Who’s down with CPD? Creative ideas from the TEEP Trainers Conference July 2010

CPD can be horrendous, both for the audience and the person at the front. Some teachers seem determined to totally resent it, probably due to bad experiences in the past, but schools must still provide five days of stimulating training a year. This is where the problems begin: what professional development to you offer and how do you engage most of your audience?

Fitting the pieces together

The TEEP (Teacher Effectiveness Enhancement Programme)Trainers Conference in York set out to explore some possible solutions to this issue and outline several models that provided creative solutions to CPD. Below I have outlined five approaches that came from the day. I am not in favour of any particular model, but wanted to start a debate on alternative ways to look at teacher training (look forward to reading your comments).

MODEL 1 – Lead Practitioner (SSAT)

TEEP needed to expand and so it has just been taken on by the SSAT (Specialist Schools & Academies Trust). They opened the conference with an intriguing and exciting proposal: aligning TEEP with the Lead Practitioner Accreditation. This is an online self-assessment tool that allows teachers to move through four stages of development, leading them from good individual practice through to being able to lead others in their development. As each of the criteria are meant, the teacher ticks the box and uploads evidence to support the statement. The accreditation comes after the fourth stage, where the portfolio that has been created is externally assessed and feedback given. The process demands real CPD, with teachers having to back to the  tool at regular intervals, moving through the stages and finding evidence. The reward for a quality portfolio is Lead Practitioner status (not automatically given) and membership to a network of other people in the same position (see website for details).

Schools have used this approach to their advantage. Take Lodge Park Technology College, who have created a CPD package that contains Lead Practitioner Accreditation. Staff who achieve the award go on to lead learning and teaching in their faculty, or take on whole school projects – their recruitment page makes interesting reading. At All Hallows Catholic Collegethey have used TEEP and Lead Practitioner status extensively and senior leaders say that it has improved the CVA and the number of good/outstanding lessons. The result has been that the school has shifted from ‘special measures’ in 2006 to a much healthier position now – see the Ofsted reports for details. Both schools have seen massive benefits to introducing a more sustained model of CPD and reaped the benefits in terms of outcomes.

MODEL 2 – Taster and Twilight (Hartlepool)

People can quite cunning and two teachers form Manor Collegeshowed just how much with their approach to lure teachers into CPD. They set themselves an ambitious aim: to create meaningful CPD, but also to engage people with the process. Firstly, they created an exciting and rigorous PD day that served as a taster for the CPD that was to follow. It involved activities about group work and staff creating presentations about the key ideas behind their programme (in this case TEEP). At the end of the day, all staff were given the opportunity to take on a TEEP Level 1 qualification to further explore the strands raised on the taster day, to be delivered in five twilight sessions of two hours each (a fairly big commitment).

There was no shortage of takers and group started to run. The trainers made sure that the twilights were a real ‘experience’ hitting the participants visually and emotionally, making it fun as well as intellectually demanding; they even drafted in a  small army of students to evaluate some of the work the group created. The whole process created a buzz around school, as did the quality of the teaching now coming from this pioneer group. The result was a clamour from other staff demanding twilight training and to be part of this approach. The key to its success are engaging staff and making want this training, both through the taster day and twilight sessions, and providing a qualification at the end (something to aim at over a substantial amount of time). There is a wealth of research to back up why these kind of projects have such impact, but probably the most accessible is Daniel Pink’s book ‘Drive’.

MODEL 3 – 2+1+2 = More than 5

It is hard enough to entertain people on a PD Day, but what if your ambitions stretch a little further. One trainer, Cath, was given the task of engaging a whole school staff in teaching and learning over the course of five PD Days. She decided to use TEEP level 1 as a framework, but adapted aspects of it to fit the context of the school. She took the first two days back-to-back in early July 2009 and used them to enthuse the staff in the process of creative teaching and learning. The days were high on engagement and group work, but ended with a lesson planning challenge that left people with something to try out in their lessons after the course ended. They were encouraged to collect artefacts that illustrated their experiments in the classroom.

Three months and a few gentle reminders later, the staff were back for Day 3. Experiences were shared and more flesh was put on the bones of what an engaging and creative classroom might look like in that school. They discussed PEEL procedures and thinking skills as a way to increase challenge and set themselves a challenge before Day 4.

