I have seen audioboo mentioned as a possible medium for students to express their learning. But I hadn't really thought about using it. I don't want to get my students signing up to things, so they end up with a lot of social media accounts that follow them around for the rest of their lives. However, last night I was looking through the app store, saw audioboo and decided to give it a go for myself.
I am glad that I did. You don't have to have an account to see the audioboos someone else has made, so this means I can make short clips and my students can listen to them.
I believe that audioboo gives me a much quicker alternative to explain everything or making an iMovie. I have produced three audioboos today that I feel relatively happy about sharing.
Learning from experience of making videos I made a script of what I wanted to say. Even doing that I re-rewrote it a few times as I spoke the script. Spelling mistakes, bad hand writing and line reruns in odd places made getting the right word out and the best rhythm difficult and meant I re-recorded often. Audioboo allows you to edit your clip by cutting bits. I used that a lot. Leaving big spaces between sections to allow easier clipping.
This post was my first attempt.
https://audioboo.fm/helenrogerson80 This link takes you to my profile, with the list of other boos.
I wait to see what my students think of this and how much use they make of it. Either way I am impressed with audioboo, thanks to all of you who brought it to my attention.
Thursday, 17 July 2014
Friday, 11 July 2014
First Attempts at Making a Video using ExplainEverything
I have this vision of being able to use videos to help my students learn. But first I need to practice and become quicker at this.
I have heard a lot of people recommend ExplainEverything, so I gave it a go. My first attempt is not for public consumption, took my hours and I didn't think it looked very professional. Then I searched for some tutorials. Perhaps I should have done this first. http://www.morriscooke.com/?p=134
I learned that you can upload a presentation and each slide in the presentation will be a different slide in the ExplainEverything movie. So I decided that I would create a presentation and use ExplainEverything to talk over the top. It seemed (and it is) much easier to do this in ExplainEverything than in iMoive.
I wanted to make the film look slightly interesting, so I took inspiration from Jamie Clark: jamieleeclark85.wordpress.com/ The resources he makes always look great and I saw no reason why I couldn't use keynote to create attractive slides and make the short film more interesting to the young people who will use it.
By far the worst thing about making a video is doing the voice over. I strong recommend writing a script and reading through it. Even then I make mistakes and change my mind when reading it. I have found the experience of voicing a video very interesting. I don't find it easy to succinctly describe physics phenomena, so I imagine that I babble on in class. Creating the video means that I need to use as few words as possible and get to the main points. Hopefully this makes it clearer what students need to know.
If you watch the video you will see black stripes down the slide. In future I need to realise that I must make the background presentations with 'wide screen'. Which is a possible selection in Keynote. This should eliminate the issue.
I wish that in the video below I had used more features of ExplainEverything to actually move the hand around. (I think it can do this). But I will continue to play and make more resources. Hopefully it will help to engage my students.
At the moment I plan to only make instructional videos for GCSE, as I will teach Key Stage 3 with a more discovery approach and I don't want them to always be told the answer. Plus I have online textbooks and activities bought from OUP for them. A-level is changing in September 2015, so I am going to leave that for now. I hope to make very short videos for GCSE so that they will be useable in the new specifications even if content is shuffled about within the modules.
I am on holiday at the moment and I am concerned whether I will be able to keep up the creative juices when I get back to school, but as twitter colleagues have suggested, students will be able to make the videos too! I look forward to that.
I have heard a lot of people recommend ExplainEverything, so I gave it a go. My first attempt is not for public consumption, took my hours and I didn't think it looked very professional. Then I searched for some tutorials. Perhaps I should have done this first. http://www.morriscooke.com/?p=134
I learned that you can upload a presentation and each slide in the presentation will be a different slide in the ExplainEverything movie. So I decided that I would create a presentation and use ExplainEverything to talk over the top. It seemed (and it is) much easier to do this in ExplainEverything than in iMoive.
I wanted to make the film look slightly interesting, so I took inspiration from Jamie Clark: jamieleeclark85.wordpress.com/ The resources he makes always look great and I saw no reason why I couldn't use keynote to create attractive slides and make the short film more interesting to the young people who will use it.
