Using science capabilities for assessment

Recently, a teacher in a Facebook group asked how others set targets and measure progress in the junior science curriculum? I mentioned that at Hobsonville Point Secondary we have developed curriculum level rubrics around the science capabilities. Over the next few days, I was swamped with emails from various teachers at various schools wanting to see what we do. So I have put together a little summary for anyone interested.

First things first... Every term, the whole school designs their junior courses around one of eight whole school concepts. These eight concepts were pulled out from an analysis of the New Zealand Curriculum. Since our year nine and ten courses are combined, these whole school concepts go through a two-year cycle.

Each term, we have matched the whole school concept with a science capability based on the literature in TKI and the work of Ally Bull and Rose Hipkins. Every science course bases their learning and assessment around the selected science capability for the term. From here, we then developed learning objectives to further unpack the science capabilities. Each learning objective has a corresponding rubric which is used for tracking and reporting.

Our science capability informed learning objectives

Gather and Interpret data

• To explore by investigating to provide evidence for [key concept] in [context].

• To make sense by analysing and interpreting data to provide evidence for [key concept] in [context].

Using evidence to make meaning

• To make sense by analysing scientific evidence for [key concept] in [context].

• To generate by constructing scientific explanations for [key concept] in [context].

• To evaluate by critiquing scientific explanations for [key concepts] in [context].

Interpret models and representations

• To generate by constructing a representation or model for [key concept] in [context].

• To evaluate by critiquing representations or models for [key concepts] in [context].

Combination of skills to support science, technology and society

• To generate by responding to a socio-scientific issue.

 Finally, we decide on the context of the course. For example, we might decide to focus on astrobiology. Students might learn about current theories about aliens and their locations, and then critique representations of aliens based on their new knowledge. Or, students might learn to design investigations to better understand the organisms in their local environment. We might have a civil engineering context where students might analyse and interpret data about the properties of materials. They might then use these to make recommendations for building a bridge. My personal favourite learning objective is "to generate by responding to a socio-scientific issue." We have redeveloped this learning objective for project-based learning, ensuring that at least once a year, students will immerse themself in a socio-scientific issue, synthesise key science ideas about their chosen issue, and then take appropriate action. 

The video below was made by a group of students that were learning to model and represent forces in a circus context. (Thanks to The Dust Palace in Auckland for teaching us to use the equipment!).

 

Finally, students are assessed against the rubrics we developed to unpack each of the capability-based learning objectives. The rubric below is for "to generate by constructing a representation or model for [key concept] in [context]." Assessment might involve students submitting portfolios, student interviews, videos, etc. The sky is the limit!

CL 4
4 Developing	4 Proficient	4 Adaptive
Construct a range of simple representations and models to make meaning. Scientific ideas are communicated by beginning to use a range of scientific symbols, conventions, and vocabulary.
Use scientific vocabulary and conventions Constructs simple models or representations that make meaning by describing data or scientific ideas I am able to: Construct a simple model or representation that describes scientific information Make meaning by connecting scientific ideas or data to a simple model or representation	Consistently use scientific vocabulary and conventions in a range of contexts. Constructs simple models or representations that make meaning by explaining data or scientific ideas I am able to: Construct a simple model or representation that explains scientific information Make meaning by relating scientific ideas or data to simple models or representations in a range of contexts.	Consistently use accepted scientific vocabulary and conventions in a range of contexts Constructs simple models or representations that make meaning by discussing data or scientific ideas I am able to: Construct a simple model or representation that discusses scientific information Make meaning by considering the application of scientific ideas or data to simple models or representations in a range of contexts.
Clarifications/Explanatory Notes/Links: A model or representation may be physical (e.g., diagrams, flow charts, maps, scale models), mathematical (e.g., equations, graphs) or conceptual (e.g., imagery, metaphor, analogy), and it can be specific to a discipline. There are symbols, notations and terminology that are appropriate for specific types of representations within a discipline. Accepted scientific vocabulary and conventions appropriate to level 4 of the curriculum.

CL 5
5 Developing	5 Proficient	5 Adaptive
Construct a range of representations or models to make meaning. Scientific ideas are communicated using a wider range of science vocabulary, symbols, and conventions (including visual and numerical literacy).
Use scientific vocabulary and conventions Constructs visual and numerical representations or models that describe by: communicating scientific concepts/ideas AND/OR showing patterns in data. I am able to: Construct a visual or numerical model or representation that describes scientific information Make meaning by connecting scientific ideas or data to a visual or numerical model or representation	Consistently use scientific vocabulary and conventions in a range of contexts. Constructs visual and numerical representations or models that explain by: communicating scientific concepts/ideas AND/OR showing patterns in data. I am able to: Construct a visual or numerical model or representation that explains scientific information Make meaning by relating scientific ideas or data to visual or numerical models or representations in a range of contexts.	Consistently use accepted scientific vocabulary and conventions in a range of contexts Constructs visual and numerical representations or models that discuss by: communicating scientific concepts/ideas AND/OR showing patterns in data. I am able to: Construct a visual or numerical model or representation that discusses scientific information Make meaning by considering the application of scientific ideas or data to visual or numerical models or representations in a range of contexts.
Clarifications/Explanatory Notes: A model or representation may be physical (e.g., diagrams, flow charts, maps, scale models), mathematical (e.g., equations, graphs) or conceptual (e.g., imagery, metaphor, analogy), and it can be specific to a discipline. There are symbols, notations and terminology that are appropriate for specific types of representations within a discipline. Accepted scientific vocabulary and conventions appropriate to level 5 of the curriculum

