Blog – Page 6 – Timothy West

Creative Computer Control Year 7 Lesson

By adminPGCE, POT 3, Reflection, Teaching125 Comments

Jam Sandwich Creative Lesson Year 7

Computer control is a fairly mundane topic for year 7s if it is not delivered in the correct way. In order to make it more creative and innovative I discovered and was informed about a way to explain how computers need to control things precisely and exactly and you have to issue commands in sequence.

This is where the Jam Sandwich Robot Demonstration comes into play. It is quite a simple task and is as follows.

You need bread, jam, a knife and a plate and possibly butter or margarine.
You then need to tell the pupils to instruct your every movement so that you can make and eat a jam sandwich
Emphasize that it is only one command at a time
Allow each pupil to have a go at giving you a command
Do what each pupil says exactly

At the start the pupils issue too many commands at the same time and they also don’t issue them exactly. For example pupils say put bread on the plate but don’t tell me how to open the bread packet and how many slices to put on the plate. If they tell you something to do that is sill you can just say computer does not compute.

The pupils then get into it and give you all the instructions that you need to create the actual sandwhich and they soon get the hang of it.

The only thing you need to get right is the safety of the experiment its is important that you have all chairs cleared and that you ask the pupils to stand back before you start making it just as they all start to crowd round and it is not fair on the other pupils. This helps keep the classroom purposeful and safe.

This is a great task to get them thinking logically and to understand the importance of precise and exact commands in computer control.

Lesson Plan >> http://bit.ly/itXVCx

Power Point >> http://bit.ly/lYfda3

21/05/2011

Evaluation of the Apprentice Year 8 Unit

By adminPGCE, POT 3, Reflection, Teaching124 Comments

Evaluation of Year 8 Apprentice Unit

Over the last 5 weeks I have been teaching Year 8 a new module that I have created a medium term plan for. This unit has been called the Apprentice unit. The main concept for the project is to come up with a product that they can sell to pupils at their school. The product needs to be small and affordable with the average pocket money that pupils have per week.

To start with I asked the pupils to think about what sort of people they are targeting and what sort of products they might like. I gave them some clues to get them started with the product one of which was a usb lipstick product that could sell to females.

Above is an example of how I designed a simple poduct in firework and then asked them to create a similar sketch for their product. This particular idea really gave them the chance to be creative with their product. It was important that they undertook this task so that they could have an idea of what the product would consist of for the production phase. This lesson worked particularly well with some fantastic produces being produced.

They also had to think about how they would brand their product and come up with a logo. This was a good chance again to use the program fireworks to design it. It was important to give them a few examples of different logos and take them through the program in steps otherwise the pupils forgot it by the time they had a go.

Finally the pupils had to go through and sort out the finances of the product to figure out how much money they intend to make. This needed to be done with an element of competition.

At the end of this unit the pupils will be assessed via a presentation and they will have to present their PowerPoint that they have collated their research in and pitch it as if they where in a boardroom.

All in all this was a great project that is suited for an end of year project to consolidate a series of skills .

Please see this folder for all the resources files and folders. http://bit.ly/ivXjSw

21/05/2011

Year 8 Tutoring

By adminPGCE, POT 3No Comments

Over the last year I have been placed with a year tutor group. I have been heavily involved with these tutors as they progress throughout the year. As already mentioned in earlier post I have been involved in academic review days to give them targets for school. I have also been able to attend a forest of dean trip with them that really helped me get to know the pupils better.

The main areas that I have been helping with over the last term have been taking tutorial times over the lunchtime period. 3 Times a week we have a session where we have to organize activities and tasks for them to do for 20 minutes.

Part of the rewards system in the house that this tutor group is in awards them with stars for various things. These stars can then be cashed in for various prizes. For example 40 stars will get you a new DVD

The various things we do with them are as follows.

Check and sign their contact books to see how they are progressing throughout the week. We award stars for contact books that are organized and set up for the following week.
Give out notices that are specific to them
Do equipment checks – stars are awarded having all the correct equipment in place
Do silent reading and homework
Run quizzes
Run healthy living and exercise sessions
Do personal one to one mentoring

Part of my duty was to organize tutor activities such as quizzes. So each week for the last week I have been compiling current affair quizzes for the tutees. Each table plays against each other. I then read out the questions and then ask them to swap tables to mark. They do enjoy this however more recently they have been so noisy whilst delivering the questions and answers I have had to warn them that I will not be doing them and they shall do silent reading instead.

Please see here for latest quiz >>

Picture of Quiz Results below.

Doing this tutoring has been vital experience for my professional development especially as I will be taking a tutor group in my next school.

21/05/2011

Marking pupils work GCSE OCR Nationals

By adminPGCE, POT 312 Comments

I have been marking some OCR nationals GCSE coursework over the last 2 days, which has been a great chance to learn more about the course and the way that it is delivered.

