Kristianstill

About 10 months ago I stumbled upon the National College for School Leadership (NCLS) online. Prior to this chance discovery, I knew nothing about this organisation. Now, I enjoy reading their quarterly LDR magazine, I often dip into their resource bank and I successfully completed my first online course.  Only when I was invited to present at an ALT conference at the NCSL Learning and Conference Centre in Nottingham, did I fully appreciate the size and scope of the organisation. I strongly recommend you take advantage of this great (FREE) resource.

This brings me to yet another fantastically thought provoking LDR post, ‘The Butterful Collector.’ Simply put The Butterfly Effect is ‘the effect of a very small change in the initial conditions of a system which makes a significant difference to the outcome.’ I will not spoil the article for you, but what small changes have you or your team made, that have in turn, made a significant difference to the outcome?

In first place, I believe that introducing the ICT Level 1 course will mean we have more students studying at an appropriate level, hence reduced class disturbance, an opportunity for ALL students to achieve and improved attainment of the most able students.

Second, recruiting sufficient ICT staff to teach the courses, although I believe we should be aiming for 4 staff next year.

Finally, although this is not a small change, the College investment in appropriate ICT technology and a ICT budget strategy will ultimately have a long term positive impact. Already the degree of vandalism has reduced, as the students have been able to work with less disruption. Now we must protect this high quality learning environment. We must keep the ICT Department in shape, minimise wasted finance and show we present a good investment.

‘Education changes very slowly, technology changes very quickly but children only get to be children once.’ (Doug Brown, Learning Technologies Unit)

‘Teaching students to do what?’

That was the phrase from a recent ‘Moving at the Speed of Creativity’ podcast (courtesy of Steve Wycoff) that really struck a cord. I don’t have long to write this post, so I will be concise, never a bad thing. Dr Wycoff’s point is that we should be focus on why we teaching our students, more so that what we are teaching. He positions a number of rather frank statements that raise concerns over the extent of unused learning, the fallibility of testing and finally the real responsibility of teachers. To that point I have borrowed a second key point raised

A teacher’s job is not to teach kids. A teacher’s job is to create meaningful, engaging work whereby kids learn the things we want them to learn. (Phil Schlecty)

Do we as teachers provide opportunities that give students time to grapple with difficult lessons, to really learn something? Or do we merely deliver a checklist of learning skills? It is the difference in knowing something and doing something that emphasised. Have you listened to Steve? Did I miss the point? In reflection, its what I do with this learning that counts….