custardfactory’s Neighborhood

One of the assignments was a reflection activity on assessment in my practice and my school.

This is the feedback to provide ground for further reflection.

Deadline is 08/05/2009

On 08/05/2000 I had my last written A-Level exam in Maths.

On 09/05/2000 I met my now-husband!

Pff!

It was facilitated by a lovely woman from the International School of Modena, Jane.

Friday:

The focus for the workshop had been set to planning a unit of inquiry using the PYP tool and collaborative planning. On Friday morning we all came together, including the Music and Italian teachers and the secretary of the school. Eight of us to work on becoming a better team and better at teaching the PYP.

We started off with an activity where we had to tell the person next to us one thing they did not know about us, and one thing we wanted to learn from the workshop, take away from it, so to speak. It was one of those activities where you cannot get started, but eventually we did. I worked with D and she only speaks very little English, so that was a challenge in itself. I told her something about me and what I wanted to take away from the workshop and she told me something about herself. It was quite interesting to hear something about her, as we do not know each other that well at all.

This led us to explore team-building, effective teams and our differences. Very amazing approach to all of this. We used further strategies including:

- The paper clip problem-solving activity

- Jigsaw reading and

- Visualising our understanding.

Through using teaching strategies that are very encouraged by the PYP, we got to experience them and see where the advantages lie, but also where we have to be careful as teachers.

I was very active and forthcoming all day, my usual bubbly self. Towards lunch we had to explain what type of person we are and that was a real challenge, but I liked the way I did describe myself. I certainly showed that I am very reflective, confident, aware of strengths and weaknesses and a life-long learner. It was good to see how others described themselves and we learnt more about ourselves and the others that way.

Just then I had realised that with every activity I had been the first one to start and engage, so I deliberately waited later on.

In the afternoon there was an activity where the teams, two groups of four, had to work with a piece of literature: A text without any text. Illustrations only. My teams task was to add thought bubbles to the text, in Italian. As the only non-Italian speaker in my group, this was a challenge. I found it very hard to engage in the dialogue, I had to push myself to ask for translations and to pass on my input. It was a bit discouraging and it really made me tired. So this way I learnt how those children with EAL in my class feel, but also how my non-English speaking colleagues feel. It was a hard situation.

Also noteable was how many different perspectives we had, a simple picture and so many interpretations. That is also something to consider when teaching.

Then we started planning a unit of inquiry. The approach was very new to me, starting with brainstorming the central idea, relating it to the transdisciplinary theme, etc. I will not go into this here but will document the process later on in detail.

It was an amazing day and after exploring diversity and roles in teams further, we broke off and I went home happy and fulfilled.

Saturday:

When I got to school this morning I was quite tired and exhausted, I had not slept very well. This also influenced the way I perceived the morning a little bit.

It was lovely to be back, no complaints about learning on a Saturday, and I was looking forward to it.

I knew it would be a heavier day, and we started off by looking at an A3 copy of the unit planner and identified where certain pages in MTPYPH were. It was certainly obvious that we all need to work with it a lot more, and in the next few weeks I will assign pages to read and then discuss like a book club. I need to think about this in more detail though!

Anyway, after that we continued on with planning the Waste unit from the day before further and then broke into two teams in which we planned our own unit of inquiry. We chose one we had not planned and taught before. It was an interesting approach to link all the different elements, and to work so collaboratively. I was engaged and very motivated about the unit by the end of it. This was because I had developed a great understanding of it, we could exchange ideas and express fears and uncertainties. Very good work this was. 

Now, more happened today but I am getting tired to write about it.

I loved the two team-building, problem-solving activities today. Need to do them in my class!

Cheerio for now!

We identified the following areas:

- My learning

- My research

- The organisation's needs

Sometimes these overlap, actually, more often than not.

Needs for the organisation were: The coordinator and the PYP teacher (both me) need to attend PYP training, depending on the role they fulfill. As I have no official formal training yet, the organisation needs me to attend these meetings. As you can see, this overlaps with what my needs are as well, my professional needs: teacher and coordinator.

As these are requirements, the organisation needs to make sure these requirements are met. They are external influences from the IBO.

