the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria’s education outcomes are not improving is the report “Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students’ reading, mathematical and scientific literacy”
While it doesn’t seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today’s technology driven world.
We need to understand the new social world that both our students and our teachers live and learn in.
A world where the experts are no longer in charge, a world where autonomous self-directed learners are skilled at co-constructing new knowledge in unknown and uncertain environments
A world where knowledge is complex and is changing.
Our students need to be immersed in the modern learning, made possible by modern technology and free of the compromises that up til now our education system has been based on.
Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.
Another paper questioning connectivist claims that it is a learning theory.
"It seems that here, thrown away false modesty, connectivism is putting forward its candidacy to represent a new paradigm, even if this application is not supplied with a consistent reference theoretical frame."
On June 21 2012, the Government released a discussion paper which states its vision for the improvement of the teaching profession. The 'New Directions for School Leadership and the Teaching Profession,' aims to stimulate and inform discussion on the future of the teaching profession and school leadership.
As a collective of grass roots teachers, who are not currently being asked to participate in educational debates and discussion, we see this as an opportunity to enable teachers' voice.
Teachers: A great, yet untapped, source for policy makers.
I agree. I presented to a Board of Trustees meeting here in NZ last night about this. The BOT wanted to buy IWBs for each classroom - high-end ones at up to $7000 NZ a piece. I showed them some of the research and white papers and then showed them what they could buy as an alternative - being a lot of netbooks giving individual kids a load more power - be interesting to see what they do.
One BOT member asked me if schools are now obsolete. My response was that schools are not obsolete but their walls are.