Gone are the days when such lethal weapons as the paper guillotine can be allowed anywhere near a school, let alone be used by children.

However, it presents us with a big question. Is this practise of taking the risk out of everything children do and providing nothing but safety nets in all activities, really such a good thing?

Sure, no teacher would ever want a child in their care to be at risk of danger, with their safety and care always being of paramount importance, but there are certainly elements about putting children at risk that will help them in their growth. So is right to remove these elements from a child’s learning? Does removing the heater from a younger child’s reach, for instance, solve the issue or make it worse? Surely we all need to learn that danger exists, so is it wise to live in safety bubbles?

Or what about the scenario of children spending some time out of their normal environment and moving out into nature? A Residential week/weekend can provide an opportunity for children to experience so much more than their normal everyday life may offer. Activities such as caving, extreme ropes, kayaking, archery, gilling and many more are not your every day activity for most children. And accordingly, they are usually monitored by trained and skilled professionals who know the best way to reduce any risks of danger. Safety harnesses, local knowledge, medical safety procedures and simple common sense ensure that children taking part in these types of activities are as safe, if not safer, than when they are playing together in their own home settings.

But what do the children think? What gives them the most enjoyment and provides them with the most fun? Yes fun! You know, that word that is slowly being pushed out of a child’s life and being replaced with learning, ambition, responsibility and making the right decision.

Well, if you take a moment to ask, the answers may surprise you.

A recent weekend away with 30 year 6 children in the Yorkshire Dales highlighted to me personally, how insulated we have made childrens’ lives. Coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds only served to enhance this fact. Many of these children had never experienced the ‘real outdoors’. They had no knowledge of what is out there in nature and were amazed at the little things we saw and experienced. Streams running out from little holes underground, mole holes and rabbit holes, bird footprints in the snow, sheep that had horns, cows that ran away when we walked by. It was these sights and experiences that gave them the most joy. Being able to climb a steep mountain path [a hill really] and jump over small streams as we held each other’s hands was such a joy to them that many did not want to go home. Sure, they loved the extreme activities as mentioned above, but it was the freedom to jump on a rock of their own choosing as they crossed a small stream, and fall down in the thick snow and look up into the sky above that made them feel alive and free. At one point we had to carefully walk down a steep slope, which was slippery due to overnight snow, and it meant that each child had to support one another and be made aware that there was a risk factor involved. The result. They absolutely loved it. The feeling of being in control of themselves and the thrill of the risk [abeit, very minor] meant that they could experience something which they normally cannot have.

When asked at the end of the weekend what was the best single moment, it was almost unanimous that this small moment of walking down a hill had given them the most joy. They discussed about how it meant they had to work as a team [a large focus of the whole weekend], take care with how they acted, and just how brilliant it was that they had all come through and survived the saga. Dramatic yes, but only in the sense that this is how it was perceived by the children.

And what did I learn from the experience? Basically, that yes, we must always strive to keep children safe, but no matter what the OHS people tell you, we definitely do need some risk in our lives as well. Taking out every single risk factor and making life squeaky clean and safe, may not always be the best option. How can we learn to be safe when all the dangers have been removed?

Some colleagues tell me I/we were brave in taking away the children and that the risk of lawsuits simply makes this all too hard. I disagree. I actually feel we are neglecting our duty as teachers if we do not give children these opportunities. As teachers, we should be making sure we develop and push the children in our care and what better way than putting them at risk from time to time…

Problem: Spyware is attacking your network and making your machines almost unusable. How can you fix it?

Solution: There are two vital steps here. 1. Getting rid of the existing spyware¹ first and 2. Setting up your network with safeguards to prevent it from happening again.

Firstly then, use a program such as Spy Terminator, SpyBot or many others [most available free from the Internet if budgets are tight] and scan your system for spyware and malware. These little nasties are not viruses per se but they do act in a similar fashion and often with the same result. One thing to note here – you do not need them, the children certainly do not need them and the computer will be eternally grateful to you for ridding them completely. Depending on the amount of machines in your network, this can be a lengthy task, but to make sure you have cleaned the machines effectively, a scan of each machine individually is highly recommended.

