Kath Murdoch and Inquiry Learning - Part One

My friend Paul at Ddraig Goch Pod was remarking recently that New Zealand is getting all the quality Professional Development lately, and I'm afraid he might be right. In the last few years I have had the privilege of attending workshops by Jason Ohler, Marc Prensky, Bernie Dodge, Tom Marsh, Ian Jukes, Tony Ryan, Jamie McKenzie, David Warlick and today I am sitting in a two day seminar run by Australian Educator Kath Murdoch.

This may be a long post as I am recording my notes while in the seminar.

Kath is the author of the book "Classroom Connections" and we follow her inquiry model in our classrooms in my ICT cluster in Dunedin. Kath has asked us to document our personal learning goal for the day... hmmm... I would like to consolidate my knowledge of Inquiry learning and the theory behind it to help in my role in supporting schools in my cluster. To achieve my goal I think I will record my questions here to help me think about them later and link my new knowledge to my previous thinking. As always, I think questions are the answer to learning!

To begin with inquiry in the classroom you need to help students understand that learning is something they do for themselves and not what is 'done' to them. By setting goals students take ownership of their own learning - "learning is something I do, not something done to me".

Why do you think it is worth using an Inquiry Learning approach? Inquiry is a teaching method that comes naturally to me and just makes sense. Think about your own learning style. Do you learn because people tell you to? Or because you have a burning question you would like answered? I hold to a social constructivist model of teaching and learning, (see my previous post) and Inquiry fits with this theory.

Kath states: Why inquiry?

• Vehicle for integration of the curriculum
• fosters connected rather than episodic teaching and learning
• Caters for range of learning styles
• Transferable process
• Taps into students' curiosity
  

To illustrate this point Kath uses a great text for teaching about questioning and how children learn, Stella, star of the sea written by Marie-Louise Gay, published by Allen & Unwin, 1999.

Kath asked, are you more like the character Sam or Stella?

What view of the child does this text portray?

In this text I see Sam as the questioning inquiring child, and Stella as the creative child who has an answer that constantly changes, her answer is constructed through her world view. Students all have theories about how the world works. We need to be able to draw these theories from the students and then gently shape these theories by allowing them to question and make more connections. This book also highlights the different learning styles students may have.

What view of the child does an inquiry approach assume?

Kath states: In an inquiry approach, we must firmly believe in students as:

• curious
• searching for meaning
• intelligent in a range of ways
• experienced - something to offer
• thinkers
• collaborators
• active
• risk takers
• co-learners
• co-teachers

Kath has developed an inquiry approach that takes you through certain steps. She is, in this workshop, taking us through the inquiry model to investigate the inquiry model.

The first step is 'Tuning In'. This is where you engage students in the topic at hand. This begins the 'wonderings', students begin to think of questions they might have. But it is not essential for students to have questions at this stage, these questions will continue to be asked during the next stages.

The next step is 'Finding Out' where students gather in information about the topic. This step is followed closely by 'Sorting Out' where students use this information in a certain way.

Finding out: We were asked to consider these questions:

• What is the difference between themes and inquiry?
• List two advantages of using inquiry
• List two challenges in using inquiry
• List three skills students will need to carry out an inquiry
• List three skills teachers will need to carry out an inquiry
• List two questions you have about inquiry.

Sorting out:

After sorting through all the data we had gathered something occurred to me. Inquiry takes more time than traditional direct instruction, but wow! it is so much more powerful. When the students have to engage with the data rather than the teacher interpreting it for them powerful learning occurs. As teachers we really need to stop doing things for our students just to make sure we cover enough 'content'. If I think about sorting data, the question of what is more important, content or process comes to mind. The students are engaging with the data in a meaningful way and they are internalising it as they have to sort it. But the process of sorting it is a skill they will be able to transfer to many other situations. In inquiry - what you learn about makes a difference to the skills you use and vice versa. The content has to be worth learning about, be of value and interest to the students and to the wider world.

My first day of the workshop is now finished. I am exhausted because I have been thinking so hard. I am brought back to the question that always haunts me. If we know this approach is of such value how can we get it into more classrooms?

I have been reading an article by Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard E. Clark entitled Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching. Others have critiqued this article here. I found myself arguing out loud as I read this article. And this article represents why a lot of teachers do not adopt Inquiry Based Learning in their classrooms. There is a misconception that Inquiry means letting the kids loose on learning with 'minimal instruction'. Inquiry is not an either / or dichotomy. It does not mean that you either teach them or let them teach themselves. It is a rigorously framed and supported structure that relies on the elements in Vygotsky's zone of proximal development to guide students through their learning. In Kath's model, Inquiry means engaging students in deeper more meaningful learning than direct instruction alone can offer.

