Educators | doug woods

Posts Tagged ‘Educators’

Lesson Plans or Learning Plans?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

: Image via Wikipedia

In a previous post I mentioned the opportunity I had to observe a group of teachers doing team planning. As well as the observations I noted in that post, there was a further observation that I want to talk about in this post. It appeared to me that most of the teachers taking part in the team planning exercise were essentially still creating what I’d regard as an old style lesson plan. That is to say, it was to be a lesson that was to be delivered by the teacher and the planning focused more on what the teacher was going to do or what the teacher was going to get the pupils to do and what resources would be needed. The lesson, while not always a straightforward ‘sage on the stage’ approach, was certainly one that emphasised teacher direction or teacher facilitation, focused more on the teaching rather than the learning or the learner.

This type of planning was very familiar and would have been easily recognisable to a teacher 10, 20, even 30 years ago, it was only the resources available which were different; the approaches were much the same. This led me to wonder how might we change lesson planning to be more reflective of modern learning approaches?

It seems to me that the plan could be less about the structure of the lesson and more about the learning. I know they are called ‘lesson’ plans and in the past they have tended to describe the content of the lesson. Nowadays, though learning doesn’t just take place in the lesson; it can extend into the home and via out of school activities. There are also a wide range of informal learning opportunities which a learner can bring to contribute to their learning. So there is no need now for our planning to be restricted to a traditional lesson structure.

I know some people will argue, quite correctly, that we have always given homework to learners, where appropriate, to supplement their learning in school. However, the concept of ‘homework’ is quite dated now. It would be wrong, perhaps, to continue to think in terms of schoolwork and homework. It would be better to think simply in terms of ‘learning’ and what formal learning that takes place at home is an integral part of the ‘school’ work that takes place also in school.

So instead of presenting the learners with schoolwork in a lesson and then giving them homework to be done afterwards at home, a teacher would present learners with, say, an area or topic for study. A lesson or a series of lessons would be made available for the learners to study this in school, supported by the teacher, a range of resources and the face to face guidance of the teacher. In addition to these school sessions, a learner would be required to continue or extend their studies outside lessons, bringing in any experiences, resources available to them together with outcomes from any informal learning they may feel is relevant.

So Learning Plans would contain more than just plans for a lesson, they would seek to set out a number and range of ways in which learners could explore a subject area. Each of these ways would be designed to ensure the learner encounters particular objectives. Each of the ways could incorporate a different learning style, so as to appeal to different learners. There could even be discussion between teacher and learner as to what particular types of activities they would like the chance to explore.

In a way, I guess you could see a learning plan a bit like a treasure map but with different routes to the treasure, or maybe even several different treasure locations.

Developing independent young learners through learning how to learn (slideshare.net)
Diverse Children’s Learning Styles And Activities (brighthub.com)
Creating and Using a Learning Styles Chart (brighthub.com)
Lesson Plans Integrating Differentiation (brighthub.com)
Designing Informal Learning (elearningstuff.wordpress.com)
Learning Score, a lesson-planning tool. [Review] (dougbelshaw.com)

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Tags: Education, Educators, K through 12, Learning, Learning styles, Lesson, Lesson plan, Teacher
Posted in Transforming Learning | 2 Comments »

Do Learners want Teachers?

Monday, December 12th, 2011

: Image via Wikipedia

Do Learners want Teachers?

It seems a strange question, doesn’t it, but do learners want teachers?

Over recent years there has been a shift in emphasis away from teaching and teachers toward learning and learners. This has been to such an extent that even a major quango spent thousands changing one of its departments from Teaching and Learning to Learning and Teaching.

I will say, though, that I think the change in emphasis is justified; learning is more important than teaching.

A teacher in a school can teach and teach as much as they can but if the people they are teaching do not learn, then the teacher has been wasting time; the role of the teacher is to enable and ensure that learning takes place. Of course, any and every teacher knows this and also knows different strategies and approaches to facilitate learning. At the end of the day, a school is judged on how/what the learners have learnt (or parts of what they have learned) rather than on what teaching took place.

