Friday 24 October 2014

Teachers Don't Own Their Own Content!

Last night I attended a presentation on Creative Commons in Education presented by Creative Commons NZ  and hosted by the Christchurch Connected Educators’ Network. To learn more about the background and basics of Creative Commons read Rob Clarke’s post “Knowledge Creation, Sharing and Creative Commons in Education.”  It is an interesting subject and one all teachers and schools need to understand. Copyright and Creative Commons is a major part of digital citizenship, and our students need to know how to avoid ‘stealing’ the work of others as well as protecting and perhaps even more important sharing their own creative works. However the point that created the most discussion and interest was the fact that teachers don't own their own content!

Did you know that New Zealand teachers don’t own or have copyright to resources they create! It is a grey area but essentially it means anything educational you create while employed, even on weekends is not yours. This is a worry for those of us who create and sell educational resources. According to the Creative Commons in Schools website, “The 1994 Copyright Act grants first ownership to employers, which in the case of New Zealand schools is the Board of Trustees (BoT).” Although some of us find this shocking, it is not a conspiracy, but an old legal default of policy that has never been changed. This is another reason why you as educators need to be aware of copyright issues, take charge of the contracts you sign, and take action to change policies at your school.
We all want to have a fair playing field and luckily the government is on your side. The New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL), advocates the use of Creative Commons licensing and encourages Boards of Trustees to take NZGOAL into account in their copyright policies. The solution is to adopt clear and transparent policies to allow schools and teachers to share and reuse content. The benefits are: teachers will not need to ask permission to use resources, they and the school can legally keep and reuse resources, plus the teacher who created the work can receive credit when their work is reused. Of course this doesn’t cover educational resources or books teachers may be creating in their own time, but the answer is to be upfront and talk about these issues with your Boards of Trustees. Preferably get any conditions included into your contract.

To learn more about Creative Commons in Schools and how to pass a Creative Commons Policy change at your school visit Creative Commons in Schools for more detail, including a policy template developed by Albany Senior High School which you can use.

It is an interesting barrel of worms, and here are some other things for you to consider.
- Who owns the content of your personal teaching / reflective blog?
- Students work is all automatically copyright, should they also agree to a Creative Commons sharing policy?


By Shaun Wood, teacher and consultant at www.Mindcraft.co.nz
Twitter:             @mrwoodnz
Blog:               http://mindcraftlearning.blogspot.com

Wednesday 15 October 2014

A Literacy Comprehension Approach To Maths Problem Solving

From my own experience and that of many other teachers I have worked with, I have found students struggle with word-based mathematical problem solving and mathematical literacy. 
Sound familiar?

Many teachers have found their students struggle with word-based mathematical problem solving as Reilly, et al., (2009) showed in their study. However they also showed that using a Reciprocal Teaching approach to address mathematical literacy provided an increased evidence based understanding of word-based problem solving by the students. 


Reciprocal Maths (based on the Reciprocal Reading system) first described by Palincsar and Brown (1984) is an instructional strategy designed to improve comprehension of mathematical problem solving through the use of reading strategies, with the further aim of increasing student independence. 


This highly effective approached uses the stages of: connecting, predicting, clarifying, visualising, questioning, solving, summarising, and reflecting. Strongly linked to literacy, students support each other in co-operative groups but work individually and record their though processes, working out, and reflections.


Using role cards similar to those used in Reciprocal Reading, students work through problems together and record their work individually but share their results and strategies, allowing the group members to support and learn from each other. This process like Reciprocal Reading should be teacher led, and over time as students become proficient with the process they will be able to work in groups independent of the teacher. Students using this method do work through problems at a slower pace but you will find they have a deeper understanding of the problem and strategies they used and be able to discuss their working out process with more clarity.

Below is an example of how students would use Reciprocal Maths to solve a word-based problem.


Write the problem out here:
Jake baked 115 muffins, which was 17 more muffins than Jill. How
many muffins did Jill bake?
CONNECT
      What past maths problems does this remind you of?
This reminds me of a problem that was in last week’s test.
      How did you solve a similar problem last time?
I found all the numbers and minus them.
      What strategies did you use to work out a similar problem?
I used subtraction.
PREDICT
      What do you think this problem is asking you to do?
I think the problem is asking me to subtract Jill’s muffins from Jake’s muffins.
      What operations do you think will be needed?
Subtraction
      What different ways do you think could solve this problem?
Reversing the operation might also work or I draw a number line.
CLARIFY
      What is the problem asking us to do?
It is asking us to find out how many muffins Jill baked.
      Are there any words or ideas you are not sure of?
No.
      What information is AND isn’t needed to solve this problem?
IS:  Jake 115,  Jill 17 more, how many            ISN’T: all the other words
      What operations are AND aren’t needed?
ARE: subtraction     AREN’T: addition
VISUALISE
      What pictures can you make in your head about this problem?
I imagine Jake with 115 muffins in lines of 5 in front of him. Next to him I imagine Jill with the same. Then I imagine a wicked teacher destroying 17 of Jill’s muffins with a laser gun one at a time.

