Kerry Parker Curriculum Leader: Science The Correspondence School, NZ

 You don’t feel that you have to be part of a sausage factory  That we gain useful ideas from each other  Make contacts with people who can help us in the future

 An invitation from the Cook Island Ministry of Education

How can we get our students to learn science rather than just gain credits?

We have assessment systems Who are they for?

Is it to measure student progress? Are our assessments designed to sort out the clever kids? Is it to evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching?

So we ‘make it simple’, we ‘get them ahead’, and we give them carrots and sticks. We want our kids to do well We end up spoon feeding

Fear of Failure The fear of failure is more deadly than failure itself. The fear of failure paints so many imaginary scenarios which petrifies you and renders you immobile php

Intellectual dependency Students lose sight of the purpose of school and learning Knowledge is considered dispensable after it is used to secure a good grade. Grade obsession

We want our students to do well and gain credit so our teaching is focussed on students gaining the standard ◦ use pre-written tasks ◦ old and poorly written tests ◦ many assessment events

Is this a problem for you? What can you/we do about it?

So how does the permissive curriculum affect this?

World trends are towards less content

We may have a strange perspective Rose Hipkins 2008

We’ve missed the whole point of education if students graduate from school still dependent on others to tell them that their answer are right, their products are adequate, or their behaviour is admirable. Costa and Kallick in Assessing and Reporting on Habits of Mind, 2000 The ultimate purpose of assessment is to guide students to become self-managing, self-monitoring, self-modifying and self-assessing.

Remove fear of failure. Build tasks into teaching programmes (not vice versa) Get more appropriate and better-written tasks. Build intrinsic motivation wherever possible Focus on the curriculum goals, not the tasks.

We need to be able to answer the big questions:  Why are we teaching this stuff?  What do our students really need?  What do they really want?  What learning styles will best suit them in reaching these goals?  Remember that NCEA is only an assessment tool. Learning is our focus!

What do we want for our students?

1. Persisting 2. Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision 3. Managing impulsivity 4. Gathering data through all senses 5. Listening with understanding and empathy 6. Creating, imagining, innovating 7. Thinking flexibly 8. Responding with wonderment and awe 9. Thinking about thinking (metacognition) 10. Taking responsible risks 11. Striving for accuracy 12. Finding humor 13. Questioning and posing problems 14. Thinking interdependently 15. Applying past knowledge to new situations 16. Remaining open to continuous learning Island Bay Primary

 Look at standards and consider  develop a programme which will meet your students’ needs.  Use carefully worded rubrics

At every stage it is important to use our peers for support colleagues in school, colleagues in other schools, advisors, NZIP NZQA NAFs and moderators school-specific documents NZC ……

Think about what your students can do. What sort of task should you use? At what point in their learning programme will they have reached the standard? How much preparation do the students need to be able to do it? How much support will you be able to give them while they are doing the task? Tasks must be valid and reliable, but you don’t have to use closed-book tests. The goal is to assess whether the student is at the standard.

Peer Review. The task must allow students to provide evidence that they have reached the standard The task must offer M and E opportunities if the standard supports these. Development of schedule: evidence statements and judgement statement – keep in draft while reviewing the task

 Prepare the students for the assessment – students need to be clear about what to do, but don’t make a meal of it. Plan thoughtfully.  The best preparation is good teaching and learning.

 Stick to your assessment conditions – the golden rule is to ensure that the students are getting the opportunity to demonstrate whether they are at the standard or not.

Marking : – Be clear about what the student has done with regard to the standard – Allows teacher feedback which encourages student reflection. – Emphasise the learning not just the credits! Grades must be checked through a rigorous peer-moderation process

 A sunny end in a beautiful place