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:

Punctuation

Punctuation is always an ongoing area of focus in my classroom for all year groups, no matter what topic we are studying. My T.A. has helped me produce these punctuation booklets for discrete practise.

The activities all focus on Capital Letters, "Speech Marks" and Commas for Clauses (e.g. My dog, who is called Pickle, likes to bark in the garden.) Pam Hook , the SOLO Guru, has kindly offered to send me a table which will explain how I can 'SOLO-ise' punctuation, as I'm still confused about that at the moment.

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives... part 4

Okay so some more blogging on Learning Intentions. Year 9 have just started a huge project: "Spoken Language of a Public Figure". Here is an example of an exercise students completed which examined how rapport can be built with the audience. This particular student is getting towards the top of the group. I've also included a close up of my SOLO Taxonomy Learning Intentions for the project:

 

 

 

 

Any feedback concerning my SOLO Learning Intentions is very welcome, please contact me via my Twitter: @teachesliteracy .

Using highlighters to check punctuation progress

An ongoing focus in my classroom is improving our use of punctuation. To check on individual progress I had students copy a mini-story from the board, and they had to put in capital letters, commas and speech marks. We then peer marked the work. Markers had to highlight the things they thought were correct, incorrect or missing in three different colours. I could then quickly see how both the original student and the marker are getting on. Plus the highlighters emerging from the cupboard always seems to send a stir of excitement around the room!

What's my SOLO Level?

For those of you who'd like to download a free copy of my SOLO Level Assessment sheet, you can find a PDF here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5wKj1KHNZvSQ0xMYjIxdGVwRnM/edit?usp=sharing

If you share this, a link back to me would be appreciated!

Update on yesterday's punctuation lesson with Year 9

Just an update on yesterday's punctuation lesson with Year 9. Here is an example of the work that was produced (this student is in the middle of the group):

 

Now I just need to figure out how to assess this under SOLO... Any advice/suggestions very welcome! 

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives...part 3

I modified my creative writing Year 9 Learning Intentions today so that they were aligned with SOLO Taxonomy. The focus was on using a variety of punctuation with accuracy. Here they are:

I found this really difficult to do, because the SOLO verbs don't seem to easily lend themselves to demonstrating correct use of punctuation in my mind. I'm not particularly satisfied with my second Learning Intention and I want to change it, but I don't know how! I need to have a longer think about it; any suggestions for how to improve number 2 would be extremely welcome. You can find me on Twitter! Also I am still, as ever, interested in seeing your Learning Intentions/Objectives!

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives..... part 2

Continuing from yesterday's post...

This half term Year 7 and 8 have been improving their Literacy by investigating Climate Change and Sustainability. Year 7 and 8 have a NC (English) range of levels from 1a/2c to 3a/4c. Today I began a series of lessons that have the outcome of writing and performing a persuasive speech for the Head to make our school more 'eco-friendly'.

Last night I re-wrote my Learning Intentions for the first sequence of lessons to make them align with Solo Taxonomy. You can see them below:

 

 

I am happy that these are well aligned to SOLO, and because I have done this my Success Criteria and assessment of their understanding/progress is very clear (this is why I like using SOLO so much!)

Here you can see some of the work we've started on over three lessons today. First of all we listed ideas on our brainstorms, and then wrote sentences to explain our reasoning. Imagining and predicting wider impacts will come in future lessons:

 

 

I have also been talking to Natalie Ford on Twitter about SOLO Learning Intentions and she has given me some interesting ideas to think about, which I'm definitely going to develop over the next few weeks:

 

 

 

(Sorry, haven't figured out how to embed Twitter conversations yet...!)

 

I'm still really interested to share Learning Intentions/Objectives and SOLO with anyone else, so if you'd like to share yours with me I'd really appreciate the development opportunity! You can upload them to Twitter and tag me in them!

 

 



Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives...

Currently for in-house CPD we have been reading Embedded formative assessment by Dylan Wiliam. This term we have been focussing on Chapter 3: Clarifying, Sharing, and Understanding Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. I have enjoyed this particular chapter because it doesn't re-invent the wheel; it simply tells you/reminds you what you know already and re-explains the relevance in a clear manner. (As an aside, I think it would make excellent reading for Trainees/NQT's in any subject.)

Following on from this reading I started to really focus on my Learning Intentions, as I realised that they weren't as precise as they could be. I've been teaching a few years now and it wasn't really an area I had visited since my NQT year. When I used 'understand' in an Intention, I knew what I meant by it, and perhaps I did adequately paint a picture of it in my Success Criteria, but I don't think it was actually the correct choice of word to begin with. Can a student really 'understand' in one lesson? I think the term is too broad and imprecise. I've been working to avoid the use of this word. Additionally, I was unhappy with how my context was too closely mixed in with the actual skill I wanted students to learn/demonstrate.

I've put some examples of my revised Learning Intentions below. They are for a Year 9 class (English NC Levels 3a-5c) and are in the context of early preparation for the Information and Ideas GCSE English paper:

I still don't think these are perfect, for a start they aren't aligned with SOLO Taxonomy , which is what I want to be using across my entire Curriculum for 7, 8 and 9, so they do need changing in that regard. Additionally I'm unsure as to whether I like having the Success Criteria mixed in with the Intention in this way; I am leaning towards comfortably accepting this mixture but I do think further scrutiny would do no harm. I do also provide a seperate, more detailed Success Criteria, usually in the form of a tick-sheet to go with the work. (This also easily affords the opportunity for peer, self and teacher assessment as it only needs a few extra columns adding!)

With Year 7 and 8, I tend to use WALT (We Are Learning To) and WILF (What I'm Looking For) a lot more as it seems to help them understand our learning journey/progression a lot easier.

If anyone would like to share their Learning Intentions with me I would be really interested, as I'm always wanting to develop and refine my own! Perhaps you could upload them to Twitter and tag me in them? I would welcome any feedback on my Intentions here, positive or otherwise...! I'd be interested to know if you have students write Intentions down (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, sometimes they're pre-printed on the sheet) and if you always share the Learning Intention with the class or not? I don't always think it is appropriate to, and sometimes it can be insightful not to and then ask "so, what do you think we were learning this lesson then?" for a Plenary!

Climate Change: Persuasive writing

This half term Year 7 and 8 have been investigating Climate Change. We have assessed our understanding of the issue with SOLO Taxonomy. This has culminated in writing a persuasive letter for our school newspaper to encourage both parents and students to reduce their carbon footprint. We are still in the rough draft stages.

Persuasive writing is not a new topic to us, last half term we investigated the Romans and wrote persuasive letters about Gladiator fighting. This time we had to revise the techniques and come up with some snappy sentence starters before we began to plan the structure of our letters. You can see our progress below, we've still go some way to go before we finish!

 

This is a writing frame that 3 students came up with. The topic of the paragraph is in blue, the 'super sentence starter' is in red, and the persuasive technique is in black.

 

 

Here you can see two rough drafts. They haven't stuck exactly to plan, but that's okay, I do encourage students to 'go with the flow' sometimes.

 

Next we will read our letters and check for capitals, commas and full stops (highlighters will probably be used) and then we'll do a little bit of peer assessment- mostly along the lines of "my favourite sentence was...because...I think you could improve this sentence...by...") Students can then make a few changes before I mark it, and finally they can write it up in neat.