Walking on the Wild Side Teaching Towards Deeper Understanding in History through Building Capacity

1
Walking on the Wild Side!Teaching Towards
Deeper Understanding in History through Building
Capacity rather than Delivering Content

• Joe Alexander
• Head of Social Science
• Marymount College, Gold Coast, Queensland.

2
Conference Themes

• Encourgaing Deeper Levels of Understanding
• Leading From Within
• Having the Courage to see Freshly

3

• Some Issues
• Curriclum Learning changing definitions
• A Changing World with Changing Students
• Thinking carefully about our learners
• Teacher s as Leaders versus Prescription
• The politics of history curriculum
• Simplistic representations of complex issues

4
Something to Ponder

• History only ever involves a selection of what
  is knowable about the past
• Richard Evans (2005 3)
• Senior Professor of Modern History,
• Cambridge University

5
Somewhere to start

• Imagine for a moment, that your children were
  given considerable freedom to choose what to
  learn and how to learn, to some degree, even when
  to learn. What do you suppose would happen?
  Would they run amok, would their academic
  performance wither as they romp into frivolous
  pursuits? Would they ever bother to learn
  anything worthwhile?
• (Grille, 2003 5)

6
Student Choices

• What choices does schooling generally allow
  students?
• What school they attend??
• What subjects they study??
• Who they spend time with??
• What sport or activities??
• What they learn in the classroom??
• What assessment students complete??

7
Choices about Curriculum

• What choices can students make about their own
  learning?
• student choosing subjects/units
• students choosing assignment topics
• students choosing issues and topics for study
• students choosing from a range of learning
  activities
• students choosing a mode of assessment
• students choosing a whole course of study,
  including learning activities and assessment

8
CurriculumWho decides?

• How do we decide what students learn?
• Some Possibilities
• Federal Government Curriculum Documents -
  Funding arrangements, Statements of Learning ,
  NCCOs
• State Curriculum Documents and Syllabuses
• External Testing Regimes - VCE, HSC, CCE
• System Initiatives and Policies
• School Work Programs Curriculum Documents
• Teacher Decisions What you like!
• Students Decisions

9

• One of the few remaining ways we allow them any
  sense of power over their lives is to give them
  the choice of what to buy and what not to buy. In
  a real sense, were the ones whove made young
  people into, in Thomas Hines phrase, the
  monstrous progeny of marketing and schooling.
  
  
  (McDonnell2006156)
• Honey, We Lost the Kids Re-thinking Childhood in
  the Multimedia Age

10
Experience with Students Choosing their own
Curriculum

• Based on your experience as student, what
  choices were you able to make about your learning
  both at school and after?
• Based on your experience as an educator what
  choices do you think students in your school have
  in their learning?
• What are your initial thoughts about students
  having choice about their learning?

11
Towards a Rationale for Providing for Student
Choice in Learning

• In the age of CDs and VCRs, communication
  satellites and laptop computers, education
  remains by and large a traditional craft.
• Perkins (19923)

12
ThesisWALKING ON THE WILDSIDE!

• providing students with meaningful choice in
  their learning, and allowing students
  opportunities to co-construct their curriculum,
  not only empowers and motivates students about
  their learning, but further equips students with
  the capacity to be independent, and
  self-directed, yet purposeful learners.

13

• It is also argued that the nature of our ever
  changing society, as well as research into the
  fundamental notions of knowledge and learning
  requires us to change and adjust the way many
  teachers decide what it is to be taught and how
  it will be approached in the classroom

14

• Providing students with choice requires us to
  think carefully about curriculum in schools, and
  being prepared to let go of some of the control
  that teachers, curriculum planners, and schooling
  authorities have traditionally had over both
  content and assessment in classrooms.
• This approach is in direct contrast to curriculum
  direction in both state and national levels.

