The Zayed Future Energy Prize represents the vision of the Late Founding Father and President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, who championed environmental stewardship. This annual award celebrates achievements that reflect impact, innovation, long-term vision and leadership in renewable energy and sustainability.
Teachers teaching misconceptions: a study of factors contributing to (US) high school biology students’ acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions
Research has revealed that high school students matriculate to college holding misconceptions related to biological evolution. These misconceptions interfere with students’ abilities to grasp accurate scientific explanations and serve as fundamental barriers to understanding evolution. Because the scientific community regards evolution as a vital part of science education, it is imperative that students’ misconceptions are identified and their sources revealed.
The purpose of this study was to identify the types and prevalence of biological evolution-related misconceptions held by high school biology teachers and their students, and to identify those factors that contribute to student acquisition of such misconceptions, with particular emphasis given to the role of the teacher.
The “teachers dispute” is still not settled. Telecommunications, Climate Policy, Labour Market renewal and work such as the Gonski review appear distant references on some future policy horizon.
The treatment of education and skills as a simple cost in a budget, or some “sector” to “manage” fundamentally misunderstands the needs of a modern economy [which wishes to remain one] in this century. Envisioning future Victorian and Australian communities that are literate, numerate, engaged, sustainably employed, self-reliant and generous is the task of all leaders.
By most objective comparative measures, for many years (decades) Australia and/or Victoria have been one of the most high performing societies and economies [I place them in that order] on the planet.
The teaching workforce requires the investment and reform commensurate with the strategic “lever” that it is. Not because it is flawed [although of course there is improvement possible], but because it is one of the only truly public policy levers that can establish and underpin a competitive and harmonious society in to the future.
Yet, as my colleagues in the US would say, we have a Kabuki Dance called the Teachers EBA that suggests the most significant outcome required by Government is saving a few percentage points over the life cycle of one industrial agreement.
There could be nothing less strategic in my view.
Yr 12 Attainment
At a local level, I note that in the Shire I live in, Mitchell Shire, the Year 12 attainment rate for young people has dropped from 71% in 2007 to a startling 59% in 2010 [the fourth lowest in all LGA’s in the State].
There are a number of other metric’s I could point to, but this serves to make my point I hope.
How does anything that relates to the current position of Government to the teacher’s agreement, suggest this position will or can be improved?
How does having less skilled, less-schooled, less trained individuals in our community good for business or investment, let alone, the individuals themselves or the communities they live in?
Public debate and discourse appears to have collapsed and we have ridiculously doctrinaire views from political parties and commentators that frankly, in the 21st century, serve no-one, except perhaps the [increasingly] narrow self-interests of the few in power. The status-quo is well served.
Scanning the newspapers in New South Wales and Victoria today, provides a stunning treatise of potential corruptions, conflicts-of-interest, self-interest and just plain apparent incompetence that sadly, supports my basic premise.
We need to be smarter.
And ethical.
There appears to be genuine challenges of competence on both sides of the ever-increasingly irrelevant aisles of power.
We have a new Premier of the State and I doubt anyone understands why?
This will cover our news and air-waves for weeks.
It seems if one side of politics says it is raining, the other side will suggest it is sunny and what was once a fearless and informed fourth-estate, chooses to publish the controversy of the disagreement, rather than take the time to look out the window and report the facts.
In the mean-time, tens of thousands of public school educators remain without any reasonable commitment to the individual and profession-wide resources they require to respond to the needs of vastly diverse and rapidly balkanising communities. Evidence-led, place-based planning has never been more critical.
I am reminded of an opine from 2005 [I think from Barry Jones] when he referred to the rise of the “un-reading managerial class” in modern policy circles.
I don’t see what has changed.
While I can be considered a “partisan” [in the broader meaning] when it comes to supporting state education, I do consider myself rationale and collaborative, [Bruce, please don’t snigger..] and thus able to see areas of reform that require all stakeholders to be prepared to compromise the tactical, to achieve a shared strategic vision.
As yet,as far as I can tell, such a vision has not been articulated nor necessarily sought.
Management appears easier.
Nevertheless, the signal to noise ratio is such in public debate, that I simply add my voice to the ocean of noise, if only to satisfy myself and the few hundred colleagues, here and abroad that I share my views with.
Settling the teacher’s Enterprise Bargaining Agreement would be the first indication that we can and want to get smarter.
A friend and colleague passed away recently. Her funeral filled the local church, spilling from the facade in to the courtyard and beyond.
Many came from great distances to pay tribute to her and remember her life. The number of those assembled was a very fitting tribute.
Chris worked tirelessly for the young people in the region. I knew Chris for just over a decade and had the privilege of working very closely with her [and sharing many late nights and delirious bouts-of-laughter with her] for over seven of those years.
