Musings from by the Sea

My enquiry is nearly finished, at least in terms of the changes I made (which I’ll detail below) and I will have the results from the post intervention survey’s soon. However I do have the initial results from before I did anything.

This graph shows the class that I’m studying and their average self reported level of confidence in each of the seven N5 topics. Already there are a couple of interesting things here, the first four topics to be taught all have a noticeably lower confidence level for my pupils. Second all four of those topics have similar confidence levels. Third there is a big jump between astrophysics and radiation, which coincides with the summer holidays (this class studied this material over two years)*. Lastly the most recent topic (energy) has the highest level of confidence.

I am hoping that by making sure that I cover all of these topics every week in some form (I am using multiple choice questions as a quick and easy way to do this) plus a heavy emphasis to pupils and parents the importance of studying a little bit of each topic regularly rather than revising a big chunk and announcing ‘done’. What I hope will happen is that when I ask the same questions again the confidence in all topics increases, with the most marked increase in the earlier topics. Whilst I don’t have the data yet, the pupils have responded well to this approach in terms of their engagement with revision lessons.

*This is not surprising as such as it is an effect I knew existed (The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores: A Narrative and Meta-Analytic Review; Cooper, Nye, Charlton, Lindsay, Greathouse; Review of Educational Research, vol 66, issue 3, 1996) , but I am surprised that it was visible in my data that clearly.

PS The graph is not finished and very much a draft!

Well this has certainly evolved a fair bit. I was originally hoping to do this with S2’s as well, but due to a number of factors they are far behind where I would like them to be! So I have decided to concentrate on my S4 class who are at the end of a 2 year national 5. I feel this is a good group to target because they have to remember a fair amount of material some of which they learnt a significant length of time ago. Not perfect as I don’t have a control in another class who I can just revise with in my normal fashion.

Just a quick note to say that I’m still SCELing away, just with reports/end of term madness/two very young children then time to sit and think and put stuff down on ‘paper’ has been elusive.

There is a lot of great educational research out there. You can get ideas from books, articles, Twitter and colleagues. They can sound like amazing ideas! The science can be compelling.

Enquiry to me is about finding out if those great ideas work for you, in your class, in your school, with the people you teach. Because whilst ideas may well work in theory and in other contexts there may well be something about your situation that means that your idea won’t work. Enquiry lets you figure that out in a controlled measured way. You can dip your metaphorical toe into the water and find out if it is worth going for a swim, rather than jumping in and getting a fright because the water is freezing.

This means that enquiry can save you time, effort and heartbreak if your idea doesn’t work compared to just going full on. But better yet enquiry lets you share your findings with condifence. Other teachers can look at what you did, what worked, what didn’t work, and adapt that to their own circumstances. That type of ‘real world’ experience is invaluable and absolutely worth doing.

My ‘itch’ is quite a simple one.

Like many teachers in may subjects most of what I teach is split into topics (or units). Some of this is due to it being convenient for planning and assessment purposes, but it is also (historically) a necessity in SQA courses. One thing I have always found an issue though is that once a unit is completed pupils often forget large chunks of it as it is ‘done’. This is particularly bad for me at National 5 where we still do two year courses. I would like to improve the ability of pupils to retain the information they learn early on in the course and I have a few thoughts on how that might be done.

One option would be to use a mastery learning model where pupils learn all the ‘topics’ at the same time, progressing a bit in each rather than completing one and then moving on. Whilst this approach has some promise it also involves a prohibitive amount of development work.

Another is to use spaced practice where pupils continue to work on all types of problems as they progress through the course. Again whilst this is promising it is something that I would have to create from scratch.

Lastly is an option that (to me) holds some promise – using the review of previous learning I start nearly every lesson with to ask questions about previous topics as well as previous lessons. This will hopefully improve pupils recall of previous material and is sort of the direction that I am thinking about heading in…

I’ve split this task up into each of the wellbeing indicators below but generally, being an independent school the vast majority of the pupils I teach are from social groups A/B/C1.

