1: Richard will be 50 in 2014, I want to mark the occasion appropriately, but I don't know what that is yet.
It seems that we'll be going to York that weekend, I hope that our science teacher friends can help Richard enjoy his birthday. The present will either be a Raspberry Pi or a Gaggia coffee machine.
2: I have some tickets for the commonwealth games in Glasgow, I am really looking forward to them as I love watching live sport. I hope we can see some world cup track cycling too, and we aim to see the Grand Depart of le Tour.
We can't see the start of Le Tour as Richard's friend's son is getting married and the band Richard is a member of are playing. I need to sort the Commonwealth Games situation as there are no hotel rooms left in Glasgow! ARGH. I think we'll be staying in Edinburgh and commuting each day. (Only two, don't panic).
3: We moved into our house in 2011, and we still haven't decorated our bedroom yet (any of the upstairs in fact). I want to at least strip the awful wallpaper in 2014!
Today we bought a wall paper scraper and some tester pots of paint. I call this progress.
4: I want to make more of an effort to visit Westonbirt Arboretum more often. I drive past it each day and I have never been during autumn. I must rectify this in 2014.
This has not been achieved. I WILL do better in the summer term.
5: In 2013 I managed to lose 6lbs during the summer, I have put 2 back on, but I want to lose another 10-12lbs during 2014 to get back to the shape I was once proud of. Will power is necessary!
I also need to do better at this.
6: I need to save money in 2014 to be able to buy myself a new laptop. I would love to save enough to be able to afford a trip to Hong Kong, but I think this may be beyond me.
New laptop has been bought, but a trip to Hong Kong won't be happening as we have a lot of other things to spend money on this year.
7: The new national curriculum provides an opportunity I want to make the most of, I just don't known he details yet!
We had a meeting in February half term about this, I was working on it last week and we'll have another get together in May we think. Progress is being made, just slowly!
8: I really hope my A2 physics students get the results they need to get to university.
Still working on this.
9: The more involved I get in the ASE the more I realise its power and importance. I want to continue to contribute to it, and I will.
I will be writing the clubber's guide in school science review.
I have already worked with Emma on developing an ASE pinterest board. A google+ community and working out how to share teacher made resources is next on my list.
10: I keep finding white hairs in my brown ones. 2014 is the year that I am going to have to face doing something about them.
I have bought dye this week. It is sitting in a box looking at me.
11: I am organising to take the whole school to the Big Bang Science Fair and I hope that the trip is a success that puts science week onto the school calendar as a permanent event. I want to start the engineering education scheme up in school in 2014/15 with year 12. I want to put STEM on a stronger footing within the school and attract more post-16 students who want to student STEM subjects at university. To me the value of studying science is clear and this is something I want to ensure comes across in my teaching and the teaching of the rest of the department.
The trip to the Big Bang Fair happened. It was quite a challenge getting all the reply slips in, but they all came and had a good time.
I haven't yet started to work on the strategic plan of how to encourage more girls to follow the STEM subjects, but this is something that I will do in the summer term with the help of colleagues.
12: I have no more excuses not to apply for my CSciTeach accreditation in 2014. I should be working on the application instead of writing this.
I am avoiding completing this as I write this updated blog post. I will have it done in time for the next round of applications, I am about 600 words away from completion.
13: I want to be more organised, my time, my resources, everything! I want to be organised enough to make the most of all the opportunities I am given.
I am still really struggling with this. My idea was always to leave it until the summer term to have a look at the resources that I have and the routines that I need to have in order that everything has its own space.
14: In terms of improving my teaching practice and making resolutions for my department I will wait until after the ASE conference. The event always inspires me and connects me to the right people to point me, my teaching and my department in the best direction. I am especially looking forward to seeing Mary and talking York Science!
I still haven't really set this goals and I want to do it ready for the summer term so that I can work on things ready for September. It ties in with 13, 11 and 7.
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
Sunday, 6 April 2014
Research Ed - what I found out
I didn't take many notes yesterday. It is quite hard to take notes and listen, however I will try and recap what I remember and therefore what I take away with me.
John Henry Catholic College looks like a really nice building. Modern, nice corridor spaces and not vast as some West Midlands schools are (the one I worked in was 1400 and only 11-16). The head Jennifer McGuirk welcomed us and I was quietly impressed with what she had to say about the journey of the school. Tom Bennet then made us laugh and implied there was more to come in the Research Ed agenda before sending us off for the day.
