Epsy302 Collective Notes - Teaching Models and Strategies

Collective EPSY302 Course Notes
Online Collaboration Team

for VUW Diploma of Education
October 17, 2010

1
Copyright
c 2010, Blair M. Smith
Please copy, modify and redistribute under the terms of the GNU Free Document
Licence (GPL FDL) here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-standalone.html
Contents
Introduction 7
1 Module 1—Planning and Evidence 8

Module 1-2: Graduating Teacher Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Module 1-3: Becoming and Effective Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Module 1-4,5: Lesson Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Comments on “Beginning teaching and beyond” . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Short Glossary of Lesson Planning Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Module 1-6: Advance Organizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Module 1-7: Guide to Lesson Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Module 1-8: Writing Learning Intentions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Module 1-9,10: Guide to Lesson Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Module 1-10: Evidence About Student Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Task 8—Then And Now Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Assessment and Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Module 1-11: Developing a Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Module 1-12: Interpreting Assessment Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Module 1-13: Evidence About My Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Task 11, Reflective Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Task 12, Reflective Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2
CONTENTS 3
Task 13, Listening Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Reading—“Critical Friends” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Reading—“Reflective teaching and learning” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Summary of Lesson Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
A Check-list for Lesson Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2 Module 2—Models of Teaching 41

Module 2-2—How Do We Learn? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Module 2-3—Group Interaction Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Reading “Using small group work as a teaching strategy” . . . . . . . 43
Solving small group-work problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Module 2-4—Co-operative Learning Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Reading—Learning Together and Establishing Effective Teams . . . . 49
Reading “Important Features of Cooperative Learning” . . . . . . . . 52
Module 2-5—Some BUTs About Co-operative Learning . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Module 2-6—The Direct Instruction Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Task 20, Recollections of Direct Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Module 2-7—The Lecture-Discussion Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Module 2-8—The Guided Discovery Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3 Module 3—Classroom Management 58

Module 3-1—Behaviour Management Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Module 3-4—Relationship Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Module 3-5—Behaviour Management Practicalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Theme 1: Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Theme 2: Safe Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Module 3-10—Intervention, Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Theme 3: Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
CONTENTS 4
4 Module 4—Inquiry Learning and Critical Thinking 63

Inquiry Learning and the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Catering for All Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
How to Implement Inquiry Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Inquiry Lesson Planning Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
How to Get Students Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Inquiry and Critical Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
How to Teach Critical Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Planning Problem-Based Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Examples of PBL for Improving Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Module 4-9—Strategies for Critical Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Six Thinking Hats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Thinking Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Sixteen Habits of Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Three Story Intellect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Comments on the Thinking Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5 Module 5—Differentiated Learning and the Digital Age 88

Module 5-1—Introduction to Differentiated Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Module 5-2—What is Differentiated Learning? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Highlights from “Elements of Differentiation” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
How to Plan for Differentiated Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Module 5-2b, Special Needs Students in NZ Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Module 5-3, Principles of Differentiated Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Module 5-4, Respect and Challenge for All Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Module 5-5, Creating Learning Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
How to Create Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
CONTENTS 5
Module 5-6, Flexibility in Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Module 5-7, Ongoing formative assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Module 5-8, Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age . . . . . . . . . . . 111
The Changing Face of Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Digital Technology Usage Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
The New Media and Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Module 5-10, Connectivism: a Learning Theory for the Digital Age . . . . 116
Module 5-11, What does Digital Learning Look Like? . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Review of Module 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6 Extra Discussion and Research 127

The SOLO Taxonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
The Hidden Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Dumbing Us Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Teaching as a Subversive Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Freedom to Learn—Sudbury Valley School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
A New Zealand Model of Sudbury Without the Valley . . . . . . . . . 136
Other Critiques of Modern Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
What Are the Best Constraints? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Reflection Journal 142

Reflections on Each Week of Epsy302 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Reflection on Different Lesson Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Reflection on Teaching Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Reflections on TE Week 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Reflections on Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
How to Get Students to Work Things Out? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Handling the Disruptive Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
CONTENTS 6
A Radical Idea for Doing Fun, Awesome Science or Mathematics

Classes all Year Round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Creating Resources for Fun, Awesome Science or Mathematics Classes 150
Cool Group Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Cooperative Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
References 153
Introduction
These are free collaborative collective course notes for the 2010 online students
enrolled in the VUW Epsy-302 course. Please copy and redistribute as you please,
respecting the GPL-FDL copyright.
We have included a lot of quotes from the online discussion forums, which has
added to the length of this book somewhat. The suggestion is to not read this book
serially, but to instead scan the topics and delve into the quoted paragraphs as your
interest guides you—that way the book will hopefully not seem too daunting to
read. Also, these course notes are not intended as substitutes for the course Module
notes, textbook and readings. The idea is that this book will serve as a reference
and memory jog for all of our future work in education, and not so much as an exam
preparation guide for the course.
7
1. Module 1—Planning and
Evidence
After the online introductions the first topic was to review the Graduating Teacher
Standards published by the NZTC.
Module 1-2: Graduating Teacher Standards

The standards are reproduce here. Below each you could jot down your thoughts
on which standards you need work on developing and which skills you already have.
Since this is a personal reflection I have kept comments invisible for this PDF version
of the course notes.
• Professional Knowledge
1. Standard One: Graduating Teachers know what to teach
(a) have content knowledge appropriate to the learners and learning ar-
eas of their programme
(b) have pedagogical content knowledge appropriate to the learners and
learning areas of their programme
(c) have knowledge of the relevant curriculum documents of Aotearoa
New Zealand
(d) have content and pedagogical content knowledge for supporting En-
glish as an Additional Language (EAL) learners to succeed in the
curriculum.
2. Standard Two: Graduating Teachers know about learners and how they
learn
(a) have knowledge of a range of relevant theories and research about
pedagogy, human development and learning
8
Module 1—Planning and Evidence 9
(b) have knowledge of a range of relevant theories, principles and pur-

poses of assessment and evaluation
(c) know how to develop metacognitive strategies of diverse learners
(d) know how to select curriculum content appropriate to the learners
and the learning context.
3. Standard Three: Graduating Teachers understand how contextual factors
influence teaching and learning
(a) have an understanding of the complex influences that personal, social,
and cultural factors may have on teachers and learners
(b) have knowledge of tikanga and te reo Māori to work effectively within
the bicultural contexts of Aotearoa New Zealand
(c) have an understanding of education within the bicultural, multicul-
tural, social, political, economic and historical contexts of Aotearoa
New Zealand.
• Professional Practice
1. Standard Four: Graduating Teachers use professional knowledge to plan

for a safe, high quality teaching and learning environment
(a) draw upon content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge
when planning, teaching and evaluating
(b) use and sequence a range of learning experiences to influence and
promote learner achievement
(c) demonstrate high expectations of all learners, focus on learning and
recognise and value diversity
(d) demonstrate proficiency in oral and written language (Māori and/or
English), in numeracy and in ICT relevant to their professional role
(e) use te reo Māori me ngā tikanga-a-iwi appropriately in their practice
(f) demonstrate commitment to and strategies for promoting and nur-
turing the physical and emotional safety of learners.
2. Standard Five: Graduating Teachers use evidence to promote learning
(a) systematically and critically engage with evidence to reflect on and
refine their practice
(b) gather, analyse and use assessment information to improve learning
and inform planning
(c) know how to communicate assessment information appropriately to
learners, their parents/caregivers and staff.
• Professional Values & Relationships

1. Standard Six: Graduating Teachers develop positive relationships with

learners and the members of learning communities
(a) recognise how differing values and beliefs may impact on learners and
their learning
(b) have the knowledge and dispositions to work effectively with col-
leagues, parents/caregivers, families/whānau and communities
(c) build effective relationships with their learners
(d) promote a learning culture which engages diverse learners effectively
(e) demonstrate respect for te reo Māori me ngā tikanga-a-iwi in their
practice.
2. Standard Seven: Graduating Teachers are committed members of the
profession
(a) uphold the New Zealand Teachers Council Code of Ethics/Ngā Tikanga
Matatika
(b) have knowledge and understanding of the ethical, professional and
legal responsibilities of teachers
(c) work co-operatively with those who share responsibility for the learn-
ing and well-being of learners
(d) are able to articulate and justify an emerging personal, professional
philosophy of teaching and learning.
Module 1-3: Becoming and Effective Teacher

The first question posed to us for this module is, “So what does an effective teacher
look like? Think back to your own teachers—what made them effective or not?”
Below is one colleague’s answer,
“An effective teacher will in general be organized, enthusiastic, full

of innovative ideas, very busy at assessing student progress and assess-
ing evidence of teaching and learning progress, and they will therefore
probably look a bit exhausted most of the time, but are likely to have a
permanent smile. Taking the first part of the question literally, an ef-
fective teacher might be expected to display the sort of elated exhaustion
akin to the type of tiredness that follows pleasurable but strenuous phys-
ical activity. More figuratively, an effective teacher is likely to attract
students to the task of learning without making it seem like a big effort,
and is likely to have a busy and fun classroom with plenty of cultured
talk, dialogue, cooperation, and humour.
“I have experienced a few effective teachers. At their best moments

they took the class on intellectual journeys beyond the stale curriculum
topics, exercising our minds in creative ways, and giving us tasks and
activities that involved plenty of good stimulating conversation, friendly
debate, elements of surprise, and humour. Other teachers were highly
effective at educating students by simply providing very structured yet
challenging lessons, with little need for demonstrating personal charisma.
Some common threads with all effective teachers I have known include:
(1) sound subject and pedagogical content knowledge, (2) deep respect
from students for the teacher, (3) a sense of seriousness conveyed by the
teacher about the task of learning while mixed with good humour. Many
practical things follow from the seriousness and good humour associated
with class lessons from such teachers, such as: a good level of organi-
zation, thus the teachers would not waste our time; and respect for the
playfulness and intellectual curiosity of students, leading naturally to few
disruptions because all students, good and bad alike, were focused on the
lesson.”
The next question from the module relates to the following breakdown of teaching
methods, Fig.1.1.
Learning theories
and teaching models
Behavioural Cognitive Humanist

Views Views Views
Modification Making sense Focus on
rewards/punishment of world child’s needs
(Watson, Skinner) (Piaget, Bruner, (Montessori,
Vygotsky) Rogers, Maslow)
Direct Lecture Inquiry Discovery Group Problem

Instruction Discussion Learning Learning Interaction based
(Gagne) (Ausebel) (Piaget, (Bruner) (Vygotsky, Learning
Bruner) Bruner) (Various)
Figure 1.1: Teaching models studied in Epsy-302 and their relationship to the
learning theories studied in Epsy-301.
The question is, “can you identify which theories and models are more teacher-
centred and which are more learner-centred?”. Below is one possible answer.
“The Behaviourist Views are the most teacher-centric because they

model students as passive recipients of instructions and reinforcement
learning (the ‘black box’ model of human mind). Of these the Direct
Instruction format is probably the more student-centred since it focuses
on individual students rather than a class as a whole. For example,
a tenant of direct instruction strategy is to ensure student mastery in
a step-by-step process providing specific corrections for student errors
and gradually moving towards independent student work. The Cogni-
tive Views are the most student-centric because they regard the student
as an active recipient of external input which they internally turn into
knowledge, the teacher is reasonably passive and provides a stimulating
environment but is not necessarily and active instructor. The Humanist
Views try to achieve the best of both worlds, meaning they attempt to
allow for both active students and active teachers. This is for example
a feature of group interaction models proposed by Vygotsky and others
from the social constructivist school of education philosophy.”
By this stage of the course we have all had the idea drummed into our heads that
becoming a good teacher is a complex process and cannot be taken lightly. Moreover,
we know with some certainty that there is no end to improvement in our teaching
abilities, since a perfect teacher would presumably be sufficient for the whole world
by logical deduction, and hence if one existed there would be only one! So a good
teacher will always be looking for ways to improve their professional practice.
Module 1.3 finally asks us to ponder these three questions (some template per-
sonal answers are given in italics).
1. What sort of teacher do you (we) want to be?

A brilliantly successful teacher! Three or four immediate definitions of teaching
success come to mind: (a) give all students enough working skill and knowledge
to usefully apply their new-found knowledge to the investigation and solution
of real world problems, (b) enthuse all students sufficiently so that even the
least motivated students end up wanting to take the subject taught at higher
scholarly levels, (c) provide a spiritual foundation for all students so that they
leave the class with a more assured view of themselves as valuable human beings
and gain a respect and deeper understanding for and of other human beings
who may be either more able or less able than themselves. In other words, to
become better citizens of the world. A fourth element of success would be to
(d) improve upon these successes as much as possible every minute of every
day (or at least every hour if we think minute-by-minute improvement is a tad
unrealistic).
2. How will you (we) be that teacher?

First, we will need to stay abreast of the trends in economic, environmental
and social conditions, so that the knowledge constructed by students in our
classes is relevant and can be readily used to add value to society. Then we
will need to make and deliver lessons that do indeed teach students such skills
and which further motivate them to continue to build on those skills by them-
selves in the future. We may need to often teach them first why the lesson is
likely to be relevant to their lives if this is not obvious. Using appropriate and
meaningful group interaction activities will be vital to foster an ever improv-
ing culture of education the classroom, because a person best improves their
sense of citizenship and societal responsibility by putting it to practical test.
Gold is tested by fire!1 The idea of ‘meaningful group interaction’ here is that
students should have ample opportunities to debate ideas, brainstorm, question
and teach each other and generally find out what it takes to understand the
world from another persons point of view. To ensure ongoing improvement in
all the elements defining success in teaching some sort of self-assessment needs
to be developed to monitor both student and teacher progress.
3. How will you know if you are that teacher?

Student and colleague feedback is one way. Collecting evidence of best practice
is another, that is, monitoring the comparative success of different teaching
strategies and lesson plans that have the same learning goals.
Module 1-4,5: Lesson Planning

Before even looking at lesson plans, let’s consider some meta-planning aims. Think
of what you would like your lesson plans to include, and put yourself in the students
seat—a lesson that appeals to you has some chance of appealing to others, maybe.
• Begin a lesson with a stimulating, exciting, engaging short activity, plan for
about 5 to 10 minutes. his could be an extension of a previous lesson that
needs review.
• Spend 5 minutes explaining the bigger picture of the unit objectives and this
particular lesson’s objectives. This is not a lecture. If time permits this can
1
At least it was in the old days before mass spectrometry and the like.
even be a discussion, the teacher should ask if any students have relevant
questions, in case the objectives are not clear.
• Spend another 5 minutes introducing and explaining the main activity, or
spend 20 to 20 minutes if a mini-lecture is required.
• The students are then set to task on the main activity. We will discuss varieties
of activity later, they can be hugely varied (group or individual, indoors or
outdoors, thinking or action,. . . ).
• Spend this time visiting each student, giving them a chance to ask questions
and seek help. Encourage questioning and support and cooperation without
offering unsolicited help.
• Stop the activity 5 to 10 minutes before the period is due to finish. If students
have not completed the task then tell them either it does not matter or that
they will continue next period (as you see fit).
• Allowing time to tidy up, summarize the lesson and progress.
With this meta-template for a secondary school lesson plan we find we have intro-
duced some key teaching guidelines and arrived at a structure for a lesson that can
be applied to any subject, any school, and can cover multiple lessons that span more
than one day. The only constraint is that the single lesson period is 50 minutes long.
Let’s now review the module objectives for this unit.
• To use, and demonstrate understanding of, planning terminology.

• To identify and apply important considerations of planning for teaching.
• To complete a lesson plan template.
• To reflect on and evaluate the effectiveness of a planned lesson .
Comments on “Beginning teaching and beyond”
The reading here is (Barry & King, 1998). Below are some key points from this
reading.
Planning is a requirement. Not only is lesson planning helpful to improve teach-

ing and learning, it is, in some countries, a mandatory requirement and must be
documented.
All lesson planning involves five key questions. These are,
1. What is the background for the proposed learning experience? (Background.)

2. What should students learn? (Learning objectives or LO’s)
3. What knowledge, skills, concepts have to be covered and in what order to
achieve these goals? (Subject matter.)
4. What experiences will aid students acquire these? (Learning experiences or
LE’s.)
5. How will we know what and how well the students have learned the objectives?
(Evaluation.)
Meeting student needs is crucial. Many teachers think that planning a lesson
to match the age, abilities, needs and interests of students is the most important
factor in lesson planning. A technical aspect of this is to ensure the learning is near
the zone of proximal development for each student individually. That is not easy to
accomplish, and we may not meet this teaching goal every lesson. You didn’t expect
to be paid to teach without some hard effort did you?
Learning objectives—the centre of the lesson. Learning objectives define

the focus of the lesson, everything else about a lesson plan revolves around these ob-
jectives and the students needs. Some terminology is adopted: Outcomes=broadest
possible levels of results of education yet still clearly defined form of acquired signif-
icant skill or understanding or value appreciation; Aims=long term objectives (e.g.,
foster social responsibility); Goals=medium-term objectives, derived from aims (e.g.,
understanding causes of conflict between people); Learning objective=short term ob-
jectives, derived from goals (e.g., given such-and-such a scenario, identify the causes
of conflict and reason how you might resolve them). The short-term learning objec-
tives can further be broken down into General LO’s=for a unit of work , Specific
LO’s=for a single discrete task, and even finer Behavioural LO’s=precise quality
of attitude and quantitative performance. The chapter reading gives examples on
pages 49, 50.
Categories of learning objectives. These are given as; Cognitive=intellectual

objectives such as comprehension, analysis, evaluation skill and the like; Psycho-
motor=physical motor skills such as reflex, perception and observation, non-verbal
communication and the like; Affective=listening, appreciating values, organization,
acting on belief, and the like.
Why is cognitive learning the most common in schools? I believe the an-
swer is that cognitive attributes are the easier to instil into students than affective
learning objectives, coupled with the fact that psycho-motor skills are typically ac-
quired routinely in day to day life, and so the latter do not need to be high focuses of
classroom teaching activity. I also believe that this is a reflection of the poor state of
our school system. It seems desirable to me that all three classes of learning objec-
tive are equally important for a healthy society and well-balance individual students.
It takes more effort and is harder to evaluate the affective learning objectives.
Writing learning objectives. Prefaced by a stem such as, “On completing this
lesson the student will be able to. . . ” and then it is helpful to start each specific
learning objective statement with a verb: “Solve simple quadratic equations.” These
verbs should be things that are easy to observe or evaluate. Thus, don’t write,
“Enjoy simple quadratic equation” as a learning objective! Examples of useful stock
verbs for each of the LO classes (cognitive, psycho-motor and affective) are given by
Barry in his chapter 3, Panel 3.1, on page 56.
Note also that often the goal of all education is some sort of deep understanding,
not merely skill or knowledge or fact recall. But in a learning objective statement
we would hardly ever use the verb understand because it is very difficult to test
and evaluate a student’s deep understanding, even though that is our desire. So in-
stead, an ‘understanding’ goal (for a biology lesson) might be phrased as a learning
objective in a clearly measurable form such as, “Illustrate the main steps in photo-
synthesis”. We trust that if before the lesson the student was unable to demonstrate
this objective and after the lesson they can, then some increase in deep understand-
ing has probably occurred. Of course, any given student may be able to fake a deep
understanding by simply using a photographic memory type of skill to reproduce a
diagram of photosynthesis they have seen before. It is up to the teacher to then use
multiple evaluation methods to ensure that deep understanding has indeed likely
occurred. We will get to the topic of assessment and evaluation later in these course
notes.
Clear objectives are not just restatements of activities. The statement,

“Watch the documentary film Sicko! ” is not a learning objective. A reasonable
learning objective would be, “List at least 8 out of 12 of the examples of inefficiencies
in the US health system that are documented in the film Sicko! ”.
Subject matter—relevant, accurate, concrete-to-abstract, manageable.

relevance refers to choosing subject matter that builds on prior understanding. Con-
crete examples are required when introducing new concepts to younger children, and
sometimes even for adults, before introducing generalizations and abstractions. Ex-
pert educationalists also recommend a three step process: first concrete cases—then
imagery—and finally abstraction. Choosing manageable subject matter can be ac-
complished by breaking down complex subjects into smaller parts when possible, or
if this is not possible then a number of holistic learning methods could be explored.
Given that we want to ideally facilitate learning a successful lesson would,
• Focus on an objective ‘X’ that before the lesson students cannot accomplish
(and the teacher knows this).
• Involve topics and activities of interest and relevance to students, ideally in
an enjoyable interactive setting (and the teacher is satisfied this is so).
• After the lesson the students can accomplish X (and the teacher can prove
this).
The first and last elements of success here ensure that we have done a professional
job. Evaluation and assessment are implicit because without them we cannot tell
if any of these hallmarks of success have been achieved (these are the teacher’s
achievement goals!). Barry adds that the subject matter needs to be appropriately
sequenced, since this minimises confusion for the students, but in the end if the
above objectives are satisfied then the teacher has acquitted themselves and served
he students adequately.
We could add that even if students learn something useful but not the ‘X’ that
was intended the lesson could still be counted as a success. In such cases a good
journal note of what transpired would be useful.
Evaluation—the essential wrap. This is the final topic addressed in this read-
ing. Barry goes over the three main forms of evaluation and rovides examples of
how to perform each type. These are,
1. Diagnostic—Pre-tests. Performance record review.

2. Formative—Oservation. Marking during supervision. Self-evaluation. Q&A
sessions. Student presentations.
3. Summative—Assignments. Tests. Work protfolios. Interview. Demostra-
tions.
This is just a short list.

Modelling lesson planning. For student teachers the model proposed by Barry
seems like a sensible procedure to adopt, at least until some expertise can be claimed
to plan lessons in a faster more freestyle way. The model that novice teachers are
encouraged to follow centres around the subject matter concepts or skills (what you
desire the students to master).
Step 1. Background (identify known subject matter)
Step 2. Objectives (identify new subject matter)
Step 3. Learning experiences (how to facilitate learning of subject matter)
Step 4. Evaluation (check mastery of subject matter)
That concludes the notes on the reading Barry and King (1998).
Short Glossary of Lesson Planning Terms
This is available in MP3 audio format for easier memorization on the Epsy-302
TWiki page Epsy302AudioFiles.
Module 1-6: Advance Organizers

We repeat the Module notes here in brief for review. An advance organizer is an
overview of a lesson that can, and should, be shared with students so they get a
clear idea of where we are taking them. It can be given as a handout that is then
read aloud or just verbally. The advanced organizer should include at a minimum
the following point.
• The Topic.
• The Learning intention
• Links to previous learning
• Why are we studying this?
• Big ideas—the main ideas.
• Key vocabulary
• Tasks—list of required tasks.
• Success Criteria
Post Organisers. These are similar to advance organisers but occur after the
learning experience.
The reflection task for this Module is written up on page 143 of the Journal
section of these notes.
Module 1-7: Guide to Lesson Planning

This Module section is recorded on the TWiki audio file for ease of review.
We will cover aspects of lesson planning in more detail the following sections.
The basics are stated here in brief. The questions posed for each planning stage
could be check boxes that you tick off to ensure you have at least attempted to
write a clear and useful lesson plan.
Basics of lesson planning. Formulate three inquiries: Focus inquiry, Teaching

inquiry, and Learning inquiry. These are to be woven into the lesson plan. Use
a lesson template that you are comfortable with and can easily check and refer to
during class. Then in your plan include detail on,
• The learning objective—outcome (e.g., from a curriculum)—statements of the

performance expected of students, “By the end of this lesson the students
should be able to. . . ”.
• Background—ask yourself, and answer: “what, of relevance, do students al-

ready know?”
• The time allotted in total.
• Specific topic: “what is the subject matter?”.
• Learning intention: “what should the students ideally learn?” (see Module
1-8 below), could be stated as, “During this lesson we will. . . ”.
• Key words and concepts: more on the subject matter.
• Preparation steps and resources needed: “how will I avoid being unprepared?”.
• Breakdown by time and sequence of student activities and teacher strategy:

“what needs to be covered and in what order?”.
• Teaching strategies: “what experience will help students learn this subject
matter?”
• Assessment method: “How will I know what the tudents have learned?” (see
Module 1-9,10 below).
• Evaluation section: fields to be fill in (initially blank, fill in after the lesson).
Sample lesson plans from colleagues are contributed later on in these course notes.
A Warning: There is some conflict in the literature and various courses about what
Learning Outcomes and Learning Intentions are and how they differ. For example,
in Epol344 (science curriculum studies) the Learning Outcomes are synonymous
with the above “Learning Objectives’, while the Epol344 Learning Intentions are
synonymous with the above “Advance Organizers’. So just beware of the potential
confusions in use of terminology!
Module 1-8: Writing Learning Intentions

This Module section is recorded in more detail on the TWiki audio file for ease of
review.
Basics of writing learning intentions. Stick to a domain: Cogitative, or Psy-

chomotor, or Affective. Use verbs, but make sure they are easy to assess and align
with the type of activity. Good verbs: demonstrate, calculate, manipulate, arrange,
list, decide,. . . . Whereas bad verbs would be like: enjoy, understand, grasp, cogitate,
....
Basics of writing success criteria. Must match with the learning intention.
Answers the questions, “How will the students show me that they have mastered
the learning intention?” or “How will I know what the tudents have learned?”. So
the success criteria must be demonstrable, but could be qualitative or quantitative.
Module 1-9,10: Using Evidence
Evidence About Student Learning
The web links for the Teaching as inquiry background information are as follows,
• The Diagram and discussion: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/. . . /Inquiry/-

Teaching-as-inquiry
• Further discussion: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/. . . /Teaching-as-Inquiry
• Alternate suggested inquiry cycle for Te Reo: http://tereomaori.tki.org.nz/-
. . . /A-suggested-teaching-as-inquiry-cycle
The first focus task for this module was to give one example of a type of evidence
gathering method for each of the three types of teaching & learning inquiries recom-
mended by the NZC. Below, in name order, are some contributed samples. There
were many other excelllent sample answers posted to the online Discussion-Board,
but I was too lazy to copy them all here.
Blair’s contribution.
“One type of evidence gathering for each. . . but the rationale for each
depends upon previous evidence!”
Focusing Inquiry “Students’ answers to an apposite quiz. Quiz ques-
tions would need to be such that the answers are informative, even
if incorrect. For a large unit to get a good idea quickly of stu-
dent baseline we might need to split the class into groups and give
each group a different subset of questions. If time permits, a longer
survey could be conducted and turned into a quizz game for fun.
Questions could be designed based on past observations of student
records.
Teaching Inquiry “First check if my journal records a successful pre-
vious lesson on the same topic/unit. Revise it if the journal noted
a need for improvement. If no close match is found then I would
consult the Google oracle or ask a colleague for a starter guide on
the best evidence strategies.
Learning Inquiry “One way is: supposing lesson activities involve ac-
tive problem solving tasks. Then during these I could walk around
the class, methodically checking on every single student and mak-
ing discrete notes on how well they are doing and whether or not
they meet the success criteria, if not then this becomes a focus for
improvement. Even if the lesson is uniformly successful for all stu-
dents, this would also be noted in my journal so that maybe next
time the lesson could be extended to provide more challenge.”
Contributed by Diana,
“I have chosen Level four to five (around year 9, 10 students)
Focusing Inquiry “I will ascertain general feedback from students to

check their existing science knowledge and discuss conducting a
simple science experiment ie. a question, hypothesis, experiment,
results, conclusion. My example could be ‘How do spiders spin
webs?’ For this I need to plan the appropriate resources, so I will
get this underway. I will look at the expected learning outcomes
and expectations of the students around asking questions about this
topic, finding evidence and developing simple expectations and this
would take into account key competencies of thinking, relating to
others and participating and contributing.
Teaching Inquiry “To continue the planning I have to remember how
much I know about spiders in the first place and whether I need
to do more research, get help from colleagues for existing resources
(and find the spiders) and ensure that there is creative insight and a
respect for evidence about this topic and not just a simple question
and answer session. Since sociocultural contexts relate to all fields
of scientific research, I could refer to Entomologists and I could
decide to present some existing thinking or research.
“I will try and ensure (level appropriate) that there is a development
of scientific knowledge, understandings and explanations from this
task. I may introduce more about why the spiders spin webs, and
not just how they spin (and what) to provoke more discussion and
a range of LO’s, looking at types and anatomy of spiders in general,
their prey, their natural habitats, dangerous ones etc. To extend the
learning we could talk about the actual silk and factors or functions
of spinning. I could add some interesting did you know? facts for
extra interest and also have a capture display when the class arrives
for the lesson, or a short quiz. We can then carry out a simple
habitat experiment.
Learning Inquiry “I can consider my student’s actual self - reflection
of their own learning, whether they learnt to expectations or not (or
exceeded it) and whether they can reflect back to me any new found
respect in terms of our set up in the classroom ie. ’housing’ and
caring for the spider(s) and observations they made, we could record
statements around seeing a spider spin or around any existing webs
(around the school?). The assessment information I would target is
the living world and how my students can develop an understanding
of the diversity of life and other processes and of the impact of
humans on all forms of life.
Inquiry Overview “The learning outcomes and formative assessments
would lead me on to consider how to teach in the future around the
idea of making informed decisions about interactions with their en-
vironment as well as vocations is science such as a Zoologist or
Entomologist. I would include other evidence of benefits for stu-
dents that I have picked up during class discussions and this will
help me assess what should I teach next?, how should I teach it?
and what do I base the decisions on? for a range of science topics
for level four to five or year 9, 10.
“I used the New Zealand Curriculum (Science) for the basis of my
Inquiry and my example originally came from an Internet quiz. I
then researched the topic but not in the depth I would do if it was
a real scenario.”
Contribution from Jinxi.
Focus Inquiry “Task observation. Task set for small groups or in-
dividuals. Setting a task that has no right or wrong response that
allows you to identify their background knowledge. How did they
complete the task and what level of understanding did they demon-
strate in the execution of the task?”
Teaching Inquiry “Exploration and discovery by introducing guided
experimentation at the appropriate level.-Personal student devel-
opment.
“Reflection about new discoveries and possible explanations. Stu-
dent input and teacher input.
Learning Inquiry Task observation. Set similar task at the end of the
lesson. Have they applied new methods and understanding to the
same task. Was the teaching inquiry successful.
“Teaching inquiry evaluation, conclusions and possible modifica-
tions.”
This one from Joneen.
Focus Inquiry “Planning and assessment objectives. For this part

