My Classroom Management...

I have been off for while, but I have been reading and studying a lot meanwhile... I still keep doing staff on learning objectives, but it is kind of fading away. I try to use it in practice more and remember all ideas I've got about it. If I get chance of course, as I am not supposed to do things that could be named as teaching... But if I get just book and pages to read and answer the questions, I make the objectives related to work, using some of measurable behavioural verbs. It seams to work pretty well, when I refer to it at the end of lesson.

Another things I came across are related to the classroom management. Now when I write things and try to make it relevant, all my ideas and advices or strategies I read about somehow are staying in mi mind and I remember to try it and they work. Not always, but certainly thinks are better now. One of most useful thinks so far is calmness, patience and wait for silence. Last two weeks I tried not to talk, when someone else was talking. It cost me a bit of time from lesson, but leads to more calm and quiet lesson... So I just announce that I am waiting for silence and stay standing still. Than I remind them and eventually they are still and listen... If not I stop talking. And again and again and again. The same during lesson whenever I need to talk. Sometimes we won't finish all planned work. But I feel more confident and relaxed and it looks like kids feel the same.

Maybe I've just discovered America (as we say back in Slovakia) but it works for me. After so many failed days... One wonderfull entry comes here. Well, this explains why it is better now, than it was. I am building this relationship. I am not really good in this but I try...

Watch "Classroom Mngt"

I don't use YouTube or GoogleVideo very often. Firstly, I've realized that I waste too much time watching just random stuff instead of work I intended to do and secondly my internet connection till lately was really slow.

Today I spent a bit of time watching something valuable on classroom management and I think this lady is not only beautiful, but really good in what she is doing... And her classroom management is full of briliant ideas. hopefully she has done some more videos...

Classroom Mngt

12 min 42 sec - 22-Nov-2006
Average rating: (9 ratings)
Description: Class Management Video.

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Video is a good idea for lesson observation, sharing ideas and evaluating ourselves. Unfortuately I am not allowed to record myself in the classroom. I can do audio only and this is not working that much, I cannot observe my body language and classroom georaphy. But anway I will try to get permission to record myself aat least once in a term.

Last Five Minutes.

… of my otherwise very ordinary (if something like that is possible) school day were… well, they got me. I was really wind up. Not in sense of loosing sense or control. Yes, I was shouting a bit but in an attempt to make a theatre. And result. I was told that I make him stressed and frustrated because he has already told me, that he did his work yesterday on paper and he managed to copy it again today and I am asking to come to see me tomorrow three times, despite I have all this information. That is why he is quite rude to me… uff. Now I don’t know. Somehow I lost the plot and forgot that it wasn’t about shouting, rudeness or completed work… I was about really poor behaviour during last couple off lessons. But instead of pointing that, I was concentrating on something different. Good lesson for me.

But I keep trying. Yesterday I found an article about 11 behaviour management techniques. (its commercial web so I am doing a bit of advertisement for free) I read most of it already in book Classroom Management: Sound Theory and Effective Practice. Contributors: Robert T. Tauber - author. Publisher: Bergin & Garvey. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1999.

Ideas in this book are very clear and really useful. I actually think that this should be compulsory reading foot teacher training in my country… Sound theories with record of success are divided to different philosophies and teaching styles. Basically you pick up your preferred teaching style and apply theory that matches you in your practice. And than of course you mend and change it to make it work for you…

But all this theories and advices are based on fact, that you work with your students on regular bases and have time to build a relationship. What to apply for always changing role of cover supervisor or supply teacher?

I have so many areas to concentrate on: from teaching strategies, through time management and curriculum to behaviour management. I am almost loosing it now. No time to live. And I had to spend 2 hours to reset my internet connection. Arrgh…

Good and inspirational...

