Pose Pause Pounce Bounce

Resources from tonights T&L  meeting  (NQT session )
What is it?
PPPB (Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce) is a simple, yet sophisticated, AfL (Assessment for Learning) questioning technique to help teachers move from good-to-outstanding. It also helps address differentiation in the classroom and encourages teachers to slow down, take risks and tease out understanding…
Session led S Jenner

Differentiation in the Classroom by Dee Sexton

Differentiation1
Differentiation is a term that is familiar to us all. However, really understanding the term, and effectively putting it into practice, can be one of the greatest challenges. There are various definitions for differentiation but to summarise: ‘differentiation’ is the process by which differences between pupils are accommodated so that all students have the best possible chance of learning.

There are three categories of differentiation:
 differentiation by task, which involves setting different tasks for pupils of different abilities
 differentiation by support, which means giving more help to certain pupils within the group
 differentiation by outcome, which involves setting open-ended tasks and allowing pupil response at different levels.
Ideally, you should be using all three types of differentiation to accommodate the different learning styles in the classroom.

If in a lesson we rely only on differentiation by outcome this may not be seen as best practice and can mean that some students may only write one sentence. Therefore having a combination of all three is desirable. You can use the data you have at hand to gauge where the pupils are in their learning and to build a profile of the learners in your class. This includes those with SEN, the more able, but also those ‘in the middle’ who are often neglected because they fall into neither category – they quietly get on with their work and participate only when asked.

Take a practical and realistic approach to differentiation. When planning group work, try to plan so that groups can access work at different times in the week, so that the less able cover the work set at the middle group level by Wednesday for example – this saves planning four different types of work for each group, each day. Think of group work using a traffic light system: green for work they can do unaided once explained; amber for work that may require support; and red for work that requires a teacher or LSA ‘scaffold’ it. Then you can plan around the support staff that you have.
differ 2<a
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
 Try to use all three types of differentiation to accommodate the different learning styles.
 Try not to rely on outcome as a differentiator.
 Be creative with resources and support to ensure you are not spending excess hours planing.
 Think about liaising with colleagues to assess which pupils are in need of differentiation.

Create a listening frame for students who struggle to make notes. This could be a worksheet with a set of sections on it, each one headed by a question, statement or category. The student can then use this to make notes. The sections will help them to order the information they receive. This will eliminate a thinking process for them, thus allowing them to concentrate exclusively on listening and writing. In essence, a listening frame does a bit of the work for the student, making life easier for them.writing frame<

Encourage your students to ask questions. There are many benefits to this, including:
• Students can ask questions at the level with which they are comfortable.
• Students can hear other people’s questions.
• Students can observe how the teacher goes about answering questions.
• The teacher can find out what areas students want to know about.
• Students can find out information from the teacher’s responses.ask question

Discovery Learning is a method of inquiry-based instruction, discovery learning believes that it is best for learners to discover facts and relationships for themselves.’
You can build discovery learning into your lessons through:
• Group work.
• Providing some of the information and letting students work out the rest.
• Setting students independent tasks such as research or a design brief.
• Experiments.
• Investigations.
• Create a space on your classroom wall called the ‘Wonder Wall’. You might like to make this look like a wall by chalking bricks onto black paper.areoplane

Running Order of Inset April 2013

To view running order of Inset, please click here
This is Prezi in action – High impact presentation software and will be introduced to staff at our Roding Valley Teach Meet. Date for the diary 21st May.

Feedback on Edmodo to DAZ Group

Student feedback through Virtual Learning Environments

Having taken the challenge to revise my use of virtual learning environments over the last half term I thought it was about time for an update. Having used Edmodo as a space where students can be set homework or interactive classwork, it was surprising how quickly the students were able to adapt to using the new technology.
One of the main issues with the old VLE was that information really only went in one direction, from the teacher to the student, and was limited to chunks of text or links to websites. Edmodo allows the students far more opportunity to comment on the work they are set and for teachers to give feedback on completed assignments. Below is an example of students explaining what they thought the assessment was like and my comments and feedback to them: All helpfully shown on a single page.

MCO Edmodo Feedback DAZ

Edmodo has one other trick up its sleeve when it comes to student
feedback. The website allows teachers to simply annotate students work without
the need for printing the work off and handing it back. As can be seen the
students work can be annotated with tools which are at the top of the screen.

Although, some students are still finding their feet with this way of working it has provoked discussion and allowed students access to a range of resources that they would not otherwise have found. I am still a long way from using Edmodo with all my classes or even every week with classes. However, if we expect students to feel confident in a world where many jobs require social media skills it is necessary to challenge both ourselves and students to engage with their school work online, at home and at school.

Update on Edmodo to DAZ group

Matt Cocker

Safer Internet Day 5th February 2013

Students participate in e-safety learning for safer internet use.

See below for presentation with advice and tips as shown to our students in a week of assemblies.

Prepared by Ken Joyce

Head of ICT and Business Studies


Stuck for plenary ideas… read on …

Plenaries from the Technology Faculty

In Technology we have been looking at a few ways of incorporating exciting and new plenaries into lessons. Some ideas we are trialling at the moment:

Pictionary: Pupils to draw the keyword without speaking or writing for others to guess what it is.

Hot seat: One pupil to the front of the room for questioning in the hot seat. Questions must relate to the current topic and come from the whole class.

Order me: Teacher puts 5 stages of a process on the board in the incorrect order. The class then puts them in the correct order.

Mystic mind: The class predict the future by stating what they will be learning in the next lesson or what will be completed by the end of the next lesson.

Brainstorm: The properties of any material or ingredient that have been used in the lesson. Ideas for a project using Access FM.

• 60 secs: Give the class 60 seconds to come up with a brief summary of a process, technique or a keyword from the lesson.

• Help: Ask the class to design a help sheet to give advice to other students about what has been learnt in the lesson.

Blurb: Ask the class to write a blurb about their product that will help it sell.

True or False: Write down some true and false statements about key aspects of the lesson. Pupils to hold thumbs up if they think it is true or thumbs down if it is false.

Application of information: In groups mind map where else pupils can use information learned in lesson-link in with other subjects, homework and real life situations.

Making a statement: Ask the class to come up with two statements in one minute about what they have learned.

• Missing words: Write a summary of key aspects of the lesson, taking out the key items, asking the class to fill in the blanks.

• Label: Find or draw an image of a tool, piece of equipment, a machine or a process. Ask the class to label each part.
• 551: Ask the class to summarise the lesson in 5 sentences, then reduce to 5 words, then reduce to 1 word.

• Role change: Tell the class to imagine they were the teacher. Ask the class what questions they would ask and why.

• Partners: Arrange class in pairs. Ask them to discuss each others work and look at their targets. Ask pupils to write a target for the next lesson in their partners book.

Open ended: Run a question and answer session about the lesson. Do not allow the class to answer with a yes or no.
Timeline: Ask the class to produce a timeline showing the different stages of the current project so far.