Category Archives: 2 Prof. Knowledge & Understanding

Scientific Literacy

Scientific Literacy TDT completed by myself, Katie-Rebecca and Kim.

AC1 – Maienschein, J. et al. (1998) states that there are two main definitions for science literacy. The first emphasizes a huge focus on gaining units of scientific or technical knowledge. Second emphasizes scientific ways of knowing and the process of thinking critically and creatively about the natural world. Knowing about science means that you can make informed decisions about the world around us from an economic, social and personal point of view. Science literacy links in with some of the principles with the Curriculum for Excellence which are depth, coherence and relevance (Education Scotland, 2016). It is important for children to look at science in depth because if you don’t the children may not have the chance to understand at any other point. Coherence comes in because if the children link up their previous knowledge to their current learning then they may have a better overall understanding. Lastly, relevance is important because if you cannot justify why the children are learning what they are, then why are they learning it? If their work isn’t relevant to the Curriculum and the children’s interests then they won’t be interested in science.

AC2 – A shortage of scientific literacy could result in the development of false scientific conclusions. In 1998 one false accusation reported by the media was the investigation into the MMR vaccine. Andrew Wakefield, who no longer practices medicine, came to the conclusion that a child who is given this three in one vaccine for measles had an increase chance of developing autism. Of course, when these findings were released by the media many parents were hesitant and refused to get this vaccine for their children meaning the chances of the child catching measles increased.

In 2004 it was finally realised that these findings were false. Wakefield only research on twelve children and these twelve medical reports did not match what Wakefield claimed in this findings. His findings were therefore false making the paper he published inaccurate and this paper was taken down. This illustrates how important science literacy is, the outcome of this false information resulted in children suffering for unnecessary reason. In new, recent research it has been found that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. However, there are some parents who may still be hesitant or refuse this vaccine for their child as they still believe Wakefield’s findings.

AC3 – Fair testing is one of many ways of learning through science enquiry. Testing is kept fair by experimenting in a controlled environment and changing one variable at a time. Teaching children how to test one variable at a time along with a control group shows them that by only one variable can affecting the outcome with a comparison (the control) reliably. An example of a fair test in a school to improve scientific literacy could be to dissolve sugar in water. In each cup the same volume of water and sugar would be placed, one cup would have warm water and the other cold. The cold water (the control) gives them the comparison and proof that it is in fact the temperature that speeds up the sugar dissolving and not any of variables such as time left in water. Being scientifically literate is the ability to think critically about the world knowing that what they have in front of them may not always be reliable. So science literacy, the example of how false scientific conclusions and teaching fair testing iterates to children that not everything they say or hear is on based on evidence and they should challenge it if necessary.

Education Scotland (2016) – See here http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningandteaching/thecurriculum/howisthecurriculumorganised/principles/index.asp

Greenslade, R (2013). The story behind the MMR scare. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/apr/25/mmr-scare-analysis

Jane Maienschein et al. (1998) “Scientific Literacy” in Science:Vol. 281, Issue 5379. page 917 NHS Choices, Ruling on doctor in MMR scare, 2010. Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/01January/Pages/MMR-vaccine-autism-scare-doctor.aspx

Science Kidz (2016) – http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/experiments/dissolvingsugar.html (Accessed: 14th February 2016).

UTMB Health, Wakefield Autism Scandal, David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, 2012. Available at: http://www.medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/237_wakefieldAutism.html

Upstart Campaign- Introducing Kindergarten to Scotland

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During last semester a few different lecturers mentioned that of the Nordic school model where children start school later (around 7) and catch up very quickly and even overtake those who started school earlier by the time they reach eleven or so. This was something I wanted to look into further but never got round to doing.

Last night I attended the Upstart Scotland Campaign debate organised by Brenda Keatch in the Dalhousie Building at the University of Dundee. There was fantastic turn out with a host of different people from different professions there including student teachers, lecturers, health visitors, child minders and parents. Brenda said that she had originally anticipated around 40 people attending yet there were over three hundred tickets requested so the event location had to be changed three times! This did just show how interested people are in hearing more and supporting this campaign.

So what is Upstart Scotland?

“Upstart Scotland is campaigning to have the principles of our Curriculum for Excellence transformed into practice by introducing a kindergarten stage for three-to-seven year-olds based on the Nordic model. This is influenced by research that indicates there is no educational advantage to an early start to formal education and that this may in fact causes social, emotional and mental health problems for many children. The emphasis of a kindergarten stage is to provide children with opportunities to play (with a strong emphasis on outdoor play)”.

