In preparation for our excursion to the city tomorrow

Image above: The important concepts for the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship

Sites to support your HaSS planning
Australian Curriculum Portal
GeogSpace
AC History Units
DECD Learning Resources for Australian Curriculum
DECD Achievement Standards Charts 
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Legal Education Teachers Association SA (LETASA)
Business Educators Australia

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@sa.gov.au


Relevant resources and links for Civics and Citizenship in preparation for our excursion tomorrow

* Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship  on the Australian Curriculum Portal





 * South Australian Parliament teaching resources

* Discovering Democracy resources 

* Parliamentary Education Office resources

The Sound bites on Civics and Citizenship

The South Australian Suffragettes site

A great South Australian history site focussed on the work of the suffragettes in South Australia.

Backward planning or front-ending purpose! Planning your unit

Teachers are designers. An essential act of our profession is the design of curriculum and learning experiences to meet specified purposes. We are also designers of assessments to diagnose student needs to guide our teaching and to enable us, our students, and others (parents and administrators) to determine whether our goals have been achieved, that is, did the students learn and understand the desired knowledge?

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

Understanding by Design, backward design!

In recent years the area of designing curriculum has become of prime importance in schools. This is particularly critical as schools begin to become familiar with and deconstruct the Australian Curriculum for the purpose of designing appropriate learning and teaching program for their students. The theory which has been adopted as the way to go is from the work of Wiggins and McTighe in the area of Backward Design. Everywhere one goes, where curriculum is being developed and implemented we hear the term UBD or rather Understanding By Design.

Backward Design planning is a rather logical and reasonable idea which has always been the way of operation for many teachers, but not all.

By clearly articulating the UBD process, Wiggins and McTighe have created a way of thinking which has had great penetration into the area of curriculum planning and in turn pedagogy.

Watch these short videos on Learning design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4isSHf3SBuQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgNODvvsgxM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8F1SnWaIfE


A few observations and gems of comment from the readings on Wiggins and McTighe

• Teachers are designers.

• "Clarifying the desired results of our teaching, how will we ever know whether our designs are appropriate or arbitrary?"

• How will we distinguish merely interesting learning from effective learning?

• Good design, … is about learning to be more thoughtful and specific about our purposes and what they imply.

• The shift involves thinking a great deal, first, about the specific learnings sought, and the evidence of such learning, before thinking about what we as the teacher, will do or provide in teaching and learning activities.

• "The challenge is to focus first on the desired learnings from which appropriate teaching will logically follow."

• “...best designs derive backward from the learnings sought.”

• “...too many teachers focus on the teaching and not the learning.”

• Content focused design versus results focused design.

• Answering the "why?" and "so what?" questions as the focus of curriculum planning.

• Twin sins:
* activity-oriented design might be called "hands-on without being minds-on" primary-middle years)
* aimless coverage (upper secondary)

• Students require clear purposes and explicit performance goals.

• Grasp the key idea that we are not coaches of their ability to play the "game" or performing with understanding, not tellers of our understanding to them on the sidelines.

• Three stages of Backward Design = Identify desired result - Determine acceptable evidence - Plan learning experience and instruction.

Some resources and preparation for Session 5

Image above: Evening shadows, backwater of the Murray, South Australia 
H J Johnstone   Australia, 1835–1907



Some resources to support historical learning on South Australia and our indigenous history

* In regards to the South Australian Aboriginal history role play on Tuesday, click here and you can download a pdf of the activity.


* Changing Worlds: The South Australian Story
http://www.changingworlds.sa.edu.au/?page_id=39

* South Australian Aboriginal Cultural Studies Curriculum
http://dlb.sa.edu.au/tlsmoodle/
Click on ACS Aboriginal Cultural Studies course and then in the next screen,
enter password in reverse as mentioned.

To do before next Tuesday's session (Session 5)

1. Bring along the story of your soldier or nurse that you researched on the Virtual War Memorial - this was the task for Session 4 but we did not get time to discuss.

2. View the Debt of Honour video and be prepared to discuss. After watching the video, have a look at the interesting table of Australian global conflicts deaths over time from the Australian War Memorial website at https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/war_casualties/

3. Make sure you have done the readings from Ty Andre's book (Chapter 29 and 34) on the Vietnam War.

4. Do the five readings for Session 5 (Reynolds chapters, Earth's Nine Lives, Woolen Case Study and the Earth Charter Education article) - all described on the task sheet provided.

