The Fattening Blog

Now that my blog is growing fatter, I decided to input it into Wordle to take a look at the developing themes.  Here is the result:

I screenshotted this image using the Snipping Tool on my laptop - which is a tool I only recently learnt about, but have made frequent use of since.  For those of you who aren't aware of it, it can be found via a simple search.  Open up your start-up menu, type 'snipping tool' into the search bar, and there it is, ready to start snipping.  Easy to use and endlessly useful!

How Technology Has Changed the Way We Learn

OR … Has Technology Changed the Way We Learn?

Don’t tell anyone – it’s something of a secret – but I am 28 years of age.  The reason I’m divulging this information is because, when I completed my GCSEs in the early 2000s, my school did not offer an ICT GCSE.  You might find this surprising.  I am still, just about, under 30; I received a standard state secondary education; I had a computer in my home at the time.  But I was not offered the opportunity to continue my ICT education past the age of 14.  

In his speech to the Schools Network in January 2012, Michael Gove emphasised the pace at which technology is changing thus:

“If you were trying to build an iPhone using equivalent components from the 1980s […] just how big would that phone be? Running through all the parts - from the antennas to the batteries to the GPS to the gyroscope to the accelerometer to the cameras to the mobile computing capability and more - New Scientist concludes you would need a truck to haul around an iPhone built of 1985 parts. We’ve gone from an 18-wheeler to a pocket in just 26 years.”

This is an interesting example.  My own experience, though, is more immediate still.  I was born in the 1980s, I’ve owned a mobile phone since I was 13.  And yet, those who were determined to study an ICT GCSE at my school were forced to do so in their own time, at a local college.  I did not lament this situation.  I had as much interest in technology then as I do now – very little.  However, in being forced to study it for the first time since my early teens, I am finding that we can, on occasion, get along quite well together, technology and I.

How, though, has it changed the way we learn?  And how, in fact, will it change the way I plan to teach?

In an earlier speech (of June 2011) to the Royal Society, Michael Gove had discussed the means by which maths and science standards and the quality of teaching in these subject areas could be improved.  His first emphasis, naturally, was on the teacher.  As, in my strong opinion, it should be.  

“A teacher affects eternity:

he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Henry Adams

He then noted that “In addition to the debate over what is taught, and the issue of who does the teaching, we […] need to think about how the teaching takes place.”  And subsequently, he went on to discuss how technology can be an effective teacher of mathematics – not if but how.  I found this distinction very interesting.  The argument for or against the use of technology seems to have disappeared altogether in favour of simply considering how we should use it.

But, what of the why we are using it?

Personally, I am still exploring the possibilities of teaching with ICT.  I have never denied being a ‘paper and pen’ girl.  But perhaps it would be prudent of us, as teachers and learners, to continue throughout our practice to ask whether the integration of ICT into lessons is actually doing anything to enhance those lessons …

There is an interesting article by Adrian Kirkwood and Linda Price available via The Open University website (yes, I know, the irony!), which addresses this issue.  It is entitled ‘Technology-enhanced Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: What is ‘enhanced’ and how do we know? A Critical Literature Review’.  In it, the authors consider both whether what they term ‘interventions’ – i.e. those occasions when technology is employed to support learning and teaching, specifically within the higher education sector – enhance learning, and, if they do, whether we can adequately assess that they do so successfully or unsuccessfully.

In researching these TEL (or, Technology Enhanced Learning) interventions, the authors identify three types of intervention:

       1) Replication of existing techniques

       2) Supplementation of existing techniques

       3) Transformation of the learning experience

They claim that the final type, interventions aimed at transforming the learning experience, account for less than one-third of all interventions.  This would suggest that TEL is not changing the way we teach and learn, but simply reinforcing the ways in which we have always taught and learnt.

