Success!!

So, DeBono went well with both classes in the end. In fact, after my concerns, it was the Year 10s who took to it better than the Year 8s. Upon reflection, it is a difficult thing to comprehend and the Year 10 students seemed more mature and capable of adapting to the requirements of the task. Whereas Year 8 did need a lot of guidance and I did away with the 'meta-cognition' styled blue hatmformthat lesson, although I did introduce it. Once I have my run away progress success stories later in the year, I'll use it as a differentiation tool.

The Year 10s played the roles of doctors for the character of Ken Harrison in Whose Life Is It Anyway, and, for the most part, they took their roles very seriously. The question I asked them was 'What would be best for Ken' - a character who, following a road accident, is paralysed from the neck down and decides he wants to die, rather than live half a life, as he sees it. The conclusions ranged dramatically and the kids really stayed focused on their hat's perspectives. Only once or twice did I have to remind them of their focus and guide them back on to the right path. After allowing them a chance to discuss it in their groups, a representative from each stood up and argued their case in a forum. One or two seemed more up to that task than others so, next time, I might leave it so that anyone can jump in more easily. Although, I did encourage them to put their hands up if they wanted to cut in.

The Year 8s were less confident and did require a lot more guidance. I plan on spending a lesson devoted to their understanding of these skills and their application in the classroom. Some of them felt happier than others but some of them seemed quite lost.

All in all, I was pleased. Both lessons saw students making progress and resulted in a neat, student-led plenary too. It was hands off teaching and encouraged group work, social skills, developed their thinking skills, and incorporated all manner of SEAL and PLTS bits too. Definitely a goer!!

Thinking Hats

Tomorrow, I'm planning to do two lessons using DeBono's Thinking Hats. The first lesson is a Year 8 lesson which will see the class picking apart the plot in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery; the second being my Year 10s using it in a role play exercise where they will play the doctors and nurses of Ken Harrison, the paralysed protagonist in Brian Clark's play, Whose Life Is It Anyway?

De Bono's Thinking Hats is an exercise which is designed to challenge students to analyse ideas/texts/subjects from a number of different angles. We all tend to adopt particular stances when thinking: those of us who struggle to see the positives will naturally see the negatives in things, whereas the more logical of us rather deal in facts. These two are approached by the black and white hats. In short, the hats work like:

Yellow - the positives/benefits Green - the creative applications White - the facts/information Blue - thinking about thinking Black - the negatives/problems Red - emotions/our gut response

The kids must consider all aspects of the thinking hats to develop well-rounded thinking and analytical skills. It is surprisingly difficult as we tend to revert to form. The kids, in particular, tend to wear the red hat most comfortably, from my experience, because of their gut instincts and less mature approach to decision making.

My hopes for tomorrow will be that the Year 8 group will go on to use this throughout the rest of the year with me. I hope that they're young enough for the use of this to enhance their thinking ability more naturally. I am concerned, after the Socratic circle lesson last week, that the Year 10s will be less amenable. They're quite set in their ways. I've structured the lesson carefully around a strong focus with a central aim so, with any luck, that will help them to adapt more easily.

I shall report back tomorrow evening!

Socrative

Something I did try the other day was Socrative.com.

Following a demonstration of it by two students on an inset day, I was excited about using this tool. For those who haven't heard of it before, it is a free web tool which allows the teacher to create and control a quiz; students access the quiz by entering a specific room which is only accessible via a specific serial number, and the teacher can see live responses as the kids answer the questions through their phones or computer. It reminded my of the Playstation game, Buzz. Plus, with its total lack of students' personal details required, it is a safeguarding dream too. In short, I walked away from the training session thinking 'free, fast, safe and use of technology: win.'

Alas, it did not go quite to plan...

I decided to do the quiz with my Year 9s who are currently studying spoken language and so I set up a six question quiz on accents, to use as a starter activity. In my head, I envisioned them all having smart phones and the activity taking 10 minutes at the start of the lesson.

The first problem was that only five kids actually had phones which could access the Internet so I divided them into teams, which took time and involved arguments ("why does E get to work with J and I can't?" and yes, I did say Year 9). Then, some of their phones wouldn't actually access the page (I'm looking at you, Three UK users) and so, in the end, we had to wait around for people to log in to the computers and then retry accessing the site. Then, of course, because they were working in teams, each question resulted in lots of noise and discussion, added to the fact that they were up and excited because they were using the computers and it was... hectic.

In the end, the task took 40 minutes of an hour lesson. It was a disaster: the kids didn't learn anything, I was stressed out, my classroom was in disarray but, in the end, we all had to laugh.

On reflection, I'd have all kids come straight in and log on to the computers. I'd avoid having the need for external resources too (I used YouTube for presenting the accents in the questions) as that added complication, and I would plan a lesson around the computers so there wasn't too much to-ing and fro-ing.

Lesson learned: do not rely on technology and/or kids!!! But, it is still a brilliant resource if it is used correctly. I don't think I planned sufficiently for it but, it was a real 'try it and see' lesson that didn't work this time but, maybe, with a tweak or two, it just might next time!

Year 8 in 'love talking' shocker

And so the new year is now fully underway and it already feels as though the summer never happened. I, and all of my department, are already exhausted and grumpy. That said, this promises to be an exciting year for me as my NQT year is an ever-distancing memory and I'm taking on more and more all of the time. I am already doing an NQT CPD session concerning the use of innovative teaching practices, and I have agreed to be a lead teacher on a trip for the first time, started a Film Club, and trying to organise my own trip out too. I'm keen to get involved in all aspects of school life and I feel positively that I've hit the ground running already.

In the classroom, I've been attempting to get to grips with my new classes and my first experience of a year 11 class, not to mention teaching KS4 after a year in the KS3 desert. I must admit that I do feel somewhat out of my comfort zone but I'm a great believer in that being a good thing - should never get too comfortable. It has been lovely to return for a second year though; I'm a familiar face and for most of my students, they already know me and my expectations of them which means we've slipped straight back into things. I've never had this before and it's amazing; this time last year, I was battling it out with my classes, trying to get them hw I want them etc. and with some of them, it took until Easter to really establish myself. It's been brilliant to walk in and just get straight on with things. I feel as though I'm pulling a fast me after the hard work I had to put in to build those relationships last year!!

So far, I've tried using my old favourite, the Socratic Circle, with Year 10 and Year 8, and surprisingly, the younger ones did it so much better. I'm not sure if that's because Year 10 don't know me as well or if they've never done it before. My line manager suggested that it might be that they haven't learnt the technique at a young age and, like the rest of us, are a bit resistant to new things. I will definitely do it again as, when we have a whole class discussion in a less structured setting, they're really bright and capable of really great thinking.

Year 8 are currently studying Short Stories and have been looking at Roald Dahl's Lamb to the Slaughter. They have really enjoyed it as it's a bit gruesome but still suitable for the kids - perfect! They seemed really keen to keep talking about the story (even when the Head came in - poor bloke was enveloped in their enthusiasm, bless them!) and so I decided to give them a proper outlet. We included mini plenaries which addressed our learning objective and had peer assessment in the form of feedback as to how well the discussion had flowed and who had fed into it etc. Plus, the kids loved that there was no writing too ;) We got the post-it notes out for the plenary: the kids had to write one conclusion the discussion had reached and then used to place their vote on the board: did the wife plan on killing her husband or not? Hands off teaching, independent learning: fun lesson.

I'll be updating this soon. We have Ofsted due back imminently so I am anticipating a myriad of panicked marking and planning, so it might be longer than I'd like!