CPD Team

February 2010 and I am reflecting on another TeachMeet, this one at Perth and organised by Neil Winton of Perth Academy. TeachMeets are educator-led, informal CPD events. The organisation of a TeachMeet works like this:

• someone starts a page on the TeachMeet web site with a location and date.
• people sign up on the wiki page as 7-minute presenters, 2-minute presenters or ‘lurkers’ (not presenting but taking part in learning conversations)
• people can also sign up to take part virtually using webcam technology

There is no charge for a TeachMeet and organisers usually seek limited sponsorship to cover venue, refreshment and Internet costs. The National CPD Team has sponsored several of these events and hopes to do more in the future.

On the night, it works like this:

• the organiser comperes the event
• someone ‘curates’ the webmeet to make sure the online colleagues are included. David Noble of Hillside School does a grand job with this task at the ones I have attended
• presenters’ names are drawn at random and jump up to share practice when their name is drawn
• the 7 minute or 2 minute time limits are strictly enforced by launching of stuffed toy missiles!

Why do I like the Teachmeet format?

• It’s democratic. Anyone can go and present. If your name is not called, you don’t get up! Margaret Alcorn (National CPD coordinator) attended one in East Lothian recently and was the only one not to be called! No preference was expected or given
• It’s edgy. You don’t know when or if you are going to be called. If the organisers throw in some random activities you might just find yourself building a leader in Lego or up at the front singing the CfE Blues (as happened at LeadMeet 09)
• It leaves a legacy. Most of them are recorded and can be revisited (TMPerth10 is here). You make contacts and see practice that you are unlikely to come across in conventional channels
• It’s empowering. Many who apprehensively attend for the first time, put their name on the hat for the second time
• It’s fun. Even though they typically take place from 6 to 9 in the evening, I have yet to doze off during a TeachMeet!

Elements of the TeachMeet format (particularly the idea of randomly selected, short presentations) can be embedded in more conventional CPD events. I recently attended an event for CPD leaders in the Central Authorities Forum. ‘Volunteers’ were randomly selected to share for 2 minutes and no more or they faced the CPD Team stuffed Galloway Coo!

You can find out more about the history of TeachMeet on Margaret Vass’ blog. If you fancy starting one in your area, just give me a shout. I’ll be happy to help if I can as will many others in the educational community in Scotland and beyond.

In October 2009, the CPD Network set out some of its priorities for CPD for CfE. One interesting priority discussed was the needs of colleagues.This Scottish Government funded programme will be of value in addressing this priority.

The StaffWise Toolkit is an organisational resource for improving staff wellbeing in Scottish schools and early education centres.

It provides local authorities, managers and individual staff with a simple and effective set of tools for achieving excellence in wellbeing at work.

This practical resource includes audits, guides and policy information, which promote good management practice and effective ways of working. The content and format can help employers and managers fulfil the requirements of the Health and Safety Executive Stress Management Standards with confidence and ease.

StaffWise offers a positive framework for creating the conditions in which wellbeing will thrive.

Please note there is no sound on this video for the first minute and a half!

At the December meeting of the ADES-led CfE Implementation Partnership in Edinburgh, John Connell of Cisco International gave a very thought-provoking presentation. I took the opportunity to record it using my laptop and Glowmeet and John kindly allowed us to publish this here and in the CPD Network Glow group.

It was a spur of the moment decision to record and I missed the start getting set up hence the silence at the start. The sound is also a bit dodgy, but for all that, it’s worth a watch.

You can find out more about John on his blog and follow him on Twitter @jconnell

… join the CPDShort on this topic … 

This is a guest post from Catriona Oates of Scottish Cilt

Tuesday 3^rd November

Big excitement! Last night I participated in my first flashmeeting – an online meeting, organized by teachers who wanted to share their experiences of teaching Modern Languages; in particular this time, their experiences at the London Languages Show. The time and the agenda were set by the participants in advance, agreed, it seemed at their previous online get together.  So – what exactly is a flashmeeting?  Essentially, it is a video conference, which starts out as a blank sheet of paper. Contributions, ideas and agenda items are added by the people who want to be there, to hear what their colleagues have to say and to share something themselves. A maximum of 25 people can participate and a waiting list is organized in case of cancellation.  That’s how highly valued these places are:  and remember, it took place between 8.30pm -10.30pm on what seemed to be the first day back after mid- term, AND they’d all spent the weekend at the London Languages Show. Who says teachers aren’t committed!  Within the lucky 25, we were joined by colleague Steve Collis from Sydney Australia and Doug McAllister from Missouri, USA.

