Through the General Teaching Councils’ Professional Standards there is an ongoing expectation that all teachers are committed to lifelong learning and will engage with training and self evaluation as part of this.
“As a registered teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:
- commit to lifelong learning, through an ongoing process of professional review and development that impacts on the learning of children and young people;
- reflect and engage critically in self-evaluation using the relevant professional standard”
Training opportunities are targeted at those who are aspiring or within sector roles:resources will be of use to:
- Provisionally Registered Teachers
- individual professionals
- middle and senior leaders
- head and system leaders
The ECS service is committed to the prioritisation of professional learning. Regular information is shared with schools regarding upcoming professional learning opportunities for staff.
Applied well the use of digital technology can enhance the experiences and outcomes for young people. Additionally, as per the GTCS professional Standard it is a requirement of all teachers that they ensure digital literacy is developed in learners.
All the published standards suggest a requirement to focus on planning learning, teaching and assessment, pedagogy, curriculum and the learning context. The comparable nature across all standards provides a fruitful source for dialogue and confirmation of expectations. Link is here.
Here is a link to a range of professional learning programmes run by Education Scotland.
Specific Focus Areas/Approaches
The following are some of the specific approaches to learning, teaching and assessment applied in Scottish schools. Consideration of aspects here could support reflection, dialogue and professional learning:
- Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit
This is a useful resource that attempts to evaluate the relative effectiveness of differing classroom interventions. Link is here.
- Dylan Wiliam/assessment for learning:
Dylan Wiliam has been a keen promoter of assessment for learning. A range of very helpful videos can be found here. Additionally, a range of resources can be accessed via his own website.
- Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke is a key figure in the field of assessment and learning. A range of resources (mainly available commercially) can be accessed via her website here .
- John Hattie/Visible Learning
John Hattie has carried out extensive research into effect sizes of different classroom interventions. This is linked to his work on Visible Learning. A link to this is here.
- Making Learning Visible
The strapline for this approach promoted via the University of Harvard is: “ Creating strong learning cultures in schools using documentation as a tool to deepen and extend learning” A link is here.
- Mark Burns: Thinking For learning/Learning Backwards
Interesting ideas regarding refreshed views on teaching and learning. His website and blog could assist reflective discussions and are here.
8) World Education Summit
This summit took place over several years. A link via Northern Alliance to the resulting online resources is here.
We have also taken the opportunity to share some Podcast information that we also feel would be very useful for taking work forward in this area
Edinburgh Early Years Podcasts https://soundcloud.com/user-227479287-28906765
Absolutely brilliant set of podcasts on Realising the Ambition, followed by conversations on creativity, pedagogy and lots more.
TED Talks on Education https://www.ted.com/topics/education
In particular talks from Ken Robinson, Rita Pearson, John Tsang)
Would definitely also recommend the Education Scotland Building Back Better series on Youtube, and the videos of the ACE-aware conference and the ACES to Assets conferences held in Glasgow. Both series include an input from Nicky Murray, and the takeaways from these are totally inspiring. Nicky’s ACE-Aware Nation talk is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGLGuco-L_g&t=1389s