By far the worst thing about making a video is doing the voice over. I strong recommend writing a script and reading through it. Even then I make mistakes and change my mind when reading it. I have found the experience of voicing a video very interesting. I don't find it easy to succinctly describe physics phenomena, so I imagine that I babble on in class. Creating the video means that I need to use as few words as possible and get to the main points. Hopefully this makes it clearer what students need to know.
If you watch the video you will see black stripes down the slide. In future I need to realise that I must make the background presentations with 'wide screen'. Which is a possible selection in Keynote. This should eliminate the issue.
I wish that in the video below I had used more features of ExplainEverything to actually move the hand around. (I think it can do this). But I will continue to play and make more resources. Hopefully it will help to engage my students.
At the moment I plan to only make instructional videos for GCSE, as I will teach Key Stage 3 with a more discovery approach and I don't want them to always be told the answer. Plus I have online textbooks and activities bought from OUP for them. A-level is changing in September 2015, so I am going to leave that for now. I hope to make very short videos for GCSE so that they will be useable in the new specifications even if content is shuffled about within the modules.
I am on holiday at the moment and I am concerned whether I will be able to keep up the creative juices when I get back to school, but as twitter colleagues have suggested, students will be able to make the videos too! I look forward to that.
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
Decisions Decisions; where to start when using ICT
I have said this before, but in September all the students will have 1-2-1 iPads. I have spent two days thinking about this opportunity. I would welcome suggestions and possible pitfalls.
One thing I have realised is that there is too much choice.
Do I use google, showbie, dropbox, onedrive, Evernote or what to share content with students? Do I create a blog? Will what I choose cause confusion if other staff go with something different? I have read about iTunesU, but I don't have permission to 'bind my institution to the terms and conditions'. Which is disappointing. I think that despite the enthusiasm on the internet for this, I will give it a miss for now.
However, after a recommendation from a colleague (who like me didn't get an iPad in the roll out) I have settled on nearpod as a starting point. I only get 50MB storage though, and probably need the gold package. However, as you can link to websites I should be able to link to youtube so won't need to upload videos and therefore manage to keep presentations small.
I do love the way that you can allow students to draw a picture as one of the actives in Nearpod, this means that I can allow students to show their working in physics and maths questions that are hard to type due to all the funny symbols. I might have to ask my students to consider a stylus though.
I think that I will ask my students to get an evernote account too. I feel that evernote is the best way to keep your lesson notes organised. Being able to tag notes will also help as well as being able to add photographs to notes. (Which reminds me, I must help students by adding suggestions for tags to my presentations, especially as you can also add tags in pages on the mac).
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ipad-workflow-solutions-for-classroom-education.html
Until reading this article, I hadn't really considered the full idea of workflow. I have thought of how to get work from me to them, but not whether I want to get electronic work from them, mark it and send it back to them. At my previous school the Head of Chemistry used moodle to set all homework and loved that he could annotate the work that students did and they could see his comments.
I actually think that I would like my feedback to remain in their notebooks for now. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly that I think the notebooks will be more ordered (as they will be chronological) than folders on their iPads. I don't want to have to get into how to keep work organised as I want to teach my lessons. I am not sure that I want to check their online folders for organisation, and I am not sure that they'll refer back to them anyway. When the inspectors come in they will want to see exercise books and folders, and I am not sure I can produce electronic resources for every lesson anyway. So even if students take electronic notes, they will likely be answering questions on worksheets. The exercise book also allows me a quick flick back to reference previous targets I have written and their contexts. ISI are due this year, and I suppose in another 5 years when they come back we will have moved on and so will they.
In the past two days I have started to write a list of videos that I would like to make. I wrote a script then I had a quick go with explain everything today, I wasn't happy, but we have to start somewhere. I think that I want to make my own graphics to include, so I need to think about how I will construct them.
I am very keen to look at online testing. Nearpod will allow this, but also socrative and googleforms. I have access for key stage 3 to activate and I hope that this will allow testing and recording of the responses. I had a look at quizlet today and I can really see how useful this would be for MFL. I think that I will borrow a textbook and use the glossary in the back to help populate quizlet for GCSE as this should help some of the girls who struggle with key words. I wish it would allow images.
I know I don't want to just produce resources that may or may not be looked at as part of revision. My GCSE Science and BBC bitesize are already there. Often students look in the revision guide and still need to come to me or have another look at the experiment. This year I found myself saying to students "you don't need to understand why an electric current is produced when a magnet moves relative to a coil, you just need to know that it happens, describe how to make it bigger and why the current would change direction". They wouldn't get that feedback from a video. However, being able to have that kind of conversation because the students have more time to answer questions that draw out their knowledge is appealing to me. I hope that technology will help with this.
