Term Four 2019
“The best teachers don’t give you the answers... They just point the way ... and let you make your own choices.”
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Your Soapbox
4 Beyond superficial practices Dr Jennifer Charteris & Dianne Smardon 5 Classroom Word Work Ideas for Busy Teachers Elaine Le Sueur (MNZM) 8 Teaching Etiquette John Hellner 10 Transformational Professional Learning Book Review 13 Inclusive education in ILEs: What do we need to think about? Angela Page & Jennifer Charteris 14 Shields Adelaide Museum 17 The Power of Sports to Disrupt Disability C M Rubin 18 Mad about machines at MOTAT MOTAT 22 Gender play in hunter-gatherer children University of Cambridge 28 Young Principal is Changing Culture, Attitudes in Magnet School Clare Bratten 30 Students prepare for their graduation NZ School of Dance 32 Embrace the Struggle Carrie Spector 34 Stop Talking, Start Influencing Book Review 36 One dinosaur, free to a good home University of Oxford 37 From Bhutan – A Holistic Approach C M Rubin 38 The Kiwi Book Review 43 ‘Invisible Jumpers’ Nefas, Ford & Laurinavicičiu 44 Peabody after-school program for local students Mike Cummings 50 Social media influencing young boys’ body attitudes Professor Murray Drummond 52 Book Reviews 54 Poetry, Science and Modern Dance C M Rubin 56 Recovering a stitch at a time Susan Gonzalez 60 Vice Chancellor’s address to the University... 2019 University of Cambridge 68 Interactive Installation Celebrates the Universality of Numbers Laura Staugaitis 76 Stanford Research looks at effective partnering Carrie Spector 82 The Gobbledegook Book Book Review 84 Mesmerizing Water Droplet Photos By A Macro Photographer Nefas & Laurinavičiu 86 In Favour of the Weird and Wonderful Roger’s Rant 92 Front Cover: Back Cover:
‘Thomas’s contemplation’ Adelaide Zoo... Meditating meercat
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Beyond superficial practices: Student agency and assessment capability in innovative learning environments The shift to develop innovative learning environments (ILE) in Aotearoa schools, coupled with notions of the active 21st century learner, have resulted in student agency emerging as a critical aspect of schooling.
Dr. Jennifer Charteris University of New England Dianne Smardon Independent Contractor
This move “is helping to change the face of education, teaching, and learning in New Zealand schools” (Abbiss, 2015, p. 3). What sort of practices are involved if we want to avoid a superficial interpretation of student agency in ILE? Let’s look in particular at formative focused assessment practices that enable student agency. What is agency Student agency is produced through a range of social, spatial and material features in ILE. These features include enactments of curriculum, the arrangements of physical spaces, and the provision of resources (e.g. technologies, flexible furniture). Agency is inherent in assessment when learners take action, collaboratively and individually to enhance their own and others’ learning. Agency can be defined broadly as the ‘socio-materially mediated capacity to act’. It is an inherent element in classroom assessment practices where learners draw on one another’s strengths and share a focus and responsibility for learning. Agency and assessment capability Agency and the capacity to be assessment capable is a key dimension of pedagogy in ILE. According to Absolum (2006), “[a] “capability has an internal structure that includes knowledge, cognitive skills, practical skills, attitudes,
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 5
emotions, values, ethics and motivation” (p. 22). Teacher assessment capability is where teachers have the knowledge and skills to work with assessment data to evaluate student learning and adapt and change teaching practice. It not only includes curricula and pedagogical capability but also the intention to develop student assessment capability.
Table 1. Three interconnected agencies associated with student assessment capability in ILE. Type of Agency
Dialogic Agency
Student assessment capability While there is a lot of literature on self-assessment, there is less
research in the area of student assessment capability that prioritises the notion of learner agency. Assessment actions that strengthen learner agency include: • student learning conversations; • student use of achievement data to enhance their own learning; • opportunities to actively monitor and regulate one’s own learning (self-regulating); • co-regulating through interacting with capable others; and • learning through the provision of time (and space) to think both collectively and individually.
Curriculum Agency
Three interconnected kinds of agencies in ILE Students can influence the taught and learned curriculum in the flexibility of ILE spaces and use space to support their own learning and the learning of others. In Table 1 below we detail three specific aspects of agency that are developed through assessment practices in ILE. Although these aspects are interconnected they are teased apart here to make them explicit (See Table 1). 6 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
Spatial Agency
Definition
Through dialogue, students provide information for themselves and their teachers on where they are at in a learning progression. They clarify their own next learning steps through thinking collectively with peers. Dialogic agency involves opportunities for action, where students and teachers collectively respond to each other’s' voices. Students can understand their learning processes, and participate in reporting processes where they articulate what they have learned. Agency is produced through in class dialogue, as students provide dialogic feedback through co-regulated learning opportunities. Curriculum agency is where students have an input into curriculum so that it serves their interests, their preferences, and it encompasses their voices. Although there is overlap with dialogic agency, with students talking about their learning and using curriculum artefacts (e.g. exemplars), curriculum agency specifically addresses how students are able to determine curriculum directions and enactments, in order to make meaningful contributions to the planned and taught curriculum to effect learning. Curriculum agency can look different in different schools with different conceptions of it amongst school leaders. In some Aotearoa schools students are having input into timetabling, engage in collaborations and undertake personalised programmes. They have input into what, how and where they learn. Historically, students have exercised little agency over the school curriculum. With requirements for teachers to prepare for high stakes testing and ensure curriculum coverage, it may be difficult to conceptualise how students can enact curriculum agency. Spatial agency involves both deliberate manipulations of space with consideration given to the influence of spatial design on relationships. There is flexible re-design of learning spaces, alongside ongoing evaluation and reconsideration of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. There can be scope for creativity and student decision making around the use of materials, space, and types of social relationships. These decisions may pertain to where and how they take opportunities to move, who they work with and the different group sizes they work in. Back to index
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Assessment practices that enable dialogic, curriculum, and spatial agencies
in ILE and the implications of freedom and trust levels for different groups of students
Dialogic, curriculum, and spatial agencies are dynamic aspects of assessment practice that have been present in schools for decades in varying degrees. Agency is apparent when students work in partnership with teachers to determine the types of pedagogical activity they engage in.
A last word
Innovative learning environments are not a magic bullet for 21st century learning and the emphasis on student agency and combining groups of students and teachers in open spaces, requires advanced skills in collaboration and classroom management that need to be carefully supported through targeted teacher professional learning and development. The implementation of assessment practices that enable dialogic, curriculum, and spatial agencies may require significant changes in teaching practice, with implications for school leadership and professional learning. The emphasis on student agency involves a shift in the relational dynamics between teachers and teachers and teachers and students. Through the use of flexible furniture, digital technologies, bespoke teacher professional learning (Charteris & Smardon, 2018) and purposeful pedagogy, various forms of agency may be scaffolded, supported and valued and students can build assessment capability. Some considerations There may be differences in scope for curriculum agency across the primary and secondary schooling sectors. Research is warranted into whether there are different ways that students in these different sectors are able to enact curriculum agency. High stakes external assessment for credentialing may impact on what is possible with senior students. The negotiated capacity to move beyond the immediate range of the teacher can be afforded through both clarity in assessment for learning practice and affordances of technologies. However, there may be issues with students who do not fit this model who, for a range of reasons, may not be permitted free-range of the space (e.g. a trust license). Consideration should be given to the way that students (gender, race, social class) are monitored, tracked and profiled
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It is important for students to develop the skills to understand where they are in a progression of learning, where to go next, and what their ensuing steps are to close the gap between where they are and where they want to go. Through co-regulation, students can clarify their next steps to close the gap between where they are and their learning targets. These assessment considerations are brought to the fore with moves to redesign or repurpose-build schools to align with visions of 21st century learning. We hope that the aspects of agency detailed here offers a pathways for you to consider how you can support forms of agency in schools, to help your learners think about how they can use space to advantage and extend their control over what and how they learn. Acknowledgement: This article is based on a larger article: Charteris, J., & Smardon, D. (2019). Dimensions of agency in new generation learning spaces: Developing assessment capability. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 44(7). https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ ajte/vol44/iss7/1/ If you would like to contact Jennifer Charteris and request a copy please do so through Researchgate. We would be happy to provide you with one. https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/336064111_Dimensions_of_Agency_ in_New_Generation_Learning_Spaces_Developing_ Assessment_Capability
References Abbiss, J. (2015). Future-oriented learning, innovative learning environments and curriculum: What’s the buzz? Curriculum Matters 11, 1-9. Retrieved from www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/ CM201511001.pdf Absolum, M. (2006). Clarity in the classroom: Using formative assessment, building learningfocused relationships. Auckland: Hachette Livre. Charteris, J., & Smardon, D. (2018). Professional learning on steroids”: implications for teacher learning through spatialised practice in new generation learning environments. Australian Journal of Teacher Education 43(12). Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol43/iss12/2 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 7
Classroom Word Work Ideas for Bu
Differentiation has become somewhat of a buzz word in education but all students should be exposed to challenge in order to move from where they are to a higher level of understanding. The following activities are useful to increase vocabulary knowledge.
A
An unusual word is chosen (either by the teacher or the student) from the dictionary or a library book. Choose according to ability level and interest. Use the student’s display pages as a wall display or to create a personal reference dictionary. Challenge the students to create a One Page Display of the word including : • Another word for the chosen word (synonym) • Meaning of the word • Opposite of the word (antonym) • Use in a sentence • Rhymes with… Extra challenge ideas : • Challenge students to keep a tally of the number of times the class has been able to use the word correctly in conversation over the day. • Translate from English to other languages of students in the class and create a classroom dictionary. Interesting links to explore : https://www.learning-mind.com/ interesting-words https://www.visuwords.com https://wordhippo.com https://translate.google.co.nz
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usy Teachers Elaine Le Sueur (MNZM)
B
Using the code A=1, B=2, C=3… Z=26 challenge the students to find the highest scoring word they can find. Record the highest scoring word and leave in view with a sign saying… Can anyone beat it? I start this off with a word that I have chosen and that can be easily beaten so that all the students can see the possibilities for themselves. For a no preparation start use word (23 + 15+ 18 + 4 = 60) Extra Challenge ideas : Vary the code so that all vowels are worth 5, and all consonants are worth 1. (Or whatever code you choose to use) and the challenge your students to find words that add up to a specific number. This activity could be used to support a vocabulary or math lesson.
C
Play CLUE Words : Leader chooses a word and provides the following information… Number of letters in the word
Synonyms or antonyms for the word Players take turns to guess the word from the clues provided. Solver becomes the new leader. If a solution is not found then the leader identifies the word and chooses another. Example of a student created game sheet. (We used sticky notes to cover the answers).
www.onlinecalculator.com You can download a free mystery challenge using the A=1 etc code from my TPT store: . https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/ Hit-the-Target-2787557 While you are there, check out other word work resources.
These days I sell original resources online through https://teacherspayteachers.com/Store/ Thinking-Challenges I would love you to visit and follow my store to be updated as new resources are added.
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 9
Teaching Etiquette
“Good manners will open door Etiquette means the rules indicating the proper and polite way to behave, as expected in a society or culture at a given time. That code is devised in order to enable us to consider the feelings of other people, to show respect and make everyone feel comfortable. Manners and etiquette make us the kind of person that others can respect and like. These rules are the mortar binding us into a civil community. As such, we should teach etiquette to our young, giving them the opportunity to either use the rules or to discard the rules, as the situation demands. If we fail to transmit our codes of conduct to the young, we eliminate that choice.
Advantages of teaching etiquette Etiquette and good manners can make someone a pleasant person to be around; leave a good impression; allow us to feel at ease and able to adapt to a range of social settings, being acceptable anywhere; imply stable values and perhaps good upbringing and social training; help build relationships and lay a foundation for successful interactions with others; send a message of caring about others feeling; reflect your respect for others. More importantly, etiquette can help a person to develop those often talked about and poorly inculcated non-cognitive skills. Being able to know and use good etiquette and polite manners empowers young people to enjoy the by-product values hailed by every school counsellor and every school charter: respect, self-esteem, resilience, confidence, respect for others and self-respect. Achieving something worthwhile develops non-cognitive skills.
Schools can support, not replace, parents in their task of teaching etiquette. The payoff: If you feel confident with your etiquette, you can feel comfortable in almost all social occasions from mixing with peers, to attending events, to meeting new people, to dining away from home.
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John Hellner
rs the best education cannot.”
Clarence Thomas
What etiquette to teach? It depends on where, when, who and why, as always. Maybe teach small, day to day etiquette, such as table setting and dining skills, chew with your mouth closed, elbows off the table, assembly and formal occasions, phones, texting, social media, napkin etiquette, appropriate dress for different occasions, walking and reaching across people, “please” and “thank you”, interrupting and gaining attention, being late, RSVPs, greeting and hand shaking, wearing hats – dos and don’ts. Maybe some standard etiquette for school and classroom (lies, rudness, cheek, interfering with others, talking, stealing, cooperating, friendly greeting); for home (doing chores, cleaning up after yourself, sharing); for personal body manners (grooming, walking, hygiene, sitting with grace, bodily functions) for when in public with friends (respecting others, politeness, bad language, seats on transport, queuing, litter, making fun of others).
The possibilities are exhaustive. The book of what many children (and adults) know often seems a very slim one. And probably one of the most fundamental basics for all rules of etiquette – respect for others – must be embodied in our recognition of the different codes of conduct for the many diverse cultures in our classrooms. Sharing how members of different societies interact with each other on an individual and personal level, is a valid curriculum objective in any social studies lesson in any country. When to teach etiquette? Teaching etiquette happens on two levels. Firstly, in a passive fashion, both on an individual teacher level and on an institutional level as well. We set examples in what we say and do in all of our interpersonal interactions – teacher to teacher and teacher to student. The expectations we set and how we enforce and re-enforce those expectations clearly send a message about manners to those who watch us. The format of assembly, the speakers, the announcements, the awards given, the charts and posters around the school, likewise set the tone for what is good manners and how much value we place on those manners. Most schools do this already to one degree or another. Secondly, a more positive and proactive strategy for teaching etiquette would be to incorporate it in the classroom and school-based curriculum. Not as a formal subject, but rather as a complementary insert to the existing curriculum.
