I can't believe it's now six months since I completed the DTLLS course. What's happened since then?
We all passed the course and received our DTLLS qualification - most of us went to a jolly degree ceremony in October at the Cathedral and were handed our scrolls by a very charming Stephen Fry.
Hugh is teaching Psychology at a sixth form college - working hard but thoroughly enjoying it. Bethany got a job teaching Design part-time at another sixth form college, which she enjoys, but is currently on a break for three months in Thailand. Asif is working for a local education organisation teaching English and Citizenship; and Kelly was teaching Hairdressing in another FE College, but hated it and has resigned.
Sarah dropped out of the course after the first term and problems with her teaching placement. Natalie has moved house and gone back to being a Weight Watchers Leader. Big Jay has become the Business Manager of a local Management Training company, which he is well suited to and enjoys. Dan, who had health problems all through the course and still has, is applying for jobs - not necessarily in teaching.
And me - did I go into teaching?
No. I did look for jobs last summer, but there was nothing at our college; from a starting point of saying they wanted to employ all of us post-qualification, the college ended up making swingeing cuts from early this year, made 10% of all staff redundant and have not been able to offer any of us teaching work. I didn't find any other teaching jobs in Creative Writing, Journalism or even Literacy (all off campus courses were axed at our college, including the Sure Start Literacy course I taught on - terrible shame!). I did sign up with a supply teaching agency, but bottled out of the first day I was offered - admittedly at 7am that morning and I had no childcare in place. Thankfully, I haven't been offered any more!
Although the college wasn't able to offer me any teaching work, I have delivered training workshops to staff there in my previous area of expertise, Work-Life Balance.
Having started the DTLLS course thinking of myself as a writing failure, in July I found a publisher for the self help book I had written the year before and it has just come out today. Much of my time in the last few months has been taken up with the publication and publicity process - and building a coaching and training business around The Real Secret. Next week I will be delivering my first workshops, "An Introduction to The Real Secret" to college staff during Learning Week - all my slots are over-subscribed already, so I can only hope I deliver the goods. Although I'm not strictly "teaching", the input from the DTLLS course has made a difference to the way I do training, coaching and deliver workshops.
Our tutor, Jen, has told me she's coming to one session - so I'll have to try not to recall the observations on my teaching she did! Mike, our first tutor, went to work at another FE college which has subsequently had to make cuts and he is now developing computer games and apps - we're talking about one for The Real Secret.
Thanks for reading this blog - if you want to find out who I am, go and look at:
The Real Secret website
The Real Secret blog
Like The Real Secret on Facebook
Follow The Real Secret on Twitter
or, best of all, buy yourself a copy of The Real Secret on Amazon
10 December 2010
2 May 2010
Module 5 - Professional Practice - Reflection
For Module 5 (which should have been submitted at the end of the first semester, but had to be delayed to accommodate the late arrangements of placements and mentors and therefore teaching practice), we were asked to: "Critically reflect on your learning from the first semester of the DTLLS course and identify areas for development including gaps within your subject specialist knowledge to be addressed in Semester Two. Ensure you reflect on the importance of collaboration with your mentor and peers that support your professional practice. Draw on evidence from your reflective journal and feedback received through the observation process." Although I've just handed it in, I may as well post it in my Reflective Journal...
I entered the FT DTLLS course after a significantly longer period outside a formal learning environment and with proportionally greater life experience than any other student. This had positive and negative aspects: I could draw on a range of professional experience, including writing for various media and management training and consultancy, which supported my subject specialism and some aspects of teaching; on the other hand I had predominantly worked as a freelance or independent practitioner, was largely self-taught, and thus unused to a culture in which professional practice is rigorously monitored and assessed against prescribed and somewhat inflexible criteria.
Perhaps it was an error on my part to suggest at initial interview that, as someone with a degree in English and writing credentials, I could teach any related subject from Adult Literacy to English A Level for my placement. Having been told that Creative Arts placements were already taken, I did not pursue Creative Writing as my preferred subject specialism; I wanted to get onto the course. Perhaps it also reflects a certain lack of knowledge within the DTLLS team that I was offered a placement teaching Literacy – certainly my mentor, when I was first assigned to her, expressed doubts as to my (or anyone else’s) capacity to deliver the Adult Literacy curriculum without training. She suggested at once that I should take an additional course to familiarise me with the content and assessment criteria. I was at first panicked by the thought of any additional workload, but when I attended the two-day, ACER Introduction to Literacy course in February, I found it immensely useful and it has supported my teaching in this, and indeed the other areas of Numeracy and Creative Writing.
My first experience of formal teaching was the Module 1 Microteach assignment, when, after a pre-teach survey, I chose to teach “Uses of the Semi-colon” to the DTLLS peer group. I was able to apply some of the theoretical teaching we had received to that point on Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS). This module focused on the basic requirements for teaching and the role and responsibilities of a teacher, including legislation, functional skills, feedback, assessment and record keeping. As I had spent a number of years researching work-life balance issues, my first instinct was to take a survey of the DTLLS class to ascertain what area of literacy they would find most useful, the results of which I was able to use to demonstrate numeracy functional skills.
The build up to delivering the microteach was immensely stressful: the volume of new information from full-time classes, structuring the half-hour lesson bearing in mind the theory and practice of that teaching and simultaneously writing the series of short essays for the rest of the Module 1 assignment also coincided with the first meeting with my mentor. As I have noted above, she was not convinced of my ability to teach Adult Literacy and, moreover, had only three Literacy classes per week which she wasn’t entirely happy to give over to me. However, we instituted a regular weekly meeting leading up to my placement (which resolved into two Literacy classes and one Numeracy class), after which she gave me regular and ongoing feedback and support about my teaching in terms of specialist subject matter and professional practice during and after lessons as well in weekly planning meetings.
I also found very valuable the tutorials I had at this point with the course tutor, without whose input I would have attempted to introduce far too much information into an over-complex microteach; the video of my lesson through which I was able to assess my own performance; and the formal and informal feedback from my peers. I reflected on all of this at some length in my Reflective Journal.
As we moved into Module 2 (Initial Assessment and Functional Skills) at the same time as Module 5 (Professional Practice), I found myself enjoying the academic work, but less so the small amounts of teaching. Conscious incompetence is not a mode I find comfortable to work in, and once again, the in-class microteach on aspects of numeracy was stressful. The collaborative side – we worked in groups of three – was positive, though and for one day, two microteach groups worked together and rehearsed with each other. Again, tutorials with the course tutor and another tutor were highly supportive when I was finding the time pressures of DTLLS work and running a home with two small children hard to reconcile – though my mentor seemed unimpressed by my issues and suggested I might consider doing the DTLLS course in two years rather than one. I had no desire to do this, but in terms of the initial assessment component of our taught course, I was not the only FT DTLLS student to think we had not been given sufficient information about either the intensity and front-loaded structure of the course, or the uncertainty of the mentors and placements assignation.
For Module 3 our assignment was to prepare a case study of an assessment strategy, while in class we analysed and evaluated learning and teaching theories relating to different forms of assessment and influences on assessment. Although I was engaged by the issues of formative and summative assessment, the fact that I had not yet started my teaching placement meant that I wasn’t able to develop a real case study – though my mentor provided some material for the assignment. There was some confrontation, though, when I showed her a scheme of learning of hers which I had reworked (as I was not yet in a position to create one of my own) to submit as an appendix to an assignment. She felt that this could be viewed as plagiarism and took this up with one or more of the DTLLS course tutors.
Module 4, Communication and Supporting Students in the Learning Environment, included a fairly demanding, two part assignment. The first required us to create an innovative resource that demonstrated inclusivity and diversity – and, contentiously, emerging technology – and present it to the DTLLS peer group and tutor(s). I was pleased with my resource, which was a Free Writing activity based on the work of James W Pennebaker, though its only relation to emerging technology was that it could be used either in a hard copy or Word-based format. The feedback from peers and tutors was insightful and supportive, though again I was pressed for time to complete this part of the assignment by the deadline and as a result did not present with as much confidence or expertise as I could have.
The second part of the assignment was a so-called “professional discussion” – although it merely involved presenting to a sole tutor - about communication, behaviour management and barriers to learning. It took place at the end of term, following a significant incident in the teaching programme which adversely affected all the FT DTLLS students. The main course tutor was dismissed and, whatever the reasons and justification, we as students felt that we were not properly informed nor was there a robust plan or personnel to replace him or support us. There was a hiatus in teaching and pastoral support during an important transition time from full-time learning to teaching placement.
I enjoyed preparing and delivering the professional discussion. I was able to draw on my brief experience of teaching placement in an Adult Literacy course based at a Sure Start centre, a Get On Adult Literacy class of very mixed ability and an Adult Numeracy class in which many students had learning and physical differences. I was also able to draw on my professional background in child development, parenting and self-help related psychology. I was pleased to achieve a Distinction in this assignment.
By the end of the first semester I had delivered two microteaches and one solo lesson for a Literacy class. Feedback from tutors and my mentor was positive about my subject specialist knowledge, authoritative delivery, good relationship with students, use of humour, planning and resources. Points for development included directed and inclusive questioning and setting clearer timeframes for each activity. Activities which offer more differentiation and extension tasks were also aspects I needed to work on. To consolidate my knowledge of the Adult Literacy Core Curriculum, I had booked myself onto a two day course to take place in February on Teaching the Adult Literacy Curriculum.
I entered the FT DTLLS course after a significantly longer period outside a formal learning environment and with proportionally greater life experience than any other student. This had positive and negative aspects: I could draw on a range of professional experience, including writing for various media and management training and consultancy, which supported my subject specialism and some aspects of teaching; on the other hand I had predominantly worked as a freelance or independent practitioner, was largely self-taught, and thus unused to a culture in which professional practice is rigorously monitored and assessed against prescribed and somewhat inflexible criteria.
Perhaps it was an error on my part to suggest at initial interview that, as someone with a degree in English and writing credentials, I could teach any related subject from Adult Literacy to English A Level for my placement. Having been told that Creative Arts placements were already taken, I did not pursue Creative Writing as my preferred subject specialism; I wanted to get onto the course. Perhaps it also reflects a certain lack of knowledge within the DTLLS team that I was offered a placement teaching Literacy – certainly my mentor, when I was first assigned to her, expressed doubts as to my (or anyone else’s) capacity to deliver the Adult Literacy curriculum without training. She suggested at once that I should take an additional course to familiarise me with the content and assessment criteria. I was at first panicked by the thought of any additional workload, but when I attended the two-day, ACER Introduction to Literacy course in February, I found it immensely useful and it has supported my teaching in this, and indeed the other areas of Numeracy and Creative Writing.
My first experience of formal teaching was the Module 1 Microteach assignment, when, after a pre-teach survey, I chose to teach “Uses of the Semi-colon” to the DTLLS peer group. I was able to apply some of the theoretical teaching we had received to that point on Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS). This module focused on the basic requirements for teaching and the role and responsibilities of a teacher, including legislation, functional skills, feedback, assessment and record keeping. As I had spent a number of years researching work-life balance issues, my first instinct was to take a survey of the DTLLS class to ascertain what area of literacy they would find most useful, the results of which I was able to use to demonstrate numeracy functional skills.
The build up to delivering the microteach was immensely stressful: the volume of new information from full-time classes, structuring the half-hour lesson bearing in mind the theory and practice of that teaching and simultaneously writing the series of short essays for the rest of the Module 1 assignment also coincided with the first meeting with my mentor. As I have noted above, she was not convinced of my ability to teach Adult Literacy and, moreover, had only three Literacy classes per week which she wasn’t entirely happy to give over to me. However, we instituted a regular weekly meeting leading up to my placement (which resolved into two Literacy classes and one Numeracy class), after which she gave me regular and ongoing feedback and support about my teaching in terms of specialist subject matter and professional practice during and after lessons as well in weekly planning meetings.
I also found very valuable the tutorials I had at this point with the course tutor, without whose input I would have attempted to introduce far too much information into an over-complex microteach; the video of my lesson through which I was able to assess my own performance; and the formal and informal feedback from my peers. I reflected on all of this at some length in my Reflective Journal.
As we moved into Module 2 (Initial Assessment and Functional Skills) at the same time as Module 5 (Professional Practice), I found myself enjoying the academic work, but less so the small amounts of teaching. Conscious incompetence is not a mode I find comfortable to work in, and once again, the in-class microteach on aspects of numeracy was stressful. The collaborative side – we worked in groups of three – was positive, though and for one day, two microteach groups worked together and rehearsed with each other. Again, tutorials with the course tutor and another tutor were highly supportive when I was finding the time pressures of DTLLS work and running a home with two small children hard to reconcile – though my mentor seemed unimpressed by my issues and suggested I might consider doing the DTLLS course in two years rather than one. I had no desire to do this, but in terms of the initial assessment component of our taught course, I was not the only FT DTLLS student to think we had not been given sufficient information about either the intensity and front-loaded structure of the course, or the uncertainty of the mentors and placements assignation.
For Module 3 our assignment was to prepare a case study of an assessment strategy, while in class we analysed and evaluated learning and teaching theories relating to different forms of assessment and influences on assessment. Although I was engaged by the issues of formative and summative assessment, the fact that I had not yet started my teaching placement meant that I wasn’t able to develop a real case study – though my mentor provided some material for the assignment. There was some confrontation, though, when I showed her a scheme of learning of hers which I had reworked (as I was not yet in a position to create one of my own) to submit as an appendix to an assignment. She felt that this could be viewed as plagiarism and took this up with one or more of the DTLLS course tutors.
Module 4, Communication and Supporting Students in the Learning Environment, included a fairly demanding, two part assignment. The first required us to create an innovative resource that demonstrated inclusivity and diversity – and, contentiously, emerging technology – and present it to the DTLLS peer group and tutor(s). I was pleased with my resource, which was a Free Writing activity based on the work of James W Pennebaker, though its only relation to emerging technology was that it could be used either in a hard copy or Word-based format. The feedback from peers and tutors was insightful and supportive, though again I was pressed for time to complete this part of the assignment by the deadline and as a result did not present with as much confidence or expertise as I could have.
The second part of the assignment was a so-called “professional discussion” – although it merely involved presenting to a sole tutor - about communication, behaviour management and barriers to learning. It took place at the end of term, following a significant incident in the teaching programme which adversely affected all the FT DTLLS students. The main course tutor was dismissed and, whatever the reasons and justification, we as students felt that we were not properly informed nor was there a robust plan or personnel to replace him or support us. There was a hiatus in teaching and pastoral support during an important transition time from full-time learning to teaching placement.
I enjoyed preparing and delivering the professional discussion. I was able to draw on my brief experience of teaching placement in an Adult Literacy course based at a Sure Start centre, a Get On Adult Literacy class of very mixed ability and an Adult Numeracy class in which many students had learning and physical differences. I was also able to draw on my professional background in child development, parenting and self-help related psychology. I was pleased to achieve a Distinction in this assignment.
By the end of the first semester I had delivered two microteaches and one solo lesson for a Literacy class. Feedback from tutors and my mentor was positive about my subject specialist knowledge, authoritative delivery, good relationship with students, use of humour, planning and resources. Points for development included directed and inclusive questioning and setting clearer timeframes for each activity. Activities which offer more differentiation and extension tasks were also aspects I needed to work on. To consolidate my knowledge of the Adult Literacy Core Curriculum, I had booked myself onto a two day course to take place in February on Teaching the Adult Literacy Curriculum.
