Personal Objectives

From evaluating my teaching practice this year and the 'Geoff Petty Day' I have come up with these objectives for experimenting and researching......

Build a better rapport with learners
Ø Research NLP and interpersonal skills
Ø Research the use of language when using assertive questioning

Improve retention of information (amongst learners)
Ø Experiment with 5 minute essay
Ø Experiment with notes at the end of session

Produce better resources
Ø Review websites and plan experimental activities

Introduce graphic organizers
Ø Experiment by setting learners research tasks and asking them to record their research into graphic organisers

Develop my learners study skills (in particular improve their IT skills)
Ø Experiment by setting learners IT based activities
Ø Build learner confidence with the student portal by asking them to view it during many lessons and asking them to send a task / assignment / evaluation via their student email, early in the programme to encourage learners to use their student email.

Use blog as a reflective journal of teaching
Ø Use blog to record the outcomes of the experiments
Ø Use email journal to record notes on student attendance, punctuality and behaviour

Using peer assessment to help learners to evaluate themselves effectively
Ø Experiment with peer assessment by asking learners to evaluate each others block at the end of every session where a formative assessment has take place

For more information see posting titled ‘Future ideas’

Future Ideas

Having reflected upon the ideas about supported experiments, from the Geoff Petty day, I have decided that I will be trying out some new ideas in my classes. I am now at the end of teaching the new level 2 Diploma in Hairdressing, so I plan to try these new ideas out in September with my new classes. I want to research some areas covered in the training day and experiment with others. Here are my initial ideas.

Build a better rapport with learners
Being about to complete my second year in FE and my second year of Cert Ed I an bursting with ideas for my teaching next year. In the past two years I have experimented and debated the dictator / push over age old issue. I now have a style that suits me; calm, fair, direct and most importantly firm. I try to keep myself very calm, when I deal with behavioural issues and try and give the impression that I am not really to bothered at all. I negotiate when I can and make light of a situation where I can (without playing the comedian). For example if a young student is late rather than shouting at the student or alienating them in front of the class I might say something like "Hello Madam, what am I going to do with you?!" or refer to them as "cheeky monkeys"!! It stares away from negativity and then I can go over and nag the student a bit later or at the end. However, I can still be too much of a push over at times- Next year I would like to be firmer fro the start. I will nag and nag about uniforms and jewelery until I am blue in the face and I am going to be much stricter with deadlines. With teaching the new Diploma this year it has been difficult as we have no actual resources for the programme. This has effected the scheme of work (SoW) and meant that deadlines have been moved all over the place. There were delays with the online exams as well. Next year is a clean slate though, we have built a huge number of resources this year and we will be much more organised.

I would also like to learn more about neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) more information is available on Wikipedia, but to summarise NLP was co-created in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. It is an alternative psychotherapy that uses language, communication and personal change to successfully change patterns of behaviour and communication. I am setting myself a target of doing some summer research on the practice. I first learned of NLP from Bob Craig (EHWLC) in a Cert Ed lesson. I would like to take part in the course provided by the college next academic year

Improve retention of information (amongst learners)
Geoff Petty made many suggestion in his training day at Kensington Town Hall last Tuesday. One was to give learners five minutes to make notes of the class towards to end of the session and they to ask learners to read out key areas covered in the class today. Learners will naturally retain more information from the class. I really liked this idea as learners often put handouts into their bags at the end of the session and never look at them again.
Petty also talked about asking learners to write a 5 minute essay about what they feel they have learned during the session. The students then hands this essay in for the teacher to check. The teacher may then see how much information the student has absorbed. Weak areas can then be recapped in future sessions or an individual learners may be pointed to extra support (either through one to one or directed learning).

Produce better resources
This year a problem with the new piloted diploma course that I teach has been that there have been no resources available that match directly to the course. Myself and my colleagues have worked hard to produce new PowerPoint presentations and handouts that relate to the new criteria. Existing resources are all related to the previously taught NVQ course (which are also still taught). This September Habia will be releasing a resource pack with handouts and activities available to aid learning. However this year we have had to sort out our own.