I really value the power and significance of play as it stimulates qualities such as social, cognitive and personal qualities including communication, problem solving and self-regulation. All of these especially self-regulation make the difference for teachers dealing with behaviour issues. It makes sense to think that a 4 or 5 year old who does not have the ability to “learn” how to read or write will be unable to self-regulate their emotions which will have a knock on effect to confidence, self-esteem etc.

However, a friend and I had the discussion that what everyone else who has started school at the age of 4 or 5 who are all successful curious adults? … Technology. Technology has transformed everyone’s lives enormously and especially in play. This was a huge talking point in last night’s debate and unfortunately, play for some children mostly includes sedentary TV screens and tablets. Children are not getting the chance to experience play in the way that once was. The rate at which technology is developing is not going to slow or change but the fact is that humans are not developing at the same unprecedented rate is a problem.

The evidence is so clear and I agree that the Nordic model is better than ours. Finland is the near highest achieving country in both education and childhood well-being. The statistics (which unfortunately I don’t have where they are from as I just noted them down) are of school starting ages around the world:

4/5 year olds – 12%
6 year old – 66%
7 year olds – 22%

Delaying children starting to school would cause outrage for some people. Key speaker from last night, Dr Suzanne Zeedyk said that people are suspicious of play and think children are not learning from playing – that they are having fun. They could not be more wrong. They are building on the foundations for the future such as friendships, being inquisitive, imaginative and finding a sense of self.

There was also an emphasis of trying to slow down children’s childhoods. Life expectancy is getting longer and yet childhood is getting shorter. The word “tween” has been added to the dictionary to describe a child aged between 9-12 who is “no longer a little child, but not quite a teenager”. This has already been done and it won’t change so therefore I feel attitudes need to change to play.

I don’t believe the school age is something that will be raised any time soon in Scotland but creating awareness of the importance of play and outdoor play and the qualities that children learn through this is completely necessary for them to be able to learn effectively in school. Effective learning is what is most important and is what will ultimately bridge the attainment gap.

I realise I do sound like a walking, talking (blogging) advert for Upstart but I really feel quite passionate about it. There will be plenty scepticism about Upstart but as was discussed last night, once upon a time not all children went to school, females didn’t go to university, there were physical punishments as a norm in school so hopefully one day starting school at a later age will be a norm too. Upstart is a vision and a national movement and its purpose is to change the ethos of education.

I would urge you to have a look at the website and associated articles and please give me your thoughts. I look forward to hearing more about just how Upstart hope to bring about this change.

http://www.upstart.scot/

Not just a warm up…

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I was really excited for our P.E. input as anyone who knows me knows I enjoy exercising and playing sports. I think we were all a bit nervous as we weren’t sure what was going to be involved in terms of efforts of exertion however I think we knew Will wouldn’t have us running laps for the whole hour. I was surprised the find out the aims of a warm up that I had not considered before in a P.E class. For our warm up Will gave us a series of simple instructions to follow. He asked us what the intention of this and most of our answers were as you would expect such as increase heart rate and preparing the body. Will then explained his intentions were not only of that mentioned but to also identify areas such as:

Physical ability
Ability following instructions
Potential bullying
Competitiveness
Motivation

The simple instruction that were given for us to follow were also allowing Will to assess who is or isn’t physically able to do some movement. If a child cannot bend down to touch their toes or they aren’t co-ordinated they may need further help in certain areas. Another of the instructions was to stop jogging and sprint in the opposite direction – this was so assess spacial awareness.

The next part of our warm up was to jog round the hall and when will shouted “freeze”, he would show the number of fingers of how many people to get in to groups. What he was doing here was to see if we could follow non-verbal instruction but also identifying possibilities of bullying e.g. do the same people always go in a group and are some people always left out. By doing this when it comes to grouping for further drills or activities the teacher can work out ways to put people in different groups. I am guilty of saying in school we did try to outsmart our teachers by not all lining up in a row to try to be grouped together.

Next in partners we took turns to dribble a ball, however there were only one or two full sized basketballs. What Will was showing us here is that the resources available to us may not match up with our lesson plans so we should checking to see what is available before planning.

I did come across some interesting information while researching for this blog post and came across this report. sportscotland and Education Scotland invested £5.8m to support local authorities in providing two hours for primary and two period for secondary school of quality physical education per week. This report details how some local authorities spent this money including buying resources, sports equipment and inclusion training for teachers to fully include children with additional support needs. From this hopefully the schools we work in will have benefited from this investment and resources won’t be an issue.

Most importantly from this input I learned that P.E isn’t about doing a gym class for two hours per week and that’s it. It provides learners with the opportunity to build and improve physical fitness but also build upon interpersonal skills from working in groups. It allows for children to take on leadership roles and demonstrate fair play.

