Is there a right way to teach? It’s become a trite and hackneyed truism that if they’re not learning you’re just talking. We’re all clear that teaching only happens when the little tinkers manage to make some sort of progress – preferably that of the rapid and sustained variety. But this simple truth, like so many others, seems to have been systematically and catastrophically misunderstood by many school leaders and inspectors. Until recently it was universally accepted that the key to a good lesson observation was showing that pupils are making progress in the 25 minutes available to us, and that the only way we could demonstrate this progress was by shutting the hell up and letting the kids do some work. If a teacher was observed speaking to the whole class they’d be exposed as being a bit rubbish and fast tracked on to the capability process. But is this right? Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for a spot of constructivism. When I began my career, direct instruction was all the rage. I get that things move on. Like this:
Punk Learning – I want to be free, free to learn to be me. “Well I hate to go to school and listen to the stupid rules. Just to keep me out of the way. So they can have an easy day. I want to be free, free to learn to be me” I Hate School – Suburban Studs The research by George Land, undertaken way back into the late sixties is a staggering study. Rather than righteously banging on about the lack of creativity in student’s work, or complaining about the SoW (that we religiously follow) not allowing our students to be creative or blaming external variables for the lack of imaginative lessons that we have to deliver. “Something’s happening and it’s happening right now. As an example, if you had to teach your class about George Orwell’s Animal Farm, why on earth would you just teach them (or tell them, which is probably more accurate) about the book? If you’re still reading this and thinking, “yes, fair point but we haven’t got the time, we’ve got a lot of content to get through” then answer this question. “And they put pressure on my brain.
Jig-sawing new information « The challenge I have set myself, as I mentioned in the last post is overcoming a didactic culture of learning and getting students to embrace group and independent study. Whenever I have observed really good lessons in other subjects they often have one thing in common: a kind of symmetry in terms of activity, simplicity and results. The most well-rounded of group work techniques is jigsaws. Today I tried this with factors affecting hydrographs. Experts had a photocopy from the textbook and had to make notes on mini-whiteboards to take back to their home groups. I did the same activity with my year 8s on factors affecting climate and it worked a treat. Like this: Like Loading...
Cultural ties… This has been a hard week for the children in the support group. One of them, who had been doing well back in class, has been very disruptive again lately. He poked his head round my door one morning at breakfast club, looked at me with a wry smile, and asked if he could return to the group as he wasn’t managing and didn’t want to disrupt the other pupils. I was very impressed with this maturity! However, his return to the group has caused ripples in the order of things and there has been a battle for the position of ‘top dog’. When this spills into school it can be very hard to manage as tempers flare and the staff and other members of the group try to mediate. The rhythms of the term are re-establishing themselves and the Senior Leadership Team are back on track with their monitoring timetable. I also had the first part of my own performance management this week. There are some very inspirational Head Teachers out there and I was fortunate enough to spend Friday with three of them.
Outstanding teaching using the new #Ofsted framework « @ TeacherToolkit Firstly, this is not a model, just an experience… Ofsted background: …Throughout my teaching career, I’ve been part of 5 Ofsted inspections, dating back to 1997 as a class teacher, and most recently in 2011, my second as a senior teacher… When starting my current school, Oftsed had departed the day before! My wife, after 11 years of teaching has only been ‘subject to Ofsted’ once, but I’m sure some teachers across the country have averaged one every 2 or 3 years! My average is every 4… On each of the occasions I have ‘been done to’, the framework has changed and so has the experience; alternating from reply-slips and no-comments from the observing inspector, to a broad smile, coupled with detailed feedback and a reciprocated pair of ears. Believe me, I have received all levels of judgements throughout my career. What I’ve been up to: In my role as lead for Teaching and Learning, we have started a series of six-paired ’rounds’ of learning walks and paired feedback observations. “Aprons on!
Mishmashlearning goes blogging | Ideas in a mixed up world of tradition and tech. No longer Bullet Proof « stilllearing This was the week I discovered I wasn’t bullet proof. My NQT year has had its highs and lows during the last twelve months, but nothing that has laid me low or given me too much that I couldn’t resolve it. Yet this week has been by far one of the most challenging. Lets set the scene I have a the bottom set year 9′s, there are sixteen in the class who are all school action, school action plus with one statement child. The behavior and emotional ‘issues ‘I am not sure of as I am not privy to know all the details as there are various agencies involved. I have been having class management issues with this class from the beginning. I started the term with us deciding on the rules of the class and our expectations of each other, which although a lively lesson I felt was quite successful, little did I realise that no matter what is said one day the next they have forgotten. So I walked away little battle weary but nothing that left any scars. So flak jacket on and now ready for battle again.
