of the class are definitely thinking outside the ‘box’ that represents my paper, and one comment in particular struck a chord:
One concern with the paper is individuals who were not taught certain aspects of the NCEA Level 3 curriculum. This is a major issue that has resulted from the preference of schools to not teach certain aspects of the course. There NEEDS to be consultation to standardise the NCEA curriculum as well as ensuring that the gap is bridged with communication between tertiary education providers and secondary education providers. As I understand it there is significant concern over the changed NCEA Level 3 Biology course, which now does not teach genetics in year 13. I don’t know the answer in the resolution of this issue, however it will greatly impact on future academic success as well as future funding when grades drop.
This student has hit the nail squarely on the head. Teachers reading this will be working on the following Achievement Standards with their year 12 students this year (where previously gene expression was handled in year 13): AS91157 Demonstrate understanding of genetic variation and change, and AS91159: Demonstrate understanding of gene expression. (You’ll find the Biology subject matrix here.)
And as my student says, this has the potential to cause real problems unless the university staff concerned have made it their business to be aware of these changes and to consider their impact. For the 2014 cohort of students coming in to introductory biology classes will have quite different prior learning experiences (& not just in genetics) from those we are teaching this year and taught in previous years. We cannot continue as we have done in the past.
The National Science Challenges have been announced – and have already received a lot of attention (including on Sciblogs, with posts by my colleagues Grant, Siouxsie, and John – who also points at where the money’s going). What I’d like to address here is the comment by the Panel that it
was concerned by the lack of significant proposals in educational research
I have to admit that my first response to that was, well d’oh! Because, well, the public discussion was around national science challenges, I suspect that for many (most?) submitters the focus was to come up with a science-based proposal. After all (& please note bulging cheek ensconcing my tongue at this point), isn’t science education something that schools & other seats of learning ‘do’, rather than requiring science research? Hopefully not many scientists really think that way, & it’s great to see the additional Challenge, “Science & New Zealand Society” with its two goals (the first a science goal, while the second is societal):
To ensure the science capacities and literacy of New Zealand society so as to promote engagement between S[cience] & T[echnology] and New Zealand society, in turn enhancing the role played by science in advancing the national interest.
To allow New Zealand society to make best use of its human and technological capacities to address the risks and Challenges ahead. This requires the better use of scientific knowledge in policy formation at all levels of national and local government, in the private sector and in society as a whole.
Both are relevant to what follows here.
Let’s look more closely at the question of science literacy/appreciation/education for citizenship. The chair of the Panel, Sir Peter Gluckman, has previously made it clear that we need to do much more in engaging young people with science, to the extent of developing a science curriculum that focuses far more on science literacy than on accumulation of science knowledge. But what constitutes science literacy? This is something I’ve written about previously, & my fellow Scibloggers and I discussed it between ourselves more recently. So I was interested to find a set of nine science literacy ‘themes’ listed and expanded upon in a recent paper (Bartholomew & Osborne, 2004):
scientific methods and critical testing
science & certainty
diversity of scientific thinking
hypothesis and prediction
historical development of scientific knowledge
creativity
science and questioning
analysis and interpretation of data
cooperation and collaboration in the development of scientific knowledge
And while we might not agree on the relative order of these themes, or the completeness of the list, but they do give us something to go on with. (I’m going to talk about the formal education system for the moment – but I’m perfectly well aware that there’s much more than that to public engagement with science! Let’s just treat this as a starting point for discussion.)
Now, I’d like to think that the current NZ Science curriculum gives a good basis for developing these skills & attributes in all students Right Now, regardless of whether or not they intend to go on to study science at tertiary level. And let’s face it, most won’t, so we surely have to work on engagement with and understanding of what science is about, for all students. in fact, that’s a tension I struggle with myself: a proportion of my first-year biology students are taking the subject purely for interest, & in some cases haven’t studied the subject before. I want them to come away with an appreciation of the wonder and worth of the subject in their lives, as much as I want them to accumulate biological knowledge. It’s a tricky balancing act.
Anyway, while I might like to think that about the curriculum document, in reality I suspect that it doesn’t yet deliver. And that’s something that’s unpacked further by Bartholomew & Osborne, who note that there are a number of factors that affect teachers’ “ability to teach effectivelyabout science”.