I went to see Daisy Christodoulou talk about the "key principles teachers should apply in the classroom". I get the impression memory was a key point in a few talks given during the day (it was certainly in two of the ones I went to) and it took up a good portion of the talk Daisy gave. She started by talking about big data and saying something along the lines of looking at data isn't enough without understanding the underlying theory, and without the theory it is hard to translate into practice. As an avid reader of Glen Gilcrist's blog I would agree that correlation does not mean causation.
Daisy went on to talk about AfL as an example of something that has struggled to show the impact that research would indicate. She said that there was problems with both the research and implementation. As someone who has been to a session run by Chris Harrison and Sally Howard on AfL I know that she is not the only one who is concerned about the implementation of AfL.
Then Daisy talked about E.D Hirsch and his principles for good understanding. There were 7 of them. She then did an exercise with us to prove that having our knowledge in our long term memory made things easier to remember.
I did write down her principles for teaching:
1. Avoid working memory overload
2. Promote long term memory storage
3. Practice to achieve mastery (fluency)
I went in expecting to find out something I didn't know. Although the language was more theoretical than I am used to. I was relieved that I agree with a lot of what Daisy had to say. Not teaching too many new things at once and practising them isn't new to me.
For the next session I want to the DfE talk about "research priorities: what are the key gaps and questions in education". There was some positivity at the start of the session that the DfE wanted to engage with their own research questions. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/research-priorities-for-education-and-childrens-services The details are here on line.
He talked about the inability of CPD to breakdown the current (ineffective?) practices of teachers and replace it with new associations. We don't unlearn the things we do.
David told us the worst ways of transforming practice through CPD are the ways that we use: whole staff lectures, individual day courses and printed guidance.
He asked why is it that the profession most associated with learning is the worst at engaging with it? I still don't understand that.
David then went on to talk about things that do work. Things like lesson study, collaboration with other colleagues, coaching, carefully scripted teacher actions, forms of action research and masters level study. He showed two slides with a list of theoretical principles for good CPD, like evaluating it, it being sustained, aspirational, lead by good leaders, challenging.
David ended with this slide. "Start with the end in mind". Something I hear a lot in education!
John Henry Catholic College looks like a really nice building. Modern, nice corridor spaces and not vast as some West Midlands schools are (the one I worked in was 1400 and only 11-16). The head Jennifer McGuirk welcomed us and I was quietly impressed with what she had to say about the journey of the school. Tom Bennet then made us laugh and implied there was more to come in the Research Ed agenda before sending us off for the day.
I went to see Daisy Christodoulou talk about the "key principles teachers should apply in the classroom". I get the impression memory was a key point in a few talks given during the day (it was certainly in two of the ones I went to) and it took up a good portion of the talk Daisy gave. She started by talking about big data and saying something along the lines of looking at data isn't enough without understanding the underlying theory, and without the theory it is hard to translate into practice. As an avid reader of Glen Gilcrist's blog I would agree that correlation does not mean causation.
Daisy went on to talk about AfL as an example of something that has struggled to show the impact that research would indicate. She said that there was problems with both the research and implementation. As someone who has been to a session run by Chris Harrison and Sally Howard on AfL I know that she is not the only one who is concerned about the implementation of AfL.
Then Daisy talked about E.D Hirsch and his principles for good understanding. There were 7 of them. She then did an exercise with us to prove that having our knowledge in our long term memory made things easier to remember.
I did write down her principles for teaching:
1. Avoid working memory overload
2. Promote long term memory storage
3. Practice to achieve mastery (fluency)
I went in expecting to find out something I didn't know. Although the language was more theoretical than I am used to. I was relieved that I agree with a lot of what Daisy had to say. Not teaching too many new things at once and practising them isn't new to me.
For the next session I want to the DfE talk about "research priorities: what are the key gaps and questions in education". There was some positivity at the start of the session that the DfE wanted to engage with their own research questions. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/research-priorities-for-education-and-childrens-services The details are here on line.
We were asked to look at a selection of the research questions and make our own comments about them on post-it notes onto the flip chart boards. I really felt that I couldn't add a lot. In some ways because I feel that the things I could contribute are obvious and I don't have a great deal of expertise to add in a lot of the areas. However, this didn't stop me putting a few post-its onto the boards.
