ii

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION - THE STUDENT AS OBSERVER
THEME 1: MALTESE EDUCATION SYSTEM
THEME 2: STUDENT SUPPORT
THEME 3: SCHOOL CULTURES
THEME 4: CLASSROOM INTERACTION
THEME 5: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
THEME 6: THE CURRICULUM
THEME 7: ASSESSMENT ISSUES IN MALTESE SECONDARY SCHOOLS
IV
10
10
15
16
26
40
53
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People in all walks of life have always wondered how to acquire the skills and competencies of a professional. Individuals strive to advance in their professions and to acquire the salary and status of highly respected members of that profession: the result of this effort is called intelligent behaviour. All of us want to acquire the intelligent behaviour frequently observed among those we call experts or professionals, but we know that becoming an expert or a professional requires more than simply a desire to be good. This work book focuses on one of the prime means by which to become a professional: observing others and incorporating what is seen and heard into one's own behaviour.
To be sure more is required than simply watching others who are competent in their jobs. To become competent at teaching you must know what to look for, and you must have a framework or structure by which what is observed can be made meaningful for your own behaviour. Other skills are needed, too. You must be psychologically ready and physically prepared to observe, have tools for categorizing and recording what is seen, and have a knowledge of content and teaching methodology. But even this is not enough: to become an expert you must understand the patterns and sequences of effective teaching that make all the parts work as a whole.
Where do effective teachers learn to make the parts work as a whole? How do they bring their natural abilities, knowledge of content and teaching methods, and professional goals together into a harmonious pattern of intelligent behaviour? It is not from books or training sessions alone – these can focus on only a small number of activities. It is not from teaching experience, either - the hectic pace of the classroom makes it impossible for many teachers to reflect on their own patterns of behaviour.
Only through observing more experienced teachers can all these ingredients be brought together into a meaningful pattern to be modelled in your own classroom.
As we will see through the various activities and tasks in this workbook, the purpose of observation is to improve yourself. Plans for self-improvement are realistic when they are based on your own unique strengths and weaknesses and on the school context in which they are to occur. The importance of this latter point is seldom recognised: a teaching activity that is effective in one school or classroom may not be effective in another. No amount of experiences can prepare you for every context.
Although the different exposure and opportunities you will gain through student teaching, discussion with different educators and other community members, the realities of a specific classroom or context will determine how and how much you learn and grow as a teacher. This is the unique function of observation: to understand teaching within a specific context (e.g. a specific class of learners) and to develop a programme of self-improvement based on that understanding. Learning by observation involves four separate processes: attention, retention, production and motivation: iv

•
Attention: Observers cannot learn unless they pay attention to what is happening around them. This process is influenced by characteristics of the model, such as how much one likes or identifies with the model, and by characteristics of the observer, such as the observer's expectations or level of emotional arousal.
•
Retention: Observers must not only recognise the observed behaviour but also remember it at some later time. This process depends on the observer's ability to code or structure the information in an easily remembered form or to mentally or physically rehearse the model's actions.
•
Production: Observers must be physically and intellectually capable of producing the act. In many cases the observer possesses the necessary responses. However, sometimes reproducing the model's actions may involve skills the observer has not yet acquired. It is one thing to carefully watch a circus juggler, but it is quite another to go home and repeat those acts.
•
Motivation: In general, observers will perform the act only if they have some motivation or reason to do so. The presence of reinforcement or punishment, either to the model or directly to the observer, becomes most important in this process. Thus, reflecting on the ways teachers and other educators/stakeholders handle the various challenges they face on a daily basis will help you develop important insights as to how to become a good and effective teacher. In order to make your visits to schools productive your tutors, your workbook and reader will help you to plan:
•
What to do before your Wednesday school/classroom visit;
•
What to do during your visit; and
•
What to do after your visit.
By now practically all schools and quite a number of teachers have been involved in supporting the Faculty of Education and our students out on School Experience and
Teaching Practice. At the same time it is important to note that it is only since 1999 that secondary schools have been involved in supporting First Year B.Ed (Hons) students. There is still a lot of work that needs to be carried out but we are confident that with the good will that already exists the practice will improve.
S
It is important for one and all to note that except for an occasional observation by a school administrator or an education officer, most teachers are not accustomed to being observed. As a result, anxiety, concern, may be felt by many a teacher, and may even wonder, as you fill the instrument forms or ask particular questions, that their professional competence is being put to the test. During observation, these concerns can interface with a teacher's performance and make it less representative of his/her typical behaviour.
For such genuine reasons establishing a good, open and sincere rapport with your co- operating teacher is essential. On our part as a Faculty we are promoting the running v

