Contents

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Contents

• Definition
• Personal Beliefs
• Evidence and justification one
• Evidence and justification two

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CURRICULUM AND KNOWLEDGE

• Curriculum is everything, both planned and
  unplanned, that happens in your classroom.
• Planned curriculum is based on the knowledge that
  governments and school systems require you to
  teach. This is presented as syllabus documents.
  Syllabus documents provide you with detail about
  what you need to teach to your students depending
  on their age and stage. In NSW there are six
  syllabus documents in the key learning areas of
  English, Mathematics, Creative Arts, Personal
  Development, Health and Physical Education
  (PDHPE), Science, and Human Society in its
  Environment (HSIE).
• Unplanned curriculum is often referred to as the
  hidden curriculum. There are things you are
  teaching in your classroom or school without
  necessarily meaning to (hence the hidden
  curriculum). For example if you tell/accept
  racist jokes or sexist comments, you are teaching
  your students that this is ok, while also
  excluding the butt of the joke/comment. Another
  example is how you deal with bullying, which has
  the potential to teach your students about forms
  of violence and how to deal with them - even if
  this is not what you are meaning to do (Ailwood,
  J. 2004 CSU Bathurst, Tutorial Notes).

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PERSONAL BELIEFS

• Curriculum is official or codified knowledge that
  is packaged in the school syllabus and taught to
  students (Brennen 1999).
• The above definition identifies the planned
  curriculum that happens in classrooms. In the
  planned curriculum we are presented with what we
  have to teach. However, what may not be as easy
  to teach is the unplanned or hidden curriculum
  (Ailwood 2004) that goes with teaching. Teaching
  involves so much more than just learning syllabus
  documents. Every time that we enter a classroom
  we set the tone for what will happen in that
  room in our dress, appearance, manner, beliefs,
  and work ethic. It is in these areas that we must
  rely on our own judgments, and set the example of
  what we would like our students to follow.

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EVIDENCE AND JUSTIFICATION ONE

• Maths power point presentation
• I chose my maths PowerPoint presentation as it
  broadened my understanding of mathematics and
  technology. I was able to use the skills I had
  gained in digital literacy (PowerPoint
  presentations), spreadsheets, and problem solving
  and apply them to my investigation. Beardon and
  Way (2003) state that as the call for people who
  can readily use new skills and confidently use
  computers increases, so too will teachers have
  the responsibility of incorporating various
  technologies into mathematics. I feel that by
  doing my PowerPoint presentation, I gained a
  greater understanding of how I could incorporate
  ICTs into the curriculum.

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PM PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

• IN ASSOCIATION WITH MATHEMATICIAL INVESTIGATIONS
• C
  S
• R A R
• I S E
• A E B
• T N M
• S U

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What is a staircase number?

• A staircase number is a number that can be
  expressed as a sum of consecutive numbers. For
  example 10, 7, and 12 are staircase numbers
  because
• 10 1234
• 7 34
• 12 345

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We can imagine the staircases as blocks such as

• 10

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Staircase blocks

• 7

9
Staircase blocks

• 12

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What is a staircase number ?

• The number four is not a staircase number as the
  only way of writing it as a sum of consecutive
  numbers is 1111 or 22

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Investigation Task

• Which numbers are staircase numbers and which are
  not?
• Find a recipe for writing a number as a sum of
  consecutive numbers.

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Starting on the case

• The first step was to eliminate all the factors
  of 2 as they cant be a staircase number. So
  2,4,8,16,32,64 and 128 were gooone!!!
• Then start at the beginning of 1 block then add 2
  blocks (12)3 to give the first staircase
  number. Then just keep building up the staircase.
• I showed this in a spreadsheet, but the hyperlink
  has been removed as it can not be linked from
  this PowerPoint on the web.