CL 6
6 Developing	6 Proficient	6 Adaptive
Construct a range of representations or models to make meaning by beginning to connect scientific theories, models and investigations. Scientific ideas are communicated by beginning to use accepted science knowledge, vocabulary, symbols, and conventions (including visual and numerical literacy).
Use scientific vocabulary and conventions. Connect simple scientific theories, models and investigations by describing visual and numerical representations or models when: communicating scientific concepts/ideas AND/OR showing patterns in data. I am able to: Construct a visual or numerical model or representation that describes scientific information, by using supporting evidence. Make meaning by connecting scientific ideas or data to simple scientific theories, models or investigations	Consistently use scientific vocabulary and conventions in a range of contexts. Connect simple scientific theories, models and investigations by explaining visual and numerical representations or models when: communicating scientific concepts/ideas AND/OR showing patterns in data. I am able to: Construct a visual or numerical model or representation that explains scientific information, by using supporting evidence. Make meaning by relating scientific ideas or data to simple scientific theories, models or investigations in a range of contexts.	Consistently use accepted scientific vocabulary and conventions in a range of contexts Connect simple scientific theories, models and investigations by discussing visual and numerical representations or models when: communicating scientific concepts/ideas AND/OR showing patterns in data. I am able to: Construct a visual or numerical model or representation that discusses scientific information, by using supporting evidence. Make meaning by considering the application of simple scientific theories, models or investigations in a range of contexts. Choose appropriate and conventional visual or numerical model(s) or representation(s) to support an explanation of a concept, and discuss limitations of chosen models or representations
Clarifications/Explanatory Notes: A model or representation may be physical (e.g., diagrams, flow charts, maps, scale models), mathematical (e.g., equations, graphs) or conceptual (e.g., imagery, metaphor, analogy), and it can be specific to a discipline. There are symbols, notations and terminology that are appropriate for specific types of representations within a discipline. Accepted scientific vocabulary and conventions appropriate to level 6 of the curriculum

A few key things to note

• These rubrics, learning objectives, etc. are not perfect. We are constantly adjusting and refining them to ensure that students gain the necessary skills and knowledge to be informed citizens and capable of success in senior science. Given the pace at which science is advancing, however, I would argue that evolving assessment and learning is the way to go...
• You will notice that our focus in science is not on students learning about. Instead, there is a much greater focus on students learning to. This is in part as a result of the science capabilities that make some attempt at reconciling the perceived gap between skills and knowledge in the curriculum. 
• The work of developing learning objectives and progressions is just as important, if not more so, than having a completed rubric. This is a difficult, sticky and usually confronting process. However, this process is a fundamental building block of shifting assessment away from historical modes of end of topic tests. It requires us learning to use the curriculum rather than achievement standards to dictate what and how we teach our students. It requires us to really ask 'what is science?', if it is not a unit on atoms and another on electricity. 
• Many secondary school teachers know that there is never enough time and that we are in a constant race to 'cover all the content'. The only way of getting out of this content rat race is to let things go. If you just try to fit in more 'stuff', you end up doing more things, but worse. Instead, we are trying to do less, better. We have chosen the science capabilities because we believe they offer both access to the niche-specific knowledge of senior science, as well as providing life worthy, relevant learning for all students living in our modern world of exponential technology. Many science teachers might be alarmed that our school does not provide the stock standard introduction to the periodic table unit, and not all students will have learnt about parallel and series circuits. However, all our students will have had to explore and analyse a socio-scientific issue, and designed and prototyped an action accordingly. All students will have to use scientific evidence in some way, and be able to distinguish between what makes something scientific or not. 
• The students in our class come from culturally and socially diverse backgrounds. They learn new skills from MOOCs and YouTube, and communicate using augmented reality (think IG filters!). The science capabilities offer enough flexibility that we can design courses around student interest while maintaining the integrity of science as a discipline.
• We have been using this system/process for about four years now. In 2020, our plan is to extend our rubrics to include senior science courses. 

Any questions? Comment below! 

PS: If you are planning on redoing your science progressions, I highly recommend first reading the following:

• What is this thing called science? by A. F. Chalmers (2013)
• Unlocking the idea of capabilities in science by Rose Hipkins (2014)

7 new things I tried this term

1. I redesigned and adapted my favourite board game, Catan, in an attempt to engage some of my more passive learners in a more active way. It worked a treat, particularly for my Pasifika learners! Afterwards, I had the students evaluate their strategy from a mathematical perspective, and then plan a different strategy for the next time we played.
   



2. I decided that there was not enough ethics in addressed in our curriculum. So I have made an ethics section as part of all scientific investigations. As I expected, students have actually spent little to no time thinking about preventing harm in academic contexts. To be honest, this has me a little bit concerned given the state of the world.
   
3. I tried combining three achievement standards into one. This is a work in progress. I'll have to let you know how that goes. Essentially, the students are doing a scientific investigation and using the data gathering process and analysis as evidence towards two maths standards. My hope is that through combing the standards that students can gain an appreciation for the range of skills and knowledge that goes into the process of constructing new scientific knowledge. The standards are:
   

   • AS90925: Carry out a practical investigation in a biological context, with direction 

   • AS91026: Apply numeric reasoning in solving problems

   • AS91036: Investigate bivariate numerical data using the statistical enquiry cycle 

4. I have been trying to help students have deeper discussion with a more diverse range of students. To do this, I have experimented using question scripts that include a series of questions to interview each other about, question cards to have a bank of questions to help draw out each other's answer in more depth, and even setting complex tasks that required extended discussion and a range of perspectives to solve.
   
5. You may have already read about the Learning Hub Inquiry. The process of engaging students with actively developing a personal goal through a personal action research project. Again, a work in progress as this involves leading the HPSS staff through the process too.
   
6. I've been trying to engage students with the idea of cognitive bias. I am approaching this from the angle of why we have processes such as the scientific method and random sampling, and how this helps us overcome cognitive bias. This has been inspired through two books, Tomas Pernecky's Epistemology and Metaphysics for Qualitative Research and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow.
   
7. I've been having a go at engaging students with futures thinking. By this I mean, getting students to engage with designing solutions for complex problems with no one right answer. Students have been designing a space city. They have been asked to make calculations about how much food, oxygen and water they will need. They have explored alternative food sources, energy sources and some even how to maintain genetic diversity in a reduced population in space. 

