Project Based Learning and the Australian Curriculum ‘General Capabilities’ (Part 1)

**Disclaimer: during these posts I will be referring to the General Capabilities as outlined in the Australian Curriculum. However, I am a NSW English teacher and therefore I will be implementing the new NSW K-10 English Syllabus in 2014. All AC content (including the General Capabilities) is embedded within that syllabus document created by the Board of Studies. These posts, however, are designed to be relevant and accessible to all teachers in Australia, hence my reference to the Australian Curriculum and not the new NSW Syllabi.

There’s a lot of talk about the Australian Curriculum at the moment – some positive and some negative. I know that I often come across as a negative person on this blog and via social media, but I’ll say confidently that I am optimistic about the Australian Curriculum. Why? Because it is an opportunity for change and renewal, two things our schools desperately need. I’m also excited because of the AC’s clearly articulated awareness of the need to change our perceptions of our learners and our practice as teachers. This is articulated through the General Capabilities and the Cross-Curriculum Priorities. In this post I’ll only be focusing on the former, however. If you don’t know what the General Capabilities (GC) are, check out image below, taken from the AC website (click on it to enlarge). I love the central description of our goal as educators for our students: successful learner, confident and creative individual and active and informed citizen. It really gets to the heart of my personal philosophy as a teacher, that my job is to help shape great human beings. But since the term ‘great’ is relative, I think it’s safer to stick with what they AC says, lol. As I go through the GC, I will show how each capability aligns with elements of BIE’s ‘8 Essentials for PBL‘ (Voice and Choice; Significant Content; In-depth Inquiry; Public Audience; Revision & Reflection; Driving Question; Need to Know; 21st Century Skills) and, where possible, give examples of how I have engaged with each capability in my PBL English classroom. It is my belief that PBL is a pedagogy that provides students with the opportunity to strengthen, develop and demonstrate each of these capabilities.

LITERACY:

As an English teacher, I’ll happily argue that this is one of the most important capabilities in the list. The most important? Yeah, it probably is. I think literacy is the need to know for all young people. Being literate opens the door to the other capabilities. Without being literate, it’s very difficult to contribute and participate meaningfully in society. It’s not impossible, it’s just very difficult. Remember as well, that literacy includes visual literacy and critical literacy as well. During project based learning, literacy is developed through both explicit instruction and through more constructivist, constructionist and collaborative learning strategies.

A key driver of all successful projects is significant content. As I’ve explained previously (add link), content may be deemed significant by the teacher (as in, it’s in the curriculum), by the students (personal interests, contextually relevant or real-world problems) or both (negotiated curriculum where teacher discusses with students the content to be covered and through negotiation a compromise is reached where individual interest, contextual concerns and real world problems are connected meaningfully to the content the teacher is ‘required’ to cover). If the content is deemed ‘significant’, engaging, relevant, real-world and interesting by students and the teacher, then greater learning outcomes should be expected. How does this relate to literacy? If young people feel passionately about the content they are more likely to push their literacy skills further (reading and writing more complex texts). I’m sure many teachers would be surprised at the technical and complex vocabulary of many gaming and coding websites that teenage boys read.

Furthermore, a key aspect of PBL is the process of planning, drafting, peer/self assessment and revision. When applied to written or spoken products, this process has a significant impact on students’ literacy skills. This process becomes more pertinent for students when they are producing the product for a public audience – online or face to face.

As an English teacher, my students frequently engage in this iterative design-like process. I have even developed a feedback-feedforward peer and self assessment method to support student learning even more. You can read about it here.

Oh, and remember, literacy is not just the domain of the English teacher. ALL teachers ate responsible for it – the Australian Curriculum makes that quite clear. Scared? Well, looks like it’s time to do a cross-KLA project and invite your favourite English teacher to join!

NUMERACY:

Just like literacy, numeracy is the responsbility of all teachers. This terrifies me a little because numbers simply aren’t my friends. BUT, just because I don’t get into Maths, doesn;t mean my students don’t. PBL provides students with the opportunity to think in a more open way about their subjects. The segregating of subjects is an unfortunate consequence of the traditional schooling model. 30 minutes on a sport bus trip chatting with colleagues from other faculties and you’ll discover wonderful connections between your subjects. My colleague (a Maths teacher) and I got excited talking about poetic metre and imagined all sorts of other cross-overs between English and Maths. The moment we stop talking about covering content and we start talking real-world applications of our subjects, we realise the need to see our subjects as interrelated. This links back to what I said above about significant content, when we are driven by interest and real-world application, not only does engagement improve, but so too do learning outcomes.