…posts about using educational video and podcasts made me think how we going to use it in ordinary school environment with all the security and safety concerns. I my school all mobile phones and mp3 palyers are banned, as the led to major behavioural problems and waste of learning time. But this contradicts with all we read and see on the web. I would like to use some of these tools next week when covering geography lesson, but well, I am not sure how to obey the rule and let the kids to create radio news style podcast. Ok I will leave this Idea for now and I will discuse it with my line manager…

Another amazing link on the Powerlearning blog is e-learning for kids – with all the potential and tools and with (for me even more interesting) two free on-line courses on effective coaching and time management. I cannot wait to find more time and take these courses…

http://www.epxlore-learn-live.blogspot.com/

(blogging on education, behaviour management and learning experience)

Relax of This Week

My work is to cover absent teachers in my school. Funny job I have to say. This week is somehow relaxing. I am covering one colleague so I have one week consistency with her classes. And despite the fact, that this is still just cover, the feeling is wonderful. Knowing that I will see them next time and I will be able to follow up some behaviour problems or I will be able to praise effort and good work… I am actually trying to catch them being good, because normally doing cover just one lesson, its almost impossible (you know the attitude yoo-hoo, let’s have party of some classes when you cover your colleague… or is it just me and my limits in behaviour management?)

I just love the feeling, but the week didn’t finish jet! Anyway I still wonder how people in situation like mine can maintain good working atmosphere in the class. It is actually my improvement objective. Which elements create good working atmosphere and can be achieved in very short time with students you do not teach regularly? What approach, sentences, motivation?

I have tried few things and somehow I cannot figure out what I did right or wrong. One day it worked, another day it was like a challenge which triggered misbehaviour. Now I created kind of checklist for star of lesson which is not like a law, but keeps me focused on some I hope important thinks like uniform, seating plan (difficult one) and resources (how do you make your students to have pen or pencil, I see this as a problem in our school – incredible waste of time)… this week it works. I will try to make it my routine.

I will need something to record my trial and error learning courve in this, as this s becoming time consuming. I sometimes cannot figure out, what I did to gain such silence and respect in the class. Another day the same people, different room, similar approach – and completely different response…

And there is another thing, I would like to learn: How do you create ‘nice environment feeling’ in room which is very messy? I find it difficult to concentrate in such room myself. I don’t know about kids. Well, this is not related to my previous posts, but I just needed to ask this question and share my positive feeling. I am jealous to ordinary teacher, who has regular classes now…

Objective led lesson

My objective for this writing was to

- know why create learning objectives and what is a good practice

- improve my own practice and create objectives, which are useful for learning

- be able to link NC to objectives and to assessment

In general, learning objectives should be specific enough that
it may be determined if they have been achieved. Learning objec-
tives should specify the situation in which the action is performed,
the learned capabilities required to perform the action, the object
of the action, and any special constraints that can influence the
performance of the action (Gagne, Briggs, & Wager, 1992). For ex-
ample, stating that trainees should be more sensitive after the com-
pletion of the training program may be a difficult learning
objective to evaluate. What specific observable actions indicate in-
creased sensitivity? The key is to focus on those specific actions that
are directly measurable and observable when developing learning
objectives.

Creating, Implementing, and Managing Effective Training and Development: State-Of-The-Art Lessons for Practice. Contributors: Kurt Kraiger - editor. Publisher: Jossey-Bass. Place of Publication: San Francisco. Publication Year: 2002. Page Number: 131.

There is a PDF training material called Objective led lesson where I actually confirmed my own thinking and work with Bloom’s taxonomy. I want to quote some more ideas from this material:

using more precise vocabulary such as describe, predict, demonstrate how, the critical difference between teaching objectives and learning objectives is that learning objectives need to be in a language that pupils can understand so that they can be easily shared with them; teaching objectives are referred to in the National Strategy Frameworks and published schemes of work QCA /DfES)

‘understand how/why’ can sometimes result in a vague learning objective: teachers may need to focus on what they wish pupils to understand and then frame the objective explain, and evaluate. This will help to pitch the objective within the range of National Curriculum levels the class is working at and targeted to achieve.

Acknowledge that the actual approach to sharing the objectives will vary from lesson to lesson and subject to subject but that the focus for this training is to ensure that learning objectives are:

• planned;

• related to learning, not to the task or activity;

• linked to defined learning outcomes;

• shared and used with pupils.

I would like to be even more S.M.A.R.T. and I looked at the schemes of work of my school (I’ve mentionaed that I am not a teacher there yet, so I don’t use this document everyday) and find, that all follows veery similar pattern roughly copying the categories of cognitive domain.

I have some difficulty to find appropriate literature related to this topic eighter on the web or in library (I am using Questia.com – hope they will aprecciate the ad:-). All I can find is related to the bussines or job training and I need to search and think through to find ideas useful for me…

It has been quite interesting reading. Now I want to proceed to read about motivation and learning objectives so my objective would be to find and use the right vocabulary to motivate students and to accept LO as their own.