If you have not yet looked into Inquiry Based Learning I encourage you to do so. It suits the way that digital natives learn, it fits with the idea of 'clickability' that today's kids hold. Learning is finding the answers to the questions I have. A talented teacher helps students to find and focus those questions to find out about their world and their place in it.

Can't wait for part two.

technorati tags:kath_murdoch, Inquiry_Based_Learning, IBL, constructivism

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Oral Language Survey

This year I am conducting research to find some answers to the question: In what ways and to what extent does podcasting enhance oral literacies in primary aged students. I have created a questionaire to see how teachers are currently teaching oral language in their classrooms. I would be grateful if you have a few minutes to complete this questionaire, it should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. My research will be available early 2008 and i will link to it from this blog. All submissions are anonymous. Click on this link to be taken to the Oral Language Survey

(I've just been told that the link doesn't show up in bloglines, you can either click on my blog to open it and follow the link from there or put this link in your browsers: http://www.tigersurvey.com/survey.php?survey=2250)

Thanks!

technorati tags:survey, oral_language, efellow

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Toondoo

I found this really cool website where you can make cartoons on line and then publish them for people to comment on. It is way too much fun! Check out Toondoo.


I made this cartoon with just a few clicks. I truly was surprised when my son came home from school about 8 years ago to tell me he had been given a female. He went to a progressive school with lots of computers and I didn't even have my own computer yet then!

technorati tags:cartoons, education, k12, literacy

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Memoirs of a school student

I have been reading a lot about constructivist theory lately and I personally hold to a social constructivist theory of teaching. But it got me thinking. Constructivism as explained by Vygotsky in the late 70s is built upon a lot of Dewey's work which was written in the early 1900s. This school of thought is not new.

"The movement of a swimmer does not 'resemble' that of a wave, in particular, the movements of the swimming instructor which we reproduce on the sand bear no relation to the movements of the wave, which we learn to deal with only by grasping the former in practice as signs. That is why it is so difficult to say someone learns: there is an innate or acquired practical familiarity with signs, which means that there is something amorous - but also something fatal - about all education. We learn nothing from those who say: 'Do as I do'. Our only teachers are those who tell us to 'do with me', and are able to emit signs to be developed in heterogeneity rather than propose gestures for us to reproduce" (Gilles Deleuze, 1994, 23).

I assert that the most powerful learning takes place because of ‘do with me’. Learning happens jointly, collaboratively, with and from each other, the teacher and strangers. Students require authentic audiences, and authentic contexts to motivate learning.

Davis and Sumara (2002) suggest that constructivism is popular with people interested in the processes of learning, and this is certainly the case for me. I am intrigued watching the students construct their meanings as they interact with each other and the world around them. I particularly hold to the theory of social constructivism, which is linked with Lev Vygotsky (see Davis and Sumara, 2002 p 192). I believe that students construct and then reconstruct their knowledge to ever more complex levels because of their interaction with others and their environment.

So what? Well, I started thinking about my own time as a student. I was in primary school in the 70s and high school in the 80s, surely I must have experienced some form of constructivism. My early memories of primary school include being a milk monitor; being a sports monitor; being publicly humiliated when I was a subject of bullying and started to cry, the perpetrator chanted at me 'don't worry mummy still loves you' and then the teacher said 'he's right, your mummy still does love you'. I was mortified!; Speed reading lessons where I was put in a dark room and text was flashed onto a screen in front of me one line at a time at increasing speeds (what was that about?); and sports days. Mmmm, no memories of following my own interests or working with others in my primary school days.

What about high school then? I can remember an English teacher who treated me with respect and gave me a passion for words and literature. He let us watch videos of Breaker Morant and Gallipoli in class and nothing was said as I cried. I can remember a Geography teacher who brought in reels of his holidays in remote places in the world and talked about Geography from experience and with passion. Maybe there were elements of constructivism sneaking into my high school. Pockets.

It is now 2007, why, in some schools, do I still see rows of students with books open to the same page, all working on the same task? Constructivism makes so much sense, why do things take so long to change?

technorati tags:constructivism

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Digital Photography at TUANZ

On Monday I presented at the TUANZ conference in Invercargill. For those people who attended my digital photography workshop, I'm sorry that I didn't have enough hand outs and you can download the booklet by clicking on it here.