The trend in the US at the moment is STEM – that’s the integration of the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Through multidisciplinary projects, students are mastering STEM skills that they identify they need to know in order to be successful. Moreover, these projects drive students through a process of in-depth inquiry as they determine what they need to know and just how to find out this information or develop these skills. You can look at some truly impressive STEM projects here.

As an English teacher, running projects in just one subject area, my students still develop and apply their numeracy skills. Sometimes my projects require students to conduct in-depth inquiry through surveys and analysing the data they collect. They also engage with the data collected by others (often accessed online) and use this to support their findings about their topic. It seems silly, but even everyday numeracy comes into play as students estimate and calculate the amount of food and drink needed (and related costs) when planning the presentation of learning to a public audience.

Project-based learning necessitates in-depth inquiry. A significant part of both qualitative and quantitative research is accessing numerical data – be it graphs, statistics, tables etc. This applies to all subjects. If we don’t give our students the opportunity to engage with significant content through in-depth inquiry, we’re missing a wonderful chance to allow them to appreciate the power and importance of numbers, not just in Maths class.

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION CAPABILITY:
Whilst PBL isn’t about technology (you can easily complete an awesome project without access to any technology, I know – I’ve done it!) it certainly is enhanced by access to a range of ICTs. I think what’s cool about PBL is that ICT capability develops naturally as part of the students’ learning. It’s not about learning to use a particular online tool or program just for the sake of it, or because it might make boring work a little bit more engaging. The early stage of all projects is in-depth inquiry – this is the stage where students are driven by deep and personally-developed questions about the project. Like everyone in 2013, students will begin their research on the Internet. This phase gives teachers a wonderful opportunity to model effective research skills and the importance of curating information using a variety of online tools (social bookmarking sites and tools like Pinterest, Scoop.it are popular at this stage). Students learn this skills not because the teacher has determined it’s good for them, they learn them because they need to know them in order to be successful with their project.

Collaboration and communication are key to PBL because students spend most of their time working in small teams. We’re told so often that these are the 21st century skills for young people to master – the workforce is collaborative and globalised therefore our students need to be able to work in a team and to communicate effectively with anyone, anywhere, anytime. This is where a online classroom is essential – not a space where resources a access, but rather a space where students can collaborate and communicate whenever they need to. I’m an edmodo fangrrrl and everyone knows it. This social network for education allows students to develop their digital citizenship (communicating with courtesy, compassion, and clarity) in the eye of their teacher and they can communicate with their teams whenever they need to. Teachers can easily assess the development of these 21st century skills and quickly give feedback to praise good behaviours and redirect negative behaviours.

ICTs play a big part in the revision and reflection process of PBL. In all projects, students are required to draft and revise their work. This process is enhanced through the use of tools like google docs (great for collaborative writing and planning) and more familiar programs like MS Word where students can use track changes and comments to illustrate their revisions. One of the core routines of PBL is goal-setting and reflecting on learning. This process can be done in a workbook, but it’s far more effective when it’s done using a site like edmodo or blogs. Blogging throughout a project really allows students to appreciate that learning is a process and that improvement happens over time. Blogging gives students a place to voice their concerns about the project as well as the joy of successfully solving a problem of creating something amazing. You can read about how I use the think, puzzle, explore protocol for students blogging here.

Finally, the most obvious use of ICTs during PBL is for the creation of the product and accessing a public audience. Allowing students to have a voice and choice as part of a project is essential to ensure engagement and relevance of learning. This voice and choice typically comes into play around the product that teams will be produce to demonstrate their learning. If you’ve seen BIE’s ‘PBL explained’ video, you’ll know that students might choose from a range of forms, some including ICTs, such as videos, websites and online magazines. Sometimes I don’t give students a choice. I love setting a challenge for my students, so they need to create a type of text they know nothing about, forcing them to develop their ICT capabilities. This can make some students uncomfortable, because they’re really being pushed, but ensuring that you’re there to provide support just in time means that this is responsible risk taking. My students have created cool products such as websites, podcasts, short films and online fiction – things they would normally not get the opportunity to do in English.