15
Teaching for the Unknown

• As a result of vast changes in the students we
  teach and the inevitability of continuous change
  in contemporary society, schools face a key
  shift from delivering content to building
  capacity
• Mc Willam (2005)

16
McWilliam (2007)

• Key Shift in this new creative, conceptual age
  (the New Economy)
• From having to know the pre-determined
• To creating the knowledge
• Eg Wikipedia, file-sharing, PPP, U-tube, ebay,
  collaboration

17
McWilliam (2007)Changing Classrooms

• 20th Century
• Less
• Memorisation
• Institution
• Control and command
• Compliance
• Imitation
• Performance testing
• Competitive individuals

• 21st Century
• More
• Problem solving
• Direction and support
• Self management
• Co-creation
• Risk taking
• Learning to learn
• Dynamic teams

18
A Very Different World

• Young people today are armed with the ability to
  virtually access information about anything at
  anytime. One would argue the need for recall or
  retention of information could fast be becoming
  obsolete.
• Internet
• Internet enabled mobile phones
• Ipods and data storage

19

• Teenagers constantly complain that adults treat
  them like children, demanding to know When are
  you going to start treating me like an adult?
  Which raises the very questions we need to
  grapple with When should Childhood end? What is
  maturity? Just when does a person become an
  adult? A lot of problems stem from the fact that
  too often, the answer to that question is Never.
  A lot of kids never really step into adulthood.
  We dont pave the way for them. We dont
  initiate them. In many ways, we actively thwart
  their efforts to grow up!
• 
  MacDonnell (2006156-7)

20
The Problem with Knowledge(Perkins, 1993)

• Learning is the result of thinking, not just
  knowing
• knowledge can be problematic and fragile
• Research shows that there are many more problems
  of knowledge other than just plain not having
  it.
• Knowledge can be inert, naive and ritualistic.

21

• Much Schooling has been based upon the Trivial
  Pursuit Theory in which learning is seen as a
  matter of accumulating a large repertoire of
  facts and routines which little relevance to
  lived experience of students

22

• Educators do not argue that education is about
  accumulating large repertoires of facts and
  routines. But this is overwhelmingly what happens
  in classrooms, where, as in other settings,
  actions speak louder than words
  
• 
  (Perkins
  199332)

23
Capacity?

• I contend that what stays with us from our
  education are patterns patterns of behavior,
  patterns of thinking, and patterns of
  interaction. These patterns make up our
  character, specifically our intellectual
  character. Through our patterns of behavior,
  thinking and interaction, we show what we are
  made of as thinkers and learners. Schools can do
  much to shape and influence these patterns.
• (Richhard 20028)

24
Independent Autonomous Learners

• It seems that students are generally not trusted
  with making decisions about their own learning,
  when paradoxically, I suppose this is what we
  expect students to do as they mature and become
  life-long learners.

25
Independent Autonomous Learners

• Meaningful student choice and the accompanying
  encouragement of autonomy are important
  components of rich thinking opportunities. These
  factors not only support student engagement and
  interest but also encourage greater independence
  and self-direction in thinkingWhen assignments
  are truly open-ended and afford student choice,
  the required decision making is more likely to
  involve students deeply with the content in a
  way that encourages thinking.
  
  
• 
  
  (Richart, 2002155)

26
Middle Schooling Research

• Barret (1998) in her seminal report into the
  needs of adolescent students in Australia argued
  that students needed real opportunities to
  negotiate learning that is useful to them in the
  present and for the future.
• Barret (1998) included learner-centredness as
  an essential component of middle schooling. He
  defines a curriculum as learner- centered as
  being
• A coherent curriculum that is focused on
  identified needs, interests and concerns of
  students and empahasises self-directed and
  co-constructed learning.
• 
  (Barret, 1998 30)

27
Behaviour Management

• Many theorists (Glasser, Rogers, Adler, Dreikurs)
  have argued that students need to develop a sense
  of real control over learning at school, and this
  empowerment ultimately motivates students to
  towards meaningful learning.

28

• Perhaps it is time to change our priorities from
  direct control aimed at stuffing the maximum
  possible amount of knowledge, skills and values
  into children to motivating them to manage their
  own learning.
• (Brown, cited in Porter, 2000 231)

29
Motivation

• A fundamental principle is that children are
  more motivated to learn, and they learn better,
  to the extent that the have choice over how and
  what they learn.
• (Grille, 2003 6)

30
Approaches to Social Science Curriculum -
traditional

• The essential core of the curriculum is the
  declarative or propositional information it
  contains, its social content the curriculum is
  centrally prescribed social values are seen to
  be universal and absolute and derived from
  perennial ideals and knowledge is seen to
  compromise a series of fixed social truths.
  
