Critical and creative thinking is fundamental to education. %PDF-1.5 © Copyright 2020 Independent Australia - All rights reserved. The idea of a good checklist is what’s key. Schools should be starting later. endobj Is there tight alignment across all three stages? The Terms of Reference for the Australian Curriculum review specifically state that one aim is to ‘refine and reduce the amount of content’. A review of the Australian testing curriculum could leave students without valuable skills to face real-world challenges, writes Ben Kilby. In short, we had zero intent of putting teachers in a mental and physical planning straitjacket. However, the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) results since 2003 show significant declines in all areas. A review of the Australian testing curriculum could leave students without valuable skills to face real-world challenges, writes Ben Kilby. Oh, he said, I can do THAT. In that spirit, I offer today variations on our current Template, and hundreds of unit and lesson templates, found in a quick Google search. Again, this asks us to think: what do we value in education? Independent Australia is a progressive journal focusing on politics, democracy, the environment, Australian history and Australian identity. The make-up of the Curriculum Committees was negotiated as part of the new PAE-PSD contract language. Curricular diseases may impair its quality and hence its viability. IA is dedicated to providing fearless, independent journalism, free for all, with no barriers. This area is important because it doesn’t teach content at all — it develops in students ways of thinking. We have hardly treated our own Template as a sacred untouchable icon. Here are the current template elements framed as questions, for idea-generation and double-checking one’s draft plan: 14 Questions To Guide Your Curriculum Mapping And Lesson Design. Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA. This may be a subtle difference in the one-sentence description of each test, but what it indicates is that NAPLAN tests basic skills and PISA tests the application of basic skills to real life. WHAT DO WE VALUE in education? And most teachers still do not plan mindful of key student transfer deficits, misconceptions, and predictable rough spots related to student diversity. This strikes of the “back to basics” rhetoric recently seen in NSW, with the Premier stating “literacy and numeracy will remain the focus throughout a student’s school experience”. With the current vitriol both within Australia and abroad resulting from the Black Lives Matter movement, this learning area is going to be fundamental for any child to participate in our multicultural world. To keep us speaking truth to power, please consider donating to IA today - even a dollar will make a huge difference - or subscribe and receive all the benefits of membership. One of the benefits of PISA is that it’s standardised across the world, allowing Australia to directly compare results with other countries. In retrospect, though, I think a mistake we made was to present one template instead of two or three. Noely Neate suggests a plan to make the school year not only easier on students but also the wallets of parents around Australia. Why is this? An instructional planning template can save intellectual lives. So, I am not unhappy that Chicago schools recently decided to stop mandating a template for planning. How detailed are your plans? <>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> Isn't it about time? Perhaps our PISA results would not be so poor if we gave priority to the kinds of learning that empowered students with the capacity to apply skills to complex real-world problems rather than rehearsing standardised answers to test questions. These are surprisingly difficult questions to answer, once you spend years looking at how people do (and don’t) plan, as we have via Understanding by Design. This is a key question that needs addressing in light of the recent announcement for a review of the Australian Curriculum. It was for all these reasons and more that Jay McTighe and I wrote Understanding by Design 14 years ago. However, a comparison of two key standardised tests shows that even in this narrow area we are failing. 14 Questions To Guide Your Curriculum Mapping And Lesson Design originally appeared on Grant’s personal blog; image attribution flickr user statefarm. Why the reduction in representation? Since NAPLAN began in 2008, there has been a small overall upward trend in results in most areas and most year levels. Here are the current template elements framed as questions, for idea-generation and double-checking one’s draft plan: 14 Questions To Guide Your Curriculum Mapping And Lesson Design There are few studies of it, yet it is clearly one of the most vital elements of the enterprise. What content standards and program- or mission-related goal(s) will this unit address? How about flicking the sweat tests and flipping the school year? While both NAPLAN and PISA are standardised tests, assessing the same subjects and students of the same age, they trend in opposite directions. Have you considered how to fully engage everyone and hold their