Of course, all of these products would mean nothing if they didn’t have an authentic, public audience. Teachers are time poor (and our students are too!) so having access to an online audience rather than an after-school audience of mums and dads, can be really helpful! The best thing to do, in my experience, is to connect with another class from somewhere else in the world – even if it’s just the primary school 40 minutes away. We have a range of technologies at our disposal that can facilitate this connection – skype, edmodo and YouTube have been our favourites. If connecting with another class sounds too risky for you, do a bit of networking and see if you can get a guest expert to Skype in to hear your students’ final presentations. Our young people need these experiences – their learning should not be confined to the four walls of the classroom!

In the next post, I’ll look at the last four capabilities and how I think PBL provides students with the opportunity to strengthen, develop and demonstrate these capabilities.

Why I don’t want to be a hero teacher, and maybe you shouldn’t either.

A month or so ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in AITSL’s symposium on 21st century learning. At the symposium I was asked to speak briefly about my philosophy on education and my experiences as a teacher in 2013. It was cool because two other public school educators were there to share the limelight with me – John Goh and Alice Leung. They both have great things to share about education and are both very hardworking individuals.

That last point is what the focus of this post is about. Just how hardworking are we three educators and how has that allowed for us to be given opportunities like the AITSL one? When Alice spoke before the room full of policy-makers, academics and others aligned to the education sector, she was met with a rather surprising comment from Valerie Hannon (if you haven’t heard of her check out Innovation Unit - she’s the director and a pretty cool chick). Valerie suggested that Alice was a ‘hero teacher’ and then went on to explain that maybe this isn’t a good thing. I’ll just add here that Valerie was not intending to criticise Alice, in fact she was supportive of her and in awe of her complete dedication to her school and her students. Valerie was suggesting that Alice has taken on the role of change agent in her school and beyond, requiring excessive working hours, sacrificing hours of her life to her job. For Valerie, this is not sustainable and not the ideal situation for a teacher. She was critical of the lack of systems and support structures (and yes, vision from those in positions of power above the classroom teachers) for not instigating, facilitating and supporting needed educational change.

When I got up to speak, I’ll admit that I was scared of Valerie Hannon. She’s a very provocative thinker (which I love) and I feared what her response to my video and ideas would be, lol. But when I was standing there talking I got fired up, and directed my discussion at her. She is right. We’re not supported. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice our lives to our jobs. Add children and a husband to the mix and it’s insane trying to sustain such a commitment to excellence and innovation in the classroom let alone adding blogging, conference gigs and workshops to that. IT IS NOT RIGHT! So I agreed with Valerie and told her and all the other powerful people in the room that I will probably burn out in the next 12 months. I probably won’t be teaching this time next year if I try to keep up the pace I’m at. And what did she ask? What do I need in the way of support to ensure that my enthusiasm, interest, knowledge and skills can be sustained for the benefit of my students and school? What should those in power provide teachers with so as that my innovative student-controlled teaching methods can be the most effective? She stumped me! I didn’t know the answer! All I managed to say was: 1. Give me space to experiment with learning. 2. Acknowledge and praise me when me or my students manage to do something amazing.

What did Valerie say? NO! That’s NOT what you need! You need REAL change. We need to radically change what schools look and feel and run like. She was talking cool stuff like John Goh is doing (note, he is a principal and can therefore enact actual, lasting change unlike we classroom teachers who can only try and try and try) like changing school times, lesson times, the physical layout of the school, the way subjects are taught – everything. I could only laugh and nod. Yes, there’s the dream Valerie. But we teachers can’t be held responsible for bringing those changes on our own … and that’s why they didn’t even come into my mind when she asked me. I guess I’m a defeatist and I didn’t know it.

