Unit planning is very important. It is something all teachers continue to do throughout their career as a teacher.
To me, unit plans are a great place for teachers to demonstrate their professionalism. To demonstrate their thinking, teachers should treat unit plans as dynamic accounts of their teaching, rather than static records of their intentions. Treating unit plans as dynamic accounts enables teachers to explain what they have done (for others or for the future), justify their plans and decisions, analyse the impact of their actions (for student learning), and evaluate their teaching.
I hope this post helps teachers to develop their unit plans as dynamic accounts and reflect on the purposes of planning and teaching.
Read MoreIn a report released on Monday 27 November, 2023, educational reform consultancy Learning First claims to have conducted the first detailed benchmarking of the content of the Australian science curriculum against seven high-performing and comparable systems around the world.
The claim that this is the first benchmarking activity is just one of many errors in the report, which is rife with unsubstantiated claims, incomplete evidence, and gross assumptions, the most disturbing of which is that more “content” is a key indicator of quality curriculum (with the implication that good teaching is all about transmission of content).
Learning First is a company that claims to “build relationships… based on honesty, integrity and deep experience and expertise” and whose clients “include federal governments in various parts of the world.” Given their activities and clients, this report is worth scrutiny.
Read MoreIn my work with teachers in curriculum and pedagogy over the years, I have noticed that several misconceptions about our Australian Curriculum: Science continue to be raised.
These misconceptions include:
The Science understanding strand is the only strand that should be planned for, taught, and assessed
Content elaborations must be taught and assessed
Each content description should be taught as a unit across a whole term
The curriculum is the only thing that should be taught
The goal of the curriculum is to prepare students for senior secondary science classes
Each of these statements is not correct! So what is? Let’s see what’s true.
Read MoreI’m a big fan of inquiry questions, and some in particular stand out as worth embedding in our teaching. One inquiry question (from the Year 3 year level description in the revised Australian Curriculum: Science) in particular — “Is jelly a liquid or a solid?” — stands out. It’s there to support learning of the Science understanding sub-strand Chemical sciences content description “investigate the observable properties of solids and liquids and how adding or removing heat energy leads to a change of state,” as well as several of the Science inquiry strand content descriptions. Read on to find out why this is such a useful question for driving learning in Year 3…
Read MoreA science degree is not necessary for the effective teaching of science to young people. The scientific ideas suggested by the Australian Curriculum: Science can be understood by any interested member of the general population. And every primary teacher is not just any member of the general population!
Read MoreHave fun, participate in discussions, share your ideas, and challenge (respectfully) the ideas of others. But most importantly, ask the critical questions of who is speaking (and ask about who is not), question speakers about what they’re claiming and the basis for those claims, look at how the narrative of the conference portrays and constructs education in Australia. Try to uncover who’s paying and what they’re paying for.
Read MoreFirst year teachers need opportunities to test their ideas, try different strategies and tools, develop and apply new approaches, and reflect on their practice to grow their expertise as teachers, so that they can grow into the competent, proficient, and expert teachers they can be.
Read MoreOne of the great strengths of a primary education is the opportunity to integrate content across subjects, and be flexible with when, where, and how to teach subjects, capabilities, and key ideas across the school week, term, and year.
Read MoreAs teachers, our decisions about these will also be informed by the students in our class, who they are, what they already know and understand, what their particular needs and interests are, but it would not be necessary or even helpful to know if they are a ‘visual learner,’ and it would be downright unhelpful to limit learners’ access to particular modes on this basis.
Read MoreIn this post, I worry that an emphasis on evidence-based practice would lead to prescribed practice, which would narrow teachers’ opportunities and options for making their own decisions about practice. I will discuss the role of a teacher, and the purpose of education. Next, I will discuss the role of cultural and instrumental research, and suggest that education research holds a unique role for informing education practice. I will take a closer look at what ‘evidence’ is, what forms of data are collected, and some of the limitations of evidence. Finally, I will look at the other sources of information teachers can use to make decisions, caution against taking evidence at face value, and plead for the time, space, and access to research that teachers require to make decisions.
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