Geoff's thoughts

Hello All,

I have been doing some research (reading) and have found some cool stuff.  Last night I read some interesting information on , 'Teaching and Learning in Aboriginal Education' by Neil Harrison.  Neil explains things very well as he has targeted this book towards Pre-service teachers.  Neil's first gig was up in 'Numbulwar' some 600 k's south of Darwin, he now lectures or has in Armidale. 

I'm finding interesting facts and links from this book, more importantly 'Stories'  as stories are the key it seems to how Aboriginal students learn best.

Teachers -  The picture the teacher paints or message they portray about the future and the importance of learning KLA's, many Aboriginal students are not convinced that  the school is worthwhile or see themselves in that picture of the future.  Schools attempt to make their curriculum more 'culturally friendly', however it doesn't solve improving learners outcomes or retention.  Teachers are generally seen to then make decisions about their interests in relation to if they are for or against Aboriginal people.  This to me is pretty interesting stuff.  Harrison also mentions at this cross road if you like students are influenced by your decisions and you will never be able to hide your thoughts or values, "what you think really counts".

Language - Harrison writes about where you can address Aboriginal people within their local area.  He suggests stereotyping Aboriginal people as a whole is a generalisation.  for example where I grew up in NSW I lived in the Koori people.  In Qld and here in Rocky we have Murri people.  Harrison suggests this reinforces to students there are many different Aboriginal people across Australia.

Finishing this blog I'll just add a few stats I found interesting.  It has been raised that Aboriginal learners are continually left behind in their literacy due to not having the same amount of stories read to them before beginning school as the majority of the population.  This evaluation is probably due to the way the Aboriginal people share and tell stories rather than read to one another.  the stat is prep students or learners starting school will have 1000 hours of books or shared reading, Aboriginal children are less likely.  In 2004 Aboriginal learners in year 7 would have a gap of 60 months from other learners.  The time Aboriginal students reach year 3 the gap is 19 months.



Geoff

AT1 - Report on Diversity, inclusion and engegemnt

Hello Everyone,

I have finally found some time to get cracking on this assessment.  I have started by going through the mountain of stuff KP as provided in numerous formats (videos, sound recordings, websites etc etc).  I think its helpful one minute and something else the next; helpful is what I’m sticking with.  I had a quick read over everyone’s posts to date and feedback within those posts, so I thought it best to write my own blog and within this provide feedback as sort whilst providing you all with an update for where I’m heading.

 

I am looking at a focus within the ‘Mental Health’ stream with three of my four topics to be

1.    Autism

2.    ADHD, and

3.    Depression/anxiety

The fourth diverse learning difficulty area will be

4.    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders students.

My plan thus far has been reading through and listening to all KP info on Moodle including some sample assessments.  I am pretty much at the design phase, however I do have a clear message and style I want to present in my report.  I think when looking at the broadness this assessment (word limit in mind) I really want to keep it as informative to my (audience) “colleagues” as possible and make my report a working document.  I’m thinking with the key points highlighted by  scenario and secondly by KP that “our” Principal has selected “us” for “our” school to report to “our colleagues" as an important style of the report.  My focus will be on Introduction and conclusion to keep this “beast” under control.  What I mean by that is with four areas to discuss and policies to highlight I think my introduction and conclusion may allow for a more succinct (working document).  The tricky thing for me is that we a pretending to be in a school, however we know the state and country legislation not specifically the schools policies?  I will provide some more insight to my thoughts on these four once a dive a little deeper and research.  I have been impressed by the Kidsmatter program and website and will look to link that program to “our” school and how that can be utilised in my report.

 

Geoff

Hi Guys,

I came across this article discussing ADHD in America: "Drugging of the American Boy". Certainly some food for thought here, though much of the content is a little off topic in regards to our first assignment. 