The lone nut video of 2009 was a popular one for us eager little DER bunnies. But the batteries have run out. We’ve been dancing for too long and for the most part no one is following. It’s not fair that we keep shouldering the burden of educational change. Maybe we’re deluded. We can not keep working 12 hours a day. We are NOT hero teachers, and we shouldn’t be. We should be supported by systems and individuals in the position of power to reshape these systems to ensure better outcomes for teachers and students and the wider community. Let’s be honest, no one is inspired by someone who works constantly, who lives and breathes teaching and has no time for anything else. They might be full of respect, but who wants to follow in that teacher’s footsteps? No one is in awe of the teacher who thinks that he or she is the only person who can teach the class well and therefore must never take a day off (unless it is to present at a conference). I’m tired. I don’t want to do it anymore. Valerie is right. We shouldn’t be hero teachers. Things need to change. Cos you know those classroom teachers you follow on twitter who are pushing themselves to the limit in a vain attempt to champion and generate change? They may not be able to last much longer.

What does punk learning look like in my English classroom?

Well, I’ve been doing PBL with my students for quite some time now. I’m feeling sorta confident with my approach, although I continue to reinvent every project which is tiring and can be frustrating. I think it’s necessary too – different humans in my class should necessitate different learning methods, right?
Anyway, one thing that’s been bugging me about my way of doing PBL is that I’ve developed a formula – it’s a winning formula, I’ll admit arrogantly – and I get so very frustrated and annoyed by the rigidity of a formula. Even if it works. But am I overstating the effectiveness of my PBL? Yeah, probably. Why? Because why would I be venturing off into the dark depths of punk learning if it was entirely a success?
This is something I have been contemplating a lot. If I’m entirely honest, it’s simply because I’m bored. It’s all about me … not my students. But that can’t be a bad thing, right? After all, that’s why I tried PBL in the first place. Last night Lee tweeted this:

It really got me thinking about my own biases and how these influence the learning that happens in my classroom every day. Maybe my desire to change how I teach is my priority? My desire to seem cutting edge to my PLN is the reason I try new things with my students?
Whilst my desire to change what happens in my classroom might be motivated by selfishness, it’s also motivated by a desire to push my students beyond their comfort zone. To really mess with their expectations of the learning experience. I had a great Twitter chat about PBL and Punk Learning with the very cool Ginger Lewman the other day … it was the night before I started a new topic with Year 11 and I was questioning whether to do my traditional PBL approach or not. Here’s a couple of our tweets:

Ginger is right – Punk Learning is kinda like ‘Advanced’ or ‘Free’ PBL because it moves beyond the strict structure of PBL (in the sense that teachers control the content and mostly how it will be covered) and gives full control to the students. Super scary stuff. This isn’t new to me, I’ve done it a few times before – the most memorable being with a very disengaged Year 8 class last year. It takes either madness or confidence or both to give this a go. I think the experience of PBL is essential – my students know how PBL works and can take this approach to learning and work with it to create their own projects. Hmmm … to be honest they’re kinda still working within the structure of PBL (which I can’t fault really) but are entirely responsible for the project design. Am I confusing you yet?!
Anyway … this is what’s been happening in my class:
1. I introduced the topic in a brief way. Year 9 watched Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing and read The Arrival. I read Year 11 a plot summary of King Lear and a brief overview of ‘values’. I did my best to remain objective – not trying to influence them with teacher-talk about either issue. I think for English teachers this first bit of Punk Learning is hard because students may have little or no prior knowledge of the focus text or composer and therefore they lack curiosity and genuine questions. For example, you can’t just say, ‘We’re studying Shaun Tan. What questions would you like to know the answers to about this guy?’
2. I went through the QUESTION FORMULATION TECHNIQUE where students generate a whole bunch of questions, categorise them as ‘open’ or ‘closed’ and then develop one open question into their personal or team project question. Stealing from Tait Coles again, I had student write these questions on the windows of my classroom & on coloured paper posted to the classroom wall. Year 9 also used the BIE tubric to help develop their driving questions. You can see all questions in the images at the end of this post.
3. With Year 9, I gave them a project proforma to fill in. This is just a blank version of the project outline I give to students. They also had to select ISTE nets and HABITS OF MIND that they will need to master to be successful with their project. You can see their projects in the photos at the bottom of this post.
Year 11 decided that the first thing they needed to learn was Shakespeare’s context. We brainstormed some ways they could discover this and they can choose from them based on their own learning style. They will demonstrate their learning also in a mode of their own choosing. You can see what needs to be covered in the images below.

