teacher development

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ELTC Training Day 17/09/2018

On Monday 17th September 2018, the ELTC kicked off a new academic year with a training day. It was a particularly special day as it brought together teachers based at both Hoyle Street (ELTC) and Solly Street (The ELTC at USIC, which is the University of Sheffield International College run by Studygroup). Usually it is a case of “never the twain shall meet” – not because we dislike each other, but because timetabling just doesn’t allow it. Times that might be convenient to at least a fair number of teachers based at Hoyle Street aren’t possible for the majority of teachers based at USIC and vice-versa.

In the morning, there were parallel sessions running in two rooms, put on by teachers (including me) who had volunteered sessions. (The good news is, the teachers who volunteered sessions have all been asked to make a bite-size video about their session as sessions weren’t recorded on the day due to technical issues. So despite technical issues, we will be able to catch up with what happened in “other room”!)

In the afternoon, we came together in one room and we had a guest speaker talking to us about Mindfulness, a conference feedback session and a session about copyright issues. Before lunch, first I attended a session about the ELTC E-learning strategy which was a review of what has been done E-learning-wise over the last year followed by looking ahead to the forthcoming year and things that it is hoped will happen. For the second session, I repeated the talk/workshop I did at IATEFL about using the British Council Framework to systematise development. The third session in “my” room was the TD team and again it was looking back at TD over the last year and forward to possibilities for future TD.

E-Learning Strategy ELTC

Things we have done in the 2017-18 academic year: 

  • We now have the audio and video for various course books available on our (password protected) Resource Bank website. All relevant permissions for that have been acquired.
  • The Teacher Portal website has been given a makeover to make it more accessible in terms of layout and, amongst other things, now includes a link to teacher development materials (recordings, links etc) that have been and will be shared via email. The idea is to provide a central location where it can all be accessed so that when you finally have a bit of time, you don’t waste it trawling back through emails looking for something that was sent when you were up to your eyeballs in marking and didn’t have time to look at it.
  • The Student Portal website has also been undergoing development to make it more user-friendly and useful. USIC students are able to use it as well as ELTC students.
  • The International Summer School Pre-Sessional this year used a flipped learning model for the first time, meaning that half of the content was delivered online and half was delivered face to face. This also meant that a dedicated team produced 60-80 hours of interactive content (defined as “a combination of media such as text, audio or video combined with clickable elements [quizzes, questionnaires, typing in answers etc]”). Welfare-related content was also shared online. We looked at some examples of interactive content that were made for the International Summer School Pre-Sessional and I discovered that the OALD now lets you access Oxford collocations dictionary information when you search for a word: 

    Screenshot example from OALD showing the information from the collocations dictionary

Things we want to do in the 2018-19 academic year:

  • Develop more interactive content, including for year round courses. There is already a project underway working on materials for the SpLD service. Other ideas include induction materials, interactive rubrics to explain assignments e.g. essays, specific materials to support a particular programme, cultural and social guides, guides for particular tools and teacher training guides/content. To these, we were invited to share our ideas too, using a padlet which brought out some more interesting possibilities.
  • Continue working on the portals and the resource bank, to make them more accessible for teachers/students as relevant.
  • Try and link our digital literacy/technology training more closely to university policies/tools in use and “graduate attributes” as put forward by the university so that students . The library has a digital literacy framework with the skills/competences needed so that will also be linked.

    The Information and digital literacy framework page from the University Library

  • Develop online courses for teachers. The Learning Technologies in EAP course has run successfully a few times now with participants from all over the world. In addition, a new course will be piloted in January – “Corpus linguistics for language teachers”. This is a 6-week course to familiarise teachers with online corpus tools and help them use these in their teaching. (Sounds good!)

…In a nutshell! There was plenty of opportunity throughout the session for us to discuss and share ideas for future directions/developments which was nice.