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Staircase numbers up to 20

• 3 12
• 5 23
• 6 123
• 7 34
• 9 234 or 45
• 10 1234
• 11 56
• 13 67

• 14 2345
• 15 12345 or 456 or 78
• 17 89
• 18 567 or 3456
• 19 910
• 20 23456

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A type of formula

• Take an odd number, add one to it, then divide
  this number by 2. This will give you the last
  number in your step. Then count backwards from
  this number.
• E.g. 314 4/22
• 312
• E.g. 516 6/23
• 523
• E.g. 9110 10/25
• 945

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What the ???

• 3 12 (S2)

• 6123 (S3)
• S2S393 squared

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• S3 (6) S4 (10) 164 squared

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What the ??? continued

• S4 (10)S5 (15) 255 squared
• S5 (15)S6 (21)366 squared

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Even number flights of stairs
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• No of flights of stairs 1 multiplied by the
  number of flights of stairs over 2
• n1n/2.
• Bob the Builder has been called into to repair
  some stairs. The first step starts at 1 block in
  height, and the number of flights of stairs is 8.
  How many blocks will he need so he can fix it.
• 819 98/236
• YES HE CAN!

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Odd number flights of stairs.
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• Flights of stairs 3 no of blocks 6 (32)

22

• Flights of stairs 5 no of blocks 15 (53)

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Doesnt this look familiar?

• Triangular numbers n1(n/2)

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Conclusions

• Always take the ramp from now on instead of the
  stairs.
• This would be a useful extension activity in
  maths, you could ask find the 3 different 15
  block staircases ? or how many blocks will I
  need to build a staircase with 6 flights of
  stairs?

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EVIDENCE AND JUSTIFICATION TWO

• Language essay PowerPoint plan.
• I chose this essay plan, as the focus of my essay
  was on why indigenous children perform so poorly
  in literacy at school. In planning for the essay
  I read much literature on the subject. I learnt
  many of the discourse features of aboriginal
  culture such as lack of eye contact, a dislike of
  not being singled out in front of peers, and how
  group interaction plays an important role in
  aboriginal learning (Hamlen 1998).
• I feel now I have a better understanding of
  aboriginal students, and could apply what I have
  learnt to a classroom setting. Learning more
  about aboriginal culture and the problems
  indigenous students face at school is an area I
  would like to expand upon in my university
  studies.

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Introduction

• Definition of language as social practice
  (Halliday)
• Proposal to examine the role of discourse
  communities, and the socio cultural approaches to
  language.
• Context of schooling, the KLAs and why
  aboriginal children perform poorly at literacy at
  school.

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Discourse communities

• Definition of discourse communities from BUILT
• Expand into Primary discourse (Gee), how we get
  it for free, it is the language we grow up with.
• Secondary discourse (Gee), how we use our primary
  discourse to help us enter a secondary discourse.

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Discourse communities

• How we enter a discourse community
• Acquisition - this is done subconsciously,
  happens without us being aware that it has. Think
  about how we learnt our first language. (Gee)
• Learning - this is done consciously, links to our
  secondary discourse.

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Socio cultural approaches

• Vygotsky interaction with others.
• The zone of proximal development.
• Scaffolding.
• Effective scaffolding, diagnosis, planning,
  withdrawal.
• Modelling.
• The teaching and learning cycle.

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Socio cultural approaches

• The work of Michael Halliday.
• Texts/genres.
• The use of different genres for different social
  purposes.
• Give an example such as a recount.
• A genre holds to certain grammatical features,
  and a certain structure.

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Context of schooling

• Why aboriginal children perform so poorly at
  school when it comes to literacy.
• Go into aboriginal English, and Standard
  Australian English, the differences between the
  two.
• Explore how aboriginal childrens primary
  discourse is AE, yet when they come to school
  they are expected to know SAE.

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Conclusion

• What language as social practice means.
• How where we grow up and the context will affect
  our language use.
• What does this mean to being a teacher, how your
  role is to move students from being outsiders to
  insiders.

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References

• Eades
• Gee
• Halliday
• Malin