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Juggling the timetable: why every school should teach circus skills in PE lessons 

9/9/2016

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From: https://inews.co.uk/explainers/iq/juggling-timetable-every-school-teach-circus-skills-pe-lessons/

PE courses involving circus skills – such as acrobatics, trapeze work, diabolo and even being a clown – are going down a storm in rugby-mad Wales, reports Matt Pickles

Miss Piper strides into her PE class in Pentrehafod School near Swansea with a bulky, lime green kit bag over her shoulder. The bag is not filled with rugby balls, bibs and cones as her pupils might ­expect. Instead, it holds a colourful collection of juggling balls, ­diabolos and spinning plates. Kate Piper is one of 12 teachers in South Wales taking part in a Government-funded project to diversifying traditional sports-based PE lessons by offering pupils circus skills training. The Physical Literacy Project for Schools trial, which is led by the Wales Institute for Physical Literacy based at the University of Wales Trinity St David (UWTSD), will end next March. But those involved say the results so far make a “compelling” case for circus to become a permanent part of PE teaching across the country.
This is likely to prove controversial in some quarters of ­rugby-mad Wales, where many PE teachers, politicians and parents want to produce the next Jamie Roberts or Leigh Halfpenny. But Dr Nalda Wainwright, who is director of the Welsh Institute for Physical Literacy, says that the competition-based approach to PE in primary and secondary schools needs ­urgent reform. “There is nothing wrong with sport at all, but the way it is taught in the UK has hardly changed in the past 70 years,” she says. “The usual format of drills and competition works for a certain percentage of kids but not for everyone. There is a real issue of high dropout rates and a lack of engagement in PE, particularly from girls.” Dr Wainwright says research shows that before the age of eight, children have a natural enthusiasm for movement and physical activity. But after that, if they are not motivated to do physical activity, they are at risk of entering a “negative spiral” of disengagement which can end in obesity, heart disease, lower bone density and increased risk of injury in later life. Girls’ enthusiasm for physical activity drops much more rapidly than boys’. “So it is vital that as many children as possible learn to love movement, and it turns out circus is a great way of doing that,” she says.

Circus is a Big Tent

Dr Wainwright had the idea of using circus skills after seeing recent research carried out in Canadian schools. Academics from the University of Manitoba introduced circus into classes for 10- and 11-year-olds in six schools and compared their progress against another six schools teaching traditional PE. After a year, children taking circus said they felt more confident, more talented, and more eager to participate in PE. Their competence in 15 of the 18 key movement skills tested was “substantially” better than the control group. And, crucially, girls in the circus group were more likely to associate physical activity with happiness.
The Welsh experiment aims to see if these results can be replicated in the UK. NoFitState Circus in Cardiff gave 12 PE teachers six days of initial training and continues to support them as they introduce circus to their classes of 10- and 11-year-olds. “A lot of the teachers were sceptical at first,” admits Lynn Carroll of NoFitState. “But by the end, they said it was by far the best continuing professional development course they had ever been on.” One of these teachers, Kate Piper, says circus has transformed her pupils’ attitudes to PE. “I have been amazed by the high level of inclusion in my classes since I introduced circus,” she says. “The kids no longer identify as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, as they often do when they play traditional sports . Many of the children who used to avoid PE are now asking to take a diabolo home to practice.” She recently covered a class for another PE teacher and brought out her lime green bag of circus props. “At the start of the class, a number of girls came up to me with notes saying they couldn’t take part,” she says. “By the end of the lesson, most of them had ­decided they felt much better!”

