Tag: university

Teacher Education Should Not Be Compromised

28 Days of Writing, LearningPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on Teacher Education Should Not Be Compromised

Western Decay

I can’t help but feel worried about teacher education. You know, university courses for learning our craft. Today I ran into some unfortunate stories of the experiences our aspiring teachers might come across. Who knows whether this is a universal, worldwide issue but I have long held concerns. They have niggled away in the back of my mind. After all this is such an important formative experience for people entering our profession.

  • How can you not have lesson intentions or success criteria for sessions about how we teach?
  • How can you not have technology rich experiences for our aspiring teachers?
  • How is “technology and me don’t mix” still a sentence people say?
  • How can you be so muddled about the student course and curriculum, you have no time to talk about learning?
  • How is a young teacher meant to learn when nothing of the contemporary classroom is modelled?
  • How come we are not thinking deeply about the student teacher experience?

So many questions and so much that needs to change. I know this may be in the minority here in Australia. Well I hope it is.

We are on the cusp of a project with an education team from a university here in Melbourne. I am excited about what we might create together in re-designing teacher education. It is one of a few pieces of our eco-system that is, well, broken. If over the next 5-10 years we can raise the quality of the aspiring teacher experience, it figures that everything might flow in a positive direction from there.

Pic Western Decay by sleepinyourhat

A TeachMeet Hub at the Learning Science Research Institute, University of Nottingham

TeachmeetPublished on5 Comments on A TeachMeet Hub at the Learning Science Research Institute, University of Nottingham

I am delighted to say that after a meeting with Charles Crook, the Director of the Learning Science Research Institute (LSRI) from October 2011, there is the open invitation to use their facilities for community events.

The LSRI at the university of Nottingham has meeting rooms laden with monitoring equipment to capture, stream and archive events.

The National College for School Leadership has supported TeachMeet events for a number of years and I am pleased that the university might make such a generous offer to continue to help the community. The main space at the LSRI can hold between 20-30 people however there is the potential for other university spaces to be made available too.

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Diagonals by blinkingidiot
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I am seeking some reaction from you all about a few different elements, so please take a look and let me know what you think.

TeachMeet Hub

  • The space offered by the LSRI could be used by the TeachMeet community, in fact that is what instigated the meeting, on a semi permanent basis to host events.
  • It would be good to develop regular events in the space provided, once a month say.
  • The frequency of events would mean we could be more open to specific topics being covered or explored in more depth.
  • Whole schools could use the event space to conduct there own TeachMeet style event.
  • A range of colleagues from the university and LSRI could contribute relevant research to specific groups.
  • Local links made with the university.
  • Small TeachMeets up to 30 people.
  • Captured, broadcast and archived using the professional facilities available.
  • No cost to use the space.

Purpos/ed Assess

  • On the back of the current Purpos/ed campaign about assessment I am keen to hold a small event in the space offered by LSRI.
  • The informal meeting would extend the debate and discussion that has continued around the agenda of assessment in schools.
  • We would explore the challenges we face, practical solutions and what we perceive to be future directions.
  • Again it would be up to about 30 people.
  • Early September.
Please let me know your thoughts on the potential of these ideas, your own suggestions for making the most of this generous invitation, whether you could attend a Purpos/ed event or how you might like to be involved in moving this forward.

 

Was I Really An “A” Grade Psychology Student?

AssessmentPublished onUpdated on9 Comments on Was I Really An “A” Grade Psychology Student?

I distinctly remember the white envelopes. It all boiled down to what was inside mine, 2 years of work and now an envelope. The closer you are to the beginning of the alphabet the better!

My Psychology A-Level was probably the reason I fully committed to going into education and teacher training. The course included a whole block on child psychology and I was gripped. It led me to better appreciate what I wanted to do. I remember going into a local primary school and seeing myself making a career out of working with learning.

But was I really an “A” grade student?

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by da.mas
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You might say that I flunked my psychology course work modules throughout my second year, they contributed in part to my final result but I struggled and was getting C’s and D’s. It wasn’t going well. I enjoyed the subject but found it hard to pull together the course work.

I went into the final exam leave feeling quite deflated but I had the chance to put it right – I had an intense 3-4 weeks of revision, which went really well. I almost enjoyed the exams because I just felt ready.

I wrote what they wanted to hear.

So when I opened the white envelope on that sun scorched lawn weeks later I had managed to pull it together and score one of the highest marks the Psychology department had seen on a final exam. Well done Tom you got an A.

At the time this was incredibly exciting – the whole campus was on a grade knife edge – nothing but talk for months and months of grades to get into universities. What did you get? How did you get on? Did you get what you wanted?

We were all wading knee deep in grades and exam results.

2 years of our education boiled down to that hot day with the envelopes and as those seals were torn we were in fact seeing a path being laid out before us. For some of us more education and those grades were the key.

On reflection I see the whole thing for what it really was including my own part in the merry-go-round of college and university. 

Although I got an “A” grade for my course I think, at best, I was just good at taking the exam. I was an “A” grade psychology exam taker (on that day)! Could I do it again? Probably not without the intense cramming revision. Einstein referred to it all as coercion of the mind:

One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not.

The most valuable thing that came from my experiences at college was not the grades but realising that primary teaching was something I wanted to pursue. However at the time the cultural swirl around results was the environment I was in and grades seemed the key to everything in my future. How very wrong I was.