Assessment+Task

Hi all. I hope you went well with your first assignments. I thought I'd kick off the discussion about which learning emphases we want to choose for assessment task 2. Once we decide this we can start doing a bit of researching and should probably only need to meet once. As far as I can tell we choose an emphasis from the Global Perspective's framework. It's pretty important we choose one we are all happy with and know a bit about because it also forms the basis for our last assignment we do individually. I'm pretty keen on Sustainable Futures because of the current media coverage and different action projects going on, it gives us a lot to work with, but maybe everyone else will do this too. Probably one that not many people will do is Peace Building and Conflict Resolution, so if we want to be different we could go for this and I can imagine we could come up with some really creative strategies to implement this on a classroom level, then relate it to a global perspective. Anyway, let me know your thoughts! Josie.

Hi Josie, funny Lindy and I were briefly discussing that sustainable futures would be a good one, an area with lots of potential. She said that she had worked with you before and was very impressed with your interaction within a group situation (and of couse a lovely person). So I'm happy with that will wait and see what the other think. I know Heather has a maths assignment to finish this week so I'm assuming she will be bogged down with that. Thankyou for starting us up.

Ingrid.

Hi everyone, Josie I t hink sustainable futures is a great topic, this unit will encompass a wide range of resources and I think will be easy to access, helping us in the final assessment. It will also be easily linked to 'Global Perspectives.' An area I though we could focus on because sustainability is so broad is water sustainability. Students will be encouraged to explore their own values in relation to their environment, focusing on water consumption. Students could look at the water cycle, location of water on Earth, water usage and water conservation. Understandings may include, where does water come from, awareness of how we waste water in our homes and school environments and ways that we could conserve water, just to name a few. This area of sustainability is a huge issue, globally. Let me know what you think, its a start anyway Look forward to working with you all Em :)

 Hi everyone, Finally finished maths assignment so ready to start thinking globally again. Also just sent a wiki invite to Lindy so hopefully she'll be able to log in too. I'm happy to do sustainable futures and agree that this will be the easiest as I think it is the one most commonly addressed in classrooms I've been in. Em, your suggestion re: water sounds a lot like the unit plan I submitted for my major SOSE assignment. It was called 'down the drain' and included a field work experience that compared the water on top of Mt Wellington to the water that comes out of the NewTown rivulet at the Derwent. It also included an action and participation bit where the kids wrote a letter to local council to ask permission to paint warning signs on the drain in the school area to let people know that storm water drains lead to the river, thus only water can go in. Does Sue Wilson teach SOSE? We can pinch some ideas LOL. Heather.

Hey I'm on tank water I live the dream. I'm sure we can pull out some ideas from yours Heather or even extend.  **Ingrid**. ﻿Hi again, Heather that could cut your time in your final assessment if we role with this idea. I do not recall Sue Wilson ever teaching SOSE. It would be great to get started soon, as I and am sure you all have other assessments to start also. The assessment outline states that we should contain:

• an overview of the chosen learning emphasis • an explanation of why that aspect of Global Education is important for young people to engage with • the understanding goals for the unit and their links to the Global Education framework. • the translation of these goals into learning outcomes and the relevant curriculum links. • the proposed culminating performance for the unit.

I guess if we agree on a topic, then we can start working on this,

 Em. Hmmm. Em's list from assessment task made me go back and read the task and realised we don't actually need lessons, which to me seems more difficult. How can we make all our curriculum links, learning outcomes and culminating preformance //before// we work out what the students will actually //do// throughout the unit? Then we have to use the same outcomes and so on that we decide on to plan our units in assignment 3 which I expect will all be very different. Okay, so, Here's a section of my rationale about a water conservation unit. There's not much I thought would be relevant given wht exactly we need to include but maybe it's a jumping off point...

 ‘Down the drain’ is a lesson sequence that addresses SOSE outcomes as it asks students to “describe positive and negative human interactions with the environment, understand that human activity can change landscapes over time and recognise that some places need to be protected for the future” (Department of Education, 2009, p.59). Water conservation is a meaningful topic choice for students as, unlike other topic areas, water use is a commonality between all students regardless of background. All humans need healthy drinking water. The topic is made more relevant and engaging by involving students in the investigation of local water, allowing students to make connections between the topic and their own role in society. The planning also allows for students to make the focus topic more relevant to themselves as it uses student questions to drive the inquiry. The unit is flexible to allow for student centred learning. For example, if students are interested to learn about water pollution in other parts of the world, the opportunity naturally emerges for students to investigate how different cultural beliefs and values affect interactions with the environment or how natural resources influence where people live and how they live. Heather

﻿Hi guys,

I like the idea of narrowing down the sustainable futures, but I actually think water conservation might be a bit too narrow. Because we are supposed to focus on one learning emphasis I think we need to lean the assignment more to what this emphasis entails, rather than the actual work the kids would be doing (I think that is our job in assignment 3). We certainly need to narrow it down though... in one of the readings or activities from week 6 there was a mention of the Four Elements of Sustainable Futures; ethical, economic, environmental and social. Maybe our focus could be one of these or a combination of the two, such as environmental and economic, and a focus on each child's 'Global Footprint' this would then encompass water conservation, recycling etc. Look, I'm only guessing here and I could well be wrong, so if you guys think we need to go as specific as one topic I'm happy with that... just throwing some ideas around.

