Observation Weeks

Observation Weeks

30th June, 2016

Matt discusses the value of observation time on placement and how to make the most of it.

With placement looming on the horizon for both myself and other education students all over, it is time to begin discussing it. Placement is many things to many people; to me, it is what I participate in university for, and a true test of my ability as a teacher. However, a feature of placement that will not change from year to year is the one known as the observation round/week. This is a week where teaching lessons is not the focus; instead we are to observe the processes, procedures and behaviours of the teachers we accompany. This time, especially for those students who have already taught in previous placements, may seem like a free week or a wasted one, but it provides the opportunity to promote success later in that or other placements. The following are a few short tips about getting the best out of your observation week or round. 

• Get to know the students: when you begin teaching a class, it is easy to become wrapped in making sure that the lesson works without a hitch. In such cases, it can be difficult to find the mental space and focus to really get to know the students you are teaching. Observations weeks are a great time for this. There is, generally, no obligation for you to organise or teach lessons, unless you want to, and as such more time can be devoted to this crucial area of teacher knowledge. Showing interest will help the students warm up to you, as well as providing information that will assist in your lesson planning and implementation. 

• Write down everything: some universities mandate that pre-service teachers take notes on classroom happenings as a placement-related assessment task. The fact that this is mandated can make it feel like a chore; however, it has been mandated for a reason. You have the time during an observation round to take notes about everything that you see and hear in the classroom, which will provide you with crucial information which teaching strategies and classroom management procedures are utilised in that classroom. It is also useful to revisit these notes and categorise them in the evening each day, to aide in recalling that information.

• Get to know the staff: as with learning about the students, learning about the staff (particularly your associate or supervising teacher) can only result in improving your placement performance. It will also help you to feel like part of the school community, which can be a significant factor in your overall emotional wellbeing during a placement, as anyone who has felt frozen out by staff can attest to.

• Have fun!: Now, I know that telling you to ‘have fun’, is one of the most cliché statements in the book regarding any assignment or task. However, when it comes to the observation round, it absolutely applies. Teaching lessons is fun, but it is also accompanied by some measure of stress. In the observation week or round, you are at liberty to really get involved with lessons in a way that will increase the enjoyment of both students and yourself. Put yourself out on a limb early and help wherever you can! 

These tips might be fairly basic, but I feel that they are important to revise before heading out on placement in order to get the most of the experience. For now, however, I must sign off, as myself have some placement tasks to do! Good luck to all!

- Matt

Image credit: University of Colorado 

Google Forms and Flubaroo

 Google Forms and Flubaroo 

22nd June, 2016

 

Will provides a short run through of one way to use Google Forms to quickly collect, mark and grade assessment data.

As a pre-service teacher, I am sure you have heard about or engaged with Google Forms before. They are becoming increasingly popular in the classroom and I have seen 4th and 5th grade students use them effectively. This post will share just one way to use Google Forms as a pre/post assessment tool that I have found extremely helpful.

I am not going to discuss how to actually make a Google Form test – this is self-explanatory and there are numerous tutorials already available. I enjoy the flexibility of the types of questions – short/long answer, multiple choice, checked boxes, drop down menu and more.

You want to make the first two questions of your test “What is your first name?” and “What is your surname?”. Once the test is created, you need to complete the test with the correct answers. You are now ready for students to complete the test. After they have finished, you want to click the Responses tab and the View Responses in Sheets button. 

Once in Sheets, you need to download the Add-on that will automatically mark the test for you. This is called Flubaroo and can be found under Add-ons > Get Add-ons. Once you have this installed, head to: Add-ons > Fulbaroo > Grade Assignment

Step 1: The first questions (What is your name/surname?) can be used to identify the student. Other options allow you to change the value of each question but the default is 1 point per answer. A new feature is manual grading for those questions that you need to read individually before marking. 

Step 2: You now chose a person’s response to grade all the other submissions from. This is where you select your response which will have the correct answers. Once you continue, Flubaroo will work its magic. It will produce a new sheet with some valuable data for analysis including:

• There is a nice little summary at the top. A good place to see how many students completed the test, the average score and summative grades can be recorded.

• Vertically you can see student names with their score and percentage. Flubaroo goes the extra step by highlighting in red any students who scored below 70%. This is excellent data to see the range of student abilities on the topic and help in forming focus groups.

• Horizontally every question is listed with the answers. Boxes are highlighted orange if they were poorly answered across the group. This can be used for key concepts to focus on in future lessons. For example, students may easily answer a multiplication question with 2-digit numbers but struggle with a question using a 3-digit number.

At the end of a unit, complete the same test and compare students’ before/after scores and clearly identify questions/concepts that they are still struggling with.

I encourage you to try out Google Forms and Flubaroo. This was just a short introduction to some powerful software that is valuable for assessment practices in the 21st century classroom.

- Will

Opposition Defiant Disorder – it DOES exist

Opposition Defiant Disorder – it DOES exist

15th June, 2016 

Nick discusses Opposition Defiant Disorder and expels some myths surrounding it, as well as providing a strategy to assist pre-service teachers in teaching a child diagnosed with ODD.

I was watching an investigatory news show a while back and there was an article on Opposition Defiant Disorder (ODD). By the end of the article my friends on social media were posting their opinions on how they believe ODD is not actually a disorder; rather it is just terrible parents raising rude and obnoxious children. These posts were very interesting to me as there were many misconceptions surrounding this relatively new diagnosis. I wanted to create this post to expel some of the common misconceptions that surround this particular disorder.

ODD is a child exhibiting ‘bad behaviour’, is quite often what people say to me when this topic comes up. One of the reasons why this cannot be the case is the fact it is NOT a one off behaviour. Symptoms of ODD are frequent and repetitive rather than a one off outbursts of anger. Children with ODD are seen to be constantly noncompliant and hostile towards others, especially adults. Children with ODD can also display violent and aggressive behaviour towards peers or adults.

As a future teacher what can I do to assist these children to make my classroom run smoothly?

In my opinion the most important thing you can do for a child with ODD is have clear and explicit expectations and consequences for particular actions. If these expectations are breached a consequence such as, being removed from the learning space to deescalate the behaviour is an effective way to calm the child down. After the teacher consistently removes the child from the space they will know when they have breached expectations and begin remove themselves without having to be asked. In doing this, it is teaching the child which behaviours are appropriate and inappropriate. It is also important to let the child choose when they are ready to rejoin the rest of the class without the teacher demanding them to come back. By allowing the child to choose when they want to rejoin the class it is teaching the child the skill of self-regulation, as well as teaching them to own their own behaviour.

A process like this can take time to establish and relies on the teacher being patient and being prepared to follow through EVERY time an unwanted behaviour is exhibited. It is also important to have a conversation with the child when they have calmed down and explain to them why they were asked to leave the space and why their behaviour was inappropriate. This is a further way of the children taking responsibility for their own behaviour.

Remember as graduate teachers you are not alone! There are always more experienced teachers willing to help you with students who may be demonstrating these types of behaviour or have been diagnosed with ODD. Another important idea to remember is to never take behaviour personally. It is documented that children feel and then act without self-regulating; this can be amplified in children with ODD. It is our responsibility as educators to teach our students the skill of self-regulation.

Another great way to assist those children is to liaise with their parents. Having consistent approaches to behaviour management between the home and school environment can have positive outcomes on a child’s social learning.

- Nick