The first session this evening was taken by Rosa Murray of the GTC.
This was an interesting quote from the 2007 McKinzey report to start:
Unlike other professions, where professionals naturally operate in teams, teachers generally work alone, denying them natural opportunities to learn from each other. Several school systems employ strategies aimed to change this by creating schools in which teacher regularly observe each others’ practice, thereby producing an environment which stimulates the sharing of knowledge on what works and what does not, encouraging teachers to give each other feedback and helps shape a common aspiration and motivation for improving the quality of instruction. These systems are some of the best performing of all the systems we studied.
Rather than add too much more here are the slides that Rosa used:
Around sixty teachers from across Renfrewshire will meet this evening at the Glynhill Hotel in Paisley for a joint EIS & Renfrewshire Council CPD event.
There will be three presentations:
Rosa Murray from GTCS will talk about the possibilities for teacher development including professional recognition, leadership and management.
Sally Fulton from HMIE/LTS will discuss developments in Journey to Excellence and Curriculum for Excellence.
Margaret Orr is a member of the national CPD team. Her talk will feature CPD Find, the national database of CPD opportunities.
Throughout the evening there will be stalls from the GTCS, HMIE, the universities and EIS union learning reps will be on hand.
As previously posted, I completely failed to attend a single seminar or lecture at the Scottish Learning Festival this year. I am glad to see, therefore, that the keynotes by Richard Teese and Charles Leadbetter have now been posted. That should keep me quiet for a wee while.
I finally managed to find it. TESS last week published an article about the review of feedback on the first batch of draft experiences and outcomes. I searched the LTS website but I couldn't find it. Well, I have now found it! I now just have to read it. You can get the report on the curriculum for excellence website HERE. It's not a quick read at 182 pages. Now where is the executive summary?
My brain is spinning round far too fast at the moment. This is supposed to be a day off so I was awake before 6am! I have been sitting at the computer with a large mug of coffee and I have been thinking around a number of different things that I need to get my head straight on. One of the big ones for me at the moment relates to guidance I am writing for our schools on learning and teaching.
We have a number of initiatives running at the moment across our schools to encourage teachers to reflect on learning and teaching methodology as part of the implementation of curriculum for excellence. All of them are very good and proving to be very effective. Professional development has been at the heart of each of them. The key element has been about encouraging teachers to stand back from their practice and reflect. My difficulty is pulling all of that together into some sort of coherent guidance. I have never felt that we should drive down a single route. Teaching is far too messy a business for single and simple answers. Teachers need to be equipped with a variety of tools in order to engage and enrich the learning experience for all their pupils. That will mean that cooperative learning is right for one group of pupils or type of learning experience whereas Joyning the Learning, active methodologies, rich tasks, critical skills and dare I say direct teaching will also have their place in the teacher's repertoire.
The HGIOS indicator related to teaching (QI 5.2 - teaching for effective learning) gives the following as an illustration of very good practice:
Building on our shared values, we create a stimulating learning climate using skilful and well-paced teaching and learning approaches. Learners’ experiences are well matched to their needs and sustain their motivation and attention. We develop learners’ abilities to be curious and creative and to think critically. Tasks and activities in our classes and home-learning activities are well planned and involve learners as effective contributors, working independently and with others cooperatively in solving problems. We make full and effective use of ICT during teaching and learning.
We share the purposes of lessons with learners. Learners know what they need to do to improve and to become successful. Our explanations and instructions are clear and build on previous learning and real-life experiences. We ensure that learners have opportunities to take responsibility for aspects of their own learning and their relationships with others. Learners enjoy their experiences and make progress in their skills as learners. They are engaged in learning and aware of themselves as learners. We use feedback effectively to promote learning.
Our teaching fully involves learners and encourages them to express views and ask questions. We use skilled questioning and discussion to stimulate learners’ interest, make them think and build their confidence. We value, encourage and build upon learners’ responses.
In lessons, we make sound judgements and respond quickly to ensure that our teaching meets the needs of individuals and provides appropriate support and challenge. We identify and address weaknesses in learners’ knowledge and skills.
