Question 4 Bloom

Exam reflection

Below is an example of an activity I set up in my Year 9 Blog to encourage the students to develop higher order thinking skills. With Year 7 I had them read a passage from King Arthur and answer questions in each category. In groups they then read other books, devised questions in each category and posted these on their blogs. This certainly encouraged them to think in a variety of ways, although especially with English literature, I sometimes find it is still very hard for me to determine how to set a question in the application band. As a teacher I automaticaly ask the students demanding questions and keep probing as deeply as I can, but I don't often consciously think which particular level I am using.


In 1956, Bloom proposed a hierarchy of thinking skills. You may have used this taxonomy in Year 7 with your Independent Research Project on Historical Novels. Asking yourself questions at the higher levels helps you to develop your thinking skills. Some thinkers have revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to put Creating at the top. Exercise: Read the account of the Death of Socrates at the following website, and answer the questions. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/socrates.htm Knowledge: When did Socrates die? What else can you find out about Socrates? Comprehension: Why did Socrates die? Application: Analysis: What factors in the Athenian legal system and in Socrates’ own character led to his death? Synthesis: Compare the death of Socrates with the death of Jesus. What aspects of the moral teacher causes them to get into trouble with the authorities? Evaluation: Was Socrates right to choose death rather than exile when he had a wife and young children? Creative: Write a dialogue between Socrates and Jesus.
Look at the Monty Python Skit of the Soccer Match between the German and the Greek Philosophers. Did it give you any ideas that you might like to know more about?

Question 4 Gardner

In 1983, Howard Gardner proposed that people display intelligence in a number of areas, rather than in the rather narrow verbal/mathematical/logical area that dominated IQ testing. His theories have had a huge impact on education. The four areas of the Examined Life Blog suggest activities in a number of areas. Try some of these and reflect on your preferred learning style (this may include a variety of intelligences.’

Exam reflection
I have used Gardner's multiple intelligences a lot in constructing my Blogs - I have used (especially in my Year 9 Blog) reflective intrapersonal activities as well as (in my Year 7 blog) interpersonal activities, pictures for visual learners, music, games for mathematical and scientific and environmental learners. The whole process of the Year 9 Blog was collaborative as the girls helped me to set up the categories in a class brainstorm

Question 4 Hattie

In the rush of the school term, it is often difficult for teachers to find time to reflect, but John Hattie provides a useful checklist for teachers seeking to monitor and develop their own performance. According to Hattie, outstanding or expert teachers:
Relate lesson content to other school subjects, underlying principles and students' interests
Are passionate about teaching and learning
Respect students as learners and as people
Encourage risk
Set challenging goals
Seek feedback and analyze the effectiveness of their own teaching
Monitor and provide feedback on student progress
Are more likely to develop closeness to students
Have a deep understanding of how learning occurs (Masters).
He also says that expert teachers can
Respond to the needs of students
Take a flexible problem-solving approach
Anticipate, plan and improvise as required
Make decisions based on student questions and responses
Monitor student problems, understanding and progress (Hattie).
Personal reflection: I encourage and enjoy risk-taking, set challenging tasks, willingly admit to mistakes or ignorance. I readily improvise in response to student need: these are some of the most satisfying lessons. I am not a highly-structured teacher, but as some students find this difficult, I also provide some structured activities. However, I need to work much harder on monitoring individual student progress - I do this well in response to written work, but find it hard in the hurly burly of class-room activities. Many of my colleagues are much better at this. However, I do achieve closeness with a significant number of students, and I am so passionate about what I do that the students laugh at me.

Exam Reflection

I think I demonstrate Hattie's thinking in the same way I demonstrate Bruner's - by putting elements of myself into my Blog - particularly the work I am doing t\for Michael Elphick - but also, in the exam, in my conclusion to the question 3 and the use of personal anecdote, images and references to literature - all of which relate to my true and personal concept of myself and being myself in of\rder to engage authenticaly with my students.

Question 4 Bruner

I always loved the story of how Alfred the Great's mother promised her illuminated manuscript to the son who learned to read it. Alfred's older brothers had their minds on other things, but Alfred applied himself to learning to read and won the book. (http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=tappan&book=alfred&story=manor I remembered this story when I read about Jerome Bruner's book The Process of Education (1960) and his concept of Readiness for Learning: 'any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development'.(cited, Smith, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm). One of my happiest memories is showing two year-nine English students that French spelling had not always been standard (as their French teacher thought), by reading them Le Chanson de Roland and the even more idiosyncratic spelling of Piers Plowman: although the language of both texts was beyond them, they eagerly followed my translation - a moment when I felt I had blown on the flames of their intellectual fire. In Acts of Meaning (1990), Bruner also insists on the importance of 'mental states like believing, desiring, intending' in the development of understanding.http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/assign2/BP/Bruner.html
and emphasizes narrative rather than paradigmatic reasoning, as described by Murray: 'the paradigmatic... [describes] a world of fact, whereas the narrative... constructs a point of view which is capable of hope and fear.'http://home.mira.net/~kmurray/psych/in&out.html
Bruner's humane approach sees the importance of engaging the emotions - crucial when teaching challenging texts like King Lear. Students may be as unwilling to read it as Moses was to hear God's word from the burning bush, but if they take off their shoes and listen, they may find themselves inspired and empowered.

