PG's Ponderings

It’s the end of 2014 – time to think about what we are, what we do and why we do it in this crazy, awe-inspiring profession of ours... standing in front of young minds every day: entertaining, leading, suggesting, facilitating, questioning, supporting...the list goes on. So here are some possible answers to the question – What do you do? 11 Habits of an Effective Teacher to consider for 2015 ENJOYS TEACHING. Teaching is meant to be a very enjoyable and rewarding career field (although demanding and exhausting at times!). You should only become a teacher if you love children and intend on caring for them with your heart. Let your passion for teaching shine through each and everyday. Enjoy every teaching moment to the fullest. MAKES A DIFFERENCE. There is a saying, "With great power, comes great responsibility". As a teacher, you need to be aware and remember the great responsibility that comes with your profession. One of your goals ought to be: Make a difference in their liv...

We talk about the value of Camps and the success or failure of the learning opportunities attached to them. If we look at the theory of experiential learning , and transfer that approach to our camps, we may find a basis to use this time as an effective learning process. Experiential learning is a powerful way to address individual growth and potential, which is commonly a much neglected approach to teaching and developing people of all ages. Experiential learning is adaptable for individual style, preferences, strengths, direction, etc. As such it is more likely than conventional prescribed training or teaching to produce positive emotional effects, notably confidence, self-esteem, and a sense of personal value and purpose. People need learning which is adaptable for them as individuals, and also the traditional prescriptive teaching and training focused on external needs, typically of the organisation, or to pass exams or gain qualifications. It is important to use the best sort of l...

Seven Keys to Effective Feedback Grant Wiggins Advice, evaluation, grades—none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback—and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is—and isn't. What Is Feedback, Anyway? The term feedback is often used to describe all kinds of comments mad...

by Michael Michalko for Think Jar Collective (2013) . We learn about great ideas and we learn the names of the creative geniuses who created them, but we are seldom taught about how they got the ideas. Following are twelve things about creative thinking: YOU ARE CREATIVE. The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not. The reality is that believing you are not creative excuses you from trying or attempting anything new. When someone tells you that they are not creative, you are talking to someone who has no interest and will make no effort to be a creative thinker. CREATIVE THINKING IS WORK. You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then yo...

Thank you for your collective contribution to the discussion on Friday – it had me thinking about the power of collective thought which led to this article: Is Collective Intelligence Like Individual Intelligence? by Tom Atlee (2003). The article follows. The capacities I explore here are perception, communication, memory, reflection, problem-solving, creativity, implementation, and feedback. They are listed in a loose order (we perceive first, then think about what we saw, then implement what we decide, etc.). Keep in mind, however, that these capacities are not really separate or linear. Most of them are deeply involved in each other's functioning. But I think you will find it interesting to explore them separately with me here... PERCEPTION - Seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. -- these are different ways we absorb information from our environment, or gather it from within ourselves. This information is the foundation for everything we do with our intelligence. HOW DO WE DO THIS CO...

Reynolds, 2009 says that inquiry learning allows the students to partake in their own learning and therefore allowing the learning to be unpredictable and open-ended. It will permit the students to take on the role of understanding as to what is happening in their world and to use prior knowledge already obtained as the starting point for their learning on a particular topic. Reynolds, 2009 continues to explain that inquiry learning permits the teacher to work along the students in developing their learning together giving teachers a better understanding and perspective when creating lesson as to what the students are already familiar with and what they would like to know about a particular topic that is being studied in class. It will also allow the students to have a better perception about their lessons therefore giving the students the opportunity to obtain a deeper knowledge about the subject that is to be taught. Pelton (2010) says that for teachers inquiry learning will place an...

Alan McLean (2003) , identified three internal drivers that motivate all learners and that a greater understanding of these drivers by schools and teachers can help to increase levels of self-motivation. Affiliation: feelings of belonging and connectedness with others. Agency: the degree of self-belief or self-confidence. It is the belief that one has the capacity and ability to learn and achieve. Autonomy: the capacity to be self-determining and to exercise control The implications for teachers and schools Mclean identifies strategies that will help schools to develop a climate where both teachers and students can become more self-motivated. He calls them the 'external drivers' of motivation. They are: Engagement - taking a genuine interest in individuals: valuing, respecting and affirming them as people and having high expectations of what they might achieve. Structure - providing people with a secure environment in which they know where they stand and are clear what is expe...