of a Certificate course in Mentoring which aims to attract those teachers who can serve as exemplars to novice teachers. Mentors, once in place, will play a crucial role in supporting our students out on Field Placement as they are there at the school site on a day-to-day basis. Thus. they are in an ideal position to hear, see and address any concerns that the student teachers may have; provide ongoing feedback and support; and provide opportunities for student teachers to observe good practice.
At the same time the Teaching Practice Committee will also hold various meetings with Heads of School to explain and discuss the role that Field Placement has in the
B.Ed (Hons) Programme.
On your part there are a number of things that you need to carry out
Once you have been assigned a school it is important to establish contact with the
Head of School and introduce yourself. Get to know the names and preferred form of address of the school administrators and secretarial staff. Share your goals for this
Field Placement with the Head of School. Gaining the support and co-operation of the administrative staff is essential for a successful experience at the school you are posted to.
The Head of School will organise an introductory meeting with the teacher(s) where you can explain the various tasks that you will be going through during the
Wednesday observations. The purpose of this introduction is to reduce the defensiveness and dispel any fear that may exist. If you are developing your portfolio share it with your co-operating teacher/mentor; explain the various sections, especially your developing philosophy of education.
Find out some general information about the students you will be observing. It is important to gather information about the school catchment area, arrangements for school transport, choice of subjects by the students and how this effects their distribution into classes.
The main objective for First Year School Experience Programme states that your exposure in schools is meant to act as an introduction "to the nature of secondary schools" with a clear need to develop the skill of reflecting on the various school experiences. Yet, it is to be remembered that mastering the contents of this pack is no guarantee that classroom observation alone will improve your teaching. A carpenter, plumber, physician, or lawyer may know the mechanics of a given trade and still not he expert at providing the service required. Something more is needed to achieve expertise - something beyond factual, observational, or academic learning. That something is a desire for, and an openness to, change and development. No one becomes effective or achieves the status of a professional without the desire to continually adapt to the ongoing stream of challenges and problems in his particular work environment. Schools are no different than executive boardrooms, hospital emergency rooms, or tenthinning baseball games: they all require split-second decisions - new and spontaneous reactions that sometimes defy even the best-laid plans. As you seek to become a professional, you will need a willingness to open yourself to new ways to responding to your world - ways beyond the set of vi

expectations you have developed over the years. Learning to teach is a process of expanding one's personal frame to include new insights, and accepting the fact that frame building is a lifelong process. Effective executives, surgeons, and athletes, as well as teachers, bring to their work the personal attributes (empathy, co- operativeness, realism, goal orientation, confidence, enthusiasm, flexibility, and self- reliance) that make success happen. You can enhance both your personal and professional development in each of these areas through the various activities and tasks that you will undertake. Please note that activities are conducted during your tutorial sessions whilst tasks will be carried out in schools.
School experience is meant to introduce first year students to the nature of secondary schools and classrooms, seen from the perspective of prospective teachers. As such, students will adopt the role of reflective observers, drawing on theoretical insights in order to make pedagogical sense of the varieties of experiences that arise and are constructed within a secondary school setting. In particular, first year student- teachers will focus on the school as an institution, on the classroom, on the curriculum, on teachers, and on learners. By focusing on the cultures of the school, they will become more aware of what it means to be educated at the secondary school level, and pursue the construction of their identity as prospective teachers on the basis of experience and critical reflection.
School experience will last two years. The first year will concern mainly a generic introduction to the cultures of secondary schools and classrooms, and of teaching and learning, as outlined in the stated objective. The second year will focus on the specific subject specialisations of students, and on the methodology of teaching those subjects.
The academic responsibility for the first year programme lies with the Department of
Foundations. That of the second year programme lies with the two Secondary departments
The first year School Experience programme will be spread over the whole year, commencing in October/November and ending in February/March. Students will be expected to go to a secondary school every alternate Wednesday, and spend the whole morning at that school.
Students will be attached to one class, and follow this through the year in the different subjects that that class takes. Students can only change their class after an extended period of observation, and in consultation with the head of school and the university tutor.
Students should focus on general school life, on classroom interaction and activities, on teaching and learning. This is a gradual and supervised induction into the cultures of the school and of the classroom. vii

Students must familiarize themselves with the objectives, evaluation, tasks and learning outcomes for their school experience. Each student is expected to integrate themselves as members of the school community; to demonstrate at all times a clear sense of moral and professional responsibility; and to show a sense of awareness of their influence as role models for adolescents. Accordingly, you will: a) arrive punctually and regularly at the beginning and remain until the end of each day as per attached schedule; b) interact positively with students and school personnel; c) address tasks assigned during your tutorials; d) maintain an open dialogue with the co-operating teachers; e) seek and accept responsibilities for the field experience in consultation with your tutor and teacher(s). f) participate, when possible, in certain aspects of school life including extra- curricular activities, parent-teacher conferences, staff meeting, professional days, etc.
The School Experience Programme will be assigned 8 credits. Continuous assessment will be used and will be based on the following:
The Workbook containing observations, tasks, analyses (4 credits)
Attendance and participation during S.E. tutorials; (2 credit)
A Tutorial group presentation at the Seminar which concludes the first year School
Experience Program. (2 credit)
C
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This one-day Seminar will bring the Programme to an end, and introduce the School
Experience programme for the following year. The main objective is to encourage students to: a) Work as a team within the tutorial groups b) Have a goal to aim for throughout the whole year c) Produce a pedagogically interesting presentation that reflects their learning throughout the first year in the Faculty. viii

d) Create an event that gives character and ethos among the secondary track students e) Provide an opportunity for students to learn from each other.
Students will take a 10 minute presentation on the theme: "Teaching and learning in
Secondary School".
The presentation can be a play, an audio-visual presentation, the dramatisation of a critical incident or a dilemma, etc.
This workbook presents to you activities and tasks which the respective authors have built round the themes that you will be reading and discussing during your tutorial sessions. Before you start this engagement you will also have the opportunity to involve yourself in an introductory session that will help you to appreciate the importance behind observation as a skill to be learnt and applied, and the school as a community and a centre of learning.
May you enjoy the journey that you have embarked on!
Christopher Bezzina ix

