There are currently over five hundred free resources on the site and another three hundred without a page but linked to the blogs.

First up is this living graph, the aim is for students to consider the factors that have influenced the growth of international tourism. The resource can be downloaded from RG.

I do ask myself the question, why does it take so long? I remember a head teacher who couldn’t grasp the time I was still spending on planning; after five years I should be resourced and set-up.

Over my teaching career I’ve tried to make myself more organised and productive, I moved from a paper planner to Word document weekly template, divided into individual days and lessons. I use this to fill in the details of my lessons, it also works as a diary, so I put in reminders of tasks to do during the day. I started to use red text as well to denote points of importance, such as students I wanted to speak to, or changes that I had made to the format of my lesson. With teaching multiple groups I also wanted a way to show what parts of the lesson I didn’t teach, so I now highlight these blue.

I’ve been developing my model of planning over the last three years, so I now have a detailed record of how my lessons progressed on any week or day, because I can go back and look at what I was doing previously it saves time, I can now easily cut and paste lesson ideas ,and adapt them to suit the present class.

I’m also a bit pedantic about my lesson resources, so tend to order them according to Key Stage, topic and lesson. I’ve also started to hyperlink between my planning template and individual resources and folders.

As I change or adapt resources, the old versions  go to a more general thematic folder.  I also keep an external hard drive of resources at home, in readiness for new lessons, or as potential inspiration.

I suppose the planning part will always take time- each class often requires a slightly difficult approach or adapted resource, within Geography topicality can quickly influence learning- old case studies are dispatched for new, and about every two minutes a syllabus changes.

Infrastructure

I’m lucky to work in a school where we have a stable network, that has been maintained and developed over the last ten years by a great set of support staff.

Still to be persuaded on the VLE- but I’m keeping an open mind.

Administration

Technology has had a huge impact on the time needed to complete administration tasks.

Teaching and Learning

How I prepare to teach, and the media I use when teaching, have been influenced by technology.

Though technology has changed the format and materials I use  to ‘present’ lessons, access to I.C.T. resources still limits the experimental type learning that I would like to use within the classroom.

Professional Development

One of the greatest impacts of technology upon  my professional development over the last ten years, has been the ability to access the resources and views of other practitioners.

It leaves me reflecting on the impact that technology might have over the next ten years…

So for the last year, ten areas that I need to improve within my practice and professional life-

I need to be less controlling- practitioners need a classroom ‘presence’, this control exists within the classroom because of detailed planning and long-term behaviour management. A major proportion of my practice is somewhat traditional, but I think I need to create time and space for students to work independently of my presence, the so called holy grail of independent learning.

I struggle with group work- It still fills me with fear, and I know it doesn’t reflect my preference of intrapersonal learning. I think this is linked to control; I struggle with the dynamics of successful groupings, ensuring ‘on task’ time, and the monitoring of quality. I need to observe other successful classroom practice in the near future and begin to incorporate this into my own.

I like students to ‘do’ more- I really enjoy kinaesthetic-type learning activities, and it’s something that I’ve been slowing incorporating into my practice, but once term time begins I find it increasingly difficult to spend the time needed to prepare for such activities.

I need to be more challenging- working in a truly comprehensive establishment with mixed ability classes, I have to ensure that lessons are accessible; though I think I’m still not challenging students. I like to incorporate a more challenging range of activities into my practice, to take students’ out of their comfort zones.

I’d like students to take the control of I.C.T. – I think I use I.C.T. effectively within my whole class practice, but I want to develop more tasks where students use I.C.T. to solve problems, report and present their findings.

I want to develop more depth to students’ work- irrespective of ability, I haven’t spent enough time helping students construct and develop arguments; part of this requires an AFL approach.

I need to be more rigorous with my feedback- one of the areas that I feel I’ve made progress with this year is my marking- I’ve set time aside during my PPA to regularly mark a set of books, but I still need to be more specific in my geographical feedback to students to help aid their progression.

