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 recently finished reading “The Learning Powered School” and “Educating Ruby” by Guy Claxton. I reflected on these two books which inform the theory and approaches of “Building Learning Power”. These books informed my thinking on planning and teacher talk in the classroom, as well as how I discuss skills and learning attributes with my students. This builds on work highlighted in “Mindset” by C. Dweck has had a major impact on how I talk to and discuss targets with my students. I have begun to discuss and model growth mind-set language and have seen a gradual shift in my students’ attitudes and approaches. While the books above were very theory based, “Educating Ruby” is a much easier read. It is a book which could easily be aimed at parents and all educational stakeholders rather than just educators. It features views from children, parents, teachers and employers and highlights the need for reform of The UK education system and offers practical, evidence-based, ideas for teachers which do not require wholesale change, but a gradual shift.
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 have recently been reading ‘How To Come Up With Great Ideas and Actually Make Them Happen’ by Euan McIntosh. The book is primarily about how we, as teachers, engage in and with innovation and change within education. Euan’s background is as a teacher of Modern Languages in East Lothian, working as a National Advisor to the Scottish Government on learning and technology and as a Digital Commissioner for Channel 4. He is now CEO of ‘No Tosh’, a consultancy firm seeking to guide educators through the process of being creative and design thinking, taking lessons from the creative industries and applying them to an educational setting.
Through my initial reading of the book there are some central themes that come across as relevant and incisive given the current climate in Scottish education of development, innovation and change
A really useful CPD course involving professional dialogue about the success and challenges of using digital learning in the classroom. Delegates also had the opportunity to learn digital learning skills by attending practical workshops. Below I will share some of the highlights of the day and their impact on practice.
“Reconnecting with Glow”
One of the key messages of the day was the potential Glow 365 has for improving learning and teaching. The collaborative functions and cloud storage space can be used to create online learning environments and move away from the iPad/AAL as a “thing to google things” and instead to access course materials and carry out learning and homework.
OneNote in particular is being used to create digital textbooks, track students’ learning, collect and store evidence of unit outcomes and learn collaboratively.
http://onenoteforteachers.com/
“Kahoot”
I attended a workshop on using Kahoot to create and play quizzes on any device. I had used similar things before but this site allows the students’ responses to questions to be exported to a spreadsheet to identify areas the class are weak on. AiFL takes place and students’ can rate their understanding of topics and enjoyment of the game at the end.
https://getkahoot.com/
I have already used this with my Nationals and Higher as part of their revision which went down very well (see below)
Over the next 3 months I will be carrying out a practitioner enquiry, and hopefully implementing some of the ideas and practices I encountered. In particular I will try to explore OneNote and the other apps available through Glow to enhance learning and teaching.
S.MacKenzie
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
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