I would establish students existing knowledge and skills. Also I
would need to know about the students backgrounds. To start I
would initiate a discussion or slide-show, movie clip where I had
90% of the control but still encouraged active participation from
the students. I would then move into another activity, group work
if possible, mind maps etc.
Teaching Inquiry “Strategies, research own experience and practice as
well as asking other colleagues. Think about the various strategies
you could use as it is important to tailor activities to suit all learners
in the classroom.
Learning Inquiry “Evaluation, was the lesson successful or not? In
relation to your starting point and the AOs what was the outcome
of your teaching. To find this out a discussion with students may
be valuable, a quick fire quiz, discussing feedback with students or
getting them to fill out an evaluation sheet.”
Leah’s contribution.
Focus Inquiry “Using an activity such as an anticipatory guide, or

true/false statement list would examine students’ current knowl-
edge in a particular area, and if they have misconceptions or mis-
information regarding a specific topic. These may be particularly
useful in Health education where students are likely to have their
own discussions about topics like drugs and sex outside of the class-
room.
Teaching Inquiry “Using the same example, small group work, partic-
ularly with the use of practical models (anatomical, contraceptives,
etc.) would be beneficial in dispelling myths and encouraging stu-
dents to discuss the correct procedure/information/chain of events.
‘Time to practice’ has been a foundation of the social constructivist
theory of learning, and includes the learner playing an active role
in their learning.
Learning Inquiry “As assessment I might again use small groups and
ask each group to put together a concept map or flow chart of the
topic they have been working on. I would ask each student to take
a turn to come up with the next part of the sequence.”
Contributed by Loesje,
Focus Inquiry To establish where my students are at concerning a spe-

cific topic I would lead a class discussion on the subject, that is
based on a specific image or question. A class discussion is a fast
way to see what they know.
Teaching Inquiry As how to decide which strategies are most likely
to help your students learn, you could collect evidence from your
colleagues that have taught that particular group before. (partic-
ularly helpful when you are a first year teacher!).They might be
able to tell you whether that class works well in groups or better
individual and they might tell you whether they benefit from strict
routines or maybe freedom to explore. So the evidence would be
the experience from other teachers.
Learning Inquiry This could be a self-assessment sheet that students
fill in at the end of the teaching. If the questions are not only
focused on assessing themselves and their work, but also on their
experience of the project in more general terms you will be able
to gather evidence about your own teaching strategies. These as-
sessment sheets could be used as teacher enquiry evidence in future
projects.
Contributed by Matthew.
Focusing Inquiry “This is when I decide what is to be taught in

a lesson or unit. It requires consideration and evaluation of my
student’s prior subject knowledge and at the same time a critical
evaluation of my own knowledge of the subject. During the focus
inquiry process the learning intentions need to be identified. The
focus inquiry stage is a planning and assessment component that
summarises prior knowledge, identifies assessment objectives (AO’s)
and learning intentions (LI’s). The focus inquiry is referred to as the
‘baseline’ because it provides teachers with a position from which
to reflect and compare future outcomes.
“Example: Get to know your students, understand what they know
and where they have come from. Understand the context in which
you are teaching. Use activities such as concept maps.”
Teaching Inquiry “To successfully achieve the outcomes determined
in the focus inquiry, teachers need to use evidence from research,
past experience and colleagues/peers to plan their lessons. Planning

is a key component of the teaching inquiry as it outlines statements
of intent.
“Example: Ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of your class-
room and design teaching methods to be inclusive of all students.
Identify what strategies might work best for the particular subject
being taught and also for the set of individuals you are teaching
to.”
Learning Inquiry “This is the process of investigating the success or
failure of your teaching methods and identifying the outcomes of
your teaching strategies in relation to your baseline AO’s and LI’s.
Its an evaluative and reflective process using formative assessment
methods that lead to considerations of how to improve future lessons.
Future lessons are based on this inquiry.
“Example: May involve student feedback related to greater un-
derstanding of subject content. This could be by way of general
discussion, quick quizzes of feedback sheets that can be analysed
for purpose of improving learning strategies.”
Task 8—Then And Now Activity
Believe it or not, this is the eighth task for Module 1. This is a simple anticipatory
guide. We are asked to decide whether the following statements are ‘true’ or ‘false’.
In bracket’s are one colleagues responses before and after completing the module
readings. Below are one colleagues responses. Why the change of opinion? The
comments in italics suggest why.
1. Assessment is mainly to measure students’ progress. [True then False]

Progresss is a huge part of assessment, but perhaps the main reason we assess
is to enhance learning.
2. Not all students can learn what I am teaching. [False then False]
I did not read anything that changed my mind on this.
3. The sole concern of assessment should be to check student learning. [False

then False]
This aligns with the first statement. Checking learning s perhaps the main
concern, but cannot ever be our sole concern, for instance, we also want to
improve motivation, enhance both teaching and learning, and encourage self-
regulation, among many other concerns.
4. Students should be involved in own assessment. [True then True]

Leaving students uninformed about assessments defeats the main purposes of
assessment.
Assessment and Reporting
The 9th task for this module is the reading (Krause, Bochner, Duchesne, & Mc-
Maugh, 2010). Let’s examine the key questions posed in this reading and attempt
to answer them.
• Why do we assess? It helps teachers figure out where students are at and
there enables effective planning for future lessons. It helps students determine
their level of achievement and relative progress, hopefully motivating them
positively. It also helps students obtain some clarity about what is expected of
them. It helps schools design broad programs and cater for particular student
needs. Helps schools and teachers to be accountable for their responsibilities.
The reading gives more detailed reasons.
• What are some of the main effective forms of assessment? We have

already looked at three of these, but let’s add a few more categories:
– Diagnostic assessment or pre-assessment.

– Formative assessment or assessment for learning. Continuous more or
less throughout the learning process.
– Summative assessment or assessment of learning.
– Active assessment or assessment as learning, such as self and peer assess-
ment.
– Dynamic assessment or feed-forward and feedback assessment.
– Authentic assessment or real world assessment.
– Performance assessment or instant assessment.
Some comments: if one wanted to ensure what is being taught is what is being
learned then formative assessment methods would be best. If one wanted to
plan a lesson than a diagnostic assessment methods would come into force,
such as reviewing student records. If one wanted students to gain insight into
their own progress and learn at the same time then active assessment methods
would be best. If one cares about informing parents of their childs progress
relative to peers then summative assessment methods might be best. If one
is in the middle of a lesson and wants to check the student is in their zone of
proximal development (ZPD) in real time then a quick dynamic assessment

method could be used and instantly acted upon.
Also, some of these categories overlap. For example, a lot of dynamic assess-
ment is used for immediate formative purposes. Performance assessment task
are often best if they are also authentic real-world tasks. You get the idea.
• What are some of the main effective tools of assessment? These

include: Tests. Assignments. Homework. Essays. Projects. Portfolios. Ob-
servation. Previous records. Check-lists. Interviews. Questioning. Rating
scales2 . Statistical methods appropriate for the data.
The chapter by Krause et al 2010 gives some good tips for effective questioning,
which are reviewed on the mp3 audio for this module on our TWiki.
• How can we assure assessment is effective? Some basic methods are

suggested:
1. Alignment of the assessment with the learning objective.

2. Sharing the learning objectives with students, including success criteria.
3. Strategic questioning, particularly for diagnostic assessment.
4. Effective feedback, via peer assessment or individual student-teacher dia-
logue.
5. Student self-assessment, to give students some responsibility and enable
them to be active in assessment.
6. Formative use of summative assessment, that is, using summative assess-
ment as feedback to inform future teaching practice, e.g., by long term
comparison of effects of different combinations of teaching strategy and
subject matter.
In addition the following quality assurance factors should be considered and

handled appropriately where applicable to the data:
– Reliability—is the method consistently repeatable?

– Validity—does the assessment method really check what you think it is
supposed to check?
– Bias—is the test fair? Factors include cultural, language, gender, physi-
cal, and other biases.
2
Rating scales can be used for example to ordinally measure qualitative attributes, such as
degree of skill at something fuzzy such as drawing, or perceptions such as happiness, pain, degree
of cooperation, honesty, and so forth.
• Who is the audience for assessment reporting and how does this
impact us? This question is not answered in the reading excerpt. We can
assume the main audience for assessment reports are (a) the students, (b) the
teachers, (c) parents, (d) schools (other teachers and administrators), (e) the
Ministry and government. This list is in rough order of importance. So first
we should write reports with clarity for students. Secondly, consider ourselves
so write reports with improvement in our own teaching in mind. Then parents,
so they clearly see their child’s progress, and then high level interest parties
need to be considered, which may require more summary reports or different
presentation of results.
• How do people use assessment information? Assessment without evalu-

ation is like preparing food without eating it. Here are some assessment data
types and corresponding uses.
– Normative referenced assessment: can be used to rank students from

best to worst. Cannot be used to relate students relative merits. Ad-
vantages: easily standardized. Disadvantages: prone to misinter-
pretation, so for example, ratio comparisons are dangerous; and do not
accurately tell us what children have and have not learned.
– Criterion referenced assessment: check mastery of skills. Advantages:
focuses attention on learning objectives. Disadvantages: can be diffi-
cult to administer.
– Curriculum referenced assessment: used simply to check adequate cover-
age of topics. Advantages: good for diagnostic info., provides positive
feedback, and can be frequent and direct. Disadvantages: costs of
planning, data gathering and interpretation difficulties.
– Self-Progress referenced3 assessment: measures the students progress,
e.g., recording personal bests. Advantages: helps motivation, encour-
ages self-directed and self-regulated learning. Disadvantages: can give
false impression of achievement relative to peers.
In addition there are ways to make evaluation effective:
– Alignment of judgements with learning objectives.

– Consistency compare only like assessments, do not mix and compare
assessment data from different sources.
– Transparency inform students, so their performance can be self-evaluated.
3
The jargon for this type of assessment is ‘ipsative’ from the Latin root ‘of the self’.
• How do people misuse assessment information? One must be clear

about what interpretations of the assessment data are valid and meaningful,
otherwise misuse occurs. For example, using a scored or graded test cannot
be used to determine relative merits4 of students! At best all such tests provide
is information about the rank ordering of the students at the particular time
and context for which the test or assessment was administered. If you want
to compare students on an interval (resp. ratio) scale then you need interval
(resp. ratio) data—for example comparing swimming or running race times is
an interval and also a ratio scale type of measurement.
Module 1-11: Developing a Lesson Plan

The audio readings for this Module section cover the main content. Here we just
note the end result of the activity task, which was to develop a 10 minute lesson
plan. Below, in Tables 1.1 to are some samples.
4
Such as ‘Johnny (with a grade of 8.2) is twice as good as Jack (who had a grade of 4.1) at task
X’. This is an invalid use of grading data, because grades are ordinal scales, not ratio scales.
Table 1.1: Lesson plan: All rotations are combinations of two reflections.
Learning area: Mathematics, geometry and measurement. Year level: 5

Topic: A rotation is a combination of two reflections. Time: 10 min
(Based on NZC AO—Define and use transformations and descibe
the invariant properties of figures and objects under these transformations.)
Ref: http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/˜crobles/hyperbolic/eucl/iref/
Learning intentions: Calculate graphically the two reflections that define a given rotation in 2D.
Practice manually transforming objects. Practice conjecturing by generalizing the concrete results.
Background: Students already know what reflection and rotation involve.
They can perform arbitrary such transformations easily in 2D. The motivations are (i) delight in the
process of discovering an unexpected relation, and (ii) a glimpse of the power of geometric algebra.
Key words and ideas: rotation angle, mirror reflection, transformations in the 2D plane.
Homework: NA.
Preparation and resources needed:
Prepare a worksheet with examples of pairs of reflections.
Template sheet for exercise problems (different variations for each student).
Wooden blocks with different coloured faces for physical demonstration.
Enough drawing pins, string, and protractors for doing manual rotations.
Pre-cut objects made of stiff card for practice.
At least two long meter rulers for group demo and make sure every student has a normal ruler.
Time: Teacher’s strategies:
2 min Intro: Welcome all and thank attentive students.
Advance Organizer: “We are going to figure out a cool relationship between rotations”
and reflections.”
“I am going to give you some objects and you will play around with them to see if you
can come up with a way of making a rotation from just reflections! For any rotation!”
“I will remind you about how to perform reflections if you don’t remember.”
“Are there any questions about that before we begin?”
(Cut short if no immediate sensible questions.)
Teacher action: Students action:
Remind and demo. Remember about rotation and reflection transforms.
0.5 min Primer: Ask them, “what are some similarities and differences between rotations
and reflections?”
Discussion: Consider two or three answers and comment on them.
Brainstorm on whiteboard, tell students you want them to think and not take any notes
at this stage.
2 min Teacher action: Students action:
Jot ideas on whiteboard. Think of similarities and differences between
roations and reflections.
Continued on next page. . .
Table 1.1 . . . continued from previous page

(4 min) If extended discussion ensues let it go on as long as interesting ideas are advanced, and you
can then STOP the lessons here OK!
If more than 2 mins remain go to the next stage, skip the CLOSURE-1.
(3 min) CLOSURE-1: At this point ask students to conjecture (come up with at least two or
three ways) that a rotation might be produced purely by a number of reflections.
Ask them to note in their books their guesses and the most logical seeming number
of reflections it might take to get a given rotation.
“What do you think will be the most likely?”
“Or is there no way to make a rotation out of just combined reflections?”
. . . CONTINUED:
(Re-introduce the topic if continuing from previous day, but skip the questioning
just remind them of the ideas.)
Ask the CLOSURE-1 questions, ask for conjectures. Feed the following questions,
“What do you think will be the most likely?”
“Or is there no way to make a rotation out of just combined reflections?”
Teacher action: Students action:
2 min Demonstrate a worked example Attentive (ensure this using non-verbal cues).
of two reflections using props.
Describe rotating on same object, but
do not show the result.
4 min Cooperative activity: 1. Ask students to work out the result of two
(tell students they can talk and share or three mirror reflections.
ideas, but no need for formal groups.)
Observe work. —Students fill in worksheets.
Observe and answer questions. 2. Ask students to work out how to get the same
transform using a rotation.
Observe work. —Students fill in worksheets.
Check time,
then if time permits: 3. Get students to work examples
of finding the two reflections that produce
a given rotation.
2 min Ask evaluation questions. Ensure students are listening now.
–Is there a conjecture we
can make from the results? Elicit student response. Prompt if necessary.
Ask extension questions.
–How could we prove this in general? Elicit student response.
–Does this work in 3D also?
2 min “Are there any questions?” Ask questions.
Answer questions.
Gather worksheets for review. Tidy up materials, return them to teacher.
Assessment of student learning:
During the 4 min group work observe student actvity, provide feedback.
Ask questions to probe student understanding. Mark worksheet problems, and analyze.
Worksheet marks: record in student database.
Continued on next page. . .
Table 1.1 . . . continued from previous page

Manual work precision ratings: ibid.
Participation ratings: ibid.
Evaluation:
What worked in this lesson?
What did not work?
Did the students enjoy the lesson?
Did the students learn adequately?
How can this lesson be improved?
Module 1-12: Interpreting Assessment Informa-

tion
Module 1-13: Evidence About My Teaching

The audio files go over the module notes for this section in more detail.
Task 11, Reflective Practice
Task 11 involves jotting down thoughts on the following definitions. Example

thoughts are in italics. The task was to read each definition of reflective practice
and note down the themes and what the definition means to you.
Dewey, 1996 “Reflective thinking, in distinction from other operations to which

we apply the name of thought, involves: (1) a state of doubt, hesitation,
perplexity, mental difficulty, in which thinking originates, and (2) an act of
searching, hunting, inquiring to find material that will resolve the doubt, settle
and dispose of the the perplexity.”
Comments: A somewhat negative view of reflection (doubt, perplexity) but
with a positive purpose (resolving a problem). Definitely an active view (on
the hunt). Problem-solving based.
Bright, 1996 “A genuinely critical, questioning orientation and a deep commit-

ment to the discovery and analysis of positive and negative information con-
cerning the quality and status of a professional’s designed action.”
Comments: keywords in this definition are ‘genuine’, ‘deep’, ‘questioning’, and
‘quality’. Gives a very serious weighty impression of reflection.
Figure 1.2: One example of how a student might approach the main question of
mapping reflections onto a single rotation. The yellow triangle to the right is the
initial copy. The green triangle to the left is the rotation (though about 120◦ an-
ticlockwise), the two black lines labelled a and b define the rotation. The dashed
line are there for easy checking of the rotation (e.g., using a protractor). The red
triangle is the image of the first reflection using the plane through the line a (also
labelled m1 ) as the mirror. The student should be able to quantitatively check that
a further reflection across the green line (labelled m2 will map the red triangle onto
the green rotated image almost perfectly.
Loughran, 1996 “The ability to frame and reframe the practice setting, to de-
velop and respond to this reframing through action so that the practioner’s
wisdom-in-action is enhanced and . . . articulation of professional knowledge is
encouraged.”
Comments: a bit abstract, yet pragmatic view. Key phrase is ‘wisdom-in-
action’ which connotes both useful knowledge and practical utility.
Hatten & Smith, 2006 “Deliberate thinking about action, with a view to its im-
provement.”
Comments:
Zeichner & Liston, 1996 “(1) Involves both posing and solving problems. (2) May
involve reframing the problem. (3) Rejects a ‘top down’ approach. (4) As-
sumes teachers have the knowledge and skills to improve own teaching.”
Comments: not sure why top-down thinking cannot be used as well as holistic
or bottom-up thinking. Posing useful problems is a difficult skill similar to
learning how to ask good questions.
At least four strong distinct themes of reflective practice emerge in my opinion.
• The theme of searching and questioning and inquiry—hunting, discovery, ques-

tioning.
• Theme of practicality or usefulness—solving a problem, professional and wise

action.
• The theme of wisdom and knowledge—genuine, quality, wisdom, skills.
• Theme of improvement and iteration—reframing, improvement, enhancement.
Task 12, Reflective Practice
Mnemonic: R-E-F-L-E-C-T-I-O-N. A strategy to synthesis learning. Complete the

following mnemonic. So, urrr. . . , in the spirit of ‘no correct answers’ for this:
Reframing—problems need to be reframed
Empowerment of professionals
Feedback—self-reflexive, iterative thinking
Linking ideas
Enlightenment—result from good reflective thinking

Critical thought
Thorough Thinking and/or Teaching
Inquiry
Open-minded or Organized or Original
Novel insights—naturally!
Task 13, Listening Habits
Read the following negative listening habits. Put a tick next to the listening habits
that you may sometimes practice. Be honest. These negative listening habits some-
times prohibit us from being a good listener. Everyone uses blocks and this is an
opportunity to become more aware of your blocks. Below are some sample com-
ments.
The Faker —All the outward signs are there: nodding, making eye contact, and
giving the occasional uh huh. However, the faker isnt concentrating on the
speaker. His mind is elsewhere. If you daydream a lot with certain individuals
it will indicate a lack of your commitment to them.
Guilty—but generally only when I am genuinely not interested in the speaker’s
topic, which is rare provided the topic is not trivia or entertainment news.
The Interrupter —The interrupter doesn’t allow the speaker to finish and doesn’t
ask clarifying questions or seek more information from the speaker. He’s too
anxious to speak his words and shows little concern for the speaker.
Less guilty—I try to be aware of not being too rude. Plus I often think I do
not have anything to say of value, so I’m unlikely to interrupt.
The Intellectual —or Logical Listener. This person is always trying to interpret
what the speaker is saying and why. He is judging the speaker’s words and
trying to fit them into his logic box. He rarely asks about the underlying
feeling or emotion attached to a message. He is comparing all the time against
his view of the world.
Guilty—it’s fun to do this, it helps me process the information. Not that I’m
good at it.
The Happy Hooker —The happy hooker uses the speaker’s words only as a way
to get to his message. He is constantly rehearsing his next input. When the
speaker says something, and frankly, it could be anything, the happy hooker
steals the focus and then changes to his own point of view, opinion, story, or
facts. Favourite hooker lines are, “oh, thats nothing, here’s what happened to
me. . . I remember when I was. . . ”
Less guilty—of course some input to follow is rehearsed, otherwise I will sound
like an idiot. But I would not naturally ignore what the person is saying.
The Rebuttal Maker —This listener only listens long enough to form a rebuttal.
His point is to use the speaker’s words against him. At his worst, he is argu-
mentative and wants to prove you wrong. At least, the person always wants
to make the speaker see the other point of view. The other person never feels
heard because this listener is so quick to disagree.
Not guilty—I’m more likely to be sympathetic. Unless I’m conversing with a
racist or bigot.
The Advice Giver —You are the great problem solver. Giving advice is some-
times helpful; however, at other times, this behaviour interferes with good
listening, because it does not allow the speaker to fully articulate his feelings
or thoughts; it doesn’t help the speaker solve his own problems; it prohibits
venting; it could also belittle the speaker by minimizing his or her concern
with a quick solution.
Sometimes guilty—depends upon how desperate the speaker seems! I could def-
initely do more to improve withholding judgement more often to get a better
feel for whether a solution is being asked or the person is just venting and needs
a listener.
The Right Listener —Will go to any lengths—twist the facts, make excuses or
accusations, call up past sins—to avoid being wrong. Can’t listen to criticism,
can’t be corrected and can’t take suggestions to change.
Urrrr—not guilty? If the criticism is personal then I do tend to try to deflect
or block it, and I take criticism hard. Otherwise, criticism of just ideas I find
to be helpful and I invite it.
The Human Filter —You listen to some things and not to others. You listen long
enough to check for anger or danger or emotional stress. When these possibil-
ities are absent you can then let your mind wander. Another way people filter
is simply to avoid hearing certain things—particularly anything threatening,
negative, critical or unpleasant. It’s as if the words were never said. You
simply have no memory of them.
Less guilty—I’m only likely to indulge in such dismissive behaviour if the
speaker is really boring or truly vacuous.
Reading—“Critical Friends”
Comments on (Bambino, 2002). [EDITOR: TODO.]
Reading—“Reflective teaching and learning”
Comments on (Dymoke & Harrison, 2008). [EDITOR: TODO. This one was not
available on e-reserve.]
Summary of Lesson Planning

I thought it would be useful to end this Module study with a long check-list of things
that I would like to see in all of my detailed lesson plans [Ed.].
A Check-list for Lesson Plans
I plan to be totally unsatisfied unless all of the following boxes can be ticked for any
final lesson plan I devise [Ed.].
f Lesson topic/name (make it catchy and memorable).
f Why should the students be learning this?
f How should they learn this? Cross check with all the strategy checks.
f Lesson year and level.
f Estimated and preferably the rehearsed time.
f Clear statement of lesson objective—“what should the students learn?”
f Relevance to National curriculum achievement objectives clearly stated.
f Clear statement of lesson intentions—linked nicely to achievement objectives.
f Key words and key concepts.
f Clear statement of success criteria—linked to learning intentions.
f Homework—if necessary (not just a ‘catch-up’)
f Background of relevant student knowledge and context.
f Background of previous lessons of relevance.

f Resources needed—all of: physical, human, and ICT.
f Notes on preparation of resources and any clean-up or follow up afterwards.
f Details for arranging possible additional teacher aids, guests, support staff if
required.
f Extra safety arrangements if needed.
f Seating arrangement needed if necessary.
f Starter activities, if not part of the main lesson.
fDoes the starter activity get students immediately thinking?
fAre the starter and plenary activities adequate to check and assess learning?
f Strategy for differentiation, to cater for student diversity.
f Strategy for ensuring safe and supportive learning environment.
f Timed sequence of main proposed teacher and student activities–learning expe-
riences.
f Notes on possible anticipated departures from the timed sequence.
f Is the strategy appropriate for achievement of the learning intentions?
f Does the strategy make good use of student knowledge, suggestions and exam-
ples?
f If you have a group activity, is it well-planned and have you selected a group
structure that suits the lesson?
f Is this going to be an enjoyable lesson, one that you would enjoy?
f Key questions to ask: starters and intervention questions.
f Notes on likely student misconceptions, errors, thinking traps, and plan how to
respond.
f Outlets for potentially disruptive students that will keep them focused in some
way on the learning intentions.
f Lesson closing activity, summary, extension suggestions and review.
f Back-up plan in case a main or critical path component of the lesson fails.
f In general some sort of ‘out’ or escape in case of some unanticipated break down
in the lesson or teacher brain freeze. (This has to be something that will still lead
to valuable learning.)
f Assessment criteria—will you be able to judge whether learning has been achieved
or not?
f Details on how assessment will be performed or recorded.
f Where administration and other notes will be recorded (non-assessment stuff).
f Evaluation goals for reviewing the lesson and improving the plan.
f Have you rehearsed the lesson?
f Have you consulted your reflection journal for tips and reviews, as well as teacher
guides, past exam papers and examiner reports? If not, then re-check this entire
check list after doing so.
f Are your entering and exiting routines clear and consistent with previous stan-
dards for the classroom?
f If there enough time to complete the lesson, or will you need a few shortcuts
and/or extensions up your sleeve?
f Look over the lesson plan again, and ask, “will the students immediately get
a clear vision of where the lesson is coming from and heading towards in the big
picture of the years grand plan and goals?”
f If you haven’t ticked the previous box, is it because this lesson is a special one-off
topic? If not, then re-do the plan and re-check this check list.
In addition to this check list I’ve got a more specific check list for mathematics
lessons in the Epol338 course notes.
2. Module 2—Models of Teaching
Outline: At the conclusion of this module you will be able to:
• Demonstrate an understanding of research-based teaching models and strate-

gies.
• Describe the differences between models of teaching: group interaction model;

direct instruction; lecture-discussion; guided discovery.
• Use teaching models for specific purposes.
• Recognise the importance of using questions to aid learning.
• Prepare a range of questions.
Module 2-2—How Do We Learn?

A parent recently had a conversation with her child about a situation in the class-
room when she had supplied the correct answer to the teacher’s question. The child
said, “Actually Mum, I cheated—because a friend told me that a few days ago.”
Consider these questions, sample responses are in italics.
• How do we learn?
Well, technically we have no idea about how we learn, really! Prosaically we
have some theories about how the brain works and what seems to result in ef-
fective learning. Such things as building on existing knowledge, innate abilities
(is language innate?) and constructing knowledge with the aid of others using
scaffolding and generalization processes are some of the ways we learn. The
child in the anecdote has a particular ‘theory’ of learning, which involves some
sort of originality that they could not see in the way they actually did learn a
particular answer to a question.
41
Module 2—Models of Teaching 42
• What are the ways in which we learn new qualities, skills, or knowledge?
The ways we learn are manifold. Copying examples, mimicry (is that real
learning though?), trial and error, imagination, experimentation, cooperation,
discovery, experience, reading, dreaming, and so on and so forth.
The Epsy-302 Module notes state that “New Zealand society in the next decade
what do you think it will be like? Our population is changing. It’s becoming more
ethnically diverse. By the year 2021, it is predicted that 35% of secondary school
age students in New Zealand will be either Maori or Pasifika. The New Zealand
demographic is changing.” So as a teacher for the future, it might be important to
consider these questions.
• What educational models do you think will be suitable for this changing world?
[EDITOR: TODO.]
• How will models use changing avenues of communication?
[EDITOR: TODO.]
• What interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills, decision-making skills will be
required in the future?
[EDITOR: TODO.]
Module 2-3—Group Interaction Models

The idea that groups are good for learning is as old as human society. Synergy is
the modern word that captures the abstract nature of getting more out of a system
than merely the sum of it’s parts. The main rationale for using group work is to
try to raise the academic achievement (and otherwise) of all students in the group
above any levels that they would be able to achieve on their own. This is an ideal
that does not always occur with every study group.
Group synergy is well known and has been extensively documented and empiri-
cally proven to work. But there are problems with putting this into practice, because
educators still do not understand why it works exactly.
To paraphrase Killen (2009a), no one really knows why cooperative small group
learning methods are so effective, and no one can say for sure what the conditions
are that ensure group synergy. In this module we explore some educationalists ideas
about what these might be.
In the following sections on group interaction models of learning we will see some
recurring themes. Two strong themes are,
• Group synergy results from quality well-functioning groups.
• Dysfunctional groups do not have the same synergistic effects.
• Most of us benefit from group interaction where appropriate, so why not teach
students how to function well in groups!
So when lesson planning for group activities the teacher needs to do their best to
figure out how they will create quality student teams. The intellectual quality of
group work will often take care of itself through synergy, what is rather first and
foremost is the higher level group dynamics: cohesion, cooperation, mutual respect,
fairness, and the other factors that make for effective group work.
So a wise teacher will allow for, and put plenty of time into, building
strong groups.
Task 14, Reading “Using small group work as a teaching

strategy”
Comments on (Killen, 2009b).
• The key idea with group work is to try to facilitate learning via student inter-
action, the teacher acts as the facilitator.
• Whatever the form of group activity, be it group discussion to allow students

to voice their thoughts and get peer feedback, or cooperative group problem
solving, there are at least nine factors you need to consider to ensure success:
1. Establish a clear focus on student learning.