I foresee a busy, but creative summer ahead.
One thing I have realised is that there is too much choice.
Do I use google, showbie, dropbox, onedrive, Evernote or what to share content with students? Do I create a blog? Will what I choose cause confusion if other staff go with something different? I have read about iTunesU, but I don't have permission to 'bind my institution to the terms and conditions'. Which is disappointing. I think that despite the enthusiasm on the internet for this, I will give it a miss for now.
However, after a recommendation from a colleague (who like me didn't get an iPad in the roll out) I have settled on nearpod as a starting point. I only get 50MB storage though, and probably need the gold package. However, as you can link to websites I should be able to link to youtube so won't need to upload videos and therefore manage to keep presentations small.
I do love the way that you can allow students to draw a picture as one of the actives in Nearpod, this means that I can allow students to show their working in physics and maths questions that are hard to type due to all the funny symbols. I might have to ask my students to consider a stylus though.
I think that I will ask my students to get an evernote account too. I feel that evernote is the best way to keep your lesson notes organised. Being able to tag notes will also help as well as being able to add photographs to notes. (Which reminds me, I must help students by adding suggestions for tags to my presentations, especially as you can also add tags in pages on the mac).
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ipad-workflow-solutions-for-classroom-education.html
Until reading this article, I hadn't really considered the full idea of workflow. I have thought of how to get work from me to them, but not whether I want to get electronic work from them, mark it and send it back to them. At my previous school the Head of Chemistry used moodle to set all homework and loved that he could annotate the work that students did and they could see his comments.
I actually think that I would like my feedback to remain in their notebooks for now. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly that I think the notebooks will be more ordered (as they will be chronological) than folders on their iPads. I don't want to have to get into how to keep work organised as I want to teach my lessons. I am not sure that I want to check their online folders for organisation, and I am not sure that they'll refer back to them anyway. When the inspectors come in they will want to see exercise books and folders, and I am not sure I can produce electronic resources for every lesson anyway. So even if students take electronic notes, they will likely be answering questions on worksheets. The exercise book also allows me a quick flick back to reference previous targets I have written and their contexts. ISI are due this year, and I suppose in another 5 years when they come back we will have moved on and so will they.
In the past two days I have started to write a list of videos that I would like to make. I wrote a script then I had a quick go with explain everything today, I wasn't happy, but we have to start somewhere. I think that I want to make my own graphics to include, so I need to think about how I will construct them.
I am very keen to look at online testing. Nearpod will allow this, but also socrative and googleforms. I have access for key stage 3 to activate and I hope that this will allow testing and recording of the responses. I had a look at quizlet today and I can really see how useful this would be for MFL. I think that I will borrow a textbook and use the glossary in the back to help populate quizlet for GCSE as this should help some of the girls who struggle with key words. I wish it would allow images.
I know I don't want to just produce resources that may or may not be looked at as part of revision. My GCSE Science and BBC bitesize are already there. Often students look in the revision guide and still need to come to me or have another look at the experiment. This year I found myself saying to students "you don't need to understand why an electric current is produced when a magnet moves relative to a coil, you just need to know that it happens, describe how to make it bigger and why the current would change direction". They wouldn't get that feedback from a video. However, being able to have that kind of conversation because the students have more time to answer questions that draw out their knowledge is appealing to me. I hope that technology will help with this.
I foresee a busy, but creative summer ahead.
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Nurture 2014 continued
Highlights and lowlights of the year so far:
- The ASE conference is always a massive highlight to January.
- Richard and I agree to get married, the date is set for 30th August.
- I bought the new laptop that I needed.
- I managed to organise a campsite for the accommodation so we can go to the commonwealth games without having to commute from Edinburgh or something like that!
- A colleague and I took Year 7 to see the Superleague Netball at Bath. They loved it.
- We had our ASE west teachmeet and it went well.
- March was busy with a Year 5 STEM day, the last as I don't feel that we need the hassle or that the school quite understands the issues around putting such a day on. Throwing my toys out of the pram, certainly.