CHRISTOPHER BEZZINA & DAVID PURCHASE
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour."
Auguries of Innocence
William Blake
What we see is often determined by what we want to see, or are prepared to see. Have you ever noticed that when you look closely at something you discover details never seen before? When your observation is focused you may see things in a different way, you unravel new things, you give new meaning to existing perceptions.
The introductory session serves to begin our journey of learning to observe, to notice
"grains of sand" in the span of a single lesson, and to see "eternity in an hour". Upon the following example:
Five-year old Mario was running in the playing field with his friends when his father came over to pick him up. When he saw his Dad approaching he ran over to greet him but tripped and fell to the ground. Silence filled the air. For a moment, Mario looked stunned... about to cry (in pain or fear!) His father wondered whether he was hurt.
Their eyes met. Laughing, Mario's father scooped him up into his arms. "Wow.. It's great to have you so excited to see me!
Did you expect the scene to end in this way?
Can you come up with a different ending?
As individuals we experience similar events on a daily basis. Like Mario and his father each of us experiences many interactions but their outcome depends very much on our actions and reactions. In fact, as we try to make sense of these events we create a personal framework or set of expectations about the nature of the world and our appropriate responses to events within it. This set of expectations influences what we see in a particular situation and at the same time what we choose to ignore.
Just as most individuals construct a framework for interpreting the events of daily life, psychologists believe that professionals create frames for understanding their specialised field. Sternberg (1995) is of the opinion that intelligent behaviour is marked more by the structure or frame that one brings to a given task rather than by what one knows about the task beforehand. Thus, developing a professional frame from which to evaluate and act on events is a critical skill for becoming an expert. x

Borich states that ‘from observing the actions and interactions of professionals, less experienced individuals gain a sense of what is valued in a particular discipline and how professionals working in that field typically respond to events’ (1999, p.3).
However, whilst observation may seem a simple, straightforward, every-day event, just like eating or breathing, it is important to remember that, like Mario's father, we interpret the events that we experience according to our own personal frame. Without direction our school and classroom observations may serve to validate much of what we ‘expect’ to see, hence allowing us to see some things which we want to see, and overlook others. As a result, observations need to be focused if they are to be helpful to us in our professional life as teachers.
O
•
Through the initial contact with the school the following objectives will be addressed: familiarisation with aspects of school life (e.g. particular rituals and norms)
• compiling information about school policies and procedures
• learning to observe particular aspects of school life and discussing them with school members, student teachers and tutors
• analysing particular components of the school climate.
W
As you make both formal and informal observations on your way to becoming a teacher, it is important to realise that you are about to join a complex and demanding profession - a profession that requires not only intelligence, motivation, physical stamina, a strong inner belief, and a commitment to work with others, but also an acute sense of sight and sound. We shall discuss this point as this chapter unfolds.
What is it you see when you enter a school? Is it only rooms filled with desks, with students seated and studiously completing the task the teacher has set? Or is the school a bigger entity? Is it a passive or a dynamic environment? Is it a dull or invigorating one, encouraging different forms of interaction and learning to take place?
What we see can be conditioned by what we expect or even want to see. If you are looking for the student who is most engaged in their work, will you see the one who is off-task, wasting the time provided? To see is not to observe. A simple dictionary definition of observation is:
The act, habit or faculty of observing; scientific watching and noting of phenomena as they occur, as distinct from experiment; the result of such scrutiny; a fact scientifically noted; experience and knowledge gained by systematic observing ...
For the purpose of School Experience, the last part of the quote is most relevant. It is not the purpose of this chapter to lead you into the variety of techniques that can be employed when observation is used as a tool of pure research. There must, however, be a connection between the two. The experience and knowledge the activities and
2

tasks of this School Experience will help you in a conscious consideration of your own growth as a teacher.
Reflection is the deep thinking that is stimulated by a given situation or set of circumstances and the determining of the effect it will have on you. For this to happen, observation itself must be an active process. It must be an inquiry made for the specific purpose of discovering something. It is not recognition of, or perception of the familiar.
Observation is searching and deliberate. You start by stating what it is you want to observe, focusing yourself toward that aim. You must determine the manner in which you will record the results, and therefore, the way in which you will analyse those results. Observation is thus a multi-faceted experience and comprises more than the time actually spent observing. It also includes preparation for the period of time you will spend observing a specific setting, and a follow-up of the time spent there. The preparation includes the selection of a focus and purpose and a method of data collection. (your duties at this stage are referred to as ‘activities’ in the Workbook).
Observation entails some form of engagement, often involving collaborating with others namely your co-operating teacher(s), your peers and your tutor. (your duties at this stage are referred to as ‘tasks’ in the Workbook). The follow-up includes analysis, discussion and interpretation of the data and experiences acquired in the learning environment and reflection on the whole experience.
In the first year of School Experience the focus is the school. That is to say the whole entity, not just a classroom and the events that happen within that defined space. A school is a dynamic community of people. To say it is a place of teachers and students is limiting: such a statement ignores the other people within the community. The physical building and the people all supply a structure that is the school and this structure influences the interactions of the people.
Throughout the work you will be guided as to what should be observed. Sometimes you will be guided as to the method of recording. Your analysis of a situation is likely to be discussed, so the records provide the evidence on which you are basing your opinion. Through communicating your opinion and listening to the opinion of others, you will find the capability to grow into the profession of teaching.
3

Before your first School Experience visit
Identify the different 'people' that form the school community. Draw up a list, noting different categories. Discuss within your tutorial group and note existing differences.
You will need to verify and extend on your observations on your first school visit.
Note that through this exercise you are learning to appreciate the similar and different perceptions we have of various aspects of school life.
First school visit
What are your initial reactions as soon as you enter the school?
Is the atmosphere warm and welcoming or cold and clinical?
What makes you draw such conclusions?
How would you describe the people at the school?
How have you been received?
Who is going to be responsible for the Faculty students at the school you have been attached to?
During your initial visits it is imperative for you to:
•
Collect information about the school, for example; the history of the school school prospectus school development plan school calendar names of administrative staff (e.g. Head of School, Assistant Heads of School,
Subject Co-ordinators. Secretarial staff) names of teachers you will be observing existing school policies (e.g. subjects taught, time-tables, homework policy, pastoral care policy) school procedures and codes of practice
•
Open a file so as to keep such school records which you can easily access.
•
Obtain a weekly time-table for the classes you will be observing. Discuss it with your mentor, class teachers and tutor.
4