Introduce graphic organizers
Geoff Petty introduced us to a range of different types of graphic organisers. Flow charts, Grids and Mind maps (my personal favourite!) are now not the only ways that you can organise information.Petty gave examples of many graphic organisers, here are some;

• Venn diagram (and a same and different Venn diagram)
• Atomistic concept map (and analysis map)
• Same and different table
• Tree diagram
• Target diagram
• Decision tree
• Visual essay planning
• Labelled diagram
• Continuum (and crossed continuum)
• Storyboard

Petty also spoke of using Spectacles and Knife techniques. Spectacles are when you look closely at a subject and Knife is when you cut a topic into smaller areas, to make it easier to look at in more depth. Petty also suggested giving learners information in the form of photocopied text or printed websites and asking then to highlight the information relevant to their work and then entering it into graphic organisers to present as part of a portfolio or to plan an essay.

Some alternative examples of graphic organisers can be found at http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1grorg.htm

Develop my learners study skills (in particular improve their IT skills)

Key Skills such as Numeracy, Literacy and ITC are found everywhere in modern day tasks, especially in studying. In order to raise the standard of Education in this country we must ensure that we include the tuition of Numeracy, Literacy and ITC in all subjects. In my course I can develop my students Key Skills during "Employability Skills" lessons, but there are many other occasions that I can. Firstly this year I have tried to raise students study skills by asking them to look at their own time management. I have given learners plans detailing deadlines for assignments. I have also encouraged them to regularly look at the SoW available on the student intranet and plan their work. Secondly I have incorporated ITC skills into my classes by asking students to use incorporate pictures from google images and UK Hairdressers into a word document. Following the success of this activity I set a new task using the virtually hairstyle(r) found on UK Hairdressers website. I asked learners to bring in a picture to upload to the website, create three different looks, screen print then and import them into a word document. I then asked the students to use coloured text boxes to write about the looks they had created. Initially I was quite surprised how students who usually worked quite slowly managed to upload pictures and produce the document so quickly, but upon reflective I realised that we live in an 'IT world' where most learners probably have computers at home. Younger learners will of had IT lessons and school and probably upload files to social networking websites such as Myspace or Facebook. I would like to research this area further and look at ways of using IT to make lessons fun and interactive. I will be reviewing possible websites where information and interactive resources are available and then using then in my sessions and evaluating them.

Use blog as a reflective journal of teaching

I intend to use this blog as a reflective journal, firstly to record my teaching and learning experiments and secondly to organise my research. In September I will be recording the outcomes of my experiments for my division and will include this evaluation in this bog, but I will also record findings as I go along. Some of my colleagues have been using blogs with their class, which is a great idea as a teacher can make notes on class remind students what they studied and to give information to students who were absent from class. Useful websites, movie clips, PowerPoint presentations and the SoW can also be linked to the blog. These functions are however available on the SoW, so at present I will not be trying this experiment, but I will be extremely interested in my colleagues' results.

I also aim next year to make my own class notes online. I would like to replace my old file where I keep notes on styles behaviour, attendance and punctuality, with a secure online journal. I will use the journal folder in my staff email account to create a folder for each student. If I receive or send any emails regarding a student I will keep it in the file with the students name on. If the student is late, absent or behaves badly I will note this on the journal pages. Any disciplinary can be stored as attachments as well as on my Z-Drive and any paper notes or letters from parents, schools etc, maybe stored in the teaching or tutor file. This will save storage and make it easy to refer to.

Using peer assessment to help learners to evaluate themselves effectively

This year I have really learnt how effective self assessment really is. The student looks critically at their work and assists with the teachers evaluation, as the student is already aware of any weak areas because of their own critical look at it. Self assessment also helps to take away from a possible negative impact of the assessors decision, i.e. the student is not so shocked if they do not achieve an assessment. Students are also much more likely to learn from their own / co-students comments / advice.

It is possible to develop this evaluation further through using peer feedback. Next year I would like to ask students to 'line' up their tuition heads following a formative assessment and decide how's head is the best. If this works well I may even use it during summative assessment. Definitions of these assessments can be found on Wikipedia.

