learning assessment codes, designing visible curriculum codes

Learning Assessment Codes,

Designing Visible Curriculum Codes

ATEA Conference, Ballarat, July, 2016

Parlo Singh & Jill RyanGriffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Griffith Institute for Educational Research

• What happens to curriculum practice now when the politics of evaluation loom so large?

• What kinds of conversation are needed about curriculum practice in the uncertain space the evaluative architecture affords?

Gemma Moss, University of Bristol

Let’s Begin @ at the End

Our objectives today are to:• Explore post-Bernsteinian theory on pedagogic governance and curriculum

codes in the larger policy context of the evaluative architecture

• Examine the usefulness of these ideas in thinking about an intervention research study around student learning attainment data in disadvantaged communities

• Think about the ethico-onto-epistemological politics of new modes of scientific inquiry (Barad, 2007)

Reference:Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway. Qantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, Duke University Press.


International, National & State Context

Local School Context

The AUSTRALIAN Context

Complex Communities…the complexities here. Look I think we’ve got very committed, highly dedicated teachers…who put a hell of a lot of work into it, but at the same time the complexities that they’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis are huge. I’d never been in - I’ve been teaching since 1960 so I’ve seen an awful lot of different contexts throughout that time, and I have never seen anything as complex as this community…[Principal, School 11]

6

Research Participants• RESEARCH TEAM: University Researchers + state and local policy personnel (Kath Glasswell, Parlo Singh, Stuart

McNaugton, Kate Davis)

• SCHOOL BASED RESEARCHERS : 6 educational researchers with successful experience in low SES schools, literacy teaching/learning, and teacher professional development work.

• DISTRICT ADMINISTRATORS: 3 Senior Policy Officers/Administrators of Educational District.

• TWELVE SCHOOLS: 9 PRIMARY + 3 SECONDARY

• EDUCATION PRACTITIONERS: 12 Principals

• EDUCATION PRACTITIONERS: 14 Heads of Curriculum, Lead Literacy Coaches/Teachers • EDUCATIONAL PRACTITIONERS: 290 Classroom Teachers

• STUDENTS:

Code Theory Power and Control Relations

Framing (Control) +

Classification (Power) – Classification (Power) +

Framing (Control) –

Pendulum: Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendulum#/media/File:Pendulum2secondclock.gif

Invisible Curriculum,Invisible Pedagogy (-C, +F)

Scripted Curriculum, Directed Pedagogy (+C, +F)

International, National, Local PoliciesInternationalPISA and TIMMS testing, benchmarkingComparative Performance – Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai

National1. National Australian Curriculum 2. National Testing (Numeracy & Literacy) 3,5,7,9 3. National Professional Standards for Teachers4. MySchool Website – public reportage of national testing score data 5. National Partnership Policies (A$900 million investment from 2009-2015) for Low Socio-economic Status School Communities which was directed at

addressing socio-economic inequality in education.

State6. Scripted Curriculum – C2C in QLD7. Audits of Teaching Inquiry-Based Pedagogic Models8. Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum, eg. Curiosity, Powerful Learning. School Improvement Teams focusing on curriculum and pedagogic interventions.

Embedding 10 principles to improve learning outcomes for students. Three current principles that schools are working on include: (1) Learning Intentions; (2) Narrative Aspect of Lessons - what is the lesson about, how will the lesson be sequenced, what should students expect to learn from the lesson; and (3) Pace - related to planning and providing students to feedback.


Visible Invisible Generic Adaptive

Explicit Implicit Scripted Co-Designed

Text-book oriented

Teacher made resources

Teacher proof resources, Teaching to the Test

SBRs and Teachers co-design resources based on systematic diagnosis of student learning

Past orientation

Present orientation

Past orientation Present Future orientation

Thinking with Bernstein: Pedagogic Modalities


Singular

Regional Generic

Mathematics, English, Science, History, Geography

Studies in Society and Environment, Language Arts,

Competency-based education. School safety, health education

Strong Boundaries around instructional content – what is taught, when it is taught, how it is taught and evaluated.External evaluations – national standardised tests, public examinations.

