Saturday, April 28, 2012

Evidence-informed teaching

After 7 years in teaching, I came to realize that in teaching there are always possible areas of improvement. As we know, good teachers will change the lives of our students forever. When teachers teach well, some of the students will only succeed because of her excellent teaching. Then they might go on to get a more advanced qualification and skills.

As a teacher, we are supposed to know how to go about making these improvements on our teaching. For myself, up till now, I am still going about changing what I do. Some teachers may find it uncomfortable, having to step out of their comfort zone (their tested methods) and experiment with new methods. But if all teachers were to keep experimenting, I believed that we teachers will find it rewarding, just so long as we are in control of the change and doing it at a comfortable pace that must include time for reflection.

I think experimenting can be fun, especially when we do it as a team for improving teaching of our students and share our findings with one another. (Will my teachers and ICT Trainers agree with this?) Nevertheless, through this practice, I believe that it can help to keep our own teaching alive, now that we know new methods as well as it been part of our own professional development to do our best for our students. However, I have some reservation regarding the following form of experimenting practice.

Often we have this common experience in school where someone with excellent educational experience will introduce a new method to use. The method was introduced with great enthusiasm by the teacher who fair-mindedly described the advantage and disadvantages of the new approach in terms of the improvements in learning quality that it could bring about. The teacher will persuasively and accurately argue that the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages. Then there is this quotation of some authority or citing some research which the method was tried. This is finally followed with some extortion for all teachers to join in to use the method on the basis of the information provided.

So what reservations do I have with the teacher’s argument? Well, firstly, I am sure that the presented method will have positive effect on learning. But is that the only method that has positive effect on learning? There are many strategies that will improve things for our students, so I think the question is not “Will the new method work?” but “Which of the many methods best works for my students under certain situation?” And considering the limited amount of time, teachers are not able to use all of these methods, so we need to choose the “best” suitable method. When we have decided on the method that works best for his students, then we may need to know why. Without knowing the why, we are unlikely to use them effectively. Hence, I believed that there is a need to seek evidence of the methods we employ so as to better understand the “why” – that is the content and so back up our experiments of the “best” method in order for it to contribute to the learning of our students.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Chaos

These two weeks were Chaos. While reflection upon teaching as I waited for my hair to “dry”, I made this conclusion.

There was anxiety as the examination dates approaches and uncertainity, not, however, about my efforts to teach my students. It is rather of how much farther my graduating normal technical and express students were able to go with my efforts. It was about the limits given, especially my express graduating students’ readiness, whom I only step up to teach this year. Of course, this was about wanting to teach my students well.

Then, there are other aspects within the school which I too have to deal with and this involves dealing with teacher. I do not like to deal with negative, ineffective colleagues, but as a middle manager, I suppose I must. However, as I took another look at the characteristics of the teacher, I can see the personality part of a person. Now this is how I choose to react to this “chaotic” situation.

“What is wrong with chaos?” you may ask.

“Well, it should not be so. Chaos is bad, isn’t it? Have you seen my desk?” I thought to myself… “Hmmm…….” As I continue to think about it, I realized that it may not be that chaotic after all. I knew where my things were, and I did not have to sort through filing systems to find anything. In piles, maybe, but usually accessible by me.

 “So what is wrong with chaos?” I now ask.

I suppose people can be more organized, but this does not make chaos wrong. Instead, life is not there always organized, but at times, like these two weeks for me, was chaotic. Hence, I decided to befriend chaos, to welcome it and then try my best to bring it under control. In another word, I try not to panic, but just figure out what course of actions I want to take so that there is no “disorganized” part of my story – to focus on students’ understanding of the lesson, to do drill and practice, to keep an open mind regarding teacher and not be influenced by “negative comments”.

So I started to organize my task differently. Rather than look at the “mess”, heave a big sigh, and wonder why it will not move on, I went to look at what is available to me – my firm expectations to my students on their coming examinations, my short structured lessons after school, and also my other teacher colleagues. My maintaining of the high students’ expectations of the coming examinations is the “map” that provides my students with the direction to achieve in the examinations. The short structured lesson after school helped engaged the students in the learning environment that creates action. I also looked upon my teacher colleagues for help, and found abundance of other teachers’ “help” available, spinning with me. So, I guide some of this spinning – where my colleague immediately called the hospital directly and requested the doctor’s report, which I know now, will be available the day after. Another teacher helped me complete the teacher’s report and contact the student and her parents to inform them of the application for special arrangement for examinations.