- We also took (almost) all of Year 7-10 and a few VI formers to the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham. Something that upset the rest of the school. Apparently taking 5 separate trips might have been OK, but taking everyone so that cover is easier to deal with and giving the rest of the staff a free day isn't popular. The kids enjoyed it.
- The science week assembly went down well, it was delivered by the deputy head who received a round of applause at the end.
- I very much enjoyed attending a video-inset by Teachit, where I was inspired to create my own.
- I taught an IT-only lesson. Work needed!
- After the Easter holidays many staff were given iPads as we move to 1-2-1 iPads for September. Many, many members of staff, but not me. I was very upset to say the least. It was my own fault, as I was asked directly if I could do without as there wasn't enough to go round. I feel very stupid now for saying that I would manage. I imagined that other staff with their own iPads would be asked the same, but this wasn't the case. My original iPad only has iOS5 and I can't even open my own keynote documents that I have created on my phone or laptop. I am very bitter that I have had to buy a new iPad mini (only 16GB and I am already struggling).
- In May I went to school on three Saturdays to help Year 10 revise for their core science exam.
- Richard went out cycling a lot of those weekends too as he keeps up the stamina he developed for LEL in 2013. His aim is to prequalify for PBP in 2015.
- I delivered my first ever assembly.
- I enjoyed the school lecture from the director of Westonbirt Arboretum.
- I have been to ResearchEd West Midlands, Pedagoo South West, and the Education Festival.
- I went to the Cheltenham Science Festival.
- My car had a warning light on, but didn't cost as much money as last year to fix it.
- On the penultimate Friday of this term I had to talk to the Governors about what we had achieved in science and I believe they were impressed.
- I have bought lots of new resources, particularly activate to allow students to access online resources that support their learning on their iPads.
- I have tried a variety of resources and teaching activities this year that I want to embed further next academic year.
I have made a few resolutions.
- I will use all the appropriate online tests on activate with Year 7 to trial them.
- I want to create videos for instructions key stage 3 practicals.
- I will thoroughly investigate the new A-level courses.
- I will use iMovie and explain everything to create resources to support my learners.
- I will embed iPad use into my teaching... I need to decide what this will look like.
- I will give my students more opportunities to answer open questions so that I can mark and feedback on their written communication as well as their science knowledge.
- I want to get a team together for the Engineering Education Scheme.
- I want to get the Big Bug Bag Man (Pete) into school next term.
Monday, 23 June 2014
Festival of Education
I was persuaded by @Arakwai to come to the Festival of Education. I have enjoyed the science festival and sessions in the Bristol festival of ideas, so I was keen to go along.
The first session I went to was Andrew Andonis. There was no description of what he was going to talk about in the programme, but I decided I wanted to hear what he had to say about himself anyway. I wasn't disappointed.
I was impressed that Andrew Adonis seemed to speak clearly without notes. I think this is the way that Labour politicians approach speeches these days? Both myself and my OH are teachers and we discuss the state of education under the Tories a lot. He works with students who are 'hard to reach' and is concerned by the pressure on them to go to university as the only route. So when Andrew Adonis talked about the improvement in number and access to apprenticeships as being the next step Labour would have taken I nearly punched the air in agreement.
I also agree with Lord Andonis about teacher training. Separating teacher training from universities isn't going to make the profession more respected or professional.
Due to the number of questions the session over ran and I didn't go to anything in the next slot. Instead I went into the Pearson tent. Interesting, they are using research to influence their products. I was told that the literacy in exploring science: working scientifically was tested in a RCT. I was interested in this, because I feel that as a head of department the resources in the scheme of work have the opportunity to influence the teaching within the department, rather like UpD8 SEGUE has had a massive influence on me. I await to see what Pearson produce.
After a hot chocolate, which was the biggest disappointment of the day (get a Barista Machine Wellington College), we went to a panel discussion about maths. Panel discussions are, for me, what make festivals tick and I found this one disappointing. I did discover that if we improve the maths level of the lowest achievers then we can massively increase GDP. 11% of our young people don't reach PISA's level 1.