Weaker Boundaries around academic disciplines. Selection of instructional content oriented to themes/topics of interest guides what is taught, when, how and by whom. Internal Evaluation

Teacher proof resources, often online instruction.Teaching to the Test – passing the test

Past orientationTextbook orientedC2C – scripted curriculumPacing dictated by content coverage

Present orientationCurriculum materials designed by teachers, heavy investment in teacher professional development, teacher preparation time.

Past OrientationTeacher – proof material.Trainers replace teachers.

Thinking with Bernstein: Performance Curriculum Modalities


Student Centred Curriculum

Collaborative Analysis of student learning data (standardised + diagnostic tests + formative assessment).

Collaborative Diagnosis of student learning difficulties

Collaborative Design of Curriculum geared to the needs of different cohorts of learners

Heavy investment of ‘just in time’ professional development for researchers, teachers and school leaders. Co-problem solving in context, rather than external experts telling schools/ teachers what needs to be done.

Heavy investment of teacher time in effective diagnosis of student learning difficulties, design of curriculum materials informed by research designs, and assessing effectiveness of designs through implementation.

Heavy investment of researcher time, complex teams of researchers working closely with schools, rather than observing work of schools from a distance.

Thinking with Bernstein: Adaptive Curriculum Modalities

RESEARCH DESIGN: PHASE ONEKath Glasswell

•Torch testing Feb, June & Nov each year 2009-2012•Data Meetings: Collaborative data conversations

• Plot scale scores on class map/Torch data wall• Group students for differentiation• Identify developmental ‘regions’ of reading comprehension • Reflect and plan for specific Literacy interventions

Phase 1Data Collection, Analysis &

InquiryData-informed decision

making •Professional Learning• Specifically targeted professional learning developed and facilitated by GU

to build teacher content knowledge at the school site•Learning Walks

• monitor the implementation of pedagogical innovation•Share and Reflect:

• Provide opportunities for teachers to reflect on and monitor their classroom instruction and adjust to meet student needs

Phase 2Professional Learning

Instructional Innovation

•Develop capacity:• Develop each school’s capacity to function as a sustainable, self-

improving system.• To be flexible and responsive to changing needs of diversifying student

populations• sustain a focus on high-quality instruction in EVERY classroom for every

child.

Phase 3Sustainability

RESEARCH DESIGN: PHASE TWOParlo Singh

•FIRST SET OF INTERVIEWS•School-based Researchers = 6•District Administrators = 3•Principals = 12•Deputy Principals/ Lead Literacy Teachers = 14 •SECOND SET OF INTERVIEWS•Principals = 8

DATA COLLECTION 1

Interviews

• 50 teachers across 11 schools. Each focus group was approximately 45 minutes in duration, and had between 2-9 participants

DATA COLLECTION 2

Focus group discussions

•12 schools (3 secondary + 9 primary) – intensive time in schools over 3.5 years + visits after the intervention project ended, visits to administration offices, staff rooms, classrooms, assembly halls, library•12 school websites, newsletters, annual reports•QLD State and National Federal policy documents

DATA COLLECTION 3

Field Notes


Co-Inquiry Design Based Research Qualitative Interviews, Focus Group Discussions, Fieldnotes

Research Team One (SBR) Research Team Two (Postdocs, PhD Students)

Co-Diagnose Student Learning Difficulties Co-Design Instructional Innovation Implement Collaboratively Reflect & Evaluate impact on Student Learning

Document conversations/ learnings of the research project.Reflective Practice Meetings – engaging with SBRs + data;Thinking through interviews and focus group discussionsResearch artefacts and objects

Thinking with Bernstein and New Material FeminismsEthico-Onto-Epistemology as Research Modalities

The Performative TurnResearcher ResearchedTheory Empirical RealityStructure AgencyActive PassiveReflective Methodology, Perspectivism

Entanglements of Researcher – ResearchedAgential RealismDiffractive Methodology

Researcher stands apart from schools, school leaders, teachers and collects data on them through neutral data collection instruments.Data is systematically analysed firstly through coding themes, and then by reading the data through a theory lens.Human agency – follow the actors, human actors

Researchers and researched are entangled in co-production of theory, methods, data, research grant applications etc.Data is not simply waiting to be captured, analysed and theorised.Rather data has agency, is agential, and talks back to theory, to researchers.Writing is not simply representation of an external, passive world, but performative.

