I’m still reading running the room by Tom Bennett and one of the chapters that I’ve been working through this week discussed the use of Good and Bad Models.
Bennett discusses different methods of dealing with behaviour in this chapter. One of these being the ‘hope it doesn’t rain’ approach. This approach compares the constant noise and putting out fires. You put out one fire but the other one starts up. Ultimately you end up in relentless repetition of what is going on and going round in circles. This is draining for teachers and ultimately they need to know how to stop those fires from occurring.
One of the methods I like is that Bennett mentions that one of the good approaches to have towards this is that you need to find out why fires happen and address the issue causing this. I agree with this 100%.
I have had to train several teachers in behaviour management over the years and one of the things that teachers say is that they’ve noticed that behaviour is always best when the dreaded Ofsted come knocking.
You know why this is? Planning! When we put a lot of thought into our lessons, think of those extension tasks, think of the ways of making the lessons more accessible. It doesn’t allow room for those fires to start. This is ‘fire prevention’. It’s done the risk assessment and cover all our basis.
I do agree with something that Bennett goes onto say when it says that some teachers aren’t taught how to manage behaviour. He compares the expectation to learning to fly a jet. You wouldn’t just get in the plane and do it. Teachers also need teachers.
Bennett has a good point when he talked about the contrast in behaviour myths. The saying that ‘some people have it’. The point about behaviour being ‘your fault’.
I remember in my first year of teaching, I was an ‘instructor’. This meant that I didn’t have a degree in teaching. I had my degree in Computer Science; however, I hadn’t done any teacher training yet. I didn’t have behaviour management skills, but a member of staff said to me, ‘You must be doing something wrong’. Not entirely helpful but I’ve learnt to never take this approach with struggling teachers. It’s much more important to listen, observe and offer tips and quick wins.
I really like the point he makes where he dresses down the myth of saying ‘Kids need love, not boundaries. They need both. “Boundaries without love is tyranny”. I absolutely love this saying. How can you seriously love someone if you don’t put in the boundaries. Boundaries can prevent harm and this is something that we need to remember.
They need to like you – this is a very difficult one. There are two arguments here. I have seen teachers that are well liked for the wrong reasons. I had a teacher in school who I really liked but if I’m honest, my mother gave me some of my schoolbooks from the attic a few years ago. I loved his lessons but looking back in the books. None of them were marked and I also achieved a D in his subject.
My argument for this is that students don’t need to like you. They do need to ‘respect’ you though. You can earn respect buy listening. It’s not about letting them get away with murder. If they respect you and if you support them then you can gain mutual respect.
Students need to be taught how to behave
I agree with this and there have been time and time again where I’ve seen teachers ‘rebuke’ a child. There is nothing more terrifying or demoralising for them. The best way to do this is to de-escalate and take the time to address the behaviour itself. I have used opportunities for misbehaviour to say, ‘I’ve noticed’ or ‘Why is that appropriate for this lesson’. You’re taking away the focus from the student but then you’re talking about the behaviour.
In summary, there are a few points to take from this.
It’s important to plan ahead
It’s important to address what could cause the problem and implement activities / structures that do not allow for behaviour to creep in.
It’s equally worth noting that students will work for you when they have mutual respect. This means they appreciate the time you’ve invested in their work and not just their friendship.
I look forward to what’s to come in the rest of these chapters as I continue to learn and look back on my teaching career.
As part of ongoing CPD in my school we’ve recently been given a copy of the book ‘Running the room’ by Author Tom Bennet. I’ve given myself a challenge of reading the book and creating a blog about each chapter.
I’ve always been a person to hold myself accountable and to make sure that I get things done and I thought that blogging about the book would be a good way of me summarising and reflecting on my own teaching practice throughout.
The book starts by introducing a number of excellent classroom management techniques that have been useful him and he has reflected on 10 key concepts. At the risk of copyright and giving too much away I’m going to summarise a couple that have definitely impacted my own teaching.
Teach, don’t tell behaviour
Having not delved into the book just yet I would firmly agree with this. In my first year of teaching I worked in a school in an area which was quite deprived in the way of financial support from council. Reflecting on this, I was a ‘shouter’ and a ‘dictator’. I was an unqualified teacher and hadn’t taken any form of teacher training. Coming straight out of university I thought that the correct way to teach was to tell students want to do rather than teach them about the impact of their behaviour. I’m sure that this will come later into the book but I had to learn how to build relationships with these students. It was a residential trip that changed this behaviour for me. Students saw that I was a human being and I made an effort to say ‘you matter’.
