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Teaching and Learning with the Capabilities
A Critical Capabilities Approach
Outline • Overview of project• Context
• Australian Curriculum
• Capabilities Approach: • Theoretical dimensions• Pedagogical resources
• Project Goals / Aims • Literacy and Numeracy approach• Outcomes:
• Success Indicators• Early findings
• Conclusion
Leading the Australian Curriculum in Numeracy and Literacy: Two Year Project
Melbourne declaration
Capabilities historical
Australian Curriculum capabilities
Using the capabilities to frame critically discerning questions
Melbourne declaration
Capabilities historical
Australian Curriculum capabilities
Using the capabilities to frame critically discerning questions
Australian Curriculum and the Capabilities
Social justice
Ethical, creative and critically discerning learners
Building excellence
Social justice
Ethical, creative and critically discerning learners
Building excellence
CatholicIdentities
Number sense
Geometrical sense
Measurement sense
Context
Critical orientation
Number sense
Geometrical sense
Measurement sense
Context
Critical orientation
Numeracy Literacy
Critical Thinking and Reasoning
Texts: print, visual , performance, digital
Reading
LocatingUnderstandingCritically reflecting
Composing
Perspective
Text strategies
Language use
Texts: print, visual , performance, digital
Reading
LocatingUnderstandingCritically reflecting
Composing
Perspective
Text strategies
Language use
Leading the Australian Curriculum in Numeracy and Literacy: Two Year Project
Models of leadership
Leadership role
Use of data to inform improvement
Leadership that builds on theories and research
Leadership that contributes to theories and research
Models of leadership
Leadership role
Use of data to inform improvement
Leadership that builds on theories and research
Leadership that contributes to theories and research
Pedagogy for
Knowledge society / economy
Culture
Democracy
Pedagogy for
Knowledge society / economy
Culture
Democracy
Working with leaders
Working with staff
Using data to asses and to discern success and plan for future action
Working with leaders
Working with staff
Using data to asses and to discern success and plan for future action
Leading LearningTheories
Planning and Implementing
Using Principles of Action and Design Based Research
• Action Research• Critical and ethical participation for social change
(Kemmis 2005, 2006; Kemmis and McTaggart 2001, 2005; Barazangi 2006
• Design Based Research• 1. Building a Rich Understanding
• 2. Developing Critical Commitments
• 3. Reifying Commitments into Design
• 4. Expanding the Impact
• 5. Making Theoretical Contributions(Bannan-Ritland 2003, Barab et al2007)
Setting the Context
Melbourne Declaration: Goal 2
All young Australians become:
• Capabilities and cross - curriculum priorities
• Social and political purposes
• Subject discipline
Australian Curriculum Rationale
successful learners
• confident and creative
individuals• active and
informed citizens
Capabilities
• Literacy
• Numeracy
• ICT competence
• Critical and creative thinking
• Ethical behaviour
• Personal and social competence
Rationale: Australian Curriculum Dimensions - English
Capabilities
Cross Curriculum Priorities
Language Literature Literacy
Knowing about the English language
Understanding, appreciating, responding
to, analysing and creating literature
Growing a repertoire of English usage
Assessment
Rationale: Australian Curriculum Dimensions- Mathematics
Capabilities
Cross Curriculum Priorities
Proficiencies strands
Number and Algebra Measurement and Geometry
Statistics and Probability
Number and place value (F-8)Fraction and decimal (1-6)Real numbers (7-10)Money and financial mathematicsPattern and algebra (F-10)Linear and non-linear relationships (8-10)
Using units of measurement(F-10)Shape (F-7)Geometric reasoning (3-10)Location and transformation (F-7)Pythagoras and trigonometry (9-10)
Chance (1-10)Data representation and interpretation (F-10)
Assessment
ACARA and Policy Enactment: Curriculum Knowledge Connected
Meta Curriculum: School and Classroom Culture
Chosen Curriculum: Choice and Pedagogy
Formal CurriculumStrand Strand Strand
Core CurriculumCapabilities and Cross Curriculum Priorities
Challenge: Bridging Core and Formal Curriculum Knowledge
CoreCurriculum Chosen and Meta
Curriculum• Choice• Learning design• Pedagogy • School culture
Formal Curriculum
( Hill, 2010)
Teaching and Learning: A Capabilities Approach
• Where did the capabilities come from?
• What are the learning and teaching implications of a curriculum that emphasises capabilities and disciplinary practice as complementary aspects of curriculum knowledge?
