I think I’ve been in education too long because I’m becoming more frustrated with changes continually being made to the ‘curriculum’. Recently we read that the Year 12 Higher School Certificate syllabus will be overhauled following concerns that subjects were being dumbed down and we continue to fall behind globally. It is interesting to see that everything announced has been … More Spinning the chocolate wheel
The tug-o-war over the Gonski education funding model continues despite Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham wanting to make changes that are designed to cost taxpayers less but still deliver needs-based funding to schools. Gonski has become a bit of a patchwork quilt with something like 27 separate school funding agreements in place with various states, territories … More What’s worth giving a Gonski about
It was media theorist Marshall McLuhan who famously said we look at the present through a rearview mirror. This is what I am doing at the moment as I reflect on the last 498 posts on bluyonder. There have been some posts that were well-received, others critiqued and many that have been ignored. The blog was never going to … More The rearview mirror
There is a goldmine of educational treasure on the Internet if you have the time to dig for it. One of the great discoveries recently has been Dylan Wiliam’s reflections on learning and assessment. Wiliam began his career as a teacher and moved into academic research. He is probably best known for his insightful analysis with Paul Black … More School of getting stuck
In 2001, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam published their seminal article titled Inside the Black Box: raising standards through classroom assessment. It focuses on formative assessment which according to the authors is at the heart of effective teaching. The article suggests that the practice of formative assessment has not been front and centre in most classrooms. In fact the link between formative assessment and … More The Black Box
