+Cake
The rule in my IB Higher Level class is that if they forget to add +c for an indefinite integral then they have to bring cake to the following lesson. I call this +Cake (and will write this on any pieces of work I collect without it).
The rule in my IB Higher Level class is that if they forget to add +c for an indefinite integral then they have to bring cake to the following lesson. I call this +Cake (and will write this on any pieces of work I collect without it).
On Monday morning I had two students turn with cakes to pay for this.
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Ritangle
The excellent Ritangle competition started last week, and I introduced it to my IB HL students as a starter activity. I am going to use the problems to start lessons for a few weeks, but then will set them off to do it in their own time. We set up a team of the whole class with the team name +Cake!
If you haven't seen the competition before, it is worth a look.
The excellent Ritangle competition started last week, and I introduced it to my IB HL students as a starter activity. I am going to use the problems to start lessons for a few weeks, but then will set them off to do it in their own time. We set up a team of the whole class with the team name +Cake!
If you haven't seen the competition before, it is worth a look.
Coaching Training
We are in the final term of our year, and in preparation for launching a small scale instructional coaching programme next year, this term I am working alongside 4 colleagues to develop them as instructional coaches.
We are in the final term of our year, and in preparation for launching a small scale instructional coaching programme next year, this term I am working alongside 4 colleagues to develop them as instructional coaches.
In April of this year I went to the Instructional Coaching Institute in Kansas with Jim Knight, and since then I have been doing little bits of coaching with some colleagues. But for next year we are making the programme a little bigger, and I have the role of 'training' the new coaches. Of course, I am certainly no expert in the process as I have been looking into it for only about a year, but I have some insight into the coaching cycle (more than others anyway).
I have put together a 9 week programme of training, where we will explore the fundamentals of Better Conversations (see below), through the Impact Cycle advocated by Jim Knight, and then delve into the depths of gathering data, setting goals and developing an instructional playbook.
Each week I am setting the group some pre-reading as well as a task to complete (such as recording themselves teach), and meeting with the whole group to discuss the reading and next bits, and then meeting individually to talk through individual concerns and how the task went.
It is still early days, but the setup seems to be working well. We are going to get into the actual coaching cycle next week after doing some background stuff on conversations and partnerships in the first two week.
READY
As part of our Principles of Great Teaching we have 3 Standards that we expect to be implemented in lessons:
As part of our Principles of Great Teaching we have 3 Standards that we expect to be implemented in lessons:
- All classes begin with an activity that students can do as soon as they enter the classroom
- All students are expected to participate in questioning sessions, with the use of a "no hands up" policy
- All students and teachers will listen to others when they are talking
Over the year we have done various sessions on each of these to introduce the ideas, and for the third one groups of teachers designed their own acronyms to represent what we feel shows good listening (think SLANT style).
After getting 20 ish different versions, I put them into a Google survey for teachers to vote on which they felt was the best, and the winner is below.
Better Conversations
I blogged briefly about Better Conversations by Jim Knight, and produced these images on the main ideas.
I blogged briefly about Better Conversations by Jim Knight, and produced these images on the main ideas.
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Whole Class Feedback Sheets
People have been going on about whole class feedback a lot lately, so I decided to actually try putting together a template to structure it. I often write brief comments on a post it note, but thought it was worth trying a template structure.
Based on a few I had seen on twitter, I put together this one.
People have been going on about whole class feedback a lot lately, so I decided to actually try putting together a template to structure it. I often write brief comments on a post it note, but thought it was worth trying a template structure.
Based on a few I had seen on twitter, I put together this one.
On using it a couple of times, the biggest thing I have immediately noticed is that it has made me think more specifically about the actions I should take for each error/misconception. Straight away I was more deliberate about the questions I put in my retrieval starters, for example.
I will continue to use them and see how it goes, but my first impression has been positive.
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