The second step of course, is to make sure it does not happen again. And to enable this, you need to speak to your technicians or LEA about what they provide in the way of virus software. Products such as Sophos are not free but they do keep you sane. You weigh up the cost in this regard and make your own decision, but really, you must have some kind of safeguard in place or you will find that your network is constantly in need of repair. Do not think that you will not be affected because if you are connected to the Internet, it happens automatically. Claims of it happening within 30 minutes or less are not uncommon.

Additionally, it may be a good idea to look at your school policy on the use of removable data such as USB pens and floppy drives [yes, many people still use them] to make sure you are not inviting unwelcomed guests, in the form of viruses, on a daily basis from your teachers/students own homes.

1. Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent. The term, coined in 1995 but not widely used for another five years, is often used interchangeably with adware and malware (software designed to infiltrate and damage a computer). ♠

And just a few of the acronyms already being bandied around: VLE – Virtual Learning Environment, MLE – Managed Learning Environment, LP – Learning Platform and LSS – Learning Support System.

Vast amounts of money will be poured into this project and schools will need to be careful not to have the wool pulled over the eyes when choosing which software suits them best. It is hoped that the LEA’s will use their stronger buying power and resources to help schools select the Learning Platform that is the most cost effective and will provide the most for the students.

And one name to watch out for is Moodle, with the developers stating that:

Moodle is a course management system (CMS) – a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a 50,000-student University. This site itself is created using Moodle, so check out the Moodle Demonstration Courses or read the latest Moodle Buzz.

Not sure what Open Source means exactly? Well don’t worry because it simply means it is free [well 95% of the time anyway] and that it is continually being developed. Unlike a product such as Microsoft Word for instance, which remains the same once you buy it, Open Source software is hinged on the community input and can usually be adapted to fit to your particular needs.

2. Encourage sensible aliases for monitored email and chat exercises.

3. Set up an account or accounts for pupils via an online email system such as G-Mail and monitor for correct use. Have all messages copied and forwarded to your own teacher account as a means of keeping control until you feel the student is ready to go it on their own. Set all spam filters and safety configurations appropriately. At our
school,
we encourage
emails and even
have some
lessons where the
children are not allowed
to speak to one another verbally, but they are allowed to communicate via email. At our school, we encourage emails and even have some lessons where the children are not allowed to speak to one another verbally, but they are allowed to communicate via email.

4. Focus on the positives of email use as opposed to reiterating the negatives constantly. Yes, children need to be made aware of the possible issues, but the benefits usually outweigh the problems if used wisely.

5. Encourage interaction between classes and year groups. It is important to remember that by setting up email accounts for the children in a safe school email system, you are offering a better alternative than what they may go and do by themselves without such a system in place.

6. Don’t be afraid to teach the basic skills of email use to children of an early age, i.e. Don’t open attachments from people you do not know, never give out your name and address to anyone over the Internet unless you are 100% sure it is safe to do so.

7. Promote some homework through the use of emails. Make sure your school has a policy about teacher/student interaction via emails though.

8. Reinforce good grammar and letter writing structure via email. many children will drop the use of capitals and spelling rules as soon as they enter an email account. Likewise, make sure you always show good literacy examples in your own emails as a means of highlighting how easy it is to keep interaction correct whilst having fun.

9. Watch for instances of peer intimidation or bullying. Randomly open children’s accounts as a class exercise, using an interactive white board is very effective in this instance, which will keep the children on their toes and aware that accounts are monitored. It is not an invasion of privacy as you need to explain to the children at the outset that all interaction is monitored and open for all to see.

10. Email use needs to be promoted. It is an effective communication tool and has some great advantages over ‘snail mail’. Teaching it’s effectiveness helps prepare children with the necessary skills they need as they develop.

Most require a server that can cope with Apache, MySQL and PHP, which are available on most respectable web hosts these days. Alternatively you can use a Windows IIS setup which is often the easiest available within a school intranet structure. [I highly recommend you are using at least Windows Server 2003 for this though, as IIS versions before this were not always so reliable.]