The next area of organisational needs are the weaknesses of the organisation. Collaborative planning and assessment had been identified as areas. Collaborative planning has since been implemented on a biweekly basis and a workshop on how to plan effectively together has been arranged. This workshop will also meet my professional needs (again) and it will show that the organisation is determined to improve.

Assessment was addressed through my action inquiry. This has now moved into a school/teacher effort, so we collaboratively explore the issue further. Plans to implement marking ladders as a school policy are still on hold, as the team will reflect on this issue in more detail over the summer. The research continues and the school has adapted action inquiry as a means for CPD. In collaboration with this, my workplace advocate suggested that I seek a postgraduate course (examples). This is on hold for a further year at the moment though due to financial constraints. Further study is an option though.

What else is there? Oh yes, there is the Assessment in the PYP workshop that I will be attending. It is offered as an online course and I'm looking forward to it. It creates a link between what I have learnt and what the IBO requires and suggests.

My further journey could also include recommendation to work on curriculum development for the IBO. This is quite an honour, but also scary. My workplace advocate is keen on recommending me.

At the moment I do not seek to attend formal teacher training, as my alternative certification has been recognised by the IBO and it is not a necessity for me now.

LA1

Addressing the learning outcome: Demonstrate appropriate knowledge, skills and understanding to address complex problems relevant to practice
Undertake an analysis of your knowledge, skills and understanding using the workshop ‘Learning Skills Audit’.
Complete an individual SWOT analysis on your research.
Discuss, with your peers, the gains in knowledge skills and understanding that you have made in your research and learning.
Use these elements to inform an account portraying yourself as a lifelong learner and practitioner researcher.

Informed by your SWOT, skills audit, and community discussion create an outline of yourself as a lifelong learner and practitioner researcher which shows that you have acquired knowledge skills and understanding which are applicable to your work role.

Tips for this activity

don't be afraid to highlight areas which may still be improved.
give specific examples if your studies have influenced you practice.
ensure that you use literature on lifelong learning.
 

Reading:
Atkins, M. J., 1999. Oven-Ready and Self-Basting: Taking stock of employability skills. Teaching in Higher Education, 4 (2).
Eraut, M (2006) Transfer of knowledge between education and workplace settings Chapter 6 in Munro, Anne; Rainbird, Helen; Fuller, Alison. 2004., Workplace Learning in Context [online]. Taylor & Francis. Available from: http://www.myilibrary.com/Browse/open.asp?ID=1993&loc=201 10 July 2008
Hager, P (2004)
Lifelong learning in the workplace? Challenges and issues in Journal of Workplace Learning Vol.16 Issue: 1/2 Page: 22 – 32
Langworthy, L and Turner, T (2003) Learning for the Workplace and Beyond: The Challenge for University-Community Engagement viewed online http://www.ld.swin.edu.au/crd/documents/herdsapaper.pdf on 10/7/08
Consider Workshop: Learning Styles

LA2

Addressing the learning outcome: Reflect critically on personal strengths and weaknesses against the achievement of the University’s generic graduate learning outcomes
First ensure that your personal portfolio of transferable skills achieved during Level 3 is up to date. Use the resources in Plone and the community for guidance. A general guide is that your portfolio should consist of five or six short extracts from your Level 3 modules, showing the range of all the university graduate skills. Avoid excessive portfolios as this is supporting material only.

Create an account that reflects upon your achievement of the graduate learning outcomes. This should refer to how you have used your degree in the workplace. Within the account there should be an emphasis on transferable skills.

The skills portfolio will act as supporting evidence for account. It should be submitted as a clearly marked appendix. It should be cross-referenced in support of claims in the reflective account.

Learning Set Task: Discuss your emerging reflections.


Produce an account, which reflects upon your achievement of the graduate learning outcomes.
The account should be 1000 words or equivalent.


Genre

To help you to reflect critically you might wish to select a genre which facilitates this. Consider perhaps ...

A newspaper press release exploring the skills of a new graduate, using yourself as the focus.

A series of questions and answers (as if for a promotion or job interview) exploring your graduate credentials.

A letter for a new job/ promotion detailing your graduate attributes.

You would be equally welcome to submit a report/account which does not draw upon one of these genres.