Resources - @Ideas_Factory The blog of Julian S. Wood With the new changes to the ICT curriculum in England for 2014, I decided to collate all the Computing links that I can in this one handy space. Suggestions welcome. Excellent guide to new Computing Curriculum from NAACE and CAS written by Miles Berry (@MBerry) Amazing Book by @SimonHaughton (Very good for adults too! Brilliant explanation of Computational Thinking by Dan Bridge (@danfBridge) Computer Science Terminology for Primary Teachers by Phil Bagge (@Baggiepr) Great Google Docs crowd-sourced Computing in Schools Document Started by Sheli Blackburn (@SheliBB) The internet explained for 4 year olds and diagrams! Assessing Computing A great article written by Miles Berry (@MBerry) Essential! Recommended Websites Computing at Schools Network- CAS A MUST JOIN! Great Primary Computing Website by @drchips_ @JohnBilton Great Computing website Digital School House-brilliant resources. Code Club-Resources to start a code club or for class. Fabulous Computing in Y1-Y6 posters by Aaron Webb (@A_Webb_7)
Flipping Learning: Some useful tools In my last effort to enthral the blogosphere with my own low-level version of "expertise"(and from your kind comments back I seem to have succeeded in managing everyone's expectations downwards remarkably well!), I talked about my journey into the idea of "flipping the classroom". It was all very abstract and you missed nothing much, although in fairness you should really read it again before this post, if only to give my stats a boost: Zero is a lonely little readership figure. Today I thought I'd get concrete on your asses, and give you some idea of the sorts of things I do in class to flip the learning. These could be regarded as fairly subject-specific, but I think the principles are applicable in a range of areas, or so I'm informed by reliable colleagues. More reliable than me at any rate. A few examples: Software: In my subject, I have to teach students how to use a great many pieces of software for design, editing, and now with the growing use of iPads in my lessons, apps.
Sharing Pedagogical Purposes Learner Evolution ~ Chris Harte: #feedforward The more I think about assessment, the more fascinating and intricate I find it. Superficially, it used to seem really straight forward; teacher tells you what to do and how to succeed, you do it and the teacher tells you how you have done. Simples. Or maybe it is having that just in time learning conversation which not only helps learners see where they are, but also where they can get to. The horizon is vast. Or maybe it is all of theses things? I don't think a single blog post will suffice to make my thinking clear, even to myself, so in this post, I would like to focus on feedforward. I remember coining this term a couple of years ago (I am not claiming originality here by the way, simply that I had never heard the term - in fact a quick Google finds this from 2002) in an in house workshop on assessment with none other than my great friend Darren Mead. Here is a copy of the presentation I gave at Teachmeet Melbourne on this very topic on Saturday.
Looking beyond a lesson in SOLO Now I have been using SOLO in my GCSE PE classes since April 2012. I have to say that for me, as a non classroom specialist, it was an excellent way to ensure I had structure in my lesson. It was much simpler than my previous 'Blooms and Accelerated Learning Cycle' mash up I was using and actually did the same things more effectively and efficiently. Non linear When I first started using SOLO, to get a grip of it I methodically planned learning and any activities to go from Pre/Uni-structural to Extended Abstract. Questioning Well thought out, effective and directed questioning is a integral tool for us as teachers. By using the verb list during your lesson planning, you can tie in relevant questions to the various SOLO stages. Learning objectives As a result of playing around with SOLO, my learning objectives/outcomes/thingymajigs changed. Using SOLO to differentiate SOLO is a great tool for differentiating learning with your students.
Teaching, Learning, Education: SOLO, Bloom's - Time to Think! I have been awash with Twitter enthusiasm for #SOLO; lot's of teachers are keen to describe the benefits of helping pupils improve their metacognitive self-awareness. There is a great blog entry by James Theobald, describing his own work with this taxonomy. He describes a lesson in which Y7 pupils need to show their understanding of poetry. I immediately liked the start of his lesson, in which pupils were able to offer suggested definitions of poetry and to evaluate their position on the taxonomy - that, at this stage, they were beyond 'pre-structural', because they had read poems, knew some features etc. As the lesson moved forward the pupils were given a number of poems and began to link ingredients together to develop an overarching 'relational' definition. Pupils may have demonstrated prior knowledge by identifying a number of features of poems. Is this different, better, worse?
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