“I don’t want to be a manager – now what?” How to systematise CPD using the British Council Framework (My session)

Here is a write-up of my session from when I did it at IATEFL in April. It was nice doing it at the ELTC as I could link specifically to aspects of CPD available here e.g. the Peer Development Scheme – confidential staff room peer review activities which could involve observing a colleague, team teaching with a colleague, assistance in finding materials, observation with specific developmental focus and discussion. Teachers can contact the Peer Development Team to organise any of these things. One of my goals for this term is to use it! A possible future goal might be to join the team…

“What’ve we got and what d’ya want?” What’s new in terms of TD resources, reflect on TD activities, and what you would like

We reflected on the TD activities offered in the last year. This involved looking at slips of paper, each of which had an activity on it e.g. Bitesize TD (15-30 minute videos made voluntarily by teachers about different things e.g. teaching multi-level classes, using Kaltura, using Googlekeep, Prepositions, Engagement through audio feedback), Training day, emails with mini-reflective tasks and, in our groups, identify which we had engaged with and select a top three. After that, we had to “shout out” (do you know it? It’s a site which allows students to use their mobile phones to send short messages to a central page which can be displayed on the interactive board) ideas for TD activities in the next year.

Activities:

  • Bitesize TD
  • Training Day
  • Emails with mini-reflective tasks
  • Emails with links to webinars/journals articles
  • TD Bulletin
  • Ad-hoc TD sessions
  • Scholarship circles
  • Sharing ideas around a particular topic on a padlet
  • Google Hangout discussions

Everyone was a big fan of the Bitesize TD! One thing that came out of the discussion around what could happen in the forthcoming year was a desire for more activities that bring ELTC and USIC together and, connected, opportunities for team-building as well as knowledge building.

Mindfulness and ELT

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is returning to the present moment, being aware. You can ask yourself the following questions:

Am I aware of…

  • my feelings now?
  • my physical body?
  • my language?
  • my impact?
  • my state of mind?

Where is my mind?

Feelings change from moment to moment. Do you notice the transitions? Which one is you? Where is the anchor (when encountering difficulties etc.) ? Knowing and being aware of the feelings is an anchor.

We looked at two mindfulness exercises. One was a sitting mediation in which we sat with our hands in our laps with the position of facing upwards, four fingers above four fingers and thumbs joined at the tips. We had our eyes closed. We had to focus on all the different parts of our body and our mind in turn. The second was a walking mediation which entailed walking VERY slowly around the room and being mindful/aware (focusing on) of the entire movement of walking, bit by bit. Walking up and down stairs is another space to practice mindfulness but we didn’t try that.

Thoughts are like guests, while you are the home-owner. Knowing is always present, while thoughts/guests come and go.

In terms of ELT, you could:

  • use mindfulness activities (not necessarily the ones above but for example choosing one or two 2 minute activities from the Eight Form Moving Mediation – Sitting Posture of All Forms) at the beginning and ending of lessons. Being mindful of posture in this way can help maximise oxygen intake and energise students.
  • do a self-communication exercise: Get students to complete the sentence “When I encounter a difficulty, I usually say to myself….” and then “Next time I encounter a difficulty I can say…” This encourages them to think/self-talk in English and to acknowledge what is there, become more aware of it and tweak it to something more positive. This is an example of using awareness.
  • do a peer support conversation: students need reassurance and peers can reassure each other if they have the language to do so.

During the rest of the session, she talked to us about her time spent on retreats in Taiwan and China and the similarities and differences between those experiences (the subject matter of the research she is currently doing), showing us lots of pictures too. It was a very different session and we all felt remarkably refreshed afterwards! We also agreed that it was really nice to have something so different within the training day.