2. Adequate preparation of (and by) students.
3. Clear guidelines.
4. Careful management of the learning environment.
5. Direction, but not intrusion, by the teacher.
6. Willing participation of all students.
7. Monitoring and feedback by the teacher.
8. Careful time management.
9. A teacher-directed conclusion to the lesson.
• Before making every lesson into a group activity, we need to consider whether
group work is truly the optimum strategy for a particular learning objective,
it might not be.
• Killen provides two long lists of the special features, advantages and limitations
of small group work. These are not repeated here, but are included in the
Module 2-3 Audio files posted on our course Wiki for Epsy-302, for revision.
Task 15, Solving small group-work problems
The following scenarios are given:
1. A learner has a reading age far lower than other class members. She is moti-
vated to participate in group activities but so slow that other learners do not
want to work with her.
2. A learner who is highly motivated, a high achiever and a fast worker becomes
frustrated when other group members work slowly and want to chat about
their weekend activities.
3. A dispute develops between two learners because they disagree about how the
group task should be done.
We are asked to select at least one scenario and then contribute to the discussion
board thread by answering: “What’s the issue or issues here? What approach do
you think could be taken to solve the issue?”. As well as our own posting, we are
asked to give feedback to another student. Below are some samples.
Contributed by Anna:
“Scenario 1—learner with the lower reading age who is motivated to

participate but so slow that other learners do not want to work with her.
“Killen (2009) indicated that one of the goals of group work was
to give all students an opportunity to contribute in a non-threatening
environment. Clearly this is not occurring in the above scenario. One
issue could be to do with the composition of the group. One danger
of group work given by Killen is that high ability students may lose
incentive to do well. McInerney & McInerney suggest (p. 275) that the
groups should be mixed abilities particularly when different perspectives
are required. So it may be that this task was either not suitable for
group work, or would be better done in homogeneous groups.
“Approach could be to ensure that the task is suitable for group work,
and that the appropriate group selection strategy has taken place. After
that provide some particular assistance to the student with the lower
reading age—either via the teacher, or buddy up with a student who
is willing to help. If roles have been assigned, then might need to look
carefully at which one the student has—perhaps s/he could perform a
task that doesn’t require reading—as long as s/he still comes away with
the same learning.”
Another view of scenario 1 is from Matt:
“I have chosen scenario 1 where there is one student working at a

much lower level than the rest of the group.
“Is this a failure of the group to function coherently or is it a failure of
the teacher and the teaching method? According to research we covered
in Epsy-301 you could reasonably expect the members of the group
to benefit through peer learning and scaffolding, but only if the correct
methodology is applied to the learning tasks. I think in this situation the
success of the group discussion could benefit from ‘careful management
of the learning environment’ (Killen, 2009, p. 187). It is probably unwise
to have students in groups whose abilities are poles apart. For scaffolding
to be successful requires the development of new knowledge to be close
to that of the existing knowledge so that the sequence of learning is
logical and manageable. I think in this example the teacher needs to
select groups with similar (but not the same) knowledge and skills. One
more thing the teacher may need to reflect on is the suitability of group
work for this particular exercise?”
and Loesje had this take:
“I have chosen the first scenario.

“The girl might has reading difficulties, and therefore the other stu-
dents don’t want to work with her. According to Thomson and Brown
one of the five key elements to co-operative learning is to establish posi-
tive interdependence. The students need to feel that it’s ‘all for one and
one for all’. They suggest that a way to achieve this is making sure there
is a division of labour within the group (everybody is required to con-
tribute a different piece of work to the finished product). This particular
girl might not be good at reading but she might have other qualities to
contribute to the group. This quality will have to be established, either
by the teacher, the group or herself, to ensure she gets given the job
within the task that makes use of her qualities, rather than her deficien-
cies. She might be really good at presenting (the outcome), or she might
be a good organiser!
“Another option would be, if reading is essential, that the group is
as small as two people. That way there is no excluding from a group,
and a safer learning environment is established.”
A contribution on scenario 2 from Blair:
“Scenario 2. A learner who is highly motivated, a high achiever and

a fast worker becomes frustrated when other group members work slowly
and want to chat about their weekend activities.
“What’s the issue or issues here? We have a mismatch in the group
composition. The entire group is prevented from working at their ZPD.
There is also a motivation and/or focus problem: the chatty students
are not on-task and focused.
“What approach do you think could be taken to solve the issue? The
teacher-facilitator probably needs to take more care in group composition
selection, and maybe group size as well. But this may not be the best
solution in this case. The focus problem is probably more important.
If the high achiever is frustrated then that indicates the others are not
making best use of this valuable group member. So the teacher is better
advised to restructure the activity so that students cannot avoid focusing
on the tasks at hand. It’s hard to give specific examples, but suppose
the activity was made to lend naturally to leadership roles, then the high
achiever could be appointed as the group leader, this will give them some
control over the focus. Alternatively, the activity could be made more
fun for the chatty students. Make their weekend escapades part of the
activity perhaps?
“These are just some ideas, one could imagine many more.”
Scenario 2 turned out to be very popular, here is Leah’s take:
“Scenario 2 highly motivated student.

“This learner may have a more mature attention span and greater
ability to stay focused on the task at hand, while other learners see time
without direct teacher supervision as ‘free time’. The issue is the differ-
ence in motivation between learners (or that one learner is motivated to
complete the task, and the others are not). The motivated learner must
see some relevance in this task—perhaps it is just to avoid getting any
group work for homework, but it is likely that he/she sees a reason to
complete the task in the time allotted. The other group members must
perceive the task to be less important than socialising, and/or be unmo-
tivated either by lack of relevance to them or by lack of understanding
of task at hand.
“The motivated learner may also not be interested in being involved
in the social discussion due to his/her own issues with social activity.
Dependent on age, this learner may feel threatened by some of the
discussion—if other students are talking about parties, alcohol, etc., and
wish to stay focused to avoid being left out of the social talk. I know I
was probably a more studious learner who didn’t want to engage in the
details of weekends because I chose not to join in with that scene.
“The teacher could impose some guidelines for this activity, giving
groups short time frames to complete each aspect of the class—like in
exams, with the time written up on the board and crossed out as each
period of time has lapsed. This may assist in keeping students on track.
The teacher could also assign tasks for each participant, for example,
asking one to relay information to class after discussion or someone to
take notes to be pinned around the classroom.”
and here is Hannah’s:
“Scenario 2—A learner who is highly motivated, a high achiever and

a fast worker becomes frustrated when other group members work slowly
and want to chat about their weekend activities.
“What’s the issue or issues here? The issue here is that the high
achiever is more motivated than the other learners, and as such they
feel the less motivated learners are affecting their ability to achieve a
successful outcome for the activity or reach their full potential. The
motivated learner either has good self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation
levels coupled with a desire to learn, or is performance goal orientated
with a desire to achieve well in assessment tasks. The other learners
may fail to see any relevance of the task to themselves and their own
life, so are more preoccupied with what they did in the weekend, and are
therefore not motivated to complete the task to the best of their ability.
“What approach do you think could be taken to solve the issue? The
approach taken to solve the issue depends on the nature of the task. If
it is possible for the task to be done independently, then one solution
would be to let the highly motivated student complete it on their own,
and then make sure the less motivated students are aware that they will
be called on in some way to report their progress, either to the class or in
a more formal assessment setting. It would also be helpful to try to find
ways to make the task more relevant to them so that they have some
intrinsic motivation to complete it.
“Another option would be to gauge the level of functioning of the
other groups and see whether dividing them up would be an option.
Putting the motivated student into a group with others who are on task
would help, and putting the less motivated students into other groups
which are on task would be great if there are enough groups on task! Also
giving them some individual responsibility within that context could help
them to become more engaged with the task.”
Jinxi had a comment on all three scenarios:
“The key element in all 3 scenarios was that there was a major differ-
ence in either ability or opinion and each group demonstrated that they
didn’t have the skills to overcome these obstacles and cooperate.
“It is possible that all 3 situations could arise in a single lesson (hope-
fully not simultaneously). If this were the case the LO’s would have to
move from task completion (ability) to a more fundamental improvement
in communication and cooperation. As these are part of the key com-
petencies I would feel justified in spending time on these skills so that
future group activities would be more effective at achieving the LO’s.
“My first question to the problem was, ‘How can I make these differ-
ences balance within the groups?’ in other words how I would level the
playing field for each of them. This is my idea in principle but is highly
conjectural:
“Change their abilities by enforcing rules of communication and im-
pose cooperation parameters.
“1. For the child that struggles with reading she could be the piv-
otal mediator (‘hear no evil’) role. All information and ideas have to be
passed through her so that she has to express them to the rest of the
group ( she can make her own contributions also). The others are not al-
lowed to converse directly with each other. This could be self-monitored
by making a tally for each student ‘player’ in the group and the one with
the least ‘fouls’ wins the honour of best player (maybe) or just make sure
they play by the rules.
“2. With the fast student with the disinterested peers a similar ap-
proach could be made. Here the fast students abilities would be tempered
by creating a new dimensional challenge. The student would not be al-
lowed to see the work, ‘see no evil’ by way of blindfold or positioned out
of site of the material. The others in the group have to relay the infor-
mation to the fast student so it can be compiled by the ‘blind’ student
making sure that all are participating and making good contributions to
the task.
“3. The last group would deal with the conflict of opinion if the
antagonists where limited to speaking on the others behalf, ‘speak no
evil’. If they wanted there opinions and ideas to be expressed they could
only do it via their counter-part so that they become co-dependent on
each other to voice their thoughts. Neither of them would be allowed
to talk directly with the rest of the group but can tell the other their
thoughts and for it then to be disseminated. This (I hope ) would foster
reciprocation in both parties. If not then it becomes a behavioural issue
and may need active supervision.
“A net result maybe a very hushed and focused group of students.
“It might work given the right context but then again it might just
make things worse. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Module 2-4—Co-operative Learning Groups
Task 16, Reading—Learning Together and Establishing Ef-

fective Teams
This section reviews the references (Brown & Thomson, 2000b) and (Brown &
Thomson, 2000a).
Purpose of cooperative groups. Enhances normal learning. Developes group

interpersonal skills (conflict resolution, communication). Develops collective think-
ing skills.
Elements of successful cooperative groups. Basically the group activity should

be intrinsically suited to group cooperation. Don’t schedule an activity that can be
done as individuals, it must rather have some element of interaction and interde-
pendence. The five key elements for successful cooperative groups are:
1. Positive interdependence.
2. Individual accountability.
3. Group and individual reflection.
4. Skills, that is, interpersonal or group skills.
5. Face-to-face interaction.
To elaborate: ideally students will realize for themselves that the success of one
depends upon the success of all. The teachers needs to ensure this by structuring
the group activity appropriately. The activity should be designed to fail if any group
members do not participate. Assigning roles is one way, another is to design the
activity oo that roles naturally emerge and require cooperation. The activity could
have an outcome that manifests each individual’s contribution. Resources for the
activity could be made scarce so that the students need to share tools. Time can
be used to make sure that no individual can succeed in time without help from
others. For example, give each member some sort of key (secret code or other) that
the others will at some stage need to use. Rotating the responsibility of reporting
results can also enhance inclusion. So does using methods and tasks that force
students to take ownership of particular work—they may be acting as supervisors
of others in the group for example.
Other ways to enhance the key elements of successful groups include getting
groups to evaluate other groups work. Allow time for groups to monitor and reflect
upon their progress. Allow opportunities and time for students to learn how to op-
erate as a group—we cannot assume they will be natural team workers. Facilitating
face-to-face interaction can be done by selecting non-verbal games where students
will have to look at each other to pick up silent clues. For visually impaired students
some safe touching or indirect contact activities could be used.
Identifying when groups are effective. There should be at least two things to
note:
1. The group is well organized, harmonious and busy.
2. The group is inclusive and has good ‘ferment’.
The following four F ’s can be used to remind us of what to look for when evaluating
the effectiveness of groups in action:
Forming the group is acting together in unity, this is easy to observe.
Functioning look for signs of leadership and pertinent questioning.
Formulating there is a sharing of thought and solutions and ‘ah ha!’ moments as
student bounce ideas off each other with a focus on the problem task.
Fermenting problems are posed, solutions are being offered, and there is a general
openness, not just a meek acceptance of the majority view within the group,
and respectful challenging of proposals.
Establishing Effective Teams. First, we can have different types of groups,
• Informal groups—good for brainstorming type activities.
• Formal or generic groups—good for set tasks or topics, class duration activi-
ties.
• Base groups—good for longer term year-round cooperation, mentoring, secu-

rity and so forth.
Assigning to Teams. We could consider,
• Random selection—good for introducing each other and discovering similari-

ties and differences, and variety.
• Student selection—good for establishing comfort within groups, but beware of

cliques and of isolated students.
• Teacher selection—a ‘method of choice’ in schools. Good for control over roles
and responsibilities, mixing talent, consolidating friendships or establishing
new relationships, and so forth.
Brown and Thomson (2000a, p. 65) note that gifted and talented students do not
necessarily suffer from having to work in cooperative groups. The teacher should
decide whether a particular lesson activity best suits heterogeneous groups, homo-
geneous groups, or individuals, and assign teams accordingly.
Note that the Table on Brown and Thomson (2000a, p. 66) gives more thoughtful
considerations on the advantages and disadvantages of these group selection meth-
ods.
Group Sizes. Rules of thumb: Small is beautiful. ‘Four and no more’. Of course,
this is only a rule of thumb and need not be rigorously adhered to. The idea is that
the group should be manageable and allow each member to air their voice.
Task 18, Reading “Important Features of Cooperative Learn-

ing”
This section reviews the reference (Killen, 2009a). The two features of cooperative
group activity, that together make it distinctive to other types of group activity
(such as competition) are,
• A cooperative task—common to other types of group interaction.
• A cooperative incentive structure—something that drives and binds all mem-

bers of the group towards a common goal.
A number of advantages and limitations of cooperative groups are in common with

small group activities outlined in the previous section, so we won’t repeat them here.
Attempts to explain group synergy. We noted at the beginning of the section

for Module 2-3, that no one truly knows why group activity enhances learning, or
the requisite conditions. But there are some good hypotheses.
• Motivational view —ideally individual rewards should be conditional upon the

whole group doing some learning. Why would this enhance learning? Well, it
motivates all students to be active and do well. However, it does not guarantee
that everyone will learn optimally or better than if they worked alone.
The motivational view of group learning is not exclusive of other views and
overlaps the views to follow, but has three crucial explanative elements:
– groups motivate students to learn,

– groups motivate students to encourage one another to learn,
– groups motivate students to help one another learn.
• Social cohesion view —a cooperative dependent activity helps student care for
each other, providing social cohesion, and we know from Vygotsky and his
empirical backers, that social cohesion promotes learning. Again, this is not
guaranteed to be optimal for everyone in the group. It does however breed
a climate of positive expectations and, when progress is evident, happiness,
which is universally known to enhance everyone’s learning.
• Cognitive constructivist views—Vygotsky and Piaget combine here, scaffolding

from more knowledgeable others along with individual processing of external
stimuli are proven to aid learning, and they are processes that arise naturally
in well-functioning groups with all of the nice attributes described in the lists
above.
• Cognitive elaboration views—the idea that the subject material needs to be
elaborated and restructured in our minds for us to learn. Again, obviously
facilitated by participation in group activity.
• Information-process-time views—due to Stahl, argues that at least three ele-
ments are needed to enhance learning, and that quality group activities pro-
vides these: (a) requisite information (2) internal processing of the informa-
tion, (3) productive time spent on learning for consolidation.
In terms of the ‘grand systems’ of educational psychology:
• Behaviourists would explain the synergy of groups by pointing out the influ-
ence of feedback.
• Cognitivists would point out the processes whereby students get to elaborate
thier view and verbalize their understanding
• Developmentalists would point out the processes of peer modelling going on
within groups.
• Humanists might suggest that curiosity is naturally aroused in groups and
that groups provide wider contexts for learning than solo study.
Module 2-5—Some BUTs About Co-operative Learn-

ing
The editor could not think of any reason why teachers would outright object to
trying group teaching strategies, but this module considers a few. “My students
are too naughty”, “I’ve tried before and it didn’t work”, “It’s too noisy”, “It takes
too much time and effort to organize”—are all some common excuses naı̈ve teachers
might offer.
The Module notes ask us for our thoughts about implementing group interaction
models of learning on our looming Teaching Experience 1. Here are some thoughts.
• What excites and motivates you to use this approach?

The plain effectiveness of group learning, the synergy it creates. Using many
minds to perform intellectual feats that the combined individual minds would
not be able to accomplish. The pure fun of it.
• Are there anxieties that you need to settle?

Yes. I don’t know if my teaching supervisor will allow much risk taking. I’m a
bit apprehensive about going off the deep end at some point—meaning I wonder
how radical I can be without failing the TE or wasting the student’s time.
• How can you prepare yourself for interaction models?

Study them hard! Write notes on them. Listen and read the thoughts of others
on using them and adapting them to topics of interest. Discuss them in advance
with my TE supervisor and VUW tutors and colleagues. Not use any method
or design of group activity until I test it in realistic simulation, say with my
friends or family 1 .
Module 2-6—The Direct Instruction Model

Direct Instruction refers to traditional “chalk and talk” teaching methods. It also
includes the example-demonstration process. The teacher explains and models, the
students repeat and practice. It can be highly effective, or at least efficient with time.
For teachers it simplifies lessons. They can be clear, unambiguous and students get
plenty of on-task practice. Direct Instruction lessons can also be a mess and de-
motivating if implemented poorly.
Apparently Vygotsky’s ZPD and scaffolding theory is taken as sound backing in
favour of direct instruction, but I don’t see it that way. I’d venture that Vygotsky’s
work is neutral about direct instruction. It could work well to promote learning at
the ZPD, but not always. Working students at their ZPD assumes we know what
the students need to be taught. How is that possible with Direct Instruction alone?
So Direct Instruction, at a minimum, needs to be complemented by other forms of
teaching to be optimal.
Social congnitivists claim direct instruction suits their theory because of the
teacher modelling and demonstrations aspect. That is, students can learn by ob-
serving skilled other which effects their behaviours and thinking.
Aspects of Direct Instruction Planning.
1. Identify the topic.
2. Specify learning intentions.

1
“yeah riiight” I hear you saying—like I’ll really get around to doing that!
3. Identify prerequisite knowledge.
4. Select suitable examples to demonstrate.
5. Select suitable problems for students to work through.
6. Sequence the demonstrations and problem solving in logical order to optimize

student learning.
I would add, plan for extra time for student questions and answers so that the direct
instruction does not just go through the students’ one ear and out the other.
A lesson plan template for Direct Instruction is given in the Module 2.6 course
notes. It is fairly similar no matter what the topic: Review & Introduction. Pre-
sentation. Guided practice. Independent practice. Closure & review.
Task 20, Recollections of Direct Instruction
We are asked to think about the following questions and post responses to the on-line
Discussion Board for the course. Below is a sample set of responses.
1. Think back to when you were at school, can you think of any memorable direct
instruction lessons? If not, why not?
Barely. At school the subject matter was too lame. It was only when we de-
parted from the curriculum that I found lessons to be memorable, and then
they tended not to be direct instruction. The closest I can recall would be (a) a
lesson on the mathematical Golden Ratio—interesting because of the history
and the surprise at the many appearances of the GR in the natural world,
(b) another mathematics lesson on logic gates, memorable because it was the
first time I recall understanding a bit about how computers really work at the
basic electronic level, (c) a physics lesson on conservation of angular momen-
tum, using a bicycle wheel as a prop which was tied in to Feynman’s ‘suitcase
gyroscope escapade’. My university courses were full of better memorable direct
instruction lessons.
2. Did you learn much from this lesson? If not, why not?
Yes. All three cited lessons were learning experiences. The subject matter was
sufficiently novel and fresh and presented in interesting ways.
3. What is your immediate reaction to using direct instruction?

It is not a method to ignore. It is possibly the simplest type of lesson to
perform, tricky to plan to make it effective, but a good strategy if no other
suitable teaching method can be found at short notice. It is also reasonably

cost effective (ample learning for the time spent).
4. How does direct instruction align with learning theories?

Quite well. It fits most learning theories. It is however not optimal according to
many modern learning theories that point out the learning gains associated with
more chaotic fermenting of opinion through more intensive social interaction.
5. How does direct instruction fit with your image of yourself as a teacher?
It is probably my current natural mode coming from too much university tu-
toring. It is a mode that I will always use from time to time, and probably
as a default back-up. It is not what I want to be doing the majority of the
time, because I think students will benefit, on the whole, from varied teaching
methods.
This response from Loesje was universally admired:
“The most memorable direct instruction lesson I had was a very

unconventional one (thats why I remember it because all of our classes
were direct instruction). ‘ “In history our teacher Mr S walked into the
class and said: ‘Sorry, Mr. S couldn’t make it today, youll have to do
with me. My name is Lee Harvey Oswald.’ ‘ “This ‘Mr Oswald’ said
he was there to tell us what happened in Nov ’63 on the day he shot
president Kennedy. ‘ “From here on he started telling us his account of
that day, the things that happened and the way people reacted to him.
Mr. S did not for a moment lose his role as Lee Harvey Oswald (he would
even add funny personality traits to make it juicier).
“Although it was direct instruction (mostly a monologue from the
teacher), the change of viewpoint from teacher instructed to person in-
volved instructed made it so much more exiting. We all felt involved; we
could ask a murderer questions!
“This teacher did this a number of times; he was Fidel Castro, Hitler
etc etc. All of my friends can still recall those lessons, and we can all
still remember details of certain events.
“I am telling you this to show you that direct instruction can still
have a variety of shapes and forms.
“Imagine doing this and dressing up as well. I can see myself walking
into the class pretending I’m Andy Warhol. Give it a wig and the class
will be in stitches! Mmm, think I might do that one day.”
Awesome!
Module 2-7—The Lecture-Discussion Model

Being honest, most students find lectures boring. The lecture-discussion teaching
model is not supposed to be boring, since the discussion aspect should be fun, stimu-
lating and interactive. That’s not to say the lecture part cannot also be stimulating
and fun to absorb, just that teachers need to be aware that prolonged lecturing be-
comes counter-productive. The brain cannot cope with monotonous input format,
even if it is interesting input.
The audio files for Epsy-302 on our TWiki will record the Module 2.7 note
details for review. Here we will just write up the reflection activity.
1. How do direct instruction and lecture-discussion models fit with your image of
yourself as a teacher?
2. What surprised you about these models?

That they are still very much in vogue. I’m not surprised they are still con-
sidered effective under certain circumstances, but I would’ve thought more
innovation might have taken place since when I was young.
3. How will you use these models on TE?

I will probably make good use of them. If I am asked to teach a topic that I
haven’t thought about teaching yet, then I will by default use first an interest-
ing Lecture-discussion plan, and if time permits reform it into a nicer Direct
instruction plan. Then if I find I have plenty of time I might creatively depart
from these methods.
[NOTE TO SELF: make a Journal entry after TE to see how these anticipations
match with what I actually end up doing.]
Module 2-8—The Guided Discovery Model
Task 21, Journal Entry, Teaching Models
See Table 6.1 in the Reflection Journal section.

3. Module 3—Classroom
Management
Module 3-1—Behaviour Management Perspectives

Corresponding to three approaches to education psychology there are three ap-
proaches to behaviour management,
Behavioural —teachers decide on desired behaviour and use rewards and punish-
ment.
cognitive —misbehaviour results from conflicts, these need to be mediated using

cognition to improve behaviour.
Humanistic —all humans are inherently good and if not can be motivated to be
good through empathy, support and encouragement.
Important questions to consider (and some suggested answers) are,
1. What is the point of behaviour management?

In the context of teaching, the main point is typically to provide a suitable
environment for learning.
2. What defines misbehaviour?

Again, in this context it could be anything that disrupts learning, particularly
the learning of others.
3. Why might learner misbehave?

This has many answers. Some reasons include lack of motivation, unhappy
home environment, poor teaching, disinterest, bullying, self-pity, self-loathing,
insecurity, mental imbalance, hunger, inferiority, and a host of other psycho-
logical complexes.
58
Module 3—Classroom Management 59
The last question is particularly of concern to teachers because many of these factors
are beyond the teachers control, and require long term solutions and behaviour
management planning.
Module 3-4—Relationship Building

This module focuses on the importance of the teacher/student relationship for Māori
and Pasifika students.
The reading is (Hawk, Crowley, Hill, & Sutherland, 2002). Table 3.1 is a before
and after set of questions to ponder related to the reading.
Module 3-5—Behaviour Management Practicalities

This module continues the theme of managing the classroom to provide an effec-
tive learning environment for all learners. The focus of this section is on practical
implications of the theories and philosophical approaches to classroom management.
Williams (2009) recommends identifying what is personally “out of bounds” for
you, such as shaming learners. Here are some questions worth reflecting upon.
1. What are your core beliefs?

Creativity is best unleashed when a sound learning environment is in place.
So classroom management is only a means to an end, and therefore it hardly
matters how the environment is created, provided it is created in a humane
way.
2. What is out of bounds for you?
Shaming definitely. Vindictive punishment. Punishment of students who do
not know any better—in this case they first need to be taught the value of
discipline and learning. Physical intimidation is out, unnecessary in my view.
The following “thematic’ sections follow Epsy-302 modules.
Theme 1: Relationships
(Module 3–8). The Module notes for this section have been recorded on Audio Files
here for your listening pleasure :-)
Statement Before After
Statement 1: To relate really well to Māori and Pasifika students as a disagree

teacher, you need to also be from a Polynesian culture.
Evidence:
Statement 2: Māori and Pasifika students value strict teachers. disagree
Evidence:
Statement 3: Māori and Pasifika students value from their teachers the agree
mutual respect which adults or equals afford each other.
Evidence:
Statement 3: Good teachers help their students to relax and enjoy the agree
learning.
Evidence:
Statement 4: When teachers display positive attitudes such as a good agree
work ethic and respectful communication, they are more likely to get these
attitudes and behaviours back from the students.
Evidence:
Statement 5: When a teacher models good attitudes and behaviours with agree
their students, this helps Māori and Pasifika students to learn how to stay
out of trouble.
Evidence:
Statement 6: Taking the time and making the effort to get to know about agree
the personal lives and background of Polynesian students is particularly
important for the students who are younger.
Evidence:
Statement 7: Caring for a Polynesian student needs to incorporate caring agree
for them both as a learner and as a person.
Evidence:
Statement 8: As teachers, we need to be aware of our conscious and agree
unconscious body language.
Evidence:
Statement 9: Students are very conscious of, and affected by, the belief agree
that the teacher holds regarding their potential for success, and expecta-
tions for them.
Evidence:
Statement 10: Teachers can learn to develop effective relationships with agree
Māori and Pasifika students.
Evidence:
Statement 11: Having a positive relationship with a class means liking somewhat
them and caring for them as a group.
Evidence:
Table 3.1: Anticipatory guide for the reading.

Theme 2: Safe Environments

(Module 3–9). Safe environments have rights and responsibilities
1. Your students’ right to learn.

