The Affect and the Albatross

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What is the One World Centre?The One World Centre implements the Global Education Project, a professional learning initiative, for educators in WA.

We offer professional development workshops on a range of global and development issues at the centre, in schools and at universities for teachers and pre-service teachers.

Education Officers work with teachers and schools on programmes and resources, and to take a whole school approach to global education.

The OWC library provides a wide range of global education teaching and learning resources suitable for teachers and students.

Check out the OWC at:

www.oneworldcentre.org.au

What’s Global Education?

“Enabling young people to participate in a better shared future for all is at the heart of global education. Global education promotes open-mindedness leading to new thinking about the world and a predisposition to take action for change. Students learn to take responsibility for their actions, respect and value diversity, and see themselves as global citizens who can contribute to a more peaceful, just and sustainable world”

Global Perspectives: A framework for global education in Australian Schools Commonwealth of Australia, 2008

http://www.midwayfilm.com/

Source: USFWS, Flickr

“Most global education materials seem to presume that appropriate enquiry followed by action for change will naturally lead to students feeling more empowered. But this is not necessarily the case.

What is often missing is the affective dimension. Whilst this is true for much of the curriculum, it matters most when we want students to explore major issues that actually threaten the human condition.”

Source: David Hicks ‘The Challenge of Teaching Controversial Issues’, 2007

How do we recognise affective learning?

• Krathwohl’s Taxonomy– Receiving: listens and pays attention– Responding: shows interest and active

participation– Valuing: joins in and takes responsibility – Organisation: brings together different

values to build an internally consistent value system

– Characterisation: consistently behaves according to a value system

HOPES AND

FEARS

‘unveil opportunities for hope, no matter what the obstacles might be’

Paûlo Freire

Williams TaxonomyA taxonomy of creative thinking

skills that combines cognitive and affective domains

Cognitive Thinking Skills

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Fluency…a way to think of a large quantity of responses to a stimulus

Write a list of things that can be found in the ocean, including as many as you can think of in 2

minutes.

Flexibility…a way to take different approaches to stimulus or seek variety and shift in categories.

Make a case for which things ‘belong’ and which ‘don’t belong’ in the ocean.

Originality…way to think of novel or unique ways or to produce clever, unobvious responses.

Describe the most unique method you can think of for keeping land rubbish out of oceans?

Elaboration…a way to add on to responses or expand on simple ideas

Rachel Carson suggests that a child can learn about the night sky with an adult

“even if you don’t know the name of a single star”. What do you think can be learnt by simply experiencing and sharing nature?

Source: NPCA Photos, Flickr

Affective Thinking Skills

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Risk taking…a way to think with courage by exposing oneself to failure or criticism

The person next to you has just dropped their bottle cap on the foot path in front of you and kept walking.

What do you say to them?

Complexity…thinking in a way that brings order to chaos and delves into complex ideas

Plastic is a convenience, a lifesaver and a death-trap. Discuss.

Curiosity…the willingness to follow a hunch, ponder a mystery or toy with an idea.

How could plastic end up being consumed by people?

Imagination… having the power to build on mental images or wonder about things that have never happened.

You have a laser that will transform all examples of any object it is fired at, rendering them biodegradable. What 3

objects do you aim it at, and how does life on Earth change?

Ms. Wallace's 4th grade students are learning about ecology and the environment. They are reading about the damage that

pollution can cause to fragile ecosystems. During the week that they are studying this topic, nothing in her class is thrown away.

Each student has a bag by his or her desk in which they place the things they would normally toss into the trash can. By the end of the week, the room is becoming a cluttered and somewhat smelly place. Ms. Wallace wants her students to be able to explain how plants, animals, and the environment interrelate. She also wants them to understand their own role in changing the environment

and to become more thoughtful citizens of the planet.

In Ms. Wallace's ecology class, students are gradually forced to confront the accumulating consequences of their trash

production. They research alternatives to disposable packaging and create a display of environmentally conscious choices. The overflowing trash bags create cognitive dissonance, and their research helps them develop attractive dissonance-reducing

choices. By creating the display, they have publicly advocated and modelled positive attitudes and behaviours, thus becoming

more likely to internalize them.

Emotional Engagement Techniques

• Self disclosure • Modelling emotions• Empowerment• Suspense – curiosity, uncertainty or anticipation• Surprise• Telling stories• Humour• Fostering wonder and imagination• Provoking short term negative emotions eg disgust, fear

Some examples from the AC:Science Theme F Living things have basic needs, including food and water (ACSSU002) The basic needs of living

thingsY 1 Observable changes occur in the sky and landscape(ACSSU019) Changes in the land and sky

Y 2 Earth’s resources, including water, are used in a variety of ways (ACSSU032) Using water

Y 3 Earth’s rotation on its axis causes regular changes, including night and day (ACSSU048) Night and Day

Y 4 Earth’s surface changes over time as a result of natural processes and human activity (ACSSU075)

Human impact on the Earth’s surface

Y 5 Scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions are used to solve problems that directly affect peoples’ lives (ACSHE100)

Science in daily life

Y 6 The growth and survival of living things are affected by the physical conditions of their environment(ACSSU094)1. investigating how changing the physical conditions for plants impacts on their

growth and survival such as salt water, use of fertilizers and soil types

Growing plants

Y 7 Some of Earth’s resources are renewable, but others are non-renewable (ACSSU116) Renewable and non-renewable resources

Y 8 Science and technology contribute to finding solutions to a range of contemporary issues; these solutions may impact on other areas of society and involve ethical considerations (ACSHE135)

Ethical application of science and technology

Y 9 Ecosystems consist of communities of interdependent organisms and abiotic components of the environment; matter and energy flow through these systems (ACSSU176)

1. investigating how ecosystems change as a result of events such as bushfires, drought and flooding

Bushfires, droughts and flooding

Y 10 Global systems, including the carbon cycle, rely on interactions involving the biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere (ACSSU189)1. investigating how human activity affects global systems

Changing climate

‘Education is not the filling of a bucket but the starting of a fire’

WB Yeats