I am going to be teaching Higher Politics for the first time next academic year. As this is a new course to the school and a new CfE qualification I found this success course very useful in advancing my knowledge of the assessment outcomes as well as the layout of the assignment. Additionally, I was able to meet colleagues from across the country and set up an informal network to share resources. Do politics, or politics will do you!
Steven MacKenzie
I have attended two markers’ meetings this year; The National 5 Assignment and the Question paper. These have without doubt been two of the most useful CPD sessions I have attended. Understanding the national standards in our subject areas is vital and both the markers meeting and the experience of marking papers to a consistently high standard is a challenge which has undoubtedly had a positive impact on my teaching practice over the last few weeks. Additionally, being exposed to candidate responses from across the country has the advantage of expanding subject knowledge. While the time commitment for SQA marking is an issue, in terms of CPD I would highly recommend it.
Steven MacKenzie
Today I had the pleasure of attending the BOCSH conference on teaching and learning held at Inveralmond. It was a privilege to be able to meet and engage with such inspirational practitioners examining a wide range of areas of practice. The highlights for me were as follows:
Tracking and Monitoring across the BGE: This session was led by Faith Bateman from St. Andrew’s HS in Glasgow and examined how the Social Subjects faculty had worked collaboratively to moderate assessments to ensure standards were consistent. They are already engaging with RAG as terms for progress and involving learners in conversations to track their progress against both skills and SAL (this was reflected in a later presentation by Joanne Ramsay from St. Joseph’s Academy in Kilmarnock who had some very interesting ideas for how to aid learner reflection). They are looking at creating a ‘Standard for St. Andrew’s’ folder to use as a teaching aid to allow learners to see what would constitute a level 4 piece of work before embarking on a task. There was plenty of discussion around moderation and both the benefits and issues of this as a task now requiring embedding within BGE practice.
I also attended a short presentation on the notion of ‘flipped classrooms’ led by Jade Hunter from Preston Lodge HS Maths department. She has been experimenting for around a year and a half with colleagues on how to best implement a flipped approach, focusing on an existing two year Higher class to do this. She has created a series of 5 to 7 minute presentations which are held on a department website. Learners access these the night prior to a lesson and can then get started immediately on activities and extension tasks for the most able. Any pupils who do not complete this have access to the materials in class, allowing more attention for those prepared and ready to go. There does seem to be a fairly high front-loaded component to the preparation of this approach but would reduce some preparation in the longer term and has led to increased engagement within the classes being piloted.
Overall, it was an incredibly inspiring day and it is clear that the BOCSH group has a lot to offer those wishing to consider emerging approaches and effective and inspiring ways to engage learners and bridge the gap.
Stephen Small
I was browsing on-line last night and came across this event that is happening in Grangemouth in November based around practitioner enquiry. At the moment they are just seeking people who wish to present but will open it up to anyone who wants to attend in the future once the program is finalised. Thought it might appeal to some staff across the school?
http://www.pedagoo.org/enquirymeet/
The Practitioner Enquiry Network (PEN) is taking place on March 6th.
At Deans Primary School 1.30 to 3.00.
In partnership with the EIS.
If staff book a course through the EMS system and are then unable to attend, the CPD staff should be alerted. Many courses are fully booked in advance and this will allow the place to be offered to those who are on the reserve list.
Please do not attend a course if a place hasn’t been booked through the EMS system. Venues are organised by tutors and materials prepared to cater for the expected number of delegates.
Please contact cpd@westlothian.org.uk if you require any further information.
As part of my MSc I have recently presented findings from my research at the SERA/WERA (Scottish Educational Research Association/World Educational Research Association) conference held in Edinburgh this November. It was a rather nerve-wracking build up creating an academic poster to present to academics from across the world (USA, Taiwan, Norway, Iceland, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and over 40 other countries) and with a few glitches along the way I eventually managed to get everything brought together in the poster below. 
Continue reading SERA/WERA Conference – Edinburgh 2014
Over the last three years I have been undertaking an MSc in Educational Leadership at the University of Stirling. This culminated recently with my final submitted piece of work on how iPads can be used effectively within Social Subjects to support pupils’ development of higher order thinking skills (taken from Anderson et al’s 2001 reworking of Bloom’s Taxonomy). This project was run within the Social Subjects faculty and from the intervention, which was incorporated in to the S3 curriculum, there were several interesting findings. Firstly, pupils were less confident in their use of iPads and associated software than we as teachers perhaps assume and it was interesting to note that the majority of pupils reported increasingly levels of confidence with the use of mobile technology to enhance learning. Secondly, pupils were more capable of discussing and identifying how they can apply knowledge and skills across the discrete subject areas and this aided us in moving past the “but this is Maths/English/insert random subject” type of response to a more holistic view of learning.
Continue reading MSc in Educational Research: Use of iPads to Develop Higher Order Thinking Skills
Teachers as enquiring professionals
Monday 27th October 2014 saw the teaching staff of Inveralmond Community High School come together to look at Moderation within the BGE under the direction of the Tracking Implemento Group.
Lindsey Duncan, PTC Languages started the first session by engaging staff with a very informative presentation from Education Scotland looking at the “Professional learning resource: assessing progress and achievement paper”. This gave a great insight into the thinking behind the paper.
From this, staff then divided into their curricular areas to look at this paper in more detail. Staff very enthusiastically dissected the paper and then discussed the important messages arising. This was an extremely informative session and when staff came back together as a large group it highlighted some good practice already taking place across certain faculties and how others are currently assessing pupil work.
Session two started with Jen McKenna delivering a practical presentation on how to use the resources available from Education Scotland to moderate within the BGE. She highlighted that when moderating we need to look at the teacher / pupil voice and demonstrated how progression pathways show skills development and how this linked directly to Blooms taxonomy.
Staff then looked through the “assessing progress and achievement paper” and the progression pathway for their curricular area. Discussions about the significant aspects of learning (SALs) and key messages arising from the paper followed with staff started to link this to current S1-3 course work and delivery.
Using the curricular area paper staff then took on board the opportunity to moderation an example of S3 work. A series of reflective questions were used to determine if we felt pupils were successfully working towards/demonstrating a particular SAL. This opportunity allowed thought provoking conversations to take place, which I am sure will lead to even more positive experiences being planned for our pupils.
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