Tag: pd

Tips to make more out of your readings

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Quite a few people I know struggle to get into the habit of reading, let alone enjoy reading. In this post, I’m going to share some tips and ideas of how you can take more out of reading both in terms of comprehension and enjoyment of the process.

  1. Take notes. Whenever you read something, it’s worth making an effort to record the most important points. Some people like to underline or highlight ideas, but it tends to be a very ineffective practice. Instead, rephrase the ideas or copy quotes if they are so very well phrased, but don’t simply leave them on the page. Have a place where you collect these ideas or decide how you want to revisit them. If you have enough notes/quotes, you can try the constant comparative method to tease out even more ideas (tip 4 below).
  2. Organise your notes into subtopics. You can understand a topic much better if you have several ideas about it, or even if you have several perspectives on the same concept. Once you start to organise your notes into groups of ideas, you will realise that you have a wider and/or deeper understanding of it, with possible nuances, challenges and so on.
  3. Lateral reading. Read more on the same idea or concept to find out if it is the majority or minority opinion. Read more on the same idea or concept to deepen your understanding, to find out novel perspectives, controversial points, weaknesses, contradictions and so on. It’s super important to have layers and nuances about what you read because nothing is one-dimensional or easy. Lateral reading involves reading up on concepts that are related to the main idea or how certain ideas or methods are conceptualised in a related discipline. This way you can find some novel ways of doing an old thing or a new perspective and thus new understanding you never thought of.
  4. Constant comparative method. This method used in qualitative research is about reading and rereading your notes or quotes in order to organise them into topics. Reread your notes several times and you will notice that the ideas start “talking to you” and new ideas you didn’t see before will emerge. I suggest you put each idea or quote on a separate sheet of paper if you want to do this manually, then organising them into topics is easier. Give a heading to a subtopic if you find one and don’t hesitate to rename them, merge subtopics or create new ones on the way. Of course, this can be done electronically as well, where it’s a lot easier to manipulate the quotes, but maybe it’s more difficult to get an overall picture. You can find more on the constant comparative method in Maykut and Morehouse’s Beginning qualitative research (chapter 9).
  5. Book club. A lot of things are more fun when you do it with others, and reading is no exception. Get together your collaborative team or PLN and discuss your readings. You might find that an important idea eluded you or that a colleague understood a nuance about the topic that you interpreted differently. New ideas and perspectives thus deeper understanding are guaranteed!

🔧 Resources. Find my collected readings in this regularly updated Wakelet collection.

Do you have some other tried-and-tested ideas? Share them with us in the comments section.

5 important things to do to improve your teaching practice

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  1. Read. Read a lot. Identify issues in your teaching practice you want to improve and find relevant reading – both academic and practical. If you don’t know where to start, talk to the Training Department, your librarian, or ask an experienced colleague. If you find the books and articles valuable, browse the sources the authors used to read further. Reading is important for several reasons. It gives you a wider perspective about the issues in teaching, whether they are advantages/disadvantages of a method or practical advice and so on. Also, you can dig deeper in a concept or idea to find the nuances. You can find some more ideas on reading in an earlier blog post.
  2. Observe teachers in action. So much can be learnt from observation – and the observed teacher doesn’t have to be the same subject teacher or super experienced. I tend to observe teachers who are a lot less experienced than me and I learn a lot from them and through observation. Just by looking at a teacher at work can give invaluable insights into what works and what doesn’t work, and thus we can activate changes in our own practice.
  3. Talk to experienced teachers. Any time you have a question, you can turn to a more experienced colleague and discuss the issue (at least at our school this is the case). Are you stuck with assessment? You don’t know how to design more engaging lessons? You are starting to have doubts about Bloom’s taxonomy? You have a difficult student? Talk to experienced colleagues, who might not be able to solve the problem (and that is not their job), but they can help you with thinking or they will ask the right questions to move you forward.
  4. Experiment with new things. Try out new techniques, new tools, new ways to write objectives and so on. Be proactive and see what happens. Be deliberate in your actions, rather than random and haphazard. Introduce small and incremental changes. Be patient because sometimes the effects are not immediate. Collect some data (evidence) to see if your intervention works – for example student work, student feedback, peer observation. Be honest with yourself when it comes to claiming positive changes.
  5. Reflect on your practice. Reflecting on our practice is crucial. This includes analysing and evaluating what happened and coming up with ways to improve. Honesty is of utmost importance, otherwise no improvement. Make reflection your habit. Here are some questions to start out with after each lesson: What went well? What didn’t go well? How do you know? What needs to be changed? Why? As you improve with reflection, you can come up with your own sets of questions. An advanced form of reflection is what Schön (1983) called reflection-in-action. This means that the teacher is assessing the lesson on the spot and making changes as the lesson is unfolding to address potential issues. These issues don’t have to be problems, they can be simple things such as changing the instructions or the planned grouping, removing some scaffolding, and so on.

