363 research outputs found
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Competent students and caring teachers: Is a good pedagogy always the best pedagogy?
No full textTeachers’ decisions about pedagogy are informed by a range of educational discourses. These discourses constitute particular kinds of teaching practices and teacher-student relationships in ways that are not immediately obvious. When a particular pedagogy becomes accepted as best practice and it produces desired learning outcomes for the majority of students, it becomes harder to interrogate the underlying assumptions that support it. Even more difficult might be to consider how the practice might disadvantage some students. This article demonstrates the use of a discursive approach to thinking about pedagogy that draws on Foucault’s ideas about critique. An analysis of two teachers’ rationalisation of their practice is offered in order to demonstrate how dominant educational discourses can close down access to thinking about practice outside those discourses in the moments of everyday decision-making. It is claimed that momentarily disturbing taken for granted practices, in the manner Foucault (1981) suggested, can help teachers to consider more broadly the implications of their chosen pedagogy on the development of students’ key competencies
Key Competencies in secondary school: An examination of the factors associated with successful implementation
No full textMany countries are at varying stages of implementing competency-based education into their schools to equip youth with skills necessary to adapt to a changing world. Very little is known regarding practical approaches to incorporate competencies into school curriculum. This study examines five schools in Auckland, New Zealand from a variety of socio-economic areas. Seven senior school leaders were interviewed about their views, understanding and the perceived integration of Key Competencies into the curriculum. Schools that were more successful in terms of implementation planning and progress shared the following characteristics: strong leadership, rethinking pedagogy, professional learning support, and accessing of relevant resources. These characteristics are used to frame recommendations to aid implementation and for further research on key competencies as they might be implemented in secondary schools
In need of research? Supporting secondary school teachers to foster the development of Key Competencies in incidental and unplanned moments
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Re-envisaging the teaching of mathematics: One student teacher's experience learning to teach primary mathematics in a manner congruent with the New Zealand curriculum
No full textTeacher education can provide opportunities for contributing towards a re-envisaging of the teaching and learning of mathematics in the primary classroom. This study documents the experiences of one student teacher who, during her mathematics education courses, embraced a perception of mathematics as a social, creative and experiential discipline. During her subsequent teaching practicum she sought to teach mathematics using a variety of problems set in meaningful contexts with an emphasis on children being creators of mathematics. Michele’s experience suggests that student teachers can effectively learn and implement ways of teaching mathematics that support the aspirations of New Zealand’s curriculum document
Secondary school students' understanding of the socio-emotional nature of the New Zealand Key Competencies
No full textIn its 2007 curriculum, New Zealand introduced Key Competencies (KCs) that are intended to ensure students’ future participation in the economy, communities, and also to introduce metacognitive and socio-emotional dimensions to learning. The KCs also have important implications for contributing to students’ wellbeing and resilience. However, they are open to interpretation and have been conceptualised, implemented, and taught in different ways. This research explored students’ views of the KCs. Twelve students from five secondary schools were interviewed to explore their understanding and value of the KCs and their ideas for teaching them. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Results show that participants value the KCs and interpreted them in a variety of ways, though they often failed to discuss the interconnection between the KCs or identify socio-emotional aspects of the KCs. Implications for teaching the KCs in school are discussed
Authentic assessment in performance based subjects
No full textThis paper reports on a three-year study conducted in Western Australia, which commenced in January 2008, and was completed by December 2010. It concerns the potential to use digital technologies to represent the output from assessment tasks in two senior secondary courses: Engineering Studies and Physical Education Studies.The general aim of this study was to explore the potential of various digitally based forms for external assessment for senior secondary courses in terms of manageability, cost, validity andreliability. The problem being addressed in this research is the need to provide students with assessment opportunities that are authentic, where many outcomes do not lend themselves tobeing assessed using pen and paper over a three-hour period, and that are also able to be reliably and manageably assessed by external examiners. These two courses both have a significant performancebased component, and a certain level of dissonance results when students have performance expectations, and teachers teach to the theory examination in an attempt toensure high pass rates.In Engineering Studies, a computer-managed examination was designed that consisted of a design task that was broken down into a number of timed activities. Students were paced through each activity, recording their input in the form of a portfolio. Input consisted of text, graphics through a camera and voice, and the exam outputs were uploaded to an online repository for marking by external assessors.In Physical Education Studies, a digitally based examination was designed that incorporated four interrelatedcomponents. Two of these required computerbased responses and two were videorecorded practical performance components. Digital output from all parts of the task wascollated into evidence portfolios and uploaded to an online repository for marking by external assessors.This paper focuses specifically on issues of authenticity in relation to the examination tasks designed for each course. It discusses longstanding concerns relating to authenticity associated with courses with a strong performance dimension in which there tends to be a dissonance between the teaching and learning of theory and practice. Ways in which digital technologies were utilised to address these issues are critically examined in this research
A critical analysis process–bridging the theory to practice gap in senior secondary school physical education
No full textMany contemporary international physical education curriculum documents have a socioculturaland critical orientation, which promotes the implementation of a critical pedagogy. Aotearoa New Zealand is no exception. This paper reflects our ongoing efforts to address, from a practical pedagogic perspective, the implementation of a sociocritical curriculum and articulation of critical pedagogy in senior secondary school physical education. We draw attention to the challenging nature of articulating critical pedagogical theory in school practice. We identify the understanding and interrelationship of social construction, multiple perspectives, and hegemony as key aspects in the teaching and learning process that support the development of student teachers’ criticality and in turn their ability to critically analyse. We present these concepts as part of a Critical Analysis Process, a model that is designed to facilitate questioning by student teachers of their own status quo beliefs and practices. It is a model that is a work in progress
Teacher educators talk about enduring understandings
No full textTeacher educators in tertiary education environments face similar challenges to teachers in other sectors when responding to the rapid pace of change across New Zealand educational contexts. “What is really important?” and “how to fit it all in?” are questions frequently asked about content. Using enduring understandings as a way of addressing these questions by identifying “big ideas” appeared to offer considerable benefits for one initial teacher education programme. This paper draws on a survey of teacher educators’ experiences in using enduring understandings in the programme’s compulsory professional studies papers to evaluate the effectiveness of this innovative approach. These teacher educators expressed approval of the implementation of enduring understandings and identified a variety of benefits. The study found that the development and use of enduring understandings enabled content revision and development to occur within existing policy guidelines. Furthermore there was increased teacher educator and student teacher talk around 'bigideas’
Learning to think as an effective mathematics teacher: Teacher educator impacts on curriculum knowledge and learning to teach
No full textFor improved student outcomes, teachers must integrate their knowledge about the curriculum, about how to teach it effectively and how to assess whether students have learnt it. Therefore, key tasks for initial teacher education are building curriculum knowledge, learning contextually appropriate ways to teach and how to use assessment for learning within each curriculum area. We interviewed four recent graduates who had demonstrated contrasting learningtoteach profiles in an earlier quantitative study to understand how teacher education had assisted each of them to notice, recognise and respond to individual children’s numeracy strategies. Their four stories indicate that teacher educators need to notice, recognise and respond to their student teachers with respect to their existing curriculum and pedagogical knowledge