fyi : back issues
Summer 2004 - Thinking Curriculum
Curriculum reform: In principle!
By Jenny Schenk and Mary Manning
The Victorian education system has a history of being responsive to the changing needs of learners and the community. Continuous school improvement has long been a focus. Over the years, teachers and school leaders have engaged in lively discussion and debate with others in education and the broader community about what is required to bring this improvement about. As the demands on our education system change, these discussions continue to be critical. The Blueprint for Government Schools (DE&T 2003), which was released on 13 November 2003, outlines the government’s agenda to deliver quality outcomes for all students. The challenge to equip students with the knowledge, skills and attributes required to prosper in our modern, ever-changing world is at the centre of the reform agenda. The Blueprint identifies seven flagship strategies, the first of which is Student Learning. It comprises the following five complementary elements:
• Victorian Essential Learning Standards, which specify what we value in our curriculum by describing standards at key points of learning and broad assessment processes against which these defined standards can be measured. (See ‘At last: A curriculum change that supports an inquiry approach’ in this issue.)
• Curriculum Planning Guidelines, which are designed to promote greater consistency in the development of the curriculum and learning and teaching programs in schools.
• Assessment and Reporting Advice, which supports assessment practices designed to develop student learning and reporting practices that provide richer information on student progress to students, parents and teachers.
• Knowledge Bank, which provides wide access to exemplary learning and teaching practices for all teachers in schools.
• Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12, which support teachers’ classroom practice and provide tools for self-assessment and improvement.
The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12, which we are discussing here, should be considered in conjunction with the other initiatives in Flagship Strategy 1 (DE&T, 2004a) as schools focus on the reform of curriculum practices relating to what students learn, how teaching facilitates learning, how learning is assessed, how student achievements are reported to parents, and the documentation of exemplary practice.
The most powerful lever for this reform is the transformation of teachers’ practice. Teachers’ understanding and capacity are pivotal to this task. Teachers, as professionals, continually improve their knowledge and understanding as they work to assist students to move to a higher level of functioning. Teachers learn in a variety of ways, including through focused discussion of quality teaching practice, embedded in a program of shared innovation.
The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 form a framework for describing effective pedagogy in Years P-12. They offer a means by which schools can examine their teaching practices, identify key areas for improvement and develop a plan to initiate improvement and monitor change. The Principles were developed to provide a structure to help teachers find a focus for their professional learning. They have evolved from similar sets of principles (or components, as they were known) developed as the basis for Science in Schools (SIS) and the Middle Years Pedagogy Research and Development Project (MYPRAD). The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 are, however, applicable across all key learning areas and all stages of learning.
The Principles comprise six statements about the learning and teaching practices required for building effective learning communities. Each of these statements is accompanied by a set of components that describe the teacher’s role in relation to the statement. While they have been developed through extensive consultation, they are not, of course, incontestable. They are designed to be interpreted and interrogated against particular learning contexts and in this way to stimulate reflection and conversations about pedagogy that will provide starting points for practitioner research. Meanings of the Principles will be construed differently by different groups of teachers as they connect them to specific examples of classroom practice.
The Principles are not standards or curriculum statements. They do, however, provide a basis for discussions about pedagogy among teachers who are responsible for both delivering the curriculum and ensuring that their students reach the standards expected. The Principles focus on what teachers should do but they also flow from core beliefs about learning (e.g. ‘All children can learn’). The Principles provide a scaffold for teachers to assist them in making explicit both the obvious and the more tacit aspects of their practices. They offer a stimulus for discussion and the sharing of experiences that is oriented towards articulating, sharing and documenting all aspects of learning and teaching in ways that can transcend subject and year-level boundaries.
As announced in The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 Initiative (DE&T, 2004d), the principles of learning and teaching state that: “Students learn best when:
1.The learning environment is supportive and productive. In learning environments that reflect this principle the teacher:
1.1 builds positive relationships through knowing and valuing each student
1.2 promotes a culture of value and respect for individuals and their communities
1.3 uses strategies that promote students’ self confidence and willingness to take risks with their learning
1.4 ensures each student experiences success through structured support, the valuing of effort, and recognition of their work.
2. The learning environment promotes independence, interdependence and self-motivation. In learning environments that reflect this principle the teacher:
2.1 encourages and supports students to take responsibility for their learning
2.2 uses strategies that build skills of productive collaboration.
3. Students’ needs, backgrounds, perspectives and interests are reflected in the learning program. In learning environments that reflect this principle the teacher:
3.1 uses strategies that are flexible and responsive to the values, needs and interests of individual students
3.2 uses a range of strategies that support the different ways of thinking and learning
3.3 builds on students’ prior experiences, knowledge and skills 3.4 capitalises on students’ experience of a technology rich world.
4. Students are challenged and supported to develop deep levels of thinking and application. In learning environments that reflect this principle the teacher:
4.1 plans sequences to promote sustained learning that builds over time and emphasises connections between ideas
4.2 promotes substantive discussion of ideas
4.3 emphasises the quality of learning with high expectations of achievement
4.4 uses strategies that challenge and support students to question and reflect
4.5 uses strategies to develop investigating and problem solving skills
4.6 uses strategies to foster imagination and creativity.