After another gap, the group convened for Day 4 and 5 and shared experiences before analysing lessons plans created by teachers from other schools. This provided a distance so that constructive criticism could take place and this could be related to good practice within the room. The final sessions focused on the wider actions of teachers and learners and how this affects the classroom. Like all good units, the course ended with a creative task.

The advantages of this approach were, according to Cath, how it encouraged greater creativity and built in specific points of reflection and also how it created more group identity with everyone wanting to find out about the ideas of others. This is a key point, how many schools actually build reflection into their PD programme? After a successful day on a ‘school priority’ how to schools organise feedback and evaluation? Having a coherent course that runs over all PD Days in a year means that you can achieve this. There is the possibility that some of the key threads might get a little disjointed with this method, but it has to be better for the teacher than trying to make sense five separate days. The whole approach is about making sense of things: shared courses, shared language for learning, shared responsibility. Even though the course lasted 5 Days, the learning and impact happened in between as well and made the programme more than the sum of its parts.

MODEL 4 – Viral CPD (Hull)

Hull was one of the first authorities to grasp the power of having a single training programme to offer all teachers that come to work in the city. They have offered a coherent programme to all staff that is engaging and carries a qualification (TEEP Level 1). This is accepted by all schools and all teachers know that it is on offer. This means they can offer greater incentives when trying to recruit; and the same package is offered to all (GTPs, teachers in Secondary, Diploma tutors, etc).

The package offered is absolutely voluntary, but has attracted a wide acceptance because it has gone viral. Word of mouth and positive lesson observations have attracted the attention of senior leaders and other teachers. Where individuals have expressed an interest they have been placed in groups with people from other schools and begun to collaborate. What is even more impressive is that many of the training days take place in school holidays, but the perceived impact of good quality training has attracted the numbers anyway. There are mild incentives (overnight stays, meals, etc), but the improvement of practice seems to be the top motivator, that and the additional reward of points towards a masters.

Where senior leaders have taken on the challenge, the training programme has moved to a whole school model, similar to the one outlined above. For those schools with an Ofsted rating satisfactory or lower there is additional support.

MODEL 5 – Saturday Morning Fever (Sunderland)

This was similar to some of the ideas outlined above: a series of seven morning sessions for three hours each. The end result was a qualification in teaching and learning. It was offered to a number of schools in close proximity and was absolutely voluntary. It raised standards and creativity, just as in the 2+1+2 model and allowed for practical application between sessions. As noted above, it was amazing to see just how many people were willing to adopt this approach, willing to give up Saturday mornings to further their understanding of teaching and learning and be recognised for it. The aim benefit of this model was the amount of fun that generated – all attendees had chosen to be there and the weekend time slot brought a weekend atmosphere.

CONCLUSION

CPD seems to have more impact when people buy into it. If we can’t run it on a voluntary basis, then we need to make it coherent and long lasting. Senior Leaders need a long-term vision of where they want to go and plan a holistic course that will get them there. The idea of a qualification attracts some, but the prime motivator seems to be ‘getting better’ at teaching and moving on. If staff are given a reason to do something and a clear path through all the evidence suggests that they will give up time to achieve a goal. Above all though, the message comes through that CPD needs to be high quality and engaging – you have to admire schools like Lodge Park who have taken this into their own hands and ensured that this year’s CPD creates the Practitioners to deliver it for the following 12 months. Some serious (re)thinking needs to be done.

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Creativity in Teaching (Part 3: start designing lessons)

It is easy to recognise creativity. Take a look at this video I found on a designer’s website:

This is a great idea for getting a message across, and I really like the principles it sets out for creativity and getting good ideas:

1. Push your ideas
2. Trust your gut
3. Don’t fall in love with your first idea
4. Don’t censor yourself – figure out what you want to say
5. Worry about ideas first, execution later
6. Approach the problem from different angles
7. Don’t repeat yourself
8. Show people your work, see if they get it
9. Leave an impression with your audience
10. Keep going

The points above represent a well thought out set of advice, but we know it is not as simple as having these next to you when you plan. If it was, the job would not be much fun.

