I want to consider what it means to do ‘high-order thinking’ in arts education. The terms ‘high’ and ‘low order’ is commonly associated with Bloom’s Taxonomy, the basis of many marking keys for courses and exams in primary, secondary and tertiary education since the 1950s. In the past, I believe that its hierarchy of six … Read more
There’s good research showing the benefits of kids and parents reading together. Scholastic’s seventh edition of Kids And Family Reading Report builds on the theme for kids and parents reading together beyond the early years. Alarmingly, the research shows a rapid decline after a child turns 9. The infographic, contained within Scholastic’s 2017 report, shows … Read more
I find the categorisation of people into ‘thinkers’ and ‘doers’ rubbish: depending on the context, you can be damned or praised for being either. More significantly, the separation diverts us from dealing with a more important question of how thoughts and actions are inevitably, even if inexplicably, related. According to cognitive linguists George Lakoff and … Read more
There would be little disagreement on the importance of drama and literacy, including broadening and deepening the vocabulary of young people. In the preface to Teaching effective vocabulary , the 2008 Chief Adviser on School Standards in the UK, Sue Hackman, compares having a good vocabulary to ‘an artist’s palette of colours’. Vocabulary is more than a … Read more
With so little time to talk about important curriculum matters, here’s a checklist of five points you might use to keep connected with colleagues and friends on how your creating curriculum content.
The project around the Trivia Night was based on investigating ‘faith’. We picked up from where the kids had left off the year before, looking at how things had changed through time. From there, we moved onto examining how ideas change the world.
There’s this big disparity between people coming from Spain to see us and people down the road not even knowing we exist. If we passionate about changing the way things are taught then we need people to know what we’re doing.
School Story Experience is an educational service for school leaders and their school communities. This article highlights how, at its core, it helps manage the complexities of communicating a schools’ vision and mission through 21st-century digital communication strategies and tools. Most importantly, it sets out how we view the service as a pedagogy-based one, rather than marketing or public relations. Ironically, though, the approach shows that the best advertising for any school are the affirmations which it receives from its own students, staff and parents.
I went to Thailand in a group made up of two lecturers from Monash University and three teachers, myself, a teacher from John Monash Science School and a teacher from Elwood Primary.
In 2018, I had the privilege of interviewing three teachers about their work with Year 2 students. They reflected on how early it’s possible for children to view themselves as active citizens in Australian democracy, built on the belief that their voices have power and agency. The discussion began with Mary Boutros pointing out the commonality between how parents and teachers deal with a child’s developmental milestones.