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 11
Observe a couple of simple generalities about teaching etiquette, which also happens to apply to a great deal of learning. Firstly, introduce the material in small, easy to master, skill-based chunks. The chunks should lend themselves to “hands on” experiential and authentic learning: practical role play, simulation and outside the classroom settings. Secondly, above all, keep it light hearted and make it fun, or the material can lean towards “preaching”.
Some schools offer etiquette as club or cocurricular activity. Teachers might use homeroom or form class as a forum for small chunks of time for manners instruction. Preparation for a big school event or occasion might provide a great opportunity to learn etiquette, culminating in the most experiential learning of all – attending the event. Teach etiquette as any skill As with teaching any new skill the following steps can prove useful in achieving the outcomes. Explain the value of the skill and WIIFM (“What’s In It For Me?”). We all want to know why we should do something. Show or demonstrate the skill. Let the students copy and practise the new material in different ways or applying it in new situations. Let them hear it, draw it, see it, do it, teach it to someone else. Move students towards ever increasing freedom to practise the skill independently. Finish teaching sessions with a relevant summary story or experience, both funny and personal when appropriate. Learning strategies In the classroom, use activities to practise and apply the new skills. Activities can include projects or activities with etiquette as the topic: essay on origins, value, comparisons of etiquette; make an etiquette website or post a YouYube video with etiquette as the topic in a computer course; business etiquette in business; interview and workplace manners in careers classes; research and presentation about manners in history or social studies classroom. Role play and simulation must be a big part of learning etiquette, no matter the forum. But making flash cards, having a morning tea party or formal lunch with students, writing a column for the school newsletter or newspaper, playing charades, completing visual worksheets, observing manners in movies, around the school, doing a survey and putting the data into graphs, diagrams, and charts, can all be interesting and fun strategies for applying the new etiquette skills. Good for all ages and places.
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Boo k Review others and address the never ending search for effective ongoing learning, both individual, team, school, country and internationally. She covers the various aspects currently available and looks to suggestions for the future offering insights based on her personal experiences. To quote from Andy Hargreaves introduction:
Transformational Professional Learning Deborah M. Netolicky Forward by Andy Hargreaves Published by Routledge ISBN 97803673417749 ‘We need to work towards a shared and deep understanding of terms, not merely pay lip service to the latest craze or popular approach. We need to asked questions of system leaders, school leavers and those touting professional learning products and services. This book is an attempt to tease out and explain in some detail approaches to professional learning that can make a difference in schools.’
‘This book is something else though. As a synthesis of the field of professional learning and a critical exploration of its less fashionable and more unusual aspects - like self directed learning, or attending courses - I can recall scarcely any better ones in the academic community itself. Unlike many researchers who collate all the evidence before them and draw circumspect conclusions out what it all means, Deborah Netolicky goes further and, in her own voice, as both academic and practitioner, she expresses it all from a constructively critical and also professionally candid perspective.’ This book is not just aimed at school leaders, it is a ‘must read’ for any educators who are serious about ensuring that professional learning needs are met.
With its forward by Andy Hargreaves setting the scene for the intelligent research and commentary to follow this book by a self titled ‘Pracademic’ (easily understood) is an encompassing look into the world of professional learning both as it is readily and lightly understood… while stretching out to what could and possibly should be understood into the future. With her long background in education both as a teacher and school leader, Deborah Netolicky has called on her experiences and challenges to research, engage and challenge thinking with
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 13
Inclusive education in ILEs: What do we n
Much has been said about mainstream students in innovative learning environments (ILE). Much less has been said about how inclusive education can be addressed in ILE (Page & Davis, 2016) and in particular the issues associated with incorporating satellite buildings within new ILE builds. For us ‘inclusion in education’ refers to how students learn together within the same educational environment, regardless of their ability. The investment in ILE with the requirement for all schools to address principles of flexible design has implications for inclusive education in Aotearoa (New Zealand). We touch on the complexities of teaching students with high and very high educational needs and the need to consider these when planning for ILE design, and professional learning and development for those who work with these students in ILE settings.
Background In 2010, the Ministry of Education (MOE) developed a policy to promote the presence of students in every mainstream school, where “an education that fits” informs current MOE views of inclusive education where all learners are welcome (Moran, 2014). Students enrolled in special schools are referred as students with high or very high needs, consistent with the criteria used in Aotearoa to access the resourcing scheme (Ministry of Education, 2019a). While the MOE allows provision for special schools to continue to exist, there are also satellite units being built as specialist classes within mainstream or host settings. These provide primary social inclusion while students remain on a special school role. The recent educational policy on the redesign of educational space (Ministry of Education, 2019b) brings together inclusive principles to incorporate the view that “sensitivity to individual differences and learner variability must be a driver for decisions relating to pedagogy, practice, and design of flexible spaces” (Te Kete Ipurangi, n.d., para. 1). It is timely to look closely at how inclusive practice in ILE is seen by Aotearoa practitioners. Inclusion in ILE The notion of inclusion in ILE is complex. Structural and social aspects that support inclusion include: • rich technological resources, • co-teaching practices involving multiple teachers who collaborate in responsive practice, • the flexible use of support staff, • and a physical layout that can support easy movement for students with physical disabilities (Page & Davis, 2016).
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need to think about? Angela Page
School of Education, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia;
Jennifer Charteris School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Inclusive Education in Aotearoa
requirements of students with very high needs.
Aotearoa is still grappling with what it is to be inclusive. The MOE allows for a broad interpretation of inclusive practice which can be used to argue for separate special education provision for example, satellite units that are by virtue of their location exclusionary by design. The MOE links new building designs with ILE and inclusivity with a view to remove the distinction between special and mainstream schools and to provide an education for all students despite their level of disability, at their local school. The difficulty with this initiative is that MOE plans for new buildings are premised on designing ILE for ‘all students’, thus there is ambiguity in how the ILE model fits with current special school practices.
Different perceptions
In our research 15 teachers and 3 school leaders, from a total of 6 schools with ILE were asked about their experiences of inclusive education. Our results indicate that there is a belief that the MOE view of inclusion in ILE is utopian. There were also differences in perceptions between staff in satellite units and those in the mainstream where staff reported that ILE spaces improved their students’ engagement and learning. Although some teachers in satellite units reported reservations, other satellite unit teachers stated that they could see teaching and learning opportunities for themselves and their students. A utopian view of inclusion The teaching staff interviewed in the satellite units perceived that the MOE were idealistic in their utopian view of inclusion for all. Satellite staff participants, who supported the special school as a stand-alone institution, articulated a mismatch between MOE ILE policy and the reality of teaching students with very high needs. These staff described a necessity to match the features of an environment with the sensory
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Satellite and mainstream staff had different perceptions. Satellite unit teaching staff were concerned that common ILE design characteristics were not favourable for teaching students with very high needs. Concerns were raised around sound, colour, light movement, ownership of spaces, and distractibility. There were student safety concerns. “We need walls” was a common trope. The mainstream staff interviewed also recognised the value of environmental considerations, such as break out spaces, although they considered that their students’ needs were adequately met in ILEs. Improved education opportunities for students with disabilities in ILE The staff who taught students with disabilities in mainstream contexts reported that ILE spaces improved their students’ learning. Levels of challenging behaviour also reduced, which further enhanced their students’ ability to engage productively in their learning. This positive behaviour change was suggested to be the result of student-directed learning which was individualised to meet the student’s learning abilities. Students’ ability to make decisions for themselves was also considered relevant in reducing unproductive behaviours. The flexibility associated with ILE pedagogy meant that students with disabilities could find spaces to meet their sensory needs independently or with assistance. Does ILE pedagogy and design support students with very high needs? A range of spaces can be designed to support inclusion in ILE, for instance, safe places for students on the autism spectrum, breakout spaces for teachers and students, quiet spaces for students, and noise management though
Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 15
teacher collaboration and the deliberate use of noise reducing materials. However, ILE designs can exclude students with higher needs. Our research suggests that more could be done to design spaces that can better accommodate these students. Bright colour and lots of light, movement, and sound may not support the individual needs of students with very high needs. In our experience we have seen that students with sight impairments who need a consistent layout may not benefit from a changing environment and flexible furniture.
effectively teach of students with high and very high needs. It is important to maximises the affordances of the spaces available.
What do we need to think about in regard to inclusion in ILE?
References
There are different practices of inclusion within Aotearoa ILE, and staff working in special schools and satellite units report that there are mismatches in the material provision of a suitable learning environment for students with very high needs. There are different perceptions between staff working in the different locations. Students with very high learning needs in satellite units were considered by their teachers to have very different issues to students with disabilities in the mainstream. Single-cell designs were seen to better meet the sensory, safety and dignity requirements of students with complex disabilities. Teachers who taught students with disabilities in the mainstream, reported that ILE spaces were beneficial for learning and behaviour with spaces providing for their students’ different environmental requirements. Our research suggests that there can be improved education opportunities for students with disabilities in ILEs. Attention should be given to the needs of students over the philosophical principles of flexibility and openness in ILE. The educational environment should be a bespoke design and developed for the students rather than requiring teachers and students to accommodate to the ILE conditions. Consideration should be given to the complexity of creating appropriate educational spaces for supporting students with very high needs. Professional learning and development for inclusive educators, could be provided to look at how pedagogies developed in inclusive education settings in ILE can be used to 16 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
Although we acknowledge the complexity of the issue associate with inclusivity in ILE, we view that there can be increased seamlessness with movement of children and staff across schooling spaces. On the basis of our findings to date, we suggest that there may be benefit in teachers to embracing the ethos of the pedagogical shifts which are associated with inclusive education in ILE. Ministry of Education (2019a). Ongoing resourcing scheme. Retrieved from https:// www.education.govt.nz/school/studentsupport/special-education/ors/ Ministry of Education. (2019b). Designing learning environments. Retrieved from https://www.education.govt.nz/school/ property-and-transport/projects-anddesign/design/designing-learningenvironments/ Moran, P. (2014). No learner left behind: Is New Zealand meeting its obligations under Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? Public Interest Law Journal of New Zealand, Retrieved from: http://www.nzlii.org/nz/journals/ NZPubIntLawJl/2014/1.html Page, A., & Davis, A. (2016). The alignment of innovative learning environments and inclusive education: How effective is the new learning environment in meeting the needs of special education learners? New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, 13(2), 81-98. Te Kete Ipurangi, (n.d.). Guide to ILEs. Retrieved from https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/ planning-innovative-learning-environments-iles/
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Shields Aboriginal shields were defensive weapons, shielding their owners against attack from clubs, boomerangs or spears. Shields gave vital and momentary protection, enabling defenders to become attackers.
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But shields were used for more than defence, in many parts of Australia shields also proclaimed an owners identity. they were carves or painted with totemic designs which varied from region to region, but carried the same essential message - the symbolic link to totemic ancestors in the Dreaming
Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 17
The Power of Sports to Disrupt Disa
“I hope Special Olympics will inspire others with developmental disabilities to have confidence in themselves. Often, these people feel marginalized and unworthy and there is no longer a need for us to hide in the shadows.” – Billy Seide
Raising awareness about the potential of people with intellectual disabilities has been a primary focus of the Special Olympics. Billy Seide has been participating in the Special Olympics since 1999. In 2007, he went to Shanghai in China for the Special Olympics world summer games in softball, and his team earned 3rd place. In 2016, he switched to The Sound Shore Stars because it was closer to where he lived.
Professor William P. Alford is Lead Director and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Special Olympics International, which serves individuals with intellectual disabilities in more than 170 jurisdictions around the world. In 2004, Alford helped found the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD). He describes the organization’s goals, noting they are “to be of assistance as the UN drafted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” and to be “a resource about disability law and policy both in nations that have ratified the Convention and beyond.”
The Global Search for Education welcomed Currently he helps out and participates in Professor William Alford and Billy Seide to talk floor hockey, basketball, swimming, unified bowling, track and field, and the pentathlon. about the power of sports to disrupt disability.
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ability C. M. Rubin
“The skills and competencies that I have acquired with Special Olympics help prepare me to meet with other athletes whom I wouldn’t otherwise get to know. With the coach’s guidance, I learn how to speak in front of others.” – Billy Seide Billy, what has being part of the Special Olympics meant to you? The skills and competencies that I have acquired with Special Olympics help prepare me to meet with other athletes whom I wouldn’t otherwise get to know. With the coach’s guidance, I learn how to speak in front of others. All of this helps me to gain pride and confidence along with a belief that I actually have something to offer to others. What would you call your most significant achievement so far? My most significant achievement as a special olympic athlete is being a member of “The Athletes Congress”. This is an important role. Here I meet with other individuals across New York state and we discuss how to be leaders within this special community.