And if this last paragraph left you feeling like you just walked into an alien bar, then don’t worry, just get in touch with your technicians and tell them you want to set up a blog system within your school and you need database and PHP software in order to do so. Our technicians used my photo for their local darts competitions for the first 6 months when I first told them what I needed, but now they are starting to talk to me again and might even thank me one day. Seriously though, it really is not that big a deal. It’s just a matter of keeping up with the times.

And now that we have some of the technical gibberish out of the way, I hear you asking, but what is it and why would we use it?

Perhaps the easiest way to answer is that a blog can be used for almost anything. From writing simple poems to elaborate stories, to keeping a daily journal to recording scientific facts. The possibilities are endless. Basically, you type all of your information into the admin section of the software [see diagram below] and once you are completed, you click on publish to send your work to the front page of a website such as this. This is how it is used in it’s most basic form, but there are literally hundreds of ways in which it can be used to help motivate students in their work. Adding pictures, podcasts, web links and scans of written work are just some of the exciting add-ons from which to use. The biggest factor about it all is that the children often do not realise they are working when they use blogging software. It’s addictive and it enables them to step out of their tedious work books and into an exciting world we all know as desktop publishing. Blogging goes one step further though and allows for instant publication throughout either an internet or intranet setting.

We use it extensively within our school and as the ICT Co-ordinator and full time ICT teacher, I find it absolutely invaluable in my daily teaching. All lessons are presented via the school intranet website and children actively partake in presenting their work, commenting on each other’s contributions and adding photos, stories and presentations via the blogging system.

Yes, I openly admit it is a difficult task to incorporate it into a school, especially when technophobia is always lurking at the teachers door, but it is most definitely worth the effort.

And I am happy to help anyone who needs assistance with setting it up in your school. Just get in touch via our contact page and we can have a quick discussion which will get you started.

A few Blogging in Education ideas and resources:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/cs/blogs/ictineducation/

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/ICTineducation/ictadvice/blogging/startingout.asp

http://www.bazeley.net/edblog/

http://awd.cl.uh.edu/blog/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4194669.stm

http://www.brianmicklethwait.com/education/

http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6208

Fortunately, Microsoft Powerpoint can be used in other ways.

Take book templates as one example. Simply throw in a nice background on a slide, jazz it all up to look like a book and before you know it, students are writing their own books and having fun in Literacy.

I came across the idea via some boring conference one day and although the original template I was given was about as exciting as watching grass grow, with a bit of imagination, they really can work. I have used them with children in year 2 up to Year 6 and they all enjoy them. Add sounds, movie files, even something as simple as recording themselves reading their stories. It’s easy and it’s highly effective.

Have a look through the files below and download at your leisure. Simple to use and easily adaptable, I highly recommend you give them a try and let me know if you can think of any other means of putting them to good use.

And if you make some of your own, why not come back and share yours too…

BinderStyle-3wheeler.ppt | BinderStyle-BlackStar.ppt | BinderStyle-Bugs.ppt | BinderStyle-Butterfly.ppt | BinderStyle-Chameleon.ppt | BinderStyle-Cow.ppt | BinderStyle-Green.ppt | BinderStyle-Harley.ppt | BinderStyle-Lamba.ppt | BinderStyle-Natural.ppt | BinderStyle-OldStyle.ppt | BinderStyle-Panda.ppt | BinderStyle-Pig.ppt | BinderStyle-Plain.ppt | BinderStyle-Quad.ppt | BinderStyle-RedHeart.ppt | BinderStyle-Robotic.ppt | BinderStyle-strange1.ppt | BinderStyle-strange2.ppt | BinderStyle-strange3.ppt | BinderStyle-Sunflower.ppt | BinderStyle-VegBugs.ppt | BinderStyle-VegBugs-withgrid.ppt | Hardback-FROG.ppt | Hardback-PENGUIN.ppt | Hardback-RELAX.ppt | Hardback-TEDDY.ppt |

With online access speeds ever increasing and schools wanting to make sure that they get the most from their tight-budgets, new online resources such as Education City are proving to be very popular. The one big advantage of course, is that they are regularly updated and maintained, meaning there is no need for schools [especially ICT Co-ordinators] to have to do it all themselves.

