Guest on #PSTChat

Following posts about teaching my second language learners, I was invited to be a guest on a Twitter Chat.

#PSTChat is for pre-service teachers based in Australia. The topic was EAL Strategies. The chat is archived on Storify.

Check the following posts that warranted my invitation:

1) Scaffolding ESL

2) Fotobabble

3) Authentic Audience

Comments

Past Thoughts

CONNECTION

We had our kick-off meeting last week on Tuesday 5 February 2013. I was able to connect using Blackboard Collaborate , something I had not used before, but unfortunately had to leave as I was at school. However, with it being Chinese New Year I have had an extended weekend, so was able to catch up and watch the full recorded version. I have also had a cold so have not felt up to tackling the mountain of marking, but have caught up on my reading for the next meeting, namely Chapters 1-3 of the book, ' Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds '; my Tweets about the most interesting salient points for me personally, can be found under @MrsHollyEnglish under #flatclass. Having reached the end of Chapter 3, I have come across my first 3 of the 15 Flat Classroom Challenges. Having taken part in the survey assessing my current connectivity, I feel confident that I am currently in a good position - I already have established a sound PLN that I build on when I can and have added s...

From Alignment to Impact: Why Curriculum, Feedback, and Organisational Design Matter

This reflection draws on established research in curriculum design, instructional leadership, feedback, and school improvement, as well as my ongoing doctoral study in curriculum and learning sciences. It is written from a leadership perspective and informed by sustained engagement with departments, teams, and classrooms throughout this half term. The intention is to make visible the research-informed rationale underpinning current and future priorities for teaching, learning, and collaboration. A Shift in Perspective This half term, my work has taken me away from classrooms and more into meetings. I have spent sustained time with several Heads of Department in strategic planning discussions, in departmental meetings focused on implementation, and in conversations with teachers and parents regarding learning, assessment, and progress. While this is a different vantage point from earlier reflections grounded in classroom observation, it has provided an additional and highly valuable per...

Creativity Runs Wild

“There’s probably no better example of the throttling of creativity than the difference between what we observe in a kindergarten classroom and what we observe in a high school classroom.” (Levine) Wherever in the world I have been teaching, one of the most common observations of my classroom by other teachers is that it is "like a primary classroom". This is, more often that not, said in a derogatory and dismissive way, as if the colourful and expressive landscape of learning created through explorations of language and literature is a negative thing. That I cannot possibly be teaching a secondary curriculum if they seem to be creating so much..."mess" (as it has also been called). I have never paid much attention to this; I believe that my IB Diploma English Literature class learnt a great deal about the symbols, motifs, characters, language, themes and setting through the mural we painted all over the classroom. They learnt to problem solve and collaborate...

Habits of Learning

Habits of Learning: Responsible, Reliable Management of Online Activity For Module 3: Citizenship, of the Flat Classroom Teacher Course, we have been assigned 'Quadblog' groups; this gives us a taste of what it is like to try to work asynchronously towards a common goal with people we don't know and who are in different time zones. My group has been assigned the topic of Individual Awareness , which is one of the areas of awareness that permeate every area of digital citizenship. Within each of the five areas of awareness - technical, individual, social, cultural and global - there are four "rays of understanding": Safety, Privacy, Copyright, Fair Use, and Legal Compliance; Etiquette and Respect; Habits of Learning: Responsible, Reliable Management of Online Activity, and Literacy and Fluency. For the Quadblog group, I am tackling the understanding of Habits of Learning: Responsible, Reliable Management of Online Activity within the concept of individu...

Building Feedback Literacy: Quantitative Insights into Feedback, Rubrics, and Formative Assessment

Feedback has long been recognised as one of the most significant factors influencing student achievement. Quantitative evidence, particularly from large-scale meta-analyses, consistently demonstrates that feedback interventions produce some of the highest effect sizes of any educational practice (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Wisniewski, Zierer, & Hattie, 2020). Yet, these same studies reveal a wide variation in outcomes, with some forms of feedback accelerating learning substantially, while others appear ineffective, or even detrimental. This paradox highlights a crucial challenge for educators: the mere presence of feedback is insufficient. Its impact depends on how clearly it communicates goals, how effectively it guides students’ next steps, and whether learners possess the capacity to interpret and apply it. This capacity is increasingly described as feedback literacy; the skills and dispositions students require to make sense of, use, and seek feedback to improve their learni...