  
  Gilbert (20063)

31

• The text book and the teacher were omniscient
  and authoritative. The students were compliant
  and accepting.
• (Hoepper,
  2004 14)

32
Approaches to Social Science Curriculum -
Progressive

• The substantive essence is not predetermined but
  arises from an open inquiry process the key
  content is based on student interest and
  contemporary issues and the warrant for
  knowledge is seen to reside in this open process
  of inquiry.
  
  Gilbert (20063)

33

• Long gone are the times when Social Studies
  involved teaching masses of unproblematic
  information about society to passive students.
  Now, teachers think carefully about their
  pedagogical strategies, and especially about
  learning processes that those strategies promote.
• 
  (Hoepper and Land1996 80)

34
External Testing

• Many Australia states require students in the
  Social Sciences (as well as other subject areas)
  to complete largely content based external exams.
  
• Learning research makes it clear the pressures
  of attempting to teach and learn large amounts of
  factual information are not conducive to the deep
  learning of subject matter
• (Masters, 2004 B
  23)

35

• While numbers in the compulsory NSW syllabus are
  obviously high, the syllabus has come under
  criticism for being too full of facts for
  rushing students through a curriculum and then
  expecting them to regurgitate key names and dates
  in the exam at the end.
• (Clarke, 2004 7)

36

• .

37
Personalised Learning or Do You Want Fries with
that?

• Educational research makes clear how
  inappropriate it is to treat all students of the
  same age or year level as though they are more or
  less equally ready to be taught the same
  material.
• (Masters, 2004 A 17)

38
Personalised Learning

• Personalised learning requires a view of learning
  as a continuous, school long process through
  which learning experiences are tailored to the
  current attainments and interests of individuals,
  students are given greater control over what, how
  and where they learn. And are encouraged to plan
  and monitor their own learning.
• (Masters, 2004 A 17)

39
Why Should Students have Choices about their
learning

• Productive History teaching and learning lies
  at the interface between vernacular histories
  or the lived experiences of the child and the
  curriculum documents that we interpret on a daily
  basis.
• Keeping the learner as the focus for our
  activities actually challenges us to think about
  key issues in history teaching and learning
• Starting with the learner is the first and
  perhaps most important step in creating a
  supportive context for building historical
  understanding.
• (Young, 2004 17)

40
Why Dont We Let Students Choose?

• The political nature of history by the uninformed
  All students should know about Simplistic
  media reporting
• Poor Understanding of what History as a
  discipline is Perkins Trivial Pursuit Theory of
  Learning in action.
• All students should know about
• A tradition of teaching masses of names and dates
  content. Again Perkins Trivial Pursuit Theory
  of Learning in action.
• The textbook and the teacher were
  omniscient and authoritative (Hoepper, 2004
  14)
• A fixation on structuring learning around time
  and place (ie an historical period) Now being
  referred to as Narratives or Chronology
• The requirements of the government bodies that
  regulate, assess and rank students, particularly
  in the senior years of schooling, make it very
  difficult to incorporate choice and flexibility
  into their programs.
• The Prevalence of External Testing of Knowledge
  - Again Perkins Trivial Pursuit Theory of
  Learning in action.
• School Structures and Curriculum Programs often
  imply that all students should gain the same
  understanding of a topic or concept.

41
Some Thoughts

• It seems that both political agendas and
  requirements for tertiary entrance ranking seem
  to dictate the sort of social science curriculum
  students receive. It seems that is often
  principally content based, rigid in its scope and
  sequence, and largely assessed using somewhat
  dated and arbitrary methods.

42
Some Thoughts

• Australian history syllabuses and teaching
  documents unlike most other subjects
  repeatedly cause controversy
• History and the way it is taught are hot
  topics for politicians, parents and educators,
  but students continue to regard the subject as
  boring
• (Clarke, 2004 7)

43
Commonwealth Government Views

• I intend to consider ways the federal Government
  can encourage state education authorities to make
  the teaching of Australian History a critical
  part of the syllabus
• And there is too much politics in it and too
  much indoctrination and not enough pivotal facts
  and dates
• Every school child should know when and why
  Captain James Cook sailed up the East coast of
  Australia, who our first Prime Minister was, why
  we were involved in two world wars and how
  federation came about
• She said an office poll of her own junior staff
  members had revealed their knowledge of
  Australian History was wanting, to say the
  least.
• Mr John Howard has said History was too often
  taught without any sense of a structured
  narrative, replaced by a fragmented stew of
  themes and issues

44
Some Problems with this Approach

• There is not one simple unproblematic version of
  History that can be taught in schools.
• History Teaching is not just about names and
  dates.
• The teaching of History risks becoming nothing
  more than political inculcation and brainwashing.
  