The school use a really great method for monitoring the work and recoding it through access program call JAS. The Head of IT has developed a series of queries that put the work into a database that can be viewed in excel.

The process for the pupils is to submit their work to the Joint Assessment System

Then me as a teacher can print out all the levels and then goes into each pupil and clicks on the work that needs to be assessed. Once I have given it the correct grade that I feel it deserves I then put a grade and a comment for any improvements that could be made to actually increase their grade before it is submitted.

The process is made simple once you get into a rhythm and once you master the nuances of the program. It takes a total of about 5 minutes per piece of work. The hardest part is when you have to make a judgment call on quality of the PowerPoint slides.

Once pupils then receive their work back then they can make the edits to it and view what each module needs to working on.

Above and below is an example of som work that I have marked with reference to the powerpoint that they where creating.

Below is an example of the tracking and monitoring that this program achieves and helps with.

Bellow is an example of the class that have been teaching and the results that they have achieved.

20/05/2011

Year 8 Fireworks Apprentice lesson 4

By adminPGCE, POT 3, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

To learn how to use the program Macromedia fireworks to create a Logo for your product.
To learn how to use text and typography in your logo design
To learn how to use shapes and colors in you logo design
To learn how to use special effects to enhance your logo design

What went well?

This was a fantastic lesson and the quality of the pupils work was brilliant at the end of the lesson.

I was really able to nail the behaviour of the pupils by issuing them a clear set of objectives at the beginning of the lesson. In my PowerPoint I was also able to use a good merits and sanctions technique with smiley faces and sad faces indicating if I am happy or sad with them. They responded well to this and I was able to follow through on this well.

The pupils responded well to peer assessment and

Students Learning

The pupils learnt the program well and where drawing on prior knowledge that they had developed in previous practice. It was great to see the quality of the work go well and they where all on task working really hard which was such a bonus and pleasure to see. Students had clearly learnt from the process and the demonstration that was followed well.

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

This is hard as most of it went really well. I can only look at the fact that I could look at given pupils that did step out of line harsher sanctions particularly at the break time lessons.

Students Learning

This could have been helped if I was able to fully show a few more points during my demonstration.

Feelings

I thought this was a great lesson and I was really happy with the behaviour and the quality of the work that the pupils produced.

I also had a secure knowledge of teh program and requirement of what i was teaching which really helped. This was demonstrated by the quality of the pupils work.

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

Full observation >> http://bit.ly/iJN9T2

Resources >> http://bit.ly/k42Qhk

20/05/2011

Year 9 OCR Nationals Database Lesson 2

By adminPGCE, POT 3, TeachingNo Comments

What went well?

I was able to adapt well to the fact that some of the pupils had not completed the work that they should have in the previous lesson. I was able to be assertive and raise standards and expectations when i did not feel that they where working as best as they could. I was not afraid to be stern.

I had to modify my planning and teaching to adapt to the fact that they where all at different stages of development.

The iportant part of this lesson is to make sure that their anotations and descriptions are of a decent standard. For the lower ability children they where not quite able to come up with good arguments that really explained why they did this. This meant i had to intervene and give guidence to the pupils in how to describe to process that they where doing. This was a good chance for pupils to use literacy in their lessons.

What could have been done better?

Work was meant to be covered over homework but this was an oversight and i should have not assumed that they would definitely complete it during their own study time. I need to raise the standards for this and expect it more and set sanctions in place if they have not completed the work on time.

My demonstration of the work was possibly not as clear and i did not pre empt the issues that arrose.

I need to keep working on tackling low level behaviour.

Lesson Plan >> http://bit.ly/mO9F8f

Observation of me http://bit.ly/iyo6n0

19/05/2011

Year 8 Apprentice Lesson 4

By adminPGCE, POT 3, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

To learn how to critique and reflect on design choices such as Logos.

To learn how to create a rough product design in fireworks.

What went well?

This was a good lesson and I feel the main areas that where good where as follows.

I was able to get the pupils through a fair amount of work and to keep most of them on task it was good to have the pupils onside with the activities and they really enjoyed making their logos and product ideas.

I was able to offer good positive praise for each of the pupils that where doing good work and this was effective as it built their self esteem and showed that I showed interest in the,

I was able to set a good home work.

I was also able to scan around the room to see what pupils were doing and to try and keep them on task I felt that I dealt well with pupils that where lagging behind and encouraged them to get up to speed.

Students Learning

This was mainly the use of adobe fireworks and how to come up a good product. It also gave them a chance to plan and prepare for what a product would look like. I was really happy with how they on the whole they progressed well with the concepts of how t use shapes and colours to design their idea.

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

I need to work more on the low level disruption during my demonstrations.

I must not generalise when it comes to getting pupils to be quiet I need to pin point them and write their name on the board.