Then (fortuitously) a speaker didn't turn up so went to lunch early to avoid the queues. The Paul Rankin burger was lush. Then Arakwai (not her real name) saw via twitter that there was an impromptu panel debate about research and research leads and involving Tom Bennet. So we strode off towards the spiritual room. The session raised more questions about how to turn teaching into a research lead profession. Questions that even the introduction of research leads into schools don't currently answer, but hope to in the future. I can't speak for the wider education community, but it was clear from the room that there is an appetite for teachers to be more involved with research. I was interested in the project Harvard are running to try and make links between teachers/schools and research, but (I might be wrong here, there wasn't much description of the project) it sounded like Harvard were linking with specific schools, what about the rest? How do these small scale projects scale up to a national picture? I was itching to ask a question, but people far more interesting and intellectual than I had their hands up, so I let them speak.
After that I dragged Arakwai to see David Starkey, Keith Vass, Claire Fox and Katie Hopkins in a panel debate. I didn't like Katie Hopkins when she was on The Apprentice and that opinion has not improved. This debate allowed her the opportunity to be extremely vile and make David Starkey sound like the voice of reason. I found some of the opinions of Claire Fox rather unpleasant too. I hope the panel were booked for their entertainment value rather than their expertise? This isn't something I am used to: When attending the science festival I haven't experienced a debate where the panelists attack each other and make statements with so little evidence or experience to back them up. "I don't want my daughter to sit next to someone naughty" and "we shouldn't educate the bottom 20% intellectually" are not the best informed statements I have heard. If Katie Hopkins has a problem with the education of her children then she should speak to the school, not take education on in the national media.
Second to last we went to another panel debate on whether students should get a say in what they learn. The debate meandered all over the place. I did get the impression the lady from BBC learning didn't know much about education in the classroom as she spouted the corporate lines. Johnny Ball was an interesting addition to the panel, obviously passionate about education. Most interesting was the student from Wellington where students do have some say in what they learn. Not being restricted by doing GCSEs must help an awful lot when it comes to making a creative curriculum that will inspire your students. I was envious for a moment, but then nervous as the straight jacket to GCSEs at least gives me a benchmark.
Final I went to see Richard Dawkins. Everything can be linked to evolution apparently. I think the speech Alice Roberts did to the ASE about humans and education was much better than what Richard Dawkins had to say. But it was good to hear him talk about the scientific method during the questions at the end. He was much calmer than I was when asked silly questions.
I enjoyed being able to go to so many sessions, however I found that 40 minutes wasn't enough. I am used to at least an hour, and often sessions had only just got going when we had to stop.
The idea of an education festival is a good one. I enjoyed being able to listen to debates that were high above my normal pay grade. I like being able to talk about education without feeling guilty that I am not putting something I have heard about into practice on Monday morning. But most if all it was great to be in an beautiful environment, with people who care about education talking and sharing with passion.
I can't wait for the next one.
The first session I went to was Andrew Andonis. There was no description of what he was going to talk about in the programme, but I decided I wanted to hear what he had to say about himself anyway. I wasn't disappointed.
I was impressed that Andrew Adonis seemed to speak clearly without notes. I think this is the way that Labour politicians approach speeches these days? Both myself and my OH are teachers and we discuss the state of education under the Tories a lot. He works with students who are 'hard to reach' and is concerned by the pressure on them to go to university as the only route. So when Andrew Adonis talked about the improvement in number and access to apprenticeships as being the next step Labour would have taken I nearly punched the air in agreement.
I also agree with Lord Andonis about teacher training. Separating teacher training from universities isn't going to make the profession more respected or professional.
Due to the number of questions the session over ran and I didn't go to anything in the next slot. Instead I went into the Pearson tent. Interesting, they are using research to influence their products. I was told that the literacy in exploring science: working scientifically was tested in a RCT. I was interested in this, because I feel that as a head of department the resources in the scheme of work have the opportunity to influence the teaching within the department, rather like UpD8 SEGUE has had a massive influence on me. I await to see what Pearson produce.
After a hot chocolate, which was the biggest disappointment of the day (get a Barista Machine Wellington College), we went to a panel discussion about maths. Panel discussions are, for me, what make festivals tick and I found this one disappointing. I did discover that if we improve the maths level of the lowest achievers then we can massively increase GDP. 11% of our young people don't reach PISA's level 1.
