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.
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.
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
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!
