On Wednesday my mentor observed me with my Year 9 class. I had taken on board her advice from the previous week and spent ages trying to include everything she had said.
My lesson was a debate on who was to blame for climate change. What I had sttruggled with the week before was varying my activities and not doing enough differentiation, so this was the real focus.
I started the class of with a simple question which required them to think back on previous lessons and which managed to link into the theme of today's lesson. I then asked them to list everything they knew about climate change into man made and natural columns. After that I provided different students with differing articles regarding climate change. Some were Science based, some factual, some newspaper stories, some BBC bitesize revision material. Each student had been given something to read based upon their predicted grades and current attainment. After this I grouped differing ability students into groups of whom had all read differing articles on who was to blame for Global warming.
The student's did mostly appear to enjoy this type of activity. However, my initial worries were that behaviour wasn't of the normal high standard I expect. I hadn't reaffirmed my expectations of them, this I realised is key, particularly when introducing a new style of learning. This exact point was reflected back in my feedback. I though the lesson went pretty badly because of this aspect but my mentor said it was a massive improvement on the previous week.
I taught this exact same lesson to another year 9 group I teach the following day. This time I made sure to tell them what I expected of them and I broke down the time I gave them into smaller chuncks of which I questioned them and made suggestions. Any inappropriate behaviour was dealt with in a quick, firm manner. I gave warnings out much quicker than I normally would and the students picked up on this quite quickly, behaviour in contrast was much better and work clearly more focused and on task...If only I'd been observed in this lesson!
Friday, 18 November 2011
After school training: Moving students on by marking their work appropriately
We have weekly Monday night sessions for trainee teacher's and NQT's. This particular session was incredibly informative. One of The Academy's director's who is an AST took it and gave some brilliant advice as to the variety of marking techniques we should be using to help push forward our student's. One of the key things of note was how he said you just don't have enough time to mark everything in the child's book every week along with your planning, assessing, pastoral responsibilities etc. So we discussed as a class a plethora of ways of how to assess students. Agreed the best form of marking/feedback is that which is instantaneous. Im sure this is something most people do almost automatically but don't recognise the power and importance of it.
In my lesson the next day I attempted as discussed the previous night. I asked an array of questions and provided some verbal feedback to the student suggesting ways to improve upon their answer. I then set them some work and tried to move around the class verbally assessing the students and marking certain parts of their book at the same time. I managed to do two students in 5 minutes.
As a result of this I asked to watch the same teacher (who took the session the day before) in a Year 12 Chemistry lesson on that day.... He made it look so easy. He set a starter activity on the board with varying degrees of difficulty. He then sweeped the room checking their answers and ticking their books. At that point he assessed at what level they were now capable of and provided more questions/activities on the board. Throughout a 50 minute lesson, every single student had provided a verbal answer and he had checked through their work 3 times and set extensions immediately to cater for everyone. Impressive stuff!!
Now I just have to try and replicate this some how! I do think it will be difficult to perform for a Geography lesson on a consistent basis but I will try to do some form of AFL where I can give instantaneous feedback for the whole class in a matter of minutes. Suggestions welcome?!
In my lesson the next day I attempted as discussed the previous night. I asked an array of questions and provided some verbal feedback to the student suggesting ways to improve upon their answer. I then set them some work and tried to move around the class verbally assessing the students and marking certain parts of their book at the same time. I managed to do two students in 5 minutes.
As a result of this I asked to watch the same teacher (who took the session the day before) in a Year 12 Chemistry lesson on that day.... He made it look so easy. He set a starter activity on the board with varying degrees of difficulty. He then sweeped the room checking their answers and ticking their books. At that point he assessed at what level they were now capable of and provided more questions/activities on the board. Throughout a 50 minute lesson, every single student had provided a verbal answer and he had checked through their work 3 times and set extensions immediately to cater for everyone. Impressive stuff!!
Now I just have to try and replicate this some how! I do think it will be difficult to perform for a Geography lesson on a consistent basis but I will try to do some form of AFL where I can give instantaneous feedback for the whole class in a matter of minutes. Suggestions welcome?!
Reflection on the past week
Another week has gone past, yet again always busy and never enough time!
Monday was quite a productive day. My mentor and myself now team teach the year 7 and 8's after lunch. We decided this week that I would yake the year 8's and she'd informally observe me and vice versa with the Year 7's.
My year 8 lesson was on the Burgess model and getting the students to understand what is located in each zone and in turn understand how settlements are laid out. I decided to do more of a hands on lesson which the students appeared to enjoy, however we got no way near as much covered as I would have liked! Getting the timing right on these sorts of activities always proves to be difficult. Any way based on my plenary it appeared most of the students had covered the learning objectives I had set them. The plenary was actually really fun: the students were shown some images around Slough then had to identify which zone they were in (either: A, B, C or D.) To do this they had to either stand up with their hand's above their heads (A), stand up (B), remain seated (C) or get under the desk (D). This proved quite amusing and the majority had it right each time and didn't just hide under the desk.
