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Left: utilising Kodaly/Orff methodology with a giant music staff on the ground ready for lots of physical learning. Right: educating the youths on the finer things in the music world.

Observation Three

I have finally been placed at a practicum school, and despite having to leave my house before the sun rises to get there, I couldn’t be more thrilled!

The school I have been allocated utilises resources and methodology far different to what I experienced in my own schooling, the most notable difference being the extensive use of ICT.

I spoke with my supervising teacher regarding this observation and she explained that since 2013, the school has moved to a structure where all students use a personal iPad. Teachers were instructed to utilise the technology as often as possible where appropriate, rather than use paper methods .

In the music classes I observe, students utilise the iPad to write and store general notes and an online learning environment is used to distribute worksheets and other documents. An established system of closing the iPad cover, or “screens down” (similar to “pens down”) was implemented to provide a visual cue to the teacher when students had finished copying notes or other activities.

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This ICT structure was only semi-successful in the general teaching environment in stages 4 and 5.

For example, my supervising teacher was able to realise the BOSTES National Professional Standard for Teachers 1.6.1 of ‘demonstrat[ing] broad knowledge and understanding of legislative requirements and teaching strategies that support participation and learning of students with disability’ through the use of technology. While the class played guitars in one particular lesson, a student with very limited movement in one of his hands due to a physical impairment was able to join in and attain the same learning objectives as the rest of the class by ‘playing’ the chords in Garageband, an application on his iPad.

The reading, ‘Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge’ supports that my supervising teacher demonstrated “knowledge of teaching strategies that incorporate appropriate conceptual representations in order to address learner difficulties” (pg 1027) and was therefore using ICT thoughtfully and appropriately.

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At times however, I felt the class used technology just for the sake of using technology. This was exemplified when the class used their iPads to write down notes where a traditional classroom might have utilised pen and paper. The practice of using the iPads took significantly longer and ‘wasted’ a great deal of potential teaching time. Some other disadvantages I noted included:

Students who had forgotten their iPad were required to retype the lesson in their personal device when they get home rather write on a spare piece of paper and stick it in their book when they got home as they might have been able to with the pen and paper method.

Students took significantly longer to open their iPads and ‘find’ the correct file in which to continue their work, in contrast to the time it would have taken them to open a book to the next page.

Students were frequently caught texting, playing games, or engaging in other ‘off-task’ behaviour that might have been avoided if the tool to partake in such activities hadn’t been right in front of them.

It was these observations that provoked me to consider that the BOSTES National Professional Standard for Teachers 3.4.1 of ‘demonstrat[ing] knowledge of a range of resources, including ICT, that engage students in their learning’, wasn’t being achieved to its full potential here, given that the resource of ICT was providing the means for students to be un-engaged in their learning.

The abundance of ‘wasted time’, the lack of ‘meaningful engagement’, and the ‘limited student autonomy’ suggests that this is not an example of a well-managed classroom (ref Lecture Week 9, slide 9-10).

I look forward to observing stage 6 lessons where students independently choose to study music and how this affects the management of the classroom.

For your reference, I found this article interesting on unique and creative ways to use iPads in the classroom.

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Observation Two

As I am one of the many students still yet to secure a practicum placement, I have observed another video of a teacher’s lesson. This video is of a Biology classroom at Freeman Catholic College run by Oriana Milano.

In the video, the Stage 6 class undertook a Biology practical lesson in which they estimated the size of red blood cells.

Although I feel unqualified to make analytical observations due to inexperience with the stage 6 syllabus as all my units thus far have focused on the stage 4-5 syllabus, I was impressed by the presentation of material.

Milano teaches with a strong focus on HSC preparation, displaying superior knowledge of the HSC syllabus and expectations. As she taught, she made students overtly aware of the syllabus objectives and outcomes and taught in alignment with them. If I imagined myself as a student in her classroom, I expect I would feel confident that I would learn everything I needed to know to excel in the final HSC examination.

Milano more than adequately demonstrated the ability to ‘design and implement learning and teaching programs using knowledge of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements’ as dictated by 2.3.2 of the BOSTES National Professional Standards for Teachers. Her structure provoked me to consider how I could utilise a similar method in my own pedagogies of Music and Drama.

In music, for example, when directing students in practical activity to achieve objectives, such as improvising in a group setting, I could instruct students to recount that activity under the heading of the objective, for later reference.