Truth, lies and the internet

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The internet is undoubtedly the greatest origin of information today. The vast amount of information that is readily available is overwhelming. “I’ll Google it” is a phrase I think and use most days. It could be for absolutely anything from symptoms of a mystery illness, to finding out what movie an actor was in. Ultimately, I use the internet for absolutely anything and everything. The authenticity of the information that I come across is now a concern due to the number of spoof websites. Sharon suggested we search for Martin Luther King and the 5^th website on the first page is a complete spoof. Who knew!!? I am also guilty of looking at only source and believing that information. Sometimes, we come across inaccurate information and reiterate it. But because there is so much out there on the World Wide Web who is it say that it’s right or wrong, the internet says it so surely it must be right? If I am naïve to what I find on the internet, I can’t imagine how this impacts young impressionable children.

In Sharon’s input we found out using Boolean terms such as “and”, “or”, and “not” and using quotation marks can reduce the number of hits from that search quite drastically. By narrowing this search down, it is likely children will come across less accurate information. According to a survey in Truth, Lies and the Internet, 47% of teachers surveyed report having encountered arguments in lessons or homework containing inaccurate information that has been found on the internet containing misleading information i.e. denial of the holocaust!! This is quite unbelievable that this type of information is even allowed on the internet.

There are other search engines out there and some that are child friendly. Some examples of there are:

By showing children there are alternatives to Google and teaching them skills of using the Boolean searching they will come across less inaccurate information. This is not to say that every website they look on will be accurate so they still need to know how to tell the truth from the lies and always being safe in the digital world. There are many tools available on the internet to show demonstrate how to use the internet safely and to show just how easy it is to put anything on the internet.

I have created a Fakebook page using this link and it is so remarkable the likeness to a real Facebook page (obviously that is the point!!).

Using Fakebook, I have created a profile for Albert Einstein. Fakebook is really useful and a fun resource not only to consolidate learning from lessons and topics but to build on ICT skills such as searching, retrieving and uploading information and images . Creating this Fakebook involved using Boolean terms to find out information about Einstein, including his birthday, family members, photograph and associated people to add as Fakebook “friends”. To do this I had to save images to my desktop and upload them to the website. The experiences and outcomes associated with this task could be linked to – “I can access, retrieve and use information from electronic sources to support, enrich or extend learning in different contexts” TCH 1-03b. By doing a task like this, the children enhance and consolidate their learning through developing ICT skills.

Nurturing their nature

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Deciphering different personality types and understanding different theoretical approaches of personality is paramount when it comes teaching. The ability to recognise and accommodate why children of the same, age, and ability react in different ways is fundamental. Being a positive role model is central in teaching as children learn behaviour through observation and not only reinforcement as the behaviourist theorists would suggest. However, as a mother myself, I would tend to agree more with Bandura’s social learning theory that personality is reinforced through interaction between environmental factors. My daughter’s standards and ideas of self-efficacy will reinforce her personality then through the behaviourist approach they will be further strengthened.

The Big 5 personality test I carried out consisted of 50 questions of which were rated from 1-5; disagree to agree. I agree with the specifications of my results however I was not confident when answering some of the questions with the correct context. The results I received, as no surprise to me, was that I am 96% extrovert. However, I know that depending on the social environment can have an adverse effect on this part of my personality and I can become a complete introvert. Carl G Jung said “there is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in a lunatic asylum”. It would not be socially acceptable to behave only in the approach these results suggest.

Openness to Experience/Intellect – 0%
	High scorers tend to be original, creative, curious, complex; Low scorers tend to be conventional, down to earth, narrow interests, uncreative.
		You prefer traditional and familiar experiences.

Conscientiousness – 83%
	High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self-disciplined, careful; Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.
		You are very well-organized, and can be relied upon.

Extraversion – 96%
	High scorers tend to be sociable, friendly, fun loving, talkative; Low scorers tend to be introverted, reserved, inhibited, quiet.
		You are extremely outgoing, social, and energetic.

Agreeableness – 32%
	High scorers tend to be good natured, sympathetic, forgiving, courteous; Low scorers tend to be critical, rude, harsh, callous.
		You find it easy to express irritation with others.

Neuroticism – 22%
	High scorers tend to be nervous, high-strung, insecure, worrying; Low scorers tend to be calm, relaxed, secure, hardy.
		You are generally relaxed.

What, why, how – the power of enquiry

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An enquiring practitioner is responsible for maintaining and enhancing professional competency for pedagogical development. It means going beyond the role of reflecting and conducting practice based research for a deeper insight to improve practice.

