Quality teaching and the new English Years 710 Syllabus

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Quality teaching and the new English Years 7-10
Syllabus
www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au
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The three dimensions of quality teaching

• Intellectual quality
• Quality learning environment
• Significance

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Lets consider the potential in our new Syllabus
to support the NSW model of quality teaching.
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Firstly, understand that we are not expected to
take into account all 18 of the elements at the
one time. Take a few elements at a time and
enhance those and later build on that strength in
your classroom.
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Intellectual quality

• refers to pedagogy focused on producing deep
  understanding of concepts, ideas and skills
• rests on the belief that knowledge requires
  active construction.

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Deep knowledge

• Students need to engage with contextual and
  cultural assumptions and intertextuality.

Knowledge is deep when complex relations are
established to and/or between the central
concepts being addressed in a text or unit.
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Deep understanding
promotes students comprehension of and thinking
about ideas, theories and perspectives in
relation to the political, historical, social and
cultural contexts.
Using the film Shrek as the basis for our
discussion The film assumes that the viewer
has the cultural understanding that all
princesses are beautiful all ogres are mean and
cruel the natural environment of the setting is
rejuvenating/calming that when Shrek holds the
princess hand, it means there is a close
bond/love.
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Problematic knowledge
causes students to present, articulate or analyse
alternative perspectives and/or solutions
and how the construction of their knowledge
relates to their understanding of the text.
In Shrek, students need a sophisticated
understanding of how societal attitudes and
values can change, e.g. Shrek hero
Princess Fiona rescuer.
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Higher-order thinking

• occurs when students combine information and
  ideas in order to explain, generalise, analyse,
  hypothesise, evaluate, conclude and synthesise.
• Our task as teachers is to create an
  environment and activities that cause our
  students to solve problems and discover new
  meanings and understanding.

In Shrek, students could explore the
transformations of the ogre and the princess and
compare them to the transformations in Beauty and
the Beast.
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Metalanguage
Students need to name and analyse textual
material using the specialist language of the
text (e.g. a filmic analysis demands filmic
jargon). They need to engage with the language
forms, features and structures of texts
appropriate to different purposes, audiences and
contexts.
How effectively does the director of Shrek employ
such camera shots and camera angles as
establishing shot, close-up, middle shot and long
shot?
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Substantive communication
refers to the regular engagement in sustained,
analytical conversation about the concepts and
issues in a unit. The conversation may be oral,
written or representational.
How effectively do images in Shrek allude to
other texts you have read or viewed?
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Quality learning environment

• refers to pedagogy that creates classrooms where
  students and teachers work productively in an
  environment focused on learning.

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Explicit quality criteria
Explicit criteria are identified by detailed and
specific statements about what it is students are
to do in order to produce work of high quality.
Shrek tasks should contain procedural parameters,
(advanced or graphic) organisers and the criteria
which are being assessed in the tasks.
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Engagement
Greater student engagement will come from the
careful selection of challenging texts, including
texts from cultural heritages, popular cultures
and youth cultures in a context of intellectual
quality.
Usually animated films are comic, light-hearted
and targeted at children. Is Shrek only for
children? Justify your response.
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High expectations
are implicit in the new Syllabus from the
statement in the rationale that English in
Years 7 - 10 is both challenging and enjoyable
to the requirements that texts become
increasingly sophisticated as students move
fromStage 4 to Stage 5.
In folk tales, ogres are people-eating beasts, so
we expect the ogre in Shrek to be a bad
character. How are our expectations challenged?
Are we satisfied as viewers?
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Social support
is evident in a class characterised by
challenging work, strong effort, mutual respect
and assistance in achievement for all students.
Contributions are seen as welcome. Students take
risks without fear of condemnation.
Shrek drama scripts should be performed in an
atmosphere of mutual respect and enjoyment. The
accompanying unit allows for interesting
considerations of difference and diversity.
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Students self-regulation
occurs where students know what they have to do
and are clear on their roles and
responsibilities. It is a clearly observable
feature.
In your groups, firstly create a mind map of the
characters and their roles in Shrek, and
secondly, develop a home page for a Shrek web
site which shows various sub-sections, links and
has an outline of the films orientation.
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Student direction

• is mentioned in our new Stage 4 Syllabus
• refers to students exercising some direction
  over the selection of activities and the means
  and manner by which the tasks will be done.

On this sheet you will find ten activities. Task
one is compulsory, but then your pair is to
select any four other tasks. You may present
them however you choose, e.g. a PowerPoint, a
wall chart, a mobile.
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Significance
refers to pedagogy that helps make learning
meaningful and important to students.
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Background knowledge
and experiences are significant aspects of class
activities. Teachers can provide opportunities
for students to make connections between their
linguistic, cultural, world knowledge and
experience with the topic.
The new Syllabus encourages us to devise
activities that include personal experience,
community knowledge, local knowledge, media and
popular culture sources. Students should learn
about the links between the ideas, information,
perspectives and points of view presented in
texts and their own background experience.
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Cultural knowledge
requires the knowledge of more than one social
group being present and valued in the classroom.
Tasks should show value for diverse beliefs,
languages, practices and ways of knowing. All the
differing characteristics of all students should
be valued, such as, gender, ethnicity, race,
disability, language, religion.
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Knowledge integration
is where connections to other subjects can be
made through the visual and critical literacy
demands of the Syllabus and the wide range of
text requirements from everyday and workplace
texts to nonfiction and filmic texts.
Discuss the use of light and shade, colour,
perspective and layout from this film still from
Shrek.
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Inclusivity
refers to each student from all social and
cultural backgrounds represented in the classroom
being included and valued in the class
activities. Inclusion in tasks can occur either
in the content addressed by a task and/or in the
processes required to complete the task.
Were going to share our own experiences of
fairytale narratives from our different cultures.
I want you to see how similar and varied the
narratives are. Your task is to select a
narrative from a different culture and, imagining
it has been made into a film, compose a blurb to
go on the back of a video cover.
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Connectedness
is a key element, making the learning students
are engaged in relevant outside the classroom.
Stage 4 students demonstrate understanding that
texts express views of their broadening world and
their relationships within it.
An audience outside the classroom should be
created.
Compose a film review of Shrek (with at least one
graphic) to be posted on a web site like the ones
you can find on www.imdb.com
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Narrative
does not specifically refer to the text type. It
is at the heart of what we do in the English
classroom and is where students explore the role
of story in shaping their experience of, response
to composition of texts and learn about the
ways in which story creates a world within which
characters interact and shape action.
Storyboard an incident in your life where you met
someone who turned out to be quite different from
what you had originally imagined.
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Content

• New syllabus Specific text requirements for
  essential content, including multimedia and other
  visual texts in both Stages
• Mandatory experience of Shakespearean drama in
  Stage 5.
• Implications Review available texts and
  investigate new texts to ensure coverage of all
  syllabus requirements, e.g. Fiction Film and
  other Texts from BOS.

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Programming and planning

• New syllabus Staged programming of essential
  content and text requirements for each Stage and
  each year indicating clearly chartable
  progression across stages
• Implications Programming will need to be more
  closely linked to what students know and can do
  across a Stage with a closer relationship between
  programming, planning and assessment. We need to
  develop strategies for broadening and deepening
  learning experiences of less able and gifted and
  talented students.

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Assessment

• New syllabus Assessment used as a learning tool
• Feedback and reporting that is explicit and
  related to achievement of the outcomes.
• Implications Focus on assessment as integral
  part of whole teaching and learning will mean
  changes in programming and units of work.