After that I watched my mentor teach the Year 7's. The lesson was a good place and she introduced me to a variety of AFL techniques that I can implement throughout the lesson. The techniques she used were the stand up/sit down approach followed by questioning which was fast paced but identified to her who had or hadn't understood and then she tailored her questions to the students response accordingly.
This is definitely something I intend to implement next week.
Monday was quite a productive day. My mentor and myself now team teach the year 7 and 8's after lunch. We decided this week that I would yake the year 8's and she'd informally observe me and vice versa with the Year 7's.
My year 8 lesson was on the Burgess model and getting the students to understand what is located in each zone and in turn understand how settlements are laid out. I decided to do more of a hands on lesson which the students appeared to enjoy, however we got no way near as much covered as I would have liked! Getting the timing right on these sorts of activities always proves to be difficult. Any way based on my plenary it appeared most of the students had covered the learning objectives I had set them. The plenary was actually really fun: the students were shown some images around Slough then had to identify which zone they were in (either: A, B, C or D.) To do this they had to either stand up with their hand's above their heads (A), stand up (B), remain seated (C) or get under the desk (D). This proved quite amusing and the majority had it right each time and didn't just hide under the desk.
After that I watched my mentor teach the Year 7's. The lesson was a good place and she introduced me to a variety of AFL techniques that I can implement throughout the lesson. The techniques she used were the stand up/sit down approach followed by questioning which was fast paced but identified to her who had or hadn't understood and then she tailored her questions to the students response accordingly.
This is definitely something I intend to implement next week.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
The importance of questioning!
Well, I have had many reflections on how and why I ask students certain questions. Asking questions sounds pretty straight forward but is it really!?! I think what I have gathered from my readings, discussions with colleagues, reflection on lessons and general notion on the subject is that done properly it is an effective tool for gauging student progress. That bit is pretty much a given but how do you know you are asking the right questions or challenging enough questions, too many questions or not enough!? Hmm.
Well I think my questioning skills are slowly improving, I am getting used to the idea of minimalising my answering of questions in lessons and deflecting questions from students on to other students. This sounds pretty straight forward but I have previously always felt the need to answer any question directed towards me. I am getting more used to the idea of pushing questions around the class and building upon them, I'm sure I read it was called 'snowballing', or something to that effect. Anyway, it can at times really engage the class in a deep discussion where they fire off answers upon which I attempt to buid upon the original question, increasing the difficulty and thought process involved (I'd love to say I do it off hand but generally I will prepare a bank of questions beforehand that I will attempt to drop in throughout the lesson.)
Now I thought I was steadily improving unti it was pointed out to me that some of my questions are simply getting them to recall facts about yesterdays or an earlier part of the lesson and how is that showing learning. Some students may have a perfectly good memory, however does short term memory constitute learning or progress or simply the ability to recollect? What my questions need to show is a greater formative assessement. For example I need to ask a question which shows from what they have just rememebered and how they would apply that information. This should then hopefully show progress.
A way I can improve on this would be to ask more open ended question, if there are a greater mutliple of answers or ways to get to that answer then that provides greater scope for my questioning and development of the students. It is fine to use summative questioning in order to re-call information from many lessons/weeks/months ago so long as my questioning then evolves into a more formative approach. It's much easier to build answers up from scratch then go in straight at the top and lose lots of students who may appear confused and stuck when really they just needed guidance down an imaginery path towards an answer of which they got there themselves with great satisfaction achieved.
Well I think my questioning skills are slowly improving, I am getting used to the idea of minimalising my answering of questions in lessons and deflecting questions from students on to other students. This sounds pretty straight forward but I have previously always felt the need to answer any question directed towards me. I am getting more used to the idea of pushing questions around the class and building upon them, I'm sure I read it was called 'snowballing', or something to that effect. Anyway, it can at times really engage the class in a deep discussion where they fire off answers upon which I attempt to buid upon the original question, increasing the difficulty and thought process involved (I'd love to say I do it off hand but generally I will prepare a bank of questions beforehand that I will attempt to drop in throughout the lesson.)
Now I thought I was steadily improving unti it was pointed out to me that some of my questions are simply getting them to recall facts about yesterdays or an earlier part of the lesson and how is that showing learning. Some students may have a perfectly good memory, however does short term memory constitute learning or progress or simply the ability to recollect? What my questions need to show is a greater formative assessement. For example I need to ask a question which shows from what they have just rememebered and how they would apply that information. This should then hopefully show progress.
