I want to work in that school

Doug, I really like your analogy of the Teacher as a Lifeguard. It fits in well with our new multiple metaphor model (http://exc-el.wikispaces.com/Cultural Change ). We are also currently working on a project in East Lothian on Extreme Learning. You may have heard of our idea? (its really the same as yours!). Please feel free to pop into the wiki and contribute to our evolving policy document ([14] http://extreme-learning.wikispaces.com). Up might also be interested in my recent post on Curriculum Design ([15] http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2006/10/fifty_ideas_in_.html#comments) Really like your blog by the way. Kind regards, Ollie

The school my sons attend is half way between your two models, I guess. They have a great deal of time in KS3 allocated to IHE (Something Humanities and English). This covers history, geography, media studies, RE and English. The work they do in these sessions covers all these bases. The problem is that they can then not choose history or geography for their GCSEs, which in turn restricts their A-level selections.

Ollie, thanks for your comment and for pointing me towards your blog and wiki - I’ve made a couple of small contributions!

Karyn, I’d be interested to know more about what type of programme your sons are studying - is it a nationwide thing? (I understand if you’d rather do that via email)

Doug are you therefore looking for a competency based curriculum such as John Cabot’s in Bristol? It appears strange that education swirls around the smae ideas although the technology has changed. I agree about the idea of the knowledge commodity and that therefore the skills needed to research, analyse and communicate the knowledge are perhaps more important than the level of content itself, but how do we create a change in which teachers move away from directed teaching to a facilitator role?

come out of the dark ages and start to teach in distant land of the primary classroom where what you talk about takes place more than often. Although though you will realise that it is a little trickier than just talking about it!

Neil, I hadn’t come across the Cabot Competence Curriculum before but after viewing [16] their site it’s going to be on my Head’s desk this morning… I agree that there’s a problem in redesignating teacher’s roles - it’s more than just giving them a new name!

Martin, thanks for the constructive comment. My wife’s a primary teacher and I know for a fact that what goes on in primary schools is nothing like what I’m advocating. For a start primary school children (or even most of the pupils in Years 7 and 8) have not got the organizational skills, maturity or wherewithall to participate in such a scheme. At least not in the spoon-fed, lets-test-them-all-the-time climate currently in UK schools. But that’s a whole different post…

We’ve launched a trial programme at our school for year 7 which is a kind of half way house. Pupils spend 8 lessons a fortnight with their ‘Smart’ teacher. We’re currently going through Multiple Intelligences, Thinking Skills and so forth and this will expand over the course of the year into more student focussed project work around a chosen theme.
We took a fair amount of inspiration from John Cabot, and everyone involved in the programme attended one of their open days - well worth it if you’re considering this kind of programme. Likewise, if you’re in the Swansea area feel free to pop in and see what we’re doing with Smart!
It’s only a small step, but at least it’s in the right direction!

Sounds great, Dave - I presume that’s what the SMART section of [17] your website will be used for?

I’ve printed off pages from the [18] John Cabot CTC website and attached a note about linking it to an INSET on the nine gateways of personalising learning we did before half-term. I’ve also volunteered to go and have a look around and report back. We’ll see what happens…

The I.B.O group have been working on an idea similar to this, in that it involves student centred learning as a base. A lot more schools in the UK are taking up the middle years and diploma programs. Their website has some interesting models to look at.

I would like to pick up on a couple of your comments Doug.

“This type of learning would be most beneficial to those aged 13 as I think below this age most students need some a more rigid kind of organization imposed by teachers, schools and curricula.”

and

“Above this age, provided the student does not have learning, emotional or behavioural difficulties, I see no reason why they cannot make a real success of such a system.”