This is very helpful as it highlights the fact that it is not about a single methodology or product. There are far too many salesman out there trying to peddle a single solution to all of learning and teaching.
In all my work in this area, the one theme that seems to keep coming through is that we learn better when we learn together. You can call it what you like but it seems to me that collaboration in the learning process is the key to growing the best learning environment. Consider what we are looking for in our young people - flexible, adaptive, resilient, etc. Also consider what employers are looking for - team working, good communicators, self aware, effective contributors, etc.
I think the framework for the guidance I am putting together will take that umbrella form of collaboration in learning. It's not prescriptive but highlights the importance of active participation in the learning process. Ensuring that all teachers have the chance to stand back and reflect on their practice gives them the opportunity to think through the issues and better understand the needs of their pupils. In this way we will all benefit.
I have written a fair amount about geotagging photographs in the past. I heard a presentation by Ollie Bray yesterday at the Scottish Learning Festival about using Google Earth in learning and I went back to have a look at some of my own thinking on the subject. One of the issues I have had has been with the relative difficulty of actually getting the tags right. That's where BlockRocker comes in. This is a tool that allows you to pin point the location on a map and then apply the tags directly to the photo in Flickr. It is very straight forward to use and it works. It certainly speeds up the process of geotagging your photographs!
Perhaps I should scan my RSS feed before I engage my typing fingers. Having just posted the previous note on the new GLOW games which I found on the national GLOW site I read Andrew Brown's blog post and the embed code so that all you people that don't have access to GLOW can still have a go.
Have you heard about GLOW games yet? If you don't have access to GLOW then you can forget it. If you do have access to GLOW then log in and click here (you must be logged in first!). The games have just been launched as part of the national site. They look fairly straight forward but quite fun.
I haven't looked at them all but the ones I did have a look at look like they might be a wee bit of fun. Perhaps not up to the level that Derek Robertson and the LTS Consolarium have been working at, but hey, it's a start.
At the moment a big task involves getting folk to use GLOW so any hook in is worth having a go at. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
Well it has been a very busy day at the Scottish Learning Festival today. I have sore feet, tired legs and I am hoarse from the amount of talking. I spent so long talking to people that I didn't get to a single seminar. I am left with the hope that LTS will publish podcasts of the presentations as they have done in previous years.
Anyway, here are a few photographs. You can see the originals in my Flickr photostream.
We (Renfrewshire Council) have been working with Learning Unlimited for the past couple of years developing an interdisciplinary approach to learning and teaching called "Joyning the Learning". There have been a number of packs produced by Renfrewshire teachers working alongside the folk from Learning Unlimited. The packs go alongside some professional development which has been hugely positive and very highly evaluated.
The latest in the series of Joyning the Learning publications has just been published and we are really excited about it. It's not another pack. Instead it is a reader for staff to think about what Joyning the Learning is all about. It includes background and the thinking in relation to learning and teaching methodology, assessment for learning and the whole curriculum for excellence approach. It is so new that it is not on the Learning Unlimited website yet. Keep your eyes open for it. They have done a good job of it and I am looking forward to our head teachers getting to grips with it.
It is lunch time on Thursday 25th September. I have spent most of the morning on our stand at the Scottish Learning Festival. I have talked to lots of people but have not seen anything myself yet. I have come out for a seat and a quick check of the email. I have found free wifi but it is incredibly slow! It is taking an absoluate age to load my GLOW home page.
I am really pleased that the local authority village is part of the main exhibition space. This has meant that we are getting far more traffic and lots of people to talk to. I am not sure whether it is as busy as last year. It was certainly fairly slow at the start of the morning. That might have been because of the expressway being closed due to a fire.
I have now managed to check my email - nothing too important that won't wait. I really need to go for a wander round the exhibition. Perhaps I will then have something to say!
I was not at day 1 of the Scottish Learning Festival today due to the local authority strike action. As a senior manager I was on call day. Not my ideal way of spending the day. Anyway, tomorrow should be different. I will be on the Renfrewshire stand for part of the day and hoping to attend the keynote by Charles Leadbetter at 12 noon and one or two of the workshops.
Perhaps I will see you. If so please stop me and say hello.