Sheryl Nausbaum-Beach

Sheryl delivering her keynote Delegates in Invercargill

Unleasing Student Passion

I'm sitting in the Ascot Hotel in Invercargill after a three hour bus trip from Dunedin listening to Sheryl talking about the flatness of our world. She says 'there is one language that we're all speaking, and that is the language of the 21st Century'. This is a statement I would like to think about and unpack a bit more. Students need to learn how to be communicators in a world where traditional communication with text is reducing and communicating creatively with images, sound, collaborating on the web and interacting globally is common place. The value we place on creativity needs to be looked at in our classrooms.

We have the access to transformational technologies - the power to transform. We are the generation of educators that are going to redefine teaching and learning. Wow! It is really exciting to be on the cutting edge and to have a say in how education is changing. We need to realise that we are not just adding to what we already do but we are transforming - changing - the way education is happening. Think of the changes in the world pre printing press and post printing press - pre television and post television. This is transformation.

Sometimes I wonder if I am running too far ahead. Is it only the elite or privileged that are using this technology? We keep saying that students are out there using this stuff, but are they? I know that my own children are and I know that their friends are. But what about those students without the financial access to this technology? No! This makes it even more important that these students are exposed to this technology in their schools. We need to address the balance.

Sheryl asks:

"How do schools need to change in order to meet the needs of the 21st Century students?"

"How do we prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist?" Is that what we are really doing? We need to prepare students to be successful people not working machines.

"What do you really need to know if knowledge is only a click away?"
Think about the fact that knowledge is power but now we are all knowledge creators and can access knowledge at a click. Students have the future at their finger tips - David Warlick talked about 'clickability', how students already think that everything they need is a click away, they even think their parents are clickable. Students now expect to have the power that knowledge provides. How dare we stand in the way of that!

"How do we balance safety and access in order to empower our students with technology?" We need to teach students to be ethical users and consumers of this knowledge and content available for them.

"Are we ready for 21st Century teaching and learning?" When I think about the fact that I have had computers in my classroom for the last ten years it is scary that we are still asking this question and that there are still classrooms without computers, digital cameras or projectors?

We need to rethink the definition of 'school' 'teacher' and 'learner' to address the needs of 21st Century teaching and learning.

You can't give away what you don't own - Great statement! If you are not really sold on the powerful uses of technology then you can not give it away to your students.

Recommended reading: A whole new Mind - Daniel H Pink

To read more about the discussions taking place in TUANZ conferences around New Zealand you can vist the wiki:

http://tuanz2007.wikispaces.com/

Technorati Tags: tuanz2007

Looking for a Podcasting Buddy

Hi all

I am looking for a class to be our 'podcasting buddies' for term two this year (23rd April to 29th June). My students are year 5/6 which makes them between 9 and 10 years old. I would like to explore ways of using enhanced podcasts to explain our culture to students of another culture. I was thinking of starting with having the students create a still image story about their school life and then seeing how the unit progressed. The students will have contact with their buddy class through posting podcasts and making comments on each other's podcasts. So if you are new to podcasting or a podcasting 'oldie' drop me a line and we can plan this unit together.

email: jane@pinehill.schoolzone.net.nz

skype: janenicholls1 (in New Zealand)

Looking forward to making connections :-)

Introducing the book (repost)

As an ICT Facilitator this video really resonates with me.

David Warlick talks about Redefining Literacy

Today I am sitting with a select group of teachers in Dunedin attending a full day David Warlick Seminar. You would think after attending the Learning @ School Conference in Rotorua where I heard David's Keynote and then attended two of his workshops I would have had enough :-). David presents the importance of literacy and information technology so well that I could sit through quite a few more presentations.

The main part of this presentation that I want to focus on is the importance of 'redefining literacy'. I have always been a teacher who taught children to read through a passion for reading. Students learn when there is an authentic context and purpose for that learning. I have also always tried to get students to engage critically with the information that they are finding. This is even more vital now that students are coming across the wealth of digital information available to them today and I would like to state, much easier.

I see that a few people have just laughed out loud - easier! Ha! I say easier because of the authentic reasons for students to critically engage with information when they are becoming co-creators of information using web 2 tools. Students, as they become creators of information also need to become evaluators of information. Gone are the days when students cut and paste information from Google (or those days SHOULD be gone!). As students prepare their presentations for their movies, podcasts, additions to the wikipedia, etc, they need to ensure that the information they are presenting is correct. They need to think about the ethical issues of the information they are going to share with the world via the web. I say that this is getting easier because of authenticity.