interest throughout? There are many good reasons why schools should be starting later. (Leaders may wish to begin a staff meeting with these questions.) What important ideas do you want them to grasp? Winging it is sometimes fun, but it’s a bad way to run a family, a business, or a classroom. Presumably, our NAPLAN scores will go up. Then, ignore the template and consider the questions, I said. By having to think of the big ideas; by focusing on transfer as a goal; by worrying about whether goals and assessments align, the Template keeps key design questions front and center that tend to get lost in typical planning, where teachers too easily think about content to be covered instead of minds to be engaged. As such, the scope of your Curriculum Framework review may be relatively light-touch and focus on more explicit integration of the Curriculum Framework Graduate Attributes through constructive alignment. stream This phrase comes from Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children program that began in the 1970s, indeed the Australasian Journal of Philosophy for Children that began in 1993 was called Critical and Creative Thinking. How teachers plan – I think this is one of the more interesting ‘black boxes’ in education. This approach does not identify the inhibitors impeding the achievement of quality standards. Australia scored below the OECD average in all three categories that make up ‘students’ life satisfaction and meaning in life’. Never did Jay and I advocate using the UbD Unit Template as a lesson planner. What misconceptions are predictable and will need overcoming? We also have developed a Survey on Planning – let me know if you want to participate in the online version.). Rather, as with any tool, we hoped that people would use our template as a helpful aid, as a mental check. Yes, he said. This is a key question that needs addressing in light of the recent announcement for a review of the Australian Curriculum… Help us sharpen our knuckledusters. Are all three types of goals (acquisition, meaning, and transfer) addressed in the learning plan? That would have perhaps better made the point that, while there needs to be a protocol and checklist to ensure that easily-overlooked elements are considered, there are none the less different yet acceptable ways of accomplishing this. Also in the Australian Curriculum is the Personal and Social capability, which focuses on an understanding of self and others and the relationships between the two. Atul Gawande has written extensively on how the “pre-flight” checklist in medicine, modeled on the one used in every airplane cockpit, has saved lives. A curriculum is dynamic entity and hence, metaphorically, can be considered ‘alive’. Does the learning plan reflect principles of learning and best practices? We clearly struck a chord. How often is district curriculum referenced? Never did Jay and I intend people to fixate on filling in boxes. PISA assesses 15-year-old students from OECD countries around the world in reading, maths and science every three years. NAPLAN is described as testing the ‘types of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life’, while PISA is described as measuring students’ ‘ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges’. Intercultural Understanding is also there. Education Minister Adriana LaGrange provided an updated Thursday on the review of the curriculum launched last summer. It’s so, so, so – schoolish! The countries in front of us (but still below the OECD average) include Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Malta and the Slovak Republic. What specifically do you want students to understand? Other programmes may use the opportunity provided by the Curriculum Framework Review to embark on a more ambitious curriculum change programme. The book is in its 2nd edition, over a million copies have been sold and used in countries all over the world, and over 150 schools of education use the book to train teachers in unit writing. What thought-provoking questions will foster inquiry, meaning-making, and transfer? How often is the textbook the source of the plan? <> Support IA. How will you adjust, if needed (as suggested by feedback)? Your reasons for raising questions about curriculum as well as the specific questions you ask and what exactly you want from the process will determine how you proceed. 2 0 obj What discrete skills and processes should be able to use? The quality of a curriculum is typically assessed against certain quality standards only. We have changed it 4 different times over the past 14 years, and we have provided examples in which various features of the Template were highlighted or left out. Curriculum review, design and implementation When reviewing a curriculum, we start with your aims. Do you design units and then lessons or just a string of lessons? <>>> What facts and basic concepts should students know and be able to recall? LaGrange said she has now signed off on repealing […] Is this area of education important? This is the kind of thinking that allows students to apply skills, including literacy and numeracy skills, in varying and complex contexts.

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