Ebony & Ivory

I have been struggling lately with a particular group of students. I teach them on a Tuesday morning, first lesson. The lesson is always well planned, fast paced, interactive & well structured. The learners enter the room with a focussed, timed task to build the pace from the start, the majority are immediately engaged. They respond well to the structure of the lesson and through the use of directed questioning, they remain focussed and ready to share ideas. 

I teach the same group on a Monday at mid-day, after they have been taught by a colleague. The group is noisy, disruptive, easily distracted and really difficult to settle. 

Strategies

I am now getting the students to wait outside for the Monday lesson, as they do in the Tuesday lesson. I found this to work well, as it allows me to set the 'learning environment' for them to enter. It also allows me to set a short task as they enter the room, to focus them. 

After discussions with an LSA that supports the group in all of their lessons, she identified that it was the difference in standards and expectations, that was the cause of the difference. I feel I have high expectations and a clear level of discipline. 

Should I have to work twice as hard to get the students to behave? Or should there be some consistency in our standards?

Toolbox Update!

Peer Observation

After completing several observations of a mentor I am going to summarise some of the key points I have taken from his lessons and reflect on what impact they are going to have on my Teaching. 

Key observations: 

Planning:

• Evident planning of session using Blend-space, to pull together resources including videos, assessments, Power-point slides, pictures/diagrams. This allows the content to be added onto the VLE in a neat form, all linked together which makes this a valuable resource for the students. 
• Students arranged into study buddy's, determined by learning styles and mixing learning order. This seems to be well accepted by the students as a strategy to support them to achieve, not enforcing any behaviour issues, but perhaps good behaviour is a by-product of this? 

Teaching/Assessment:

• Use of BlendSpace allows for better flexibility of lesson progress/journey and also invites student engagement, in contrast to a 'death by PowerPoint' lesson. Allows learners to take control of the session.
• Use of purpose games as an individual 'mock exam', creating learning environment with 'chill' music, quiet environment. (A subtle hint towards the environments they could be creating at home.)
• Scores of the tests tracked on a spreadsheet, shown to all, students targets to beat their last score. Lloyd got the students to make an animal noise as loud as they could if they managed to beat their previous score. This really got the students engaged in this process! This tracking process adds value to assessment, an opportunity to monitor and also stretch. 
• Students seem to have a desire to learn, which I believe is instilled into them through the passion in that Lloyd delivers the session, the high paced structure of the session, the constant stretching and challenging fro Lloyd.
• Quality note-taking is positively encouraged and seems to be a basic expectation, opportunities for note taking are clearly identified by Lloyd. Students are sometimes asked to summarise complex topics in their own words and these are shared within the group. 
• Links to social media with a twitter feed set up for the students to use as a question/answer forum. Pintrest used to capture visual ideas, shared with students. 
• Kinaesthetic activity set to identify the structure of a muscle using paper, drinking straws etc. Allowed for H.O stretch by asking to add labels and descriptions. 
• Idea of students supplementing their learning by using the resources on blackboard to cover content, reinforce learning and self-assess. Students seem to buy into the idea and this idea is reinforced through the scoring system associated with the PurposeGames tests. 

Key Points for My Development:

Toolbox Update: 

This includes some of the techniques that I have observed in Lloyd's sessions plus a few others that I have been developing. 

(Click the links to see my examples)

• Blend-Space: I have already started using BlendSpace and am finding it useful to pull together resources and naturally find myself planning more 'blended learning' sessions. 
• Purpose Games: I have been using purpose games for a while, but I am going to experiment with the more formal 'tests' alongside the score tracking, as seen in Lloyd's session. 
• Jimdo: This is a free website creator that I have trialled this year for an assessment with a Level 2 group. Last year the group made a poster and this year they are to make a multi-page website. The websites can be more interactive, with links to games/videos/screen-casts, to help students explain the criteria of the assessment. 
• Screencasting: I have been using screencasting to offer assignment support. I am also planning to use this as an assessment tool, getting the students to create their own videos. 
• Padlet: I have used Padlet several times and am finding it an effective tool that can be used in many formats. I have sued this as a class interactive tool, asking the students to add photos/descriptions/key words onto the wall and also as a presentation task, setting the students the task of filling the wall with information to then present back to the group. This avoided the students simply reading from power point's. 