I’m still all out of my head about my students’ learning and freaking that I’m
not doing what’s best for them. I think I’ll always be like that. I guess my main concern is engagement in the process of learning – having students constantly thinking about the learning process. I’m also conscious of being very tired and busy and pleased that Lee suggested I hand over the reins to the kids do they can direct their own learning. Hope it works!

Just some things I have to say about edmodo …

At the beginning of this year, I was asked by the peeps at edmodo if I would agree to be interviewed by the Huffington Post for an article about edmodo. Um, hello – the Huffington Post? I always see their stuff being retweeted by my Twitter mates (and yes, I even occasionally read the articles which is a big deal for someone like me who skims everything!) – let’s just say I was a little bit stoked at the chance to be quoted in one of their stories! I also was stoked because I really love edmodo and it’s always super cool that they think of little old me down here in Australia – they really are a shining light of loyalty in the ever-increasing corporatisation of education. I really mean that. As you know, I’ve been using edmodo since 2009 and they have always made me feel valued as an educator and a contributor to their growing network of teachers and students.

Anyway, you can read the edmodo blog post about the Huffington Post article here and you can read the actual Huffington Post article here.

As is the way with people like me who live in the Southern Hemisphere, being interviewed proved difficult time-wise. To overcome this (and avoid me being up at 3am), the journalist (the very cool C.M. Rubin – woot!) sent me a bunch of questions to answer via email. Of course, I just rambled on and wrote waaaaaay to much and necessarily about three of the things I said were included in the final article. I thought someone out there might be interested in my original responses to the questions … maybe, haha. They were actually really great questions! So, anyway, here they are:

How have you used Edmodo in or out of your classroom to enhance learning? 

I’ve been using Edmodo with my students since May, 2009. I discovered it during a video conference on web 2.0 tools for education. It was a chance discovery because at the time my school was looking for an alternative to email and USBs as a means for students to share their work with teachers. I quickly discovered that edmodo is so much more than that!

Can you share any examples of things you have done in your classroom recently or even plan to do in the near future which illustrate the important added value/unique benefits of Edmodo versus other learning platforms/tools?

I’ve had so many wonderful experiences with Edmodo that it is almost impossible to choose between them! I think the there are three experiences that my students and I fondly remember. In March, 2012, I used edmodo to facilitate an online role-playing game with my students which became fondly known as #HG2212. Essentially, I created a Hunger Games narrative where students played the roles of the tributes or citizens of The Capitol. I used Edmodo’s unique features to organise the game – students changed their usernames and avatars to reflect their characters, all students joined a group called ‘Northern Ridges’ (our version on Panem) whilst some students were put in an ‘Arena’ sub-group and others in ‘The Capitol’. Over the course of two weeks, students used blogs, videos and Web 2.0 tools such as Voki (all embedded into the Edmodo group by students) to tell the narrative of their characters as tributes in The Arena. The Capitol residents determined which tributes lived or died and how this occurred. It was truly an amazing experience with students so engaged that they were on Edmodo at all hours of the night – they even downloaded the Edmodo app to their phones so they wouldn’t miss any action. Essentially this was a creative thinking and creative writing activity, but Edmodo allowed it to be immersive, interactive, engaging and fun! You can read more about it here and see student work as well: http://biancahewes.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/hunger-games-2212-my-rejected-iste-presentation/

Another amazing learning experiences was using Edmodo to connect my Year 10 class with a Year 10 class in San Francisco. My class was studying The Catcher in the Rye and I put a post on a couple of the Edmodo communities asking if any teacher had a class he/she who might want to help my students better understand life in America for teens. Within half a day I had lots of people offering to connect and ultimately chose one class – I would have loved to connect with them all and I plan to do so eventually! Our students joined an Edmodo group to chat about their lives and what they find difficult or inspiring. They also made videos and posted them to Edmodo, answering questions the other students had posed. It was such an eye-opening experience for my students! They learnt so much about American culture – especially the danger of stereotypes presented on television and in movies. My 15 years olds really believed that all American teenagers looked like the teenagers in Gossip Girl and were very surprised to find that this is not the case! Edmodo was the best place for this type of connection to occur as it is a teacher-monitored space where young people can develop those much needed collaboration and communication skills with a guide right beside them.