Capabilities Approach for a Capabilities Curriculum
• The philosophical-ethical ground of a capability approach
• Amartya Sen and renowned social philosopher Martha Nussbaum define capabilities as:
• effective powers of people to act as democratic citizens: informed, participatory and proactive• not simply inborn but must develop through learning means such as appropriate curricula and pedagogies• as an ethical principle of human social membership
• all people are entitled to:
• live dignified lives• full and meaningful participation in civic-social life
• urgent for:
• engaging the complexities of globalisation • Empowering all citizens – that is, success for all – rather than some at the expense of others.
(Hattam and Brennan for CESA Stage 2 Research Project Support Materials 2010)
CA Values: Sen and Nussbaum
Sen Nussbaum
Functionings: Beings and Doings – wellbeing and rights
Capabilities: opportunity freedom
Agency: ability to act upon personal, social, political aspirations
The Central Human Capabilities
1. Life2. Bodily Health3. Bodily Integrity4. Senses, Imagination, and Thought5. Emotions 6. Practical Reason7. Affiliation8. Other Species 9. Play10. Control Over One’s Environment
A. PoliticalB. Material
Capabilities : Educational Implications (Walker 2009, Kincheloe 2000, 2004, Robeyns 2005)
• Intrinsic value of education and itsfunctions, both for the individual and for society
• Framework for the assessment ofinequalities in education: suggests conception ofeffective opportunities
• Informs pedagogy and models of curriculum that enhance freedom and agency
C.A. and continuities with Critical Pedagogy(Walker 2009, Kincheloe 2000, 2004, Unterhalter 2009, Janks 2010)
• Critical pedagogy : engage with questions of • Power, Access, Diversity and • Opportunities to design social futures
• Like critical pedagogy, capability approach situates education within a vision of social and human development
• Both share the concern for the potential of education to enable the doing of good in the world
• ‘challenge us to recognize, engage and critique (so as to transform) any existing undemocratic social practices and institutional structures
Critical Pedagogy for Transformed Relationships and Human Flourishing
(Hart 2009, Terzi 2010, Robeyns 2005)
Pedagogy as democratic process:
• Ask how young people view their capabilities and their agency with regard to achieving valued ways of being and doing for themselves
• Needs to be dynamic and iterative as the ways of being and doing that young people value may be subject to change as they grow and develop
• Needs to be a sense of fluidity with opportunities to review, refine and reframe the capabilities identified on an individual basis
Capabilities, Experience and the Negotiation of Meaning
(LeBmann 2009, Cormack 2007, Biesta, Osborg and Cilliers 2008 , Luke 2011, Harpaz 2005)
The Usefulness of John Dewey• “learning as a co-operative task of the learner and the educator. The educator acts as a guide and
supports the learner in framing purposes. This guidance is not a restriction but an enhancement of the learner’s freedom of intelligence (Dewey 1938, p. 71).
• Use of experience as key unit for learning• look at the situation of the learner, i.e.
• External conditions: • foregrounds interaction • highlights the importance social environment, contact and communication
• Internal conditions: principle of continuity shapes the internal condition of the learner: past, present and future experiences are connected (LeBmann 2009)
• There is no final truth of the matter, only increasingly diverse ways of interacting in a world that is becoming increasingly complex.’ (Biesta et al 2008)
• Dewey wanted to reassert a science and philosophy that dealt with cultural morals and values. For Dewey, morality was a “practical sociocultural fact” from which all inquiry proceeded ( Luke 2011)
Capability Approach: Implications for Teaching and Learning
Key features that influence design of learning:
• Individual development through enhanced opportunity and freedom:• negotiate learning (within expectation of curriculum frameworks)• build knowledge and expertise collectively• systematic planning and teaching• purposeful communication of learning
• Critical and creative thinking reflected by• approaches to questioning• teachers and students designing learning in response to critical,
creative and personally connected questions • transformation of developing expertise in ways that are meaningful to
the individual
Critical tools: Pedagogical Moments for a Critical Capabilities Approach
(Cormack and Sellars 2006)
Researching
Designing
Communicating
transforming
performing
Reflecting
Community of Thinking(Harpaz 2005)
• The practice of teaching and learning in a Community of Thinking is based on three stages:• fertile questions
• research and • concluding performance.
• These stages are supported by a continual process of initiation by which students form the common knowledge basis necessary for creating questions and conducting research.
Types of Questions for a Capabilities Approach(Harpaz 2005)
• An open question
• An undermining question
• A rich question
• A connected question
• A charged question
• A practical question
A Capabilities Approach to Curriculum Knowledge
Key questions:
• How will teachers and students critically engage with curriculum knowledge in ways that support democratic relationships?