Task 2:
The start to a 'typical' school day
The entity that is a school comes together each day. The people arrive in the building and the interactions of the day can begin. You are asked to arrive at the building half an hour before the beginning of the teaching day. Record the routines of this part of the day as you observe them, up to the time the first lesson begins.
•
You will need to observe: when the non-teaching staff start their duties; the routines of the teachers as they arrive; the way the student body are admitted to the school premises: the first official function of the day for teachers and/or students.
•
Take notes as you go along.
•
Reflect, share observations.
As you analyse the results, you should reflect on why the need for different start times exist. If the day of teaching starts at 8.30, why do the teachers come in to the school earlier? What is the significance of the way the school starts the teaching day? What differences can you state exist between what you have observed and what you remember from your own secondary school days.
This task will help you focus on seeing the school from the perspective of neither a student of the school nor a teacher in the school. You are not participating in the activity. Indeed, you cannot yet be part of the routine. You have to change your point of view to be able to dispassionately observe what is going on around you and to try to gain an understanding of the events.
5

Exploring the school premises
Systematically record all forms of display that can be seen in the school building, with the exception of displays in the classrooms themselves.
Systematically record all the sites where such a display would be possible, noting what in your opinion could be done to make this a good site for displays.
Comment on the displays you have witnessed. With these comments add-your opinion of the aesthetics of the building.
Apart from the possibility of stimulating students to learn, what other purposes could be served by such displays?
Teachers in Maltese secondary schools frequently do not have their own room. They move to the room occupied by the class. In such a situation it might be assumed that the form teacher is the only one who has the time and ability to provide a display in the room itself. What are the teachers' opinions about this? What have they done / are doing to enhance the learning environment? What criteria would have to be met for you to be confident to arrange a display, either of work or posters relating to your subject in a place that was open to the inspection of all the students, staff and visitors to the school?
6

S
These introductory tasks have helped us to get a feel of what school life is about. You are also learning to appreciate - through the various discussions you have had – that there is a difference between seeing and observing. Remember that you are not in the knowledge of the truth. You are not anymore objective than anybody else. Every participant's perception is always partial. A sharing of our observations helps us to start identifying the different pieces that make up the complicated jigsaw puzzle called the school. As Borich (1999, p.40) points out as you learn to observe systematically ‘you will realise that nothing is as important to life in classrooms as that which, at first glance, appears unimportant.’
See whether you have experienced the learning outcomes listed below. Learning
Outcomes: By the end of this introductory session you should :
• be familiar with various aspects of school life and the reason(s) behind such rituals and norms
• be in possession of various school documents
• have conducted initial observation sessions
• have a feel about what helps to create a warm or cold school climate.
R
Sternberg (1995) The Triarchic Mind: A new theory of human intelligence. New
York: Penguin Books.
Borich G.D. (1999) Observation Skills for Effective Teaching. (3rd ed.)
Colombus, OH: Merrill.
7

Date ______________
8

9

Mario Testa
(Reader pp.
9 9))))
A: Get into groups and give your impressions and your understanding in educational terms about the following:
•
Flexibility
•
Child-centred approaches
•
Students’ potential
B: From your experience in the schools at your particular College, what idea of networking have you developed?
Refer to the article.
A: What is the function of the Council of Heads?
10

B: What structures are in place in the schools to address teachers’ professional development?
C: What kind of leadership takes place at school level?
D: Give your own ideas about the above three questions.
A: During classroom observation, identify an instance/circumstance where the teacher has adopted the principle of flexibility during his/her lesson.
B: To what extent are the students being actively involved in the lesson? Give examples.
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A: Go round the school and highlight the educational programmes you think are taking place from your initial observation of what is going on at the school.
B: Ask an Assistant Head of School to highlight for you the most important policies that are adopted in your particular school.
Task 3 :
A: Set a meeting with the Head of School and ask him/her about his/her understanding of networking at school and College level. What does this mean? What is being done in real terms? Write down examples of such networking.
12

Date ______________
13

14

Joseph Fenech
“ Student Support ” (Reader pp.
No tasks
15

Joseph Fenech
Getting to know about school culture
First let us take a look back at our own student days in order to see what we can recollect about the place which we frequented for at least 13 years of our lives. Recall your days at the different stages of your career as a student.
1. Draw up a list of the things you remember and then compare it with that of your colleagues in the group.
2. Why do you remember these things?
3. What impact did they have on your life as a student at school?
4. What do they tell you about how things are done in the different schools you attended?
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5. Are the things you remember similar to those of your colleagues? What reflections do you make about this?
Most probably, you included some of these things in your list:
• special places (headteacher’s office, labs, etc.)
• particular characters (teachers, fellow students, etc.)
• ceremonies and rituals (morning assemblies, prize days, etc.)
• special events (sports days, parents’ meetings, etc)
• silent or noisy classrooms
• particular images
These are all part of what is meant by school culture.
Defining culture
At this stage two points need to be made. The first one is that there are conflicting views about whether there is only one culture in the school (the holistic view) or whether there is an assemblage of various subcultures (the pluralistic view). A realistic view, in the sense that it portrays more adequately school realities, will be to claim that there exists a dominant or mainstream culture which is normally shared by the majority of the people within the institution while accepting also the existence of different subcultures some of which may be in conflict with the mainstream school culture. For instance, certain pupil sub-cultures, such as deviant ones, go directly against the norms and values espoused by the school.
Secondly, the culture of secondary schools in any educational system differs from that of primary ones. Both Nias (1999) and Hargreaves (1986) describe primary school culture as a culture of care and control while that of secondary schools is more formal, fragmented and detached. There are, of course, reasons for this. Secondary schools are larger, have more hierarchic organizational structures, cultivate values of competitive individualism and are more academically oriented. The implication is that it is important for us to consider the situation of students in the first forms of secondary schools in order to understand better the problems they may have in passing from the sheltered atmosphere of the primary school to the more anonymous atmosphere of the secondary. It is important to keep these characteristics in mind when you come to conduct the activities you will be assigned in school.
17