"2014 is the year the Web turns 25. Today, 19 August, marks the anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, releasing the code of the WWW to the public by making the files available on the net via FTP (refer to the History of the World Wide Web for more details). Last March in Vancouver, Tim Berners-Lee gave a TED Talk: A Magna Carta for the Web , that was just released by the TED conference: These are extracted from his concluding remarks: What sort of web do you want? I want one which is not fragmented into lots of pieces, as some countries have been suggesting they should do in reaction to recent surveillance. I want a web which is, for example, a really good basis for democracy. I want a web where I can use healthcare with privacy and where there's a lot of health data, clinical data is available to scientists to do research. I want a web where the other 60 percent get on board as fast as possible. I want a web which is such a powerful basis for innova...

We have a number of feedback tools. These questions are also useful: What did you like best about this year’s course? What did you like least about this year’s course? What would you suggest that I change? What surprised you most about the work covered? What don't you understand or need help in? Make a list of some of the new things that you learned or found out during the course. Why do you remember those particular points? What do you want to remember about the course work? When do you think you will use what you learned during the course? How did my teaching help you to understand the course? What would have made the learning environment in our class better for you during the year? Katie Lepi's 7 Effective Templates for Teacher Feedback (Edudemic.com, 17 May 2014) is also a very useful resource.

"...a practitioner (who) does not reflect, ... is inattentive to the limits of his actions." (Schön, 1982, p. 282). Schön argued that teaching is not "a method but an art". He postulated that the "artful teacher" will find a way to solve the problems of his students by looking at himself, stating that a teacher will invent new methods to "develop in himself the ability of discovering them". Schön put forward a novel approach, the idea of "reflection-in-practice" and "reflection-on-practice" in which the researcher becomes a part of the practice, allowing the proceedings of practice to continue, thereby confirming the legitimacy of the practice. This approach is based on the teacher demonstrating a "tacit knowing-in-action" which reflects an intuitive understanding of everyday actions. Schön suggested that the reflective practitioner endeavours to make sense of the issues which he or she encounters through the refle...

This particular technique involves a four-question set that gets students actively responding to the material they are studying. They analyse, reflect, relate, and question via these four prompts: Identify one important concept, research finding, theory, or idea ... that you learned while completing this activity. Why do you believe that this concept, research finding, theory, or idea ... is important? Apply what you have learned from this understanding to the context of the question? What question(s) has the activity raised for you? What are you still wondering about? [You might need to prohibit the answer "nothing".] Key steps to follow: Which details seem significant? Why? What is the significance of this detail? What does it mean? What might it mean? How do the details fit together? What do they have in common? What does this pattern of details mean? What else might this pattern suggest? What other explanation could be given? What details do not seem to fit? What other pa...

This term we will start on the three key focus points for students preparation for the examinations and the ending of the course programmes: Listening – listen to where your students are at in their examination preparation or in the course completion. Questioning – what do your students need, what are they asking for, and what questions are you asking them. Analysing - identifying, clarifying and developing solutions and answers to the questions – fine tuning the learning and the examination preparation. To analyse something is to ask what that something means. It is to ask how something does what it does or why it is as it is. Analysis is the kind of think-ink you'll most often be asked to do in your work life and in school; it is not the rarefied and exclusive province of scholars and intellectuals. It is, in fact, one of the most common of our mental activities. Most people already analyse all the time, but they often don't realize that this is what they're doing...

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In preparing for the examination, it may be useful to get the students to develop their own questions, based on what they know. Begin the revision with Students Developing Questions: Have your class think of questions that could be asked about the exam topics. Create a Taxonomy of Questions: When students begin to label the different kinds of questions, they learn to select different kinds of questions to perform different kinds of thinking. No matter what the level of schooling, some kind of label can work effectively. Ask Students to Create Questions as Homework (this would work with the Flipped Classroom): Put your classroom questioning typology to work with their examination preparation. If students read a question, let them form extension questions for the next day's discussion. Try these six key steps: Teachers Design a Question Focus. The Question Focus is a prompt that can be presented in the form of a statement or a visual or aural aid to focus and attract student atten...

