July 2010            Letter from NZACDITT President

Achievement Standards Writing
BoK
Professional Development
Reflection

Hello All
Beautiful sunshine day in Christchurch after a frosty morning.
A quick update of current affairs in Digital Technologies

Achievement Standards Writing

It has been a busy past week in Wellington with the level 1 Achievement Standards being revised in the light of the consultation feedback. All comments were considered and changes made or not depending on the feasibility and within the parameters of the Qualifications Authority constraints. Some comments did not actually relate to the standard, and have been referred to the Teaching and Learning Guide writers as the response is better served in that forum. I wish to comment on the level of support from both the MOE and NZQA in this process; there has been huge support with a genuine willingness to get it as right as we can, and to the best advantage of the students. There should no longer be a ‘them’ and ‘us’ mindset, but a professional collaboration. Students will not be disadvantaged by any errors on our part next year. I do not claim that we have got it 100% right – how can we as this is the first time we have had Achievement Standards in ‘our space’. But the experience of the professionals in the MOE and NZQA has been willingly shared and I have personally learnt heaps about standards writing – which is not an easy task! Lots of learning to “code” into NZQA “speak”.

I know there are some individuals in our community who will not be satisfied with the final outcomes – but there is room for review and commitment from the authorities that regular reviews will certainly take place in the next few years. Let’s work through what we have got, and then see what needs fixing.
We were also able to write the Level 2 Achievement Standards for Digital Technologies and these will go out for consultation in September.

I wish to pay tribute to my colleagues who were also writing – many hours of work and discussion have gone into these AS, although they may look short and easy to do. Thank you for your professionalism, cheerfulness, hard work and long hours, willingness to listen and rewrite again and again. Thank you!!

BoK

Please be aware that not everything in the Body of Knowledge has to be assessed. Good teaching practice would suggest you teach your topic in depth and beyond the requirements of the Achievement Standard. For further questions or comments on the limitations and/or criticisms on the BoK, I refer you to the detailed response by Dr Peter Andrea from Victoria University to Gordon Grimsey’s document.

Professional Development

There has been huge, positive progress in this area.
A proposal I have suggested and discussed last week with fellow colleagues, as well as the higher echelons of MOE management has been met with approval. The finer details are being worked on, but the essential idea will definitely go ahead.

PD and resources concerns are:

• Units of work for specific topics in the five focus areas of Digital Technologies that could be a guide for teachers seeking to develop courses that would be assessed with the new Level 1 Achievement Standards.
• Examples of assessment tasks using the new Level 1 AS that could be used for the credentialing of the learning of students.
• Professional development to gain experience in the writing of assessment tasks in the environment of the three grades of achievement, merit and excellence, instead of the single achieved grade for unit standards.

Considerations:

• The short time frame before Level 1 Achievement Standards are registered and available for courses that may be offered next year.
• Time required for resources to be written by busy, hard-working teachers.
• Cost – both financial and personal.
• Distribution of resources.
• DTG contract has finished, but the cluster groups have been established and the collegiality and collaboration between members of the different groups should not be lost.

A huge constraint is TIME and MONEY!!
My proposal is to have groups of three - four teachers around the country taking two days (Friday and Saturday) over the six weekends of 13 August to 17 September and delivering two specific resources. The expectation is that at the end of the first day, there would be a unit of work covering at least six weeks of school time and that would include suggestions for teaching, examples, exercises etc. It is not expected to be prescriptive, perfect or complete; but is to be regarded as a resource that is a ‘work in progress’ and can be tweaked by teachers so that someone venturing into a new focus area, or wanting to update their current units of work, would have a good idea of what to do, and could use the unit of work without too much tweaking for the specific needs and requirements of their students. A simple template of layout would be provided so that time for the writers could be best maximised. The second resource would be an assessment task for a specific Achievement Standard, that could possibly be used for the unit of work. Note that some achievement standards would require more than six weeks work to have been done. That’s OK as it would still give teachers a direction to head for, and a possible task to use. I would also like to have an NZQA rep to attend the Sat meeting, to give guidance on writing these tasks, to give best PD to teachers. Again a simple template would be provided to facilitate the process. The details of the proposal still have to be worked out, but the funding for the teacher relief for three teachers on the Friday for 12 groups over possibly 12 geographic areas is available.

