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As thousands take to the streets as part of a global 'March for Science' it is worth considering the significant role that education has to play. What are the messages we need to send our students about science and what role have schools played in creating the current climate? Now seems like the time to pause and reflect on the place of science in our community and our schools.

There is a debate taking place in the world of education. It is not a new debate but recently it has gathered new energy and the boundary between polite discussion of opposing views and hostility has been stretched. The debate is that between those who are advocates of inquiry based learning and those who believe direct instruction produces the best outcomes. - This article explore how the debate has gone wrong and fails to serve the needs of learners.

I am wanting to take a slightly different approach to this weeks post. The past week has seen the latest round of PISA results and the media has had a field day. Headlines have routinely attacked students, educators and education systems in equal measure. The Canberra Times reported that "Australian school scores plummet on world stage", the Sydney Morning Herald led with "Alarm bells': Australian students record worst result in global tests" and The Weekend Australian went with "PISA global educational rankings: Schools fail on maths, science". 

The bushfire crisis that is currently impacting Australia is beyond devastating. The scale of these fires defies the imagination. For so long now we have lived with skies laden with smoke as a constant and inescapable reminder that this is not an ordinary summer. This is weather and drought at its most extreme. Our only salvation will be rain but this is not the season for that and the long term forecasts are not promising. Our young people, in particular, will be affected and will need special care in the weeks and months to come. What might this mean for schools and for student agency?

This much-maligned question seems so appropriate for education's recent history. All that was normal, everything that was routine, all of our structures, have been turned upside down and hurled into the wind of COVID19. From having spoken of a future dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), we have found ourselves living in it. Innovation and creativity became the new normal as we "Apollo 13" schooling into a model that met the demands of emergency remote learning. The pressure, the workload, the demands on our time and the cognitive load have all been immense, and so it seems fitting to ask "Are we there yet?".

"The Quality Matters Rubric is a set of 8 general standards and 41 specific standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses. The Rubric is complete with annotations that explain the application of the standards and the relationship among them. A scoring system and set of online tools facilitate the evaluation by a team of reviewers."

"* Maps: Search for buildings / places on campus, see bus routes and live locations, use GPS to find where you are on the 8,180 acre campus * Directory: Search for students, faculty, and staff in the Stanford directory, tap to call or email, add them as contacts on your phone * Courses: Search for classes, find out where and when they're offered, tap to call or email the professor, enroll during open enrollment, view your courses and grades * Athletics: Get news, scores, and schedules for every Stanford varsity sport * Images: Get photo images of Stanford University, send to a friend, save as wallpaper * Events: Get information about things happening on campus * Videos: Check out Stanford content on YouTube (UTV) * News: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! News from a variety of Stanford news sources - Stanford News, the Daily, Graduate School of Business, Medicine, athletics, and more! * Stanford on iTunes U: Access thousands of Stanford audio and video recordings- including courses, faculty lectures and campus performances - in iTunes U * Library: Search the prodigious content of Stanford libraries in a variety of ways, show content availability and location, call number, view item in SearchWorks * Emergency: Call to report emergency or non-emergency, call to obtain information from the Stanford Emergency Information Hotline * 5-SURE: Call to get a safe ride home"

Blueback is a beautiful metaphor for life and particularly of the life we live in schools. When looked at close up, with an eye on the details, the experience of school is one of passing and recurring cycles. When looked at from a distance, with an eye on the whole, there are elements of constancy, the throughlines which bring meaning to our experience and which have as their consequence the residuals of education. 

I have just had the opportunity to spend the weekend learning alongside a large group of mathematics teachers. After a day and a half of talking and thinking about mathematics teaching, I am excited to get back to school and try out some new ideas. There were also some key takeaways for me that I share below. These are the questions or wonderings that my mind wandered to while listening to the numerous talented speakers over the past two days.

An important part of the role of any educator is that of planning learning sequences. Perhaps you are tasked with designing curriculum or more likely you are translating a mandatory curriculum into workable units of learning. The task is complex and there are multiple arrangements. The goal is to design units that connect students with learning in ways that are meaningful and relevant. A well-designed unit of learning fits seamlessly alongside other learning opportunities and the overall sequence of learning should match the learners developing expertise. As we plan units of learning we must consider a great variety of factors which impact the learning we design. Our knowledge of our students and where they are with their learning is crucial and a strong place to start. We also need to know what it is we are required to teach and have a grab bag of pedagogical moves that bring this content alive.

""I was standing in line in a coffee shop on campus, and noticed that many people these days are using smartphones," says Kayvon Beykpour, vice-president of Blackboard Mobile. "Students are doing all kinds of things with them: they're on Facebook, checking email, making phone calls. People were doing just about everything except interacting with the university, which we thought was a bit of a disconnect. There's so many things that, as a student, you need to do every day, whether it's registering for a course, or finding your way around campus, or checking the directory or athletics scores-and they're all traditionally different places. Why not create a really sophisticated, really elegant, and really beautiful app that brings all those different services together in one place, and makes it really usable for the student, for the faculty, for the tourist? And that's what our platform does.""

"alexphrodisiac Version 1.0 - Oct 11, 2008 This app is extremely professionally done and highly useful to Stanford students. It's not the smallest campus, and the maps feature comes in handy when navigating, or to find a specific building or place on campus. The directory is also incredibly useful, and the athletics and courses features are great to have. Soon, the ability to actually register for courses will be made available on this app, and that will only further increase its utility. Great job in nearly every aspect of the app. Again, this is an absolute MUST HAVE for Stanford students. "

The wiki becomes the primary platform to conduct work, the fabric of everyday business, where people create, collaborate, and in the process capture information. While not a Knowledge Management tool, the wiki resolves the KM-problem as a by-product.

Supported by the principal bodies and agencies in UK post-compulsory education, the Committee was set up in February 2008 to conduct an independent inquiry into the strategic and policy implications for higher education of the experience and expectations of learners in the light of their increasing use of the newest technologies.

A great post!

Understanding the "Why" of any initiative should be a key step prior to implementation. Without a clear understanding of our "Why" how are we to judge the success of what we are implementing. How will we know which steps take us in the right direction if we have no concept of why we are journeying. In our implementation of ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) and now Digital Technologies, a lack of clarity on the matter of "Why" has often been the most significant challenge to success. 

The shift away from teaching for the rote memorisation of prescribed methods requires teachers to rethink their approach to the discipline. With this new pedagogy comes a need to understand the processes of mathematical thinking in ways not previously required. When we require our students to be able to reason and problem-solve through unique challenges we also require our teachers to have an understanding of the mathematical moves that their learners are likely to call upon.

With the year rushing to a close, this seems like the right time to set goals for the year ahead. To pause and consider what next and make some personal promises.  The trouble is that the history of setting New Year Resolutions is littered with failures. It is so easy at this point  in time to make commitments for change and then just a few weeks later to have forgotten what they were.