INSET February 2010 – feedback
Alan Jervis “High Impact Teaching” – Did you find it useful?
Yes – 13
Maybe - 9
Perhaps not - 3
No - 1
Multiple Intelligences Discussion – Did you find it useful?
Yes – 8
Maybe – 8
Perhaps not – 3
No – 3
Will you incorporate ideas from the INSET into your teaching?
Yes – 13
Maybe – 6
In a small way – 3
No – 1
Other comments
6 thought the content of Alan Jervis’ talk could have been condensed into the morning session e.g. You Tube videos could have been removed or at least better explained.
We should take on board Alan Jervis’ advice to test pupils’ multiple intelligences and include in class lists in the future.
Multiple intelligences discussion would have been better as departments.
Ideas for future INSET
Overwhelming demand is for Departmental Time (16 requests)
All other suggestions below made by one person only:
Intelligent internet research
Gifted and Talented
SeparateJuniorSchool (Pie Corbett for language; Alternative Display company)
Relationship between social and academic development
Encouraging independent learning
Partnership with parents
Thinking Skills
Special Needs
The usefulness of prep!
University academics
A series of presentations on post-structuralism
Another session on brain research
Discussion of multiple intelligences at MCS
Verbal-linguistic
The staple of the MCS diet!
Encouraged by home environment
Across subjects – lots of paired work and small group work/discussion
English – debates/speeches; literature; whole class play readings
History – all lessons
Philosophy - debates
Languages – every activity has a verbal-linguistic element
Essay writing
Science – “My life as a particle” – story on a melting ice cube which evaporates; physics debate social issues e.g. power stations
Drama – groups of 4 are set projects within a lesson and have to perform at end of lesson
Sharing work with the class
Library
Debating society
Melting Pot
Poetry recitation
Arts week
“MCS boys want this most”
“Used most because it is the easiest/best way/easiest way to cover material/most efficient”
Musical-rhythmic
“Your brain naturally remembers things in this way”
We can use music to help pupils to remember content (examples available from NJF)
Use of music to set background/context/mood– across the curriculum
Highly valued in MCS
Oxford 6
Chapel every morning
House singing
Musicals
English – poetry, rhythm
Listen to music while listening to poem; looking at art; literature
Languages – songs and rhymes; mnemonics
Times tables
Sport – used to develop mood and pace; rhythm in sport
Physics – instructional songs; music recording in Arts week
Drama – evoking atmosphere with musical instruments
Haikus in Geography
Music in fitness suite to motivate and stimulate
Historical music?
Bodily-kinaesthetic
Games – shut your eyes and imagine how … now go and practise it
Art – boys earn right to sit down for the remainder of lesson by giving correct answers
Classics – mime and role play for vocabulary learning
Modern languages – gestures, actions, “muscle memory”
Music – awareness of body/breathing; lots of hands on activity
Art – characters within a picture role play
Role plays
Charades
Interactive whiteboards
Scripting and performing plays
Drama games
Practicals in science
Physics – races and distance time graphs; could apply this to topics such as gravity
Maths – tarsia; competitive games e.g. Fizz Buzz
Lots of sports and clubs
Handwriting
Shoe lace tying in JS
End of term fun activities
Physical games to break down texts
“Need enough balance of active/sit still time”
“Labs not laid out to allow for movement – all very rigid”
“Boys require movement especially here – easily bored”
Visual/spatial
Physics – mind maps with legs and clouds but no facts
Science – observations and manipulating apparatus
DT/Art – lots of visual/spatial
Games – lots of visual/spatial
Simple acts of moving around the classroom
Making things
Videos and DVDs frequently used
DVDs in library
Cutting and sticking/posters
PowerPoints
Mind maps
Wheels!
Portraits and pictures in history
Flow diagrams
Graphs
Graphic organisers
Picture dictations
Charts
Music notation
How to get from A to B explanations
Practising formulating arguments using step by step guide
Mind Manager for revision
Trips in Geography aid visualisation
Peripheral display > subconscious learning (and refer to this consciously) e.g. keywords, definitions, concepts
The human brain has evolved to remember “faces, places and spaces” – do we tap into this e.g. can you remember where on the wall information to be remembered is located? Ditto with page of a textbook.