However, if you like the global footprint idea there is also a link from one of last weeks readings to the following website http://www.footprint.org/en/index/php/GFN/ it has a quiz on there which calculates your footprint and gives you ideas for reducing it. This could be really helpful for planning, and its also good to see how you measure up. I did it with some grade fives this morning and afterwards they were all promising to recycle more, take shorter showers etc. Bless 'em!

Josie

Hi All,

I can see where Josie is coming from after reading through the ideas before and re-reading the assessment task. 'chosen learning emphasis'. So taking the emphasis from GP (Global Perspectives) 'sustainable futures'. Then Josie mentioned the week 6 connection (was it the earth charters that you were discussing?) There were a couple of examples both discussing similar principles. Righto I just completed the footprint quiz apparently I use 4 global hectares. Although we grow a lot of our own vegies/fruit they don't ask the same about meat. Therefore as we eat meat more than 2-3 times a week it obviously pushes the global footprint up. As with the public transport which is hopeless down here, I tend to drive more. I know by planting lots of trees which we seem to be doing all the time I can have that as my off set. Give it a go its fun.

Ingrid.

I too agree with Josie. That seems to be a good way to tackle the assignment. Will try and catch up on mylo activities and readings, focusing on sustainable futures, over the next couple of days and get my head focused on the assignment. Will post some ideas soon. I'm going away between September 10th - 15th so would like to meet up some time between 4th - 9th of the holidays to finish this assignment up. Does this time suit others? ps The footprint link didn't work for me :( Heather

Hi Heather,

The link didn't work for me either just entered it into my web browser. I know that particular reading and link is now not available through MYLO so lucky a couple of us got hold of it before it left cyberspace.

Dates I'm available 4th but before 3pm, 7th after lunch though, 8th all day, and thats pretty much it due to work. So if the rest of us can work out times would be great. Please do not feel that you all need to meet my needs though if anyone else is unable to make my dates.

Ingrid.

Hello,

I'm definitely keen to get this ticked off in the school holidays. I can't do the Wednesday morning (8th) or the Thursday (9th) but any other day is fine by me. Maybe we should try for the 4th which is the Saturday? Then if we don't get done we still have plenty of time. Any ideas where we're going to meet? Where does everyone live, I'm in Snug.

Josie

Hi Everyone, I would prefer weekends, as I have to work during the holidays. The 4th would suit me best, perhaps we could meet and book a room at uni - Morris Miller? At least then we would have some resources surrounding us too. Considering its a power point I think meeting would be best, Let me know your thoughts :) However, if you all prefer a week day, I will try and get some time off work to be there, just let me know a date and time asap Thanks em

Looks like we could make it a Saturday (4th) three so far? Em do you know how you go about booking a room at the Uni?

Ingrid . 4th sounds good to me and it gives me a reason to postpone a lunch date with my mother-in-law LOL. Just a thought - if we aren't set on sustainable futures, perhaps we could do the cultural identity one as this was the one we started thinking about in the week 3 task and Ingrid made a great start in thinking about learning outcomes and so on on the week 3 page. I usually find getting started is the hardest part of an assignment so if we've got the ideas there we just need to extend. Anyway, just an idea. Happy to go either way.

Heather

In previous collaborative groups that I have dealt with we chose an (in this unit) overview of the chosen learning emphasis, an explantion, understanding goals, etc. Of course the only issue is that we have to fully collaborate to have a sufficient result. I'm sure many of you that have had dealings in collaborative work have ended up with two in the group working till midnight to finish, as others had disappeared when it come to the crunch all part of it I guess. Anyway this could be formulated before we meet. On the condition we know what area we are concentrating on.

Ingrid.

Hi everyone, I will book a room at the library for the 4th. I will let you know times when its done, I will try and book early so we get the maximum out of our day, hopefully knocking it off in one hit. :) em

Thanks Em.

I'm happy to meet at the library but is it okay to bring children there? I have to bring my little girl with me, she's 14 month old and does have a tendency to be noisy! Josie I** f we have a seperate room all should be ok Josie. Must be tough for you to study with little miss under your feet, you must have fantastic time management skills. Ingrid. **

I am also happy to meet on the 4th. Looking forward to meeting up with everyone. Lindy

=** Hello everyone, I have booked a room for this Saturday, 4th Sept at Morris Miller at 10am (thats when the library opens. ) **= =** Look forward to seeing you all there, Bring your laptops if you have them so we can do the powerpoint on one of them, **= =** Em :) **=

Thanks for organizing that Em see you then, Ingrid.

Thanks from me also Em, looking forward to the day. Lindy

May be a good idea to bring along a memory stick, just in case we need to work on a couple of things after our meeting, although I think we can kick this off quite well as this group seems to be switched on.Ingrid