The year started with the introduction of Ipads into PE (The Ipad Adventure Starts Here) which was very exciting and daunting for some in the department. Slowly and surely, staff became to embrace the Ipads and begin to use them effectively to support their teaching and have an impact on students learning. To help me with this and my develop my interest in Teaching & Learning, I signed up to Twitter and haven't looked back. What an excellent way to enhance my teaching and also my leadership as a middle leader/aspiring leader.
The main impact on students learning was developing their ability to give effective feedback to improve their own and others performances. By just using the Ipad camera and Coaches Eye, students were able to analyse in greater detail performances and identify strengths and areas to improve.
Nothing new I here you say, as many departments have access to flip cameras, but to our students who are growing up as digital leaders, this gave them the extra inspiration and motivation to progress their learning in PE. To enhance our use of the Ipads in PE, staff began to use Edmodo (Ipad adventure up-date) and post clips for students to comment on.
As we continued to use the Ipads, it was evident that students ability to give effective feedback was poor and didn't help others to improve (Feedback to Feed-forward Adventure). It was very erratic and useless as students just gave simply comments like 'that's good; well done, I liked what you did etc'.
After reading a number of blogs including @davidfawcett27 and @Taitcoles, I began to use Ron Berger's model of Public Critique 'BE KIND, BE SPECIFIC, BE HELPFUL.' This had a massive impact on my teaching and students ability to feedback effectively. During the course of the year, I have used this model with all my KS3 teaching groups and my year 10 GCSE PE group. The year 10 have shown improvements, some more than others but its had a positive impact especially with the 6 mark extended questions.
The key ingredient to making this work is TIME. By building feedback time into my lessons, students have been able to comment on performances without being rushed be me. The pace hasn't changed, but the structure and quality of questioning has been modified. Impact, deeper learning and better quality comments to others work. Critiquing the feedback has also proved effective as students are now giving feedback on the feedback!
Staff feedback has been very positive about using the Ipads in PE. Results from a end of year department review show that:
75% thought the Ipads were 'somewhat effective' in supporting their teaching.
50% thought the Ipads were 'very effective' and 'somewhat effective' in enhancing students learning.
100% said they would like to continue using Ipads for T&L.
Below are some comments about what staff particularly liked about using the Ipads
Staff 1: Use of video analysis; Video lessons to post to Edmodo; Allows pupils to see cogs levels using Google Drive and keep up to date with their progress; Registers whilst off site save time.
Staff 2: I enjoyed the ease of Ipads - very mobile, easy for pupils to use and pass round (camera and video).
Staff 3: Immediate, visual feedback for students; Engagement of students and non participants; Interesting and engaging apps; I would like to use more, just need time to research and try different things out.
Staff 4: instant feedback on performance.
From September, I will be working with two other members of staff from Dance and Humanities as part of my secondment to SLT. The focus of the project is to explore and develop students ability to feedback in order for them to make progress in their learning. I used the Prezi below to present my project to SLT and the feedback was positive (and they the Alan Partridge clip as well)!
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Over the last two years I have been eight SSAT Aspiring Leaders Courses led by Stephen Tierney @LeadingLearner which has been brilliant, especially as Stephen is a great leader. He has inspired me to develop not just my leadership skills, but also develop a greater understanding of how T&L impacts on everyone. Simple, but effective methods that are not rocket science, however make you think outside the box and be creative. Leadership at any level is very powerful, especially in teaching because it can either have a desire effect or an detrimental one. My confidence has differently increased from doing this course. Not just from Stephen's simple approach to leadership, also from other speakers such as Professor David Hargreaves and meeting others middle leaders who have a desire and/or passion to become an aspiring leader and talking to them about their thoughts on how 'we' can make a difference in teaching and embracing change for the better.
I am fortunate to work with some excellent PE teachers in my department and I know they are excellent, not just from my observations, but also how they work. They all have a passion for teaching, they are creative and work extremely hard to develop their teaching in-order for the students to become better learners. This year, Andrew Baynton @theandyb10, KS3 Coordinator for PE (I blame him for getting me into Twitter) wanted to modify the KS3 curriculum and had seen/read about something called the Cogs of Learning from Create Development. At the time, one other school was using this approach at Culverhay School, led by Simon Scarborough @Leading_in_PE.
As a PE teacher first and leader second, I wanted to know more as Andy kept raving about the 'Cogs of Learning' so he arranged for Simon to come and visit us. What an insight. Simon spent the day with the department, observing a couple of lessons and then led a year 8 parkour lesson modelling how the Cogs of Learning can be used in PE. This was a great and valuable experience for us all.
Simon also wanted to know what we valued and what skills, attributes and characteristics we wanted students to achieve after life-long participation in PE and Sport. He gave us a pack of cards, about 32 in total, all linked to the Cogs of Learning (unknown to me) and asked us to choose 10 cards and place them into a pyramid with the most important at the top. Below is a picture of my Cogs pyramid (November 2012).
The next time the department did this task was when Ronnie Heath @creatorronnie joined us for the day, and again, what a fantastic day it was. Ronnie also asked us to choose 10 cards and below is my second pyramid (May 2013).
In total, there are 6 Cogs of Learning. These are: Physical (blue), Social (red), Personal (green), Health & Fitness (light blue), Cognitive (yellow) and Creative (purple).
What does this mean about my ethos and values and what I want students to develop during their time participating in PE and Sport? Predominately my pyramid is made from the Personal Cog and Cognitive Cog. Basically, I wanted students to be confident, independent, resilient, responsible, self motivated and committed students (personal) as well as being good decision makers, analysers and evaluators. I think this approach is a very good way of finding out what you and others value and are working towards in shaping students experience in any subject.
Below are some comments from staff about their thoughts about the Cogs of Learning after trialling them this year:
'Very much looking forward to teaching them from the beginning of their cogs journey. Planning on combining the cogs with the FUNS and a multi skills approach with the year 7’s; Planning on promoting a more independent approach to P.E. with the year 7s; use the current year 7's experience of the cogs to develop their ability to work independently, give feedback and challenge themselves'.
'Really looking forward to using the cogs of learning. I feel it will help to focus learning and help with transfer of learning across activities. It will be particularly beneficial with poor behaviour pupils and low ability; I also think it will help with consistency within the department for assessment'.
As you can see, this year has been a very busy one for me and the department. I have really enjoyed it and have learnt so much about myself as a leader and a teacher. The department is challenging itself and raising its game to continue to be an excellent faculty. Now its time for a break to recharge the batteries before starting the 2013-14 PE Adventure!
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