Conference Feedback Session

Five of us had five minutes each to feedback to everybody about a theme or a particular session or sessions that we attended. I spoke about inclusion (which covered differentiation, special needs, LGBT and materials development) and briefly mentioned professional development, in terms of the shift towards bottom-up rather than top-down development programmes that came through in the CPD forum – you can get a flavour of what I said here). Other topics from IATEFL were Action Research, Jim Scrivener and Adrian Underhill’s sessions. Two more sessions fed back from a BALEAP conference and one of those focused on assessing speaking skills, particularly interaction, and another was about acculturation. I couldn’t make notes about what any of them said because I was also at the front of the room! Once we had all had our five minutes, we each went to a different part of the room and teachers could choose one of the themes to hear more about and ask questions etc. It all seemed to work quite well. My group wanted to hear more about SpLD and I will admit to using my blog posts from the conference to help me tell them what they wanted to know! It was a nice interactive kind of session, rather than purely presentation, which it could have been if organised differently.

Copyright

Two members of the library team came and did a session with us about copyright. We were introduced to the Copyright Hub which provides staff with information and guidance about copyright as well as signposting to relevant information. Obviously the information on it is tailored towards the licenses that the university holds, however, for anyone reading this who isn’t from the university, you can still have a nosy without being logged in to the university system!

An extract of the Copyright Hub website

After talking to us about copyright, the team gave use a board game to play which involved considering various situations and answering questions, while they monitored and helped where necessary. A useful session!

Overall, everybody participated very enthusiastically in the training day, which was very varied, and it was a lovely way to start the term. 🙂

 

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Bite-size TD at the ELTC

Teacher development is a key part of working life at the ELTC and the team who are in charge of it this term recently rolled out a new initiative, “Bite-size TD”. The idea is to build up a collection of recordings done by teachers of short talks on a range of topics, that other teachers can watch when they have 15-20 minutes spare and fancy a bit of CPD.

I volunteered to do a whistle-stop tour of www.wordandphrase.info/academic which is a corpus tool. Without the /academic part of the web address, a general corpus of texts is analysed, with the academic part included, it analyses a corpus of academic texts from a range of disciplines. Both sites work in exactly the same way, so what I talked about today could equally be applied to the general version. My powerpoint was adapted from one that I used with my ESUS (English Skills for University Study, which has since undergone a few changes and been renamed) students last term, with the aim of introducing the site to them through the medium of guided discovery.

My talk worked in two ways: a) For teachers unfamiliar with the site, I suggested they use the pause button a bit and try to do the activities on the site as they went along, to understand better how it works. b) For teachers who were already familiar, and for the teachers in a) once they were familiar, it modelled my approach to introducing students to the site and provided some example activities that they could use with students.

I suggested that as well as using this approach in class with the students as an introduction, it’s useful to reinforce it by:

  • modelling use of it yourself in class if students ask you something about a word/phrase. (Particularly if you can project it)
  • using it in tutorials based on students’ written work, to guide error correction
  • encouraging students to use it before submitting a piece of work, to check their use of key language

Here is the powerpoint I used (click to download):

I’ll add the recording later if the link is a public one, but you should be able to follow what to do via the powerpoint, it’s step-by-step and the answers are included.

Do you use wordandphrase.info(/academic) with your students? How? Would love to hear about your approach/ideas for using it via the comments box below. 🙂

Happy weekend, all!

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The Eaquals Framework for Language Teacher Training and Development and its companion the E-Grid

In Kirsten Holt’s IATEFL 2016 talk, (yes, 2016 – yes, this post has sat as a draft in my posts box for rather a while now! Better late than never…) she makes reference to the Eaquals Framework and its companion the e-grid. I was immediately curious so thought I would try the e-grid, which generates your ‘professional profile’. The profile produced is not saved on their website, it just creates a soft copy for you to keep on your computer.