My students have realised through posting their podcasts that if they post something incorrect someone will very quickly send them a comment alerting them to that fact. They learn through this that there may be errors in the information they find on the net and they need to verify their information through many different sources.

It is important that we teach our students to:

1. Verify information in many different ways. Check out the credentials of the author, find the information in other places - books, articles etc.

2. Contribute to the information on the web in an ethical manner. Students need to know that information never disappears from the web. Once it's there anyone can get access to it and use it in any way. If they post something personal about themselves, disparaging about others or just plain incorrect people will be able to gain access to that information in many years to come.

This is what is meant by literacy in the 21st Century. Literacy is not being able to read and write, it is being able to thoughtfully communicate.

Technorati Tags: redefine literacy warlick

David Warlick Telling a New Story in New Zealand

I'm sitting in the midst of 1100 people in Rotorua New Zealand at the Learning @ School conference. We are listening to Educator David Warlick's Keynote. I have listened to many of his keynotes already even though I have never been in the same room as the man. David podcasts his keynotes and is one of the reasons my 14 year old son thinks I am cool. The last podcast of David's that I listened to was one where he interviewed his son about the multiplayer game 'World of Warcraft'. After that podcast I had a conversation with my son and he exclaimed, "You know about World of Warcraft!" I thought he was going to catch flies as his mouth hung open. I looked at him down my nose and answered, "Of course".

What do our children need to be learning today? A question asked by David Warlick. Is our new curriculum in New Zealand leading us to answer this question? Maybe it is... I don't want to be pessimistic but some teachers will still go on the way they always have and interpret any document to support that. I am optimistic that our new curriculum is a step in the right direction and innovative teachers will be having that conversation. How do we get the resistant teachers to ask themselves this question? I think the answer to that is to lead by example. Our passion for developing thinking, innovative students will make the difference.

"Being Master, creative, telling a compelling new story." Are we preparing our children like this? Or having them tell the same story in a new way? Do we need to take that step first? Of course we do but we can't stay there. We need to think of the students in our class as the surgeon who could possibly one day work on one we love, the pilot who might take us to new places, the policy maker who will make sure we enjoy a safe community. When you think of the students in your class in this way the importance of teaching them how to be creative, innovative and tell a compelling new story takes on a much more personal relevance.

Children believe that "everything is clickable, even their parents." Vinod Khosla. What an interesting concept. This resounded with me as I thought of how I was sitting in my office the other day furiously writing down something because my son had borrowed my computer. As soon as I had finished writing my fingers automatically made the movement to hit 'apple S' to save my work. I quickly looked around to make sure no one had noticed what I had done!. I also know that when I read a book now and I think to myself, "I remember reading about that already" and I want to click find and search the book. I already think that the world is clickable and accessible to me when I want it. Our Digital children are also feeling like they have control and can make their own decisions and discoveries. How do these children feel when they enter our classrooms and we limit their control in their learning? Do we offer them the concept of 'clickability' in our classrooms?

In the information age the information must compete for attention... If we don't supply students with the information they need they can get it elsewhere, if we don't supply students with the information they are interested in they will go elsewhere.

David mentioned the website http://innocentive.com/ - a website with where big corporations post problems that they can't solve. Anyone and everyone has access to this site and can try to solve the problems. The big corporations pay top dollar for the solutions and it has been found that the people providing the answers to these problems are not the ones who are trained in the specific areas. In this information age collaboration and conversation are rife on the web. Problems are posed and problems are solved. Discoveries are made and new conversations are begun. Once again... is this happening in our classrooms?

What are the answers to my questions? Well David says the first step to finding these answers is to:

Pay Attention - talk to the students, see what is happening in their rapidly changing world and how this is affecting them and the way they engage with their world.

Thomas Friedman says that four types of people will succeed in a 'flat world', those who are special, specialized, highly adaptable (those who can learn and unlearn and relearn very easily) and anchored.

David states that the future is not secure - but I ask, has it ever been? There have always been challenges to prepare kids for, but each generation's challenges are different. We need to equip our students to face an unsecure future and find answers to the challenges.

David states that we should prepare our students for a future of opportunity - I counter that this has always been the case but it is different now. We have no idea of the opportunities that we are preparing our students for. They will develop these opportunities and we will help them to do it safely and ethically and creatively in our 21st Century classrooms.

Thanks David for another thought provoking yet enjoyable keynote.

