{"id":1669,"date":"2018-05-10T15:30:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T03:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2018\/05\/talking_about_what_we_should_teach\/"},"modified":"2018-05-10T15:30:05","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T03:30:05","slug":"talking-about-what-we-should-teach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2018\/05\/talking-about-what-we-should-teach\/","title":{"rendered":"talking about what we should teach"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I was on holiday (Japan – it was wonderful!) – I read Tom Haig's interesting article about 'curriculum wars'<\/a> over on Education Central<\/em>, and it reminded me of the concerns I've held for some time that we don't really talk enough about what<\/b> to teach in our classrooms, be they university-level or in the secondary sector. <\/p>\n

Several years back (how time flies!) I was involved in developing the 'Living World' component of the New Zealand Curriculum document<\/a>, as well as entering into the discussions around what the science component of that document should deliver. (Right down to a discussion of what it actaully is to 'do' science.) At the time I was somewhat taken aback to discover that the panel was not required to give any exemplars for teachers, any indication of what they might do to help students master particular concepts – something that's noted by Tom. Yes, I totally get it that schools are free to set their own curricula, but at the same time I couldn't halp thinking that the occasional 'starter for 10' might be useful.<\/p>\n

Layered on top of that – & amplified by my experiences in relation to developing and assessing Achievement Standards for NCEA, was the way that while new content or concepts might be loaded on up-front, we didn't seem to remove stuff at the other end. This had the result that the amount of information associated with a standard might just grown & grow (CRISPR, anyone?). Pretty much the same thing tends to happen at university – if you look at one of the standard first-year biology textbooks, Campbell BiologyA<\/sup><\/em>, you'll see that it's become steadily thicker over time as new material's added. (In my experience, at least some first-year uni lecturers argue that all the basic stuff should be delivered at school; they shouldn't have to teach that. However, this sits poorly against the fact that no NZ universities have any prerequisites for their first-year biology papers, and also suggests that those making the statement don't really recognise that not all year 13 students are heading for university. Remember, schools have the ability to shape their curricula to suit the needs and requirements of their individual communities.)<\/p>\n

In other words, we didn't seem to be having any discussion around what should be taught, and why. And we still don't, although hopefully such issues will be addressed in the review of NCEA<\/a>. For, as Tom Haig says:<\/p>\n

\n

Working out what we should be teaching, and why, is something that we should be discussing together and taking much more seriously as teachers than the second place it's taken to discussions of technique. Hattie, ERO, the Best Evidence Synthesis and so forth are filled with advice about 'how', but shouldn't we be thinking just as hard about 'what'?  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A<\/sup> No relation! I was privileged, though, to meet the late Neil Campbell when he visited New Zealand, and was struck by what a wonderful educator he was. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I was on holiday (Japan – it was wonderful!) – I read Tom Haig's interesting article about 'curriculum wars' over on Education Central, and it reminded me of the concerns I've held for some time that we don't really talk enough about what to teach in our classrooms, be they university-level or in the secondary sector.  Several years back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\ntalking about what we should teach : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2018\/05\/talking-about-what-we-should-teach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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