I think that it is important that the DfE use research to help them with policy decisions. However, at the end during a Q&A session concerns were raised about the bias of any research carried out by the DfE. Are the questions being asked genuinely the right ones or are they too politically motivated? However, the DfE are asking for feedback on this and seem to want to engage with teachers. In a way they have to come to terms with this shift as they have scrapped many of the quangos that ran education and LAs are becoming a thing of the past. However, this session didn't do anything to persuade me that the DfE are doing anything other than scrabbling around in the dark taking advice from the wrong place.
I stayed in the theatre for the next presentation by Louise Stubberfield from Wellcome. I has seen her earlier in the day and wondered why I recognised her, when she was from Wellcome I realised that I will have seen her at the ASE conference.
She talked about the work Wellcome had been doing with the science learning centres to help with the teaching of primary science. I know that Wellcome put a lot of money into science education and it was heartening to see that this project had been carried out robustly. It was interesting to hear that those schools not allowed access to the science learning centres courses in order to be the 'control' group were then given access the year after the research programme. I have heard people who talk about RTCs say that it is unfair to restrict schools and their students access to things that might help improve education, but this seems to be a fair compromise to me.
I was also interested in the comments Louise made about museums and the research they do into the impact of what they do. They measure impact by the number of visitors and not necessarily by the influence it has on the people who visit.
In January I went to a session at the ASE conference with drinks paid for by Wellcome and also hosted by Science Learning Centres. I can see that Wellcome are interacting with the profession (although not always practising teachers). What was interesting in the ASE session about research was that only three of the attendees were practising teachers.
I have heard it before, but Louise stated during the talk that those schools who Wellcome have worked with and have not sidelined science to focus on english and maths have had improvements in all three subjects.
Then it was lunch.
After lunch I went to David Weston's session about "why most dissemination is useless and how we can fix it". I was assaulted again by slides about memory for the first part of the talk. I am not entirely sure why.
I have to agree with David's assessment of the impact of CPD. I have worked with the science learning centres on a CPD model (when I say 'worked with', I mean I was a 'guinea pig for'). During that time we talked about what made CPD effective and the traditional model of go on a course, come back and share the slides in a meeting isn't it.
He talked about the inability of CPD to breakdown the current (ineffective?) practices of teachers and replace it with new associations. We don't unlearn the things we do.
David told us the worst ways of transforming practice through CPD are the ways that we use: whole staff lectures, individual day courses and printed guidance.
He asked why is it that the profession most associated with learning is the worst at engaging with it? I still don't understand that.
David then went on to talk about things that do work. Things like lesson study, collaboration with other colleagues, coaching, carefully scripted teacher actions, forms of action research and masters level study. He showed two slides with a list of theoretical principles for good CPD, like evaluating it, it being sustained, aspirational, lead by good leaders, challenging.
David ended with this slide. "Start with the end in mind". Something I hear a lot in education!
Session six was the hardest for me to choose because nothing struck me. I am glad that I went to Joe Hallgarten's session: "if you can't stand the research get out of the classroom?" RSA and BERA are about to publish 10 principles for a 'research-rich, self-improving education systems' and Joe went through the process that lead to these.
The principles are split into teaching and learning, teachers' practice, school leadership, system-level and research production.
This session, above all others was of interest to me because I think it got to the crux of the purpose of ResearchEd. Teachers should be engaging with research and researchers should be engaging with teachers. But I do believe there are barrier to this: money, time, expertise, research literacy, bias and the famous SLT mangle.
I intend to blog again about the issues that spring to mind on the back of this session by Joe, and where I see own practice with respect to research, how I have interacted with it and how I want to interact with it.
The last session was presented by Michael Slavinsky and Alex Weatherall and started with us all getting a sweet. So far so good. They picked up one of the touch paper questions set by Laura McInerny at the first Research Ed conference. The list is below.
I wish that I had taken a photograph of the axes that Alex and Michael showed to highlight the way they distinguished between difficulty and complexity. It was interesting that they didn't consider the two as the same. On going into the session I has hoped that I would find out something that would help me to understand how we would structure a curriculum with increasing difficulty, but the work these two are doing is more centred on complexity.
In order to map complexity Alex plans to create concept maps for all the topics in the curriculum, and this would help teaching and help map complexity. http://www.teachmyconcept.net I am interested to see how this goes, happy to help but I am aware of the demands on my time.
I very much enjoyed the day. Joe's session gave me most to think about and I have come away feeling that the profession can work with researchers more effectively. And that there is a great deal of desire to do that from researchers too.
Saturday, 5 April 2014
Research and Education - from the point of view of a slightly rubbish teacher
Thanks to Mary Whitehouse I was able to go to the first Research Ed conference in September, and due to some encouragement from @Arakwai I have just come back from the regional event in Birmingham.