After completing fields for name and address, and employer name and address, the next step was language proficiency:

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You pick your level starting from 1.1 (studying the target language at tertiary level, achieved B1 proficiency in the target language) up to 3.2 (see picture above) My questions:

  • I have a degree in the target language, two actually, but I don’t have proven proficiency at C2 level as I have never done a proficiency test.
  • What is this “natural command” that differentiates between 3.1 and 3.2? How is it measured?
  • “has native speaker competence” = 3.2 but all levels below that focus on language proficiency only for people who have learned the language in such a way that certification and examination has been part of it i.e. not people who have grown up speaking it as their mother tongue. So there are 6 levels you can pick but if you are a “native speaker”(definitions and implications of which term are another can of worms) you are automatically assigned the highest level, level 6, aka 3.2…  Are all “native speakers” equally proficient? “Proficiency” can be defined as a high degree of skill or expertise. Do all “native speakers” have that to a uniform level – in this case 3.2? (NB later in the self-assessment language awareness is dealt with separately.)

My next ?? moment came in the teaching experience question:

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I have no idea how many hours I have taught. Also:

  • What does it mean by documented?
  • What would happen for the teacher who meets the 3.2 criteria but happens never to have taught at C2 level? Or does lack of C2 level stop mattering after 4000 hours of experience?
  • What happens if you have between 2400 and 4000 hours of teaching experience including classes at C2 level?
  • What if your 2400 – 4000 hours of experience all happen to be in the same place?

I actually did keep a record of the hours I taught and to which class in my first year of teaching. Unfortunately, I have no idea where that document is. It was several computers ago and seems to have got lost in the mists of time… I probably don’t have squillions though, given I only started 7 years ago, spent one of those years doing my Delta and M.A. full-time so only taught once a week during the Delta and some part-time work later in my M.A., worked part-time between October 2015 and March 2016 and though full-time now, have a relatively small number of contact hours per week with my groups. (What do you do the rest of the time, I hear you ask? Well, there is also cover, Writing Advisory Service sessions and at certain points, megatons of marking – 2000 – 3000 word essays rather than 250 word essays… and – woohoo! – CPD!) Then, I’ve taught C1 but not C2. Am I a 2.2? A 3.1? Is x hours of teaching the same level of experience regardless of what development has taken place alongside them? In other words is it quantity over quality?

Once you’ve finished doing the self-assessment, you can export the results as a PDF, bearing in mind it will not be saved on the website itself. You can also export the results in e-grid format, which you could later re-upload to the website and edit. So, having used the E-grid, it was time to look at the framework itself. On the website, the main aims are set out as follows:

to help practising teachers to assess and reflect on their own language teaching competences, and set their own goals for further development

 

to help managers to identify training needs and plan professional development programmes for practising teachers

to encourage teachers to continue their professional development on their own and with the support of their institutions

to help document the design of public training courses for practising teachers

 

to serve as a tool for evaluating and accrediting teacher training courses.

There is then a link to the framework, a 42 page document, which you can download and peruse at your leisure. The framework divides teacher development into 3 phases, and assumes that teachers can be in different phases of development for different skill areas. The phases don’t map to seniority of position. There are five main areas each with different sub-sections. Each of these key areas is broken down into “knowledge of” and “skills”, so theory and practice. I am assuming that the 1.1 – 3.2 in the e-grid relate to the three developmental stages in this framework, although on the E-grid webpage, it says descriptors cover six developmental stages.

Have you used this framework to help you develop? Have you used it to help other teachers develop? How did you do it? Please share your ideas with me and others by using the comments box below – you are also very welcome to use it for answering any of the questions I have raised in this post or just any related thoughts! I will share my ideas for using it in a later post. Meanwhile, don’t forget to have a look at Kirstin’s ideas as disseminated at IATEFL 2016.

 

 

 

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IATEFL 2016 (Macmillan Recording): Using teaching competences for professional development by Kirsten Holt

I missed Kirsten’s session at IATEFL 2016, but fortunately Macmillan recorded all their sessions and you can see hers here. She also has a padlet with her slides (you’ll need this as the recording doesn’t focus on the slides so they are affected by glare), links to the frameworks discussed and links to the results from the Survey Monkey activities that she did with the audience.