28 April 2010
Tired and emotional?
29th March 2010 - Laura observes me teaching the Monday Sure Start Adult Literacy class. As she's observing in the first half and assessing a student taking an Entry Level 1 Test in the second half, I am definitely teaching independently.
Basically, I put into practice everything I've been told by Jen about the Numeracy class. I think the session is one of the best I've taught: although only three students show up (three are taking tests and two are ill) so I have to revise the small groups (and therefore differentiation) down into one group, they work well together, the activities (starting with a great kinaesthetic one!) engage them and we're all in the flow for most of the time.
I get a "strong" Merit (Grade 2) from Laura, but not a single criteria hits Grade 1 ("I almost gave you distinction for sibject specialist knowledge but I just couldn't"). She criticises me for using too high a level vocabulary in the Learning Outcomes - although I'm pretty sure they all understood what they meant - so I seem to have veered from the ridiculous to the sublime.
I need to:
Further develop strategies and questioning techniques to encourage less confident students.
OK - though I thought I did pretty well with these three students.
Use vocabulary and exemplars appropriate to the variety of levels in the group.
I know these guys pretty well by now - they were all on track with me the whole time and I don't think I left anyone behind.
Provide students with the opportunity to work undirected on active learning tasks earlier in the session to encourage independent and peer learning.
I don't teach in the same way as Laura. Certainly I don't have her experience and she is an excellent teacher, but I often get the feeling that because I don't do exactly what she would have done in the same situation, she sees it as wrong. When she's teaching with me, she'll often jump in and say something I was going to say later, just not when she thinks of it.
I'm afraid Laura's very upset about the Ofsted Inspector's mandate that I should be moved to some Creative Writing teaching. I don't know what she was told, but suspect she came in for some kind of criticism about my lack of independent teaching and her internventions in my numeracy class. I think she feels that I am being moved away from her because her mentoring is not working out, when she believes (quite rightly) that she's invested huge amounts of time and energy in my teaching progress. I fear she thinks I've complained about her - which I haven't at all; far from it. As far as I'm aware, this has all come from the Ofsted Inspector's reading of my situation. And of course from my point of view it's very welcome to be able to teach Creative Writing to students at a higher level than the Adult Literacy classes - which again irks Laura, as she would also prefer to be doing this but is, as she has pointed out to me before, too valuable doing what she does now. And after all, this is only a placement for me, not a job. I'm not in competition with her.
I was able to sort out a placement very easily through Beth's mentor in Creative Arts. She was happy to give me four weeks (and more if I wanted) full day teaching on the Access Creative Writing course. Unfortunately it clashes with the Sure Start class, which I would have to give up next term to do it. Laura has tried to block this, saying it's not fair on the students. She also, however, told me that the only reason she isn't teaching Creative Writing like I'm being allowed to is because she's been working too hard as a teacher to get published (like me). When I went to discuss it with her and try to sort it out, she implied that I was being selfish and aggressive about fulfilling my own needs as opposed to the students', and that by letting me get my own way she would be setting me a bad example of what teaching is really like. I didn't point out that I too am a student.
Without being aggressive (I thought), I pointed out that I was paying several thousand pounds to do the DTLLS course, that Creative Writing was my strongest area of expertise and have a teaching placement to broaden my experience would be invaluable to my future practice, especially in view of the cutbacks we face. (No vacancies currently being filled at our college; nearby colleges making swathes of redundancies). Laura finally agreed to let me have four weeks off the Sure Start class so I could do the full day Creative Writing class for that time, but refused to let me come back into the Wednesday Literacy class (now my Access group have all got their Levels 2s) as anything more than a Teaching Assistant. No independent teaching there for me, then.
It wasn't a pleasant discussion, but compromise was achieved. Thank goodness it's the holidays. I hope she gets to relax and wind down. Certainly she, like all the other college tutors, is hugely over-worked and under great pressure. I'm sorry to have added to her stress, but I do feel I have to make the most of what this course offers me as a student.
Basically, I put into practice everything I've been told by Jen about the Numeracy class. I think the session is one of the best I've taught: although only three students show up (three are taking tests and two are ill) so I have to revise the small groups (and therefore differentiation) down into one group, they work well together, the activities (starting with a great kinaesthetic one!) engage them and we're all in the flow for most of the time.
I get a "strong" Merit (Grade 2) from Laura, but not a single criteria hits Grade 1 ("I almost gave you distinction for sibject specialist knowledge but I just couldn't"). She criticises me for using too high a level vocabulary in the Learning Outcomes - although I'm pretty sure they all understood what they meant - so I seem to have veered from the ridiculous to the sublime.
I need to:
Further develop strategies and questioning techniques to encourage less confident students.
OK - though I thought I did pretty well with these three students.
Use vocabulary and exemplars appropriate to the variety of levels in the group.
I know these guys pretty well by now - they were all on track with me the whole time and I don't think I left anyone behind.
Provide students with the opportunity to work undirected on active learning tasks earlier in the session to encourage independent and peer learning.
I don't teach in the same way as Laura. Certainly I don't have her experience and she is an excellent teacher, but I often get the feeling that because I don't do exactly what she would have done in the same situation, she sees it as wrong. When she's teaching with me, she'll often jump in and say something I was going to say later, just not when she thinks of it.
I'm afraid Laura's very upset about the Ofsted Inspector's mandate that I should be moved to some Creative Writing teaching. I don't know what she was told, but suspect she came in for some kind of criticism about my lack of independent teaching and her internventions in my numeracy class. I think she feels that I am being moved away from her because her mentoring is not working out, when she believes (quite rightly) that she's invested huge amounts of time and energy in my teaching progress. I fear she thinks I've complained about her - which I haven't at all; far from it. As far as I'm aware, this has all come from the Ofsted Inspector's reading of my situation. And of course from my point of view it's very welcome to be able to teach Creative Writing to students at a higher level than the Adult Literacy classes - which again irks Laura, as she would also prefer to be doing this but is, as she has pointed out to me before, too valuable doing what she does now. And after all, this is only a placement for me, not a job. I'm not in competition with her.
I was able to sort out a placement very easily through Beth's mentor in Creative Arts. She was happy to give me four weeks (and more if I wanted) full day teaching on the Access Creative Writing course. Unfortunately it clashes with the Sure Start class, which I would have to give up next term to do it. Laura has tried to block this, saying it's not fair on the students. She also, however, told me that the only reason she isn't teaching Creative Writing like I'm being allowed to is because she's been working too hard as a teacher to get published (like me). When I went to discuss it with her and try to sort it out, she implied that I was being selfish and aggressive about fulfilling my own needs as opposed to the students', and that by letting me get my own way she would be setting me a bad example of what teaching is really like. I didn't point out that I too am a student.
Without being aggressive (I thought), I pointed out that I was paying several thousand pounds to do the DTLLS course, that Creative Writing was my strongest area of expertise and have a teaching placement to broaden my experience would be invaluable to my future practice, especially in view of the cutbacks we face. (No vacancies currently being filled at our college; nearby colleges making swathes of redundancies). Laura finally agreed to let me have four weeks off the Sure Start class so I could do the full day Creative Writing class for that time, but refused to let me come back into the Wednesday Literacy class (now my Access group have all got their Levels 2s) as anything more than a Teaching Assistant. No independent teaching there for me, then.
It wasn't a pleasant discussion, but compromise was achieved. Thank goodness it's the holidays. I hope she gets to relax and wind down. Certainly she, like all the other college tutors, is hugely over-worked and under great pressure. I'm sorry to have added to her stress, but I do feel I have to make the most of what this course offers me as a student.
An Inspector Calls
It was Ofsted time at the college and I was one of the (randomly?) selected students to act as a case study for the full time DTLLS course. Our School of Teacher Training had received a fairly low grade on the last Inspection and was being reviewed to see if progress had been made. There was a great deal of tension - not to say related excess workload - amongst staff, which made us students keen to perform well for them
On the Monday (15th March) I was booked in to have an interview with the Ofsted Inspector and met with her, and a young male students from the Part Time DTLLS course, around a small table in a cramped room where we were served tea and biscuits.
She questioned us intensely - fiercely, even - about the teaching, the placements and mentoring, our own backgrounds and credentials and how we felt we were doing. At times it felt like we were under attack and needing to defend our positions - she pointed out that I would have to achieve a Literacy Level 5 qualification before I could be a proper Literacy teacher. We both gave very positive feedback: I was particularly strong in praising the teaching the the support of my mentor (there was no mention by anyone of Mike's departure last term or how it had impacted on students or other staff).
As it turned out, the most interesting/useful aspect of the interview for me was when the Inspector delived into my professional background, discovered I was a writer and had previously taught Creative Writing. Why was my placement in Literacy, she wanted to know? Because I came into the course at the last minute and Creative Arts placements were taken; because in my ignorance, I'd suggested at interview that my English & Drama degree would allow me to teach anything from Literacy to A Level English, and I'd been taken at my word. The Inspector made some notes and didn't look over-pleased, even though I pointed out that I had been on a 2-day course on the Adult Literacy Curriculum. I couldn't guess what results this was going to have, though...
The following day I was observed jointly by Jen and the Ofsted Inspector, teaching the Tuesday Adult Numeracy class. I hadn't been looking forward to it - although I felt comfortable enough with the subject, the class is immensely diverse in terms of ability and (not the most PC way to express it, but) disability. Although I had prepared lesson plans and in theory been in charge of teaching the class, Laura and I were still "team teaching" and she would often take over after a recap and an initial activity. I can't say I'd been upset by this, I found the class extremely challenging as a whole, though I enjoyed and felt I was successful in teaching small groups and one-to-one with students.
I'd had some ideas for my lesson plan on Weights and Measures, but they'd got revised while working through them with Laura, and I wasn't entirely happy with the result. I'd wanted to play a card game as the first activity, but Laura suggested that - in light of a development point from Pearl last time - I should "visualise" the activity more by making it a PowerPoint presentation. So I did. I was following this up with a kinaesthetic activity, measuring books, CDs, tables, people's heads - with differentiated worksheets. This should get us through the observation hour.
I was unexpectedly nervous before the lesson started. I'd arrived very early to put up the Learning Outcomes - which I'd simplified and un-differentiated according to Laura's and my belief that too high expectations can put off vulnerable learners; make sure the PowerPoint was up and running, and got the worksheets and objects to measure laid out. But the students were incredibly early too, today. Just to explain, we have: a wheelchair user who often refuses to participate in activities; a student with a learning difference, speaking impairment including a bad stammer; a profoundly deaf woman with a signing LSA; a student with dyspraxic symptoms and learning difficulties who arrives late following her early morning cleaning job; an Aspergers student who had only joined the class last week and, we thought, had been denied an LSA; a bright but emotionally immature student who would have benefitied from being in a higher level class; and a woman student who could be quite abrasive but had not attended the class since an altercation with Laura several weeks ago, and whom I was not, therefore, expecting.
Inevitably, she turned up, informing us she had been diagnosed as bipolar and therefore apologetic for her behaviour, but talking lots, wanting lots of attention and to sort out many issues. Laura tried to calm her down and deal with her, but it wasn't possible. The Aspergers student arrived with an LSA; I wasn't entirely sure who he was or how to deal with him. Jen and the Inspector arrived - the Inspector insisted on seating herself in a place which effectively stopped me from moving the students' seating arrangements as I would have liked.
Laura clearly felt that the students who were there needed to be engaged and - although it was only 8.55, told me to get started. I was unwilling to start before the correct time, but she said it again and I didn't want to be oppositional. I wasn't quite ready to start and felt wrong-footed. The early start was mentioned in Jen's commentary and ascribed to nerves on my part - but it wasn't; the nerves were because I felt pushed to start before I was ready.
I started with a recap noughts and crosses game, which the students always respond to. The profoundly deaf student and her signer came in three minutes later, as did another student, so I had quickly catch them up. I had prepared a series of questions aimed at each individual student with their incredibly different abilities and memories. Laura's dictum is that every student should be asked a question that challenges them, but which they can answer - and if not supportive backup questions should help. Of course this is an ideal scenario, but it really is hard in this group to second-guess what they will recall of last week's lesson, or indeed any prior learning. Now, I had an extra student, who was bright, vociferous and an unknown quantity in terms of knowledge, to add into the mix, two students not yet there, two LSAs and Laura to contend with.
At the end of the recap, another student arrived - only three minutes late in actual fact. By now I was feeling the entire session slipping out of my grasp. Laura was not really acting as the TA she had said she would be; rather, she was back in team-teaching mode, jumping in on my questions and offering students supporting questions of her own, giving praise where it was my place to do so and sometimes, I felt, inappropriately. The observers were there to see me teaching independently and though Laura's intention was simply to help, I'm sure, I was reduced to feeling like an incompetent student.
I went through the simplified learning outcomes (another critical note - apparently the full LOs in my lesson plan were perfect and would have been more appropriate than the simplified ones) and started the next activity, the PowerPoint game. It was ok, I got positive feedback in the obs commentary, but again Laura felt the need to point out an error on a slide, share the questioning with me from her position on the student table and try to take control of the teaching. It really didn't help.
As I moved into the kinaesthetic sorting and weighing activity, the dyslexic student arrived (at her normal time) and the Ofsted Inspector chose this moment to ask to see students' eILPs and hard copy folders. This meant Laura and her going to a PC, talking, shuffling files around; Laura wasn't happy because they weren't in the best state - but at least this wasn't my problem. What was my problem was that I'd have liked to have rearranged the students into groups of the same ability, but with all these people in the room, it would have been chaos, so I didn't - to the detriment of differentiation.
Finally Jen and the Ofsted Inspector left - and the lesson flowed nicely after that. Laura told me I'd done well and it should be a Grade 2 lesson, but I think her normal critical faculties must have temporarily deserted her. It was a Pass (Grade 3), with about one third of criteria hitting Grade 2 and the rest Grade 3.
Key Strengths were planning, good relationship and professional manner, supporting students, subject specialist knowledge for this level particularly evident in 1-1 support.
Areas for Development: Set time frames for each acitivity; set SMART objectives and allow students to target set linked to objectives; more challenging and varied activities; introduce Kinaesthetic activity earlier; should be teaching independently(!).
Jen's feedback later that day was sympathetic and helpful. She said she had no worries about my teaching in general and felt there were aspects of the lesson beyond my control which had contributed to it not going as well as expected. Even less expected - she told me the Ofsted Inspector had mandated her to find me teaching placement work in Creative Writing, where I could use my professional subject specialist knowledge to best effect and therefore teach independently. Laura had also been informed this was to happen - though I would be continuing with some Literacy teaching.
Although I was not at all happy with my grade for the Numeracy lesson, if it had contributed to my getting some Creative Writing teaching, I was thrilled! I might actually get to feel like a real teacher at last.
On the Monday (15th March) I was booked in to have an interview with the Ofsted Inspector and met with her, and a young male students from the Part Time DTLLS course, around a small table in a cramped room where we were served tea and biscuits.