   

   Students planning their space city. 

I think, therefore I am - That time my Teaching as Inquiry went a little wonky.

The school year is drawing to a close so it seems appropriate that I wrap up my Teaching as Inquiry project for the year.

source

  

Focussing Inquiry: "In the focusing inquiry, teachers identify the outcomes they want their students to achieve. They consider how their students are doing in relation to those outcomes, and they ask what their students need to learn next in order to achieve them."

Although I did my teacher training in New Zealand, my first teaching role was in Ramsgate, England. From there I went on to Albany Junior High School where we had students from year seven to year ten. In 2013 I joined Hobsonville Point Secondary School as a foundation staff member where we started with only year nine students and have gradually grown from there. What all of this leads up to is the fact that I have never taught at NCEA level. Although I am a mega professional learning junkie, doing copious amounts of professional reading, attending conferences and even doing some more formal university study, this does of course not guarantee that my practice will allow my students academic success at NCEA. As passionate as I am about authentic learning experiences, creativity, problem finding and solving, diversity, sustainability, how do I know that these values, my philosophical approach to teaching and learning, will also lead my students to have success within the qualifications systems? I am a huge advocate for teaching with dispositions, in particular Art Costa's Habits of Mind, and our very own Hobsonville Habits. In my opinion, this provides students with the means to become life long learners, to build growth mindsets. It provides students with a toolset for managing their own learning, for finding and solving problems, but also to become more thoughtful in their actions.

In my practice, I am also constantly seeking to increase student engagement, to move from a covering content approach, to helping my students become curious, eager to learn more, keen to question, to think deeper. I want my students to keep learning without me, I would rather be the spark to their fire than the fuel. I want my students to want to learn. I want my students to have, hopes, dreams, ambitions, and to pursue these with their hearts and minds aligned. I want my students to have authentic learning experiences so that they feel empowered to contribute and make a difference in their world, so that they know that they can build the futures they want, both for themselves and the world. Over this year, I have also increasingly realised that I want my students to embrace diversity, able to collaborate, able to build and draw on the strengths of others. I want my students to have empathy, for the world and community, for perspectives different than their own.
As great as these goals and aspirations might be, my students still need to gain qualifications. They need these to move on to their careers of choice, to universities and more. Qualifications in today's world are usually the entrance ticket, even though once you get in they may not necessarily provide much value (this is a blog post for another day...). Hence, one of my professional goals for this year, but also the focus for my Teaching as Inquiry project became:
How might I ensure that I am deeply challenging my learners to promote further learning that leads to pathways for academic success?

Teaching Inquiry: "In this teaching inquiry, the teacher uses evidence from research and from their own past practice and that of colleagues to plan teaching and learning opportunities aimed at achieving the outcomes prioritised in the focusing inquiry."

Many educators around New Zealand will undoubtedly talk about their love for SOLO Taxonomy as a way to help students towards success in their qualifications. This thinking Taxonomy scaffolds deeper thinking in a clear, easy to understand way. Pam Hook has a phenomenal amount of resources, books, Pinterest boards and more. My colleagues here at Hobsonville Point Secondary also bring an enormous amount of expertise in this area, in particular Cindy Wynn and Megan Peterson. There are also those colleagues across the country such as Matt Nicoll and Mel Moore whom I have watched carefully over the years in regards to their use of SOLO Taxonomy. In the context of this inquiry, SOLO Taxonomy could be used as a tool to scaffold students towards speaking the 'assessment language', as well as the assessment for learning tool that it was intended to be.

As well as SOLO taxonomy and the associated assessment for learning practices, we also know from John Hattie's work that feedback has a huge impact on student achievement. "Self reported grades comes out at the top of all influences. Children are the most accurate when predicting how they will perform. In a video Hattie explains that if he could write his book Visible Learning for Teachers again, he would re-name this learning strategy “Student Expectations” to express more clearly that this strategy involves the teacher finding out what are the student’s expectations and pushing the learner to exceed these expectations. Once a student has performed at a level that is beyond their own expectations, he or she gains confidence in his or her learning ability." - source.

Of course, if academic success with the the NCEA framework was my goal, it was also important that I familiarise myself with the standards, the clarification documents and assessment conditions. It was important that I had a go at writing my own tasks, and completing the assessments myself. Of course the NCEA workshops also contributed here.

Teaching and Learning:

Rubrics:

I used many rubrics throughout the past year. The one above was inspired by Austin Kleon's Show Your Work and the ongoing maths teacher frustration around students showing their working. This allowed students to self assess their working for problems, independent of whether their answer was correct or not. This saw a marked improvement in students communicating their thinking. I even went as far as designing a task where each question already had the answer directly underneath and the students simply had to give the working. It was a great activity to see where students were in their thinking. You can see the task here.You can also see a range of rubrics that I have constructed over the year here.

SOLO Taxonomy tools:

One of my favourite SOLO Taxonomy tools are the hexagons. Each hexagon has one key concept and students are asked to find connections between the hexagons. This is a great tool to help students consider how concepts, key words or ideas relate. 

Another SOLO Taxonomy Tool that I have used extensively are SOLO Hot Maps. Pam Hook Shares the templates and rubrics for these on her Wiki. These are great tools for helping students to build a more comprehensive understanding of concepts. It also helps student to go deeper in their thinking.


Developing my own SOLO Taxonomy inspired tools:

Throughout the year I also developed some of my own tools using the thinking behind SOLO and Hattie's work around feedback and reflection, and marrying them up with some other ideas that I had encountered over the year. Some of these include developing a Describe++ Rose Bud Thorn Thinking Map inspired by design thinking and a Data Feelings Impact thinking map inspired by a Complexity Theory leadership book called Simple Habits for Complex Times. Other tools I developed include the Super-gons and the Reflexagons. While Super-gons were an expanded version of the SOLO Hexagons where students had to write a PEEL paragraph about key words/ideas and then write explanations for the links, Reflexagons were aimed to help students gain a more comprehensive understanding of a large topic or idea. 

