League of Literacy- Brand new to Twitter

I love what these guys are doing, check it out!

@League_Literacy

Literacy Co-ordinators Talk Literacy

very excited about this project. Have been asked to work with Literacy Co-ordinators in my borough to develop a network, share good practice, resources and engage in joint planning, peer observations etc!

This is the first newsletter I have edited, collecting some of the thoughts, experiences and strategies of high achieving and very well regarded literacy co-ordinators in our East London borough.

The complete version can be viewed on http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/T-L-Newsletter-Literacy-Co-ordinators-Special-6358043/

Group work

http://learningspy.edublogs.org/2011/07/11/so-what-are-learning-spies/


This is a great article from @LearningSpy on effective group work. some of his comments mirror previous posts on 'Invisible Teaching' http://mrmacooley.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/invisible-teaching-1_5.html

@LearningSpy is a wise follow if any Tweachers out there have yet to sign up!



http://www.learningspy.co.uk/

There's a lot of buzz on Twitter recently on Bloom's Taxonomy, infographics ahoy!...

Lots of Tweets about how this can be used for digital learning tools such as Pinterest

and how various Apps can be used to support (explained here http://www.unity.net.au/allansportfolio/edublog/?p=836) 

for a simpler, more universal image, see here

lots to explore!

The most uplifting thing I've heard today

This came from a review courtesy of the 5 minute lesson evaluation from @Jobaker9 on Twitter, filled in by a Yr 8 student (14yrs old).

We believe all learning experiences are powerful resources we can use in future situations

Quite a compliment to teachers everywhere...

Digital Learning Platform- The Future of Learning

This came from what was initially a cover lesson where I essentially asked students to design a school or classroom for the future.

Every student did that except one.

What he designed was a digital learning space that would exist within a classroom. The like of which I have yet to see. It goes so far beyond anything that my school has ever bought in. Kerboodle, Fronter. please?!

They just don't compete with the imagination, thought processes,design sense and understanding of what is really fit for purpose of this 14 year old.

I really liked it. I wanted to present this idea to other teachers, so I asked if he'd mind if I made a digital mock up of his paper designs and share his ideas. He said 'no problem', 'go ahead'.

So, I made this

I put it in a Powerpoint along with the responses to the questions I had asked about what schools, teaching and learning of the future would look like. Next time he was in my classroom I showed him what I'd done. He looked and smiled politely. 'Do you mind if I take my design home and do another version?'. I was excited, I wanted to see what else he could come up with.

It was this...

Which kind of blows mine out of the water. He's just been studying hard for SATs, but wants to design more based on these ideas.

I can't wait to see them!

small change BIG difference#3

Get students to write their own learning objective(s).

This makes a really good mid to end point review. It's not new. I found it works really well with the above success criteria as before, what I was getting tended to be more like a list of tasks. This was a pattern I had seen in some staff as well as students in the past.

So I recently used it with a class of Yr 9 students (13/14 yrs old), in an introduction to 2 point perspective, here are their learning objectives written during the end of lesson review.

'To work as a team to plan and produce a drawing in 2 point perspective to scale using 3d shapes'

'To use and observe a source, to construct our own versions to practice for our school design drawings'

'To use perspective to create a piece using teamwork and your own input, (through) observation of detail and characteristics

'To be able to draw buildings in different perspectives by using drawing techniques'


For me it was important that the students be able to verbalise completely the correlation between these new techniques and the outcomes they wanted to achieve. As with some new drawing techniques (and I'm sure this can happen in other subjects too), it can be difficult to persuade students to leave their comfort zone and try them-.as the first time they do, results may not reach the same standard as old ways of working that they developed during primary school and have practiced for years.

After this, students were very comfortable in arguing with me why these new methods were better, how each stage of working fed into the next and why they were now better, more skilled artists than before.