5. Assessment practices are an integral part of teaching and learning. In learning environments that reflect this principle the teacher:
5.1 designs assessment practices that reflect the full range of learning program objectives
5.2 ensures that students receive frequent constructive feedback that supports further learning
5.3 makes assessment criteria explicit
5.4 uses assessment practices that encourage reflection and self assessment
5.5 uses evidence from assessment to inform planning and teaching.
6. Learning connects strongly with communities and practice beyond the classroom. In learning environments that reflect this principle the teacher:
6.1 supports students to engage with contemporary knowledge and practice
6.2 plans for students to interact with local and broader communities
6.3 uses technologies in ways that reflect professional and community practices.”
Are we, as teacher-librarians, willing to question existing practice? The Principles of Learning and Teaching structure offers us, as teacher-librarians, the opportunity to reflect upon our own practice and the effectiveness of our approach and its impact on student learning. As we have been reminded in recent professional development presentations: “It’s not about libraries: It’s about learning!” (Todd, 2004).
Look more closely at the fourth statement above: “Students are challenged and supported to develop deep levels of thinking and application”. This means that students need to be challenged to explore, question and engage with significant ideas and practices so they can move beyond superficial understandings to develop higher order, flexible thinking. To support this development, teaching sequences should be sustained and responsive and explore a range of ideas and practices.
In light of this, teacher-librarians must reflect upon the extent to which our teaching “uses strategies that challenge and support students to question and reflect”. We can begin by asking ourselves questions such as: How can we formally encourage students to link ideas in their learning? What tasks will enable them to do this effectively? How do we get them to do this independently? And are we working with colleagues in initiating discussion around these ideas or initiating action research projects around these questions that then provide an evidential basis for our practice? Statement 4 of the Principles involves teachers in the development of learning tasks that encourage and support students to move beyond their current understandings and think more deeply about ideas and practice. To this end, questions set by teachers must be open-ended to promote a depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding. Teachers need to emphasise engagement with ideas and practice through exploration, and should demonstrate the essential elements of this statement through:
• “challenging students to reflect on their response to tasks
• asking open-ended questions calling for interpretive responses
• posing questions and hypothetical situations to move students beyond superficial approaches
• asking students to present their understandings in a variey of ways
• including frequent open-ended problems and explorations
• strategically building opportunities for students to develop hypotheses or speculative ideas and to extend and question interpretations” (DE&T, 2004c).
We challenge you to start you thinking about how you might use these Principles to change your own practice and perhaps to influence change in others or even across the school.
Teacher-librarians often identify problems and shortcomings in the teaching practice of their school colleagues, such as poor question-setting or poor design of independent research assignments. Could a discussion about the Principles be a means of getting this conversation going? Is shared or collaborative investigation and exploration of questions that grow out of these Principles a further opportunity to clarify common goals and purposes and begin a community journey towards more succssful practice?
A willingness to question
The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 Background Paper (DE&T, 2004c) states that “questioning of practice cannot be forced. It flows from teachers being willing to inquire into their practice”. This paper identifies two aspects of practice that offered new challenges to some of the teachers involved in its preparation. It asserts that: “Asking good questions and higher order thinking are intertwined. We need to value the questions students ask and encourage it in our assessment. (we should) value questions, not answers” (I&E Cluster Meeting, quoted in DE&T, 2004c).
The teachers concerned realised that they needed to be seen to be genuinely valuing and using students’ questions. They went further and set out to see if and how they could value the asking of questions in their own assessment. These teachers challenged their existing practice, but did so in a way that provided them with an opportunity to achieve further affirming progress as they developed and shared ways of meeting this new challenge. The Principles are intended to help teachers select a focus that matters to them and to begin and sustain a cycle of trying something new – with a purpose – in one aspect of pedagogy and then building on this for other, incremental changes.
It seems to me that these Principles offer a wonderful opportunity for teacher-librarians to raise questions and link ideas within the context of the reform agenda and to start conversations about issues that they have long recognised as important.
References
Department of Education & Training 2003, The Blueprint for Government Schools, DE&T, viewed 21 December 2004, http://www.det.vic.gov.au/det/resources/blueprint.htm#statement.
Department of Education & Training 2004a, Flagship Strategy 1 Student Learning, DE&T, viewed 21 December 2004, http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/blueprint/fs1/default.asp.
Department of Education & Training 2004b Pedagogy in Victoria, DE&T, viewed 21 December 2004, http:// www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/pedagogy/resources/index.htm.
Department of Education & Training 2004c, The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 Background Paper, DE&T, viewed 21 December 2004, http://www. sofweb.vic.edu.au/pedagogy/plt/index.htm.
Department of Education & Training 2004d, The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 Initiative, DE&T, viewed 21 December 2004, http://www.sofweb.vic.edu. au/pedagogy/plt/index.htm.
Todd, R. 2004, Walking the Talk: Stepping into the Future, SLAV, viewed 21 December 2004, http://www.slav.schools.net.au/pastp.html.
Jenny Schenk is Senior Policy Officer, Pedagogy, Department of Education and Training. Mary Manning the Executive Officer of SLAV.