Good relationships are built out of structures and high expectations
One of the other key things that I agree with was that one of his top 10 tips involved good relationships being build out of structures and high expectations. It’s interesting how quickly students learn this. I have worked in schools and the students soon learn which teachers are going to follow up and do what they said.
I’m very happy with my new school, I’ve already noticed that some of my year 10 and year 11 students sit down and automatically load up the Blooket website. I set a routine where I give them a competitive quiz. While they’re doing this, I do my register and check the homework. It’s a routine and my students know I’m following up. That being said, I’m going to change up some of these start activities and keep them on their toes 😉
Everyone wants to matter
I remember working in one of my first schools and I remember one student in one of my classes who was having a tough time at home. We will name her ‘Daenerys Taragaryen’ for the purpose of this (Sorry, I enjoy watching Game of Thrones). This student was in my tutor group and also in my lessons. Across the whole school, she was being removed from lessons because of her behaviour. I knew about the difficulties she was facing at home. Her ‘love’ language was shouting. She was brought up being shouted at in the home and ultimately, just wanted to matter. In my form time, I would get to know her and I would always make sure she felt like she mattered. She felt safe and ultimately was never removed for behaviour in my lessons. It’s amazing the impact that we can have just by getting to know our students.
History / Prior to teaching
Before Tom Bennett became a classroom teacher, he was a nightclub own in central London and in his book, he talks about how some of the skills in management have allowed him to transfer skills into other environments.
In many ways, I relate to his first year in teaching and elements of being bogged down in chaos in his first year of teaching. The students who refused to play ball. The waiting for the student to come to you to apologise because they were ‘told to do so’ rather than understanding where they had gone wrong.
I remember in my first year of teaching I had a difficult year 9 group. I’m not scared to put my hands up and say that they almost beat me. It took me the whole year to learn from them and for them to learn from me. We got there in the end.
Chapter 1 – The Basics
He mentions that some people that enter our profession have character traits which make it easier but also that some have traits which make it more difficult. For example, if you’re one that is easily angered, then this could be difficult. There are those teachers who enter the profession who are equally timid and that this can be difficult to overcome.
He also mentions that some people are under the misconception that being tall and having a big bellowing deep voice can have a huge impact. He squashes this and I’m here to tell you that my first year in teaching was horrific. I’m tall, I have a deep voice and I had so many difficulties with behaviour. It’s about training and learning what works. It takes time, don’t give up.
The key thing that he mentions is that ANYONE can improve. (If they want to).
I may have read something incorrectly but there is one thing that he says in his book which I’m not entirely supportive of. He argues against one quote which says, ‘They’re all a bit rowdy, but they’re learning because they’re excited’.
I’ve been in settings with students where they’re all excited and playing a learning game, however I’m the classroom practitioner and I know my students (or at least should do). One example of a noisy classroom can be the context of the lesson. I have used playdough, Jenga and all sorts to make lessons more fun for students. I also know when to count down and bring it back under control so that I can question the students and check their understanding. This takes practice but I think when students don’t feel like they can ask questions or speak up, they don’t develop as quick. My students know they can ask me questions and can approach me but they also know when it’s time to bring back the lesson to a calm state.
Safety
In the book, Tom goes on to say that the ultimate goal for behaviour should be safety. I agree with this. I didn’t realise that in 2016 that 72% of teachers had noticed a decrease in behaviour across the country. I actually think that this has gotten worse since the pandemic. I believe that students have lost years of emotional education. Times where they learn how to interact with each other.
Basically, the bottom line is that we have to do our bit to keep them calm so that the students feel safe. Potential can be unlocked when students feel safe. They’ll be free to ask you questions, free to ask for extension, free to contribute. If we can make the environment as safe as possible, the students will see it as their safe haven.
One thing that I agree with is that you can never say that a Job is done with behaviour. As soon as you think you’ve got it cracked, there will be a new incident for you to wrap your head around. I recently spoke to a teacher online who turned down CPD because of the code and their response was ‘My 25 years of teaching experience is enough’. We need to be adaptable and be ready for any experience that could come our way. Changing and adapting our behaviour techniques will make our life easier but it will also help us prepare for the new cohort of students who will be different.