Her commitment and dedication to improving the skills and life chances for young people across our region was inspiring. Even through periods of illness, over many years, Christine was still working to bring people together and improve education and training opportunities for young people.
Chris cared deeply about her work.
Chris cared deeply about improving her local community.
Chris led by example, worked with everyone and always had a smile.
It appears from contact with family and colleagues at what appears to be the largest state-wide teacher stop-work action ever held in Melbourne, Australia today, we are still very much in the cycle of what I like to call “retail economics and policy planning”.
It is sad to see such limited public debate about what is REALLY happening in schools, not just in Victoria, but across the country.
At a time when we have more information, data and knowledge about both TEACHING and LEARNING, we are still destined for what appears to be a policy debate that does not get much beyond either “kicking a teacher” or demanding unlimited funds with little or no accountability.
It is an insult to offer those in the service of educating our young such limited salaries, career structures and resourcing. Likewise, this will always appear to be the case as long as the teaching service allows a quasi-profession to be externally controlled, cajoled and manipulated because it does not manage and oversee its own standards and status.
It seems, the major actors in current policy are happy to frame the debate in terms of choices that perhaps even Faust would not consider. Although such policy positions play well on TV and Radio i.e “We need to reform teaching”, “we need to get rid of poor teachers” or “our schools are crumbling”, ” our rankings are falling”, we seldom discuss the opportunities a bi-partisan, multi-party commitment to education would bring to the country as a whole.
The half-truths and selective reasoning for political-gain, [at all levels] while well-crafted, is simply that, well-crafted. Our lack of cohesion and focus, our lack of collective support for the teaching service as one of the key strategic industries of our country’s current and future prosperity, is the key to many other social and economic policy dilemmas. Just ask the residents of Hackney.
We have in fact seen enrolments in non-government schools reach approximately 34% of total enrolments and yet concurrently, we have seen the rise of policy and public debate about “falling standards” and “falling rankings”. The shift of student enrolments to non-government schools [without apparent academic improvement] and the concentration of lower-performing students in many government schools is a challenge often simply ignored, it appears, by many policy makers.
Spending & OECD Performance
A lot has been made of discussions about spending and OECD rankings in the last few weeks and months. Here is a little chart that shows spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product and the OECD Country Rankings in PISA Tests in Maths, English and Science.
Dear reader, I would simply ask you to look closely at this graph below and ask yourself a few things about Australia’s rankings, mindful of the fact that MOST of the TEACHERS that were responsbile for the PISA results in 2000 are still in schools now.
Question. What has changed?
Question: What should we do now?
This chart requires flash.
Could you pick two of these? Education, Competitiveness, Civil Society
The disturbing scenes in London over the last few days bring in to a stark contrast the competing challenges of the immediate, short-term need for social order and the extended, long-term need for social inclusion.
There are many thousands of pictures and words that will be written about this London summer.
The soul sinks at the pictures – of a woman leaping from a burning building, of the owners of a family shop seeing their life’s work turned to ash, at the sight of a thug unzipping the rucksack still on the back of an injured teenager and taking from it what he wants. The soul sinks at the sight of people trashing the places where at least some of them live.
Zoe Williams, also writing in the Guardian about the psychology of looting says:
Looting in Hackney
this is what happens when people don’t have anything, when they have their noses constantly rubbed in stuff they can’t afford, and they have no reason ever to believe that they will be able to afford it. Hiller takes up this idea:”Consumer society relies on your ability to participate in it. So what we recognise as a consumer now was born out of shorter hours, higher wages and the availability of credit. If you’re dealing with a lot of people who don’t have the last two, that contract doesn’t work. They seem to be targeting the stores selling goods they would normally consume. So perhaps they’re rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can’t afford it.”
Many are asking, “Is this a one-off or the beginning of wider, deeper unrest?”
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I suspect the longer-term response rests in the effectiveness or otherwise of some fledgling educational and social-enterprise experiments.
I am particularly familiar with Hackney, having visited and studied some of the educational institutions that have been developed in the area over the last decade, so the events there strike a personal and professional chord with me.
This is an economic struggle for social mobility and schools will be one of the keys to the success or failure of these communities, indeed the wider society.
Mossbourne Camera
Hackney and surrounds has been the site of unique educational and social-enterprise experiments [for want of a better word] with the introduction of the Mossbourne Community Academy and the Petchey Academy. These were part of Tony Blair’s “Academy” programme established in 2000. These schools are directly funded by central government and are independent of local government control. These schools receive additional support from personal donors, benefactors or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind, they are self-governing and many are registered charities or operated by other educational charities.