Increasingly, we hear people say that the learner is responsible for their learning and that the role of the teacher is to guide the learner through their learning. The teacher standing in front of the class is something that is frowned upon nowadays, rather the teacher should be at the side of the learner to give support and direction; this is the ‘sage on the stage’ versus ‘the guide at the side’ argument.

While we can accept that the role of the teacher is changing, that learning is now seen as more important than teaching and that the learner now has responsibility for their learning, does this mean that teaching or the teacher are no longer valued?

I think not. It still seems that people want teaching and value good teachers. Let us consider an example; if you wanted to learn something completely new and, all things, such as price, being equal which approach might you choose? You could choose to learn from an online course, from text books or attend classes led by a teacher/tutor/facilitator.

Most people would appear to opt for an approach that involves a teacher over a completely self-learning approach. Even if the approach had just one session with a teacher, it would appear to be preferred over an approach that has no teaching element. It would seem, therefore, that learners do value being taught or, at least, having some teaching input.

Consider the training courses you have been on, though, and ask yourself what have been the most valuable parts of those courses. The chances are that you will say the most valuable parts have been those times when you have been allowed to trial, play, or explore for yourself. These have probably been the times when you have been able to learn what you have wanted to learn or to learn what appears most relevant to you or your work.

Other valuable parts may have occurred when you found yourself ‘lost’ or had made a mistake and called upon the teacher to help you fix the situation and to avoid it happening again.

How many of us, also, have been on a course that we initially thought would be a ‘waste of time’ only to have new light or new possibilities created because of the enthusiasm, passion or skill of the teacher?

So the value of having a teacher would appear to lie in having an expert on hand, in having someone to at least introduce an area of learning to us and in having someone open our eyes to new possibilities. So while it may be clear that the nature of teaching and the role of the teacher may be changing, it is also clear that teaching and good teachers are also highly valued.

Inspiring active learning with limited resources (guardian.co.uk)
Examples of Diverse Learning Styles (brighthub.com)
Reflections (gartmanbarryedm310.blogspot.com)
Fred Garnett on how to create new contexts for your own learning (alchemi.co.uk)

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Tags: Education, Educators, K through 12, Learning, Learning Theories, Methods and Theories, school, Teacher
Posted in Training INSET and CPD | 1 Comment »

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

Monday, September 5th, 2011

There was a post on the inaugural #ukedchat twitter debate posted by @JamesClay which read

“Before you answer how, you need to really answer and explain the why you should be using tech in education.”

Unfortunately, I was travelling home on a rather crowded train and was unable to fully follow the online debate but this post caught my attention and made me think;

“Do we really need to explain to teachers why they should be using technology in their lessons?”

I go into schools often and also meet other teachers on training sessions. I often meet teachers who do not use technology or who use it only a little. It is clear, though, that each of them know that they could and should be using technology or using it more. Quite often, these teachers will express their worries that they’re not using ICT and that they sometimes feel their class are missing out compared to pupils in a different class.

In reality, the ‘why’ teachers use educational technology is well established and accepted, even among those teachers who rarely or reluctantly use it. I don’t feel it would be very productive to continue ‘banging on’ about why teachers should use technology in their lessons; this message has already been received.

What may be lacking in some teachers is the knowledge of ‘what’ technology to use or ‘how’ it can be used. This may often be accompanied by a low level of confidence in using the technology and possibly poor experiences of trying to use it in the past. Where this is the case, we need to be able to provide training to enable the teachers to explore technology and to ‘play’ with it in order to develop their confidence and allow them to identify for themselves the ways in which they might use it in their teaching.

In terms of the ‘what’ to use, it may often be the case that teachers have had exposure to only a limited range of technology. This is sometimes the case where the technology is situated in a special room, such as a computer suite, and can only be accessed if ‘booked’ or scheduled on a timetable. This can be further compounded if the technology is seen as being the ‘property’ or domain of a particular person or department within the school.

