November 2010 – Timothy West

After School Animation Club

By adminPGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

I have been helping out over the last 5 weeks in an after school animation club.

Here at the school i am placed in you can choose from a series of after school clubs there are several that range from Art club to hockey right across the board to the one i am helping in Animation club. These extra curricular clubs are brilliant as the give the kids the opportunity to do something that they really enjoy outside of the normal school day. The benefit of this is that it’s a more relaxed time that is not like being in a lesson and it also gives them more opportunity to explore and get into the club they have chosen.

In our animation club we are using two main programs. One is Macromedia Flash MX and the other is Scratch from MIT.

Most of the kids that come are either year 7 or 8 and so scratch is extremely popular as it is really easy to use and get to grips with but still requires the ability to logically program the sequence of events in their game or animation that they are making. It has the “High ceiling yet low complexity” benefit as everything is done using simple to understand bolt together modules.

At the moment we been really just allowing the kids to get to grips with scratch and then encouraging them to think of and plan a game or animation that could work. We have had to give them ideas and prompt them to stick to one project as they are quite easily distracted by all the other games that people have made.

I have been mainly going round answering and helping them one to one with their own projects and working particularly with a select few who’s projects I have been able to get to grips with.

It has been so rewarding to go through their ideas and watch them turn that into a real life game. One chap is making a simple game that has a main character that shoots the baddies that parachute down the screen and then walk to attack him. There is even a boss at the end who is harder to kill. We have been looking at how we can use the variables to create good game play and also how we can create realistic animation in the physical sense.

One of the thing I have learned is that you need to prompt the kids but not do it all for them so its important to give them the mouse and get them to figure it out with your guidance. This way they remember it more and more and are then able to go away and do this on their own.

The other brilliant thing is that it has given me the opportunity to broaden my own subject knowledge as I have to really think on the spot when helping the kids and at times we are both learning the program together. Thankfully I have been able to pick up the program quicker than they have and am then able to really help them develop their skills.

Our numbers are running low at the moment so we are about to introduce a 3d animation program called Mission Maker which looks amazing. It allows them to make fully 3D games without having to create everything from scratch as all the GUI is created and the coding is done through a form field rather than through a coding language. Again it has great (High ceiling) results but is not that complicated to use or control.

We are expecting the number to increase with the introduction of this new program Mission Maker and I’m really looking forward to getting to grips with it.

All in all it’s really great to get involved with extra curricular activities out of the classroom and to use that as a chance to broaden my subject knowledge and invest in the kids that want to go deeper with this ever growing area of animation.

30/11/2010

Academic Review Day

By adminPGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

Academic Review day Reflection

Today was Academic review day and it was brilliant. The whole purpose of the day was to have 15 minutes personal contact time with the tutees so that we could; review and look at their mid term progress report and set some targets for them to achieve higher both academically and in the wider context of school. The main focus is for the pupils and how they are doing and parents where their to support them with this it was not really meant for a chat with the parents directly but to incorporate the parents and have them their to support the targets set.

We started of with asking the pupils to right down the areas that they have good or bad feedback from their teachers and to express how they are getting on in each subject this was done in a simple fill out a form fashion. They had to then come up with some of their own targets on how they feel they can improve.

So with the background set we then on the next week handed out their progress report for them to view and take home to their parents. We then went through each of the reports highlighting the excellent reports in green and the needs improving in pink. The main layout was four columns with Behaviour, Effort, Homework and Equipment. We focused on the first three. If any pupil had 3 or more excellent then they received a mention and gold star for their great work. The third attainment level was good.

Then once we had scheduled in each 15 minute appointment we had the day itself.

To start with I observed how this was done and the various points that I needed to include.

First was to ask them how they feel they have done with the progress report.
Then to show them the highlighted areas and maybe compare to last years report. Praise where needed and visa versa.
Then to go through the areas of concern and come up with some targets that they could do to rectify the needs improving sections.

This worked really well and particularly if you started and finished on a positive note and really took the time to praise and glorify hard work.

After I had made a few inputs to the sessions and started some off asked to take some pupils on their own and run their the whole review on my own.

This was the fun bit as I was really able to be myself and to put across my own thoughts and have the freedom to speak directly into each target.

I found that it was important to meet and greet the parents and pupils early and to start it of well with plenty of positive notes. It was interesting how some parents took more of an forceful role and others that were quite happy to just sit and listen. It was really great when the pupil and parents both came up with some targets that would be realistic to fulfil and carry out.

