2011 was always going to be a busy year for me – I was still in my first year working at a new school and I had finally [...]]]> I don’t usually do end of year retrospectives, but looking back on 2011, I find myself in a reflective mood. It has been quite a year.

2011 was always going to be a busy year for me – I was still in my first year working at a new school and I had finally embarked on studying for a master’s degree. Everything started off well; I was enjoying my job and my studies. Then things got a bit complicated.

In May my Mum was taken seriously ill, a month later Mr MTM fell and broke his leg – badly enough that he required surgery and an external frame and pins to hold it together [pictures via that link may not be suitable for those of a squeamish disposition].

However I count myself lucky. Both my Mum and Mr MTM received very high quality care from the NHS and both of them have now made excellent recoveries. The head and my colleagues were incredibly supportive when I had to take some time off to care for Mr MTM when he first left hospital. People covered my lessons with the greatest goodwill you can imagine – including when Ofsted turned up. My colleagues are fantastic. I even managed to finish and pass the first module of my MEd – I only just made the deadline date for the final assessment (which fortunately was at the end of the summer holiday), but I made it.

It’s not surprising that the second half of 2011 represented something of a digital drought for me, with very little posted here and several extended absences from Twitter. I was too busy in the analogue world, riding the roller coaster of life.

I’m looking forward to 2012. I’m looking forward to trying out new ideas. I’m looking forward to enjoying my MEd studies again, rather than racing to meet every deadline. Now that normality has returned to my analogue life, I’m really happy to be resuming my digital life again. I’ve missed blogging and picking up ideas from the amazing network of educators on Twitter. It’s good to be back.

I’ve not been experiencing many of those lately, so I’ll tell you about the “Aha!” moment’s less glamorous relation instead. I like to call [...]]]> I love it when I have an “Aha!” moment. No, I’ve not been listening to 80s pop, I’m talking about those moments of real insight, when everything clicks into place.

I’ve not been experiencing many of those lately, so I’ll tell you about the “Aha!” moment’s less glamorous relation instead. I like to call it a flash of the bleeding obvious. It’s like a flash of inspiration, but without the inspiration

At the start of the last school year, I was thinking about some lessons that had gone particularly well, when I experienced a flash of the bleeding obvious:

My best lessons are often the ones I’ve practised.

See, I told you it was obvious!

For example, I often use a Harry Potter themed ratio lesson. It is always a cracker. It started as a suggestion from a colleague which I developed into a workable lesson. Since then, I’ve delivered it myself many times and shared it with colleagues. Those colleagues have offered suggestions for improvements. Considering how many times I’ve been through a cycle of practising this lesson and improving it, it’s no wonder it’s always a success.

What does this have to do with planning you might ask?

I decided that I wanted to build up a bank of lessons that were tried and tested, with all the resources readily available and with a reasonably detailed set of lesson notes. These would help me to remember what I’d done (I frequently forget things) and allow me to share the ideas with other people. After all, my best lessons are often the ones where I’ve collaborated with colleagues to improve them. (There’s another flash of the bleeding obvious for you!)

The result was that after years of increasingly minimal lesson notes, I’ve returned to detailed lesson planning. Not for every single lesson, but for a surprisingly large number.

Guess what I’ve discovered? My best lessons are often the ones I’ve planned in detail.

I wonder why it took me so long to work that out?

Photo: house bricks by Minimalist Photography on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons Licence.

I think it would be fair to say that the job is going rather better [...]]]> After years of prevarication, I finally signed up to study for an MEd this year. I started full of enthusiasm, at much the same time that I started my new job (about which I was also full of enthusiasm).

I think it would be fair to say that the job is going rather better than the studying.

I ended up getting really behind with the module I’m taking, partly for good reasons (two weekends away, teaching revision classes, doing the exam marking that helps pay my course fees), partly for unavoidable reasons (I’m looking at you Christmas lurgy) and partly for distinctly rubbish reasons (just didn’t get my act together). Whatever the reasons, a half term study binge isn’t the best way to learn, nor is it particularly enjoyable.