Then (fortuitously) a speaker didn't turn up so went to lunch early to avoid the queues. The Paul Rankin burger was lush. Then Arakwai (not her real name) saw via twitter that there was an impromptu panel debate about research and research leads and involving Tom Bennet. So we strode off towards the spiritual room. The session raised more questions about how to turn teaching into a research lead profession. Questions that even the introduction of research leads into schools don't currently answer, but hope to in the future. I can't speak for the wider education community, but it was clear from the room that there is an appetite for teachers to be more involved with research. I was interested in the project Harvard are running to try and make links between teachers/schools and research, but (I might be wrong here, there wasn't much description of the project) it sounded like Harvard were linking with specific schools, what about the rest? How do these small scale projects scale up to a national picture? I was itching to ask a question, but people far more interesting and intellectual than I had their hands up, so I let them speak.
After that I dragged Arakwai to see David Starkey, Keith Vass, Claire Fox and Katie Hopkins in a panel debate. I didn't like Katie Hopkins when she was on The Apprentice and that opinion has not improved. This debate allowed her the opportunity to be extremely vile and make David Starkey sound like the voice of reason. I found some of the opinions of Claire Fox rather unpleasant too. I hope the panel were booked for their entertainment value rather than their expertise? This isn't something I am used to: When attending the science festival I haven't experienced a debate where the panelists attack each other and make statements with so little evidence or experience to back them up. "I don't want my daughter to sit next to someone naughty" and "we shouldn't educate the bottom 20% intellectually" are not the best informed statements I have heard. If Katie Hopkins has a problem with the education of her children then she should speak to the school, not take education on in the national media.
Second to last we went to another panel debate on whether students should get a say in what they learn. The debate meandered all over the place. I did get the impression the lady from BBC learning didn't know much about education in the classroom as she spouted the corporate lines. Johnny Ball was an interesting addition to the panel, obviously passionate about education. Most interesting was the student from Wellington where students do have some say in what they learn. Not being restricted by doing GCSEs must help an awful lot when it comes to making a creative curriculum that will inspire your students. I was envious for a moment, but then nervous as the straight jacket to GCSEs at least gives me a benchmark.
Final I went to see Richard Dawkins. Everything can be linked to evolution apparently. I think the speech Alice Roberts did to the ASE about humans and education was much better than what Richard Dawkins had to say. But it was good to hear him talk about the scientific method during the questions at the end. He was much calmer than I was when asked silly questions.
I enjoyed being able to go to so many sessions, however I found that 40 minutes wasn't enough. I am used to at least an hour, and often sessions had only just got going when we had to stop.
The idea of an education festival is a good one. I enjoyed being able to listen to debates that were high above my normal pay grade. I like being able to talk about education without feeling guilty that I am not putting something I have heard about into practice on Monday morning. But most if all it was great to be in an beautiful environment, with people who care about education talking and sharing with passion.
I can't wait for the next one.
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Pedagoo SouthWest 2014
It has been a week and a day since I went to Pedagoo South West and it has given me time to reflect on what I saw, heard and thought about during the event.
The welcome from Bristol Grammar School was great and the main hall is an amazing room to spend time in. The tea and biscuits was very welcome. Emma Payne did a great job collecting the prizes for the raffle, very impressive.
I enjoyed Rachel Jones' key note speech. https://www.haikudeck.com/pedagoosouthwest-education-presentation-Fo3Rg5Fse7 I enjoyed the comment about twitter and dichotomies, oh how I hate straw men when they get thrown about in arguments. I also agree with Rachel that there is no right way to teach.
To me her presentation may have consisted in a series of what might be described as sound bites, but they summed up the positivity that we can feel as teachers when we want to. It was important for me to start the day by thinking about the bigger picture and realising the importance and solidarity that teachers can feel.Rachel's passion was a great way to start the day!
The video made by Rachel and her students was a real high point of the day:
For a while now I have been thinking that I must force myself to go to CPD and INSET sessions that I aren't in areas that I am currently interested in. Why? Because I often don't learn anything as I will have already investigated, and CPD can end up as a disappointment.
So with this in mind I went to Paula Worth's session about teaching a knowledge-rich curriculum. I went partly because of the knowledge vs skills debate on twitter. That debate actually leaves me cold as it often involves the word dichotomy. I have tried to keep myself out of this debate. However, it was interesting that Paula seemed to say it was a real issue in History. It made it more real.
I was very impressed by the activities she outlined in the ways that she scaffolds students using their knowledge in a skill based activity such as a debate. Facts to outline the points they were making were important. The session certainly made me wonder if I can think of more creative activities for students to learn from. I am glad I went.
