Outstanding Teacher Program

Outstanding Teacher Program - Individually Tailored CPD

 

 

 

As part of our staff CPD program this last term we decided to run a series of different CPD sessions aimed at different members of staff and their different needs. Trainee specific sessions run by and led by experineced staff. A series of action research projects and a project aimed at working with a small cohort of 12 staff who wanted to work with an outdide Head Teacher. This is an outline of what they got up to from one of the 12. The other sessions will be covered in the next two posts.

 

 

A music Teacher's Story of aiming for Outstanding:

 

Being part of the 'outstanding teacher programme' has allowed me to reflect upon my teaching practise and try new ideas. I found Sarah's sessions thought provoking and engaging. In having a trainee teacher in the department, I found the 'observing lessons' session very useful. The session has given me the confidence to highlight areas for development and areas of strength. Being on twitter has given me a new teaching idea each week, the most recent being D.I.R.T (directed improvement reflection time) this is something we are developing in the department and I am aware the students need to be trained to conduct this effectively. 

 

A really good article on D.I.R.T can be found through this link......

http://www.huntingenglish.com/2013/10/12/dirty-work/

 

An area which I highlighted as a weakness was my questioning strategies. I have found that by planning backwards I am able to develop the questions before hand to see how I will use them to form discussions in the classroom. I have focused my lesson plans on the 'outcome first' What do I want the students to have achieved at the end of the lesson? What will that look/sound like? Therefore what activities and questions will I prepare to allow them to get there and beyond? Clear objectives are key, but also in ongoing projects, students need to identify their personal objectives if they are at different stages of the project.

 

This is really a development of what we have been embedding in the school for nearly a year on Alistair Smith's Acelerated Learning model. I think that the extra training was a good opportuinity to reflecton which apects of this I had fully embeded and which I had negelceted.

 

There are a couple of links below to further readin or resources on Accelerated Learning.

 

http://www.hylandspedagogy.blogspot.co.uk/2013_07_01_archive.html

http://www.cramlingtonlv.co.uk/?page_id=37

 

I am allowing more thinking and discussion time to give students the opportunity to prepare their answers - think, pair, share/collaborative work/pose, pounce, bounce. I have been developing higher level questioning by starting with the students who are on the lowest target grades to answer first before passing this onto others to develop the answer. I have also been scaffolding listening questions to support this. A good example of this was the geography lesson we watched in the CPD session. Excellent questioning allowed students to consolidate understanding and informed the teacher of the next steps.

 

 

A nice start point on this is here on the Teacher tool kits resources

 

http://teachertoolkit.me/2011/11/04/pose-pause-bounce-pounce/

 

I have also been developing teaching half or a third of the class at a time, a carousel of activities will help give focused time to a small group of students to really identify what they know and move them forward with their learning. This is going to be my main area for developing my practice in the next half term. It should help me move more studnets on at an idividual pace not that of the group as a whole.

 

Thanks Sarah, great CPD!



Personalised Lesson Observations with teachers in charge

THE “SWIVL”

 

http://www.swivl.com

 

Self-directed camera work in the classroom

Personalised CPD at the touch of a phone

As a school we want to put the idea of self-reflection at the heart of teaching and learning. We want teaching staff to be able to see what they are doing in lessons, hear what they say, witness the way their pupils react to activities and make alterations if they feel that any of these things can be improved. The trouble is that most of this comes from observation and it’s difficult to observe yourself. There are numerous classroom observation companies that will set up cameras in classrooms and record lessons for you. These are often very expensive and rely on a good deal of IT support and server capacity in school. I wanted to try these and was in the process of setting up some connections to get started, when I heard about the SWIVLE. This is a portable camera holder that tracks your movements if you wear a portable lanyard which picks up an infra-red signal. Once you’ve hooked up your iPhone, iPod to the plinth, it will follow you around the room, pick up audio and record your lesson to a private ICloud and YouTube site that will allow teachers to view their lessons on their own or to share them with people if they wish.

IAlink to a demo of it  working on YouTube is below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eoLcSvQf7A

This is possible at the fraction of the cost of permanent or more standard cameras – around £299 for the hardware and for software and storage support for a whole year for all your staff. This means that teachers can see what they really did or said, rather than what they think happened. It allows them to record pupil reactions and engagement and reflect afterwards on what happened. It allows the teachers to be far more reflective and in charge of their own CPD.

But does it really work in the classroom and what do teaching staff think. Over the next few weeks I am going to lend out the equipment to a number of staff across different subjects and get them to record their thoughts, tweaks and gripes in this forum.

Good “SWIVLING”

The Swivl in a science classroom:

 

Swivl, Impact tool for all? ..................teaching has been revolutionised with many technological advances and how far these have entered your classrooms seems dependent on you as a person and your audience. It also depends on your school environment and the resources that you have at your disposal.

 

The Swivl has many Strengths. It's cool slick design stands out in a room and attracts a lot of attention even when a device is not plugged in to it. It's easy to use, small and light in weight. When connected to device sync is quick and the connection is immediate and remains strong as you move around the room. The Swivl device should be placed about standing head height for good connection. The quality of sound recorded is pretty good this includes background sound, when the device volume is put on loud. As an additional feature there is a microphone available which is a lot more sensitive.

Other features include downloading a free app called Swivl Legacy. This allows you to save captured sequences and share within a secured network hence not using up your handset storage capacity. The captured sequences can be shared within a secured network.

Unfortunately like many devices there are some limitations to its use. Firstly the infrared does loose connection if the sensor is not directly facing the device. The tilt on the device Is manual so would serve better if the design allowed for a ball platform hence capturing images in all directions. I have also found that the device is not sensitive enough as it often did not follow me.

Every user will need to fully charge their handset device and have additional batteries on supply for the Swivl device itself.

How it may be useful in lessons or for teachers?

As I piloted the device I received mixed views about its use. As I explained to my students it can be used for checking on progress, improving practice for both students and teachers, helping to monitor students, helping to build on confidence and self esteem, re -building relationships with students. As a wider role it can be used to encourage staff to share good practice and offer advice where required to improve practice in all areas of a school from all parties concerned using the Swivl device. For example during CPD and Nqt training.

Personally I would be happy to use this in my classroom as a tool to reflect on my own teaching and allow students to watch themselves so to also reflect hence make more progress.

I used it for the following -

- dealing with low level behaviour.

- improving student presentations.

- monitoring class relationships .