References

Killen, R. (2009). Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from Research and Practice. South Melbourne: Cengage Learning

Lyell A. (2012a). EDUC6751: Knowledge and Communication Technologies, Lecture 1:  Living in a Multimodal World - Digital Natives and Beyond [Class Notes]

Lyell, A. (2012b). EDUC6751: Knowledge and Communication Technologies, Lecture 6: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Teaching in New Times [Class Notes]

Marsh, C. & Hart, C. (2011). Teaching the Social Sciences and Humanities in an Australian 

Curriculum. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Australia

NSW Board of Studies (2003). History Years 7 - 10 Syllabus. Sydney: Board of Studies

NSW Department of Education and Training (2009). Quality Teaching in NSW Public Schools: An

 Assessment Practice Guide. NSW: Professional Learning and Leadership Development Directorate

O'Toole, M., Burke, R. & Absalom, D. (2012). Language, Literacies and Learning: A First Introduction. Seven Hills: Boraga Academic

Social Impacts

In my opinion, HSIE is a subject area for which there can be great social impacts on students. As I mentioned earlier one aim of the faculty is to create a sense of empathy, understanding and acceptance of others in the students. In our lessons, students would learn about a different country, Egypt, in a different time, and learn to recognise some of its important landmarks. Some lessons are devoted to Ancient Egyptian religion, beliefs and rituals. Whether you believe in Anubis, God, Allah, any other god or no god, it is an important life lesson to accept that different people believe in different things, including different religions.

We made a video about archaeology and the importance of historical inquiry. It is important for students, particularly students of history, to learn the value of asking questions about the past, looking into the past and making discoveries. In short, I refer to the old saying "He who knows nothing about the past is doomed repeat history's mistakes".

The Project and Multiliteracies

Multiliteracies refers to the many ways in which a person can be "literate". Traditionally, literacy was only thought about as whether or not someone could read and write. Today, this is only one facet of literacy, linguistic literacy. School has always had a focus on mathematical literacy, or numeracy, as well as linguistic literacy. However, it is only quite recently that technological literacy has become a part of the curriculum (O'Toole, Burke & Absalom, 2012, p.15). Social literacy (empathy) is also becoming an increasing focus, as with technological advances, more types of bullying and conflict have arisen (Marsh & Hart, 2011, p.232).

The subject of HSIE has an aim of teaching students the importance of empathy, and of understanding how people in other cultures, places and time periods might have different ways of thinking to them (Marsh & Hart, 2011, p.232). Our lessons teach children about how the Ancient Egyptians lived. It was a different place, different time and different culture; so they had very different beliefs and practices to us. This learning is done through the medium of computer based lessons, including games, quizzes, comprehension tasks, and links to other websites. Not only are the lessons teaching them to be traditionally literate and socially literate, but the lessons should further their computer literacy as well. This is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Lyell, 2012b). The technology is the Smartboard lesson, the pedagogy is how it is taught and the instructions given, and the content in our project is knowledge about Ancient Egypt.  

Technical Insights

Neither my partner nor myself had ever really used Smartboard before. We both found the program to be very useful, however it seems there are sometimes some issues with its use. My partner had trouble getting her work to save when she used the program on her computer at home. The file sizes were also annoyingly large, to the point where it was difficult to get all lessons into one file for submission on Blackboard. While I had no such issues with saving or download speeds, I found that Smartboard was quite difficult for me to learn how to use.

My partner was a great help when it came to setting out the lesson pages, due to her artistic abilities. I have quite poor spatial ability and find that sort of thing difficult. She also helped me find where in the program certain functions were, such as background and insert file. When there was something one of us could not do, we asked the other for help. 

Hardware and Software used:


PC computer
Mac computer
Smart Notebook
Windows Powerpoint
Prezi
Webquest - zunal.com
Canon IXUS-70 Camera
Windows MovieMaker
Youtube
KeepVid
Flash Animation game builder
Google Drive

Key Learning Moments

As far as the group work is concerned we worked well together. We met up a few times to discuss things and get work done. We made a day of filming our video, during the holidays at Stockton. I commend my partner's editing job on the video (and on the rest of the project), although I feel she was stressing herself out by the end in trying to make it perfect!

My best learning moment is just that, don't sweat the small stuff. Nothing is going to be perfect, especially in a job like teaching. We worried about whether or not we provided enough work for students, but on attending my professional experience, I feel we would have provided too much had the same work been for the Year 7 class I taught. In the classroom, I think it is important for students to know it is okay to make mistakes, because that is how we learn. 

PBL and Engagement of Students

Students will most likely engage in these tasks because the Smart Notebooks are colourful and interesting, with relevant pictures and videos; and have clear instructions and questions. Clear instructions are part of the Quality Learning Environment (Explicit Quality Criteria) according to the Quality Teaching Model (QTM). As "digital natives", most students will be comfortable working and reading from a computer screen (Lyell, 2012a). They will enjoy Youtube clips such as Horrible Histories, which they may already be familiar with.  

Within the project we tried to ensure we were always pushing students up Bloom's Taxonomy towards Higher Order Thinking with Create and Assess activities (Marsh & Hart, 2011, p.139). We also used Lower Order Thinking tasks such as Categorize, Sort and Describe, usually at the beginning of lessons. The Higher Order Thinking tasks were usually later in the lesson or in the assignment. Higher Order Thinking is an element of Intellectual Quality in the QTM.

The assignment was Project-based Learning. PBL is a "comprehensive set of real, complex problems that provide learners with opportunities to acquire knowledge, understanding and skills" (Killen, 2009, p.246). Students needed to complete a model of an Ancient Egyptian house, and write a short story about life as an Ancient Egyptian person. I think these kinds of tasks lead students to the Create level of Bloom's Taxonomy. The work is challenging because students will have to imagine themselves as an Ancient Egyptian person, and use their linguistic skills to bring this person to life.

   

The Project and Quality Teaching

The project relates to the Quality Teaching Model very strongly in many areas. In this blog post I will concentrate on four specific elements across all three focus areas: Intellectual Quality, Quality Learning Environment and Significance.

Firstly, from the area of Quality Learning environment, I believe our unit of work provides a high level of Exlpicit Quality Criteria to set the students up for learning in each lesson. At the start of each lesson we stated what content would be included in the lesson. We also tried to ensure each activity was explained well in question or instruction format. This would hopefully ensure students are not left confused over what to do.

For Intellectual Quality, the element of Metalanguage is a major focus. In History there are a lot of new words for students. We created Vocabulary lists and literacy-focused activities. We explained what words meant within text and by using pictures to show what things looked like.

Significance is an area I believe is particularly important to History teaching. Cultural Knowledge is pertinent to History in general. For example, if a student is Aboriginal they are going to have some Cultural Knowledge on a topic about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Background Knowledge on a subject like Ancient Egypt is likely. Often students have at least heard of the pyramids.