2. Your right to teach.
3. Everyone’s right to safety.
4. Everyone’s right to dignity and respect.
Reflection: Rights bring responsibilities
• What are the corresponding responsibilities that match the rights listed above?
1. The responsibility to let others learn.
2. The responsibility to teach something worth learning.
3. The responsibility to look out for others and act with wisdom.
4. The responsibility to treat others with dignity and respect and act with
appropriate decorum in the classroom—respect the classroom rules.
• What is your responsibility and what responsibilities do other learners have?
Provide quality education, safety and behavioural standards and model them.
Other learners who desire the same rights have the responsibility to take own-
ership of their own learning and allow others the freedom to share the same
rights.
• Apply these questions to each right.
1. We must provide good quality experiences. Other students should not
impede others’ learning.
2. To not shrug from duty to motivate and encourage students. Other stu-
dents should not disrupt the rest of the class or unfairly demand time.
3. Provide a safe classroom, monitor hazards, avoid excessive risks. Students
must obey safety rules and look out for each other.
4. Reward good behaviours and censure poor behaviour, and encourage and
provide opportunities for students to display their respect (give them
risk taking opportunities and freedom when they earn it). Others need
to withhold personal criticism and be tolerant of the differences among
peers.
Module 3-10—Intervention, Decisions

The Module notes are a terrific summary here, nothing more need be said, other
than to watch the Bill Rogers video.
The Module notes for this section have been recorded on an audio file epsy302 -
3.10-12 intervention rules-routines.mp3 here for your listening pleasure :-)
Theme 3: Language
(Module 3–13). The Module notes for this section have been recorded on Audio
Files here for your listening pleasure :-)
4. Module 4—Inquiry Learning
and Critical Thinking
Here is one reasonable definition of inquiry learning:
“Inquiry-based learning is a constructivist approach, in which stu-

dents have ownership of their learning. It starts with exploration and
questioning and leads to investigation into a worthy question, issue, prob-
lem or idea. It involves asking questions, gathering and analysing infor-
mation, generating solutions, making decisions, justifying conclusions
and taking action”
—from the Consortium for School Networking.
As you can tell, there is no tight definition of the phrase ‘inquiry learning’, but this
quote gives us a taste of the flavour. Basically, in my own words, it is how most
people learn on their own when they get curious about something, usually ending up
by co-opting others to help them.
The important features of inquiry learning, as defined in the educational litera-
ture, are that,
inquiry learning is systematic, purposeful, focussed and reveals new knowledge
The point is that fun and exciting lessons which do not involve these features may
be useful for engaging students but are short of the quality mark.
One of the best descriptions of why the inquiry method is superior to traditional
teaching methods is given by Neil Postman (Postman & Weingartner, 1971)
“It is entirely possible that the inquiry method will help students
to produce answers their teachers crave, and remember them longer,
and even utter them faster. But in anticipating this, you are imagining
the most inconsequential part of the story. The inquiry method is not
63
Module 4—Inquiry Learning and Critical Thinking 64
designed to do better what older environments try to do. It works you

over in entirely different ways. It activates different senses, attitudes
and perceptions; it generates a different, bolder and more potent kind of
intelligence. Thus it will cause teaches, and their tests, and their grading
systems, and their curriculums to change. It will cause college admission
requirements to change. It will cause everything about education to
change.”
Yeah! That’s what we’re talking about. We do not want to teach the way we were
taught. We want to teach students the way we would want our own children to be
taught.
Inquiry Teaching is More than Asking Questions
It’s worth reflecting on what Postman has to say comparing inquiry methods with
traditional teaching,
“. . . without the distraction of a story line, we get a very high degree

of participation and involvement in the forms of communication, which
is another way of saying the processes of learning. One has to work
hard, and one wants to, at discovering patterns and assigning meanings
to one’s experiences. The focus of intellectual energy becomes the active
investigation of structures and relationships, rather than the passive re-
ception of someone else’s story. Of course, the school syllabus is exactly
the latter: someone else’s story. And most traditional learning envi-
ronments are arranged to facilitate the sending and receiving of various
story lines. That is why teachers regard it as desirable for students to
pay attention, face front, sit up in their seats, and be quiet. ‘There were
these Indians, see, and they lived in America before it was discovered. . . ’
“The inquiry method is very much a product of our eclectic age.
It makes the syllabus obsolete; students generate their own stories by
becoming involved in the methods of learning. Where the older school
environment has asked, ‘Who discovered America?’ the inquiry method
asks, ‘How do you discover who discovered America?’ The older school
environments stressed that learning is being told what happened. The
inquiry environment stresses that learning is a happening in itself.”
But notice there is something wrong about that little example Postman gives. The
question we should want to ask students is not ‘How do you discover who discovered
America?’, but,
Why would it be useful or interesting to find out who discovered Amer-

ica?
If the student thinks it would be of no use then the teacher has a richer lesson, and
may ask further questions such as,
What is the geopolitical or social or historical importance of the ‘dis-

covery’ of either uninhabited or already occupied territories?
or
Of what matter is it ‘who’ discovers a new country?
or, for students who still do not see any interest in these questions,
How do you define the ‘discovery’ of a country? Who then do you

think really ‘discovered’ America, and how is this important or of interest
to us who stand so far removed from that history?
A class might then, hopefully, get into a fermented discussion about how history
impacts the present, and how tragedies, mistakes, and accidents of history have
social and economic repercussions that reverberate through centuries.
Similar questions could be posed to students about the history of New Zealand.
The students are then led to research the facts but not in order to recall facts, rather
to inform their pursuit of answers to questions that are of interest to them, here and
now, in the modern world.
If students still do not connect and engage with the questions then what point is
there in pursuing them? Probably not a lot. The teacher has to find subjects that
do inspire and interest the students. Teachers should not need to beg students to
ask or investigate questions, but they do need to help students find topics that beg
their own questions.
Here is another gem from Learning as a Subversive Activity,
“Good learners seem to know what is relevant to their survival and

what is not. They are apt to resent being told that something is ‘good
for them to know’, unless, of course, their crap detector advises them
that it is good for them to know—in which case, they resent being told
anyway.”
Psychology of Inquiry Teaching
The foundations were laid by Adelbert Ames, and written about by Horace Kelley.
Ames’ research investigated human perceptions. Sixth key findings were,
1. Our perceptions are generated within us, via our brain and mind.
2. What we perceive is greatly influenced by past experiences, our mind and

brain process sensory. In other words, we tend to perceive what we want to
perceive, especially if our brains are fed ambiguous information.
3. We do not change or alter our perceptions merely by being told they are
‘wrong’. We need good reason to change. The ability to learn can be seen
as the ability to relinquish inappropriate perceptions and to develop new, and
more workable, ones
4. People tend to have unique perceptions, so part of being a social person is

developing an ability to see things from another’s point of view.
5. Our language and linguistic categories have a profound influence on what our
brain and mind allows us to perceive.
6. The ‘meaning’ we attribute to our perceptions is extremely closely related to

how our perceptions cause us to behave and act.
The implications have been spelt out in the literature on inquiry and constructivist
learning. The issue for us here is how to disseminate these principles into our class-
rooms when most of the establishment forces are arrayed (wittingly or unwittingly)
against this.
I do not agree with Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner when they say that
a subject is it’s language. They take postmodernism too far in placing too high a
primacy on language. Our perception filters are however important, clearly, in the
light of the above ideas. Language and symbols are certainly powerful filters which
shape our perception and hence shape our reality. What I am concerned about is
how to use these ideas in the classroom.
First, I can think of nothing much better than helping to make students aware
of these very principles. True to the spirit we need to give them their own interpre-
tations of these aspects of psychology.
Secondly, almost every school lesson I can conceive of from now on needs to
have the freedom and openness implied by the above ideas. The teacher’s role is
as a facilitator, not a transmitter. A good lesson has to place many beacons up to
guide students, not just the one that leads to the recommended syllabus. A good
teacher has to appreciate that they cannot guide students to certain knowledge and
cannot cover a subject in limited lesson time with limited resources. All of the
learning experience has to be open to allow students to discover things that even
the teachers and experts might not have discovered.
Thirdly, the atmosphere and environment of the classroom has to be loving and
devoted to learning, and the only way this is feasibly possible is if the students
have freedom. Freedom of study choice, freedom to dispute, agree or disagree, and
freedom to depart from the syllabus, freedom to create their own syllabus.
Fourth, a good teacher needs to be able to provide this freedom while eliminating
the disruption of one students learning upon another, and should feel complete
responsibility for creating the warm and joyful classroom environment. This does
not mean that the classroom is clinical and devoid of argument and furore, far from
it, but the love, care, safety and trust must be in place to allow healthy ferment
of opinion and vigorous debate. I cannot see how the milquetoast syllabus of most
past or modern schools allows such ferment. This has to change. Even if just one
classroom at a time.
Inquiry Learning and the Curriculum

File 1 for this module involved an online forum activity. File 2 is a short description
of inquiry learning and is recorded on the Module 4-1 audio file on our course TWiki.
A nice manifest for inquiry based learning is the short video Learning to Change—
Changing to Learn. This is produced by the Consortium for School Networking,
http://www.cosn.org/. One teacher from this video is quoted:
“The ‘coin of the realm’ is not memorising the facts that they are
going to need to know for the rest of their lives. The coin of the realm
will be,
• do you know how to find information,
• do you know how to validate it,
• know how to synthesize it,
• know how to leverage it,
• know how to communicate it,
• know how to collaborate with it,
• and do you know how to problem solve with it.
That’s the 21st century set of literacies.”
Another key quote from this video,
“This is the death of education but the dawn of learning.”
There are plenty of websites explaining inquiry learning, which is really just a
flavour of constructivist education psychology put into various concrete forms. Some
of the different forms of inquiry learning are outlined here http://ictnz.com/infolit-
models.htm. As one commentator pouts it, “not all inquiry learning models were
created equal!” So do not just choose one model, try it and ditch it if it fails in your
classroom. Experiment a bit, try other models and find one that works for you and
your students. It’s got to be better than traditional teaching right? Well, maybe
not! It all depends upon what your objective are and what the students really need
(as opposed to what the want). That, of course, is a huge topic.
Inquiry Learning and the Hidden Curriculum
Let’s now get to the nub of the trouble with education in New Zealand and else-
where. The truth is that New Zealand’s Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007)
is a pretty good document. It still suffers from ghosts of schooling past, it seems
schizophrenic—as if it was conceived by a committee as a compromise between hard
line conservative school teachers and a softer modern breed of educator—it is a
‘half-assed curriculum’ one might say unkindly, but generally is on the right track
and in sync with modern theories of education and practise based around inquiry
and discovery learning. In short, although the present New Zealand Curriculum
has many flaws, one can see in it the glimmer of a possibly brighter future for our
schools. In other words, it does indeed seek, at least in it’s spirit, to endeavour to
encourage teachers, parents, schools, and all concerned with the education of our
children, to help our students learn to learn and think, be creative, be critical, enjoy
their time at school and flourish in a rich learning environment. Phew!
But what about the hidden curriculum? We all know that 99% of schools in our
country still teach to the tests and are in fact legally required to hold students (yes
students) accountable for learning the rote procedures and topics published in the
yearly exams and unit standards of the NCEA. The agency responsible for this is
the NZQA, but they are only working on behalf of the government Ministry who are
in turn working at the behest of politicians who do not know what they are doing.
OK, so this is getting a bit political and messy. So let’s focus the debate.
The fact is, whatever the intentions of politicians, we as teachers have an un-
written Hypocratic oath of sorts to do what we think is the best for our students.
We are daily put in charge of their welfare, and if we take this seriously we should
want and deliver the best education for them. That does not mean coaching them
through their required examinations. On the contrary, it means giving them the
life skills they need to go out into the real world and live successful fulfilling lives.
Damn the examinations.
Thais poses a severe problem for any conscientious teacher, especially the novice
teacher who’s head is probably full of conflicting advice and research. Some advice
recommends strict classroom discipline and set standards and topics and syllabus.
Other advice recommends a rich variety of learning experiences along the lines of
constructivist, inquiry and problem-based learning models. The are fundamental
incompatibilities between these different types of advice. More acutely is the in-
compatibility of true earning with the external examinations regime.
Really, who should be held accountable for schooling? The teachers! The students
are relative innocents in the education games we play. We need to move education
in our schools away from such games and towards a fully, richer experience for our
students. Try to help them achieve their true potential, try to help them fulfil their
ambitions, our at least just try to help them find out about themselves and discover
their inner (perhaps suppressed and formerly hidden) ambitions.
What goes on at present in most schools is an outrage. Students are still being
force-fed supposed expert knowledge and a hard and fast diet of “this is what you
need to know to obtain good exam grades”. This is 30 years after articles written by
the likes of Marshal McLuhan, Jonathon Kosol, Neil Postman, Daniel Greenberg,
and others critiquing the similar system in place in the USA! Thirty years and schools
are still only paying lip service to constructivist pedagogies and true learning 1 .
Catering for All Students
One of the problems old school teachers grapple with is what to do with students
who resist learning, who have been flogged metaphorically into submission by the
traditional school system, and who do not take easily to inquiry learning. Here are
some principles that might help,
1
Note however from personal experience of the editor, at least some Primary Schools in New
Zealand have more or less fully taken on board and implemented classroom practices that can be
fairly identified as inquisitive, discovery-based, and philosophically in alignment with constructivist
pedagogy. The main problem exists when students hit Secondary School. They are shocked into
the old school diet of note taking and test taking.
• All students deserve the opportunity to learn how to learn, even if they them-
selves see their future as blue collar worker, labourer and non-intellectual.
• Every occupation, labourer, street cleaner or chimney sweeper, can benefit

from intellectual growth. How does a humble labourer improve their life?
Working harder and longer hours seems like the only way if they are not
equipped with learning skills.
• More important than the direct impact of education on the student themselves
is their ability to pass on every opportunity to their potential children. One
of the great achievements of modern education should be the recognition that
it can flatten society—it can help children born into what would previously
be seen as a socioeconomic trap to escape. While this should not be an overt
goal of education—for some students may not want to escape!—it should be
one of the considered bounties of modern education. Unfortunately, existing
school structures do no live up to this potential, and there is plenty of evi-
dence to suggest this is because inquiry methods of learning are not correctly
implemented in current schools.
I’m sure we could think of plenty of other rationales. The more pressing issue is now
what to do about it. Many students will not want to be thrust into the discomfort of
inquiry and discovery learning. Here is where the skilled teacher plays a tremendous
role.
The teacer has the higher responsibility to gain student trust, to show them how
inquiry learning works, to engage them, to motivate them from within with a thirst
for learning, and to provide a safe and acaring classroom environment in which this
can be accomplished.
How to Implement Inquiry Learning

Easier said than done? Well, it is more a matter of being willing to try inquiry
learning in your classroom and being prepared to make mistakes and get things
wrong before the full benefits accrue. However, it need not take a long time to
become a good practitioner of inquiry learning because most of us do inquiry learn-
ing ourselves, every day. So in a sense we are already experts. We just need to
figure out how to translate it into a classroom environment with 20 to 30 possibly
uncooperative students!
So one prerequisite is to invest time to prepare a class for inquiry learning at the
beginning of the year. If this is not done ‘right’ then it will make it harder to start
teaching the curriculum using inquiry-based learning methods.

Of course it is not easy and may take several weeks of preparation where the
curriculum is skimmed through and explored in preparation for the year. Students
may be organised into cooperative study groups (not inflexibly assigned). They may
be asked to write a plan for themselves for the full year (not set on stone but rather
to be revised frequently of course). Games and other ice-breakers might be used to
gently introduce students to inquiry learning. At some stage in this week or two of
preparation the students should discuss classroom etiquette and agree upon rules,
rights, regulations and responsibilities, and any discipline issues should be dealt with
head on at this early stage. The students should know and behave as though they
are there to learn in safety, comfort and with the fun and thrills of discovery. There
is no manual on how to run these beginning of the year preparatory sessions. Here
we will assume this task is done.
Inquiry Lesson Planning Guidelines
Once a class is prepared then to run an inquiry learning program the suggestion is
to follow the typical steps in any type of research,
1. identify a clear purpose—formulate a question that you can try to answer
2. form a detailed plan to try to answer that question
3. gather data and analyse it in an attempt to answer the question
4. reach some conclusions regarding the answer or to explain why an answer

couldn’t be found.
The teachers role is to support students at every step to ensure that students have
the skills or can learn and develop the skills at each step. From the Epsy-302 course
notes: For instance if the students are at step 3, gathering data, they will need to
know how that data can be collated (tally sheet) and represented (graph). These
are skills they need to be taught. If they are interviewing as a way to gather data
they will need to understand how to ask useful questions for their interview to be
effective in gathering data. Planning therefore includes how you will ensure that
new learning is incorporated in a meaningful and purposeful way. Each step will
need to be scaffolded by planning to support the learners develop and use the skills
as they conduct the inquiry.
How to Get Students Started
Presuming now that the students have been prepared are are ‘on board’ for learning
for themselves. How does the teacher-facilitator plan a lesson? It is no good selecting
topics and then telling the students to get on with the worksheets and activities. The
whole point of inquiry learning is that students need to be working on problems that
are of interest to themselves, not problems that are of interest only to the teacher.
If the latter course is chosen then the point of inquiry learning is immediately lost.
The constraint we need to work under is the examinations regime, whatever it is,
in our case it is currently NCEA. The goal of smooth lesson planning is to by-pass
teaching to the tests without putting students at a disadvantage for their external
exams. This is a severe constraint, and I have no idea f the following planning ideas
will work, so they should be regarded as another of our ‘works in progress’—subject
to continual review. The question of whether we put students at a disadvantage
by not teaching them NCEA material is a good one that we may have to skirt for
now until we have more evidence. Let’s just say that by not teaching to the NCEA
tests we are probably, in the long run, doing students a huge favour. But the fight
against parental and school resistance is one that we dare not leave the students to
fight, it is our fight, and we need to try to get both students and their parents on
our side through reason, compassion, consultation and wisdom.
OK, so this more or less defines what the teacher-facilitator must do:
1. Introduce students to the philosophy of education. This can be linked to

the curriculum subject in order not to shock the students too much initially,
especially if they have never before learnt by inquiry at school (they will know
of inquiry learning at home of course, they’ve done it all the time as children).
2. Discuss the broad goals for the year.
3. Help students organize a log or some other format for monitoring their progress
on NCEA targets.
4. Consult with students and parents on the plan for the year: that they will be
studying topics and projects of their own choosing and interest, guided by the
teacher. The entire overarching philosophy needs to be clearly spelt out.
5. Plan a number of plenary lessons introducing students to the NCEA syllabus

and the New Zealand Curriculum. Have a full and frank discussion about what
the students want to do about all of this. But be clear that having lessons
pre-prepared on a platter from the teacher is not gin to help them much in
their future life!
We cannot benevolently force the students to engage in inquiry learning any

more than we can benevolently force them to sit in class and take notes and
engage in canned activities on set topics.
6.
[Editor: The rest of these notes have been continued in my Reflection Journal.]
Inquiry and Critical Thinking

The next two sections cover Epsy-302 modules 4.6 to 4.7.
We live in an information age, but it is also an age of transition. Traditional
skills are not yet obsolete. Humankind has not yet reached the stage where robotic
automation of critical societal functions such as food, water, and power supply and
material recycling is possible. Nevertheless, today’s children are growing up in a
world that is qualitatively different to the world their parents grew up in, and this
has never before happened in human history. Educational institutions have not
adapted so rapidly however and seem to have lagged behind, producing something
of a crisis in modern schools. Students increasingly see school as irrelevant to their
needs. But this need not be so.
Consider the ‘Did You Know?” series of YouTube videos. For example, http://-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmwZ96 Gos&NR=1. The video ends with the unan-
swered question, “What does this all mean?” One implication is that tomorrows
children will have greater opportunities. Another is that information technology
could form a new sociocultural divide between the haves and the have nots, which
could be worse than any previous social divide. Another is that the very nature of
information (it is almost free to copy and distribute using electronic means) could be
a powerful democratizing influence which could redress social imbalances. For edu-
cators the message is that information technology and literacy is ever more crucial,
and must be part of any child’s education.
The next question for educators is how much should we concentrate on informa-
tion literacy and how much should we concentrate on traditional education? The
answer is partly that we need not bother too much worrying about this distinction.
Teach a child to read and write and they can teach themselves how to process in-
formation. Alternatively, teach a child how to use a computer and browse the web
intelligently and they can teach themselves how to read and write (in any language!)
So in a sense there is no “cart before the horse” issue here.
The issue or crisis facing modern education institutions is rather more subtle. It
is the challenge of providing the resources to allow all children to reach their full
potential. But has this not always been the key problem of education? Maybe. But
in the modern world it is a potential reality and not just an ideal. So the real problem
is to figure out to achieve a child’s full potential without any injustice or prejudices
that would unfairly advantage one group of children in relation to another, or one
country in relation to another country.
The Epsy-302 course notes put this quite bluntly:
“Its not knowledge we need Simply possessing knowledge is not enough.

It is not possible to store sufficient knowledge in our memories and
there is no need because information and knowledge are easily acces-
sible. What we need are people who:
• Comprehend
• Judge
• Participate
• Assimilate information & determine its validity
We need critical thinkers and the challenge as teachers is to develop all
learners into critical thinkers—not just an elite few.”
One might re-phrase this in terms of the needs of children: what children need is
to become critical thinkers.
How to Teach Critical Thinking

The Epsy-302 course notes pose the key questions and ideas.
“Firstly you must acknowledge that critical thinking is a skill that can
be taught and practised. But it requires students to have dispositions
to take risks, to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, so as
a teacher you need to establish the environment where it is safe to take
risks. What does this mean for our role as teachers?
“ As teachers you can use teaching models which are specifically
designed to develop critical thinking—these include:
• Guided discovery
• Inquiry learning
• Group interaction models

• Problem based learning
We have previously looked at the first three models. The diagram below
is a reminder of the models and their theoretical basis.”
See for example Figure 1.1 on page 11.

Be warned however, that none of these teaching methods guarantee that they
will stimulate and excite the interest of all students. In reality that’s an impossible
ideal for any one lesson or method. So there is still room for the teacher to create
genuinely interesting and targeted content for inquiry-based learning, to mix things
up throughout the academic year, and to keep students engaged and interested.
This takes some ingenuity and creativity, and cannot easily be formulated into a
fool-proof system for use in any classroom.
On the other hand, there are some lessons and topics that are naturally “teach-
able”, in that they almost teach themselves. For example, film making, drama,
rocket science (well, almost). There are always some students who hate drama or
others who hate rocket science, but these topics are still considered highly teachable
because of their direct impact and potential for surprise or spectacle.
We leave the final word for this section to Dewey,
“Methods which are permanently successful in formal education give

pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such
a nature as to demand thinking, or the intention of noting connections;
learning naturally results.”
(Dewey, 1916).
Module 4-8, Planning Problem-Based Lessons

Problem-Based Lessons (PBL) are part of the family of inquiry-based and discovery
learning methods. There are many strategies for conducting such lessons. The
Epsy-302 course notes are worth reviewing and have been recorded in Module 4-8
audio files on our TWiki.
The essence of PBL is for the teacher to act as a guide rather than a knowledge
provider. In the end the teacher facilitates an extreme amount of knowledge acquisi-
tion on behalf of the students, but, even more than knowledge about pertinent facts,
the students are expected to learn about how to find things out for themselves.
A mantra for inquiry-based learning, discovery learning and PBL is,

Teach less so students learn more.
That’s an over-simplification intended just to make the more prosaic point that
teachers can often be more effective when they talk less and solicit more talk from
the students. The idea is definitely not that teachers are to be passive and laissez
faire, but rather work very hard in a different way to traditional teaching.
So why is inquiry learning and PBL harder work for the teacher? It is perhaps
easier on the teachers vocal chords! It is harder however because it demands the
teacher keep students on focus and on task while giving students more freedom than
they are traditionally used to. So for many students this can be a difficult transition
to make if they are not exposed to such teaching methods early in life. This makes
life difficult for the teacher. Initially a class beginning POBL for the first time will
probably not make as rapid progress as a traditional class.
But over time the teacher should be confidant that PBL and inquiry learning
will pay great dividends and surpass the efficiency of traditional teaching methods.
The teacher also has the role of monitoring progress and adjusting lessons so that
these benefits do eventually accrue. Thus evidence based teaching (EBT) should be
made a core part of PBL and inquiry learning..
Examples of PBL for Improving Lessons
For this module we were asked to design a PBL lesson that would have improved
one of our lessons on Teaching Experience practicum. Below are some postings to
the forum discussing this task.
From Blair:
“So the problem was with a large (33 students) noisy all-boy year
10 science class. I was told to do half a lesson introducing balancing
chemical equations using combustion of alkanes as an example. I was told
the class was an ”advanced stream”, and despite being disruptive and
ill-mannered they were bright enough to learn about balancing equations.
“Not so! They complained and whinged and whined when I started
to go through the topic in lecture-discussion style. They rebelled and
made somuch noise I had to back down and do a simple demo instead.
“So how could PBL have improved the situation?
“First, I needed a better understanding of the students’ background
knowledge. If I knew they had never seen a chemical equation in their
lives before then I would have started with ‘word equations’ and done
things a lot slower.
PBL would have been useful, but a simple inquiry and discovery
lesson would have been ideal. A reasonable lesson might have been
structured as follows:
1. Review products of combustion (CO2 , CO, C and water and heat—
from a previous lesson).
2. Problem definition: how do we figure out how much alkane fuel
(methane for example) to burn to get X litres of CO2 or water?
3. Invite suggestions: offer guidance if necessary mentioning what
chemical reactions can and cannot do (change molecules but not
atoms). Ensure the concept of reactants and products is arrived at.
4. Once students have grasped the idea of a balance of atomic species,
summarize in ‘cleaned up’ teacher formalism.
5. Next step: how do we quantify the balance?
6. Allow students to discuss ideas until the concept of symbolizing the
change in molecules using symbols for the atomic constituents is
given, either in list or other form, again ”clean up” the progress on
the problem: (Reactants: CH4 , O2 . Products H2 O, CO2 .) No harm
in limiting to complete combustion.
7. Invite suggestions for how to balance reactants and products. What
analogies can be used (scale balance, conservation of mass, bank
transactions, profit/loss, etc., . . . )?
8. Summarize the main ideas and solicit ideas for quantitative formu-
lation,...whether they use reactants on left or right and an arrow or
some other formalism does not matter!!! In fact it’s cooler if they
do not use the textbook formalism, provided their abstraction is
correct.
9. If time is left, check the result in tabular form. Then do another
similar reaction, eg., burning ethane. Then try incomplete combus-
tion and heavier alkanes for practice. This aught to be a simple
formative assessment exercise.
10. Finally, reveal the textbook chemical equations and get them to
compare with their developed formalism. Do a few more exercises
using the textbook way (bowing to NCEA exam and social conven-
tion here. . . :sigh:)”
Diana had an idea for PBL lessons with food safety issues:
“In Food Tech The problem I had was how to engage learning as
many were only interested in the cooking experience. A lesson on food
safety showed how a real issue impacted on their own experiences and
this one would have been a good problem solving opportunity as the
topic provoked curiosity and discussion.
“We discussed physical hazards in food and once it was realised this
was to do with a ‘shard of glass in jam’ or ‘a hair in a plate of food in a
café’ or even ‘a mouse found in a burger’ (the experiences were either first
or second hand), the discussion was very productive. We covered how to
handle situations and how food safety issues are addressed at a consumer
level; asking for money back, letters of complaints, better food handling
procedures, hazard control analysis to ensure safety, consequences of
failures such as fines, costly product recalls etc.
“To translate this discussion to PBL I could
1. Share my experience and knowledge and one particular course of
action e.g., send the plate back to the chef.
2. plan questions to present the broad issue.
3. look at the context of societal and ethical issues - scale of the prob-
lem, impact (food poisoning, lost business), consumer dissatisfac-
tion etc.
4. write students’ ideas on the board and form them into groups based
on their interest in one example perhaps.
5. guide the group interactions moving them forward so they do not
get too enveloped in discussing the actual examples so move them
on to the bigger issues.
6. monitor peer and group interactions, hand out an example of an
open—ended question where a group is ‘stuck’.
7. prompt and scaffold discussion (e.g., ask the student that has just
answered to ask another question themselves).
“The students write a brief written reflection following the group work
answer questions; What was my problem? How did I go about solving
it? What might I do differently next time?
“The outcomes could inform about how systemic food handling issues
are in society, provide options supported by more knowledge and apply
to practice—compliance to wash their hands, put the hair nets on during
practicals, washing dishes in hot water etc.
“Adjusting from discussion to a structured PBL based discussion
could mean valuable learning outcomes, and more individuals on task
and engaging in solving the problem as well.”
Hannah had a use for PBL that would also lead to a richer lesson structure:
“I did a sustainability web design unit with my year 11-13 IT class.

I tried to get them to do some research on sustainability topics to find
a topic that genuinely interested them, and the year 13’s had to have
a stakeholder for the unit standard, so they had to find someone to
make the website for. I think, however, that based on the short time-
frame I had with them, any inquiry I had hoped they would do was not
given enough attention or time to build the necessary skills. If I were to
redo this unit as a PBL unit, I would spend more time on investigating
sustainability issues, even make that aspect a group work aspect so that
they could identify an authentic problem or need (such as projects going
on within the community or school that needed promotion through a
website or something) and then use the PBL process to come up with
their solutions.
“It would then require finishing off as individual websites being made,
however, because assessment always draws that nasty box around the
expansive possibilities of discovery learning, which all students have to
fit through in the end to get their NCEA credits. I’m not sure what the
solution to that bit is, but some PBL in the ministry of education to
rewrite NCEA would be a good start :) ”
Leah had a great idea for a lesson on teenage health:
“I’ve chosen to apply the PBL model to a Year 13 health topic - A

Current Health Issue affecting a particular group in New Zealand
“Teenage pregnancy:
1. A 15 year old girl has found out she is pregnant. What services
are available to her? What factors contributed to her current situation?
What are the implications of the pregnancy on a) herself, b) her com-
munity?
“2. Small group brainstorming sessions would be conducted to iden-
tify what students already know about the issue. Each group would re-
port back to the class with their ideas. One session would ask students to
list services that are available to pregnant teens, a second session would
ask students to list the short and long term effects of being pregnant as a
teenager on herself, and on the wider community. A third session would
ask students to list factors they believe contribute to becoming pregnant
as a teenager (social, economic, lifestyle).
“3. Students would use health-related resources and community
services to find out as many options for pregnant teenagers as possi-
ble. Teacher could access local teenage mum education course to ask
if any students/mums would be willing to be interviewed by students
to find out how she found services/help/options. Investigating con-
tributing factors would involve reading reports related to teenage preg-
nancy and statistics which identify which health determinants link to
the issue—social/economic/lifestyle/political/environmental, etc. The
same reports could be used to identify short- and long-term effects of
pregnancy on a person.
“4. Students would collate their information and put a manual to-
gether which would give the pregnant 15 year old information to help her
get through her current situation. The manual would include identifying
areas of her lifestyle which may have contributed to her situation, and
things she may be able to change to avoid the same being put in the
same situation again.
“5. Students may be able to distribute their manuals to other stu-
dents at the school and survey students who have read it, finding out if
the manual would be helpful if they ended up pregnant as a teenager,
or if any of the information would help them avoid becoming pregnant
as a teenager if it was not an intended option for that stage in their life.
If results from surveys returned are favourable, that the manual would
help people, students can assess their work as successful.”
From Mike:
“I had a year 9 science class that I was trying to teach atom structure
too and why some elements are stable and others reacted violently to
form stable products. For example sodium reacts violently with water
to form hydrogen gas and sodium hydroxide, while oxygen and hydrogen
react explosively to form water. The chlorine gas that killed people
during WW1 reacts with sodium to form salt that goes on your fish-n-
chips!!!
“The atomic theory explanations for this have been nutted out over
many years of research PBL. The structure of the atom is fundamental
to our understanding of chemistry and so the students need this base
knowledge to understand more complex chemistry ideas.
“The problem of course is that the students say ” so what, who
cares” and that is a really good question. Of course almost all electronic
equipment we use utilizes complex chemistry properties to work, however
most of these chemicals are dangerous or valuable.
“I pondered long on how I could find a useful problem based question
that the students could explore but in the end came back to the fact that
for safety reasons there are some things that will just need to be taught
as base knowledge.
“I quickly finished this unit and then moved on to something more
interesting. I told the students that I want to farm some eels for an end
of term cook-up. We were going to catch some small eels and grow them
until they were big enough for the cook-up for the class.
“Of course there is a lot to think about here. Lots of how, why, when,
where, what questions. So off we went. I now have to make the trip into
town every few days to check on our eel farm.”
Tarena had a good example:
“I am going to use a year 9 Health class that I taught. I was focusing

on longevity and what things centurions do that enable them to lead
quality healthy lives long after reaching the national average lifespan. It
was a really fun unit but PS model could have made it even better.
“1. State the problem: My nana is 76, which is only four years away
from reaching the average lifespan. She what’s to still be around to see
my youngest child who is now 1, turn 21. Is it possible? and if so what
sort of things could she be doing to help make that happen?
“2. Define: Co-construct the criteria, so students are aware of what
is required of them. Include a rubric, boundaries, is it to be completed in
groups? What is the time frame? How is the information to be presented
back? what class time will be allocated? etc
“3. Design: Using the information decided on in the define stage, stu-
dents to make a plan on how they will achieve the required outcome. This
includes the the how, what, where, when, why questions, brainstorms.
Teacher to introduce blue-zones, legacy surveys, these are centurion hot
spots in the world. Student’s plans include task, subtasks, time-lines.
“4. Do: Students go about their work following their plans, debriefing
along the way. Students are encouraged to ask questions and require
feedback from teacher. Students present their learning.
“5. Debrief: This happens throughout the process, student-debriefs,
student–student debriefs, lesson debrief, task debrief. These debriefs
include stop-start-stays, continuum, SWOT, etc. A final debrief at the
end includes an evaluation of what worked what didn’t and goal setting
for the next problem. What skills need to be improved?
“I followed McCain, T (2007). Teaching for tomorrow, teaching con-
tent and problem solving skills. The 4D’s”
Module 4-9—Strategies for Critical Thinking

Four strategies you can use to develop critical thinking are:
1. De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats http://debonoforschools.com/asp/six hats.asp
2. Art Costas Habits of mind http://www.instituteforhabitsofmind.com/what-

are-habits-mind
3. Tony Ryans Thinking keys http://centre4.core-ed.net/modules/folder/
4. The Three- story intellect http://www.adrian.edu/faculty staff/accet/CTWG/-

intellect.pdf
5. De Bono’s Twelve Action Shoes, see for example http://homepage.mac.com/. . . /-

six action shoes.html
These programmes are fairly easy to translate into the classroom. Here are some
quick summaries.
Six Thinking Hats
1. Blue Hat Thinking—Process. Thinking about thinking. What thinking is

needed? Organizing the thinking. Planning for action.
2. White Hat Thinking—Facts. Information and data. Neutral and objective.