Schools subscribe to the service and buy as many modules as they wish. All of the core subject areas are covered, with Science, Maths and English proving to be very popular with teachers and students alike. The activities are all presented in a cartoon-type format and mix humour with bright colours to present the topics. Children are motivated by the certificates awarded and teachers enjoy the flexibility that the resources offer.

With new modules being added all the time, such as relatively new Homework service], Education City is sure to be available for some time to come. Check with your local LEA to see if they have a subscription, as it is much cheaper to subscribe and run through a caching system if possible.

Rating: 9/10

Price: Variable [dependent on LEA involvement] but otherwise around £100 per year, per module for a site licence.

Age Suitability: KS1 to KS3

Recommended: Broadband Internet connection, headphones and computers with at least 256 Ram and 1.5ghz + CPU.

Bloom listed six basic objectives within the COGNITIVE domain:

1. Knowledge – remembering or recognising something previously encountered without necessarily understanding, using, or changing it.
2. Comprehension – understanding the material being communicated without necessarily relating it to anything else.
3. Application – using general concept to solve a particular problem.
4. Analysis – breaking something down into parts.
5. Synthesis – creating something new by combining different ideas.
6. Evaluation – judging the value of materials or methods as they might be applied in a particular situation.

Bloom listed five basic objectives in the AFFECTIVE domain:

1. Receiving – being aware of or attending to something in the environment.
2. Responding – showing some new behaviour as a result of experience.
3. Valuing – showing some definite involvement or commitment.
4. Organisation – integrating a new value into one’s general set of values, giving it some ranking among one’s general priorities.
5. Characterisation by value – acting consistently with the new value.

Bloom listed six basic objectives in the PSYCHOMOTOR domain:

1. Reflex movements – actions that occur involuntarily in response to some stimulus.
2. Basic fundamental movements – innate movement patterns formed from a combination of reflex movements.
3. Perceptual abilities – translation of stimuli received through the senses into appropriate movements.
4. Physical abilities – basic movements and abilities that are essential to the development of more highly skilled movements.
5. Skilled movements – more complex movements requiring a certain degree of efficiency.
6. Non-discursive movements – ability to communicate through body movement.

The above information is taken solely from
Woolfolk, A.E. Educational Psychology Fourth Edition
(New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall, 1990)

The following is an example of how Bloom’s Taxonomy may be implemented into a working curriculum unit
- (in this instance a “Science” unit)
Taken from Joseph, J. and Brown, K Authentic Assessment Workshop 1998

Theme – Ecology Systems (Ecosystems)

Convergent processes

Knowledge – define, identify, list, locate, recall
Simple – What is an ecosystem?
Extended – Define an ecosystem and list the varieties that are found in South Australia.

Comprehension – compare, summarise, explain, convert
Simple – List the different parts of the ecosystem and explain what they do.
Extended – Compare a marine ecosystem with one from another area of our state.

Application – apply, calculate, practice, demonstrate
Simple – using a diagram, show how the water cycle operates in an ecosystem.
Extended – Demonstrate what happens when humans interfere with the water cycle.

Divergent processes

Analysis – analyse, contrast, deduce, differentiate, distinguish, infer
Simple – Contrast the natural water cycle with that used by our community
Extended – Examine an ecosystem that has been damaged by human interference. Avoided how?

Synthesis – compose, create, design, formulate, produce, rearrange
Simple – Identify an unspoilt ecosystem and design a way of preserving it.
Extended – How would preserving our local ecosystems enhance our environment?

Evaluation – appraise, assess, critique, judge, support
Simple – It it reasonable that people pollute our water
ways? Defend your answer.
Extended – Assess the impact of pollution in our local waterways.

Relating Bloom’s Taxonomy to Special Needs
Using the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy to plan questions and activities provides the scope for student negotiation and the opportunity to differentiate the curriculum for some students in accordance with their interests, abilities and specific learning needs.

Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy is a WHOLE class exercise and is inclusive of both mainstream and special need children.