Great Advice From Students For College Professors

Attainmet Targets and Bloom's Taxonomy

As started in previous post, I was looking at attainment targets for History the UK and was trying to figure out, how to formulate reasonable and measurable objectives. They should help me to recognize the rights levels and assess student performance.

Learning objective – I recognize a target and transform it into small steps, which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and related to time

Assesment – Tool to recognize whether the objectives together (all those small steps during the course) led to the Target

Attainment Target in appropriate level – I and my students know where we are going…

While looking at my two sources, I realized, that doing a perfect analyze does not have much sense. It is just a way to help me undestand and mainly to use the targets. And I don’t want to be obssessed with all bussines around.

I’ve realized two main things. The targets are moving from first two categories – Knowledge and Application in Levels 1, 2 and 3 towards comprehension and application in Levels 4 and 5. Level 6 is on the edge of analysis and next two levels are just hitting Synthesis and Evaluation.

I know I’ve just discovered America J and now it’s time to move on and use my discovery in some way. Well I am going to have a closer look in the schemes of work and create some objective related to them and to possible tasks and assignemnts. This will be fun.

Objective for me...

During my reading about education and browsing through different blogs (so far just randomly) I came across so many topics and ideas which seem quite important to understand for me as someone, who wants to reach expertise in education. I just keep adding new and new learning objective to my personal and professional development… One of them (and completely wrong formulated) is to understand at least 30 of terms for L&D professionals… I know, that some of them are not really related to the secondary school setting, however another will become very important with use of ICT in schools. I definitely will have closer look at Learning Technologies Conference webpage regularly.

Another note to my @to do list is about new category of learning objectives which concentrate on memorable experience:

‘Let's start with asking ourselves what kind of memorable experiences this course will create. Let's put in another category: experiences. Make it part of your learning objectives. In every course or other learning experience.’

But this makes me think that I cannot make all lessons just fun and design them to please my students. Sometimes content does not allow to create such memorable experience and hard work needs to take place. And In real world outside the classroom employers don’t make that much effort to please employees… Well everything in moderation. Even my @to do listJ

I promised (it is on my every day longer @to do) to have a look at NC programme of study of History and compare it with Bloom’s taxonomy and behavioural verbs.

Attainment Target for History - Level 4

Pupils show factual knowledge and understanding of aspects of the history of Britain and the wider world. They use this to describe characteristic features of past societies and periods, and to identify changes within and across different periods. They describe some of the main events, people and changes. They give some reasons for, and results of, the main events and changes. They show some understanding that aspects of the past have been represented and interpreted in different ways. They are beginning to select and combine information from different sources. They are beginning to produce structured work, making appropriate use of dates and terms.

Show factual knowledge - Key Words (Knowledge is Bloom’s lowest category within cognitive domain) When creating objective related to knowledge of facts is better to use instead very vague ‘to know’ these Key words:

Define
Identify
List
Name
Recall
Recognize
Record
Relate
Repeat
Underline/Circle

Key verbs describe, identify, select are related to 2^nd category – Comprehension and are good to use in actual objective. Verb combine is not mentioned in this list, but I would relate it to 3^rd category – Use, apply, generalise… The target is to use, apply more than one historical source and generalise. Verb produce is mentioned in far higher category (5^th) – Synthesis.

So student in Level 4 should be able to work within first 3 categories and reaching higher. (Now I have another task in @to do – have a look in psychology to see relation between cognitive learning and age)

I hope next time I will write about more than one level. And add some examples related to Schemes of Work from my school.

SMART objectives

When thinking about planning a lesson (which I don’t do yet here) I always wondered, how do you set the topics and objectives. National Curriculum for History is quite broad in that so deciding for a topic is not easy (sometimes having a wide choice is not the easiest way) and so is the objective setting. When planning, I need to know what I want the students to learn and how I will know that they learned

I was thinking about objectives in very similar way as about the Goals… When setting them trying to be SMART.

The Word stands for

1. Specific – Objectives should specify what they want to achieve.
2. Measurable – You should be able to measure whether you are meeting the objectives or not.
3. Achievable - Are the objectives you set, achievable and attainable?
4. Realistic – Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have?
5. Time – When do you want to achieve the set objectives?

