Introduction to TY at John Scottus	TY Curriculum 09/10
What's Been Happening in TY09/10?	TY Blog

TY Curriculum 09/10
The National Centre for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) loosely defines the goals of the optional one year Transition Year Curriculum in the Irish Secondary Education system. Schools choose, design and implement a programme of subjects and devise teaching and learning methods which they feel will engage the pupils and help them to develop their independance, confidence and maturity.

Learning Outcomes for Transition Year
Transition Year aims to help the student mature and refine in all aspects, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. To help realize this, a number of core learning outcomes have been identified. These learning outcomes involve developing faculties and transferable skills in:

• Group and Team work
• Leadership
• Communication
• Problem Solving and Analysis
• Creativity and Innovation
• Organisation and Management
• Service
• Reflection and Self-Awareness
• Spiritual practices such as developing attention and meditation

To developing these skills students complete activities and projects integrated across a range of subjects.

Methodology and Teaching Strategies – Problem Solving and Student led Inquiry
Traditional school teaching models are based on the teacher as the expert delivering content to the student. However in Transition Year, an alternative model based around real world problem solving is used. With this approach, instead of content being delivered, students are given real world problems. Students now become active problem solvers instead of passive receptors of information and teachers become coaches instead of experts.
Important elements in this teaching strategy are that students learn

• To critically analyse and solve complex, real-world problems
• To develop a sense of inquiry
• To work cooperatively in teams and small groups
• Demonstrate versatile and effective communication skills, both verbal and written

Digital Teaching and Learning
A new initiative in 2009/10 is the introduction of ICT for teaching and learning in a very significant way. The students have all received a netbook, engage in web-based research, and submit assignments online to the school eLearning platform.

What subjects are taught? 
In November '09, the teachers wrote up reports on their TY subject curriculum. The passion and enlightened teaching approach of the diverse group of teachers comes through in the reports below - which shows how positively the teachers respond to the freedom in defining their own curriculum for a year.

English	Speech and Debating	Irish	French
Geography	History	Philosophy	Art
Maths	Computers	Science	Classical Studies
Latin	Business	Careers	Community Service

Speech and Debating
Transition year requires an immense amount of public speaking and presentation from the students throughout the year as they present their findings in all subjects as part of the Problem Based Learning approach. They perform presentations to their class mates, to groups of teachers and on three specific occasions to their parents. Thus public speaking plays an enormously important role this year and is a vital part of their personal development.

In the two periods of Speech and Debating the students practice skills involved in presenting to the public. The students learn methods of research, how to prepare and write and speech and practice delivery.

Debating Team
A group of students form the Debating team and take part in the Concern Debates. The style of debate is parliamentary and the topics of debate are all based around World issues. This provides plenty of cross-curricular activity and work is done specifically in Development studies and in Business Studies to further their understandings of the topics. The whole class aids with the research and forms opposing teams to facilitate the team on its route to (fingers-crossed)success.

We would be delighted to receive support on our debate nights which are as follows:

Thursday 12th November 7.30pm
Venue: John Scottus School (against Newpark Comprehensive School)
Topic: Rising unemployment at home is too high a price to pay for aid to the developing world
(Proposing)

Thursday 26th November 8.00pm
Venue: St Mary’s College, Rathmines
Topic: The West is not Serious about combating Climate Change (Opposing)

Thursday 3rd December 8.00pm
Venue: John Scottus School (against St Michael’s Holy Faith, Finglas)
Topic: The Irish Media has a stereotyped and unfair view of Africa (Proposing)

If anyone has any special knowledge in any of these areas we would be thrilled if you could come in and talk to the students. Please contact the school

French
The emphasis on French this year is on hands-on projects related to French teaching, language and civilisation. There are four modules in total throughout the year. You do not, in any way, have to be academically strong in French to enjoy the TY French programme. The three modules to Spring ask a lot from the TY students. For example, they have to:

1. Stand up in front of a class of 1st years and teach an engaging, fun 10 minute lesson to lower school classes (totally through le français!).
2. Design and create their own French comic book.
3. Write and develop a short French docu-drama on a French city and then make a presentation in front of a board of directors whom they have never met.

The last four weeks will be devoted to getting their brains geared again towards more academic French and the Leaving Certificate programme.

Geography
This is an excting year for the TY geographers! From solving real-life problems that include making our school more environmentally friendly to pretending to be a director on a Bollywood film. Our course content contains elements from physical, human and economic geography and looks at complex issues facing our world today. This will be done through a variety of methodologies incuding role-plays, field studies, map-making, group activities & multi-media presentations.

Philosophy PBL project:
To design a school based on the philosophy of a famous person/famous philosopher. This includes a mission statement, curriculum, examples of details of how some subjects are taught, some lesson plans, and design of the physical layout of the School.