What do I know? What do I need to find out? How will I get the information
I need?
3. Green Hat Thinking—Creativity. Ideas, alternative, possibilities. Provocation—

“PO!”. Solutions to black hat problems.
4. Yellow Hat Thinking—Benefits. Positives, plus points. Logical reasons are

given. Why an idea is useful.
5. Black Hat Thinking—Cautions. Difficulties, weaknesses, dangers. Logical

reasons are given. Spotting the risks.
6. Red Hat Thinking—Feelings. Intuition, hunches, gut instinct. My feelings

right now. Feelings can change. No reasons are given.
Thinking Keys
The Reverse Listing Key. Place words such as cannot, never or not in a sentence.
Example: Name ten things that you could not eat.
The What If Key. You can pose virtually any “What If” question. Students can
use a concept map, ‘Kidspiration’ or Inspiration to record their responses.
Example: What If all dogs turned into mice? What if the sun stopped shining?
The Disadvantages Key. Select any item and ask students to list its disadvan-
tages. Students then brainstorm various ways of correcting or eliminating the
disadvantages. Example: A computer, a chair, a pencil, a television.
The Combination Key. Students list the attributes of two dissimilar or unrelated
objects (e.g. newspaper and swimming goggles). Then they combine the
attributes into a single object. Example: A sand-shoe and a lamp.
The BAR Key. Make an item BIGGER, ADD something to it, REPLACE some-
thing on it. Example: A mouse trap, an umbrella, a freezer, a tent.
The Alphabet Key. Choose an object or topic and compile a list of words from
A- Z which have relevance to the current unit being studied. Students may
expand on these. Example: Alphabet: food, Australia, politicians, animals.
The Variations Key. Start each question with “How many ways can you. . . ” Stu-
dents brainstorm different solutions or ways to meet the challenge. Example:
How many ways can you: make new friends; wash a giraffe, catch a lion?
The Picture Key. Draw a simple diagram, sketch or drawing and students work
out ways to link it to the current topic they are studying.
The Prediction Key. Students respond to a situation or circumstance by predict-

ing a series of possibilities. Example: Predict what children will be like in 50
years, predict what forms of entertainment we will have in 100 years.
The Different Uses Key. Students list some different uses for items from their
topic or theme (with an emphasis on reusing and recycling). Example: Find
10 uses for empty plastic yoghurt containers, an old shoe, a broken radio.
The Ridiculous Key. Make a ridiculous statement that would be virtually impos-
sible to implement. Students then attempt to substantiate, justify the idea by
developing a case to support it. Example: Every child should be required to
pay a tax on their birthday and Christmas presents.
The Commonality Key. Decide on two objects which would normally have noth-
ing in common, and try to find common points between them. Example:
Kurwongbah State School and a circus.
The Question Key. Provide students with an answer. Students think of five ques-
tions that give only that answer. Example: Midnight, Seaweed, Monkeys,
Migrants, Koalas.
The Brainstorming Key. State a problem which needs to be solved. Students
work individually or in groups to brainstorm a list of practical, creative or
innovative solutions. Example: Too many people eat fast food. There are
too many cane toads in Queensland. There are too many homeless people in
Brisbane.
The Inventions Key. Students may be presented with a design challenge of brief.
Students can outline their ideas/ design on paper and then possibly construct
their invention using a variety of materials. Example: Invent a new mousetrap,
a grape peeler, an automatic vacuum cleaner. (This key links well with the
Technology KLA- Technology Practice).
The Brick Wall Key. Make a statement which could not generally be questioned
or disputed, and then try to “break down the wall” by outlining other ways of
dealing with the situation. Example: Every child needs to go to school to get
a good education.
The Construction Key. Pose a construction problem-solving task and provide
readily available material for students to use. Students can work individually
or in groups to build their construction. Example: Build the longest bridge
using one sheet of newspaper, sticky tape and 10 straws. Children can draw a
diagram.
The Forced Relationships Key. Develop a solution to a problem using three
totally dissimilar objects. Students cannot use the objects in the way they
were intended to be used. Example: You need to catch a cat with a kite, a
marble and a rubber band. Children can draw a diagram.
The Alternative Key. Students think of a number of ways to complete a task
without the normal tools or equipment. Example: Work out three ways to
take a photograph without a camera, rake up leaves without a rake, see clearly
underwater without goggles. Children can draw a diagram.
The Interpretation Key. Describe an unusual situation. Students think of dif-
ferent ways to explain that situation. Example: The clown is standing in the
middle of the empty school oval.
Sixteen Habits of Mind
Habits of Mind are dispositions that are skilfully and mindfully employed by char-
acteristically intelligent, successful people when they are confronted with problems,
the solution to which are not immediately apparent.
The Habits of Mind as identified by Costa and Kallick are:
1. Persisting
2. Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision
3. Managing Impulsion
4. Gathering Data Through all Senses
5. Listening with Understanding and Empathy
6. Creating, Imaging and Innovation
7. Thinking Flexibly
8. Responding with Wonderment and Awe
9. Thinking about Thinking (Meta-cognition)
10. Taking Responsible Risks
11. Striving for Accuracy
12. Finding Humour
13. Questioning and Posing Problems
14. Thinking Interdependently
15. Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations
16. Remaining Open to Continuous Learning
The trouble with this list is that it is easy to say but hard to do! Especially ‘finding
humour’. Most of us appreciate a good joke, but cracking jokes and creating humour
is hard.
Three Story Intellect
Moving students from lower to higher levels of thinking can become an explicit
and intentional strategy through the application and integration of The Three Story
Intellect. Inspired by an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote and adapted for academic
purposes by Art Costa, the three story intellect provides a means by which students
can recognize the various levels of thinking. All three are important components of
good thinking and students can begin their thought processes at any of the three
levels. When all three levels become part of student thinking, they have achieved
higher order thinking.
Costa’s version:
First Story—Information. • Fact collection: Count. Describe. Identify.

List.Observe. Name. Recite.
Second Story—Explanation/Analysis. • Reasoning and generalization.

Analyze Categorize. Compare/Contrast. Explain. Infer. Make Analo-
gies. Sequence. Synthesize.
Third Story—Interpretation/Application • Idealize and imagine. Ap-

ply a principle. Evaluate. Forecast. Hypothesize. Imagine. Assess.
Predict. Speculate.
The inspiration comes from the following Oliver Wendell-Holmes Sr, quote:
“There are one-story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story

intellects with skylights. All fact collectors with no aim beyond their
facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare reason and generalize,
using labors of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men
idealize, imagine, and predict. Their best illuminations come from above
through the skylight.”
—Oliver Wendell-Holmes.
Comments on the Thinking Tools
We have to do some meta-cognitive thinking to figure out how best to use all of these
tools. To optimize the use any of these critical thinking ideas it seems sensible to
tailor them the specific learning objectives. The Thinking Hats is simple since you
first teach the children the idea of the thinking hats, then pull them out whenever
the class is posed a problem that requires differentiated styles of thinking.
The Habits of Mind can also be “pulled out”—of a figurative draw of tools—to
respond to a classroom situation. For example, obtaining some data demonstrating
friction can be tricky, so pull out the strive for accuracy and persistence habits.
The Thinking Keys can be used to complete an entire lesson. The meta-key here
is to choose an appropriate Key for the topic you want to teach. For example, if
you want to teach a set of mathematical methods that all solve a similar problem
then you might use the Variations Key—ask the students how many ways can this
problem be solved. One can do this for proving Pythagoras’ theorem for example,
and as a consequence teach a lot of geometry and algebra.
5. Module 5—Differentiated
Learning and the Digital Age
The educational psychology research on multiple intelligences (see for example

Ch. 2 of McInerney and McInerney (2006)) is a theoretical basis for the techniques
of differentiated learning.
Failure to differentiate teaching & learning to meet different students’ needs has
been described as, “The biggest mistake of past centuries in teaching. . . ”—Siegel &
Shaughnessy, quoted in (Tomlinson, 1999), that makes this a great topic to study
in this final module.
We begin with a few notes taken verbatim from the Epsy-302 module notes.
Module 5-1—Introduction to Differentiated Learn-

ing
By the end of this chapter you will be able to:
1. define differentiated learning
2. justify the use of differentiated learning
3. know how to apply some differentiated strategies.
Rationale: Differentiated learning recognizes that teaching involves planning to

meet various needs. When teachers are responsive in their teaching in order to sup-
port the success of all learners they recognize that learners are a mix of individuals
and there is substantial diversity among the learners.
88
Module 5—Differentiated Learning and the Digital Age 89
Also, we will look at digital technology for education. Learning intentions here
are:
• to explain the background: schools, policies and teaching in the digital age so
far.
• Identify digitally able teachers
• Explain developing theory
• Know how to put developing theory into practice.
Rationale: The digital era is a time when available technology enables access to
information, ideas and people from a range of locations, at any time. Teachers need
to be able to teach the digital generation in relevant ways.
Module 5-2, What is Differentiated Learning?

First we have the anticipatory reading guide, Table 5.1, to fill in before and after
reading through this module.
Highlights from “Elements of Differentiation”
Below are some of the editor’s favourite extracts from (Tomlinson, 1999).
“They do not quest for sameness, but they search for the sense of
triumph the comes when they are respected, valued, nurtured, and even
cajoled into accomplishing things they believed beyond their grasp.”
—Ibid. page 10.
To me, this says it all. But let’s read on.
“In a differentiated classroom, the teacher unconditionally accepts

students as they are, and she expects them to become all they can be.”
—Ibid. page 10.
Assessment is not just an end, rather,

Statement Before After
Different teaching/learning methods work better for different learners. agree

Evidence:
A good way to provide for the needs of advanced students is to give them neither
extra work.
Evidence: advanced students need sometimes deeper work, not just more
work.
Effective teaching to meet the diverse needs of students could include agree
differentiating the content taught to different groups of students.
Evidence:
It is important for all students to compete on a level playing field in agree

summative assessment: being able to demonstrate their competency in
the same way.
Evidence:
Using knowledge of different students’ interests can help teachers plan agree
lessons that a range of students find engaging.
Evidence:
Good teaching takes account of students in the class who have well- agree
developed prior knowledge, as well as those with very little prior knowledge
relating to the topic.
Evidence:
The teacher explaining something to an entire class is not good practice disagree
because of the diverse needs of learners in our classrooms.
Evidence: whole class teaching is fine, “many times. . . is the order of the
day”, q.v. Tomlinson (1999) page 11.
Diagnostic and formative assessment help teachers plan for learning expe- agree
riences which suit the diverse needs of a class.
Evidence:
An effective teacher is organised with all learning experiences for a unit agree
of study planned beforehand.
Evidence:
As for clothes, which people like to choose to meet their individual comfort agree
needs and to give expression to our personalities, so learning can be more
comfortable, engaging and inviting when a one-size-fits-all approach is
avoided.
Evidence:
Table 5.1: Anticipatory guide for differentiated learning reading.

“assessment is today’s means of understanding how to modify tomor-

row’s instruction.”
—Ibid. page 10.
I love this article so far! My question is, how do we implement these ideals? How can
we survive as human beings under the weight of this responsibility—assessing and
modifying lessons overnight for about half a dozen different classes each of twenty
to thirty different children?
One answer is just to think differently ourselves! We can assess and modify a
lesson in situ! We just need to have a deep understanding of the topic ourselves and
most importantly of the pedagogical content knowledge required to be flexible and
respond almost instantly to student needs.
A second answer is to simply relax and not worry too much about overnight
modifications. modifying a lesson may take years of experience with many children
before we get it right, and even then, people change, generations change, and to-
morrows children may not appreciate lessons that are optimized for today’s children.
So in a sense we just need to try our best, not stress about it, have fun with this
challenge and be honest with the children if we think we haven’t got our teaching
right. Then we can always use the students to help us get things right!
“In the end it is not standardization that makes a classroom work.

It is a deep respect for the identity of the individual.”
—Ibid. page 12.
“A great coach never achieves greatness. . . by working to make all

. . . players alike. To be great, and to make his players great, he must
make each player the best that he or she possibly can be.”
—Ibid. page 13.
This is all fine and agreeable so far. The trouble is, teaching using differentiated
learning techniques and generally by constructivist methodologies is hard work for
the teacher. Yet it should seem comfortable and easy for students, while they
may not realize how hard they are actually working. The student is thinking a
lot, that’s their burden—which should be shouldered lightly—but not necessarily
exhausting themselves physically (that’s for the play ground and PE lessons). The
teacher facilitates this, which is heavily shouldered typically, at least until the teacher
becomes so experienced that their work becomes enjoyable second nature.
So for the teacher it is a complex system. One way to deal with the associated
stress and work load is to have a sound perspective. It helps to have a vision of
the ideal classroom and take steps to work towards this. In some way this needs
to be repeated every year for every new class. Eventually an experiences teacher
will refine their methods and find a comfortable working pace,no matter what the
psychological make-up of their students at the beginning of the year.
The start of the year is thus critical—the defining moments of the entire year
will be at the beginning to a large degree. The vision one could have is of the
classroom as a harmonious orchestra—composed of diverse musicians (students)
and instruments (their psyche’s). For the teacher, patience is required. Beautiful
music cannot be expected without expert conducting. So what is the analogy of the
expert conductor? In many ways it entails the same skills as a professional orchestra
conductor. The big difference is that in a professional orchestra the musicians all
share a common goal. While in a school classroom this is not typically the case at
the beginning of the year.
So the very first task for a teacher of a differentiated class, is to orchestrate
the common goals for the year. Individual learning goals may be different for each
student, but the blend and mix must all be harmonized together in the marquee
lessons at the beginning of the year t establish common goals. These are things
like the class routines, rules, regulations, rights and responsibilities. They include
respect for each other and a common purpose of helping each other understand the
world and to help each other become the best they can be.
These may seem like vague, qualitative and ill-defined goals. They are however,
in my opinion (Ed) crucial. To settle for anything less would be a betrayal to the
ideals of education.
The final quotation for this section is from the Epsy-302 module notes. I loved
these sentiments:
“All learners are motivated to learn, given the right circum-

stances. All learners can succeed in learning, given the right
circumstances. Learners need to be at the centre of the plan-
ning process.”
How to Plan for Differentiated Learning
First, if you need a mental boost, looking at the diagram and bullet points at the
end of Chapter 2 of Tomlinson (1999) is a good place to start for seeding some
inspiration.
Start of Year —one of the most important things is to invest significant time at
the beginning of a year getting to know your students, their likes, dislikes,
hobbies, backgrounds and interests. This may mean a week, a month, or more
of lessons with minimal syllabus content and a lot of human interest content.
This is so fundamental that one can hardly spend too much time on it.
Start of Year —again! Do an essay assignment: students get to write about their
interest or background knowledge of the subject, link these to their own in-
terests, and do some preliminary personal goal setting for the year. Also sort
out their personal journals—these can be kept in the classroom.
Start of Year —again! Establish a climate of learning, a culture of inquiry. If this
is not achieved, then the rest of the year will be much more difficult for you
to apply differentiated learning and constructivist teaching.
Curriculum elements —pay attention to how Content (what they should be
learning), Processes (activities that demonstrate skills), and Products (desired
results) effect students differently.
Student characteristics —pay attention to each students’ Readiness (their en-
try points), Interests (their curiosity, passion, their ‘buttons’), and Learning
Profile (how they learn).
Modify only if necessary —take it easy! You only need to modify a curriculum
element when (1) you identify a student need not catered for, (2) you can see
it would increase student understanding and skill development.
Rarely is there a “fits all” —one size does not fit all students, and one pace
does not suit all either! So don’t worry if some students streak ahead of the
others. Just make sure the slower students are not left helpless.
Expectations —expect all students to grow and support them in this.
Offer something of interest —consistently escalate difficulty levels; offer all stu-
dents tasks that are (to each of them) equally interesting, equally important
and equally engaging. Some may argue we should only offer things that are
of interest! Drop all the boring stuff. But differentiation means while task X
may be interesting to student A, it may not be to student B, and the converse
for task Y . So we need to give students abundant choices.
Teacher-student collaboration —co-opt students into the design and building
of lessons and with evidence gathering. This is extremely powerful if done
wholeheartedly. Do the same for classroom management.
Teach as a leader —you do not relinquish the role of a leader, but nor should
teachers act as prescriptive fountains of knowledge.
Multiply success —and learn from failures. Involve students in planning, goal
setting, monitoring, and analysis.
Student centred —obvious, but hard to accomplish. Again, teachers do not re-
linquish control as leaders, but must be flexible and lead students to nectar
that is suitable for their individual digestion.
Stress relief —don’t sweat it—it takes time to become good at differentiated
teaching & learning. But one way to fast track it is to become a differen-
tiated learner yourself. Practice what you preach: teach yourself how to run
differentiated classrooms in a manner that best suits your learning needs. You
do not have to do it the same way your colleagues do.
Reward progress —it is not absolute attainment that counts, not at all! So don’t
even mention it: concentrate instead and emphasize relative progress (ipsative
assessment). They who progress the most are the class heroes.
Moderation —you do not need to overdo things. Quoting again from (Tomlinson,
1999),
“The teacher does not try to differentiate everything for everyone

every day. That’s impossible, and it would destroy the sense of
wholeness in the class.”
No prejudices —believe each student can do anything possible, thus avoid the
self-fulfilling prophecy trap that limits your teaching and prejudices students.
Lighten the load —teach only what you believe to be worth learning about! Cut
the rest out, unless it is necessary scaffolding.
Module 5-2b, Special Needs Students in NZ Schools

This is an extra module inserted here which summarizes the NZ Ministry of Educa-
tion handbook for Schools, in particular the section Gifted and Talented Students:
Meeting their needs. Source: http://www.tki.org.nz/r/gifted/handbook/. The fol-
lowing are extracts from this handbook.
Introduction. One of the great joys and privileges of being a teacher is sharing in
the development of a young person’s exceptional ability. It is equally gratifying to
then observe that special ability being realised in adult achievement. Many eminent
adults, when asked to identify the critical factors contributing to their outstanding
accomplishments, point to support that teachers provided.
There is a growing awareness of the special needs of gifted and talented students
and of the importance of providing them with an educational environment that
offers maximum opportunities to develop their special abilities. There is also an
increased acknowledgment that these young people represent one of our country’s
greatest natural resources and that failure to support them appropriately in their
schooling may see this potential go unrealised. Consequences
Teachers are becoming more aware of the consequences of not attending to the
needs of the gifted and talented. The research in this area is conclusive and ir-
refutable: failure to recognise and meet the needs of the gifted and talented can
result in their boredom, frustration, mediocrity, and even hostility.
Certainly, many students are not deterred by a system that fails to support
the development of their special abilities. Some of this group may compensate for
an unrewarding school environment by finding fulfilment in activities beyond the
school gate. However, others may choose to deny their abilities in an attempt to fit
in. A significant number of our more able students simply ‘give up’, leave school
prematurely, and often never pursue those areas where they once showed so much
promise.
Structure of this resource. This resource begins with a ‘Getting started’ sec-
tion that outlines how schools might approach the task of developing a school-wide
approach for their gifted and talented students. The remainder of the resource is
divided into the two main stages involved in to developing a suitable programme.
Stage 1 looks at definitions, characteristics, and identification of gifted and tal-
ented students. There has been no attempt to offer a single definition of giftedness
and talent. Instead, schools are encouraged to take a multi-categorical and multi-
cultural approach, and to include special abilities across a range of areas. Any ap-
proach must recognise that the incidence of giftedness and talent is not determined
by class, culture, or gender.
Stage 2 looks at programme development and evaluation. This section explains
the essential elements of programmes for gifted and talented students and describes
a range of contexts in which these may be offered.
To illustrate the strategies or to elaborate on the approaches outlined in each
section of these stages, examples of school case studies, research and conference
papers, and other related material are provided at the end of each section under the
‘Related reading’ heading.
Getting Started. Programmes for the gifted and talented can be tenuous in
nature, and have been known to appear and then disappear within a very short
space of time. This is often because the impetus for a new initiative, and the
responsibility for its implementation, reside with a single staff member.
This situation can be avoided by making a school-wide commitment to catering
for the needs of gifted and talented students.
Developing a Policy. A crucial component in establishing comprehensive and

enduring provision for gifted and talented students is the development of a relevant
school policy.
While a policy does not guarantee appropriate provision in every classroom, it
does go a long way to ensuring that these students’ needs remain on the school’s
agenda. A policy also provides something against which approaches can be reviewed
and evaluated.
A policy for catering for the needs of gifted and talented students should be de-
veloped through consultation both inside and outside the school. Parents of gifted
students should have an opportunity to be involved. Gifted and talented students
themselves can make valuable contributions to specific aspects of policy develop-
ment. Very often, a school may also require an outside ’expert’ to guide them in
this undertaking.
A school policy needs to answer the why? who? what? where? how? and when?
questions. Why?
A good starting place is to develop a defensible rationale for providing differen-
tially for gifted and talented students. This statement should tie in with the overall
philosophy of the school. Who?
Defining who are the gifted and talented in a school population is not an easy
task. However, to do this a school must first arrive at a definition, because this
provides the basis for identification and programme planning procedures. Once the
definition has been reached, issues of identification can be addressed.
A second question to ask here is who will co-ordinate the programme in the
school. Programmes for the gifted and talented have more chance of developing and
enduring when:
• there is a team approach to co-ordination, and
• the team includes a member of the school’s senior management.

It is also essential that the programme is ’owned’ by the school community. To

this end, the team or committee responsible for developing and implementing it
should consult widely to reflect the different interest groups in the school and the
perspectives held by members of staff. What?
The next stage is the setting of goals and objectives what are we going to do?
This part of the process is very important because it not only sets the direction
of a school’s efforts but also provides criteria against which these efforts can be
evaluated.
Many schools have discovered the value of undertaking a ‘gap’ analysis as a
starting point, to determine ‘where we are at and where we are going’. This allows
them to evaluate current provisions and practices, and to identify the strengths and
interests of school staff and members of the local community.
The ‘gap’ analysis approach is also an excellent way of determining what should
be included in a programme of professional development for staff.
Where?
The debate about where gifted and talented students are best provided for in
the school often constitutes the starting point in the process of planning and de-
velopment. However, questions about the appropriateness of a separate class, a
withdrawal programme, ability grouping, cluster grouping, and so on can only be
answered in an informed way after a school has addressed the why, who and what
questions.
The needs of the gifted and talented must be at the forefront when this matter is
being decided. Too often their needs become subsumed by concerns about charges
of elitism, how other children in the school might feel, or the reactions of parents of
children not selected for special programmes.
How and when?
Once the aims and objectives for the programme have been decided, a plan
of action needs to be developed detailing how these will be met. This plan should
include a time frame identifying when things will happen. These details are essential
if a school is to develop a co-ordinated and consistent approach.
Sometimes new initiatives lose their impetus because the implementation plan
is too ambitious. This can occur when the direction is provided by a staff member
who is both experienced and enthusiastic but who fails to recognise that some of his
or her colleagues may be much less knowledgeable and somewhat diffident.
Some new developments are short lived because the vision was short term. There
needs to be a long-term as well as a short-term plan of action.
The question of how programmes will be evaluated should be answered as part

of the initial planning process. Reid (1996) reports that few New Zealand schools
systematically and rigorously assess the effectiveness of their endeavours in this area.
He believes this is because programme descriptions are usually brief and provide
sketchy information.
A school also needs to ask the question of how any new initiatives will be re-
sourced.
Professional Development. Professional development is an essential ingredient

in developing, implementing, and maintaining effective programmes for gifted and
talented students.
Well-planned professional development opportunities for all those involved in ed-
ucation will increase interest in, and commitment to, the education of the gifted and
talented. Dettmer and Landrum (1998) remind us, in their book Staff Development:
The Key to Effective Gifted Education Programs, that “it has been recognised for
more than two decades that teachers do adopt more accepting and facilitative at-
titudes toward gifted students after just one course in the education of the gifted”
(page 1).
Since gifted education is seldom addressed (beyond a chapter, a one-off lecture,
or an optional paper), within pre-service teacher education, in-service professional
development is vital.
Educators in New Zealand need specific training and understanding in each of
the following areas:
• concepts of giftedness and talent and related behaviours
• identification methods
• programming options and curriculum differentiation
• teaching methods and materials
• working with special populations among the gifted with particular reference
to gender, culture, and disability.
Any programme of professional development needs to be contextually based and to

reflect current policies and practices within individual schools. There is an increasing
trend towards school-based professional development, where the programme reflects
the nature and needs of the individual school.
Roberts and Roberts (1986, page 141) outline areas of concern and suggested
professional development focuses as follows:
• Awareness—arousing interest and providing information about how the gifted

programme relates to other aspects of the school and curriculum
• Informational—providing general information about the gifted programme and
what it provides for students
• Personal—providing clarification of role expectations
• Management—providing direction related to day-to-day demands, such as
timetabling, funding, and organisation
• Consequences—providing opportunities to examine evaluation issues and re-
fine teaching skills
• Collaboration—providing time for working together, exchanging ideas, and
guiding one another
• Refocusing—providing opportunities for new ideas to be piloted.
The professional development may be delivered by an array of individuals, including:
• practitioners
• researchers
• college of education
• university teaching staff
• professional consultants
• members of advocacy groups
• parents of gifted and talented children
• cultural experts
• gifted and talented students themselves.
Regardless of who the presenters are, their skills should match the needs and goals
of the intended professional development programme.
Opportunities for gifted and talented children will improve only when profes-
sional development is included as a goal—for all stakeholders—in a collaborative
and consultative manner.
Summary.
• Frequently, educational initiatives for the gifted and talented are short-lived.
This often occurs when the impetus for a new development resides with a
single staff member.
• A new programme is more likely to develop and endure if it is based on relevant

school policy and implemented through a team approach.
• A policy should be developed through consultation in the school and commu-

nity.
• A policy for the education of gifted and talented students should address the
following issues:
– Why provide differentially for these students?

