Salad days: Some high school memories

I’m attending my high school reunion, the 60^th birthday of Queen's High School, and 27 years since my completion of what was then "7th form". This has prompted me to reflect upon my time at school, particularly my five years of secondary education. I bring to this reflection a range of new and more mature understandings as an educator, and it is possible that I recall the ‘good old days’ through a rose-tint to some extent, but nevertheless I’m compelled to share some of the magic of my high school years.

I remember my school as a place where I thrived and was encouraged to succeed and to do so on my own terms with a great deal of freedom and choice. Here are a few memories, many from my final year, and a two key principles I have distilled from these:

1.     Relationships: We had some amazing teachers at high school – dedicated, talented, inspiring. Our teachers cared for us as people and conveyed respect for us, and these ways of treating each other permeated the whole school culture. I recall our 7^th form common room, where we gathered in mufti (no uniform for us in our final year!). We had a room all to ourselves, with an outside deck (not often used in Dunedin); a TV and state of the art VCR (it was 1988!); couches, beanbags and a kitchenette – with jug and toaster. It was our space and a special place to hang out between classes. We also had special library privileges. When we had to leave the school for any reason, we were permitted to sign ourselves out. We were trusted and we did our best to live up to the expectations of those who entrusted us. I now work with one of the teachers who was on staff during this time, and he recently told me that each teacher in the school was required to keep a note of students who were acting out or who seemed troubled or otherwise preoccupied. Each teacher would submit the notes to the Principal at the end of each week, and she would read through each and every one in order to identify patterns and concerns. The principal would then take proactive steps to address the issues and intervene to ensure the student was cared for. 

2.     Relevance: I took a range of classes during my secondary schooling, and tried my hand at pretty much anything. In doing so, I discovered that I wasn’t a Scientist or a Mathematician, I didn’t have any particular aptitude for languages other than English, and I had very little physical coordination or sporting prowess. However, I learned to research, to critique literature, to debate well and to type. I am very often thankful for my mastery of the Pitmans and Trade Certification Board typing exams. Who knew that nearly 30 years later I’d be spending hours on a computer keyboard every day, teaching online, writing for publication, and communicating with colleagues. Touch typing with speed and accuracy is one of the most valuable skills I possess.

I recall that some of our lessons in English involved us sitting around a boardroom table with classmates and teacher, discussing a text and sharing our opinions. I felt very well prepared for university tutorials the following year, where academic discussion was already familiar and ready for extension. I remember watching Franco Zefferelli productions of Shakespeare, and I recall our English teacher dressing in period costume to convene class as Jane Austen, inviting us to interview her while she remained in character for the whole lesson.

NZ studies lessons took place in the library, in the conversation pit, where we would sit on the steps and talk with our teacher. The school was visionary in anticipation of modern learning environments, and flexible use of space. Another creative aspect of this particular class was the opportunity to research and write a narrative from the point of view of an early settler in New Zealand. I wrote a diary, recreating the daily life of a pioneering woman, and ‘authenticated it’ by soaking the paper in tea, singeing the page edges with a stick of incense, and binding it with ribbon in a felt covered volume. Alongside the encouragement to be creative, we were also inspired to involve ourselves actively in community events and in social activism more broadly.

I remember taking time away from the classroom to go down the peninsula to assist with catering at Otakou Marae during the Waitangi Tribunal hearings for Kai Tahu.

As I was dabbling in Economics at the time, I was a Managing Director of a student-led company, which involved us setting up a business in small groups, and working to make a profit under the tuition of local business people. The Young Enterprise Scheme was very much in action back in those days, and it was a superb way to learn a little about the intricacies of commerce, accounting and management.

It is lucky for me that my days at high school were so full of opportunity, with strong and supportive relationships, freedom to learn, and creative possibilities. Sometimes I listen to and read about young people who do not experience school as I did.  Times have changed, but I wonder if there is sometimes less trust, less privilege, less opportunity and less relevance.

When I hear of schools who prioritise military-like dress codes, who ban cellphones, and emphasise curriculum coverage, I wonder.