Teachers choosing to use the taxonomy in this way may structure learning experiences so that :-

* All students work through the Knowledge and Comprehension stage, then select one activity from each of the other levels
* All students work through the Knowledge and Comprehension stage and then select activities from any other levels
* Some work through the knowledge and comprehension stage and others work at higher levels. (This is particularly relevant for Gifted and Talented children).
* All students work from any level
* Some activities are tagged as essential – some as optional
* Select a thinking process as a focus – e.g. Analysis (where instruction is being provided in that process)
* Some work through Knowledge and Comprehension stage, then write down their own activity at their own preferred level
* Students write their own activity/questions from the taxonomy. (Engaging the students in this activity serves as a useful lead-in to the negotiated student project to follow.)

Teaching using Bloom’s Taxonomy

1.Knowledge (finding out)
a. Use- records, films, videos, models, events, media, diagrams, books…
b. observed behaviour- ask match, discover, locate, observe, listen.

Bloom in Practice

Below is an example of how Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used in the classroom.

I will actually be using this myself during my final practicum and each section of Bloom’s taxonomy will be listed on a separate poster, displayed in the classroom, that will detail the two learning foci, namely – Food Advertising and Nutrition

This is part of an eight-week unit in the key learning of the Arts, that will focus mainly on the Media influence on our eating and dietary habit
s.

Students will be choosing activities from the posters as part of a point system they need to fulfil in this unit.

The low-order thinking tasks, (that is, Knowledge, Comprehension, and Application) will earn 1, 2 and 3 points respectively, while the high-order thinking tasks will earn 5 for Analysis and Evaluation and 6 for Synthesis.
(It is quite possible to use a different combination of points, depending on the task difficulty assigned)

Food Advertising

Nutrition

Knowledge

(Factual answers, Recall and Recognition)

List 10 advertisements that use women’s bodies to sell their food products.

Describe what the advertisers use in the Hungry Jacks advertisement to sell their products.

Name 10 food advertisements that make junk food look like it is healthy and good food.

Name the food groups and at least two items of food in each group

List 12 items that would go in the Bread group.

Make an acrostic poem about healthy food

Comprehension

(Translating, Interpreting, showing understanding)

Explain why advertisements use music to sell their food products

Outline in your own words how the Leggo’s Tomato Paste advertisement sells their product.

What was the main idea behind the Magnum ice-cream advertisement?

Cut out ten healthy items from food packages or magazines and paste them under a heading of healthy foods in your Media book

Write a simple menu for breakfast, lunch or dinner using the food guide chart

Make a healthy food colouring book suitable for 5 year old children

Application

(Using information gained in different, familiar situations)

Which factors would you change if you had to redo the Campbell’s soup advertisement?

Construct a script for Uncle Toby’s Muesli Bars using a completely different theme.

What 6 questions would you ask if you had to interview the advertisers of Milo about their product? The questions need to find out information for your school and whether or not the product is suitable for the canteen.

Find some photos which would best describe how you feel because of what you eat.

Write a one page example of how you would teach about the new food guide. Include your resources.

What would you ask shoppers in a supermarket if you were doing a survey of what food they eat? (10 questions)

Analysis

(Break into parts to examine more closely)

Compare two dog food commercials. What is the difference between them and how do they both sell their products?

Write a new commercial for Mars Bar that tells only the truth but will still sell them effectively.

Design a questionnaire about coffee or tea that you can ask of ten people for a report to give to your advertiser so that they can then decide how to sell their product.

Design a questionnaire that would gather enough information to know how to stock the canteen with a wide variety of healthy food.

Write a biography about an important person in the food industry.

Prepare a report about what the people in this class eat for breakfast

Evaluation

(Judge, use criteria, rank and substantiate)

Do you think it is a good or bad thing that advertising uses women’s bodies to sell products? Why?

How would you handle it if you had made the Magnum ice-cream advertisement and you received many complaints from the public?

Write a letter to Hungry Jacks explaining why you think their advertising is false and misleading.

Make a booklet about 10 important eating habits that would be suitable for the whole school to follow in order to eat correctly.

Conduct a debate with two teams of 3 in each team about why advertising is wrong to use women’s bodies to sell its products.

Write a letter to Sanitarium asking if they would be able to help you with some research into how they make Weet
bix, how many they sell and one other fact.