She questioned us intensely - fiercely, even - about the teaching, the placements and mentoring, our own backgrounds and credentials and how we felt we were doing. At times it felt like we were under attack and needing to defend our positions - she pointed out that I would have to achieve a Literacy Level 5 qualification before I could be a proper Literacy teacher. We both gave very positive feedback: I was particularly strong in praising the teaching the the support of my mentor (there was no mention by anyone of Mike's departure last term or how it had impacted on students or other staff).
As it turned out, the most interesting/useful aspect of the interview for me was when the Inspector delived into my professional background, discovered I was a writer and had previously taught Creative Writing. Why was my placement in Literacy, she wanted to know? Because I came into the course at the last minute and Creative Arts placements were taken; because in my ignorance, I'd suggested at interview that my English & Drama degree would allow me to teach anything from Literacy to A Level English, and I'd been taken at my word. The Inspector made some notes and didn't look over-pleased, even though I pointed out that I had been on a 2-day course on the Adult Literacy Curriculum. I couldn't guess what results this was going to have, though...
The following day I was observed jointly by Jen and the Ofsted Inspector, teaching the Tuesday Adult Numeracy class. I hadn't been looking forward to it - although I felt comfortable enough with the subject, the class is immensely diverse in terms of ability and (not the most PC way to express it, but) disability. Although I had prepared lesson plans and in theory been in charge of teaching the class, Laura and I were still "team teaching" and she would often take over after a recap and an initial activity. I can't say I'd been upset by this, I found the class extremely challenging as a whole, though I enjoyed and felt I was successful in teaching small groups and one-to-one with students.
I'd had some ideas for my lesson plan on Weights and Measures, but they'd got revised while working through them with Laura, and I wasn't entirely happy with the result. I'd wanted to play a card game as the first activity, but Laura suggested that - in light of a development point from Pearl last time - I should "visualise" the activity more by making it a PowerPoint presentation. So I did. I was following this up with a kinaesthetic activity, measuring books, CDs, tables, people's heads - with differentiated worksheets. This should get us through the observation hour.
I was unexpectedly nervous before the lesson started. I'd arrived very early to put up the Learning Outcomes - which I'd simplified and un-differentiated according to Laura's and my belief that too high expectations can put off vulnerable learners; make sure the PowerPoint was up and running, and got the worksheets and objects to measure laid out. But the students were incredibly early too, today. Just to explain, we have: a wheelchair user who often refuses to participate in activities; a student with a learning difference, speaking impairment including a bad stammer; a profoundly deaf woman with a signing LSA; a student with dyspraxic symptoms and learning difficulties who arrives late following her early morning cleaning job; an Aspergers student who had only joined the class last week and, we thought, had been denied an LSA; a bright but emotionally immature student who would have benefitied from being in a higher level class; and a woman student who could be quite abrasive but had not attended the class since an altercation with Laura several weeks ago, and whom I was not, therefore, expecting.
Inevitably, she turned up, informing us she had been diagnosed as bipolar and therefore apologetic for her behaviour, but talking lots, wanting lots of attention and to sort out many issues. Laura tried to calm her down and deal with her, but it wasn't possible. The Aspergers student arrived with an LSA; I wasn't entirely sure who he was or how to deal with him. Jen and the Inspector arrived - the Inspector insisted on seating herself in a place which effectively stopped me from moving the students' seating arrangements as I would have liked.
Laura clearly felt that the students who were there needed to be engaged and - although it was only 8.55, told me to get started. I was unwilling to start before the correct time, but she said it again and I didn't want to be oppositional. I wasn't quite ready to start and felt wrong-footed. The early start was mentioned in Jen's commentary and ascribed to nerves on my part - but it wasn't; the nerves were because I felt pushed to start before I was ready.
I started with a recap noughts and crosses game, which the students always respond to. The profoundly deaf student and her signer came in three minutes later, as did another student, so I had quickly catch them up. I had prepared a series of questions aimed at each individual student with their incredibly different abilities and memories. Laura's dictum is that every student should be asked a question that challenges them, but which they can answer - and if not supportive backup questions should help. Of course this is an ideal scenario, but it really is hard in this group to second-guess what they will recall of last week's lesson, or indeed any prior learning. Now, I had an extra student, who was bright, vociferous and an unknown quantity in terms of knowledge, to add into the mix, two students not yet there, two LSAs and Laura to contend with.
At the end of the recap, another student arrived - only three minutes late in actual fact. By now I was feeling the entire session slipping out of my grasp. Laura was not really acting as the TA she had said she would be; rather, she was back in team-teaching mode, jumping in on my questions and offering students supporting questions of her own, giving praise where it was my place to do so and sometimes, I felt, inappropriately. The observers were there to see me teaching independently and though Laura's intention was simply to help, I'm sure, I was reduced to feeling like an incompetent student.
I went through the simplified learning outcomes (another critical note - apparently the full LOs in my lesson plan were perfect and would have been more appropriate than the simplified ones) and started the next activity, the PowerPoint game. It was ok, I got positive feedback in the obs commentary, but again Laura felt the need to point out an error on a slide, share the questioning with me from her position on the student table and try to take control of the teaching. It really didn't help.
As I moved into the kinaesthetic sorting and weighing activity, the dyslexic student arrived (at her normal time) and the Ofsted Inspector chose this moment to ask to see students' eILPs and hard copy folders. This meant Laura and her going to a PC, talking, shuffling files around; Laura wasn't happy because they weren't in the best state - but at least this wasn't my problem. What was my problem was that I'd have liked to have rearranged the students into groups of the same ability, but with all these people in the room, it would have been chaos, so I didn't - to the detriment of differentiation.
Finally Jen and the Ofsted Inspector left - and the lesson flowed nicely after that. Laura told me I'd done well and it should be a Grade 2 lesson, but I think her normal critical faculties must have temporarily deserted her. It was a Pass (Grade 3), with about one third of criteria hitting Grade 2 and the rest Grade 3.
Key Strengths were planning, good relationship and professional manner, supporting students, subject specialist knowledge for this level particularly evident in 1-1 support.
Areas for Development: Set time frames for each acitivity; set SMART objectives and allow students to target set linked to objectives; more challenging and varied activities; introduce Kinaesthetic activity earlier; should be teaching independently(!).
Jen's feedback later that day was sympathetic and helpful. She said she had no worries about my teaching in general and felt there were aspects of the lesson beyond my control which had contributed to it not going as well as expected. Even less expected - she told me the Ofsted Inspector had mandated her to find me teaching placement work in Creative Writing, where I could use my professional subject specialist knowledge to best effect and therefore teach independently. Laura had also been informed this was to happen - though I would be continuing with some Literacy teaching.
Although I was not at all happy with my grade for the Numeracy lesson, if it had contributed to my getting some Creative Writing teaching, I was thrilled! I might actually get to feel like a real teacher at last.
18 March 2010
A Joint
8th March: Joint Observation by Laura (mentor) and Pearl (DTLLS tutor) of my Surestart Adult Literacy (Entry Level 1 - Level 1) class.
I felt well prepared and not particularly nervous about this observation. I'd been teaching the class more or less on my own since January and this lesson was focused around Instructive Text - identifying the features and structure; looking at planning; and ending up with planning and starting to write a piece of their own instructive writing. My main issue in this class is to include Mark, the dyslexic, Entry Level 1 student, in the plenary sessions with the rest who are spiky profile Entry 3 up to strong Level 1 - but I thought I'd more or less got it covered in this one, with individual work scaffolded and pitched appropriately.
So, started with a recap of last week's Descriptive Writing lesson: great, they remembered all the features and content from the extract of The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson that we'd been looking at (older children's books offer some great pieces of text to work on with adult lit students). We went on to examine a range of beautifully laminated (!) examples of Instructive Text - simple/complex, with/without pix, discriminating between instructive/informative - and then I asked them to find real life examples of instructive writing in the classroom (including kitchen and toilet). I'd actually brought some fake ones with me to put up pre-class, but there was no need, there were plenty of examples, which they found: safety regs in the loo, fire instructions, kitchen dos and don'ts, community ads on the notice board... etc. And, helpfully, lots of examples of either plain informative writing or mixed instructions and info, from which I was able to clarify the differences again. An excellent Active Learning exercise - which had been suggested to me by Laura.
Next I had a pairs exercise - I'd laminated and cut up a set of slightly confusing instructions for escaping from a burning building which they had to put in order... great, they loved it and were fully engaged, but then I blotted my copybook by confusing the correct order when I worked through it with them and had to sort that one out - but it was ok. I think. Then I got them planning, followed by composing, their own piece of instructive writing based on the Wifeswap programme, which I rightly judged they would all have watched (where one wife swaps places with another, leaving an instruction dossier about her family for the other). This was a really good and relevant link to real life (TV watching and their own families), but unfortunately Pearl had never seen Wifeswap and had to have it explained to her by Laura.
Cut to the chase: Merit, with a Distinction on Relationship between students and teacher from Pearl and from Laura on Functional Skills.
Key Strengths: Planning and Preparation including Lesson Plan and SOL , Rapport with and engagement of students, Clear explanations, responses and use of flipchart.
Key Areas for Development: Insufficient differentiation/extension tasks, need better questioning to include and support less confident learners, to develop opportunities for active learning to encourage students to take ownership of own learning, and better visualisation of answers/resources to share with whole group.
My response to this, and the feedback sessions I had with both Laura and Pearl is that they were both encouraging, positive and seem to think I show lots of potential to be a really good teacher. I got the impression that as a non-subject specialist, Pearl would have given me a higher grade for more aspects of the actual teaching, but was talked down in several areas by Laura pointing out what I'd failed to teach or bring out in terms of Literacy content. Having observed two other Literacy teachers, I now think that Laura has extremely high standards for herself and me (which of course is excellent), but also a specific teaching style ("traditional", I've heard it called), which she expects me to emulate and marks me down (formally or informally) when I don't. Other teachers have a warmer, more relaxed communication style which may be less content-driven but works just as well to promote learning; I think I tend more towards that than Laura's style and she doesn't rate it. Because of this, perhaps, when I'm teaching she will often jump in with a comment or piece of information - pre-empting what I was going to say either seconds or minutes later, possibly in a different way. This leaves me feeling undermined and looking stupid sometimes, though I can never bring myself to tell her this even when she occasionally apologises for it.
In sum, though, I felt that both her and Pearl's responses were fair and positive and I can work on questioning, visualisation and active learning easily enough. What I do find hard is differentiating in plenary sessions, which I think are essential to inclusivity and maintaining a positive group dynamic. Sometimes I think it's worth letting less able learners take part in a slightly more difficult activity for the sake of this and to encourage them, without a massive differentiation plan, just support them as required. But obviously I'll work on this too.
I felt well prepared and not particularly nervous about this observation. I'd been teaching the class more or less on my own since January and this lesson was focused around Instructive Text - identifying the features and structure; looking at planning; and ending up with planning and starting to write a piece of their own instructive writing. My main issue in this class is to include Mark, the dyslexic, Entry Level 1 student, in the plenary sessions with the rest who are spiky profile Entry 3 up to strong Level 1 - but I thought I'd more or less got it covered in this one, with individual work scaffolded and pitched appropriately.
So, started with a recap of last week's Descriptive Writing lesson: great, they remembered all the features and content from the extract of The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson that we'd been looking at (older children's books offer some great pieces of text to work on with adult lit students). We went on to examine a range of beautifully laminated (!) examples of Instructive Text - simple/complex, with/without pix, discriminating between instructive/informative - and then I asked them to find real life examples of instructive writing in the classroom (including kitchen and toilet). I'd actually brought some fake ones with me to put up pre-class, but there was no need, there were plenty of examples, which they found: safety regs in the loo, fire instructions, kitchen dos and don'ts, community ads on the notice board... etc. And, helpfully, lots of examples of either plain informative writing or mixed instructions and info, from which I was able to clarify the differences again. An excellent Active Learning exercise - which had been suggested to me by Laura.
Next I had a pairs exercise - I'd laminated and cut up a set of slightly confusing instructions for escaping from a burning building which they had to put in order... great, they loved it and were fully engaged, but then I blotted my copybook by confusing the correct order when I worked through it with them and had to sort that one out - but it was ok. I think. Then I got them planning, followed by composing, their own piece of instructive writing based on the Wifeswap programme, which I rightly judged they would all have watched (where one wife swaps places with another, leaving an instruction dossier about her family for the other). This was a really good and relevant link to real life (TV watching and their own families), but unfortunately Pearl had never seen Wifeswap and had to have it explained to her by Laura.
Cut to the chase: Merit, with a Distinction on Relationship between students and teacher from Pearl and from Laura on Functional Skills.
Key Strengths: Planning and Preparation including Lesson Plan and SOL , Rapport with and engagement of students, Clear explanations, responses and use of flipchart.
Key Areas for Development: Insufficient differentiation/extension tasks, need better questioning to include and support less confident learners, to develop opportunities for active learning to encourage students to take ownership of own learning, and better visualisation of answers/resources to share with whole group.
My response to this, and the feedback sessions I had with both Laura and Pearl is that they were both encouraging, positive and seem to think I show lots of potential to be a really good teacher. I got the impression that as a non-subject specialist, Pearl would have given me a higher grade for more aspects of the actual teaching, but was talked down in several areas by Laura pointing out what I'd failed to teach or bring out in terms of Literacy content. Having observed two other Literacy teachers, I now think that Laura has extremely high standards for herself and me (which of course is excellent), but also a specific teaching style ("traditional", I've heard it called), which she expects me to emulate and marks me down (formally or informally) when I don't. Other teachers have a warmer, more relaxed communication style which may be less content-driven but works just as well to promote learning; I think I tend more towards that than Laura's style and she doesn't rate it. Because of this, perhaps, when I'm teaching she will often jump in with a comment or piece of information - pre-empting what I was going to say either seconds or minutes later, possibly in a different way. This leaves me feeling undermined and looking stupid sometimes, though I can never bring myself to tell her this even when she occasionally apologises for it.
In sum, though, I felt that both her and Pearl's responses were fair and positive and I can work on questioning, visualisation and active learning easily enough. What I do find hard is differentiating in plenary sessions, which I think are essential to inclusivity and maintaining a positive group dynamic. Sometimes I think it's worth letting less able learners take part in a slightly more difficult activity for the sake of this and to encourage them, without a massive differentiation plan, just support them as required. But obviously I'll work on this too.
24 February 2010
Still no time....
Another three weeks later and no reflections. However, in the mean time I have been on a two-day course on the Adult Literacy Curriculum, given by Bob Read. It was really excellent and pulled together a lot of threads for me. I've also managed to finish and give in my Module 2 assignment (Planning and Supporting Learning), which includes a reflection on my first officially observed lesson (Wednesday Literacy Class), for which I got a Merit and some areas of Distinction. What a relief - it's actually changed my whole attitude into an I-can-do-this one, instead of an I'll-never-get-the-hang-of-this-teaching-thing one. With that added confidence, and also a really great lesson plan template provided by Asif (the only one of us to get a Distinction for a first observation), which helped me co-ordinate the learning objectives with not only the activities and resources, but also the assessment methods, I managed to impress Laura and Jen sufficiently to get more than the Pass I thought I'd achieved.
I'm going to save more time by posting relevant parts of the Mod 2 essay and reflection here, as part of my reflective journal....
