[English] American senior Maths and English results
Mary Mason
mary.mason at geelongcollege.vic.edu.au
Sun Feb 25 18:28:50 EST 2007
Yes Debra- I am aware of what is happening in Australia but there is a
downturn in Year 4 when students have to use their reading to access
other subjects. I have been pondering about some of the research done in
Australia; for example, Allan Luke's wonderful work in Queensland with
the productive pedagogies. I think such documents are excellent at
setting out some of the difficulties faced by secondary teachers - for
example his results on intellectual depth which was found wanting in the
best schools, which are those he studied. However, the money needed to
provide teachers with the time and the necessary knowledge to develop
that depth is small and is not systemic in any way. Early literacy is
systemic. I suppose too as an English teacher I have always had some
difficulty with one size fits all. For example, the Genre approach on
its own in early literacy seems an arid way to teach writing but I can
see some value expecially if it is mixed with the whole language
approach. The good teacher is a balanced teacher who recognises where
the child is at and encourages them into suitable pathway to extend
their learning. The balanced teacher is someone who has a great depth of
understanding of his or her discipline and pedagogical richness and the
capacity to make teaching decisions.
Such professionalism requires the capacity and time for ongoing teacher
learning. What I would like to see is a recognition that teacher
development matters more than anything in school improvement and that
this needs to be systemic but not a recipe. The professional teacher
must make choices in pedagogy according to the needs of students. Diane
Peck's leadership on the Department website is excellent but we need
systemic ways of taking that into schools and measuring growth in
students which go beyond AIMs and looks at intellectual growth in
thinking as well as knowledge development. I think partnerships with
universities which have joint ownership between universities and schools
could be the way to go - for example, if Allan Luke were to be given
leadership in 30 schools in Queensland to run a pilot program where he
could supply 10 facilitators and a myriad of data collectors and each
school had enough funding to provide a person to work with teachers in
their classrooms we might have a project that could make a difference.
In many ways he completed half a project. I might be wrong here but that
was my impression in terms of the PD development afterwards. Such a
project would go on collecting the rich data afterwards every 6 months
and this would inform practice. This is what is happening in Minnesota
but it has lots of funding. Perhaps this is not possible in Australia
and I do recognise we need a way of making such teaching sustainable. I
would love to hear other ideas from people as to how we could make this
happen.
Cheers
mary
Mary Mason
Director of Teaching and Learning
ph: (03) 52263157
mob: 0402022012
>>> d.edwards at latrobe.edu.au 02/25/07 5:17 PM >>>
>Mary,
>Have you visited primary schools in Victoria? My experience is that
>there is a similar emphasis on the things you mention in Victoria
>in lower primary that has also been moving into upper primary over
>the last years. The Education Department and Catholic Education
>have both been increasing the emphasis on collection of data
>regarding student literacy achievement and teacher use of this to
>inform teachng. Teacher observation is also key. I ageree that
>more could be done regarding explicit deconstruction of text and
>teaching about that as well as increased teaching of vocabulary and
>languge study - both issues that havve been included in VELS at
>upper primary to some degree. Though here, as in the States, there
>is not necessarily consistency across all classes. or schools.
Maybe part of the issue is that primary and secondary teachers rarely
have the time to access each others PD opportunities - or talk to
each other regarding what is occurring in their schools.
I'd also recommend secondary teachers attending the ALEA (
Australian Literacy Educators Association www.alea.edu.au )
conferences and P.dD as well as VATE events ( Just as I recommend
primary teachers to attend VATE events). This will give a broader
view of literacy and English education across all sectors.
regards
Debra.
Debra Edwards
Lecturer in Literacy Education and English Methods.
School of Education Ph (03) 54
447-483
La Trobe University Fax (03)54 447-777
P.O. Box 199, Bendigo, Victoria Mobile 0414
077 796
Australia, 3552
d.edwards at latrobe.edu.au
www.latrobe.edu.au
President Central Victorian Local Council,
Australian Literacy Educators Association.
www.alea.edu.au/vic
>I'm in the states at the moment looking at Literacy. It is doing some
>fantastic things at lower primary. The 'No child left behind' program
>has put loads of money into lower primary. I am in Minnesota at the
>moment and have seen the support they are giving to teachers to change
>their practice and deliver a balanced curriculum model. The stress all
>the time is on higher level thinking, reciprocal thinking - by that
they
>mean teaching students to question, clarify, summarise and predict.
They
>also teach them inferential thinking. The problem is that as for them
so
>for us. We do all this stuff about teaching students to read at lower
>primary and then we assume they can read - particularly in secondary.
We
>do not give them the necessary scaffolding to read. We are not
explicit.
>There is also not enough deconstructing of texts at both upper primary
>and lower secondary. Our teachers at these levels of the school need
>much more explicit PD on how to deconstruct a text - how metaphor is
>used - how gaps are used - why this sentence structure - why this
>setting - how is setting used - how is character being built - what
>about point of view - what about the use of narrator for setting up
>complexity. I am not saying teachers are not doing this in Australia
but
>it is not systemic. I suspect - although I do not know - that this is
>the same as the States. We could learn lots from lower primary. Here it
>is data driven and they observe, they interview, and the teachers do
>some work. They test twice a year and modify their program if they pick
>up difficulties with students. Incidentally, I have been in schools
>which have 90% subsidised lunches and I have seen real engagement at
the
>primary level.
>
>The focus in Minnesota is on the importance of teacher learning and of
>study groups within the school.
>
>Cheers
>
>Mary
>
>Mary Mason
>Director of Teaching and Learning
>
>ph: (03) 52263157
>mob: 0402022012
>>>> stephen at melbpc.org.au 02/25/07 5:40 AM >>>
>Hi all,
>
>Last Thursday the NAEP released the latest report on the academic
>performance of American Year 11 and 12 (senior) students.
>
>"The (US) National Assessment of Educational Progress -- often called
>the
>nation's report card -- is viewed as the best way to compare students
>across the country because it's the only uniform national yardstick for
>how well students are learning." (quote CNN)
>
><http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/>
>
>According to results, almost 40 percent of high school seniors
performed
>
>below the *basic* level on the math test, and more than 25 percent of
>students failed to reach the *basic* level on the reading test.
>
>On the math test, about 60 percent of high school seniors performed at
>or
>above the basic level. At that level, a student should be able to
>convert
>a decimal to a fraction, for example.
>
>Just one-fourth of 12th-graders were proficient or better in math. To
>qualify as "proficient," students might have to determine what type of
>graph should be used to display particular types of data.
>
>On the reading test, about three-fourths of seniors performed at or
>above
>the basic level, while 40 percent hit the proficient mark.
>
>Seniors working at a basic reading level can identify elements of an
>author's style. At the proficient level, they can make inferences from
>reading material, draw conclusions from it and make connections to
their
>
>own experiences.
>--
>
>Cheers people
>Stephen Loosley
>Victoria, Australia
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---------
Debra Edwards
School of Education Ph (03) 54
447-483
La Trobe University, Bendigo Fax (03)54
447-777
P.O. Box 199, Bendigo, Victoria Mobile 0414
077 796
Australia, 3552
d.edwards at latrobe.edu.au
www.latrobe.edu.au
President Central Victorian Local Council,
Australian Literacy Educators Association.
www.alea.edu.au/vic
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