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Professional development library
Professional development library
Debbie Hill writes about some new books in the library in the senior school staff common room.
The new additions to the Professional Development Library include the Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli's Walkthrus, already used in schools and colleges around the world. These professional development 5 step guides are flexible, evidence-informed (based on an understanding of how learning happens) and offer multi-platform tools to support busy teachers to engage with ideas.
Dan Fitzpatrick is an award-winning educator with decades of experience with technology and innovation in schools. His platform, The AI Classroom has been a huge success in helping teachers engage with AI and develop a framework for learning. We now have two copies of his book The Ultimate Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Education: ".... the literature equivalent of capturing lightning in a bottle" (David Price OBE, author of The Power of Us).
"We can't push the genie back in the bottle, nor can we close Pandora's box once it has been opened. Hence we need to prepare ourselves - and the next generation for the new realities. That's where The AI Classroom is a useful guide" (Vikram Chandra, host of The World on the WION Network).
Stop marking books - feedback push forward!.pdfStop marking books!
Stop marking books!
This presentation looks at the problem with marking - how can we move to a feedback and push forward approach that saves teachers time and improves student engagement with their work?
The 'tipped' classroom?
The 'tipped' classroom?
Breana Bayraktar describes the tipped classroom approach to instruction: "If you’d like to play with the ‘flipped class’ idea without transforming every class session, or you need to maintain a safety net for students who aren’t quite as diligent at doing all the preparation work, then you may want to consider the tipped classroom approach. The approach:
Short instructor-led and content-focused exploration at the beginning of class: lecture, review of homework, peer work, or independent reading time. 30% of class time.
Next, application: individual or small group work on a project, problem, or alternative assessment. Example from Bayraktar: Tell students, “You have 15 minutes to work independently on three problems, and then 15 minutes to discuss and come to a consensus with your group on the best ways to solve the problems.” 60% of class time. Source - inside Todd's brain
This project-based learning site houses a growing set of resources to help you design and implement powerful learning in your classroom.
Discussion roles.pdfDiscussion roles
Discussion roles
A great resource to encourage better discussion from Voice 21 https://voice21.org/understanding-oracy/
The questioning toolkit.pdfThe questioning toolkit
The questioning toolkit
A detailed resource showing how questioning can be developed to improve outcomes.
Project-based learning PBL Edge toolkit.pdfProject-based learning
Project-based learning
PBL can be a great way to engage and develop learning, when it is done rigorously of course! The PDF is from Edge future learning and gives details of how to approach PBL effectively.
A series of resources from our subscription to Creative T&L with some great ways of encouraging transformational learning via creativity!
Rolestorming
Rolestorming
Rolestorming is a possible solution to the challenge of running debates in socially-distanced classrooms due to social distancing, sitting in rows, and hybrid learners. It is also a way to potentially improve empathy and wellbeing.
In a rolestorming approach to debate and discussion, students are given (or choose/design) 3 or 4 different "personas".
They need to consider the debate question from the perspective of those personas. They could write down their ideas, or talk with others that they sit with or are "bubbled" with.
It's also possible to take this approach in the hybrid / online classroom. Students could produce a slide containing their persona's views on the topic, or get more creative and produce a short video - you could collate this using Google classroom.
Psychology research suggests that "putting yourself in someone else's shoes" can also improve skills of empathy for others, as well as boosting creativity.
When many students might have had minimal contact with people outside of their families in recent months, this sounds like an added bonus for this approach.
Mind mapping, or concept-mapping, is a great tool for knowledge retrieval and for helping students develop some critical thinking skills. Here are some thoughts on this technique which can be used for classroom-based, online and blended learning
Mind mapping, or concept-mapping, is a great tool for knowledge retrieval and for helping students develop some critical thinking skills. Here are some thoughts on this technique which can be used for classroom-based, online and blended learning
The theory of Mind mapping
The theory of Mind mapping
There is an excellent summary of the benefits of mind mapping and visual representations of material in Caviglioli's "Dual Coding with Teachers" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dual-Coding-Teachers-Oliver-Caviglioli/dp/1912906252
In a nutshell, evidence suggests that combining words and images / visuals is a really effective way to facilitate learning. If the same information is presented to you in a variety of ways, you are able to access more "working memory capacity". Psychology teachers will undoubtedly recognise this outcome from Baddeley's work on memory!
Using visual representations of material, especially via mind or concept-mapping can help student learning in a variety of ways:
draws attention to the most important elements, reducing distraction and confusion
can trigger links to prior knowledge
manages "cognitive load"
organising information in a non-hierarchical way can help it to "stick" in the long-term memory
reassures students that they can create meaning and interest
The practice
Teachers are facing new challenges in the current classroom and learning environment. It's not quite as simple as handing out A3 sheets of blank paper to students and getting them to produce mind maps! Even the sharing of colourful pens and sticky notes is challenging in many institutions. You can still mind map and concept map the "old way" (although it's also worth bearing in mind that teachers may need to model how to do this!).
But, there are an increasing number of technological solutions out there, many of which are collaborative, and many of which can work with students learning remotely at home or using devices in your classroom. It's a great way for students to engage actively with their learning, and you to quickly check their comprehension if they share their work with you online. It's also great in terms of "differentiation by outcome". Here's a selection of web-based tools you could take a look at:
Bubbl.us - this is good in terms of minimal on-screen distraction on the interface, works on mobile and desktop devices, easy to export work as a JPG or PNG or text file, and you can collaborate with others in the premium version
www.mindmup.com - similar features to Bubbl.us but links nicely with Google applications allowing you to connect Google Docs or Sheets
www.mindmeister.com - this is one of the more popular online mapping sites, and it's primary focus seems to be collaboration to produce maps (so students in class and at home could work together), whether you're on Mac or Windows or Linux; with mindmeister you can also convert your map into a slideshow
A really interesting article about flipped learning here:
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