The authors also highlight difficulties in assessing the achievements of TEL, as there is no clear definition of what constitutes enhanced learning:

“Academics and managers need a clear articulation of what is meant by technology enhanced learning in higher education to develop a better understanding of achievements. This is vital if research is to inform future practices in teaching and learning with technology
to maximum effect.” *

Before I comment on these findings, I should reiterate my claim that I am firmly a paper-and-pen girl.  Having reminded you of that, I can happily admit that, as a teacher, my aim would be to use TEL for the first two types of intervention identified above (i.e. replication and supplementation), rather than the transformation of the learning experience.  But perhaps there is nothing wrong with this.  I can see the value of online resources.  I will soon utilise such resources to teach a poetry session – what better way to bring a poem to life than to show my students a video of an actor speaking it?  That certainly surpasses my reading it to them off a dog-eared sheet of A4!

But I can’t help but return in my considerations to the teacher, the teacher, the teacher.  Are we going to lose the teacher in all this technological advancement?  

In their article, Kirkwood and Price conclude that:

“The term TEL is too often used in an unconsidered manner. While technology has increasing influence throughout higher education, there is still much to be learned about its effective educational contribution. This review has highlighted variations in both the purpose of TEL interventions and the ways that enhancement has been conceived. Underpinning this is a conflation of two distinct aims:

changes in the means through which university teaching happens; and

changes in how university teachers teach and learners learn.

Many of the studies reviewed concentrated on the means: replicating and supplementing existing teaching. Fewer considered the second aim - how. The ways in which academics conceptualise teaching and learning with technology have significant and interrelated impacts upon their students’ experience of learning (Kirkwood and Price 2012). The potential of technology to transform teaching and learning practices does not appear to have achieved substantial uptake, as the majority of studies focused on reproducing or reinforcing existing practices.” **

And isn’t that interesting?  If, across the board, teachers are utilising technology to “reproduc[e] or reinforc[e] existing practices” rather than to alter them, surely our emphasis as educators remains on ourselves; the onus still rests with us.  And I like that idea.  We are not shifting our educational responsibilities onto the shoulders of technology.  We are continuing to carry them, and continuing to seek new ways to improve upon them.  Technology has its part to play, of course, but I’ll say it again – the teacher, the teacher, the teacher!

* Kirkwood, Adrian and Price, Linda (2014). Technology-enhanced learning and teaching in higher education: what is ‘enhanced’ and how do we know? A critical literature review. Learning, Media and Technology, 39(1) pp. 23.

** Kirkwood, Adrian and Price, Linda (2014). Technology-enhanced learning and teaching in higher education: what is ‘enhanced’ and how do we know? A critical literature review. Learning, Media and Technology, 39(1) pp. 24.

The Power of PowerPoint

This is probably a pretty shocking admission to make in 2014 but, prior to beginning my PGCE PCET course, I had never created a PowerPoint presentation.  I know – how primitive of me!  But I didn’t know how.  In fact, I didn’t even know the application was there, on my laptop, waiting to be explored!  Besides, I have always had a natural inclination to turn towards pen and paper rather than screen and keyboard.

Having now taken the plunge, however, I’m happy to admit that it is a really easy application to use.  Not only that, but it can be a creative process – it allows you to fiddle with colour, design, font, background, and thereby build an attractive and valuable visual aid. 

There is no replacement for a teacher’s passion in relaying their subject to their student, but I am learning to utilise technology as another way to present that passion.  I feel confident that PowerPoint will become a real asset to my future teaching. 

Hunting English

A Useful Blog

It was the name of this blog which first enticed me to read it.  Presumably, the choice was inspired by the York school, Huntington Secondary, where the blogger is employed.  But I thought it apt, and amusing, and it transpired that the blog was full of useful articles.  

Here is one entitled ‘Questioning and Feedback: Top Ten Strategies’, which I read recently with a view to considering and improving my own teaching techniques.  In it, Alex Quigley makes some interesting observations about how we can question our students more effectively; particularly in regard to what he calls ‘wait time’.  He says:  

“We think we give students ample time [to answer a question], but we too often don’t. Have you ever timed yourself? The average time allowed for students giving a response has been estimated at 1.5 seconds! The optimum time is nearer 5 seconds. Evidence shows that the depth (between 400 and 800% increase in length of response) & quality of answers greatly improves with this extra waiting time of just a few seconds.”

This forced me to stop and think.  I have not yet started teaching English to students, but as a ski instructor, I have been a teacher of sorts for over eleven years.  I often use questioning (instinctively, I might add – my methods are not based on research of any kind, but experience) to ensure that the information I’m presenting verbally is being absorbed.  But how long do I wait for an answer?

