Week 7: Going Over the Official NCEA Review

There are definitely some overlaps between what I've found in my own primary research, and to what the Ministry of Education has identified as their key issues.

So this brings me to ask, should I be focusing on the issues that might be slipping under the ministries priorities, or choosing what is clearly the most urgent problems validated by both myself and MoE?

Overlaps: 

Support beyond schooling, I.E life skills and workforce preparation.

Structural change of curriculum.

New, more diverse teaching resources.

Support for teachers and students to change attitudes.

Stopping abuse of the credit system, getting the purpose back to learning, not passing.

Differences: 

Focus on individual learning styles/ specific class teaching approaches.

Subject prejudice (STEM)

Propose idea of making credits achievable through different avenues, IE, you have to get x literacy, x numeracy, x arts, x life skills (could be problem solving, could be ) x physical health, x specified... this could be a more advanced version of any subject, to encourage excelling in a field of your choice.

Currently students are 'beating the system' by choosing easier subjects to get the required credits to pass. Avoiding classes that are considered hard, even though they may be more useful to the students future career path. Instead of making the 'hard' classes easier, why aren't we considering making the 'easy' classes harder in order to fix this imbalance? Multiple teachers who've taught overseas through curriculums like Cambridge are saying that NZ students are "2 years behind" because less content is being taught here and at a lower level. We want to be raising the next generation to be leaders amongst their global peers. But by allowing them an easier path now, we're actually setting them up for failure in the long run. 

Students and teachers are stressed by the overload of assessment, both internal and external. Teachers are saying they don't have enough time to actually teach, because they're drowning in paperwork. This is a clear issue with an apparently simple fix. Stop so much testing? Why are we teaching to test, we should be testing to teach? Have tests at the start of the year, with clear apparent learning goals, then repeat those tests (with different content) at the end of the year, while allowing teachers to test throughout the year as they see fit. (Provide recommended internal testing frequency time periods.) This will allow teachers to adapt the class structures to fit their own individual teaching styles, and better adjust for the learning diversity of their own students. No student is the same, no class will be the same. We need to give teachers time to teach, that's what they're here to do. It's our responsibility as a country to show our respect and support for this profession. 

'Seidel: Sure. This past year we were working on reimagining educational assessments. There are a couple of huge problems with school assessments. One is that they take far too much time away from meaningful education. On average, a quarter of school days are spent on either test prep or actual tests each year. I’m not saying that assessments can’t be meaningful and valuable when done well, but… well, that brings us to the second big problem. These test don't measure what most everyone agrees matters. It’s become a given that success in life requires being able to collaboratively solve problems. To think critically and creatively. To communicate effectively. That's not what these assessments are testing. They’re testing stuff you can find on Google. We were lucky enough to partner on this with the Hewlett Foundation who said, “Can you help us think through deeper learning (which is made up of all the all the things I just listed)?” So these are the kinds of tough and interesting problems I get to work on—figuring out what it looks like to test those skills that will actually help students be successful in the 21st century.' Excerpt from interview article by Michael Schien; The Next Revolution in Education: Design Thinking. Jan 8 2019. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelschein/2019/01/08/the-next-revolution-in-education-design-thinking/#9814e5f61c65