Don’t make the mistake of ignoring student feedback in curriculum reviews

We hand year 11 and 12 students the syllabus. “This is the most important document for this subject,” we say. If we expect students to eat, breathe and live the syllabus, shouldn’t they also have a say when it comes time to review it?

The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) is doing a wholesale review of its Stage 6 (year 11 and 12) courses. Teachers and industry will be carefully crafting submissions.

Students, the party with the most skin on this game, won’t be doing the same. But they should have their voice heard.

Ask any year 12 graduate about their syllabi and you’ll have to put a time limit on the conversation. They’ve got a litany of complaints and suggestions; many of which would improve the experience of students studying a subject. Which, if implemented, could motivate them to recommend the course to a peer.

There’s no point asking year 12 graduates to write formal submissions. Instead, what about focus groups or online surveys, with participants facilitated by schools?

Senior syllabi are packed. As an NSW Economics teacher, I would consistently struggle to complete the course to an in-depth level on time. If I felt this pressure, how might students feel as time marched on and dot points remained to do?

When it comes to the syllabus, Let’s hear from the students. And let’s hear from as many as possible — public/private, rural/metro, single sex and coed. The more voices, the better.

What’s the difference between debt and deficit?

Debt and deficit are not the same thing. Many students (and adults) struggle with this distinction.

I can see why. I mean, these two terms sound similar. And they're quite closely linked. But something I try and push in my classes is the need to be precise. This goes back to my journalism days where a colleague once told me that each line of writing needs to be clear and accurate, free from misunderstanding.

This takes us to debt and deficit. Let’s start with deficit. A deficit is when spending exceeds income. Basically, an individual is in deficit when their expenditure is greater than what they earn - - from jobs, investments, etc.

By spending more than they have, these people are in deficit. If we look at this from a government context, if government spending (G) exceeds taxation revenue (T, the main source of government income), then the government is in deficit. More specifically, the government runs a budget deficit.

OK - - this is deficit. And now debt?

As a government, if I'm running a deficit, my spending commitments are larger than my resources. And if I wish to follow through with my planned spending, I need to find the extra money. Most likely I need to borrow the amount of money to fill the gap between spending and revenue.

By borrowing money, the government will incur debt. In this way, a budget deficit will create the need for debt.

Theoreticallly, I could have a deficit but no debt. However, this means I cannot follow through on all my spending commitments. I don’t have sufficient funds. If I'm a business and I have deficits but don’t borrow to fund these deficits, I might have to shut down.

Hopefully this helps to clarify the difference between debt and deficit. They're similar but not the same.

Giving structure to your online Eco lessons

It’s late April 2020. If you’re a teacher, you’re probably teaching remotely.

This is not a post about the pros and cons of doing this. I thought it might be more valuable to discuss how I structure my senior Economics classes in teaching them online rather than face-to-face.

As a pre-service teacher, many of my uni lecturers talked about ‘chunking’ your lessons. Here, you break your whole lesson into digestible chunks, each with its own focus and set of activities. 

At the moment (April/May 2020), our school has shrunk our lessons from around an hour face-to-face to 45 minutes in the remote format. This gives the students a 15 minute break between classes. 

So. My Year 12 Eco students arrive, and I’ve got 45 minutes for the day’s work. How do I structure this? How do I chunk it?  

Chunk one: Past Higher School Certificate (HSC) question

Time taken: Around 10 minutes

This reflects the structure of my regular in-person classes too. I tend to start with a past exam question relating to the content we’re studying.

In remote teaching, I use Microsoft OneNote as my ‘whiteboard’. I find it particularly valuable because I can save this ‘whiteboard’ as a PDF and post it to Google Classroom afterwards so students can have a record of this class. I reckon it’s more valuable than having a Zoom recording or equivalent of the class. More efficient to review the content.

So I paste an exam question to the OneNote document (one or two questions) and ask students to work through them. I give them five or so minutes to do this. We then review their responses and clarify any mistakes. This task also gets students thinking about the content we’ve been discussing or will be discussing.

I can’t remember why, but Baby Shark was a massive part of this lesson.

Chunk two: Reviewing the homework

Time taken: Around 10-15 minutes (including some clarification of content)

I use a ‘flipped learning’ approach in my teaching of senior Economics. This means students go through the content for homework (via one of my YouTube videos and accompanying questions) and then we apply this content in class. 

Eco content can be complex and students will often have questions stemming from this homework. To address this, I dedicate a portion of the class to reviewing the homework. Not re-learning or redoing but clarifying by answering questions and double-checking students’ responses to the homework questions. 

Sometimes the process is very simple; sometimes it’s a little more complex and requires more time.

Chunk three: Applying the content

Time taken: around 15-20 minutes

In remote teaching, I find lecturing can add to students’ feeling of disconnection and of learning being a passive activity. So I set students specific questions to work through after we’ve reviewed the content.

I leave all students unmuted and encourage them to interact with each other, just as they would in a regular class, to develop responses. I avoid contributing. I want them to engage in the process and sit with the difficulty as much as possible.

We’ll then review the answers. I’ll either type up suggestions or again use OneNote as my whiteboard. 

Chunk four: End of lesson review

Time taken: Five-ish minutes

Students at our school may have up to six remote lessons a day. Given this, I think it’s important to finish the lessons on time and give students the maximum amount of break possible. 

At the end of the class, we do a quick review of where we started and what we covered. Typically I’ll scroll through the OneNote doc on screen which allows us to see precisely where we started and where we ended up. 

I’ll also assign the next bit of homework so students can continue the cycle of learning.