Just as a glassblower who guides the hot liquid as it spins, I decided to shape this chaos to suit my mission. And now, the “bad” story has evaporated.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Assessing outside classroom learning

This week, one of my teacher’s reflections was on “learning taking place in and outside the classroom”. She mentioned that such learning outside the classroom had benefited all students in developing them into better individuals through learning of soft skills – something which they hardly be able learn in the classroom. She then asserted the need for her as a teacher to help her students cultivate such skills and led them to be at their best in and outside the classroom. Her reflection brought me to a discussion held on such outside classroom learning – our Outdoor Learning Experience and I will attempt to provide my two cents worth to speak on the need to assess such outside classroom learning.

Let me start with my own question on assessing learning “How do we know students are learning?” The answers to this question may be through observation by teachers or test scores from tests. Through such means, teachers know that our students are “proficient” in meeting the academic outcome. But will we get the same response if this question is posed to say “our Outdoor Learning Experience”? In this case, there may be a need to add an additional part to the original question for such outside classroom learning program, “What is the evidence of student learning?”

Looking back at my own experience in our yearly Outdoor Learning Experiences, I see outdoor learning, as programs that will directly or indirectly resulting in changes in thinking, feeling or behavior. And, indeed our school program does look at 3 areas, namely providing the outside of classroom experience, building of teacher - student relationship and enabling students’ social development (team building). During such outdoor learning, you got only to watch any one group of students, particularly the normal technical stream students, along the way of the outdoor learning to recognize if the learning is seen as something to enjoy and learn or to just do and get over with. Talk to any group of students trying to decide which activities to keep, improve, start or stop and it very quickly becomes apparent. In my reflection, I concluded that there was the need for such outdoor learning to value adds to our students, complementing their classroom learning, for example in terms of adding to the general knowledge, changing behaviors, views and thought of issues, instead of just going through the process and completing it.

Learning is not easy to assess, especially for the soft skills. I also agreed that not all learning take place in neat and ordered way as in our classroom test. But I see our Outdoor Learning Experience as a rich program that had enhanced the learning culture of our school. Based on last year’s observation, the program has enabled our students the opportunity to experience and discover, which essentially means “doing” something in our case, focusing on working with others, making mistakes and having fun rather than being told the fact by teachers. However, a possible area of improvement about such learning may be in the reviewing of the experience. What I believe is important is the need for feedback, not feedback on the programs by the students but our feedback to the students of their learning experience. Even though our students had learnt through the various processes, they need to know how “well” they are doing in terms of the various objectives of the process and to have access to support when they need it.

My belief is that our students, like in the academic learning need feedback. Students need to have sufficient time to reflect (they now know what they need) and through the teacher’s feedback, to continue on even after our Outdoor Learning Experience program, say to have specific coaching to help them develop what they know they need to know like what my teacher had mentioned “…to cultivate such skills and led them to be at their best in and outside the classroom”. There needs to be a purpose to all learning and that should not “end” at the end of the program. Without which, frustration may arises especially when it is perceived as trivia or irrelevant.

Assessing “Outdoor” Learning Experience

During yesterday’s SMC meeting, there was a short but I thought was an important discussion initiated by the school vice principal on assessing learning. Let me start with my own question “How do we know students are learning?” The answers to this question may be through observation by teachers or test scores from tests. Through such means, teachers know that our students are “proficient” in meeting the academic outcome. But will we get the same response if this question is posed to say “our Outdoor Learning Experience”? In this case, there may be a need to add an additional part to the original question for such Outdoor Learning Experience program, “What is the evidence of student learning?”

Looking back at my first reflection on Outdoor Adventure Experience in 2011, I saw outdoor learning, as programs that will directly or indirectly resulting in changes in thinking, feeling or behavior. The head in charge of the program has confirmed my view, stating that the program looks at 3 areas, namely providing the outside of classroom experience, building of teacher - student relationship and enabling students’ social development (team building). During such outdoor learning, you got only to watch any one group of students, particularly the normal technical stream students, along the way of the outdoor learning to recognize if the learning is seen as something to enjoy and learn or to just do and get over with. Talk to any group of students trying to decide which activities to keep, improve, start or stop and it very quickly becomes apparent. In my reflection, I concluded that there was the need for such outdoor learning to value adds to our students, complementing their classroom learning, for example in terms of adding to the general knowledge, changing behaviors, views and thought of issues, instead of just going through the process and completing it.