Dynamics and consistency
In the book, I appreciated a story that Tom had given about the time when he has seen a school that was in a deprived area. These schools generally have challenges. Initially it was under the leadership of a head teacher who was rigorous with routines. This is what kept the students challenged and it helps the staff maintain behaviour. After a leadership change, the new head teacher approached the students with the ‘second chance’ rule and was too friendly and the behaviour started to deteriorate. Even the really strong students started to push boundaries.
I think it’s important when working with behaviour that we’re consistent and we can accept that students make mistakes, but we must educate the student about where they’ve gone wrong. From experience, we can use de-escalation techniques to do this. ‘
Some schools are easier than others
One thing that I was a little unsure on in the book was the discussion about some schools being easier than others. I have taught in 4 schools prior to the one that I’m currently teaching in and each of them have been in different in their demographic and challenges. I wouldn’t say that one of them was particularly easier in terms of the behaviour.
Each school has been challenging in their own way. One school may have had more difficulty with behaviour that students choose to perform such as showing off to peers. Another school was more challenging in terms of the behaviour when students felt that they could be passive because their parents have a career lined up for them. Both of these challenges were equally challenging for me. When students have careers lined up for them, we need to teach them how to motivate themselves which is equally as challenging as teaching them social etiquette.
Tom puts behaviour into three categories:
Behaviour – Students cannot choose to perform i.E Tourettes
Behaviour – They find hard to perform – Shout / Demand when they want something
Behaviour – They choose to perform – Showing off / challenging friends.
I agree with these categories and look forward to reading more about how he has addressed these within the book.
Protection
A concept that he gives in the book is the concept of protection. He discusses how students need to be able to learn from experiences.
Cannot put students in this perfect world and put them in a bubble. If we permit nothing to happen to them, they will not learn. But we do need to make sure that we make sure that children feel safe from threats including bullying etc.
The key thing to take away from this first chapter are:
Education
Everyone wants to matter
You are important too
Not everyone’s desires can be met at the same time.
Sometimes individuals want will be balanced with the greater good of the community
Tom also goes on to discuss that there are different types of behaviour.
Negative good behaviour – Not throwing chairs, rolling eyes, swearing or pushing and fighting. Not talking over you. In my opinion, this is great and I can see how it can be a goal for many teachers, however we’ve also got to remember that we do not want our students to be too passive. We want them engaging and learning from what we’re doing.
Positive good behaviour – Teaching them – Being late is about teaching them why they’re late – Teaching them about planning. When things happen, which have caused our students to be late or miss homework, we need to look at ways of addressing this and supporting them. We must train them. Where can they find their homework online? Can we give them timetable tools? We need to resource our students and help them develop.
I have found thus far that this book is helping me reflect on my own journey and how far I’ve come from teaching. I’m excited to see what memories it unlocks along the way.
Something that I’ve always liked about the use of Technology, is the impact that it can have on students. There are a multitude of ways that you can use a tool to help aid a students progress of students.
I have observed many schools in either my teaching role or as a consultant.
In 2015 I was fortunate to win the UK National Teaching Award for the use of technology in the classroom. In 2017 I was also fortunate to make it to the top 10 of the Global Teacher Prize. Having these experiences gave me the opportunity to become a National Teaching Award Adjudicator. As a result of these experiences I was able to see how others were using technology in the classroom.
So, what are the pitfalls?
Where I’ve seen it go wrong is when schools go into the purchase of devices because they want every child to have one. Some schools go into these schemes because they see other academy chains buying into a similar scheme. This isn’t the right reason to do this.
It’s important that the school has a real goal of what they want to achieve. It must have something that is going to improve the educational value to those students.
Having access to technology does this, but it can also hinder the students with the access to social media or games. If the students are using an application and they don’t know how to use it (or the teacher doesn’t) you’re going to spend time losing the real understanding of the topic.
The school or academy has to know the real purpose and the end goal if there is going to be success with the technology.
Ask yourself these questions:
What tools will I be using?
How will the software / tool help with process?
Risk assessments – What could go wrong? Do you have any safeguarding procedures in place?