Technorati Tags: DavidWarlick learningatschool tellinganewstory

How do I understand myself as a teacher?

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Surprised by the familiar. IN S. D. Brookfield. Becoming a critically reflective teacher, (pp71-91). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Brookfield, S.D. (1990). Developing a personal vision of teaching. In The Skillful Teacher, (pp 15-28). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Loughran, J. (Ed). (1999). Researching teaching: Methodologies and practices for understanding pedagogy. London: Falmer Press. Chapter 8

The article by Russell and Bullock in Loughran (1999) was a real eye opener. Something I lamented in my previous entry was that finding a critical friend is difficult of perceived hierarchical structures within schools. This article showed that you can reflect on your practice in a way that does not reduce your professional standing. In this article a student and a lecturer each reflect on their teaching practice and what I see coming of this is not that one person is taking a superior position over another, but that they are listening to each other as they find their own path. Suggestions can be made, may not be taken, but it is the process of putting your reflections in a manner that can be understood by someone else that is the difference between half thoughts and full thoughts. Knowing that someone is interested in your journey helps make that journey less lonely. I liked the statements, ‘How we teach is the message’ and ‘How we research teaching is the message.’ (pg 151)

I was also inspired by the title of the Brookfield article (1999) “Surprised by the familiar”. It made me think of Freud and his idea of the ‘uncanny’, the situation in which something familiar becomes strange. This to me is the point of reflection. When we take a good look at our practice, there are many things we take for granted, that are familiar. These things may be just what we need to reflect on!

Reflection helps you to understand just how much you are learning and how much you are changing. It may not be evident until you take a good look. I was talking to a colleague this week. Lamenting that the longer I teach the more difficult the job seems to be getting. She gave me a pearl of wisdom. She stated that when we first started teaching we were unaware of a lot of the needs that our students had and we had a limited repertoire of teaching strategies. This meant that teaching was relatively easy. Now we know there are many ways to teach a subject and we can identify the myriad of needs of students in our classes, many of which we will never get the time to address. Being the diligent committed teachers that we are, we run ourselves ragged trying to do what we can. Now that I have identified the reason behind my difficulties, will I take steps to change?

Karl and Kopf make the observation that teachers often do not take the steps they need for change. “There is no support that the more people know about their behaviour, the more they will improve it.” (1993:309 in Brookfield 1999:82). This demonstrates why it is important to have a critical friend to help you stay on track.

I found the article by Brookfield (1990) quite depressing. It seemed to state that you need to find and articulate a personal philosophy of teaching to defend yourself and convince your students that you know what you’re doing. This was my take on the article. I do agree with the underlying theme though - ‘without a vision the people perish’. You have to know where you’re going or how will you know when you’ve got there?

Conversations

Today I finally had a Skype conversation! I know I'm a bit slow but life has been a bit hectic. Anyway, I held a conversation from Allanah from Appleby and we talked about the joys of being teachers in the 21st century with all this new technology at our ... fingertips :). I posted the podcast over on my podcast page but I thought I would include a link here. Enjoy.

Click here to get your own player.

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Reflections on readings about reflective practice

Coles, A.L.. & Knowles, J.G. (2000). Teacher Knowledge and modes of teacher knowing. Researching teaching: Exploring teacher development through reflexive inquiry (pp.5-13). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Day, C. (1999). Professional development and reflective practice: purposes, processes and partnerships. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 7(2), 221-223

Hulbert-Holly, M., & McLoughlin, C. (1989). Professional development and journal writing. In M. Hulbeert-Holly, & C. McLoughlin (Eds.). Perspectives on teacher professional development, (pp 259-283). London: Falmer Press.


Research traditionally was ‘done’ to teachers but rarely impacted upon their teaching lives and to some degree this is still the case. These three readings assert that teachers need to be researchers. Coles and Knowles (2000) discuss the difference between teacher researchers and so called ‘expert researchers’. I concur that teachers need to be researchers and that we need to research our classroom practice in a more cohesive and organised way, but I also see the need for educational research and large style case studies. As a teacher researcher I discover a trend in my teaching or classroom then look further at this trend. To do this I need to be able to read what has been discovered over a variety of classrooms over a period of time.

Another theme in these readings is the importance of the personal aspect of teaching. Cole and Knowles (2000) conclude that you cannot just tell teachers how to behave or think to create an expert teacher. This brought to mind the difference in the student teachers I have supervised. You can tell when someone has got ‘it’. You can train a teacher to say and do the right things, but unless they have that special factor that makes them interesting to the children, they will never be ‘expert’. What is ‘it’? How do we know if we have got ‘it’? Reflection.

