Steps in Teaching and Learning - Latest Comments

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: Learning by doodling

Kevin McLaughlin — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 07:48:14 -0000

Thanks for the comment Barbara.

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: Learning by doodling

 barbara ainscough — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 06:39:33 -0000

This is great Kevin - couldn't agree more!

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: Learning by doodling

Kevin McLaughlin — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:12:03 -0000

Thanks for the comment Valerie and I will keep up the blogging, lots still to discover and learn from.

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: Learning by doodling

Valerie Maples — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:38:49 -0000

I agree whole-heartedly! When kids can doodle and explore in learning, they are less stressed and more likely to continue and more likely to retain what they learn. Keep up the great work!

Re: Steps in teaching and learning

Kevin McLaughlin — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:11:44 -0000

Cheers Doug, six months is a while but I want to focus my energies on other matters and those 6 months will be fruitful.

Re: Steps in teaching and learning

Doug Belshaw — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:42:12 -0000

Wow, six months? That's a long time. All the best, Kevin - and see you the other side. :-)

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: Moving from Wordpress.org to Blogger

Jhoanna Murray — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:38:31 -0000

Have you posted the details? I'm thinking about making the move myself.

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: The 21st Century teaching and learning myths

Brian Kelly — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:13:15 -0000

"We are resilient beings and just like our ancestors we want to make sense of the world around us, to discover, to push ourselves, to use this knowledge to make connections and ask more questions"

So the government can reduce funding but it's not a problem because we are resilient. If "Learners will continue to learn whether they have their fingers on a digitally connected universe of information or not" will they continue to learn without a learning infrastructure, which will include teachers, buildings and online and physical resources.

Re: Steps in teaching and learning: Safer Internet Day

annahalford — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:06:21 -0000

I have linked this to my post. Agree with your sentiments.

Re: Digital Literacies – An ICT Framework

SF — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:32:35 -0000

This looks really interesting, like your ideas. I'll be having a closer read of this over the next week or so. I'm an AST in North Lincs. We're all supposed to be 'teaching and learning' now rather than a specialism but I really have a passion for technology and digital literacy.

Re: Digital Literacy in the primary classroom

Yasin Abbas — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 01:24:38 -0000

Hi Kevin

I've been following this recently with a view to implementing a new curriculum this year. The one that has me most interested is "Digital Studies" - which includes "Digital Literacy" as a stream. Has there been an update to this since April?

All the best.

Yasin

Re: Digital Literacies – An ICT Framework

Kevin McLaughlin — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 08:42:12 -0000

Many thanks for your comments Catherine and the feedback you have suggested. I'll put them into the framework.

Re: Digital Literacies – An ICT Framework

catherinecronin — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 05:20:28 -0000

Great work, Kevin! I like your idea of a Digital Literacies framework as a starting point for teachers. I see the most important piece here as the definition and exploration of the 8 elements, along with a few examples of activities. Teachers within a school could then use this framework as a springboard for working together to create a specific programme for their school/classes. That process of discussion, clarification and creation of a school programme would be so valuable; your #digilit framework would be an ideal starting point for that.

Two suggestions regarding the use of Doug's 8 elements. Firstly, on each page on which you describe an element, the title is the same: "Digital Literacies". It might be more helpful to have a small running title "Digital Literacies" along with a diagram of the 8 elements (as used in some of Doug's presentations)-- with the current element highlighted. This would help newcomers understand each element within the larger context. Secondly, some of the most interesting examples of demonstrating digital literacies are those which touch on 2 or 3 (or more!) elements. So I think it would be important to make that clear in this framework document. The elements are useful for understanding and exploring digital literacies, but do not have to be considered (or demonstrated) in isolation.

Re: Learning Objectives – Who are they actually for?

David Didau — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 07:50:07 -0000

There appears to be a conflation here between the purpose of learning objectives per se and the purpose of writing them on the board. Clearly, just writing them up on the board is not going to be terribly transformative. And just getting children to copy them down is an exercise in exposing the slowest writer in the class to ridicule. Not good. But your stance lacks nuance and seems mainly based on the fact that *you* can't see their purpose rather than any systematic trawl of the evidence. Do you really think it harmful to children to articulate some of the things you want them to learn and for them to be able to assess whether they have learned these things? Of course there are times when it may be preferable not to share objectives at the start of the lesson but to everything there is a season.

You say that you "have yet to find an answer that satisfies why using LO’s is educationally beneficial." OK (dep breath) here goes:

Hattie says in Visible Learning for Teachers, ”The more transparent the teacher makes the learning goals,
the more likely the student is to engage in the work needed to meet the
goal” (p 46). Now, that sounds pretty compelling. He also makes the point that without clear success criteria objectives ain't gonna be particularly effective because students need “a way of knowing that the desired learning has been achieved” (p 47).

He goes on (you can skip this if I'm boring you) to discuss the concepts underlying effective learning goals and success
criteria.

Challenge – objectives need to be challenging to each student.
While teachers usually assess the challenge level of the activity,
students assess the challenge level by whether they think they can
complete the task. Challenges need to be appropriate to each student;
this is why differentiation is so important. The more challenging the
goal, the more powerful formative feedback is to a child.