Student Voice – What do the students like / dislike about trials?
How can your IT services department support? Do you have enough Staff
Who are your champions? What will their role be?
There is a lot to think about but it’s important to run through all of these questions.
What does a good one look like 😉 (WAGOLL) ?
So what works? Well I mentioned that I’ve started a new role. I’m now the Director of Computer Science and Technology at Aylesbury Grammar. In my first two training days I was already impressed with how the school handled their approached to this. I didn’t ask too many questions, just observed.
What I’ve learnt already is that they included a phased implementation of these. Although I wasn’t working at the school when this happened, it’s the safe way to go. By introducing a phased implementation, you can make sure that you rule out any teething problems prior to going for the whole school. It gives you the opportunity to evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t.
They had a series of champions. On our training day I noticed that there were a few individuals who were able to stand up and share good practice.
This is KEY if you’re going to get the support from the rest of the school. It was great to see members of staff standing up and being passionate about what has worked in their own classrooms.
I’ve observed schools where there has been a new device scheme which hasn’t had much of an uptake. This resorted to students carrying around heavy laptops and then teachers were often telling them to put them away.
They didn’t have staff who were available for support. They couldn’t see any help videos, they could read up on any good practice. It’s great to see that there are staff leading the way in my new school.
It is important to have a selection of teachers who are going to champion it. It’s also important to have teachers that can show you have to use them and share what has worked and what hasn’t worked.
I’m already impressed and yes there may be some BIAS because I’m excited about my new role.
Having seen the passion from some of these teachers has inspired me to get back to what I love (blogging) and sharing good practice. I’ve compiled a list of a few applications which may be useful to teachers. I hope that these may be useful to you.
Some Apps to try out: –
Music Teachers –Perfect Ear: Music and Rhythm – You can download this app onto your ChromeBook or you can get the students to install it. It allows you to learn chords or Learn how to read sight music. This is great when you’re trying to get your students to understand how to read sheet music.
All Teachers – Podcasting – No matter what subject you’re going into, podcasting can be a great way to assess your students and to improve their Oracy. One thing that I’m going to be getting some of my A-level students to do is to make some podcasts of their own. These can be listened back to in the shower, on the way to school or just when you’re out and about shopping. Podcasting can really help with Metacognition and memory recall. You could even build a podcast of exam questions and answers at the end.
P.E/Drama – No App Needed! – Use the camera! – On some ChromeBook devices they have cameras built into them. This is a great tool for you to use. I’m an Irish Dancing teacher and one thing that I often tell my dancers to do is to bring in their phone. I will video their performances / dances and then play them back to them. At this point I often freeze frame and show them where they need to improve. This can be done in sport. I admit, devices could get dropped, kicked or broken but there is nothing from stopping the camera from being used in something like Drama. Maybe students could practice their performance of a presentation.
All Teacher – Myhomeworkapp – https://myhomeworkapp.com/ – This is a simple app that you can install as an extension onto the Chromebook and it allows students to get the free version and monitor their homework. I know that many schools often have this built into other platforms. This is just a tool that allows students to keep track of their homework and the deadlines.
Speed up your Marking – https://www.kaizena.com/ – This unique tool is really one for the teachers. If you’re one of those teachers who are looking for something that is going to make your life a little easier, then try this. This tool allows you to record your vocals into your feedback when you’re marking students work. You can work with rubrics and all sorts to speed up the marking. We all speak 75% faster than we type and this is a great way to make your life much easier.
Quite often we forget that when we question our students, we can actually get a lot of value and a lot of discussion points from multiple choice questions. Using multiple choice questions can actually support your students learning in many ways.
Recently during a training session at my school, it was revealed that if you scaffold and plan your multiple choice questoins, it’s possible to address how much they know. For example you can see what they know by the wording of the question: –
What are the limitations of the 8 bit ascii character set?
A) A smaller character set is available
B) You can only use a small number of symbols
C) You can only use certain languages on a computer
D) You can’t use UNICODE
Now in this question, you can see that the real answer is that technically, B and C are the correct answer BUT A is the one that we usually look for in an exam. B and C are common mistakes, our students should always acknowledge the character set. This helps us address the misconception of symbols and languages that can often occur and we have tailored our multiple choice question as a deeper discussion point. This is how effective that Multiple choice questions can be.
