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How to have a successful life

2011-10-01T15:08:18+01:00October 1st, 2011|learning|

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 classroom. For sheer bloody minded buffoonery it beats the hell out of anything Sir Ken has written and I would unhesitatingly recommend to anyone wanting to liven up lessons with some [...]

Reasons to be cheerful

2011-09-26T21:31:49+01:00September 26th, 2011|learning|

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 faculty had induced in me on hearing about the splendid variety of good things they intended to forge ahead with this year. In order to maintain the mad-eyed positivity needed to [...]

Forget the answer, what's the question?

2011-09-24T16:37:17+01:00September 24th, 2011|learning|

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 in my ears: we (teachers) should not waste time on self indulgent gimmicks if it causes us to move away from AfL and other proven high impact teaching & learning strategies. [...]

Learning Journeys

2011-09-21T22:00:27+01:00September 21st, 2011|learning|

Last month I wrote a post asking whether there was a point to starters. Luckily for me, Darren Mead got in touch to tell me about what he has termed Learning Journeys. Ever since I've been absolutely smitten. The idea is incredibly simple: at the beginning of the lesson, provide students with a visual representation of the learning which will take place during the lesson. That's it. A visual learning objective. Geoff Petty in his book Evidence Based Teaching shows that using this strategy along with a traditional learning objective plus an activity which links to students' prior learning has an effect [...]

Questions every teacher should ask every day

2011-09-18T22:03:26+01:00September 18th, 2011|learning|

I've just read David Warlick's blog post on Transformative Questions and am feeling pretty excited about it. In it he challenges teachers to "create a culture of learners that thrive in the 21st century." He says that learning should include the following qualities. They should : - be responsive to learners' needs - provoke conversation, - inspire personal investment - be guided by safely-made mistakes.   He has come up with these questions to challenge us when designing lessons: 1. How might I alter this assignment or project so that it “Responds” to the learner? How can the experience “Talk Back?” 2. How might [...]

Easy vs Hard

2011-09-16T18:39:45+01:00September 16th, 2011|Featured, learning|

We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. - JFK We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle A teachers' job is not to make work easy. It is to make it difficult. If you are not challenged, you do not make mistakes. If you do not make mistakes, feedback is useless. - John Hattie - Visible Learning Our attitude to effort is embedded in our language: easy does it, hard luck, easy on the eye, don't take it so hard. Why is it that [...]

More DIY learning

2011-09-06T21:27:44+01:00September 6th, 2011|learning|

Following Kenny Pieper's wonderful guest post yesterday, I was inspired to put his ideas into action today. The most difficult aspect was geting hold of some netbooks. The DT had some which they warned me were a bit creaky and the head of music leant me three iPads. Sorted. To introduce the lesson, I used the idea I got from Darren Mead's site Pedagogical Purposes on having a visual representation of the lesson for students to refer to which Darren calls the Learning Journey. I was impressed with how quickly and accurately they worked out what they were supposed to do. I [...]

Do It Yourself

2011-09-05T19:29:41+01:00September 5th, 2011|learning|

There is a certain amount of irony in the title of today's post in that I haven't written it myself. Instead it comes from the typing fingers of the marvellous Kenny Pieper. His excellent blog Just Trying to be Better than Yesterday is well worth a read. There are two reasons for this: 1. I'm knackered after the first day back at school - even though it was only an INSET day. 2. Kenny has already written exactly what I would have wanted to write. So without further ado: Over the summer holidays I caught up with a few Ted talks, [...]

How to fix your attitude

2011-08-31T21:46:45+01:00August 31st, 2011|learning|

Can you change how intelligent you are? Can you alter your personality? Can a student predicted a D grade get an A*? Are there things it is simply impossible for us to do? I’ve always fancied the idea of being able to play the guitar but have made excuses like, I haven’t the patience to learn. The truth is, I’m not prepared to put in the effort required. I took lessons when I was about 10 years old and gave up after a few weeks. But why? Cos, my stupid teacher wanted me to learn stupid chords and I just wanted [...]

Formative assessment and the mark scheme

2011-07-23T23:03:52+01:00July 23rd, 2011|assessment, English, learning, training|

I’ve been consciously and actively using exam board mark schemes as an essential component of formative assessment with my classes for some time now and thought it was time to share what I was up to more widely. I led a CPD session on this recently and while none of what I said was new or even particularly surprising, it did at least remind us what the point of marking all those essays is. Before putting my presentation together, I decided to check out what was out there already. Plenty of stuff on formative assessment but nothing specifically (nothing that I [...]

Does group work work?

2011-07-18T22:17:05+01:00July 18th, 2011|learning|

Have just been reading 59 Seconds by Professor Richard Wiseman (@RichardWiseman) and am rather dismayed to note that contrary to popular belief, but according to scientific research, groups are less creative than individuals! Does this mean that by getting students to work in groups I have been stifling their creativity? Apparently this is down to what Wiseman calls 'diffusion of responsibility'. Because there are other people to take the blame, we make less effort when we are part of a team. The consensus view in education now seems to be all about groups. Is this just a vogue? Does it need [...]

Rip it up: Hula hooping about literature

2018-12-16T22:59:11+00:00July 16th, 2011|English, learning|

I keep this post on the site to remind me just how far I've come. When I wrote this in 2011, despite teaching for 12 years, I knew practically nothing about education. I am now rather ashamed and embarrassed at my naivety but it's good, i think, to remind our selves that we all have feet of clay.  If you do decide to read on please know that I would now disavow pretty much everything that follows.  December, 2018 Day 1 Have just finished reading Phil Beadle’s book, Dancing About Architecture at 2.39 am. I received it in the post today and tore [...]

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