This method is being used when setting any goals, targets and objectives in business or personal life. I have seen our SMT members referring to it, when talking to students about targets setting and the ways, how to reach them, and in the relation with plans for revision. At this point I thought ‘yes, you can make a teenager to plan his life the way like that…’ But I can use this knowledge for myself. When talking about objectives of the lesson, those are little targets, we need to hit before we move on. And we actually have to assess out students against those targets.

How to make the Objectives SMART?

To make them Specific I can use the behavioural verb taken from Bloom’s Taxonomy. (I still can find objective set like ‘To understand…’) Those are best use for Cognitive objectives. I don’t think I could use affective or psychomotor objectives in history. Maybe in team or group work oriented tasks. I find verbs in bloom taxonomy quite useful and I plan to have look in the NC Programme of Study and relate them to attainment targets. I will see what I will make of it. (Is on my @todo list:-) I found Behavioural Verbs Appropriate for Each Level of Blooms’ Taxonomy here. It is a good guide to create learning objectives.

Using Blooms taxonomy (I know there are other theories as well) I actually make the objectives Measurable as well. I can ask a student to perform a behaviour described in my objective. And if this behaviour is related to the Attainment Targets I actually can give a level. I find it strange, that teachers here use only (as far as I am concerned) formal assessment via assignments or tests and not on the results of the lesson plenary or similar feature.)

Achievable – This is a difficult one. It requires a good knowledge of limits and abilities of students as well as mine. If I lack a competence to teach how to discuss, I cannot achieve such objective. The same if students are not able to learn this particular skill (as a group or individual due age or ability limitation). What do you do, if realistically you lack a skill or competence to achieve objective you should achieve next lesson? I think teacher can be in such situation. Am I wrong?

If my objective cannot be achieved during a time set, with the particular group or because I lack competence, skill, whiteboard necessary for planned method or another resource, than it is unrealistic. Unrealistic expectation can cause big behaviour problems as I could experience here. My expectation based on different school culture (where 95% of students have resources and don’t expect teacher to provide them and where transition from task to task takes minimum of time…) triggered some really ‘interesting’ reactions.

Relation to the time is one of very important features when setting objective. In Business goal or task setting the question is ‘when do I want to reach the goal, finish the task?’ I lesson planning I ask how much time I need to get my students ‘behave’ according my objective? Do I need extra time to check I after the learning activity, when will I see the result? Etc. And probably before hand plan the assessment process (this is different from my experience as well)

I don’t know whether these ideas make any sense at all. There are many theories about planning the lesson and setting the objectives. But I believe that everyone will personalize this process to make it work. I try to find the best way to make it work for me. I still may have problem with differentiation, something rarely used or mentioned during my teacher training overseas. I am quite glad to experience this system and learn from it…

There are few things...

People usually give something like a mission statement or a vision, when they start something new… What should I say? I am looking for some easy and workable way how to create a web based portfolio of my work and learning experience. Some tool to increase my productivity, understanding and to help my personal and profesional development. Two years ago I moved to the UK and made quite a long journey from staff member in Fast Food restaurant back to may profession – Teaching. I am not there still but reaching my goal. The journey was quite long and painfull. Language which I could speak but I did not understand (accent). Way of life and lots of other things foreigner has to go through when coming to England.

Now I work at school again and I can ‘enjoy’ the enviroment… I like it here. But having different background and different experience there is plenty of things I have to learn and comprehend before I will be confident enough to apply for full teaching post. So this will be my way how to gain knowledge, undestanding, skills etc. How is it expressed in British National Curricullum?

There are few things which puzzle me (and probably anyone without experience of being a pupil in British school): How do you mark students? What are Attainment Targets? Where did you get them from and how you can say from few pieces of work from someone (very lazy and not doing any work in lesson) that he hit those targets? How do you create Assingments and Objectives? How do you manage those small buggers in the classroom (I still have lots of problems)?

So there are some of my qestions. Just find the answers… Of course I know some answers already. But they have produced more question and so it goes all the time. Well I just hope I will have time to write the Questions and My answers (how I understand the system).

Another things and interest will also get some space here. I become very interested in new productivity religion called ‘GetThingsDone’ and Personal development. As teacher of History and RS I hope to find time to read and think about the Past as well. I hope to turn this place into sort of professional gowth portfolio, so I just have a little hope I will keep up… I have already few blogs and articles in my future reading list. Like The Optimized Life blogging tips and GTD guide, ‘How to became a creative genius’ and ‘Good blogging practice’ J