Exemplars
English | Mathematics |
Visual Arts
Exemplars are examples of student work that are annotated in order to
illustrate learning, achievement, and quality in relation to curriculum
levels. They help answer the question "What do we mean by quality
work?"
Exemplars will not be developed for each achievement objective or learning
outcome. Instead, the exemplars developed over the next two years will
provide signposts that highlight critical features of students' work
and signal important things for teachers to watch for, collect information
about, and act on to support growth in learning. They will also be able
to be used in discussions with students and parents, and they will support
teachers' professional judgments in relation to curriculum levels.
Representatives from each exemplar team attend regular national meetings.
Annotated examples of student work in essential learning areas (levels
1 – 5), in English and in Māori, are being developed by national
teams. Pilot exemplars are being developed for use in early childhood
settings.
The development of Māori medium exemplars has begun in four essential
learning areas – te reo Māori, pāngarau, pūtaiao,
and hangarau. Co-ordinators are working closely with developers pilot
kura kaupapa schools, and rumaki units throughout Aotearoa.
Early childhood exemplars will show Te Whāriki, the early childhood
curriculum, in action. Early childhood practitioners will be able to
use exemplars to:
- clarify and focus on children's learning;
- ensure that children's perspectives are heard;
- increase participation by parents/whānau in assessment;
- reflect on current teaching/pedagogy;
- enhance planning and evaluation processes.
English exemplars
How do teachers get students to produce work like this?
Monday Morning
by Rachael Tombleson, Ongarue School
This morning, at what seemed about 3.00 a.m.,
Mum came into my bedroom and woke me up.
"Remember, school today."
I didn't want to get out of bed,
so I lay there for a few more minutes,
staring at the misty fog that was wrapped
around the tall poplar tree outside my window,
looking like a great blanket of candyfloss,
hiding the towering hills,
blocking out the sun.
Everything was quiet,
except for Dad, who was making breakfast,
banging pots and pans around in the kitchen.
No birds singing,
no cattle lowing,
no sheep bleating.
Just an eerie silence.
Having kissed both my parents goodbye,
my sister and I stumbled down the rutted driveway
on our way to the old corrugated iron bus shelter.
I looked around me.
Everything was sparkling with dew,
from the pale green grass crunching underfoot
to the delicate cobwebs hanging on the fences.
Everything still, beautifully still.
Finally, my sister and I arrived at the tiny bus shelter.
The fog was lifting, leaving a trail of clouds.
The sun came up from its hiding place behind the clouds,
showing itself to the world.
Birds started singing,
cattle mooing and softly communicating with one another,
sheep bleating.
Everything alive,
everything moving.
The fog had lifted.
The bus had arrived.
Monday Morning
(the alternative)
Mum woke me really early and I didn't want to get up. It was foggy.
It was quiet except for Dad. He was making a noise in the kitchen. After
we said goodbye, we walked to the bus shelter. When we got there, the
fog was going away. The bus came.
As developers, we've been active in a range
of schools, talking to students about their writing and supporting
teachers as they reflect on their students' writing. Exemplars can
be used to indicate possible next steps for a student, and one process
that we used was the analysis of a sample piece called "Monday
Morning", published in a Journal of Young People's Writing
in 1999.
Teachers and students were invited to respond to the piece using
indicators that related to level 3 of the curriculum. The indicators
required a thorough examination of the text and enabled the reader
to see what literary devices had been employed. The alternative
text, placed alongside the original, elicited the response from
teachers, "That's what we usually get" and from one student,
"That must have been her draft". Teachers were able to
see the value both of close reading and of reading as a writer.
Most importantly, they were able to see that there are ways of conferencing
with a student so that the teacher provides the scaffolding needed
to take the writer further.
Jude Pentecost, English exemplar developer
|
Mathematics exemplars
The mathematics exemplar team has been capturing students' responses
to rich mathematical tasks. The team has done this in order to find
work that best illustrates key progressions of mathematical learning
for classroom teachers. These interactions are being captured through
work samples, photographs, video, and digital images. They will be used
to develop exemplars that will provide clear pictures of students' thinking
at particular stages of mathematical concept development.
The measurement task illustrated, as with all the tasks used by the
maths team, is open ended and allows students to exhibit a variety of
responses across the measurement learning progression. Along with the
task are a few key questions that the teacher asks to ensure that the
student is demonstrating their most sophisticated thinking.
The mathematics exemplar development will include trialling and modification
of the material. Schools interested in trialling the material developed
to date are invited to contact Mary Geary at Dunedin College of Education:
mary.geary@dce.ac.nz
Visual
arts exemplars
The visual arts exemplar team has been working with teachers to develop
"big learning ideas" in the visual arts and the developmental
continuum associated with each idea. The example shown focuses on the
representation of depth. As learning in the visual arts is spiral in
nature, it is possible to trace the continuum associated with this idea:
flat images with discrete, separate objects; the overlapping of components
to denote depth; the use of differently sized objects (scale) where
nearer is larger; the use of one-point perspective systems, then two-
and three-point perspective systems. The learner who has mastered all
of these conventions might then choose to deliberately flatten the image
or to combine various methods for the representation of depth. They
could also choose to amplify the effect of depth with atmospheric colour
and blurring of the detail in the distance.
Qualities other than the representation of depth are also clearly evident
in the work. For example, the student has shown a strong development
of ideas and incorporation of symbolism. The use of colour is bold and
fresh but no colour mixing is employed, so there is no evidence of major
learning about colour. The use of media (coloured pencil and vivid pen)
shows perseverance and control rather than the particular understanding
and skill required to convey texture or tone.
For each big learning idea, the rich variety of individual responses
and stylistic approaches will only be seen when the work of more than
one student is shown. Ann Brodie and the visual arts exemplar team are
therefore working on including several different student responses,
as smaller vignettes, within the examples they are gathering.
Incorporation of Māori symbol
Mountains overlapped to convey depth. No evidence of change
of scale.
The teacher Lynley Potter commented, "The final composition
shows ideas developed from several sources, including imagination,
research, and drawings."
Exemplar from student, Adam Frecklington |
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