As a classroom teacher I haven't been able to take anything from the conferences that I can use in the classroom. So why go? And why go a second time if I didn't think that the first time was relevant to me?
I am curious about the link between research and education. To me there seems to be lot of information out there for teachers to use to help them teach better/differently, but is any of it any good? There are a lot of books by teachers, for teachers, but are any of them based on evidence or just anecdote? Does it matter?
After Brain Gym (which I never did in my own classroom) and Learning Styles (which I was always sceptical of) I am never entirely sure if I can trust anything that comes my way. I wonder to myself what good research looks like and how I can find it. I wonder if through the research Ed conferences I might come across teaching methods that will help me and my students.
On top of being sceptical about research, I also find it unapproachable. "Direct Instruction" is the latest twitter/blogger buzz phrase. Those that use it seem to know what it means, I am not so sure I do. "Progressive Education", "Constructivist", "Meta-Cognition", etc etc. I saw Tim Oates talk about assessment at the ASE conference, I understood very little of what he said, only those used to the academic talk of assessment were able to follow him. As a scientists I understand the necessity of using technical language that describes exactly what you mean, however the in-context interpretation of the uninitiated could lead to misinterpretation.
I was interested in the session by Joe Hallgarten, who was looking at the relationship between teachers and research. Some of the guiding principles for resarch-rich, self-improvng education systems he showed us were that teaching should be informed by the latest research and teachers should be research literate. I agree with all of this, but how do I get 'research literate'? I can't understand the language, I don't know where to look to find reliable research and what if I don't like what I read or can't change my practice enough to take it on board anyway?
I am always wary of research; I have seen some practices that I would consider to be dubious when teachers have been involved in their masters projects. I have carried out deliberate changes to my practice as a result of some external CPD, and I am not sure if what I did had any impact.
I wonder if Research Ed can help with any of this? How can a teacher carry out a research project in their own school? How can teachers get access to sound research? If they do some research, how do they share it? How do we ask for funding to carry out research? How do we motivate ourselves to continue with changes in practice? What research is going on at the moment into teaching and learning and what can we learn from it?
Then again, I think that showing researchers that teachers are interested in what they are doing can only be positive. That having teachers feeling that they should, and in some cases must, engage with research can only be a good thing. That having the DfE engaged could help to move our 'profession' forward. I also got the impression that the word stills needs to be spread that it is important those who work in schools become engaged with research and Research Ed can only help to do that as word spreads.
I don't have an intention to go to Research Ed in September, I will hopefully be newly married and should spend some time with the husband. I will also have done ASE conference, two teachmeets, pedagoo south west, York tweet up, Wellington Festival of Education and ASE west conference as well as Research Ed Midlands and I think that is all I can spare.
In the mean time, I will take my research distilled by the School Science Review Journal, and by books like 'Good Practice in Science Teaching, what research has to say', 'Making Sense of Secondary Science', 'Evidence based teaching'. And luckily for me I have access to people who can help me understand the implementation of the ideas in these books too.
Thanks to Tom, Helene and the staff of John Henry Newman Catholic College for Research Ed Midlands. All of it was interesting and nothing I experienced was not worth it. A very positive day.
As a classroom teacher I haven't been able to take anything from the conferences that I can use in the classroom. So why go? And why go a second time if I didn't think that the first time was relevant to me?
I am curious about the link between research and education. To me there seems to be lot of information out there for teachers to use to help them teach better/differently, but is any of it any good? There are a lot of books by teachers, for teachers, but are any of them based on evidence or just anecdote? Does it matter?
After Brain Gym (which I never did in my own classroom) and Learning Styles (which I was always sceptical of) I am never entirely sure if I can trust anything that comes my way. I wonder to myself what good research looks like and how I can find it. I wonder if through the research Ed conferences I might come across teaching methods that will help me and my students.
On top of being sceptical about research, I also find it unapproachable. "Direct Instruction" is the latest twitter/blogger buzz phrase. Those that use it seem to know what it means, I am not so sure I do. "Progressive Education", "Constructivist", "Meta-Cognition", etc etc. I saw Tim Oates talk about assessment at the ASE conference, I understood very little of what he said, only those used to the academic talk of assessment were able to follow him. As a scientists I understand the necessity of using technical language that describes exactly what you mean, however the in-context interpretation of the uninitiated could lead to misinterpretation.