Finally, I’ve used Edmodo to get writing mentors for my students. My class were working on individual research and composition projects and I knew it would be impossible for me to give quality, personal feedback on all of their work. I decided to reach out to my Edmodo professional learning network and asked if anyone would be interested in mentoring a 15 year old. I had so many offers it! Eventually my 30 students had mentors from all over the world, including many states of America, South America and England. All of the mentors were registered teachers with Edmodo, which means that they were safe to work with children – something all teachers need to be aware of when considering these types of activities. Edmodo supported the mentor process perfectly as I could invite the teachers to join our class Edmodo group and then create sub-groups for each mentor and student. All interactions in these groups and sub-groups are visible to me, the teacher. This allowed me to assess the progress of each student and learn a little as well!

The internet is our children’s medium and many believe it is an unparalleled learning tool.  How does Edmodo handle the challenge of educating kids to be good digital citizens – can you share examples of what instruction (unique to Edmodo?) you believe Edmodo provides kids to better equip them for the social medial world they now live in?

I always so that Edmodo is the social network with training wheels. It’s a safe platform where young people can learn how to communicate and interact with other young people – and adults – whilst at the same time being guided and supported by an adult they trust, their teacher. By introducing Edmodo to students at a younger age, teachers are helping to develop the habits of mind that are essential for students to be good digital citizens. Students learn the important of a quality avatar that is non-offensive and presents them as a thoughtful and sensible person. They also learn the necessity to use appropriate language, to speak kindly and with compassion, to be supportive rather than critical and to ask thoughtful questions. One of the best lessons that students learn in Edmodo is the impact that a lack of tone can have on written text – they quickly learn how important it is to be clear in what they write! They even just learn the basics of managing a username and password!

Of course, I believe that Edmodo has some unique features that allows students to develop all of these skills. Edmodo has a massive user-base (over 10 million users, I believe) and this means that teacher like me can easily connect their classes with classes from all over the world, simply be requesting a connection in an Edmodo community. Providing students with a safe and facilitated opportunity to connect with students they do not know means that they can put their digital citizenship skills into action whilst being supported by their teacher.  Last year I ran a project where my Year 9 students used Edmodo to connect with Year 2 students from a local primary school. The students collaborated on a story-writing project and in doing so developed their ability to ask questions effectively, communicate their ideas clearly and give quality, non-judgmental feedback to young people they previously did not know. Teachers can see all activity in an Edmodo group and this gives them the ability to quickly post a comment and praise great digital citizenship, or to quickly address any potentially inappropriate behaviours.

Why is it about Edmodo that engages students most?

This is a question that I’m always asking my students and myself. I think that initially students are attracted to it because it looked like Facebook! Younger students are really excited about the idea that they can quickly connect with their peers online – something they may not have as much opportunity to do if they are younger than 13. Ultimately, though, my students have told me that what they like the most is the range of learning experiences that it provides them with. They love connecting with other students and teachers, they love using it to role-play and of course it gives them security knowing that their teacher as well as class resources, are accessible online 24/7. My students made a video about their thoughts on Edmodo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgl6kxq2tMQ

If there was one thing you could change about the Edmodo platform what would that be?

That’s a really tough question! It has so many great features that we teacher have already helped them introduce – they really are quite responsive to teacher suggestions and feedback. I think the thing that I’ve asked for the most is an embedded points system so I can gamify my classroom when I choose to. Basically, it means that during role-playing projects my students can be awarded a certain number of points for posts and comments. I think that feature would be awesome. But really, to be honest, Edmodo is such a flexible platform that I can make that happen myself just by being a little creative with the badge system and the reactions feature. I’m really excited to see what they introduce next because it is always based on the idea of a teacher somewhere around the world!

 

 

I might look silly, but I believe what I say (@aitsl video)

A few weeks ago (I think it was – time has been manic for so long now), I was filmed as I taught and as I talked by the very cool crew at AITSL. The process of being filmed was intimidating but exciting – it was a rush feeling like I was on the spot and had to be my very best. I didn’t want to make my students or school look bad and I didn’t really want a goofy video of me looking goofy. I don’t particularly enjoy watching the video (I mean, it’s hard as a girl watching yourself on camera … ewwww) but I am proud of the things I said and I 100% stick by them. If you’re an Australian teacher and you’re not giving your full attention to the General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum (even those of you in NSW with a Syllabus!) then you’ve got rocks in your head! Anyway, below is the video of me and my students. Let me know what you think about what you see and hear … good or bad!