This term we will start on the three key focus points for students preparation for the examinations and the ending of the course programmes: Listening – listen to where your students are at in their examination preparation or in the course completion. Questioning – what do your students need, what are they asking for, and what questions are you asking them. Analysing - identifying, clarifying and developing solutions and answers to the questions – fine tuning the learning and the examination preparation. Communication is a difficult art. Good communication ensures that what is communicated is received in the same manner and tone as was intended, not merely as it was said. The key to good communication is context, i.e. the framework one communicates within. For example, a question may be made in class which each student may perceive very differently, as they will come from very different contexts or starting points. The secret of good communication is to take these differences in c...

Tactics for encouraging a deeper level of listening that also include student accountability: Strategy #1: Say it Once Repeating ourselves in the classroom will produce lazy listening in our students. If kids are accustomed to hearing instructions twice, three times, and even four times, listening the first time around becomes unnecessary. Make this term a one time format, or for those few who forgot to listen, you can advise them to, "ask three, then ask me." Strategy #2: Turn and Talk One way to inspire active listening in your students is to give them a listening task. It might look like this, "I'm going to describe the process of _________. I will pause along the way and ask you to turn to a partner and explain to them what you heard." You can ask students to take turns talking each time you pause, and meanwhile, walk around observing their conversations (also allowing you to check for understanding). Strategy #3: Student Hand Signals Asking students to pay...

This term we will start on the three key focus points for students preparation for the examinations and the ending of the course programmes: Listening – listen to where your students are at in their examination preparation or in the course completion. Questioning – what do your students need, what are they asking for, and what questions are you asking them. Analysing - identifying, clarifying and developing solutions and answers to the questions – fine tuning the learning and the examination preparation. Listening and learning: Some suggestions on how to identify those students who may struggle to listen and learn and to respond to your focus on their listening skills. You should also consider your own ways of interacting and the expectations you have of your students: it may be that changes on your part will enable them to feel they can communicate more readily. Take note of learners who: rarely or never volunteer in group situations appear to have low self-esteem or confidence ...

Graham Aitken on Developing an Inquiry Approach: "Teaching effectiveness is determined by the quality of inquiry into the relationship between teacher actions and student learning." Effective teachers inquire into the relationship between what they do (style) and what happens for students (outcomes). But effective teachers do more than simply inquire (or reflect) – they take action (in relation to what they are doing in the classroom) to improve the outcomes for students and continue to inquire into the value of these interventions. Thus effective teaching is more than style and it is more than outcomes – it is the continual interrogation of the relationship between these two dimensions with the aim of enhancing student achievement. Such a model implies particular attitudes or dispositions (open-mindedness, fallibility) and particular actions (questioning students about what they are understanding) but it does not prescribe or checklist such qualities. It simply prescribes...

Good assessment and feedback practice should: Help clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, standards). To what extent do students in your course have opportunities to engage actively with goals, criteria and standards, before, during and after an assessment task? Encourage ‘time and effort’ on challenging learning tasks. To what extent do your assessment tasks encourage regular study in and out of class and deep rather than surface learning? Deliver high quality feedback information that helps learners self-correct. What kind of teacher feedback do you provide—in what ways does it help students self-assess and self-correct? Provide opportunities to act on feedback (to close any gap between current and desired performance). To what extent is feedback attended to and acted upon by students in your course, and if so, in what ways? Ensure that summative assessment has a positive impact on learning. To what extent are your summative and formative assessments aligned to and suppor...

This week – a Humanities response Where do you stand? Engage in the discussion. Humanities perspective is needed in all global challenges The key conviction around which the debate swirls is that the world desperately needs the insights of the humanities. Socio-economic progress, developmental challenges and the intelligent addressing of complex world issues require a combination of skills drawn from the humanities, social sciences and Stem subjects to design and deliver holistic and fully informed solutions. Increasingly, development agencies assert that technologically sound, engineering-based projects are failing because they don't take sufficient account of the cultural context. These projects, in concept, design and implementation, lack the human perspective that recognises that no global issue, developmental problem or socio-economic challenge can be fully understood, let alone resolved, without real evidence of how the local community and the rest of humanity are experiencin...