New Academic Year, New Students, New Challenges!

First, a quick relection on last year. My three main areas of development last year were:
●Assessment for Learning
● Planning
● Differentiaton

AFL

My main aim was to ensure that throughout each lesson I was continually formatively assessing the students understanding. I began with 'beefing' up the initial recap from previous lesson. The importance soon became apparent of linking one session to another, in ways other than the un-stimulating questions such as "So, what did we do last session?!" Then simply waiting for blank looks and awkward silences.

No! These new ideas were based around engaging, paced activites which required the students to actively use the knowledge and skills developed in the previous session. Examples of these activites include:Purpose Games, Articulate & Snowball.

Many of the above mentioned activites were used throughout sessions, to reinforce understanding or as a recap activity to check knowledge. I began creating a tool kit for engaging activities, which range from activites requiring interactive boards, smart phones etc to those that simply require a piece of scrap paper.

Planning

I developed my use of lesson plans, from something which briefly outlined a session, to a document that clearly highlighted the session aims, key information about the group of learners, learning strategies, LSA roles within sessions, formative & summative assessment methods and detailed timings.

The key things I discovered were:

● Learners can often discover or reach conclusions independantly, for instance, I previously planned sessions in the format of; Intro, Explanation of ideas/concepts, activity to reinforce ideas, method of assessment to check understanding and end with a recap. However, with the help of my mentor,  I changed my plans to make the sessions more learner-led. So the new format would be; Intro, activity to discover concepts/form an idea of key concepts, explanation/reinforcement of students idea with facts/concept, assessment and students complete recap.

● We are constantly assessing students throughout sessions in some format, be it direct questioning,  observing group tasks, learning games and actual assessments. I planned for these throughout my sessions.

Differentiation

I previously felt differentiation was a tricky subject and would always rely on "high and low order questioning". I soon found that differentiation was much more and many ways to achieve it.

One of my most used techniques are the traffic light cards, to check for understanding and then using this to stretch the H.O learners ('green cards) by getting them to peer teach the L.O learners ('red cards')

Alongside this I use the 'show me boards' to get a clear idea of learners progress through ranging questions, for example, L.O - Give me 3 parts of a typical plant and H.O Give me 3 parts of a typical, explain their function and their role within photosynthesis.

Looking Ahead

My goals this academic year are to:

● Develop further my use of engaging activities, including at the start endof lessons
● Improve the use of technology within the classroom including the use of Ipads,  Digital Visualiser and BYOD.
● Develop learning outside the classroom using the VLE as an interactive learning resource, linked with social media.

Overall Aim, to develop the tool kit and confidence to deliver Grade 1 Outstanding Lessons.

3...2....1...GO!

SMART steps to Outstanding!

I am going to concentrate the next few posts on a few areas I am going to develop to hopefully go towards achieving my goal of 'Outstanding' and an improved teaching practice.

I am going to focus on the following:

1) Assessment for Learning
2) Planning
3) Differentiation

So, What is Outstanding?

Up until recently I was pretty unsure of what and 'Outstanding' lesson was made up of, how much planning was required?
How many differentiating activities did you have to include? How snazzy did the presentations have to be? And so on...

It was only when I recently observed my mentors session did I realise that although an 'Outstanding' lesson may include some of these things but in my opinion it is all about feeling.

Whilst observing the session I really felt a sense of a 'buzz' within the room, I felt that I was learning and was having a great time doing it.

Post- Observation Post!

After an observation on Monday, I am going to use this post as a reflection.

Group: Level 3 Extended Diploma Fisheries Management.

Unit: Undertake and Review Work Experience.

A mixed age and ability group, with some strong characters within. Some students have minor behaviour issues so often have to be managed.

Aims and objectives:

To identify good and bad interview techniques.

To produce a 3-5 minute video demonstrating a good/bad interviewer/ interviewee.

I launched the aims and objectives verbally, however could have noted them down on the board so visible at all times.

The plan!

I planned to split the group into 4 groups, mixing ability and confidence as well as splitting up friendship groups and students that are easily distracted by one another.

