OTF Curriculum Forum, Saturday, October 15, 2011
Updates and Housekeeping (Cyndie Jacobs)
●Associations encouraged to have links to all the Ministry websites as well as the OTF websites;
●Teachers’ Voice on Assessment (TVA) website is coming
●Can advertise a subject association’s conference on the OTF website
●If we have ideas for or concerns about the Ministry-Faculties of Ed Forum, we should e-mail them to Cyndie.
●The work of the SEdA (Sustainability and Education Academy) was highlighted and the workshop for members on December 2 and 3, 2011 was mentioned.
●CF members were encouraged to pick up assorted resources that Cyndie and others had brought.
●6 copies of the documentary There Once Was an Island were provided to subject associations with the most direct connections to educating about “climate change”.
OSSTF Subject Association Grants
●Application form deadline is December 2, 2011
●SA’s may request up to $2,500.00 per association, work, receipts to be completed between September, 2011 and July 2012
●Total allocation of funds ($25,000.00) may be prorated based on number of applicants.
OTF CF Steering Committee Elections:
●An election was held to fill the two vacant spots resulting from the end of two members’ two-year terms. Peter Beens and Ian Pettigrew were re-elected for a two-year term commencing October, 2011.
Jobs People Do Presentation (Gale Blaylock)
Visit and see scanned handout on last page of these notes
About Jobs People Do:
The JobsPeopleDo.com website has been primarily designed for the 1.8 million plus Canadian students , ages 12-18 who are required to identify career choices that interest them, and select the appropriate academic requirements needed for a career in that chosen field . Staffed by recent college and university graduates, JobsPeopleDo.com understands the issues students face when choosing their careers and post secondary education. It offers over 500 job videos, job profiles, a free resume builder, career quizzes, campus life advice, relevant student articles, contests, and much more…All in one place!
Tabs/Sections:
Student Life captures the voice of former high school students @ post-secondary institutions reflecting on their school experience and providing constructive peer-to-peer insights and advice.
Get Involved section helps students navigate the 40 community hours required to graduate.
Job Videos section provides access to 540 videos available of provide brief insight into job/career profiles. Universities and colleges that offer programs to prepare people for these careers (across Canada).
Job Profiles section provides students with insight into the assets / characteristics that are required to perform the job.
Resume Builder offers 3 different templates to build resumes.
Abilities Quiz offers Career Quizzes to check for career suitability.
Partners:
See OSCA and OTF homepages support this with links
TC2 - “Technology Enhanced Critical Inquiry and Student Engagement” Presentation(Garfield Gini-Newman)
Context: Critical thinking and inquiry are increasingly infused in emerging revised curricula
Guiding session question: Can technology really support and enhance critical thinking and inquiry? Do the benefits and rewards outweigh/offset the costs? Can a classroom built around TECI support and improve achievement and engagement?
Some thoughts
Link to Gordon’s Ladder of Professional Development (unconsciously unskilled....consciously skilled):
“Common practices among highly effective teachers” (see Linda Darling-Hammond’s research-based findings)
Six common practices:
1. Expectations and exemplars
2. Student work
3. Little lecture
4. Small group interaction
5. “Instructional discourse”
6. Organization of rooms
Using simple strategies such as throwing in a false statement into a set of facts can be effective in helping students become more critical of material presented to them
Defining the often muddy waters of critical thinking – according to TC2, a person is thinking critically only when and if she/he is attempting to assess or judge the merits of possible options in light of relevant factors or criteria
Critical thinking = criterial thinking – thinking in the face of criteria
Great teaching occurs at the intersection of sufficient content knowledge and effective pedagogical skills and practices
Consider reframing the assessment conversation to discuss “assessment for , as, and of learning” as “assessment for , as, and of thinking”
As teachers we need to create critically-minded, sceptical (not cynical) students and learners.
“Classrooms can become incubators of deep thought and engagement when critical thinking is the driver rather than the culmination of learning.”
Teachers effectively become knowledge brokers
Explored three types of questions: Type One (look it up, list), Type Two (recall), Type Three (judgement),
Sometimes we need to “tee up” the learning by identifying (in advance) the knowledge (texts, websites, etc) that students will need to have access to do to learn/think critically.
Inquiry-based teaching presents students with problematic situations and invites them to ask questions, observe and question phenomena, pose explanations, gather evidence, draw conclusions, etc.
Content is used as a reference material to solve problems (knowledge in use)
Critical thinking – valued but misunderstood (Richard Paul, 1997 study)
“Additive” (“by the way...you might want to think about the following....”) versus “corrective” (“you’re not right...try again”) teaching.
Good critical thinkers are comfortable with ambiguity.
“Feel” and “think” are not synonymous
See John Hattie’s findings in Visible Learning (work): difference between “problem-based LEARNING” and “problem-based TEACHING.” The former rated low on achievement; the latter scored high on the dashboard.
Exploring the difference between Critical Thinking and Inquiry-Based Teaching (Teaching and learning becomes very powerful WHEN these are blended)
“Critical inquiry” is a term that captures this approach.
Critical thinking task can be designed in 6 ways:
oCritique the piece
oJudge the better or best (and support)
oRework the piece (re-write an ending, look at perspective, etc.)
oDecode the puzzle(e.g. problematizing, analysis and supporting with criteria)
oDesign to specs (construction piece, thinking about what makes a powerful lesson…planning it out)
oPerform the specs (playing it out and adjusting as you go)
Various strategies for engaging students in critical thinking were demonstrated; turn question back, allow students to question or challenge assumptions, invite them to give a judgment and support their answers, ask who has other opinions and why? Encourage to respond to each other’s comments.
Inquiry question: “What does it mean to engage students and does it impact transformative learning?”
TC2 is attempting to build an Engagement Taxonomy
●Transformed (empowered)
●Challenged (caught up)
●Cares (appreciates the value)
●Interested (entertained)
●Willing to do (on task)
See Alfie Kohn’s work Challenging Students . . . And How to Have More of Them (
Addressing the difference between a teacher-centered and a student-centered classroom and community of thinkers (a third way, not the middle way)
●decision-making;
●principles of teaching and learning;
●teaching practices;
●dominant values
Throughout the session, groups of subject associations took the “Promethean Bus Tour”
●invited to participate in a presentation from Promethean on their technology bus where we were shown possible uses for technology use in lessons –we were asked to revisit the initial challenge “Can the use of technology enhance learning through inquiry as per the 6 lenses above
Take-away question to ponder: What relationship should exist between TC2 and subject associations? TC2 interested in finding new ways to work with partner organizations that may not have the funding at their disposal that school boards do.