Professor John Hattie said “The biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching”.

Teaching in Scotland has been reconceptualised vastly within policy, legislation and what it means to be a teacher; the benefits of which are tangible in practitioner enquiry. This quote places huge emphasis on the fact that practitioner enquiry should always be carried out in mind of improving practice for the benefit of the children being taught. An enquiring practitioner creates space to review and engage in reflective practice to help gain an enhanced understanding of not only their own teaching but when working collaboratively. Now, there is more emphasis about understanding incentives to drive teachers, colleagues and children forward to make a difference.

It’s easy to be critical of others however to challenge yourself takes confidence. You wouldn’t do the things the way you do if you didn’t feel it was suitable. What we, as students, need to understand that the fundamental principles of practitioner enquiry is not to root out weaknesses but to refine existing ideas on what it means to be a good teacher.

As first year students there is already huge importance on the Standard for Provisional and Full Registration in preparation for autonomous life-long learning. Practitioner enquiry impacts on us all as students as we need to always have higher expectations of ourselves, become critically adaptive in how to improve our own learning and utilise this is practice. Ultimately, the result of practitioner enquiry is to better meet the needs of children and improve achievement.

Behaviour – Operant Conditioning

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Discipline is important for effective learning to place and after today’s lecture I felt I’d like to know more of what it can mean to me as a practitioner. Operant conditioning is a learning process in which behavioural responses are based on consequences. There are two types of operant conditioning that can be used to modify behaviour: reinforcements are used positively and negatively to increase behaviour and punishments are used positively and negatively to decrease behaviour.

From early in a child’s life they recognise their behaviour is instrumental to an outcome. Positive reinforcement comes in many forms and I believe is the most effective is verbal praise: “Well done Hannah, you are sitting beautifully”. Undoubtedly children strive to please and will take great pleasure in being positively rewarded, which is likely to continue and other children are likely to emulate this exemplary behaviour.

In today’s lecture, I was slightly confused with the terms negative reinforcement and punishment. I understood that negative reinforcement was to increase desired behaviour however explaining this with terms such as aversive stimulus was confusing. After doing some reading, my understanding of negative reinforcement is that in order to increase desired behaviour aversive (unpleasant event) stimulus must be discouraged or eliminated e.g. removing a negative distraction to improve concentration. Positive punishment is when you present an aversive stimulus to decrease behaviour e.g. a child is reprimanded for behaving in an adverse way. Negative punishment is taking away a desired item after behaviour occurs in order to decrease future responses. As a result, in theory, children will omit behaviour that has an effect on the environment around them. Carrie mentioned punishment for undesirable behaviour can lead to other aversive behaviours so I feel consistently using, but not overusing positive reinforcements, should reduce the need to use punishments.

It is evident this theory is built on limited range of phenomena as it doesn’t take account of complexities such as meaning, understanding or memory. It doesn’t explain why behaviour doesn’t decrease and that some children are wise to operant conditioning, in the sense that they will behave in a certain way to get what they want then revert back to their original behaviour.

Physical and Motor Development TDT

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A teacher’s aptitude for identifying additional support needs to ensure healthy development in children is to understand the sequence of development, milestones and when they are expected to be reached and recognise disabilities.

Motor skills evolve sequentially but do vary greatly from child to child. Motor development proceeds in a cephalocaudal direction meaning the nerves and muscles mature in a downward direction. This is evident in all infants who first learn use their head and neck then move on to developing more complicated movements such as rolling, crawling then walking. The other pattern of development and maturation is proximodistal direction meaning skills develop in the middle of the body then radiate outwards. For example infants first learn to use their hands then acquire fine motor skills such as the pincer grip.

Basic trends in locomotive skill development include a maturation viewpoint. This is a genetic programme sequence of events, where nerves and muscles mature in a downward and outward direction. Advocates of the experiential or practice hypothesis believe that opportunities to practice motor skills are also important. Theorist, Kolb (1984) is someone I have been researching for another module and his four stage cycle adequately fits with this hypothesis: experience, reflection, conceptualisation, experimentation. Dynamical systems theorists view motor skills as active improvements of previously mastered abilities that are undertaken to find more efficient ways of exploring the surroundings or other objectives.

There are factors that affect growth and development that educators will need to be aware of. Poverty, environment, family structure and disability can hinder or affect a child’s development. Fine motor skills are evident in some form at every age and usually by age 6 or 7 children have confidence to use fine motor skills such as hopping, skipping and balancing. If this is not the case, we as educations, need to look at how to develop the child holistically as progress in one area affects progress in another.