Learning, as highlighted during yesterday’s meeting discussion is not easy to assess. I also agreed that not all learning take place in neat and ordered way as in our classroom test, a point raised by one of heads. But I see the Outdoor Learning Experience as a rich program that had enhanced the learning culture of our school. Based on last year’s observation, the program has enabled our students the opportunity to experience and discover, which essentially means “doing” something in our case, focusing on working with others, making mistakes and having fun rather than being told the fact by teachers. However, a possible area of improvement about such learning may be in the reviewing of the experience. What I believe is important is the need for feedback, not feedback on the programs by the students but our feedback to the students of their learning experience. Even though our students had learnt through the various processes, they need to know how “well” they are doing in terms of the various objectives of the process and to have access to support when they need it.

My belief is that our students, like in the academic learning need feedback. Students need to have sufficient time to reflect (they now know what they need) and through the teacher’s feedback, to continue on even after our Outdoor Learning Experience program, say to have specific coaching to help them develop what they know they need to know. There needs to be a purpose to all learning and that should not “end” at the end of the program. Without which, frustration may arises especially when it is perceived as trivia or irrelevant.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Support for coping with stress

In my one of teacher's reflection, having observed some teachers who were stressed in Term 2, she spoke on the topic of stress. Listening to her voice, I began do some readings on teacher stress – so as to try to understand, interpret and make workable sense on the possible reasons behind.

In her reflection, she highlighted the importance of taking care of each other. I share the same feeling on the need to be supportive of each other in managing of stress that arises from our teaching role. Having an environment where teachers take care of one another will enable the feeling of “we are all-in-the-same-boat”, and because of that teachers can and need to share concerns, problems and shared perspectives. More importantly, I have learnt from my recent attachment, such sharing must be received in a non-judgmental manner. By being non-judgmental, we can then do something about these concerns and problems.

From my observation, I see such colleague support present in my school and I value such support as it meets our needs. I believe that such support is present because we “feel safe” in school – due to respect and fair treatment among teachers. Stress can come in many forms. After the long hours in school ~6 to 7 hours daily, teachers are tired. Frequently, teachers feel as though that there is not enough time to do everything in school required of them. Other times, teachers are anxious or worry about aspects of the teaching or school experience. Stress may also come from concerns and fears. As the saying goes, “if you cannot prevent it, cope with it” and so the teachers are learning to cope with stress. But, I think that it is helpful to know that each of us are not alone in being tired or feeling anxious or worried about …. – that all teachers feel the same way at some point in time. What is important is that we develop effective ways to manage the limited time and for coping with stress. Likewise for stress, with the different causes of stress for different people and for the same person at different times, there is also no one way to cope with stress.

One of the ways my school has helped to reduce such stress is by reducing the administrative work of teachers, for example, keying in of student attendance, entering of leave application, printing of results. However, I believe that additional moral support and practical support from say the people development is one area that will directly help to improve the support teachers manage stress. Such support could focus on the area of teacher development in terms of positive aspects of teaching and learning and the long terms goals and aspiration. In this way, teachers are more likely to have more balanced view and be able to put things into perspective and therefore reducing stress.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Review of student ICT program

After all the ICT infrastructure, teacher professional development (ICT mentor, departmental training) and student ICT teaching and learning during the last one and a half years, I began to relook at the impact of my promise of ICT on improving teaching and learning process in my school.

The reason why I revisited the ICT program, especially in the areas of student curriculum is because I felt that one of the main obstacles to developing the use of ICT to facilitate learning within my school is the lack of clarity in defining success of students’ competence use of ICT. Moreover, many of us, teachers, middle managers and school leaders alike left the classroom before ICT really began to impact student learning, and therefore may lack the practical knowledge and understand of how ICT can transform students’ learning.

Therefore, I felt the need to build a direction within the ICT student curriculum program that endorsed a primary focus on students’ competence use of ICT and defined what constitutes as its success – using competency levels. In addition, I also believe that reviewing the direction of what the program areas is to go is a fundamental task which should be role-modeled. Through this active engagement, I hope to develop a much greater understanding and clarity about what is meant by successful use of ICT in learning as it applies to both the development for students as well as professional development for teachers. Also through this approach, I hope to identify areas of opportunities for my team and to develop, articulate and inspire other teachers with my vision of the programs and in the process to become more confident in leading the development of such programs. Of central importance is the cooperation and alignment of others to my set of beliefs and direction in these programs.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Learning with technology

In one of my teacher’s reflections on her takeaways from a recently held ICTLT conference, she spoke of getting a better insight about infusing technology into learning and teaching and cited examples of how technology may support the learning of our students such as use of website Blabberize.com. Riding on her reflections, I would like to touch on some of the points which she had made which I also value.