Kirsten starts by talking about the various teaching competence frameworks available at the moment: Eaquals (rigorously tested, 50 drafts), Cambridge English Teaching Framework (based on teacher training material e.g. competences required at different levels of development such as CELTA and Delta), British Council CPD Framework for Teachers (has 12 rings and you work your way in towards the centre; not just for English Language Teaching but other disciplines, from primary up through university level). Having discussed the differences, she also point out that all the frameworks have something in common: none of them are not linear. They allow for a jagged profile, with more expertise in some areas than others, depending on your experience and the areas of competence.

Next the audience are treated to a little history lesson: In 2006, the EU Commission targeted all the ministries to say they wanted Europe’s 6 million teachers to have the essential competences required to be effective in the classroom. Member states were to revise and strengthen the professional profile of all teaching professions. This extended way beyond ELT, of course. (This is a potted version – for the full version, watch the talk!)

So now, we have all the frameworks, what do we do with them? What do we use them for?

The first activity Kirsten asks the audience to do is to answer the question “Which of these statements apply to teaching frameworks?”

A series of competences can be used to …

  1. define a particular role

  2. build a teaching framework

  3. analyse teacher profiles

  4. determine teachers’ pay

  5. support teachers’ professional learning

I suppose the answer *could* be all of the above? Although I’m unclear exactly what is meant by “teaching framework” – is that the same as a “teaching competence framework”, as in the competences are used to make these frameworks? 

Kirsten then asks the audience to “hold that thought” so to speak, they will come back to this question again later having done some more activities.

The next activity is to come up with a definition for “a competence”, maximum of 20 words. What would yours be?

Next, Kirsten takes the room back to 2001. She was at Oxford House College, a teacher training college (CELTA, Delta, DipTESOL etc), with lots going on, a good place for teachers to come and brush up their skills and progress. The staffroom was a hub. You could chuck out a problem and there was someone in the staffroom who could help, or at least try to. They also did observations, new teachers had mentors, teachers were observed in first year of teaching and way beyond, there were also 5 minute observations just to get a snapshot of the classroom. There were also weekly plans, accurate records of work, TD session adverts, records of who had done what session when. And in Kirsten’s office, she would try to amalgamate all this information, to decide what to do in the TD plan, who to send to conferences, what to do with the teachers etc. She explains that the E-grid help with that. You input how confident you are in various areas, you then can get your mentor/director of studies to do the same thing for you. This should help to identify areas for development.

This gave rise to a discussion of the meaning of ‘a competence’ (returning to the definition activity) and how it has changed over time.

Screen Shot 2016-05-17 at 15.21.47

She emphasises that a competence is not static. It’s not something you tick off and forget about. (At this point the audience are invited to change their answer to the first activity if they would like to…) Kirsten says that competences are designed not to determine teacher pay but to encourage teacher development – at least, the pay factor, if it is a factor, shouldn’t be the be all and end all. It’s not just a case of generating a snapshot of a teacher’s career but a continuous way to look at that career.

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It’s about setting objectives and then working on achieving them, working out where you are, where you want to be and how to get there. She shows a progression of stages a teacher can go through in developing an aspect of their practice. (I suggest you watch the recording to see her talk through this!)

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The different colours reflect the phases that the stages fit into: development, engagement, integration. Kirsten uses a lovely analogy with planting seedlings (that again I recommend you watch!) to explain these. These stages and phases match up with the Eaquals Framework.

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The next question is what do we DO with these frameworks? How do we make them work? The first thing to consider is the fact that they aren’t linear. (Like the jumping fish in Kirsten’s slides!)

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Kirsten puts forward an experiential cycle process that teachers can use to develop:

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She also gives us some top tips for fully engaging in that process. (I won’t list them here, I will let you watch the talk to find out!!) Next she, she asks the audience to brainstorm activities that could demonstrate traversing a competence and gives some ideas of her own:

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She emphasises that we learn from reflecting on experience.

You also need to watch the recording to see the activity where she gives an activity and the room has to categorise it according to whether it is Phase 1, 2 or 3.

