Lesson Studies are used as a Professional Development Tool. Teachers use this tool to engage in and to systematically examine and reflect on their teaching

Lesson Study is:

1. 1.       Teacher driven
2. 2.       Job embedded
3. 3.       Collaborative learning

Teachers identify the research theme which will be based on the school’s vision. Once the research theme has been identified, the lesson plan is designed and a research lesson conducted. Research lesson is conducted by the research teacher, observers can be internal and external teachers and experts who adhere to observation protocol (not to communicate with pupils, with fellow observers, observe few pupils closely, take detailed notes etc)

In post lesson observation, recapping of the research theme and research lesson are conducted. Comments from observers from lesson study plan teams and from other experts are all taken and a summary is done.

In the research lesson conducted in Evergreen Primary School, the research theme is “thinking and self directed learners”. The aim of research is to identify principles/factors for promoting thinking.

The research lesson was on fractions conducted with a Grade 2 class. It was an interesting lesson conducted using a cake to illustrate whole, halves and quarters.  The recap on terms was followed by the teacher referring to a fraction as part/piece, thereafter putting in order fractions from greatest to smallest and vice versa. Pupils working in pairs were using manipulatives to do the worksheets.

In post observation sessions, the following comments from observes were reflected:

1.       The importance of the use of good questions to check misconception (if 4 is bigger than 2, how come half is bigger than quarter?)

2.       Examine carefully, the use and types of manipulatives.

3.       When using real life examples such as the cake – to utilise it further and in the young group tell stories to probe questions to check prior learning

4.       When group work is required, ensure paired pupils work together nicely without being overtaken by dominant character

5.       Pupils completed work quite quick, which may imply that worksheets were too easy for them. To promote thinking, it may have been advisable to remove manipulatives for the last two questions in the worksheets.

I like the idea of Lesson Study as a PD Tool. I think it is a great way to reflect on any teaching. Though for it to be effective, it has to be run by subject and teaching experts.

Notes for the Prezi:

My presentation started with a general background on South Africa, followed by a rather gloomy and most depressing picture of the state of
education in the country.

In a previous post , I portrayed the “Ticking bomb” as described by the Ministry of Higher Education; the distressing situation of the high unemployment rate of a young cohort group, this data being  of Government concern as it has huge implications on the future, as well as the present crime rate and poverty.

When discussing the state of education, it is important to take note of the past, and though 17 years have passed since Apartheid and “the past can no longer serves us as an excuse” as many critics may state, it is interesting to note that 96% of the current teachers were trained during the pre 1994 period with its deep inequalities, leaving them under-prepared for the new system and curriculum.

Therefore the Need-
South Africa is producing too few teachers, especially in key subjects such as Maths and Science.  Moreover,, existing teachers spend too little time in the classroom and many teach poorly when they are in the classroom. With research overwhelmingly showing that good teaching is vital
for better student results, this is a worrying situation. (CDE Recent research).

Government has taken many measures post 1994, and the Curriculum reforms in the form of Curriculum 2005, RNCS and NCS were all based
on “Outcomes Based Education” approach. What is known as OBE is based on Student Centre Learning, with focus on empirically measuring students’ performance (called outcomes). This approach does not specify nor require any particular style of teaching or learning and is based on constructivist methods, discouraging traditional education based direct instruction.

Professor Gopinathan from the NIE Singapore noted in his speech that the Singapore Government when designing its policy, some 30 years ago, based its strategy on building strong fundamentals before introducing flexibility, choice and diversity.

In 2010, the DOE of SA introduced the CAPS Curriculum and “kicked OBE approach out of the door”…some may argue, 16 years too late.

ORT SA Math Programme incorporates three critical factors that contribute to its success as shown in learners’ performance and teachers increased competence, confidence and motivation:

1. The use of high quality materials (the Singapore Math books published by Marshall and Cavendish). These materials have the MCK (Math
Content Knowledge) and MPCK (Math Pedagogical Content Knowledge) both embedded in them. And its structure and focus approach compensate a lack of strong Curriculum.

2.  Intensive teachers training, coaching and on-site support to upgrade teachers’ skills and knowledge and support them in implementation.

3. Assessment of learners and teachers to measure impact of project on their performance and bridge the gaps where necessary.

