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.

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.