Students constructing their Super-gons

Learning Inquiry: "In this learning inquiry, the teacher investigates the success of the teaching in terms of the prioritised outcomes, using a range of assessment approaches. They do this both while learning activities are in progress and also as longer-term sequences or units of work come to an end. They then analyse and interpret the information to consider what they should do next."

Although I have undoubtedly increased my repertoire of teaching tools and strategies, and improved my understanding of NCEA, I felt that more often than not, I was not actually making much progress towards my goal. In fact, I frequently felt that I was doing something 'wrong' in my Inquiry because I still felt little confidence in my ability to help students achieve academic success. Being incredibly stubborn however, means that I could just not let it go. I kept banging my head against the goal that I had set for myself, trying to break through whatever was leading to my lack of confidence. It was not until the last few weeks that things really clicked into place as to 'why' I have felt this way.
Over the past year, I have had the privilege of working with Jane Gilbert in the area of Education Futures, as well as working at Hobsonville Point Secondary where I am actually able to test these academic ideas in practice. This has meant that I have grappled with the purpose of education, what knowledge is in a schooling context, and how knowledge is changing. This has meant that I have had more than a few existential crises this year. I feel real empathy for Descartes and his thoughts around whether anything is real! Once I started really questioning 'why' we teach things, and why we teaching things in certain ways, things really started unraveling. 

I increasingly found myself struggling to consolidate what I felt was important with what was required for success within the assessment criteria of NCEA tasks. What if students showed some powerful, deep and meaningful learning however there were no standards to recognise this? Where are the standards that recognise a student who can recognise and apply the unique approaches of learning areas (disciplines), can negotiate between what each learning area offers and then bring them together to consider problems and concepts in a new way? You know, the way Climate Change as a fields transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries and requires climatologists, mathematicians, sociologists, and more to make sense of ideas together?
More and more questions arose... Why are things like knowing about the carbon cycle assessed, but collaboration is not? Why did I feel that little if no understanding of the Nature of Science was needed for achieving at NCEA when this was the compulsory aspect of the science curriculum? You may have read my recent blog post about my issues with exams too.

Even just the word 'standard' started to annoy me. Although I appreciate that we need some measure of success, I feel increasingly conflicted with the idea that all students should 'know' the same things. Our students are so diverse, so talented and interested in areas outside of these 'standards' that I struggle to ask them to fit in within the standards. I am far more interested in developing my students' capacity to explore, make sense, think deeply and broadly, find and solve problems, make the world a better place than to ensure that my students meet a standard.
As it turns out, I think my personal philosophies clash with the approach that I sometimes need to help my students succeed academically. It took most of this year and feeling incompetent multiple times to come to this realisation. Often, I felt that it was simply because I was incompetent. I don't think this is the case... I am pretty sure that I could just teach to a standard, but why on earth would I want to do that?

I have to give a huge shoutout to Jill MacDonald here. Jill is the Learning Area Leader for Maths at Hobsonville Point and she has done a huge amount of thinking around how maths might look different. She has been relentless in her support this year as I worked through making sense of this NCEA business. It is thanks to Jill that I feel that I can somehow consolidate my personal philosophies with NCEA. It was Jill that helped me to recognise how easily the mathematics standards could map to the learning my students were doing. As for science, I am still working on reconciling. However, some little high flying birds told me that I was not alone in my feelings that some of the science standards do not necessarily map to the intent of the curriculum. No wonder it made me feel so frustrated! 

This has been a particularly tough Teaching as Inquiry project, however on reflection, I am very proud of it. How often do we really challenge our own assumptions and thinking in our Teaching as Inquiries? How often do we simply modify our practice without actually revealing or thinking about our hidden commitments? How often do we really examine our theory-in-use? I really appreciate those people that have helped me to do this, in particular Jill MacDonald for her leadership and support at school to make sense of NCEA related things, Matt Nicoll for blogging his rethink of the year eleven science programme, and Megan Peterson for her expertise both with NCEA and Assessment for Learning. Of course, my supervisory Jane Gilbert who regularly turns my brains to scrambled eggs with different ways of thinking. There are of course many others too!

Where to next you might ask? 

Well, the way I see it, I have on of two options. Option one is to investigate the use of e-portfolios as a means of assessing student learning more holistically. Option two is to show evidence of student learning that completely knocks the socks right of NZQA and the Ministry of Education. I guess 2016 will be another interesting year!

Are exams an anachronism?

As exam season for schools and universities around the country draws to a close, I find myself (again) reflecting on the purpose, point and goals of exams. Hence, I have a few questions for Mr Exam. I would appreciate if someone could pass the questions on. Or at least speculate on what his answers might be.

• Why should students attempt to 'prove' their understanding in an artificial context? What is the point of recalling facts and skills in an artificial environment? Would you go into a meeting or a presentation at work without your notes? You can take notes into a job interview. When solving complex problems at work you are certainly not expected to solve them from memory! We do careful research, we collaborate, we seek feedback, we refine. When I have struggled with particular aspects of a role, I often make notes for myself. I check over them to help me complete the task. I struggle to understand why students should be expected to recall without notes, without their peers, without context and without an authentic purpose? When you have to use recall for your drivers licence test, there is a purpose. What is the point of recall in exams?
  
  
• Do exams value recall or deep thinking? All of the most profound moments of realisation, understanding, application in my life, and I am betting yours, did not happen in exams. It involved deeply thinking in light of new experiences, information, discussion and so forth. Does this mean that exams are not about thinking? Perhaps they are about regurgitating and recalling your thinking? Although, I suspect it might also be about recalling someone else's thinking and not your own.
  
