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Revision as of 07:51, 25 October 2012
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Homework
Smalll group review (11 min).: (5 mins)
Part 1: You chose a set of questions from the table “Using questions as a starting point for monitoring and accountability” (Maddock et al.,2012, p. 111) to consider with your students and reflect on in your audio journal.
Working in small groups of two or three, share your reflections on the questions you chose. Why did you choose those questions? Can you see how you might use these and the rest of the questions in the future as a way of auditing your practices in the classroom and the school as a whole?
Pair review (11 min).: (5 mins)
Part 2: You carried out a planned LfL session with your students.
Now share with a different teacher to the one you planned the task with, how the LfL discussion went with your students. Did they understand the metaphor and were they able to apply it after their discussion? Look at some of the material that they produced and discuss whether or not you thought the students have understood and benefited from the LfL discussion. Drawing on each other’s ideas, how could another similar activity be followed-up with the same group of students OR to improve on the current activity with another class of students? How will you ensure that you revisit the LfL ideas regularly with your students?
Reviewing across units
Individual reflection and pair sharing (11 min). (20 mins)
Congratulations for coming this far in your learning journey which has brought you to discover and develop interactive teaching. We have challenged you to think about how your teaching can be pedagogically interactive so that you will think of ways and means of engaging your students (rather than them being passive consumers of content). In doing so, you have been asked to try out new ideas - some might have worked better than others and some others may have indeed seemed rather strange at first! We hope that by doing so you have discovered new ways of approachiing and responding to student learning.
We would like you to look quickly through the list of units you have explored in the past months. After that, spend about five minutes responding to these two questions:
- Can you think of a particular unit(s) or session(s) that you have found MOST challenging for yourself? Consider why it has been most challenging for you.
- Which unit(s) do you feel you have benefited from the most (i.e. which unit really opened your mind to the possibilities!) and which unit would you like to learn more about and why?
It would be very helpful if you can jot down quickly your thoughts on a paper. Spend about five minutes taking turn to share your responses with another participant. Listen and write down what your colleague has said and ask questions to clarify if you are not sure what he/she is saying. In the last ten minutes, each participant could quickly share what their partner has told them to the bigger group.
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
This is very important reflection time for all participants. They should keep a record of their own responses that can be filed in their portfolio.It is also important to keep a record of all the participants’ responses so that we can use this information to help improve the course content and delivery of this workshop. All the written notes of what has been shared with the group should be collected by the facilitator.
Preparing final portfolios
Duration: (15 mins)
The facilitator should just check that participants understand what to do and assess what progress they have already made. Do not spend time on assembling the portfolios themselves - the teacher should have done (and be doing this) outside the workshop.
To obtain the full OER4Schools programme certificate, we would like you to present three more examples of new practices for your final portfolios. These should concentrate on Units 5 and 6. You don't need to write a lot about the techniques themselves:
- Present as much student work, lesson plans/materials as you can, so we can see clearly what went on in the lessons and how you applied the techniques (mention which ones you used and why/how).
- Submit your reflections on your learning from this classroom application, either by typing them (bullet points are quite sufficient, it need not be an essay!) and/or by doing an audio reflection where you think really hard about how your practice and thinking have changed over the course of the year, referring to examples wherever possible. If your paperwork doesn’t make it completely clear what you and the students did, then elaborate on this too. Note that if you type something you don’t need to speak it too – audio and written reflections should be complementary.
- See whether you can apply e.g. a Leadership for Learning lens or perhaps the thinking hats to your reflections, to help you structure them.
- The final part of the portfolio is a most significant change story (see below) recorded as an audio reflection, including any related paperwork, electronic or other materials.
Do not hesitate to dwell too on the challenges and pitfalls you experienced and how you overcame them. It's very unlikely that every new technique would work brilliantly the first time you tried it; there will always be adjustments to make, so please describe that process too and be self-critical. For example, were your talking points and questions open-ended enough or did some of them have “right answers”? If some learners did not participate fully or respond as you had hoped they would, what could you do next time to try and address this? If you think something needs adapting for certain learners, suggest this.
These should be individual reflections; although you’ve worked closely with colleagues and have jointly planned some activities, you have trialled them in your own classroom and it is your individual responses that we are interested in here please.
