14 December: Briefing for Unit 4 assessment

I'll do these notes in a different order from our actual session, looking at the components of the portfolio first. All this should be read in conjunction with the guidance in the handbook: in the event of any conflict, the handbook wins, but please notify me.

A table of 75 hours of teaching. Just sufficient detail required to show that you have met the requirements--identify the class, but no need to specify the content.

Completed report forms for a minimum of four separate hours of observed practice. Two tutor and two mentor observations. Remember you get to keep the only copies of the forms, so look after them.

Session plans for ten hours of teaching per year. These will normally be documents which you will have prepared anyway. You can use them to demonstrate group profiles, differentiation and inclusivity by the way in which special provision for individuals is noted and how progress is tracked. They will also show how formative assessment is incorporated. You can use the Unit's Outcome Sheets to show how you are using these plans as evidence for, say, Outcomes 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8 (at least); you may have to add a note to the plans themselves to signpost just where the evidence is to be found.

A critical reflective evaluation of ten hours of teaching (2000 words maximum). We spent some time discussing how this component fits with the Reflective Journal.

• Much of the material for the evaluation may come originally from the Journal; there's nothing to say it has all to be written up separately.
• So when you arrive at the end of the year, you will need to make a careful strategic decision as to what is going to go where. I suggest you sit down with all your stuff, and the list of outcomes, and work out how best you can use what you have to hand to cover the outcomes.
• As a general rule, these evaluations are an opportunity to explore a few themes in your teaching across the year; you may identify particular skills you have developed, innovative approaches you have tried to address particular challenges, ways of using technology, ways of getting feedback on your students' understanding, and so on. 
• Don't try to do ten separate mini-evaluations of 200 words each--you won't be able to get into any depth at all.

Edited excerpts of a reflective professional journal; as we discussed:

• "Edited" means simply that we don't need all of it. Pick out material which illustrates your learning.
• Unlike the evaluations, you are not confined to discussing the practice of your teaching; you can cover sessions on this course, perhaps including the Study Days, you can cover discussions with your mentor or tutor or reactions to observations, or team meetings...
• On the whole, start from your experience; tell the story of that experience and reflect on what it means for your practice, and if possible make connections with theory and what you are going to do as a result of it all.
• And as we discussed, make sure that all this material is redacted (anonymised) before you hand it in.

Two reports of your observations of peers. We talked about the relative advantages and disadvantages of not having a pre-determined structure for these observations, but as we got into it, it became apparent that the richness of this exercise comes largely from the individuality of the points of view brought to bear, and that needs flexibility. Of course, there is nothing to stop your colleague whom you are observing from asking you to look out for particular aspects of practice, or perhaps how a particular learner is responding to her material...

Certificates of attendance for two Study Days. I know you haven't got them yet, but you will have by the time you have to hand them in.

Evidence of making use of the minimum core requirements in teaching. We spent a fair bit of time on this; it seemed quite difficult for some of you at the starts, particularly the numeracy and ICT requirements. But--demonstrating some of the strengths of the group (and how you are all addressing 4.10 and 4.11) you were rapidly coming up with ideas and sharing them.

So, although there's quite a lot to assemble at the end, there shouldn't be too much completely new material to generate. Just make sure that you ensure that all the outcomes are met, and that the marker can find where the evidence is.

Please do the evaluation questionnaire; you can email me directly, or if you have lost the questionnaire you can answer it on-line via here. (Please save the file with a new name, or else the next person to open it will be editing what you have just written--but incidentally this is a very easy and free way to create a wiki.)

More importantly, click here.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year!

7 December: Presentation software

Here is the presentation, annotated:

Basic introduction to using presentations to support teaching

There are unsurprisingly plenty of presentations on presentations at SlideShare; see, for example, this one. But then ask yourself how that style would fit with your classes.

There's a good tutorial on embedding YouTube in PowerPoint at: http://www.labnol.org/software/insert-youtube-video-in-powerpoint-presentations/5393/ but note that it uses PPt 2010. The principles however are the same.