Admittedly, when I hear of educators who champion relationships and relevance as something new and modern (21^st century learning?), I also wonder…

Was my school visionary and exceptional?

Were your experiences of schooling positive and inspiring?

Do students today have relevant educational opportunities, and caring and respectful relationships at school?

 P.S. For an explanation of title, 'Salad days' is the name of the musical we performed when I was about 16 and is a youthful idiom, stemming from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra:

Cleopatra -  My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then!

P.P.S. At the time of posting, I've been to the reunion and am home. The most special moment was hearing our principal of the day - Dame Patricia Harrison address the reunion assembly. As in the article linked, Dame Harrison talked about school as a liberating force, helping students to overcome poverty, deprivation and abuse. She and I compared ideas about respect for students and faith in the judgement of youth. 

As part of her address, Dame Harrison talked about trust and told us about empowering students to employ their own teachers, in partnership with adult decision-makers. When the school needed a music teacher, Mrs Harrison called together several of the keen and talented musicians among the student population and set them the task of shortlisting applicants by working through the CVs. The girls knew who they wanted and after interview, they nagged Mrs Harrison about whether their preferred applicant had accepted the position. It was a pleasure to watch that music teacher receive a 'living treasure award' on behalf of the school and students at our reunion, after more than 20 years of teaching at Queen's High School.

It was a pleasure to tell my typing teacher what a big difference she makes to my day, everyday!

A bit of musing

This post may be a bit indulgent, but like Dianne's blog a few of weeks ago, I've begun teaching, both face to face and online.

One of the really useful things about education this century, is that even though I'm currently working from home on limited hours (post leg surgery), it doesn't stop me connecting with my learners or my colleagues. I've been able to establish good connections with my fully online class through a series of discussions where we have pondered what it means to learn online and connect together through Moodle.

Our first three discussions centred on identifying what might be a bit scary or anxiety-inducing, hopes and then what all that might mean for connecting together. These discussions had multiple purposes. Not only did it they break the ice, but also identified how people were feeling and showing how similar people's apprehensions and expectations were. Some of these students who are doing a graduate one-year secondary teacher education programme at a distance - admitted quite a bit of trepidation at working online. So, not only are they embarking on a new career through this programme, but they are also doing it remotely, some while also working. Added to that, some admitted quite a lot of anxiety using online tools to do this programme. Some do it tough!

Others found that their organisation was in need of a big shake-up, so we spent some time sharing ideas about how to make online calendars work across devices, and how to spend time setting them up and knowing in advance what they needed to prepare. Some others commented that they were working across a range of Moodle sites, and each looked different. Some hadn't noticed that we use the block highlight tool to clearly identify which area of the page we were concentrating on, while hadn't noticed that each discussion showed the due date, and clicking on it showed them what the discussion was about. So why do I mention this? I think it suggests that they were having what I tell my husband was a man look - ie that unless it was in neon lights and pointing 'look at me!' then it wasn't there. It points to superficial reading, rather than close reading. They weren't giving themselves permission to dig deep and think deliberately until prompted about what to notice.

So, I'm musing here - speculating if you will - how much time is spent teaching people to read deeply - to drink in some text to ponder. Do we (I include myself here) spend enough time focusing our learners on actively reading to extract meaning? I think the first three discussions we had helped me provide advice about these things, but does that mean we (all teachers, regardless of context) should spend more time on the basic familiarity of text types at the start of everything we teach, particularly in the first few weeks of teaching? Might this reduce future problems for these learners? I wonder...

I'd be keen to know how others familiarise their learners to get used to the routines and practices of specific classes.

Working Smarter: Workload management strategies for online teaching

I am a Teaching Advocacy rep for my faculty and convene a series of sessions annually in order to help lecturers enhance their teaching and learning. For 2015, the first session is going to be about smart strategies for managing teaching workload and staff will be invited to contribute ideas and approaches to ensuring that our teaching is manageable without unduly sacrificing quality. As all of my teaching is online, my own contribution to the session will relate to workload management for online teaching. I have learned about this via working with colleagues like Stephen Bright (WCEL) who has researched and written on the subject - see Bright's top ten online workload management strategies. I also draw upon 13 years of experience as an online teacher.