For my observed lesson, I used a new lesson plan format which greatly increased my ability to plan for SMARTer learning objectives with integrated assessment, greater attention to different learning styles, and a clearer view of my own interaction with students during the progress of the class. Using this plan, I was able to come up with a kinaesthetic and interactive energiser/recap on homophone pairs. I began distributing the cards for this matching card game as the earliest students came in, but started the game properly when all had arrived and settled.
I put up the Learning Objectives (simplified appropriately from the lesson plan, to address the needs of the students) on the starboard from the start of the class, and after the starter went through them verbally to ensure “the learner is clear about what they are learning and what the activities they are undertaking are designed to teach.” (DfES, 2001 p.9). I did not specify exactly what I expected students to be able to achieve by the end of the class, nor did I make explicit any differentiation of learning outcomes as “students from non-traditional academic backgrounds are likely to find their confidence levels are further undermined if their beliefs in their own abilities to succeed are undermined by conceptions about themselves which have made it difficult for them to achieve academically in the past.” (Race, 2007 p.20)
Differentiated games for three levels of students followed this activity; this successfully consolidated learning for some and challenged others to segue from homophone identification to the breadth of word types that can be found across homophone pairs.
The resources themselves were varied – from laminated pairs of homophone cards, to an alphabetical homophone/homonym game, a homophone wordle with pairs of clues and a typed excerpt from Harry Potter for reading and highlighting. Dictionaries and thesauri on tables were well used, and some students also made use of the visuwords website (ICT functional skills) which they had experimented with previously in both a plenary session on the starboard and on individual PCs. All these resources were amenable to differentiation and were widely inclusive across the range of abilities and learning styles: the homophone cards, for example, as well as forming the basis of the initial game were used to scaffold lower level learners in other activities. I included numeracy requirements in instructions for the pairing games and highlighting word types in the Harry Potter excerpt, but allowed for inclusivity and differentiation on a one-to-one basis as two lower attaining students consolidated their understanding of nouns by highlighting not six, but every noun in the text.
The Literacy Curriculum works over three levels: word, sentence and text level. By concentrating initially on homophones at word level, moving into writing word types at sentence level, then introducing a piece of text in which the class had to highlight word types (of differentiated difficulty), I enabled them to move across the breadth of the Literacy spectrum. My choice of a piece of prose from this well know series of books and films also stimulated some discussion of the movies, promoting speaking and listening skills which are also part of the curriculum.
The final activity in this lesson was a piece of creative writing. Recapping on work they had done the previous term, I gave them clear instructions (each activity had a PowerPoint slide of instructions on the starboard) on how to plan using a list or graphic organiser. I talked this through with them as a group, and then worked with individuals to get them going. It was necessary to scaffold this activity with two students by discussing possible storylines and writing the first sentence and a half for them to continue from. This worked very well as an informal “writing guide”, and every student was highly engaged and working at the peak of their ability for the rest of the lesson.
Only one of the students had completed a story by the end of the class, which I assessed as a positive sign that they were involved and working at an in depth level. They were all keen to continue with this writing project in the next class, which would enable me to introduce more word and sentence level teaching at the start of the class to be consolidated into the rest of their text level writing activity.
Reflection
A week prior to the observation of my teaching the Get On Adult Literacy class, I had a difficult experience with the Surestart Adult Literacy class I teach on a Monday morning. I had planned a full two hours of differentiated activities for the mixed ability class, which I had felt would be both enjoyable and have strong learning content. Towards the end of the lesson, though, I realised the students were becoming disengaged, disgruntled and, it seemed, unable to learn.
In discussion with my mentor afterwards I realised that, in an effort to maximise learning, I had delivered too much teacher-centred information followed by repetitive worksheet consolidation exercises throughout the lesson. The students had become overloaded, tired and ceased to either learn or enjoy the process. On reflection, I realised that it was counter-productive to push EL3/L1 Adult Literacy students beyond their limits to recall or absorb new information and that processing time is an essential part of enabling deep learning. This can be offered through more varied, “fun” activities which give context to theory, engage prior learning and connect with different learning styles (Read, 2010, training course).
I held this very much in mind when planning my first observed lesson and felt that the structure of a simple, kinaesthetic card-matching game, followed by the differentiated paper-based activies of a clue-based wordle or alphabetic homophone game which led into a text-reading activity and finally a creative writing task gave sufficient variety, learning outcomes and processing time.
This aspect of planning was backed up by distinction-level marks in my observation for “Learning activities are extremely varied and very effectively structured to encourage active learning” and “Well designed, creative resources support learning”. This, and my questioning of and relationship with the students were the most positive aspects of my constructive feedback.
However, a point for development, reiterated by my mentor, was “Develop ways of supporting students who are unable to answer questions.” There was a point in the lesson where I was checking learning by asking directed questions around the class, and over-estimated the knowledge of one student who could not answer an open question (“Can you tell me what a verb is?”). When she was unable to respond to this, I also found myself incapable of coming with a suitable prompt for her (eg offering her an example) and we were both uncomfortably frozen for a few seconds. My mentor also pointed out that because I was standing close to her and she was sitting (worse still, in a wheelchair), my attitude could have been construed as confrontational. In future I will hope to assess students’ knowledge more accurately, but also prepare a range of supportive questions for such situations.
Another point for development was “Planning was good, but ensure there are clear links between your lesson plan and scheme of learning.” I was surprised to read this, but later re-read my SOL and found that I had accidentally failed to save the work I had done on it and therefore given my observer a copy that didn’t link properly with the lesson plan. Closer checking of materials will be carried out for the next observation.
A third point for development was “Use clear timeframes for each activity and develop extension activities for students who complete task within timeframe”. Whilst I entirely appreciate the professionalism of clear cut time-scheduling in classes, my mentor has also pointed out that it can undermine and frustrate less able students if they are unable to finish an activity which is enabling their learning, and that it can often be better to plan extension tasks for more able students than end an activity simply to fit with a pre-planned timescale. This was the basis for actual (as opposed to planned) timings in the observed lesson and I felt that this was justified by positive student feedback at the end of the session, and the fact that we had worked through all planned activities.
Finally, I had planned to display the homophone pairs of the starter activity on the Elmo – which was not working on the day. I will in future plan better for failures of technology, as holding up small word cards was not very effective for students and, had I thought faster, I could have written them up on the whiteboard. I had also planned to flick between the PowerPoint Learning Objectives and activity instructions and other documents on the Starboard, such as the colourful Wordle and the Harry Potter excerpt, which I could have marked up onscreen. I simply forgot to do this – but hope that my ability to multi-task more effectively while teaching will grow with experience.
Neither I nor my mentor specifically ask students for feedback on my teaching, although they are aware that I am a trainee teacher. The fragility of some Adult Literacy students’ relationship with learning, as well as the variable communications skills of students in this class, mean that seeking their direct response to classroom activities or tutors could have a detrimental effect on their learning. However, I do receive, note and reflect on feedback from my mentor – both constructive and points for development – after every lesson that I teach.
Kolb’s learning cycle has proved effective for me in this respect, and specifically in relation to an initial negative experience with one group, after which I reflected on my practice and have been able to evaluate and improve my teaching delivery to achieve some positive feedback, as well as reflect further on useful points for development, from my tutor, mentor and students.
And today I took my first solo class -all mine from SOL to finish. They are an Access group whom I have to get through their Literacy Level 2 certificate text in 16 weeks (32 hours). Some of today's lesson was spent with four of the six students (two were absent) redoing their BKSB online Diagnostic so I could get an up to date view of their strengths and weaker areas. Two of them achieved well over 70% so I'll book them in for the test in two weeks' time and spend next week's lesson on intensive grammar and punctuation revision to get them up to speed on the few areas they didn't score well on. As they don't have to attend once they've achieved their Level 2, this will make the class smaller and I'll be able to do more one-to-one with those who need it. I'm pretty confident they'll all get through in the time, if not earlier. A lovely group of people.
And (another thing), I may be able to get some additional teaching practice in Creative Writing for a group of Creative Arts Access students - which would be really up my street!
3rd March 2010
External Observation - Another Quick Reflection
Pearl sent an email around asking if any of us could volunteer a lesson for the college's external examiner to attend as a paired observation with an internal observer. To show willing, and partly because I thought the times offered wouldn't work with my Access class, I volunteered myself - unfortunately the e.e. was able make it for the second half of my second lesson with my new group. As I'd already booked two of them into their L2 test the following week, I decided not to change my intensive grammar lesson plan, of which the second hour was simply for them to do a L2 Practice Test, and the others to put the theory they had learned into practice with some workbook exercises.
The external examiner and an internal obsever, whom I didn't know, arrived during the lesson break, looked through my lesson plans, resources etc, asked me some questions and looked through my Teaching Observation File.
Inevitably some of the students returned late from the break, which made me a bit nervous, but there was nothing I could do about it - and they had worked very hard during the first hour of the lesson; taken on board a lot of grammar and punctuation concepts (though fewer than I had suggested in the lesson plan - so quite glad that wasn't observed!), and no doubt needed processing time. I got the two who were booked in for the L2 next week started on their practice tests, set up the student who had come for the first time today on the one PC in the classroom to do a revised BKSB Diagnostic, and gave worksheets to the other two less advanced students.
As the internal obsever noted in her evaluative commentary on the obsevation report, I "monitored and supported as required. As students were completing individual tasks, the external examiner and I left the class as there was no further opportunity to observer Literata as teacher." Well, they couldn't say I hadn't told them - I made it abundantly clear that this was what would be happening to Pearl beforehand and in my pre-observation preparation and lesson plan.
I saw the internal observer for feedback later - where she gave me back a BBC SkIllswise handout on commas that I had been using as a resource, scribbled over by the e.e., questioning its accuracy. On checking it later, I decided it was completely appropriate (if a little over-simplified) for L2 students and that some of his comments were simply wrong. The only two graded indicators they had been able to give were 2/Merits for SOL and Learning Plan, which they said had "good detail".
My only real reflection on this is that it gave me a lot of work for no real return in terms of feedback. I know that I didn't entirely follow my own lesson plan in the first part of the lesson, but instead followed the students' needs. I probably wouldn't have got an especially good grade for my teaching as it was very teacher-centred and information-giving with most of the application saved for the second half. However, the student feedback was excellent and, they said, just what they needed. The two students who sat their tests the following week passed with flying colours and the rest of the group did so three weeks later.
This class may not have embedded a deep understanding of advanced literacy in the students, but it met their needs to achieve their Level 2 certificates quickly so they could concentrate on their core subjects. They all also fed back to me that I had clarified many basic grammar and punctuation points they hadn't fully understood before (particularly use of apostrophes, commas, semi-colons and the active/passive voice) and given them top tips for understanding what was expected of them in the L2 test.
There was only one student who would have liked the class to continue on a broader basis after achieving her test. She was an ESOL student who possibly needed more specialist support than I was able to give; however, we spent the final session ona one-to-one basis, going through a PowerPoint presentation she had to deliver the following day. I felt she learned a great deal through that, not only about written English, but also how to use PowerPoint as a presentation aid, format and design slides and edit her own work.
I'm going to save more time by posting relevant parts of the Mod 2 essay and reflection here, as part of my reflective journal....
For my observed lesson, I used a new lesson plan format which greatly increased my ability to plan for SMARTer learning objectives with integrated assessment, greater attention to different learning styles, and a clearer view of my own interaction with students during the progress of the class. Using this plan, I was able to come up with a kinaesthetic and interactive energiser/recap on homophone pairs. I began distributing the cards for this matching card game as the earliest students came in, but started the game properly when all had arrived and settled.
I put up the Learning Objectives (simplified appropriately from the lesson plan, to address the needs of the students) on the starboard from the start of the class, and after the starter went through them verbally to ensure “the learner is clear about what they are learning and what the activities they are undertaking are designed to teach.” (DfES, 2001 p.9). I did not specify exactly what I expected students to be able to achieve by the end of the class, nor did I make explicit any differentiation of learning outcomes as “students from non-traditional academic backgrounds are likely to find their confidence levels are further undermined if their beliefs in their own abilities to succeed are undermined by conceptions about themselves which have made it difficult for them to achieve academically in the past.” (Race, 2007 p.20)
Differentiated games for three levels of students followed this activity; this successfully consolidated learning for some and challenged others to segue from homophone identification to the breadth of word types that can be found across homophone pairs.
The resources themselves were varied – from laminated pairs of homophone cards, to an alphabetical homophone/homonym game, a homophone wordle with pairs of clues and a typed excerpt from Harry Potter for reading and highlighting. Dictionaries and thesauri on tables were well used, and some students also made use of the visuwords website (ICT functional skills) which they had experimented with previously in both a plenary session on the starboard and on individual PCs. All these resources were amenable to differentiation and were widely inclusive across the range of abilities and learning styles: the homophone cards, for example, as well as forming the basis of the initial game were used to scaffold lower level learners in other activities. I included numeracy requirements in instructions for the pairing games and highlighting word types in the Harry Potter excerpt, but allowed for inclusivity and differentiation on a one-to-one basis as two lower attaining students consolidated their understanding of nouns by highlighting not six, but every noun in the text.
The Literacy Curriculum works over three levels: word, sentence and text level. By concentrating initially on homophones at word level, moving into writing word types at sentence level, then introducing a piece of text in which the class had to highlight word types (of differentiated difficulty), I enabled them to move across the breadth of the Literacy spectrum. My choice of a piece of prose from this well know series of books and films also stimulated some discussion of the movies, promoting speaking and listening skills which are also part of the curriculum.
The final activity in this lesson was a piece of creative writing. Recapping on work they had done the previous term, I gave them clear instructions (each activity had a PowerPoint slide of instructions on the starboard) on how to plan using a list or graphic organiser. I talked this through with them as a group, and then worked with individuals to get them going. It was necessary to scaffold this activity with two students by discussing possible storylines and writing the first sentence and a half for them to continue from. This worked very well as an informal “writing guide”, and every student was highly engaged and working at the peak of their ability for the rest of the lesson.
Only one of the students had completed a story by the end of the class, which I assessed as a positive sign that they were involved and working at an in depth level. They were all keen to continue with this writing project in the next class, which would enable me to introduce more word and sentence level teaching at the start of the class to be consolidated into the rest of their text level writing activity.
Reflection
A week prior to the observation of my teaching the Get On Adult Literacy class, I had a difficult experience with the Surestart Adult Literacy class I teach on a Monday morning. I had planned a full two hours of differentiated activities for the mixed ability class, which I had felt would be both enjoyable and have strong learning content. Towards the end of the lesson, though, I realised the students were becoming disengaged, disgruntled and, it seemed, unable to learn.
In discussion with my mentor afterwards I realised that, in an effort to maximise learning, I had delivered too much teacher-centred information followed by repetitive worksheet consolidation exercises throughout the lesson. The students had become overloaded, tired and ceased to either learn or enjoy the process. On reflection, I realised that it was counter-productive to push EL3/L1 Adult Literacy students beyond their limits to recall or absorb new information and that processing time is an essential part of enabling deep learning. This can be offered through more varied, “fun” activities which give context to theory, engage prior learning and connect with different learning styles (Read, 2010, training course).
