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Photoshop lesson 2 – Year 7

By PGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Lesson Reflection Document

Class Year 7

What we did?

We were creating an Elvis at the Abbey project with a pop theme to it.

Lesson 2 was all about working and making tweaks to the sky using a gradient tool on Photoshop.

Please look at attached lesson plan

What went well?

It was great to see that the pupils where using their inner creativity to create some really good-looking items of work.

They where able to grasp the points that I needed to re-enforce through questioning

I made sure the chairs where set out as they came in as it really helped the pupils focus and be really quiet for the introduction. I have noticed how when I don’t do this it is slightly more chaotic and hard to get through the introduction well

I was able to introduce AB tutor well to the classes at first I found that they where really excited about the whole concept but if I just did it and asked them to put their hands of their laps it stopped that initial excitement. The AB tutor really helped with the finer details that I had to explain with for example the new layer creation and add to selection tool box.

The time at the end of the lesson was a good time to show of the pupils work and give constructive criticism.

I found I was able to be more confident with the lesson the more I had taught it showing that experience is so valuable to self-development.

I set some good extension tasks of finding and adding in another “Friend of Elvis” to be put in from the Internet.

I used some good classroom discipline to keep them under control when the noise level became too loud.

What could have been done better?

In my earlier lessons I found that my explanation was quite rushed and not as thorough as It could have been this had a repocusion later on as there where so many questions almost too many for me to handle at once. I found in the last lesson that I did when my delivery was clear and concise they where able to really get on with the work with out too much guidance.

I need to keep an eye on pupils that are running behind due the extremely hi ability sometimes the less able can get missed.

I have to make sure I keep the plenary time for assessment of learning and ict skills not just an artistic critique on their work.

Conclusion

All in all I feel it was a good set of lessons that where executed with good pace and clear guidance.

11/03/2011

Year 11 GCSE Coursework Lessons

By Observations, PGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Working with year 11 Course work

I have been team teaching year 11 coursework lessons that are a completely different approach to normal guided teaching. The first thing is that they are all working away on their own documents and so they are all at different levels this means that you have to initially be familiar with the actual coursework requirements and structure. I have been spending the time reading through the Candidate booklet and familiarizing myself with what exactly the pupils have to do.

The pupils here are KES are doing the AQA syllabus and have to create two tasks

1) Set up a website for the driving school.

2) Set up a system to manage driving lessons and provide a link to it on the website.

So currently as they are on the old spec they are allowed to have a pre made template with headings and guidelines. They then have to do the following to create the project and then write it up in this format.

There is an analysis section that applies to both (10 marks)

Then they have to do a write up on each of these areas below

Design (20 Marks)

Implementation (40 Marks)

Testing (10 Marks)

Self Evaluation (8 Marks)

Report (6 Marks)

Evaluation of others use of ICT (6)

Total (100)

Currently the pupils I have joined are at a stage where they should have completed a preliminary stage of each of these areas some of them are at varying levels and have created a comprehensive report and others are quite far behind for example one pupil has almost finished with a 250 page report and another has still not completed making his website.

They key to helping out in a course work lesson is to be able answer questions that arise swiftly in a ‘get in get out fashion’. The way to be able to offer this assistance is to have a solid understanding of the exam board and the mark scheme so that you know exactly what is required.

I have already been looking through some of their work that they have been handing in at intervals and I have made corrections to the work. This is another way of getting to grips with the mark scheme and what they have to do to achieve the higher grades. This interval hand is a big demand on the teacher but is vital to offer

Here at KES there is a high demand to do well with most pupils aiming at the A-A* grade which means that you have to be really stringent when it comes to the actual mark scheme. This is obviously way above the national average that most state schools would achieve but is a good standard to reach and push to if I was to work in a State School.

11/03/2011

Year 9 – Colaborative Group Project *1

By PGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Lesson Reflection Document

Class Year 9s Colaborative Group Project

What we did?

We have started a group project that allows the pupils to come up with an advertising campaign to promote a corn maze or maze maze event. The whole point is that they choose what avenues of advertising they want to use and the programs that can best create these adverts.

So we broke up in to teams of 3-5 and i asked them to find a company name imagining they where the design and advertising team of this event or company.

They then created a document that I had prepared to answer questions such as what types of adverts they were going to use and who in the group was going make this section. I also asked them to think about their audience.

What went well?

I was able to get them split into groups fairly seamlessly this showed good management

I was able to emphasize how each team member needs to have a role to play and be a part of the team working on something constantly. I created the illusion that this was a professional group project but it also encouraged them to stay on task and not be sitting there with nothing to do.

I was able to go around and make sure that each group had an idea of what they were going to do and get some casual formative assessment by talking to the groups.

I was able to get them to email me their advertising campaign plan in order to some feedback to them via email.

I felt by giving them the freedom to do what they want within reason they took more ownership over their work.

The pupils even started making logos and design work on dreamweaver.

I felt i had good pace and kept them on task by setting mini lesson deadlines. I find that 1 hour is slightly longer to teach and the time can be chunked quite nicely

What could have been done better?

