At the moment I am finalising some of my formula for analysis that allow students to engage in the highest levels of grading (at GCSE and iGCSE at least).
My career has seen me achieve value-added in my classes every year. That means that overall my students achieve better than would naturally achieve with an ‘average’ teacher. Of course, other factors have an influence: simply having a student dedicate their efforts to passing, rather than resisting, is a significant, if esoteric, one. But I believe that when students are producing intellectual work worthy of passing an exam, then they also gain other worthy skills of perception.
I have placed the terms of connotation and denotation at the heart of my classroom this year. They have permeated everything I have done, and in doing so have enhanced the answers of all my students (although that is for a seperate post). As so often with my current focus, I link it to all I see.
I recently (as in, eight months ago) attended a talk by Alan November. He spoke about the concept of the Google Filter bubble, which represses access to the potential profundities of the world in favour of reinforcing trivialities and prejudices. While that might sound a negative concept, it is also a highly enjoyable one for the person experiencing such repression – it is an experience that justifies all they do.
I talk about about connotations potentially exist in a teological manner, and that our perception calculates values of these connotations in different contexts. There comes a point where our perception of connotations can look to change, although such a process requires an experiential influence (be it intellectual or otherwise).
One demonstration of how connotations can be filtered can be shown through the video below:
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
I am beginning to see myself creating a curriculum based upon the points of analysis from my nine points of analysis. More of this to come, along with examples.