Lessons learnt

• ORT’s model of high quality books, PD and Assessment proves to improve teaching and learning of Math in township schools in SA
• Phase Approach (Starting from Grade 1) is recommended to introduce the Singapore methodologies progressively and build strong foundations
• Show case success via functions, awards ceremonies, visits to schools. These show cases are a source of motivation and pride to teachers and schools
• Importance of partnerships with DOE, Corporates, other NGOs all sharing the same aims and goals

Challenges

• Parents’ involvement is a big challenge. Not only in encouraging and supporting children’s work and instill in them the values in education, but also  ensuring the safety of the school
• Language – not enough research has been conducted to evaluate the implications of using English written textbooks in the Foundation Phase level, when policy requires the use of home language (there are 11 official languages in SA)
• Minimal influence on policy and reforms in education. (accountability, compensation of teachers, shared data with DOE on pupils assessment)

Prezi

I  enjoyed Brian O’Connell’s talk that conveyed some hope by mentioning that we will succeed as we did before. The 2005 Curriculum was wrong, but it’s not the end of it, since early civilisation, we have tried to make sense of things but we’re not always right. The Aztec, ethic group in central Mexico who sacrificed humans is an example that civilisation don’t always get it right first time. Lets’ just hope that it won’t take too long for our country to get it right.

Using Gapminder – world map, scaled by different variables of education, Brian demonstrated the huge challenges SA faces. When scaled by number of patents, tertiary enrolment and books borrowed – you can hardly see Africa on the World map, but when it comes to TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDS, Africa seems to be the biggest continent in the world. Brian O’Connell presented benchmarking and TIMSS results that demonstrates the poor performance of our learners.

Brian’s outreach to SADTU regarding this challenge in education is an important call for the shift needed in education achievement. I strongly believe that in order to succeed in our efforts to elevate the state of education – it is the call of the communities to take proactive measures to eradicate poverty and hunger that impacts our learners achieve better.

Credit: Zapiro

The purpose of education is to nurture, grow and upgrade the skills of the younger generation to generate functioning, skilled individuals who are able to contribute back to society the investment put in to them.

Education for all, Special education, Equity in education, Inclusion and other reforms in education, nationally and internationally, are all efforts to improve on the deliverables set up by governments. Success of these efforts are measured by economic means (GDP growth, income averages etc)

Using these measures, schooling has failed most of developed and developing countries in providing an education that will drive economic success. World Bank’s report on education quality and economic growth (Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Wofmann, 2007) show that what has been missing in the education agenda is attention to the quality of education rather than focusing on schools’ attainment and enrolment.

How do we measure “quality education”? In the World Bank Report Eric and Ludges suggest, quite convincingly, that the measure for education quality should be the level of cognitive skills of the population. And this, they suggest can be done by looking at international benchmarking in Math and Science, such as  TIMSS and PISA. They also propose that Developing Countries should look at designing their own benchmark testing.

According to Hanusek and Kimko (2000) , economic growth is affected positively by quality education. Their estimate suggests that one country-level standard deviation (equivalent to 47 test-score points in PISA 2000 mathematics) higher test performance would yield about one percentage point higher annual growth.

“Education is more than luxury; it is a responsibility that society owes to itself” Robin Cook.

Knowledge is power and having a skilled and knowledgeable population places a nation ahead of others. But this can be achieved not by measures of time spent at school but by the quality of what is achieved in this time. As research shows the quality of teachers is the key ingredient to ensure quality education and student performance.

This is why I think the campaign of “Purpose of Education” is so important, as I hope that partly it will answer the question of “What is a good teacher?”, as well as opening debate for the policies needed at schools to ensure quality education.

“Education would be more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school, each boy and girl should know how much they do not know and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it” William Haley

The South Africa Constitution was the result of intensive negotiations that were carried out with an acute awareness of the injustices of the country’s non-democratic past.  It is now widely regarded as the most progressive Constitution in the world, with a “Bill of Rights” second to none.

Having such an inclusive and exceptional Constitution, highlights the need for a practical approach in the long journey of implementing the “Bill of Rights”.

Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Rabbi Warren Goldstein, stated that there is a national consensus in the country for an immediate need to improve our values and morals.  Initiated by the National Religious Forum, and driven by the Chief Rabbi and the National Department of Basic Education, The “Bill of Responsibilities” was created to meet this need.

The “Bill of Responsibilities” is the mirror image of the “Bill of Rights” and therefore inherits its political and social legitimacy.  I personally believe that it will create an interest beyond the borders of South Africa.  In light of changes that technology has embarked on us, there is a call worldwide for revisiting values and morals.

The Chief Rabbi in his inspirational speech at the recent “Bill of responsibilities” Launch of the Teachers’ Guide said “words create worlds”.  Words reflect the way we see the world.  What words are our children raised on?

The “Bill of Responsibilities” has the words of tolerance and integrity, compassion and justice, human dignity and equality, and consequently has the potential of creating worlds of morals and values upon which our future is raised.

ORT SA has pledged to incorporate the “Bill of Responsibilities” “in house”, establishing role models within our organisation.  Thereafter we will be incorporating it in our training of teachers, aiming at establishing a new “language” for teaching and learning.  We use the words of the “Bill of Responsibilities” and add the tools of Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” to equip our teachers with the tools to teach the “new language”.