 

 

 

 

Visual representation of the ‘shadow’ concept for Yr 11

Below is a photograph of a diorama I made tonight as a model for my Year 11 advanced English class. They have their visual representations of the shadow concept due this Friday – with a 300 word rationale – and I thought I’d make one as a model to show them how they might be able to do it. Making it and writing the rationale only took me a couple of hours, so I reckon they can ace it even if they leave it until the night before, lol. It’s quite a personal piece, but it was rather cathartic making it and sharing it. My mum will be cool with me sharing it, she’s very open about her experiences and I think this is part of her healing process (and probably mine too).

This is the assessment task if you’re wondering what I’m going on about: Assessment Task 1-2013-2

VISUAL REPRESENTATION:

RATIONALE:

The process of individuation necessarily involves struggle and trauma as the individual acknowledges the role that social taboos and values have on the evolution of his or her shadow. It is only once the truths hidden in the darkness of the unconscious mind come to light in the conscious mind, that the shadow can be genuinely integrated into the True Self. I have chosen to visually represent this personal understanding of the Shadow through the diorama form. My diorama represents a truly personal inner journey, namely my developing awareness of the truth about my mother’s experience of Forced Adoption and the unconscious impact that this has had on my life.

 Symbolism of the question mark and barcode on the baby carriage represents my lack of knowledge regarding my half-brother and intends to provoke similar feelings of confusion in my responder. Contrastingly, the colour symbolism of the background washing from black to red and then to white, aims to inform my responder of my shift from being ignorant of mother’s traumatic past (black) to the embracing of the positive impact this discovery has on my understanding of my self (red then white). Finally, the tactile jutting out of the scissors and Band-Aid from the diorama dramatically illustrate my belief that social taboos and values impact the evolution of an individual’s shadow.  The scissors symbolise the cutting of the primitive mother/child bond. I also used key words on the scissors to represent society’s values and taboos in the 1970s such as BFA which stands for ‘baby for adoption’ – the acronym used on paperwork in hospitals that participated in forced adoption. However, the Band-Aid acts to signify a coming to light of the truth through the National Apology for Forced Adoption and the impact this had on my ability to heal through understanding my past.

 This diorama, whilst derived from personal experience, prompts the responder to consider their own shadow and how it may be shaped be elements beyond their control, specifically social taboos and values. Whilst bringing our shadow to light is painful, it is a necessary part of our inner journey towards Individuation.

Epic Rap Battles: Year 9 having fun with poetry

A few weeks ago I posted the outline of our current Year 9 poetry project. It is not the second last week of this project … it’s a pretty long one but the students in all classes are LOVING it! I think this is the first time that multiple English classes have worked on an actual project-learning project at our school. It’s been a really weird experience for me (because I’m used to being the ‘lone nut’) but it’s been really great for the students – they really enjoy being able to talk to their friends in other classes about the project and seeing what they’re creating.

Here is the project outline if you missed it:

We spent the first couple of weeks looking closely at some performance poems and trying to discover the features specific to this type of poetry (they watched Omar Musa, Rik Mayall and Maya Angelou) and then moved on the performing a poem of their choice as a team. The last two weeks has been have rap battles! We spent a lesson watching some Epic Rap Battles of History and as a class identified what the features where of that style of poetry. In teams, students planned, drafted and polished their own epic rap battle in-character. They chose really funny characters to battle: Pete Griffin vs Homer Simpson, Student vs Teacher, Batman vs Superman, Edward Cullen vs Dracula, Cat vs Dog, Bryan & Steve vs Roger and Clyde and The Beatles vs One Direction. Students presented their battles to the class at out outdoor amphitheatre and their peers have to choose ‘who won’ the battle. I videoed their performances (and their team poetry performance earlier in the project) as they will be using this as evidence for their own self assessment. The project leads up to a Poetry Performance Evening and the teams need to select which performance they prefer to perform for family and friends.

I created a rubric for the rap battle that I am happy for others to use and let me know what they like or don’t like etc. I’ll be watching the videoed battles and using the rubric to give students their medals and missions for the next performance.