Overview
I volunteered to attend and give feedback to the first strand of this event
"Teaching and learning, with particular attention to personalisation"
at the Thistle Hotel in London today. I have replicated the slide handout we were given about the consultation process and then documented some of the discussions that went on in text, picture and audio formats using Web 2.0 collaborative tools - please annotate and comment on my observations.
There are 8 strands in all - I am only reporting back for event number 1 emboldened :
1 5 November 2008 10am-4pm Teaching and learning, with particular attention to personalisation
2 6 November 2008 Assessment for learning and the use of performance data for pupil tracking
3 11 November 2008 Subject knowledge for teaching
4 12 November 2008 Curriculum and curriculum development, literacy, numeracy, 14-19 developments and ICT
5 13 November 2008 How children and young people develop and how they learn, and management of their behaviour
6 18 November 2008 Inclusion – special educational needs, English as an additional language
7 19 November 2008 Leadership and management, especially for subjects or curriculum areas
8 20 November 2008 Working with others in and beyond the classroom – the school workforce and the children’s workforce, and working with parents and carers
Where possible I have rerepresented diagrams in the powerpoint to avoid copyright issues and also to clarify feedback in diagrammatic form. All content is copyright TDA and I fully acknowledge them as the primary source.
Masters in Teaching and Learning : The Aim
Slide from TDA consultation rerepresented for explanation. This is the TDA's main aim on this .
So this was the first slide (rerepresented to avoid copyright issues) that we were presented with. It's a broad brush view of the TDA aim. It's obviously transformative.
The next slide is what was called the "snail diagram":
Key factors ensuring transformation model.
This diagram outlines the process whereby this particular strand can be implemented and consultation was asked for around this as a basis for the model being rolled out.
Enablement
Improved teacher quality
Timetable of consultation prior to rollout
Three phases and in more detail each phase -
Phase 2 in more detail
Phase 3 in more detail:
We were then given a separate sheet clarifying the starting point of the TDA which I have also replicated below - then I will outline further context and the day:
Timescale of rollout - very tight!
I had notes on this saying 2009 all NQTs in North West - Newly apointed NQTs. The outcomes from the consultation will be to develop:
"a national framework for MTL that can be used by providers of MTL to develop the programme and that is tight enough to gain national consistency, but flexible enough to develop a programme to meet local needs. The TDA will work with a range of national expertsto develop this framework, using the outcomes from consultation as a starting point. Once this framework has been reviewed by social partners and representatives from schools, HEIs and local authorities, it will be used as a basis for those providing MTL, for roll out from September 2009, to develop their MTL programmes."
Our first task was to :
Develop an example of a real-life classroom or department scenario that an MTL participant needs to engage with in order to broaden and embed professional knowledge skills and understanding.
- How would coverage of 'teaching and learning' as a content area thread through this scenario?
- How should the scenario draw upon any of the other content areas?
I took a mobile phone shot of our outcomes and annotated it on flickr - just click on the picture to take you to the original and roll over the boxes.
I am not going to into any more immense detail - we had a look at Core Professional Standards - M level descriptors and M Level descriptors and Core Professional Standards and tried to square them. We wondered why we were being asked to do this and we guessed it might tie into money interms of professional development linked to the qualification - and so there was some mapping going on.
Here's our and another table's feedback at our stab at that with quick feedback that I recorded on the Mac.
Click for audio recording here
Things that came up throughout the day:
Role of Coaches?
Possible dumbing down of standards - constant referral to competencies - worry by HEI over this as opposed to proper academic rigor.
HEI's on our table were concerned about lack of time for reading and writing and higher order reflection informing practice.
When best in the cycle of NQT to do the more intensive stuff. Basically you need to get established to before you can get a focus for a masters.
Possible conflict between schol Prof Dev and Masters coaches - you may find something extremely useful from study but not being seen to get your game together in terms of requirements in prof dev.
So chinese walls solution perhaps?
I was concerned there seemed to be a lack of communications infrastructure - suggested solutions but HEIs seemed to think there students should remain within their portals but admitted their students used social media extra murally :). I outlined a distributed model - don't really think people understood what I was talking about.
From my viewpoint.
A lot of video and new social media web 2.0 apps could solve the problem of time for reflection and collabortion. A lot of HEIs seemed resistant to this idea, some of them seemed to think I was talking about a completely virtual environment that would replace face to face meetings - I had to explain that they would augment rather than replace. I was surprised not to see any JISC members there.
Unfortunately the tenders have already gone out so this aspect could not be included in any spec - and that, in my estimation is not an ideal situation.
However if collaboration is a major strand people are going to have to build quick solutions because the timeframe for this and the scope and scalability have implications obviously for schools if all NQTs are to get this opportunity. So my question would be how do you scale this up without dumbing down - I really do think a Web 2.0 Personal Learning Environment would be a solution if implemented otherwise I think people will have missed the boat on this one - that is a personal view but I'm willing to take odds on that there will be problems of scalability and implementation further down the line if this is not to become burdensome...
We did discuss the possibility of social networks to enable tutors or students to come together and find like minded peers with similar situations or problems but I really do not think people quite understood this concept...the senior manager in a school on table did though and has a localised solution in his school.
And that is my feedback on the day - the food was good too...