Mathematical/logical
Another staple of the MCS diet
Step-by-step approaches common in sciences, language learning, maths – suits boys here
Maths – Tarsia, problem solving
History/Philosophy – need to prove, justify
Not always appropriate e.g. art – freedom of expression
Providing “success criteria” prior to pupils attempting a given task
Using same format for notes in each topic (e.g. in Chemistry)
Sport – could do more problem solving
Any problems and puzzles
Calculations
Crosswords
Word/sentence ordering in languages
Sequencing information – any subject
Next (number, event, word, concept) in a sequence
Interpersonal
Lots of pair work and group work at MCS e.g. in ICT presentations (though one group thought there was not enough of this at MCS)
“Very few quiet/silent classes – MCS pupils very good at talking about work e.g. explaining; pupil as teacher is very good
Group discussions
“Think – pair – share” activities
Brainstorming
Sport – pair work and team work
Physics – group homework
Music – group competitions and performance
Practical work
Hard in labs where movement is restricted by layout of work benches
Competitions
House competitions
Debates
Partnerships regularly occur in lessons
Even individual work (e.g. Art) often means others look over their work
“It’s a positive thing that the boys are competitive”
“Not used to working in groups”
“Role play and similar are difficult due to time/exam pressure”
Intrapersonal
Peer observation then feeding back
Homework
Prepare for university
Waynflete
Self-assessment and target-setting
“Think how good it would be to get an A*”
Could we set aside more time for thinking and reflection in academic lessons – “what could I have done to improve my grade in this piece of work?”
Comparing own work to “success criteria”/mark schemes
Art – “thinking time” built into schemes/lessons
Geography – thinking about how issues are presented by media while teaching topics such as migration
Re-teaching parts of curriculum to others
Working through problems for revision
Projects
Providing choices e.g. for homeworks
Assessment for learning recommends “learning journals”
I created a “My learning” booklet to pilot with pupils this year but have singularly failed to use these properly. I can provide copies, however, and shall try myself to resurrect these
Spanish has a “bank of errors” sheet which pupils are required to complete regularly and reflect upon recurring errors
“MCS boys do this naturally as they are bright”
“We feel this intelligence is the opposite of spoon feeding (which MCS does well). Is product more important than progress?
“Teenagers/blokes naturally won’t open up about their feelings even though they are, hopefully, thinking!”
Naturalist
Lots of visits and trips
Gardening club – linked to KS2 Biology
Games – digging holes and filling them!
Outdoor lessons
“Not a lot of outdoors learning”
Bringing nature into the classroom – this does happen
Fairness and ethics discussed a lot
MUN/debating/philosophy
Many groups found this the most difficult intelligence on which to comment. It can also include:
Categorising and classifying activities
Display/collage using natural materials
Spot the difference
Odd one out
What about descriptions of nature in literature? Pathetic fallacy?
Names of specific flowers, trees, types of dog etc. in modern languages rather than just generic terms (I am terrible at this!) – use google images for pupils like me who were brought up in the city and who had no visual concept of particular types of flower, etc?
What might we do better?
Kinaesthetic
“Do we cater for kinaesthetic learners enough? Can we do so in shorter lessons?” Hour long lessons?
“Bodily-kinaesthetic is more difficult to address in the classroom – perhaps this is something we need to improve upon. We referred back to the prevision INSET (JoAnne Deak) – perhaps this could be met in tutor groups/PSHCE
Intrapersonal
“We need more focus on intrapersonal” – teaching ways of doing things not simply doing it for them.
Challenge wall as suggested by Alan Jervis
“Could tell boys how much more they learn by making notes, etc” (see NJF’s study skills booklet which extols the virtues of ACTIVE revision)
Multiple intelligences
“Holy grail lessons” – departments could discuss these for each topic
“We feel as a whole school we cover all of the multiple intelligences but harder to cover all of them within individual subjects.
Various
Possible cross-curricular links could be explored further
Time required to generate resources
“We do less attention grabbing/entertaining so integration of learning styles more subtle
Boys are not very self-sufficient – do we do too much for them? Proportion of 1sts from MCS leavers. Poor decision making on the sports field. Difference between creating a creative task for them and them creating creative responses.
Boys don’t respond well to challenges
“Initiative not really catered for in any of these intelligences. Our group felt that our boys were not good at using their initiative e.g. working out their own strategies”
“Our results are excellent. We should take more responsibility for skill-set to help with university.”
Prep
One group felt strongly that prep submitted is frequently of very poor quality. “We should set less but make them more important. Socially boys are happy but academically are stressed? “We are very concerned”.
“Concerned also about how much time pupils spend on internet and chat rooms. What are their homework habits? Could we have some school-wide research?”