Art
September: Our starting point was the Royal Society of Chemistry publication, ‘The Chemistry of Art’, which explores the contemporary scientific basis of art conservation, restoration and new techniques for authenticating artwork. In this context, we looked at selected medieval and Renaissance paintings and altar pieces, with particular reference to the pigments and supports their artist used. Students were then asked to research the history of various pigments from the 15th to the 19th century. We then looked at the history of art forgery and the extreme lengths to which contemporary forgers will go to successfully fool the art market. We looked at some of the more notorious 20th century case histories. We also looked at the ambiguous and complicated responses of art collectors and the international art market to this sensitive topic. We then examined how individual artworks are verified through an examination of their own unique documentary history known as the ‘provenance’ of a painting.

October: Students were asked to assume the identity of an art patron and artist of their choice who were genuine contemporaries between 1400 and 1530. They were asked to construct a convincing correspondence between them, in which a work of art is being commissioned. Students have been enjoying the combination of precise detective work and imaginative role-playing that the exercise demands. While students may invent drama and controversy, references must be made to real events, places and works of art and incorporate authentic biographic detail. A contract for executing a painting is to be drawn up with all materials and pigments specified. And again, all of this must have historic accuracy. Some students have researched an existing painting and have been attempting to reconstruct the circumstances of its commissioning – other students have been inventing a new work of art, but based on paintings they admire.

The second half of term involves liaising with the Science Department to experiment with making pigment in the lab.

Maths
Learning Outcomes
• To understand how practical problems use Maths arriving at solutions
• To be aware of the lives of famous Mathematicians and their contributions to Maths
• To develop logical and mathematical skills in areas such as geometry, algebra, trigonometry, statistics and probability

The aim is to engage the students with Maths in a manner that contrasts to the textbook format of their former and future years. They are introduced to a puzzle called 'instant insanity' which involves organising coloured cubes according to set rules. They are involved in the making of the cubes which challenged them to create the best 'net' from the cardboard provided and in using appropriate terms such as 'faces', 'edges' and 'vertices'. Graph theory is introduced as a means of solving the puzzle. In general: set challenging puzzles which require the students to engage with mathematical concepts and methods in order to solve them.

In one area, for example, the teacher introduces coded messages which the groups have to decipher before they come up with their own code to create a message that the other groups attempt to 'intercept' and decode. Coding is related to applications of security to areas such as Computers, Finance and History. The aim throughout is to embed the Maths in interesting contexts that stimulate the curiosity of the students.

The students are introduced to the historical development of theories by mathematicians when they were working to solve problems in their professional lives. One Irish connection in this regard is a plan to study 'Hamiltonian graphs'. Other problems include the 'Konigsberg bridges' problem and its connection to Leonard Euler. The birth of calculus is introduced along with the related verbal battle between Leibnitz and Newton in regards to its proprietary.

For the more busy times of Transition Year, the students will be presented with the famous map colouring problem which will involve them in plenty of colouring and consideration of the minimum colours needed to colour a map. And of course there is GeoGebra which will be useful for algebra and graph plotting, among other things.

Sample Problems Investigate:

Topic	Project
Geometry	We are ecstatic that you have agreed to take over our Purity Dairy account. Their newest request is one that is both challenging and exciting. For over three decades the milk jugs of Purity have looked the same. You are the one who gets to make history and redesign this traditional milk jug. The goal of this project is to make the jug both more pleasing to the eye as well as more practical. Purity wants the jugs to stack better in the grocer’s cooler as well as be made with the least amount of material. We are confident that you can fulfil all of Purity’s and our expectations. Now let’s make history.
Geometry	You are a civil engineer and you have been asked to construct rods in a rural area of Canada that has no paved roads. There are four small towns in this area that are located in a perfect square relative to each other. Each of the towns wishes to be connected directory or indirectly to the others by the paved road. Connect the four towns by using the least amount of pavement as money is very restricted.
Probability	At Las Vegas, a man with $20 needs $40, but he is too embarrassed to ring his wife for more money. He decides to invest in roulette( which he does not enjoy playing) and is considering two strategies: bet the $20 on “evens” all at once and quit if he wins or loses, or bet on “evens” one dollar at a time until he has won or lost $20. Compare the merits of the strategies
Trigonometry	You are an architect. The school is planning to build an extension and you have been asked to estimate the height of the school building. Build an instrument that can measure it.
History	You have been asked to talk about life and contributions of a Mathematician to class of a 10 year olds. Prepare a presentation of the life and contribution of one Mathematician.

Computers
Learning Outcomes
• To have developed practical skills in using common word processing and presentation computer applications.
• To be able to design and develop websites
• To understand how computers work from a hardware viewpoint
• To develop an understanding of how software programming can be used in the design of robots.
• To know how to create multimedia content using pictures, video and audio

Sample Problems Investigate:

Topic	Problems
Word/Powerpoint	You need to find work experience as part of Transition year. Prepare CV to apply for Work experience and a Powerpoint presentation on why this work experience interests you.
Hardware	You work as a top sales consultant for a computer company. A school has come to you asking for advice on what computers they should purchase. Evaluate different computers on offer from different companies. Outline at least 3 choices to the school. Make a recommendation on what computers to purchase giving reasons for you recommendation.
WebDesign	Design a website on a country you have visited or will visit in the future during your time in school.
Robots	A robot is need to rescue victims from a fire. Your task is to build and program robot that will rescue victims and overcome any obstacles/debris which it may encounter along the way.
Multimedia	Your task to create a newsletter of the your Transition Year experience. Create a Mulimedia clip using sound, images and movie of your Transition Year experience.