Finally, time to breathe. I’ve met my latest deadline. I’ve submitted an assignment that I’m not at all happy with, but I think I’ve done enough to pass. Most importantly, it’s done. Part of me was tempted to fill in some comments myself to save my tutor the trouble when he marks it – I already know what many of the weaknesses are!

I’m also not happy with the way I’m studying. It’s a distance learning course with the Open University, but there’s a wiki, a forum, Skype, an Elluminate room. Let’s count my contributions shall we? Maybe not. Wouldn’t take long.

I think the key issue here is that flexible doesn’t mean leave it until the holidays. When I was doing several short(ish) study sessions per week, I was enjoying the course.

So I’ve given myself a timetable. It’s flexible, as in different time slots each week – that’s essential. But there’s (hopefully) going to be about the same total study time each week – also essential.

It has to better than a study binge. Now lets see if I stick to it.

Photo: Tunnel by Tina Carlson on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons Licence.

I’ve run a website for my students for quite a while now, but around a year or so ago I decided that it was time for a change. My site was pink, chaotic and stuck in the [...]]]> I’ve been very quiet here of late, but that’s mainly because I’ve been very busy over here.

I’ve run a website for my students for quite a while now, but around a year or so ago I decided that it was time for a change. My site was pink, chaotic and stuck in the 1990s [the old version of the site is now here]. It was definitely time for a re-vamp.

I decided to start by doing a bit of research. A few students very kindly let me watch (and ask endless daft questions) as they used various educational websites. They also selected a few other sites that they thought were ‘good’ and showed me what they liked about them. Finally, I had a trawl through the statistics of my original site and the class blogs I used with my ICT classes.

This was all done very informally, with a fairly small group, but I was quite surprised by the outcomes:

• My initial impression was that my students grab a mouse and start to click, click, click, but that turned out to be completely wrong. The blog stats showed heavy usage of any presentations/videos etc that were there on the page, but hyperlinks to related content weren’t used much at all. It wasn’t just links to other sites that were ignored, very few students navigated very far down into my website, so some content was never used. I saw the same thing happen when I watched the students using other sites.
• I was surprised to see how many students really liked sites that had an enormous front page with dozens of buttons. They seemed happy to scroll up and down – if it reduced the number of clicks needed to access content.
• Sites that I thought were really clear and easy to use turned out to be utterly mystifying to my volunteers – who included some very bright students. When faced with categories such as number, algebra etc, very few could navigate to relevant content without help.

Discussing designs produced the expected wide variety of opinions, however most seemed pretty clear that they wanted bright colours, but they didn’t want my new site to look childish. Bright colours but not childish? That one was a challenge.

It took a while, but by January I was finally ready for some students to test the prototype for MoreThanMaths.com Mark II. Amazingly, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with very few problems encountered. The only major criticism was the lack of hedgehogs! Bizarre.

The new site is still hiding away behind the old one, waiting for some content to be added to the learning zone before it is launched later this month. Despite this, it’s getting almost as many hits as the original site – and some of my students are nagging at me to get it finished. I’m pretty pleased with that. [update - the new site is now online]

Sometimes you just have to turn around and swim against the tide.

After 18 years of putting classroom tables in groups at every opportunity, I’ve switched back to putting them in rows. It may not be fashionable, it may result in inattentive observers leaping to conclusions about the amount of group/paired/discussion work going [...]]]>

Sometimes you just have to turn around and swim against the tide.

After 18 years of putting classroom tables in groups at every opportunity, I’ve switched back to putting them in rows. It may not be fashionable, it may result in inattentive observers leaping to conclusions about the amount of group/paired/discussion work going on in my classroom (hmm, leaping to conclusions … I’m sure I could get another salmon metaphor in there) but I’m not going to let that stop me.

What has prompted this change of heart:

1. My students asked for it

Ok, to be fair, last year’s students asked for it. We use the whiteboard both as a screen and as an interactive board, not for the whole lesson, but usually for some of it. It doesn’t mater whether I’m the one presenting, if it’s a PowerPoint or video clip, or if some students are doing a mini-presentation: obviously the rest of the class need to be able to see what’s going on. Last year lots of them complained that it was a pain not to be facing the board. They pointed out that even sitting sideways-on is less than great.