– Who are our gifted and talented students in the school?
– How will we co-ordinate our approach?
– What are we going to do?
– Where are we going to do it?
– How and when will we do it?
– How will it be resourced?
• Professional development is particularly important in this area because most

teacher education pre-service programmes offer only brief introductions to ed-
ucating gifted and talented students.
• Effective professional development:
– is collaboratively planned
– is tailored to the nature and needs of the individual school
– covers conceptions, identification, programming, curriculum differentia-
tion, teaching methods and resources, and special groups of gifted stu-
dents
– addresses areas of concern.
Related Readings and Research. For links to a range of online reading material
by New Zealand authors about gifted and talented education, go to the G&T Related
Reading for School Policies and Programmes site.
The Extent, Nature and Effectiveness of Planned Approaches in New Zealand
Schools for Providing for Gifted and Talented Students This research was commis-
sioned by the Ministry of Education in response to a recommendation made in the
report from the Working Party on Gifted Education and to inform the Ministry of
Education’s development of policy for the education of gifted and talented students.
The purpose of the research was to determine how schools provide for these students
and the efficacy of these approaches.
The section of the report entitled Overall Coordination of Gifted and Talented
Education relates to the topics discussed in Getting started.
Who are Gifted and Talented Students? This section is just a summary of
the associated MoE handbook section.
• There has been a trend away from defining the gifted and talented in terms of
a single category (for example, high IQ) towards a multi-category approach,
which acknowledges a diverse range of special abilities.
• Multicultural values, which reflect a range of attitudes to abilities and qual-

ities, form an important component of any concept of giftedness and talent.
Identification procedures and programme content should equally incorporate
multicultural perspectives.
• Social, emotional, and motivational factors are acknowledged as important

aspects of giftedness and talent.
• Behavioural characteristics such as advanced reading and language skills,

early abstract thinking, and exceptional levels of knowledge, curiosity, and
motivation are helpful in identifying gifted and talented students.
• It is important to recognise potential as well as demonstrated performance.

Educators should offer rich and challenging experiences to help realise poten-
tial.
Related Research. It might be worth looking at The Extent, Nature and Effec-
tiveness of Planned Approaches in New Zealand Schools for Providing for Gifted and
Talented Students. This research was commissioned by the Ministry of Education
in response to a recommendation made in the report from the Working Party on
Gifted Education, and to inform the Ministry of Education’s development of policy

for the education of gifted and talented students.
The purpose of the research was to determine how schools provide for these
students and the efficacy of these approaches.
The section of the report entitled Defining Giftedness and Talent relates to the
topics discussed in Definitions section of the handbook site.
Summary—Characteristics of Gifted and Talented Students.
• As definitions of giftedness have broadened, so too has the diversity of charac-

teristics included in each concept. Each gifted and talented student is unique,
with his or her own set of behaviours and characteristics. It is important for
schools to note behaviours and characteristics that are valued by different cul-
tural groups. It is also imperative that schools develop a set of characteristics
that reflects their individual definition of, and approach to, giftedness and
talent.
• Characteristics of the gifted and talented student can be grouped under the
following headings:
– learning characteristics
– creative-thinking characteristics
– motivational characteristics
– social leadership characteristics
– self-determination characteristics.
• While most characteristics of the gifted and talented are positive in nature,
some characteristics typical of the gifted and talented can be less acceptable.
For example, a student who can recall a wide range of knowledge may dominate
class discussion. A student who prefers to work independently may actively
resist working with others.
• The emotional and social development of most gifted and talented students
is within the bounds of normality. However, for some, emotional and social
difficulties arise as they progress through life. It is important to recognise
that the emotional and social development of these students is not necessarily
problematic on its own but can become problematic if they find themselves
out of step with their peers.
• Gifted and talented students often have strong academic self-concepts but
weaker social self-concepts.
• Gifted and talented students are sometimes characterised by a sense of per-

fectionism a compulsive need to achieve at the highest level and do the very
best work possible.
• Gifted and talented students often display high levels of sensitivity, which
they may direct to a strong sense of right and wrong and social justice. In
the classroom they may have a preoccupation with social, moral, and ethical
issues and will often act on their own convictions in these areas.
• The behavioural characteristics of some gifted and talented children closely re-
semble those associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• With many gifted students, there is a significant discrepancy between their

ability and their performance. The first step in reversing this underachieve-
ment is to identify students in this category.
Summary: Identification of gifted and talented students.
• Issues of equity are fundamental to the identification of the gifted and talented.
An inclusive approach that will benefit as wide a group as possible is more
valuable than an exclusive approach.
• Special attention should be given to the ‘hidden gifted’. These include:
– disadvantaged gifted
– disabled gifted
– those with learning difficulties
– underachieving gifted
– those from minority cultural and ethnic groups.
• Identification is a mediating link between definitions of giftedness and talent,

and educational programmes.
• It is helpful to have a school-wide policy on the gifted and talented that co-
ordinates identification in the school.
• Some of the principles of sound identification suggest that it should:
– begin early
– be continuous
– incorporate a team approach
– be as unobtrusive as possible
– include both quantitative and qualitative methods.
• Identification should employ a wide range of quantitative and qualitative meth-
ods. Some of these methods are:
– teacher, self-, peer, and parent nomination
– standardised tests of intelligence, achievement, and creativity
– teacher-made tests
– portfolios and performance-based assessments
– rating scales and chec-klists.
• A responsive learning environment approach, in which rich and stimulating
learning experiences can take place, helps to challenge gifted and talented
students and to enable their special abilities to ‘surface’ and be identified.
Such an approach is particularly helpful for identifying gifted and talented
students who are disabled, disadvantaged, or from different cultural groups.
• Identifying gifted students from diverse cultures poses special challenges. Stan-
dardised tests of intelligence and achievement, and even teacher and self-
nominations, are often not appropriate or effective. Of more value for identi-
fying Māori students and those from other ethnic groups are the evaluation of
students’ products, careful teacher observation through a responsive learning
environment, and input from whānau members and kaumātua.
Summary: Principles and practice of differentiation and programme de-

velopment.
• The purpose of defining and identifying giftedness is to uncover individual

abilities, qualities, and interests, and the purpose of differentiation is to further
develop them.
• Within qualitative differentiation for gifted and talented students, three pri-
mary areas of differentiation emerge: content, process, and product. Differen-
tiation transforms the learning environment and teaching style.
• When designing and implementing programmes for gifted and talented stu-
dents, schools must take into consideration factors such as culture, gender,
learning difficulties, and socio-economic status.
• When planning and implementing differentiated programmes for gifted and

talented students, schools should utilise enrichment and acceleration, offering
a continuum of provisions.
• Offering a continuum of opportunities for gifted and talented students involves

individualising the options to meet the students’ needs.
• In designing appropriate curricula for gifted and talented students, a curricu-

lum model or models may serve as an ideal framework. Bloom’s Taxonomy, the
Autonomous Learner Model, and the Enrichment Triad Model are commonly
adopted or adapted by schools.
Summary: Programme evaluation.
• Programme evaluation is a necessary aspect of gifted education. It should

examine all programme components by using a variety of methods and by
involving the entire school community.
• Programme evaluation must have a clear purpose, be supported by a com-

prehensive written plan, and be designed to make changes or adjustments to
programmes according to outcomes.
• Programme evaluation should be both formative and summative, fitting the

evaluation to the programme, not the other way round.
Other Reading. Check out,
• Assessing for Differentiation: Getting to Know Students by Dr Tracy Riley.
• The Three R’s of Diversity: Basic A model for Recognising, Respecting,

and Responding to diversity .
Module 5-3, Principles of Differentiated Learning

The short-list:
1. Know your learners
2. Respect and challenge for all learners

3. Form and maintain learning partnerships beyond school

4. Flexibility in teaching and learning
5. Ongoing formative assessment
Education theorists consider these to be the fundamentals.

We haven’t been counting rigorously, but this is the 38th task for the course so
far.
Task 38: Think about learning statistics (from the mathematics curriculum). How
could you incorporate the interests of learners? What might be interesting statistic
topics for a year 2–3 class, a year 8 class? One Wellington school did this recently
by framing their teaching and learning about statistics within a unit on cell phones:
a topic close to secondary students’ hearts.
Some Suggestions: (for year 9–13)
• Do a project on average waiting time intervals for buses and trains. (This
is quite cool, you have to wait on average longer than the average interval
between buses in the queue.)
• Use a sport: e.g., darts to investigate π. Cricket to investigate distributions
of skill.
• Use the internet to investigate statistical properties of networks.
• Gambling games to investigate probability.
• Weather prediction statistics to investigate dynamical systems and chaos.
• Sherlock Holmes puzzles to investigate combinatorics and common logical er-
rors made in probabilistic reasoning.
• Media stories, advertising claims, and current affairs to investigate ‘lies, damned
lies and statistics’—critical thinking in general.
• Stock market fluctuations and economics (e.g., consequences of rational ex-
pectations and modelling using deterministic equations).
• Discover distributions by plotting many different data sets (heights, weights,
roll of dice, coin tosses, random walks, car traffic frequencies. . . ).
I am sure some of these could be adapted to year 8 classes. I’m out of my depth
with years 2 and 3.
Module 5-4, Respect and Challenge for All Learn-

ers
Task 39: is to recall Edward de Bono’s thinking hats—where a different coloured
hat is worn to indicate a different way of looking at something. The use of the
coloured hats is a common strategy to encourage thinking skills. Use these hats to
consider your attitudes towards teaching a child with special needs and reconsider
your attitudes for teaching a gifted child. Knowing yourself and how your attitudes
impact on the individuals you teach is essential.
Some suggestions:
White hat Information. Questions. What information do we have? What infor-

mation do we need?
Diagnostic assessment—find out their learning needs.
Green hat Creativity. Different, new ideas. Suggestions and proposals. What are
some possible ways to work this out? Other ways to solve this?
Formatice assessment—what is working, why? How can it be improved for the
student?
Red hat Emotions. Intuition, feelings and hunches. No need to justify feelings.
How do I feel right now?
Watch out for changes in behaviour that might signal ‘losing’ students. Beware
of victimization of students (by others, but yourself ). Be rigorously just and
fair.
Yellow hat Good points Why is this worth doing? How will it help us? How can
it be done? Why will it work?
Use evidence to improve what works.
Black hat Bad points. Caution. Judgement. Assessment. Is this true? Will it
work? What are the weaknesses? What’s wrong with it?
Get students to feedback and critique lessons. Listen to them. Respect their
opinions, even if negative.
Blue hat Organisation of thinking. What have we done so far? What do we do

next? Thinking about thinking.
Summative assessments, could be done weekly, then include students in planning—
what do they think they still need to understand.
Module 5-5, Creating Learning Partnerships

This is a fundamental bedrock for high quality differentiated learning. Why?
The simple truth is that no teacher can cater for the entire range of abilities, skills,
talents, and interests of all students in a given year or class. Therefore, drawing upon
outside expertise is almost a tautology for true differentiated learning.
Drawing on the expertise of others allows a variety of perspectives into the class-
room.
How to Create Partnerships
This list is almost obvious. Feel free to add to it.
• Invite parents to school to talk about their work or interests.
• Encourage extra curricular activities and get involved in them yourself, e.g.,
as a coach or mentor.
• Hold plenty of open discussion evenings with a warm and friendly atmosphere
(e.g., good food and drinks an some sparkling presentations).
• Make use of visiting expert guests throughout the year, especially if you are
weak on teaching in the particular area.
• Swap classes on occasion with other teachers.
• Use the internet to keep in touch with families and hold online chats.
That’s almost all we need to say on this topic.
Module 5-6, Flexibility in Teaching and Learning

This section is cut & pasted almost verbatim from the Epsy-302 module notes.
Differentiating teaching and learning processes means differentiating how we
teach. Examples of strategies are: choice menus, RAFT Plus activities, tiered ac-
tivities, learning stations, curriculum compacting, anchor activities. These are each
described below.
Choice menus —give learners options about the learning experience where all
options relate to the learning intentions. Individual learners choose from the
menu items related to their readiness, interest of preferred product (output).
RAFT Plus activities —build on the concept that consideration of perspective
aids deeper understanding. RAFT Plus tasks put learners in a Role, with
an Audience, Format choices, and a specific Task/learning outcome focus.
Learners can work co-operatively or individually on RAFT Plus tasks.
Tiered activities —have several parallel learning activities with different levels of
challenge, the same learning intentions with two or three versions of the same
activity, featuring differences in the level of support or scaffolding which has
been structured into the task.
Learning stations — involves providing a range of different learning activities
around the room to provide multiple opportunities and ways to develop the
same skills/knowledge, providing many opportunities to engage with material
being learnt is always essential to embed new concepts. When using learning
stations, teachers could require students to complete some or all of the stations.
Advantages of learning stations are that they support levels of learner readi-
ness, support diverse learner interests and support different learning profiles.
Curriculum compacting —is particularly helpful for advanced learners in the
class. This strategy allows expertise to be recognised and then allows experts
to take on advanced learning challenges.
The teacher identifies experts through diagnostic assessment and delivers specif-
ically designed learning experiences to address gaps. This is followed by a
proof activity, i.e. a task which gives students the opportunity to demonstrate
their new learning and once this has been satisfactorily completed recognised
experts can take on an individual advanced learning contract.
This approach avoids the common problem of learners with advanced skill lev-
els becoming bored from repeating the same learning which they have already
mastered. It allows these students the chance to move quickly onto learning
which is suitable for their learning readiness, freeing the teacher to work with
the rest of the class group whose learning needs match the material being
taught.
When teachers are new to this approach, fewer options may be more manage-
able. Later, learners may co-construct or design their own studies. To help
then feel that they are still managing student learning effectively, teachers may
choose to incorporate daily learning reflections or progress reports into the in-
dividualised learning contracts for experts. Teachers may also still require all
students to complete same final assessment.
Anchor activities —are for learners who have satisfactorily completed work and
demonstrated their understanding. An anchor activity is a pre-organised, au-
tomatic next step when an assigned task is finished. Although they can be used
to support curriculum compacting, they are also effective in making effective
use of learning time in any situation when learners are finished early.
These activities need to be interesting and with established routines and ex-
pectations for them to be an effective transition management technique.
Module 5-7, Ongoing formative assessment

The principle of ongoing formative assessment for successful differentiation is funda-
mental as it ensures that planning and organisation of learning is based on accurate
understanding of the learners current levels of knowledge and skill.
There are numerous ways to assess learners levels of knowledge or skill prior to the
learning experience, during learning and to assess achievement following the learning
and teaching period. Many of these ways are formal assessments that enable the
teacher to plan according to needs. Others are informal but very effective.
Self assessment is a useful tool to gauge individual interest and knowledge.
Example: Jazz Music lesson.

For a music lesson we might ask students to record their own personal jazz musical
experiences, and names of known artists, which will tell the teacher about current
expertise that can be drawn on, as well as support effective planning which scaffolds
the topic in accordance with the students’ needs. Headings provided can change
according to what is appropriate for the topic. This information could be used to
form teams, for instance to group learners with diverse experiences or perspectives
or to form teams which have similar interests.
Modules 5.8–9, Teaching and Learning in the Dig-

ital Age
The Changing Face of Learning
The internet is rapidly changing how we learn and what we can learn. Free online
lectures are now readily available. You do not get a diploma or degree, but the
knowledge is there, free, to be studied and re-used.
So what role will schools have in the future?
• Teachers will become more and more like super facilitators.

• Teachers will need to be able to explain a wider variety of phenomena.
• Students can and will be expected to do more self-study and self-assessment.
• Students will be able to learn almost anything that their brains can absorb!
So these are exciting times ahead, and it will never get less absorbing and ex-
citing as far as we can foresee (not counting global climate change or other such
catastrophes—but even such cataclysmic events should not effect the world wide
web too much).
Digital Technology Usage Observations
We were asked to contribute examples of digital technology that we observed on TE.

Below are some contributions.
Blair’s example:
“I used a couple of physics simulation, one with masses on springs,

another with various types of point particle motions labelled by vectors
for velocity and acceleration.
“The simulations were quite advanced, capable of showing chaotic
trajectories.
“The lesson involved students going through a worksheet of guided
instructions in order to help them discover analogies between circular
motion and simple harmonic motion.
“It fits the Discovery Model because the students were not given any
explicit answers, they were just given tools to work the relationships out
for themselves. It was a fairly successful lesson except only about 80%
of the students got to the real objective.”
Anna observed use of the intranet for resource sharing:
“I was on TE at a private girls’ school and the technology (except in

the food tech dept) was cool. One thing I really liked was the way some
teachers chose to use the intranet for posting notes and course work. An
example for one of the classes I observed:
“Year 11 History - Origins of WW2: Students were put into groups
and each had to research a significant event of the 1930s and present
to the class. The teacher then facilitated a discussion about different
aspects of the event and jotted down a summary of bullet points on
the smart board for each group’s presentation. This was then converted
into a powerpoint and loaded onto the Year 11 history intranet page
so students could refer to it later, save it to their files or print. It was
pretty seamless. This would fit the humanist learning theory of group
work (due to process) but you could also argue it was information used
for explanations (behavioural). ”
Hannah observed use of mathematics software:
“While on TE1 I observed a number of digital technologies, as would

be expected. Most of the teachers/classes used data projectors for pre-
senting information, and I was teaching IT so every day involved every
student using computers. Most of this was just the usual direct instruc-
tion, research, or typing up assignments kind of usage though.
“One example which was a bit different was the year 7 and 8 classes’
use of a website called ‘Mathletics’ where the students can go online and
explore the website to find fun activities to do to practice their maths
skills. This would fit quite well with the more cognitive view of Discovery
Learning. The kids really enjoyed it, and when they were in the computer
lab for other classes/subjects they would often ask the teacher if they
could go on mathletics instead of whatever they were supposed to be
doing! It was obviously a great strategy for letting the kids explore and
develop their own numeracy and fun enough for them to use it at home
as well.”
Leah observed use of an interactive whiteboard:

“On my TE, the most common use of technology was the use of an
interactive whiteboard. The interactive aspect was often used during
revision exercises which allowed students to write their answers, or the
teacher to write a commonly agreed answer from many students. In most
cases, the students were able to form an answer after some discussion,
usually prompted by teacher questioning. The students constructed their
answers using knowledge from all contributing members of the class,
aligning with Lev Vygotskys model of social constructivism—that the
students are able to make sense of the content while interacting with
others in their learning environment.”
The New Media and Networking
Where do children and teenagers get most of their current affairs information?
Knowing the answer to this question is extremely important for educators—it
gives us a path whereby we can connect with students and ‘get into their minds’ a
bit more than ever before. In addition, schools are making more use of online tools
like Google Docs and Moodle to share resources, post homework and assignments,
and communicate transparently and freely with parents.
Consider the following trends in information sources,
Classroom 2.0 —a social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and Social Media
in education.
Moodle —Free OSS used as the entire content management system for some schools.
Was created for educational use. So it has all the basics: calendars, blogs, post-
ing, and so on. Moodle is often described as a Course Management System
(CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual
Learning Environment (VLE).
Facebook —Why bother setting up a personal webpage when you have Facebook?
Twitter —Students may be using Twitter. It need not be a resource used in the
classroom.
Blogs —Can be embedded in almost any website, and are part of tools like Moodle.
RSS Feeds —More old school these days, but RSS feeds are often linked in to
blogs and Facebook.
Google —Search, Gmail, Google Docs, and tools like GapMinder and more.
Wikipedia —watch out for this one. Students can almost copy & paste assign-
ments if you give them traditional research tasks. What you have to do instead
(and this is good !) is just assume they can all get any facts and figures and
as the main assignment tasks get them to interpret and analyse the informa-
tion, or create something new and original from the information—e.g., a slide
presentation or poster or seminar, or a cool new media representation of the
information, the sky is the limit.
Notice what is missing! No email! Certainly, email is still a huge communication

tool, but increasingly young people are bypassing email and using Gmail and other
tools to connect with friends via Twitter, Facebook and other content rich web tools.
Alternative to Moodle are numerous. For example, check out ATutor, and a
host of other LMS’s listed here: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/instruc-
tional.html
Next, consider the trends in scholarship. While these may operate at educational
levels above secondary school, they may touch what we do in future secondary
schools. Particularly as we may find we can accelerate the progress of children at
school using new technologies.
Learning enhancement —multimedia potentials for learning are only in their

infancy. There is tremendous potential for helping students to develop cog-
nitively using multiple modes of learning, with the assistance of technology.
There may even be drugs available soon that enhance learning in relatively
benign ways (‘clearing the mind’ is a possible euphemism!) Whether use of
drugs in learning enhancement is right or wrong is an issue we must soon face.
Social engineering —on average humans are enjoying better quality of life. If
such progress can be managed equitably then there is tremendous potential for
alleviating learning problems associated with social injustice and malnutrition
or family ‘disturbances’. Some of this involves sensitive issues, but technology
can help, even if only helping bring social problems to light.
Freedom —over more freedom of information, free technology, free books, free soft-
ware, and so on. So information access is increasingly a non-issue. Education
can move to focus more on moral and ethical training that is so hard to teach.
Cyber elites —a looming problem is how to ensure access to technology is fair
and equitable. Or will a new social class of information elites arise? Is such
emergence a natural evolution, impossible to control?
Augmented intelligence —how much do we need to know when robotic or cy-
bernetic systems will some day soon provide us with almost instant access to
any information we desire? Surely an implication is that the use of knowledge

becomes a paramount thing to teach in the classroom. This involves ethics and
morals. Are today’s teachers mentally equipped to provide such education?
To what degree can such philosophical education be provided constructively?
How is wisdom best acquired? These are critical issues for the schools of the
current millennium.
Mash ups —it is becoming easier to re-use and adapt existing technology to create
solutions to problems without having to work from the ground up. Almost
anyone can set up a rich and dynamic web site, with minimal effort and cash
outlay.
Networks —networks are pervasive in our lives, and increasingly ubiquitous. We
need to teach children how to tap into them and yet not become overly depen-
dent upon them. It is also useful to know how to establish and maintain new
networks of knowledge. The power that a single child has to change the world
has never been greater, and arguably will continue to increase in potential. If
we want something done it is now almost feasible that it will be done merely if
it is (a) possible and (b) we have a network to draw upon that can find people
to help do it. These are not great demands on our skills!
Pace of learning —there seems no limit. Students will increasingly become self-
educated, and will be empowered to move at their own pace. Our job is to
make students aware of this potential and facilitate the most rapid progress the
student can make without sacrificing depth and understanding. Focus moves
away from teaching mere content and towards more teaching of self-discipline,
self-motivation, good ethics, and instilling a culture of learning.
Some of the potential down-sides to digital technology are:
• Distraction—students may get side-tracked by the technology itself and not

the objective of the lessons that use the technology. But is that necessarily
bad?
• Inequality—while digital technology remains relatively expensive, this may
disadvantage poor families, leading to a digital divide.
• Confusion—sometimes traditional lessons are more effective, students can be-
come confused and blinded to what they should be learning, and become
frustrated because of this. Usually exams and tests still use the old modality
of pen and paper, many students may not be able to transfer what they have
learned on other media to paper. Can your students still write fluently by
hand?
• Kinaesthetic skills—learning to arc-weld using a virtual reality simulation is

still not the same as learning to weld in reality!
• Shallowness—when one finds information is easy to access, there can be a

tendency to not bother putting in the effort to learn relevant facts. While this
may be fine in the short term, if it is a persistent attitude then one’s knowledge
becomes shallow and it becomes hard to be an expert on any particular subject.
That may be fine for some people, but the world will always need experts.
Module 5-10, Connectivism: a Learning Theory for

the Digital Age
Review the notes in the previous section on page 111 and recall the importance
of networks. How are networks formed? By connections. What are networks?
They are manifold in form, some physical (fibre optics, the internet, traffic), some
abstract (graphs, the web), and some social (Facebook, friendships), some natural
(ecosystems, geological faults, etc), and some astronomical (solar systems, galactic
clusters), and much, much more.
For education psychology, the main networks of interest are those formed be-
tween humans, and mediated by communication technology. Some of these are
natural, some have a physical basis (internet), but all are important for teachers to
understand in order to make effective use of them.
George Siemens developed connectivism as a learning theory for the digital era.
The theory considers how people, organisations and technology work collaboratively
to construct knowledge. Siemens describes connectivism as:
the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and com-

plexity and self-organization theories. Learning is a process that oc-
curs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements—not en-
tirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable
knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a
database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the
connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our
current state of knowing.
The connections that a student makes are an important aspect of learning in the
digital age. Where do you think Siemens’ connectivism as a learning theory fits with
the other learning theories you have studied this year?
Suggested answers: Connectivism fits comfortably into Cognitive models, Inquiry

models, Discovery models and Group Interaction models. But it can be found in all
of the other learning models as well.
Task 41 —Digital teaching technology and learning theories. We are asked to go

to http://www.muritai.school.nz/pages/index.php and look under the ‘Our Learn-
ing’ tab. Choose one of the digital examples. In the discussion board briefly describe
what the example is and what theoretical paradigm in terms of learning the example
fits into. Justify your answer.
Here are some contributions. Merryn wrote about her impressions of Art at
Muritai school:
“What beautiful artwork! The Muritai art blog exhibits student

work.
“The current topic shows students learning about sketching self por-
traits using only pencil and different line and shading techniques. In
doing so, children are looking critically about themselves and their sim-
ilarities and differences with others, so no only learning about drawing.
“This learning seems to fit into cognitivist theories but the instruction
of drawing technique may be direct, which is behaviourist. The child
learning to perform that skill is something they have to work out for
themselves. Can the teaching be one theory and the learning another?”
Blair wrote about the Mantle of the Expert paradigm and it’s use at Muritai
school.
“The Mantle of the Expert is a paradigm for teaching described in

a sound byte as: A dramatic-inquiry or imaginative-inquiry approach to
teaching and learning. One advocate bases this on Aristotle’s philosophy:
We deliberate not about ends but about means. A doctor
does not deliberate about whether he shall heal. Not an orator
whether he shall persuade; nor a statesman whether he shall
produce law and order; nor does anyone debate or deliberate
about his end. They assume the end, and consider how and by
what means it is to be attained. —Aristotle.
“The students are given scenarios where they have to ‘be an expert’.
Some may recall the 1990’s television series ‘The Pretender’—so the
Mantle of the Expert method is a bit like getting your students to be the
character Jarod from that TV show. An excellent description is given
in an animated slide show here: http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/-

about-moe/introduction/.
“The students create an imaginary enterprise. The teacher frames
them as experts. The enterprise has a client. The client commissions
a project. The aim is to create meaningful cross-curricular contexts for
learning. The emphasis is on the tasks the children need to do, to make
the enterprise a success and to serve the needs of the clients. The project
I looked at going on at Muritai school was so impressive I have written
extensively about it here following their teacher’s blog.
“At Muritai school a year 3 & 4 class came up with an idea for a
company (enterprise) they called ‘NZ COSSA’ with a mission statement:
We explore and investigate so that the sea world around New Zealand can
be protected for the future.
“Then they identified Key Company Values: We work hard to be
the best scientists we can be; We research and give people information
about the sea around New Zealand so that is can be protected; We do
our best to look out for endangered species of fish; We work as a team
and respect each other; We respect things Māori because it is part of
New Zealand’s culture and the Treaty of Waitangi.
“Their first project was to design a company logo. Next the imagined
they had a research vessel The Aumoana. They received a company
email from management, ‘asking us to include some more things in our
new foyer display design. These were to include a history of the NZ
COSSA company, some information about the diving work done on board
The Aumoana, and finally some information about life on board The
Aumoana.’ They then did some research on diving, Antarctic research,
life on board a research ship, and more. In the teacher’s blog: ‘The third
working group did some research about life on board a research vessel.
They then used drama to put together a filmed interview with three
scientists about the work they did on the boat, the gear they had to
wear, what the food was like, and what their favourite thing was about
living on the boat. We agreed to believe that we were watching a filmed
interview as this group performed their interview to us. Next week we
will try to make a real recording of this interview.’ Some of this was
imagined, other parts were actually done in class.
“The next day they reflected on the learning that had been accom-
plished using the Mantle of the Expert approach. So the children knew
something about how they were learning. They also planned a research
trip to the Antartic, which included mathematics problem solving. They
also modelled scientific research equipment with clay models.
“The next period they filmed some dramas. These were small dramas
that they had created the previous week to be a part of their foyer display.
“They then organized their foyer display’s. These included:
• Six different research posters (one for each group) with either an
‘information button’ or piece of ‘film footage’ to go with it.
• Clay models of, and information about, the different types of equip-
ment used on board The Aumoana.
• A company timeline and history.
• NZ COSSAs Mission Statement, Values, and Company Logo.
• A display about diving work including a poster and a small video
clip.
• A display about Life on Board the Boat including boat plans, an
example of an upcoming planned expedition, photos from on the
boat (our freeze frames), details about the equipment that needs
to be worn while working on deck, information buttons reading
some excerpts from diary entries written on the boat, and a small
videoed interview with scientists about their experiences working
on The Aumoana.
“The next week Muritai TV visited the class and spent a long time
talking to them about the work they had been doing. In the teacher’s
words: ‘We all took turns to tell the interviewers about our fictional
company and the work we have been doing to design a new informative
foyer display for the company building. There was a lot to talk about
as we described our company, (its values, mission statement, history,
workspaces), the research we have been doing, and what learning in
Mantle of the Expert is all about. Keep an eye out for the link to the
documentary here soon!’ Well, that was all quite impressive to me, and
from a year 3 to 4 class. Brilliant!”
Diana wrote about her impressions of the Muritai TV project:
“Under the learning tab, for Muritai school, the TV section features
a quite a significant digital initiative in the senior area. A statement
reads ‘the project is about us being part of a community, is pupil driven,
and enables people from outside Muritai and Eastbourne to see the in-
teresting things that our students and staff do everyday’. Although I
was not able to download any of the clips from the webpage for some
reason, the text and descriptions of each clip includes goals and visions
of the staff and pupils and a clue to the footage. Some of the values of
the school are also clear due to the subject matter chosen, for example
enviroschools (sustainability) or music or sporting events (enabling chil-

dren to achieve across a broad spectrum of academic, sporting, artistic
and social opportunities) and there is an interview with a pupil who lives
on a boat (portraying the school reaching out to the community).
“To me, this initiative relates to a range of values in the schools
mission statement but clearly links to socio-constructive or the social
cognitive learning paradigm, as can be seen by the school and students
implementing the ideas they believe in. There is specific mention in
another section of the website to 16 Habits of the Mind, a cognitive based
learning theory and in terms of fun and curriculum linked learning, the
TV idea is a working model of this and likely to be a great intrinsic
motivator for the senior students who are involved.
“The project is learner centred and there are elements of humanist
learning theory from the perspective that students are dealing with new
material related to an event or experience of interest in their lives and
social and personal development and responsibility is created from the
learning. Emphasis on the process of learning (rather than just the
content) matches both cognitive and humanist learning theories. Insight
into knowledge is sought and not the mere acquisition of skills.
“Creating videos for TV also forms the basis for group interaction
models as well as problem based learning, and humanist learning theory
is further illustrated this way. The cognitive theory is perhaps harder
to decide on without viewing the clips but with the excellent school
approach to learning and specific mention from the values and mission
statements, and the more in-depth subject areas it certainly seems to fit
as well. A school TV channel is very relevant to every day experience in
the pupil’s lives so they can construct meaning through learning. Even
the younger viewers at the school can benefit from the TV as a learning
experience in some of the same ways until they are old enough to be the
ones behind the camera.”
Hannah also wrote about Muritai TV:
“This is a project carried out by the senior students at Muritai School