Pupils opted to use some of the less professional packages such as Published instead of Photoshop or indesign which meant i had to explain why it was  better to use the other programs.

Some of the boys where slightly un motivated to start with so I will have to find things constantly for them to do and watch them but not let the others suffer.

I could have used questioning a little bit more to tease out the different areas of software that more or less effective rather than just telling them.

07/03/2011

Adobe After Effects Lesson 1 – Year 8

By PGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Class

Year 8

What we did?

We have been starting an advertising scheme of work using the Adobe After Effects package. We mainly started by looking at a YouTube clip which was the Honda Cog Advert. I then asked them questions on what makes a good advert and what they enjoyed in the advert. I found that if i did the questioning before about what makes a good advert it was a good pre-curser into the actual video followed by the video and then questions on what they enjoyed in that advert that made it a good advert. We then went on and looked at adobe after effects and the mini bath advert project. I had to show them basic features of the After Effects package such as the composition area where I explained how 16:9 was a good native resolution for modern screens. I also talked to them about the Presets tab on the left where you have all the content and media imported. Timeline, transform and text editing was what I showed them next.

What went well?

  • The YouTube video was certainly a hit and I shall be using more and more of these as YouTube is not filtered and the pupils really enjoy it and it is a great way to tease out questions based on live and real examples from current media and advertising.
  • I found that chunking the sections of the deliver most effective as many of the pupils found it hard to remember the complex steps of adobe after effects. I found that when i did do too much I didn’t have enough time to really get them on task quick enough.
  • The managing of questions in this was interesting and I had to make queue system by giving them numbers.
  • I used AB tutor to subtly keep an eye to see if they were on task.
  • I also used AB tutor to display their finished work I also got them to gather around a PC and view their work.
  • I made sure that I gave them clear guidelines as to what to do and what I expected of them before the end of the lesson.
  • I could have got them to save and submit their work to a folder for assessment and comments so I am going to create folders on the shared drive that they can cope and past their finished work to.
  • I need to give more time for a plenary so as to give time for assessment of learning by questioning.
  • I found that demonstrating up the front was a little bit tough to show them the finer more intricate tools effects that where hard to see.
  • Adobe after effects is a hugely complex program that requires great concentration. I found the explanation of key frames quite challenging i think the only way to rectify this specific step would be do a written set of instruction that are very basic.
  • I feel my behavioural management was good in the lesson and i controled the pupils well

What could have been done better?

 

Overall these where good lessons that I thought where effective and produced good work. I believe they learnt a fair bit on how to use adobe after effects but joining the theoretical side of advertising to the technical side was rather tenuous as they could not create something as good as what they saw on the youtube clip.

 

 

 

04/03/2011

Photoshop lesson 1 – Year 7

By PGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Over this last week I have had the pleasure of teaching 4 year 7 lessons. This was my first experience with year 7’s on the PGCE course however I had already done terms worth of teaching at Monkton Prep. I really enjoyed meeting them and getting to know them quite quickly. They have a very innocent and polite nature to them that is to be quite honest a delight to teach. I personally really enjoyed teaching this age as you have great opportunities for creativity and flexibility.

What we did?

The main aim for this lesson was to introduce the to adobe Photoshop and then introduce them to the scheme of work that has been prepared. The idea for the lesson was to create a “Madagascar in Bath” image with some of the characters cut out and super imposed onto the streets of bath. I introduced them to a series of basic photo editing techniques such as the levels, hue and saturation and color balance tools under the image adjustments section. I then took them through how to use the magic wand tool to select areas of white that they needed and then inverse the selection and then copy this onto the bath image. We also looked at the lasso tool and the magnetic version on this and the quick mask mode to ad and take away from the selection

What went well?

  • I found that my welcome and start of by asking for hands up names was particularly effective.
  • I set high expectations with my rules set out clearly.
  • I thought my intro video with YouTube was really engaging and the kids really enjoyed this.
  • I used questioning well to really tease out the important areas of Photoshop and who and why it would be used.
  • I thought my subject knowledge was good and as I knew the program really well I found it really easy to explain everything.
  • I thought I chunked the lesson well but this was maybe a weakness, as I will come on that below.
  • I encouraged them and praised them well at the end of the lesson by saying good lesson as I thought it was a good one.
  • They all created a good finished product that was creative and looked interesting
  • I found that if I encouraged them to experiment with extension tasks such as the rubber tool.

What could have been done better?

  • I didn’t at first realize the high ability of these kids and so I think that I could have done more with the demonstration time and shown them more.
  • I started of not managing all the questions that well but as soon as I grasped how to give them an order of whom was next it worked well.
  • I had one session where they were already in the classroom, which made the start of the lesson slightly less structured.
  • I would have like to use the magnetic tool more and shown them more closely how to use the quick mask tool better as I feel my demo was week in this.
  • I need to work on being more definite with my delivery still and only show one skill not a series of skills.

Lesson Plan >> http://bit.ly/j1qKCf

Observation >> click on thumbnail

03/03/2011

Year 8 Website Assessments

By PGCE, POT 1, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

For my year 8 Website unit i used a range of assessment strategies

The first step was to use the QCDA national curriculum  assessment criteria and amend the criteria so that the Kids know what level they where at.