My wife laughs at me. I don't think that lists are always the best way of representing knowledge. Ever since I taught artificial intelligence as part of computing I have found lists to be only one way of gathering and representing a domain of knowledge. It is not uncommon for me to be found with large sheets of flip chart paper and marker pens in order to make sense of my thinking.
I like large sheets of flip chart paper and markers but there are times when I want to be able to take what I have done in those mind maps, semantic nets, etc and incorporate my thinking into some form of electronic document. I have used a number of tools such as Inspiration and Conception (created by Tom Conlon of Moray House). Well here is another one. A mind mapping tool on-line. It's called Bubble.us and it's free. It's very easy to use and represent fairly complex domains fairly easily.
If you, like me, don't always find lists to be that useful then this might be worth a try.
I am currently feeling very frustrated. It looks like I won't be at the Scottish Learning Festival on Wednesday. Due to the strike action I am probably going to have to open and close school shutters and be on standby in case of emergencies. I will still be there on Thursday but I will be missing a fair amount.
If you're looking for pictures why not try Tag Galaxy . This must be the most attractive search interface that I've ever seen. It's very straightforward - input a keyword and the program goes to Flickr, finds related terms and then displays them in the form of planets:
You can then click on a planet/tag that interests you and the interface creates a 'planet of pictures' for you drawn from Flickr.
I typed in "Learning" in the search box. The different planets are words which are related to the original search term. When you click on one of the planets you can then see a preview of a selection of pictures with that tag set.
Whether or not it is a useful search tool I haven't decided yet. It is very pleasing to look at, however. If you are more of a visual learner then you might find it interesting.
This photo is part of a project that I have been doing since the start of January. Actually I have been doing this since the start of last January. This is my second time through! The idea is that you post a photo on Flickr for every day of the year. You can see this years attempt here and last years here. The photos are all tagged so that you can easily find ones that have been included. The idea sounds great and it certainly makes you look around you a lot more. The real down side is that you can become completely obsessed by the project and then start to feel anxious as the evening draws in and you still haven't taken a photograph!
Yesterday was easy, however! The sun was shining. It was Friday. I was sitting in the garden (yes, that must be at least twice we have managed that this year). I was reading Practical Photography and fiddling with my camera (a Nikon D50) trying out the ideas. This bee decided to join us. I took quite a few in order to get one that was half decent. I also had to crop it down quite a lot in order to get the detail.
Anyway, I am pleased with this one. What picture will I take on Saturday? I have no idea. It is raining and that has an impact on what is possible.
Considering I am not doing much with ICT of late it's a little surprising the number of posts there have been about ICT! Here's another very quick one.
Have you heard of Scratch? Until this week, I hadn't. It is available Mac and Windows (not Linux, sorry Alistair). Scratch is a tile-based visual programming environment and toolkit. It allows you to make games, animated stories, interactive art. It then allows you to share them on-line. As a fan of visual stuff and interactive learning tools for kids I think it is probably worth a look. I have downloaded it and installed it. It is very attractive looking with lots of nice graphics and ideas. There is a help manual and a getting started manual in pdf. You can make games and there is even some stuff that looks a lot like Logo that could get you started with some simple programming steps. This looks like it has lots of potential. Has anyone out there used it in the classroom?
I spent another day at the Erskine Bridge Hotel today with a couple of hundred teachers engaging with the new experiences and outcomes for curriculum for excellence. Today we were looking at the technologies outcomes so at least I felt on reasonably firm ground. There were no surprises and most people seemed to be genuinely welcoming of the exercise and of the new outcomes. They do have anxieties of course. We keep saying that there isn't going to be a pack to deliver. That in itself is sending some over the edge. Today, however, there was very little of that. As I scanned through the evaluation forms at the end of the day, the only negative one I spotted said, in response to the question "what have you learned", said "I need to retire". Oh, well, what can I say...
We have been using games in learning for a wee while now thanks to Derek Robertson at LTS. Some of our schools have been using Wii, PS2 and the DS along with GameMaker and the like to explore interdisciplinary studies in a variety of contexts. This has been very successful and I am very pleased that the schools have been up for doing this.
