Notes for a new term

The end of the first semester has meant a bit of reflection about the successes and failures of the courses that have just finished, so that particularly the failures can make my this semester's courses better. In the spirit of so many blog posts and suchlike, I am going to do a top-5 list of things I can do better this time around.

1. Don't overcomplicate things. It is good to offer options to students and to give them freedom to choose or take their inquiries in the direction that appeals to them, however, in one of my modules I ended up assessing two different standards at two different levels, which meant four sets of marking and moderating. Not to mention the sheer logistics of differentiating my instructions to students! Madness. It is much better to do one thing really well, and have choice within that as necessary.

2. Keep the learning objectives in mind. No matter what you are teaching, you will have to report on it at some point. If you use your learning objectives to keep your teaching on track, it also will make the reporting both relevant and easier. (This doesn't mean 'teach to the test', that is something else again, because what a test is, is and should be completely different from learning objectives.) Learning objectives are what your students are supposed to be learning, so shouldn't that be what you (I) are teaching?

3. Mark as you go. I am a shocker for leaving everything till the big main assessment, and then having all of my classes with marking due in the same week. And marking is not my favourite part of this job.  Even though all of the work that students are doing throughout the course is relevant, and there are some good, assessable activities amongst them, which won't even take that long, I just somehow always seem to forget that, and end up at a point where if I were to mark everything that I originally intended, it would take me three weeks longer than I actually have. So, do lots of small bits of marking, and don't procrastinate, and even, plan small bits that you will mark within a larger class or activity and then, do just that bit. (I'm being aspirational here, I know, but it's a plan...)

4. It's okay to do teaching. A lot of what we do is inquiry based, and student choice and voice are really important. But to begin a new course or class, actually students do need some context, so that they can find out what they don't know, in order to find out 'the answer', or an answer. And sometimes, some information, via some sort of text, and then some questions about it, equals scaffolding! Seriously, this definition only just occurred to me right now. I am so pleased with myself. Because I like teaching, and making students think about stuff they never would have themselves, and I like to take their brains and make them hurt, just a bit, and this is because one of the things that is most important to me is doing the action of thinking. Students are not always going to know what questions to ask, but you can lead them towards those questions.

5. Do what you love. The best classes are the ones you are really involved in because it's what you are really passionate about or interested in. Students know that too. The teachers I remember are the ones who really loved their content, so that even if I hated it (Animal Farm and allegory in 7th form English, anyone?), I still responded to it. That's as true now the classes are called year whatever as it was when they were primers, standards and forms. So the stuff you geek out on as a person - and we all do - should be the stuff you teach, simple as that.

I have a plan now, and at nearly the end of week one, I am achieving it so far. We'll see how the rest of the term and semester go.

Just as an aside, isn't it funny how so many years of experience make you think there is nothing left to learn, but then you start to do things differently, and the learning starts all over? I much prefer the continually learning version, it's a lot more fun.

Something (else) completely new - the follow-up.

Last Tuesday, for the first time ever, I presented a professional learning workshop to a group of teachers. Not from my school, but from 3 other local high schools in a combined schools professional learning day, so to an unknown audience. As I described last week, beforehand, I was feeling quite daunted by the whole thing, because it is quite different presenting to your peers from a position of equality than it is teaching a class of students.

In the end, as everyone told me it would, it went really well. I tried not to include too much (and skipped the part where I had written in orange to skip if I was running short of time) and had a mix of theory/information and practical activities. I followed my plan, and the timings I included seemed to be pretty realistic ...

Until it got to the bit where I was demonstrating how we do things here. In the best possible way, the workshop got hijacked at that point, because there were so many interesting and interested questions. The last half hour completely disappeared. 

In the same way that a sidetrack in class can be the best teaching you do, because of the engagement and questioning involved, that last half hour was probably the most productive in making my 'students' think about their own practice and how it might be modified. They were really interested in the practicalities; having accepted that change needs to happen in their own contexts, they really wanted to know how. I feel that I was helpful, both in initiating some of the thinking, and with providing the beginnings of answers. I know that I gave them plenty to take back to their own schools.

I also got lots of requests for access to the information sources I shared and the ideas, so I put together a slideshow which included everything. In hindsight, I should have done it beforehand, and used that to run the workshop, but that is definitely part of the learning curve. Having done this once, I definitely want to do it again.

Here is the slideshow I put together:

I think the main thing that I was trying to convey, and the most important idea for me anyway, is that modern learning doesn't necessarily need beautiful high-tech surroundings to happen in. In many ways, having this available to new schools is a deterrent to schools and teachers who are in traditional surroundings, as they feel the practice is tied to the environment. Modern learning practice is simply another way of thinking about the role of education and teachers, in that the focus is on the learning of the students, not the teaching of the teachers. Looking at the NZ curriculum and understanding what it really wants us as practitioners to do, and then looking for ways to do that, can take anyone in any environment forward; all it needs is the will to make that cognitive change.