I started to brainstorm my strategies using an alphabetical approach - that is, I wrote down one strategy for every letter of the alphabet. It became apparent that some letters were more stimulating than others and that the strategies themselves could be grouped according to theme. At this point, I am proposing a SPACE model of workload management strategies for online teaching. It seems to be working for me, in that I am managing just fine, and have space for the important things in life, while continuing to strive for quality teaching and learning. I also really enjoy what I do, so that is a good sign. 

Here are my thoughts on creating the SPACE to work smarter when teaching online:

Share

• I share models of student work
• Share past students’ lessons to learn from their mistakes also
• Share feedback by providing general pointers for the class – rather than individualised, detailed, repetitive comments
• Share responsibility – with students, by organising peer feedback/review; student-led discussion; ask students to find and review resources; ask students to nominate their best discussion or selected artifacts for assessment
• -       with colleagues, by asking for help – planning with the team, guest lecturers or guests in online discussion, videoing on campus lectures (or conversations) for use online and in subsequent years
• -       including the library staff, elearning designers and tech staff, and members of the profession (teacher guests). In particular, refer students to the library's distance site, helpdesk and relevant websites in order to share responsibility for queries about tech issues and APA referencing.
• Share my own research and learning with students – so that research informs my teaching, and vice versa; so that students help me with conference presentations, and my presentation reflects student voice; so that when I tweet from the conference I am sharing relevant learning with our class hashtag
• Share reading with students – tell them about my learning, reading, thinking, via online discussion, and social media.

Prioritise

• I am mindful that P is not for perfection or procrastination
• Block out time for teaching online – Q&A every day; discussion twice a week
• Block out time for research and family life – Hide when necessary (e.g., to start, progress or finish a task). Unplug.
• Research teaching and share research with students, in order to combine scholarship and to model evidence-based pedagogy.

Accummulate

• I aim to build reusable resources
• Devise resources and guidelines with students, and pay forward as a legacy for subsequent cohorts
• Select models of student work and obtain permission to share with subsequent cohorts
• Keep a record of student suggestions, ideas for next time, and corrections to make in future. I store these within the Moodle paper where I will refer to them when creating the next iteration
• Good ideas to share
• FAQ – to pre-empt common misunderstandings and provide technical instructions (e.g., how to post a hyperlink that opens in a new window)
• When marking, note common points of misunderstanding and collate these to provide group/class feedback. Use again in the following year prior to the assignment, in order to pre-empt misunderstandings and common errors.

Communicate

• I talk with students about what they expect from me; I try to listen carefully with an open mind, and I correct them if I think their expectations of me are unreasonable
• Clarify office hours and availability – how and when to contact me
• Keep communication in Moodle as far as possible
• Explain clearly – if written instructions obscure the message, use video and audio (vodcasting, podcasting, screencasting)
• Clarify the weekly to do list for students – via a top message and newsforum
• Take a creative and collaborative approach – using a/synchronous tools, social media, OER, …
• Invite student feedback along the way
• Give clear and specific feedback when marking, explaining reasons for grade, so as to pre-empt queries.

Enhance electronic efficiency  

• Learn new skills to work smarter – e.g., touch typing – 100WPM
• If a particular tool or approach is not efficient, I don’t use it.

So what works for you? How do you manage teaching workload online or offline? What are the biggest challenges?

Please respond if you would like clarification of any of the points above.

Pedagogy: can we understand it in terms of cooking meals?

I've written an article for the NZCER journal Curriculum Matters that is now published, as part of a special issue on metaphors in education. In it, I speculate on how to make concrete something as abstract as trying to understand what pedagogy is and why it matters. I did so because as an initial teacher education (ITE) educator, I teach those who want to be secondary teachers because they have a passion for their subject area, and want to know how to 'deliver' this to secondary school students. I put 'deliver' in speech marks because it is a naughty word - see Dianne's post  from last year where she takes to task 6 particular words in education.