An example of this integrated approach is derived from one of our most basic needs – communication.  The right to speak comes from freedom of speech, rooted strongly in the Constitution.  But, our right to speak comes with the responsibility to listen.  In training, we bring in the tool of Covey’s ” 5th Habit, “Seek first to understand before you understood” or “Listen before you talk”.  Simple, but yet so basic.

Everyone has the right to education, but whatever role we hold, we have responsibilities too. As learners, we are responsible to come to school on time, obey the rules and dedicate our efforts to learning , as Educators, we hold the responsibility of being at school on time, teaching, and as Government, Parent Bodies and NGO’s, we hold the responsibility for ensuring that we provide the environment for teaching and learning, and prioritising education on our agendas.

“Historical enemies succeeded in negotiating a peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy, exactly because we were prepared to accept the inherent capacity for goodness in the other.  My wish is that South Africans never give up on the belief in goodness, that they cherish that faith in human beings as a cornerstone of our democracy.”  Former President Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela’s trust in the goodness of human beings, reassures us that it is possible to regain values and morals in a society that has already walked a long way.

http://blogoscoped.com/cartoons

Going to the Google Teachers Academy (GTA) in London this year, somehow felt as if I was on a missionary task, representing South Africa and ORT SA, the NGO I work for, may have added to this sense of feeling.  Back from London, this missionary sentiment has shifted to recovering from the intense overload of information experienced, the overwhelming experience of meeting the most amazing and remarkable people – teachers from all over the world that share the same passion in ICT integration  and education.  This year, I was also privileged to take part in “Feuerstein Training” and the “Leader in Me” (based on Covey’s 7 habits) which has now given me the desire to share the knowledge I have gained.

“Google”, a word that has become a vocabulary terminology to the word “Search” is more than a “Search engine company”.

Most of us have become accustomed to going straight to our handhelds devices to “Google” for terms, information, definitions, prices, locations … you name it! So what else can we learn about this search engine?  The answer is – - – there is more than meets the eye.

First, take some time to check the extra features offered when searching. This appears on the left hand side of Google’s page after you have clicked on the term you have searched for.

 Some examples:

• Latest – provides immediate results for the term
• Timeline – Your term appears in timeline
•  Wonder wheel – a great tool that outlines your term in a sort of “mind map” and therefore helps to eliminate what you don’t need.  This is great to enhance keywords skills
• The images section is mind-blowing;  you can select images similar to a specific one, select images according to a colour, and more and more to suit the creative amongst us

As said previously, Google is more than a “search engine”. It is a platform to create, share and collaborate.  Google Documents (similar to Word, Excel and Power Point Presentations) has the unique feature of working on a document in a collaborative way.  You can count on Google to go a step ahead.  For example, “Google Moderator” is a tool designed to get people’s feedback, questions, and requests on a specific issue. What a great way to collect queries from participants before your seminar.

Since very young, I hated roller coasters and avoided going on them with various excuses. GTA was like a rollercoaster (Anaconda type).  Especially since the climb and anticipation for the event took longer than the exhilarating ride itself.  The feeling of dizziness when getting off the rollercoaster is similar to the feeling when the seminar ended.  Now with the Adrenalin being felt, there is that addictive feeling of wanting more.  I guess it’s up to each individual to recreate this type of ride in their own niche of work and life.

ORT SA will be offering Workshops on Google Applications in business and in teaching. Workshops will be offered in Johannesburg in October and November.

Working with teachers in promoting classroom innovation is challenging and rewarding at the same time, but creating this one minute movie has opened some insight into what classroom innovation can be. I guess when you are forced to keep your ideas into a strict time frame; it helps to focus your views.

What is not in the movie is the South African perspective, as I see it, which I would like to share:

 More than 16 years ago, during Apartheid, there were different education systems assembled according to race; Black, White, Indian and Others known as BANTU education. Now 16 years Post Apartheid, the country has gone HUGE way into integration of all races into one system of education, but still has HUGE way to go as far as performance in education and infrastructure are concerned.

Most Township schools have these concerns to consider: Number of learners in a class (can get 6o to 100 learners per class), crowded classrooms, dire infrastructure, low teachers’ proficiency, poverty, hunger and families strike by loss to HIV/AIDS.  Child-house hold is the phenomena in those townships and teachers are mothers, social workers, nurses, psychologist in addition to their teaching profession.

I therefore found it very difficult to define classroom innovation to these classrooms, as what I wish for them is that these classroom meet basic needs first , with children well fed, secured homes and environment and not being abused on the way to school or when going home from school. 

At ORT SA we try and contribute together with our funders by working with teachers to upgrade their skills and knowledge in subject matters as well as in mentorship and leadership skills. We can only hope that the bit we are doing is assisting to transformation in education in SA.

My thoughts are that mobile phones, which are fast taking SA by storm, may be the way to get those classrooms to “leapfrog” into technology integration. Which is the area we, in Professional Development, should be looking at.

Hope you enjoy the movie!