W4T2 reflection

From a teaching perspective, I'm encouraged by the learning which has occurred this week - especially in literacy. Last week we brainstormed some local issues in the greater Grey area to write to the editor of the Grey Star about. This week the students crafted some very convincing letters which we hope will be published in the near future. The letters to the editor were a precursor to a debating unit which we sunk our teeth into yesterday. Students have been randomly placed in 4 debating teams of 5 - 6. Two of the teams are 'Pro' and the other two are 'Con' for an agreed debate topic 'The NZ Education System is Broken'. The students are now using their recently acquired effective Google searching techniques to find studies, research papers, lectures and statistics to support their team's stance. We're placing a real emphasis on ensuring students are only using 'authoritative' and 'scholarly' websites. Students are being encouraged to summarise, paraphrase, quote and cite their sources. This, as you can imagine, is a very challenging task for students, who for many, copying and pasting / plagiarising and visiting non-authoritative websites such as Wikipedia and .com's is routine. This is not through any fault of their own, they just simply have not been taught or had an opportunity to apply effective searching skills. 

Although it's 'hard', practising and applying these skills now will give them an advantage later on when researching at High School and beyond. From my perspective, I want to hear students says it's "hard" because that tells me it's worthwhile.