Curriculum and assessment
The latest clues come from a walk in the park and an owl at pre-school. Here are new insights which will help us adjust the learning we ask of children and the way we assess what has been learnt.
Two articles, the first on school-based enterprises in Australia and changes research suggests (New Zealand information too): the second a report from Britain called 'Impoverished by the Need to Make Money.'
Mainstreaming brings new demands and requires new criteria for creating (and judging) quality education. Research reveals good practice.
Australian and New Zealand research on poetry teaching is very scarce. Robin McConnell extends it by asking poets as well as teachers for their comments, and winds up with many clear bits of advice.
Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS) is a 'personal safety' curriculum. Australian Freda Briggs, examined Australian, North American, and then a New Zealand programme for children aged five years to fifteen.
How you assess partly depends on your notion of what writing is for. But the accuracy of the assessment depends on clearly distinguishing different characteristics, from planning to sensitivity.
New subjects and courses to interest and benefit senior secondary students who do not plan to go on to higher education have been introduced. This research studied two different courses which provide diversity, involvement and success.
Contrasting the way chimps and young children learn gives an insight into a stage, most noticeable about the time children start school, when earlier ‘success’ is followed by ‘failure’ at the same tasks. When success comes again, it is a huge jump ahead of the best a chimpanzee can manage. Junior school maths, physics and language examples are explained.
Teaching children who are not of our own culture or socioeconomic background can be difficult and frustrating. Two researchers working in classrooms have come up with new ways at looking at the differences. There is a section on what to do now.
Video-taping and interviews revealed a big gap between what is said to be taught and what is actually taught. The children are aware of the ‘hidden curriculum’, and that is no bad thing.
