Some other interesting ideas I got from PedagooLondon

Here are some other interesting ideas I got from PedagooLondon:

Replace customer with student/parent and contract with government officials/policies!

The Education Endowment Foundation has produced a list of effective and ineffective intervention strategies , discussed by @oliverquinlan . There were lots of interesting points to his presentation(s!):

This examines different learning interventions and summarises the most useful ones...something I definitely need to get round to reading!

I think this is advice we do need to take on board. 

Something else I need to get round to reading, particularly now that we have 1:1 iPad programme in our school!

Some more interesting links from @oliverquinlan :

• Remote 1:1 Tutoring
• Real time captioning and transcripts of lessons for CPD (and for deaf students?) (Very excited by this opportunity, imagine if my students could re-read the lesson, and visual learners could read it in real time?!)
• The Flipped Classroom  (something I am at the very beginning stages of exploring!) 

 Really want to check this out, http://www.nomoremarking.com/ , could have some potential!

Skype education...didn't know about this and would like to learn more as it looks pretty exciting/engaging!

@englishlulu shared this fun idea to motivate D/C GCSE students, but I thought I could adapt it to my KS3 Literacy and even English classes as well! Write an essay on a postcard! They could also use reading skills to analyse a picture on the front.

What's it all about? Progress

PedagooLondon: What's it all about? Progress. Chris Curtis

"A range of strategies to use in the classroom to track, monitor and build progress into everyday teaching. Includes things that an Ofsted inspector stole from me."

This presentation was thought-provoking for me because I am always so keen to praise the effort that my students (particularly those with SEN) have put into their work; often they will work extremely hard yet become frustrated with themselves for still not getting all their punctuation/spellings/whatever correct. I try to soothe this frustration by praising them for putting in 100% effort and reassuring them that as long as they try their best/hardest it will be okay, and their perseverance will eventually be rewarded with success. This presentation made me wonder if I have the right approach or not. I'm still undecided about what/how/if to change and need to think about it more over the next few weeks. 

Things I've taken away from this presentation:

• Focus on one thing at once...break the skills down! (I am pretty good at doing this already.)
• Praise progress even if effort is poor 
• Progress is about getting better, not just loads of targets
• One target per question
• Better or worse?: compare work from the start of your book to some recently completed 
• Assess the skill and not the grade. Grades are for summative. (I do this already.)

I like the idea of sharing the target for every student on the board and then students place a post-it at the end of the lesson over their line on the board indicating how much progress they believe they've made towards the target. I think if targets were shared in this way students could do a bit of self-directed learning and have the opportunity to put themselves into groups to work on the target together. 

 

Point number 2 in this photo is one I often ask aloud as I mark books. I think I will start writing it down! I know my students CAN use basic punctuation, they just often forget. 

I've made this picture larger so it is easier to see. I am interested with the collection of targets here and seeing the sheet like this made me realise I could just print these targets out and circle the ones that I want for each student, thus saving myself a lot of time writing them out! Also, the pictures in the right of the photo are mini-worksheets for different basic writing skills. In my previous school I had a display a lot like this for extension work/extra practise, and I'm considering making one in my current classroom for commas/paragraphs/evaluating/evidence etc. 

I'm really pleased to say that I consistently do ALL the things on this slide!

Dirty ToES...a taxonomy of errors

Dirty ToES by Keven Bartle at PedagooLondon 

"How to enhance the impact of your marking by combining a Taxonomy of Errors (a strategy by which I unpick common mistakes made by students at different achievement levels) and DIRT activities (Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time). 

 "In this session I will walk you through my developing thinking with regard to DIRTy ToEs activities and show you student work that (hopefully) shows the impact of the technique upon students’ writing.
 If all goes well, I may even get you to do some activities related to your own classrooms!!"

This session was quite thought-provoking as it began by getting us to reflect on our own marking:

This was quite a useful exercise and definitely something that I need to explore in more detail over time. Currently I spend too much time making resources, planning, and marking, and something needs to change! If there is a way to make marking more effective and efficient then I'm all for it. 