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Prof Alford, please share your best examples of where HPOD Disability strategies have promoted the inclusion of persons with disabilities in classrooms and in the work place, both internationally and at home in the U.S. What are you focused on next? To date, we have worked extensively in more than a dozen nations while advising in more than 30 others of the 177 nations that have ratified the Convention. The United States, has not ratified – which is unfortunate, since the Convention is modelled in important part after our own Americans with Disabilities Act, would not impose unwanted obligations on us, and already is helping improve the situation for Americans with disabilities working or travelling abroad, not to mention hundreds of millions of other nationals. Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 19
The work our Harvard Law School Project on Disability does varies enormously from setting to setting, as we think it critical that our approach in any country be shaped by history and context, and take serious account of the views of the local partners, even as we draw upon comparative law in providing a range of approaches. As a consequence, in addition to our own scholarly research, we have advised on the drafting of education, employment, health, antidiscrimination law and more; assisted in the formulation of state policy; collaborated on impact litigation; helped develop texts and teaching materials introducing disability law into university curricula; taught persons with disabilities how to advocate for themselves with educators and officials; formed family support groups; trained personnel in disabled persons organizations; and produced an array of materials– including simplified introductions to the CRPD for persons with intellectual disabilities in a half dozen major languages; print and internet profiles of both the accomplishments of persons with disabilities as well as the on-going challenges they face; and a Chinese language manual, using examples from both domestic and foreign companies, illustrating advantages of employing persons with disabilities. Our efforts encompass all types of disability. We are delighted that many of our students at Harvard have chosen to join us in this work and also that we have been able to bring to the school many individuals with disabilities who have generously shared with our students their life experience. 20 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
“I would hope that we can expand our e ingenuity, the determination, the humo much more that ou The Special Olympics has sent a powerful message of hope to the world about persons with disabilities. What do you believe should be the next important goals for this program? Special Olympics is now celebrating its 50th anniversary. It was founded in the summer of 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the President’s sister, out of the conviction that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and that sports can provide a powerful engine for promoting that end, while also having many ancillary benefits. The movement, as we like to call it, has grown enormously since then, owing to the inspired leadership of Dr. Timothy Shriver, an extraordinary team of dedicated professionals, thousands of volunteers generous with their time and financial assistance, and, most importantly, the passionate engagement of more than 6,000,000 athletes around the world including more than 5,000,000 of whom are persons with an intellectual or developmental disability.
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what our athletes can do (rather than what they can’t do) and also how they contribute valuably to the world. Second, I would love for us to be even more inclusive – to share our programs further with individuals from disadvantaged communities. And third, to expand our efforts in developing nations.
efforts to show the world the courage, the or, the comradeship, the musical gifts, and ur athletes manifest.” – William P. Alford Today, Special Olympics has programs in over 170 nations across the world. Literally, every day there are hundreds of sporting events occurring globally under its auspices. But alongside our sports programming, Special Olympics also now offers health programs, promotes research regarding intellectual disability, fosters unified school programs that bring together persons with and without an intellectual disability to study and play together, and works assiduously to end stigma, to educate the world about the talents of our athletes, and to foster genuine inclusion for the good of all of us. As the Lead Director of the Special Olympics international board (though I am speaking now in my personal capacity only, rather than for the organization), I would love to see a couple of things. First, I would hope that we can expand our efforts to show the world the courage, the ingenuity, the determination, the humor, the comradeship, the musical gifts, and much more that our athletes manifest. That demonstrates
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Billy, Looking ahead to the future – what do you predict or hope the Special Olympics will do for other kids or adults with disabilities? I hope Special Olympics will inspire others with developmental disabilities to have confidence in themselves. Often, these people feel marginalized and unworthy and there is no longer a need for us to hide in the shadows. We definitely have something to contribute. The next way Special Olympics can innovate this important work is by educating the public. Generally, they are misinformed and fearful of these athletes, as though a developmental disability is easily transmitted to others, and something to be pitied. These beliefs are based solely on ignorance.
C. M. Rubin, William Alford, Billy Seide (David Wine contributed to this Article. All photos are courtesy of Special Olympics) Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 21
Mad about machines at M
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MOTAT This summer MOTAT is turning up the volume on the wedge, screw, wheel, inclined plane, pulley and lever: those six simple machines that keep our world moving.
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 23
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MOTAT’s brand new exhibition will open in time for the Christmas Holidays and will run throughout Term 1 of 2020. Book your Term 1 school trip to MOTAT and discover the mechanical building blocks at the heart of all great inventions. The exhibition will be a truly immersive experience. Students can discover these vital engineering principles first-hand on giant interactive machines. Easy-tounderstand explanations and real-world objects from MOTAT’s collection will help cement the concepts. Imagine taking a spin in a human sized ‘hamster wheel’! What better way to drive home the relentless power of this mighty simple machine? After discovering the secrets of all six simple machines, let your students’ creativity spark as they unleash their new-found knowledge in the engineering lab where they will work collaborative to “Invent-a-Machine” of their own. Design thinking, collaboration, communication, resilience and problemsolving… these skills and more will be called on to complete the task.
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 25
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Careful consideration has been made to ensure MOTAT’s next summer exhibition compliments the museum’s own “Invent-a-Machine” and “Simple Mechanisms” education modules which, on the day of your visit, will be expertly run by MOTAT’s team of educators. MOTAT’s strength as an LEOTC provider is in its ability to create learning experiences that stimulate critical soft skills while reinforcing the fundamental basics of Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics. An excursion to MOTAT in term 1 of next year will help launch countless other opportunities for learning within your classroom. Get in touch with MOTAT to enquire about this new Machine experience and give your 2020 a rev up. Contact: bookings@motat.org.nz or visit motat.org.nz/learn
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 27
Gender play in hunter-gatherer chi Gender play in hunter-gatherer children strongly influenced by community demographics The gendered play of children from two hunter-gatherer societies is strongly influenced by the demographics of their communities and the gender roles modelled by the adults around them, a new study finds.
Photo courtesy University of Cambridge
We all tend to make a lot of assumptions about the development of gender roles, mostly through a Western lens
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Based on observations of more than one hundred children in two different huntergatherer communities in sub-Saharan Africa, an international team, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, found that younger children were generally more likely to play in mixed-gender groups. In small communities, however, boys and girls were more likely to play together, likely due to a lack of playmates of the same gender. As children get older, they begin to imitate the adults around them and learn culturally-specific gender roles through play. The results, reported in the journal Child Development, demonstrate the similarities with and differences from Western societies, and the importance of context when studying how children acquire various gendered behaviours.
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ildren Play is a universal feature of human childhood, and contributes to children’s cultural learning, including gender roles. Studies have shown that children are more likely to play in same-gender groups, with boys more likely to participate in vigorous ‘rough-and-tumble’ play, and girls more likely to pretend in pretense, or imaginary, play such as doll play. However, as most studies on the development of gender focus on children from Western societies, it is difficult to determine whether observed gender differences are culturally-specific or represent broader developmental trends. “We all tend to make a lot of assumptions about the development of gender roles, mostly through a Western lens,” said the paper’s first author Sheina Lew-Levy, who recently completed her PhD in Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.
“However, very few studies have been done on gender roles in hunter-gatherer communities, whose organisation is distinct from other societies.” The two hunter-gatherer communities in the study, the Hadza of Tanzania and the BaYaka of Congo, typically live in mobile groups averaging 25-45 individuals and have multiple residences. Labour is generally divided along gender lines, with men responsible for animal products and women responsible for plant products, although they are relatively egalitarian. Earlier studies of play in hunter-gatherer children have found that children overwhelmingly play in mixed-gender groups, which is less common in Western children over the age of three. The team in the current study, which included researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Washington State University and Duke University, found that children in smaller huntergatherer camps were more likely to play in mixed-gender groups than those in larger camps, most likely due to a lack of playmates of the same gender. Younger boys and girls spend similar amounts of time engaged in play, and they both spent times in games, exercise and object play. Typically, girls and boys engage in gender roles through play. In the BaYaka community, for example, fathers are highly involved in childcare. The researchers found that BaYaka children’s doll play reflected adult child caretaking, with no strong differences in BaYaka boys’ and girls’ play with dolls. “Context explains many, although not all, gender differences in play,” said Lew-Levy. “We need a more inclusive understanding of child development, including children’s gendered play, across the world’s diverse societies.” Reference: Sheina Lew-Levy et al. ‘Gender-typed and gender-segregated play among Tanzanian Hadza and Congolese BaYaka hunter-gatherer children and adolescents.’ Child Development (2019). DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13306
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 29
Young Principal is Changing Culture Every morning, middle school students at John Early Museum Magnet school are asked to talk back to their teachers. It’s a deliberate part of a teaching strategy that uses the “Socratic method” (from the Greek philosopher Socrates) where a teacher poses an open-ended question to get students to think through problems. Getting student opinions on solutions to some pretty tough problems is all part of the school culture introduced by a dynamic young principal, Dr. Darwin L. Mason, Jr.
“The question can be as simple as what are the things that we can do to be the most successful school in North Nashville? Or how do we reduce violence? Or how do we change our neighborhood? We try to make sure the question is meaningful…something they are living or need to address in their daily life,” said Dr. Mason.
Students work with faculty and school principal Dr. Darwin Mason, Jr. on a new museum installation shown here among the collections the school owns. Standing l-r; Da’Mantez Garner, Dr. Darwin Mason, Jr., Anna Beltran, Kenyon Blackman, Terry Smith and Ashlea Washington; Front row l-r; Eric Ochoa, Janiya Starnes and Breanna Washington 30 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
e, Attitudes in Magnet School Clare Bratten Some of Dr. Mason’s ideas such as community meals with students and teachers came from his observations and experience teaching at a local private school for four years after working as a music and history teacher in Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS). He then returned to the MNPS system. “We do a community lunch so our teachers eat with our students. They can hear conversations at lunch to find out what students are dealing with. And we try to find solutions. It allows us to be proactive. We even learn some manners and protocols. In my home growing up, we learned a lot over the dinner table.” The system means the same student/teacher ratio is maintained which eliminates large masses of students in lunch rooms or playgrounds with relatively little supervision. “We don’t have cafeteria fights. We don’t have disruption.” A museum inside the school is part of what makes it unique. “We are the only school in North America with an accredited museum inside of it,” says Dr. Mason. “We carry over 10,000 pieces [artifacts/art/crafts] and our students do all of our exhibits. They do the research and then we put them up for public view. Right now we have an exhibit on women’s suffrage.” One class of students is working with their teacher Lynn Edmondson on a new exhibit opening September 22nd. “We use a lot of project based, hands-on learning. The design is for students to really engage in their learning process and explore from a critical thinking process,” said Dr. Mason. In addition to coding and STEM programs, Mason sees music as a way to help students learn. He graduated from Fisk as a music vocal performance major where he was a member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, so he has a passion for music as a part of the school’s program. In fact, he used music to help him pass his own teaching certification exam by setting concepts he would be tested on to music. “We have collaborated with Pearl Cohn High School. Their band director comes over twice a week and works with our eighth graders.”
A flexible class period called personal learning time at the end of the day lets students pursue music or other subjects such as coding, tumbling, dance, or get remediation. An organization called “Fly Girls” does a dance program for girls. “We make sure we expose our students to everything they can in the arts, in addition to coding, and STEM, because sometimes that is your intellect – in the arts.” The school also started a program to address social emotional learning – You Only Live Life in Excellence for young men. Sugar and Spice is a program for female students led by a social worker works with a group for the whole four years students are in school. “There are a number of things we do to make sure our students are whole.” The school includes some children of mothers in a nearby women’s shelter so the educators have some challenges. “When our student is upset, we walk in as a therapist – we want to know why. [we ask] ‘What’s going on’ versus ‘what’s wrong with you?’ So much of middle school is impulsivity so we get them to slow down and think. We even have that conversation with our parents.” A program for parents reviews developmental stages their children will experience and what behaviors they can realistically expect. The school has a dress code requiring blue, black or khaki pants and button-down shirts. The administrators keep a closet of clothes if a student shows up in jeans, for example. “The Mom calls and says the washing machine is broken. We can’t spend time arguing about jeans. Let’s find him some pants. Or allow him to be in jeans and continue the learning. This limits the conversation between have and have-nots.“ Dr. Mason earned a Masters Degree from Tennessee State University and a doctorate from Lipscomb University. Dr. Mason’s father also was a school principal and he now volunteers at the school so the students know both Dr. Masons–Sr. and Jr. “We feel like our students in fifth grade are still very impressionable, and if there is a chance that they are not on the right path, we can turn that. We care for them, love them, protect them,” said Dr. Mason, Jr. Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 31
Students prepare for their graduati The New Zealand School of Dance students are preparing for Graduation Season And the School is pleased to play host to a group of acclaimed choreographers and teachers in the run-up to the performances. David Fernandez, creator of Five Variations on a Theme and Betsy Erickson, Ballet Master at San Francisco Ballet, have been on-site for two weeks. David is working with Classical Majors on a solo piece from his work Five Variations on a Theme. This work was created for Joaquin De Luz - Principal Dancer of the New York City Ballet. The work premiered as part of the celebrated Kings of the Dance world tour. It was performed to acclaim in New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Rome, Qatar, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. Betsy is working with NZSD students on Handel – A Celebration. It is an ensemble work created for the San Franscisco Ballet by SFB Creative Director Helgi Tomasson. Set to various Handel selections, it is a neo-Classical showcase that puts individual dancers in relief. There is something joyful about seeing so many dancers looking happy onstage. The ballet’s mood is governed by the splendour of the music. There is a sense of lightness, intricacy of design and a passionate sense of lyricism.
David Fernandez, Betsy Erickson and Laura Murray of the US Embassy at the performance of the two works earlier this month
Images: Julia Forsyth of Joyful Dance Photography 32 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
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ion
David Fernandez and Rench Soriano rehearsing Solo Performance from Five Variations on a Theme
To experience a thrilling collection of performances by young dancers on the brink of their professional careers, find out about booking tickets to the NZSD Graduation Season 2019.
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 33
Embrace the Struggle ‘Embrace the struggle’: Stanford education professor challenges common beliefs about teaching and learning In a new book, Jo Boaler talks about the importance of struggles and mistakes in the learning process and suggests how parents and teachers can help children become more receptive to learning. By Carrie Spector
If you think you just don’t have the brain for certain skills, you’re not only deceiving yourself, you’re undermining your ability to learn – whether it’s math, basketball or playing the clarinet, says Professor Jo Boaler at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE). In her new book, Limitless Mind, Boaler challenges common beliefs about how individuals learn and suggests how parents can best foster their child’s learning. Boaler, whose research focuses on mathematics education, is the co-founder and faculty director of youcubed.org, an organization providing resources for math learning that has reached more than 230 million students in over 140 countries. We spoke with Boaler, who is the Nomellini and Olivier Professor of Education, about what holds people back from learning, why praising kids for being “smart” is problematic and how to embrace moments of struggle.
Jo Boaler
You’ve written a lot about teaching and learning mathematics. What made you go beyond that subject for this book? I’ve met so many people – children and adults – who are convinced they’re not a “math person.” But I also meet a lot of people who say they’re not an “English person” or they’re not an “artist.” The barriers are often the same.
(Robert Houser Photography)
Every year students start school excited about what they’re going to learn, but when they see somebody who seems to be quicker or better at learning, they start doubting themselves. Adults have told me that they haven’t gone into pathways they wanted to pursue because they thought they weren’t good enough. And every day, employees go into meetings in the workplace afraid they’re going to be exposed for not knowing enough. I decided it was time to write a book dispelling some of the myths that were holding them back. 34 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
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Carrie Spector
People often struggle when they’re learning a new skill, which can feel excruciating. But you say it’s something to celebrate. Why? If you aren’t struggling, you aren’t really learning. When we’re struggling and making mistakes, those are the very best times for our brains. Elizabeth and Robert Bjork, two scientists at UCLA who’ve been studying learning for decades, talk about the importance of “desirable difficulties,” suggesting the brain needs to be pushed to do things that are difficult. If I’m teaching students and they say, “This is so hard,” I say to them, “That’s fantastic!” Teachers don’t think it’s their job to have kids be in a place of struggle, but it turns out to be an important place for learning. When we embrace struggle, it’s freeing. It changes how we go about our work. We’re more persistent. We interact with each other differently. If you live just a single day with this perspective, you’ll feel it – particularly if things go wrong. It changes those moments pretty significantly. You make the point that praising children for being “smart” can actually be damaging. Why? If we tell kids that they’re smart – which most parents do – at first kids think, “Oh, good. I’m smart.” But later, when they make a mistake on something, they think, “Hmm, I’m not so smart.” It’s very important to give up these labels. They lead to the belief that abilities are fixed and can’t be changed, what my colleague Carol Dweck calls fixed mindsets. In the book I share ways of praising kids that don’t include fixed words. Instead of “You’re so smart,” we can say, “I love your creative solution. I really like the way you have solved that.” Why do we need this dichotomous thinking about people being smart or not? Everyone’s on a growth journey. There is no cut-off where one person becomes “gifted” or “smart” and another is not.
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Where do strengths and aptitude fit into this, if everyone has the capacity to learn anything? I’m not saying everyone is the same. Kids can be at different places. But I think we have to let go of the idea that kids at a certain place are just where they’re going to be. I would also challenge the idea that success is about working with your strengths and giving up on your weaknesses. Is something really your strength, or have you not developed a skill because you got the idea somehow that you couldn’t? How can parents and teachers help kids become more receptive to learning? My first advice would be to use words that promote a growth mindset, the understanding that intelligence can be developed. When kids tell you they can’t do something, rephrase it: Say, “You mean you haven’t learned it yet.” It seems like a simple change, but it’s quite powerful. I also think it’s important to model a mindset of curiosity and discovery. You don’t have to be the expert in the room. You don’t have to pretend to know things you don’t. There’s a whole host of studies showing that small changes and interventions can change the way we think. One of my favourites in education is a study from one of my colleagues, Geoff Cohen, where researchers divided high school English students into two groups. All wrote an essay and got diagnostic feedback from their teachers. But for half the students, the teachers added a sentence to the end of their feedback. The kids who got that sentence achieved at significantly higher levels a year later, particularly students of color. What was that sentence half of the students read at the end of their feedback? “I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you.” It shows how important it is for teachers to believe in students and for students to know their teachers believe in them. Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 35
Boo k Review
Are We Prepped for Superintelligence Stop Talking, Start Influencing ‘12 Insights from brain science to make your message stick’ Jared Cooney Horvath, PHD MED Exisle Publishing ISBN: 7981925335903 As someone who has consistently found, when attending conferences, meetings or talks with PowerPoint being utilised, that I am either: • trying to listen to the speaker while reading the slide, • or if the speaker is not engaging and a copy of the slides has been provided, I’ll be reading ahead, • or I’m trying to take effective notes while also trying to listen, process and understand what the speaker is imparting while concurrently reading the slides and trying to keep up with the flow of the talk. Whichever of these processes I employ the result is usually unsatisfactory. Jared Cooney Horvath’s book goes a long way in illustrating what the process should be, why it doesn’t work, and most importantly how it can work. He covers how different regions of the brain influence the processing of information. The book poses questions answers them in an engaging manner, and includes sections titled ‘Implications for leaders, teachers and coaches’. It has relevant illustrations and thoughtprovoking tasks. This review from a reader who has also attended his talks… “Concise, explanatory and fun- each section is backed up by examples and exercises you can (and will!) experience for yourself. Rather than fluffy postulation or hard neuroscience that’s 36 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
almost impossible to apply, this book wonderfully extols the practical application of cognitive neuroscience in an engaging and practical way. Dr Horvath is currently an Educational Neuroscientist at Melbourne Uni; if you get to see Jared in person you’ll know he presents like he writesfascinating and fun- all the while challenging common sense errors or affirming and edifying much of what’s been implicitly understood by the best teachers. I have both a Kindle version and hard copy- and my hard copy is already doing a tour...do yourself a favour and get your own. You don’t need a scientific mind, just an open one- it will be easier for you when your mind is blown. As a teacher of 25 years I cannot recommend this enough.” It is a book I will return to. One of the problems of communication is knowing whether what you are saying is what your audience is hearing. Reading and understanding this book and adapting to try to action what is in it will prove to be an interesting exercise. So much of it make such sense considering the usual response we all have to a presentation (power point or not!). Aimed at teachers of any sort I feel this is a ‘must read’ if you are regularly presenting to any audience... whether that is your class, your organisations staff, or at a conference, a very interesting read on engagement, learning and retention.
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One dinosaur, free to a good home
e?
Matt Pickles This was the call from Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History last year, when they asked the public for suggestions for where they should relocate their four-metre long model of an Utahraptor. The dinosaur has definitely found a good home: it has now been installed at the Children’s Hospital at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. The Museum acquired the model in 2000, and it spent time terrorising shoppers at Blackwell’s book shop as part of the Museum’s Goes To Town project in 2014.But following a reorganisation of the Museum’s collections, it asked for nominations for somewhere to send the dinosaur. 200 venues around the world put in their bids, but the winning one came from Sarah Fletcher, who thought the dinosaur could amaze and inspire the young patients at the hospital.
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“The idea of having a model Utahraptor in the hospital seemed like a lot of fun,” she said. “Having been through the Children’s Hospital with my family, I knew that it would make such a difference to everyone who walks through those doors. But I never thought in a million years that we would win it – I am thrilled!” Hannah Allum, Project Manager at the Museum, is delighted with the outcome. “I hope that the Utahraptor will delight patients and visitors,” she said. “It’s a nice thought that this Cretaceous character will bring a little piece of the Museum into the hospital environment.” The dinosaur is now in place, looking down on the entrance to the Children’s Hospital.
Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 37
From Bhutan – A Holistic Approach Foc
“Teachers and parents are the facilitators in the child-driven learning process. The teacher is a catalyst, nurturing, and at times provoking, curiosity.” – Arun Kapur
What future are we preparing young people for and how can schools prepare them to flourish? The Royal Academy, a residential school in Bhutan, has developed a holistic program to develop every learner in 5 key areas – Cerebral, Emotional, Physical, Social, and Spiritual. The creator of the program, Arun Kapur, says his inspiration for the program came from his belief that education needed to
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move youth from being “storehouses of knowledge to creators of new knowledge.” In an interconnected world, where “collaboration and peaceful co-existence are crucial to the continued existence of the human race,” the 5 areas of development need to work together to help students become “responsible citizens.” The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Arun Kapur, creator of The Five Areas of Development.
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cused on 5 Areas of Learner Development C M Rubin
“The children are encouraged and motivated to become creators of digital content and not just passive consumers.” – Arun Kapur Arun, can you give us some background to your program – how do you incorporate these 5 areas of development into the curriculum? The Five Areas were first articulated in my book, Leading Out, in 2011. It was then used by Pallavan primary schools from 2012. The learnings from the Pallavan schools led to the creation of learning frameworks in Vasant Valley School and the Royal Academy in Bhutan which rest on the Five Areas of Development: Social, Emotional, Cerebral, Physical, and Spiritual. Every aspect of the school program is designed to give children and teachers an opportunity to achieve their goals in all the areas of development. The five areas are an integral part of the curriculum. Over time, the children and teachers have become aware of the interdependence of
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these areas and their importance in everything we do. Each child from class 3 onwards has a tutor or mentor who is her champion in school. With the help of their tutors, and input from home, every child creates her own road map, in other words, her plan for the year. This road map is dynamic and covers all areas of development. The children are, therefore, the architects of their own learning programs. The essential human values run through the Learning Framework like watermarks. This approach to the teaching-learning process is helping students to recognize and identify their own strengths and weaknesses and to develop skills that can be applied over diverse areas. What role do teachers and parents play? Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 39
“The learning process and the assessment process go hand in hand and work simultaneously.” – Arun Kapur Teachers and parents are the facilitators in the child-driven learning process. The teacher is a catalyst, nurturing, and at times provoking, curiosity. The curriculum and the broad content is more flexible than it has traditionally been and teachers are required to be open to learning. Parents play a very significant role in the learning process. With the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual areas of development being focused on in school, as much as in the cerebral aspect, the partnership between the parents and school has become even stronger and more interdependent. The children, their parents, and their teachers are co-authors of the child’s Road Map and there is a continuous exchange of feedback between school and home. The values and traditions the children bring into school from home have helped enormously to strengthen the curriculum, especially the social, emotional, and spiritual aspects.
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How does modern technology support your program? The learning process is technology driven. The use of technology adds to the learning experience and facilitates feedback between parents and school. The children’s assessment records include artwork, photographic evidence, videos, and short films, which gives deeper insight into a child’s development. All this has been made easy due to the availability of technology. Apart from this, there is, of course, extensive use of various tools and apps that add to learning. The children are encouraged and motivated to become creators of digital content and not just passive consumers. There is also great emphasis on how children use and interact with technology, the etiquette involved, and the norms to be respected are a part of the learning framework. How do you assess students in your program? Assessment is continuous and focuses on skills and processes. Learning outcomes include not
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“The students are co-creators of the content they want to learn.” – Arun Kapur just cerebral learning but the watermarks as well. The learning process and the assessment process go hand in hand and work simultaneously. This enables the teachers to provide almost immediate feedback for the children to improve learning, identify the learning gaps, and modify the teaching-learning process as required. The children’s responses are not assessed as right or wrong, but their progress in making connections and drawing conclusions, as well as their critical thinking skills and ability to put across their point of view, is evaluated. The goal is to make them self-regulated learners, able to reflect on their mistakes and incorporate the teacher’s feedback to self-correct. Learning to learn becomes the overarching skill. A variety of formal and informal tools are continuously used to get a fair and accurate picture of a child’s abilities. The Road Map is an important indicator of success; it is referred to through the learning cycles and is an important assessment tool.
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If an organization wants to implement these ideas into their curriculum, how do they get started? What is the process? The Learning Framework that gives equal importance to all the 5 Areas of Development is now an integral part of all the schools I work with. It is essential to get all your stakeholders to buy in. The organogram of an institution needs to be an inverted pyramid and the people actually executing the programme should have the liberty to constantly review, assess and modify it. As I like to tell all my teachers, the only uniform an excellent teacher ought to wear is an open mind. Workshops, discussions, in-house training sessions and sharing of best practices is the best way to move forward. How much student choice and student voice is built into your program? The learning process is structured around and defined by the Road Maps the children create for themselves. Individual Road Maps combine to Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 41
create a Road Map for a year group, a Road Map for a domain area and a Road Map for an area of development. The curriculum is student defined and planned, and the teachers play the role of moderator in supporting the children in achieving their goals. The teacher’s role is to help the children to learn. The content that is the medium to hone skill sets is derived from real life experiences with the active participation of children and using the environment as a learning resource. The students are co-creators of the content they want to learn. We use content to impart the skills and processes we would like our learners’ to possess to traverse the changing landscape. It may sound difficult during the initial phase. If you are strong enough to get past this though, there are rich dividends to be had, for both students and teachers.
How do you keep your curriculum relevant in a rapidly changing world? The goal is to facilitate learning and connect a child’s previous knowledge with new knowledge. The students are exposed to real-life situations that help them construct, be aware, appreciate, and get sensitized towards issues (natural, social, and cultural) prevailing around them. A primary goal of the curriculum is to develop processes and skills which are transferable and to help students become independent thinkers and problem solvers. The content is student-led and based on their past experiences and, therefore, remains contextualized.
How do you see your achievements to date with the program? What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced? The fact that children as young as 8 have understood the need to introspect and are able to identify their goals in the 5 areas of development as well as work towards becoming the best that they can be is an achievement in itself. The commitment of the teachers and the success they have achieved in journeying with the children on a goal-oriented path and in developing and implementing a process-based curriculum speaks for the strength of the program. The positive response of the parents who have certified this shift in methodology to be the ideal way forward for the growth of their children gives me great satisfaction.
C. M. Rubin and Arun Kapur
To bring about a change in the mindset of the teachers and to shift them from a zone of comfort to a different curriculum that called for a complete overhaul of the teaching-learning dynamics was a challenge. There is always that initial resistance to change but once the teachers themselves experienced the merits of the new program, they became the most ardent supporters of it. The parents also had to be brought on board and convinced of the benefits of the new curriculum but the positive effect of it on their children convinced them.