The Edward Tufte article is here. And see the links from the previous post.

There is advice on fonts for people with dyslexia here and here.

Useful key combinations for Windows, sorry if this is teaching you to suck eggs:

• Alt+tab cycles between all open program
• Ctrl+S saves the current program
• Shift+Ctrl+S "Save as"
• Ctrl+C Copy highlighted items
• Ctrl+X Cut highlighted items
• Ctrl+V Paste from clipboard
• Ctrl+Z Undo last action
• Window key+D straight to the desktop from any program
• Window key+E brings up Windows Explorer 
• Ctrl+f4 closes current document
• Alt+f4 closes current program

(Note: "+" simply means "with"--you don't have to type the + sign. Case does not matter.)

23 November part 2: Referencing.

Here is the presentation I used yesterday evening, with accompanying podcast: Basic Author Date (Harvard) Referencing

As well as the guidance from the university library incorporated in the Handbook, you might also find the following links useful:

• http://citeitright.com/
• http://www.easybib.com/ and
• http://learnhigher.ac.uk/Staff/ Referencing.html

Here are the pages on problems from the American Psychological Association style website:

• http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/09/how-do-i-cite-a-kindle.html
• http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/06/how-do-you-cite-an-e-book.html

However, I also noted that I do have some reservations about the obsession with referencing (not to the extent, however, of letting you get away with it!) I've written about it here, here, here, and here.

It's possible that this post will command more general interest, so I'll also put it on Bedspce.

23 November; part 1: reviewing micro-teaching

I won't say we "got through" a lot in the review of micro-teaching, but we did introduce a lot of ideas which may be followed up later. We discussed the artificiality of the experience, and the limitations of simulated practice--it's more like a cartoon representation of teaching rather than a photograph, but my apologies if the videoing was too distracting and made the experience more stressful...

The 20-minute limit concentrates the mind wonderfully, particularly in terms of where you put your effort, and hence what is the main focus of the session and what is the "incidental" learning. Louise raised this in terms of acquiring vocabulary, which always comes up when teaching languages to motivated students. How does one deal with this without interrupting the flow?

• One answer is to set time aside at the end of the session, explicitly for such issues--and get used to noting them on the white board as a reminder to yourself to revisit them and as an assurance to the class that they won't be forgotten.
• This also raised the issue of when "incidental" issues take over the main focus of the session--which they do all the time in our class! There are cultural/institutional issues here. Current practice in FE is to put classes on rails, with no deviation. As we discussed in one of our very first sessions, some departments have lesson plans deposited centrally, usually electronically, so that if a staff member is away, anyone else can pick up the lesson for the slot and teach it. I wouldn't last a week in that environment--but if you are going to be flexible, it is important to have room to manoeuvre and ensure that loose ends are caught up by the end of the sequence (either within a lesson, or the term).
• which led on to some techniques to support teaching. We discussed (a little) the use of the space on a white-board; as you go on you get a better idea of what you might end up using it for--a section over here for key-words to note, a place in the top-right for that diagram you know you will draw at some stage (generating a simple diagram spontaneously arising from conversation has quite a different impact from projecting a pre-prepared one). 
• and the uses of flip charts, in particular keeping sheets from one session to another to remind the class of points already made (perhaps by them through reporting-back from exercises)...
• see http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/ohp_use.htm and http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/writing.htm dated though they are!

This led on to more general considerations of technology and its impact, particularly the ability to use video clips in class. As we shall discuss on 7 December (perhaps), technology is not neutral, it influences the content. Have a look at this piece http://www.doceo.co.uk/rbl/stirrup.htm. (and that is ten years old, now).

Jumping ahead to 7 December, look at this post on PowerPoint and follow up some of the leads (the one to Armed Forces Journal doesn't work now). If you only read one, try this http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/powerlesspoint/23518.

And in the course of that discussion we mentioned what you are now being subject to: the relentless barrage of links, and the question about whether they affect the way we read (and even more, study) on the net. (Emma has vowed to use real books for her submissions!)

