Seminar 3

Year 2 Schools

Leadership and Assessment Contract

Quotes:• As Ben Levin points out, it may be hard to stay focused given the myriad of

demands.

• Dr Jenny Poskitt (Education Group). Sustaining professional development (PD) is a challenge for schools due to unrelenting pressures for change, staff turnover and the high number of professional development opportunities available to schools creating pressure on schools to participate or ‘miss out’ as they arise....Key components that need to be in place in order to achieve educational sustainability: having an effective professional development model, understanding change processes, focusing on pedagogy ( specifically teaching, learning and assessment), monitoring effects of professional development on teachers and students, recognising challenges, attending to theoretical and practical factors ensuring continuity, and resulting in efficacious and ‘cutting edge’ professional practice.(2007)

 

Active Reflection

What you will (hopefully) learn from this session:

• Reinforce your understanding of how to teach students to reflect

• Know what to look for when observing colleagues teaching their students to reflect

• Get even better at giving feedback to your colleagues.

Reflective learners assimilate new learning, relate it to what they already know, adapt it for their

own purposes, and translate thought into action. Over time, they develop their creativity, their

ability to think critically about information and ideas, and their metacognitive ability (that is,

their ability to think about their own thinking).

Effective Pedagogy, NZ Curriculum p. 34

Reflection is about becoming aware of your own thinking processes, and being able to make those transparent to others.

Reflection captures the idea that if a gap is found between how we would want teaching and learning to be and how it actually is, then something will be done to close that gap; it is not enough just to reflect or identify that there is a gap.

Teachers themselves can become reflective practitioners who reflect with their students on the teaching and learning process, and teach their students to use reflective strategies to strengthen their own capacity to learn.

Absolum, M. pp 142-143

So how do you deliberately teach students to be good at reflecting on their learning?

What’s a good process?

Getting started with reflection

• Check that self assessment has taken place• Re-cap the learning intention and success criteria• Ask a reflective question• Give students 15-30 seconds thinking time to:

• let them think!• create the expectation that all take part

• Model appropriate responses (at first)• Give students opportunities to respond:

• In pairs• In groups• Whole class• Discuss ‘where to from here?’

Some possible reflective questions

• What were you learning and why?• How did the learning go? What were the tricky

bits and why?• What new learning can we celebrate?• What helped the learning to happen?• Who needs more help and what needs to be re-

taught?

from Clarity in the Classroom

by Michael Absolum

Prior to the observation: Clarity/transparency

How do you currently check in with teachers regarding the observation?

Prior to the observation: Clarity/transparency

• Meet to explain the process of the observation.• Discuss the observation you will be doing – the

purpose of the observation, the curriculum subject, the time of the observation

• The pre-observation sheet• Give the teacher copies of the observation sheet

and/or any resources you will be using• Check in whether the teacher needs any support

prior to the observation

Have a go at observing

Active Reflection

Feedback conversations with colleagues

Feedback conversations with colleagues

Feedback conversations with colleagues

What have you learnt so far about having feedback conversations with colleagues?

• Do you have some criteria in your mind?

• Do you have any questions about the criteria?

• What are you pleased about?

• What is still ‘tricky’?

Effective Feedback

Establish a clear purpose

Say what you think

Say why you think it

Check in/ inquire into other’s views

Make a plan/set goals