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Boo k Review The Kiwi: Endangered New Zealand Icon Matt Elliott Imagination Press Ltd ISBN: 9780995110458 The Kiwi... From ... Is it a bird? Through to... Nocturnal houses in New Zealand and Final thoughts this in-depth book by Matt Elliott covers all things Kiwi. A fabulous journey into the history of New Zealand’s iconic bird, anything you might want to know about kiwi and things kiwi will in all probability be covered within the covers of this new book.
Matt Elliott
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“I wanted to write this book so that people of all ages could learn more about the five species of kiwi and the extent of conservation programmes that are being undertaken by professionals and volunteers alike” author Matt Elliott says. This book by award winning Matt Elliott, who has a string of entertaining well written books behind him, has been provided with a lengthy bibliography for further study and should be considered a ‘must have’ in every New Zealand library and home!
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‘Invisible Jumpers’ Li Nefas, Joseph Ford and Rokas Laurinavicios
I spent 5 years creating these images with custom clothes knitted by an amazing knitter, Nina Dodd. The project began when she showed me a sweater based on the seat covers of Brighton buses. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so we found an eye-catching model and photographed him on a bus. I was so pleased with the result that I came up with more ideas for camouflaged jumpers, and the series developed.
Jimmy, 2014
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Tom And Dre, 2019 Mady And Monette Malroux, 2015
Bored Panda All photos Joseph Ford
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 45
Venus, 2015
Calum, 2017
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Monsieur Chat, 2017
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 47
Malik, 2016
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Fatboy Slim, 2018
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 49
Photo Alana Ladson
Peabody after-school program for loc
Kierstin Turnbull and Adira Ahmad-Rizal, students in the Peabody Museum’s Evo after-school program, staff an information display in the museum’s Great Hall.
The Avangrid Foundation recently awarded the Peabody a grant to help sustain the after-school program while the museum’s building is closed for renovation. When Avery Sage was a student at New Haven Academy high school, he participated in the Evolutions Afterschool Program (EVO) at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, an experience that he credits with nurturing his passion for science and preparing him for college.
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Five years later, Sage has bachelor’s degrees in psychology and English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has returned to EVO as an instructor in its Sci.CORPS program, which offers students the opportunity to work as paid educators in the Peabody Museum. His position is a one-year fellowship meant to bring EVO alumni back to the museum to share their skills and experiences with the program’s students. “EVO was a place where I felt safe throughout high school to express myself and my love of science,” Sage said. “Now that I am part of the program’s administrative team, I’m able to provide and foster this safe space for other students.” The fellowship is one initiative made possible in part through a partnership between the Peabody Museum and the Avangrid Foundation that will help sustain and advance the free after-school program. As part of the partnership, the foundation — the philanthropic arm of the energy company Avangrid, which includes the
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cal students awarded Avangrid grant Mike Cummings
United Illuminating Company, Connecticut Natural Gas Corporation, and the Southern Connecticut Gas Company — has awarded the museum a three-year $125,000 grant to provide core support to EVO as the Peabody prepares to close its building for a major renovation. The three-year commitment follows an inaugural grant last year that helped fund the Sci.CORPS fellowship program. “The Avangrid Foundation’s generosity gives us the flexibility to think a little more creatively about the program particularly as we move toward the renovation and temporary closure,” said Andrea Motto, the program’s director. Each year, about 100 students from public high schools in New Haven and West Haven participate in EVO. The program promotes STEM literacy, college preparation, career awareness, and the development of certain skills that facilitate success in the classroom and workplace, such as communication or leadership skills. It includes a weekly class led by Yale students centered on STEM-related activities, monthly workshops and special events, and field trips to the Peabody Museum’s collections, Yale laboratories, and other science museums. Through Sci.CORPS, about 30 to 40 students each year serve as paid employees of the museum. The program also provides students with work experiences in Yale laboratories. Sage’s fellowship is a means to extend the program’s influence by offering job opportunity to former students who have earned a college degree, Motto said. “It makes our pathway into STEM fields is a little more cohesive,” Motto said. “The EVO experience doesn’t just end when students graduate high school. Now we will continually provide a job for EVO alumni, which will further help them gain a foothold into a career in science and science education. We’re extremely thankful to the Avangrid Foundation for making that possible.”
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The foundation has also helped fund the recent restoration of the Peabody Museum’s iconic North America dioramas. Nicole Grant, director of the foundation, said the EVO program embodies the Peabody Museum’s status as an important gateway between Yale and the local community and called it “a model of excellence.” EVO provides a truly wonderful service to students in New Haven and West Haven. ... It is an amazing program. nicole grant “EVO provides a truly wonderful service to students in New Haven and West Haven,” Grant said. “It provides the students knowledge, skills, and experiences that help them transition into college, careers, and adulthood. It is an amazing program.” The funding is intended to help the program grow and flourish while the Peabody is under renovation. The museum’s Great Hall is scheduled to close in January and the remaining public galleries will close on June 30, 2020. The renovation and closure will last at least two years. “Two years is a long time to not have your home base,” Grant said. “EVO has been valuable and transformative for so many young people and we don’t want to see it be diminished. We want to help them find their place outside of the walls of the museum.” For his part, Sage said the fellowship has given him a chance to witness the intellectual and personal growth of students in the EVO program. “The program offered me opportunities that helped me prepare for college; now I find it comforting that I can provide these same resources to current high school students,” he said.
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Social media influencing young boy
The notion of a six- pack has become the most important physical characteristic for young boys. The endless endorsement of particular body images and physical attributes on social media is influencing how young boys view themselves in the modern age, according to a new book.
Professor Murray Drummond, Director of the SHAPE Research Centre, interviewed 33 Australian boys over an 8 year period through significant development stages of early childhood, middle years and adolescence – encompassing reception until year 7. “Masculinity plays a significant part when young boys are developing. I discovered just how much they were influenced by the internet, social media and the media in general, which ultimately endorsed attitudes and behaviours including what they should now consider an appropriate body,” says Professor Drummond. Professor Drummond analysed the relationship between boys bodies and sport- including how they developed into adolescent males navigating modern western society.
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ys’ body attitudes
“We are certainly living in a period of rapid technological change that is posing enormous challenges for everyone. Understanding the context in which these technologies operate will be key to moving forward.” In Boys’ Bodies, Professor Drummond outlines how young boys are no longer only influenced by family members, peers and friends when it comes to how they view their bodies but rely on ‘norms’ constructed on social media. “The notion of the six-pack was one of the major issues to emerge around boys’ bodies during their development. The boys had begun to understand the social capital afforded to a body that “looked” a certain way,” “According to the boys, who were then between nine and 10 years of age, having ‘abs’ and a ‘six-pack’ provides a number of opportunities that may not otherwise be afforded to those without it. For the first time they began talking about girls in another way than being stronger than them and beating them in sport.” After receiving their first mobile phones, Professor Drummond says the group of boys began to regularly use Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook which opened up new social networks but significantly sped up their introduction into the adult world. As a consequence, the boys eventually started to present ‘typical’ viewpoints about male bodies throughout the interview process. “However, some of these perceptions were challenged by the boys. It provides evidence that despite broader coercive forces, they have the capacity to challenge and reject social norms they may see as undesirable within the context of their lives.”
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From the author: This is a book about boys’ bodies. While this book attempts to explain the relationship between boys’ bodies and that of sport, health and physical activity it is also about boys and their lives. It seeks to explore the meaning of boys growing up and developing into adolescent males as they navigate a range of issues within contemporary western society. Understanding masculinity will be key to this process. Every year, over a period of eight years I had the pleasure of talking with and interviewing the same group of boys on topics that relate to sport, health and physical activity. I have been able to watch these boys grow up in front of me as they have moved from early childhood, through to boyhood and now as emerging adolescents. This book is essentially about a group of boys emerging from early childhood to adolescence that places sport, physical activity and bodies at the forefront of discussion and analysis. However, it is the boys’ voices that are most important in all of this and therefore key issues raised beyond the central focus of the book will also be discussed throughout.
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Wiremu Weka Treks the Alps Kinsa Hays Illustrations Nicola Evans Bouncing Beans Press ISBN 9780473471279
Boo k R
This charming children’s book follows the adventures of Wiremu the Weka (a native bird of New Zealand) as he traverses the South Island of New Zealand. Not only is there the tale of his travels but we also can learn from the informative boxes scattered through the pages ... these manage to teach us about aspects introduced in the story (e.g Kunekune pigs and various scenic reserves). The South Island photographs and those of other animals and birds along the way are well chosen and the consistent background to the story is engaging. Kinsa Hays love of the environment and wish to bring attention to endangered birds along with her ability to write an engaging children’s story shines through in this book. This would be a great gift which would also make a good addition to any children’s library.
Scary Tales
Rhymes for Brave Children Judi Billcliff and Deborah Hinde PictureBook Publishing ISBN:7980473483043 This collaboration between BillCliff and Hinde results in a delightful romp through nursery rhymes... well known and some which are the resut of the authors/illustrators fertile imaginations. Scary they might purport to be and to some surely would be... but this reader found them slightly dark, very funny and lovely to read. Excellent additions are the ’Did you know?, Ghastly Jokes and Activities sections at the back of the book... filled with entertaining and interesting tidbits and things to do which compliment the poems. Aimes at 5 to 8 year olds this book is entrrtaining for any age, and well suited for classroom and family holiday use. 54 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
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Reviews The Importance of Failing Well Lance G. King New Holland ISBN: 81760790 ‘A practical guide for parents whose children struggle to achieve at school and lack self confidence.’ A book offering advice on supporting children to become resilient, focused, effective and confident learners. Presented in an interesting manner – the content on the right of each double page spread and inspirational quotes from a wide range of sources on the left ...
The Importance of Failing Well is a comprehensive book written from a personal perspective and enhanced by a ‘wealth of experience’ point of view by Lance G. King, who has worked with over 250,000 students worldwide and conducted seminars and workshops on the Art of Learning for students, teachers and parents in Europe, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, China and South East Asia.
The contents cover: • The Three Pillars of Success • The Two axes of Resilience • The Gnostates • The Three Drivers of Effective Learning • The Four Foundations of Efficiency • The three Skills of Agency • Action – Only one way to fail well • Resilient, High Achieving, Self regulated
Lance G. King
learners in an easily read format
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Poetry, Science and Modern Danc
“Learning core academic concepts through dance and theater taps into many students’ urges to move around. This approach allows for creativity, something that traditional curriculum stifles.” – Timothy Weinstein
Sedentary teaching and listening can not only lose students’ interest easily, but also deter students’ creativity, homogenizing learners with individualities into one mold. How do we create new models of learning that can engage all students? As an example, how might theater and dance enhance science? STEAM (STEM+Art) education incorporates art into the curriculum, enabling students to “move around” both physically and academically, and actualize their individual potentials.
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Timothy Weinstein is a STEAM teacher at Turner Intermediate School (Wilkinsburg Borough School District, Pennsylvania), who focuses on integrating arts into the STEAM Classroom. Timothy’s story began a few summers ago when he took part in an arts integration workshop. During the program, a theater workshop focused on teaching kids the value of empathy; he realized that he could expand the strategy to other subjects, even the STEM subjects. In his school, many students still struggle with both academic challenges and behavioral issues, which is why incorporating art into the curriculum is paramount. While Weinstein still uses traditional teaching methods to prepare students for standardized tests, he believes that “utilizing a kinesthetic approach” that allows for creativity could be a game changer. Today, Weinstein’s innovative program uses “6 Habits of
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ce – A Kinesthetic Learning Model C M Rubin
“Collaboration is one of the 6 Habits of Mind that I use to frame all of the learning in my classroom. The other 5 are Building, Coding, Perseverance, Problem-Solving, and Investigating.” – Timothy Weinstein the Mind” as a framework to support the curriculum. The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Timothy Weinstein to talk about his unique and interdisciplinary approach to learning. Timothy, please walk us through the process you use in your model. I want to first clarify that this approach isn’t used every day and was used for a special arts integration project. No two lessons are the same and many different strategies are used. A typical lesson starts with a brief video to introduce an academic concept. Students then warm up their bodies with the resident artist, followed by a slightly more in-depth discussion of the academic concept. Sometimes, the students are given a group task in which they use dance or theater to demonstrate their understanding of
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the topic. Other times, students work with the resident artist to learn a dance that demonstrates the topic. Each lesson always ends with students performing their gestures as a part of a summary discussion of what they have learned. What do you think is unique about your approach? How does it enhance the education of core academic concepts? While every classroom teacher teaches core academic concepts and many schools have classes to teach dance or theater, nobody combines the two. In fact, in this era in which budgetary concerns are the priority of schools, special area classes such as art and music are the first to be cut. Bringing arts into the traditional classroom is a strategy to preserve this slowly dying but essential component in a comprehensive educational program. Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 57
The more voice and choice a student has, the more likely he or she is to “buy in” to an activity.” Timothy Weinstein
Throughout the unit, I had many interesting discussions with the resident artists and we tried to find a balance that allowed them to teach their art while, at the same time, support the academic concepts students were learning in the classroom. As we all know, very little learning is done kinesthetically in traditional schools. Learning core academic concepts through dance and theater taps into many students’ urges to move around. This approach allows for creativity, something that traditional curriculum stifles.
While students do not have a choice of which academic skill they will be learning, the expectation for creativity allows the students’ voices to come through. In the arts integration project I mentioned, each gesture or action the students created to show their understanding of a topic was unique. The more voice and choice a student has, the more likely he or she is to “buy in” to an activity. I would also like to share this video that was created as a wrap-up of the project from Fall 2018.
Collaboration is one of the “6 Habits of the Mind” you use to frame learning in your classroom. What are the others?
How are you assessing the students?