Development in Psychology

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After yesterday’s input we were asked for our TDT, to look at the timeline of brain development in the 20th century. I am really fascinated to learn about psychology not only as a practitioner but as a mother with a young child. Imprinting, attachment theory, cognitive development are all quite sensitive subjects to me because, without this course, I already have the constant worry of “Am I doing a good job?”, “Is she received enough stimulation?”, “Is she developing properly?” Research into brain development is important as we know that a child develops most in the first seven years of their lives. As practitioners, we will play no part on the child’s first four or five years of life, however, as I have my own young child I feel immense pressure to give her the best possible childhood with emphasis to the psychology we are learning about. Understanding the brain development is paramount when it comes to teaching as we have to understand what is playing a part in a child’s learning and how to help them as individuals.

Looking through the time line, Sigmund Freud is featured heavily during the early part of the 20^th century. He developed some controversial theories including a structured model of the mind and psychosexual stages to explain personality development. Psychoanalytical theories give us a better understanding of the complexities of personality development and focus on the importance of the emotional quality given by caregivers to the children. Freud is still regarded as one of the most influential minds of the 20^th century.

1929 John Watson and Rosalie Rayner’s classic conditioning of “Little Albert” was an example of stimulus generalisation. They conditioned Albert to be fearful of white rabbits by exposing him to loud noises and rabbits together.

1963 Stanley Milgram published his study on obedience to authority which showed high obedience rates of someone to hurt another after being given instruction by someone they perceived to be an authority figure.

1971 Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experience studied human response to captivity which quickly got out hand and had to be ended early.

The three studies mentioned above were highly unethical due to the distress participants experienced. Other researchers which I’ve chosen not include, due to its disturbing nature, carried out atrocious research but if I can take anything from this, it is that we wouldn’t know what we do today without this research. I find it interesting that on the timeline, where I gathered the above information, the number of research listed reduces over time to present day. There are over thirty studies from 1950’s, over twenty from the 1990’s and only six from 2000’s. Is this due to ethical approaches changing, research not yet being concluded or is it something else?

Balancing personal and professional presence on social media

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What challenges/opportunities may you be faced with when marrying the personal vs professional presence on social media?

The main challenge is finding a balance on social media presence between my personal and professional life. I have been debating whether I should use separate accounts for social media. The platforms that I use frequently, I rarely post comments or information and use it more as a photo sharing tool. I confess that I am more of a social media ‘ghost’ who floats around observing what people are doing but not acknowledging what they are doing! I actually think that is called Facebook stalking! All of my settings are private so that only my friends can see what I post and I will not be tagged in something until I accept it. This allows me to monitor what I do and don’t want the outside world to see. The more you share the more vulnerable you are. Someone, no matter what you say, what you do, what picture you post, will scrutinise you. We need to be careful how we present ourselves to the outside world. So based on this I don’t see fit to separate my personal and professional social media accounts.

The GTCS has specific guidelines regarding appropriate use of social media. Social media is a valuable tool but as perspective teachers, we should never use it to put ourselves at a disadvantage. Timing on social media is everything. Posting something without considerable thought can lead to massive implications that are very easily preventable. As prospective teachers, not only are we representing ourselves but all teachers. How many times have you stereotyped a profession based on one person? Once a teacher has compromised their professional integrity, their reputation, as well as the school they work in, may forever be remembered.

How are the challenges/opportunities afforded by social media framed? How will you frame things – positive of deficit viewpoint?

I will frame social media in a positive way in my classroom. The story Derek shared with us about his daughter was a real eye opener. The innocence of children unfortunately is getting shorter and shorter and I am troubled that children are exposed to things at such a young age. However, the sites and resources that are available for teachers are brilliant and I think we need to utilise and embrace them. The GTCS website encourages social media as a way to deliver the curriculum in innovative and exciting ways. In order to do with we first need to use websites such as NCPCC and Share Aware to demonstrate safety in the online world; proactively teaching children how to use it positively and safely.

Changing Education Paradigms

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Changing education paradigms TDT

This animation, narrated from a speech by Sir Ken Robinson, a world-renowned education expert looks at how the current education system we use today was designed for a different age. We live in a society that is ever changing with an economy, that even he mentions, cannot be anticipated on a weekly basis.

I found the debate of the ‘plague’ of ADHD in America most interesting. From my experience, what I’ve read and from the video, children with have ADHD think differently and his speech highlights their stimulus is being dulled and muted by medication in order for them to conform. These children need to learn at their own pace and preferred method and are unfortunately being herded through school.

This video evokes thought and what he is saying makes so much sense. An education reform is in order to embrace and encourage divergent thinking. We need to teach children how to think and learn for themselves in a society that is changing every day.

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