A way I can improve on this would be to ask more open ended question, if there are a greater mutliple of answers or ways to get to that answer then that provides greater scope for my questioning and development of the students. It is fine to use summative questioning in order to re-call information from many lessons/weeks/months ago so long as my questioning then evolves into a more formative approach. It's much easier to build answers up from scratch then go in straight at the top and lose lots of students who may appear confused and stuck when really they just needed guidance down an imaginery path towards an answer of which they got there themselves with great satisfaction achieved.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
The past week: Safeguarding/Child protection, parents evening and general reflection.
Well another week has gone by. It's really interesting reading other people's blogs and understanding the various problems we all seem to experience at this stage.
Like most I was really impressed with Penny's training session and likewise, the nature of it was quite depressing at times. It just goes to show how much can go on beyond the scenes that we may be completely unaware about and the implications it may be having on a student's education. I remember Ayoub and myself having a conversation with a Maths teacher after we had just observed one of the lower Year 8 Maths sets. We were quite shocked with their ability and levels and were sharing this. His response was in regards to thier home life, support (lack of), neglect etc. If your situation is that dire, then how important is Maths to you? Why would you be bothered? In those instances it's hardly a priority to be making progress when far more pressing matters are to be dealt with. I had never thought of it like that before and hearing some of the stories Penny shared emphaised this further.
Anyway, after this I returned to The Academy to partake in Year 10 parent's evening. I have done one last year so felt ok about speaking to parent's (something I have done over the phone a number of times also.) However, I really liked what Jane mentioned in an earlier blog about training and can see how benefitial that would be, particularly giving negatives a positive spin. This is something I will discuss with our school's GTP mentor.
The last period on Tuesday I teach a year 9 class. This particular lesson was based on natural causes of climate change. I used a lot of videos from youtube to support this. From previous experience of student note taking I was aware that they didn't always take relevant notes. To combat this I provided a bank of questions per video that I wanted answered. I also stopped the video so they had sufficient time to answer. We then reflected as a class on each video and the set questions which clearly appeared to be worthwhile! The only negative was that the HLTA mentionned that it was too video based for a particular student with hearing impairment. She suggested to possibly provide a transcript (there were 25minutes worth of videos in this 1hour 40 min lesson...This could take some time!!) This is something I must consider in the future, I also sort advice from another member of my department who recommended making story boards where he could draw pictures and fill in blanks. This is something I am going to have to put more thought and research into!
On the upside I teach the same class again on Wednesday (the following day.) At the start of most lessons I will re-cap key features of the previous lesson. This particular hearing impaired student was raising his hand and desperate to answer questions; of which he was providing correct answers, obviously something sank in BUT I'm sure this won't always be the case.
Like most I was really impressed with Penny's training session and likewise, the nature of it was quite depressing at times. It just goes to show how much can go on beyond the scenes that we may be completely unaware about and the implications it may be having on a student's education. I remember Ayoub and myself having a conversation with a Maths teacher after we had just observed one of the lower Year 8 Maths sets. We were quite shocked with their ability and levels and were sharing this. His response was in regards to thier home life, support (lack of), neglect etc. If your situation is that dire, then how important is Maths to you? Why would you be bothered? In those instances it's hardly a priority to be making progress when far more pressing matters are to be dealt with. I had never thought of it like that before and hearing some of the stories Penny shared emphaised this further.
Anyway, after this I returned to The Academy to partake in Year 10 parent's evening. I have done one last year so felt ok about speaking to parent's (something I have done over the phone a number of times also.) However, I really liked what Jane mentioned in an earlier blog about training and can see how benefitial that would be, particularly giving negatives a positive spin. This is something I will discuss with our school's GTP mentor.
The last period on Tuesday I teach a year 9 class. This particular lesson was based on natural causes of climate change. I used a lot of videos from youtube to support this. From previous experience of student note taking I was aware that they didn't always take relevant notes. To combat this I provided a bank of questions per video that I wanted answered. I also stopped the video so they had sufficient time to answer. We then reflected as a class on each video and the set questions which clearly appeared to be worthwhile! The only negative was that the HLTA mentionned that it was too video based for a particular student with hearing impairment. She suggested to possibly provide a transcript (there were 25minutes worth of videos in this 1hour 40 min lesson...This could take some time!!) This is something I must consider in the future, I also sort advice from another member of my department who recommended making story boards where he could draw pictures and fill in blanks. This is something I am going to have to put more thought and research into!
On the upside I teach the same class again on Wednesday (the following day.) At the start of most lessons I will re-cap key features of the previous lesson. This particular hearing impaired student was raising his hand and desperate to answer questions; of which he was providing correct answers, obviously something sank in BUT I'm sure this won't always be the case.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)