I believe this method would also have the effect of encouraging students to have responsibility for their own learning and engaging them with the HSC syllabus very early in stage 6.

I was interested in Milano’s use of the ‘think-pair-share’ strategy, as this was the first ‘real life’ example I had observed in a classroom setting. From our lectures I knew ‘think-pair-share’ to be “in relation to a posed problem or question, students consider it alone for a couple of minutes, then discuss in pairs for a couple of minutes, then pairs have the opportunity to share their thoughts with the whole class” (ref Lecture Week 6, slide 12).

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The reading ‘Group Structures - Classroom Management: Creating Positive Learning Environments’, notes how the ‘Think-pair-share’ cooperative-learning model includes skills such as “communication, leadership, trust and conflict resolution” (pg 46). This is demonstrated in the video example as Milano has students identify a hypothesis, brainstorm known methods of solving the problem, and in pairs identifying a solution through the process of group problem solving the size of a red blood cell (pg 46).

Milano demonstrated “clear expectations about the procedures to be followed during the cooperative-learning activity … with careful monitoring required to ensure students remain focused on the task” (pg 43) and I hope when I begin teaching that my cooperate learning activities can emulate this example.

This collaborative learning strategy proved to be an appropriate and successful choice for this learning outcome, especially given the practical nature of the activity. I look forward to observing other collaborative learning strategies in the classroom such as ‘jigsaw’, ’co-op co-op’ as well as ‘the Johnson model’ and discovering first hand how social skills can be taught in alignment with pedagogy.

Hopefully I'll be better at explaining music, than this kid is at explaining maths!

#music #maths #kid snippets #education #teaching

Observation One

As I am yet to secure a placement, I have observed a video of Chris Betcher teaching Year 6 at PLC Sydney. The video was ten minutes, with time lapses of unknown lengths occurring at intervals.

The lesson focused on teaching students how to set up a blog. Betcher was realising the BOSTES National Professional Standard for Teachers 2.6.1, of ‘implement[ing] teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students’. He did this by utilising a Smartboard at the front of the classroom to demonstrate each step of the task, giving clear instructions, while the students followed the steps on a laptop. In this way, Betcher effectively integrated ICT into his classroom, “teaching with technology not teaching about technology” (ref Lecture Week 3, slide 22).

It is unclear whether Betcher takes this class on a regular basis, or if he is a guest teacher taking the class simply to assist the set up of these blogs. In any case, I was struck by one instance where he efficiently regained the focus of the students, by instructing them to lower their screens halfway down. I observed that this action limited the students visual distraction of their own laptops and was successful in minimising the chatter at that time.

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One of the reasons I assumed that Betcher might not be the regular teacher of this class, was that he appeared not to know the students names, calling them ‘Sweetie’ instead. I feel this limited his ability to moderate questions and receive answers. As he was not able to call on students individually, he therefore relied heavily on a chorus response, which the ‘Beginning Teaching and Beyond’ reading defines as “not a call out, rather it is a means of involving all students in a union response to a knowledge type question” (pg 147).

Betcher used the chorus response in a variety of ways, including to check the class had understood part of the instruction, or were up to date with the task, using phrases such as, "We haven’t seen each other since then, have we?" "Does that make sense?" "So you type in here, blogs.lotus.dot.me. What is it?”

The reading ‘Beginning Teaching and Beyond’ advises that a teacher should “decide on the procedure for responding… you will want to be sure of your expectations” (pg 146) and that “it is important that you make your expectations clear to the students. Otherwise, control problems will develop” (pg 147). I felt at times the students’ understanding of Betchers expectations were unclear, evident through the sudden switch to a direct form of questioning from previously accepted spontaneous input. The callout behaviour which had been tolerated all lesson then resulted in a firm stare in one direction of the classroom which I feel was inconsistent with the rest of his classroom expectations up until this point.

I observed that his reliance on the chorus response, as well as the nature of the task, generated a noisy, chatter-filled lesson, in which I wasn’t sure the students were on task or following at the same pace as Betcher. At one point he says to a student, “You’re ten steps ahead…”. As a result, I felt control problems did develop as the reading suggested they would. At one time an adult voice (the regular teacher perhaps?) insisted the students put their laptops at, “half screens, you know the way” when the chatter did not die down in an appropriate amount of time.

I am keen to get into a real classroom to see other teachers’ approaches to controlling their students’ behaviour!

#teacher #high school #prac student #pre-service teacher #observations #ICT

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