Any ideas on the above? Any other practical things to do to improve our teaching practice? Share with us in the comments section.

What am I reading?

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I recently posted about why I consider reading an important part of professional development. I’m always baffled by people saying they don’t like reading and I think I cannot accept this from a teacher. At the same time, I understand time constraints as well as the sometimes impenetrable language/concepts presented in academic journals. Therefore, I’ve started a collection with articles and blog posts that are easily accessible both in terms of their availability online and their language. In most cases they shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes to read. This is by no means an exhaustive list of must-read articles, neither is it a representative cross-section of basic concepts and theories in teaching. Rather, it is intended to raise interest in certain topics, show that notions and concepts are not one-sided, and raise curiosity to dig deeper. The collection reflects my personal interests.

What can you do with this collection? You can pick an article that tickles your fancy, you can share articles with colleagues, you can start your own reading lists, you can start a reading circle, you can search for articles that fit in with your current interests for self-development, you can suggest further articles to share, and so on.

Do you have any questions or suggestions? Leave a comment below.

The role of reading in professional development

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One might argue that reaching a certain level of professional knowledge will be sufficient to get by in the profession and no more is needed. In the unlikely event that some gaps in knowledge are highlighted, quick training sessions will be enough where someone (the trainer) tells the participants what to do and how to do it, the participants (teachers) will “get it” and off they go, everybody is happy. However, not only is this approach deeply faulted, conversing with colleagues only, in the name of social constructivism or peer discussion or something similar, will not broaden a teacher’s knowledge and understanding of current state of affairs. I suggest reading in order to deepen and widen knowledge (see this blog post on the breadth and depth of knowledge). So why read?

  1. While normally you cannot choose who your colleagues are, you can definitely choose what you want to read. You can pick up the books and articles of the greatest minds, thus reading cutting edge research and smart points and counterpoints. You can always be in control of what topics, concepts, notions and theories you want to know more about.
  2. You can decide to deepen or widen your knowledge. Do you want to dig deeper in a topic (depth of knowledge) or do you want to be more familiar with related ideas, concepts and competing theories (breadth of knowledge)? You can do either or both. You can create bibliographies, select great ideas you want to revisit or learn more about, or you can start with a question you want to learn more about and follow its lead.
  3. You can read up on different perspectives, compare differing viewpoints, follow reasoning and finally come to your own conclusions. Thoughts and claims in academic books and articles will be backed up with credible evidence, which will further advance your knowledge as you can follow up those sources.
  4. There’s always more to learn. If you talk to colleagues who don’t want to read or deepen and widen their knowledge in other ways, how are you going to learn anything from conversations with them? Reading academic articles and professional books will allow you to be on top of the trends in education, whether its technology, educational psychology, the sociology of learning or anything you’re interested in. Any professional, whether it’s a teacher, a doctor or a physicist, needs to learn the latest development in their profession so that they can serve their clients (students) the best possible way. Do you want to learn from somebody who hasn’t updated their knowledge in the past couple of decades? No? Then don’t do the same to your own students and start reading.
  5. You don’t have to do the reading on your own. Invite like-minded colleagues to discuss readings, recommend books and articles, set up a book club – anything goes. If you start (continue) reading, you will see that new horizons open up and you’ll become more knowledgeable than your colleagues who don’t read.

