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.