What ITE students fast come to realise is that by becoming teachers, they must begin to understand what pedagogy is, and how different it is from delivery. The latter is about transmission, which has a limited place in this century's learning contexts. The former is about a whole other discipline. 'Delivery' is about telling students, pedagogy is about helping them learn and create knowledge for themselves, but under guidance. Broadly, delivery is about this question: "What shall I teach?", while pedagogy is about this question: "What do my students need to know?" This latter question implies knowing one's students, their immediate learning needs (whether a skill, a concept or an understanding), an ability to design targeted learning, and making the learning count for something. It implies creating the environment in which students have to think. Delivery, on the other hand, only needs to be about transmitting information/facts/stuff. It can be where a teacher can say they have covered the curriculum, but they can't also say they have helped students learn, unless they have done something other than delivery.

This is a long way of saying my article about metaphor attempted to make sense of pedagogy while using pedagogical design to do so. In other words, I was looking for a prior knowledge/experience starting point that would be the hook for this new learning. This hook, I decided, was food. I hazarded a guess that cooking and food was a common experience and knowledge point of everyone (even if the details of that experience differed for each person). So, I created a table in which I outlined key components of both cooking a meal and pedagogy, that would illuminate what teachers needed to consider to design tasty learning.

Here is my effort as it will appear in the article, and I'd like to know what you think of it so I can refine it. I would love some feedback on this!

The components of each are listed on the left, while the other two columns briefly outline my conception of how a recipe/meal can help us understand pedagogy:

Table 1: Recipes and pedagogy

	RECIPES	PEDAGOGY
COMPONENTS	Recipes: specific ingredients   proportions/measurements utensils and equipment	Learning: student group and learning needs class facilities curriculum concepts content resources thinking processes
METHODS/ PROCESSES	How to create the product/the goal of a recipe (ie, the dish): the mix/chemistry (knowing how and why certain processes affect cooking outcomes) technical knowledge of cooking processes and combinations of ingredients cooking times and effective use of equipment to make the recipe become good food	How to aim for a learning/curriculum goal: the mix/chemistry (knowing how and why certain processes affect learning outcomes) technical knowledge of learning and facilitation processes such as: metacognition, pedagogical design, timing, order, opportunity using resources/equipment for meeting curriculum learning goals specific organisation of learning to scaffold thinking and knowing
CHRONOLOGY	The order in which food processes need to happen: order and combinations in mixing of ingredients cooking receptacles cooking times/cooking order	The order in which learning needs to happen: beginning with prior knowledge building block/scaffolding activities and skills to address prerequisite knowledge processes (developing conceptual learning/problem-solving)
THE EVIDENCE	Plating and eating the food: how it looks, smells, tastes the degree of satisfaction in eating it - a sensory and affective experience	The evidence of: conceptual learning (abstraction, inference, analysis, justification, synthesis, reflection, judgement, threshold concepts) procedural learning (understanding of process, method, order...) metacognitive learning - learning how to learn/articulating strategies the satisfaction (‘fun’/enjoyment) in the challenge/level of achievement and learning in the task - a cognitive and affective experience
EVALUATION AND REFLECTION	Feedback on the dish by the diners: Look, taste and smell Satisfaction (fullness, texture, size, how appetising it is) Was it worth eating? Evaluation by cook: Is it worth creating again (cost, time, effort, effect on diners)? Does it need refinement (what needs changing - taste, plating,...?) Would different ingredients work? with a different combination of diners, what needs changing (dietary needs, timing)?	Feedback and behaviours of learners: Coming back for more when the learning is successful, satisfying, challenging   evidence of realising it’s a work in progress that includes risk-taking, feedback and self-reflection deciding if their own learning intentions/goals have been achieved... Evaluation by teachers: have learning goals been achieved? does it need refinement/alteration? what if different resources were used? what was the learner experience like? with a different class, how should it be modified? - resources, strategies, learning needs, order… are curriculum goals satisfied by this design?