Not Just Clowning Around

Why does circus motivate more pupils to take part in PE? “Almost every child I meet is interested in trying circus because it offers something for everyone,” says Lynn Carroll, of NoFitState Circus. “Some like the more physical activities like acrobatics or trapeze, others like skill-based arts of juggling and diabolo, some like learning to be a clown.” Unlike in football or rugby where pupils can compare themselves to professional players, Carroll says pupils in circus classes quickly become skilled enough to teach tricks to their peers and parents, and to perform in front of impressed audiences. “To experience teaching and performing is unbelievably good for their confidence,” she says. So could we see circus in the curriculum in the future? It is already happening in primary schools in Quebec in Canada, and some schools in Austria, Holland and France. A company called ­Albert and Friends Instant Circus teaches circus as part of the curriculum at some schools in London. But Dr Wainwright doesn’t think curriculum change is necessary in Wales, because of the flexibility in the Welsh curriculum and recent changes following the Donaldson Review mean that teachers have the freedom to introduce circus into their classes. When the trial ends in March 2017, she hopes to expand the programme so that circus skills become a regular part of PE in Wales. She also hopes to work with other universities in Europe to design a course to teach circus to aspiring PE teachers. “Even if we don’t get the funding to do this, we will still have reached dozens of PE teachers and trainee teachers,” she says. “We will continue to teach circus skills to our PE students at UWTSD, many of whom will go on to teach circus for the rest of their careers.” So pupils in Wales can expect to try acrobatics, trapeze, clowning and juggling in the coming years. Miss Piper is going to need a bigger bag.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/explainers/iq/juggling-timetable-every-school-teach-circus-skills-pe-lessons/
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Vesta Education New Video

12/15/2015

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We were so fortunate to work with the talented Calliegh Lim, a VIU film student who was interested in producing a short piece on Vesta's new educational programming. We love it! What do you think?
Learn More!
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The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher

11/12/2015

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When kids can get their lessons from the Internet, what's left for classroom instructors to do?

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  • http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-deconstruction-of-the-k-12-teacher/388631/
  • Michael Godsey Mar 25, 2015
Whenever a college student asks me, a veteran high-school English educator, about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, I never think it’s enough to say that the role is shifting from "content expert" to "curriculum facilitator." Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation’s most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The "virtual class" will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country’s best teachers (a.k.a. a "super-teacher"), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record.
I tell this college student that in each classroom, there will be a local teacher-facilitator (called a "tech") to make sure that the equipment works and the students behave. Since the "tech" won’t require the extensive education and training of today’s teachers, the teacher’s union will fall apart, and that "tech" will earn about $15 an hour to facilitate a class of what could include over 50 students. This new progressive system will be justified and supported by the American public for several reasons: Each lesson will be among the most interesting and efficient lessons in the world; millions of dollars will be saved in reduced teacher salaries; the "techs" can specialize in classroom management; performance data will be standardized and immediately produced (and therefore "individualized"); and the country will finally achieve equity in its public school system.
"So if you want to be a teacher," I tell the college student, "you better be a super-teacher."

"We’re at the point where the Internet pretty much supplies everything we need. We don’t really need teachers in the same way anymore."

I used to think I was kidding, or at least exaggerating. Now I’m not so sure. When I consulted a local career counselor who is on the brink of retirement after a lifetime in the public schools, he said I was wrong about my prediction—but only about it taking 20 years. "Try five or 10," he said.

I smiled and laughed, and then suddenly stopped. I thought about how many times I had heard the phrase "teacher as facilitator" over the past year. I recalled a veteran teacher who recently said with anguish, "we used to be appreciated as experts in our field." I thought about the last time I walked into a local bookstore, when the employee asked if she could order a book for me from Amazon. Are teachers going the way of local bookstores? Suddenly I felt like the frog in the pot of water, feeling a little warm, wondering if I was going to have to jump before I retire in 20 years. Try five or 10.
I started reflecting. A decade and a half ago, I dedicated two years toward earning a master’s degree in English literature; this training included a couple of pedagogy courses, and it focused on classic literature, the nature of reading and writing, and the best ways to teach it. A decade ago, my school sent me to an Advanced Placement English conference at which I studied literary analysis for three days. As with the graduate program, I don’t remember the conference involving technology—it was simply the teacher, students, and a lot of books. Now, I don’t remember the last time I’ve attended, or even heard of, any professional-development training focused on my specific subject matter. Instead, these experiences concentrate on incorporating technology in the classroom, utilizing assessment data, or new ways of becoming a school facilitator.
* * *
When I did some research to see if it was just me sensing this transformation taking place, I was overwhelmed by the number of articles all confirming what I had suspected: The relatively recent emergence of the Internet, and the ever-increasing ease of access to web, has unmistakably usurped the teacher from the former role as dictator of subject content. These days, teachers are expected to concentrate on the "facilitation" of factual knowledge that is suddenly widely accessible.
In 2012, for example, MindShift’s Aran Levasseur wrote that "all computing devices—from laptops to tablets to smartphones—are dismantling knowledge silos and are therefore transforming the role of a teacher into something that is more of a facilitator and coach." Joshua Starr, a nationally prominent superintendent, recently told NPR, "I ask teachers all the time, if you can Google it, why teach it?" And it’s already become a cliche that the teacher should transfer from being a "sage on the stage" to being "a guide on the side."
I started looking around me. Teachers like me are uploading onto the web tens of thousands of lesson plans and videos that are then being consolidated and curated by various organizations. In other words, the intellectual property that once belonged to teachers is now openly available on the Internet.
And the teachers unions don’t seem to be stopping this crowdsourcing; in fact, the American Federation of Teachers created sharemylesson.com ("By teachers, for teachers"), which says it offers more than 300,000 free resources for educators. And even though its partner, TES Connect, often charges money for its materials, the private company claims that nearly 5 million resources are downloaded from its sites weekly. Meanwhile, TeachersPayTeachers.com, an open marketplace for lesson plans and resources that launched in 2006, says it has more than 3 million users, including 1 million who signed up in the past year. Close to 1 million educators have purchased lesson plans from the site, while several other teachers are earning six figures for creating the site’s top-selling materials.