Collaboration: The Legacy

Dipping my toes... For the first three months of 2013, I took part in my first MOOC, 'Designing a New Learning Environment' offered by Stanford University via an initiative called Venture Lab . I signed up because it ties in with my Octopus's Garden Project and also because I wanted to experience this Flat Classroom-global-type of learning for myself. The course required us to watch weekly lectures and complete readings; for assessment we had to submit five individual assignments, one final team assignment and five peer assessments of other final projects. We signed up for teams of our choice and developed an area within new learning environments; developing our final project design based on our findings, readings and experience. Leading & Contributing I became team leader late on in the project as the original one, the one who set up the actual topic, went quiet and dropped off the radar. Having 40000 people taking part in a course makes it hard to communicate wi...

It's all about Choice and Voice

Collaborative Planning in PBL In Phase 3 of The Octopus's Garden Project, Grade 7 and Grade 8 have been working on the importance of visuals in getting their message across clearly and effectively to their audience. They recently collaborated to decide how to proceed with their final design presentations. Using the feedback and reflections from their Phase 2 presentations, along with some lesson on slide design and visual story-telling, they created a list of guidelines to guide their final designs. Introduction to Slide Design: 7 Rules for Creating Effective Slides from Alex Rister Lots of critical thinking happened as learners made important decisions about how teams would be formed, how the presentation would work, what would be included and the order each section would occur in. Learners took part in a poll to decide on team formation for this Phase and then, using the guidelines and learning from the slides above, worked on planning out...

"A wonderful contribution to the field of global collaborative projects"

I am currently working on the culmination of my Flat Classroom Teacher Certification course, which is a collaborative Global Project Design. I have worked with a colleague from Wisconsin, USA to modify and develop my ' Dare to be Yourself ' unit, designed for my Year 8 and 9 learners this term. Originally written to address the problem of intolerance and lack of kindness, the 'Dare to be Yourself' unit, using the novel Stargirl , has been utilised to become a Global Project that can be delivered across the world and allow learners to connect and observe the similarities that exist in our world, with the hope of building individual, social and global conscience. In preparation, the following feedback has been received from one of the course facilitators:- Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli from Goodreads "AMAZING!!!! Seriously, this is one of the most thoroughly and thoughtfully planned out projects I have seen. You have chosen a timely and timeless topic tha...

Why “I Taught It” Does Not Mean “They Learned It”

One of the most common frustrations I hear teachers express is, “I have taught them this already.” This observation is valid and deeply felt, but it requires a shift in perspective. Cognitive psychology and brain-based learning research offer a clear explanation: students filter out far more than they filter in , and teaching does not automatically lead to learning. The opening chapters of Learning That Sticks (Goodwin, 2020) outline the scale of this filtering problem. Our sensory systems relay 11 million bits of information per second , yet the brain can consciously process only around 120 bits per second . This means that “our brains simply cannot squeeze 180 bits of information into a 120-bit mental pipe (Levitin, 2015).” Much of what is said in a classroom, therefore, never makes it past the sensory register. In a world where students receive “the equivalent of 174 newspapers of information every day,” the brain is constantly working to “separate the trivial from the importa...

Belonging Is Designed

Belonging is not granted after learners prove they can access the curriculum. Belonging is created through the way curriculum, instruction, assessment, relationships, and evidence-informed responses are designed. That idea has been sitting with me deeply. In schools, we often talk about belonging as something relational, cultural, or pastoral. Whilst it is, of course, all of those things, I also think belonging is a curriculum and learning design issue. Learners experience belonging, or exclusion, through the tasks they are given, the examples they see, the feedback they receive, the ways they are invited to participate, and the assumptions adults make about what they can do. Inclusion, then, cannot sit only in intervention structures or individual support plans. These matter, of course; some learners need targeted and specialist support, and schools need strong systems to provide it. But if inclusion begins only after a learner struggles, we have already accepted a design problem as a...

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