Term 3 Week 10 - Student evaluations

It's that time of year when we are marking like crazy, giving back exam papers and trying to engage students in reflecting on their own learning and what they need to do to reach their end of year goals. It is also a time for us to reflect on our teaching practice - what are we doing well and what we can improve on. There are a number of ways that we can do this. I think it's a really good time to ask the students what they think. Gaining insight into how students feel about our teaching and our subjects just before the holidays gives us time to implement some of their suggestions for next term.

Two simple evaluation tools: PMI (Plus Minus Interesting) and Questioning.

Some descriptions of PMI and templates:
http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/1825
http://www.wettropics.gov.au/st/rainforest_explorer/Resources/Documents/4to7/TeachingStrategies/PMIStrategy.pdf
Questioning

Can be as simple as the questions that I asked my Year 10 class to comment on:

• What are some things that you have found challenging in English this year? (what are the things that we do in English that make your head hurt or have the potential to make your head hurt?)


• How can I challenge you in English next term?

I got some very valuable and honest responses, especially feedback for next term - they would like lots of timed essays apparently. So we are starting with one on the first day back.

Remember I am available to support you with your teaching practice - observations, help creating resources/ unit plans, look after your class while you visit another teacher's classroom ...

Hope you all have a good break over the holidays

Term 3 Week 8 - bits and pieces

Professional Reading: Hard to reach students
"The long Game"- An article by Paul Dix about a sustained approach to improve the behaviour of students who are difficult to engage in learning. This article discusses the organisation of teaching spaces to create positive behaviour patterns in the classroom.

Professional Reading: using visual tools to focus dialogue
"I Hear What you Say" gives striking insight into the way conversations - particularly those we term "difficult conversations" are actually two monologues happening at the same time. The article gives ideas on how to make the most of conversations with students and colleagues.
It comes from a site called http://www.modellearning.com/ which has a number of resources based on visual graphic tools.

Professional Reading: blog posts about National Standards, John Hattie and Anne Tolley
These blogs are worth a read as a critique of what is going on in education at the moment and serve as a contrast to what is in the mainstream media.
Leading and learning
Networkonnet

e-learning ideas: the PODs are coming
A slideshow about the use of PODs (personally owned devices) as learning tools.

The POD's are Coming

View more presentations from David Truss.

e-learning ideas: tagxedo (thanks to PC for this idea)
Did you like wordle? If so, you'll love tagxedo (tag cloud with styles).
Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text. A video of how to use tagxedo: