Engaging meetings

Managing meetings or other training sessions so that they are valuable CPD for all attendees can be difficult, but learning for adults is a similar process as for our students - and we would never dream of asking students to sit for an hour listening to us reading out a PowerPoint!

The same techniques you use to enthuse and engage your learners in the classroom can be used to structure meetings to ensure participation from all those taking part.

Have a look at the activity on group work that I posted on discussion work and try and incorporate one of these ideas, or any of the group work activities you use in your lessons to engage everyone at the meeting you are involved in for one of the agenda points. You could even think about differentiating the groups to make them mixed ability if you have a big enough group.

Let us know in the comments how it went. What were the pros and cons compared with how you would have initially planned to deliver that item?

What makes a lesson outstanding?

We all want to make sure that our lessons are allowing students to make outstanding progress, and sometimes it can be hard to have inspiration about what changes to our teaching could make a difference.

Have a look at the 2012 Ofsted criteria on teaching.  (follow the link below, pages 12-13 have the table, and I have inserted a picture of the relevant parts at the end of the post). This is not designed to be a checklist to judge individual lessons, rather a description of the components that add up over time to outstanding teaching.

Think about just one of the components (assessment, planning of tasks, marking and feedback, etc) and jot down some things you would observe in an outstanding lesson that would be different in a lesson that was not outstanding.

It may make it easier to first pick apart how the criteria is different for 'Outstanding' and for 'Good', and then think about how this would look in a lesson, using the grid below:

Think of a lesson you will teach in the next week (or in the first week back if you are doing this is the holidays!) where you could plan to incorporate one of the ideas you have had here.

What one thing are you going to try to improve your lesson next week? Let us know in the comments, and it would be great to hear when you have tried it out what the impact on your students' learning was too.

(click to see the criteria here...)

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/evaluation-schedule-for-inspection-of-maintained-schools-and-academies-january-2012 

If this is not working try: http://www.iris.ac/sites/default/files/users/irisadmin/documents/pdf/ofsted-evaluation-schedule.pdf

Or:

New Year's Resolutions

So, another academic year is over, and it's time to focus on enjoying the break and getting set up for next year. But before we completely stop thinking about 11/12 it's important to reflect on the successes we have had, and what we want to do differently next year.

I suggest that you get yourself a notebook to use to jot down your reflections on the activities here, and other CPD you are involved with this year.  Not only does it allow you to focus more on what you are thinking, but the act of writing something down makes you more likely to do what you have committed to. Also, having a separate notebook will make focussing on your CPD will become a bit more special and hopefully a bit more important.

So, be really honest with yourself - you don't have to tell anyone else!

1.  What are you most proud of this year? (These things don't have to be massive, and try and think of at least 5 things).
2. For each of the things you have identified in 1. What are the reasons you were successful here? What or who helped you? How are going to maintain these successes?
3. What is one thing that you would like to have done differently? (one thing only please - it's too easy to start focussing on all the negatives here!)
4. Why did this not go well? Who or what could have helped you? How will you tackle this in september?
5. What steps do you need to take to make next year even more sucessful?

Jot down your ideas and try and focus on what you will do in the future, rather than just what happened.

So now you have had a think about what went well this year and what you are less pleased with, what's your New Year's Resolution?