I held this very much in mind when planning my first observed lesson and felt that the structure of a simple, kinaesthetic card-matching game, followed by the differentiated paper-based activies of a clue-based wordle or alphabetic homophone game which led into a text-reading activity and finally a creative writing task gave sufficient variety, learning outcomes and processing time.
This aspect of planning was backed up by distinction-level marks in my observation for “Learning activities are extremely varied and very effectively structured to encourage active learning” and “Well designed, creative resources support learning”. This, and my questioning of and relationship with the students were the most positive aspects of my constructive feedback.
However, a point for development, reiterated by my mentor, was “Develop ways of supporting students who are unable to answer questions.” There was a point in the lesson where I was checking learning by asking directed questions around the class, and over-estimated the knowledge of one student who could not answer an open question (“Can you tell me what a verb is?”). When she was unable to respond to this, I also found myself incapable of coming with a suitable prompt for her (eg offering her an example) and we were both uncomfortably frozen for a few seconds. My mentor also pointed out that because I was standing close to her and she was sitting (worse still, in a wheelchair), my attitude could have been construed as confrontational. In future I will hope to assess students’ knowledge more accurately, but also prepare a range of supportive questions for such situations.
Another point for development was “Planning was good, but ensure there are clear links between your lesson plan and scheme of learning.” I was surprised to read this, but later re-read my SOL and found that I had accidentally failed to save the work I had done on it and therefore given my observer a copy that didn’t link properly with the lesson plan. Closer checking of materials will be carried out for the next observation.
A third point for development was “Use clear timeframes for each activity and develop extension activities for students who complete task within timeframe”. Whilst I entirely appreciate the professionalism of clear cut time-scheduling in classes, my mentor has also pointed out that it can undermine and frustrate less able students if they are unable to finish an activity which is enabling their learning, and that it can often be better to plan extension tasks for more able students than end an activity simply to fit with a pre-planned timescale. This was the basis for actual (as opposed to planned) timings in the observed lesson and I felt that this was justified by positive student feedback at the end of the session, and the fact that we had worked through all planned activities.
Finally, I had planned to display the homophone pairs of the starter activity on the Elmo – which was not working on the day. I will in future plan better for failures of technology, as holding up small word cards was not very effective for students and, had I thought faster, I could have written them up on the whiteboard. I had also planned to flick between the PowerPoint Learning Objectives and activity instructions and other documents on the Starboard, such as the colourful Wordle and the Harry Potter excerpt, which I could have marked up onscreen. I simply forgot to do this – but hope that my ability to multi-task more effectively while teaching will grow with experience.
Neither I nor my mentor specifically ask students for feedback on my teaching, although they are aware that I am a trainee teacher. The fragility of some Adult Literacy students’ relationship with learning, as well as the variable communications skills of students in this class, mean that seeking their direct response to classroom activities or tutors could have a detrimental effect on their learning. However, I do receive, note and reflect on feedback from my mentor – both constructive and points for development – after every lesson that I teach.
Kolb’s learning cycle has proved effective for me in this respect, and specifically in relation to an initial negative experience with one group, after which I reflected on my practice and have been able to evaluate and improve my teaching delivery to achieve some positive feedback, as well as reflect further on useful points for development, from my tutor, mentor and students.
And today I took my first solo class -all mine from SOL to finish. They are an Access group whom I have to get through their Literacy Level 2 certificate text in 16 weeks (32 hours). Some of today's lesson was spent with four of the six students (two were absent) redoing their BKSB online Diagnostic so I could get an up to date view of their strengths and weaker areas. Two of them achieved well over 70% so I'll book them in for the test in two weeks' time and spend next week's lesson on intensive grammar and punctuation revision to get them up to speed on the few areas they didn't score well on. As they don't have to attend once they've achieved their Level 2, this will make the class smaller and I'll be able to do more one-to-one with those who need it. I'm pretty confident they'll all get through in the time, if not earlier. A lovely group of people.
And (another thing), I may be able to get some additional teaching practice in Creative Writing for a group of Creative Arts Access students - which would be really up my street!
3rd March 2010
External Observation - Another Quick Reflection
Pearl sent an email around asking if any of us could volunteer a lesson for the college's external examiner to attend as a paired observation with an internal observer. To show willing, and partly because I thought the times offered wouldn't work with my Access class, I volunteered myself - unfortunately the e.e. was able make it for the second half of my second lesson with my new group. As I'd already booked two of them into their L2 test the following week, I decided not to change my intensive grammar lesson plan, of which the second hour was simply for them to do a L2 Practice Test, and the others to put the theory they had learned into practice with some workbook exercises.
The external examiner and an internal obsever, whom I didn't know, arrived during the lesson break, looked through my lesson plans, resources etc, asked me some questions and looked through my Teaching Observation File.
Inevitably some of the students returned late from the break, which made me a bit nervous, but there was nothing I could do about it - and they had worked very hard during the first hour of the lesson; taken on board a lot of grammar and punctuation concepts (though fewer than I had suggested in the lesson plan - so quite glad that wasn't observed!), and no doubt needed processing time. I got the two who were booked in for the L2 next week started on their practice tests, set up the student who had come for the first time today on the one PC in the classroom to do a revised BKSB Diagnostic, and gave worksheets to the other two less advanced students.
As the internal obsever noted in her evaluative commentary on the obsevation report, I "monitored and supported as required. As students were completing individual tasks, the external examiner and I left the class as there was no further opportunity to observer Literata as teacher." Well, they couldn't say I hadn't told them - I made it abundantly clear that this was what would be happening to Pearl beforehand and in my pre-observation preparation and lesson plan.
I saw the internal observer for feedback later - where she gave me back a BBC SkIllswise handout on commas that I had been using as a resource, scribbled over by the e.e., questioning its accuracy. On checking it later, I decided it was completely appropriate (if a little over-simplified) for L2 students and that some of his comments were simply wrong. The only two graded indicators they had been able to give were 2/Merits for SOL and Learning Plan, which they said had "good detail".
My only real reflection on this is that it gave me a lot of work for no real return in terms of feedback. I know that I didn't entirely follow my own lesson plan in the first part of the lesson, but instead followed the students' needs. I probably wouldn't have got an especially good grade for my teaching as it was very teacher-centred and information-giving with most of the application saved for the second half. However, the student feedback was excellent and, they said, just what they needed. The two students who sat their tests the following week passed with flying colours and the rest of the group did so three weeks later.
This class may not have embedded a deep understanding of advanced literacy in the students, but it met their needs to achieve their Level 2 certificates quickly so they could concentrate on their core subjects. They all also fed back to me that I had clarified many basic grammar and punctuation points they hadn't fully understood before (particularly use of apostrophes, commas, semi-colons and the active/passive voice) and given them top tips for understanding what was expected of them in the L2 test.
There was only one student who would have liked the class to continue on a broader basis after achieving her test. She was an ESOL student who possibly needed more specialist support than I was able to give; however, we spent the final session ona one-to-one basis, going through a PowerPoint presentation she had to deliver the following day. I felt she learned a great deal through that, not only about written English, but also how to use PowerPoint as a presentation aid, format and design slides and edit her own work.
7 February 2010
Some solo flying
Monday Surestart Literacy - the snow was on the retreat and we had a more or less full complement of students plus one new female student. Laura had asked me to teach the main body of the plenary session (while she inducted the new student and did her diagnostic assessment) and provide the resources. I found a number of crossword games - with ible/able ent/ant ending-words and Laura had given me a "Dictionary Challenge" game to copy and use as the main part of the session.
Both exercises went well, with Mark taking part with his crossword clues scaffolded ....
Oh dear - I started that post about a month ago and never finished it. Nor have I managed to write or reflect on anything between then and now - except mentally, of course.
In fact, now I remember it, that lesson went rather well, with the crosswords holding attention and the Dictionary Challenge team game getting quite raucous as the two sides became competitive and I was trying to keep the scores reasonably even across the slightly mis-matched ability teams. It was a good way for me to work up a better relationship with this slightly reserved group, and Laura seemed happy enough with the way it had gone. I re-ran this lesson with the Wednesday Get On Literacy Class, which was also fine but completely different in tone and response. Perhaps because the class is not such a coherent group as the Surestarts, and because the ability range is more diverse, it wasn't such a sparky activity - but it still produced good learning outcomes and the class enjoyed the activity.
I didn't see it coming when the next week's Surestart Literacy lesson turned into a low point in my teaching placement. I'd prepared a pretty full lesson on word and sentence level activities, including more crosswords, homophone, homonym and synonym stuff which segued into word types. I'd followed a lesson plan and set of resources that Laura had sugegsted and I thought for at least the first hour that it was going well, differentiation was working, structure was tight. Laura was leaving me to it while working through the results of a test or diagnostic with an individual student.
I guess I was pushing them quite hard on word types - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc - but most were there, with the exception of a new student who had started the previous week and although fine with most aspects of the work, said she just didn't get nouns and verbs, had never understood them... And I could see Laura watching me handle this with what looked to me like an expression of great anxiety on her face. Before the end of the lesson, she came back in, took over, told the new student she'd bring her a special worksheet next week... and made me feel somewhat foolish and incompetent, unintentionally, I'm sure.
Her feedback after they'd left was a little terse (well, it must be incredibly frustrating as a mentor to see your class taken over by amateur incompetence and your students not getting the high level of teaching you yourself would have delivered) and about overloading students with too much information, too many intensive activities and not leaving enough processing time and "fun" activities. I felt it must have been a complete disaster, but Laura did say that the students had probably not felt there was a problem at all.
Still, when she went on to suggest subject matter, resources and activities for next week's lesson - including finding a range of newspaper and magazine ads, and laminating them... I fell apart. Ridiculous, but I've never laminated anything in my life, I didn't know where or how to do it -- suddenly it felt as if teaching was simply beyond me and I'd never make the grade. Poor Laura, she was already running late for her next class, but she sat down to try and put the pieces of me back together. It didn't entirely help when she said that her main worry was my commitment -- I'm committed alright, just more pressed for time than most other full time DTLLS students, with two small children and a household to run alongside a post-graduate diploma course and 150 hours of teaching practice!
It was probably the nearest I've got to pulling out of the whole course - which in fact is what Sarah has done, by the way. She finally complained to the Vice Principal about the fiasco of her placement and mentor and got some action, but then fell out with the mentor, who thought that she should be ready to take on teaching some small parts of the class after a couple of weeks observing. Well, that's was about the timescale within which everyone else started bits of teaching, but Sarah apparently refused and has now left for good. Shame, she was going to be a good teacher, and hopefully still will be.
Anyway, that was a diversion. By the next day I had pulled myself together and after the Tuesday numeracy lesson, went to Laura's office to learn how to laminate. A revelation: so simple - I loved it! I might even buy my own small laminator, apparently you can get them for about £25! And the ads I'd found look splendidly professional as resources for next week. If I can learn to laminate, I'm sure I'll get the hang of this teaching thing before too long.
Both exercises went well, with Mark taking part with his crossword clues scaffolded ....
Oh dear - I started that post about a month ago and never finished it. Nor have I managed to write or reflect on anything between then and now - except mentally, of course.
In fact, now I remember it, that lesson went rather well, with the crosswords holding attention and the Dictionary Challenge team game getting quite raucous as the two sides became competitive and I was trying to keep the scores reasonably even across the slightly mis-matched ability teams. It was a good way for me to work up a better relationship with this slightly reserved group, and Laura seemed happy enough with the way it had gone. I re-ran this lesson with the Wednesday Get On Literacy Class, which was also fine but completely different in tone and response. Perhaps because the class is not such a coherent group as the Surestarts, and because the ability range is more diverse, it wasn't such a sparky activity - but it still produced good learning outcomes and the class enjoyed the activity.
I didn't see it coming when the next week's Surestart Literacy lesson turned into a low point in my teaching placement. I'd prepared a pretty full lesson on word and sentence level activities, including more crosswords, homophone, homonym and synonym stuff which segued into word types. I'd followed a lesson plan and set of resources that Laura had sugegsted and I thought for at least the first hour that it was going well, differentiation was working, structure was tight. Laura was leaving me to it while working through the results of a test or diagnostic with an individual student.
I guess I was pushing them quite hard on word types - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc - but most were there, with the exception of a new student who had started the previous week and although fine with most aspects of the work, said she just didn't get nouns and verbs, had never understood them... And I could see Laura watching me handle this with what looked to me like an expression of great anxiety on her face. Before the end of the lesson, she came back in, took over, told the new student she'd bring her a special worksheet next week... and made me feel somewhat foolish and incompetent, unintentionally, I'm sure.
Her feedback after they'd left was a little terse (well, it must be incredibly frustrating as a mentor to see your class taken over by amateur incompetence and your students not getting the high level of teaching you yourself would have delivered) and about overloading students with too much information, too many intensive activities and not leaving enough processing time and "fun" activities. I felt it must have been a complete disaster, but Laura did say that the students had probably not felt there was a problem at all.
Still, when she went on to suggest subject matter, resources and activities for next week's lesson - including finding a range of newspaper and magazine ads, and laminating them... I fell apart. Ridiculous, but I've never laminated anything in my life, I didn't know where or how to do it -- suddenly it felt as if teaching was simply beyond me and I'd never make the grade. Poor Laura, she was already running late for her next class, but she sat down to try and put the pieces of me back together. It didn't entirely help when she said that her main worry was my commitment -- I'm committed alright, just more pressed for time than most other full time DTLLS students, with two small children and a household to run alongside a post-graduate diploma course and 150 hours of teaching practice!
It was probably the nearest I've got to pulling out of the whole course - which in fact is what Sarah has done, by the way. She finally complained to the Vice Principal about the fiasco of her placement and mentor and got some action, but then fell out with the mentor, who thought that she should be ready to take on teaching some small parts of the class after a couple of weeks observing. Well, that's was about the timescale within which everyone else started bits of teaching, but Sarah apparently refused and has now left for good. Shame, she was going to be a good teacher, and hopefully still will be.
Anyway, that was a diversion. By the next day I had pulled myself together and after the Tuesday numeracy lesson, went to Laura's office to learn how to laminate. A revelation: so simple - I loved it! I might even buy my own small laminator, apparently you can get them for about £25! And the ads I'd found look splendidly professional as resources for next week. If I can learn to laminate, I'm sure I'll get the hang of this teaching thing before too long.
14 January 2010
Happy New Year?
It was hard to come back into DTLLSworld after a normal and very enjoyable family Christmas - but back I came on 4th January (before the children had returned to school even), to the Surestart Literacy class and a small number of dedicated students. Laura was not wanting me to do much teaching at any of her classes that week as the Adult Education department was having internal observations that week, and any one of her classes could have been the one. So at Literacy on Monday I worked mostly with Mark, and in Tuesday's Numeracy class did one-to-one with Gail - back to odd and even numbers with cards, at which she made real progress.
At neither of these classes did an observer show up - annoyingly, because they were exquisitely prepared and beautifully delivered - which made the Wednesday Literacy class an almost dead cert. The snow had been building up earlier in the week, but when I set out mid-morning on Wednesday, it was blizzarding down, the sky was grey and visibility decreasing fast. I live in village about 15 miles from college, and after 10 minutes of slithering on ice, I pulled over, texted Laura to say I couldn't make it and returned home. Of course half an hour later the weather calmed down and inevitably the observer turned up. I felt very guilty for not being there to support Laura, but as it transpired she got a 1 (top marks) for the lesson, so all was forgiven.