      Draw a picture, diagram, table or any other visual way to show this problem and its solution.
QUESTION
      What questions do you have about this problem?
None
      Are there any tricky parts to this problem?
The word ‘more’ makes it sound like you should add the numbers.
      What do we need to do first? Then what?
First we must take 115. Then we must split 17 into 15 + 2 because 15 is easier to take away from 115 than 17. Lastly we should minus the 2.
SOLVE
      Solve the problem and show all your workings out and thinking.
115 – 17 =
115 – (15 + 2) =
     115 – 15 = 100

     100 – 2 = 98
      Re-read the problem and judge how reasonable your solution is.
I think my solution is reasonable because if Jill has 98 muffins, it means that Jake has more muffins.
SUMMARISE
      What strategies did you use to solve this problem?
I use subtraction and place value partitioning.
      Give reasons to justify why you think your solution is correct?
If I add 17 to 98 I get 115 which means Jake has 17 more muffins than Jill.
REFLECT
      What worked well?
Underlining words that seemed important in the problem helped me choose the right operation. The visualising helped me figure out I needed to split the 17 into 15 and 2.
      How would you change your solving strategy next time?
I would use the same strategy but I would try another one as well to see if it also works.
      What could the group improve on next time?
We could encourage each other by saying what each person did well.
      How well did you contribute to the group work out of 10?
8 because I could have helped Mary when I finished early.


Saturday 11 October 2014

Retelling a story aids comprehension and develops an understanding of the structure of narratives. It is always better to ask students to retell a story orally before any writing. Speaking the words out loud allows most people to clarify their own understanding, whatever the subject. It gives us some mental space to sort and adjust our recall and understanding within a given framework. During retelling students are naturally using their reading strategies and writing scaffolds to visualise, question, summerise and order all the parts into a cohesive whole that brings a deeper understanding. From that point it makes the writing process much clearer for the student, as they already have a map in their head. I like to do oral storytelling with my students before they do any of their own writing; sometime before brainstorming, sometimes after, and sometimes both. 

This Five Finger Retell strategy is a simple way to scaffold your students thinking as they practice oral or written retelling. It's a free download here.

Thursday 9 October 2014

Language is the bridge that connects us. Without language we cannot communicate and get our true meaning across to other people. In today's international world where we connect in education, business and play across many countries, being understood has become even more important. Being understood brings us closer to peace, kindness and success in our lives. Often we are not even understood by people who speak our own language! This quote by Nelson Mandela, a man who brought peace with his words, inspires me as a language teacher to make a small difference in the world through helping others be better understood.
 
"Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savour their songs." Nelson Mandela.


English Elearning: online English learning for primary, intermediate, and secondary school age learners.



Photo by MsSaraKelly, modified with text.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mssarakelly/9424997560/

Thursday 2 October 2014

Modern Learning Practices in a Connected World #cenz14


Modern learning practices are not necessarily the learning practices we see in schools today. I believe this is due to lack of teacher self-development but also because school systems via school leaders, via Ministry of Education dictate teachers daily lives. What we should teach, how we should teach it, how long we should teach it for, then they measure and assess the teachers and students contsantly, not giving the trust and freedom to allow teachers and students to disrupt old learning practices.

However I hope things are changing; today I took part in a webinar which is part of the Connected Educator Month. It featured some well known guest speakers like Stephen Heppell, Derek Wenmoth, and Janelle Riki who discussed modern learning practices in education, and what they might look like for future-focused organisations.


Modern learning practices are about students 
leading their own learning, creating their own PLN's, creating their own communities, connecting with their own mentors, and making real differences in their own worlds. It is about self-determined learning, reciprocal learning, collaborative learning, and cultural learning. Modern learning practices should be disrupting traditional learning practices.

This webinar certainly has planted a seed, a challenge; how can we change the mind set of students, teachers, leaders, and community?

Watch The Recording
http://connectededucator.org.nz/calendar/archives/

Read The Shared Notes Document
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q835d7hfa_AtVBD5QTWcl9r_iew4ex1RmnJanUDnKG8/edit


Connected Educator Month website
http://connectededucator.org.nz