(which I’m guessing is year 7 and 8), in which they work in groups to
produce TV episodes documenting what goes on in the school. They
learn to use cameras, edit, script, and interview people, and the aim is
to develop the community spirit both within the school, out outside the
school.
“I think this example fits into both the cognitive and humanist views,
and all four of the learning theories that come from these. It is very much
problem based learning because the students will have a problem such as
’produce a TV episode about our student teachers’ and they have to work
together to find the solution. It’s student-driven and teacher would just
facilitate. Because of the nature of film making, the group interaction
model fits because each student would have a role, and depend on the
others in order to achieve the outcome, as well as needing to reflect on
their practice if any problems come up to refine it for next time. It is
also a good example of discovery/inquiry learning as the students would
spend time exploring their environment to decide what topics to make
episodes about, as well as then conducting the inquiries needed to gather
the information to produce the episode.
“The aim of fostering both internal and external community spirit
puts this into the box of connectivism also, as the students are making
links with and sharing knowledge with a wide range of people. Their
material is also available to a global audience, so they’re not just con-
necting with Eastbourne, but the world (as can be seen on their ‘vistors
map’ !)”
Michael was impressed by the Mrs Ryan as a Scientist blog at Muritai school:
“Mrs R D Science is a pictorial collection covering class and teacher

investigations. It is based in both the behaviouralist and cognitive
paradigms. The students and teacher are exploring the world around
them and trying to make sense of what they see (cognitive view) but
they take recourse to consult experts who use direct instruction. The
recourse to experts is in line with Vygotskys theories about human de-
velopment where we learn by observing and copying more knowledgeable
others. It is a sensible approach as it short-cuts expensive and poten-
tially deadly learning experiences. In Mrs R D’s case consulting experts
on explosive use is preferable to finding out the hard way!”
Michael, Leah and Loesje wrote about the Enviroschools project:
(Michale) “This is a site where school activities with an environmen-

tal and social focus are reported. The learning theories are experiential
and inquiry based. Students are inquiring into the affect of historical
and current events and how these impact on the world we live. The
examples are using solar power for energy and reflecting on week by
week changes in use. They have also completed a study on ANZAC day
where the teacher used baking ANZAC biscuits as a strategy to engage
the learners. This would most likely fit with a guided discovery teaching
model.”
‘(Leah) ‘I chose to look at the Muritai School’s EviroSchools page.
The students have researched what it means to be sustainable and are
putting measures in place to ensure they keep their Green Schools certifi-
cate. There approach has been one of inquiry learning, where students
have gathered information, analysed how they can make it work in their
school, then implemented relevant parts to their project. Incorporat-
ing scaffolding, group work, and developing understanding of concepts
over time, this project fits with both guided discovery and cooperative
learning methods.”
(Loesje)“I looked at the enviroschools, where students are actively
and continuously gauging how well the solar panels are working. this is
a form of guided discovery and inquiry learning; the information that it
provides can be used as a one-off, but the continuity of the monitoring
makes that students will be able to make sense out of the information
they obtain, and it will also provide them with new questions.”
Module 5-11, What does Digital Learning Look

Like?
First, more on the emerging trends:
• Many learners will move into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields
over the course of their lifetime.
• Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal ed-
ucation no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs
in a variety of ways—through communities of practice, personal networks, and
through completion of work-related tasks.
• Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work
related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the
same.
• Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape
our thinking.
• The organization and the individual are both learning organisms. Increased
attention to knowledge management highlights the need for a theory that
attempts to explain the link between individual and organizational learning.
• Many of the processes previously handled by learning theories (especially in

cognitive information processing) can now be off-loaded to, or supported by,
technology.
• Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the un-
derstanding of where to find knowledge needed).
Consider this commentary (Siemens, 2004):
“When knowledge is abundant, the rapid evaluation of knowledge is

important. Additional concerns arise from the rapid increase in infor-
mation. In today’s environment, action is often needed without personal
learning—that is, we need to act by drawing information outside of our
primary knowledge. The ability to synthesize and recognize connections
and patterns is a valuable skill.”
Siemens outlines the following Principles of connectivism:
• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learn-
ing.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist
learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the
meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality.
While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations
in the information climate affecting the decision.
Your students could use digital technologies for:
• Doing things faster—show them how old ways of doing things can be done
these days at the push of a button, but also warn them of the dangers of
getting used to such things with ignorance of what the button really does!
• Doing things efficiently—same as above, but focus on quality of results.
• Accessing information—people, sites, audio/visual, news, parliament.
• Presenting—wikis, webpage, protopage, powerpoint, sound files, making movies.
• Processing information—scientific calculators, videoing movement.
• Gaming or interactive programmes- generic games: zoo tycoon, wii sports,

simulation games, Quiz activities (eg. Fling the teacher), second life (or later
versions).
• Communicating—parliamentary submissions, local government issues, experts

in the field, Ning, social network, Google documents
Tips: Include in learning experiences (not every lesson, but within a topic) the
opportunity to critique knowledge, be given critique, create ideas or knowledge and
share their learning beyond the classroom environment.
The digital learning matrix can be used as a guide for this. The Epsy-302 online
modules gave us a document called the “Digital Learning Matrix”. A copy has been
posted on our course TWiki. The matrix pairs Learning levels with Uses of digital
technology.
Learning to Change and Changing to Learn
It is worth drawing attention to a few talks and seminars on the vision of future
education. Check these out,
• Learning to Change and Changing to Learn—video by the Consoritum for

School Networking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk&feature-
=related
• Changing the Paradigm—-Ken Robinson’s talk at the RSA: http://www.you-

tube.com/watch?v=36x39hNZ4uY
• Shift Happens—Education in the 21st Century: http://www.youtube.com/-

watch?v=Ig27w YIx0s&feature=fvw
Review of Module 5
Drawing on the expertise of others allows a variety of perspectives into the classroom.
Let’s recall the goals of this chapter, and write a bit about what we have found.
The learning goals were,
1. to define differentiated learning

We have found: differentiated learning is teaching that involves planning to
meet the different needs of diverse students. There are many ways to achieve
this, all are valid forms of differentiated learning.
2. Justify the use of differentiated learning
We have found: multiple intelligences theories in educational psychology sug-
gest that people learn the same things in different ways. There are multiple
paths to knowledge ad understanding, and people, in general, differ in which
paths are more effective for them personally.
3. Know how to apply some differentiated strategies
We have found: planning multiple, qualitatively distinct, activities (each with
the same learning intentions), with a mix of whole-class and group and indi-
vidual work, and giving students an appropriate degree of freedom to choose
between—these are the keys. There are many ways to structure such lessons:
tiered lessons, group activity, individual tailored activity, project choices, free-
reading times, varied homework (multiple options), study circles, tailored jour-
nal prompts, tailored goals setting, diagnostic and ipsative assessment, peri-
odic individual review sessions.
Another aspect of differentiated teaching is knowing that time is an important

variable: today’s lesson may not be as effective if repeated tomorrow or next year.
Conversely, quite often (more often than not in fact) a lesson given for a second time
runs better than the first time around.
The second part of this module looked at information technology and new digital
technologies for aiding learning. The learning goals for this topic were,
• to explain the background: schools, policies and teaching in the digital age so
far.
Well, schools are using more digital technology as budgets and availability al-
low, but we wonder if it being used wisely and effectively.
• Identify digitally able teachers
These are not necessarily teachers who are ‘tech-savy’, but simply those who
know how to get the most from their students by keeping lessons simple and
free of fuss. They are people who intuitively, or through experience, know how
to focus students on learning and who can facilitate learning.
• Explain developing theory

Connectivism has links to many of the teaching models: Behaviourist (com-
puter training), Cognitive (computer assisted self-directed study) and Humanist
(social networks).
• Know how to put developing theory into practice.

This is a broad topic, but the essence is to not only use digital technology and
new media, but to also help students understand the implications and realize
the potential for self-directed discovery.
The implications are profound for teaching:
• Teachers need to adapt to technology, otherwise students will increasingly view

school as obsolete and irrelevant.
• Education will become more about use and interpretation of knowledge, be-
cause the raw knowledge will be at the students’ fingertips.
• Teachers and schools will remain highly relevant to society, but in new roles:
as facilitators, as exemplar moral and ethical trainers, and as developers of
creativity.
• Teachers and schools will be called upon to guard against knowledge elitism
and a social digital divide—not by restricting people but by opening up op-
portunities for all people. (Schools should be embracing creative commons
resources, free software and free e-books for example.)
• Many more students will increasingly know more about particular topics than
their teachers. This changes classroom dynamics for the better, if recognized
and utilized wisely.
With these positive sentiments in mind, this is a good point at which to end
these course notes.
6. Extra Discussion and Research
During the teaching experience practicums, and during informal discussions at the
“Principals Open Day” for the 2010 VUW Grad. Dip. Teaching course, a number
of topics arose that had not been part of the Epsy-302 module content. These
seemed worth including here, although they could equally be part of Epsy-301 or
Kura courses.
The SOLO Taxonomy

The SOLO taxonomy stands for:
Structure of
Observed
Learning
Outcomes
It was developed by Biggs and Collis (1982), and is well described in Biggs and
Tang (2007) [references were not given]. UK educator J.S. Atherton (Atherton,
2010) writes about the SOLO Taxonomy:
“It describes level of increasing complexity in a student’s understand-

ing of a subject, through five stages, and it is claimed to be applicable
to any subject area. Though not all students get through all five stages,
and not all teaching (and even less “training” is designed to take them
all the way).
“There are fairly clear links not only with Säljö vis. ‘conceptions
of learning’, and also,in the emphasis on making connections and con-
textualising, with Bateson’s ‘levels of learning’, and even with Bloom’s
taxonomy in the cognitive domain. Like the pyramidal representation of
Bloom, the assumption is that each level embraces previous levels, but
adds something more.
127
Extra Discussion and Research 128
“Stage 1. Pre-structural: here students are simply acquiring bits of

unconnected information, which have no organisation and make no sense.
“Stage 2. Unistructural: simple and obvious connections are made,

but their significance is not grasped.
“Stage 3. Multistructural: a number of connections may be made,

but the meta-connections between them are missed, as is their signifi-
cance for the whole.
“Stage 4. Relational level: the student is now able to appreciate the

significance of the parts in relation to the whole.
“Stage 5. At the extended abstract level, the student is making

connections not only within the given subject area, but also beyond it,
able to generalise and transfer the principles and ideas underlying the
specific instance.”
Atherton writes further,
“I confess to a slight distrust of this kind of progressive model, which

aspires inexorably to a final state. I am not convinced that every subject

area fits the model, but nevertheless it is quite a good guide, and gives
some idea of the place of the Gestalt insight (at the fourth, relational
level). What it does not deal with is the student who establishes a
relational construct which is nevertheless wrong, and those who pursue
wild geese at the extended abstract level because they are insufficiently
informed at more modest levels.
“However, the emerging field of work on Threshold Concepts and
Troublesome Knowledge links in very effectively with the SOLO tax-
onomy and offers some points about how the above issues might be
addressed. Go here to follow this up: http://www.doceo.co.uk/tools/-
threshold 3.htm.”
The Hidden Curriculum

The ‘hidden curriculum’ of a school has two aspects, (i) the unintended outcomes
or messages conveyed by the school (e.g., most of the students will end up forget-
ting most of what they are forced to learn), and (ii) the implicit and/or unofficial
expectations of the school (e.g., if you fail the exams you will never get a good job).
These ‘hidden’ messages and outcomes need not always be negative, and although
they differ from school to school they are always present and discernible to those
with a keen eye and ear.
The Wikipedia entry states:
“A Hidden curriculum, in general terms, is “some of the outcomes or

by-products of schools or of non-school settings, particularly those states
which are learned but not openly intended.”(Martin, 1983) However, a
variety of definitions have been developed based on the broad range of
perspectives of those who study this phenomenon. Any setting, includ-
ing traditionally recreational and social activities, may teach unintended
lessons since it is tied not necessarily to schools but rather to learning
experiences. But most often, hidden curriculum refers to various types
of knowledge gained in primary and secondary school settings, usually
with a negative connotation referring to inequalities suffered as a re-
sult of its presence. This attitude stems from the commitment of the
school system of the United States to promote democracy and ensure
equal intellectual development, goals that are hindered by these intan-
gible lessons [3]. In this context, hidden curriculum is said to reinforce
existing social inequalities by educating students in various matters and
behaviors according to their class and social status. In the same way that
there is an unequal distribution of cultural capital in this society, there is
a corresponding distribution of knowledge amongst its students.[4] The
hidden curriculum can also refer to the transmission of norms, values,
and beliefs conveyed in both the formal educational content and the so-
cial interactions within these schools.[5] Hidden curriculum is difficult to
explicitly define because it varies among its students and their experi-
ences and because is it constantly changing as the knowledge and beliefs
of a society evolve.
“The concept that the hidden curriculum expresses is the idea that
schools do more than simply transmit knowledge, as laid down in the
official curricula. Behind it lies criticism of the social implications, po-
litical underpinnings, and cultural outcomes of modern educative activi-
ties. While early examinations were concerned with identifying the anti-
democratic nature of schooling, later studies have taken various tones,
including those concerned with socialism, capitalism, and anarchism in
education.
“. . . The phrase ‘hidden curriculum’ was reportedly coined by Philip
W. Jackson (Life In Classrooms, 1968). He argued that we need to
understand education as a socialization process. Shortly after Jackson’s
coinage, MIT’s Benson Snyder published The Hidden Curriculum, which
addresses the question of why students—even or especially the most
gifted—turn away from education. Snyder advocates the thesis that
much of campus conflict and students’ personal anxiety is caused by a
mass of unstated academic and social norms, which thwart the students’
ability to develop independently or think creatively.”
That last comment attributed to Snyder is shocking to most of us new graduate

teacher trainees. We instinctively feel this is so wrong—that school is not serving
the needs of, particularly, the gifted students. It seems as though schools are doing
the opposite of what we hope they should be doing. (It’s a bit like the World Bank
does more to exacerbate poverty than alleviate poverty.) Yet, if we believe the bulk
of research, this is in fact what schools are doing to our children. Stifling their
creativity, forcing them to conform rather than think differently.
It is the editors hope (and of most colleagues spoken to) that we future teachers
all work tirelessly to fight the forces of convention and tradition that are killing
education in schools. One way to do this is to be aware of the hidden curriculum
surrounding our schools and communities and do things to undermine the norms,
dead ends, and inequalities perpetuated by existing schools.
One of the attacks aimed at educators who envisage schools and teachers as
agents of change is that there is a presumption that this is a purpose of state run
schooling. The private sector has less concern because private schools tend to be
created with a particular agenda in mind and are unapologetic about it, for good
reason. For public schools, ever since John Dewey advocated schools as agents for
pro-democratic movement he was criticized as presuming too much.
The truth is, like it or not, teaching is at least a political activity. As a teacher one
is either upholding the status quo (acting as a conservative) or working to change it
(either progressively or regressively). At best, I would agree with Dewey and others
who champion teaching as a noble profession whereby teachers can, at their best,
act as meaningful and positive agents of change.
This means accepting that there is always a hidden curriculum, and then identi-
fying it and working to change it for the better.
Dumbing Us Down
This is a common enough expression these days. The truth is that the modern
world provides ample opportunity for children to educate themselves, many do so.
So society as a whole is certainly not dumbing down. However, there is still a crisis of
sorts in growing inequalities and intellectual stagnation. Traditional schools largely
ignore the power of modern technology and the zeitgeist’s of the X-generation and
I-generations—which are about discontent with tradition and hegemony and an
emerging social conscience based upon freedom of expression, sharing resources, an
absence of intellectual property ownership, and an open society.
To the extent that schools completely ignore these trends they completely fail to
provide a modern relevant education. This is particularly evident in the widespread
disaffection that senior students have at secondary school—coupled with the com-
parative delight they have when they begin their university courses. In New Zealand
this is seen perhaps most starkly in the NZQA system that has given us Achievement
and Unit standards, which are little more than the outworn old School Certificate
and University Bursary systems in fancy dress. They are not serving the needs of
society and future employers, or universities, even though employers seem to be
happy to rely upon examining a prospective employees NCEA qualifications. The
NZQA system is, to be quite polite, an utter sham.
Wikipedia again,
“Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory School-

ing is a book written by teacher John Taylor Gatto. The book and
consists of a multitude of speeches given by the author. The book pro-
poses that radical change is needed to the American educational system

to turn around the negative socialization that children receive.”
Educator Layla Abdel-Rahim writes about Gatto’s ideas,
“A former school teacher, he shocked the pedagogical world of New

York when after receiving Best Teacher’s Award, he delivered his famous
speech, titled The Seven Lesson School Teacher in which he exposes what
he “really teaches”. In powerful language, Gatto confesses that he has
done an excellent job in fulfilling the school mandate teaching kids indif-
ference, passivity, shattering their self-esteem, cruelty, etc., through the
system of bells, grades, constant evaluation and various forms of coercion
and punishment that ensure conformity and downright stupidity. This
speech served as the basis for a powerful critique of contemporary oblig-
atory schooling titled Dumbing Us Down. I highly recommend it. For
a more in-depth study, read On Objects, Love, and ObjectificationsThe
Seven Lesson School Teacher and Modernism and Education.
In the booklet The crisis in American education: an analysis and a proposal, by

Sudbury Valley School (Sudbury Valley School, 1970), the state of education in the
United States of America was lamented and a set of proposals for positive change
were put forward. The ideas are still relevant today—that is in any school in which
students are still disaffected, apathetic, and feel their hours trapped in school are
like a form of imprisonment. The Sudbury Valley School writes (Ibid. pages 31–),
“During the entire formative period of his growth, a youth is commit-

ted by law—and, after age sixteen, by economic and social pressures—to
serve time in educational institutions which, like prisons, simply do not
recognize the existence of individual rights. In the case of prisons, deal-
ing with criminals and lawbreakers, one can certainly argue the merits
of this situation one way or another. In the case of schools, one can only
wonder at the “logic” which has led to this situation.. . .
“. . . But by far the most serious deprivation of rights occurs with the
one absolute, inviolate right that we all have, and that never can be
challenged even in the severest emergency: the right to think what we
please—the right of freedom of thought.. . .
“. . . Yet, we allow all our schools to determine, unchecked, what our
children should do with their minds. We allow teachers, curriculum
committees, administrators, and other school officials to set out what
every student must know; we allow them to institute an elaborate system
of pressures and threats and sanctions that forces every student to learn
what has been prescribed; and we allow them to put into effect a system
of tests, reports, and evaluations that constantly monitors their minds
and informs on their thoughts.
“In short we allow our schools to take liberties with students that
we would never, never under any circumstances, allow any institution to
take with us as adults. We would rise up as one man against any attempt
to force us to think or learn anything we had not chosen to learn of our
own free will.
“Students are not the only ones deprived of rights in the educational
system. Teachers too must sacrifice most of their rights when they cross
the threshold into the school building. On the job, teachers must be
pliant tools; they must do as instructed, teach what they are told to
teach, say what they are permitted to say. This is how we provide our
youth with models of adult behaviour!”
Does any of this sound familiar? If it does, consider how long ago this was published
and how deplorable it is that intervening generations have largely maintained the
status quo. What is the cause of this? What reason could there possibly be for so
fundamental a lack of change?
I do not have all the answers, but it is worth reading the booklets published
by the Sudbury school, as well as educators like Herbert Kohl, Jonathon Kozol,
Neil Postman, Alan Blankstein, Henry Giroux, Daniel Greenberg and others to
get some idea about how to break out of this ingrained system and become a free
thinking teacher with free thinking students (Kohl, 1994; Kozol, 1993; Postman,
1988). Other works to read include, Noerbert Weiner ( The Human Use of Human
Beings), Alfred Korzybski ( Science and Sanity), I. A. Richards (On Becoming a
PePractical Criticism), Carl Rogers (On Becoming a Person,), Marshall McLuhan
(Understanding Media). Other authors to look for works by include, Jerome Bruner,
John Gardner, John Holt, Adelbert Ames, Earl Kelley, Alan Watts,.
The Sudbury Valley School experiment is an interesting case study in freedom of
education (Greenberg, Greenberg, Brilliant, & Palmer, 1995). It is a quite radical
departure from traditional schooling, even more so than the Montessori model. One
drawback is that it requires students who are pre-conditioned to take self-control of
their own learning. So it does not fit many students who would feel lost if they were
thrust into such a free climate and had to constantly make their own decisions. How-
ever, the evidence from the school suggests that, like language immersion schools,
the total immersion in self-learning seems to eventually work for all students.
But has the Sudbury Valley model worked in tough inner city slum schools? We
do not know. It probably would work wonderfully in most communities save those
dominated by conservative and neoliberal thinking families. However, to date, there

is no clear consensus on whether all communities would benefit from adopting the
Sudbury Valley School model.
With most governments and education ministries too afraid to enact free educa-
tion systems, the options for promoting positive change in New Zealand are then
limited to subversive activity within the present system.
Teaching as a Subversive Activity

Neil Postman wrote elegantly on this topic (Postman & Weingartner, 1971), as have
many other enlightened progressive educators.
The problem the editor has had with the VUW Graduate Diploma Course, and
from the ‘Teaching Experience’ offered, is not that current educators and schools fail
to progress and learn, but that there is still rampant hypocrisy or double standards
in the education system, and not just in the education ministry bureaucracy and
school administration, but also right at the coal-face where teaching happens. To
put it bluntly, all the talk is about doing the best for children, making school fun,
meaningful, engaging and relevant. But the way this is done is still strictly within the
narrow confines of the qualifications and standards authority examination regimes
(NZQA and NCEA in New Zealand). So teachers say one thing and do another.
They say they are in this for the children and then they prostitute themselves and
let the kids down by delivering the NCEA exams and little more.
Real teaching should forget the examinations completely. It should focus on
the needs of children, it should let children decide what they enjoy, but it needs
to first train them to make good decisions for themselves. Even this first stage of
preparation for learning should be done with the interests of the children at heart
and should therefore strenuously avoid prescriptive education methods. The goals
and aims are clear, the methods are softer and require much more refined teacher
skill, love and care for students, and persistence.
Once these fundamentals are in place there should be very little prescriptive con-
tent in the classroom. There should be an abundance of rich activity and subversive
thinking. Teachers need to develop skills that will allow their students to show that
they have the ability to pass the silly NCEA examinations. They need to be able
to do this without teaching and coaching directly for the examinations. If teachers
can do this only then they can say they are truly serving the broader needs of the
students. If enough teachers can do this then the examinations will become irrele-
vant. In the editors mind this is the most effective way to subvert and fight against
the examinations regime.

The reality of the present world means that teachers will have to fight against
negative influences in the homes and communities of many students. This is a task
to embrace, not shy away from. It takes courage from teachers, but this is something
we must consider an inescapable responsibility of any committed teacher.
Related to these themes I enjoyed Herbert Kohl’s excerpt from I Won’t Learn
from You and Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment, (Kohl, 1994)
“Creative maladjustment consists of breaking social patterns that

are morally reprehensible, taking conscious control of one’s place in the
environment, and readjusting the world one lives in based on personal
integrity and honesty—that is, it consists of learning to survive with
minimal moral and personal compromise in a thoroughly compromised
world and of not being afraid of planned and willed conflict, if necessary.”
In the first essay of this volume, Kohl talks about the notion of ‘not-learning’. This
is an active process of refusing to learn something that you are being forced to learn.
I like that! It is exactly what my “dumb” class of year 11 “cabbage science” students
were doing at the high school I attended for my second teaching practicum. They
just didn’t know how smart they were!
Freedom to Learn—Sudbury Valley School
The only school I have heard of that seems to practice the philosophy that they
preach is the aforementioned Sudbury Valley School (Greenberg et al., 1995). They
seem to have found a model of schooling that gives students complete freedom and
yet is orderly and smoothly run by a flat democracy where students choose their
teachers and everyone has a single democratic vote in all matters of running of the
school from administration and funding to discipline and what they learn. The
students chose their own subjects, materials, books and teachers.
The teachers are facilitators of the highest order, and the students invariably
seem to end up being pure self-directed learners. The students at Sudbury Valley
are not all perfect nor are they all uniformly capable, but the point is that they
achieve what they want to achieve and appear to be very happy and well-adjusted,
and they enjoy their school years. Most importantly, the students become “masters
of their own destiny”.
A New Zealand Model of Sudbury Without the Valley
The problem with the Sudbury Valley model is that is is so radical and unconven-
tional that despite it’s success it has not been widely adopted. Why not? Because
there is still tremendous inertia in society and resistance to allowing children to
explore for themselves. There is a sort of universal apprehension that if we leave
children alone things will turn into Lord of the Flies pretty fast. Sudbury Valley
does not degenerate like that because adults still supervise loosely and are on hand
to mainly just provide a safe and caring environment (as well as academic expertise
when needed). But the needs are all student driven.
The problem for a typical school teacher in New Zealand is that the existing
hierarchical and government run structures do not give teachers sufficient freedom
to implement a Sudbury-like model, especially not within the confines of a traditional
high school. But I think something authentic that gets close to the goal of Sudbury
Valley is possible. The notes in this section outline how it might be accomplished
in a single classroom, provided only that the school principle is supportive.
The following outline raises issues that need to be solved for a single classroom
Sudbury style model of education. It does not fully implement the Sudbury model,
but without hypocrisy it seeks to give students an authentic degree of freedom to
learn. The biggest obstacle is the NCEA regime. So this is the main issue that needs
to be addressed. There may be better models and this particular model is just one
possible way of doing things Sudbury-lite, it is at the time of writing completely
untried and even on paper it is a work in progress.
I have ordered the issues in rough priority. The first is the issue of authentic
freedom. Daniel Greenberg, one of the founders of Sudbury Valley School, criticizes
school that try to give students freedom, but yet fail to do so, labelling them as
worse than traditional schools that completely control learning. The traditional
school he says are at least completely honest, in that everyone loathes what goes
on, the students hate it, and are open about that, the teachers hate it because they
are like nannies and they are open about it. The more modernist schools that like
to think they give students choice and freedom are usually (with rare exceptions)
perpetrating an injustice and a big lie, because unless students can do whatever
they wish, without disrupting the learning of others, then they do not really have
freedom to learn.
So even before the issue of authentic freedom, in the following proposed class-
room model, we must deal with honesty and avoid fooling ourselves that we are
giving students absolute freedom. In my mind only a full Sudbury Valley model
can provide utter freedom to learn. But at the present time I do not believe this is
possible to achieve in a typical New Zealand school classroom, because the external
forces (school culture, administrators, other teachers, trustee boards, parents, and
government) will pretty quickly close down such a classroom, since it will be so
alien and foreign to the established school culture of closed and externally directed
learning.
Issue of Honesty. We cannot provide full freedom to learn. We will have to (by
law) study towards NCEA qualifications. But there is no reason why we cannot
do this and at the same time enjoy a degree of freedom to learn that we all
crave and intuitively seek as children. However, to be honest, we cannot say
we will offer true freedom. There need to be a few minimal constraints that
we all agree to work within. These include such principles as,
a) Collective Care–this means zero violence (verbal and physical, eg., no

swearing, no belittling, no abuse, care for others and care for the class-
room). If we harm each other or the classroom we are harming ourselves.
b) Collective Trust and Help—helping each other enjoy learning, complete
absence of hurtful and harmful competition, the success of one is the
success of all. If we are not enjoying the class we should not give up but
instead (i) seek help, and (ii) seek to help others.
c) Freedom to leave—if the class is not catering to your needs then discuss
this with your teacher and other students and if necessary apply for a
class transfer. We are not here to force anyone to learn what they do not
want to learn.
Issue of NCEA. New Zealand public schools are currently required by law to offer
students NCEA credits and give them fair opportunities to excel in NCEA
examinations. This is a sham which is I think widely recognized and yet
rarely debated. It is the closest analogy in NZ education to an “Emperor
with no clothes”. Yet any radical teacher desiring to work subversively within
the present systems needs to uphold the law of the land, even if it means
working with the law to highlight how ludicrous the law is. The problem then
is how one can be true to the model of free education and concurrently comply
with the regulations that require schooling students thoroughly in the NCEA
standards.
One solution is to simply teach as one sees fit for the benefit of the students
wider interests and hope that they end up with enough contextual skills to ace
their examinations. The downside to this approach is lack of consistency (how
can we be sure we are given students a fair chance at passing their exams?) and
openness to attack from administrators and parents and students themselves
who may complain (if they fail) the unorthodox teaching methods have led to
their failure at the NCEA exams.
Another solution, less open to attack but harder to implement, is to provide a