• That's discussed in this post, which also includes a mention of the Nicholas Carr book, "The Shallows" which I referred to.
• And here is the site for the Khan Academy.
• Some of the ideas we discussed also came up in Unit 2 with last year's group, so go here to see the write-up on their blog.

We did discuss the use of YouTube sources, but are you aware of this dedicated TeacherTube site?It tends to be US-centric but does have a lot of good material.

Moving up to the top right of the board, we got into another theme, prompted initially by Laura's dismay that you are not spontaneous "movers"! The discussion developed into stuff we don't usually get into until the second year, and on reflection perhaps I should not have lumbered you with it too much, but the relevant pages are here, on the learning curve, and here, on the process of tutoring, and more broadly on how this applies at the course level. (Apologies for the way the side-bar obscured the graphic--there's a downloadable .pdf file available from the page which is better.)

Enough! I'll put the referencing stuff on a separate post, so you can consult it separately.

16 November: final micro-teaching

Many thanks to Rebecca (creative thinking) and Lucy (criminals, prejudice and stereotyping) for ending the sequence with a flourish.

The exercises Rebecca used were great, and well chosen. As we discussed, this was not so much a free-standing session as the kind of exercise which can be used time and time again (with different scenarios) in programmes of skill development, and management development, as well as ESOL. In fact, so useful and flexible are such exercises that I would argue that every teacher should have a number of them up her sleeve, to use whenever there's a need to shift learning from object knowledge to tool knowledge, or just when you need a "party piece" to cover for an absent colleague! See: Perkins D (2010) “Threshold Experience” keynote given at 3rd Biennial Threshold Concepts Symposium, UNSW, Sydney 1-2 July 2010 (online, available http://www.thresholdconcepts2010.unsw.edu.au/speakers.html retrieved 14 November 2011)

Rebecca introduced an important distinction between (although she did not use these terms) convergent and divergent thinking. We'll visit this time and again, because it has clear implications for approaches to teaching, and of course assessment: if there are no right or wrong answers, how do you assess?  We also discussed Edward de Bono's ideas in this context, and I mentioned Ken Robinson on creativity. This is probably the best introduction to his ideas:



And moreover it's an impressive synergy between words and images, which we touched on in discussion this evening.

But also see this from just yesterday--thanks, Jim!

And then Lucy gently introduced us to issues of prejudice and stereotyping in relation to criminals. I say "gently" because she took on a really difficult topic, and did it well, but you did give her quite an easy ride. Sorry, Lucy, that is in no way to disparage your well thought-out, designed, undertaken and evaluated session! Laura was very honest when she said she didn't want to articulate her baser prejudices, because of the response she might get.

The power of prejudice comes from people's emotional investment in it, and they/we don't give it up easily. It's a powerful and satisfying way of looking at the world. Why would they/we want to give it up? See here for a more extended discussion.

9 November: Placeholder

Many thanks to Emma and Laura for their contributions on Wednesday.

My further apologies! I never expected it would take a whole week, but here are a few notes.

Emma's session raised issues about demonstration and participation; time constraints aside, whether it made more sense to demonstrate first and get learners to practise afterwards, or to go straight for them doing it for themselves. It's really a question about the level of skill required, I think, and where learners are starting from. This topic (mixing cocktails, in the unlikely event that you have forgotten!) only demanded a possibly unfamiliar skill in one small area, which was layering a liqueur in the glass by pouring it over the back of a spoon. Otherwise Emma could rely on your possession of pre-existing transferable skills so she did not need to demonstrate.

In theoretical terms, she was making a judgement about the Zone of Proximal Development, associated with Vygotsky, which sounds very grand but really comes down to making a judgement about where a learner is, and which is the next step for her, and how much assistance is required to stretch the envelope of existing skill or knowledge. It's the same kind of judgement regardless of the simplicity or complexity of the task, and of course it is made easier and more accurate by getting feedback from the learners.