The next thing we are going to try is a slightly different idea on the same theme. We are going to try using the Wii to engage young people who don't want to do PE to start to engage with the idea that it might actually not be such a bad idea to do some physical activity.
Will it work? Well, we shall see. I shall report back later on the success or otherwise. In the mean time I am keen to hear from anyone else who has tried to use games technology to try to get kids into PE.
I am being very nostalgic again. Once upon a time, a long time ago, in another world I was a scientist. I studied Physics at Strathclyde University (I studied rather than read, in other words we actually did something. Sorry, that was uncalled for). When I started teaching I taught physics and science to the good pupils in Grovepark High School in Greenock. You could ask how relevant physics was to them but that is a different debate. I did a web search for Grovepark High School and came up with nothing. That's quite sad as I loved my time there and really learned my trade there as a teacher.
Anyway, I am getting side tracked. My daughter came in from school last week and asked whether the world was going to end when they created a black hole this week. I eventually worked out that she was talking about the experiments being carried out with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It's a pity that so much of science gets distorted and misunderstood by so many people. I know that this stuff is pretty hard to understand and really quite abstract unless you get the maths but the public perception of science tends to be so far off beam to be quite disturbing. Even although I am about twenty years separated from any serious physics I do still understand the principles being looked at and enjoy the thinking involved. We do still need people to be doing fundamental science in order to understand our universe better. There is a huge amount we just don't get.
On a more philosophical (or religious note), it was only when I started to study some of this fundamental science at university that I really began to grasp how awseome God must be to have created all of this. I may be in a small minority, but I reckon that a good understanding of science actually pushes us closer to an awareness of how small we are and how vast God is rather than to a view that says the God does not exist. We have been running a project through our church (NMBC) called exist. The project basically challenges us to think about some of the big questions in life. What if God exists? etc, etc. Is the answer "so what", or is there more to it than that?
Philosophical discussion over. If you want to debate with me the origins of the universe and the place that a loving God might have in that then please let me know :-)
Obviously this post is just a lame excuse for posting the link to the large hadron collider rap (see below) and not just a way of me spouting my religious dogma. Is that so bad?
Once you have had a look at this video why not have a look at some of the other stuff on their websites and on the CERNTV section of Youtube. This link shows an animation of how the LHC works. It is pretty accessible (honest!). Then why not find out about the one who made it all. Check out www.exist.org.uk.
My son, Alistair, is extremely evangelical in his fervour for open source software and for Linux in particular. He has just built his own PC and installed Linux, naturally. I am very impressed with his new PC and how little it cost him to build it.
I have only really played with Linux at the fringes. I have an EeePC and have fiddled with Linux on that. I thought this report on the BBC website was interesting, therefore. I am not a fan of Microsoft but tend to recognise that it is often very hard for people to move away from it for a variety of reasons. Corporate networks, for example, are often tied up with maintenance contracts, training requirements and a knowledge base that is not easy to change. There is also the comfort of the familiar. If it comes out of the box with Windows on it then you'll probably just use Windows.
I also use a Mac a fair amount. In fact I knew how to program a Mac long before I had ever really touched MS Windows (but then who ever wanted to use Windows v3.1?). I like the MacOS but then it's even harder to get under the lid of and more closed than Microsoft.
Perhaps it would be worth installing Linux on a separate partition of my main PC to see what I really think of it and how hard it is to move over. I do tend to be on the geekier end of the spectrum, although not in the same league as my son. I can't help feeling that I must be missing out on something. On the other hand, is life not just a little too short?
Hi there. I have been involved in education for a long time now. I started teaching Physics then moved to Computing as computers came into schools. I taught in a number of schools in Inverclyde for nearly twenty years. I became a Quality Improvement Officer (QIO) with Renfrewshire Council in 2003. I am now an education manager in Renfrewshire. I have been doing this for over a year but have only just got the job for real! I am supposed to be managing our educational development service. This blog in no way endorses or comments on anything to do with Renfrewshire and any comments made here are non attributable. I don't make any political comments and I aim to be positive in what I say.
You can see from my interests that I have far too many interests and not nearly enough time to do anything about them! Getting the balance between work and life remains a constant battle.