Synthesis

(Combining information to new situations to create new products, ideas, etc.)

Create a new food product, Give it a name and detail how you will advertise it.

Design a 30 second radio advertisement about a new food product you have made.

Construct a poster that will advertise your new food product in an exciting and irresistible way.

Design a healthy menu that you think most people would enjoy using the healthy eating guide.

Create a song and dance to sell bananas.

Design a canteen of the future that will only sell /serve healthy foods. What sort of signs and logos would it use?

——————-

travonder Said: November 8th, 2006 at 6:32 pm

In his theory of intellectual development, Piaget utilised structuralism and related it to cognitive growth. In this process, Piaget identified four stages of development as a child grows, namely, the sensorimotor stage; the preoperational stage; the concrete operational stage; and the formal operational stage.

Piaget also believed that individuals construct their own meaning (constructivism) through the interacting processes of assimilation, adaptation, accommodation and equilibrium, and the extension of schema, or ways of thinking.

Key Piagetian terms:
Assimilation: Fitting new information into existing schemes.
Adaptation: Adjustment to the environment.
Organisation: Ongoing process of arranging information and experience into mental systems or categories.
Accommodation: Altering existing schemes or creating new ones in response to new information.
Object Permanence: Understanding that objects have a separate. permanent existence.
Operations: Actions carried out by thinking them through instead of actually performing the actions.
Reversibility: Thinking backward from the end to the beginning.
Conservation: The principle that some characteristics of an object remain the same despite changes in appearance.
Schemes: Mental systems or categories of perception and experience.
Equilibration: Search for mental balance between cognitive schemes and information from the environment.
Decentration: Focusing on more than one aspect at a time.
Egocentrism: The assumption that others experience the world in the same manner as you do.
Compensation: The principle that changes in one dimension can be offset by changes in another.
Seriation: Arranging objects in sequential order according to one aspect; like size, weight, volume.
Classification: Grouping objects into categories.

Piaget’s Four Stages of Development:

Sensorimotor 0-2 years Begins to make use of imitation, memory, and thought. Begins to recognise that objects do not cease to exist when they are hidden. Moves from reflex actions to goal-directed activity
Preoperational 2-7 years Gradual language development and ability to think in symbolic form. Able to think operations through logically in one direction. Has difficulty seeing another person’s point of view.
Concrete Operational 7-11 years Able to solve concrete (hands-on) problems in logical fashion. Understands laws of conservation and is able to classify and seriate. Understands reversibility.
Formal Operational 11-15 years Able to solve abstract problems in logical fashion. Thinking becomes more scientific. Develops concerns about social issues, identity.

Applying Piaget’s Theory in the Primary Classroom

Preoperational

1. Use concrete props and visual aids whenever possible.

2. Make instructions relatively short, using actions as well as words.

3. Do not expect the students to be consistently to see the world from someone else’s point of view.

4. Be sensitive to the possibility that students may have different meanings for the same word or different words for the same meaning. Students may also expect everyone to understand words they have invented.

5. Give children a great deal of hands-on practice with the skills that serve as building blocks for more complex skills like reading comprehension.

6. Provide a wide range of experiences in order to build a foundation for concept learning and language.

Concrete Operational

1. Continue to use concrete props and visual aids, especially when dealing with sophisticated material.

2. Give students the opportunity to manipulate and tes
t objects.

3. Make sure presentations and readings are brief and are well organised.

4. Use familiar examples to explain more complex ideas.

5. Give opportunities to classify and group objects and ideas on increasingly complex levels.

6. Present problems that require logical, analytical thinking.

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a contemporary of Piaget. For Vygotsky, the learning process was not a solitary exploration by a child of the environment, as suggested by Piaget’s personal constructivist theory, but rather a process of appropriation by the child of culturally relevant behaviour (McInerney and McInerney:1998)

Vygotsky is remembered mainly for his theory of social constructivism (also known as a cultural-historical theory) in which he believed that cognitive development can be understood as the transformation of basic, biologically determined processes into higher psychological functions.