• Do exams value efficiency or efficacy, quality? When students are given contrived time limits to recall and apply facts, skills, etc. are we suggesting that it is how fast you are able to do things, not how well? Are we suggesting that learning, Knowledge, skills, capabilities can be packaged into two and three hour blocks?
  
• How can we possibly allow for diversity when we are expecting a whole country to sit the same exams? There are piles of research about the euro-centric approach in education, and piles about Maori and Pacifica frequently not 'achieving' at the same rate off pakeha (New Zealand European). This phenomenon is evident in other countries with indigenous peoples too. By making a whole country, district, class, year level sit the same exam, by standardising, are we ignoring cultural capital? Are we suggesting that cultural capital does not matter in academia? Why should all students know and think the same things? Does standardisation ignore and devalue diversity? 
  
  
  
•  Are exams about equity or equality? All students are expected to write the external 'English exam' or 'Maths exam' at the same time, regardless of what is going on for them in their life. +Ros MacEachern gives a great example from her last school where students were leaving exams early because they were hungry. How many other factors like this is going on? Is that fair?
  
• Are we assessing their writing or their understanding? All students, regardless of their strengths, preferences, cultural traditions, personal experiences, family situations and so forth at expected to 'write' exams. They have to give written explanations of their understanding. All teachers know students who can give incredible verbal explanations but struggle to do so in writing. We all learn differently, communicate differently yet exams seem to ignore this? Where do exams make space for different modes of thinking, learning and communicating?

• How do exams help to build a better future? The value that we attach to exams, explicitly, implicitly and tacitly, are they actually making the world a better place? What values are they instilling in students? What are they teaching students, the community and families to value? What are they teaching about how we assess and individual? What are they teaching about what matters about an individual? Or about a group?

As far as I can tell, exams are not about learning, not about thinking and not about Knowledge. So what is the point? Are they just an an anachronism? A tool from a past age where standardisation was more valued than diversity? Where Knowlege was confined to the pages of linear books rather than the multi-dimensional reality of the real world? If the purpose of exams were about learning and thinking, how would they be different? Are we still making kids and students write exams because coming up with something better has simply been lumped into the too hard basket? 

Subject teacher identity crisis

I was super excited when just before the holidays, this topic won the poll for #edchatNZ night:

What's the point of subjects in an age of wicked problems where collaboration rather than isolation will help us solve them? 

The archive for the chat is here and the 10 minute debrief podcast will be here in a few weeks with our other podcasts.

So what is the point of subjects? Or learning areas? Except for at university, it's not like we ever experience situations that require our subject knowledge in isolation. And anyways, what percentage of the students that we teach in this way become academics? And on top of that, so much of what students have to learn at school is completely google-able. So what exactly is the point of memorising something that you will just google later anyway to check that you have remembered it correctly? And who decides what students need to learn anyways? There are entire fields of knowledge that are completely excluded from the school curriculum, despite their enormous relevance and importance. And then, most students still learn subjects in isolation, despite the academic world currently contending with the fact that the traditional disciplines are not sufficient for our current world. Things like climate change, sport psychology, biomedical engineering and more span many disciplines and can not be viewed under the umbrella of a single academic discipline. And on top of all of that, the sheer volume of human knowledge is expanding at an enormous rate, one that means we add more an more into textbooks but understand less and less in great depth. (For an extended argument of how knowledge has changed, with references, see the summary of my reading below).

The question then becomes, what exactly should we be teaching? And for me, in a school with more flexibility that anywhere else in the country, what should I be endeavouring to teach? How should I teach it given the shifts in knowledge and academics? What is best for my students? Will they be disadvantaged if I do not teach them to value knowledge and the disciplines in the way that society has thus far? Or, will they be disadvantaged if I do teach them in this way? What should be prioritised?

All of this is enough to give a subject teacher an identity crisis. And it appears that to some extent I am having one. For some time now, I have felt uncomfortable with calling myself just a maths or science teacher. I feel that what I do and what I teach, is so much broader that the narrow image that people often apply outside of education. At Hobsonville Point I have worked alongside social science teachers, physical education and health teachers, visual arts teachers, dance teachers and more. As a result, I often end up teaching about these things too, combing my subject knowledge in ways that give problems more meaning. More often than not though, I have no idea about many of the things that our students have questions about, even in my subject areas. Considering that our students have asked questions that stumped climatologists, have been the kind of questions you could do a doctorate about, it's hardly surprising that I often can not answer them. What I can do though, and I like to think I do this well, is teach them how to find out. Now lots of teachers teach research. But I would like to push things a little further...

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that having done science is pretty useless on its own. So is having done maths or social science. A bold statement I know, but let me explain. You are presented with a problem. It might be a small problem, it might be a large problem, it might even be a wicked problem. I can then draw on 'the way we think or act in science' to help me solve the problem. For example, I might make a hypothesis, collect data, analyse the data and then draw a conclusion. This allows me to determine whether my hypothesis is true or false. However, we all know full well know that in an organisation, country or community where we have to make decisions on behalf of others, that an understanding of different perspectives becomes useful. Hence, I might draw on the way that social scientists use knowledge to add a different lens to my data that I collected. I might view the data from different perspectives. Either way, the problem did not require me to remember some facts, but rather, it required me to draw on different ways of thinking. In this way, the old subject hierarchy disappears too, because rather than thinking that English or Science is more important than Performing Arts, in this way, we recognise that each has a particular way of thinking that can be employed as needed.

To get back to the idea of 'helping students to find out'... More and more I have been thinking about how I might get my students to do something more meaningful that simply consume the knowledge of others. To move beyond shallow research projects. What would it look like if my students were producing knowledge, if what they were finding out was not google-able because that knowledge simply didn't yet exist? What if my students were able to draw on the different ways of thinking from the diverse disciplines to combine them in unique and novel ways, to generate new ways of knowing, new things to know, to solve complex problems, to answer beautiful questions, or one day, maybe solve a wicked problem?