📚 Reading. How knowledge helps? It speeds and strengthens reading comprehension, learning – and thinking by Daniel Willingham will add invaluable scientific insight to the above point: reading, learning and thinking are deeply intertwined.

Do you have any other ideas? Has any of the above points grabbed your attention and you have a comment? Share with us below or ask a question.

What to do if you have a PLN?

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A PLN is a professional learning network; it’s sometimes called a PLC – professional learning community. It can be more formal if your boss organises it but it can be rather informal if you have like-minded colleagues with whom you get together regularly to discuss and improve your practice. Here are some ideas of what you can do with your PLN:

  1. Share a-ha moments.
  2. Share successes.
  3. Give a book or article recommendation. Say why you recommend it.
  4. Pick 1-3 important points from a book (chapter) or article that you recently read and say why they are important. Initiate a discussion.
  5. Pick a paragraph from a recent reading and discuss it with your colleagues. You can have questions to guide thinking.
  6. Ask for feedback on a lesson plan, an activity, an assessment task, etc.
  7. Write rubrics together or ask feedback on the rubrics you wrote.
  8. Ask for suggestions to solve a problem, whether it’s a classroom management problem or a methodological issue.
  9. Design an activity or assessment task together.
  10. Critique aims and objectives, and lesson plans.
  11. Work on the betterment of the curriculum.
  12. Reflect on past lessons and give feedback.
  13. Watch parts of lessons on video and discuss what you’ve seen.
  14. Pick a topic and find resources, read books and improve your knowledge on it. Once you’ve picked up enough knowledge, plan a training session and invite your colleagues to participate.
  15. Train your colleagues on any new online tool you find. (First, you can learn to use it together.)
  16. Overhaul your plans for the next term to make it more student-centred or to make it more of an active learning environment or to make it more inclusive, etc.

Tips: It’s important that you meet regularly so that you keep up the momentum. Set aside a time slot for your personal professional development, weekly for a couple of hours if you can.

What other ideas do you have about how to make use of the collective knowledge of your PLN? Share with us in the comments section.

Some notes on reflective portfolios

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The portfolio, among other things, is a great way of recording progress across time. Professional development has the ultimate aim of making learning more effective and meaningful for the students. For this, we need to improve our own practice. There’s so much to learn when it comes to teaching and sometimes it seems overwhelming. Therefore, keeping a reflective portfolio is key to pinpointing areas for improvement and highlighting successes.

When a teacher keeps a reflective portfolio of their professional development, I’m looking for the following things:

  1. Setting goals. If you don’t set your goals, you will have no direction to your PD. Think about what you want to achieve or what you need to improve in your practice. Think about the time frame for which you’re setting the goals and keep your goals realistic.
  2. Taking action. The portfolio needs to show what action you’ve taken to improve your practice. But simply listing the training sessions doesn’t show any reflection. This part is important mostly for placing the portfolio into a context.
  3. Reflection. This is maybe the most important part of the reflective portfolio: to show what the teacher has learnt and how s/he is going to apply their new learning. There are various questions that can be asked here. Here are some: * What have you learnt? * How has your thinking changed about [insert appropriate concept]? * What poses a challenge? * What are things that are not clear? * What new questions have arisen? * How can you use your new learning in helping students learn? * What do you want to do next?
  4. Action plan. Based on the reflections, a new cycle begins with modified or refined goals or completely new goals if the previous ones were met.

There are no right or wrong ways of creating a portfolio. Reflecting on your new learning is the most important thing. You can download the self-evaluation sheet below to assess your progress.

Portfolio self-evaluation sheetDownload

Tips: You can set up small PLNs to share your new learning and progress throughout the academic year. For example, you can get together twice each term and everybody can share their biggest a-ha moment since the last meeting, or you can recommend a book or an article that helped you understand something, etc.