Laura's session was of course completely different, and yet it shared a common theme, in terms of making use of what you all brought to it. In this case you didn't think you were bringing anything, of course, which made the construction of an improvised performance out of barely-conscious acts all the more impressive. And there was another commonality, in the use of demonstration--this time at the end of the session, on video.

Perhaps more than any of the other micro-teaching sessions, Laura's demonstrated the importance of defining the situation. She rapidly dispelled (to a nicely-balanced extent) the confusion you were experiencing about what was expected, and provided the structure through a sequence of micro-exercises (given the time, once again) through which you were drawn into a participatory event, imparting confidence that it was going somewhere. That sequence also provided something of a demonstration of Bloom's taxonomy in the psycho-motor domain--although it was of course clearer in the case of the dancers on the video.

She also demonstrated the distinctive frame of reference which an accomplished practitioner of any discipline exhibits in sensitivity to areas of practice and experience which would never be noticed by an "outsider" for the want of a better word. It's something each of you has in relation to your own area of expertise, of course.

In mentioning plans for the rest of the term after 16 November, there was a request for something on Schemes of Work; go here for something to be going on with.

2 November: Session 6

Thanks to Lesley and Jacky for two great micro-teaching sessions on Wednesday.

My apologies for forgetting the observation forms; as promised the form can be down-loaded from here.

In a sense the two sessions represented two ends of a continuum, and one which probably has more relevance to PCE and adult education than other varieties; we've talked about it in Unit 1, but this illustrated it.

Lesley's session--on getting an uncosncious person into the recovery position, to remind you--came clearly under the heading of "training": she had clear objectives and desired outcomes, which were to do principally with performance, and the assessment would have been direct, and based on observation. As we discussed, the basic lesson plan (we noted that she had to amend it to fit the slot) has been honed and polished over the years. There may be scope for some individual variations in the way in which it is taught but those are minor glosses on a standard package.

And of course it is important that it is done in that way. Creativity is not the object of the exercise--safety and effectiveness are what matter. As we discussed, it was necessarily a teacher-centred and -directed session. What we didn'r really touch on, though, is how important credibility is in this kind of session. You asked Lesley many questions, all of which she could answer readily (and very honestly, in relation to when she has not practised what she preaches!) In most cases you probably asked them out of sheer interest, but it's worth noting that they also function as tests of the teacher--does this person know her stuff well enough to be trusted? In many practical and professional areas, that question is central to being accepted as a teacher.

The session also illustrated the integration of prepared material in the presentation, using simple graphics and layout to enhance impact, and interactive board-work, with of course the practical demonstration, and practice opportunities.

Jacky's session--on the appreciation of a poem--represented quite a different tradition. It too was planned and structured, but with far fewer constraints. Indeed, many hard-liners might have complained that Jacky could not be precise about the outcomes, and that those outcomes might have been different for each member of the group. In that sense it was a riskier session and more difficult to evaluate, although it was clearly effective. It got people talking, and did indeed achieve a major aspiration in Lucy's case at least in getting her to appreciate what poetry was about.

In discussion we looked at the issue of selection of the poem, at the demands it places on the reader (or listener, as discussed the differences), and how different members of the class might relate to it. Jacky described factors she had taken into account in choosing it, and that was related to the sensitivities of the students and their baggage. We talked too about the balance between the technical discussion of the poem, and the terms Jacky introduced at the end, and the personal response. I'm sure that Jacky was right to stick with the personal responses, and to concentrate on reflecting them back and opening them up through her questioning, and then to turn to the technical apparatus, as it were, separately at the end. To have tackled them together would have closed down the more personal aspects prematurely; but in order to go anywhere with this kind of exercise does involve recognising the need for specialised terms, such as metaphor and even inter-textuality!

So the two sessions exemplified training vs education (following Dewey's definition) and to a certain extent the convergent/divergent distinction.  Both matter.

We'll include a session on PowerPoint later in the term, as well as on referencing, and any other "matters arising".