Objective Quest – Day 5
Phew! After two days of 'curriculum enrichment' followed by an evening compering awards evening I'm knackered. Friday's lessons seem a long time ago now but I'm committed to reviewing the learning objective techniques used. Sadly though, I've reached my limit and this will be the final installment of the Objective Quest for a while at least. So, without further self-justifying twaddle, here are Friday's lessons: Lesson 1 - Yr 9 [...]
Objective Quest – Day 4
Am starting to feel slightly exhausted by all the different objective introducing techniques whirring around my head like a cloud of relentless cheerful wasps. I long to use the same one all day for all my lessons but am stubbornly committed to seeing it through. At least until the end of the week. And the surprising reality is that as of today I have only managed to plough through 15 [...]
Objective Quest – Day 3
Quick update on the Learning Objectives google doc: we're now up to 47 ways to introduce learning objectives! Only three more to go so if you have any good stuff lurking in the cluttered cupboard of your brain, please add it here. Another 3 lesson day, punctuated by Jim Roberson doing some motivational speaking for our Year 10 & 11 students. P1 Year 11 Connected Words Lesson 1 was with Year [...]
Objective Quest: Day 2
OK, after a positive start yesterday on my quest to try out 40 different learning objectives before the end of term, I was raring to go today. I only have three lessons on Tuesday and spend a lot of time running around trying sort things out, have meetings and generally try to stay on top of running the faculty. P1 Year 11 - Order the Learning The basic premise of [...]
50 ways to lead your lesson
The problem is all inside your head", she said to meThe answer is easy if you take it logicallyI'd like to help you in your struggle to be freeThere must be fifty ways to lead your lesson...Paul Simon Last week the inimitable Kristian Still challenged the good people of Twitter to amass 50 different ways to introduce learning objectives. Well, after much cajoling and exhortation from Mr Still we managed [...]
The Learning Pyramid
Consider this little gem that periodically does the rounds in education circles: (This is just one of the very many variations on the Learning Pyramid doing the rounds on the internet. For more examples visit The Corrupted Cone of Experience.) Seductive, isn’t it? The false sense of security comes from the fact that it bears out and validates our experience as teachers: we get to know our subjects [...]
Going SOLO
A few months ago I wrote about some of the concerns people have had with ubiquity of Bloom's Taxonomy and that there were other, perhaps more useful taxonomies around. Well, since then I've been quietly experimenting with SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) developed by Biggs and Collis. Biggs says As learning progresses it becomes more complex. SOLO, is a means of classifying learning outcomes in terms of their complexity, enabling us to assess [...]
How to have a successful life
This week Mr Phil Beadle graced us with his towering presence and 'edutained' 60 Year 11 students. I was going to call this post "Beadle's About" but I'm sure he's heartily sick of any comparisons to the bearded prankster Jeremy (no relation) Beadle. To be absolutely honest, I hadn't heard of Mr Beadle before I was bullied into reading Dancing About Architecture, his fantastically leftfield book on creativity in the [...]
Reading should be our top priority
I've just read a sobering piece on reading in UK schools from Mike Baker's website written by Roy Blatchford, a former headteacher and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, and Director of the National Education Trust. Here it is: Provisional figures for 2011 indicate that, in England, one child in five reaches age 11 unable to read confidently. Confident, that is, to access the secondary school curriculum they are embarking on [...]
Reasons to be cheerful
So, it's now the fourth week back and despite been plum tuckered (I've a vague notion that this means tired) I'm still smiling. I've just read Kenny Pieper's latest post on how he's feeling after (in his case) six weeks back and thought it timely to read over my Back To School post written on the first day back after bathing in the rosy glow of creativity that my wonderful [...]
Forget the answer, what's the question?
We all know the value of effective questioning, but should it be the students rather than the teacher doing a bit more of the asking? After reading about Question Formulation Technique (getting students to think of their own questions rather than just answering mine) a few weeks ago I was really keen to give it a whirl. Tait Cole However, Dylan Wiliam's SSAT 2010 keynote is still ringing [...]
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