Long week and new ideas

That was a really hard and long week. Lots of late meetings, Sixth Form open evening, after-school revision sessions and an INSET session. I wonder if there is any other job quite like teaching for throwing those kind of crazy weeks at you and knowing that next week will only be slightly less intense.
My lessons this week have been ok - not my best but some unexpected high points. A year 13 lesson on Germany in 1919 developed into an in-depth discussion of the merits and faults of democracy with the students showing admirable insight and perception.
The real highlight for me was an INSET day led by Elaine Brown from T2Tuk on Kagan Structures. I have to admit to being a little sceptical going in to this. I am a huge advocate of collaborative learning and students work in pairs, threes or other groups in virtually every lesson I teach. Rather arrogantly I went into the day thinking I had probably seen most of what would be presented. I was wrong. Whilst some of the ideas and techniques are already in my toolkit, most were slightly different or completely new. More importantly the ones that were slightly different were better than what I already do.
On Monday I will definitely be using Rally Robin, Timed Pair Share and Write Round Robin. I also appreciated that the presenter took the time to explain the psychology and pedagogy around the techniques she was using. This was more than just a bag of tips session.
It is testament to the quality of the session that at the end of a manic week I felt inspired and looking forward to Monday's lesson.
One other thing did strike me this week and that is that I am now being seen by others as a 'veteran' - and I think that scares me. I realised on Monday that on our College Leadership Team there are only 2 of us who had experience of teaching pre National Curriculum. During Friday' INSET one way of randomising groups was to create a line of experience. We had to arrange ourselves in a line around the room based on number of years teaching x number of schools worked in. Out of 100 people only 3 had a higher number than me - 23 years x 5 schools = 115. The only consolation is that in Gravity the role of the veteran is played by George Clooney - at last we have something in common.
Roll on next week


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Open Invites and the best test of the year

Some real highlights this week. My Year 11s are currently preparing for their Controlled Assessment on the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. Whilst trawling through the internet last weekend (a poor excuse for not really doing any work) I cam across a fantastic resource - a scan of the literacy test used in Louisiana in the 1960s to stop black people from registering to vote. I typed it up so it looked a bit more like the kind of test they are used to and gave them it cold at the beginning of the lesson. They had 10 minutes to complete it and had to get all 23 questions right to pass. Every single student failed including several who are targeted A*. The best thing was how annoyed they were at the test - the questions weren't that hard but they were badly worded, vague and in some cases - just weird. This is just one example:

15. In the space below, write the word "noise" backwards and place a dot over what would be its second letter should it have been written forwards

And it was fascinating to see how many got "spell backwards, forwards" wrong.
The test was great for helping students to understand why so few blacks were registered to vote in the 1960s.

This week I have introduced a new idea at school called Open Invites - asking staff to nominate some of their lessons where they are happy for anyone to pop in and observe for 15 minutes. Three of us volunteered lessons this week and several teachers popped in. I have to admit it really made me raise my game knowing that anytime someone could appear and expect to see something good - like OFSTED but without the fear. The lessons that were observed went well and I got some good useful feedback. The next step is to persuade more staff to offer up invites and to give up a bit of time to go and watch.

I also got back into podcasts this week by putting some revision podcasts on Emdodo for year 11 (and 25/39 turned up for revision lesson on Wednesday - hurray!). Year 13 also recorded their own podcasts on the effect of World War One on Germany. I am now thinking about doing some video podcasts on YouTube if I can find a few minutes.

Busy week coming up - looking forward to leading an INSET session on Assessment, marking and feedback on Wednesday, looking at how the Nazis used emotion to gain support and attending an INSET day on Kagan structures on Friday.

And I managed to blog two weeks in a row :)



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Revisiting, reviewing, reinvigorated

This is my first blog entry in ages and is inspired by a fantastic Teachmeet I attended on Thursday. Two of our young MFL teachers invited me to go to an MFL Teachmeet. I have to admit that I felt just a little apprehensive at the start - not only was I the only one who wasn't a languages teacher but it was also in the uncharted waters of Plymouth! I really was a fish out of water but quickly settled into a great evening of ideas and creativity. What is it about TeachMeets that can keep a room full of teachers interested and involved at 7.30 at night in early November?
All of the presentations were excellent and almost all of the ideas could be easily transferred to my History classroom. One of the things that struck me was that most of the ideas weren't new - lots of them were things I have done before but for some reason I have stopped doing (blogging being just 1 example). I didn't mean that to sound arrogant -as I have always said, I don't think I have ever had an original idea. I am just quite good at nicking stuff and converting it for my classroom. Over the last couple of days I have been flicking back through old lesson plans and folders for stuff I used to do and shouldn't have stopped. I used to always start lessons with an image and they were brilliant for generating interest and questions and I haven't done it in ages - but they will certainly be making a comeback next week.
The excellent Ben Rowe (@itsmerowey) from Saltash reminded me of the value of regular blogging. He recommended using it as a way to reflect on each week's teaching and I think that's a great idea. So I have dusted off Blogpress and hope/aim to post each week with some reflection on my lessons. Perhaps it's because I have stopped blogging and reflecting that I have stopped doing some of the things that worked best.
So this week has been a pretty good one - not brilliant but some good stuff. I do think I have been too content heavy though which has led to lessons being a bit dry.
Year 13 have had their first go at a historical controversy question on Germany's responsibility for World War One and I am very impressed at their research for coursework.
Year 12 have been looking at the rise of Sinn Fein and using the mini IPads for research. I still don't feel I have quite cracked using the IPads in the lessons yet though - they are part novelty and part distraction at the moment so I do need to think through how I am going to get the best out of them.
Year 11 are getting close to being ready for their Controlled Assessment and Year 10 are just getting to groups with Nazi Germany.

I am really looking forward to this week though. I have just found a copy of the literacy test which the state of Louisiana used to stop blacks qualifying to vote in the 1960's - I am going to get year 11 to try it on Monday to see if any of them can pass it. I don't rate their chances.
I am also doing one of my favourite lessons with year 10 which mixes Adolf Hitler, Derren Brown and NLP.

Also this week I am introducing Open Invites - so far 3 teachers have nominated several lessons this week that are open to anyone to pop into and observe. I just now have to convince some people to go and watch.

Hopefully, I will blog next week to reflect on it all.


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