Mossbourne community academy was established seven years ago on the rubble of Hackney Downs school, which was once dubbed the worst in the country.
Mossbourne Community Academy opened in September 2004 and is now an average sized
Mossbourne Grounds
inner-city school with substantially more boys than girls. The proportion of pupils entitled to free school meals is very high, as is the proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds. The proportion of students for whom English is not their first language is well above average and the proportion of students with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average. The academy specialises in information and communication technology (ICT). In summer 2009 the first group of Year 11 students took public examinations. In September 2009 the newly created sixth form began with a sizable group of Year 12 students. The academy is extremely heavily over-subscribed. It reflects a fully comprehensive intake drawn from the locality. The academy has a stable staff and high student stability.
The Petchey Academy specialises in health, care and medical science. The academy moved into its new premises in September 2007. The students reflect the wide ethnic mix in Hackney; about half are of Black African or Caribbean heritage and a significant proportion come from homes where English is not the first language, but few are in the early stages of learning English. The local area is one of considerable disadvantage. About a quarter of students have learning difficulties and/or disabilities, which is higher than that typically found. The academy is significantly over-subscribed and draws its students from about 40 primary schools.
The initiative of the new Academy schools was [and still is] highly controversial, but the focus on producing achievement where previously there was none and focusing on access to employment and higher education pathways, where previously there were none has to be recognised as “drawing the line in the sand” for future generations.
Obviously, the proof will be in the results of these schools. The most recent Ofsted report [ Office for Standards in Education] clearly demonstrates exceptional and outstanding achievement rates for students attending the Mossbourne Academy and good achievement for the Petchey Academy.
In 2009, it was reported that the Mossbourne Academy produced an extraordinary 84% of its pupils achieving five good GCSEs including both English and maths – a performance way above the national average, by children who started out below educational par.
In the context of these riots and civil disorder, one wonders what role these institutions are playing, or can play in the future? This is a new dimension to the challenge of providing social mobility and the promise of participation in society for these schools.
Of course this is too early to tell, but the growing divides in modern societies in wealth, employment and more importantly, simple opportunity, are challenges that we all need to consider.
The Gini index of income disparity since World War Two offers some insight in to the challenges we can expect to see in countries around the world, as in many cases, fewer and fewer people not only possess more, but more importantly fewer and fewer seem to have access to any pathways, traditionally provided by a “good education” to the jobs, incomes and therefore the lives that are part of a traditional social contract.
Gini Index since WWII
The question for for our democracies seems to be, when is enough inequality enough?
Andrew Leigh observes: Discussing NT schools, the CIS’s Helen Hughes writes:
This week all Australian children in school years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sat numeracy and literacy tests for the second time. The tests are to give Australians an annual snapshot of basic educational progress. The first national ‘NAPLAN’ tests, held in May 2008, showed that 90% of children passed. Western Australia has made the tests available for government schools on the Internet, and Education Minister Julia Gillard has promised that all the 2009 test results will be posted by school.
An overview of the 2008 tests showed that there was no ‘gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Indigenous students in mainstream schools in Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT had the same results as non-Indigenous students.
I find this claim difficult to reconcile with the facts. Looking at the NAPLAN report(15mb), here’s year 7 numeracy:
Achievement Year 7 Numeracy- Indigenous Students by State
To put this into more concrete terms, the average score by year 7 Indigenous students is about the level of year 5 non-Indigenous students. (This is true even if you restrict the comparison to metropolitan schools.)
If ever there was essential reading for every teacher and every teacher-educator, the work of Professor John Hattie from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, would be at the top of my reading list.
The clarity and focus of such an extensive, system-wide meta-study that focusses on the EFFECTs of what teachers, schools and education systems DO is very compelling.
Professor Hattie delivered one of the key-note presentations at the 2007 EARLI conference [European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction]
The abstract states:
The session will overview a synthesis of over 600 meta-analyses of effects on achievement, highlighting the major themes that influence student learning. From these themes, the presentation will demonstrate the development of an assessment model of student learning that has been available and extensively used in NZ elementary and high schools over the past 5 years. A particular theme of the assessment model has been methods for helping teachers see and understand student progress, enable them to set targets/high expectations, and provide feedback so that there are more aware of the importance of some of the key competencies that act as enhancers or barriers to learning.
I would highly recommend the work of Professor Hattie to all involved in educational research. I would suggest you start by reading his Inaugural Lecture from August 1999; see the link at the bottom of this page.
In this presentation, Professor Hattie presents three parts to his “story”. These are
To identify major influences on achievement [ using 700+ meta-analyses ]
To outline an assessment model based on these influences
To demonstrate the power and joy of Educational Psychology