Collaboration is one of the 6 Habits of Mind that I use to frame all ofthe learning in my classroom. The other 5 are Building, Coding, Perseverance, Problem-Solving and Investigating. Regardless of the activity or project, students are expected to collaborate with each other in my classroom. During this unit, students always work in groups to develop their gestures to show their understanding of a topic. How much student voice and choice are built into the program? 58 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
Many people feel that issuing grades in a STEAM classroom stifles creativity and limits learning. Thus, when I design a project, I try to avoid giving students a fixed rubric to follow. Instead, I look at how each student demonstrates implementation of “the 6 Habits of Mind”. For example, I would look at how much a student perseveres when a problem is challenging or how well they collaborate with their classmates. Even though students enter my classroom with vastly different skill sets and two students might produce very different finished projects, they might get the same “grade” in the end.
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“Aside from finding the money to pay the resident artists, the biggest challenge to successfully implement the arts integration unit was managing the logistics of the schedule.” Timothy Weinstein
What process would you recommend to another school who wants to be involved in your program? I would recommend a 5-step process: 1. Locate a local arts partner. 2. Identify the academic concepts to be taught. 3. Create an appropriate schedule. 4. Gather and organize your media. Step out of your comfort zone. How would you describe progress to date and what are the biggest challenges you’ve faced? Aside from finding the money to pay the resident artists, the biggest challenge to successfully implement the arts integration unit was managing the logistics of the schedule. Not only did I have to be considerate of the resident artist’s time, I also had to negotiate with other teachers to get the extra time needed for each lesson. Though I do not have quantitative data, I have plenty of qualitative data that shows that while many students were reticent at first to participate, by the end of the unit, the vast majority had bought in to the approach.
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How can you keep your program up to date and relevant? The good thing about STEAM is that because it is such a diverse field, there is no “right” way to teach it. In fact, developing a fixed curriculum as you would for a math or ELA class would be inappropriate. When I was a child, I learned BASIC. Today, students learn Javascript, for example. BASIC and Javascript are very different, yet they are both languages for coding. As long as I focus on “the 6 Habits of Mind” and not on the specific content, my program will always be relevant. Thank you Timothy.
C M Rubin and Timothy Weinstein
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Recovering a stitch at a time Susan Gonzalez
For Yale alumna and staff member Michelle Beaulieu-Morgan ’17 Ph.D., the stitches in her embroidered art now on view in an exhibit at the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC) are more than her creative medium; they also mark steps forward on her road to recovery. The exhibition, titled “Material Obsessions,” is the first campus showing of BeaulieuMorgan’s embroidered works, and she acknowledges that she feels a little vulnerable about the public recognition of her artistry. This is because while sharing her work, the digital accessibility specialist for Information Technology Services is also being upfront about how the craft has helped to bring her solace while recovering from alcoholism.
“When I found embroidery, I finally and truly entered a real period of recovery for the first time in my life,” Beaulieu-Morgan wrote in an artist statement to accompany the exhibit. The show features about 30 of her finely detailed embroidered works, and runs through Dec. 11. The Yale staff member began embroidering about four years ago after receiving a cross-stitch project as a Christmas stocking-stuffer from a friend. She had previously worked in cut paper, collage, linocuts, and mixed media, but had sold all of her art materials before coming to Yale in 2009 as a doctoral student in American studies because she assumed she would not have time for artistic pursuits. Giving up her art making, she has since realized, had a cost. She found herself both anxious and depressed. For me, I have to able to make things or I’m not happy.
Photo: Michael Marsland
Michelle Beaulieu-Morgan
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“For me, I have to able to make things or I’m not happy,” says Beaulieu-Morgan, “I honestly think I finished my dissertation at Yale because I picked up a creative habit again.” She enjoyed the first cross-stitch project, but quickly realized that she would prefer embroidery, which doesn’t require a pattern. “Embroidery is completely freehand, so you don’t have to count or keep track of stitches,” she explains. “Sometimes I might first draw the design out using a water-soluble pen, but mostly I’m just drawing with thread.” Not long after she started embroidering, Beaulieu-Morgan began posting pictures of her projects on Instagram, including daily ones that documented her progress. Before long she had some 5,000 followers. That grew to more than 20,000 when she solicited suggestions from her followers for designs on a large embroidery hoop as part of a daily project. “It was awesome to have 365 different suggestions from people all around the world,” says the Yale staff member, who chose the suggestions randomly. “This project was my attempt to force myself to make a space for creative practice every day no matter what else was going on, because all the years I hadn’t honored that were destructive for me.” Four months after she started embroidering, Beaulieu-Morgan quit drinking. “I went through my 20s and knew I had a problem,” she says, noting that she came from a family “where everyone on both sides was alcoholic.” As an undergraduate and a graduate student, she says, drinking was a common and frequent part of socializing, but she also used alcohol to dull the anxiety and depression she experienced in her student days. “I’m a first-generation college student, and I didn’t have any models for what it meant to go to college, let alone to go to graduate school at a place like Yale,” says Beaulieu-Morgan, whose doctoral work focused on visual and material culture.
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She took a one-semester leave of absence from her graduate studies to serve as acting dean of Ezra Stiles College. While a graduate student, she worked for the Office of Gender and Campus Culture and in her final year was hired by the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning to help in the transition of faculty websites to the learning platform Canvas. Beaulieu-Morgan credits a fellow graduate student for initially inspiring her to quit drinking, because she “was open about being in recovery,” the Yale staff member says. “I knew I was not going to finish my Ph.D. if I didn’t quit drinking,” she adds. Embroidery served as another lifeline for Beaulieu-Morgan, who in her artist’s statement describes her work in the medium as “a celebration of excessiveness in the abstract.” Embroidery, she says, gave her something both “repetitive and compulsive” to focus on in place of alcohol and other self-destructive behaviors. She spends about 20 hours a week on her embroidery projects, and now has some 24,000 Instagram followers. Beaulieu-Morgan is currently working on an embroidered piece that is a narrative timeline of her relationship with alcohol, from birth to when she quit. A feminist and lesbian, she aspires to do another large-scale narrative piece that explores the history of her sexuality, as well as one about her musical inspirations. She is a volunteer disc jockey on the independent community radio station WPKN, and was hired by Grammy Award-winning Americana musician Keb’ Mo’ to create an embroidered image for his album cover as well as for the singer’s other merchandise. She has also sold many of her works to Instagram fans and others.
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A Kiribati family at their local medical clinic.
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 65
Beaulieu-Morgan was invited to exhibit her work at the WHC by the center’s assistant director, Mark Bauer. She says she is excited to be sharing her work with the Yale and New Haven communities, and notes an integral part of doing so is to be open about the link between her artistry with her own mental health journey. “It is important to me that people know that you can have problems and still be a professional and successful person,” she says. “There are times when I’m plagued by imposter syndrome, and worry that I’m not good enough to be showing my work. But I’m doing it anyway, even though I am scared. … My experience as a student at Yale has been fraught in some ways, but I’ve also met some of the most supportive people in my life here. Yale is truly a place filled with very generous, kind, and amazing people, and this place has also enabled me to do the things I want to do.”
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Vice Chancellor’s address to the Un Distinguished colleagues, students, alumni and friends – A year of achievement As we start a new academic year, and in the spirit of the traditional school essay, ‘Things I Did This Holiday’, allow me to share with you some of the ‘Things I Learned This Year’. For instance: • That stem cells can be used to repair broken hearts. • That we can reduce our susceptibility to disinformation and fake news through online games. • That a ghost galaxy lurks on the outskirts of the Milky Way. I think, also, of scholarly or artistic treasures reimagined or brought to the public’s attention: • A long-lost opera by Franz Liszt, rediscovered and now performed for the first time in 170 years thanks to painstaking work by a lecturer at our Faculty of Music. • Or the more than 800 medieval Greek manuscripts containing the works of Plato, Aristotle and Euripides, previously tucked away in special collections in Cambridge, Heidelberg and the Vatican, but now digitised and widely available for the first time. All of these discoveries made the headlines over the past twelve months. All of them (and many more like them) were the result of relentless and inspiring work by our Cambridge colleagues, driven by curiosity and by the urge to interrogate our world. My question today is: what stories of discovery will we be telling about the University ten, twenty, or fifty years from now? • How will we, as a scientific community, have answered the growing challenges of mental health? • How will we have responded to the crisis in democratic institutions as we know them?
the existential threat of climate change? • How will the things we do today be remembered in the future? There were many other stories over the past academic year reflecting not only the breadth but also the buzz of activity around the University. • We welcomed 1.3 million visitors to our museums and Botanic Garden, including some forty thousand school children on class outings. • Work began on the university’s new Cavendish Laboratory – a project that will help strengthen the university’s position as a globally leading site for physics research, while providing a pre-eminent facility for the rest of the country. • Also on the West Cambridge site, only a few days ago we celebrated the official opening of the new Civil Engineering building. • In March, our Student Services Centre opened on the New Museums site, bringing together for the first time in the University’s history all of the student-facing units, enabling them to provide more efficient and joined up frontline support for our students. • New college buildings, including Newnham’s Dorothy Garrod building, have added greatly to the city’s rich architectural mix. • I was pleased to join in celebration of some significant milestones for the Collegiate University, including Girton and Fitzwilliam’s 150th anniversaries. • We were honoured by a royal visit, when Her Majesty The Queen came to open the new Royal Papworth Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. In this latest phase of our Biomedical Campus’ expansion, I look forward to the opening of the Anne Maclaren building, and the new Jeffrey Cheah building, a hub for stem cell and therapeutic research.
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niversity... 2019 Closer to where we are now, I welcome the imminent reopening of the Fitzwilliam museum’s main gallery with a stunning new exhibition conceived to explore the senses. This was a landmark year for Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Assessment, the Faculty of Education and the Department of Psychology, who last autumn joined forces with UNICEF and Microsoft to develop a programme that will enable refugees and displaced children to keep learning, and to receive appropriate certification. Not only have the Press and Cambridge Assessment worked together on many major projects, including the joint acquisition of Durham University’s Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, but they are also working more closely than ever with the academic university on the delivery of our digital education plans. I’m excited to announce that, working with CUP and Cambridge Assessment, the University is now partnering with edX, the digital learning platform founded by Harvard and MIT, and home to more than 20 million learners. Through this partnership, we will be reaping the benefits of digital learning here in Cambridge while also reducing access barriers to high-quality, Cambridge-made content for learners around the world. Turning to sporting success, • I had the enormous satisfaction of watching our crews row to victory at the 2019 Boat Races on the Tideway. • What a thrill to witness the women rowing to such a decisive triumph, and to see the men winning by a whole length to achieve their first back-to-back victory for 20 years. • And we had Varsity match wins in yachting, men’s road cycling, men’s ice hockey, women’s sailing and (once again) women’s rugby. My compliments to all our athletes. There was achievement of another kind: to the bright constellation of Cambridge researchers who hold prestigious European Research Council grants, 21 more were added this year. ERC grants are a mark of academic excellence –
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and one of the many reasons that being part of the European research landscape has been crucial to Cambridge, and to the UK. I warmly congratulate each one of those colleagues. But among the past year’s happy tidings, one certainly stood out. News arrived only a couple of days after my last address to the University that the Nobel Prize for Chemistry had been awarded to one of our own – and a Head of House, no less. I hope you will all join me in belatedly congratulating Sir Gregory Winter for this exceptional recognition. Something else caught my attention this year: it was widely reported that our University Library was to become the home to the Spitting Image archive and puppets. It is a source of some satisfaction to be a member of a University that is as proud of guarding Margaret Thatcher’s handbag in one of its College archives as it is happy to be housing her unforgettably grotesque likeness. I like to think that we are the kind of university that is prepared to help deepen our understanding of recent political history while also embracing the satirical and subversive streak of Spitting Image’s creators. (I was interested to note that we may be seeing a new generation of the Spitting Image characters on air very soon.) The subject of satire brings me to my remarks about current affairs. I began last year’s Address to the University by referring to the rapid pace of change in the British political landscape. If anything, the pace seems to have accelerated. Dizzying is one word that comes to mind in describing that pace. Blistering is another. Alarming, even. It has been modestly reassuring to note the importance that the current government is giving to British academia and research. The government has singled out as priorities the development of new battery technologies, investing in biosciences, and bolstering research into food security – all areas in which Cambridge has enormous expertise. We have especially welcomed the government’s statement about the change in immigration rules designed to attract more international scientists to the UK. And we greet enthusiastically the recent Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 69
government proposal to reintroduce a two-year post-study work visa for international students – something that Cambridge and other universities have long campaigned for. (One can only hope that such policies survive the slings and arrows of the country’s current constitutional quandary). We continue to engage with the public sector at all levels. • As part of the government’s industrial strategy, we entered into partnership for the creation of a £72 million Construction Innovation Hub. • In July, the government announced a £30 million award to the University of Cambridge to support the new Cambridge Heart and Lung Research Institute, adjacent to the new Royal Papworth Hospital. • Also in the past year, the government agreed to make a significant contribution towards the creation of a national Centre for Propulsion and Power at our Whittle Laboratory, with a focus on dramatically reducing carbon emissions. • Meanwhile, a £100 million government contribution towards the costs of a new children’s hospital on our biomedical campus, which will make Cambridge a beacon in public health for the region, was secured by our NHS partners. Over the past year we have sought to work ever more closely with local authorities, including the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, local MPs, and the Cambridge City Council. We are not just a Collegiate University that happens to be in the Fens – we are fundamentally rooted in the region. Whether it is discussions about local transport solutions, or about the provision and deployment of skills, or about tackling coastal erosion, we are prepared to be not only helpful interlocutors but part of the solution. The joint venture to expand Cambridgeshire’s digital infrastructure, agreed by the University and the Cambridgeshire County Council, is but one recent example of local partnership. Of course, when it comes to discussing public affairs, there is an elephant in the room, or perhaps it is a great blue whale. 70 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
When I addressed the University last year, we were six months away from the UK’s departure from the European Union. The prospect of Brexit still looms over us – this time just over four weeks away. We are no more certain now about the conditions under which it may happen, but we have continued to plan for the contingency of a disorderly and disruptive exit. I am grateful to all those colleagues across the Collegiate University who have been tireless in making preparations and drawing up contingency plans. The deadlines that have come and gone continue to affect our staff and students – both current and prospective. It was certainly helpful to have confirmation, in May, that EU students admitted for the 2020-21 academic year would still be eligible for domestic tuition fees and student loans for the duration of their course, regardless of Brexit. But the mid and long-term prospects are more uncertain than ever. Cambridge colleagues continue to engage with the government – and the public – to ensure that the impact of Brexit on immigration, research funding, student mobility and collaboration are understood – and, where possible, mitigated. And we continue to reach out to our partners around the world – from Munich to Nanjing, from Paris to Delhi – to show through our actions, not only our words, that we are a global university open to global collaboration. As the UK struggles to define its role in what may be a post-Brexit world, it is my sincerest hope – and indeed, my expectation – that Cambridge will help articulate some of the answers. It is precisely at these moments of uncertainty that our University must reaffirm its mission. It is at these times of unease that our University must move forward with purpose and determination. When other institutions are perceived to be failing their societies, our University must step up. It is our duty as a public institution. We are still waiting for signs of what, if anything, will happen following the publication of the Post18 Education Review – the Augar Review. If its recommendations are implemented fully, it would have some serious consequences for the funding of higher education. More immediate, however, have been the requirements laid out by the new regulator, the Office for Students, as it grows into its role as a fully-fledged universities watchdog. We welcome the OfS’s emphasis on fair access, student wellbeing and participation – though the
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regulator is still finding its way in terms of tone and balance.
aimed directly at increasing financial and wider support for students at Cambridge.