Blue hexagons are science ideas whilst social science hexagons are ideas from social sciences. The yellow post it notes explain the links between the ideas on hexagons.

Summary of notes about the nature of knowledge:

Networked knowledge

One of the contributing factors to the need for a systemic change in our education system is the change that knowledge has undergone since the establishment of our education system. For much of the history of formal education, reproduction of existing knowledge has been one of its core goals (Bolstad et al., 2012). This is evident in the approach that schools and teachers brought to the implementation of the current New Zealand Curriculum.  The release of the current New Zealand Curriculum document saw the introduction of the ‘front end’, a range of future focussed outcomes. However, it was found that teachers were more likely to engage with the ‘back end’, the achievement objectives relating to content, rather than the future focused outcomes (Hipkins, 2009).   As mentioned previously, the educational ideas from Plato’s Republic underpin much of our education system today, and as such; Plato’s ideas of knowledge to some extent underpin our education systems. This is evident in the presence of the academic curriculum, which is often creditedto Plato, a curriculum based on the best of human knowledge (Gilbert, 2005). However, the arrival of the Knowledge Age has meant that the nature of knowledge has fundamentally changed (Gilbert, 2005; Weinberger, 2011) need more sources, hence, suggesting a need for a change in our approach to knowledge in schools. As Weinberger (2011) puts forward; “Our most important institutions are being shaken by questions about knowledge that we thought were as firmly settled as those institutions’ marble and concrete foundations” (Weinberger, 2011)

The Changing Nature of Knowledge 

Where knowledge has previously been described as limited, true, actionable, the new nature of knowledge can be considered to be networked, dynamic, exponential and diverse (Bolstad et al., 2012; Gilbert, 2007; Weinberger, 2011).

Networked 

The new nature of knowledge is that it has become increasingly networked, or as Gilbert and Bolstad (2008) puts it, knowledge is “a product of networks”. Consequently, as Weinberger (2011) argues, the non linear nature of knowledge means that it has become “too big to know”.  Layered on top of the network is what Weinberger (2011) calls filtering forward rather than out. He illustrates this with the following example; in the past, knowledge was carefully edited for publishing in a journal or a book. Hence the publishing industry acted to a large extent as a filter, filtering much out. Bookstores and libraries then also applied a further filter. We were limited by what ‘fit’. This is further evidence with findings from the Andres, Zenter, and Zenter (2014) from the World Bank who found that internet growth in a country led to reduced consumption of paper used for newspapers and printing. In contrast to the confinement of knowledge to printed mediums, Weinberger (2011) explains that today we are more likely to filter forward than out, what doesn’t make it through the filter is often just a few clicks away in the background. In other words, at no point is knowledge filtered out, but rather filters share a node in the network, each node still connected to the easily accessible vast network of knowledge. Add to this, that our knowledge is no longer limited to the final refined, edited, reworked professionally published versions (Weinberger, 2011), but that we share ideas in their infancy, we share drafts, alpha and beta versions. In fact, some go as far as advocating for sharing the draft versions, the process of their work (Kleon, 2014) whilst others suggest that the networked medium means that we can share explanations of knowledge, making it more accessible intellectually (Barker, 2000). Thus, the network allows us gain more complete knowledge, however, at all time confronting us with the idiom of pulling on a loose that results in more and more unravelling.

Dynamic and Exponential 

Of course, if we are no longer publishing only the final versions, and we are no longer limited to publishing through traditional publishers, the rate at which knowledge grows is bound to escalate. The Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC was believed to house the sum of human knowledge  (Cukier & Mayer-Schoenberger, 2013).  By comparison, YouTube suggest that 300 hours of video is upload to their site every minute (YouTube, 2015).  In schools, we can see this trend occur too. In 2012 there were only two schools with a creative commons policy, whilst in 2015 the number was nearing one hundred (McGregor, 2015). Even the volume of scholarly journals have seen an increase, the average length of articles increasing by 80% from 1975 to 2007 (Cope & Phillips, 2009). Of course the nature of how scholarly articles are being distributed and published is also changing. As Cope andPhillips (2009) indicate, and as is echoed by Weinberger (2011), reports, conference proceedings, drafts published to personal websites and blogs are becoming increasingly popular over journal articles due to their immediacy and more often than not, open access. Adding to the growth of scholarly knowledge, is the increasing contributions from corporations (Cope & Phillips, 2009). This is bound to increase again with the rise of big data, as corporations seek to make sense of the increasing amount of data they have collected. As Cukier and Mayer-Schoenberger (2013) points out, big data allows us to “experiment faster and explore more leads.” Hence, the pace at which the sum of human knowledge is growing by leaps and bounds (Sardar, 2010a), but also the immediacy with which it is needed and used bears further clues to the changing nature of knowledge.

Diverse 

A further quality of knowledge is that it has become increasingly diverse. More diverse groups are generating knowledge and more diverse knowledge is produced. As pointed out above, knowledge is no longer produced largely by universities and research institutes. Instead, as well as schools, hospitals, corporations and government, social networks are now commonly being utilised for knowledge creation, as it facilitates collaboration between scholars and amateurs (Biesta, 2007; Cope & Phillips, 2009). As a result, the diversity of those creating knowledge has shifted. Cope and Phillips (2009) call this a democratisation of knowledge.  Of course, there is a second level of diversity that comes into play here, that of knowledge itself becoming increasingly diverse. Some argue that knowledge produced from universities still holds the epistemological monopoly (Biesta, 2007), additionally, academic journals are characterised by their discipline or sub-discipline (Cope & Phillips, 2009). However, despite these more formal knowledge institutions, Cope and Phillips (2009) draws our attention to the fact that rise of interdisciplinary fields and problems such as climate change has led to the breakdown of these epistemological and disciplinary barriers. Thus, not only have the types of knowledge increased in diversity, but also the cross over between disciplines. Outside of academia, there is also enormous diversity in knowledge, as Weinberger (2011) puts it, “we can see – or at least are led to suspect – that every idea is contradicted somewhere on the web”. Even in statistics, big data shows us those data points that sit outside what we think we know, as a result adopting correlation rather than cause (Cukier & Mayer-Schoenberger, 2013).  It is these ideas about the diversity of knowledge that might lead to experts such as Bolstad et al. (2012) to argue that “21st century citizens need to be educated for diversity – in both the people sense and the knowledge/idea sense.” Both the nature of knowledge and those participating in its creation is diversifying.