• Active – We are a very active school. Outdoor learning is one of our biggest strengths, as is sport.
• Respected – We have a student government (that I help run) and regular student surveys. One of the school values is ‘Respect’ and that goes both ways.
• Responsible – Pupils have several opportunities to take on responsibilities, from the student government to peer mentors and prefects.
• Included – The school has a very inclusive atmosphere. We have a higher proportion of BAME students than other local schools and openly LGBT+ pupils.
• Safe – Our child protection officer is very pro active. The small size of the school means staff keep a close eye on pupils.
• Healthy – Physical health of pupils is well catered for – literally as we still have an onsite kitchen! Mental health provision and support is one of the key improvement targets of the school this year.
• Achieving – We try to make sure pupils are able to pursue their interests. Academic achievement is generally very good compared to pupils’ MidYIS scores.
• Nurtured – We often get comments about how the school has a ‘family feel’. This is really important as, whilst our pupil may be well off, they are do not necessarily have a nurturing home environment. For some of our pupils home is school, as we have a contingent of pupils who board.

Hattie identifies the following as being indicators of effective teaching:

1. learning intentions
2. success criteria
3. feedback
4. directive teaching methods

I think that I manage 1, 2 and 3 pretty well. I have very high expectations, I share learning intentions and success criteria and I try to work as much time for feedback into lessons as possible. For number 4 I decided to look at Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction which is considered one of the best summaries of effective direct teaching methods. He identifies the following as things that the most effective teachers do:

• Begin each lesson with a review of previous learning
• Present new material in small steps, with practice after each step
• Ask lots of questions and check the understanding of all students
• Provide models
• Guide student practice
• Check for student understanding
• Obtain a high success rate
• Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks
• Require and monitor independent practice
• Engage students in weekly and monthly review

For me I feel I am strong on most of these points but one area I feel could use improvement is the idea of a weekly/monthly review and the related area of reviewing previous learning. Whilst I often start a lesson with a review of the previous lesson I don’t ask for recall of previous topics. The idea of interleaved practice is one that I know has promise but have never really incorporated into my practice. I think this may well be a way to improve things for my pupils, as I do notice a tendency for them to think ‘oh I’ve finished that topic’ and forget much of what they have learned, giving them much more to do when it comes to revision. I am hopeful that incorporating regular reviews of previous topics will help student’s recall and ultimately their performance.

In what ways are my present practices inclusive and in what ways could these be improved?

I am quite lucky in that a lot of the issues around inclusion that I feel passionate about; equity, supporting those with learning support needs, are not big issues in the school that I work in. So instead I am going to focus on something that I have spent quite some time trying to deal with – the lack, or rather the perceived lack – of female students studying physics.

Here I am up against some pretty strong societal currents. It is still seen as an “odd choice” (a direct quote from one of my AH pupils). There is still a perception that biology is the science for women, physics being a man’s domain.

When I first started teaching at my current school there was virtually zero uptake of physics by female students. I’m pleased to say that now things are starting to move the right way. Being a small school individuals stand out. I can point to the fact that we have more female ex-pupils studying physics at university than we do male ones. Or that our highest achiever at National 5 in 2018 was female. Or that the entire Advanced Higher class this year is female. This helps students lower down the school see concrete examples of physics being inclusive. A year or so ago I decided to go one step further and I now spend a section of every S1’s first physics lesson showing important physicists who are not the stereotypical straight white male. That presentation also makes the basis of one of my permanent displays in the lab. It boldly proclaims, for all to see, that Physics is for Everyone. Throughout my practice I try to emphasise that core value.

You can find out more about the gender balance in school physics on the Institute of Physics’ website and/or check out @IoPDiversity on Twitter.

Embarking on a course like the Teacher Leadership program can seem daunting. In this blog post I’m going to try and break down my thoughts on what the course means, why I wanted to do it and how I hope things will go!

What is Teacher Leadership?

Contrary to the opinion of many teacher leadership is not about climbing the greasy pole of promotion. To me it is about teachers having the confidence and ability to read, reflect, enquire and evaluate their own teaching and sharing their findings with others. 

Why do the course?

My own journey to the SCEL teacher leadership program started with my engagement with educational twitter. There is so much established educational research and a vibrant discourse on effective teaching and learning that was to me invisible. Being a champion of effective teaching and learning in a school is a powerful engine to improve the education of young people and the development of colleagues.

Hopes

I’m looking forward to really focusing on teaching and learning this year (and beyond!). I’m hoping I will learn a lot of new things, meet some inspiring fellow teachers and give my professional practice a real boost.

My name is Chris Noble, aka @brothermunro and @Lath_Physics on Twitter.

I teach physics at a small independent school nestled on the North East coast of Scotland . I set this blog up as part of the SCEL Teacher Leadership Program but I hope to use it for all my education related ramblings.

Email me on CNoble@glow.sch.uk