Some of the targets were

Setting aside at least one hour of homework time after school. This was if homework was needing improvement
Reading for at least 20 minutes each evening. If things were good but English was needing improving
Asking at least one question each lesson to show the teacher that they were making the effort if effort needed improvement.

There were others such as behaviour reports for those that needed to be kept on tabs with this. This is a form that they take each lesson with a target like uniform and talking and if they achieve it the teacher at the end of the lesson marks it on the form. The purpose of this is to have some accountability on their behaviour. My tutor took and interesting twist on it rather than it being a punishment but actually something to stop them getting in trouble. In all of these targets they were there to be positive and do something constructive rather than just bashing them over the head saying you must not for example.

In some cases the issues were due to home environments and issues that needed to be address by the parent for example staying up to late playing x-box was a classic example of one of the cases I came across. These issues I had to escalate and pass onto my lead tutor and the head of house via a slip that could be reviewed later on. It was really interesting how the home issues were obviously affecting their school life. One needs to be careful on how they approach this as we are not really in a place to pass advice on parenting but as I learned in our child protection training its just our duty to pass on information that could be affecting the health and wellbeing of children to ensure that they are being correctly safeguarded.

So all in all it was great to invest some time in the pupils one to one and to have the chance to meet their parents and to interact with both on a higher level.

Please email amabey@nortonhillschool.com for more reference if needed.

26/11/2010

Copyright – Year 9MQB4 – OCR Nationals

By adminObservations, PGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Formal Lesson observation

This was my first formal lesson observation from my university tutor. I was quite nervous about it as I really wanted to impress. I found myself planning all evening and tried my best to make sure that all my resources and activities were just right.

The actual lesson went well with no major issues. I was happy with what I delivered and though they could have achieved a bit more written work I think they would have enjoyed it and I could tell they had learned something. It was an ambitious lesson to try and I feel that I managed it well.

I tried to use some post it notes to get the kids thinking about how all they have to do is write something down to copyright it and so i aske them to do this. I then had some great advice which was to extend this by saying how would you feel if i went and sold each one of these to pay for my next holiday to Kenya. This would have been a great way to get the higher level of blooms taxonomy.

I found that my feed back from my tutor was far but quite hypercritical which was hard to swallow at first as I really did try my best. I think I am still having to come to terms with the fact that I am not going to perfect yet and actually teaching is always about seeing how you can do things better next time. So the advice was great and I can see why they push us and try and find areas of weakness.

I need to concentrate on listening more to the responses from the pupils during questioning time and then if they
are good expanding on this and asking other pupils to engage with it.
Identifying the areas of strength and spikes in learning and praising that highly.
I need to really make sure that they get on task quicker and give them options if they are not starting the work
and making clear the expectation on them to work or get a sanction.
Continued work on low level disruption.

All in all I think that it’s necessary to be humble and then strive to be the best.

Please take a look at the following to get an idea of how the lesson worked and what resources i used followed by my observation report.

Lesson observation report = http://bit.ly/gZBzno

Copyright PowerPoint = http://bit.ly/e9SdK4

Lesson Plan and Evaluation of lesson = http://bit.ly/i04wPg

25/11/2010

Lesson 3 OCR Nationals AO2 – Year 9MQB4

By adminPGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

We had a catch up session to get them up to speed with the current AO2 Slides such as some were falling behind on the slides.

We then moved onto looking at how to…

? Learn how to copy and paste text and graphics from the internet in compliance with copyright.

? Learn how to download graphic and text files in compliance with copyright

What went well?

I was really happy with my behaviour management this lesson and Even though it was wet outside I managed to get them coming in and logging on quietly and swiftly. Once I wanted them to start I was able to get their attention quickly and get them looking at me.

I am finding that if I give a simple count down in seconds it works for me and by 0 they are usually quiet.

I felt that the pace of this lesson was great and we were able to cover allot. I feel this was clear as I made it clear what my expectation were early on and stated what I wanted them to get done by the end of the lesson. This pace even almost picked up towards the end of the lesson which was great.

Students Learning

They responded well to questioning and I was impressed as they had retained allot of information from the last lesson. They were completing the slides well and were able come up with a valid explanation of the process they were doing.

What could have been done better and what will I do about it?

It was not my fault as RM Tutor was not installed on the teacher’s machine which meant that I could not do my demonstrations by taking over the screen. I was able to adapt and ask the students to come up to the front so that I can show them the areas that I needed to demonstrate.

Students Learning

A few students were being lazy and at times I was getting frustrated that they had not listened and need to keep my calm and figure ways for them to stay focussed.

Feelings

I was really pleased with this lesson and felt confident with the pupils and started to feel relaxed whilst teaching them which enabled me to go round checking that they had completed their slides.

