Professional Learning - Opportunities to Engage with Change (2)

Many posts and articles can be put under this umbrella term.

Ben Jones has written a thought-provoking post - If we can't teach ourselves, who can we teach?

New York Times magazine on effective teaching ideas - as series of videos.

Worst practice in ICT use in education from the World Bank blog.

Being aware when caution is need-questions about online chat 

May be follow-up posts.

Professional Learning - Opportunities to Engage with Change (1)

There are so many interlocking elements of any plan to refocus or change teaching practice.

Bianca Hewes speaks about presenting to her colleagues at a recent School Development Day.

It is even more a must now for teachers to be able to effectively evaluate for learning a wide range of website content and services.

More about the Iowa 1:1 laptop initiative. Worth keeping an eye on their wikispace too.

I have posted before about this very valuable resource - digital literacy toolkit.

Always worthwhile revisiting posts by Sue Wyatt, here is a letter to parents of Year 6/7 about their children blogging and the expectations she has about effective practice.

Look at for more in this series.

NSW Public Schools - Critical Elements of Curriculum Design (1)

A useful extract from: Curriculum Support for teaching in English 7-12. Volume 14, No.4, 2009

This overview is an extract from a segment in this publication relating to programming for Gifted and Talented students. It is in fact the template for effective programming for all students.

Curriculum design
"The design process should first specify what students are to achieve. The BOS syllabuses determine the scope and sequence of learning, and before a unit of work begins, teachers should decide how they will know whether students have achieved the outcomes. The syllabus outcomes are the minimum that students are expected to achieve, and can be modified or extended to meet the learning needs of gifted and talented students. If the outcomes are modified, the teaching and learning activities and assessment must also
be modified.

The second element of curriculum design is the NSW Quality Teaching (QT) model, which is a generalised model of pedagogy based on teacher effectiveness research (NSW Department of Education and Training, 2003). The dimensions of the QT model, Intellectual quality, Significance and Quality learning environment, need to be interpreted in the light of the needs and characteristics of gifted and talented students.

The third element of curriculum design is the use of curriculum models such as those of Bloom (1956), Maker (1982) and Williams (1993), which provide ideas for the modification of curriculum content, instruction, students’ products and learning environments to develop engaging and challenging activities. "

More UK Learning Resources - Worth an Explore

In my previous post, I introduced a number of excellent UK websites with numerous useful learning resources.  You may want to explore these first. UK Learning Resources - So Many Gems
I have since done a little more exploring and found some more must-visit websites.

Birmingham Grid for Learning

Devon subject and specialist areas

Riding LEA- lots to explore here

Hertfordshire Grid for Learning

Thinking about thinking

The London Grid for Learning

Luton - teaching resources

Kent ICT subjects

Middlesbrougth Learners resources

South Gloucestershire learning

Welsh Grid for Learning


Enjoy ...

Learning across the World (1) - Exploring Education Practice

Over the last two months, I have been revisiting UK and more recently Scotland LEAs, just to keep up with the latest in curriculum and teaching practice.

You can go back and check out my posts on this, to explore the links yourself.

Now, after about a year's break, I am ready to revisit all the State Education Departments in the USA, that takes a while.

I am just up to Colorado. I am amazed at how much is new. New websites, ne thinking, new teaching practices and resources.

I am going to enjoy this!

US State Education Agency (State Department of Education)

At the same time, I plan to do a quick tour of Australian education across each State system. Again, just to keep up. A lot has happened with the Digital Education Revolution over the last 2 years and many states were putting their own interesting change programs in place

A Work in Progress.