Grade Cam: –
I have recently been playing with a piece of software called grade cam. I love it, it allows me to do multiple choice questions with my classes. I can get them to colour in a multiple choice quiz.
You can see from the picture on the left, that it gives you the lozenges that you can fill out. Each student fills them out and when they’re done, you can mark them together as a class.
Students can get their score from you but where it’s handy is the analysis tool. It’s free for 10 questions and it allows you to see the weaker areas in the analysis tool.
Once the students have completed their assessment, I can hold up each of the coloured sheets and the software on the computer shows me their results. It scans the page like an OMR reader and tells me the weak points.
This now means that as a teacher, I can see that most of my class got the 2nd question wrong and that I can re-evaluate my teaching in order to make sure that they have better results on their next assessment.
If you would like to try grade cam, it’s free from : gradecam.com
So…. You want to do a lot more with your Micro:bit?
So recently, I’ve found myself playing around with my Micro:bit a lot more. I’ve thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if I could combine two different programming languages.
I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could make a game (within a game). Well did you know that you can! You can use your Micro:bit as a game controller and you can get your students to program the controls in the micro bit user interface.
The issue, that I found while hunting high and low on the internet is that there weren’t many ‘instruction guides’ on how to do this. They were all pretty vague and made it quite difficult for teachers to figure out.
Step 1: – Firmware! – What they don’t tell you before you start trying to play around with ports, is that your Micro:bit needs to have the most recent version of the firmware.
If you follow the link above, there is a really easy to follow guide on getting you to upgrade your firmware for your Micro:bit. This will now allow you to use serial transmission on your Micro:bit.
To double check that you’ll be able to do this, please go to Device Manager on your computer.
You should see the serial port!
Step 2: – Setting up your game controlled. To keep things simple I’m going to walk you through how to set this up using the Micro:bit website.
Create your controller using the following blocks.
Nice and simple. A, B and AB. We can do a lot more with this later on but for now, we’re going to change the output on the screen.
Now that you have created this, code… you’re going to need to download it to your Micro:bit.
Click on download and save it directly onto your Micro:bit.
You have now got a basic controlled working. It will send signals to the coms port on your computer. If you looked in device manager, you’ll notice that mine was in COMS3. Remember this for later.
Step 3: – Plugins!
You can’t quite get it to just ‘work’ with Small Basic. Unfortunately, you have to do a little bit of background work. It’s not too complicated.
Download the DLL files. I promise you that these are safe and will not harm your computer! Pinky promise!
Go to your windows drive.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Small Basic\Lib
There are lots of files in the library that you’ve downloaded but you’ll only need the two highlighted in the image below. Copy these into your lib folder.
Step 4: – Small Basic
Now that you’ve downloaded the libraries into your Small Basic folder, you’re ready to start coding using COMS3 on your Micro:bit.
This code starts by setting up the board so that it can communicate with the device. It works much like an Arduino.
I’ve created a basic loop that is always looking for the input of the board. It looks for the A and B which I showed you earlier.
I have included a delay so that it’s more effective.
The sub routine gets the data in from the board and says that it’s looking for the text to be input from previously.
Have a play around with this but I think that you could create some really good projects now that you can control the serial inputs and outputs!
As with our new Ofsted frameworks and endless logs of data that we have to include. I know that it’s not always easy for schools to make sure that they have logs of particular incidents. In our current guidance, we have to show as a school that we log all of our e-safety incidents and we need to make sure that we can show how we have actioned them.
During e-safety week, I thought about the number of systems that we have but I also thought about some of our smaller primary schools who may be working on a smaller budget. I have developed this simple to use spreadsheet which includes forms.
When you fill out the form on the front it will ask you to press add and it will add the incident to a separate sheet.
On the incident log, you can use the filters along the top to show it by date or by the member of staff that has reported or posted the incident.
I hope that this may be useful to some schools that are on a budget and that some leadership team may be able to use this which is why I’m sharing it.
Let me know if you would like any extra fields or support.