Evaluation Codes Shaping Curriculum Codes

• Kath Glasswell: Schools have loads of data and are outsourcing the management of this data to companies such as GradeXpert - but they need assistance in making meaning of this data, working out the curriculum and pedagogy actions to take based on this data. There is a lot going on with data - data teams, data management, data outsourcing --> but a lot of this work is data dancing, data as pests --> and needs more data sensibilities around coming to terms with the data.

Department name (Edit in View > Header and Footer)

SBR 4: • Tailoring. I think it’s really important to tailor rather than giving

generic support in the schools or professional development, to really tailor it to what the needs are. … Yes, it’s customising ... To see where you can customise and literally meet the specific needs. … and certainly to share with them, but it’s a two-way thing where sometimes they will say, well that’s not going to work here or this. So it’s not that I have a preconceived set of, say, research-derived outcomes. I put, I think coming back to what I perceive to be really important, which is to customise and to be responsive to what the teachers are saying.

Engaging with Teachers Differently

References

Singh, P., (2016, accepted with minor changes). Recontextualising Education Leadership Discourses: Revisiting Gendered Code Theory. Gender and Education,

Glasswell, K., Singh, P., McNaughton, S. (2016). Partners in Design: Co-Inquiry for Quality Teaching in Disadvantaged Schools. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp.20-30.Link: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-445983110/partners-in-design-co-inquiry-for-quality-teaching

Singh, P. & Glasswell, K. (2016). Differences that Come to Matter. Leading Struggles Against Educational Inequality. In Johnson, G. & Dempster, N. (Eds.). Leadership in Diverse Learning Contexts (Chapter 13, pages 255-275). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Stephen Heimans, Parlo Singh & Kathryn Glasswell (2015): Doing education policy enactment research in a minor key, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GxBMJcAcmUUZZrAtHYES/fu

Singh, P. (Sept, 2015). Pedagogic Governance: Theorising with/after Bernstein. British Journal of Sociology of Education. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2015.1081052 .

Singh, Parlo (2015). Bernstein, Bourdieu and Beyond. Extended Review. British Journal of Sociology ofEducation. : http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ Vol. 36, No.3, 487-494.

Singh, Parlo (2015): Performativity and pedagogising knowledge: globalising educational policy formation, dissemination and enactment, Journal of Education Policy, 30(1), 363-384. DOI:10.1080/02680939.2014.961968

Singh, Parlo, Martsin, M., Glasswell, K. (2015). "Dilemmatic spaces: High-stakes testing and the possibilities of collaborative knowledge work to generate learning innovations" in Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. Volume 21, Number 6, 379-399. To link to this article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13540602.2014.976853

Singh, Parlo, Heimans, Stephen, Glasswell, Kathryn. (2014). Policy Enactment, Context and Performativity: Ontological Politics and Researching Australian National Partnership Policies. Journal of Education Policy, 29(6). 826-844http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/bZRz4vBhGDDG6RgIiCvp/full

References

Liyanage, Indika, Walker, Tony & Singh, Parlo (2014). TESOL professional standards in the “Asian century”: dilemmas facing Australian TESOL teacher education, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, DOI:10.1080/02188791.2013.876388

Susan L. Whatman & Parlo Singh , Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (2013): Constructing health and physical education curriculum for indigenous girls in a remote Australian community, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, DOI: 10.1080/17408989.2013.868874 http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ityWdntQRIW7Sp4draSP/full

Singh, P. and Glasswell, K. (2013). Chasing Social Change: Matters of Concern and the Mattering Practice of Educational Research. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. Volume 1, Issue 2, November 2013, www.ijicc.net

Singh, P. (2013). Unlocking Pedagogic Mazes. Review Essay. R. Moore (2013) Basil Bernstein. The thinker and the field. In Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34, 5, 799-807 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01596306.2013.838833.

Singh, P., Märtsin, M., Glasswell, K. (2013). Knowledge Work at the Boundary: Making a Difference to Educational Disadvantage. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 2, pages 102-110. (C1) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2013.02.001

Singh, P. & Harris, J., Thomas, S. (2013) . Recontextualising Policy Discourses: A BernsteinianPerspective on Policy Interpretation,Translation, Enactment, Journal of Education Policy. 28:4, pages 465-480. DOI:10.1080/02680939.2013.770554

learning assessment codes, designing visible curriculum codes

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