• How will we know that human flourishing is occurring through evidence of wellbeing , opportunity and freedom to exercise capabilities, and in ways that enable personal, social and political aspirations?
• What will our indicators of success be?
Project goals: Connecting the Dimensions
• Developing expert curriculum knowledge• Tying planning to pedagogy• Enacting pedagogy• Assessment• Reflection and Evaluation
The story thus far……
Articles from media used as starting points1. Flood in Queensland
Write a letter to Mrs Anna Bligh giving her your opinion and advising her of possible floods and measures to ensure minimal damage when the next flood hit Queensland.
2. Party invitation on face bookWriting a brochure providing advice on child protection and
internet usage.
3. Gulliver's travel storyUse of literature and mathematical concepts
A Process for Thinking About and Critically Engaging with Curriculum Knowledge
• Consider how questioning through the lens of capabilities references the content strands and possible learning events .
• Consider how other capabilities and strands come into view when asked to think about each of the dimensions through critical questioning.
• How do these activities engage the subject e.g.• the Mathematics proficiencies e.g. develop a disposition for analytical thinking• content descriptors in Mathematics and English?
• How have these learning activities led students to an action through engagement with• functioning • capabilities development• opportunities to demonstrate agency?
Read the article focussing on the part starting from: “…they showed anyone who talks…” to “…dam above Brisbane had created misplaced confidence? (Wivenhoe had not yet been built)”.
Is the argument supported by the given data?Can the flood pattern be predicted?
Write a letter to Ms Anna Bligh giving her your opinion and advising her of the likelihood of worse flooding in the future and of measures to ensure minimal damage when the next flood hits Queensland.
What numeracy and literacy knowledge is required to interpret this information?
Which of the Capabilities and Cross Curricular Priorities could be addressed in such a text?
Capabilities Critical questions: investigations of text in relation to other capabilities
Learning events: and use of capabilities
Literacy What is the purpose of the text?What do we understand about the culture and society of this place? What values, beliefs and behaviours is the text promoting?What is real in this text? What do the title and images suggest? What does this text ask you to do?To what extent have you accepted or contested the ideas represented in this text?
Researching Experience of natural disasters, floods, etcHow do cultures deal with natural disasters and the aftermath?Why did the author bring out other similar event?
Designing What questions could we ask of the article?How would you ensure that the data you intend to use is not bias?
Capabilities Critical questions: investigations of text in relation to other capabilities
Learning events: and use of capabilities
Numeracy When was the last flood in Brisbane?Compare the intensity of the downpour and the percentage of people who lost their lives and livelihood. What can be said about the rate of flow of the water? Who wrote this article? What data did they use to make this claim? Are the graphical representations put forward in this argument valid, distorted, biased?
Researching Experience of natural disasters, floods, etcHow do cultures deal with natural disasters and the aftermath?Why did the author bring out other similar event?
How does this event compare to other natural disasters in Australia and elsewhere?
Designing How can we use data to investigate what the author is saying?Where do we get the dataIs the data source credible?
Capabilities Critical questions: investigations of text in relation to other capabilities
Learning events: and use of capabilities
Critical and creative thinking
Ethical behaviour
Discuss potential meaning of the pictures and title of this article. Discuss the undertsanding required to make fair comparisonsWhat is your undertsanding of misplaced confidence, is that a fair remark?
Write a letter to Ms Bligh giving her your opinion and advising her of the likelihood of worse flooding in the future and of measures to ensure minimal damage when the next flood hits Queensland
Communication
Transforming and performing
Capabilities Critical questions: investigations of text in relation to other capabilities
Learning events: and use of capabilities
Critical and creative thinking
Ethical behaviour
Intercultural
undertsanding
Compare Australian flood data for “death, loss of home/property, livelihood” to that in an Asian country.
What other natural disasters has Australia experienced? Have they been worse in the last few years?
Is the statement “natural disasters are more frequent in the last 50 years” true or are we more aware when they happen because of media coverage?” discuss.
CommunicationAnd links to cross curricular priorities
Transforming and performing
Reflecting
Critical questions: investigations of text in relation to other capabilities
• Capabilities: ICT (Researching and designing • Use excel or any other graphing package to interpret
and represent the data.• Choose the most appropriate representations for the
argument. • Search for other data using the internet to present a
comparative argument.
Capabilities Outcomes
Human Flourishing • Engage with the complexities of globalisation, and the
human aspects of all. Understand and respect cultural differences.
• Empower all citizens – the activity encourage the students to learn to question information and to use data and to question data sources to discern the credibility
• Agency• Build effectiveness to act as democratic citizens, be more
purposeful, informed and proactive• become aware of others needs and to give others a human
face whether it is nationally or globally.