Now that it’s exam season, all teachers are thinking about ways in which they can help their students achieve their potential. Over the bank holiday weekend, I decided to go through old mark schemes and look at explanations for particular topics and to make some podcasts. In my year 11 lesson last week, I asked my students if they all had smart phones. 90% of my students said that they had a smart phone. I asked them if they had access to sound cloud or itunes. Again my students said that they had access to this. I decided that I would go through all of the topics that they’re studying and record some podcasts which they would be able to listen to on the way to their exam in the morning. All of my Computing GCSE students now have access to these.
Here are some of the Podcasts for those of you interested in Computing
Once I had downloaded all of the old mark schemes for the subject, I installed a piece of software called audacity. It is free and you can find it here > http://www.audacityteam.org/ . The software installs really easily and all you need to do is press the red record button at the top of the screen.
Once you have pressed this record button, you’ll see your sound in the window below. You should see all of the analogue sound waves as shown in the picture below.
Once you have finished with the sound, you simply go to the File> Export Audio button from the menu at the top.
Choose MP3 from the list below and you will have a file that is now compatible.
Moving it to SoundCloud
Go to soundcloud.com and register an account. Once you have clicked on sign up and you have created a number of different MP3 files for your students to listen to on the way to their exam. You can upload multiple files to soundcloud.com. Click on the Upload link at the top of your screen.
This will give you a brand new page that you will be taken to. Click on the Choose file to upload link.
You should now be able to highlight and select multiple MP3 files from your computer.
Once you’ve selected all of the MP3’s that you would like in your playlist. Click the open button.
This gives you a playlist screen. Fill out the details and scroll down to the save button.
Once you’ve pushed the save button, you will be given a link which you can share with your students. They can also look for you on soundcloud and have access to all of the MP3 recordings for their GCSE.
I have always loved teaching and I will say that there isn’t a better profession to get into. It has great holidays, you build relationships with students that will last a life time and you learn something different every day. You are able to build character and you also become stronger as a person. That being said, there is a lot of press about teachers being overworked, stressed out and there have been some articles recently that have shone a negative light on teaching.
I’m hopefully going to share some of my own personal experience on teaching. I think that people see that I have won awards and assume that teaching has been ‘easy’ for me. It hasn’t come without it’s hiccups. I have had to learn how to manage my lifestyle around my job. When I manage it well, I get great results and it has minimal impact on my life. I want to give you some tips on managing your work load with relationships.
Relationships
One of the things which came out in an article recently was that relationships become strained and some teachers find it hard to settle down and get a family dude to finding that balance. I can agree with this 100%. Before I got married, I was in a long distance relationship and it was quite easy to manage my workload. I would simple turn off the computer and that would be me for the evening and I would get work done. I would turn on or turn off my relationship.
Unfortunately, after I got married this couldn’t continue. Me and my wife had to learn. Teaching is a life style and you’re either built for it or you’re not. My wife saw my passion for teaching and was more understanding but we realised that we had to work together and work at things in order to get the best out of our job and our relationship.
In terms of dealing with relationships, the only way we worked through this was by communicating. The way I manage my work load with my relationship now is that we have a shared calendar on our phones and also on the wall on display. My wife understands that I need down time and we discuss and if possible, I will arrange chill out time with friends a month in advanced so that my wife knows when I’m going to be home and when we can plan time together.
This calendar is on full view in my house and I know some of my friends think it’s a little strange that I will message them a month in advanced to hang out but it makes things easier for us. You can see from my calendar for April that I also teach Irish Dance classes and have this time on the calendar. My wife now knows that my Monday’s, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are time where I will make sure we have time together. My wife can also see that Friday’s are planned TV nights. If I want to fill up my Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with hanging out with friends, I’ll discuss things with her. If I’m going to spend my evening doing lots of marking, I’ll add it to the calendar.
Like I said, I’m not going to sugar coat it. I love my job but we’ve had to work at our relationship. If you’re going into teaching, make sure you give yourself a calendar and discipline yourself and you will enjoy life. This is what I do and it helps me. I’m giving you this advice because I’m a little sick of seeing people talking about teaching but not actually talking about how to handle things. It is because that I have this time management in place that I’m able to come up with or spend time to get ideas to make lessons more engaging.
Due to making the top 10 of the Global Teacher Prize, I was invited to attend the Varkey Teacher Amabassadors Leadership Summit. It was hosted at the GEMS National Academy in Dubai. We started off our day with a warm welcome and an introduction to the week to come. It was a great morning and as we gathered in the reception, it also gave me time to connect with the other teachers who are in the top 10. You can see one of these in the picture.