It does however support my personal belief that in many environments we are crushing the spirits of our sons (Steve Biddulph has some excellent advice here for parents in "Raising Boys"). When we were discussing the differences between boys and girls in an educational context in lectures a few weeks ago, I mentioned this piece written by Maggie Dent, author specialising in parenting:

"I have written many weeks ago of my deep concerns about the shortening of lunch time for all children in our schools. Again it is implied that children's play is a waste of valuable time that could be spent doing the curriculum! Children are struggling with a serious lack of physical activity that is impacting them in so many ways - and brain research shows quite clearly that physical activity that lifts the heart rate improves how the brain learns for the following couple of hours. Poor self regulation that contributes to inattentiveness, physical restlessness and inappropriate behaviour is improved with playful activity especially outside. The primary need for every human is belonging and being able to play with other children in effective ways that involve communication and cooperative play soothes this need while helping children improve their emotional and social competences at the same time. Boys need to make dopamine and without it they struggle with formal learning and so many will not waste time eating their lunch so they can play! Oh I could keep writing for a week about why this is so wrong - when we were up in the OECD educational ratings - we had less technology and hour long lunches!"

I look forward to any thoughts you guys might have on the topic of behaviour management with hyperactive children, in particular boys.   

please note, I appreciate 100% that there are many circumstances where prescribed drugs are vital to the well being of a child and its certainly NOT my role as a Teacher to have any opinion about how the family and their doctor have chosen to help their child. I am more interested in reading further into the ideas of people like Maggie Dent so that I can create an environment that works for as many children as possible.

Cheers,
Vanessa

My start for Assignment 1...

I've been avoiding this assignment as I'm having trouble getting my head around it a little.  While procrastinating I thought I would start with some background/introduction information.

With my science background, the most obvious start was to look at the stats...  What will we be facing when we hit the classroom?

So I have downloaded the ABS data and have plotted the following two graphs for my report:

Using this information, I'm thinking of structuring my report to talk about diversity based on the break down in the second graph looking at the most common forms I'm likely to encounter.
So I will discuss:

1. Learning difficulties
2. Communication difficulties and
3. Fitting in socially

I'm also interested in gifted and talented students, so this will be my 4th.

I'm personally a little uncomfortable with the concept of 'labelling' students/people and feel that it doesn't matter to me as a teacher if a student has Autism or ADHD or whatever (including un-diagnosed difficulties).  The fact that they have a learning difficulty that I need to provide support for, and additional scaffolding for, should be all I need to address as the teacher.

Having said all of this, I am aware of your comments to Jo's post and wonder if it's possible to cover this in the word limit. 

I would really like your comments and/or suggestions.

Using this Blog for completing AT1 in EDED20455 SLE

In the AT1 specification KP indicates that we use this blog "to gather background ideas to inform aspects of your report" and that we include an Appendix in our report in which we write our "Reflections from online discussions with preservice teachers".

I have found that the Forum on the moodle site has been a lively discussion of the topics that are discussed in the first half of the course. I am suggesting that the six of us use this blog to share our ideas for the report itself. That is we post what we propose to do for the report and get feedback from each other on our reports.

Then when we write our reflections we can draw on this blog and the class discussion forum. Other suggestions welcome.

Jo's first ideas for Assessment Task 1:

Four forms of diversity.

I am going to go broad here and use the categories defined by ACARA:

1. Students with disability
2. Gifted & Talented students
3. Students for whom English is an additional language or dialect.

They define three catagories so I will break category 1 into Physical and Intellectual disabilities. So my four forms of diversity will be:

1. Students with physical disability
2. Students with intellectual disability
3. Gifted & Talented students
4. Students for whom English is an additional language or dialect.

I have struggled with what KP means by "forms of diversity". I have see-sawed between the specific (eg hearing impaired) to the broad (eg physical disability). What do you think? Would specific forms be better than the broad forms I have chosen? Are broad terms going to be too difficult to cover in 2000 words? Suggestions welcome.

This blog has been set up to discuss Assessment Task 1 in EDED20455 Supportive Learning Environments.