Over the summer, as part of our compliance with OfS regulations, the University submitted its Access and Participation Plan. The Plan, which covers the five years up to the 2024/25 academic cycle, contains ambitious new targets on access:
So far, the Collegiate University has raised over £170 million towards this goal.
• We have said that, by 2025, more than 25% of our intake will be from the most under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds if our targets are achieved. • That this will rise to 33% by 2035. • We have also declared that, by 2025, more than 69% of the home undergraduate student intake will be from state schools. • We have expressed a strong commitment to reducing all attainment gaps amongst student cohorts. Our Access and Participation Plan, approved by the OfS in August, shows the Collegiate University’s determination to address barriers in education, widening access and helping students make the most of their experience at Cambridge. Our most recent admissions figures show that we are making significant progress: • According to the provisional data, one in four of the new UK students who will be starting their undergraduate studies at Cambridge will be from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds, while over two-thirds of the new UK undergraduates will be from state schools. • For the first time, over 25% of our admitted undergraduates are of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background – with a particularly noticeable increase in the number of black students admitted. So the commitments we have articulated in our Access and Participation Plan are aligned with work already underway. It has been one of my greatest satisfactions so far to announce, in February, an unprecedented gift of £100 million to help attract the most talented postgraduate and undergraduate students from the UK and around the world. The donation from the David and Claudia Harding Foundation was the biggest single gift made to a university in the UK by a British philanthropist. It is now the cornerstone of an ambitious £500 million fundraising drive, announced last autumn,
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I am very pleased to share news of the creation of the Harding Challenge – a dedicated fund allowing new donors who give to the Collegiate University’s Student Support Initiative to see their impact doubled. The Transition Year I spoke about a year ago will be ready to launch in 2021. We have recently appointed a course director, and the first intake of students will begin in October 2022. We are committed to widening participation among postgraduate students, too, and are in the process of creating a dedicated post with responsibility for this effort. Other elements of our widening access plans have already been implemented: our pilot Adjustment programme has been a resounding success, with Colleges collectively recruiting 67 students whose grades exceeded their expected performance. One of them is Zein Al-Hindawi, whose parents fled Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, and who was inspired by a friend’s experience with cancer to pursue a career in medicine. Zein’s hard work netted him three A*s, and the highest marks in biology and chemistry at his school. Visiting Cambridge, ahead of his first term, he told colleagues: “Many students from state schools may think applying to Cambridge is a waste of time because they’re not going to get in…There are a lot of stereotypes about Cambridge, and most of them are unfounded.” Ensuring fair access and participation requires collective efforts across our Collegiate community. I wish to thank all those colleagues – in Colleges, in Departments and Faculties, in University offices – who work at the coalface of our admissions process to ensure that we are open to the most talented students, no matter where they are from. We are committed to doing this not only because it is expected of us, but also because it is the right thing to do – and because it will make Cambridge a better place to study, to teach and to work. Change and improvement Change is the theme of this year’s Festival of Ideas, which begins in a fortnight. It feels appropriate to our times. Change is certainly something we must Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 71
actively address as a Collegiate University. For as the world changes, so must we. I am not talking here, to paraphrase Giuseppe di Lampedusa, of everything having to change so that everything remains the same. That is simply not good enough. We change not so everything remains the same, but to be better. Cambridge has not thrived by being a bulwark against change. Over more than 800 years, beneath the cobbled, oak-panelled veneer of permanence, a constant process of change – led by students and scholars – has been a feature of University life. And we can see it in action today. Lucy Cavendish College, founded in 1965, and itself an example of the University adapting to meet new social needs, has announced that from 2021 it will change its admissions criteria to include both women and men, and from the standard university age of 18. Trinity College, which only admitted its first female fellow in 1977, will in a week’s time have its first female Master. Also welcoming their first ever female Heads are Jesus College and St Edmund’s College. Along with the new Heads of Fitzwilliam College and Newnham College, they join their pioneering colleagues at colleges including Peterhouse, Gonville and Caius, Christ’s, Emmanuel, Churchill, Darwin and Wolfson. (Indeed, I am pleased to note that, in the same year that the University secured an Institutional Silver Athena SWAN award, we have a record number of female Heads of House). Sometimes, the change is in the way we understand ourselves. In February I announced that an Advisory Group would be coordinating research into the University’s links to historical forms of enslavement. The purpose of this initiative is not to atone, or to undermine this university’s proud history in the abolition movement, but to better understand and acknowledge our own complex, multi-layered past, and how that may affect our future. Sometimes, the change we need is in our own processes. Earlier this year we conducted a staff survey, which revealed, among other things: • That 87% of our members of staff are proud to work for the University of Cambridge. • That 87% understand how their work contributes to the success of their area of the University. 72 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
The same survey also suggested, however: • That 36% of our staff do not feel there are sufficient opportunities for career progression at the University. • That 29% do not feel people work effectively together between different parts of the University. In an effort to address these and other issues, at the end of 2018 the University launched ourcambridge, an initiative designed to recognise and realise the potential of our professional services staff. Led by the Registrary, the ourcambridge initiative aims to ensure that our professional services staff are properly valued for their contributions and are able to do their jobs less encumbered by red tape. We want to be a place to work where staff are – and feel – trusted and valued. A place where staff are fulfilled and have clear prospects. In that spirit, we have also announced the creation of a programme of Continuing Education Bursaries for university employees. Over the summer we launched a new ‘Inclusive Leadership Programme’ for all university leaders and managers. A year ago I announced the introduction of a Cambridge Living Wage, which I am pleased to report was implemented from 1 August. We have started a review of our HR grading process, often described as opaque and cumbersome. We have adopted a new academic promotion framework that will be implemented in 2020. This year we will be undertaking a full review of career progression for teaching-focussed staff, and we will be reviewing academic titles to ensure we have a system that is globally competitive and accords appropriate recognition to our outstanding academic staff. Work is already underway to put into place improvements to the career progression path for research staff. A root and branch review of our admissions processes is ongoing and will report by the end of this academic year. At a time of increased economic pressure, and as we take action to reverse a budget deficit, we are working hard to improve the way we manage our finances. There has been a significant move towards greater financial transparency over the past year, including significant changes in our budgeting and forecasting systems. More needs to be done and will be done. We are providing greater transparency on the University endowment’s investment activities. We have restructured our Investment Office, and I am delighted that we will soon be welcoming a new Chief Investment
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Officer, Tilly Franklin – an alumna of Jesus College. With enormous financial experience and profound commitment to responsible fund management, she is the ideal person to lead our Endowment Fund into a new era. It troubles me to note that we begin this academic year with the prospect of industrial action over pay and pensions at a critical juncture for the country and for the University. On pay, we will keep exploring options to enhance our staff’s total compensation package through the targeted improvement of benefits, including childcare support and housing assistance. On pensions, we will strive to find creative solutions to reach an agreement leading to a sustainable pensions system, agreeable to employees and employers and within the constraints of the USS’ collective arrangement and of public pensions regulation. Other University processes are changing: Following a period of consultation and a ballot of the Regent House, and effective from today, the University has introduced a new disciplinary code and framework. We have moved to the civil standard of proof in cases of student misconduct, and away from the criminal standard of proof required under the previous framework. The amendment brings greater transparency and clarity to our student disciplinary processes. It gives us the means to better challenge inappropriate behaviour, and the tools to better support complainants. Meanwhile, a joint University and College group has been convened to develop an understanding of the Collegiate University’s aspirations for the size and shape of the student population over the next ten years – and the academic, financial or social implications of these aspirations. Even as we discuss the changing shape of the future university, our commitment to fundamental principles is unwavering. Absolutely central among them is the principle of freedom of speech, which has been invoked frequently over the past year. Cambridge is the natural home for all those who want to challenge ideas and are prepared to have their ideas challenged. And even if ideas make us uncomfortable, it is our duty to ensure their free and lawful expression. But let me be clear: we cannot allow the imperative of free speech to become a cover for hateful or unlawful behaviour or language.
Moving forward: from Priorities to Programmes of Action The citation for Sir Gregory Winter and his fellow Nobel Laureates in Chemistry tells us that they ‘have taken control of evolution and used it for purposes that bring the greatest benefit to humankind.’ ‘For purposes that bring the greatest benefit to humankind’... It is no hyperbole to say that no other university has contributed more than ours to the sum of human understanding, or to breakthrough ideas and discoveries that have changed the way we understand ourselves, our planet and even the universe around us. Indeed, Sir Gregory’s discoveries now underpin six of the ten best-selling drugs in the world – proof that our colleagues not only make great discoveries, but also place them in the hands of society. Amid the external uncertainty, and the daily pressures of work, it is worth taking stock of the enormous impact Cambridge has on the world, and reflecting on what makes Cambridge such an extraordinary university. Is it the diversity and distribution of our decision-making, which promote independence of spirit and allow for rich experimentation? Is it that we value rugged independence while seeking shared purpose? Is it that we engage in the deep exploration of specific themes, while nurturing broad collaboration across disciplines? Is it that we are able to combine very local (often idiosyncratic) traditions with open engagement with the wider world? In our Colleges and Departments, students explore intellectually and build extraordinary social capital. In our labs, libraries and research groups, we expand and renew our understanding of the world on a daily basis. And the world notices, providing remarkable support. Over the last decade, our research funding has more than doubled. Over the past few years, our spinouts raised more capital to support their growth and development than those of any other university in the world. Our Dear World, Yours Cambridge campaign, which raises funds for specific projects across the Collegiate University, has already raised £1.59 billion. The world knows that Cambridge creates. That Cambridge discovers.
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That Cambridge solves problems. That Cambridge is daringly original, and insatiably curious. The world needs Cambridge to succeed – and I truly believe the world wants us to succeed. Knowing that is one of the reasons it is so uniquely rewarding to work and study here. So despite all the inevitable challenges and worries, we can and must move forward proudly and ambitiously. I borrow from the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who coined the term ‘Global Village’. Cambridge is extraordinary because it is, in effect, a global village – almost uniquely so among great world universities. Its thirty-one colleges possess a human scale that enables an energising mix of students and fellows with different interests, fields of expertise and world views. Our Schools, Faculties and Departments build further communities adding to the rich cross-currents of Cambridge intellectual life, as do the cross-school institutions like our University Library, museums and Botanic Garden. This Cambridge model, which bridges the human to the global scale, continues to be extraordinarily effective in promoting both the thrill of new insight and real impact in the wider world. The question before us today is: how do we move forward? I have proposed to the University Council a Programme of Action for the next three years. The Programme sets out specific initiatives but is based on three overarching objectives. First: To ensure that Cambridge continues to be recognised as an extraordinary university and continues to be seen as a global leader in interdisciplinary discovery and innovation with wide social, cultural and economic impact. Second: To ensure that Cambridge continues to be known as a rigorous and educationally innovative university, increasingly open to talented students from all backgrounds. Third: To ensure that Cambridge continues making its extraordinary contributions to society, in ways that are globally relevant and globally recognised, and is able to address fundamental issues facing our societies. 74 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019
This last objective takes me back to some of the questions I posed in my opening remarks. How will we, in years to come, have answered to the growing challenges of mental health? Colleagues across the University are already drawing their work together, and we could imagine a Cambridge Initiative on Mind, Brain and Body. An initiative linking together a network of researchers – from neuroscience and neurology to genetics and physics; from psychology and psychiatry to computer science and anthropology – to address widespread conditions such as depression, addiction, psychosis and neurodegenerative disease. How will we have responded to the crisis in democratic institutions as we know them? Again, I know that groups of colleagues are seeking connections to propose a Cambridge Initiative on Democracy, Social Inequality and Technology. One that links together networks of researchers to understand the effects of economic and social inequality, and the effects of technological innovation on society, including the future of democracy. How will we have contributed to the global response to the existential threat of climate change? We have to build on expertise across the physical and biological sciences, engineering, the social sciences and the arts to generate those innovations that will allow us to tackle this urgent problem. I can announce today that, later this term, we will be formally launching Cambridge Zero – the University of Cambridge Zero Carbon Future Initiative. Under the direction of Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Cambridge Zero will harness the full breadth of the University’s research and teaching capabilities to respond to climate change and support the transition to a zero-carbon future. The initiative will develop a bold programme of education, research, demonstration projects and knowledge exchange to address holistically the challenge of climate change; to help us think about what a sustainable future looks like; and to ensure that policy decisions are based on the best available evidence. Through Cambridge Zero we will engage in active collaboration with other universities and research institutes in the UK and beyond, including the newly established Global Universities Alliance on Climate. The Initiative will also promote operational shifts within the
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University’s own estate, helping us move to carbon neutrality as quickly as is feasible. These efforts will allow Cambridge to meet bold targets. We are the first university in the world to announce sciencebased targets for carbon reduction, committing ourselves to a 75% decrease in 2015 energyrelated carbon emissions by 2030, and to reducing them to absolute zero by 2048. What could be more urgent? A point underscored this past summer, when staff at our own Botanic Garden reported the highest UK temperature on record? Concluding remarks Colleagues, friends – The great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein said that “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” Well, we have a plan. And we have limited time in which to put it into practice. Some of the work in the Programme of Action I have outlined is already well advanced, while in other areas it is only just beginning. I am fully aware that this work must be undertaken as we grapple with a deficit in our operating budget.