She finishes with this lovely quote from Dr Seuss:

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As she says, appropriately enough at the end of a very engaging talk, ultimately for development to happen, you have to engage.

A few of my thoughts relating to this talk:

  • This was the next talk I watched after Stick or twist: the teacher to manager dilemma  which approached teacher development from an institutional perspective i.e. what schools can do to help teachers develop. The ideas put forward by Shirley Norton and Karen Chambers in this talk were wide-ranging, including activities not specifically teaching-related. Kirsten’s talk, on the other hand is very much focused on what teachers can do to develop their practice, to move between levels of competence – although I think the process she puts forward could of course also be applied to development more broadly. So, two talks that are focused on helping teachers develop, but from very different perspectives. I was interested to watch Kirsten’s talk, in light of my response to the Stick or Twist talk, which, in a nutshell, was “That all sounds really cool but what about the things that teachers can do by themselves?” Kirsten’s talk gave one very useful answer to that question. I think it could be part of a bigger ‘answer’, though, perhaps. As I said at the end of the Stick or Twist talk write-up, watch this space!
  • The first thing I just had to do after watching Kirsten’s talk was try the e-grid profiler. I was going to talk about that experience here but actually I think it needs a whole other blog post! In a nutshell, it felt a bit like the equal opps form boxes at times – i.e. it triggered the whole “But I don’t know which box I fit innnn!” response! Nevertheless, looking at the Eaquals Framework document itself, one thing I really like about it is that it acknowledges both knowledge and skills. Another framework of interest to me and that I need to keep in mind as I work in an EAP context, is the BALEAP competency framework for teachers of EAP , (the logo for BALEAP is also featured on Kirsten’s slide of different teaching frameworks) which requires different knowledge and skills, more specific to the University EAP context. Of course, plenty of the content in the general frameworks is equally applicable to EAP. 
  • I did a lot of reading into experiential learning when I was doing my M.A., as I used the principles to inform the materials I made for my materials development module assessment. Applying the principles to teacher development makes perfect sense to me. Kirsten’s approach feels very directed towards teacher performance in the classroom though, i.e. focused on skill development with knowledge development being a means to that end (and if you didn’t go any further than learning about something, then you remain in phase 1). I question (and would be interested in your thoughts!), is that knowledge wasted unless it is directly applied in the classroom? As teachers, can development include learning about things that relate to our profession without there necessarily being a ‘doing in the classroom’ factor as the end goal/point? What I mean is, I would say that it can also work the other way round – i.e. you can read simply because you are interested in something, or something catches your eye, and then what you read ends up informing your practice but not because you were specifically looking to follow the process that Kirsten lays out. I’m not sure if that makes sense? Either which way, I think Kirsten’s approach is definitely a very useful tool for teachers who are looking for a concrete way to develop a specific aspect of their practice. 
  • I love that Dr Seuss quote! It sums up how I feel about CPD and it’s what makes CPD interesting, exciting, enjoyable and something I want to keep doing – and ultimately something I’d like to help other teachers do too. 
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IATEFL 2016 Online: Stick or twist: the teacher to manager dilemma

I’m still enjoying working my way through IATEFL Online 2016 – isn’t it amazing how much quality content is housed in one place?! This session was presented by Shirley Norton and Karen Chambers who both work at the London School of English. You can watch the recording here.

Here is the abstract:

According to recent research, 53% of teachers drift into management unconsciously. This session aims to question why moving to management is considered a promotion and to argue that there are other avenues for teachers to pursue. In addition, it aims to look at the considerations teachers should make in order to make more informed decisions about their future career paths.

