Glass ceilings in education
I am in my second year of teaching an accelerated year 10 science class. They complete 1 term of year 10 chemistry, then terms 2 and 3 on 3 Biology context L1 achievement standards, and term 4 on a geology internal. While trying to cram 2 chemistry topics into term 1, I gave the class a lot more independent home learning than I would usually do for a year 10 class. And they seemed fine. So in term 2, I thought I'd try something different with them. At the beginning of our micro-organisms unit I gave them the SLO's, my previous teaching notes, interesting newspaper articles, online resources, TED Talks etc
And then I said "You have a test in 7 weeks"....... you can imagine the tumbleweeds rolling through the room....... then the explosion of sound as reality hit. 29 teenage girls can make a lot of noise when they put their hearts into it. So I explained that I would still be there and if we needed to stop at any stage and do some traditional teaching, we could. I also explained the benefits of independent learning and tutorial type classes. The skills and dispositions they learn will see them well throughout their education. After the initial panic, they studiously got under way. They learned to decide how to curate their resources and understanding, where to search for reliable information and how access practice exam questions. One thing that particularly impressed me was their ability to plan practical experiments. They had to order gear from our technician 72 hours in advance, and follow all safety procedures (we didn't taste the ginger beer!)
And then 7 weeks was up and it was time for this. Their answers blew me away. They had learned biological concepts in this topic to a far greater depth than I ever would have taught a level 1 class. And they got it, they could apply it to unfamiliar contexts.
So am I guilty of creating glass ceilings in my NCEA secondary classrooms with traditional, teacher prescribed industrial model teaching? Do I limit how much they can learn in a course by my design? When I design my courses around achievement standard explanatory notes, am I hamstringing my students from maximising their learning potential, from taking it as far as they can go? So how do I change my content rich secondary subject? Its about creating open ended learning opportunities. It happens in the early years of schooling, so students know how to do it.
What I did with this unit is one extreme (it was definitely a gamble and I'm keen to see if it works again on a another group of students). It was independent learning at it's best.
Project based learning is another way to do it. We have a Year 9 inter-curricular unit here, this year’s one was launched on Monday this week. We start it off with a conference like bang - challenging video, guest speakers, goodie bags etc. The context is sustainability - the question: What Can You Do? They are challenged to find a concept of sustainability that interests them most, and complete an inquiry on it, and offer a solution. They have to consider social, environmental and economic aspects of their solution. This is the inquiry cycle we give them. They work on it every day in science and social studies, and some time in english. They need to regularly evaluate where they in the cycle and where they go next.The conclusion of the unit is a gala. They present their learning journeys and solutions at an evening event, we invite families, friends and the community to come and view, and have a bit of judging, just to add a competitive element.
Problem based learning is how I structured one of my L2 internals. Again, left it very open ended in terms of the details they needed to cover, just started with the problem that plants living in extreme habitat have different issues with balancing water. What do they do? Present it in any way you want. Again, they went above and beyond the 'requirements' of the achievement standard and I was impressed with the extent of their learning when left to their own devices.
So my challenge to myself is to give my students opportunities, resources and confidence to break through my teacher imposed glass ceilings.
And then I said "You have a test in 7 weeks"....... you can imagine the tumbleweeds rolling through the room....... then the explosion of sound as reality hit. 29 teenage girls can make a lot of noise when they put their hearts into it. So I explained that I would still be there and if we needed to stop at any stage and do some traditional teaching, we could. I also explained the benefits of independent learning and tutorial type classes. The skills and dispositions they learn will see them well throughout their education. After the initial panic, they studiously got under way. They learned to decide how to curate their resources and understanding, where to search for reliable information and how access practice exam questions. One thing that particularly impressed me was their ability to plan practical experiments. They had to order gear from our technician 72 hours in advance, and follow all safety procedures (we didn't taste the ginger beer!)
And then 7 weeks was up and it was time for this. Their answers blew me away. They had learned biological concepts in this topic to a far greater depth than I ever would have taught a level 1 class. And they got it, they could apply it to unfamiliar contexts.
So am I guilty of creating glass ceilings in my NCEA secondary classrooms with traditional, teacher prescribed industrial model teaching? Do I limit how much they can learn in a course by my design? When I design my courses around achievement standard explanatory notes, am I hamstringing my students from maximising their learning potential, from taking it as far as they can go? So how do I change my content rich secondary subject? Its about creating open ended learning opportunities. It happens in the early years of schooling, so students know how to do it.
What I did with this unit is one extreme (it was definitely a gamble and I'm keen to see if it works again on a another group of students). It was independent learning at it's best.
Project based learning is another way to do it. We have a Year 9 inter-curricular unit here, this year’s one was launched on Monday this week. We start it off with a conference like bang - challenging video, guest speakers, goodie bags etc. The context is sustainability - the question: What Can You Do? They are challenged to find a concept of sustainability that interests them most, and complete an inquiry on it, and offer a solution. They have to consider social, environmental and economic aspects of their solution. This is the inquiry cycle we give them. They work on it every day in science and social studies, and some time in english. They need to regularly evaluate where they in the cycle and where they go next.The conclusion of the unit is a gala. They present their learning journeys and solutions at an evening event, we invite families, friends and the community to come and view, and have a bit of judging, just to add a competitive element.
Problem based learning is how I structured one of my L2 internals. Again, left it very open ended in terms of the details they needed to cover, just started with the problem that plants living in extreme habitat have different issues with balancing water. What do they do? Present it in any way you want. Again, they went above and beyond the 'requirements' of the achievement standard and I was impressed with the extent of their learning when left to their own devices.
So my challenge to myself is to give my students opportunities, resources and confidence to break through my teacher imposed glass ceilings.
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