Refereces

• Andres, L., Zenter, A., & Zenter, J. (2014). Measuring the Effect of Internet Adoption on Paper Consumption World Bank Policy Research  
• Barker, S. (2000). The End of Argument: Knowledge and the Internet. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 33(2), 154-181.  
• Biesta, G. (2007). Towards the knowledge democracy? Knowledge production and the civic role of the university. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 26(5), 467-479. doi: 10.1007/s11217-007-9056-0 
• Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching - a New Zealand Perspective: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. 
• Cope, B., & Phillips, A. (2009). Signs of epistemic disruption: transfomrations in the knowledge system of the academic journal The Future of the Academic Journal: Elsevier Science. 
• Cukier, K., & Mayer-Schoenberger, V. (2013). The Rise of Big Data: How it's Changing the Way We Think about the World. In M. Pitici (Ed.), The Best Writing on Mathematics 2014 (Vol. 92, pp. 28): Princeton University Press. 
• Gilbert, J. (2005). Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Soceity and the future of education.Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Gilbert, J. (2007). Knowledge, the disciplines, and learning in the Digital Age. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 6(2), 115-122. doi: 10.1007/s10671-007-9022-1 
• Gilbert, J., & Bolstad, R. (2008). Disciplining and Drafting, or 21st Century Learning? Rethinking the New Zealand Senior Secondary Curriculum for the Future. Wellington: NZCER Press. 
• Gilbert, J., Bull, A., Stevens, L., & Giroux, M. (2015). On the Edge: Shifting Teachers' Paradigms for the Future. In TLRI (Ed.), (pp. 18): TLRI. Hine, D. (2014, 6 March). 
• What good is information?aeon.  Retrieved 15 July, 2015, from http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/the-problem-with-too-much-information/
• Hipkins, R. (2009). Reshaping the secondary school curriculum: Building the plane while flying it? National Survey of Secondary Schools 2009. Wellington. 
• Kleon, A. (2014). Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered: Workman Publishing Company. 
• McGregor, M. (2015, 14 July). [Creative Commons Data]. 
• Sardar, Z. (2010a). Welcome to postnormal times. Futures, 42(5), 435-444. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2009.11.028
• Sardar, Z. (2010b). Welcome to the postnormal times. Futures, 42, 435-444. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2009.11.028 
• Weinberger, D. (2011). Too big to know. New York: Basic Books. YouTube. (2015). Statistics.   Retrieved 15 July, 2015, from https://http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html
• Zucker, J. (2014). World Views: Creating Significance of Learning in the Classroom. The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies, 71(1). 

Reflexagons

I received an email from Steve Mouldey a few days ago that said:

And yes. He is right. I haven't blogged in a while. And since I have been very working on my masters, school, life etc... My philosophy of 'share your work' means I definitely should have shared more already! Thanks for the reminder Steve.

So here is what I am working on at the moment. One of my professional goals this year is:

How might I ensure that I am deeply challenging my learners to promote further learning that leads to pathways for academic success?

This goal is centred around how I might make sure that I am preparing my students effectively to be successful in NCEA. As I have limited experience teaching at an NCEA level, I wanted to make sure that my creative (often slightly crazy) style of teaching is doing the job. (Ideally though, I hope that it is doing much more than that but for now, this is the goal.) 

As a result, I have been working on a template to use with my students as they unpack ideas around the carbon cycle. My students have name these reflexagons - reflective hexagons. In the spirit of showing your work, I have shared both the first and second iteration. Would love your suggestions for the next iteration.

Version 1: Access the google drawing template here

Version 2: Access the google drawing template here

Update:
Last night I was revisiting some ideas from John Hattie about what makes the biggest differences for learners in regards to achievement. And of course, that brings my back to feedback... So as a next interaction on the reflexagon task, I have create a rubric with a self and peer assessment sheet to further extend the learning from this task. You can see the full self and peer assessment sheet here.

What if...

Steve Mouldey has been on a what if mission of late. He is constantly asking what if questions. And he is constantly asking his students what if questions. So for today's 28 minutes of writing post, as I sit here supervising and e-ASTTLE test, I'm taking a leaf out of Steve's book. Since I have temporarily run out of things to say, it seems a good idea to just make these things up now don't you think? Here goes...

What if giving students test and exams were illegal?

How would our assessment practices be different? - How would we attempt to validate our judgements of student progress? - Would we still assess as frequently? - Who would be in charge of assessment? NZQA? The Ministry? Schools? - Would we assess the same things? - Would students still seek to validate themselves by a test score or by credit hunting? - Would eliminating tests and moving towards longer term, assignment based work mean that students don't cram, and as a result focus on learning more? -Would there be any negative effects on students and what would they be? - How would teachers cope without tests? - Do tests offer a safety nest for teachers? - Would there be any positive effects on students and what would they be? - Would making exams and tests illegal change which content we focus on? - Would making exams and tests illegal change what our curriculum looks like? - What assessment system would most likely replace tests? - What role would e-portfolios place in a system without tests? - Would assessment practice improve or not if tests and exams were illegal? - How would things be different if only high stakes testing was illegal? - What innovations in student assessment might develop as a result of the increased constraints? - Why do students dislike tests so much? - How could we help students to feel less intimated by tests? - How might we make testing more meaningful? - Who would most likely advocate for making tests illegal? Who would most likely advocate against making tests illegal 

The thing about what if questions is that they allow you to entertain ideas that we might often consider impossible. Yet, when it comes down to it, very few of the ideas that we would like to see take root in education are actually impossible. Challenging to implement perhaps. Uncomfortable. But not impossible. So many of our systems were put into place by people, and for that same reason can be removed by people. It is important that we do not confuse obstacles with limits. The two are very different!