There was huge enthusiasm for the Languages Show at which many of the participants had presented, in particular for the sessions Chris Harte and Lisa Stevens presented. The Show and Tell session organized by Joe Dale was also a highlight for many.  Several  of the participants commented on how this Languages Show had been the best one so far, on account of the social networking ( mostly via Twitter) that was going on – an interesting comment as exactly the same was said about Scottish Learning Festival this year and I found this to be the case myself.

The agenda was as follows:

1. What were your impressions of The Language Show and or The London Show and Tell event?
2. What do YOU want to get out of the **MFL Show and Tell 09** in Coventry in 2 weeks time?
3. How do you use your VLE and what sort of resources do you have on it?
4. How are you implemeting the new KS3 curriculum and what effect is it having on engagement and KS4 uptake?
5. Do you have a local SLN and how has it helped with the introduction of the New Framework?
6. What practical advice would you give to a languages teacher needing to record their GCSE speaking tests for the first time as mp3 files not on cassette?
7. What’s all this I hear about Storybird?

The meeting functioned much along the lines of a Glowmeet, with the bonus of being open to anyone. There were chat functions, voting functions and a good web sharing function that I didn’t get the hang of. There was lots of really good chat going on and when I asked people what they thought would be a good focus for a possible Scottish Languages Show, Creativity; Thinking Skills, Active Learning and Cross-Curricular approaches were some of the suggestions that came back. Sounds like a good start (We’re working on it – no promises!).

 The Languages Show is obviously a very big part of these teachers’ professional development, as are the follow through activities they plan around it, like last night.  Some very interesting comments were made around the subject of CPD. Several teachers said that they had learned more about teaching in the couple of years since joining twitter than they had in ten of twelve years teaching, on account of the professional exchange and sharing that goes on there. I could say the same but for me the proportions would be a couple of months to seventeen years!

No CPD certificates were issued as a result of attendance last night, and there was a queue to get in. When you consider the number of courses that get cancelled due to poor numbers, for whatever reason, this raises interesting questions.  With budgets, curriculum and many other things changing all around us, we need to be ready for changes in our approaches to CPD. This is teacher –driven and teacher owned CPD. There is a place for national CPD providers within this context, but not quite sure of what it might be at the moment. One thing is for sure: we don’t want to find ourselves on the margins looking in and admiring what is going on!

Don’t just take my work for it, here are some other blogposts written just after the event:

http://simonjhowells.blogspot.com/

http://dmac1.edublogs.org/2009/11/02/my-first-mfl-flashmeeting/

http://domsmflpage.blogspot.com/

We asked hundreds of teachers how they selected their CPD – and here’s the top ten answers.

1. From my professional review and development
2. After self evaluation and reflection
3. Using local authority catalogue
4. From local authority
5. From my manager
6. From colleagues in my department/stage/team
7. From online resources
8. Match against CfE experiences and outcomes
9. From school CPD Leader
10. Match against CfE principles and practice

We’d love to hear your views on CPD – complete the CPD Survey here.

You never know, you might be the lucky winner of a £50 book token.

Thank you to colleagues from Scottish Government, the latest to suffer!

Here is the short version of the updated links.

The Prezi , CPDReflect, CPDFind,  Journey to Excellence from HMIE, LeadMeet, Learning Rounds, Twitter

And yet more if you are still awake!

Influences

Collegiality and impact – Richard Elmore’s work is highlighted here

Types of CPD – See a previous blog post on this topic

To find out more about the 4-stage model of CPD, read Margaret Alcorn’s paper on Teachers for Excellence 

Seen it, done it

Unconference links - TeachMeet home page, LeadMeet, GregMeet

CPD Team / LTScotland CPD tools and sites

For general CPD information – try CPDScotland

For specific CPD opportunities, try CPDFind

Find out more about CPDReflect here or try it yourself here

To get regular CPD updates subscribe to the CPD team email bulletin

Journey to Excellence from HMIE

Social networking

Read and comment on Ollie Bray’s blog

Some CPD from CPDFind on Social Networking

Follow Margaret Alcorn @cpdc or Con Morris http://twitter.com/cpdscotsman or even CPDFind http://twitter.com/cpdfound)!

Glow CPD links

Find out about Glow in your part of Scotland

Some CPD from CPDFind on Glow

CPDCentral, CPDLead, Staffroom, CPD Challenges, CPDShort from Aberdeenshire

Some more fun stuff for CPD sessions

Random name picker (aka the ‘CPD Puggy’) from @russeltarr

Random Activity Generator from @johndavitt

This is a guest post from Rhona Mackenzie of West Dunbartonshire Council

West Dunbartonshire has had an involvement in the Microsoft Innovative Teacher initiative since 2006.

Initially this project was concerned with fostering a community of practice which involved all our Glow mentors but a year ago the focus was moved, by Microsoft, to peer coaching. This involved a week long facilitators’ course near London which I attended in November 2008. As the week progressed, it became obvious that this was a methodology which would fit well with the Glow rollout in our authority.