Back to class on Friday - the snow was bad but we all made it in. Jen was on a training course so Pearl took our session on Curriculum Planning. We had all had our marks for Module 4 (combined presentation of resource and professional discussion on inclusive planning) emailed to us (I and three others got Distinction) even though our 500-word reflections on our presentations hadn't even been handed in. This was rather annoying as most of us had written them, printed out and burned to CD - now they're only good for the Professional Practice Portfolio, so I shall post mine here as well. Not that it's of a particularly high standard - just that as I've written it, it would be nice if somebody read it.
The resource I developed and presented for this assignment was a scaffolded creative writing activity for adult literacy students which, by engaging the affective, cognitive and psycho-motor domains around any specific subject matter, would help students process and assimilate material, relate it to their own existing knowledge and experience and therefore consolidate learning in a particularly effective way.
My “Write About…” tool was based on the work of James E Pennebaker, whose controlled clinical research on the links between using language and mental and physical well-being has also been tested on the process of teaching and learning with very positive results. This solid research background supported my belief that the resource was supportive of learning; and innovative, in that I found no other remotely similar resource or tool for adult literacy students during my research for this assignment.
The “Write About…” resource will support a diverse range of students’ needs because it is designed to be customised for subject matter, ability level (for each individual student if appropriate) and is used for formative rather than summative assessment. It can be formatted as a paper resource or a Word document on PC, and its purpose is precisely to personalise the learning experience. There is no wrong way to complete this task.
In my presentation I strongly related the resource to inclusive practice, talking about the shared background and unique circumstances of all adult literacy students. To maximise inclusivity, a tutor could, for instance, either put in the subject for a student, or let them write it in; they could edit or re-order the sections; change the scaffolding words in the side bars to suit the topic and/or the student – made easier, more advanced and appropriate to individual interests and situations.
As I have learned from my own teaching practice, there can be issues for adult literacy students in regard to emerging technology. Personal, financial and social issues may mean they do not always have access to or may not be skilled in using high level technology. The curriculum and their own needs dictate that writing by hand and with a keyboard are competences they need to develop, so this resource appropriately utilises these simple and emerged technologies to consolidate their psycho-motor literacy skills.
The peer feedback I received, both on paper and verbally, was very positive about the innovation, clarity and theoretical base of “Write About…”. There were a couple of queries about inclusivity, in particular for kinaesthetic style learners. I understand this point – but would respond by saying that the resource is for Literacy students; by definition their work is about reading and writing – and the physical use of pen and paper or keyboard are kinaesthetic aspects of the subject. Three of my peers and one tutor have subsequently asked me to send them copies of the “Write About…” resource, which I take as a very positive response, and look forward to hearing whether and how successfully they have used it in their own practice.
I have shown “Write About…” to my mentor with a view to using it as the basis of my research project. She also had a positive response to the resource, but pointed out that there would be a risk in asking adult literacy students to write about their emotional response to a learning subject. Although this could be personally developmental for individuals, the possibility of raising negative responses and therefore disruption to classes is, in her experienced view, more than possible. Since developing the resource I have had more subject specific teaching experience and I can see quite clearly that this point is very valid in terms of several of my students. In the light of this, I will revise the directional content of “Write About…” for using with my placement classes.
I was aware in giving my presentation that I did not move around the available space very much and used my written notes perhaps more than was ideal. The first issue came about because the PC remote control was not working so I had to stay by the keyboard to move the PowerPoint on. One peer assessor felt I perhaps put too much information on the PowerPoint. Point taken, but I felt (as did other peers) that the slides were complementary to, not repetitive of my verbal contribution. In regard to delivery style, I am aware that I wanted to pack in a considerable amount of information in a short time, and took the choice not to compromise the somewhat complex narrative of my presentation by potentially forgetting important points.
At neither of these classes did an observer show up - annoyingly, because they were exquisitely prepared and beautifully delivered - which made the Wednesday Literacy class an almost dead cert. The snow had been building up earlier in the week, but when I set out mid-morning on Wednesday, it was blizzarding down, the sky was grey and visibility decreasing fast. I live in village about 15 miles from college, and after 10 minutes of slithering on ice, I pulled over, texted Laura to say I couldn't make it and returned home. Of course half an hour later the weather calmed down and inevitably the observer turned up. I felt very guilty for not being there to support Laura, but as it transpired she got a 1 (top marks) for the lesson, so all was forgiven.
Back to class on Friday - the snow was bad but we all made it in. Jen was on a training course so Pearl took our session on Curriculum Planning. We had all had our marks for Module 4 (combined presentation of resource and professional discussion on inclusive planning) emailed to us (I and three others got Distinction) even though our 500-word reflections on our presentations hadn't even been handed in. This was rather annoying as most of us had written them, printed out and burned to CD - now they're only good for the Professional Practice Portfolio, so I shall post mine here as well. Not that it's of a particularly high standard - just that as I've written it, it would be nice if somebody read it.
The resource I developed and presented for this assignment was a scaffolded creative writing activity for adult literacy students which, by engaging the affective, cognitive and psycho-motor domains around any specific subject matter, would help students process and assimilate material, relate it to their own existing knowledge and experience and therefore consolidate learning in a particularly effective way.
My “Write About…” tool was based on the work of James E Pennebaker, whose controlled clinical research on the links between using language and mental and physical well-being has also been tested on the process of teaching and learning with very positive results. This solid research background supported my belief that the resource was supportive of learning; and innovative, in that I found no other remotely similar resource or tool for adult literacy students during my research for this assignment.
The “Write About…” resource will support a diverse range of students’ needs because it is designed to be customised for subject matter, ability level (for each individual student if appropriate) and is used for formative rather than summative assessment. It can be formatted as a paper resource or a Word document on PC, and its purpose is precisely to personalise the learning experience. There is no wrong way to complete this task.
In my presentation I strongly related the resource to inclusive practice, talking about the shared background and unique circumstances of all adult literacy students. To maximise inclusivity, a tutor could, for instance, either put in the subject for a student, or let them write it in; they could edit or re-order the sections; change the scaffolding words in the side bars to suit the topic and/or the student – made easier, more advanced and appropriate to individual interests and situations.
As I have learned from my own teaching practice, there can be issues for adult literacy students in regard to emerging technology. Personal, financial and social issues may mean they do not always have access to or may not be skilled in using high level technology. The curriculum and their own needs dictate that writing by hand and with a keyboard are competences they need to develop, so this resource appropriately utilises these simple and emerged technologies to consolidate their psycho-motor literacy skills.
The peer feedback I received, both on paper and verbally, was very positive about the innovation, clarity and theoretical base of “Write About…”. There were a couple of queries about inclusivity, in particular for kinaesthetic style learners. I understand this point – but would respond by saying that the resource is for Literacy students; by definition their work is about reading and writing – and the physical use of pen and paper or keyboard are kinaesthetic aspects of the subject. Three of my peers and one tutor have subsequently asked me to send them copies of the “Write About…” resource, which I take as a very positive response, and look forward to hearing whether and how successfully they have used it in their own practice.
I have shown “Write About…” to my mentor with a view to using it as the basis of my research project. She also had a positive response to the resource, but pointed out that there would be a risk in asking adult literacy students to write about their emotional response to a learning subject. Although this could be personally developmental for individuals, the possibility of raising negative responses and therefore disruption to classes is, in her experienced view, more than possible. Since developing the resource I have had more subject specific teaching experience and I can see quite clearly that this point is very valid in terms of several of my students. In the light of this, I will revise the directional content of “Write About…” for using with my placement classes.
I was aware in giving my presentation that I did not move around the available space very much and used my written notes perhaps more than was ideal. The first issue came about because the PC remote control was not working so I had to stay by the keyboard to move the PowerPoint on. One peer assessor felt I perhaps put too much information on the PowerPoint. Point taken, but I felt (as did other peers) that the slides were complementary to, not repetitive of my verbal contribution. In regard to delivery style, I am aware that I wanted to pack in a considerable amount of information in a short time, and took the choice not to compromise the somewhat complex narrative of my presentation by potentially forgetting important points.
16 December 2009
Teaching Placement - Week Three
Last week before the Christmas hols - but I've spent hours stressing over my one-hour lesson plan for Wednesday's Literacy lesson, and finding suitable resources on paper and online. I must have printed out several trees' worth of handouts. But I'll start at the begining.
Monday Surestart Literacy Class: Laura hadn't asked me to prepare anything in particular for this class - and she had said that some people would be sitting tests at college and there would have to be a fair amount of individual work. So I took part in the opening plenary sessions and then worked mainly one-to-one with Mark on an Entry Level activity while the others did their own L1 and L2 work. It became clear to me that Mark is not only dyslexic, but suffers from the same learning difficulty as my daughter - Auditory Processing Disorder. He can hear perfectly well enough to understand and reproduce spoken words, but when it comes to analysing sounds into letters, he can't differentiate between some vowels (eg a and e sounds) or discriminate combination consonants. So he might write "friends", for instance, as "fads" - because when he tries to write what he hears that's what it sounds like. My daughter does exactly the same, to the degree that her attempts to spell some words are so un-phonetic that they are impossible to even guess at. The other day she wrote "silver" as "seve" - neither I nor spellcheck got that one! In Mark's case the problem is exacerbated by his regional accent, so his attempts at writing phonetically are even more undermined. I'll be interested to see the results of his SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulty) test - and if there's any useful way of dealing with this.
I also spent some time with other members of the class, managing to clarify some grammatical areas and progress with relationships. Most said they would do homework over the break - they are a committed group.
Tuesday Numeracy class: Jo was away at a hospital appointment, but the rest of the class was in festive mood. Yasmin and I assisted Laura with plenary, group and indiviaul work for the first half of the session. We used packs of cards to do some work on odd and even numbers. I did some one-to-one with Gail, a Level 1 student, and found she had difficulty handling a pack of cards and sorting them into two piles (odd and even); evidence of chaotic thinking was that she was pulling cards from the middle of the pack, not off the top, and creating a third and unnecessary pile of "spares". Laura was interested by this observation - this is where my self help/psychology background comes into play.
When we moved up to the computer room after the break, Laura did an off-the-cuff plenary session, just using the whiteboard, on the theme of Christmas. It was inspired - engaging, simple, fun but including in the theme all the areas the class had been working on this term: weighing and measuring, decimals, number bonds, fractions, shape (menu-planning, cooking, buying, wrapping and and posting presents)... For half an hour the class were wrapt and having fun whilst a the same time recalling information, making connections and reinforcing the practical and relevant use of numeracy in real life. It will take me a long time to be able to pull off something as effective as that.
After that they paired up on PCs and played a competitive number bond ghost game, which kept everyone occupied and learning before breaking up for the festive season.
Yasmin has been offered a full-time but short-term job as a Learning Assistant at the college, and has a couple of other interviews lined up. Laura hopes she will continue to volunteer with this class as long as possible. These mixed ability classes in both Literacy and Numeracy, with students needing high levels of one-to-one support, are extremely hard to manage alone.
Wednesday Literacy class: Laura and I had reworked my initial lesson plan into something simpler and more manageable; I felt happy with the resources I'd brought along and had designed a brief Powerpoint to incorporate (simplified) Learning Objectives and some key points about Conjunctions and Commas (the lesson subject).
As everyone came in - about two minutes after Laura and I had got into the classroom - I became aware that my conscious incompetence was proving a huge barrier to my normally high ability to multi-task! I found it hard to greet people and continue writing the letter grid (my icebreaker/recap activity) on the whiteboard, so Laura ended up doing the greeting while I wrote. Having got them started on the activity, I logged into the PC and put up my PowerPoint, then rushed back to the whiteboard to take their feedback input about words containing the the requisite letter combinations. It went fine, but I probably let it run a little too long - perhaps because I found myself totally floundering on the transition from that activity to the next subject. Luckily Laura smoothed the moment, but it quite threw me.
I did then manage to lead the class through the recap on Conjunctions and differentiated worksheets; then segued into a plenary on Commas and individual worksheets on that. Sue, the learner with mobility problems and dyslexia, claimed she had never before heard of a comma and didn't know what I was talking about (Laura says she likes to be obstructive at times, but to use her basic queries to revisit info for the whole class). I felt she might have been thrown by the fact that it was me teaching rather than Laura, and responded positively to her. By the end of the class we had progressed quite well.
In the end, the two hour class turned into a jointly run session by me and Laura, rather than mine for the first hour and hers for the second. By the end, I was more confident, had done some effective one-to-one, as well as plenary, explanations with a number of the students and seen some lightbulb moments. But I still felt very inadequate as a teacher.
Laura's constructive and extremely generous feedback was:
Positives: Authoritative manner, good subject knowledge, strong eye contact and positive relationships with individuals. The class accepts me (she says), and respects me. I give clear explanations and write clearly for the whiteboard and smartboard.
Points for development: Get into the classroom earlier and set up whiteboard task, Powerpoint etc. Don't rely on small writing lesson plan for a lesson guide. Write a big and perhaps coloured progression to leave on the front desk to avoid floudering on transitions. Greet everyone individually. Give more directed, individual praise for responses early on. Maintain pace - don't stick too long on an activity, make sure everyone is engaged and notice when they're not - especially those at the top and bottom of the ability spectrum. Use every opportunity to include related learning (eg homophones in the initial word-making activities).
Thank goodness it's over - and there's a break before next term.
Monday Surestart Literacy Class: Laura hadn't asked me to prepare anything in particular for this class - and she had said that some people would be sitting tests at college and there would have to be a fair amount of individual work. So I took part in the opening plenary sessions and then worked mainly one-to-one with Mark on an Entry Level activity while the others did their own L1 and L2 work. It became clear to me that Mark is not only dyslexic, but suffers from the same learning difficulty as my daughter - Auditory Processing Disorder. He can hear perfectly well enough to understand and reproduce spoken words, but when it comes to analysing sounds into letters, he can't differentiate between some vowels (eg a and e sounds) or discriminate combination consonants. So he might write "friends", for instance, as "fads" - because when he tries to write what he hears that's what it sounds like. My daughter does exactly the same, to the degree that her attempts to spell some words are so un-phonetic that they are impossible to even guess at. The other day she wrote "silver" as "seve" - neither I nor spellcheck got that one! In Mark's case the problem is exacerbated by his regional accent, so his attempts at writing phonetically are even more undermined. I'll be interested to see the results of his SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulty) test - and if there's any useful way of dealing with this.
I also spent some time with other members of the class, managing to clarify some grammatical areas and progress with relationships. Most said they would do homework over the break - they are a committed group.
Tuesday Numeracy class: Jo was away at a hospital appointment, but the rest of the class was in festive mood. Yasmin and I assisted Laura with plenary, group and indiviaul work for the first half of the session. We used packs of cards to do some work on odd and even numbers. I did some one-to-one with Gail, a Level 1 student, and found she had difficulty handling a pack of cards and sorting them into two piles (odd and even); evidence of chaotic thinking was that she was pulling cards from the middle of the pack, not off the top, and creating a third and unnecessary pile of "spares". Laura was interested by this observation - this is where my self help/psychology background comes into play.