A 35–year warning on Brisbane flooding ignored
• Mathematics content: Statistics as probability (Year 7, 8&9)• Identify and investigate issues involving continuous or
large count data collected from primary and secondary sources.
• Understand mean, median, mode and range; interpret these statistics in context of data.
• Content: measurement and geometry• Different views of objects• Construct and deconstruct geometrical shapes.
A 35–year warning on Brisbane flooding ignored
• Mathematics content: Statistics as probability (Year 7, 8 &9)• Explore the practicalities and implications of obtaining
representative data using a variety of investigative processes.
• Identify everyday questions and issues involving at least one numerical, and at least one categorical, variable and collect data directly from secondary sources.
A 35–year warning on Brisbane flooding ignored
• Proficiencies • Use the information given to reason, prove, disprove, affirm the
argument and suggest ways forward.
• Fluency, use the information given and knowledge of mathematics to interrogate the argument put forward by the given data etc.
• Use mathematical processes and undertsanding of statistics, probability and graphing. Suggest ways forward and initiate preparedness for other similar disasters by using problem solving strategies.
Outcomes, Provisional Findings and Insights
• Using Capabilities to • guide questioning • structuring learning events• opens and enriches learning opportunities across all subjects
• Success indicators as tools for evaluation:• Principles of democratic relationships articulated for students, teachers and leaders
• Cross Disciplinary Effects• Convergence working at least on two planes
• Knowledge• Practice
• Classroom and school effects• Ground up leadership • Whole school reflection
• Teaching as iterative process• Respect for complexity of teaching process• Opportunities for rich learning
• Thinking Tools and Planning Tools• Conceptual development tool• Unit Planner for scoping and sequencing learning
Using Capabilities to Guide Questioning andStructure Learning Events
• Learning focus engages • Socratic (critical) questioning• Capabilities• Cross curriculum Priorities• Content descriptions
• Use of capability through activity that engages
• Creative and critical thinking• Repertoire of pedagogical resources
• Keeps student one step removed - reflect on capabilities of others i.e. participants in texts
• Builds awareness
• Invites rather than imposes identity work
• Connected practically to application
• Opportunities for reflection and evaluation occur as needed; is connected to the learning and life of the student
Success indicators as tools for evaluation:Embedding principles of democratic relationships
Students
Supporting students to develop fluency in curriculum knowledge by
•Use critical questions to frame inquiry•Design strategies to answer questions develop a love of learning that is focused on critical thinking and questioning•Transform understanding of curriculum knowledge through practising exploring investigating•Building on prior knowledge•Working with others to build knowledge collectively.•Build and communicate knowledge in multiple ways; individually, in pairs in teams.•Connecting learning to their aspirations•Negotiating and co constructing learning in authentic contexts•Make choices about how they learn: who with, how, when, where and why•Reflecting and evaluating through the various stages of learning•Reflect on learning struggles and strengths to enhance learning performance.•Being positive and active participants in their learning. •Inspiring and encouraging each other.
Success indicators as tools for evaluation:Embedding principles of democratic relationships
Teachers
Supporting teachers to develop fluency in curriculum knowledge by
•Using each of the dimensions of curriculum in their teaching: capabilities, priorities, strands and sub-strands of the content descriptions, achievement standards•Deciding which capabilities, priorities and content descriptions are addressed to support rich learning•Provide opportunities for rich evidence of learning•Build on learners understandings•Connect learning to students lives and aspirations•Develop teaching and learning around big ideas or concepts•Promote inquiry as a means of learning•Value democratic relationships in a culture of learning•Promote democratic learning environments and dialogue between peers and a wider learning community•Use a range of pedagogical resources to support explicit engagement with curriculum knowledge•Listening to student voice•Set high expectations and support students to reach their potential•Apply and asses learning in authentic contexts
Success Indicators as Tools for EvaluationEmbedding principles of democratic relationships
Leaders
Supporting leaders to develop fluency in curriculum knowledge by
•Supporting teachers to understand and value each of the dimensions of curriculum•Support teachers to moving from being the sage on the stage to be activators of learning •Coach teachers to set appropriate challenge and support them to assess this•Build teachers capacity to critically question in order to help students create their own learning•Improve / enhance teachers professional dialogue in and between schools•Set high expectations for student achievement •Develop leadership capacity in understanding and engaging teachers and students with curriculum knowledge (each of the dimensions of curriculum) •Develop a community of reflective practice and ongoing feedback?•Encourage a conversation around educational purpose: •What are we hoping to achieve? •How will a capabilities approach help this? •What will this mean for a whole school approach / policy?