Teachers have a really hard job – enjoyable, rewarding and worthy of praise, but hard. We have to come up with lessons that are can stand up to the most robust of criticism and fulfil a whole host of criteria that we may or may not agree with. This, and the fact that we have to repeat the show for a new audience every hour.

What makes it even harder is that any negative feedback is going to hit you right on launch – if it is an awful lesson, the students will definitely let you know. That is why I sometimes daydream of being a designer, the anomimity of it seems like heaven – I haven’t heard of any designer having a disatisfied consumer throwing a product back in their face. However, students in classrooms do and it gets to you – no matter how much you tell yourself that it shouldn’t, it happens every time. Why do we get upset when lessons do not go according to plan? It might be the wasted hours spent preparing the matertials that hurts, “Do you know how long it took me to prepare this stuff?” Possibly, it is wounded pride – no one likes to get things wrong. I am sure these play a part, but they are probably secondary. I suspect that our annoyance comes from a deeper place than this most of the time. My view is that lesson ideas are our creative output and we are intrinsically motivated by producing great ideas that ‘work’ in the classsroom. This is how we measure our success and how we take pleasure from each lesson (it is our ‘Assessment for Learning’ I suppose). What matters to us when an idea does not work, is that we feel personally wronged. We invest a lot of ourselves in our ideas and if they fall flat, then we often take this to heart.

It is easily done. I have a challenging Year 9 group for an afternoon lesson, and I wanted to try something different to keep them engaged and active. Inspired by Thinking History, I devised a roleplay where each member of the group played a part in the story of Herbert Morris, a Carribean volunteer executed in the Great War. Each had specific actions and words to say at various times and they characters appeared and reappeared in the narrative, ending with a dramatic trial and execution (the big surprise)!. I thought it was going to be a triumph, but it was virtually ruined by the behaviour of a few boys. I had to keep them in at the end of the lesson to discuss their behaviour, I was actually annoyed that they had not taken to my idea for the lesson. They apologised, but one said, “It was a bit boring though sir, when you had to sit through all the other bits that weren’t yours. It was just listening.” I assumed, wrongly, that they would run with this. The idea was a good one, but not right for the class I was teaching. I broke rule number 9 from the film and for teachers, this is crucial.

I believe that two points are crucial when it comes to making creative lessons – purpose and audience. In the two previous posts I outlined the need for good subject knowledge and an understanding of how teaching works, this consistutes the purpose of teaching – ‘why’ we are doing what we do. If we add to this the notion of audience then creativity should start to flow. I have already posted a few thoughts on student voice and see this as a vital way of knowing what will work for a particular group. Knowing students and their achievements is also vital and provides us with the knowledge we need to be creative.

Take this quote from ‘Presentation Zen Design‘ by Garr Reynolds and replace the word design with teaching or teach:

Design is about people creating solutions that help or improve the lives of other people – often in profound ways, but often in ways that are quite small and unnoticed. When we design, we need to be concerned with how other people interpret our design solutions, and our design messgaes. Design is not art, although there is art in it. Artists can, more or less, follow their creative impulses and create whatever it is they want to express. But designers work in a business environment. At all times, designers need to be aware of the end user and how best to solve (or prevent) a problem from the user’s point of view… good design must necessarily have an imapct on people’s lives, no matter how seemingly small. Good design changes things.

Thinking of ourselves as designers, although a touch indulgent, is a good place to start and thinking about creative lessons.

So, how do we use this to be more creative in the classroom? If we have in mind, all the time, that we need to bring the students along with us then we have a starting point. Recently, we have used the ‘Principles of Sticky‘ to ensure that our classes are engaged and focused on their learning. It has meant that we have to find stories that will give the work coherence and work hard to make it emotionally and physically engaging for the students (Nick Dennis recently told me about the story of Hans Massaquoi which I’ll be using next year for the same reasons). When think about your audience and their needs you begin to open yourself to many new possibilities; the certainty goes out of planning lessons, because it becomes more about ‘educated guesses’ than concrete actions. You start to ask yourself questions like, ‘I wonder if they will like…’ or ‘Will this work if I…’ After years of working with training teachers I have noticed that a shift happens in their thinking at precisely the moment described above. When teachers stop worrying about what they need to do and begin to think about what the students might need or enjoy their teaching improves, the learning gets better and the whole process is more creative.A by-product of this is the use of technology in lessons. Quality use of ICT seems to go hand in hand with the realsiation that students are the audience. When teachers do start to experiment with ICT they become more creative – it is another tool in their box that can be used.

