Excited to see what 2015 holds in store.

Hi everyone,

The start of the 2014-15 academic year felt like a bit of a warm up. This two week break has enabled me to plan what I think is required to do next over the upcoming weeks. If this year is anything like 2014, it will prove to be incredibly fun, interesting and rewarding. Even today, I received some incredibly positive and kind feedback from a past student via her brother’s (who I am currently teaching) learning portfolio. Positive and unexpected feedback like that really does make all the hard work worthwhile. I am looking forward to sharing it with a wider audience via the Classroom 21 FB page later on in the year.

I am really looking forward to getting back to Classroom 21 and hearing how much fun my students have had during their Christmas and New Year holidays with family and friends. I also can not wait to begin teaching again. My students and I have so much to do to prepare for the summer GCSE examinations. For my Yr 11 classes, it really is an incredibly important time of year, as if they begin preparation for their examinations now they will provide themselves with an amazing opportunity to achieve their full potential. One of my most important tasks is to try and motivate each of them to begin their independent learning and preparation now. I have found a number of very important pieces of research and the associated evidence to try and assist me to do this. A number of investigations have been carried out into the most useful techniques a person can use to maximise their chances of achieving their best. The results of various investigations all points to the fact that distributed practice over a long and sustained period of time as well as practice testing are the best techniques available to be able to recall information. I found a really cool article over the holiday on the Big Think website, which summarises this perfectly. Follow the link below to read the article by Neurobonkers entitle, Learning How to Learn,

http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/learning-how-to-learn

I have sent this information to all of my students over the holiday via The Learning Portfolio, I am hopeful they will do themselves a favour and begin their preperation as soon as possible.

During the break I was able to review everything that had occurred on the Classroom 21 page, particularly with regards to how I introduced The Learning Portfolio to a wider audience. Having thought about it, ultimately I do not think I described or explained what we have been doing well enough. Not a problem, as everything is a learning experience. I have had time to plan the next screencasts, which will hopefully enable people to understand what we have been up to and why. It will hopefully look something like this,

1.     Classroom 21’s vision and our first goal – Inspiring learning by personalising learning.

2.     How we did it – Classroom 21’s ethos, The Learning Portfolio, neuroscience and the reptilian brain.

3.     The evidence of our success – Looking forward to that!

4.     Classroom 21 & The Learning Portfolio -  The future.

I am sure after these screencasts everyone will have a much better understanding of what we have been up to and why. If you are reading this and think of anything else it would be worthwhile including, as well as any other feedback, please feel free to let me know. Thanks so much as always.

Definitely need to see a rocket launch in real life. Anyone up for a school trip?

Hi everyone,

Last week was so incredibly rewarding. I had the opportunity to continue to share the work of my students via the Classroom 21 FB page. This week it was the wonderful work of four students from 7E. They were kind enough to write a ‘thank you’ to a fellow teacher who had re-tweeted a tweet. Twitter is proving a difficult tool to master. All the teachers I have seen with a large number of followers are basically tweeting constantly. I’m not sure how they are able to do it to be honest. With the amount of planning, marking and general work I have to do, it’s difficult to find the time to think about tweets, let alone type and tweet them. They are also tweeting/blogging about general teaching practice that could help assist peers/colleagues and not what they themselves are doing in their schools and classrooms.

Will have to see how this goes, as I had always planned to tweet about what my students and I have been up to in our classroom. Two of my students were kind enough to offer help to ‘make my feed more interesting’, which made me laugh (as it’s true!) and is very much appreciated. I was hoping I would receive such help, as I am positive they are far more knowledgeable than I am on all things social media related. To be honest I am far more interested spending my time creating new learning experiences for my students as well as evidencing the outstanding work that my students are doing on a daily basis. Thanks to the digital learning platform my students and I have developed I can do that until my hearts content.

In the last 30 minutes I have sent out a personalised link to all of my students so they are able to navigate to the NASA website and watch the live rocket launch this evening. I am of the opinion that education never stops and if there is the opportunity for my students to learn then I am going to do all that I can to help and assist them to do that. As I am always attempting to learn something new every day myself, it seems obvious to me to send any new, interesting information that I learn, in a more simplified way, to my students at the same point. This is one of the reasons I designed The Learning Portfolio. Due to my interest in science and my role as a teacher of science, 90% of the information I send to my students is of a science nature. The other 10% usually inspirational, creative, imaginative information to attempt to inspire them to learn in general. I am always aware that a single piece of information, delivered at the right time could ignite a spark that could lead them on to study science themselves in the future. I have found learning about science such a rewarding experience in my life. I have no doubt that it would be the same for anyone who studied it to degree level and beyond, therefore I am always attempting to ignite that interest so they do just that. 