The groups were given the task of producing a good/bad interview techniques mind map. After a few moments, group 1 and 2 got straight into writing some ideas down and group 3 and 4 were struggling little. So I gave some ideas/encouragement to both groups and set group 3 a target of 10 ideas for each and group 4 15 for each. I differentiated between the two as group 3 had slightly weaker members than group 4, who I believe were simply struggling to put ideas down on paper.

After about 10 minutes I had each group feedback answers to the rest of the group and recorded ideas on the whiteboard. I tried to develop their ideas and ask for examples to relate to where appropriate.

I then introduced the video task, and each group were given the task of planning and making a 3-5 minute video. Each team had to assign each person a role: interviewer, interviewee or camera man.

During the planning stage they were instructed to identify which good/bad techniques they were to use, write a rough time plan of topics/actions and write some questions and answers to be used.

Half way through the planning, to give some encouragement and ideas, a short clip was shown from YouTube. This seemed quite effective in idea generation.

Once each group completed, they were assigned a room and video camera and had 30 minutes to film. Each group had I return by 12 to show the final copy of their video.

The videos were then shown on the interactive board to the rest of the Group and discussed after each video.

At the end of the session, I asked some directed questions about good/bad interview techniques.

Review:

Behaviour:
Student behaviour was good on the whole, 3 students had to be reminded several times to put mobile phones away.

During discussions, some students had to brought back on topic as the conversation was close to becoming inappropriate.

Engagement:
During the mind mapping, I had to encourage some students to be involved and suggest ideas. I then made sure that I questioned these during the feedback to ensure they were contributing.

In the video task I felt that everyone was engaged in the task, as they all had an important role to undertake.

Embedding:
Literacy and numeracy were embedded by each group completing a planning task and writing interview Q+A.

E+D was touched on during the feedback session, where one student raised the point about possibly not wanting to be interviewed by someone because of sex or race.

Assessment:
I used formative assessment of Q+A, mind maps, video planning.

Summative assessment was of the completed video.

I am Awaiting my feedback and will update once received.

Tom

Reflecting on: Past.... Analysing: Present.

So I have been teaching for a few years now and the approach I have always tried to take with education consists of three main points:

Make it fun and enjoyable wherever possible.

Have an student centrered approach.

Keep the techniques varied.

 

 

Reflecting on my own experieince, I certainly knew what I didnt want to become! I also always knew that my overall aim was to be an 'Outstanding' teacher, so all I had to discover now was the part inbetween!

 

In my previous role as a Learning Support Co-Ordinator, I observed and supported many teaching sessions accross a variety of courses and levels. This formed a great base from me to build my teaching style and technique.

 

During this time I saw a lot of 'good' sessions, from which I gained a lot of ideas and techniques to use in my own teaching. I also observed a lot of things that didnt work quite as well and would always try to think of improvements which I could have made.

 

 

 

 

 





So here goes...

I have decided to set up this blog to allow me to discuss my thoughts and reflect upon my own teaching practice, without talking to myself and seeming completley mad! I plan to evaluate post-lesson and discuss new strategies and techniques that I am trying.

Start with what you already know...

So, I shall begin with visiting my own past experiences of learning. When I think back to my days at school, I can remember my favourite teacher at school was 'Mr Backhouse'.  Mr B' taught English, I never really enjoyed English during school untill I had Mr B' in Year 10. I had a great deal of respect for him, as did I feel respected by him. He clearly had a great passion for the subject and had a lot of energy during our lessons. I remember that during our English literature class, whilst reading the 'Of Mice and Men' Novel, he turned something that was for me a potencially boring task of reading this book, into something exciting, gripping and during the rest of the week I would be looking forward to continuing with the novel.

My least favouite was Maths during Year 8. This session was the same everyweek. Powerpoint - Teacher Talk Through Powerpoint - Students complete pages from textbook. Talking was discouraged and watching paint dry seemed a far more fulfilling experience.

So from this I have always tried to identify 1) What makes the 'Good Teachers' Good? and 2) How can I learn from what made some of the teachers 'Not so Good'?

In my next post I will reflect on my own teaching practices to date.

Tom