So while we are living in the hypothetical here, do you have a what if question that allows you to think outside the box enough to generate a new education paradigm?

Data Detective and a Trifecta of Tools

Flubaroo generate spreadsheet (student names removed)

Maybe it's because I did a science degree, maybe because I am an empiricist. Either way, I like having data to make decisions around. Education rockstar researcher Hattie emphasises how important feedback from the students about how they're learning is. So I wanted to share a trifecta of tools that help the busy teacher use data more effectively.

ideas about gravity before teaching and learning

ideas about gravity after teaching and learning

Step 1: A quick google form at the beginning of a lesson with an open ended question e.g. What do you understand about gravity? Followed with a few multi choice questions that look at common misconceptions about gravity.
Google forms work well on all platforms and devices including smart phones

Then... I use flubaroo (a google docs add on) to grade it very quickly on a spreadsheet. This gives me a spreadsheet with the lowest scoring students automatically in red. Hence, immediately I can move forward with differentiated tasks, team roles etc. based on what the students know.
Flubaroo is a simple to use google apps add on - when in a google spreadsheet, simply click on add ons and then install it


Step 2: Teaching and learning takes places including a range of different strategies.

Step 3: Students take the same test
Then... I use flubaroo again to see if students have made a shift in their understanding. Today, my students shifted from a 1.72 out of 4 to a 2.42 out of 4. I can also then identify which students need more intensive scaffolding or support in the next session.

Finally, I use word it out to paste the answers from the open ended question creating a before and after version with the students' answers. From the before and after I can see that students are now able to describe gravity with the vocabulary that I introduced today including mass, attracted and pull.
Word it out is a free tool that creates a word wall where the size of a word increases based on its frequency in the text that you input.

And with my trifecta of tools I can identify the students that need to be extended next time as well as the students that need to be supported. Using the view summary function in google forms I can also see how many of my students started with misconceptions about gravity and how many finished with the same or perhaps new misconceptions.

Before teaching and learning

After teaching and learning

The reality is that being a data detective just means that I am taking a really brutal, honest look at my own teaching. I can see that students no longer think that only planets have gravitational fields, but I can also see that there are still students who think that the moon has no gravity. 

Project Based Learning

If I'm bored with marking, what are the chances that the students are bored with the assessment? Now I am all for academic excellence and rigour however I don't see any reason why assessments have to be so... dull. Hence, last year I had a go at designing my own project. I tested it with a class over a few weeks as homework tasks to see how it goes. You can see the blog post about it here. This year however, I managed to convince the whole science department that we should use the project as an assessment rather than using a test. I am SO glad that we did. 

The project: The world and your school are becoming increasingly digital. To combat global warming, some individuals have suggested that one should use as much as possible paper however only from renewable forests rather than only using email or the internet. They argue, that by using more paper, more forests need to be planted which in turn combats global warming. This means that the more paper you use, the more forests will be planted which helps to combat global warming.Your goal: Evaluate whether using as much as possible renewable paper combats or aids the effects of global warming. 

Step 1: Research The first part of the project students are asked to research key ideas to help shape their argument. Research is based around photosynthesis and respiration, transpiration, the carbon cycle, effects of global warming and deforestation. 

Step 2: DiscussionAs a class we then have a discussion about the effects of global warming, deforestation and whether in fact using paper from renewable forests could combat the effects of global warming.  

Step 3: EvaluationStudents are given fifty minutes in class to write an essay that explains whether they are for or against using as much paper as possible and why.  

Step 4: DesignStudents are asked to produce any kind of marketing material eg. a poster, brochure, tv or radio advertisement, etc. that educates the public on what to do and the science behind it. 

Highlights 

I had hoped that by completing a project such as this,  the quality of student work would be improved as students are given feedback and the opportunity and encouragement to improve throughout the whole project. It was really rewarding being able to support students in this way and resulted in students who have a history of not achieving, doing an outstanding job because they felt that the "pressure" of the assessment was spread out. Students felt like they could make a mistake and it would be OK because the mistake would be identified and they could go back and fix it. Students could also see how close they were to getting a higher mark so often would put in a little more effort because the steps to the end goal was so much clearer. Edmodo made the process of giving feedback SO much easier as all the work, updates, feedback and so forth were all in one place. And of course, it is all ready to be exported to My Portfolio with the ICT department when creating student portfolios. 

Other highlights included students feeling that they had a better understanding of the science of the topic than they had with traditional assessments where they were asked to study for a test. I suspect that this is due to the assignment tasks being focussed on processing information through sorting, analysing  and evaluating, rather than traditional recall and application type questions. Students also really valued being given the opportunity to give their own opinion in science, rather than being asked to recall and apply facts, they were asked to interpret research much like real world scientists and then draw appropraite conclusions. Students then had to take it a step further to actually consider how the public perceives scientific ideas and best to educate them into better decision making. By being asked in the final step to create a promotional item to educate the public, students were also challenged to reduce their whole project to a few simple ideas. It was also really rewarding giving students the opportunity to use their creative talents in science, a subject not traditionally associated with creativity in schools. I especially loved the "paper rap" a student made!

Future Directions 

• Cross curricular links: In order to improve the links to learning outside the classroom and to help students see that their subjects are linked and related, I would love if this project completed in science, could be synchronised with the teaching of transactional writing in English and/or song writing in music, digital design etc. Even better would be if this could be assessed across a range of subjects.
• Participating and Contributing: As this project addresses a global issue, we could even spend some time actually educating the public about deforestation.