We received a very warm welcome from Vikas Pota who explained that we are the leaders of the future. He talked about the importance of teachers in education and gave every teacher in the conference a very big round of applause. It was so humbling and nice to see such positive things being said about education. While at the VTA Summit we started the day with a number of sessions aimed at helping us be advocates for Education. In some countries there is a negative attitude towards teachers and they’re seen as ‘second rate’ jobs. Many people do not see it as a profession. I’m very pleased with the Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammad and Sunny Varkey for what they’re doing.
Morning Sessions: –
In the morning we looked at developing and sharing a vision for the Varkey Teacher Ambassadors. We want to promote the need for teachers and the importance. We are change-makers and we discussed issues that we have around this. One teacher talked about their difficulties in establishing global connections due to their ‘internet connection’. We talked about how we could address this and tweets were sent out and teachers are now going to give their school postal addresses so that his students can be enabled.
We also had the opportunity to meet Sunny Varkey. He was a very warm gentlemen to meet and he talked about the importance of teachers. He also talked about how we are the scaffolding and architects of the future. It was great to see his passion come through as he had a discussion with teachers about how they can promote the need of teachers globally.
We also interacted and talked about the media. Teachers aren’t portrayed in a positive light by some of the media and it’s important that we have a voice. Sheetal Adhvaryu explains that we have a right to say no. If we think that we’re going to step into territory that we’re unsure of, remember that it’s ok to say no. We had a discussion and I reminded teachers that they should stick to what they know. If something doesn’t feel right, if someone is trying to give us direction with our students (media / press) – Remember that you know your students best.
Afternoon Sessions: –
In the afternoon we were split into break out sessions where teachers shared their vision of creating a global citizen. In our group, we discussed the ways in which we could help create ‘science’ global citizens. How do we enable teachers and students to take their lessons global. How can we help them with their communication. There was a lot of valuable discussion about the importance in making things more accessible. One area that we all agreed on is there there needs to be direction for teachers who have never thought about enabling global citizenship. You can find out more about this in the next couple of days.
Evening Session: –
At the end of our afternoon sessions the Varkey Foundation created a team building exercise called the amazing race. Teachers were encouraged to talk to someone who they have never spoke to before. I was very fortunate enough to meet up with 3 teachers. These teachers were Lisa Parasi from the United States, Janet Hayward from the United Kingdom and Andrew NChessie from Malawi. We had a great time and had to take as many ‘selfies’ as possible around Dubai. We were given a number of challenges. It was quite funny. I ended up being the ‘tallest’ person in most of the pictures. We were also able to look at the city in a bit more depth. I made some amazing connections and I know that these guys will be friends for life.
Thank you Ruler Sheikh Mohammad and Sunny Varkey for this opportunity. I would also like to thank the team at the Varkey Foundation for everything that they have done so far in the organisation of this amazing summit.
Recently I was fortunate enough to deliver an NQT training session at my school. I was honoured to be able to share with so many enthused teachers. We had a good catch up about challenges we face with technology and we also talked about how technology could apply to different subjects. This post aims to share with teachers different tools which could influence their teaching. These are tools which can be useful in any situation.
Standards: –
In the U.K we have many teaching standards which we must meet to become a teacher. When looking at technology I feel that these three areas can be assigned.
•Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment
•Make accurate and productive use of assessment
•Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils
To summarise how each of these standards are applicable to technology I’m going to give you a few examples. Over the years I’ve spoken to many teachers who have talked about some of the challenges that they face on trying to get students to behave. When technology is used in an immersive way, it can help engage pupils. When your pupils are engaged and participating in your lesson, they’re less likely to misbehave. Not to mention, if you teach your students how to use technology effectively, they’re going to behave better online and become better digital citizens.
Making accurate and productive use of assessment can be addressed in a number of ways. There are tools available such as Plickers which allow you to give each of your students are QR code. They can hold this QR code up to the rest of the class and you scan the class with your phone. Upon scanning the room, you can instantly assess whether your class has understood something without giving away ‘who’ didn’t understand it. It helps create a safe learning environment.
