Started writing an article for SLA mag on trailers
Could spend ages searching for sources but did find some really useful stuff and this lovely trailer
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Friday, 2 July 2010
Book borrowing data
Have just used Val's idea from SLN to correlate book borrowing with students progress in English throughout the academic year.
Although it does show students who have exceded targets have also borrowed, it also shows students who have failed to meet targets who have also borrowed loads of books.
So no nice neat pattern
My gut feeling is that some of these low ability students read lots but do not read like a reader. I know from chatting to one of the students that she does not remember much if anything about the books she reads and I wonder what reading conversation she has inside her head as she reads.
I would like to be able to do sessions with students like her to see if were to make any difference if we helped her to read like a reader.
Final number is the no of bks borrowed and preceding - shows that they have not met target and number prior to that is the no of sublevels they are below target
Think I need to ponder a while before deciding what to do and how to use the data
The separate list is students from the other end of the scale
student197 White - British Moderate Learning Difficulty 3 6c 5c 4b -2 - 130
student198 Chinese 3 6c 5c 4b -2 - 63
student199 White - British 4 6b 5b 4a -2 - 41
student200 White - British 5 7c 6c 5a -1 - 40
student201 White - British 4 6c 4a 4b -1 - 32
student202 White - British 5 7c 5a 5b -1 - 19
student203 White - British 6a 5b 5c -1 - 17
student204 White - British Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulty 5 6a 5a 5b -1 - 16
student205 White - British Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulty 5b 4b 4c -1 - 15
student206 White - British 6a 5a 5b -1 - 13
student207 Any other mixed background 5 7c 5a 5b -1 - 13
student1 Chinese 6a 5a 5a 0 + 78
student2 Indian 5 6a 5b 5b 0 + 49
student3 White 5 6a 5a 5a 0 + 44
student4 Refused 5 7b 6c 6c 0 + 42
student5 White - British 5 7c 5a 6c 1 + 38
student6 White - British 5 7c 5a 5a 0 + 37
student7 White - British N 4 6b 5b 5a 1 + 35
student8 White - British 5 6b 5a 5a 0 + 34
Although it does show students who have exceded targets have also borrowed, it also shows students who have failed to meet targets who have also borrowed loads of books.
So no nice neat pattern
My gut feeling is that some of these low ability students read lots but do not read like a reader. I know from chatting to one of the students that she does not remember much if anything about the books she reads and I wonder what reading conversation she has inside her head as she reads.
I would like to be able to do sessions with students like her to see if were to make any difference if we helped her to read like a reader.
Final number is the no of bks borrowed and preceding - shows that they have not met target and number prior to that is the no of sublevels they are below target
Think I need to ponder a while before deciding what to do and how to use the data
The separate list is students from the other end of the scale
student197 White - British Moderate Learning Difficulty 3 6c 5c 4b -2 - 130
student198 Chinese 3 6c 5c 4b -2 - 63
student199 White - British 4 6b 5b 4a -2 - 41
student200 White - British 5 7c 6c 5a -1 - 40
student201 White - British 4 6c 4a 4b -1 - 32
student202 White - British 5 7c 5a 5b -1 - 19
student203 White - British 6a 5b 5c -1 - 17
student204 White - British Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulty 5 6a 5a 5b -1 - 16
student205 White - British Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulty 5b 4b 4c -1 - 15
student206 White - British 6a 5a 5b -1 - 13
student207 Any other mixed background 5 7c 5a 5b -1 - 13
student1 Chinese 6a 5a 5a 0 + 78
student2 Indian 5 6a 5b 5b 0 + 49
student3 White 5 6a 5a 5a 0 + 44
student4 Refused 5 7b 6c 6c 0 + 42
student5 White - British 5 7c 5a 6c 1 + 38
student6 White - British 5 7c 5a 5a 0 + 37
student7 White - British N 4 6b 5b 5a 1 + 35
student8 White - British 5 6b 5a 5a 0 + 34
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Shamed into posting
I have never really managed to blog regularly and do wish I could get into the habit as it would be a good record of life and progress
So after pondering on what to blog about I thought I would reflect on the impact I make on teaching at the school. Often I am oblivious to the impact that I am making. On a few occasions recently I have noticed English teachers using materials that I produced a while ago for using with the Booked up books. I had produced a whole folder of activities that related to character, plot, setting etc and given a copy to each teacher. Anyway I now keep seeing teachers using the folder. One teacher said that the ideas in the folder are really good and that she uses them alot.