I mentioned, in a previous paragraph, the need for training, for me, the word ‘training’ is not the best word to use. What we are talking about here is more professional skills development and peer collaboration. At least that is the way I try to approach teacher ‘training’ sessions. Training seems to imply that there is something you lack and, until you get it, you are not a full professional. This seems to be an almost negative and demoralising, maybe even patronising, approach which doesn’t really convey a positive, supportive and professional approach.

In my many years of working with teachers, I have consistently found that if you give them a piece of kit, or anything, and ask them how it could be used in a lesson, they will come up with 101 suggestions, most of which you will never even have thought of before. Let us not forget that these are teachers; they are intelligent people with lively curious minds who genuinely want to give the best for their learners.

Okay, so we have established that we no longer need to explain to teachers why they should be using technology in their lessons, it is the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ that needs to be tackled. I have also suggested that, in my opinion, changing our approach to training would be beneficial. The question still remains, though, as to ‘How can we get more teachers to use technology effectively in their teaching?’ which was the question posed at the beginning of the #ukedchat twitter debate.

a transcript of the #ukedchat twitter debate can be downloaded here

Top 100 Technology Blogs for Teachers (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader: Are You REALLY an Ed Tech Leader (ictineducation.org)
Outfitting 21st Century Classrooms with 21st Century Teachers (isteconnects.org)
The Best Blogs for Tech Savvy Teachers (brighthub.com)
Preparing Teachers for the Digital Future (microsoftontheissues.com)
Technology Does Leave a Permanent Record (haroldshawjr.com)
Educational Technology Quotes (slideshare.net)

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

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Tags: Education, Educators, K through 12, Knowledge, Professional development, school, Teacher, Technology
Posted in Classroom Technology, Training INSET and CPD | 1 Comment »

Lesson Capture and Flipping the Classroom

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

In a previous post, I wrote about Lesson Capture being used as a way of recording lessons for pupils to view afterwards. This was as a way of providing pupils with additional learning opportunities, the chance to catch up on anything in a lesson they may have missed and a chance for absent pupils to avoid missing out all together on a lesson. This approach would also be useful for pupils as they approach revision and exam periods as the recorded lessons can be viewed as an aid to revision.

In this post, I want to look at another use of lesson capture, one which might have a more profound effect upon class teaching.

When we approach a new subject or topic, we know that we have to introduce it to the pupils. Quite often this will involve giving over a session, in part or as a whole, to the introduction. The introduction is often the easiest part, though of course some pupils always take longer than others to understand it. It is often, though, the more advanced or in depth study of the subject which requires more time and more teacher support.

Wouldn’t it be great if the pupils could go away and study the introductory part on their own and then allow more lesson time to be devoted to supporting deeper study? I feel that lesson capture can be a tremendous help in allowing this. If an introductory session could be captured and the pupils (including the pupils in subsequent years) be directed to watch the recording as, say, homework, then the pupils will come to the lesson with prior knowledge of the subject/topic and, thereby, allow greater lesson time and teacher support to be given to more in depth study.

To some teachers, this may be a new idea but there are others who have already successfully tried it as part of an approach known as ‘flipping the classroom’. Doing an internet search for that phrase will turn up a wealth of resources but the following links could be a good place to start if you want to understand more about the concept of the flipped classroom.

http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/teachers-doing-the-flip-to-help-students-become-learners-531.php

http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/how-the-flipped-classroom-is-radically-transforming-learning-536.php

http://www.learningconversations.co.uk/main/index.php/2011/03/19/flipping-the-classroom?blog=5

Lesson Capture : An for Introduction Teachers (dougwoods.co.uk)
Skype in the Classroom (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
How to Flip Your Classroom – and Get Your Students to Do the Work (sharingtree.wordpress.com)

Lesson Capture and Flipping the Classroom

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Tags: Classroom, Education, Educators, K through 12, Lesson, lesson capture, Teacher
Posted in education | No Comments »

The Best and Most Rewarding Job?