I have been trialling a fantastic thinking skills framework that facilitates nearly all of your aims and challenges some misconceptions. It is called TASC (Thinking in an Active Social Context) and it was devised by Belle Wallace. The TASC wheel gives the pupils a really excellent structure to support a wide variety of activities. The students start by identifying the task, gather and organise what they know already, generate as many ideas as they can, decide on the best ideas, implement them, evaluate, communicate and learn from their experience. You can see some details of the work I have been doing on my website: [19] http://www.comptonhistory.com/tasc/slavery.htm and some video clips of the start of the process here [20] http://www.comptonhistory.com/tasc/comptonproject.htm

I have used TASC with all ability groups and all age groups and the results have been very impressive across the whole school. Belle has used it with students in Year 2 through to undergraduates and with SEN as well as G&T students.

Students with “emotional, behavioural and learning difficulties” are the ones who stand to benefit the most from the ideas you promote, why exclude them?

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the comment. The TASC wheel looks great and I can see how it could be used to support ‘out of the box’ thinking in current contexts. What I’m more interested in doing, however, is thinking how the whole curriculum, not just parts of it, could be redesigned. So instead of saying telling the students what the topic to be studied is going to be and in which subjects, the focus of the projects comes from the students themselves with two or three major projects per year. What the TASC wheel does do, however, is bridge the gap quite nicely - I shall have to see if it can be used in my school too…

I certainly don’t want to ‘exclude’ those with emotional, behavioural and learning difficulties but I feel that before being let loose on rather ‘free-form’ learning they need to have the structures in place to be able to benefit from it. To embark on projects where the student is the project manager means that they have to have certain ‘frameworks’ in place (for want of a better word) to be able to organize their learning effectively.

Keep up the good work, Dan - from what I’ve seen you’re doing a great job in London village!

Hi Doug

The beauty of the TASC wheel is the structure it gives to any student and that’s why I think it could be applied in your proposal. The other point about TASC is that it lends itself to a completely cross-curricular approach that you are looking for and can also be student driven. I have just finished co-ordinating a year 7 x-curricular TASC project with 8 subjects areas on the theme of communication and codes. It was a great success and both students and staff got a great deal out of it. If you want I can send you my evaluation when I have written it.

Hi doug,
I agree with you about this being a good system to work in, and it does work- but it does take great teachers for it to be effective. (as with all learning). Athena Montessori School in Wellington, NZ works to a similar philosophy. I have notice a move to “learning advisors” rather than “teachers” in a number of schools.

It is possible to integrate all the curriculum, rather than have the 3 divisions as you suggest (I have been involved in this with 13/14 yr olds). James Beane has written a bit on curriculum integration.

Something else to consider in your model is how students will network- construct knowledge through their network of peers and beyond the classroom.

One more thing- co-constructing the curriculum is something I have dabbled with too, and have seen it being used through high school. The model I have used is where you find out what every student wants to learn/ are interested in and want to learn about through a series of questions- eg. “what do you want to know about the world”, “what do you want to know about this region”, “what do you want to know about yourself” “what would you most like to learn this year” etc. Students then jigsaw all the answers to find themes and possible topics… Kath Murdoch from Tasmania has run workshops on this idea. I have also seen co-construction happening in high stakes exam classes for social studies, where a brave teacher doesn’t plan the year until the students arrive.

Dan, sounds great - please do send me your evaluation. I’ve been asked to go to the School Priorities Group meeting on the 14th to discuss my ideas.

Louise - I wasn’t dividing it up into 3 areas! They were possible combinations of subjects which students could use for their projects. If they wanted, their project could be completely cross-curricular, as you suggest!

On your point about planning the year only when the students arrive, it does seem quite sensible really. Who are we to decide what and how the students learn (within limits of course) - we need to actually meet the students first and then go from there…

The Big Picture Schools in the US does something like what you are talking about. [21] http://www.bigpicture.org/

Also Roger Shank is working on inventing a new high school curriculum that focus on overaching themes, rather than discrete subjects. [22] http://www.districtadministration.com/blogs/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=17498

[…] 原文链接：The kind of school in which I want to work… 原文作者：Doug Belshaw 翻译：chrisclover 审校：Yesen […]