Aussie teachers are tired. Ask any of them. They are tired for so many reasons. An overcrowded curriculum seems to be one point very Aussie teacher I've met agrees upon. It seems to be a trickle-down effect from knee-jerk political policy that seems to cram our curriculum with more and more topics to be covered.
What politicians (and those that have never taught in the classroom) don't seem to realise is that students need time to:
- be introduced to a new concept
- learn the skills required to try the new concept
- practice the new concept, repeatedly
- demonstrate their understanding of the new concept in a test format
These things take time. Lots of time. Time that the current curriculum does not allow for. Sadly, when a new concept or topic is introduced, rarely is an old one taken out. Thus we end up with 6 or 7 NEW concepts to cover in a 10 week period.
Surely 10 weeks is enough time, right?
Of course 10 weeks would be fantastic.. but any teacher out there on the chalk-front will tell you that 10 weeks can get eaten up very quickly by any or all of the following additional activities:
- school camp
- band camp
- excursions
- incursions
- book week parade
- NAIDOC week parade
- ANZAC Day parade
- weekly parades
- parades, parades and more parades
Even if a child is away sick for any length of time, they miss so many key concepts that it can be impossible to catch them up.
So now what? We're doomed!
Well yes and no. Here is my approach to the madness of our curriculum. It's not popular but it works for my students and that's all that matters. I teach to the test. There. I said it. I'm not proud of it. I'm a teacher who has resorted to teaching to the test.
Isn't teaching to the test' kinda old-school?
Perhaps, but let's break it down. We have been so caught up in the madness of C2C and all those concepts that we have forgotten what makes a unit of work. One of the reasons I don't call my products 'units' is because when you write a unit you need to backward map from the assessment (which each school develops themselves). A unit without an assessment piece is like a burger without the bun. This is something that a lot of new teachers seem to forget. The assessment IS the curriculum.
In a perfect world I would teach lots of different topics and dive deeper into curriculum areas but the curriculum is just too content-heavy for me to do that and my students' learning suffers on their test scores.
Aren't students more than just test scores?
Yes. However, teaching has changed so dramatically in the last 5 years that teaching is about being driven by the data.
Teachers aren't data collectors!
We are now and this is why, sadly, a lot of teachers have left teaching. Data should drive your teaching and not the other way around. This is the way nearly all schools have gone in Australia. For more information about using data collection to inform your teaching practice read Hattie.
How do you use data to help teach your students?
Firstly I break the final assessment piece into small skills that need to be mastered. For example, a written task might require students to use compound sentences, figurative language etc.. These are the areas I need to teach and collect data on regularly to monitor student learning.
I create my own pre-test based on the skills required and analyse that data. This tells me where I need to spend my time (which is valuable) teaching.
After each lesson I encourage students to reflect on their new skill and every week I give a short pop quiz to see how students are going with this new skill. This data is where the real rubber hits the road. What this data tells me is where I need to work harder or can move to teaching the next skill.
I keep this pattern up until the assessment and make sure I'm modelling all the time through my teaching and learning wall (Hattie's visible learning).
The results have been amazing. I can actually see where my students are learning through my data collection.
What about the creativity in teaching? Where does that come in?
In the concepts being covered. The curriculum is so overcrowded that THIS is where you need to get creative as a teacher. The concepts covered in each subject are the over-arching themes. They are the spaces within which students can develop their skills.
Your little eggs are missing the brilliant KLA "Languages" !
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