uLearn10 - Breakout 4 - Mark Treadwell – Concept Curriculum Scaffold for NZC

Last paradigm shift in education was in the 1400’s – paradigm shifts in education are very rare – moved from aural to text based system, now moving from text to internet/web based system = new paradigm shift.

3 learning processes
- rote learning – very weak process, only evolved in last 500 years due to the need to learn to read and write
- forming concepts – highly adaptable, concepts become automated e.g. sitting down in a chair (you don’t think about it), concepts allow you to predict what’s going to happen so you don’t need to think about it, brains can access endless astrocytes to create new concepts
- brainwaves – creativity

So which system should we base our A/O’s around? Concepts.

NZC – very content driven e.g. maths, must rote count to..., very inconsistent A/O’s, front section fantastic as allows self design BUT framework only – no scaffold! Impossible for schools to build a scaffold independently.

Creating understanding needs a number of contexts to be explored.

Creativity can be used for good or ill – where character and principles come in (values, attitudes, ethics, personal qualities).

Learning today is based on oral language and visual language (Anne Tolley hasn’t got this!), multimedia is missing from English curriculum.

Junior teachers should be worrying about competencies and literacies. Competencies should be being explicitly taught.

Primary school world should be a world of wonderment and awe – AHA moments should be happening all the time.

What do students need to understand? Not... What do they need to learn?

Test a concept by giving them a different context to see if they can apply the concept.

Takes about 8 months in a primary school to build concept scaffold.

Inquiry should be inquiring why something happens.




Young children don’t ‘get’ the concept of editing their writing. Make 1 thing a focus for the next piece of writing following conferencing (e.g. capital letters at the start of sentences). Students hate having to rework/change a piece of existing writing which leads to them hating writing (really they hate having to edit!!) This way you are instead suggesting a review for next time.

Literacy Learning Progressions are spot on EXCEPT for editing.

Key message: create understanding through the process of forming concepts (explored through different contexts).