Tag: Teaching

ICT in lessons across the school

Having spent some time today in a school discussing various aspects of ICT use in lessons across the school, including school policies, software tools as well as hardware configuration, I found myself presented with a period of quiet thinking time; namely a 1 hour drive home.

As I drove the long, relatively straight and fairly unpopulated road, I sat thinking about my post from yesterday, the day I had spent discussing ICT in schools and also the whole issue of encouraging the use of ICT in lessons across a school. The word “school” in the phrase “ICT use in lessons across the school” stuck in my head and I couldn’t work out why. As such I gave some thought to what it meant I arrived at the fact that it referred to the use of ICT by all teachers in the school. The word “school” was being used as a general term to cover all those involved in teaching.

So all teachers should use ICT, but are teachers not each individual’s with individual skills and experience? Is the job of the teacher not to provide students with the best learning experiences possible, even if that may not involve ICT?

As a teacher said to me, some staff have very basic ICT skills and are not that motivated towards the use of ICT. If they provide high quality learning experiences, should this matter?

This brought me back to the term “school”. It was being used as a general term to mean all teachers as the school is the sum of all teachers efforts, among other things. But what if what “school” should mean, is that across the school there should be SOME evidence of ICT use in lessons? It would then be for school leaders to decide what “Some” means in terms of how often, how many teachers, etc, and this decision could be justified based on knowledge of the staff, equipment available, etc.

We often refer to the need to use ICT in lessons because our students live in a technological world and have been brought up with this level of technology however how often do we consider that some teachers were not brought up in this world, barely engage in the digital world in their daily lives and are not motivated towards it. We don’t consider it fair to drag students back, but have no concerns about pulling ALL teachers forward, despite the fact that there are those that neither have the skills, experience or the motivation.

Continual professional development

Once upon a time……

CPD or PD was all about either inviting an educational expert into your school or about sending your staff to an event, a PD session, at which an educational expert would present.   Your teachers would then, hopefully at the conclusion of the session, have new ideas, concepts or approaches which they had added to their teachers toolbox.

Since then improved teacher training, professional standards, etc. have helped to improve the general quality of teaching however this is based on an education system which itself has changed.   By the time improvements were made, the needs which these improvements were meant to address, had changed.     In addition the students we teach have changed, as has the world in which we teach, the technology we use to teach and the pace of change is not slowing.  If anything it is quickening.

So the old style CPD session no longer delivers what is needed.   The experts cannot keep ahead of changes.   Too many CPD sessions involve teachers hunting for the single idea of note, which would save the session from falling into the category of being a waste of time.  So where do we look to for the solution?

Could it be that teachers can no longer wait for the solutions, the professional development to come to them.   Could it be that, now as things are changing so fast, that they need to go looking for their own solutions.   But where do you look?

An article sent to me by a colleague suggested that one possible answer was twitter (http://www.teachprimary.com/learning_resources/view/use-twitter-to-improve-your-teaching).   It provides access to people all over the world providing ideas and thoughts which can be quickly accessed and reviewed.   It provides 24/7 access to CPD opportunities.    In a tweet I recently read an educator agreed with the above stating he had learned  more from teach meets and twitter than he had ever learned  in traditional professional development sessions.        I suspect we could add Google to this, as well as Facebook.

So why is this the case?    I liken it to the concept of cloud funding; using the cloud, the Internet, to allow people to fund a idea or project.  Using the cloud to deliver CPD gives us access to a wider volume of people with more varied experience and differing perceptions and conceptual models.    The only issue is that the delivery model differs.   It is not the passive approach of listening to a so called expert or doing activities in a training session.   It is a personal activity.   You decide on what and when.   You explore the information available, disregarding that which you feel should be disregarded while exploring that which you feel is of value.   It is interactive, inviting others to contribute, discuss and share.   It is social as it involves groups of people albeit not sat in a room together.   It is dynamic as the content, information and ideas available are always been supplemented, complemented, contrasted, evaluated and revised.   At no point does it stop.  But it relies on you to be motivated to get involved rather than waiting for the next PD session to come along, hoping that something good will be included.

So why have PD sessions?  Maybe we should focus more on asking teachers: How are you developing yourself as a professional?

 

Bring back the magic!

For some years I have observed the argument within some education systems regarding whether it is qualifications or experience that teachers need to have before successfully gaining employment.   Many systems now require a Masters degree before a candidate will be considered, even when the candidate might have years and years of experience as a teachers.    What is important?

I had always sat on the Experience side of the fence, in that an experienced practitioner had a more developed set of teacher tools at their disposal.   Being in the classroom for a longer period allowed for more professional learning.   Now I am not ignoring the fact that some practitioners may end up stuck in their ways, however I believe most teachers, as professionals, would continue to develop from their continued experiences in the class with students.    How can studies in a university and a piece of paper compare with this?

I was quite happy in this belief until a colleague raised the issue of Qualification/Experience versus passion.   His comment grouped qualifications and experience together as opposed to seperate, against a passionate practitioner.   How could I agrue with this?      How can any number of years or number of pieces of paper compete against a person, passionate about what they do, about teaching and learning, about education?

Then I heard a gentleman from Google Education presenting at GESS 2013.   He mentioned making learning “magical”.   The term “magical” seems to match with my colleagues idea of “passion” but possibly building on it in terms of it being “magical” for the teacher and students.     I remember a comment I heard some year ago, that an Outstanding lesson “was one students will always remember”.    Isn’t this what teaching is all about, not about  Lesson Objectives on display on the board, 2 activities, a starter and a plenary; the checklist drive lesson?   Not dependent on whether the teacher has a Masters or 20 years of experience.   Teaching is all about a passion for supporting students to learn by making learning “magical”.

When was your last “magical” lesson?

 

Prezi Presentation

Have a look at some of my Educational or Technology related Prezi presentations by viewing my new Prezi profile.

http://prezi.com/user/g5wpmn27kxm1

Included in my profile is the annoated version of the presentation I will be giving at the GEF 2013 conference.    The presentation is entitled: ICT Professional Development and focusses on Teacher perceptions of the use of ICT to enhance teaching and learning.   The presentation also touches on teacher perceptions of Professional Development and how we need to focus more on professional learning.     Am looking forward to the event, although it has taken me quite some time to generate the presentation so hopefully it is well received.