I don’t expect you to remember, don’t worry, but this ‘progression to management’ idea is something arose in the first  Teacher Education Circle  discussion. We agreed that not everyone wants to become a manager and that as teacher educators part of ‘our’ role is to help teachers who aren’t interested in management progress nevertheless. (I say ‘our’ – I think I’m more of an aspirant teacher educator than an actual teacher educator!) I’m also one of those pesky teachers who doesn’t want to become a manager but still wants career development. So, I’m keen to catch up with this session as it sounds like it may complement the Teacher Education Circle discussions that I’ve been lucky enough to participate in and provide more food for thought.

In fact, Shirley and Karen start by asking the audience who they are – are teachers who are thinking about becoming managers, teachers who want to develop without becoming managers or are they already managers. There seemed to be a fairly even distribution amongst these roles.

47% of managers drift into management, 35% don’t have any management training at all (possibly rather alarming!) With this in mind, the audience were asked to consider how much time/effort/money their place of work puts into teacher training vs. management training. Then, they were to think about the essential qualities of a good manager and the training needs of a new manager. Shirley and Karen canvassed teachers’ opinions at their schools and the result was this:

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The training needs that Shirley and Karen feel need to be addressed, that weren’t picked out by teachers, are:

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They suggest you won’t get a good manager if you don’t invest in them, i.e. ensuring that they have the skills they need to manage a team. If you want to turn a teacher into a manager, they need management skills.

Next to consider is ways a teacher can develop without going into management. If teachers don’t have that in your institution, you are likely to lose them. You need to give them something interesting, something different to do, to keep them engaged.

Ideas:

  • Materials development: updating existing materials, developing a course (tailored to teacher interest, what course would they like to make new lessons for)
  • Teacher training: actual teacher training (i.e. TESOL); peer teaching (teacher development sessions – teachers are given time in their schedule to prepare and are paid, not just expected to do it in their own time); external stuff (let teachers go to IATEFL, do talks etc: development doesn’t have to all be done in your institute, let them out!)
  • In quieter times, allow teachers to develop skills such as marketing by doing an intern in other departments within the institution
  • Let teachers go and come back. Give them an opportunity to take a low-level risk i.e. work abroad for a year – like a “Sabbatical” – and be able to return afterwards, so basically longer term unpaid leave.
  • If you are part of a franchise, use it – share skills via webinars etc.
  • Take teachers off the schedule, not on cover, not on photocopying duty, they are given a work area and a plan for a project from start to finish for something that will benefit the school, which they will work on with support. A teacher who is not teaching is expensive, but Shirley and Karen feel that it is more costly not to develop teachers, so there should be a budget for it.
  • If you are looking to improve something e.g. social programme, generally you would ask the students and teachers, but with this you get people from all different parts of the school and give them the autonomy to make changes.
  • Academic management roles

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The idea is to give teachers opportunities to develop in different areas and develop new skills.

Anyway, I recommend that you watch the recording to find out more about what Shirley and Karen have done in their school – it sounds really good!

Here are some thoughts of mine after having watched the talk:

  • I think the key thing that institutions can give to teachers in order for development to happen is time. I think anybody would agree that when you already have 10 places to put every minute, it’s difficult to develop, not least because you are too tired to! This is one aspect of my current job that I feel very fortunate in – there are key times that are very busy (e.g. the weeks where you have 25 x 2000 word essays to look at and give feedback on) but generally there is time and opportunity built in for development, and funding available too, e.g. for speaking at conferences.
  • I like the diagram. I think, by and large, though, that the ideas are all quite top-down, in that they rely on being enabled by the powers-that-be at the institution in question. I suppose, thinking back to the point made about the likelihood of losing teachers if you don’t provide development opportunities, it also depends on how fussed the institution in question is about holding on to teachers: do they want to keep as many of their teachers as possible for as long as possible or is a high turnover not really an issue for them?
  • For some reason, the “Career Progression Wheel” diagram really makes me want to make something similar for bottom-up development options. It could be a fun project! <watch this space!>
  • One thing’s for sure, looking at the ‘Training needs of a new manager’ list just reconfirms that management does not even remotely appeal to me! Just as well I don’t feel short of other ways to develop… 🙂