Next week I will be able to talk more about The Learning Portfolio, as Sean and Jaida have been kind enough to introduce it to everyone for us. Thank you so much to both of you for your kind words, we will have to see what happens with it. I am excited by the possibilities it could have to help our vision become a reality but always know there is a huge amount of work to be done as yet. As the saying goes, nothing worth having comes easy. 

D.

Can someone tell me where time is going please?

Hi everyone,

Wow, another week has disappeared off the calendar. I cannot actually believe how quickly this academic year appears to be going. I am sure it is down to the obvious fact that I am having such an incredibly fun and rewarding time, sharing the outstanding learning experiences and achievements of my students. It is so obvious to me that this process is having an incredibly positive impact on the students at school. I receive positive feedback from them on a daily basis, as well as from their parents/carers, my friends and family, which is very rewarding, thank you. I am always aware that if I had more time available during the week, I would increase the number of uploads I make to the Classroom 21 pages. However, I always said to myself that I would not neglect my teaching duties and would ensure the process did not have a negative impact on my classes as a whole. That was the reason I did not add an entry to the blog last week. I literally did not have enough hours in the day/weekend to write it. I know that later in the year, when the GCSE season has finished, I will be able to increase the number of uploads, which I am looking forward to.

As I have said to my students, as their teacher it makes absolute sense for me to investigate and learn how the process of setting up social media channels and blogs is done. Why? Because I am certain that one of them, possibly all of them, will have an idea that will change other people’s lives positively in the future. 

They may well require the use of social media to do. So I think one of the most important lessons I can provide them with is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of setting up social media accounts and blogs as a means to share ideas and to demonstrate that there is no reason why, if they choose to, they should not attempt the same process. It is difficult to see why the process of blogging will not continue to grow into the future. For example, this week I saw that Scientific American have just created Frontiers for Young Minds, an open access scientific journal that is written by and reviewed by young people. As they state, this journal is not only rigorous but also shaped for younger audiences by the input of their own peers.

Joseph’s incredible creative talent for filmmaking, along with his cousin Owen’s and his friends fantastic acting skills have totally inspired me. I taught Joseph on Friday and with the use of the iPads, as a class, we watched his movie montage. It was so incredible to see the positive reaction that Joseph received from his classmates and peers. To me, it was incredibly rewarding to see Joseph walking around the class, speaking with his friends, informing them of how he did this special effect or that, what software he used to create the movie and where he shot the movie. I hope that the process may have inspired other students at school to be more creative in their every day lives. Hopefully I have time in the future to put together montages of his other movies, which are just as creative. Thank you again to Joseph and his friends and family for allowing me to share his work with a wider audience.

One of the reasons I decided to share my student’s outstanding work on social media is the possibility that someone sees the their talent and provides them with an opportunity that would not ordinarily be available to them. In the case of Joseph, whose ambition is to become a film-director, imagine if he was able to observe a television or film director at work? In the future I am hopeful that teachers are able to provide such opportunities for students who are as passionate and focused on a particular career path as Joseph is with his. It makes total sense to me that students in secondary schools are provided with work experiences directly related to their career ambitions, as often as possible. And that work experience is beneficial and rewarding as I have seen countless ‘work experiences’ that have been a complete waste of time. To me, the current system appears floored at a fundamental level. I am hopeful that at some point in the future I am able to provide an opportunity to Joseph, his cousin and his friends to have a positive learning experience in the field of film or television of some kind, as personally I think they totally deserve it. Again, I am ever the optimist but we will have to watch this space…

This will be a very exciting week, as Classroom 21 will begin the process of completing the second milestone. I am very much looking forward to being able to continue to showcase the creative talents of the students who I teach. I am in no doubt you will see how young people in our schools are already focused on making their ambitions a reality. Thank you for your continued help in supporting them to believe in themselves, as they are all truly remarkable individuals.

D.

P.s. I came across this photo today, which shows disadvantaged children being taught in India. It reminds me how lucky I am to be in the position I am in. I am going to show it to all of my students tomorrow to remind them how lucky they are. 

A very interesting learning curve.

To my students,

I hope you have all had an enjoyable holiday and are feel refreshed and ready to go tomorrow. I am very much looking forward to returning to school, as I am positive this half term will be full of amazing learning experiences for you in all your lessons. I am particularly looking forward to witnessing even more of your outstanding achievements. I can also begin the process of attempting to complete Classroom 21’s second milestone, which I am very much looking forward to as I hope you are.

I have been working over the half-term holiday to ensure the necessary letters are ready to be sent to other schools in Stockport as I am attempting to gain permission from as many of them as possible. I am looking forward to seeing what the outcome of this specific idea will be and how it will be recieved by people in general. I am very optimistic that permission will be granted and I can begin investing in the educational futures of students in the schools in our town, including some of you. If for one reason or another permission is not granted I have a myriad of other ideas designed to enable this to happen, as Bruce says, Classroom 21 will be fluid, like water.