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So we will have to exercise financial restraint and seek efficiencies across University operations, while investing in those critical areas that will bring additional resource and enable progress on our fundamental goals. All these efforts will require close collaboration amongst Colleges, Schools, Faculties and Departments, and the University leadership. But I am confident that these measures will, over the next few years, help us be the University we all desire: A Collegiate University that embodies, in its day-today work, the values it proclaims. A Collegiate University that earns the trust and respect of its staff, of its students, of its alumni, and of the communities it serves. A Collegiate University that wears with pride its manifold and complementary identities – local, regional, national, global. A Collegiate University that is truly open, diverse and public-spirited – not because we ever intend to sacrifice excellence, but because we recognise that excellence comes in many forms. A Collegiate University with a shared sense of purpose, moving towards – and helping to build – a fairer, more inclusive, sustainable world.
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Photographs courtesy of Muzeum Śląskie
An Interactive Installation by Ch Universality of Numbers
Walking into the gallery space at Muzeum Śląskie that holds Chiharu Shiota’s installation Counting Memories, viewers are immersed in a sea of mismatched, oldfashioned wooden desks and chairs. From each desk, strands of black yarn rise up, tangling together in a dark cloud that consumes the entire upper portion of the high-ceilinged room. And within the cloud of yarn, white numbers are suspended like insects caught in an enormous spider web.
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hiharu Shiota Celebrates the Laura Staugaitis
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The spacing of the desks provides natural archways for visitors to pass under as they wander through the installation. At each of the nine desks, stacks of paper and pencils are available for viewers to respond to prompts such as “Which number has meaning to you and why?”, “Do numbers tell the truth?”, and “How many memories do you have?” In a statement on the exhibition, Shiota explains: Each number defines us individually but also connects us universally. Numbers comfort us, we share dates that are important to us, and they help us understand ourselves. Our history is collected through numbers. In this way, the intertwined string reflects
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our history, while the numbers, which are scattered sporadically like the stars above Katowitz, represent the most meaningful dates we know. Shiota is a Japanese artist who lives and works in Berlin. She is renowned for her large-scale installations that incorporate familiar objects embedded within networks of suspended black, white, or red threads. In addition to Counting Memories, which is on view through April 26, 2020 in Katowice, Poland, Shiota’s solo exhibition The Soul Trembles at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo will be touring Asia until 2021. You can follow along with Shiota’s new work and global travels on Instagram and Facebook.
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Stanford Research looks at effective Schools that received state funds to expand career training programs saw lower dropout rates, Stanford researcher finds California high schools had higher graduation rates after partnering with community colleges and local businesses to revamp career readiness programs. For decades, high school students who weren’t considered “college material” were steered onto a vocational track with limited academic requirements, which may have helped them develop job skills but left them unprepared if they wanted to continue their education. That’s beginning to change as high schools move toward a new model known as career pathways, which combine a technical education with college-prep coursework while linking students with local employers for real-world experience. A new study by a Stanford education researcher shows that this approach pays off. California school districts that were awarded state funds to form career pathways in high-growth fields saw a 23 percent decline in high school dropout rates, according to research by Sade Bonilla, a doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE). The decrease was driven largely by female students, which Bonilla said was likely due to the
schools’ focus on creating pathways in traditionally female-dominated sectors such as health care support. “These findings suggest that a pragmatic approach to this type of school reform can make a difference for students who are at risk of dropping out of high school,” said Bonilla, whose research is detailed in a working paper released May 2 by the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA). “It serves as a proof point for other states.” Bonilla also presented the findings in March at the annual conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy and at the National Academy of Education/Spencer Fellows Retreat. A new model The “pathway” approach is distinct from many schools’ career and technical education (CTE) offerings in that it provides a progressive sequence of job-related courses in a field, rather than an assortment of stand-alone classes, and connects students with community college programs and local employers in their field of interest. “There’s more intentionality about students making progress in an area and getting more value when they enter the labor market,” said Bonilla. What’s more, she said, by delivering collegepreparatory academic coursework, the pathway approach integrates college and career readiness. “It doesn’t preclude you from doing one or the other.” Students in a pathway program on building design, for example, might choose to go on to the local community college and get a certificate in plumbing or an associate’s degree in engineering. Sade Bonilla, a doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education, found that California school districts that received funds to partner with community colleges and local employers saw a 23 percent decline in high school dropout rates.
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e partnering for vocational training Carrie Spector “Or they could go to a four-year school and major in architecture,” said Bonilla. “The idea is that kids are going to get off this pathway at different points, but they’re all going to start in the same place in high school.” A natural experiment The competitive grant program Bonilla studied was established by California lawmakers in 2013 to award one-time funding for schools to establish or expand career pathway programs. Recipients were chosen in two rounds and awarded a total of $500 million statewide between 2014 and 2017. Bonilla took advantage of what she calls a “natural experiment” that occurred through the award process: The selection committee rated applicants using a detailed rubric based on the schools’ plans and capacity to implement a career pathway program. Districts that just made the cutoff and received the grant were nearly indistinguishable from those that fell just below the threshold in terms of their underlying capacity. Spending data confirmed that grant recipients increased their per-pupil expenditures on CTE programs by more than 20 percent, compared with applicants who didn’t receive the funding. The impact of that spending was significant: Bonilla documented on average a 23 percent decline in dropout rates among grant recipients. Female students accounted largely for the decline, even though past research has shown that males are more likely to self-select into CTE academies. A key requirement for applicants of the California grant program was to identify high-growth occupations in their region—and many focused on creating career pathways in the expanding health care industry, Bonilla said, where entry-level support roles are traditionally dominated by female workers. “This type of program seems like a useful policy lever to get school districts to think more about the regional economy—which fields are growing, and which are shrinking. It’s a way for states to help districts, and for
districts to help kids, better understand the careers that are potentially available.” —Sade Bonilla, doctoral candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Education Impact beyond school engagement The return on investment for a state that offers start-up funding for this type of program is substantial, said Bonilla, a Spencer/National Association of Education fellow who will join the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst this fall. Based on the spending data for the California grant program, she estimated that preventing a single student from dropping out cost the state approximately $18,000. The diploma is worth far more. “The average high school graduate will realize approximately $300,000 more in lifetime earnings than someone who dropped out,” Bonilla said (the figure is higher for men and lower for women). “A high school graduate will pay more taxes, be more likely to have health insurance, have fewer emergency room visits, fewer interactions with the criminal justice system—you can think about it in a lot of different ways.” Meanwhile, administering the funds as California did—through a competitive grant program that encourages schools to design their career pathway programs around regional economic trends—can better prepare students for the landscape they’ll face when they enter the workforce, Bonilla said. “We know that most kids tend to stay close to home to find a job,” she said. “This type of program seems like a useful policy lever to get school districts to think more about the regional economy—which fields are growing, and which are shrinking. It’s a way for states to help districts, and for districts to help kids, better understand the careers that are potentially available.” This research was supported by the Spencer/ NAEd Dissertation Fellowship, the Karr Family Fellowship and the Institute for Education Sciences. Sade Bonilla’s GSE faculty advisor is Thomas S. Dee. Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019 83
Boo k Reviews The Gobbledegook Book A Joy Cowley Anthology Joy Cowley Illustrated by Giselle Clarkson Gecko Press ISBN: 9781776572588 “In all the stories I write, Small is the winner. Small is powerful. Big may not solve problems for Small But Small may solve the problems for big. Small always wins. The story loves Small.” Joy Cowley This lovely anthology has Joy Cowley’s favourite nonsense rhymes, stories and poems all collected in one place. These timeless and memorable pieces, some dripping with alliteration, others fantastically funny, there is something here for every child, for reading out loud, being read to, or reading as a group activity, some would even lend themselves to dramatisation. With its bold illustrations this book has a timeless look and feel between its hard covers. As with other Joy Cowley books it will be being appreciated for years to come. Highly recommended for use in classrooms, and in the home.
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Mesmerizing Water Droplet Photo When we seek the unknown, we gaze at the stars, imagining all of the wonders they’re hiding. But there’s a whole universe at our feet, just waiting for explorers. Don Komarechka from Barrie, Ontario, Canada, is one of them. His macro photographic adventures reveal a deeper understanding of how everything works, even the ones we cannot see with our own eyes. “I had always loved science but never had a mind for the theory,” Komarechka told Bored Panda. “Photography became my way of exploring the world in ways I couldn’t see with my own eyes, combining science and art. I was inspired early on by my father who had a lifelong love of photography from a young age but could never pursue it professionally. When a long-term illness was close to claiming his life, he gave me an envelope with money inside, asking me to spend it on something that he could see me enjoy. I went out and bought my first camera, and we bonded over the sharing of photographic knowledge before the end.”
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os By A Macro Photographer Li Nefas and Rokas LaurinaviÄ?ius
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In Favour of the Weird and Wonderful I believe it was Barry Crump who wrote a book entitled, ‘Bastards I have Met’. I have been considering ghostwriting a sequel. Perhaps I’d call it something less terse and in-yourface, perhaps, ‘Individuals Who Have Piqued My Interest Due to Their Hubris or Eccentric Behaviour’. That is a succinct, eye-catching title, n’est-ce pas? There have been many such individuals- eccentric ones to start with:
the coast was clear, he would tour the school, emptying rubbish bins. Another of my colleagues was quite situationally unaware. One memorable day, driving home, she called in to the local supermarket. Backing in to a carpark, she didn’t notice her car bumping in to something. On the way again, she was vaguely aware of a car following closely but it wasn’t until she had arrived home that she discovered that another vehicle had locked bumpers with hers.
Excessively confident people have occasionally crossed my path. I used to play cricket and actually practised every now and then. At one session was a person whom I’d met once or twice and had been somewhat intimidated by his tales of sporting prowess. I shall call him Dexter. This day, Dexter brought This same pedagogue, after marking his own bat and pads; I was suitably one exam paper, informed us that the impressed. As it happened, my turn range of marks was too extreme, so she in the nets coincided with Dexter’s intended to add ten percent to all papers turn to bowl. His run-up was about scoring less than 70 and deduct ten twenty metres and he’d built up quite percent from those above 70. As I’d been a head of steam by the time he arrived given 71 for my efforts and my friend at the crease. I lost sight of the ball on scored 69, I was justifiably incensed. delivery. It had gone behind him. The Yes, I know, life is not fair. Suck it up, remaining deliveries had me straining Strawman. to connect. None was on a line or When I was a teacher, one of my length and the only way I could be out principals had a very effective way of was to fall asleep on the stumps. dealing with stroppy parents. His office Talking about stumps, a late relative looked out on to the school’s carpark. was confident he could remove an old If he saw anyone approaching with a Totara stump by attaching a chain belligerent demeanour, he would hide to his late model Nissan, winding it in a large closet in his office. When around the stump and slowly backing The first would be one of my teachers who would regularly arrive in class with her dress on back to front. When informed of this she would half remove the offending garment and position it correctly, much to the amusement of our adolescent minds.
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up. The removal was successful in that he lost his bumper but not the stump. One of my earliest memories of amazing self-confidence combined with eccentricity is of a television show called ‘Have a Shot’. This was a forerunner of ‘New Zealand’s Got Talent’ but without the slick, wow factor. Think early 1960s, with commercials for Persil (it washes whiter), Pepsodent toothpaste and Andrews’ Liver Salts. The compere began the black and white broadcast by firing what looked like a real pistol, hence the show’s name. Anyway, all these decades later, I can remember how I felt as a ten-year-old watching a man blow across the top of a beer flagon, performing a rendition of ‘Moonlight Sonata’ or it may have been ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’. Only in Lower Hutt!! I have been known to have perhaps too much confidence in my own abilities. The human male is reputed to have a dearth of genes devoted to following directions, so who am I to swim against the genetic stream. I’d rather gargle a blend of number ten-on-the-Richterscale chilli and that green stuff that’s put on sushi than admit I’m lost. This confidence has been wellfounded-mostly. The one time I relied on a GPS, the imperious shrew with received pronunciation directed me into the wrong lane (turn right and then turn left-yeah right lady, what about the stalled traffic beside me?)
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and I spent an unhappy ten minutes circumnavigating the Basin Reserve in Wellington, several times. Emboldened after my third time, I ignored said shrew, pretended I was in Auckland and pulled in front of a gentleman driving a Porsche. He didn’t seem to mind- if it were in Auckland, he’d still be tooting. A savvy aviator, Ken Fenwick once said, ‘There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.’ He was probably right but I think there is a need for eccentric people in the world and definitely for confident ones. For example, another aviator, Kiwi Richard Pearse (you may know of him American readers, he beat the Wright Brothers), had a reputation for unusual behaviour. My grandfather recalled seeing his prototype flying machine perched in a gorse hedge near Temuka. I can only imagine how he nurtured the confidence to ignore his neighbours’ jibes, trust his inspiration and effect a way to defy gravity. The world needs tall poppies, weirdos and assured people. I think my sequel to Crumpy’s work would most likely win the Man Booker prize.
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“The best teachers don’t give you the answers... They just point the way ... and let you make your own choices.” 94 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2019