Describe, in your own words, what you understand by school culture.
The set reading takes Handy and Aitken’s (1986) conceptual categories of “role’ and
“task” culture because they are considered to be useful in explaining the prevailing cultures in our schools.
1. On the basis of the short time that you have spent so far in the school, which of the characteristics listed in Figures 1 and 2 does the school share?
2. Illustrate some of the ways in which the culture of the school manifests itself.
The knowledge and understanding you have developed so far is helpful enough to enable you to carry out some activities in the school where you have been placed for
School Experience. As I have already explained, getting to know about the culture of a school entails handling the qualitative methodologies of observation, interviewing and document analysis.
Ask the Headteacher/Assistant Headteacher/Senior member of staff to take you around the school (even as a group) to take a first impression of it as a place of teaching and learning. Jot down visual manifestations of the culture and construct a cultural inventory. Write brief descriptions of what you see and hear (consult the following list) and, if possible, collect documents such as pictures, photographs, drawings etc.
Ceremonies
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Rituals and symbols
Artefacts
Constructed environments
Significant objects
School Uniform
Wall Displays
Other
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Spend some time observing the teacher in the classroom. Take note of the physical layout, wall displays and teacher-student interaction. Write down brief descriptions either on the spot or as soon as you walk out of the classroom as outlined in the following questions:
1. How is the classroom laid out?
2. Include a classroom plan to scale as much as possible.
3. What do you infer about the teaching and learning process from this arrangement?
4. What is displayed on the walls and in what manner?
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5. What position does the teacher take while s/he is teaching?
6. What inferences about the learning process do you draw from what transpires between teacher and students?
7. What do the objects you see around tell you about the culture of teaching in that particular classroom?
8. In what ways is it connected with the mainstream culture of the school?
Visit the staffroom and even informally, use the opportunity to chat with the teachers about the work they do, the beliefs and ideas they hold about teaching and learning, the students and education in general. Write a brief account of the conversation.
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The activities you carried out in the school are meant to provide you with the information required to begin to construct, at least in a rudimentary way, a picture of the culture of the school where you are doing your School Experience. Discuss the following questions with your tutor and peers.
1. What picture of the school culture emerges from your observation and interview data?
2. What are the general features of the culture of the school?
3. Compare your impressions with those of your colleagues in the group. What similarities and differences can you detect?
4. What conclusions do you draw about the cultures of the schools from these?
5. What features of the school culture do you feel are enhancing the teaching and learning process?
6. What features of the school culture need to be changed to bring about improvements in the process of teaching and learning
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7. What are your ideas about the culture of schooling in Malta from what you have learned in this topic?
References
Handy, C. & Aitken, R. (1986) Understanding Schools as Organizations. London:
Penguin.
Hargreaves, A. (1986) Two Cultures of Schooling. London: Falmer.
Nias, J. (1999) ‘Primary Teaching as a Culture of Care.’ In J Prosser, School Culture.
London: Paul Chapman.
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Date ______________
24

25

Mary Darmanin
“Classroom Interaction in Maltese Seco ndary
Studying classroom interaction gives us the opportunity to explore processes within the structures of schooling. We are interested in discovering intentions and motives, different constructions of meaning or definitions of situations as well as the hidden rules that guide behaviour. Pupils and teachers must continually interpret each others' actions and redefine situations. Norms and values are only significant in so far as they are interpreted by participants during the interaction process.
In Darmanin's chapter you will find Woods' (1979) basic premises of interactionist theory:
1. Human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings they have for them
2. This attribution of meaning to objects through symbols is a continuous process
3. This process takes place in a social context
Together with your tutor and your group can you list some examples of each of the above from your own experience as a pupil, as well as from what you have observed in school?
Example:
“When I first went into senior school I was very conformist. I looked at the notice board daily, duly reading information and following instructions as they appeared.
The meaning the notice-board (and compliance) had for me was that it signified my membership in the academic peer culture of the school. As time went on I became more mischievous. Whilst still belonging to academic peer culture, I was ready to take some risks and ignore notices as and when I felt like. I would tell teachers that I hadn't seen the note or something similar. By the end of the year I was disaffected by some school processes, such as the religious activities, and together with friends I drew 'challenging' additions around notices of this type. Through the process of the
26