 

This week has also been an incredibly important learning curve, possibly one of the most important that will occur during our investigation. As you may have seen, soon after Classroom 21 achieved its first targeted milestone of 1,000 likes, the total number of likes rose dramatically. I got a bit carried away and made an incorrect decision to buy likes. For the record, the total number of likes before the purchase (which was incredibly cheap and easy and should make you think twice next time you judge ANY social media page by a number) was 1,032, after the process it was 2,921. Unfortunately this increase is permanent, as I have spent the last four days attempting to correct the situation.

I have made a mistake, I have learnt from it and I will not make the same mistake again. My sincerest apologies to any of you (and also anyone reading this) who felt that our initial achievement of gaining 1,000 likes had been undermined. I more than anyone felt this was the case. However, in some respects I am glad that it has happened as now I can concentrate on the most important thing, inspiring you to learn. In this case I very much hope you learn from my mistake, which is fundamentally one of the reasons why I set out to do this anyway. I now realise I got a bit lost attempting to reach a target number rather than what I have actually set out to do. That will not happen again as so called likes can officially do-one! If people want to share Classroom 21's vision and message then that will happen naturally. I have also been assured that in the grand scheme of things this is a ‘minor’ and I should 100% continue to focus on making the vision a reality. Thank you to everyone who has shown support for Classroom 21 during the week, it was very much appreciated.

As always, I thought it important to use this as a learning experience for myself as well as for you. So I searched the World Wide Web for ‘famous quotes about making mistakes’. Apparently this seems to be quite a popular subject as I found hundreds, from people with every type of professional background and from every historical time period imaginable. However, I also read recently that you should not include endless quotes in a blog post so I am not going to make another mistake and do that. I think it would be more useful if you found some out for yourself. Please feel free to let me know any interesting ones you find when you next see me. Thanks so much, see you tomorrow.

Sir.

22:50 - 982 likes - Milestone one - nearly complete.

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all happy and well. Last week was another amazing week at St. James’, thank you to all of my students for all their hard work and effort, not only for last week but also over the first eight weeks of this academic year. It has been an incredibly busy period for everyone at our school. There is no doubt in my mind that my students, as well as our school community, as well as school communities everywhere deserve a well-earned break. All of my students have been so outstanding throughout this period, each of them has shown an exemplary attitude to learning and it has been obvious and incredibly enjoyable to witness how much each of them has learnt. More importantly to me personally, it has been incredibly rewarding to see how each of my students has supported their friends, peers and classmates when they have been called upon to do so.

Classroom 21 has developed and nurtured an ethos whereby students do not see themselves as individuals in competition with one another, instead we work as one, to help and support each other in our learning. This ethos does not only relate to students within a year group but we have developed our own unique way of integrating learning of students from different year groups together, in the single goal and pursuit of learning and the achievements that learning brings. We are very much looking forward to sharing this unique learning environment with you.

My form has also been an absolute joy to tutor. It was so cool to see them at the annual St. James’ Year 7 disco; they were all so happy and full of the joys of being 11 and 12 years old. I had the opportunity to speak to and learn the names of some students who I had yet to even speak to, which was very uplifting. It always makes me wonder why this is? Why is it that there can be students within a school who because you do not teach, you have very little if any contact with? Even to the extent you do not know their names. It does not make any sense to me, as they are all as important as each other. Anyway, the disco brought the first half term to an incredibly fun and happy conclusion. Thank you Year 7.

Last week, as a group, we were so happy to be able to introduce Jaida and Tom, our Deputy Head Boy and Girl and Sean and Ciara, our Head Boy and Girl. I would like to take this opportunity to say how proud we are, not only of these four students (as we did that last week) but also of the Year 11 students at St. James’ who also applied for the position of Head Boy and Girl. The competition was absolutely unbelievable and I did not envy the job of selecting the final positions one tiny little bit. I would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who applied for the position. Many of you are now prefects at St. James’. Without you fulfilling your roles to the outstanding degree to which you currently are the younger students at St. James’ would not have role models who they can look up to. It is quite difficult to think how difficult working at our school would be without you as the outstanding role models you continue to be to our younger students.

At the current rate, it appears tomorrow we will reach our first milestone on social media, 1,000 Facebook likes. Thank you so much for the support that you have shown Classroom 21. Coincidently it is also my birthday. What an incredible gift. I would like to dedicate this milestone to my students who I know have been absolutely inspired by this process so far. I know that each of them is now more aware of what they are capable of if they think and imagine big and are never afraid to try something different. Everyone who has liked the page has helped to inspire so thank you all so much. I have more to say on the next milestone, which is going to take things to another level entirely, I am going to leave that until the 1,000 likes has actually been reached as there is still the possibility it may not. I am quite curious to see who will be like number 1,000 as some of my students are I am sure. One of them may indeed be that very person…

Sir.