Category Archive

Our school’s undergoing a process of revisiting how we learn in our different Key Learning Areas (Human Society and Its Environment is the first focus).  We engaged in the second of a series of very worthwhile staff meetings examining more closely the principles that underpin the HSIE curriculum, the mandatory content and skills outlined in the curriculum foundation statements and the information skills process.  Today we then progressed further to look more closely at how we plan for learning.  The conversation has been exciting and challening; and I’ve made one of my many contributions to the discussion through the medium of Technoblog.

So, after much discussion today, it’s become a lot clearer on what we’re going to expect on paper to guide teachers through the process of leading student learning through a unit of work, and I’ve sought tonight to “tidy up” and re-present the fruits of that conversation for further reflection and sharing.  Part of that involved revising the program unit template, which subsequently prompted me to produce a sample so people could get a sense of what it would look like in action…

… and boy, was I challenged.  In ten minutes, try to rewrite this term’s HSIE unit to incorporate cooperative learning strategies, higher order thinking skills, the information skills process, key assessment tasks and student work samples, and a balance between enough detail to guide teachers, while not so much as to restrict them in their teaching.  I now know why there’s money to be made in writing learning programs for a living and selling them to teachers.  If you can do all that, you’re doing well.  The worrying thing is that not all the “commercially available” programs do all that.  There is something to be said for putting in the effort and drawing on your professional learning community.