school year the meaning I gave to certain notices had changed. I used the symbol of a
'squiggle', 'words' or 'colours' to signify the changed meaning.”
Another secondary school pupil who demonstrates how interaction is a process of meaning making and interpretation in a social context is Fabienne (Saliba, 1999) who is discussed in Darmanin's chapter.
Initial Encounters in the Secondary Classroom
An important phase in the construction of meaning in the classroom comes in the initial encounter. This does not refer simply to the first time pupils meet a teacher, which in the secondary school is more complex because of the number of teachers a pupil meets. The initial encounter takes place over a period of time, during which pupils and teachers test each other out, and after a process of establishment and negotiation, they set the 'rules' for what is to come later.
Stephen Ball (1980) finds that following a 'honeymoon' period when both pupils and teachers in the classroom are happy to get to know each other, a more 'pessimistic' environment evolves. Here pupils act as 'data gatherers', where a number (or even one) of pupils try to 'suss out' the teacher.
For example, Beynon and Atkinson (1984) found that the boys he observed in a
Cardiff secondary school used a number of different strategies to get more information about the teacher, to see how far they could go and also to alleviate boredom. These strategies included:
1.
Group formation and communication (such as sitting with friends in formation, or maintaining eye contact as prevention of complete teacher domination and others).
2.
Joking (to assess and judge teachers by their reaction therefore often interpreted as threat to order and discipline, risqué or even sexist jokes directed at female teachers and others).
3.
Challenging actions (verbal) (such as stupid questions, pseudo information, requests for information, answering back, challenging comments and others)
4.
challenges (non-verbal) (such as 'putting on a show', gestural and postural challenges, noises, physical challenges).
5.
Interventions (such as shouting out, maniacal laughter, dramatic entrances, walkabouts; anything to stop the teacher doing what s/he was doing).
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6.
Play (bag games, ruler flashing, bringing-things-to-school play, decorating and collecting).
These strategies are often in response to the traditional, teacher dominated environment of selective or non-progressive schools.
In other types of schools and classrooms teachers might immediately negotiate a number of 'rules' with pupils about grouping and seating, about curricular topics or pacing of the work and others. In these classrooms there will be less testing or 'sussing out' of teachers.
The initial encounter can be said to be over when negotiation has lead to a working consensus and there is an atmosphere of well-established and acceptable routines in classroom interaction as Darmanin found in the needlework class in Tama school.
1. In your own words describe what is meant by 'negotiation' and 'working consensus'.
2. Can you list some of the reasons why it appears to Darmanin that there has been a negotiated working consensus and the phase of the initial encounter is now over?
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Tas k 1::::
A.
Processes take place within particular contexts and cultures as you noted in the previous Situation. Whilst some are indeed common and seemingly constant over time, there are also considerable differences across schools, teachers, subject cultures and pupil cultures. School organisational cultures have some important effects on classroom life. We may well find some common patterns of classroom interaction, but we will also find a number of differences which are usually related to a variety of factors.
Can you list at least five factors of difference in the classroom interaction of different classrooms?
B.
Now compare your own list to this one suggested by the research in education: i.
Teacher role and teacher biography ii.
Subject content/cultures and their impact on subject specialised language, on location of lesson, on classroom arrangement/seating iii.
Pupil polarisation: streaming/setting/mixed ability teaching, class size, pupil orientation to pro or anti-school culture iv.
Single sex or mixed classroom settings; age of pupils v.
Classroom as pupil home base or teacher/subject home base
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Keep fieldnotes (at every observation session) which would enable you to answer the following questions. You will be expected to present them for discussion during your next tutorial.
1. Have you noticed pupils employ any of the strategies mentioned above to get to know the teacher? Give concrete examples and try to give an approximate date to these too.
2. What aspects of classroom life have pupils tried to negotiate?
3. Has there been any change in pupil behaviour since the initial encounter that would indicate that successful negotiation has taken place? (For example, do pupils still ask how much time they have to work on a task; or how long or neat it needs to be; do they still want to change places; or test teacher tolerance to noise, tardiness and others?)
4. What strategies does your co-operating teacher develop to cope with pupil strategies and other classroom constraints?
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You have now looked at teaching and learning from the point of view of pupil and teacher strategies. You will have found a number of attitudes and actions which can be categorised as 'strategies'. One formal definition is that strategies are "constructed responses to institutionally mediated constraints. That is, pupils and teachers develop strategies to cope with the demands of the classroom and the school. Strategies are therefore situationally embedded. Some become routine whilst others are developed each time a new situation presents itself. Although they are developed or negotiated in a group, strategies are also individual responses to particular situations. Thus, the biographical element of pupil or teacher life and career are important elements here.
From our discussion of initial encounters and our reading of examples from Tama
(Darmanin, in the Reader) Southbrook (Saliba, 1999) and St David's (Mifsud, 1997) we already have some idea that there are many differences amongst pupils. Moreover, the same pupil may take a different view of school and schooling in different circumstances.
We know from research that primary school children are more satisfied with their schooling than secondary school pupils. The latter become increasingly more dissatisfied with school. The 'successful' pupils are as critical of their experience in the classroom and in school as are the 'unsuccessful' ones. Nevertheless, we also know that some school organisational cultures such as differentiation negatively effect certain groups of pupils who become polarised from each other and often display recalcitrant behaviour in the classroom as a sign of their disapproval of the system.
Many secondary schools put a premium on a narrow definition of what counts as achievement and success, discounting bodies of knowledge on multiple intelligences and differences in learning style and strategy. Pupils are differentiated by subject choice and by achievement. They then tend to form friendship groups or interact sets around these labels, thus becoming polarised from each other. Different behaviour patterns are then used by teachers to justify the need for a differentiated pedagogy and curriculum.
1. On what criteria have your pupils been allocated to the class?
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2. How many tracks per year group are there in your subject area?
3. Do you consider the differences between pupils sufficiently large to warrant this polarisation?
4. What are the academic and social consequences of tracking?
In your chapter on classroom interaction Darmanin describes different teacher strategies. She argues that these are responses to particular constraints that may originate in a number of social sites such as the classroom itself, the school
('institutional bias') or even the national system (e.g. centralised curriculum planning).
1. Make a list of the constraints you think your co-operating teachers find (you may wish to speak to them in school).
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2. Now make a parallel list of the strategies each teacher uses to deal with these.
3. How related are these to the teacher's interpretation of the situation, including his or her biographical factors?
4. Using Darmanin's explanation give an account of whether you think each strategy facilitates or replaces teaching.
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In his discussion of pupil strategies Peter Woods (1983, p. 122) makes a distinction between pupil strategies that are oppositional, supportive or detached. He points out that some the same content of a strategy such as 'having a laugh' may have a different meaning depending on its form (or context).
Look at the table below to see how Woods (1983) approaches pupil strategies.
Strategy
Working
Oppositional Supportive
+
Detached
+
Bunking off
Having a laugh
Mucking about
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Doing nothing
Flirting
Making a noise
Being friendly
+
+
+
+
+
+
Indulgence
Having a chat
Threat/bribery
+
+
+
+
Sussing out +
Now make a similar table with the strategies the pupils in your school use and categorise them according to type and context.
Strategy Oppositional Supportive Detached
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Darmanin following Pollard (1984) shows how pupils use strategies to deal with constraints, but also because of particular interests-at-hand. Can you now use
Pollard's list of interests-at-hand to try and see what interest/s each pupil was trying to achieve with the strategies listed in your table above? Use the following table.
Pupil
JP
Context Strategy Oppositional Supportive Detached Interestsat-hand
Religion a laugh + enjoyment
In your classroom, pupils will have voiced a number of critiques and as well as shown enthusiasm for various aspects of school and classroom life. Can you list any of the more positive comments of pupils as well as their more critical comments?
You should list these under broad headings:
1. Curricula and pedagogy, including assessment (the content of the subject and the method i.e. multiple choice questions /essay type questions)
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2. Teacher strategies (occupational therapy to interest recalcitrant learners, recitation to minimise fatigue/standardise)
3. Classroom environment (dreariness/aesthetically pleasing, comfort, pupil home base/subject room)
.
4. Time- (time-table, bells, breaks, length of lesson, pacing of work)
5. School rules (on behaviour, noise, tardiness, the uniform and others)
6. On norms and values- such as regarding religion or religious activities, sport and school ethos on masculinity /femininity.
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7. How much of the interaction in your classroom is concerned with each or any of these aspects of school life?
References
Ball, S. J. (1980) ‘Initial encounters in the classroom and the process of establishment.’ In P. Woods (1980b) Pupil Strategies. London: Croom Helm.
Beynon, J. & Atkinson, P. (1984) ‘Pupils as data-gatherers: mucking and sussing.’ In
S. Delamont (ed.) Readings on Interaction in the Classroom. London: Methuen.
Mifsud, I. (1997) ‘The brightest and the best? Reproducing elites in a Maltese school.’
In R.G. Sultana and contributors, Inside/Outside Schools. Toward a Critical
Sociology of Education in Malta. Malta: PEG.
Pollard, A. (1984) ‘Goodies, jokers and gangs.’ In M. Hammersley & P. Woods (eds)
Life in School: The Sociology of Pupil Culture. Milton Keynes: Open Univeristy
Press.
Saliba, D. (1999) ‘A case-study of organisational practices in a secondary school.’
B.Ed.(Hons) dissertation, University of Malta, Malta.
Woods, P. (1979) The Divided School. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Woods, P. (1983) Sociology and the School: an Interactionist Viewpoint. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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Date ______________
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39