Do you have any comments or questions? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Explore BW’s online library

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Reading for PD is essential; you can update your knowledge and broaden your horizon by reading quality articles and books. There is absolutely no teacher development and improving practice without engaging with professional readings.

For this reason, the Training Department has started to collect articles available on the internet, and organise them thematically. These curated lists of readings currently contain the following:

  1. Assessment, evaluation, feedback
  2. Differentiation and inclusion
  3. Lesson planning, curricular planning
  4. Teacher research

🔧 Resources. Find all the collections here.

Would you like to contribute with your own curated list? Do you want to add items to the existing collections? Send the TD an e-mail!

Planning the academic year and your PD

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A new academic year is about to start and as always, we do some reflection and some planning. We reflect on the past year and adjust our teaching accordingly. Apart from planning the syllabus, extracurricular activities, field trips, exam weeks, parent-teacher conferences and so on, why not take some time to plan your professional development this year?

1. Reflection. What are the biggest lessons from the last academic year? What are the things to keep, change and completely get rid of? Do some reflection along these lines, and build your conclusions into your yearly plan.

Handout: Reflection on the last academic yearDownload

2. Planning. The Training Department has created a Wakelet template to plan your PD. You can make a copy of the PD planner here. Don’t forget to use the available sources such as the collection on free online training when planning. We are planning to run the PDQ, the writing course and several workshops (60-90 minutes). You don’t have to do the whole year plan right now, but don’t forget to update it from time to time. If you need any help, turn to the Training Department.

What else do you need to start the year smoothly? Let us know in the comments section or send an e-mail to the Training Department.

Cornucopia of teaching ideas

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🔎 How do you continue learning as an educator? Do you attend internal trainings? Do you pop into webinars? Do you run a local PLN? Do you sign up for online courses? Something else? I hear a lot of teachers mention that “official” training and PD sessions are a waste of time and they don’t get hands-on ideas that they can try in their classroom the next day. #edutwitter to the rescue! Try Twitter to collect inspiration and connect with like-minded educators.

🔗 One of the best decisions I made about my professional learning was to start a Twitter account. I did this in the hope of finding great ideas, awesome resources and useful websites. And so I did! You can also engage in conversations, find awesome courses and tutorials, share ideas and so on.

🎊 I’ve learnt a lot since joining and I’ve decided to store these great ideas in one place. So I’ve started a Wakelet collection because there’s an abundance of ideas and tips! Some are pretty straightforward, some give inspiration, some offer instant solutions, and so on. Have a look at the collection here.

💡 If you’ve found any great ideas on Twitter or you know of a great Twitter handle to follow, share it with us in the comments section.

How to fuse Wakelet and Flipgrid

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And more importantly: why? In this post, I’m going to share one idea of how to combine these two awesome – and free – tools to set up PD courses in lieu of an LMS. The same can be done for a smooth onboarding experience or welcoming a new colleague.

Are you thinking about creating flexible training that is available to all with the lowest cost possible? Why not fuse Wakelet and Flipgrid? This is a step-by-step guide of how to do it:

  1. Plan your sessions/lessons as you usually do.
  2. Create one Wakelet collection for each session/lesson and upload content. Use ‘media view’ so that you can keep the linear flow of activities and you can add instructions or explanations for each activity. Add resources directly into the collection or add other collections you created earlier.
  3. Add a ‘welcome to the session/lesson’ Flipgrid shorts at the beginning of each session to add a personal touch and offer encouragement. You can add other Flipgrid shorts throughout the session as necessary.
  4. String the lessons together by nesting them in another Wakelet collection. You can add a Flipgrid shorts video to front the whole course with some advice, the outline of the course or a welcome message.
  5. Make the Wakelet collection (and each Wakelet collection within) unlisted or public and share.

Do you have any other ideas of how to create awesome training courses on a shoestring? All your ideas are welcome in the comments section.

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