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >> http://bit.ly/cjQnTl

17/11/2010

Networking ICT GCSE Theory

By adminPGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

This was a theory based lesson that was teaching the year 11s all about networks and looking at how they can be applied in the real world with advantages and disadvantages.

Understand what a network is the purpose of them.

Understand the advantages and disadvantages of networks.

What went well?

We had a time of silent study to answer an exam based question worth 8 marks. This worked really well and after what was quite a rowdy lesson they were all silent and worked really hard on this and so I praised them for it. It was good to see them doing some independent learning.

I enjoyed being given the freedom to take the class on my own as this allowed me to be my self and to really try and be free. I found this also brought challenges.

What could have been done better and what will I do about it?

I over planned for the course that I was doing so had to remove some extra information that they did not need to know about. I was curious why I was not told about this but I should have read the exam spec again as it said that this was the ICT short course.

I thought that there were elements of boredom which lead to the low level disruption of talking. Thankfully I was able to keep it under control and issue a warning to back up that I meant business.

I feel that I could have tried to think up some more creative ways to express the topic and could have teased out more during the questioning time to get them thinking about it. I felt that I was reading to much of my PowerPoint and not really explaining the points and making sure that they understood what I was saying. As many of them where beavering away with their notes but not really taking it in.

I feel that I need to really try to keep the behaviour tight and keep insisting on no talking when I was talking. I also feel that need to think up some more engaging activities to get them thinking about the theory more the trouble is that they are not really getting on task when I ask them to do group discussion and feed back as they don’t answer my plenary questions and I really need to push them to answer it.

All in all I feel that I will need to keep planning interesting content and maybe observe my mentor teach a lesson on theory for example he suggested to look at analogue and digital data.

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >> http://bit.ly/ay9fTR

And resources like powerpoints >> http://bit.ly/99WSEY

15/11/2010

Reasearching and adding content to websites Year 8MQb4

By adminPGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

1) To find out some key points about your topic using effective search techniques – what it is – history of how long its been an issue – a few key facts and figures eg. How much GM food is produced in the uk. Also include one news article

2) To gather some relevant images and pictures from Google image search and from a stock photo website like Corbis images and sxc.hu

What went well?

My planning was pretty spot on and really helped the delivery of the lesson. I was able to use my PowerPoint effectively and use my subject knowledge well.

They were on task with the website preparation of pages and were really beginning to form and fill their websites with information.

I thought I used RM tutor well and especially blank screens for those who were not listening.

Students Learning

I was really able to questions the pupils well target my questioning to pupils that were obviously not responding. I tried not to do keep asking the same pupil again and again.

What could have been done better and what will I do about it?

The main downfall of this lesson was the behaviour management of the low level disruption.

The pupils were quite chatty and talkative which made it hard to start teaching as they were talking.

I found that I did have to reprimand them and ask them to be quiet and I gave them all a chance and said that I will issue warnings for people who talk when I was talking and they were then quiet but then I found myself getting so swept up in the teaching that I missed the other pupils talking again and did not follow through on my warnings.

So the main things I need to work on is to NOT start teaching until all the class are quiet even if this takes longer.

I also need to be hotter on giving warnings if I use it as a threat and what I should find is that once I do issue one ill be saying that I have given you a warning contact book out and or name on the board. I expect this will kick them into action.

Students Learning

Feelings

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >> http://bit.ly/dcqvrL

Observation by my mentor of me >> http://bit.ly/99JtGO

15/11/2010

Parrents contributions.

By adminPGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

We have just had a sesion on the importance of having parrents contributions in school and how we can improve this at my home schoo.

The main areas we looked at is how can we create a good link between the school and the parent and why it is important.

We identified that some parrents adopt the attitude that once their pupils get to secondary school they just expect the teachers to sort out their educations and they take a back seat role. This makes it very difficult to re in-force work that is needing to be doneby pupils that don’t put the effort in that they are supposed to be. It would be a lie to say that parrents don’t show much interest as many do but just choose not to as the lines of communications are not so clear.

At my home school they have a good system for allowing pupils homework to be check by parrents this is simply done by asking parents to sign the homework book each week then the tutor countersigns this. These contact books are used by teachers to put warnings and merrits alike. This is so that parrents can also see this and it is a good way of pupils being able to show what they are achieving in school. Parrents should be actively using the contact book each week and teachers are not using it as much as they could be.

The possiblity is to use an electronic system of comunication with parents with a parrents portal. Independant schools are on the whole better at this as parrents are paying for the education and sometimes expect results.