Exam reflection on Bruner:

I have tried to incorporate the elements of believing, desiring and intending in my blogs mainly by the use of poems (my Year 9 Blog) that really engage the emotions and may foster creativity and play with language in the students own writings. I have also used paintings - I have a fairly wide knowledge of art and I find it is very helpful in engaging interest and emotion. I have noticed that my students enjoy this aspect of my teaching, and I have incorporated pictures very freely into my blogs - but not just any pictures - pictures of cultural and historical and artistic significance.

Question 3

In the light of what I have experienced in this course I think that online learning has educational values and also problems. Of course ICT is here to stay in the modern world, and even if teachers dislike it they have an obligation to teach their students how to use it properly and wisely. It will be part of their work and leisure.

The values are that the students do enjoy it at times. That it is immediate, can be used to foster collaboration as in my Year 7 and Year 9 blogs where the students can have discussions with each other whenever is convenient. The technology support teacher at school has set up my year 9 blog so that it looks extremely beautiful and is easy for me and the students to use - it will email me when there is a posting and it will be easy for me to email the students. I have been able to post games, music, pictures, film and also set up discussion exercises. Some of these seem to be attracting the students' attention

I have yet to see whether this is really helpful to deeper learning on the part of the students. In my experience, with the sort of skills and insight that English aims to teach, the class discussion, group work with butchers' paper and the use of film in the class room are the technologies where I have the most satisfying and deep lessons. However, I have enjoyed the technology and it makes it easy to present things beautifully.

My main concerns are the amount of time it takes and how difficult it is to get something right initially. Just to take one example - arriving late today (of course this was my fault trying to do one more thing on a busy day) i had to try four computers before one worked (this is very often the case when we use laptops in the class room) - so there are inevitable frustrations. Then I thought I had practised redoing all the necessary parts of a Blog over the weekend, but had not run through uploading Inspiration, so although I could do the Inspiration mind map I couldn't unload it.

Moreover I find that when using technology it has a seductive quality. I can spend hours making it look pretty and finding the perfect picture (almost always art) on Google Images - but then I may not have sufficient time to develop the content. It is also extremely easy to cut and past - so one may just fall into the temptation of grabbing something that looks suitable and pasting it in without really considering if it is the best. I am afrai, working at the pace I do, I often grab a poem from the internet without checking whether the text matches a good edition of the poem. We live at such a pace it is hard to do everything well and I think the pressure of technology only increases the pace.

And then of course there is the damage to the body. I know that Iwill be a complete physical wreck tomorrow - back, eyes, hips, hands, shoulders all aching from overuse of the computer pounding away solidly for two hours. Studies show that there are physical changes in peoples hands and eyes as a result of using mobile phones and computer screens. Obesity is another issue.

A worse one in schools, and one particularly facilitated by ICT is plagiarism - barely an issue when I was an undergraduate - something I had not even really heard of - but now something that happens all the time - and sometimes you just have to Google a key word to find the source. But sometimes students get away with it. It is so easy.

Yesterday a dear friend and I who are working on a book together started to get a roll with our writing. We went to the cafe intending to get a takeaway coffee and return to work. But instead (partly because of my hatred of disposable cups) we went in and sat in a booth talking and writing with a pen on paper for at least an hour. And about half way though I wrote on the paper that we would not have achieved so much if we had taken the coffee home and started using the computers - the worst danger for me with computers is that they encourage non-sequential thinking - a sort of cherry picking where you browse and pluck bits and pieces from here and there. Computers and ICT are useful tools, adding immediacy and variety to learning, but I am far from convinced that they really encourage deeper thinking than the old technologies.

Question 2

I think that this statement is a little hard to interpret taken out of context. 'Relevant' to what and 'engagement' with what? Personally, I think that today's students, especially the more mature and thoughtful ones very readily engage with material in print form, with paper, with simple discussion, with dreaming, and do not always act as the digital natives that Prensky describes.

Had trouble posting my inspiration file had to ask Kathryn for help

Question 1 redone

Content and thinking skills are the most important components of any learning tool, but they are components that are common to all forms of educational communication and not specific to blogs. The most important feature of a blog to me is its potential for interaction, collaboration and immediacy. These are not particularly easy to demonstrate in an exam setting, although I am trying them with some success in a school setting. I think that the appearance of a blog is generally more engaging and fun for Middle School students than pen and paper.

When deciding what to put into a blog in order to encourage student engagement, I think that the three most important components of a blog as opposed to other forms of communication are,links (especially games), film clips and images.

Games are important with a young audience as a suitable educational game is motivating for young students and may encourage exploration. Students are very familiar with games and easily engage with such material.

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/kids/space/index.htm

Another very good tool is to import film clips as todays students are visual learners and readily engage with film. I found this very beautiful one accidentally on youtube and the students them selves may happen on such gems through blogging.

But the thing that I always think is most important on any visual medium is an image because images are important in English study where students have to read visual language as well as verbal language, because very high quality images are available on the web, and these expand the students' view of culture and history.