Identifying most significant change
Pair work (11 min). (10 minutes)
Have a discussion with a partner about what you each feel is the “most significant change” you have made in your own practice through involvement in the OER4schools programme (all 6 units). Tell your partner a story about how this change came about, detailing what was the stimulus for it, why you decided to make a change, what you and your learners did, and what kinds of change you observed. What is the evidence for the change that you could present if, for example, you were talking to the principal of another school and wanted to convince them that the programme led to some changes in your practice?
This activity is a kind of rehearsal; as part of the process of creating your final portfolio, we would like you to make an audio reflection that tells the story of such a significant change (it can be the same one).
Facilitator should circulate and ensure that participants have understood what the story should contain and that they need to describe and present evidence for the change.
Reflective educators
Many great teachers and philosophers like Socrates and Heidegger have emphasised the importance for students and teachers to reflect. Reflections in the educational context, involve thinking about our past, present and future teaching and learning experiences. Unfortunately, most of us are not thoughtful enough to differentiate these three stages or the relationships between our thoughts and actions Consider this quote:
"You who do not think deeply about the future do not appreciate the results and outcomes of your current actions. You who do not reflect critically on the past are not readying yourself for improvement. You who do not think of what you are doing in the present cannot see what to do next." (Adapted from Schmuck, 2006)
Heidegger has pointed out that our minds are prone to wandering between past, present and future. The most challenging type of reflection is thinking about your current actions and about your thinking, shifting between ‘thinking about doing’ and ‘doing the thinking’.
Think-Pair-Share (11 min). (10 mins) Have a go at thinking about what are you doing now. Are you really thinking of the the present or are you thinking of what you need to do next after this workshop or what has happened prior to coming here? What is the implication for your students? Are they usually ‘present’ in your class? How do you know or not know if they are? Spend a few moments thinking about these questions before sharing your ideas with another participant.
Walk around the groups of pairs and try and get a sense of how many of the participants are thinking of the present. More than half the group? Less than half the group? Is it similar or different to a typical classroom situation? Could you have correctly predicted the participants responses by their non-verbal reactions? Reflecting well on students’ learning in the present requires to be sensitive and insightful about the nonverbal reactions of the students. Going back to the LfL principle of ‘focusing on learning’, it will be just as important to study the nonverbal reactions of the students during your class (e.g. facial expression, ‘awake-ness’, looking around) as it is to listen to their verbal reaction.
A reflective educator seeks to be aware of his/her identity as a teacher and most importantly, what he/she believes strongly and is acting on. A reflective educator asks questions like:
- What am I doing now? Why am I doing that?
- What do I believe in about teaching and learning?
- Am I practising what I believe in? Why and why not?
- Am I a role model for my students to imitate (e.g. being a life-long learner)?
In the course of this programme, we have encouraged you to be self-reflective by asking many questions. We do understand that some of these questions take time to respond or it may be years before a ‘belief’ on teaching and learning can develop.
Think-Pair-Share (11 min). (10 mins) You can develop a keener self-awareness by answering the questions above. Some of them may require a lengthy contemplation and we encourage you to write in your own personal journal – or record using a dictaphone – your thoughts later.
For the moment, share with your partner on:
- Why did you choose to be a teacher [your past]?
- What is it about teaching that you really enjoy now [your present]?
- What classroom practice would you like to improve on in the next few months for yourself (your future)?
We will like each participant to share what their partner has answered for the third question above.
Although reflections on the past, present and future are very important skills for a reflective educator, these may not be adequate to solve problems or meet certain challenges in the classrooms. Each of us has a limited capacity to change a practice or to find new practices that will work for ourselves. Your reflections can be significantly enhanced by systematic collection and analysis of data from your students, and working together with the rest of your colleagues. By using a suitable research method, you can move beyond just focusing on yourself, to engage your students and colleagues in deliberation on how to improve their teaching and learning experiences in the classroom. Action research and lesson study are two methods that can help you to develop professionally: to improve elements of your practice or to address wider issues beyond an individual’s classroom. You have been very briefly introduced to lesson study in 6.2. You will learn about action research in this session.