If parrents can back teachers for the work they set then it shows pupils that they are required to do this and they are then usually inclinded to see the importance of this.

12/11/2010

Lesson 2 OCR Nationals – Year 9MQB4

By adminPGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

These are the learning objectives for the lesson…

To search for all the 8 different band websites.

To learn how to judge if their band website is valid or trustworthy.

How to save or bookmark favourite pages that you find online.

Learn how to organise these pages into folders and categories.

What went well?

I thought that my plenary went well. I asked them to stand behind their places and answer a question and if they answered it correctly they could leave. This meant they were leaving the classroom on task still.

There were constantly on task and filling in each part of their PowerPoint slides which meant that they were achieving allot. The total result was allot of work done in the lesson.

I tried to walk around and asses how each pupil was doing and if they had completed each part I had asked.

I was happy with my delivery to them up the front and I felt that they were all paying attention to my delivery.

What could have been done better and what will I do about it?

I changed my lesson plan last minute which meat that I was a bit disorganised when I came into the lesson. I had to quickly finish my slides and resources. This was because I realised that I needed to take a different course of action as the logical order required me to talk about validity of websites before I asked them to source them.

I need to be more specific of what I require of them when explaining technical aspects as when I showed them how to book mark and create folders and sub folders I did not take the time to do this to the full. This meant that it was not quite clear what expected of them. I re demonstrated the book marking process but needed to give more time to this.

I was hoping to get a practical exercise to demonstrate putting sites into folder and the importance of organising and structuring but sadly did not get onto this.

My Feelings

Well I enjoyed this lesson and the pressure that it put on me to adapt and be versatile with short notice. I feel that if I knew this earlier it would have taken the stress of the whole lesson as I was worried I wasn’t going to get it all in.

Thankfully I achieved all of my lesson objectives so al in all I feel this was a good lesson

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >> http://bit.ly/dzMWDm

09/11/2010

Researching Online – photos and text – Year 8MQB1

By adminPGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

In this lesson we had a look at good ways to research content online with a focus on text and pictures. The purpose was to give them some structure and guidelines on how start to populate their websites with good looking content.

To find out some key points about your topic like using effective search techniques – what it is – history of how long it’s been an issue – a few key facts and figures e.g. how much GM food is produced in the UK. Also include one news article
To gather some relevant images and pictures from Google image search and from a stock photo website like corbis images

What went well?

I laid down the ground rules to start with and set high expectations which went well and I was able to control the class without to much trouble.

I was really happy how I was able to start with a recap and get them on task quickly. I was able to use this time to make sure that each pupil was up to scratch.

The pupils were on task and achieved a good amount of work in the lesson. They are really beginning to create a website that looks good and could be actually used on the web.

Some of the questions were answered well

The where able to use their english and skills to write the work they had researched to create the work in their own words. I had to make sure that pupils where comming up with sentices and paragraphs that where realated to the work and to make sure that it was relevant. It was interesting as some pupils literacy levels where much higher than i expected which makes sense as this is a top set.

What could have been done better and what will I do about it?

I asked them to find content for their website and did not show them how to import it straight into their website. I should have said compile it in word and then paste it into frontpage. I think in the future I would make sure I have each instruction completely clear that allows them to completely get on with the task.

I was meant to show them a few more options to find stock photos so will need to make sure I plan for demonstration time a bit better.

Its was hard to just talk about some of these websites on the PowerPoint with out demonstrating them again I think its best to have a live example of the website rather than just image.. screen shots could be taken to achieve this come to think of it.

Feelings

It was a busy and fairly tiring lesson but this was because it was the last lesson of the day and everyone was tired. How ever they did get a decent amount of work done.

I was really enjoying it and feel that it went well.

It was interesting as I enjoyed the time also when my mentor left the class room as this gave me complete freedom. This is not at all to say that I don’t like him there. It is just at times you want to please and glance over at your mentor for approval which shouldn’t be the case we are teaching the kids not our mentor.

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >> http://bit.ly/bWh9yP

05/11/2010

Diploma Year 10 Observation

By adminObservations, PGCE, TeachingNo Comments

Key Points

Use of questions when going through a PowerPoint that could be really boring is a good way to bring the learning to life and to get the pupils thinking about the key concepts.
It is important to question and asses if the pupils know what key terms mean.
Use of iPlayer and apprentice to make its fun and relevant. This really motivated the pupils as the actually enjoyed the clip
When using a video it’s important that you get them to think of some key points and make notes on those key areas.
Really good technique is to use RM tutor to pop up questions on their screens to answer whilst watching the video.

04/11/2010