Benefits:

• A bank of resources that would help teachers kickstart their courses for next year. All these resources would then be made available to our community in the fourth term – some on NZACDITT website and some on the Tech link website.
• A sharing of ideas
• Learning of how to write assessment tasks for Achievement standards.
• Further learning by other teachers over and above the selected group are welcome to join in the Sat meeting, as there would not be a teacher relief cost. However, would suggest not go beyond teams of 4 on a task, to get best dynamics. But nothing to stop having two teams from a region working on two different tasks.
• Best way to learn is to get stuck in and write something that has to be taught, and working with other colleagues on the same topic helps in brainstorming of ideas. Not cutting out any other teachers who may wish to join the Friday group – but they would have to find their own funding. However, I would suggest not going beyond teams of 4 on a topic, to get best dynamics. But nothing to stop having two teams from a region working on two different topics.

Volunteers called
If you would like to be part of a writing group, and are prepared to offer up a Friday and Saturday over one of the weekends from 13 August to 17 September, please email me with the following required details. NOTE: You do not have to be an expert at writing units of work or an expert in assessment!! This proposal is about you learning how to do stuff (professional development), and then being able to pass that knowledge onto other colleagues. I do not expect the resources to be perfect – they cannot possibly be in this tight time frame. But they will give each and everyone of you a possible starting point, a bank of resources, and without having to re-invent the wheel 200 times.
This project is not about teaching you content and skills – that is for another forum, and will also be addressed.

Details required (please copy and paste this to a word document and send completed document)
1.    Name
2.    School
3.    email address
4.    Phone number :work
5.    Phone number :home – (optional but helpful)
6.    Mobile (optional but helpful)
7.    Geographic area:
Northland    Auckland    Taranaki    Bay of Plenty       Wellington
Central North/Palmerston North        Hawkes Bay        Nelson   
Central South/Timaru     Christchurch        Dunedin    Southland   
8.    Weekend(s) available
Weekend 1 (13/14 August)    Weekend 2 (20/21 August)
Weekend 3 (27/28 August)    Weekend 4 (3/4 September)
Weekend 5 (10/11 September)    Weekend 6 (17/18 September)
9.    Topic you are interested in for writing a unit of work:
Imaging    Web-page design    Animation    Video        DTP
Databases & Word processing    Spreadsheets & Word processing
PC theory    PC practical   
Scratch    Gamemaker        Computer concepts        Robotics
Electronics introduction/theory    Electronics practical
10.     Short profile on qualifications and teaching experience
11.     Short profile on assessment experience

Reflection

Looking through the Position paper that Karen Fahy, Tim Carrell and I wrote in August 2008 (and which is available on the Google groups website), I am amazed at how many of our recommendations have been taken up by the MOE – Digital Technologies is in a Learning Area and has access to curriculum resources, the body of knowledge has been written, we have achievement standards for all five strands in Digital Technologies, and professional development is being funded and supported. And we have a Subject Association! (refer pages 25, 32, 33 and 35). Note how many of you contributed your voices over the last 15 odd years as shown in the appendices. Together as a team and combined community we have achieved an enormous amount in the last 18 months. I know there are some voices who say ‘not enough’! But don’t let dissenting voices take away from the positive steps forward, the bridges built across miscommunication and differing perspectives. Let’s value what we have achieved, and continue to work together as professionals in education to continue to strive for the best for our students.
The next few years promise to be quite challenging, but exciting as we develop our skills and grow our subject. This can only benefit our students, and ultimately New Zealand.

On a personal note, thank you to all who have supported and are continuing to support me on the death of my husband in May.
On your behalf as NZACDITT President I am attending a conference in Dunedin and another in Wellington in the holidays, but hope to have some ‘time out’.

Best wishes for a good holiday and a busy term 3.
Vilna