Allow for a brief discussion during the session and record individual responses to the final question as these may form the basis of (an) enquiry/enquires to be conducted at a later date in the form of action research/lesson study. Further details on the methodologies of action research and lesson study are provided for individual reading after the workshop. Encourage participants to think about what is important to them, something that they would like to make a positive change to. Ideas may be wide ranging from overarching concerns such as 'how to increase parental involvement', 'investigating the attitudes to/of girls studying mathematics’, 'how to use more ICT effectively in my classroom', to ideas linked to specific curriculum practices e.g. 'how to teach fractions better', etc. Broader themes such as ‘students as active learners’ or ‘students as individuals’ can also provide the basis for your research.
Reflective educators in times of change
In their book Change in Schools (1987), Hall and Hord wrote about the concerns of teachers who face the challenge of trying out new practices in their classroom. They found that when asked to change their practices, they are concerned first about themselves (‘Can I carry out the new practice?’), later they become concerned with others (‘Will my students react well? What will their parents say?) and finally they become concerned with the results (‘Will the new practice really lead to better teaching and learning experiences?’).
| Focus on Self | Focus on Others | Focus on Results |
| Can I change my practice? | What do the others think of my new practice? | What can my students do now as a consequence of my new practice? |
| Do I feel comfortable with the new practice? | What are others’ nonverbal and verbal reactions to my new practice? | What lasting effects have I had on my students? |
| Is this what my career will be about? (by constantly adapting, changing and learning new practices) | Are they generally positive or negative towards my new practice? | What long-lasting contributions can my students make to improve the community, country and the world? |
| Is this congruent with my beliefs and goals of teaching? | How does it mesh with beliefs, practices and expectations in my school and community?* | What long-lasting contribtions can I make to improve the community, country and the world?* |
- NB: These questions have been added by OER4schools resource writers and not included in the original article.
Think-Pair-Share (11 min). (10 mins) Find another partner for this activity. Think about these questions that Hall and Hord have proposed. Do you agree they are relevant to you and if so, at what stage do you think you are now? What would be the implications for your other colleagues in the school? What are you teaching beliefs and goals now that you could be a different teacher (or the same!) from before you have gone through this OER4Schools programme? Share your thoughts with your partner.
We have already started the participants thinking about these questions through the LfL framework encountered in 6.1 and 6.2. The questions serve to reveal some of the gaps or dissonances between what the teachers believe in and what is actually happening in the school or classroom. Such dissonances should prompt teachers to want to try out or change their practices through a systematic process of inquiry. It is important that teachers have a go at clarifying their beliefs and goals of teaching and learning first before moving on to doing any kind of AR.
Many forms of teacher leadership
You have learnt about the various aspects of leadership through the LfL metaphor in 6.2. As a reflective teacher, you may not be leading in the form of teaching and learning within the classroom, but taking on different leadership roles in the school.
“Teacher leadership is the process whereby a teacher can clarify their values, develop a personal vision of improved practice and then act strategically to set in motion a process where colleagues are drawn into activities such as self-evaluation and innovation. This is truly about [developing] a culture of shared responsibility for reform and the outcomes for all students.” (Frost 2012, p.211)
In the US, a set of ‘model standards’ for teacher leaders has actually been produced and it states that “they need recognised responsibilities, authority, time to collaborate and support from school administrators to assume leadership roles.” (Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium 2011, p.12)
Whole group discussion (11 min). (<10 mins)
Are you a leader or a follower? Perhaps you are a leader in one context and a follower in another? Do you/could you inspire others? Consider the following teacher leader roles. Can you identify these teacher leaders in your school?
- head teacher
- subject coordinator
- workshop facilitator
- curriculum specialist
- learning facilitator
- mentor
- counsellor
There are many roles that classroom teachers can assume to support school and student success. The international teacher leadership project, a case of international action research, explored the idea of teacher leadership and educational reform with the following as a central concept:
‘..the idea that teachers, regardless of their level of power and organisational position, can engage in the leadership of enquiry-based development activity aimed at influencing their colleagues and embedding improved practices in their schools.’
Could you see yourself in a particular teacher leadership role? You may realise you have different strength of ‘leadership’ which may not reside in one role. This is the role(s) that we would like you to consider as you embark on your action research at the end of these workshops.
Initiate a brief discussion after allowing participants a few moments to read the first two quotes. Allow participants some time to formulate their responses. The subject of teacher leadership is huge and we are really only offering a glimpse here. Nonetheless, it can be a useful exercise just to think about the possibilities. If time allows, ask the participants what they perceive the barriers to becoming a teacher leader to be and make a note of these for further consideration.