I was interested in the session by Joe Hallgarten, who was looking at the relationship between teachers and research. Some of the guiding principles for resarch-rich, self-improvng education systems he showed us were that teaching should be informed by the latest research and teachers should be research literate. I agree with all of this, but how do I get 'research literate'? I can't understand the language, I don't know where to look to find reliable research and what if I don't like what I read or can't change my practice enough to take it on board anyway?
I am always wary of research; I have seen some practices that I would consider to be dubious when teachers have been involved in their masters projects. I have carried out deliberate changes to my practice as a result of some external CPD, and I am not sure if what I did had any impact.
I wonder if Research Ed can help with any of this? How can a teacher carry out a research project in their own school? How can teachers get access to sound research? If they do some research, how do they share it? How do we ask for funding to carry out research? How do we motivate ourselves to continue with changes in practice? What research is going on at the moment into teaching and learning and what can we learn from it?
Then again, I think that showing researchers that teachers are interested in what they are doing can only be positive. That having teachers feeling that they should, and in some cases must, engage with research can only be a good thing. That having the DfE engaged could help to move our 'profession' forward. I also got the impression that the word stills needs to be spread that it is important those who work in schools become engaged with research and Research Ed can only help to do that as word spreads.
I don't have an intention to go to Research Ed in September, I will hopefully be newly married and should spend some time with the husband. I will also have done ASE conference, two teachmeets, pedagoo south west, York tweet up, Wellington Festival of Education and ASE west conference as well as Research Ed Midlands and I think that is all I can spare.
In the mean time, I will take my research distilled by the School Science Review Journal, and by books like 'Good Practice in Science Teaching, what research has to say', 'Making Sense of Secondary Science', 'Evidence based teaching'. And luckily for me I have access to people who can help me understand the implementation of the ideas in these books too.
Thanks to Tom, Helene and the staff of John Henry Newman Catholic College for Research Ed Midlands. All of it was interesting and nothing I experienced was not worth it. A very positive day.
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
I can't live without levels
I am trying to map out progression through the working scientifically ideas, I can't do that without looking back at the work that has gone by on levels and APP.
I can't help thinking about progression of students as being in levels or stages. I can't help but think that there are levels of difficulty in tasks and levels of outcomes to activities.
I have an idea about what I want my students to be able to do at the end of Year 9. How do I get them from the level they are at when they start Year 7 to the level I want them to be at the end of Year 9, but by a series of steps or levels?
I can't help thinking about progression of students as being in levels or stages. I can't help but think that there are levels of difficulty in tasks and levels of outcomes to activities.
I have an idea about what I want my students to be able to do at the end of Year 9. How do I get them from the level they are at when they start Year 7 to the level I want them to be at the end of Year 9, but by a series of steps or levels?
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
Using Your Own Device in a Physics Lesson
Today I set myself the challenge of only using ICT (and some practical equipment) to teach Work and Power.
I have known for a few weeks that I would have to do this.
I used http://issuu.com/ , http://padlet.com , Google Docs (a spreadsheet), http://www.socrative.com , https://bitly.com , http://www.pinterest.com , YouTube, and http://piktochart.com .
The first issue was remembering to bring the devices. This *shouldn't* be a problem in September when the students all have to bring iPads to lessons. Also being a science teacher will help as they will be able to charge them in my classroom, so a flat battery shouldn't be a problem either.
The second issue was finding the resources in the first place. I wrote a bit.ly link on the board, but this proved difficult to input correctly and took them to all sorts of websites other than the issuu magazine I had uploaded.
I can see resolutions to this, either by e-mailing (time consuming) links, creating QR codes to scan, or uploading to a department blog. The issue with using QR codes is that students will need to have a QR code reader, the issue with the third is that blogs are blocked at my school. I hope that the school will allow us to use blogs or edmodo with the students as this would be a great place to start with lessons.
We all got to my worksheet. However, for some reason issuu mangled the link to the googlespreadsheet, so back to bit.ly to provide me with a link to that. Then the students had to find their own mass and enter it into the spreadsheet; I always allow students to use my mass if they don't like it. The spreadsheet calculated their weight. Then we measured the height up the stairs and each timed ourselves going up the stairs. Then returned to the classroom, and inputed the data.
My next aim was to get the students to use the data and work out the equations linking mass, weight, work, distance, power and time. Their ideas when then put onto padlet. They really liked using padlet and seeing the collaborative work of their peers, but there were quite a few half finished sentences or just a name hanging on the wall, so practice at using this website would be useful. I was also frustrated because I wasn't able to upload an image that I wanted to include in the wall (with the answers). School firewall! I will have to approach this issue at school ready for next year.