The relatively recent emergence of the Internet, and the ever-increasing ease of access to web, has unmistakably usurped the teacher from the former role as dictator of subject content.


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Re-imagining Education 

10/29/2015

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BC School Ditches Report Cards, Individual Subjects

 It's so exciting to be training as a teacher in BC today. The education system is on the crux of massive structural and ideological changes, and we are training to be the leaders in this new paradigm. Teaching is not about instilling set knowledge, it is about inspiring children to be the best versions of themselves. The ability to think both creatively and critically, to research subjects in depth and make their own decisions, and the confidence to communicate using all technologies is what we all need to cultivate in this ever-changing and global world we now live in. This CBC article fills me with hope and inspiration!

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Eagle Mountain Middle School wins $8000 grant to continue unique programs and curriculum development
By The Early Edition, CBC News
Posted: Oct 28, 2015 1:06 PM PT

A middle school in Port Moody is flipping the role of teacher and student on its head, doing away with letter grades and inviting technology into the classroom. 
Just one year old, Eagle Mountain Middle School in Anmore is one of the first in the province to implement the revised curriculum laid out in B.C.'s Education Plan.
  • New B.C. curriculum includes residential schools, Asian immigrant experience
  • Teachers endorse training plan for new curriculum
In doing away with letter grades, the school has revamped its entire process of student evaluation.
"A letter grade in the past sometimes stopped conversation," said principal Nancy Bennet.
Children now use "performance standards language," to describe their understanding of class material. For example, "I am really exceeding expectations. I'm doing more than you asked. I'm going more in-depth," offered Bennet.
Parents are able to keep abreast of their child's learning progress through the FreshGrade app, which instantly sends an email to parents when their child adds a submission to their e-portfolio.
Integrated subjects. Gone are the individual subjects of Social Studies, Science and Language Arts. Instead, they've been blended into an Integrated Studies program.
"They're much more powerful when they're combined as an integrated curriculum. It lets us focus on concepts, and big ideas, and competencies that we see in the new B.C. Ed plan," said Bennet.
  • Read more about B.C.'s Education Plan here
Grade 7 students would typically study ancient civilizations in Socials Studies class, she said. "Now, our students are tackling a theme, a big idea, such as, historically, what are game changers in society?"
"They took on all sorts of aspects in a much more meaningful way than perhaps building a pyramid out of sugar cubes."
No more 'stand and deliver'
When it comes to teaching, Bennet says "we're a 'guide on the side model' rather than 'sage on the stage,'" so that students "have an opportunity to follow different paths with their learning."
"We're not using textbooks, but students are accessing information on their devices," she said.
"They're often navigating through more information in a single year than during our time we would've encountered in ten years."
Other schools to follow suit. Within the next three years, every school teaching kindergarten to Grade 9 will have implemented B.C.'s new curriculum. 
  • B.C. teachers to get training and prep time for new curriculum
But Bennet expects the Ministry of Education to begin making changes to higher education within the year. 
"Every school at every level in our province is working on this, this year. Our universities are changing too," she said.
"We think that we are producing students that are moving forward into secondary [school] with confidence, a nice skillset, and really authentic ownership of their learning."
The school has just won an $8,000 Innovation Grant from from the province to further develop its programs.


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