After that I went to Robert Massey's session about gifted and talented students. This is another area that I don't have a great deal of interest in. Years of hearing about G&T, but not ever working at a school that had this area sorted has turned me off it as a concept. I actually found it very interesting to be able to drill down into what another independent school does. I hadn't made the connection between 'scholarships' and 'G&T', and I felt a little silly when the penny dropped.
It was certainly a session that made me think about what we do at school and what we do in our department. I need to take more responsibility to ensure that I am confident I know who our scholars are and consider how best to interact with them.
I like the idea of teaching to the top. It can be difficult to do this when SLT (not my current managers, they are reasonable) expect to see specific G&T resources.
After a short break and a cup of tea I stayed in the hall to hear Nick Dennis speak about multipliers. I realised that I hadn't been subject to a leadership talk for a while, and it is always useful to reflect on this area of being a teacher, middle leader and future senior leader. Currently my focus is science education and I have lost my passion for school leadership as a topic.
Nick first talked about diminishers:
The rescuer is an interesting title. I have worked with SLT who really enjoy having this role! I did enjoy all the descriptions of people as they did make me think about real situations and were personas that I could relate to.
He put together all the little pieces about marking and feedback from around the web, and it was really great to have it all sewn together. My favourite piece of the day was the handout from Chris with 12 ideas for marking and feedback.
I came out of the session feeling that Chew Valley School must be a great place to work.
The day ended with a talk from David Didau, it was a shame that we struggled to see his presentation because he stood between the projector and the screen.
The welcome from Bristol Grammar School was great and the main hall is an amazing room to spend time in. The tea and biscuits was very welcome. Emma Payne did a great job collecting the prizes for the raffle, very impressive.
I enjoyed Rachel Jones' key note speech. https://www.haikudeck.com/pedagoosouthwest-education-presentation-Fo3Rg5Fse7 I enjoyed the comment about twitter and dichotomies, oh how I hate straw men when they get thrown about in arguments. I also agree with Rachel that there is no right way to teach.
To me her presentation may have consisted in a series of what might be described as sound bites, but they summed up the positivity that we can feel as teachers when we want to. It was important for me to start the day by thinking about the bigger picture and realising the importance and solidarity that teachers can feel.Rachel's passion was a great way to start the day!
The video made by Rachel and her students was a real high point of the day:
For a while now I have been thinking that I must force myself to go to CPD and INSET sessions that I aren't in areas that I am currently interested in. Why? Because I often don't learn anything as I will have already investigated, and CPD can end up as a disappointment.
So with this in mind I went to Paula Worth's session about teaching a knowledge-rich curriculum. I went partly because of the knowledge vs skills debate on twitter. That debate actually leaves me cold as it often involves the word dichotomy. I have tried to keep myself out of this debate. However, it was interesting that Paula seemed to say it was a real issue in History. It made it more real.
I was very impressed by the activities she outlined in the ways that she scaffolds students using their knowledge in a skill based activity such as a debate. Facts to outline the points they were making were important. The session certainly made me wonder if I can think of more creative activities for students to learn from. I am glad I went.
After that I went to Robert Massey's session about gifted and talented students. This is another area that I don't have a great deal of interest in. Years of hearing about G&T, but not ever working at a school that had this area sorted has turned me off it as a concept. I actually found it very interesting to be able to drill down into what another independent school does. I hadn't made the connection between 'scholarships' and 'G&T', and I felt a little silly when the penny dropped.
It was certainly a session that made me think about what we do at school and what we do in our department. I need to take more responsibility to ensure that I am confident I know who our scholars are and consider how best to interact with them.
I like the idea of teaching to the top. It can be difficult to do this when SLT (not my current managers, they are reasonable) expect to see specific G&T resources.
After a short break and a cup of tea I stayed in the hall to hear Nick Dennis speak about multipliers. I realised that I hadn't been subject to a leadership talk for a while, and it is always useful to reflect on this area of being a teacher, middle leader and future senior leader. Currently my focus is science education and I have lost my passion for school leadership as a topic.
Nick first talked about diminishers:
And made a comment that I know I have to take more notice of. I have encountered it from managers, but I am still guilty of being 'always on' myself. Taking on too much and trying to implement it all can be as damaging to leadership and those who are being led.