• History in Schools risks becoming the History of
  the dominant and powerful.
• The professionalism and role of teachers will be
  diminished
• A History course based around Themes, provides
  students with opportunities to truly explore
  issues that are relevant to them and their own
  society, whilst at the same time, carefully
  examining historical examples.
• A focus on facts and dates reveals a poor
  understanding of the process of learning.
• A focus on facts and dates fails to recognize
  profound developments in educational research
  into teaching and learning.
• Such comments reveal a poor understanding of the
  students in schools and the world in which they
  are growing up.
• Students need choice and flexibility in their
  learning.
• We need to stop chastising young people because
  they do not know what was supposedly taught in
  earlier generations.
• Students that are forced to learn dates and facts
  for an exam will only develop a superficial
  understanding of issues.

45
Teaching For Understanding

• The key components of Teaching for Understanding
  provide a framework for facilitating student
  choice, without compromising rigour, purpose and
  richness.

46
Teaching For UnderstandingComponents of the
Framework

• OVERARCHING GOALS (THROUGHLINES)
• Each curriculum area (Faculty) has clearly
  understood OVERARCHING GOALS. These represent
  the big ideas of the discipline.
• 2. GENERATIVE TOPIC
• Each unit of work is framed by the use of a
  GENERATIVE TOPIC. This is meant to be an
  integrating idea or theme, that suggests
  possibilities for student learning.

47
Teaching For UnderstandingComponents of the
Framework

• UNDERSTANDING GOALS
• These goals drive student learning and
  exploration into the topic. These can be teacher
  or students developed.
• PERFORMANCES OF UNDERSTANDING
• These performances are used to monitor and
  assess student learning. These performances
  can take a variety of forms and can be chosen by
  students. The performances are not intended to
  be separate from learning, but actually form part
  of the learning process. These performances of
  understanding extend student learning and should
  take students somewhere new rather than just
  review previous learning or recite content.

48
A Year 7 Unit

• Generative Topic
• Modern Society Ancient Perspectives
• Understanding Goals
• 1. How did society operate in a range of Ancient
  Civilisations?  
• 2. How do we as members of contemporary society
  know about Ancient Societies? 
• 3. What can we learn about our own contemporary
  society from the study of Ancient Societies?  
• Performances
• 1. Construction of model reflection
• 2. Mutli- modal Performance

49
A Year 8 Unit

• Generative Topic
• The Middle and Beyond
• Understanding Goals
• 1. How did the people of the Middle Ages live (eg
  Religion, Social Organisation, Political
  Structures, Law and Order), and how do we know?
• 2. How did life in the Middle Ages evolve and
  change over time
• 3. How and why did certain ways of thinking and
  ideas emerge and what impact did this have on
  society at the time?
• How has the past had an impact on the way in
  which modern society views discoveries and
  change?
• Performances
• 1. Construction of model reflection
• 2. Mutli- modal Performance

50
A Year 9 Unit

• Generative Topic
• The Great Divide- Global Development Issues
• Understanding Goals
• 1. How can we compare the way people live in
  different nation/countries around the world? 
• 2. How are people affected by the level of
  development within their country?
• 3. How can levels of development be improved in a
  sustainable way?
• Performances
• 1. Report Assessing the Level of Development of a
  particular Nation
• 2. A Game that demonstrates the interactions
  of different nations

51
A Year 9 Unit

• Generative Topic
• A World in Conflict
• Understanding Goals
• 1. How have war and conflict developed in the
  past?
• 2. How have wars and people affected people and
  populations?
• 3. How can war and conflict be averted and
  avoided?
• Performances
• 1. Sourcebook on a Conflict and Written
  Reflection
• 2. Multi-modal Presentation of effects on
  conflict on people