Joseph Fenech
Christopher Bezzina
Initially, the professional competence of the beginning teacher is assessed in terms of his/her ability to manage the class satisfactorily. This shouldn’t be taken to refer only to class control but to (i) the organization of space, time and resources and (ii) active teaching. More analytically, these can be classified into the following five categories:
1.
Managing time
2.
Organizing the environment for learning
3.
Organizing the learning group
4.
Actual teaching
5.
Evaluating performance
In his introduction to the book on Classroom Management, Wragg (2001, p.7) establishes the following principles:
•
Class management is what teachers do to ensure that children engage in the task in hand, whatever that may be.
•
There are many different ways of achieving the state where children work at the task in hand.
These principles draw attention first to the fact that the task of management entails a degree of control by the teacher and, second, that there is no one best way of achieving this.
Think of two teachers who taught you in the secondary school. Teacher A is the one you consider that s/he displayed effective skills and competencies in managing the class while Teacher B did not display those skills. Make a list of the qualities of both teachers.
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Teacher A Teacher B
1. What makes Teacher A a better classroom manager than Teacher B?
2. What idea about classroom management emerges from your list and that of your colleagues?
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3. What were the consequences of successful/unsuccessful classroom management?
(Discuss this in terms of student learning, motivation, interest, classroom atmosphere etc...)
Imagine that you are taking the class for the first time. Think of answers to the following questions:
1. What information about the class would you find useful before meeting the students?
2. What would you try to communicate to them during the initial encounter?
3. What would you be paying attention to during the first lesson?
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4. What kind of expectations would you have of the class?
During your classroom observation compile a checklist of the teacher’s activities such as: talking to the class, organizing learning groups, explaining, responding to questions, disciplinary procedures, supervising work, etc. Record the duration of each activity and describe the context briefly.
Teacher activity Duration Context
Talking to the class
Organizing learning groups
Explaining
Responding to questions
Disciplinary procedures
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Supervising work
The managerial skills of the teacher are also demonstrated by the way s/he organizes the classroom as a learning environment.
Draw a plan of a classroom you are observing according to scale as much as possible and indicate how space is used.
Ask the teacher why s/he has opted for this particular arrangement. Attach the writeup of your conversation with the teacher to your classroom plan.
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Decision 2
Select one of the lessons for the day and identify the various segments of the lesson.
List five management decisions the teacher has made and describe briefly the context in which these decisions have been made. Think of the range of alternatives the teacher has had. In a conversation with the teacher try to discover why s/he has made that particular choice. Write a short comment about the effectiveness of these decisions in terms of their impact on student’s learning, classroom atmosphere, procedural smoothness, and teacher-student relationships.
Decision 1
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Decision 5
Decision 3
Decision 4
Observe two teachers in the school you are attached to. Notice the techniques they use to start their lesson and to gain student attention. Do they get students in tune with them before they attempt to teach? What attention-getting and initiatory manoeuvres
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Teacher B do the effective teachers employ most frequently? What do the less successful classroom managers fail to do or do ineffectively when they attempt to initiate classroom activities? Think about what specific initiatory moves you would use in some of these situations.
Teacher A
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During the second tutorial you are expected to discuss the results of the tasks you carried out in the school. For this tutorial, therefore, you are required to bring the following work with you:
•
A time-log of teacher’s activities
•
A classroom plan with your own observations and a brief account of the conversation with the teacher
•
An account of the teacher’s decisions together with a brief write-up of your conversation with the teacher.
•
A list of techniques used by teachers to initiate lessons and grasp students attention.
1. What does the time-log tell you about the teacher’s use of time in the classroom?
2. Can s/he organize time and resources more efficiently?
3. What happened when students finished their work?
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4. What provision did the teacher make for those who finished earlier?
5. What strategies did the teacher use to monitor the students’ work and behaviour?
Discuss answers to the following questions:
1. Is the classroom layout suitable for the kind of activities that you observed?
2. What managerial skills did the teacher demonstrate in the way s/he organized the classroom and student activities?
3. What alternative classroom layouts can you suggest?
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4. What principles of classroom management can you infer from your conversation with the teacher?
Think up several nonverbal cues you might employ as a subject teacher to signal the need for student attention at the beginning of a class period.
Wragg, T. (2001) Class Management in the Secondary School. London: Routledge.
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Refl ective Diary
Date ______________
51