On average, I’d imagine my wait time is nearer 1.5 seconds than a seemingly interminable 5!  I am concerned, I suppose, about the hanging silence; I am worried that an extended wait would pressure or embarrass my learner rather than aid their thought process.  And perhaps, for some, it would.  But as Quigley is keen to point out, “There is no ‘one size fits every class’ strategy”.  I have always considered my ability to adapt to my learners to be one of the real strengths of my teaching.  Here, though, in the ‘wait time’ I employ after posing a question, is a place where I could potentially improve it.  It’s something I’ll be thinking about keenly in my future lessons.

There are, of course, nine other helpful questioning and feedback techniques included in the article, which I think is a lovely reference for new and experienced teachers alike.

Remembering on Remembrance Sunday

Whilst doing some research recently, I stumbled happily upon this series of videos put out by Channel 4 ahead of Remembrance Sunday.  What I love about them is that these particular actors make the words feel completely modern, which will no doubt bring the poems to life for a younger audience. They are, I think, a great resource for teaching poetry.  I find Noel Clarke’s delivery especially brilliant.

Ted Talks Education

Sir Ken Robinson – Bring on the Learning Revolution!

Today, I watched this amazing Ted Talk from Sir Ken Robinson, delivered in 2010.  In it, Robinson speaks brilliantly and passionately about our education system, asserting that “education, in a way, dislocates […] people from their natural talents”.  And I couldn’t agree with him more.  

Of course, people are inclined to believe any story or idea that is presented to them so convincingly, and I am no different.  In his speech, Robinson is selling me an idea, and very well too.  However, I found in his argument many thoughts I shared but had not put such eloquent words to.

When I was 18, my sixth form college put me forward as an ‘Oxbridge candidate’.  Naturally, this was flattering, and my family were thrilled when I was invited to interview for a place to read English Literature at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.  I was flattered, too.  I had visited the city and knew it was beautiful.  I had seen students leaving their examinations in their gowns; white, pink or red carnations pinned to their chests.  It was all very romantic, especially as the city’s Christmas decorations were already up when I attended my interview.

Following the few days I spent there, however, I was sure I didn’t want to attend.  Yes, I was interviewed in grand rooms with open fires and wingback armchairs and books shelved all the way to the ceiling.  I really was!  But I didn’t feel my personality fitted – at all.  I didn’t think I would be happy there.  I had been pushed along this route by the education system I was part of, and if I was accepted, there was no way I could turn down Oxford. 

I received my rejection letter, as I had been told would happen, two days before Christmas. (Incidentally, here’s an interesting Guardian article on the subject of Oxbridge rejection)  It’s fair to say I was not disappointed.  In fact, I turned down offers from various excellent universities that year, including Cardiff, Bristol and Exeter.  I finally enrolled at my local university three or four years later.  And I am still expected to defend that decision surprisingly often.  But why?

In his speech, Robinson references an Abraham Lincoln message to Congress of 1862.  The extract he highlights reads:

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

We are, Robinson argues, enthral to certain educational ideas.  He identifies linearity and conformity as two such ideas.  At 18, I too was expected to conform, to move along a linear narrative without questioning why I was moving in that particular direction.  Now, at 28 and still working in a low paid job, I continue to believe in my decision.  When I did embark on my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, I studied the subject I loved with more commitment, more passion than I would have done at 18.  Furthermore, I now had the confidence, in my early twenties, to really pursue creative writing – that unrealistic ambition!

Alluding to a poem by W B Yeats, Robinson concludes his speech thus: “And every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet.  And we should tread softly.”  

The way to do this, he suggests, is by moving away from an “industrial model” of education and towards an “agricultural” one, thereby allowing it to become an “organic” process, “customised” to the individual.  Educators, he says, should think themselves like farmers – their role is to provide the correct environment to allow the individual to flourish.  Whether that individual is a child or an adult does not influence the argument, as far as I can see.

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent,” Robinson claims, “not a singular conception of ability.”  And so should our education system, if we are all to find better ways to use our talents.

Lettering

Free teaching resources can be found on this website.  It includes some nice lettering for displays and the like.