"curiousity has its own reason for existance....never lose a holy curiousity."

Albert Einstein, 1948.

Q3

Scope and Sequence

The scope and sequence of a Board of Studies document gives the teacher a curriculum plan for the overall range of a subject area that needs to be covered in a particular time frame at stage and yr level. The range of the subject includes the specific aspects of the subject that are assumed will be learnt in order to be ready to progress to the next level.

My overall evaluation of this material is that The Board of Studies is exercising much effort and good intention. The scope and sequence leaves room for teachers to design their own programs and can be applied to a variety of school learning environments. Somewhere in all the requirements and standards though, there needs to be an appreciation of the increasing demands on teachers’ time that this material requires to be conscientiously implemented. The stress that this work creates may lower the standard of actual delivery.

Teaching Programme/PREPARATION

This part of the BOS document would serve as a guide to the teacher with some suggested samples and activities relevant to the content to be covered in the scope and sequence.

The BOS examples help to formulate an overview of national learning standards.

To create a meaningful programme a teacher would need to:

research each individual student before beginning the course incorporating student feedback, discover motivators

adapt resources to design the programme to make it suitable to the peculiarities of an area’s local demographics and climate.

be innovative, create new resources!

where possible, incorporate an example of local indigenous culture and their contemporary issues

in Shearwater’s case work with collegial peers to incorporate anthroposophical content

from time to time during the learning sequence have a means to organise the class into smaller groups of 15 or less to optimise teaching
(Hattie’s research identifies that class sizes btw 20- 30 have no great impact on learning but groups of 15 or less achieve better results.)

have relevant excursions organised which suit content

facilitate when appropriate a closure occasion which is socially enjoyable and memorable


ASSESSMENT
Through my evaluation of the use of school level assessment program documents, within the repertoire of individual teaching strategies implemented to meet outcomes, the organisational requirements of The Board of Studies do need to be integrated. However there is a necessity to incorporate a form of equanimous feedback in the particular sense of
the following:

• - Time allocated for reporting and keeping records and observations is fair to each individual student.
• - Any documentation of feedback needs to be aesthetic and where possible incorporating technology in a creative way eg DVD, tapestry of visual and oral – maybe a simple keynote etc, open day presentations
• - The feedback be relative to each student’s individual progress taking into account their learning style, background and current issues
• - Snapshot feedback which puts the student’s work in the standards reference framework of state and national results,is not presumed absolute.

I think in our work as teachers we need to be open to the unknown and be able to step back after thoroughly teaching a topic to BOS requirements and see what else have our students learnt and refined in their personal values that was not indicated, assessed or referenced to a standard. This is where equanimity in feedback plays a vital role to the teacher, student and parent.

Chandra discovers relativistic pinball machine

This extraordinarily deep Chandra image shows Cassiopeia A (Cas A, for short), the youngest supernova remnant in the Milky Way. Credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/UMass Amherst/M.D.Stage et al.


CHANDRA X-RAY CENTER NEWS RELEASE
Posted: November 15, 2006