When we moved up to the computer room after the break, Laura did an off-the-cuff plenary session, just using the whiteboard, on the theme of Christmas. It was inspired - engaging, simple, fun but including in the theme all the areas the class had been working on this term: weighing and measuring, decimals, number bonds, fractions, shape (menu-planning, cooking, buying, wrapping and and posting presents)... For half an hour the class were wrapt and having fun whilst a the same time recalling information, making connections and reinforcing the practical and relevant use of numeracy in real life. It will take me a long time to be able to pull off something as effective as that.
After that they paired up on PCs and played a competitive number bond ghost game, which kept everyone occupied and learning before breaking up for the festive season.
Yasmin has been offered a full-time but short-term job as a Learning Assistant at the college, and has a couple of other interviews lined up. Laura hopes she will continue to volunteer with this class as long as possible. These mixed ability classes in both Literacy and Numeracy, with students needing high levels of one-to-one support, are extremely hard to manage alone.
Wednesday Literacy class: Laura and I had reworked my initial lesson plan into something simpler and more manageable; I felt happy with the resources I'd brought along and had designed a brief Powerpoint to incorporate (simplified) Learning Objectives and some key points about Conjunctions and Commas (the lesson subject).
As everyone came in - about two minutes after Laura and I had got into the classroom - I became aware that my conscious incompetence was proving a huge barrier to my normally high ability to multi-task! I found it hard to greet people and continue writing the letter grid (my icebreaker/recap activity) on the whiteboard, so Laura ended up doing the greeting while I wrote. Having got them started on the activity, I logged into the PC and put up my PowerPoint, then rushed back to the whiteboard to take their feedback input about words containing the the requisite letter combinations. It went fine, but I probably let it run a little too long - perhaps because I found myself totally floundering on the transition from that activity to the next subject. Luckily Laura smoothed the moment, but it quite threw me.
I did then manage to lead the class through the recap on Conjunctions and differentiated worksheets; then segued into a plenary on Commas and individual worksheets on that. Sue, the learner with mobility problems and dyslexia, claimed she had never before heard of a comma and didn't know what I was talking about (Laura says she likes to be obstructive at times, but to use her basic queries to revisit info for the whole class). I felt she might have been thrown by the fact that it was me teaching rather than Laura, and responded positively to her. By the end of the class we had progressed quite well.
In the end, the two hour class turned into a jointly run session by me and Laura, rather than mine for the first hour and hers for the second. By the end, I was more confident, had done some effective one-to-one, as well as plenary, explanations with a number of the students and seen some lightbulb moments. But I still felt very inadequate as a teacher.
Laura's constructive and extremely generous feedback was:
Positives: Authoritative manner, good subject knowledge, strong eye contact and positive relationships with individuals. The class accepts me (she says), and respects me. I give clear explanations and write clearly for the whiteboard and smartboard.
Points for development: Get into the classroom earlier and set up whiteboard task, Powerpoint etc. Don't rely on small writing lesson plan for a lesson guide. Write a big and perhaps coloured progression to leave on the front desk to avoid floudering on transitions. Greet everyone individually. Give more directed, individual praise for responses early on. Maintain pace - don't stick too long on an activity, make sure everyone is engaged and notice when they're not - especially those at the top and bottom of the ability spectrum. Use every opportunity to include related learning (eg homophones in the initial word-making activities).
Thank goodness it's over - and there's a break before next term.
Coursework
Back in class on Friday. Jen told us she is now our permanent tutor, and when questioned about the fact that she is on Maternity Leave Cover in our department only till the end of January, told us that she had made clear to the VP she was only interested in taking on the FT DTLLS class if it was until the end of the course - and that she believed that had been accepted. Didn't sound entirely certain to us.
Once again, our learning time was taken up with a recap on where unmarked assignments were at and how and when they were going to get marked. Our presentations (of a creative resource) were an issue: Mike and Scott's notes were apparently minimal so we had the choice of "self-assessment" or repeating the presentations. Jay, who had indeed done a very good presentation, was dying to reprise his, but Kelly and Sarah were adamant that they would neither self-assess nor repeat; this was the college's problem not the students' and they demanded to be assessed by the notes taken and grades given at the time. Others agreed with their point of view, though to make life easier for Jen said they would self assess.
Later in the day the VP returned as promised - though only after Jen had been asked several times when he was coming, and had been out to "check". He breezed in, clearly expecting a quick interchange confirming that we were happy with the changes. He certainly did not expect the 10-minute broadside he got from Beth!
She found it disgusting (repeated fortissimo, several times!) that he had come back to see us with no notes, no knowledge of whether the updates we had requested last time were in place; that teaching placement issues for several people were still unresolved; that he had given no decent response to or apology for the stress and anguish caused to most people due to administrative failures dating back to application and enrollment, let alone placement. The VP tried to sooth Beth by suggesting she met with him separately to iron out her problems. This was a mistake: she stressed (crescendo) that she was talking for the whole class, that it was not about the teaching - Mike and Jen had been excellent - but about the administration, the people who were "cogs behind the DTLLS course" who had been a complete failure... and ended up telling him that his visit to the class today had left her feeling "just a little bit worse - if that was possible"!
An impressive tirade, and one which left most of us unable to look the VP in the eye. It hadn't helped that Jen had inadvertently played us a clip from The Office minutes before the VP appeared, as a light-hearted example of poor communication style.
Later in the afternoon, Anna came in to talk to the class, and offered a far more fulsome and personal apology for the problems we had experienced. She handed out a list of timetable revisions and a schedule for assignment returns. Some of these had to be changed. She also told us that Jen now had a written agreement that she would be remaining as our tutor until the end of the course. A small victory for student power.
Once again, our learning time was taken up with a recap on where unmarked assignments were at and how and when they were going to get marked. Our presentations (of a creative resource) were an issue: Mike and Scott's notes were apparently minimal so we had the choice of "self-assessment" or repeating the presentations. Jay, who had indeed done a very good presentation, was dying to reprise his, but Kelly and Sarah were adamant that they would neither self-assess nor repeat; this was the college's problem not the students' and they demanded to be assessed by the notes taken and grades given at the time. Others agreed with their point of view, though to make life easier for Jen said they would self assess.
Later in the day the VP returned as promised - though only after Jen had been asked several times when he was coming, and had been out to "check". He breezed in, clearly expecting a quick interchange confirming that we were happy with the changes. He certainly did not expect the 10-minute broadside he got from Beth!
She found it disgusting (repeated fortissimo, several times!) that he had come back to see us with no notes, no knowledge of whether the updates we had requested last time were in place; that teaching placement issues for several people were still unresolved; that he had given no decent response to or apology for the stress and anguish caused to most people due to administrative failures dating back to application and enrollment, let alone placement. The VP tried to sooth Beth by suggesting she met with him separately to iron out her problems. This was a mistake: she stressed (crescendo) that she was talking for the whole class, that it was not about the teaching - Mike and Jen had been excellent - but about the administration, the people who were "cogs behind the DTLLS course" who had been a complete failure... and ended up telling him that his visit to the class today had left her feeling "just a little bit worse - if that was possible"!
An impressive tirade, and one which left most of us unable to look the VP in the eye. It hadn't helped that Jen had inadvertently played us a clip from The Office minutes before the VP appeared, as a light-hearted example of poor communication style.
Later in the afternoon, Anna came in to talk to the class, and offered a far more fulsome and personal apology for the problems we had experienced. She handed out a list of timetable revisions and a schedule for assignment returns. Some of these had to be changed. She also told us that Jen now had a written agreement that she would be remaining as our tutor until the end of the course. A small victory for student power.
9 December 2009
Teaching Placement Week Two
Although I wrote this title last week, I'm actually into week three of teaching. Life - particularly in DTLLSworld, but also real life, has been so hectic that I haven't had much time to reflect.
So - last week:
Monday Surestart class: Laura had been held up so I opened the class with a letter chain exercise (How many words can you come up with containing the letters "str"?), which went down fine and took us through the ten minutes before Laura arrived. The Learning Room there does suffer from not having a whiteboard, let alone a smartboard or PCs - and even the flipchart paper has been well-used. I had also sourced some handouts and quizzes on Prepositions, which were used and went down quite well, later in the session
Shelley, the student who Laura had helped out last week, returned and thanked Laura for saving her. Her attendance had previously been so poor she was about to be written off, but Laura's intervention had the effect of renewing her interest and perhaps showing her that real support for her can be found here.
A very successful activity, which was highly inclusive of different levels of ability and allowed peer support and scaffolding, was a simple Murder Mystery game. Laura handed out a b&w picture of a "murder scene" in a cafe (including footprints, handprints, abandoned cups of tea, cigarettes smoking in ashtrays and the bills of the four last customers) and let the two groups work out from the clues what had happened and who had done what to whom. Inferring information from text and other sources is a major part of the Literacy Curriculum, so it worked well in that way, was highly engaging, provoked discussion and humour and brought the group together.
I did some one-to-one work with Mark - who is clearly dyslexic and having a SPLD assessment soon - and felt I was on the way to making relationships with most of the others.
Tuesday Numeracy: my contribution to this week's lesson was to produce some worksheets on Healthy Eating - for estimating, comparing and adding prices of the five-a-day fruit and veg we had worked with last week. I had made some colourful and clear handouts which did the job. I also did one-to-one work with Jo, the student in a wheelchair who usually looks disengaged and doesn't answer questions. As I worked with him, though, I realised he's not at all well and probably in pain. He has physical difficulty writing and clearly appreciated being helped. Interalia he asked me if I believed in reincarnation and spirits, and left a Christmas card for me with Laura.
The class moves to a computer room after the midway break, where Laura had found some excellent interactive games which they worked on in pairs.
Wednesday Literacy: I printed out a mountain of worksheets and activities on commas, compound words, compound sentences and conjunctions, most of which we didn't get round to using. But it was a very good and well-rounded session - as I've written up as part of an assignment ("Professional Discussion" as opposed to essay) on Communication and Supporting Students:
"In a literacy lesson that we jointly planned, my mentor and I were teaching Compound Words. She had explained the learners’ initial and diagnostic assessments to me, and also their individually negotiated learning targets – all of which are SMART (Specific, Manageable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based). These had been carried out by using Literacy and Numeracy entry level online tests, paper-based and/or online diagnostic tests, one-to-one tutorial sessions and observations.
"Based on these, we used the whiteboard, plenary discussion, then working in pairs and individually on handouts. After this all the students, in pairs, played two online games (sourced by me) which had varying levels of difficulty, promoting learning on the subject. This meant every student was able to take part in each activity, despite their different strengths, weaknesses and learning levels.
"The final part of the lesson introduced them to the concept of evaluation. In a plenary session they listed the positives and negatives of all the teaching methods we had used and rated how much they had learned from each. This inclusive approach had the benefits of valuing each student’s contribution and differing opinions; and demonstrating to us as teachers the immensely varied ways in which they all learned best (and worst). Scoring the resources added an element of numeracy and the online games increased their ICT skills.
"This approach to equality and inclusivity also ticked all aspects of Keller’s ARCS model: the students’ attention was held throughout; the content and resources were relevant to their lives and needs; and their confidence and satisfaction increased as they became more adept in using the different media to increase their literacy skills."
The scary bit is that Laura wants me to take the first hour of next week's lesson on my own, which means a full lesson plan, resources, back up etc... My first proper solo flight, as it were.
So - last week:
Monday Surestart class: Laura had been held up so I opened the class with a letter chain exercise (How many words can you come up with containing the letters "str"?), which went down fine and took us through the ten minutes before Laura arrived. The Learning Room there does suffer from not having a whiteboard, let alone a smartboard or PCs - and even the flipchart paper has been well-used. I had also sourced some handouts and quizzes on Prepositions, which were used and went down quite well, later in the session
Shelley, the student who Laura had helped out last week, returned and thanked Laura for saving her. Her attendance had previously been so poor she was about to be written off, but Laura's intervention had the effect of renewing her interest and perhaps showing her that real support for her can be found here.
A very successful activity, which was highly inclusive of different levels of ability and allowed peer support and scaffolding, was a simple Murder Mystery game. Laura handed out a b&w picture of a "murder scene" in a cafe (including footprints, handprints, abandoned cups of tea, cigarettes smoking in ashtrays and the bills of the four last customers) and let the two groups work out from the clues what had happened and who had done what to whom. Inferring information from text and other sources is a major part of the Literacy Curriculum, so it worked well in that way, was highly engaging, provoked discussion and humour and brought the group together.
I did some one-to-one work with Mark - who is clearly dyslexic and having a SPLD assessment soon - and felt I was on the way to making relationships with most of the others.
Tuesday Numeracy: my contribution to this week's lesson was to produce some worksheets on Healthy Eating - for estimating, comparing and adding prices of the five-a-day fruit and veg we had worked with last week. I had made some colourful and clear handouts which did the job. I also did one-to-one work with Jo, the student in a wheelchair who usually looks disengaged and doesn't answer questions. As I worked with him, though, I realised he's not at all well and probably in pain. He has physical difficulty writing and clearly appreciated being helped. Interalia he asked me if I believed in reincarnation and spirits, and left a Christmas card for me with Laura.
The class moves to a computer room after the midway break, where Laura had found some excellent interactive games which they worked on in pairs.
Wednesday Literacy: I printed out a mountain of worksheets and activities on commas, compound words, compound sentences and conjunctions, most of which we didn't get round to using. But it was a very good and well-rounded session - as I've written up as part of an assignment ("Professional Discussion" as opposed to essay) on Communication and Supporting Students:
"In a literacy lesson that we jointly planned, my mentor and I were teaching Compound Words. She had explained the learners’ initial and diagnostic assessments to me, and also their individually negotiated learning targets – all of which are SMART (Specific, Manageable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based). These had been carried out by using Literacy and Numeracy entry level online tests, paper-based and/or online diagnostic tests, one-to-one tutorial sessions and observations.
"Based on these, we used the whiteboard, plenary discussion, then working in pairs and individually on handouts. After this all the students, in pairs, played two online games (sourced by me) which had varying levels of difficulty, promoting learning on the subject. This meant every student was able to take part in each activity, despite their different strengths, weaknesses and learning levels.
"The final part of the lesson introduced them to the concept of evaluation. In a plenary session they listed the positives and negatives of all the teaching methods we had used and rated how much they had learned from each. This inclusive approach had the benefits of valuing each student’s contribution and differing opinions; and demonstrating to us as teachers the immensely varied ways in which they all learned best (and worst). Scoring the resources added an element of numeracy and the online games increased their ICT skills.
"This approach to equality and inclusivity also ticked all aspects of Keller’s ARCS model: the students’ attention was held throughout; the content and resources were relevant to their lives and needs; and their confidence and satisfaction increased as they became more adept in using the different media to increase their literacy skills."
The scary bit is that Laura wants me to take the first hour of next week's lesson on my own, which means a full lesson plan, resources, back up etc... My first proper solo flight, as it were.
29 November 2009
Teaching Politics
Returning to the subject of Mike, our FT DTLLS Course Tutor's dismissal.
We had received no communication about the situation from the powers that be by the end of Tuesday, and the majority of my classmates were wanting action. One or two urged caution and letting sleeping dogs lie - on the basis that they weren't keen to compromise their chances of employment at the college post graduation - but this incident (along with the ongoing administrative problems) had made this seem a less attractive idea to some, and they wanted answers.