We then took two revisions of this

Revison 1 = http://bit.ly/h9eb9V

Revision 2 = http://bit.ly/dFMTcN this was so that the kids could understand it better and there where all condensed into one sentence

I worked collaboratively with the ICTAC ICT across the curriculum teacher to amend these for all year 8 teachers.

Prior to my last lesson I arranged for them to do a series of peer assessments to make sure that their websites met the different requirements for them to achieve the highest level possible. Lesson plan here http://bit.ly/hEfz8X

Then for my last assement lesson, lesson plan here http://bit.ly/hbYC3P

Full Reflection on Lesson below

Year 8 Website Assessments

It has come to the end of the module and it is time to mark and assess the year 8 websites they have been makings.

The idea was to get them to prepare a short 2 minute presentation about their website to cover the assessment levels.

 

How we have done this

They have zipped up their whole folder containing their website and then they submitted this folder to the Joint assessment system so that I could access this through the teacher login.

This submission allowed me to access it for their presentations and viewing later.

Once it was submitted I then asked them to come up to the front with their chairs and gave them some tips on how to present well. These were things like to face the front, speak up, keep it simple, and introduce their website.

I also laid down the ground rules of no talking when someone is talking and no distracting the presenter.

I mentioned that I will be asking them some questions.

? What sort of design theme and colour scheme have your chosen and why?

? How have you made sure that your website is suitable to a range of audiences?

? If you did it again what improvements would you make?

How we did it.

I had to open up the zipped up work through the JAS and then show the website on the screen and at this point the pupil went through the website.

The as they go through it the point was to asses their work straight into the JAS this could be done easily with 2 people but I think would be hard with one person.

So the presentation really gave a good opportunity for the pupil to talk through their work and for you to see their thoughts on how they made it.

Problems

Behaviour wise it’s quite hard to manage them with your back turned to them!

The can sometimes go over board with clapping. A good suggestion from my mentor was to say that if you carry on clapping then you will be held back a minute for every clap that you do. So its almost letting them police it as they not all will want to stay behind. Then if I catch the culprits then I can keep them in.

The lower sets sometimes don’t elaborate enough at the beginning and don’t have a good introduction and jump straight into their classroom.

The good thing about assesimg the pupils through the JAS System is that you can then set objectices to cover the points that have not been covered as well as you would hav liked. The JAS systme allows you to quickly observe handed in work and then offer feedback and say what needs to be improved.

15/12/2010

Downloading and Gathering Information – OCR Nationals

By PGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

What we did & Learning objectives!

To continue finding and gathering information to store for your flyers.

To complete the 8 slides showing the screen shots of the information you have gathered.

To complete the copyright slide saying how copyright needs to be considered in a business context.

 

What went well?

This was a good lesson to catch up on work that was needed to be done. I thought my explanation of how to get the relevant screen shots was clear and concise and so that they knew exactly what to do. One of the boys had given up and I was able to try and motivate him to keep on going it take a deep breath and carry on.

I was really happy with being able to help pupils one to one.

I was also happy with being able to go through assessing pupils work by going around individually looking through their work.

 

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

It was hard to manage each pupil across the class as they were a lower set ability. As I gave them a big chunk to do it was probably quite overwhelming for them to complete all 8 slides.

Now I tried to use the timer to give them 3 minutes for each of the slides and this was not that effective as many of them did not pay attention to this.

In the future I really could try and chunk this up even more and almost guide them through each one. The only problem is that they all had different band members.

One other area that could have gone better was my extension tasks. Now I had planned for this but I did not actually say what they should move onto verbally or on the screen.

So in the future I will verbally and visually put on the board the extension task for those that complete early so that I can allow for good differentiation.

 

 Feelings

I felt that it was a good to ok lesson and on the whole they were on task working well.

It was tough to hold my ground to behaviour management as i had to issue a timeout warning and its hard as the kids become extremely distant when your issue some sort of sanctions.

 

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

Learning objectives and homework Powerpoint >>> http://bit.ly/fxbOVJ

 

07/12/2010

Forest of Dean Tutor Trip

By PGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

Over the lent term I was able to go on a school trip with my year 8 tutees this was a great trip to get to know the pupils well and build those vital relationships. I was able to lead several activities to help promote indipendant survival skils just to manage and co ordinate several expeditions.

We had to deal with children that had not been away from parents before and had full responsibility of their diet and wellbeing.

We also had evening reviews with my colleagues to asses what had been achieved in the day and to plan for the next day.

It gave me chances to take kids on walks and for them to learn in out of school contexts.

PLEASE SEE THIS DOCUMENT FOR EVIDENCE http://bit.ly/mG30Wc

03/12/2010

After School Animation Club

By PGCE, 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 PGCE, 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.

  1. First was to ask them how they feel they have done with the progress report.
  2. Then to show them the highlighted areas and maybe compare to last years report. Praise where needed and visa versa.
  3. 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
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