Setting high expectations is also addressable through technology due to the challenge and pace you can set through technology. You can create videos to inspire and motivate your students. You can create resources and make them freely available at ease. You can record your lessons as you deliver them and students can revisit them later on.
Tools
Microsoft Office: –
I first started showing teachers tools that are freely available if you have Microsoft Office. If you use the internet and install ‘Office Mix’ it has an add in that allows you to record your presentation as you deliver it. This is the tool that I use for my own lesson. If you visit www.youtube.com/mrraychambers you will see many video tutorials of my own lessons. I use Office mix and I go to the office mix tab and create presentations and videos that my students can use for flipped learning tasks.
Speech tools – Do you have students who struggle to read? Did you know that you can go to File > Options > Ribbon and if you go down to speak. You can add this to your tool bar. Now, whenever you email a word document to your student, they just need to highlight the text and then press the play button. It will read out the text to them out loud and they can also use this for proof reading.
Present Online – Many schools struggle to get funding for tools that allow you to send your screen to your students. Did you realise that you can press the button present online in PowerPoint and this will create a link that you can email your students. Many people do not realise that it’s there! You email this link and your students can view your presentation through the internet browser. Students can access all of your content and you can even use it as a behaviour management tool. You don’t need to stand at the front of your class to present because you can see what you’re talking about on every screen in the classroom.
Plickers: –
Plickers is a great tool for classroom engagement and it avoids that whole ‘hands up rule’. Everyone is expected to participate. You install the app on your phone or tablet to begin with. This can be found in the app store. Each student is given a unique ‘QR’ code. You can see examples of this in the picture on the left. You can create a login for yourself at plickers.com. You create a bank of questions really easily online and once they’re there you’re set for the rest of your classes. You give the students their card from 1 to 30. You can copy whole class lists into it.
From your tablet or phone, you select the question you want. Then all students hold up the QR code as either A,B,C,D . They tilt it in the direction they want to answer the question in. Once you have done this you push a button on your phone and scan the class really quickly. It recognises the answers and tells you the percentage of students that have the answer correct / incorrect and you can fill in the gaps. You can reveal the students who have got it wrong (if you wish). I prefer to make them anonymous and I address these students later.
Makey Makey: –
Makey Makey is a tool which will cost you roughly £40 to buy brand new. It is a great tool! I recommended this piece of kit to Computer Science and Music teachers. The kit works by connecting crocodile clips up to an electronic arduino board. You can then go onto something simple like scratch and program it to do things based on the keys the board represents. These are keys such as ‘up’,’down’,’left’,’right’ or space etc… There are extension opportunities on the board.
Once you have connected them up, the students can use any conducting material. I’ve used water, bananas and other fruit. Alternatively you can use tin foil and cover objects.
One area where this has been really effective has been design technology. I approached design technology teachers in school and said that they could use a Makey Makey kit in order to get their students designing game controllers. You can teach students about anthropometrics and ergonomics by getting the students to make it.
Songsmith: –
Songsmith is a tool that is predominantly for music teachers but when you’re using it you can relate it to other subjects. You record yourself singing and it detects the sound of your voice and the key. Once you’ve done this it creates a song with a backing tract which you can go and use for your lessons. I’ve seen english teachers use this to help students write songs about shakespeare. I’ve used this to get my students making songs about difficult topics. It helps them remember it.
You can get your students to record revision rhymes!
Answer Garden: –
One of the last tools that I spoke about was answergarden.ch It is a great way of getting your class to collaborate if you are using tablets, computers or mobile devices. You go onto answergarden.ch and type in a question. Press the generate button and it generates a cloud. The students have a link that they access and they keep typing in words that they can think of relating to the previous lesson. You can moderate these to make sure that students do not type in anything inappropriate. Once you’re happy with the results, you can reveal them to the class.
This is great for English teachers who are trying to get their students to discuss tone or emotion of material that they’re covering.
Summing Up: –
In summary, these are just a number of tools that you can use to make your classroom a little more ‘innovative’. I would say, use the tool because it works for you. If you try something and it doesn’t work, then try something else. We need to be reflective in our approach to teaching and if we use technology for the ‘sake’of it, then we’re not going to get the best from our pupils.
I hope that this has been useful to you and the best of luck with trying these new tools.
This code starts by setting up the board so that it can communicate with the device. It works much like an Arduino.
Ray Chambers 