The rollout of Glow within West Dunbarton had stalled for over a year due to technical problems with our firewalls. While we had made a gentle start in our rollout in the summer term of 2009, we were looking for a way to jump start the process at the start of the new academic session. The peer coaching strategy seemed to fit the bill and we sent out an invitation to all our education staff to take part. It was decided that the only viable way of running the course was to offer two days during term time with paid cover: one in the summer term of 2008/9 and one in the autumn term of 2009/10. The rest of the course would take place over four days during the summer holidays. Two identical four day courses were held, one during the second week of the holidays and the other during the second last week of the holidays. All the staff met for the initial day at the end of June and will come together again in the autumn term. The first course in July had 12 staff attending whilst the August course had 8. Both courses had a mix of Glow mentors and enthusiastic practitioners.

Because the main part of the course took place during the summer holidays, there was a very relaxed atmosphere. No one was worried about what was happening in their classroom while they were attending the course and the fact that everyone felt they were in their “own time” added to the lack of pressure. Each day started with an icebreaker activity which helped set the stress-free atmosphere for the rest of the day.

All staff were asked to bring an idea for a lesson which they could use in the new school session. The plan for this lesson became the basis for the peer coaching protocols and also for the creation of a Glow group designed to enhance the lesson. The pattern for each day consisted of an icebreaker activity, a Glow activity, such as resizing images for Glow, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Glow Learn (taster session only) and a number of peer coaching protocols and other strategies. As well as the new experiences and outcomes from the Curriculum for Excellence we also looked at other initiatives such as “Beyond Engagement” from Becta and spent some time in discussion over these. This gave staff a chance to explore Glow and current pedagogical thinking in a meaningful way, to interact with and learn from each other and to investigate practices which impact on using Glow effectively. We also had a session looking at freeware such as Xmind and AutoCollage among others.

Towards the end of the course, all participants were asked to create a coaching plan showing how they planned to take the peer coaching approach to Glow forward in their own establishments. It became obvious very quickly that the SMT in the school would have to buy into this method of introducing Glow.

The feedback at the end of the two four day courses was that everyone was leaving with a clear understanding of how Glow could enhance the learning and teaching in their class, a greater knowledge of other establishments and sectors within the authority as well as some new found friends.

We now have a dynamic peer coaching Glow group at authority level which will be our main method of communication and collaboration. We do, however, have two dates in our diaries for face to face meeting. The first will be a twilight in September just to get together and discuss how everyone is using Glow within their own practice. We will also be examining roadblocks and reminding ourselves of strategies to overcome them. The second day will be towards the end of November when we will have a full day examining the impact that the peer coaching is having on each establishment.

The evaluations from each of the two four day courses show that the course was greatly enjoyed by all who attended it. The proof of the success of the course, however, will be the uptake of Glow in the peer coaches’ establishments. Microsoft is having the peer coaching programme independently evaluated and West Dunbarton is one of only three local authorities that are taking part in this evaluation.

I would like to see a CPD College, a Scottish College of  Educators if you will!

This starter paper is to help promote discussion on improving the professional learning of Scottish educators.

Please note:

• the College would be a CPD umbrella organisation that makes collegiate links between the activities of its member organisations. It does not seek to assume this work for itself
• in line with the thinking of many CPD leaders, this paper assumes that educational leadership is an integral part of CPD. By definition, a college for educators will include all aspects of educational leadership
• this paper is for discussion purposes only, see please leave a comment or contact me on cpdanswers@ltscotland.org.uk 

There is a brief presentation on the subject here.

Update 1st August. John Connell wrote a post in his blog on the same subject. Please feel free to comment on either blog!

Con Morris, National CPD Team

LTScotland are very pleased to launch LTS on iTunes U today, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free educational content.

The LTS site has been developed using Apple’s iTunes technology and is for teachers, early years practitioners and other users to easily access digital video resources to support their professional development.

Today’s launch represents the first time that a 3-18 education provider from outside North America has appeared on iTunes U.

This is the start of an ongoing project and the sections on the LTS  iTunes U site will populate as they develop more video and audio content to help educators get to grips with the new curriculum.

A new resource to help schools meet the needs of children with autism has been launched.

The Autism Toolbox, which has been sent to every school and education authority in Scotland, draws on practical examples, literature and research to give guidance to councils and support to schools. It is funded by the Scottish Government and developed by the National Centre for Autism Studies at the University of Strathclyde.
Adam Ingram, Minister for Children and Early Years, said that young people with autism deserve the opportunity to gain the most they can from a supportive education system.
The Autism Toolbox is available on the Scottish Government website and hard copies can be ordered through Blackwell’s Bookshop.

Oh, and you will find it on CPDFind!