This implies that children are born with a diverse range of perceptual, attentional and memory capacities which are substantially transformed in the context of socialisation and education. Put in a very simple manner, the theory is that children are only as cognitively developed as the culture in which they live, allows. For Vygotsky, the culture and environment in which a child grows over-rides the mental and cognitive schema processes outlined by Piaget.

As a consequence of this line of thinking, Vygotsky put forward the notion that a child’s learning is shaped by their social influence. Known as Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, he defined it like this “… as the distance between the actual development of a child as determined by the independent problem solving, and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more peers. (Vygotsky:1978)

The essentials of a Vygotskian Social Constructivist Perspective for Education For teachers:

- a belief that education is to develop a student’s personality;

- a belief that education is to facilitate the development of the creative potential of students;

- a belief that effective learning requires the active involvement of the learner

- a belief that teachers direct and guide the individual activity of the students but they do not

dictate or force their own will on them. Authentic teaching and learning come through a collaboration by adults with students

- a belief that the most valuable methods for students’ teaching and learning correspond to their developmental and individual characteristics, and therefore these methods cannot be uniform

- a belief that schools should provide the tools that learners need to internalise the ways of thinking central to participation in the cultural world around them.

Reference:

All of the information on this page has been adapted from either

McInerney, D.M. and McInerney, V. Educational Psychology: Constructed Learning (Second Edition)

(Australia: Prentice Hall, 1998)

or

Woolfolk, A. Educational Psychology (Fourth Edition)

(Englewood Cliffs, USA: Prentice Hall, 199

Some theorists believe believe that intelligence is a basic ability that affects performance on all cognitively oriented tasks. Consequently, an “intelligent” person will do well in computing mathematical problems, in analysing poetry, in taking history essay examinations, and in solving riddles.

Evidence for this position comes from correlational evaluations of intelligence tests.

J.P. Guilford (1967) and Howard Gardner (1983) are the most prominent proponents of multiple cognitive abilities.

Guilford has suggested that there are three (3) basic categories, or

faces of intellect:

mental operations – the process of thinking; contents – what we think about; products – the end results of our thinking.

Mental operations are further divided into five different subcategories:

cognition – recognising old information and discovering new; convergent thinking – where there is only one answer or solution; divergent thinking – used when many answers may be appropriate; evaluation – decisions about how good, accurate, or suitable something is; memory – remembering previous information given or experienced.

Guilford’s model of intelligence has several advantages as well as one major disadvantage.

The model broadens our view of the nature of intelligence by adding such factors as those related to social judgement (the evaluation of others’ behaviour) and creativity (divergent thinking).

Certainly, human mental abilities must be complex, but Guilford’s model may be too complex to serve as a guide for predicting behaviour in real situations or for planning instruction.
In addition the problem of explaining the persistent correlations among all these “separate” mental abilities remains.
Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner has proposed a “theory of multiple intelligences” in which he suggests that people possess at least seven (eight since 1997) different forms of intelligence.

He claims that the capacity of individuals to acquire and advance knowledge reflects the priorities and opportunities that society presents in a cultural domain.

In this framework, intelligence is seen as a flexible, culturally dependent construct and as such it reflects a social constructivist perspective.

Each of the seven intelligences, listed below, are characterised by core components such as sensitivity to the sounds, rhythms, and meanings of words and capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations and desires of other people.

An example of this is:

“a surgeon who needs both the acuity of spatial intelligence to guide the scalpel and the dexterity of the bodily kinaesthetic intelligence to handle it.”

The Multiple Intelligences are not subject specific and can be related to many different learning areas.

Gardner’s own definitions of the Intelligences are seen below :-

1.Linguistic intelligence is the capacity to use language, your native language, and perhaps other languages, to express what’s on your mind and to understand other people. Poets really specialise in linguistic intelligence, but any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or a person for whom language is an important stock in trade highlights linguistic intelligence.

2. People with a highly developed logical-mathematical intelligence understand the underlying principles of some kind of a causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or can manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a mathematician does.

3. Visual spatial intelligence refers to the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind–the way a sailor or aeroplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences. If you are spatially intelligent and oriented toward the arts, you are more likely to become a painter or a sculptor or an architect than, say, a musician or a writer. Similarly, certain sciences like anatomy or topology emphasise spatial intelligence.