degree of NCEA coaching to students who (a) desire coaching, and (b) whose
parents desire high NCEA grades for their students. For the latter students it
is best to have full and frank consultation with both parents and student to
ensure both parties are in agreement. Otherwise, the students wishes should
be, I think on principle, upheld. We are serving the students first and foremost,
at least in a public school. In a private school where parents are paying for
tuition the matter is more complicated when there is disagreement between
parents and student about the course of their learning.
The best things to do in the latter case are to either consult further with
parents and students to reach some unanimity, or request a transfer for the
student to another class, or not teach at a private school.
Issue of Discipline. Most existing schools in New Zealand have fairly strict dis-
ciplinary rules. In the classroom this often means a teacher is implementing
disciplinary procedures that are of someone else’s devising and may not be
very well suited to the teacher’s personality, philosophy and culture. What
can be done in such circumstances?
To my knowledge, most schools will permit teachers to devise their own intra-
classroom discipline procedures provided they have the effect desired by the
school. This may be for low noise, minimal disruption, zero tolerance for
certain behaviours and so forth. If this is not allowable then the teacher is best
advised to work at a different school, one that has discipline procedures that
are either very general and flexible in implementation, or which are prescriptive
but at least fit the philosophy of the teacher.
The next issue is how to approach discipline when one has some flexibility.
The first thing is to discuss as a class the goals and aims of learning for the
year. Expectations need to be spelt out clearly so that a framework of rules
and routines for the class can be discussed and agreed upon, or voted upon if
there is not initial unanimity.
The approach that I then favour (with the learning aims and expectations in
mind) is one of (a) discussing as a class the classroom rights and democratically
setting responsibilities matching the rights, and (b) discussing as a class any
desired routines and democratically setting rules that fit with the rights and
routines.
Routines should be fairly light-weight and unobtrusive to learning. Responsi-
bilities should not be onerous yet should allow students to take initiative and
demonstrate leadership.
If students do not agree to abide by majority opinion on the rules and routines
then they could (i) be given reasonable forum to offer suggested changes or
amendments, (ii) be given a right of appeal and review, (iii) be granted a
request for a class transfer if they still fundamentally disagree to accept the
rules. Most of this stuff can be sorted out within the first week or two of the
year.
Finally, the rules and routines need to be brought up for review periodically
throughout the year, without being open to endless debate, they may need to
be adjusted to suit any changing classroom dynamics.
Without this democratic setting of rules and routines any talk of free and fair
education for the students is at best naı̈ve, and at worst hypocritical lies.
Other Critiques of Modern Education
Issues with the way diversity are being handled and lamentations about the contin-
ued use of separate subject areas, and many other critical issues, are discussed in
extensive literature by many radical educationalists. See for example (Aronowitz &
Giroux, 1993), (Giroux, 1988).
One of the central debates surrounding education reform seems to be the issue
of whether structured classrooms stifle learning and creativity or whether increased
permissiveness is leading to declining standards. The polarity of these two sides to
the debate are intense and one feels there is no hope for peaceful resolution unless
we all realize that education is so multifaceted that there really is no one approach
to education that works for all students.
Some students will thrive on a strict diet of disciplined instruction and maybe
even rote learning, while others will benefit more from a free culture in which they
can direct their own learning. So the way forward I think is to provide a diverse
educational setting that allows students and teachers together to find out what
works best for each individual. This is much harder than using the “one size fits
all” approach of all educational ideologues. The trick is to just not be an ideologue
and always try to do what you think is best for each child. That means at least
breaking down the traditional classroom structure to provide diverse study methods
and tools.
For at least some students, maybe not all of the time, but at least for some of the
time in their education history, this will mean rebuilding the structured classroom
setting to allow certain students the chance to learn in the more traditional setting—
if that is what seems to work best for them.
In other words, Sudbury School sounds idyllic for students, but it is a false option
if that is all that is offered: complete freedom is not the same as maximum quality.
We know this from many other areas of life and from research in other disciplines.
Creativity for example, whether it is in art, music, literature, or science, often results
from the imposition of constraints, not from total freedom. The issue for education
is what are the best constraints?
What Are the Best Constraints?
Until more independently assessed evidence is available, the successes of the likes
of the Sudbury Valley School experiment need to be taken with caution. How do
we know that the minimal constraints of the Sudbury Valley model of schooling are
really optimal? I do not think we can know the answer for sure, at least not right
now.
Maximum quality education is, one might define, ‘whatever suites the student
best for their positive life goals’. But a persons goals change as they grow, intellec-
tually and spiritually. So it is probably rare that one style of learning will suffice
throughout a student’s schooling. Certainly not up to tertiary level, but probably
not even throughout primary and high school either. Some students may be com-
fortable learning from books their entire lives, but for the majority of students this
single-mode of learning is probably not ideal.
So the choice of constraints will change. They even change from day to day. A
music student wanting to improve their technical skill might spend a day practising
difficult chord sequences or complex riffs over and over again. One another day
they may be searching for creative spark and may not even pick up an instrument,
instead they might read poetry, idly browse the web, or go for a mountain walk, or
practise their Tai Chi, or spend the day playing ball, or converse with mentors and
colleagues, or tinker around with some machinery, or whatever.
Here is a set of alternative constraints that might be workable within the bound-
aries of an established liberal but otherwise traditional New Zealand School circa
2010.
1. The No Violence Constraint. This is really the constraint on non-interference

with another’s right to learn. Physical, emotional, verbal, and all other forms
of violence are detrimental and harmful to learning, so they need to be clearly
controlled and constrained.
2. The Resource Funding Constraint. No school can supply unlimited edu-

cational resources to their students. But all schools should be able to procure
sufficient resources to allow all students to freely access information and tools
that will enable them to learn at a minimal rate of their own choosing.
3. The Subject Choice Constraint. There should be no constraint of subject

choice, but any particular school may lack the teaching expertise to offer a full
range of depth in every subject a student wishes to learn. The Internet does
offer a form of expertise that might fill any school staff expertise gaps. To
get around this constraint it should be enough to have on staff teachers who
are at least experts in facilitating learning, and guiding students to finding
knowledge and know-how for themselves.
4. The Mentor Constraint. Closely related to the subject choice constraint:

the lack of a good mentor whom the student feels comfortable communicat-
ing with and who the student can look to for general help and wisdom is a
severe constraint. There is little a small school can do about this problem,
but employing teachers committed to the freedom-with-constraints model of
schooling should at least avoid the worst of this type of constraint for most
students. It is rare that a school has a student who cannot find at least one
teacher with whom they can relate comfortably and easily.
5. The Chaos Constraint. Most (even self-professed radical) educators will

admit that utter anarchy and chaos (even if without violence or disruption)
are probably not optimal conditions for learning. So a high quality school will
need to offer some form of structure. This could be in the form of voluntary
(non-obligatory) assembly times, form class or “whanau group”) times, a well
publicized quality lecture schedule (like at an open university), and similarly
well organized and structured, yet optional, practical activities and organized
field trips, cultural festivals, arts shows, and sports events and so forth. These
anti-chaos activities should be the life blood of the school.
One thing I would strenuously avoid would be academic competitions. If these
are organized they should come solely from student initiatives, with a fun focus,
not from school teacher-led events with an assessment drive focus.
6. .
7. .
Other than these few constraints I see no other reasons to stifle the education of our
primary to secondary school students.
Reflection Journal
The Beginning of the Year

I have decided that this is the most crucial time in class-based teaching. I might
spend an entire week on ice-breaker and diagnostic information gathering and setting
discipline and tones of respect and enthusiasm for learning in the class. There is
probably no time too long that one could spend on this, although after a week one
might expect to be teaching some subject content, at least in a well disciplined class.
So in this section I’m collecting my ‘start of year’ activity ideas.
Discpline and Trust. Try to think of activities that will instil respect and trust
among students and for the teacher, both ways. This will help with calming any
disruption, disobedience and generally establish good discipline. So the focus is on
providing a calm and yet stimulating learning environment. Especially in large,
younger aged, classes, students need to be taught the benefits of respecting each
other and not talking out of turn and so forth.
Setting Self-Targets. At the start of the year, ask students to set themselves
quantitative improvement targets. These could be targets for summative assessment
grades or homework completions and so forth. Teachers could collect and keep these
and use them at the end of year in some way to rewards students who set good targets
and achieved or came close to them.
The teacher could help this activity along by reminding students of the curricu-
lum topics, but I think targets need not be always related to the curriculum or
examinations framework. They should be targets related to the subject that the
student has not achieved and is interested in mastering. These need to then be re-
viewed throughout the year in case a student achieves their targets part-way through
the year. They should then be given the opportunity to set new targets.
142
Essay on Their Thought of the Subject. Actually, any essay that reveals the
students’ feelings and attitudes would be handy. Both for them to air their views
and for the teacher to pick up useful background information.
Class Rules, Rights and Responsibilities. Do this as a group activity. Derive

sets of agreed upon rules. Teachers should start with their own base ground rules to
establish authority. The rest should be openly consulted and agreed by all students
or established by a majority vote. In case of a majority vote issue, beforehand the
class needs to agree that all students will abide by the will of the majority.
Reflections on Each Week of Epsy302
Reflection on Different Lesson Approaches
Examples of different teaching approaches.
teaching the letter ‘A’ in hand-writing. In sequence: Quick teacher demon-

stration. Individual practice. Student demonstration. Short exercise using
multiple letters (context). Do these in sequence, re-demonstrate as necessary.
teaching backstroke in swimming. In sequence: Floating. Floating and kick-

ing. Floating on back. Floating and kicking on back. Add arm motion.
Demonstrate and practice. Provide encouragement and feedback at each stage.
teaching healthy eating in a health topic. Visualization of good versus bad eat-
ing habits. Discussion of consequences. Question students about why these
consequences. Provide feedback and correction at each stage if needed. Activ-
ity on the ‘how’ of good eating—e.g, how to eat well on a limited budget, how
to quickly and conveniently prepare healthy food, other options. Summarize
and complete a questionnaire or similar assessment activity.
teaching orienteering or map reading skills. Design a confidence course, keep-

ing it physically simple but intellectually demanding. Outline the activity,
discuss with students the rules and any questions or apprehensions, resolve
them. Agree when and where to stop and meet afterwards. Let them loose.
Debriefing. Review and synthesize lessons gained.
teaching word processing skills. Pass for now. There is software that does this
better than I.
teaching the history of the Treaty of Waitangi. Give a clear outline of the
learning objectives, so there is minimal ambiguity. Watch a decent documentary—
they will do a much better job than I could. But then use an activity to cement
knowledge, for example, set up a mock tribunal hearing. One group of students
are the claimants, another are the existing land holders or resource develop-
ers, another are the government negotiators. Lay out ground rules and have
the students simulate a forum or tribunal meting with a clear objective and
(different!) agendas for each party.
teaching the correct ball passing skills. Very brief theory then onto a demo
with a capable student. Let students play. Observe. Correct basic skills that
are lacking or absent. Keep practicing under supervision. Once students gain
enough confidence (can catch a few passes out of a dozen) then set a challenge
goal or competitive game to spice up the risk level.
teaching how to identify opinion in texts. Start with a funny example or game
demonstrating the absurdity of taking an opinion as fact or vice versa. A sim-
ple humorous joke or pun would suffice as a warm-up. Outline the goal of the
lesson. Explain meaning of opinion identifying keywords, such as “I think. . . ”,
and “In my view. . . ”, and contrast with reportage keywords and phrases such
as “It has been shown. . . ”, and “Due to. . . ”. Discuss these with students.
Make sure they have some understanding of why these are indicative of opin-
ion versus fact or otherwise. News broadcasts like those from the BBC might
be good sources. Examine some simple examples. Introduce the complexity
of disguised opinion, presented as fact. See if the students can identify such
disguised opinion from some not too complicated examples, e.g., Fox News
scripts should be a good source, as would article on philosophy, especially
social sciences.
Reflection on Teaching Models
The task for Module 2-8 of Epsy302 asked us to summarize the different teaching
modles in a table like that of Table 6.1.
Reflections on TE Week 1
Very first lesson (Mathematics Year 9 advanced stream class, boys only school)
was a slight shock. The Associate teacher was severe on the boys for failing to do
homework in preparation for exams the following week. The Teacher did not get
Table 6.1: Summary of teaching models.

Theoretical Useful for What are the What is the
Model
support teaching. . . ? students doing? teacher doing?
Direct Social cognitive (Ban- Problem solving, Watching/listen- Demonstrating, mod-

instruction dura), scaffolding & well-defined skill sets. ing, mimicking and elling, providing good
ZPD (Vygotsky), and Structured skills. practising. examples, giving feed-
clarity theory (Rosen- back.
shine, Shuell)
Lecture- Reception learning Complex relation- Listening attentively, Presenting material,

discussion (Ausebel). Schema ships and organized taking notes, thinking demos, answering
theory (Piaget) chunks of knowledge, of questions. questions.
and theories.
Group Social co-construct- Group & social skills, Active, talking, dis- Facilitating, obser-
interaction ivism, co-operative creativity, imagina- cussing, cooperating, ving, monitoring,
models learning. tion, insight, complex debating. Teaching probing.
(Vygotsky, Piaget, problems, novel ideas, each other, working
Johnson & Johnson) teamwork, synergy as teams. Taking re-
and more. sponsible roles.
Guided Cognitive and Deep understanding, Thinking for them- Framing the students.
discovery constructivist. patterns, generaliza- selves, forming ques- Presenting questions
(Bruner, Piaget, tions, pattern recogni- tions, active problem and problems. Facili-
Dewey, Vygotsky, tion, meta-cognition, solving. Inquiring, tating and monitor-
Glasser) and much more. analysing, synthesis- ing.
ing, evaluating and
reflecting.
inwardly angry, but projected an outward anger and frustration at the boys. So it
was a good example of acting or feigning anger and sternness without raising ones
blood pressure to do so, at least no more than a good acting job would require. The
discipline was for all that quite stern, the teachers expressing a feeling that the boys
had let themselves and each other and the teacher down. Emphasising that the
50% of the class who did do their homework should not be put at a disadvantage of
having to wait for the other boys to catch up.
I might have dealt with this differently. But I would need to start at the beginning
of the year by developing trust in the boys. I feel I could not teach a disruptive
class. So individual work would have to be done in strict silence—“simulate an
exam”. But to balance I’d need plenty of opportunity for the boys to talk and chat
but in a way that focused on mathematics.
In one other class (same boys but a Technology class, so different teacher) the
boys spent most of the individual work time gossiping or talking about things other
than their work. It seemed impossible for the teacher to keep an eye on all the
groups and make sure they were all on task. I do not know how I would handle this,
other than structure the lesson in a totally different way.
In science classes I would try to get students to design experiments rather than
carry them out from a pre-prepared plan. The trouble is that this requires trust in
the students that they will put in an honest effort to think about experiment design.
Provided that trust is established one could easily weave in theory lessons during
the experiment planning. They would need some theory, and would no doubt be
asking questions, in order to guide their experiment design.
Reflections on Homework
This is part of my reflection on TE Week three. This is a surprisingly contentious
issue. Some teachers and education researchers thing strongly that homework inter-
feres deleteriously with the lives of families, and think of homework as an unnecessary
tyranny. I am of two minds on this topic. I do see that homework can be more of
a nuisance than it is worth. But typically that’s because homework is often poorly
structured and amounts to nothing more than further drill exercises.
My approach would be to make homework either purely optional, or make it
more interesting and worthwhile, perhaps involving practical investigations rather
than set book work.
Also interesting is to read what the Wikipedia article says about mathematics
pedagogy and homework:
Homework which leads students to practice past lessons or prepare

future lessons are more effective than those going over today’s lesson.
Assignments should be a mix of easy and hard problems and ideally
based on the student’s learning style. Students must receive feedback.
Students with learning disabilities or low motivation may profit from re-
wards. Shorter homework is better than long homework and group home-
work is sometimes effective, though these findings depend on grade level.
Homework helps simple skills, but not broader measures of achievement.
—Wikipedia, ‘Mathematics education’
In other words, giving out ‘homework for homework’s sake’ is a rather pointless and
even harmful strategy. Homework can be positive when motivated and structured
for higher reasons.
How to Get Students to Work Things Out?
In the Epol344 course notes I wrote,
Whenever possible get students to work things out for themselves! Do

not spoon feed them. Trust that this will develop cognitive skills in the
students that will ultimately aid their learning more than if you try to
just transmit your knowledge.
So the problem is how to do this? During TE I saw many practical problems with
this method. Many students were so turned off and disinterested that they just did
not want to put in any effort during class. To my mind the problem is how to get
them to think for themselves without making it seem like you are forcing them into
things? There is so much inertia to overcome.
Here is one suggested approach: Relax. Don’t worry about progressing these
students through the curriculum. They should however first of all be taught that
they have their own education in their hands. We the teacher are only there to
guide them. So they have to learn how to be self-motivated, or they will probably
fail exams and waste their time at school. It should be stressed that this is up to
them. Do they want to tune in or out? I considered that this would be impractical
to attempt during TE because it requires time that the Associate Teacher does not
have. But it is something I would seek to do at the beginning of the year with each
class I teach.
So the first teaching task is to make sure all the students understand this: that
their progress is not solely the teachers responsibility, but largely rests in their own
hands. In a ‘results oriented school’ one could even use the school policy: e.g., “we
are preparing them for University!” So they should be prepared to fully own their
education and take full responsibility for it—because that’s what they will need to
do at University. That should be Rule Number 1 at secondary school! Ownership
and responsibility for one’s own education.
Handling the Disruptive Class
Some classes are more chaotic than others. Students quickly develop an idea of what
a teacher will tolerate before blowing a cylinder. So it is important for the teacher
to establish management authority. With such discipline in place lessons themselves
need not be authoritative, handing down of knowledge. With trust a teacher can
let students take control of many aspects of the class work.
Younger students they may not have developed a good sense of responsibility.
How can we handle them? First, do not straight away teach the subject content.
Teach them first the value of discipline and respect. Gain their trust. Only when
this has been demonstrated should a teacher proceed to teaching subject content.
What if it takes weeks to do this? Well, a judgement call has to be made. Some
classes will have such poorly behaved students that a teacher will have to use other
strategies to build up trust over a longer terms while starting on subject matter
lessons. We do not live in an ideal world.
A Radical Idea for Fun, Awesome Science or Math-

ematics Classes all Year Round
I’ve exaggerated the title of this section slightly. By “all year round” I mean only
all but the first month or three weeks. This plan is a bit like a University teaching
model, but even looser. The premisses are that (a) students should know best what
they do not understand, and (b) it is pointless to teach lessons that are not needed,
and (c) school should be fun.
The sketch plan is this:
1. Tell the students this plan and get them to ‘buy in’ if possible (if they do not
unanimously agree then we have a different problem).
2. Teach thoroughly and review the entire exam curriculum in a few weeks at
the very start of the year. Go for full coverage not depth.
(a) Make sure all students get a chance to ask questions and clarify their
understanding of the topics.
(b) Do not worry about the content of the topics too much. Go through it
super fast. As if reading a textbook contents and then the introduction
and summary for each chapter.
(c) Teacher ensures all students are familiar with the exam curriculum and
content. The time-frame for this should be about three weeks to a month
or about 9 to 12 lessons.
3. The rest of the year the students should then take full responsibility for study-
ing the exam material.
4. Students can bring questions and problems to class to discuss. These could be
submitted say at the beginning of each week. The students then only ask the
teacher to teach what they really think they need to know.
(a) Students are responsible for setting their own tests. Self-testing all around.
(b) Teacher is responsible for reminding them to self-test and to keep to some
schedule.
(c) Teacher offers individual consultation to arrange schedules and individual
plans.
(d) Teacher checks self-tests and other basic assessments for recording progress
and gathering evidence for formative teaching.
5. When students’ questions have been covered the rest of the week is devoted
to selected special topics of the teachers’ or students choosing, and could be
any topic related to curriculum achievement objectives.
(a) These non-standard lessons are to be wide-ranging, fun and totally dis-
cursive and even philosophical, basically whatever grabs the attention of
the students.
(b) Preference for topic choice goes to students who can demonstrate best
progress on their exam curriculum studies, but a rotation policy should
also be used to keep all students involved in special topic selection.
6. TODO: I had some further pieces to this plan but they escaped my mind. . .
7. Throughout the year the teacher needs to diligently monitor student progress,
to ensure they are on track for satisfactory and even exemplary performance
in the examinations. Why?
(a) This is a subversive activity. The students should be aware of their

progress on the exam standards but should be taught for the bulk of
the year without regard to the exams.
(b) The bulk of the years teaching should be stimulating, chosen by the
students interests, guided by the teacher, but fundamentally driven by
student interest.
(c) For example, arts and music oriented students should be working (either
given or guided towards) physics and science projects that focus on their
arts and music interests.
(d) They should be given ample opportunities to solve exam style questions
as part and parcel of the years teaching.
8. The plan is of course conditional on student buy-in and teacher ability to run
such a program and cope with criticism from other teachers.
Comments. This plan might fail with very young students, say Year 9 or Year 10,
but I do not see why this would be so if the plan is carried out fairly and generously.
There will be resistance from parents and from some students no doubt. The plan
is risky: it is not ‘tried and true’. It does not guarantee good or even improved
exam results per student. The plan may involve more work for the teacher, but this
should be compensated by the greater fun and variety it offers. The opportunity to
get deep into certain aspects of physics, of interest to the students, is the key. If the
teacher does not feel intellectually challenged then the plan is probably not working
well.
Creating Resources for Fun, Awesome Science or Mathemat-

ics Classes
I’m sure this is not an original idea, but I have not seen it spelt out before. Here it
is, in a few bullet points,
• First, get senior students thoroughly immersed in a topic, then
• As a topic review project get them to design original lesson plans/resources

for junior classes on the topic.
• Go through a few stages of peer review, the students present and critique each
other’s plans and resources and make suggestions for improvement.
• The seniors can either present their proposals to their peers, or
• practice their lesson plans on a willing junior class for real.
The last step is to use them yourself in your junior classes and continue to refine
them.
The same principle of iterative lesson development can be applied in many ways.
It is a cool way to implement evidence based teaching, since it achieves the dual
purpose of solidifying the understanding of the senior students as well as helping the
teacher develop new resources and ‘upgrades’ to existing resources that otherwise
for lack of time would be put on the back-burners.
With a class of able seniors there is no reason to let good teaching ideas flounder
for lack of development of resources.
Cool Group Activities

We’ve already noted that there is a problem in many schools motivating students,
and particularly a problem in disruptive classes. Typically high energy students will
find it difficult to keep quiet. So one idea is to use their energy, channel it into
learning activities. Group activities are one way, but the lesson still needs to be
structured well. The following ideas were picked up from TE and course readings
and various other places.
1. Predict-Observe-Explain. General type of activity involving canned exper-

iments.
2. Challenge Answers. Get students to challenge solutions and think of alter-

native methods of solution.
3. Translate Forms. Get students to translate learning from one form (text)
into another (graphical).
4. Concept Maps. A good way to get students thinking and monitor their
learning.
5. Information Sifting. Give more information than necessary to solve a prob-

lem, get students to identify the unnecessary data. Extension—Do this in
groups on different problems, then another group has to test the reduced set.
Cooperative Problem Solving

This is, as far as I now, is another original idea for enhancing learning of diverse
groups of students.
It requires preparation of a fairly large number of interesting problems. The topics
can be multidisciplinary, cross-curricular, or narrow and confined to a specific topic,
it does not really matter. What matters is that the selection fits the current learning
goals of the students (as determined by the students themselves).
The specific learning intention is fostering teamwork and an ability to communi-
cate difficult ideas and learn how to teach someone how to solve a problem. Collat-
eral learning occurs because students will (presumably) be solving problems related
to the particular unit or topic of study.
So we assume a large resource of related questions and problems. They all should
be fairly complex (for the level of the students) and should be highly non-trivial, in
that they require numerous ideas or concepts or techniques to solve, or they should
require at least quite a bit of time to master. Perhaps anything from 30 minutes to
a few hours for the typical student.
1. Distribute problems to individual students.
2. Students work away on the problems. They can ask help from other students
or from their teacher or from the internet or from books or any other resource
at their disposal.
3. After all students have solved their problem we begin a round of cooperative
teaching. If some students finish studying earlier than others they are given
additional problems to work on, or they may choose any other meaningful
learning activity (we are not running a forced labour camp or prison!).
4. Less able students can work in pairs if desired, though should not be forced
to do so. Gifted students should be discouraged from working in partnership
with other gifted students.
5. The cooperative teaching could take the following format,
a) A first student finds another student who has not helped with their prob-
lem and has not seen it before.
b) The first student must then teach the second student how to solve the
problem, or give them enough tuition to be able to solve the problem.
c) Once successful the second student can reciprocate or (if they have al-
ready shown the problem to the first student they need to find another
partner).
Students who have no current partner should either team up as a problem

solver or tutor with other students, or they can ask for additional tasks from
the teacher.
6. Assessment involves the teacher making sure students are simply doing their
own work, in that they must clearly demonstrate an ability to teach their
problem to someone else who cannot initially solve the problem. This can be
lose or tight assessment, the main objective is to have fun and learn how to
enjoy teaching someone else a new idea.
References 153
References
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Atherton, J. S. (2010, 20 September). Learning and teaching; SOLO taxonomy.
[On-line] UK. Available from http://www.learningandteaching.info/
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Bambino, D. (2002). Critical friends. Educational Leadership, 59 (6), 25–28.
Barry, K., & King, L. (1998). Developing planning skills. In Beginning teaching and
beyond (pp. 45–68). Katoomba NSW: Social Sciences Press.
Brown, D., & Thomson, C. (2000a). Establishing effective teams. In Co-operative
learning in new zealand schools (pp. 62–66). Palmerston North: Dunmore
Press.
Brown, D., & Thomson, C. (2000b). Introduction to learning together—the john-
son approach. In Co-operative learning in new zealand schools (pp. 25–35).
Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.
Dymoke, S., & Harrison, J. (2008). Chapter 1. In Reflective teaching and learning
(pp. 7–30). London: Sage Publications.
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learning. Bergin & Garvey. Available from http://books.google.co.nz/
books?id=2q5PvsKh2x0C
Greenberg, D., Greenberg, M., Brilliant, A., & Palmer, C. (1995). Free at last: The
sudbury valley school. Sudbury Valley School Press.
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teacher/student relationship for Māori and Pasifika students. Set, 3 , 44–49.
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teaching strategies: Lessons from research and practice (pp. 187–191). South
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Epsy302 Collective Notes - Teaching Models and Strategies

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Collective EPSY302 Course Notes

Online Collaboration Team

October 17, 2010

1 Module 1—Planning and Evidence 8

Task 13, Listening Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2 Module 2—Models of Teaching 41

3 Module 3—Classroom Management 58

4 Module 4—Inquiry Learning and Critical Thinking 63

5 Module 5—Differentiated Learning and the Digital Age 88

Module 5-6, Flexibility in Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

6 Extra Discussion and Research 127

Reflection Journal 142

A Radical Idea for Doing Fun, Awesome Science or Mathematics

Module 1-2: Graduating Teacher Standards

(b) have knowledge of a range of relevant theories, principles and pur-

1. Standard Four: Graduating Teachers use professional knowledge to plan

• Professional Values & Relationships

1. Standard Six: Graduating Teachers develop positive relationships with

Module 1-3: Becoming and Effective Teacher

“An effective teacher will in general be organized, enthusiastic, full

“I have experienced a few effective teachers. At their best moments

Behavioural Cognitive Humanist

Direct Lecture Inquiry Discovery Group Problem

“The Behaviourist Views are the most teacher-centric because they

1. What sort of teacher do you (we) want to be?

2. How will you (we) be that teacher?

3. How will you know if you are that teacher?

Module 1-4,5: Lesson Planning

• To use, and demonstrate understanding of, planning terminology.

Comments on “Beginning teaching and beyond”

Planning is a requirement. Not only is lesson planning helpful to improve teach-

All lesson planning involves five key questions. These are,

1. What is the background for the proposed learning experience? (Background.)

Learning objectives—the centre of the lesson. Learning objectives define

Categories of learning objectives. These are given as; Cognitive=intellectual

Clear objectives are not just restatements of activities. The statement,

Subject matter—relevant, accurate, concrete-to-abstract, manageable.

1. Diagnostic—Pre-tests. Performance record review.

This is just a short list.

Step 1. Background (identify known subject matter)

Step 2. Objectives (identify new subject matter)

Step 3. Learning experiences (how to facilitate learning of subject matter)

Step 4. Evaluation (check mastery of subject matter)

Short Glossary of Lesson Planning Terms

Module 1-6: Advance Organizers

• The Learning intention

• Links to previous learning

• Why are we studying this?

• Big ideas—the main ideas.

• Tasks—list of required tasks.

Module 1-7: Guide to Lesson Planning

Basics of lesson planning. Formulate three inquiries: Focus inquiry, Teaching

• The learning objective—outcome (e.g., from a curriculum)—statements of the

• Background—ask yourself, and answer: “what, of relevance, do students al-

• The time allotted in total.

• Specific topic: “what is the subject matter?”.

• Key words and concepts: more on the subject matter.

• Breakdown by time and sequence of student activities and teacher strategy:

Module 1-8: Writing Learning Intentions

Basics of writing learning intentions. Stick to a domain: Cogitative, or Psy-

Module 1-9,10: Using Evidence

Evidence About Student Learning

• The Diagram and discussion: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/. . . /Inquiry/-

“I have chosen Level four to five (around year 9, 10 students)