Australia's Education System

I recently read this article in the Sydney Morning Herald - "Australia's disaster in education" which discusses a recent study undertaken to monitor the success of countries in reading, mathematics and science in Year 4 and Year 8 students.

Australia did not perform well. We did not rank highly in any category and were outperformed by countries who do not have nearly as much disposable capital as we have. This is disappointing but in some ways I cannot say that I am surprised. Australia makes it easy for people to become teachers and makes it easy for people to stay in the field regardless of ability, passion, work ethic, time or professional development (as long as they have a permanent job). I have seen many schools who 'do what they've always done' and are not interested in new technologies or methods of education. I have also seen schools who never do what they've done before, leaving children (and teachers!) confused and overwhelmed by the amount of change and unsettled learning without reflection. I think we need to establish our education system without swinging to either side of this pendulum. We have to be willing to try new, thought out ideas which have been effective elsewhere in order to enable our education system to perform on the world stage. However, I think we also need to be reflective and constructive in the way we assess these ideas, working out whether they have achieved the outcomes we desired and thinking about how we can further improve our practices.

In many ways, walking into a primary school today will not look significantly different to walking into your own primary classroom. What other profession can claim only slight significant change over decades of advancement?

The attitude that Australia has towards education as a profession is showing.

Interactive whiteboards

I was thinking today about the amount of time I spend using my Smartboard (interactive whiteboard) and what a useful tool it is! The projector for my Smartboard needs to stop itself from overheating and will turn itself off if it is getting too hot. I've found that this is a helpful indicator for how much I use the board as the projector will turn itself off multiple times a day!

I use my interactive board for displays to guide and organise students at different times as well as as an interactive tool during lessons. Here is a photo of what the board looks like in reading groups while students are reading. Each book character is a different reading group and the image next to the character is the activity that the group is to complete once they have finished reading (today was based on phonics). This provides a great visual display for students so that you don't have 20 little people coming to you asking what to do!

I also love using the Smartboard as an introduction or consolidation to a new topic. I really like to use hands on activities however I find that the Smartboard is great for gaining an understanding of student's knowledge of the topic. If anyone uses the Maths Plus resources I've found that they have a great set of interactive white board activities which go with the text book and are excellent for getting students up to the board. Here's a photo of a Notebook file I used in introducing capacity.