It took a while, but eventually I had to agree.

In fact, when I go to evening classes, I always opt for a seat that faces the board. I want to see the board easily, it shouldn’t surprise me that my students feel the same.

2. It’s an efficient use of space

As a teacher I need to be able to access every area of the room and I need to be able to do it easily; it’s one of the most basic principles of classroom management. Grouped tables and horseshoe arrangements are great in theory – and when I had a blissful year in a massive classroom they were great in practice. Most classrooms are not massive.

3. It makes no difference whatsoever to paired or group work

I think I’d been working with tables in groups for so long that I just never thought to question it. Recently I’ve been reading Doug Lemov’s Teach Like A Champion. He describes his ideal classroom arrangement, then describes how students can easily work in groups, simply by swivelling around and working with the pair behind. It’s obvious, but I hadn’t been doing things that way. So I tried it. It works brilliantly.

If we’re sitting in rows and I ask students to work in groups, they pretty quickly move to an arrangement that’s comfortable for them: maybe angling their chairs, turning around or pulling chairs around one table. Very, very occasionally we are using lots of equipment and need to push tables together. That’s happened once in the last six months or so.

So there you have it: I am a salmon, swimming merrily against the tide of current opinion (groan – that one was unintentional), but I’m fine with that. And of course I reserve the right to change my mind should I feel that I have better idea. Agree? Disagree? Have some suggestions? I’d love to hear from you.

Photo: Just for Mandy – a smelly classroom! by stopthatpigeon! on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons Licence.

I’ve tried to use student voice for a long time, but until last year I wasn’t happy with the results. Why? Well firstly most students tell you what they think you want to hear, which is nice, but not helpful. Secondly I was always left with a vague sense that I hadn’t asked [...]]]>

I’ve tried to use student voice for a long time, but until last year I wasn’t happy with the results. Why? Well firstly most students tell you what they think you want to hear, which is nice, but not helpful. Secondly I was always left with a vague sense that I hadn’t asked the right questions.

So I changed.

What did I do? The first thing was to ask better questions. I stopped asking questions that would produce data I could analyse easily (the on a scale of 1 to 5, or which of the things in this list that I think is important type of questions)  and switched over to very open questions. I printed postcards  [MS Publisher format] [pdf] that asked students to tell me – anonymously – three things they liked about the lesson and three things that they didn’t like. I gave out plenty of postcards, but left it up to students whether or not they filled one in: I wanted them to feel sure that their feedback was anonymous.

Could I analyse the answers to such open questions? If I wanted to, yes, but that’s not the point really – what I was looking for was formative feedback. Giving the students a free rein to say what they want allowed that to happen far more effectively.

I used the same format for a departmental survey about the learning environment [MS Publisher format] [pdf], with surprising results. Students were far more worried about draughty windows, ineffective blinds and the temperature in the room than they were about displays, technology or furniture. It would never have occurred to me to ask about the things that turned out to be the ones that really mattered to them – and which will affect concentration and learning.

My second change of tack involved concentrating on just two classes: a Y7 and a Y10 group. I’ve found that getting useful responses from a group takes time. The first time I give out the postcards I usually get responses from students trying to say the right thing (such as the student who said how helpful the group work was to their learning – surprising given that they were commenting on a lesson that featured no group work at all). I also get students who are testing whether it really is anonymous by writing “Boring” – or something worse – to see if there is any comeback from me.

I persevered. After a while the students realised that they could make quite strong comments and I wasn’t going to take it personally (or if I did, I wasn’t going to let them know). There’s always going to be the odd student who writes unpleasant comments, but visit any anonymous internet forum and you’ll find a minority behaving that way. It’s not worth worrying about.

After we had used the postcards a few times I started to get some really helpful comments. I made sure that they were aware of what I was doing differently in response to their feedback: more discussion, more use of mini-whiteboards, more e-learning and online homework, different groupings, furniture in rows (yes, really) and so on.