It is imperative that teachers reflect on classroom practice and constantly seek ways to improve. I agree with Day (1999) that deliberate reflection seems to be the exception not the rule. Teachers do not have the time to spend on reflection in today’s overcrowded curriculum, and a lot of schools do not promote reflection in their professional development. A colleague in the ICTPD project has introduced the initiative of giving the teachers in her cluster one day of professional development and then one day to reflect on and plan how to use that professional development. Maybe there is hope yet! This article by Day also agrees with Cole & Knowles that it is the personal side of teaching that makes the difference. The emotional self is important in reflection and becoming a systematic inquirer. Day also raises the point, though, that teachers rarely concern themselves with the ethical justifications of the teaching. This really got me thinking. Do I ever consciously take ethics into account?

Day states that it is imperative to share your reflections with colleagues. This is an argument which is taken up even more strongly in the article by Holly and McLoughlin (1989). This article was an easy and enjoyable read. It motivated me to begin a teaching reflection journal. But I think a journal on its own is not enough. It is the communication between peers discussing the content of the journals that really makes the difference. Maybe what is needed is not a reflection journal, but a reflection blog. A place where others can comment on your reflections and you can enter into a dialogue.

These articles led me to realise I engage in reflection but not in a coherent manner. I think the best way to ensure that teachers reflect is to have a mentor or critical friend. However something stands in the way of us developing these vital mentoring relationships. I may be generalising, but teachers get a lot of bad press and suggesting you could do better is making yourself vulnerable to criticism. This is a terribly sad state of affairs.

technorati tags:education, professional_development, reflective_practice

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'What' versus 'How Well'

I have been reading The Schools our Children Deserve by Alfie Kohn. I am only a few chapters in but I am finding it fascinating. I am currently teaching in New Zealand but originate from Western Australia. I was recently in WA to visit family and was amazed as I read the newspapers each day that there were cries for higher standards and 'Back to Basics' in WA. Politicians and reporters alike were pulling apart the 'experiments' that were taking place in classrooms and crying out for the '3 Rs' to be brought back.

Nothing upsets me more than when that old 'Back to Basics' gets bandied around. I want these politicians and reporters to tell their surgeons that they want them to go back to basics. Don't worry about that new fangled machinery, a bit of whiskey and a saw never hurt anyone.

Oops, ranting, I'll get back on track now. Anyway, Alfie Kohn in his book talks about the difference between children who learn 'what' versus 'how well'. He says that there is too much emphasis placed on the grades that students will achieve for their work. He states that students who concentrate on their grade (the 'how well') never delve deep into the subject, they focus on tasks to achieve the grade. Where as students who concentrate on 'what' they are learning, achieve a much deeper understanding of a subject. He states that grades are negative motivators, that the subject itself should be motivating enough. How does this all sit with the government continuously testing years 3, 7 and 9 students in WA (I'm sure it's the same elsewhere), publishing league tables in the newspaper, and in one case having entrance exams for a public high school to ensure only the brightest students gain entry. Are we teaching these students how to think? How to learn? Or how to pass tests and regurgitate facts. Just when I think we are getting somewhere I encounter these newspaper reports in WA or read about blogging being blocked in American schools and feel like education is being sent 'back to the basics' with innovative teachers kicking and screaming.

The whole concept of grades being a negative motivator makes sense to me! It is one of those 'aha' moments that you wonder why you didn't know it all before, it just makes sense and here's why. I did a research paper on Podcasting in 2006 to complete my Post Graduate Diploma in Education. I am motivated by grades (or so I thought). When I got a B+ I was depressed for days ( I couldn't tell you what the paper was about though). However I aimed for an A in this research paper and I got an A. This year, 2007, I have been awarded an E-Fellowship by the NZ Ministry of Education to study something of my choice in ICT. The first thing I thought of was 'Great! Now I can really study podcasting and look at all the things I wanted to look at'. The first research project was to achieve a grade, the second, where there is no grade involved, means that I can just delve into the subject and learn all I want.

Aha!

Now if it took me this long to figure out that telling students they need to aim for a good grade in what ever subject I am teaching is not really the motivator I thought it would be...

Let's keep fighting, our students deserve it. Say NO to 'back to basics'. Let's be innovative, creative, subversive. Come on, let's be REBELS! I'm saying no to grades, I'm saying yes to wondering and problem solving and questioning.