52
A Year 10 Modern History Unit

• Generative Topic
• Dissent, Protest and Change
• Understanding Goals
• 1. How have people and organisations voiced
  dissent and challenge to government and
  government decisions in Australia and other
  places.
• 2. How have different governments and political
  systems responded to dissent and challenged
  voiced by individuals and groups?
• 3. How could the voicing of dissent and challenge
  result in change to government policy and
  decisions
• Performances
• 1. Independently researched essay or multimodal
  presentation

53
A Year 10 Ancient History Unit

• Generative Topic
• Beginning and End The Rise and Fall of Ancient
  Civilisations
• Understanding Goals
• How have Ancient civilisations expanded,
  developed, and grown in stability, power and
  influence in different parts of the world, at
  different times?
• 2. How have Ancient civilisations
  declined, contracted, and fallen in stability,
  power and influence in different parts of the
  world, at different times?
• 3. What can we learn from the rise and
  fall of different ancient civilisations?
• Performances
• 1. Independently researched essay or multimodal
  presentation

54
Years 11 and 12

• Queensland Uses a system of school based
  assessment to assess and rank the learning of
  senior school students.
• All school must have their Year 11 and 12
  programs approved through Queensland Studies
  Authority processes.
• Student Work is externally moderated by District
  and State Review Panels.

55
Ancient History

• Semester 1 Studies of Everyday Life
• Semester 2 Studies of Political Structures
• Semester 3 Studies of Conflict
• Semester 4 Personalities in History

56
Modern History

• Semester 1 Studies of Conflict
• Semester 2 Studies of Power
• Semester 3 Studies of Hope
• Semester 4 The History of Ideas and Beliefs

57
Successes of the Approach

• Students enjoy their learning Students regard
  units with choice as the most enjoyable.
• Students are generally industrious and committed
  to their learning. Student work ethic is
  generally excellent.
• Students generally produce high quality
  performances of understanding.
• Students are achieving very high results.
  Students have developed very good individual
  learning habits or dispositions. Over recent
  years few years, the colleges I have implemented
  this approach has dominated the Very High
  Achievement bands within our Gold Coast District,
  and has compared very favourably across the
  state.

58
Challenges

• Some students found it very difficult to make
  decisions they are not used to making decisions
  about their learning. We need to develop more
  opportunities to make choices, so they can become
  better it.
• There was a perception that this approach is hard
  work for students its easier if you just tell
  us what to do!
• Consistency across classes- students do make
  comparisons.
• Classroom organisation has to be flexible enough
  for students to be all working on different
  activities all at once!
• Teacher needs to carefully monitor the progress
  of all students.
• Teacher needs ensure students are being
  sufficiently challenged.

59
Other Issues to Consider

• Class Size. This worked very well with
  relatively smaller classes. This approach could
  be difficult in a large class context.
• Length Of Periods. Students worked more
  effectively in longer lessons. College has since
  extended lesson times in timetable.
• Choice of Assessment. It is interesting that
  most students still choose traditional forms of
  assessment. (essays, oral presentation).
• Planning has to incorporate some way of students
  learning the particular features of their chosen
  mode of assessment. (that is, the generic
  features)
• This approach was initially new to students.
  Students needed to be guided to make decisions
  about their learning. I suspect students will
  become more confident at making these decisions
  with experience.

60
Obsessions with Weighing the Pig

• The consequences of increased external testing
  regimes.
• How can we preserve the integrity and successes
  of a negotiated approach, yet ensure the
  continued success of students in state and
  national testing?

61
Your Thoughts

• Is there value in a negotiated approach?
• Have you presented options to students in similar
  ways?
• Are you interested in applying this approach to
  student learning?
• How could this approach work in your context?
  Think of some examples.
• What barriers would inhibit you from using this
  approach?
• What challenges do you see for students adopting
  this type of learning?

62
Back to Where We Started!

• Imagine for a moment, that your children were
  given considerable freedom to choose what to
  learn and how to learn, to some degree, even when
  to learn. What do you suppose would happen?
  Would they run amok, would their academic
  performance wither as they romp into frivolous
  pursuits? Would they ever bother to learn
  anything worthwhile?
• (Grille, 2003 5)

63

• OUR ROLE AS LEADERS ?????

64
Conclusion

• They have never learned anything from me. They
  have found in themselves many beautiful things
  that have brought them forth
• Socrates in Xenophons Symposium