Instructional Coaching course
Earlier in the month I attended the Instructional Coaching Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. This institute is designed to give an overview of The Impact Cycle as developed by Jim Knight, and how this is an integral part to the instructional coaching model. I produced the Summary Map below of the main ideas to share with my management team, which includes some links to further reading and videos available online.
Earlier in the month I attended the Instructional Coaching Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. This institute is designed to give an overview of The Impact Cycle as developed by Jim Knight, and how this is an integral part to the instructional coaching model. I produced the Summary Map below of the main ideas to share with my management team, which includes some links to further reading and videos available online.
I am convinced that a model of instructional coaching is the way forward for us as a school to develop teaching practice. It is a personalised model where each teacher works on what is important for them, but provides scaffolded expertise in implementing teaching strategies, as well as somebody to help support teachers in meeting their goals.
I am really excited to start coaching a couple of teachers next bimester, and further learn how this approach can make a difference to the lives of our students. It is going to be hard work, but I am up for the challenge. I will be reflecting both on my teaching and my coaching in the future.
Teach Like a Champion
Knowing that I was going to the Instructional Coaching Institute, and being aware of the importance of the 'instructional playbook', as Jim Knight calls it, I decided to read through Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion 2.0 from cover to cover. I had previously dipped into various of the techniques, but never read it all the way through. I go into detail on my takeaways of this amazing book here.
Knowing that I was going to the Instructional Coaching Institute, and being aware of the importance of the 'instructional playbook', as Jim Knight calls it, I decided to read through Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion 2.0 from cover to cover. I had previously dipped into various of the techniques, but never read it all the way through. I go into detail on my takeaways of this amazing book here.
Purpose of education
Blake Harvard (@effortfuleduktr) recently posted a blog titled The Most Important Question in Education. In it he talks about the reasons we tend to have disagreements when discussing education, and says they mostly boil down to one of two things:
Blake Harvard (@effortfuleduktr) recently posted a blog titled The Most Important Question in Education. In it he talks about the reasons we tend to have disagreements when discussing education, and says they mostly boil down to one of two things:
- A different definition of some term;
- A different outlook on the purpose of education.
But the bigger issue for me is the latter of those two causes. We all have different reasons for going in to teaching. We all have different experiences of education (both as students and teachers). And we all have different expectations as to what education should provide for our young people. Dylan Wiliam, in response to Blake, suggests the following:
For me, education has four broad purposes (in no particular order):
— Dylan Wiliam (@dylanwiliam) April 28, 2019
Personal empowerment
Transmission of culture
Preparation for democratic citizenship
Preparation for work
The problem is that that these four broad purposes interact, and conflict...
Personally, I lean more towards the second of these, though I do think the first and third are also important. For me, the main purpose of education is to create socially functioning and responsible adults. Adults who can engage in conversations with others, on a wide variety of topics, but also know their own limitations. To do this, I believe, we have to teach students the accumulated knowledge of the human race (well, a broad overview of many aspects, with depth of a few important parts). As a species we have discovered/created so many things, and this is the cultural heritage of every single one of us. We all deserve to know as much of this as possible, and education is about enabling students to access this wealth of knowledge.
However, I recognise that my opinions on this matter are not the same as others. In several of our INSET sessions this year I have been dropping this idea to our staff: We all have different opinions, but it is the variety that ensures our students get the best possible education. Of course, there are many purposes to education, and if we all championed the same one, then the others would get left behind. It is our differences that actually push the education system to achieve all of the purposes. It is our arguments and disagreements that enable the system as a whole to keep improving.
So, yes, as Blake says, it is important that we recognise what our personal beliefs are with regards to the purpose of education. But it is equally important that we also realise that there is no one correct answer, and sometimes when we get into a disagreement, it is worth reflecting on the fact that this is probably caused by a fundamental difference in opinion. When we can accept that, we stop arguing to try to convince the other of the truth, and start arguing to improve the education system, utilising all of our strengths.
Simplifying Surds
I had a cover lesson for a colleague where he wanted me to introduce simplifying surds to his low achieving class. I did this in a slightly different way to how I have in the past.
I had a cover lesson for a colleague where he wanted me to introduce simplifying surds to his low achieving class. I did this in a slightly different way to how I have in the past.
I started with the question and the black numbers on the board. I just asked students to find a product of two numbers for each, where one was a square number (I had to add the not 1 comment after an excellent point).
After a few minutes, I took answers from pairs, which I added in blue (including multiple possibilities). I intentionally wrote the square number first (even if they said it the other way round) and asked them if they noticed anything about the order that I wrote them (which they did).
We then talked about what they had previously learned, the fact that root(2) * root(3) = root(6), and I reversed it saying that root(6) = root(2) * root(3).
I then added the green square root symbols to the started activity. Commenting on the fact that, because we chose one number to be a square number, we can simplify that part.
We discussed the two where there were multiple answers, and which gave us the "simplest form".
Then they did some questions.
It seemed to work quite well (though I will never get to follow it up as it was a cover lesson). I have always used a variation of the spot a square number approach, but felt my explanation was clearer this time because of the way I laid it out.
How do you teach simplifying surds?
5BHL Presentations
Over the last few years I have become obsessed with the Science of Learning, cognitive science and evidence informed practice. I have become a much more explicit teacher, planning my examples and explanations clearly. I rarely use discovery learning any more.
Over the last few years I have become obsessed with the Science of Learning, cognitive science and evidence informed practice. I have become a much more explicit teacher, planning my examples and explanations clearly. I rarely use discovery learning any more.
Whereas my focus used to be almost solely on inspiring students to love Maths, now I focus on getting students to be good at Maths (which does, eventually, lead to a love of Maths). However, have I swung too far in the other direction?
I have been considering the Mode A + Mode B model as explored by Tom Sherrington, and how I can reintroduce a little more of the Mode B style of teaching to my practice. One thing that I thought about was an experience I remember from when I was at school. When studying for Additional Maths at GCSE (we did the GCSE in Year 10, and the Additional Maths course in Year 11), our teacher challenged us to go away and research an area that was not on the curriculum to present to the rest of the class. I chose to do complex numbers. I do not remember the actual presentation, but I do remember the feeling of being the expert in the room about something none of my peers knew, and I remember it being really interesting to research something independently.
So, this year I have decided to do the same with my IB Higher Level class. I have set them the same challenge to go away and find an aspect of Maths from beyond the course to present. I emailed them a couple of links with ideas (https://www.numberphile.com/ and https://ibmathsresources.com/maths-ia-maths-exploration-topics/).
Some of the topics they have chosen are: Graham's Number; Euler's Identity; solving a Quintic equation; Viete's Formula; Stellar Numbers; the birthday paradox.
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