I know that many people are concerned about student voice. If the claims in this article are true, some schools are definitely abusing it (why didn’t the staff in these interviews do the professional thing: voice their concerns and withdraw as candidates? Who would want to work in a school that treated interview candidates that unprofessionally?), but it doesn’t have to be something that’s imposed on classroom teachers. I think of it as being like visiting the doctor: I can’t judge my GP’s medical knowledge, but I do expect them to involve me in decisions where appropriate and treat me in a manner that I’m comfortable with. My students are in a similar position. I don’t expect them to make informed judgements about my practice, but I do expect them to be active learners, so I owe them the chance to offer feedback.

Photo: Recent Purchase: Megaphone by LarimdaME on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons Licence.

When asked, my students say they like the blogs, in fact last year most of my Y9 ICT class immediately went online and opened their class blog at the start of each lesson. They loved using embedded [...]]]> I’ve used class blogs with several groups of students, but I’ve never been happy with the results.

When asked, my students say they like the blogs, in fact last year most of my Y9 ICT class immediately went online and opened their class blog at the start of each lesson. They loved using embedded slideshows and videos (not surprising – the videos were rather excellent, being mostly Commoncraft’s Plain English explanations) and they complained if there was nothing new on the blog. The blog was pretty useful, but it was really just a vehicle for conveying instructions: you need to do a, b and c to pass this task; this is how to do a, b and c.

I’ve found that getting students to engage with blogs in a more active way is much harder. Asking them to rate posts produced the first signs of resistance, there were surprisingly few takers. Almost no-one wanted to leave a comment. Moving on a step and asking students to write posts of their own will present real challenges.

I don’t think my students are in any way unusual. They enjoy online gaming, are active users of Facebook and spend hours chatting online, so you might assume that asking them to use a blog or wiki for learning would be something quite normal and natural, but evidently it isn’t.

I’ve been pondering the many reasons behind this for a while, but when Kevin Jarrett tweeted links to articles about the 90-9-1 rule, it really helped me to clarify some ideas. After reading this* I started thinking, especially about the suggestions for minimising the problem. (*You might like to follow that link before continuing.)

If I apply the 90-9-1 rule to a class of 30 students, I can expect maybe 2 or 3 of them to be intermittent contributors and one (if I’m lucky) to be a regular contributor. The figures may not be exact, but that’s not really important, it still means that the majority are happy to be passive consumers – which is exactly what I have experienced so far. Put in this context, the fact that one Y9 student left several comments and and another 4 or 5 rated posts or sent me a couple of emails doesn’t seem so bad, but it’s still not the level of engagement that I was aiming for.

I agree that I can’t remove this discrepancy in participation, but as a teacher it is essential that I find ways of minimising it, otherwise I’m simply creating a pretty website that has no real impact on learning.

We are hoping to use a blog on our Paris trip next July. The students all know about it, but getting them to start contributing is – as always – going to be a challenge. My aim is to have a group of students who are reasonably competent and confident bloggers by the time we set off on the trip. So how am I going to try to maximise participation?

Here’s my plan:

1. From past experience I know that students are very unlikely to use our Paris blog outside school unless they’ve already used it inside school, so starting next term we are going to have some blogging sessions during tutor time (registration). I will be meeting up with small groups of the students who are going on the Paris trip and helping them to create their first posts. Hopefully once the students have published something, they will start to feel some ownership of the blog.
2. I’m including polls and I’m going to add a rating function, so students can easily leave feedback with one click. I’ve noticed that many students don’t like to be the first to rate or vote on something, so I’ll vote first (a bit like the approach of a busker who puts the first coins in their own hat). I’ll be encouraging students to leave feedback on each other’s posts during in-school sessions.
3. Our school sessions will include commenting on other students’ posts. Obviously I’m going to leave comments as well; I’m hoping that I can persuade some other teachers and parents to join in.

Will it work? I hope so. If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I’d be very happy to hear from you.