Jun 28 2007
CfE - How big a change?
I attended the Scholar conference last Friday at Heriot Watt Uni. It was quite interesting to share ideas on how to use Scholar effectively from people who have used it much more than I have. In fact, I think the whole day was perfect for someone like me - a newcomer. The two main themes of the day were Scholar (obviously) and the Curriculum for Excellence. I get the feeling from many Scottish teachers that they have heard about these two things A LOT - but I know very little about them both.
1. Scholar: I love it. It’s such a fantastic resource and I only wish I could use it more. It’s hard to believe that there is an online and paper-based resource which perfectly matches the course. Why can’t I use it more? There doesn’t seem to be much of a culture amongst the kids of using Scholar in my school, so they don’t go online without lots of encouragement. Also, I find it difficult to incorporate Scholar into lessons with the pupils actually using it themselves. This normally involves booking computers in another part of the school and walking them there and back - difficult to dip in and out of Scholar as suggested at the conference.
2. Curriculum for Excellence: What is it all about? Brian Boyd spoke about Curriculum for Excellence and Scholar’s place within it. What was amazing to me was how different CfE sounded from Brian compared to what I’d already heard. I don’t know a huge amount about it being a newcomer. In fact, not much more than the four competencies which are on a wall in nearly every classroom. The impression I had up until now was that CfE wasn’t going to involve massive changes and was all about developing what we already do well and tweaking some things that need tweaking. Having listened to Brian (who was in some way involved with the creation of CfE) I’ve now heard a very different view. His view seems to involve a much more cross-curricular theme-based approach to secondary education with a very very different approach to assessment - i.e. a radical shift away from Highers. As he said a number of times during his address - “will the CfE actually be a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic?”
So although I’m more confused about a few things, I feel that this is the point of a conference. You should leave a conference with questions, not answers - that’s what training is for.
Interesting post.
1. Why don’t you promote the culture of using on-line resources in your school.
2. Did you receive a letter from me about ACfE recently which was supposed to go to all members of staff? You might like to check out my recent post on restructuring our S1-S3 curriculum - I’d appreciate your thoughts?
http://edubuzz.org/blogs/donsblog/2007/06/25/learning-teams-worth-thinking-about/
Thanks Don.
1. I will of course be encouraging the use of scholar with my students. I was just reflecting on teachers from other schools (not many I might add) who said their students came to their lessons already expecting to use scholar. It was widely agreed at the conference that the assessment systems within scholar are not as user friendly as they could be and this limits their use amongst learners & teachers. So some work is required with all users to encourage its use.
2. I did recieve and read your letter thank you. I went to try to find it again before writing this reply but I then remembered that I had to delete it from my email as it had a very large file size (I know - I should have downloaded it first!) I have read your learning teams post also. To be honest, I really feel as if I have just arrived in the middle of a huge debate and that the most comfortable place for me right now is on the fence!
My wife is a primary teacher and I’ve always envied the topic style of teaching she uses. In England, I taught combined science in years 7-9 and even that was more topic based (i.e. we’d cover elements of biology and physics in the topic ‘Forces & Movement’). And like most teachers, I’d love to be able to facilitate deep exploratory learning.
BUT, I can see the many fears surrounding such changes. I’d be most concerned if this was in any way rushed and without making every possible effort to engage every teacher to ensure that all members of staff were on board and comfortable with the changes.
Exciting times, indeed!