Thanks to Mike for comment on last post. The thing that he wrote which really stirred my thinking was: people like to talk rather than listen. I certainly use that approach with younger students, and with my MA students in fact - so why don't I approach CPD in the same way?
I am beginning to think that themed coaching sessions alongside the generic workshops might be the way forward. I have a few themes in my head (classroom management, new to senior leadership, new to middle leadership, developing your practice as a middle leader, how to be an NQT mentor,developing as a form tutor,developing how you work with support staff, developing as a member of support staff, developing e-learning, how to do lesson observation - the first that spring to mind). I also need to ask what people need/want.
Anyone who undertakes to be a coach could automatically get their College of Teachers accreditation if they write it up (blog/log + essay/presentation at end). It would be great to have some of them video record a few sessions too, as podcasts for future coaches to learn from. Maybe the College of Teachers would like to put them on their website as well.
I'll have to think about some training for the coaches as well. Might be able to buy something in for that.
I am also thinking that this could link nicely to the performance management meetings with people discussing what coaching they might need or like. Maybe someone could do a case study about it - this might be a great thing for the NQTs' action research project this year.
Bursting with ideas now. Please let me know if you've done something like this already and how it has worked.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Creativity in CPD
Being away from work for a few days can be good time to reflect and consider what could be done better next time. In the last few weeks of the summer term, I am bogged down with timetable issues and raising my head to think about the issues of improving teacher education for practising teachers and also improving communication channels has had to wait until I am a little more relaxed.
I have already designed the basic structure for next year’s in house CPD programme. Having paid attention to comments from staff, I have reduced the length of twilight sessions and thus been able to create more of them. I have tried to fit in all the generic topics requested, including more time for people to work together in teams that go across subject barriers and also more time to work in departments (outside of ‘meeting’ time) on developing resources and other curriculum design issues.
The programme still leads to the College of Teachers Certificate/Diploma of Educational Studies (COES/DOES) and at least one teacher will be working on some research for them next year. The blog undertaken by one student support assistant shows an excellent example of someone evaluating her own development. http://splatshs.wetpaint.com/page/Ana%27s+COES+blog http://www.collegeofteachers.ac.uk/
Yet I still have some niggling doubts. Is there enough differentiation? Do I make good use of Open Educational Resources? Aren’t ‘meetings’ also CPD - and if not, why not? How do I measure the impact?
Heads of department have asked for performance management procedures to be slightly different in September so that the review meeting not only discusses which in-house and externally provided CPD the teacher intends to undertake but also which peers they intend to observe and why. We will try to resurrect the CPD directory via the school VLE (where staff offer various skills to share with others). This summer I’ll try to put all the resources and teacher/associate staff reflections from the wikis on to the VLE as well. Hopefully, we can produce our own journal in school of all the reflections.
What next? I asked for ideas on Twitter and also searched a few other tweets. Here is a selection of ideas:-
@NSRiazat Wikis and Learning http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2010/07/wikis-and-learning-60-resources.html
@hullteacher CPD works in association with time to implement. If not then CPD is ineffective cos people forget.
@Janshs @ianaddison @primarypete_ ha! that gives me an idea too ... I could put RSS of various resources sites on to our school
@thegreatgar the prob with cpd is that it is often arranged for you rather than occurring at the optimum time for learning
@thegreatgar this year we gave staff much more time for themselves rather than meetings etc, seems to be working (mostly individual)
@primarypete_ changing way I use Delicious. Out with google reader of new links. In with big network of educator users to search: http://bit.ly/b0aTbe
@janwebb21 RT @colport: I am liking this style of wiki - http://orbs.com/ #edtech #ukedchat > looks really cool judging from the video trailer!
We already have weekly 1 hour sessions as part of directed time (though staff do no have to attend all of them). Up until now I have designed these around a series of workshops around particular topics of interest to different people. Next year, I have built in more ‘team’ time. My biggest concern is how to evaluate whether or not teachers are actually learning anything. The COES shows that some are – but that is voluntary. Are the rest accomplishing anything by attending? In one large session, I noticed at least one teacher off task and doing something on a computer that was probably work related but was nothing to do with the topic in hand. How do I engage at least most of the staff?
Perhaps the way forwards is to have ‘double’ sessions some weeks – there might be the usual generic sessions and also some sessions where ‘coaches’ are available for certain issues. Of course, staff can always just work on their own – how do I encourage them to evaluate?#
How do other schools approach this – please share or comment if you can. Thank you.
I have already designed the basic structure for next year’s in house CPD programme. Having paid attention to comments from staff, I have reduced the length of twilight sessions and thus been able to create more of them. I have tried to fit in all the generic topics requested, including more time for people to work together in teams that go across subject barriers and also more time to work in departments (outside of ‘meeting’ time) on developing resources and other curriculum design issues.
The programme still leads to the College of Teachers Certificate/Diploma of Educational Studies (COES/DOES) and at least one teacher will be working on some research for them next year. The blog undertaken by one student support assistant shows an excellent example of someone evaluating her own development. http://splatshs.wetpaint.com/page/Ana%27s+COES+blog http://www.collegeofteachers.ac.uk/
Yet I still have some niggling doubts. Is there enough differentiation? Do I make good use of Open Educational Resources? Aren’t ‘meetings’ also CPD - and if not, why not? How do I measure the impact?
Heads of department have asked for performance management procedures to be slightly different in September so that the review meeting not only discusses which in-house and externally provided CPD the teacher intends to undertake but also which peers they intend to observe and why. We will try to resurrect the CPD directory via the school VLE (where staff offer various skills to share with others). This summer I’ll try to put all the resources and teacher/associate staff reflections from the wikis on to the VLE as well. Hopefully, we can produce our own journal in school of all the reflections.
What next? I asked for ideas on Twitter and also searched a few other tweets. Here is a selection of ideas:-
@NSRiazat Wikis and Learning http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2010/07/wikis-and-learning-60-resources.html
@hullteacher CPD works in association with time to implement. If not then CPD is ineffective cos people forget.
@Janshs @ianaddison @primarypete_ ha! that gives me an idea too ... I could put RSS of various resources sites on to our school
@thegreatgar the prob with cpd is that it is often arranged for you rather than occurring at the optimum time for learning
@thegreatgar this year we gave staff much more time for themselves rather than meetings etc, seems to be working (mostly individual)
@primarypete_ changing way I use Delicious. Out with google reader of new links. In with big network of educator users to search: http://bit.ly/b0aTbe
@janwebb21 RT @colport: I am liking this style of wiki - http://orbs.com/ #edtech #ukedchat > looks really cool judging from the video trailer!
We already have weekly 1 hour sessions as part of directed time (though staff do no have to attend all of them). Up until now I have designed these around a series of workshops around particular topics of interest to different people. Next year, I have built in more ‘team’ time. My biggest concern is how to evaluate whether or not teachers are actually learning anything. The COES shows that some are – but that is voluntary. Are the rest accomplishing anything by attending? In one large session, I noticed at least one teacher off task and doing something on a computer that was probably work related but was nothing to do with the topic in hand. How do I engage at least most of the staff?
Perhaps the way forwards is to have ‘double’ sessions some weeks – there might be the usual generic sessions and also some sessions where ‘coaches’ are available for certain issues. Of course, staff can always just work on their own – how do I encourage them to evaluate?#
How do other schools approach this – please share or comment if you can. Thank you.
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