I was interested by the idea of creating a low/mid/high taxonomy of errors and having students analyse their own work to see which ToE their work fits into. This self-directed learning task would encourage self-reflection and hopefully closer attention to detail. It would also be helpful for me to categorise errors in this way as then I could generate different entry points into the lesson and have three different levels of differentiation in the improvement tasks. 

#foldables ... active learning!

For the love of Foldables by Karen Duxbury-Watkinson 

"This will be a hands-on, active learning session where you will get to practise creating some Foldables which can be used to engage even the most reluctant of learners. So bring your sense of humour and creativity to experience the fun of folding."

I really enjoyed this session on foldables/3d graphic organisers/manipulatives/origami because I felt it was something that I could use straight away in my classroom with minimal preparation. My students often require concepts and skills to be frequently repeated, and enjoy being active/creative, so this seems like an ideal way to combine those two needs without using yet another worksheet!

Some Literacy ideas for different foldables:

• Accordion fold for developing sentences or sharing stories
• 4-door diorama (pop-up) for PEEL answers
• 4-door tab books to answer who/what/when/why questions about what is happening in the story, or sequencing question prompts
• Triangles to make into mobiles for series of events 
• Picture frame book: image on the front and talk about the image inside, good for inference/deduction skills 
•  Pocket book: one side for words to learn/use, other side for words you've learnt/used for spellings/definitions/key words etc. Could colour code these and use treasury tags to keep them together.
• 3/4 door booklets: question on front and answer inside, stick together to evidence progression
• Folding compare and contrast with flaps: e.g. what/when/where etc
• Layered books for parts of a sentence 

Why do they always seem to forget?

Why do they always seem to forget? PedagooLondon presentation by David Fawcett and Fran Bennett. 

"Why is it that you can teach a lesson in which all students clearly demonstrate they understand a topic, but then a few days, weeks or months later, students have forgotten it?  How is it that things seem to be learnt and then forgotten so quickly?"In the session we will explore various principles from cognitive science and psychology research.  We will look at what these findings say and how we as teachers could begin to incorporate them in our practice.  We will provide examples of how this research is already being put into practice and allow the opportunity for attendees to begin planning how to make learning stick (for the long run!)."

I took away these key points from the presentation:

• When something is introduced the students really need to think about it, and do something with it, to remember it. 
• 3 or 4 different exposures, in different ways, is required to put information into long term memory. 
• Multiple choice pre-tests help with learning. It also introduces the key words before the topic begins.
• Re-cap gaps should increase over time to improve long-term storage. 

I will be incorporating some of the effective testing methods from the last picture into my lessons on a weekly basis to repeatedly test commas/conjunctions/spellings etc as I seem to have many students who suffer from poor memory storage and retrieval. I am also going to try out the pre-tests. I hope that this will help them!

Interestingly, there was a lot of discussion about the benefits of giving multiple choice options in tests. This technique certainly helps learners with dyslexia, as often a student with dyslexia will know the answer, but will struggle with the retrieval process from the long term memory. By giving multiple choice options it can help the student be directed to the answer they already know.

Pedagoo London 2014

Saturday 8th March 2014 I headed to #PedagooLondon with @kjhutchinson , @beckypointon and another one of our colleagues for a mammoth CPD session. Yes, voluntary CPD on a Saturday. Why? Why not?

I'm not going to post in detail about exactly what was said in each of the presentations I attended, nearly all the presenters have uploaded their presentations onto their websites and it is best to look them up there. This post concerns my own personal reactions/thoughts to what I've seen.

Perhaps the biggest thing I took away from the day was reassurance that I'm on the right track with my practice. The discussions about Ofsted, not grading individual lessons, providing feedback to move learning forward, and high quality marking are all areas that I have been focussing on at school as part of our in-house CPD. This reassurance is important, as it gives me encouragement to trust my instincts and continue forward on my current path, knowing my students are benefiting and that I am making the right choices regarding their education.

I will split up each talk into separate posts.

Symbolism and the European Union

Year 7 and 8 are currently improving their Literacy through learning about the European Union. This week we've been looking at symbolism, particularly in flags. We've also enjoyed reading The Mystery of the Golden Stars, which we're using as a springboard for other activities such as a debate.

Here are some examples of our symbolism work, laminated ready to go up on the wall: