Mr Smith is reminded by his handheld device during his break-duty that he has a PE lesson next with a Year 8 group of students. The reminder, coming from Life, tells him that he will be teaching passing skills as part of a unit of work developing rugby technique, and has his lesson plan and associated resources attached to it so that he can quickly review what he intends to cover whilst on his way to the lesson; he doesn’t need to take folders of notes with him which is fortunate as it’s raining!
Whilst his students are getting into their sports kit in the changing rooms, Mr Smith synchronises his handheld device with a projector in the briefing room next door. He clicks on the link on his Life lesson and is ready to show his students a demonstration of a Premiership rugby player’s tackle, upon which the skills developed in this lesson will be modelled. The students identify the components of the rugby tackle that make it successful, and proceed outside to the rugby pitch to begin to practice their own technique.
During the lesson, Mr Smith captures photos and video of successful adoption of the key skills that are being learnt using his handheld device, and tags them with the student’s names and comments in relation to their personal development targets. These assessments are then seamlessly sent to the students MyLife portfolio so that they can self-assess their skills development once they have finished the practical elements of their PE lesson. The assessments are also available to Mr Smith to help him identify successes and areas for next-step development with this class of students which he can use to aid planning for next lesson. In addition, the assessments aggregate to provide an overview of Year 8 student’s development for the students tutors, heads of year/department and school senior leadership team. Alongside this, the students parents are able to see their own child’s progress and linked targets in order to scaffold conversation with them at home, and provide opportunities for practice and development beyond school; for example through rugby club.
When Mr Smith brings his students back inside he encourages them to review their own tackling skills. The students are able to review their learning outcomes in relation to the objectives set for the lesson and their personal targets. Using their own handheld devices the students watch back their own skill development and annotate with self-assessment so that this film joins the other learning captures in their MyLife portfolio. Through their linked MyLife learning blog, students identify next-step targets using the syllabus and teacher guidelines for progression and attainment provided in the lesson plan and objectives from which they have just been working. The student, their teacher, their tutor and their parents are able then to see clear links between the qualifications that the students are working towards, the syllabus that they are following to help them achieve this, the specific lessons and learning objectives within these syllabi and the activities that they carry out in addressing these. The assessment of the activities then provides evidence of the student having met each learning objective, the aggregation of which evidence their achievement in relation to the syllabus, and all form a comprehensive portfolio of evidence to support the assessment for their chosen qualification; both for exam revision purposes and modular assessment.
As Mr Smith leaves this lesson he takes a moment to prepare for the next lesson in this sequence of work. He returns to the learning space that he has been using in Life@School and uses the semantic learning engine (LifeWizard) to find materials for his next lesson. The LifeWizard uses key words from this lesson to suggest useful and relevant resources such as demonstration films, experts such as rugby coaches available for dialogue within the Life learning cloud, Twitter feeds of premiership rugby players, rugby tackling eBooks and interactive online rugby strategy games.
Mr Smith also notices that there is a Rugby Tackling Teacher Help learning space which has been set up by other PE teachers as a place to share practical tips and advice on teaching and learning strategies in this area. He joins this learning space and begins to enter into dialogue with other teachers who are teaching the same objectives; swapping advice, sharing further personal resources and making links for later friendly rugby games.
Once Mr Smith has identified the lesson resources, content, people, spaces and connections that he wishes to use for his teaching, he makes most of these available to the students in his class so that they are accessible prior to the next lesson. This means that the student can benefit from the personalising of their learning sequence that their teacher has provided. However, some of the more able children in the class also use the LifeWizard in the same way that Mr Smith did, to be able to seek out particular resources, learning spaces and people who they feel will help them with their specific personalised learning needs in this area. Life, also suggests a range of linked ideas that this student might also be interested in learning about based on their previous searches and activities; suggesting that “You might also like…”
At the end of the day, once Mr Smith has finished teaching each of his timetabled lessons he has time allocated for planning, preparation and assessment purposes. Using this time, Mr Smith reviews the communications and enquiries that have been directed his way by parents of his students. He notices that there are some recurring patterns in these questions, such as “My child is enjoying rugby at school. Is there a club that he can join?” and “My child is having difficulty with goal kicking”. Mr Smith creates simple responses to these questions, linking to local rugby clubs, and including demonstration films and suggested practical activities that the students can do at home in their garden to practice. He then links these to the lesson objectives so that these parents see these resources and responses, but they are also seen by other parents or students from other classes, and even other schools who are also asking similar questions or who would like extra support.
These assessments are then seamlessly sent to the students MyLife portfolio so that they can self-assess their skills development once they have finished the practical elements of their PE lesson. The assessments are also available to Mr Smith to help him identify successes and areas for next-step development with this class of students which he can use to aid planning for next lesson. In addition, the assessments aggregate to provide an overview of Year 8 student’s development for the students tutors, heads of year/department and school senior leadership team. Alongside this, the students parents are able to see their own child’s progress and linked targets in order to scaffold conversation with them at home, and provide opportunities for practice and development beyond school; for example through rugby club.
When Mr Smith brings his students back inside he encourages them to review their own tackling skills. The students are able to review their learning outcomes in relation to the objectives set for the lesson and their personal targets. Using their own handheld devices the students watch back their own skill development and annotate with self-assessment so that this film joins the other learning captures in their MyLife portfolio. Through their linked MyLife learning blog, students identify next-step targets using the syllabus and teacher guidelines for progression and attainment provided in the lesson plan and objectives from which they have just been working. The student, their teacher, their tutor and their parents are able then to see clear links between the qualifications that the students are working towards, the syllabus that they are following to help them achieve this, the specific lessons and learning objectives within these syllabi and the activities that they carry out in addressing these. The assessment of the activities then provides evidence of the student having met each learning objective, the aggregation of which evidence their achievement in relation to the syllabus, and all form a comprehensive portfolio of evidence to support the assessment for their chosen qualification; both for exam revision purposes and modular assessment.
As Mr Smith leaves this lesson he takes a moment to prepare for the next lesson in this sequence of work. He returns to the learning space that he has been using in Life@School and uses the semantic learning engine (LifeWizard) to find materials for his next lesson. The LifeWizard uses key words from this lesson to suggest useful and relevant resources such as demonstration films, experts such as rugby coaches available for dialogue within the Life learning cloud, Twitter feeds of premiership rugby players, rugby tackling eBooks and interactive online rugby strategy games.
Mr Smith also notices that there is a Rugby Tackling Teacher Help learning space which has been set up by other PE teachers as a place to share practical tips and advice on teaching and learning strategies in this area. He joins this learning space and begins to enter into dialogue with other teachers who are teaching the same objectives; swapping advice, sharing further personal resources and making links for later friendly rugby games.
Once Mr Smith has identified the lesson resources, content, people, spaces and connections that he wishes to use for his teaching, he makes most of these available to the students in his class so that they are accessible prior to the next lesson. This means that the student can benefit from the personalising of their learning sequence that their teacher has provided. However, some of the more able children in the class also use the LifeWizard in the same way that Mr Smith did, to be able to seek out particular resources, learning spaces and people who they feel will help them with their specific personalised learning needs in this area. Life, also suggests a range of linked ideas that this student might also be interested in learning about based on their previous searches and activities; suggesting that “You might also like…”
At the end of the day, once Mr Smith has finished teaching each of his timetabled lessons he has time allocated for planning, preparation and assessment purposes. Using this time, Mr Smith reviews the communications and enquiries that have been directed his way by parents of his students. He notices that there are some recurring patterns in these questions, such as “My child is enjoying rugby at school. Is there a club that he can join?” and “My child is having difficulty with goal kicking”. Mr Smith creates simple responses to these questions, linking to local rugby clubs, and including demonstration films and suggested practical activities that the students can do at home in their garden to practice. He then links these to the lesson objectives so that these parents see these resources and responses, but they are also seen by other parents or students from other classes, and even other schools who are also asking similar questions or who would like extra support.
Posted by Fiona Aubrey-Smith on February 2, 2010 at 8:08 am
As a new teacher, Miss Jones is accessing Life to prepare for a Year 10 maths lesson on trigonometry that she is about to teach. Thanks to the LifeWizard, Miss Jones has a range of resources, content and people that she can bring into her class learning space and is simply drag & dropping them into place.
The lesson has a clear Functional Skills based learning objective, embedded demonstration films introducing trigonometry taken from a Maths content package that the school subscribes to, screencasts of trigonometry methods created by a more confident senior teacher in the department, linked interactive based games to aid practising of trigonometry skills, and a sharing-strategies forum in which students can ask each other for advice, recommend preferred techniques and collaborate when finding a shared problem difficult.
As her school is tackling the application of maths into every-day learning opportunities, Miss Jones has carefully identified opportunities in other subject areas where students might find the application of trigonometry learned in this lesson, a particular mathematical strategy useful. As many of her students are also taking resistant materials lessons (which she knows from the student profiles that Life shows to her), Miss Jones makes the trigonometry learning objective, its accompanying resources and supplementary activities visible to Mr Read who is covering joist-making in his resistant materials syllabus later in the term. Through the linking of these two learning opportunities the teachers are thus able to complement the coverage and progression within their own and each other’s subjects. In addition to this benefit, students are also able to follow the links and see clear, practical application of functional skills across vocational subjects, bridging an often difficult challenge facing schools.
Posted by Fiona Aubrey-Smith on February 2, 2010 at 8:14 am
A day in the life of a school leader…
Mr Richard, the Headteacher arrives at school on the morning that he is due to see Mrs West for her performance management meeting. He visits Life@School and is able to see Mrs West’s professional MyLife portfolio which outlines her self-evaluation of strengths and areas for development. Mr Richard looks through the professional development blog that Mrs West has been keeping since they last met, and follows the links to the lessons, opportunities and conversations that she feels evidence her progress and meeting of her targets. Mr Richard also looks with interest at the range of resources that Mrs West has been using to support her professional development; the semantic learning engine use for identifying new kinds of lesson delivery, connecting with teachers across other schools who have expertise in areas that she is working on; such as the ASTs and Advisors who have been able to suggest ideas and provide exemplar resources. Mrs West has also been seeking feedback from her students on the effectiveness of the learning provision that she has made available. Mr Richard notes also that Mrs West has shown a particular interest in watching films of exemplar lessons by her Head of Department, and that she has annotated films of her own lessons with strengths and areas that she would still like to develop further. Mr Richard notes that Mrs West is also increasingly using feeds, resources and materials that have been shared by other teachers across the country who are tackling similar learning areas. When Mr Richard and Mrs West meet together in person they talk about how Mrs West can now begin to take more responsibility for her own outreach work; sharing her resources and expertise with other schools, and taking on the role of NQT mentor for newer staff; passing on the change management process that she has been part of.
One of the areas that Mrs West would still like support with is around some of the behavioural issues shown by children in her class. For this specific support she would like to engage with additional services such as an Educational Psychologist and Family Liaison support as the issues surrounding one particular child require deeper family intervention and support. Using her handheld device Mrs West is able to capture instant samples of the child’s behavioural difficulties through film and store these in a secure space ready to share with the additional services visitors to discuss strategies for support and intervention at an appropriate time.
In addition, Mrs West has a number of children in her class who have recently moved to the school and for whom English is an additional language. Not speaking Polish herself, Mrs West needs the support of a Bilingual Assistant who she is able to engage and involve by connecting the child directly through Life. Alongisde this, the child can access Life in their first language in order to have access to the same learning opportunities as their peers.
Mrs Brown is the school assessment manager and is currently evaluating the effectiveness of the Assessment for Learning professional development that has taken place over recent INSET days and courses attended by staff. She is able to aggregate the different types of self-review by students and see the styles of activities being used, the types of resources and nature of collaboration in order to review whether the principles learned have been put into practice. She is then able to see how to help and support each individual teacher and groups of teachers, such as departments, in developing their AfL strategies by suggesting particular styles of teaching and learning provision, and by recommending that they observe other practice in the school, so that teachers have the benefit of professional development without undue demands on their time or confidence.
At the last INSET, Mrs Brown captured the visiting speaker, the workshops carried out and the resources used and has made these available for all staff in a CPD area of Life so that these opportunities can be constantly referred back to; capturing the dialogue and examples of the day as well as the raw materials.
The leadership team have been benefitting from the range of partnerships with the community. These have included engaging the locally resident Engineers in diploma related projects such as Engineering demonstrations via video conferencing and film embedding, as well as students taking work placements in the local Tourist Office and carrying out projects for the Tourist Office through their Media classwork in creating catchy radio and television adverts that have been played at many of local tourist venues.
Students at have also been learning about how they can support local organisations such as the homeless shelters by providing hot meals for shelter guests, and helping feeder primary schools with Art Week by teaching the younger children how to use different kinds of art equipment to achieve different 2D and 3D artworks.