5. Complete the final double-entry journal as described (either the 'Earth's Nine Lives' article or David Suzuki's video.

6. Calculate your ecological footprint using
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/calculators/

7. In preparation for the final sessions, look at the following two PowerPoints on the HaSS curriculum.
* Civics and Citizenship 
* Economics and Business 


At the session on Tuesday you will be provided with details for Assignment 2: The Unit of Study

See you all on Tuesday!

Getting ready for Session 4

Image above: Gary Passmore conducting the South Australian Aboriginal Cultural Studies role play during Session 3.


Thanks to Gary for spending some time with us today and sharing his knowledge and expertise - always something to learn. As mentioned, here are some PowerPoints to look at before Thursday and a little background and prep for our 4th Session.

1. The presentation on the Geography concepts that we started today.

2. A presentation on creative teaching that we will refer to on Thursday - to help with your lesson and unit planning.

3. Remember to come along on Thursday ready to talk about an indigenous Australian who has contributed to our society (either in the past or in the present).

4. Although we may not have time on Thursday, be prepared to share a story of a soldier or nurse from any of the conflicts that Australia participated in during the 20th Century. Use the RSL Virtual War Memorial at https://rslvirtualwarmemorial.org.au/ to do your research.

5. Read chapter 29 (A Helping Hand From Uncle Sam) and Chapter 34 (The Fall of Saigon) from Ty Andre's book On My Brothers Shoulders. This provides a view of the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Vietnamese man who began life in an impoverished orphanage. We have streamed the whole book if you would like to read Ty's story in its entirety.

The chapters are in the eReadings at https://lo.unisa.edu.au/blocks/course_essentials/ereadingslaunchpage.php?id=7649

6. Planning is going ahead for a voluntary excursion experience after the workshop next Thursday (8 December). We have booked into visit Parliament House and the Migration Museum and we hope to provide you with an insight about the nature of and how to conduct a HaSS excursion. More about that tomorrow!  

7. As requested, here are the photos of the great resources Gary brought along today.

Bits and pieces for next Tuesday's session

The history concepts

Thanks for the great conversation in the group on Tuesday. There are several things to follow-up from Thursday that appear below.

1. Our focus next Tuesday is on Rights and Freedoms, with a special focus on the history of Aboriginal people in Australia and in particular in South Australia. To this end we have a special guest coming in to work with us. Gary Passmore is a valued colleague and is the writer of the South Australian Aboriginal Cultural Studies Curriculum ... and much more! Gary will be guiding us through a role play and participating with us in conversations on the issues that you will cover in your readings this week. I am certainly looking forward to the session.

1. Here is the link to that Shaun Tan video we were discussing. It is worth having a good look at and think about how you would use it in the classroom.
Part 1 The Arrival
Part 2 The Arrival

  2. You can also download the history presentation from Thursday afternoon here. Have a good look at it and get your thinking together re: the history concepts.

3. Next Double entry journal - please bring a printed copy to class and be prepared to present a stimulating question from the right hand column.
 

Foley, D 2007, Aboriginality and Pedagogy, in Education, Change and Society, R. Connell. Chpt. 5 Pp94-125. Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

The following links will require you to sign in using your username and password.

http://search.library.unisa.edu.au/?query=any,contains,Aboriginality+and+Pedagogy

  4. Task for Session 3:

Research an Indigenous Australian and be prepared to present to the group (2 mins). If we run out of time next Tuesday we will do the presentation on Thursday. Again, I want a presentation without notes but just a student led conversation about the person.

5. Choosing your resources and lesson plan
Just a reminder, as Deb explained, you need to come along to the session next Tuesday with a Year level and Content descriptor selected - plus some ideas on the resources you plan to review and use in your lesson plan. I will be providing you with the templates and detailed guidance for the assignment next Tuesday.

6. In preparation for our session on the geography concepts next Tuesday, have a good look at the Geography concept wheel below.

 

All the best, have  good weekend and I look forward to our continued work together next Tuesday.

Regards
Malcolm