Very brief introduction to action research (AR)
Reading and whole group discussion (11 min). (10 mins)
As an extension of the individual reflection activity, we are now proposing a valuable research method that can help a group of teachers come together to reflect and suggest possible improvement of their practice. This research method is call Action Research. Take about 5 minutes to read the text below and discuss briefly as a group the questions below.
'What is AR?' It is part of practice of a group of reflective teachers to think about their practices and seek improvement. It is a cycle of investigation, application / implementation, systematic reflection, evaluation (see diagram). An iterative process of data collection and analysis is integral to this kind of research, rather than linear. It is a critical process of reflection on past and present actions. It gathers evidence to support claims for future actions.
'What is the goal of AR?' It is aimed at changing as well as understanding practice in real educational settings. It often involves a trial-and-improvement approach to practical problem-solving by the teacher themselves.
'Who does AR?' It involves those directly affected by the research (teachers in this case) as collaborators or leading investigators in researching their own practice. Interpretation is from their perspective. A professional researcher may be a collaborator or advisor/consultant.
'Why do AR?' Many problems and solutions in classroom teaching are complex in nature and there is no 'quick fix'. AR researchers suugest that the reflection and solutions coming from the teachers themselves are very valuable. Doing AR well in a school creates a research culture whereby teachers actively reflect and intervene on a problem, its causes and suggest possible solutions.
'What are the steps of AR?' There are different types of action research. Here we are introducing a participatory AR model that is suitable for improving practice in a collaborative way within a group of teachers. This begins with the group of teachers reflecting and discussing on the past, present and future possibilities of a particular teaching practice. The steps and illustrative example for each step are as follow:
1. The group of teachers lists hopes and concerns for a ‘newer’ practice (based on certain beliefs and goals of teaching and learning). This may address a problem that teachers have observed of an ‘older’ practice. It is important to note that the identification of any ‘problem’ must take reference from teachers’ initial reflection and investigation (rather than being told by an external party).
- E.g. A group of teachers came together to discuss on their observations that their grade three students cannot master the multiplication skills, despite their best attempts at explaining to them the concept. They reflected on their teaching method which was essentially writing down the multiplication table on the board. No other teaching resources or materials were used.
2. After a literature review and/or reflecting on possible revisions of practice, teachers propose and try out the new practice and observe the preliminary effects on the students.
- E.g. Teachers searched on the internet for articles on why students have problems learning multiplications and found out that students at year three needs to play with concrete materials in learning multiplication before they can think about the symbolic meaning of symbolic representations like the ‘multiplication table’. They brought small plastic containers and paper clips. They decided that they will get students to explain a multiplication operation, such as 3 x 4 through placing paper clips into the containers. They would like the students to think of the x in a multiplication problem as meaning "groups of." So 3 x 4 is "3 groups of 4."
3. Teachers investigate and identify a suitable data collection method to track students’ learning.
- E.g. Teachers produced suitable worksheet and design task for students to try out the materials and explain the multiplication operations. They observed the interactions of the students and how they played with the material. At the end of the lesson, they asked students to complete a small quiz on multiplication.
4. The teachers analyse what the data mean.
- E.g. Teachers discussed on what they had observed in the students’ interactions. They compared the results of the quiz with the students’ initial results (prior to the lesson).
5. Reflect and identify ways of improving practice.
- E.g. Teachers observed that only some of the students were able to correctly explain the concept of multiplication using the materials. They observed that these students were more successful in attempting the quiz. The rest of the students seemed to be lost and were simply following what their peers were telling them to do and write. This second group of students did not make any improvement from their earlier results.
6. Fine-tune the practice or try a different new practice.
- E.g. Teachers decided that some students need to spend more time with the concrete objects on their own. They decided in the next few lessons they would split the class into those students who needed more help from them and those who could carry on with written mutliplcation work on their own. They designed more hands-on activities for the slower-learner group.
The sequence is cyclical as in after the final step, it should be able to return back to Step 1 (see diagram). It is important that throughout the research process that teachers are actively involved in making decisions of investigation and evaluation.