52

Carmel Borg
Peter Mayo
Read both the set reading for the theme, as well as the National Minimum Curriculum
(Ministry of Education, 1999). It is of utmost importance that you familiarize yourself with the National Minimum Curriculum so that during your observation session you will be able to observe and report on the way some curricular aspects, discussed or mentioned in the set reading, are addressed in the classroom.
Content
Take a note of the subjects that students are taking during the day. For each subject write down who is determining the content covered.
Subject: Content is determined by:
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The teaching-learning process
1. Which lessons are teacher-centred and which lessons move some way in the direction of being student-centred?
2. How is inclusion being addressed in the class you are observing?
Resources
1. Which resources are made use of during the different periods you are observing?
Subject: Resources used:
2. To what extent is Information Technology an integral feature of the different lessons you are observing?
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3. Is the text-book a central feature of the teachers’ pedagogy?
The learning environment
1. How are the desks arranged within the classroom/s?
2. Which other sites at school are being made use of, for the purpose of learning, during the day?
Interview a teacher
Ask a teacher to help you answer the following questions.
1. Which aspects of the NMC does she/he consider useful?
2. Which aspects of the NMC does she/he disagree with?
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3. Which aspects should have been added to the NMC, according to the teacher?
4. What problems is the teacher encountering when implementing the NMC?
5. Would the teacher like to add anything else?
Ministry of Education, (1999) Creating the Future Together. National Minimum
Curriculum. Malta: Ministry of Education.
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Date ______________
57

58

Grace Grima
(Reader pp. 91----108
‘Assessment is a powerful tool: it can shape curriculum, teaching and learning; it can affect how pupils come to see themselves both as learners and in a more general sense as competent or not; through labeling and sorting pupils (certification and selecting) it affects how pupils are viewed by others; it controls access into further education and high stake careers’ (Gipps, 1994, p. 144).
The above quotation is intended to give you some idea of the salient role that assessment holds in the education process. The aim of this tutorial is to help you think through several issues related to assessment practices. At the outset, it is important to point out that: “assessment does not stand outside teaching and learning but stands in dynamic interaction with it” (Gipps, 1994, p. 15).
Discuss the set reading in terms of the following issues:
•
The multi-faceted role of assessment in the educational process
•
The various forms of assessment that may be used in secondary classrooms
•
The different functions of assessment
•
The limitations of assessment
The National Minimum Curriculum statements on the provision of assessment
(Ministry of Education, 1999, pp.76-83) have received a great deal of attention since the publication of the document. One of the statements is the following:
‘At Secondary level, one should persist in adopting the summative and formative systems of assessment. This should apply to all years of secondary schooling’
(p. 82).
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Create your own definitions of formative and summative assessment and then discuss them with your colleagues in order to come up with meaningful descriptions of these two forms of assessment.
Formative assessment
Summative assessment
Formative and Summative Assessment
1. During the school visit you are required to observe and comment on the forms of formative and summative assessment used, both in the classrooms you are observing, and, if possible, in the other subjects taught at the school.
Subject:
Formative and Summative Assessment Type/s of Assessment
2. Talk to the teachers and the students in order to find out how they feel about these forms of assessment. Write down their comments here.
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3. Comment on the forms of assessment you learned about during your school visit and discuss their value and limitations in giving feedback and reporting progress on individual students.
Coursework
The National Steering Committee on the Implementation of the National Minimum
Curriculum (1999) suggested that the weight given to coursework in school assessment is not uniform throughout schools. Coursework is considered more of a component of Teacher Assessment than as a set component of formal end-of-year examinations.
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1. Make a list of the coursework that features in the classes you are observing.
Subject: Coursework:
2. Talk to the teachers and the students about the coursework that is carried out. If it is not carried out, try to find out why not. Discuss ways in which it can possibly be integrated in the subject/s you are observing.
Portfolios
Do portfolios have a place in the classrooms that you are observing? What do teachers think about the feasibility of this assessment tool?
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Are the forms of assessment used in the classroom that you have observed suitable to provide a holistic picture of the learners’ progress and attainment in the various areas of the curriculum? If you think so, justify your answer. If you do not think so, suggest other forms of assessment that could be embraced.
Gipps, C. (1994) Beyond Testing: Towards a Theory of Educational Assessment.
London: The Falmer Press.
Ministry of Education (1999) National Minimum Curriculum. Malta: Ministry of
Education.
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Date ______________
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