Following the session on Learning Rounds at the April STEC conference I was invited to a meeting of the Learning Development Group at James Watt College to discuss the potentail of the approach within the FE setting. As with a previous opportunity at Anniesland College there was as much learning for me as there was for the colleagues who were considering the approach., which seems to chime very well with the principles of engagement already agreed by the group.
The discussion was very informative and opened up new avenues re particpation with the recognition that adult students had as much of a right to particpate as did school age pupils .
Given that the college has 850 staff it underlines the need to view Learning Rounds as an ongoing collegiate activity rather than a one off event for a few interested colleagues.
The CPD team look s forward with interest to hear of on going developments !
I attended the launch of the Dyslexia Toolkit at Moray House on the 1 June. Michael Russell officially launched the Toolkit and Sir Jackie Stewart spoke to the benefits which he anticipated it would give to teachers in their understanding of dyslexia .
The CPD Network had a prior sighting of the toolkit at the successful “On Our Doorstep” event in March which highlighted sources of CPD for teachers from a range of partner and associated agencies.
The toolkit provides a very comprehensive overview not only of features of dyslexia but of stages in language development which will be of interest and use to all teachers. It also makes vey helpful links to the stages and phases articulated in Curriculum for Excellence.
As with the best of on-line resources it is flexible and can be used on an individual or collegiate basis. It is also differentiated to respond to the needs of colleagues in terms of their particular stage of professional knowledge and development.
A wee while back at a South Lanarkshire CPD event hosted by Andrea Reid, I was lucky enough to see Caroline Gibson in action. Caroline spent many weeks over the summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009 in Malawi helping teachers and students, all on her own time and partly funded by her too.
I was delighted then when she agreed to be captured for a CPDShort. Here she talks to Anne McGhee (an associate of the National CPD Team) about her three educational visits to Malawi and her CPD plans for the future.
Caroline has also kindly agreed to answer questions on the Glow page for this CPDShort
You can find out more about Caroline on her blog and follow her on Twitter @carolinegibson
Curriculum for Excellence places great emphasis and value on partnership working – the CPD Network reflects that in practice. The seminar on the 17 March will profile the contribution from a range of partners who may not have always been recognised as having an impact on the professional development of teachers and support staff, or whose traditional role may have been focussed on colleagues with particular remits : eg pastoral care, additional support needs, behaviour support.
Colleagues from the school library service, social work services, psychological services, the independent and voluntary sector, health and SQA will outline resources and experiences which are relevant to the professional development of all staff in 7 minute presentations which will set the scene for “Open Space” follow up activity of discussion and sharing.
We realise that our sample range is not exhaustive and hope that pre, during and post the seminar colleagues will be able to share similar or different examples from their own authorities. If you have partnership working on your doorstep please share it with us on the CPD blog.
The focus of all of the team’s work is on building professional development capacity for CfE at individual, school and authority level. all of our work is designed to improve pupil learning by building this capacity.
Currently we promote and support the delivery of Curriculum of Excellence by:
- Leading the CPD Managers Network, arranging meetings, leading the Planning Group, sharing, discussing, developing practice, researching, etc
- Developing, piloting, evaluating and launching innovative practice in CPD and leadership
- Building capacity within schools and authorities for collegiate leadership
- Creating and sustaining links with and among CPD stakeholders and multi-agency partners
- Advising and guiding educators on issues relating to CPD
- Responding to emerging issues in a range of ways including research, piloting, organising focus groups, collecting interesting practice
- Identifying and leading high-value CPD and leadership activities
Planned areas for further development in 2010 / 2011:
CPDFind now features an endorsement feature. The National CPD Team has always maintained that the best people to endorse CPD opportunities are you the educators in Scotland. You can now identify which CPD has influenced your practice the most and give it your own personal, gold star!
How does it work?
Visit the descriptor on CPDFind. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see
Enter your Glow username and password and fill in the short form
A gold star (representing your endorsement) will appear on the bottom of the endorsement.
Later visitors to this opportunity will be able to select your gold star and read your endorsement. Each gold star represents one endorsement
Please note this is not anonymous rating like some other web sites. CPD can only be endorsed by named educators on Glow. This way you can be sure of its veracity and even start to identify colleagues who have the same interests as you.
I am grateful to Graham, Ralph and Gayle of LTScotland who made this feature a possibility. Like all our offerings we would very much welcome your comments.
Currently guidance on evaluating the impact of CPD is being written by the National CPD Team. The paper will refer to existing sources of information and provide useful prompts for staff and CPD leaders on measuring impact. Exemplars of good practice are now being collated to support the recommendations being made.
Jim and Scottish Government colleagues are talking to a number of authorities about the roll-out of the FR pilot. For those of you who are interested you might like to look at the evaluation of the pilot that was conducted jointly by the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge.
If you’d like to know more then feel free to contact Jim or any other member of the team.
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