I have now decided that I will make the activities available through our VLE.
More and more I seem to be making my impact by helping teachers with their planning rather than with the actual teaching.
I did a session for NQTs earlier this week and was v pleased with the feedback. I gave them a number of ideas to tell students what to do with the information they cut and paste.
So all in all maybe I am of more value than I sometimes suspect
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Great teaching
I have just come across the work of Doug Lemov and have ordered his book Teach like a champion
The pdfs and video clips on the link are great and show to me how much more I need to know about teaching to be effective enough to excite and motivate students in the library.
I think it is this sort of practical teaching techniques I need to know to help improve my teaching skills. I see the students in the role of a teacher relatively rarely and so when I do I need to be able to engage them
It all looks so easy when you see someone doing it
The pdfs and video clips on the link are great and show to me how much more I need to know about teaching to be effective enough to excite and motivate students in the library.
I think it is this sort of practical teaching techniques I need to know to help improve my teaching skills. I see the students in the role of a teacher relatively rarely and so when I do I need to be able to engage them
It all looks so easy when you see someone doing it
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Geeks might be tomorrow's entrepeneurs
From a site I had not used before Big Ambition - your digital career starts here. Also includes a dream career quiz!
Friday, 16 April 2010
There's so much to investigate
What started out as a little search for ideas for our Head of Languages for what to put on our new VLE, Frog and it ended up with lots of exciting finds.
I particularly liked this Social Technographics Ladder
Then noticed this blog entry about Linchpin, which i have read and am definitely going to print out his index for the book.
Holiday working is so useful for catching up with CPD rather than just doing the job
I particularly liked this Social Technographics Ladder
Where are you on the ladder?
Holiday working is so useful for catching up with CPD rather than just doing the job
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Pulled off at tangents
Today I started by looking the the CILIP weekly update. I think this it great and I always find something of interest. This weeks was no exception, a real gem and am now buzzing with ideas and things I want to do.
But through following a link to MIT open courseware I came across two poems on reading.
I used to panic when I read poetry as I thought I was meant to find stuff hidden in their to help me understand what the poet was thinking when he wrote the poem. But since reading Rosenblatt, Zimmermann, Keene and others I now realise that I just need to think about what the poem means to me, how I connect with it, how it makes me feel, what connections I make, what queries I have. etc. In other words I use the reading strategies that I teach to the students.
My confusion here is in the second poem and I am wondering why the pages bore no print.
The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book
The house was quiet and the world was calm
The words were spoken as if there was no book
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Wallace Stevens
The Reader
All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of somber pages.
It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shriveled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.
No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, “Everything
Falls back to coldness,
Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden.
The somber pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven
Wallace Stevens
But through following a link to MIT open courseware I came across two poems on reading.
I used to panic when I read poetry as I thought I was meant to find stuff hidden in their to help me understand what the poet was thinking when he wrote the poem. But since reading Rosenblatt, Zimmermann, Keene and others I now realise that I just need to think about what the poem means to me, how I connect with it, how it makes me feel, what connections I make, what queries I have. etc. In other words I use the reading strategies that I teach to the students.
My confusion here is in the second poem and I am wondering why the pages bore no print.
The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book
The house was quiet and the world was calm
The words were spoken as if there was no book
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Wallace Stevens
The Reader
All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of somber pages.
It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shriveled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.
No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, “Everything
Falls back to coldness,
Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden.
The somber pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven
Wallace Stevens
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