I like to get out more- as a geographer it should be a done thing, but I would like to make greater use of outside learning, particularly around the campus where I work.

I haven’t solved my homework issue- a continuing issue for me, see previous post.

I need to develop a thicker skin- I need to be more resilient in the face of professional challenges, something which I struggle with, I get disheartened easily.

I feel better now; have a drink on my behalf… Welcome 2010

It’s very much a work in progress, but I tend to upload resources as I use them within my teaching.

I think over this period my career has taken three phases

Establishing- at the start of my career I was establishing myself as a teacher, coping with demands that this entails.

Engaging- after the challenges of establishing myself within the classroom, I think I then began to engage with the wider subject community- in part to enhance my practice and as an opportunity to seek external challenges.

Refocusing- external engagement encouraged me to evaluate my practice within the classroom, now that the challenges of establishing myself had subsided, I began to focus on the quality and effectiveness of learning opportunities. During this time internal challenges developed, that I was able to engage with, this somewhat limited the time that I had to work with other external partners.

I now feel comfortable in the role of an ‘educator’, but over the last two years, for personal reasons, I feel I have lost the confidence to engage with challenges both internally and externally, it’s something I hope to rediscover over the next year…

]]> http://tonycassidy.co.uk/2009/12/three-phases/feed/ 0 http://tonycassidy.co.uk/2009/12/the-great-homework-debate/ http://tonycassidy.co.uk/2009/12/the-great-homework-debate/#comments Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:27:45 +0000 Tony_Cassidy http://tonycassidy.co.uk/2009/12/the-great-homework-debate/ I suppose one of things about being a teacher is that everyone has an opinion on education to share with you.

One of my brother’s family is now in Year 8 at secondary school, his partner asked me about my opinion on homework- sadly it’s one of those areas I still can’t get right in my mind. There were two interesting and opposing viewpoints.

• Setting homework, provides additional burden to students, time when they could be widening their interests or becoming involved in different groups.
• Some students find homework difficult to complete for a number of reasons, lack of home space, or ability, homework tasks may cause friction at home, particularly if a child needs an adult to help, or failure to hand in homework has become an issue.
• Lack of homework from a class can cause friction between teacher and student, as a sanction is given to the student, the student may become less motivated, in extreme cases purposely missing the lesson.
• Some homework tasks set can be completely inappropriate, unchallenging and dull, thus they devalue the knowledge or the lesson where it is being provided.

On the opposite side-

• Homework offers an opportunity for students to work independently, as such it can extend knowledge and promote interest.
• Appropriate open-ended tasks can encourage students to think and produce creatively.
• It helps students develop time management skills.

We don’t have a specific homework policy, but over my time teaching I have evolved the following personal philosophy-

• I don’t set homework for the sake of it, why create the additional burden and stress, for a pointless piece of work?
• I tend to set open ended and more creative tasks over a longer time period. The aim being that choice will help engage students.
• I take in and mark homework, but do not use sanctions when individuals do not complete it.

The third point is contentious, one which I’ve had a quite heated debate over in the last term- A key Stage 4 student being given a detention over non-submission of coursework, I find this sends a very confusing message, you will be made to complete work that benefits you, as a result you may do just as well, or better, than the individual who is intrinsically motivated and has completed the work on time. What do both students learn from this? Happily the issue of coursework submission has died with the creation of controlled assessment.

This is not to say that as a professional I don’t have a responsibility to inform the student’s parents and offer support, sometimes failure to complete can be an issue of motivation: but it can also be symptomatic of a lack of understanding, or an inherent issue with the task.

But I see no reason to force an individual to complete work, nor do I wish to damage a relationship with a student so much, that they opt with their feet, and ultimately are turned off from learning and school.

I’m of the mindset that individuals who show effort, should be praised and rewarded, part of that ‘reward’ is intrinsic, but extrinsically it is also celebrated with improved skill, knowledge and progress.

I suppose my four point is more challenging, but I have given up on

• Deadlines

But that’s for another time…