The same applies to other avenues. Both Johannes and myself are avid of Wired UK and steal ideas from it on a regular basis. It is not about teaching, but tecnhnology and stuff ideas. It takes a meantal leap to see how some of this could be used in the classroom, but that is the fun part. It is no different to watching great comedy – it is funny because you make the connection in your between the punchline or observation and the intended subject. Eddie Izzard is a brilliant example of this. Buy his ‘Glorious‘ DVD and watch how he builds the story of Noah and the Ark. As well as laughing (hopefully) you will see a creative genius making connections all over the place. This is the essence of creativity – making links between otherwise disparate elements. A whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Of course, drawing in new and random ideas that you think will hook and engage the students will lead to failures (see above), but as long as we see it ass just an experiment and don’t take it personally then we can arry on. BY next lesson students will have forgotten all about it and so should we – teachers who hold grudges are not effective in the classsroom.

One last and crucial point. All the above is based on the asssumption that the learning is about what students will do. Learning needs to be focused on students doing and reflecting, not on teachers tecahing. Only when this occurs will creativity flow.

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Simplicity at its best

Students have very different experiences from their teachers and view life with different lenses than we perhaps do. So when you start a new topic, if you discuss or introduce a new concept, how far do you think students see what you see? The quest, as always, is to make the abstractions of our subjects more concrete so they understand.

Seeing things differently

When Johannes first came to the UK from Sweden many years ago he got a job as a Guest Porter in a fancy hotel in Cambridge. This was a real learning experience for him particularly when it came learning colloquial terms and phrases. For example colleagues would ask if he was ‘alright’. Now this may not seem like an odd question to most, however Johannes felt that although they may be concerned about his well-being, he certainly was ‘alright’ as there was nothing wrong with him, so he would reply: “Yes I’m ‘ALRIGHT, there’s nothing wrong with me'”. Today Johannes can see what they meant. Strangely enough he was never lynched.

In a similar vein, the 3 minute talk below deals with those simple issues that can very easily be misunderstood, although you wouldn’t think that asking for direction could be so different? Continue reading Simplicity at its best

Planning Lessons using the Principles of Sticky

Make it Sticky! (Sticky = understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought or behaviour.)

How do we get students to care about being healthy; to understand the notion of a mathematical function? Why should your students care that Victor Frankl lost his manuscript on psychological well-being? The brothers Chip and Dan Heath have explored the idea why some messages stick and why some disappear (Made to Stick, Arrow Books Ltd, 2008 http://www.madetostick.com). They argue that the main reason why people, such as teachers, fail to create effective and memorable `sticky’ lessons is because of what they call `The Curse of Knowledge’. This refers to the notion that educators and presenters of information sometimes fail to see that abstractions, the wealth of knowledge which they have and which makes sense to them, may not make sense to the students. Continue reading Planning Lessons using the Principles of Sticky

Handheld Learning beyond the Classroom

If you are looking to use mobile phones in the classroom, in school or even for outdoor learning then QR codes could help. QR stands for ‘Quick Response’ as the inventor Denso-Wave intended to have the code decoded at high speed. For more information about QR its history and usage please read the Wiki entry here. You do not need to know any coding as there are several QR Code Generators online which will do they job for you – just do a quick search and pick one. Mobile Barcodes , for example, provides a good tool on their website. You need a mobile phone that has a camera + software that can decode QR codes (most barcode apps do a pretty good job) like for example Neo-Reader. Neo-Reader also has a page where you can check which phones it supports: click here. [update Feb 2011] Another one which is even quicker is i-nigma. Go to www.i-nigma.mobi on your mobile. I-nigma will automatically identify your handset type, download and install.

Most QR Generators allows you to create or ‘hide’ a number of different resources within the QR images, for example:

  • website url
  • vCard
  • 100 character text message
  • Phone number
  • SMS
  • Email address

How could it be used to enhance learning?