After that they watched a video from my-gcsescience.com and one that I had made. It took me two hours to make 1minute 22 seconds of video and I could have spent a lot longer. It is very poor in relation to the videos I know others can make, and listening to my own voice echo around the classroom wasn't great.
Then we tried a secretive quiz. The students were cross with me as they got a few questions 'wrong' that the explanation said were 'right'. I think because I didn't indicate the right answer when making the quiz. I will have to be more careful with this in the future.
The students were really excited by the idea of collaborating on the same document, and they liked making notes from my YouTube video. They also appreciated the instant feedback that socrative quizzes provide.
I made an inforgraphic summarising the key ideas using piktochart and uploaded it to pinterest, which should help the students with the key ideas in their learning.
Next step is to think about what apps I want students to have on their iPads come September, and to work out how I will use the devices in more lesson. I think that I will be busy making videos and socrative quizzes during the next holidays!
I have known for a few weeks that I would have to do this.
I used http://issuu.com/ , http://padlet.com , Google Docs (a spreadsheet), http://www.socrative.com , https://bitly.com , http://www.pinterest.com , YouTube, and http://piktochart.com .
The first issue was remembering to bring the devices. This *shouldn't* be a problem in September when the students all have to bring iPads to lessons. Also being a science teacher will help as they will be able to charge them in my classroom, so a flat battery shouldn't be a problem either.
The second issue was finding the resources in the first place. I wrote a bit.ly link on the board, but this proved difficult to input correctly and took them to all sorts of websites other than the issuu magazine I had uploaded.
I can see resolutions to this, either by e-mailing (time consuming) links, creating QR codes to scan, or uploading to a department blog. The issue with using QR codes is that students will need to have a QR code reader, the issue with the third is that blogs are blocked at my school. I hope that the school will allow us to use blogs or edmodo with the students as this would be a great place to start with lessons.
We all got to my worksheet. However, for some reason issuu mangled the link to the googlespreadsheet, so back to bit.ly to provide me with a link to that. Then the students had to find their own mass and enter it into the spreadsheet; I always allow students to use my mass if they don't like it. The spreadsheet calculated their weight. Then we measured the height up the stairs and each timed ourselves going up the stairs. Then returned to the classroom, and inputed the data.
My next aim was to get the students to use the data and work out the equations linking mass, weight, work, distance, power and time. Their ideas when then put onto padlet. They really liked using padlet and seeing the collaborative work of their peers, but there were quite a few half finished sentences or just a name hanging on the wall, so practice at using this website would be useful. I was also frustrated because I wasn't able to upload an image that I wanted to include in the wall (with the answers). School firewall! I will have to approach this issue at school ready for next year.
After that they watched a video from my-gcsescience.com and one that I had made. It took me two hours to make 1minute 22 seconds of video and I could have spent a lot longer. It is very poor in relation to the videos I know others can make, and listening to my own voice echo around the classroom wasn't great.
Then we tried a secretive quiz. The students were cross with me as they got a few questions 'wrong' that the explanation said were 'right'. I think because I didn't indicate the right answer when making the quiz. I will have to be more careful with this in the future.
The students were really excited by the idea of collaborating on the same document, and they liked making notes from my YouTube video. They also appreciated the instant feedback that socrative quizzes provide.
I made an inforgraphic summarising the key ideas using piktochart and uploaded it to pinterest, which should help the students with the key ideas in their learning.
Next step is to think about what apps I want students to have on their iPads come September, and to work out how I will use the devices in more lesson. I think that I will be busy making videos and socrative quizzes during the next holidays!
Bring Your Own Device
At Easter all our students were asked to supply an iPad as part of their school equipment. I have read blog posts from senior leaders who explain why Bring Your Own Device has not been successful because teachers have not embraced. I am worried that this will be the same situation at my school.
The students often do have their own IT equipment, the older students use laptops for coursework, research and typing up their projects. Younger year groups like to make videos with theirs. But there has never been the expectation that students would use ICT in lessons, and I haven't been.
I know of schools that use iPads in their lessons and many teachers that would love the opportunity that I will have in September. In areas of America they seem to embracing iPads in education with enthusiasm.
However, BYOD presents me more issues that using 1-2-1 devices that have an image controlled by the school. Can I insist that students download certain applications? I might be able to do that with free applications, but what about paid ones? What if their device is full, can I insist a student deletes an app so they can use the one I want them to?