Cross Disciplinary Effects
• Convergence can exist on at least two planes - knowledge and practice e.g.:
• Knowledge:• critical approaches• discipline e.g. the use of mathematical knowledge as metaphors
for learning in English eg space time shape probability• language in helping to understand mathematics
• Practice:• Numeracy and Literacy practices that support learning:
• collective work• developing a critical orientation• student talk in academic discourse• the transfer of student talk to the doing of Mathematics and English
Classroom and School Effects
• Ground up leadership Teaching teams experimenting with planning processescharacterised by:• Use of cross disciplinary knowledge• Use of capabilities to structure activity • Use of capabilities to structure inquiry• Example Unit
• Whole school reflection on capabilities• Engagement with whole staff and faculties• Curriculum leaders actively involved in reflection
Teaching as Iterative Process:Respect for complexity of teaching process
• Risk in codifying complex classroom interactions into simplified models or frameworks
• Details of “the complex orchestration of teaching as a whole” can be lost in frameworks which turn teaching into routine technical exercises
• It is helpful to engage in dialogues about teaching and learning characterised by • heuristic investigation into practice• a learning space subject to a negotiation of meaning between participants• learning generated through a regard for knowledge as contingent and
open to question
Next Steps:A question for gathering data and framing an evaluation
• How will we know that leaders, teachers and students have demonstrated
• functionings, capabilities and agency i.e. degrees of choice, respect for individual differences, human flourishing
• commitments to equity and justice
• respectful and democratic classroom relationships
• critical disposition in classroom learning activities and the development of the general capabilities
References• References• Barazangi N., (2006) An ethical theory of action research pedagogy Action Research 4(1): 97–116• • Kemmis, S. (2005a) Knowing practice: searching for saliences, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 13(3), 393–428.• • Kemmis, S. (2005b) Is mathematics education a practice? Mathematics teaching?, in: M. Goos et al. (Eds) Proceedings of the Mathematics Education and Society 4 Conference (Brisbane, Centre for
Learning Research, Griffith University). Available online at: http://www.griffith.edu.au/ conference/mes2005/pdfs/Kemmis.pdf (accessed 27 October 2005).• • Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (2001) Participatory action research, in: N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds) The Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd edn) (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage), 567–605.• • Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (2005) Participatory action research: communicative action and the public sphere, in: N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds) The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd edn)
(Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage), 559–603.• • Kemmis, Stephen(2006)'Participatory action research and the public sphere',Educational Action Research,14:4,459• • Bannan-Ritland B. (2003) The role of design in research: The integrative learning design framework Educational Researcher; 32, 1• • Barab S., Dodge T. Thomas M., Jackson C., Tuzun H. (2007), Our Designs and the Social Agendas They Carry THE JOURNAL OF THE LEARNING SCIENCES, 16(2), 263–305• • Hill P. (2010), ‘A national curriculum: looking forward An Australian curriculum to promote 21st century learning’, Education Services Australia• http://eqa.edu.au/site/anaustraliancurriculumtopromote21stcentury.html• • Nussbaum, M. (2001), Symposium on Amartya Sen’s Philosophy: Adaptive preferences and women’s options, Economics and Philosophy , 17, 67 -88• • Rogers B. (1999): Conflicting Approaches to Curriculum: Recognizing How Fundamental Beliefs Can Sustain or Sabotage School Reform, Peabody Journal of Education, 74:1, 29-67• • Robeyns, I. (2003) Sen’s Capability Approach and Gender Inequality: Selecting relevantcapabilities, Feminist Economics, 9:2–3, pp. 61–91. • • Robeyns, I. (2005) The Capability Approach—aTheoretical Survey, Journal of Human Development, 6:1, pp. 93–114.• • Kincheloe, J. L. (2000) Making Critical Thinking Critical, in: D. Weil & H. K. Anderson (eds), Perspectives in Critical Thinking: Essays by teachers in theory and practice.p (New York, Peter Lang). Kincheloe, J.
L. (2004) Critical Pedagogy. (NewYork, Peter Lang).• Sen A., (2005) Human Rights and Capabilities, Journal of Human Development6 (2)• • Unterhalter E. What is Equity in Education? Reflections from the Capability Approach• • Osberg D., Biesta G., Cilliers P., (2008) From Representation to Emergence: Complexity’s challenge to the epistemology of schooling, Educational philosophy and theory, 40 (1), 213-227• • Luke, Allan (2011) Generalising across borders : policy and the limits of educational science. In American Educational Research Association An-nual Meeting, April 8-13, 2011, New Orleans. (Unpublished)
