Junior school, Aug. 08

Key Competencies
Reading 1
Looking at learning intentions under the key competency headings
Rubric - Structured well – given in child speak and ordered in a way easy to follow
Reporting to parents – current reports are not in line with key competencies
Key competencies are more about the whole person and their strengths
Assessing key competencies is contextually bound – within the bounds of the subject area you are working – therefore tracking the competencies can be difficult ie some one might be good at participating in Music but not necessarily in maths – so we would need to assess across more than one area
Key Competencies are dispositions not capabilities
Key competencies can be demonstrated across curriculum areas
Assessing key competencies requires more self and peer assessment
Do we think some of these KC are more suited to our junior area – maybe, I wonder?

Reading 2
Children need capability of applying knowledge and disposition and personal attitudes to become life long learners.
Competencies are important across many areas of life – key for having a prosperous, happy life.
Some of the things that make up competencies require skills – we need to be careful not to focus on the these skills and remember to attend to the dispositions required
Critical to learners development that they build a concept around the competencies that they are able to ask questions around their thinking, learning and behaviours

Establishing Key Competencies

Ingrid summarised the article as developing key competencies as a form of instilling a desire for life-long learning.
Vanessa E stated the article summarised the key areas based on the OECD study; those being social aspects, literacy and communication.
Nicki stated the article identified the e-portfolios and the benefits these brought to informing parents and teachers alike in the childrens' learning abilities. Vanessa E discussed the assessment of key competencies and the difficulties in being able to do so; assessing is not necessarily testing. Ingrid said the Key Competencies are difficiult to assess also.
The diagram 24.4 was identified as being fantastic summary of lifelong learning creating a movement from andragogy to pedagogy. The tables 24.2 and 24.4 used fantastic language in order to assess key competencies.

Middle School Readings

The process: How the school introduced key competencies- A case study.
Sheryl summarised the article anddiscussed how key competencies were implemented in schools. Vanessa stated that the way we assess currently will need to change in order to meet the needs of our children.
Sheryl enjoyed the Rubric for 'managing self' and identified the significance for level 2 columns.
Shelley thought it was interesting the support staff were using the same terminology and created a sense of homogenety amongst the members of the school team.
Sheryl analysed the steps at which we were at as a school and our next step was to add this to reporting times with parents.

Assessing Key Competencies

When we assess I always ask what value is this for moving my students on in their learning.
We need to blend the best of what we already know with what is new.
The assessment needs to be relevant and effective, providing them with the next steps of learning.
Learning happens in many places, not just at school.
Children need to develop multi literacies for learning.
New learning challenges us with a call for creative problem solving.
Students need to know what sucess looks like but also how to assess themselves against a criteria.
Working with others is central to life-long learning.
We need to know what life long learning is; it is so vast. It is like the end product.
Page 10 and 11 gave us strategies to think about. Wendy really liked the idea that the students are involved in selecting work to share with home about their learning.

enGauge

Junior SyndicateKaye said: She found it enlightening that the students that had internet access, obtain better results than those who didnt as they spent less time watching television.Sue said: It is challenging for teachers to be invloved in such a rapid technological change, and extend their skills to maintain their cycle of learning rather than clusters of knowledge. " Wonderfully beneficial to the terrifyingly difficult."The implications for us as educators are:- Understanding not just what the children are learning but how they are learning it.- Instilling the basic literacy skills still remains our core focus, as a foundation to all other learning. Concern was expressed that a particular child, who is computer literate, has severe concerntration issues.- The children do not want to wait and there is so much visual language coming at them, they do not want to sit their watching when they could be involved (because they can).- The corncerns of the parents and the limitations that they enforce on us as educators of their children. - Multiple and varied assessments needed.It was raised that what we decided we wanted our learners to look like, were reflected in the enGauge 21st century skills.

"enGauge"

Duncan says that children are getting more involved with their own assessment, such as 3-way interview which will help foster lifelong learningNick thinks that although it is a great idea, and as we can teach 30we can’t feasibly mentor 30 children; especially in terms of time.Paul agrees that e-Portfolio is a great idea, such as the example we were shown from Red Beach School. "New assessment methods, online…" And Helen echoes with this new wave of education but added her concern that we teachers need to do many tasks along with conferencing and editing with children on their e-Portfolios.On the other hand, Wendy is positive about the new trend, and wishes to urge teachers to change the old way of teaching.Douglas likes the ideas of the reading yet agrees with all discussion points raised. He wants others to ponder on this: "As much as we have been thinking about what we want the new learners to look like when they leave school, have we actually asked how we want the teachers to feel and look like in this modern era of education? Like what sort of supports and needs they have and should get in order to carry out their tasks and still be able to enjoy this teaching profession sanely and realistically."Overall, the team likes many great ideas implicated in both the readings but we all understand that there have been very limited guidelines & support on the implementation side of the issues… i.e. e-Portfolios & individual mentoring. These ideas need to see more realistic aspects of the teaching & learning practice in classrooms.

"Assessing Key Competencies"

The team believes that the ideas of assessing key competencies are good but has concerns of the subjectiveness of them. The team is also concerned about the teachers' workload in addition to assessment of other key curricular areas. We all agree that the reading is interesting but some of us think that the research still sounds to serve merely as a research.

Assessing Key Competencies

Vanessa E said the article described assessment needs: those being through verbal communication. This adds a further dimension for furthering life-long learning. Assessment should be for the childs' growth and not compared to other children in the class. The key competencies are not new but the challenge for teachers is to place these into assessment techniques.

Assessment through group learning is important according to the article, but how can we realistically do this?

Nicki said the assessment data is not taking into account the big picture, instead a snapshot of the childs' ability at the time of assessing them.

Ingrid found the article interesting in the fact that learning is important both in school and of outside school. Ingrid also said this is part of the ongoing increasing ability of the childs' identity.

Hadleigh discussed the vocabulary of key words and sharing this vocabulary for other class members to build on.

enGauge

Vanessa V said that the children who are at school now need to live in the environment they are in at the moment in order to become life-long learners eg problem-solving and observation. These are highly valued in the workplace now and in the future. Research showed learning needed to be meaningful and challenging.

Sheryl said she believed in learning being up to date and relevant to the context, through a continous cycle.