I also wonder about other aspects of students having their own devices? Should I be incorporating e-safety more obviously into my teaching? Should I be worried that a year 7 student might make a video clip for me and upload it to YouTube?
Another concern is that the using the technology will take longer than doing an alternative with paper and pen, detracting from the learning of the concepts. We struggle for curriculum time as it is, and devoting more lesson time to creating digital content may mean lessons have less learning?
On the other hand, ICT presents an opportunity. Students can use video to supplement their understanding, they can collaborate on experiments more easily, they can take photographs allowing recording of work more easily. Do they need everything written in a book or file?
iPads in the classroom should make my life more easy; student using online, immediately marked, homework packages would be one example. I would like students to be able to find records of their learning in videos and photographs as well as in notes. A variety of ways they can access information can only be helpful.
I want to help my classes use ICT to become more organised. I already use my iCal applications to organise my calendar, it would be great to do the same for the students, even sharing calendar events.
But using iPads in lessons is going to be a major change, I will have to think about how I resource every lessons and work on creating more resources than presentations and worksheets. Editable forms, blogs, videos, online quizzes will all become part of my practice and I need time to be able to create these resources. I need the equipment myself to create these resources.
Then I ask myself, will it be worth it? Will my attempts to use ICT in lessons be scuppered by the student who is waiting for a new one because they have smashed their screen or can't take a photograph until they have deleted the 3000 they have on their device already, or the wireless network that decides to switch itself off during my lesson?
I suppose I will have to try it and see.
The students often do have their own IT equipment, the older students use laptops for coursework, research and typing up their projects. Younger year groups like to make videos with theirs. But there has never been the expectation that students would use ICT in lessons, and I haven't been.
I know of schools that use iPads in their lessons and many teachers that would love the opportunity that I will have in September. In areas of America they seem to embracing iPads in education with enthusiasm.
However, BYOD presents me more issues that using 1-2-1 devices that have an image controlled by the school. Can I insist that students download certain applications? I might be able to do that with free applications, but what about paid ones? What if their device is full, can I insist a student deletes an app so they can use the one I want them to?
I also wonder about other aspects of students having their own devices? Should I be incorporating e-safety more obviously into my teaching? Should I be worried that a year 7 student might make a video clip for me and upload it to YouTube?
Another concern is that the using the technology will take longer than doing an alternative with paper and pen, detracting from the learning of the concepts. We struggle for curriculum time as it is, and devoting more lesson time to creating digital content may mean lessons have less learning?
On the other hand, ICT presents an opportunity. Students can use video to supplement their understanding, they can collaborate on experiments more easily, they can take photographs allowing recording of work more easily. Do they need everything written in a book or file?
iPads in the classroom should make my life more easy; student using online, immediately marked, homework packages would be one example. I would like students to be able to find records of their learning in videos and photographs as well as in notes. A variety of ways they can access information can only be helpful.
I want to help my classes use ICT to become more organised. I already use my iCal applications to organise my calendar, it would be great to do the same for the students, even sharing calendar events.
But using iPads in lessons is going to be a major change, I will have to think about how I resource every lessons and work on creating more resources than presentations and worksheets. Editable forms, blogs, videos, online quizzes will all become part of my practice and I need time to be able to create these resources. I need the equipment myself to create these resources.
Then I ask myself, will it be worth it? Will my attempts to use ICT in lessons be scuppered by the student who is waiting for a new one because they have smashed their screen or can't take a photograph until they have deleted the 3000 they have on their device already, or the wireless network that decides to switch itself off during my lesson?
I suppose I will have to try it and see.
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Scrapping Levels: Opportunity or Threat?
I have read a few things lately about the use of levels in schools that help me to understand why some teachers and managers are happy at their demise. However, these comments also make me feel that we need something to replace levels.
If schools and teachers are using levels and not using the information to inform intervention and support progression, then I would agree levels are not fit for purpose. But I would question why they would not.
I am not really interested in measuring students; schools will need a way to do this. They can use grades A-E as I had when I was at middle school (before levels) and compare students against other students in the school. An A or B grade will keep parents happy. Tracking can be done through percentages and scores on tests. If schemes of work are built where content gets harder then we'd assume that students are progressing in their studies if they get more than zero in a test?