Monday, July 18th, 2011

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You’d think that working with children and young people, helping them learn, grow and develop would be one of the best and most rewarding of jobs. Yet often it isn’t. Just ask any teacher about the stress, the long hours, the pressures of working in a school and you’ll begin to wonder if there isn’t someting wrong with our education system.

Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll uncover more of the story. Teachers will tell you that it isn’t working with the pupils that’s the problem; it’s all the extra bits! By which they usually mean the paper work, the long hours spent in school and at home on preparation or marking. This has long been the case in education but has it got any worse over the years and what role does technology play in this?

I believe that technology is both an aid and a culprit when we look into teacher stress. Let me give you an example, take lesson planning; lesson planning takes time, it takes time to identify the aims, objectives and outcomes of a lesson, to identify and plan the use of resources, to set evaluation and success criteria, to identify differentiation etc.. Using a computer may make it easier to draw up lesson plans in a common format or template, printing a lesson plan may well be easier than writing it out by hand but does this mean it takes less time to create a lesson plan? Not really, it is the thinking and the planning that goes into a good lesson plan that takes time rather than the writing, so typing and printing saves only a small amount of time compared to writing by hand.

So why, then, do we expect teachers to write more detailed lesson plans? By using computers, we are often asking teachers to spend longer doing lesson plans than they used to. Ironic isn’t it?

Some people, and I am not one of them, believe that the purpose of ICT in schools is to make admin tasks quicker and easier for teachers so that they can devote more time to teaching and learning. This may sound good but what is happening is that teachers are being asked to do more and more admin tasks that take them away from teaching and learning.

Few teachers come into the profession, if it can still be called a profession, to do paper work. Teachers are not office workers and should not be regarded as such. The professional teacher is concerned with pupil learning, getting the best out of their pupils. Professional teachers welcome technology into the classroom where it has a clear benefit for learning and that, I feel, should be the focus of using technology in schools.

I’m sure that if we focused our efforts in using technology in support of learning rather than emphasising its role in school administration, we could once again see a happy workforce of teachers and also see learners benefiting from working with happy school staff.

In Praise of Entropy (ictineducation.org)
An Education Website Review of LessonSnips.com (brighthub.com)
Welcome to my dream school (guardian.co.uk)
Would More Time in the Classroom Help Our Education System? (triplepundit.com)
About My Job: The Teacher (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
What Teachers Learn (socyberty.com)
Pupils do better at school if teachers are not fixated on test results (guardian.co.uk)
Does skills-based learning face a lean future? (guardian.co.uk)
Young, gifted and likely to suffer for it (guardian.co.uk)

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Tags: Education, Educators, Information and communication technologies in education, K through 12, Learning, Lesson plan, Teacher, Technology
Posted in Classroom Technology | 1 Comment »

A Christmas Gift for Teachers

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

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It’s that time of year once more when people starting asking silly questions like ‘ what would be the best christmas gift for a teacher?’ or ‘ if you were a teacher, what would your new year resolution be?’ I’ll leave the second question for a bit later but I’ll try my hand at the former.

What would make the best Christmas present for teachers?

Well, if it were in my power to grant all teachers a gift, I think I’d give them back their professional status. When I became a teacher way back in time, it was still regarded as a profession and teachers were considered professionals. Over the years, it seems that the status of teachers has become eroded and the value of teachers, in the eyes of society, diminished.

I recall some twenty years ago seeing an application form for a bank loan in which ‘teaching’ was cited as an example of a ‘semi-professional’ occupation. Sadly, today, I think teachers are now regarded as little more than ‘employees’.

I have in the last few years visited several new build schools and I am dismayed to see that teachers have often been overlooked in the design process. I have been in classrooms, or learning spaces, where boards are placed so high on the wall that a teacher cannot reach the top (let alone a student). I have been in new schools where there is no staffroom. In a couple of cases, there were not even separate staff toilets, I kid you not! Has it come to such a state that teachers are forgotten?