Nick talked about giving someone within the group, but not in the highest leadership position the casting vote. I can see how this might be useful. But I do wonder if people realise they are having a leadership game played on them and resist? I would!
The rescuer is an interesting title. I have worked with SLT who really enjoy having this role! I did enjoy all the descriptions of people as they did make me think about real situations and were personas that I could relate to.
It is always useful to reflect on leadership in education and how our actions induce behaviour in others, and on the team we want to lead. I certainly don't feel like a multiplier at the moment.
The last session was by Chris Hildrew. "Closing the Gap" marking. He said himself that he had borrowed from others across the web, and did acknowledge them in his talk.
I went this talk because marking and planning for marking is something that I know I can be better at.
http://chrishildrew.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/closing-the-gap-marking-twilight-cpd/ This link takes you to Chris's presentation.
I came out of the session feeling that Chew Valley School must be a great place to work.
The day ended with a talk from David Didau, it was a shame that we struggled to see his presentation because he stood between the projector and the screen.
David was talking about his premise 'what if we are all wrong'? http://www.learningspy.co.uk/myths/wrong-pedagoolondon14-presentation/
Great afternoon.
Friday, 13 June 2014
KS3 Published Schemes
I am asked a lot what scheme will I be going for.
I had a free trial of the kerboodle online resources and was pleased with the quizzes and the idea behind how they work, but I was less impressed with the worksheets. Too much paper and not enough to make a lesson from. I feel that the lesson resources really missed the point. I did think that the questions they contained were good, and there were some strong links to contexts.
I knew then that buying kerboodle would not be enough. Luckily a copy of exploring science was sent out at this point. I wasn't exactly pleased that I was unable to find my school on the Pearson website and I had to make a phone call for Pearson to realise that we existed. I felt sorry that the reps that found me were not going to get the business. However, I have always found the worksheet resources for exploring science useful. So we have bought the worksheets from Pearson too.
I did look at the Collins resources and thought that they could have been more imaginative and really what I was buying was more of the same. The Hodder 'progress science' resources didn't do it for me either. I wanted something different.
However, I did buy "better teach science" by Hodder. These activities seem very imaginative and are linked to a context. Something that I couldn't do myself.
I hope that all these resources can compliment what we have an help to build a strong key stage 3 curriculum that helps students understand science.
For those of you who will criticise me for not writing our own and buying *worksheets*, we are a department of 6, only 3 of whom teach key stage 3. And more than that I want to explore the interactive resources that the publishers now offer. I will subscribe to the new exploring science textbooks in September, the interactivity in them looks amazing and is something that I could not hope to do to such a level and in such quantity.
I continue to strive to a 'perfect' key stage 3 scheme, aware that none of the published schemes are quite it.
The cost for what I recommend is upwards of £1600.
I had a free trial of the kerboodle online resources and was pleased with the quizzes and the idea behind how they work, but I was less impressed with the worksheets. Too much paper and not enough to make a lesson from. I feel that the lesson resources really missed the point. I did think that the questions they contained were good, and there were some strong links to contexts.
I knew then that buying kerboodle would not be enough. Luckily a copy of exploring science was sent out at this point. I wasn't exactly pleased that I was unable to find my school on the Pearson website and I had to make a phone call for Pearson to realise that we existed. I felt sorry that the reps that found me were not going to get the business. However, I have always found the worksheet resources for exploring science useful. So we have bought the worksheets from Pearson too.
I did look at the Collins resources and thought that they could have been more imaginative and really what I was buying was more of the same. The Hodder 'progress science' resources didn't do it for me either. I wanted something different.
However, I did buy "better teach science" by Hodder. These activities seem very imaginative and are linked to a context. Something that I couldn't do myself.
I hope that all these resources can compliment what we have an help to build a strong key stage 3 curriculum that helps students understand science.
For those of you who will criticise me for not writing our own and buying *worksheets*, we are a department of 6, only 3 of whom teach key stage 3. And more than that I want to explore the interactive resources that the publishers now offer. I will subscribe to the new exploring science textbooks in September, the interactivity in them looks amazing and is something that I could not hope to do to such a level and in such quantity.
I continue to strive to a 'perfect' key stage 3 scheme, aware that none of the published schemes are quite it.
The cost for what I recommend is upwards of £1600.
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