One of those factors is the teachers’ own understanding of what science is all about, as opposed to their body of content knowledge. NB Please note, at this point, that this is not a criticism of teachers and the demanding work that they do; it’s a question of whether the training and experiences we offer our teachers prepare them well for this particular aspect of teaching science.
The researchers found that a reasonable proportion of the teachers they worked with were not really confident in their own ability to teach lessons based on the ideas embedded in those themes. This was partly due to uncertainties about their own knowledge, and partly around feeling that they lacked the classroom skills to deliver such a program. Which, of course, raises issues around provision of professional development opportunities (with the associated resourcing).
Related to that is their own engagement with the subject. OK, if you’re teaching the subject as a specialist science teacher, I’m guessing that you took this role on because you enjoy the subject and want to share that. But if someone’s a primary school teacher with very limited exposure to science during their training, then the story might be very different.
And so that would be a fruitful area for research, in NZ (and at this point someone is probably going to tell me that they’re Already Doing It): what is the actual level of science literacy – using, for example, those 9 themes listed above – in NZ science teachers at all levels? And how does that translate into classroom practices? And – if the answer is, not as well as we’d like – what do we do about it?
Teachers’ ability to enhance learning about science (as opposed to of science) is also affected by factors outside their classrooms. For example, the pressure is on, at senior school level, to ensure students do as well as possible in national assessment – which, for all the changes associated with NCEA, remains largely content-based. And classroom time is limited, so it’s easy to see how there can be more focus on content & less on the other desirable attributes. As Bartholomew & Osborne comment,
developing a questioning and sceptical attitude to scientific knowledge claims in students might actually be disadvantageous.
Perhaps that also needs to change. [Pace, Schol Bio examiners!]
H.Bartholomew, & J.Osborne (2004) Teaching students “ideas about science”: five dimensions of effective practice. Science Education88: 655-682 doi: 10.1002/sce.10135
My significant other is forever telling me that Facebook is a total time-waster. Sometimes I do tend to agree – but also, one can Find Out Stuff! Like the study I’ve just heard about via Science Alert, on how children get information about genetics and DNA – things we might regard as being in the ‘too hard’ basket & so best left for senior high school students to grapple with. That grappling begins in year 11, when one of the NCEA Level 1 Science standards asks that students be able to “demonstrate understanding of biological ideas relating to genetic variation”.
Is that too late? Jenny Donovan and Grady Venville suggest that it is, arguing that with the rapid growth of knowledge in and applications of molecular biology,
[citizens] of the future will be called upon to make more decisions, from personal to political, regarding the impact of genetics on society. ‘Designer babies’; gene therapy; genetic modification; cloning, and the potential access to and use of personal genetic information are all complex and multifactorial issues. All raise ethical and scientific dilemmas.
They give the example of jury trials, where jurors may hear quite complex information about DNA and be asked to consider this in coming to a verdict, and note that people may have acquired a range of misconceptions around DNA from sources such as the popular program CSI and its various spin-offs.
Children, for example, have a lot of opportunity to hear about genes, DNA, & their uses well before we start formally teaching these concepts at school. Donovan and Venville already knew (from their own previous research) that by the end of their primary schooling many students were already developing misconceptions about genetics; for example, the idea that ‘genes and DNA are two totally separate entities.’ This time, they wanted to examine the impact of the mass media on children’s conceptions (& misconceptions) around this subject. The misconceptions part is particularly important because misconceptions, once formed, can be extremely persistent – affecting learning into the tertiary years.
Using a combination of interviews and questionnaires about media use, the researchers found that their subjects (children aged 10-12) spent around 5 hours a day using various media (TV, radio, print media, movies, & the internet), with most of that being watching television. This included crime shows, and the children felt that they gained most of their ‘knowledge’ of genetics from TV. Donovan & Venville chose to question children from this age group because, with falling numbers of Australian students taking science subjects in upper secondary school, ‘exposure to genetics may be their sole opportunity to develop scientific literacy in this field’ – where ‘scientific literacy’ encompasses literacy both within and about science.
So, what did they find out?
Most children (89%) knew [about] DNA, 60% knew [about] genes, and more was known about uses of DNA outside the body such as crime solving or resolving family relationships than about its biological nature or function. Half believed DNA is only in blood and body parts used for forensics.
