Skip to main content

📝 Weekly Report #1

This is the start of a new weekly blog post I am putting together, reflecting on my own teaching and highlighting some of the great podcasts, books and blog posts I have learnt from during the week.

👨‍🏫 Teaching:

This is where I will reflect on the successes and challenges that I have had during the previous week. I will also look forward to the following week and identify a key focus for the week. Hopefully this will help other teachers in a similar scenario and give some guidance as to how I aim to continue to support student learning.

As I write this I am putting together a few resources ready for starting back up on Monday. We have 2 INSET days this year and then Wednesday with just the new year 7s, then back into teaching fully from Thursday. I'm hoping we can get back to normality and have a disruption free year from COVID. This year I also officially begin my new role as second in charge of Maths so I am sure to be reflecting on my challenges and successes I have this year. 

🔊 Listen:

Over the lockdowns I’ve listened to a wide range of podcasts both teaching and non teaching based that have really resonated with me so I am looking forward to distilling the learning that I have gained from them.

An episode I want to recommend for this week is from the Modern Wisdom podcast where Chris speaks to Cal Newport on how to master email overload. I know as teachers we can get sent a lot of rubbish so this may be useful to getting started on the right foot this year. Check it out here.

📚 Read:

This section is going to briefly reflect on the current book or blog post I am reading and any key learning I take from it. I do read some teaching books, however the majority of what I read isn’t from a teaching background and I enjoy trying to apply principles from other industries to the world of teaching.

This week I have been finishing up Sun Tzu's, Art of War. Obviously we aren't going to war with students however it does say "excellence lies in defeating the enemy without ever fighting". It makes me think about what I can do to avoid students misbehaving before they even get the chance, being proactive rather than reactive. For example having all my desks in rows and facing the front reduces the chance students have for turning and talking in class. It's a short read but very interesting, especially considering it was written a long time ago but the lessons are timeless. Get your copy here.

📺 Watch:

Every Tuesday at 5pm I am uploading a video to Youtube on my own teaching practice and what I am continuing to learn from others. Hopefully this positively impacts teaching on a wider scale and is easily digestible. Take a look at this week's video 5 Behaviour Management Tips for the Classroom

This is a new challenge for me using YouTube and blogging weekly so any tips or feedback would be appreciated. Looking to learn and grow every week. 

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

📝 Weekly Report #21

The trainee teacher in our department has started to teach my Year 10 group this week. It has taken me back to when I was training and the struggles that I had and the feedback my mentor would give me. One thing I didn't consider back then was how the class teacher feels who I was taking over from.  I know that as a trainee I was no where near being an amazing teacher but over time I have continually improved. So it has been a struggle for me to allow the trainee to teach my class thinking that there would be aspects that I know I could deliver much better. On the flip side of this it has been great to learn from him by watching him teach and being able to give small steps to improve for next time. The initial focus has been on general pedagogy, e.g. use of questioning, planning for misconceptions etc. It's made me reflect on my own teaching ensuring I don't just talk it, I walk the walk too! I've also enjoyed seeing the improvements he has been able to make lesson on l...
Read more

Equivalent Fractions with Ratio Tables

The following is a slide taken from NCETM Checkpoints. I was happy with the fraction pair on the right but the left stumped me! Then I had that 'aha' moment!  What I used to do I never used to teach equivalent fractions like the one on the left to my classes. I would just use arrows to multiply both numerator and denominator to find an equivalent fraction, very similar to the fractions on the right.  The issue with this though is, like me, students don't necessarily see all of the multiplicative relationships between the fractions as well as within the fraction. They are missing that key knowledge to support them answering the first pair of fractions.   What I do now Ratio tables allow students to see those multiplicative links. By doing this it makes questions like the checkpoints task much easier for students to do.  Disclaimer: this isn't the only way I teach equivalent fractions. I also show students how prime factors can also help us. There will be a future...
Read more

Ratio Tables: Why you need to use them?

Only 36% of students were able to answer the question on the right. Whereas 75% of students were able to correctly answer the problem on the left. (7) Why? What's the big difference?  Students are more likely to relate values between objects (left question) than within an object (right question). (7) A similar issue comes up in the questions below. 91% getting the bottom question correct, relating 11 people to 33 people. Whereas only 51% answered the top question correctly.  Students often struggle to see all of the multiplicative links between and within values. One of the misconceptions my own students had with the right 'L' question was that the answer was 45. They had added 13cm because 8 + 13 = 21 on the base of the 'L'. "Young children tend to see multiplication additively" Dietmar Kuchemann   DfE suggests teaching multiplication as repeated addition, with arrays, in Yr2. Yr3 scaling is introduced but after that isn't mentioned again. It is as...
Read more