Geoff Petty Day (27-5-08)

Picture taken from http://www.geoffpetty.com/

At the training Geoff Petty provided information about a wide range of teaching and learning experiments. My favourite were;

• Peer feedback
• Note taking at the end of a session
• Incorporating graphic organisers
• 5 minute essays

I will be trying these out in my teaching and will record my results later in this blog

I found the information below very interesting comes from the staff intranet www.wlc.ac.uk

Geoff Petty is the author of 'Teaching Today' (3rd edition), the best selling teacher training text in the UK. He has a reputation for explaining issues concerning learning and teaching in a down to earth but lively and inspiring way.

His philosophy is:

“what the learner does is more important than what the teacher does” and
“you can’t improve if you don’t change” or “if you always do what you’ve always done you will always get what you’ve always got”

Geoff Petty suggests that there are 2 main ways to improve teaching:

1)self assess to find areas of strength and weakness and work on these

2)work on the main factors that make the biggest difference to student learning

My project outline

Taken from staff intranet http://www.wlc.ac.uk/

Part 1

Supported Experiments at EHWLC with Geoff Petty
April 2008- July 2009

1. Project Outline
Please fill in section 1 (project outline) by September 30th 2008 and post it online, as a record for yourself and a resource for other teachers. Write as little or as much as you like and include key dates throughout. You can incorporate this information into your online CPD log for the Institute for Learning, so this must be completed individually.

Teacher’s name
Ryan Wilde
Division
Hairdressing
Site
Barons Court
Title and outline of your experiment(s)
ØBuild a better rapport with learners
Ø Research NLP and interpersonal skills
Ø Research the use of language when using assertive questioning
ØImprove retention of information (amongst learners)
Ø Experiment with 5 minute essay
Ø Experiment with notes at the end of session
ØProduce better resources
Ø Review websites and plan experimental activities
ØIntroduce graphic organizers
Ø Experiment by setting learners research tasks and asking them to record their research into graphic organisers
ØDevelop my learners study skills (in particular improve their IT skills)
Ø Experiment by setting learners IT based activities
Ø Build learner confidence with the student portal by asking them to view it during many lessons and asking them to send a task / assignment / evaluation via their student email, early in the programme to encourage learners to use their student email.
ØUse blog as a reflective journal of teaching
Ø Use blog to record the outcomes of the experiments
Ø Use email journal to record notes on student attendance, punctuality and behaviour
ØUsing peer assessment to help learners to evaluate themselves effectively
Ø Experiment with peer assessment by asking learners to evaluate each others block at the end of every session where a formative assessment has take place

Why have you chosen this/these particular supported experiment(s)?
Build a better rapport with learners
To maintain a high Standard of Teaching and Learning in the classroom. Learners need to feel comfortable in their environment.
It is essential to ensure that you are not too strict and not too laid back
Improve retention of information (amongst learners)
To ensure that students achieve higher grades and complete assignment swiftly and easily
Produce better resources
To make sure that the information given to students is accurate and up to date.
Particularly in an area like hairdressing where the market is constantly changing
Introduce graphic organizers
So that learners may easily record their research and present it in an organised way
Develop my learners study skills (in particular improve their IT skills)
To help the students to complete their studies
Use blog as a reflective journal of teaching
To record what went well during a lesson and what did not.
To share information and to evaluate
Using peer assessment to help learners to evaluate themselves effectively
I believe as do many, that learners are much more likely to take notice of feedback if it is from other learners (or themselves), than from a teacher

What will the outcomes and benefits be for the students?
Effective communication, better retention of information and greater study skills. Teaching and Learning can be kept up to date, accurate, fun and interactive.

How will you measure these?
I will be evaluating the outcomes of the research and the experiments that I am setting myself. I will be able to measure the success in the form of improved retention of knowledge and study skills and hopefully improved student achievement and retention.

What do you hope to learn through this/these experiment(s)?
Ø Better ways to communicate with the learner
Ø Develop retention (of learners) and achievement
Ø Greater use of interactive materials
Ø How to engage learners (particularly younger)
Ø Strategies for helping student to retain knowledge
Ø How to improve teaching and learning