Students Learning

I feel I could have taught them more with fireworks and I was not able to get the product logo installed correctly which the pupils picked up on and commented.

It was good to see the pupils reflecting well on each of their pieces of work.

I need to keep practicing the program that I want to demonstrate like fireworks.

Feelings

This lesson was much better than my previous lesson and is reflected in observation of my lesson.

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >> http://bit.ly/mf8Jjj

Lesson observation >> http://bit.ly/mf8Jjj

19/05/2011

Year 9 OCR Nationals Database Lesson

By adminPGCE, POT 3, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

We where having a look at databases and how to create a simple query that filters for a YES in the criteria. The table was for people attending a music festival. We also where creating a report for the bands that where playing and the order of their events they created.

What went well?

I had created a good lesson plan for this lesson and it was very thorough and I was able to really get to grips with Microsoft access before using it.

I found I was able to assert my authority and lay down so ground rule although these where not respected as well as I would have liked. I was able to

Students Learning

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

I accidentally started creating a query in the wizard view rather than design view which threw me but I was able to reel it back in.

Behaviour wise I found there was little mutual respect dispite the clear guidelines being issued which meants that next lesson the first person that steps out of line will be in Time out the sanction area. I was able to issue two time out warning to pupils demonstating my high expectations and standards.

Students Learning

Pupils where actively not egaging with the content and not listening. This is because of the nature of the OCR nationals and it is quite a mundane topic.

Feelings

Not the greatest lesson which I will need to work hard on next lesson to pull them back in. I will need to just be short and sweet as far as sanctions and warnings and not be afraid to use the time outs. I will also need to look at how to make it more interesting.

After the lesson i asked my subject mentor for some advice on how to best impliment the policies and practices for behaviour in the classroom . On Speaking with him we identified that the reason why it was initially due to the fact that the demonstration did not go well and from then on I had lost them. He also said that if i would like to i could on the whiteboard write down who is causing truouble in the lesson and give them a warning or a merit for doing wel. This way they know if they are needing to be quiet or to offer more.

Please use this link to view my full lesson plan >>

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z4oZSUqSpyCrlbE0wo8OEo1zwIqoEvZkaP3wLxL0P74/edit?hl=en

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7AadLDLtxQLNzJiNzgzNWUtZTBmOS00NDY3LWJiNWMtODNjY2Q1ODlkNmRi&hl=en

11/05/2011

Consolidation lesson of publinshing to the web year 8

By adminPGCE, Reflection, Teaching123 Comments

What went well?

I thought my questioning at the beginning was good and the introduction to the lesson was good I managed to get them all quiet and really focussed on the work that they needed to be doing?

I was happy with the fact that I managed to get through all of the objectives on the board and every pupil managed to submit their work.

I though the peer assessment went well and on the whole they were able to get some valid view points back from each of their peers. They all managed to swap and do this once I gave to command.

I was able to set the homework clearly and give them time to do this!

What could have been done better?

I though the general behaviour management of the class started well but soon crumbled. As though I had them on task the tasks they were doing were quite tricky.

I think that I had too much to do with them so need to not do as much with them next time.

It was really hard as the nature of the lesson had lots of pressured aspects of it and as they were all at different levels they were struggling to get the websites completed.

I did not use the sheets that I gave out as best as I could have and should have asked them to write their names on these and hand it in.

I could have also elaborated on why it is important for them to do the peer marking in the plenary. And by not having a plenary it was impossible to do this.

I was not really able to monitor the progress of every single pupil which meant that some may have been going off task. Or at least not fully engaging with what they were meant to be doing!

Overall I was happy with the fact that they all managed to get all the objectives completed. However I feel that toward the end of the lesson I lost control a bit and it was tough to really get them reeled back in.

Lesson specific tips from observation…

Get them to put contact books out straight away so that there is no fuss in doing that..

Be firmer with those that are not on task and working…

Chunk things better when actually going through the complicated process of submitting to JAS.

Try not say “can you” so much.

Be clear with what you want them to do so if its write points on each others website then do that first. Then take them through the other paper assessment of levels.

When doing assessment questions try and make sure they are simple for the kids to almost go through each level one by one.

Don’t enforce silent working as it can be a loosing battle.

11/05/2011

Medium term lesson planning

By adminPGCE, POT 3, ReflectionNo Comments

Recently I have been asked to team teach some ICT gcse lessons and so I have sorted out with my fellow teacher a series of lesson and a medium term plan for the next 6 lesson on what we will be teaching. We decided to look at the specification for the exam and then made a few key points on what we want them to learn again. It was important for us to identify what areas of weekness they usually stuggle with in relation to the mock papers they recently sat.

It is great to share the teaching as it takes the pressure of one teacher and it gives pupils a change of style that can help them stay focussed and on the ball.

11K2 – Lesson Plan

Reference iumoren [iumoren@NortonHillSchool.com]

06/05/2011