Science
Learning Outcomes
• To develop a scientific understanding in how to do experiments.
• To be aware of the latest scientific research and technology in areas such as forensic science, microbiology and future fuels
• To develop scientific problem solving and critical thinking skills

Problems Investigated

Topic	Project
Sports Science	Obesity and poor health is an increasing problem today. Your task is to design sports program that will dentify the differences in the heart rate at rest, during exercise and recovery between different people in your group. Compare the results between physically active and sedentary individuals
Fireworks	Halloween is coming. You are a fireworks expert.. How can fireworks be designed to work safely and be fun to use? Design a firework. Explain what chemicals you use and why you use them.
Forensic Science	Forensic Scientists and detectives work closely together to solve crime. You are going to take on the role of these to solve the dastardly crime in Delahasey House. Identify your suspect in the Murder Mystery through the use of Forensic Science Techniques
Future Fuels	Energy consumption and environmental damage is on the increase. The Irish Government has to decide which type of car should be sold to Irish car buyers after 2010. The choice is between cars with redesigned petrol engines, hybrid cars which can run on electricity or petrol and cars powered by hydrogen. The Government wants to meet Irelands's commitment to lower the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere. They think that changing car type may help. Present your solution to the Transport Minister in a debate.
Microbiology	Diseases are widespread in developing countries. You have been ask to organise a public awareness campaign on a particular disease. Your campaign should explain about the disease is transmitted, how it enters the body, how the body defends itself and suggested treatments.
Environmental Protection	Your are a chemist with the Environmental Protection Agency. A young couple has purchased a farm approximately 30 miles outside of town. They wish to convert the barn to a house, which they plan to live in. Upon exploration of the barn, they discovered several barrels of some liquid substance. Concerned about dumping the contents of the barrels, they have contacted the EPA for advice and to determine if it is safe to dump the barrel contents. Prepare a report for the couple and for the EPA defending your conclusions.

Classical Studies
The Ancient Olympics
Ancient Greek city-states competed against one another at the first Olympics. Athens, Sparta or Corinth, which one are you? Students of TY pick one of these states and discuss your city-state’s culture. Comment on why the games are so important in your society and the Olympic spirit.

It is 500 BC and students of TY will create a newspaper for those coming to the games. Religious correspondents will report on what is happening in the Altis and the great Olympic sacrifice to Zeus. Perhaps you could write an article on which gods or goddesses are being worshipped to bring luck to the athletes. News writers will report on special preparations, training of the athletes, and just who are the Hellonodikai? Sports writers can interview star athletes, is Milo of Kroton still eating 9kg of meat and bread every day? Be sure to include wrestling wonders, crazy chariot drivers, boxers, discus throwers, runners and javelin men. The style writers can cover what's happening at the celebration banquets, maybe interview some celebrities. The war correspondent will of course monitor if those warlike Spartans are observing the famous Olympic Truce. And who can report on those dreadful screams coming from Typaeum mountain?

After this, look at the modern Olympics and consider the following: who is the founder, what is the Olympic motto? Why are the Olympic rings red, yellow, green, blue, and black? TY students can explore how the Olympic Games have changed, and how aspects of the ancient Olympic Games compare and contrast with the modern version of the same events.

Latin
In the first half of the term, the Latin students teamed up with the Classical Studies group to produce a dynamic presentation on the Ancient site of Mycenae. (See topic on Classical Studies.) This was done to inspire a more general interest in the Classical world and its relevance today.

During the second half of term the Latin students are back in their own classroom. Here we are working through the Problem Based Learning method to approach the dynamics of the Latin language and the culture of the Romans. The primary advantages of studying a Classical language lie in the way they dramatically improve the use of English and also in an understanding of our cultural heritage. Vocabulary is a constant downfall of Leaving Certificate students and we are therefore basing our projects around the interconnect between Latin words and English words used in common parlance. We start with the Irish Times Crossword and the students have to figure out the percentage of answers based on Latin roots. They are then given the task of creating a piece of writing using only English words with Latin etymology. No mean feat and a great way of improving their Latin vocabulary. During this period they also study Roman architecture and have a chance to view its influence in many of the buildings in Dublin.

Careers
Career Guidance in Transition Year aims to provide the student with an overview of the framework of applying for a job, practical experience at some work and an overall understanding of third level institutions. We also provide psychometric testing which helps the student to identify strengths and weaknesses in relation to certain areas such as verbal skills, numerical and mechanical reasoning so as to give them some idea of the subjects that may suit them in the senior cycle. We have careers evening and careers week, which again acts as a tool in the decision-making process relating to their subjects for the leaving cert programme and for their future studies and employment. We will also doing a lot of project work this year, based on the Problem Based Learning approach; the students will be asked to research a particular issue relating to careers and will have to present their findings to the class.