Why is it that society feels it can ignore its teachers? Do people still believe that teachers only work short hours and enjoy long holidays? Anyone who is a teacher or who lives with a teacher will know that that is far from the case. In reality, teachers are amongst the hardest working of all in our society.

The negative view of teachers, though, is not found only outside our education system, it is also to be observed within schools. See how the gulf has emerged between Headteachers and senior management teams, on the one hand, and the teachers, on the other, within schools. See how a class teacher has to undergo performance management with observations and evaluations every school term. Jumping through ‘hoops’ and meeting performance targets is not a sign of professionalism; it is a sign of mistrust! Why do we instill a culture of mistrust between senior staff and teachers in our schools?

Is it any wonder that more and more teachers no longer seek to become headteachers; increasingly the two are no longer seen as being part of the same profession or the same ‘team’.

So, if I could grant teachers one gift this Christmas, I’d give them back their status as professionals.

Christmas Gifts for Teachers: 10 Great Possibilities (wisebread.com)
Barren Classrooms Prompt a Nonprofit to Offer a New Kind of Holiday Gift for Teachers – it’s even tax-deductible (prweb.com)
How to Buy A Gift for Your Teacher (wepay.com)
Christmas Gifts 2010: 8 Gift Ideas For Teachers (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)

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Tags: Christmas, Educators, Santa Claus
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Education Just Cannot Win

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Today is one of those days when, it seems, Education just cannot win. It’s the day when, in England, students receive the results of their A level examinations.

The significance of these results is that any student wishing to progress on to Higher Education will do so based upon the grades achieved in these examinations. So not getting the grades needed in these examinations, could mean that the student misses out on their chosen place at university.

Of course, teachers also get nervous at this time, hoping that their students have done well and achieved the grades they needed (or better). Schools, too, hope that the results of their students are good; good grades achieved by pupils makes it easier to attract new students to the school.

What often happens, though, is that if the grades achieved by students across the country are good, then people, well some people, well, actually, some newspapers and the people who read them, will say that the examinations are too easy. It seems strange that, in some people’s eyes, good grades don’t seem to be an indication of the quality and quantity of teaching and learning going on in schools; it only seems to be taken as an indication of a ‘dumbing down’ of the examination system.

Of course, if the grades across the country are poor, then the same newspapers and their readers start to claim that it is a reflection of poor teaching.

So, you see, whichever way it goes, today is a day education just cannot win. At least not in the eyes of the media. Behind the stories, though, are young adults whose futures could be, in part, determined by the outcomes of today; many of them will be successful and many will not. Let us hope that today is a day for celebrating for most students, their families, teachers and schools.

A-level results: stories from the chalkface (guardian.co.uk)
Pupils do better at school if teachers are not fixated on test results (guardian.co.uk)
Clearing 2010: Universities offer lifeline to top students (guardian.co.uk)
1 in 12 A-levels have new A* grade (independent.co.uk)
Clearing 2010: Demand for degree places adds to pressure on colleges (guardian.co.uk)
A-level results 2010: Live clearing advice (guardian.co.uk)
Cambridge University warns against A-levels reform plan (guardian.co.uk)

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Tags: A Level, Colleges and Universities, Education, Educators, England, GCE Advanced Level, Higher education, school, Student
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘Educators’

Lesson Plans or Learning Plans?

Do Learners want Teachers?

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

Lesson Capture and Flipping the Classroom

The Best and Most Rewarding Job?

A Christmas Gift for Teachers

Education Just Cannot Win

Contact me

Follow us on Twitter

Doug Woods

Posts Tagged ‘Educators’

Lesson Plans or Learning Plans?

Related articles by Zemanta

Do Learners want Teachers?

Related articles by Zemanta

Do we Still Need to Explain Why Teachers Should use Educational Technology?

Related articles by Zemanta

Lesson Capture and Flipping the Classroom

Related articles

The Best and Most Rewarding Job?

Related articles

A Christmas Gift for Teachers

Related articles

Education Just Cannot Win

Related articles by Zemanta

Contact me

Follow us on Twitter

Doug Woods