Although QR Code is still a new approach to encourage learning in the classroom, there are already many good examples online of how to use it at a basic level in your lessons (see this list of ideas and articles). We hope that the following examples will provide you with a wide range of engaging ways of using QR Codes with your students. Here follows a number of ideas of how this easy-to-use technology can be accessed to raise achievement and student participation in the classroom.

The Hook

Before students enter your room there tends to be a few minutes when they wait patiently (or not so…) outside. Why not get them involved in their learning even before the lesson begins? Visit one of the QR Code Generator websites that you found from your search earlier and create an image which hides a link to a Youtube video or image, quote or cryptic comment that relate directly to what they will be taught in the lesson. For example, a Year 10 History class waited outside Johannes’ classroom and could access this image:

Image shows clip from The Holy Grail (Monty Python)

The following image could be use in an ICT or Technology lesson which would entice students to consider technology around them and how simple solutions can solve complex problems:

Could you create an Interactive White Board?

These examples not only encourages students to take charge of their learning, but also provides an opportunity when they have to concentrate and ‘get into character’ even before the lesson starts, hopefully full of questions about the ‘hook’.

Dynamic Presentations

QR Readers have become very sophisticated so students can actually scan images from the back of the classroom. This means that your expositions and student presentations can now be more engaging than ever. For example, if you are teaching a group of A-Level students and you want them to become more actively involved in your presentation then try inserting QR images on particular slides containing links to further reading or a documentary you want them to watch on Teachers TV or Archive.org. Similarly, if you get used to adding a ‘Think about this…’ image in the bottom right-hand corner of a slide which takes students to a question you want them to answer, then this will help generate discussion and also allow them thinking time.

Using QR Code in PowerPoint slides

New Students

How often do new students ask how to find a building, a room or even what teacher is in which room? QR Code to the rescue! Place an image outside all classrooms which hides a message which contains:

  • The name of the building
  • Room number
  • Name of teachers
Info for new students

To make it even more specific and useful why not add an image of the room timetable?

Students Participation

Asking to students to use their mobile phones to get involved in the lesson is likely to be popular for some time. Here follows a few examples of how you can encourage students to get involved both during but also after the lesson has finished.

  • Discussion: provide a deep link to a specific forum on the Learning Platform where they hold a discussion around the key question of the lesson. Homework could be linked to this and participation could be followed up at the start of the next lesson.
  • QR Challenge: split class into a number of teams and get each one to create questions that the other teams have to answer (students create the code and share the images on the Learning Platform).
  • QR Debate: same as above but get teams from different sets/classes to have a running debate on a key topic over a half-term. Add QR images outside each others’ classrooms.

Jazzy Worksheets

These may not actually exist but you can make your current worksheets more useful and engaging by adding QR images to support students’ learning.

Idea 1: Say that your Year 7 students are investigating the development of castles in Norfolk, you can improve the traditional activity of matching images of castles with text by adding QR images that hides a set of statements or link to video clip about why a particular castle was too weak and students have to discuss which statement is likely to solve the problem.

Idea 2: Why not link a current activity to a set of MP3 files, for example, songs on Spotify which students have to use to answer the question, or a talk on TED.com that will enable them to explain the key question in a more sophisticated way?

Idea 3: If students are investigating a painting, grid or map, add QR codes next to particular elements which hide links to further reading, Youtube video which explains the painting or show a clip about one of the locations on the map. For example, the image below had been added to an old worksheet on coastal erosion and when the students scanned the image they could watch a video about coastal erosion in Cumbria.

Jazzing up worksheets - link to video about Coastal Erosion

Social Learning Games

Rarely do students have the opportunity to collaborate and work together as well as they do in Physical Education where team work really is important to winning a game. There are ways where this mentality and methods of working can be used in other subject areas by playing Social Learning Games. In such games students have to work in teams to find clues to a problem and they receive rewards if successful.  The most favorable social learning games involve careful planning so that students take them seriously, otherwise it is likely to fail. Here follows one example:

  • A middle ability Year 9 class were informed that they were to work in teams to solve a mystery and that it would be time limited (20 minutes). The mystery contained keys that were scattered around the school and they would unlock further keys and ultimately the solution to the mystery. Each key was worth 5 points. There were 10 keys in total but the mystery could be solved with a minimum of 7 keys. The winning team was the one that had solved the mystery, runners up was based on the number of points accumulated.
  • The mystery was to find a solution and to be able to explain and answer to the question: Why did Eric leave the classroom?
  • The question dealt with how children from the school were effected by World War II. ‘Eric’ was forced to leave the classroom together with his classmates to enter the bomb shelter when the air raid siren was set off. No one was hurt but Eric kept a diary so his reactions to the event could be used by our students.
  • Students were given 5 minutes to get into groups of 4. They were then asked to think of a good team name (5 minutes) – this was essential for motivation before the task. Each team were given a map of the school with four visible QR Code images displayed. They had to get to one of the images before the other groups as each image contained various levels of difficulty in decoding the message (you could differentiate this by giving them direction to the image you want them to look at first.) and would therefore take them to different areas of the school as the first QR Code would establish which patten they followed on the map. Groups now had 20 minutes (exact time was set) before they had to be back to the classroom. Failure to arrive before the set time would result in disqualification.
  • The four sets of 10 keys (QR Code images stuck onto walls, trees, windows, ceilings, doors etc) contained information from primary evidence: diary extracts, newspaper clippings, and video clips, MP3 tracks as well as messages typed up by their teachers, all of which linked to another location on the map where they could find the next key.
  • If groups were particularly sharp they would also realise that each ‘pattern’ on the map, the directions they walked,  resembled a shape of where Peter walked to i.e. the bomb shelter.

Dynamic Social Games

The other way of involving students in this type of Social Learning Games is to change the game according to what time students get to a key. This requires some effort and pre-planning on your behalf as well as technical know-how – but only some! This type of game could take a similar structure to the Social Learning Game above but will also involve a WordPress blog or using your Learning Platform’s hand-in tool.

  • When a student arrives at a key the content of that key will depend on what time they arrived to the location. So for example, they may have been informed to find a certain person to find out about something but when they arrive he’s out. The message they receive will inform them to come back 10 minutes later which means they will have to reconsider their original plan and rethink where to go next.
  • How do I create this time based system? Easy, create a ‘Page’ in WordPress and set it to ‘Publish’ at a certain time. Then when that time has passed change the content (or url) and re-publish. Alternatively you ‘Hide’ and ‘Unhide’ the pages from your Smart Phone or laptop at a given time. The other way of doing this is to create ‘Hand in’ folders in Fronter which opens and closes at certain times. All you have to do is to create the QR code images based on the internal Fronter link to that folder. Sounds more complicated than it actually is – try it and see for yourself!

Clever Textbooks

Textbooks are useful and although there are electronic versions available nowadays, most schools could not afford to equip all their students will laptops or enough computer suites for these to be effective. Therefore, we need to do our utmost to ensure that textbooks cater for our students needs and this can be achieved very easily. Simply create an image containing a deep link to a resource page on your Learning Platform (e.g. Moodle, Frog or Fronter) which can support students learning for example by adding learning games, quizzes as well as homework. If you took your time, perhaps in one of the department meetings, then you could also add QR images on individual pages which links to MP3 tracks, videos online, polls, forums, Wiki or other exciting resources that can make that dusty textbook just a little bit more interesting.

Revision

Getting some students to revise can be difficult at times and those that do want to spend time on their work may lose sight what they are doing or just run out of steam. The latter can be attributed to revision material and activities that essentially are note taking tasks and can therefore fail to engage even the most industrious of students. Here are a few ideas that work well to encourage revision and engagement:

  • The Revision Board: create a series of QR images that hide links to subject specific video clips students can download to their iPods to watch at their leisure, then place these images on the Department’s Revision Board in the corridor. You’d be surprised how often students come back to check on updated resources
  • Top-Tips: images containing revision tips, tools for learning or exam techniques you feel that they would benefit from looking at.
  • Revision QR Stickers: provide classes with stickers which contains a RSS Feed to the Department or Team’s blog. This ensures that the content is always updated. Stickers are very reasonably prices nowadays, alternatively buy Business cards with the image on them.

The ideas covered in this post only give you a starting-point to using QR-Codes in education but we will keep adding more ideas. Have you used this technology successfully in the classroom, why not add a comment and tell us about it?

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