Very few – only 6% – knew that DNA and genes were structurally related. Around 50% of the children surveyed felt that DNA & genes are found in only some tissues & organs. (I was half expecting them to say that DNA is found only in genetically-modified organisms – with GMOs in and out of the news, it’s odd that this didn’t come up.) And 80% of them felt that TV was ‘the most frequent source of information about genetics (with teachers confirming that the subject hadn’t been taught at school). As a result of these findings, Donovan & Venville argue very strongly that instruction in genetics should take place much earlier in students’ time in school, noting that other researchers suggest that
giving students opportunities to revisit science ideas and build deeper understanding over time, enables them to grasp and apply concepts that typically are not fully understood until several years later… [and that] students need to be exposed to background knowledge from early ages in order for them to make sense of what they absorb from the world around them.
So, if kids are going to watch programs like NCIS, CSI, and Bones on a regular basis, then maybe early teaching around genetics concepts could use
lively discussions around what they have seen and heard about genetics in the mass media [as this] may ultimately help children to make informed decisions in their future lives.
An interesting suggestion – and one which reinforces yet again how important proper resourcing and support of science teaching are, if we are to develop real literacy in and about science.
J.Donovan & G.Venville (2012) Blood and bones: the influence of the mass media on Australian primary school children’s understandings of genes and DNA. Science & Education (published online 23 June 2012, doi: 10.1007/s11191-012-9491-3
This is a guest post – I’m running it on behalf of my friend & colleague Dr Angela Sharples. Angela is the current chair of OlympiaNZ (the umbrella organisation for the various NZ Olympiad committees) and leads NZ International Biology Olympiad. She received the Prime Minister’s Science Teacher Award in 2011. I completely agree with her comments; like her, this is an issue I have very strong feelings about & I believe her comments deserve a wider audience. (Cross-posting from SciblogsNZ.)
At a time when we celebrate all things sporting we should reflect on our attitudes towards success in all forms of endeavour in New Zealand. The Olympics showcase the world’s best in sporting endeavour and we rightly look up to these elite athletes and admire the effort and dedication it took for each and every one of these athletes to reach the top of their field. The personal attributes required for them to even participate at the Olympics are transferable to all areas of performance in life and so we celebrate these athletes, admire them and aspire to like them. They are role models that encourage younger athletes from primary school to university level to participate in the sport of their choice and to dream that with hard work and dedication they too may reach Olympic level.
The government recognises this social benefit of elite sports and funds it accordingly, through SPARC and the high performance programmes. They have their eye on the long term benefits that participation in sport at the elite level provides to the wider New Zealand community. The government also recognises that New Zealand must foster innovation through a responsive, high performance education system if New Zealand is to remain globally competitive in a rapidly changing world. Unfortunately, whilst the government has
published any number of reports on the importance of Science and innovation in New Zealand we see very little action on establishing and supporting programmes which foster such excellence.
Just last week, the New Zealand International Biology Olympiad withdrew from hosting the International Biology Olympiad here in New Zealand in July 2014. This prestigious international event challenges and inspires the brightest young secondary school students from 60 countries (and the number of member countries continues to grow) to deepen their understanding of biology and promotes a career in science. The focus is on the importance of biology for society, especially in areas such as biotech, agriculture and horticulture, environmental protection and biodiversity. These are all areas of academic endeavour crucial for New Zealand’s economic success in the future. Hosting this event in New Zealand was a chance to showcase our innovative education system and biological research to some of the world’s top academics and to inspire our own students to develop the dedication and put in the sheer hard work required to reach this highest level of academic endeavour. It is an opportunity lost!
Unlike our sporting Olympians our academic Olympians receive little support from the government and even less acknowledgement and celebration of their success. New Zealand has performed outstandingly well in the International competitions since we first competed in 2005, winning 16 Bronze medals, 7 Silver and 1 Gold Medal. These high performing students are New Zealand’s economic future and yet few in the country are even aware of their achievement.
Until we apply the same high performance strategies to our science and innovation system in New Zealand that we utilise in sports we will continue to talk about the importance of fostering excellence in science and innovation whilst we watch our competitors on the global stage outperform us. And we will continue to lose our best young minds to countries where their contribution is valued.
Talking Teaching 
You must be logged in to post a comment.