Her example of the use of the I-pad to create a talking video showed how technology is used as a resource for teaching, as it enables teachers to find and assemble materials and to guide their students in doing so as they take on independent inquiries to create the “videos of the subjects”. I also see such tool as an aid in reflection and improvement that allows teachers and students to consider and analyze their personal work and work of others – in terms of quality of work. Through this way, students are allowed to display more confidently what they know in an alternative way that I think extend well beyond the standard pen-and-paper practices or the stand-and-deliver presentation and so engages the students to the lesson. This is also a way for both teachers and students to reflect on what learners should know and what “teachers” do. With proper facilitation, teachers can then show the students on models of good performance and support the learning of their students in the classroom.

I also shared her belief that technology should only be used where its use justify as a method of achieving the learning outcome for a lesson. In her example, the use of the technology leads to greater motivation, increased confidence, improving presentation, promoting independent learning… just to list a few. In this case, the prime motivation in making use of technology is to address learning related to the subject. However, with a slight shift in emphasis I think teachers can modify such activity to help develop aspects of our students’ ICT knowledge and skills – which is important for today’s students and tomorrow’s future. For example, the standard production of a word-processed paper-based writing for students to deliver information related with the subject. Such activity modified to include locating relevant information and copying from two or three websites and students editing the pasted text, shifting the focus of the information or targeting specific audience (students need to understand keywords to find, refine search to produce usable results and then validate). Consider the different levels of thinking required of the students! Whilst the subject learning is broadly similar, shifting the technological focus for the task not only supports the development of the students ICT capabilities, it also deepens their learning by helping them engage more fully with the subject.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Review on my validation attachment

During my attachment, apart from getting a better understanding of the SEM framework, I observed a group of school leaders interacting together during the validation process. They collaborated, having to work simultaneously on their own SEM criterion. There was much interdependency as the final validation of the school’s practice required inputs from one another. I had the chance to observe how the actions of these school leaders produce the outcome of the validation process through what I believed was distributed and collaborated leadership.

The team leader, a former principal herself, brings along her expertise in the area of management is well respected by the team. The team leader believed that the primary difficulty when reading the school’s reports is that we each read it in terms of our own context. I recalled her saying “… we cannot only read and judge an event of the written report from the perspective your life and experience today. …when you visit the school, when you immersed yourself in the actual school context, feel and see the school through their eyes, their understanding and their experience. “Otherwise, more often than not, your judgment of them will be wrong or even harsh. Another colleague of hers is her right hand person who was herself a former vice principal, looking at the student focused processes and key result performances. She comes to be in her role with 7 years of experience as a quality assessor. She is a detail person, identifying specific problems, offers suggestions for these concerns. Several times in the meeting, she reinforces concepts for others. For example, she gets others to teach the ranking points of JC students to those who do not teach JC. This validation team (comprising of another 5 team members) is representative of how both of them work with each other, especially of the team leader who constantly draws others in to emphasize their points and enable a common team consensus decision to be made in the end.

Through these 3 weeks of interactions and discussions, especially during the pre- and post-site visits meetings and the Caucus meetings revealed that the 7 school leaders each playing different roles and engage in different interviewing practices that weave together – collaborate – to come out with an common team decision in this validation process. There is one member of the team who is also a school principal herself, currently running a school. She now wears a different hat as a team member; she also brings in her management expertise and is often sought out by other fellow members for her expertise in staff management. During these meetings, the different team member’s roles converge and diverge. But the team leader always moves the meeting along, praising and encouraging her members, including the Special Assistant (SA), presenting specific expectations to the assessors and SAs and inviting all members’ inputs and sharing. I see my team leader as the big picture person. She periodically summarizes what has been said by others in order to share an important insight. In response to the various practices in the school, she states: “That’s the framework, the framework shows the approach, but always see if it is linked to the school’s mission vision.” To the SAs, many times she announces, “How much you learnt depends on how we want to be proactive”. She also serves to report critical and relevant information needed for the validation. The interactions of school leaders with each other (SAB assessors, school leaders) as well as how they interact with other non-assessing team members such as the SAs led to good concerted effort throughout the validation experience. One reason I believe is that the team members were given ownership and so encourage each member’s voice and build on consolidated interviews to assess the school. In this way, I see the relationship between the efforts of collaborated and distributed leadership, each requiring somewhat different inputs from one another in enabling the validation outcome to bear.