Structure of the atom. GCSE Outcomes and Transition Matrices: A data tool every teacher can use. As most people recognise, when evaluating the degree of success in a set of GCSE outcomes we need some sense of the baseline before we start making like-for-like comparisons.
At the risk of stating the obvious, how well we’ve done all depends on what our results look like relative to the prior attainment of the students. This applies to comparing whole schools, year-on-year comparisons for one school, subjects within schools and teaching groups – especially if they are set by ability. Given how long various data tools have existed and how commonly they are used, it still surprises me when school leaders, subject leaders and teachers refer to raw outcomes but don’t automatically engage with a banded analysis.
Clarity Innovations- Create, Engage, and Assess with Mobile Assessment Apps. For most educators, the Common Core State Standards mean next-generation assessments.
Fortunately there are a variety of mobile assessment tools that can be used to engage students and provide enhanced feedback before, during, and after a daily lesson or semester-long unit. APP Progression Trees KS3 Science. Fossil Rock Anthem. Four Sources of Print-on-demand Graph Paper. Every mathematics teacher I know needs graph paper.
If you're a mathematics teacher and find yourself running short on graph paper or you need a graph paper that is different from what your school purchases, try one of these four places for printing graph paper. Incompetech offers more than forty different graph and lined paper templates. The offerings from Incompetech even includes sheet music ledger. Print Free Graph Paper offers eight graph paper formats. Print Free Graph Paper allows you to customize the size of the graph before printing.
Math Drills hosts fourteen templates for printing your own graph paper. Gridzzly is a free tool for designing lined, grid, and graph paper. Playing left-handed: How do I improve as a teacher? In the 1996 World Championships, O’Sullivan came up against Alain Robidoux and displayed a talent that few can rival.
Being naturally right-handed, O’Sullivan began to play left-handed during the match. Robidoux accused him of being disrespectful and Ronnie responded that he was a better player with his left hand than Robidoux was with his right. “O’Sullivan was called to a disciplinary hearing following Robidoux’s formal complaint, where he had to prove his skill with his left hand. He played three frames against former snooker star Rex Williams and won them all. An inconvenient truth? The surplus model of school improvement. Schools often seem to be run on a ‘deficit model‘: “this attributes scepticism or hostility to a lack of understanding, resulting from a lack of information.
It is associated with a division between ‘experts’ (school leaders, Ofsted inspectors, consultants etc.) who have the information and non-experts (classroom teachers) who do not. The model implies that communication should focus on improving the transfer of information from experts to non-experts.” Top Ten Tips for Behaviour Management. Most of my posts are about teaching strategies, the curriculum or the odd political rant.
I have written very little on the subject of behaviour management. TeachThought - Learn better. Make Your Images Interactive - ThingLink. Thousands of years of visual culture made free through Wellcome Images. Teaching computing: part 1 — University of East Anglia. Ms McInerney’s “Book of Consequences” Detention System.
When I first started teaching I cried at least once per week for three months straight.
One day a teacher even found me sobbing on my classroom floor in the pitch black at 3.30pm. Science Teachers – 10 ideas for heat transfer lessons. A lot of students really struggle with the concepts of thermal energy transfer.
It is a classic case of them turning up to our lessons having plenty of ideas of what is happening, most of which are wrong! It may be worth looking at the Institute of Physics resources (that include the new energy transfers which are not without controversy) here (You might have to register with www.talkphysics.org but it is well worth it as it has a superb forum and all the SPT materials ) It is pointless trying to teach them the concepts until you really know what they are thinking so ensure you start with some AfL hinge questions. Mindly Makes Mind Mapping Simple and Beautiful on Small Screens. Tracker Video Analysis and Modeling Tool for Physics Education.
Opportunity Cost. The economic concept of “opportunity cost’ is one that should be better known in the field of education.
Consider the following scene: The Assistant Principal – who taught for an average of eight hours per week – was drawing to the end of his powerpoint presentation, “… and so in order to achieve this presence, it seems reasonable that there should be a comment in every child’s exercise book for every lesson taught… I mean learnt. The comment should be SMART,” The assistant principal changed the powerpoint slide to one that defined the acronym SMART, “but it doesn’t need to be long. In fact, the comment may often be written during the lesson.” The Deputy Principal – who didn’t teach at all – then arose from her seat in the front row and turned to face the rest of the hall.
The atmosphere was tense. The assistant principal began his reply, “Well, as I said, we’re not necessarily talking about a long comment here.” The hall fell silent. Consider this instead: Oiling the hinges – refining my construction of hinge question. It’s always the same, whenever we concentrate on the steps, our footwork falls apart, but when we work on footwork we forget how to do the steps.
Peter, tango teacher Improving teaching is just like dancing tango… Well, in one respect: when I refine one teaching technique, the others go by the wayside. The overall result of my attempts to improve individual aspects of my practice is, I hope, a better lesson, but whatever I’m not working on tends to atrophy. So while my posts on hinge questions easily outstrip the rest of the blog in popularity, my own skill in using them deteriorates. Putting Practice Perfect into practise. Developing Literacy in Science.