I would agree with those who question the use of levels in reporting. I would ask: 'how honest are the levels we report to senior management and parents'? And I suggest the answer is not very. Is it possible to accurate to within a sub level? Are students always learning at the same level and does that level get incrementally bigger each term? In the case of science, I would say not. So why does a good proportion of reports, I have seen, imply this is the case?
Another question would be 'how confident are teachers with level descriptors'? In my experience, not very! I have watched lessons that were engaging and entertaining, but not above level 3. I have seen levelled objectives that were not levelled correctly. I have worked with many teachers who couldn't describe level ladders even in a simplified version such as 'identify', 'describe', 'explain', 'use key ideas', and 'link key ideas'. Without understanding the levels and progression they represent then levels are useless.
However, how do teachers ensure they are pitching their lessons correctly, how do they know whether some concepts are more difficult than others, how do they know what advice to give to students to help them move forward in their understanding?
I want to take my students from a concrete understanding (level 4) to an abstract one (level 6), how will the teachers of the future know this without having the structure of levels? Will we be taught it? Will it be forgotten?
I won't stop using my knowledge of levels to help my student progress. I won't stop using that knowledge to help students understand the generic outcomes and how to improve their understanding and written work. I won't stop using levels to understand where to pitch the difficulty of my lessons.
What will the science teachers of the future do to help them understand the difficulty and progression in key stage 3 science? I am concerned that the 'scrapping' of levels means that we are throwing away the idea of progression in the thinking of our students and instead of helping students to understand more difficult concepts we will just expect students to know 'more'. This is not the same.
What is more difficult, understanding the particle model or understanding balanced and unbalanced forces? What constitutes a higher level of knowledge, remembering the first 20 elements of the periodic table or being able to explain the difference between metals and non-metals?
I don't ever believe that if a system isn't working we should just throw it away before firstly considering what the problem is and secondly thinking about why the system was introduced in the first place. We need to ask ourselves what Paul Black was trying to achieve in his work that underpinned the idea of levels, and if we are throwing that away when we throw away the level descriptors. I think we are.
If schools and teachers are using levels and not using the information to inform intervention and support progression, then I would agree levels are not fit for purpose. But I would question why they would not.
I am not really interested in measuring students; schools will need a way to do this. They can use grades A-E as I had when I was at middle school (before levels) and compare students against other students in the school. An A or B grade will keep parents happy. Tracking can be done through percentages and scores on tests. If schemes of work are built where content gets harder then we'd assume that students are progressing in their studies if they get more than zero in a test?
I would agree with those who question the use of levels in reporting. I would ask: 'how honest are the levels we report to senior management and parents'? And I suggest the answer is not very. Is it possible to accurate to within a sub level? Are students always learning at the same level and does that level get incrementally bigger each term? In the case of science, I would say not. So why does a good proportion of reports, I have seen, imply this is the case?
Another question would be 'how confident are teachers with level descriptors'? In my experience, not very! I have watched lessons that were engaging and entertaining, but not above level 3. I have seen levelled objectives that were not levelled correctly. I have worked with many teachers who couldn't describe level ladders even in a simplified version such as 'identify', 'describe', 'explain', 'use key ideas', and 'link key ideas'. Without understanding the levels and progression they represent then levels are useless.
However, how do teachers ensure they are pitching their lessons correctly, how do they know whether some concepts are more difficult than others, how do they know what advice to give to students to help them move forward in their understanding?
I want to take my students from a concrete understanding (level 4) to an abstract one (level 6), how will the teachers of the future know this without having the structure of levels? Will we be taught it? Will it be forgotten?
I won't stop using my knowledge of levels to help my student progress. I won't stop using that knowledge to help students understand the generic outcomes and how to improve their understanding and written work. I won't stop using levels to understand where to pitch the difficulty of my lessons.
What will the science teachers of the future do to help them understand the difficulty and progression in key stage 3 science? I am concerned that the 'scrapping' of levels means that we are throwing away the idea of progression in the thinking of our students and instead of helping students to understand more difficult concepts we will just expect students to know 'more'. This is not the same.
What is more difficult, understanding the particle model or understanding balanced and unbalanced forces? What constitutes a higher level of knowledge, remembering the first 20 elements of the periodic table or being able to explain the difference between metals and non-metals?
I don't ever believe that if a system isn't working we should just throw it away before firstly considering what the problem is and secondly thinking about why the system was introduced in the first place. We need to ask ourselves what Paul Black was trying to achieve in his work that underpinned the idea of levels, and if we are throwing that away when we throw away the level descriptors. I think we are.
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