Commitment – students need to be committed to their learning.
However, unless goals are challenging to students, students won’t be
committed, or engaged, in their learning. So, challenging goals are a
prerequisite for engagement. And the more engaged/committed a student
is in one’s learning, the better one’s performance will be.
Confidence – it’s crucial that students feel confident that they can
learn the objective. This confidence may come from other students, the
teacher, or past learning experiences.
Conceptual understanding – Understanding can be broken down into 3
levels: surface; deep; and conceptual. Surface level learning is
related to one or many ideas whereas deep level learning is about
relating ideas or extending ideas. Conceptual learning is the combination of surface and deep learning.
In research Hattie has been involved in, they found that most tests are
dominated by surface level questions. They suggested that teachers use
or make tests that have at least 30% of the questions at the surface
level and at least 30% of the questions at the deep level.
There's a whole world of creativity and innovation out there - here's just some of the ways you might attempt to reinvigorate your use of objectives: http://learningspy.co.uk/20...

Varying your practice and considering WHY and HOW you're sharing an objective is the important bit. A combative all or nothing stance does little for debate.

Re: Learning Objectives – Who are they actually for?

Lisa John — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:38:03 -0000

objectives are always the prima facie of every work profile Sample Resume Objectives

Re: Our new National Curriculum – knowledge testing.

ThomasJPitts — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 08:09:02 -0000

I will certainly be making my views heard in the public consultation. It appears to me that they have ignored all the advances from the past and rediscovered a manual from the 60s. Nothing in there is exciting, new or innovative. A lot of it is dry and boring. Why should we need a 50+ page document dictating content for maths, english and science each, when the current EYFS curriculum is 5 pages long?

Re: Our new National Curriculum – knowledge testing.

Kevin McLaughlin — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:39:31 -0000

The document is draft so there is an opportunity for every educator in England as well as every member of the public to voice their opinion when the public consultation is launched.
Thanks for your comment Katharine.

Re: Our new National Curriculum – knowledge testing.

Katharine McMeekan — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:29:35 -0000

I completely agree with your comments and share your concerns. I am particularly concerned by the 'linear learning' being so tightly tied to year groups. For practical reasons, since we have some mixed age classes in my school, and wonder how tightly teachers are going to be expected to stick to what is to be taught in their year group, but also for the emotional well-being of the children. It appears that the less able children will be constantly labelled as below their year group expectations, rather than the more positive 'label' of achieving level X. Also will the more able be 'allowed' to progress to learning deemed to be outside their year group's remit. I haven't yet read the draft documents from cover to cover, but from what I've seen so far, I watch and wait, and worry...

Re: Innovating learning requires innovating the classroom too

Sarah Garcia — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:25:04 -0000

Just stumbled across upon your blog, really great ideas. I have similar discussion/thinking area and research/discovery zone, but love the repeat level, showing off area, creation and free movement areas. Am moving more desks tomorrow! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Switching off the Interactive White Board for good

StoptheIWBInsanity — Thu, 24 May 2012 22:51:32 -0000

Amen!

Re: We do make a difference

Kojk30 — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:24:02 -0000

A lovely letter, a child's view of learning is far more important than anyone else's as they know whether they are learning.

Re: We do make a difference

Jim Farmer — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:32:10 -0000

Awesome! Tough to stay positive in these times. Sometimes it takes the perspective of a 9 year old to remind us of what is important.

Re: We do make a difference

@RossMannell — Sat, 12 May 2012 20:21:31 -0000

There is no doubt I have many fond memories of children I have taught over the last 30 years but some of the fondest memories have come when they, in their later lives, have told me how I made difference in their lives, whether in their choice of career or by being there when they needed someone. Maddy, without doubt, has given you one of those fond memories to keep with you for the rest of your life. The letter is a credit to the efforts you have made to make a difference in young lives.

@@RossMannell
Teacher, NSW, Australia

Re: Switching off the Interactive White Board for good

Amanda Warner — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 14:59:28 -0000

Hi Mr. McLaughlin, My name is Amanda Warner. I am a student at the University of South Alabama, majoring in elementary education and currently a student in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class. I found this post to be quite interesting. Recently, in my EDM 310 class we were assigned to do a project using these boards. Although for our project we only had to show that we know how to use the basic tools. Within the next few weeks we have another project coming up using these boards again, but we have to teach an actual lesson this time. I am looking forward to this project because I think these boards are great, though I still have a lot to learn about them. I actually really enjoy using these boards and think they are very neat. However, I do agree that these boards have been around for a while and most teachers don't use them the way they should be used. For all I know so far, these boards are amazing tools for an educator and student to use and be engaged with. I also agree that newer and better things have come out and will continue to before my teaching days even begin. Technology is amazing and we learn more and more about it daily but it's truly hard for me to keep up with all the great devices out there which can be used to educate and learn.

Re: Digital Literacy in the primary classroom

Doug Belshaw — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:20:13 -0000

Hi Kevin,

This is a great example of taking something and running with it - I like it! I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out in practice. :-)

The only thing I'd say, and I hope it doesn't sound too pedantic, is that it's important to focus on digital *literacies* (plural). As I try to explain in my thesis and my TEDx Warwick talk, digital literacies are contextual and socially negotiated, but also many and varied. It's easy to conflate 'literacy' and 'literacies' but the former (I believe) has the connotation of 'one literacy to rule them all'!

Thanks also for investing so early in my e-book. Others who are interested my like to do the same: http://dougbelshaw.com/eboo...