This form of research involves a democratic process so that all teachers are actively examining a current action in order to change and improve it – through a structured and collaborative form of reflection. It takes into account the teachers’ beliefs, aspirations, reality of school and wider societal expectation. It is action which is researched, changed and re-researched by the teachers themselves. Thus it aims to be help teachers to be actively involved in reflection, and to be able to determine the purposes and outcomes of their own inquiry. The research process could include the students as well as other stakeholders in the community (e.g. parents, volunteers). (Wadsworth, 1998)
Whole group discussion (11 min).
Think about a new teaching and learning practice that you have learnt in these past months. How will participatory AR support your ongoing learning and updating of this new practice?
OR
Think about a problem you would like to address together or a new form of interactive practice you would like to develop. How will AR support you?
What kind of support will you need to carry out AR? What methods will you use to collect evidence? What are your main concerns about using AR?
There are actually many different models of AR and it is impossible to go through the details in 10 minutes. Try to encourage the participants to think about the possibilities and the constraints of AR and also to think about what else they might like to know or find out about action research.
Final ACTIVITY: Preparing a presentation
Small group work (11 min). (15 mins) As a final task in this unit (and the programme!), we would like you to work in a group of 3-4 participants to plan for a 5 minutes presentation on the highlights of your learning journey in the OER4Schools programme. You will be delivering this presentation on another day (to be determined at a later date). You will use the remaining time to plan for this presentation. You should ensure that everyone gets to share their views and to plan for a presentation that will really represent the group’s shared vision of the professional learning that has taken place and the follow-ups next year.
These are some possible ideas to help you plan for this presentation:
- You can draw ideas from the reflection tasks that you have done in this session and from your portfolios.
- You might chose to highlight and describe a particular unit that the group feels best captures the spirit of the entire OER4Schools programme.
- You can describe a few contrasting activities you have learnt and tried out in your classrooms, in terms of how you have found some success in trying out in the classrooms or not quite meeting your expectations (e.g. the use of ICT in the classrooms).
- It might be that you choose to speak mainly about your students’ reactions when you tried out activities in your classrooms.
- You might choose to do the presentation through a single LfL lens eg. through the ‘focus on learning’ lens
Whatever you choose to include in your group presentation, bear the following points in mind:
- it should not describe theory only, but instead give concrete lesson examples of theory applied to practice.
- play to your strengths of your various group members and deliver a presentation that will provide a flavour of what the OER4Schools programme has been like for the next cohort of teachers or to any other observers
- the presentation should be no more than 5 minutes long - so you need to choose wisely what you like to include!
- it should be a short sequence that is presented by a number of speakers (no more than 3), each speaking for no more than 1-2 minutes (time it in advance to ensure you do not overrun!)
- it is a whole group presentation so all members of the group should be involved in its preparation, even if they are not speaking on the day
- be prepared to answer questions from audience at the end of the presentation
The facilitator should be prepared to provide a short introduction to the presentation, speaking briefly about what his/her role has been throughout the course and perhaps to field questions at the end of the presentation.
Final Homework: Preparing a presentation
The final homework involves you working as a group to prepare for the final presentation. We expect that you should be meeting at least once or twice before the presentation to discuss the final details of ‘who says what’ and/or ‘who does what’. We also encourage you to make use of relevant materials to accompany your presentations (e.g. charts, students’ works, pictures etc). Think of the possibilities of making use of creative means (e.g. artwork, songs/music, dance presentation, role-play or a skit) to put across your ideas. But remember you only have 5 minutes!
References
Frost, D. (2012). From professional development to system change: teacher leadership and innovation. Teacher leadership and professional development: perspectives, connections and prospects, 38(2), 205-227. doi: 10.1080/19415257.2012.657861
Hall, G.E. and Hord, S.B.,(1987). Change in Schools: Facilitating the Process. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press
Maddock,M.,Peacock,A., Hart,S., and Drummond,M.-J.,(2012). Creating Learning Without Limits, Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Schmuck, R.A., (2006). Practical Action Research for Change.California: Corwin Press
Wadsworth, Y. (1998). What is Participatory Action Research? Action Research International, Paper 2.
‘The International Teacher Leadership project’ a case of international action research, a paper presented at CARN 2009, the 33rd conference of the Collaborative Action Research Network Athens, Greece 30th October - 1st November 2009
