edna.edu.au

Paul Kiem

A conference plenary session from History Teachers Association of Australia conference providing a discussion and overview of the process of the national curriculum development by Paul Kiem, HTAA President.

Lots of great issues raised, starting with the dilemma of  addressing:

What the learner MUST learn vs What the learner WANTS to learn vs What we are CAPABLE of teaching.

The agendas of many people have been thrown at national curriculum history shapers. Paul observed that these groups all seem to see Year 9-10 curriculum as the crucial place to be, eg:

• Australian history
• ancient history
• Asian literacy
• Holocaust
• World history
• European heritage
• Indigenous history
• sustainability
• Archaeology
• Social and cultural
• 21st century skills
• local history
• etc

Positives of the process so far

• avoidance of history wars
• professionalism of all involved
• manageable, flexible brief for K-10
• acceptance of the need for mandatory, optional and school developed topics
• acceptance of engagement as vital
• acceptance that repetition is a turn-off

Key question: Will essay writing survive?
Will the foundations be there at the end of Year 10? Why should it survive: 21st century skill. Literacy is a MAJOR emphasis - literacy divorced from context is an issue. Promotes understanding in depth, and brings together the skills. Essay writing disciplines the inquiry process, and preserves narrative.

Concerns about the process so far

TIME: will courses be given the time they are written for?

COHESION: what is the unifying philosophy? Does there need to be one?

SENIOR COURSES: not adequately addressed as yet, nor answers/resources given to do this.

WHAT IS BEYOND ACARA'S REMIT?

Teacher pre-service training: !

• Professional development: grassroots, teacher level, professional associations need to demand this
  
• Resourcing: pool what is best from around the country. Develop templates.Who is going to do this without duplicating 8 lots of state curriculum resources?
  

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Tags: national curriculum htaa curriculum history teachers
Posted at 08:20AM Jul 17, 2009 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

Make mine open

This is a list of links to resources for the Make Mine Open: sharing history resources online  workshop

edna curriculum resources: Society and Environment
Use the edna curriculum search to find learning resources for history. Not all resources have open licences. Check the View Detail screen for copyright information.

Scootle (The Le@rning Federation)
Digital content for Australian schools K-10 including curriculum related learning objects and images. TLF licensed resources are free for Australian schools but may only be republished within the school. Login required. Check how your jurisdiction provides access to these resources.

Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program
3.5 million articles so far digitised from Australian newspapers now out of copyright. Full-text searchable content.

flickrCC
Search easily for photos on flickr that are released under the Creative Commons license. Built in editing options and attribution

Wikimedia Commons
Freely licensed photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, and media

Open Education Resources (OER)
OER are digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research.
Check the Smartcopying website for further details

WikiEducator
Educators who believe passionately that learning materials should be free and open to all.

National Library Australia Prototype
Explore Australian library collections and worldwide online sources through prototype service. Bookmark a url for bibliographic records and include library location in comment

Handout for workshop [197Kb Word]

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Tags: open educational resources history teachers
Posted at 05:47PM Jul 16, 2009 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

HTAA 2009

Today I am at Moorabbin for the national History Teachers Assocation of Australia conference,

Getting started with a beautifully simple welcome to country by Aunty Joy of the Wurudjeri people talking about her father's service in WWI and current project with children's choir singing in her language.

Keynote speaker is Professor Stuart Macintyre, Professor of History at University of Melbourne and shaper of the National History curriculum paper.

He raised a number of concerns:

We start from a low base in terms of qualified, experienced history teachers to implement a national compulsory history curriculum. Only 16 teacher education faculties offer teaching in history method, of these 10 are in New South Wales - the only state to list history as compulsory in 7-10.

With hindsight, he admits that the national curriculum process may have been somewhat over-engineered - the risk of a bland, over elaborate result, but so much better than the secret approach of the previous government. Stuart recognises the hard work of Julie Roberts,SA and Darren Taylor, NSW in coordination of the process.

Major decision points faced:

* addressing the false dichotomy of inquiry based curriculum vs factual knowledge/content driven curriculum.
* taking a world history perspective rather than an Australian-specific perspective - a decision well supported by the consultation process. Reasons for world history perspective:

1. history assumes we go beyond our own experience
2. students don't like Australian history: it's boring, repetitive and uncomfortable with the moralistic way it is often taught
3. by learning about other people's history we understand our own history better.
   

* his recommendation not to mandate % of Australian history in year levels as this artificially divides 'a curriculum pie' rather than integrating the impact on Australia of world events, however this is still there, eg 40% Australian history in Year 9

Questions:

Why has original optimism been diluted? ACARA's remit is limited, its resourcing is quite limited? Who is going to staff and resource the history curriculum? What is federal government going to require in terms of commitment from states/territories? Assessment outcomes will drive this to some extent. It will assume certain minimum hours spent in history.

It's one thing to produce an expensive blueprint but that does not ensure it is going to be taught in every class. Are the states/territories going to resource history? Balancing the needs of inexperienced teachers with the engaged, creative teachers. 

Selection of schools who will be trialling national curriculum will be by random selection, not just enthusiasts.

Sequencing issues in implementation: can't implement all in one year, but no clear guidance on how to implement.

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Tags: conferences curriculum history teachers htaa national curriculum
Posted at 12:59PM Jul 16, 2009 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]