So on Tuesday evening a substantial email, penned by Jay and me, outlining our grievances from the reasons and timing of Mike's dismissal, through the failure to let us know about the situation, to the detailed results of this action on our classwork, assignments and ongoing placement issues, was sent to the college Principal and the Vice Principal who is in charge of Adult Education. We had concerned responses within hours.
The next day we were told that Jen, a new tutor to the department (covering a maternity leave), though not to the college, would be teaching us for the rest of the term and that the VP would be talking to the class on Friday (the next time we would meet).
On Friday, Jen welcomed us and within minutes the VP arrived. Concern about our issues was forthcoming, but not an apology. The VP, it seemed, had allocated us a whole five minutes of his valuable time - but we kept him for over half an hour, making him go through the detail of our work problems and possible solutions - essentially creating a long To Do list for Jen and yet another rescheduling of assignment hand-in dates and course timetabling. This unenviable project may demonstrate to Jen the problems of the course design and organisation that Mike has been struggling with all term and which have caused his massive overload - in our view.
All queries about Mike's dismissal were deflected with the response that it would be unfair on Mike to discuss it with us; and interwoven throughout the discussion were supportive statements about Anna and implicit criticisms of Mike. We tried to make it clear that we did not think Mike to blame for the organisational inadequacies.
Eventually the VP managed to extract himself from our classroom, but said he would return next week to see how Jen was getting on with the rearrangements - not as full as response to our issues as we had hoped for.
However, we all took to Jen - her personality, experience, willingness to help and - when we actually got round to experiencing it - her teaching style and depth of knowledge. But the amount of work she now has to undertake (including all through the Christmas break, she told us) and the waste of our learning time in introducing ourselves to her, explaining what we have covered so far, and making more explicit the issues with our assignments etc - is highly detrimental to us as students, and frankly unacceptable.
We wonder, while all this is going on for us, what is happening to Mike; whether he is looking for work elsewhere or appealing his dismissal. Even at this late stage, he would be welcomed back by his students.
We had received no communication about the situation from the powers that be by the end of Tuesday, and the majority of my classmates were wanting action. One or two urged caution and letting sleeping dogs lie - on the basis that they weren't keen to compromise their chances of employment at the college post graduation - but this incident (along with the ongoing administrative problems) had made this seem a less attractive idea to some, and they wanted answers.
So on Tuesday evening a substantial email, penned by Jay and me, outlining our grievances from the reasons and timing of Mike's dismissal, through the failure to let us know about the situation, to the detailed results of this action on our classwork, assignments and ongoing placement issues, was sent to the college Principal and the Vice Principal who is in charge of Adult Education. We had concerned responses within hours.
The next day we were told that Jen, a new tutor to the department (covering a maternity leave), though not to the college, would be teaching us for the rest of the term and that the VP would be talking to the class on Friday (the next time we would meet).
On Friday, Jen welcomed us and within minutes the VP arrived. Concern about our issues was forthcoming, but not an apology. The VP, it seemed, had allocated us a whole five minutes of his valuable time - but we kept him for over half an hour, making him go through the detail of our work problems and possible solutions - essentially creating a long To Do list for Jen and yet another rescheduling of assignment hand-in dates and course timetabling. This unenviable project may demonstrate to Jen the problems of the course design and organisation that Mike has been struggling with all term and which have caused his massive overload - in our view.
All queries about Mike's dismissal were deflected with the response that it would be unfair on Mike to discuss it with us; and interwoven throughout the discussion were supportive statements about Anna and implicit criticisms of Mike. We tried to make it clear that we did not think Mike to blame for the organisational inadequacies.
Eventually the VP managed to extract himself from our classroom, but said he would return next week to see how Jen was getting on with the rearrangements - not as full as response to our issues as we had hoped for.
However, we all took to Jen - her personality, experience, willingness to help and - when we actually got round to experiencing it - her teaching style and depth of knowledge. But the amount of work she now has to undertake (including all through the Christmas break, she told us) and the waste of our learning time in introducing ourselves to her, explaining what we have covered so far, and making more explicit the issues with our assignments etc - is highly detrimental to us as students, and frankly unacceptable.
We wonder, while all this is going on for us, what is happening to Mike; whether he is looking for work elsewhere or appealing his dismissal. Even at this late stage, he would be welcomed back by his students.
28 November 2009
Teaching Placement - Week One
Monday, 9.30am was the first day and class of my teaching practice. An adult literacy class offsite at a local Surestart centre. I arrived before Laura and was let into the "learning room" - a basic room with tables and chairs, a sofa one end and a flipchart. Nothing to assist with the ICT functional skills or emerging technology we're supposed to pack into every session to hit all the criteria of a top teacher.
Laura arrived after a couple of the students;we pulled the tables into a central block and six students settled themselves around it. The five women and one man were all thirties and upwards, a couple of women working towards Level 2, the man just Level 1 and the rest in between. A nice and hard-working group, who Laura had just got started on a recap/warm-up about prepositions when a seventh class member turned up. This woman had a poor attendance rate - in fact should have received a letter telling her she was no longer on the course, but Laura welcomed her and included her in the work.
Laura used the flipchart and handouts, directed questioning and discussion to good effect - in fact in the literacy classes I've observed so far, the more basic teaching aids seem more appropriate than using hi tec ICT - although in college they all work on individual PCs for a large proportion of the class. At Surestart, the same work is simply done on paper.
At break time Laura took the latecomer aside and chatted to her on the sofa. After the break was over, she left me in charge of the rest of the group and took the woman out, returning alone after 10 minutes. It transpired later that Laura had noticed the student had refused a cup of tea (which costs 20p) and putting this together with various other signs, realised something was wrong. This woman is a mother of two small children and had £10 to last her for the rest of the week and no credit on her phone, so Laura had given her some advice about accessing emergency funds and taken her to the main Surestart office to make some phone calls. It was difficult call, she said, but with small children involved and me there to cover briefly, it seemed the best option in an emergency situation.
When Laura returned she set the other women individual tasks, set up tests for a couple of them to do at college next week and I worked with Mark, the student who had joined most recently. It was an enjoyable lesson with an interesting anc committed group and I look forward to working with them further.
I went over to the college after this to meet Jay. As the two DTLLS class reps, we went up to the departmental office to see if we could talk to Anna - Mike's line manager and the FT DTLLS manager, to see if she would talk to us about the situation with him. As it turned out she was off sick, probably for the whole week, and though she looked distinctly uncomfortable, Pearl couldn't suggest any other course of action than seeing her when she returned. Not satisfactory.
Tuesday was Numeracy - 9am to 12pm onsite at college. Yasmin, who did the FT DTLLS course with a Literacy placement last year, is helping Laura with this class as a voluntary teaching assistant to help her get paid work. There are six students, one of whom is deaf and has a signer, one has brittle bone disease and is in a wheelchair, and another speaks unclearly and has learning difficuties. Laura did a recap exercise on the whiteboard on number bonds, which raised a number of other issues. The class collectively has poor memory for concepts.
Yasmin had prepared a section on Healthy Eating, involving weighing and estimating the weight of portions of five-a-day fruit and vegetables. Although she got an aspect of fractions wrong which Laura had to correct, the class loved the Noughts and Crosses team game around which she framed some intital questions about weight values, and enjoyed weighing the portions of real fruit and veg she had brought with her. I worked with a pair of students during this exercise, which I was happy with.
After the break the whole class moved rooms to a computer lab where they all did individual tests and online work sheets. I worked with one student on a test, which went well enough. Then while they were working alone, Laura, Yasmin and I discussed next week's class and activities. I volunteered to create some worksheets around estimating prices, actual prices and adding more of the five-a-day portions. It was agreed that I'd need to include pictures to help the wheelchair student who has poor literacy skills.
In the break, Yasmin told me that last year's FT DTLLS course had been run by four tutors for two classes, but they had many problems, especially around mentors and placements - which have certainly not been solved this year. It seems that all four tutors took voluntary severance after being off long-term sick (stress) at various points during year. Mike was dismissed but appealed and was reinstated - to end up running the full time course more or less single-handed. I went up to the departmental office after class and had the conversation with Scott, as reported below.
Wednesday 12 - 3pm: the Literacy class I've observed a couple of times already. The normal room was having the ITC equipment upgraded so we all, me pushing the wheelchair student, decamped to a less than pleasant classroom in another block without the suite of PCs these students are used to. After a group ice-breaker/recap, Laura set the class differentiated tasks on handouts; I worked with the more advanced group on Active and Passive voices, rewriting sentences from one to the other. I enjoyed working with them, though even amongst three there was a mix of abilities and I wasn't sure I kept the least able learner focused and completely understanding the concept. When I checked his learning with directed questions, though, he seemed to have taken the concept on board.
Normally the second half of the class would have been individual working at PCs, but as this was not possible, Laura asked the class to visit the Information Store (library) and borrow a book or DVD to bring and talk about in class next week. She asked me to find some handouts for next week on commas and clauses, simple and complex sentences.
During this first week of teaching practice, although I didn't take any class on my own for any time, I was reassured that I would in time, with Laura's support, be able to do so, starting with small time periods and working upwards. I felt I related well to the students I did work with, and started to get a feel for their learning styles and abilities.
My biggest area for development remains directed questioning, and asking questions that properly check learning and promote attention and confidence. I also don't think I would have had the experience to note the signs and deal with the problems of the learner in the Monday Surestart class.
Laura arrived after a couple of the students;we pulled the tables into a central block and six students settled themselves around it. The five women and one man were all thirties and upwards, a couple of women working towards Level 2, the man just Level 1 and the rest in between. A nice and hard-working group, who Laura had just got started on a recap/warm-up about prepositions when a seventh class member turned up. This woman had a poor attendance rate - in fact should have received a letter telling her she was no longer on the course, but Laura welcomed her and included her in the work.
Laura used the flipchart and handouts, directed questioning and discussion to good effect - in fact in the literacy classes I've observed so far, the more basic teaching aids seem more appropriate than using hi tec ICT - although in college they all work on individual PCs for a large proportion of the class. At Surestart, the same work is simply done on paper.
At break time Laura took the latecomer aside and chatted to her on the sofa. After the break was over, she left me in charge of the rest of the group and took the woman out, returning alone after 10 minutes. It transpired later that Laura had noticed the student had refused a cup of tea (which costs 20p) and putting this together with various other signs, realised something was wrong. This woman is a mother of two small children and had £10 to last her for the rest of the week and no credit on her phone, so Laura had given her some advice about accessing emergency funds and taken her to the main Surestart office to make some phone calls. It was difficult call, she said, but with small children involved and me there to cover briefly, it seemed the best option in an emergency situation.
When Laura returned she set the other women individual tasks, set up tests for a couple of them to do at college next week and I worked with Mark, the student who had joined most recently. It was an enjoyable lesson with an interesting anc committed group and I look forward to working with them further.
I went over to the college after this to meet Jay. As the two DTLLS class reps, we went up to the departmental office to see if we could talk to Anna - Mike's line manager and the FT DTLLS manager, to see if she would talk to us about the situation with him. As it turned out she was off sick, probably for the whole week, and though she looked distinctly uncomfortable, Pearl couldn't suggest any other course of action than seeing her when she returned. Not satisfactory.
Tuesday was Numeracy - 9am to 12pm onsite at college. Yasmin, who did the FT DTLLS course with a Literacy placement last year, is helping Laura with this class as a voluntary teaching assistant to help her get paid work. There are six students, one of whom is deaf and has a signer, one has brittle bone disease and is in a wheelchair, and another speaks unclearly and has learning difficuties. Laura did a recap exercise on the whiteboard on number bonds, which raised a number of other issues. The class collectively has poor memory for concepts.
Yasmin had prepared a section on Healthy Eating, involving weighing and estimating the weight of portions of five-a-day fruit and vegetables. Although she got an aspect of fractions wrong which Laura had to correct, the class loved the Noughts and Crosses team game around which she framed some intital questions about weight values, and enjoyed weighing the portions of real fruit and veg she had brought with her. I worked with a pair of students during this exercise, which I was happy with.
After the break the whole class moved rooms to a computer lab where they all did individual tests and online work sheets. I worked with one student on a test, which went well enough. Then while they were working alone, Laura, Yasmin and I discussed next week's class and activities. I volunteered to create some worksheets around estimating prices, actual prices and adding more of the five-a-day portions. It was agreed that I'd need to include pictures to help the wheelchair student who has poor literacy skills.
In the break, Yasmin told me that last year's FT DTLLS course had been run by four tutors for two classes, but they had many problems, especially around mentors and placements - which have certainly not been solved this year. It seems that all four tutors took voluntary severance after being off long-term sick (stress) at various points during year. Mike was dismissed but appealed and was reinstated - to end up running the full time course more or less single-handed. I went up to the departmental office after class and had the conversation with Scott, as reported below.
Wednesday 12 - 3pm: the Literacy class I've observed a couple of times already. The normal room was having the ITC equipment upgraded so we all, me pushing the wheelchair student, decamped to a less than pleasant classroom in another block without the suite of PCs these students are used to. After a group ice-breaker/recap, Laura set the class differentiated tasks on handouts; I worked with the more advanced group on Active and Passive voices, rewriting sentences from one to the other. I enjoyed working with them, though even amongst three there was a mix of abilities and I wasn't sure I kept the least able learner focused and completely understanding the concept. When I checked his learning with directed questions, though, he seemed to have taken the concept on board.
Normally the second half of the class would have been individual working at PCs, but as this was not possible, Laura asked the class to visit the Information Store (library) and borrow a book or DVD to bring and talk about in class next week. She asked me to find some handouts for next week on commas and clauses, simple and complex sentences.
During this first week of teaching practice, although I didn't take any class on my own for any time, I was reassured that I would in time, with Laura's support, be able to do so, starting with small time periods and working upwards. I felt I related well to the students I did work with, and started to get a feel for their learning styles and abilities.
My biggest area for development remains directed questioning, and asking questions that properly check learning and promote attention and confidence. I also don't think I would have had the experience to note the signs and deal with the problems of the learner in the Monday Surestart class.
25 November 2009
I'm not alone
How exciting - two comments on the post before last, and my site meter tells me a few other people have read this blog other than me and the two (now one) course tutors who presumably check in with this Reflective Journal occasionally.
One from James Atherton, whose website learningandteaching.info is a brilliant resource for trainee teachers like me - and even has a ready made reference to cut and paste into the Reference page of your essays! It has all the theories and principles summarised succinctly but critically with wit, humour and further refs. He's even quoted me in his Recent Reflections blog and made some insightful comments about my moaning.
And another from Sean whose Reflective Journal post on some of the teaching he's been on the receiving end of is quite horrifying. Makes it even more ridiculous that our college has dismissed one of the apparently few good teachers in Adult Education.
One from James Atherton, whose website learningandteaching.info is a brilliant resource for trainee teachers like me - and even has a ready made reference to cut and paste into the Reference page of your essays! It has all the theories and principles summarised succinctly but critically with wit, humour and further refs. He's even quoted me in his Recent Reflections blog and made some insightful comments about my moaning.
And another from Sean whose Reflective Journal post on some of the teaching he's been on the receiving end of is quite horrifying. Makes it even more ridiculous that our college has dismissed one of the apparently few good teachers in Adult Education.
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