 

Tips for this activity

don't be afraid to highlight areas which may still be improved - remember the learning outcome requires that you reflect 'critically'.
ensure that evidence cited in your account is cross referenced to your portfolio
ensure that you reflect upon your graduate skills - go beyond description.
do not spend a disproportionate amount of time on perfecting the portfolio - remember it is the reflections that are the focus of this activity; the portfolio acts as supporting material only.

Reading:
Barrie, S.C, (2006) Understanding What We Mean by the Generic Attributes of Graduates. In Higher Education Vol. 51 Issue 2, p215-241
Smith, C & Bath, D (2004)The Role of the Learning Community in the Development of Discipline Knowledge and Generic Graduate Outcomes. Higher Education Vol. 51 Issue 2, p259-286

 

 activity 3: planning for the future
LA3

Addressing the learning outcome: Establish progression routes for employment and further learning

Meet workplace advocate to discuss future plans and reflect on this in your learning journal.
Undertake a Career Planning: Self-audit
Explore the careers Service (archived hotseat)
Explore the Workplace Advocate (archived hotseat)
Undertake a Personal Values Exercise


Produce an account which treats the question -
Where next for your research and for you at work?
The account should be 1000 words or equivalent.


So obviously these are all fairly connected, while LA 3 is a look into the future, based on the learning from the past. LA 1 looks at at knowledge, skills and understanding and me as a life-long learner and practitioner researcher. LA 2 is more about the strengths and weaknesses in relation to the GLOs, but to be quite honest, the learning skills audit is similar, if not nearly the same, and the SWOT analysis just extends those GLOs to, as I have pointed out so far in the activity, the subject-based knowledge, skills and understanding, and also the work-based ones.

I will think about this and see if I cannot make a cool combined activity out of this today and tomorrow. Any input welcome!

here are my first scribbles

so later

Lets reflect on my feedback a little, shall we? Now, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but to make sure that anonymity is maintained here, I will not use names. And, I will always refer to the female pronouns she and her. Just to make it easier, alright?

So there is one… she says that the exhibition has definitely increased her understanding of both, the research subject, and action inquiry. GOOD NEWS! So she learnt something… which was my intention. She comments that she saw my AI progress but did not really know too much about it. Excellent!

Rated my presentation and communication skills, and my preparation and organisation as excellent. Great! This could be something for the portfolio then!

She thought the overall impression was excellent and commented that it was obvious that a lot of time and effort had been put into the research and into the exhibition. She also said that the clarity of content was excellent.

The exhibition was only partly relevant to her, rating it as good (3 on a scale of 5), commenting that for her class’ level, a basic version could be used, but it was not made apparent in the exhibition. Another person commented that for her grade level the visuals would be great, but the approach would have to be different as they are younger.

She also commented that provision was made for the audience to be heard, in the form of post-it notes, prompts for questions and the feedback sheet. However, she said that maybe some group discussion prompts may have enabled more interaction between the speaker and audience.

Two of the sheets have no comments on them at all, but rate everything but maybe one or two things excellent, the rest very good.

Then there is another one, she also explained her comments to me, so I know a bit more than what she wrote.

She also said that the exhibition increased her understanding of the research topic and action inquiry, saying that it put action inquiry into context.

Rated all things excellent, but said preparation and organisation was brilliant, better than excellent. She thought it was way above average and shows my commitment. Same was said about my knowledge of the topic and the research process.

She agrees with my findings and is looking forward to the introduction of the whole-school approach.

She said that the following things were good:

• Preparation was outstanding

• Setting in context

• Flow if ideas

• Presentation approach:
- Sense of humour
- “statements” throughout as to benefits for children
- focusing on benefits for all

The following stood out to her:

• Personality of presenter shone through. Her enthusiasm and passion for this research was evident.

She found that this presentation and exhibition is of value and furthermore commented freely:

• It was a good presentation that considered the audience from other educational backgrounds. This was very successful.

• The displays are relevant to all members of the audience.

Then another one commented positively on everything. She elaborated on relevance, saying it was a good way to see other ways of assessing children using self-assessment.

She commented, on overall impression, that the information was well spaced and approachable.

She agreed with my findings and conclusions, stating that they support recent studies she has been doing, and furthermore, that she will look into developing her existing strategies.

She said the following was good:

- The variety of research

- The view to provide entirely for all types of learner all the time

and she felt this whole thing was of value.