4. Bodily kinaesthetic intelligence is the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body–your hand, your fingers, your arms–to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of a production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly dance or acting.

5. Musical intelligence is the capacity to think in music, to be able to hear patterns, recognise them, remember them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have a strong musical intelligence don’t just remember music easily–they can’t get it out of their minds, it’s so omnipresent. Now, some people will say, “Yes, music is important, but it’s a talent, not an intelligence.” And I say, “Fine, let’s call it a talent.” But, then we have to leave the word intelligent out of all discussions of human abilities. You know, Mozart was damned smart!

6. Interpersonal intelligence is understanding other people. It’s an ability we all need, but is at a premium if you are a teacher, clinician, salesperson, or politician. Anybody who deals with other people has to be skilled in the interpersonal sphere.

7. Intrapersonal intelligence refers to having an understanding of yourself, of knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves because those people tend not to screw up. They tend to know what they can do. They tend to know what they can’t do. And they tend to know where to go if they need help.

8. Naturalist intelligence designates the human ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef. I also speculate that much of our consumer society exploits the naturalist intelligences, which can be mobilised in the discrimination among cars, sneakers, kinds of makeup, and the like. The kind of pattern recognition valued in certain of the sciences may also draw upon naturalist intelligence.

Gardner’s view of intelligences affects the way in which we teach in our classrooms. He challenges our ideas of what is intelligent behaviour, in particular, the emphasis in schools on the development of verbal and mathematical abilities of children to the exclusion of a broader range of intelligent behaviours.

The essentials of a multiple intelligence perspective for education:

For teachers

Present material to be learnt in authentic environments.

Encourage all children to develop competencies across all intelligences.

Utilise mentoring and apprenticeships with experts in the area of development.

Develop an interdisciplinary curriculum to facilitate the interconnections between the i
ntelligences.

Encourage the cooperation of parents and community in students’ education.

Ground education in the cultural institutions and practices of our society

Implications for assessment

Integrate curriculum and assessment.

Be flexible in assessment practices to allow individuals to demonstrate their various competencies.

Develop authentic assessments.

Develop alternative assessments such as portfolios and work samples.

Develop intrinsically interesting assessments.

Set fair assessments that do not depend on other competencies as intermediaries.
Below is an example of Spelling Activities based on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences:
Credited to Debbie Draper, Williamstown Primary School, South Australia

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Verbal Linguistic:
Select words from the text
Say them – Look – Say – Cover – Write – Check
Make – crosswords – wonderwords – jumbled words
Add – endings – prefixes – suffixes
Dictionary work – alphabetical order

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Logical Mathematical:
Write your words in code
Do word webs
Identify patterns in your list words
Rank your words in terms of – length – difficulty
Classify your words in several different ways

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Visual/Spatial:
Draw the words – illustrate the meaning
Write the word in fancy lettering styles
Play “Pictionary”
Arrange your words into – chains – ladders
Draw the words as they sound

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Body Kinaesthetic:
Act out the words
Play charades
Say your words in sign language – deaf alphabet
Dance out the meaning of the word
Clap out the syllables of the words

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Musical/Rhythmic:
Tap out the syllables
Create a rap incorporating the list words
Learn Morse code and tap out the words
Write a song and sing the words
Play the sound of the words on a musical instrument

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Interpersonal:
Work with a partner to say/spell words
Do mimes of list words
Form peer coaching teams to help learn words
Play word games in small groups
Games – Scrabble – Memory – Hangman – Boggle – Up Words

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Intrapersonal:
Look at your spelling work – do a P.M.I.
Set goals for improving one aspect of your work
Think about the ways you learn best – what helps/hinders you?
How do you feel about school subjects? Where do you rate spelling?
look back over your spelling assignments – do a self-evaluation

Reference:

Much of the information on this page has been adapted from either

McInerney, D.M. and McInerney, V. Educational Psychology: Constructed Learning (Second Edition)

(Englewood Cliffs, USA: Prentice Hall, 1990)