Teaching & school practices and ideas from elsewhere in the world that work

gaiscioch

Interesting to see Scottish teachers have voted to spend less time in front of students:

Teachers vote to spend 'less time with pupils'

Scotland's biggest education union is to campaign for a cut in the amount of time teachers spend in front of pupils.

Delegates at the EIS conference in Perth overwhelmingly backed a motion saying teachers should spend no more than 20 hours a week with students.

This compares with the 22.5 hours of teaching time at the moment.

The aim is to increase admin and preparation time and help reduce what the union regards as the excessive workloads facing teachers.

The union said the target of a 20-hour teaching week was a long term aspiration - not an immediate demand....

Personally, I'd rather spend more time teaching, and far, far less time doing the admin the Scottish teachers want to do instead. It's spirit quenching stuff. But it is another example where increasing bureaucracy is eating into teaching time. And I don't really see how all that "admin" box ticking is making us better prepared to teach the classes which we have. If anything quality has had to decline in order to devote the time to the bureaucracy and meetings.

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I'd be more interested in seeing teaching reforms in other countries in Europe or beyond, which due to the language barriers we never really hear about (even our knowledge generally of the Finnish system is superficial). Are there any good teaching or school ideas you think might be worth introducing to Ireland? Is there a science to classroom design and a country which makes a point of having well-designed classrooms to maximise learning? Are school systems with teachers who are specialists in one subject more effective than school systems where a teacher teaches more than 1 subject? And so on.

Random sample

I’d love to see pdst staff creating useable resources for teachers instead of giving out time sucking ideas. They seem to be moving more towards making us do everything ourselves and reinvent the wheel for each individual school and class. A few template subject plans wouldn’t go astray either. Specific to the subject and realistic to the time constraints rather than the generic headings that are currently available. I don’t want to spend time on that, I’d rather be teaching.

bobbyss

Random sample wrote:

I’d love to see pdst staff creating useable resources for teachers instead of giving out time sucking ideas. They seem to be moving more towards making us do everything ourselves and reinvent the wheel for each individual school and class. A few template subject plans wouldn’t go astray either. Specific to the subject and realistic to the time constraints rather than the generic headings that are currently available. I don’t want to spend time on that, I’d rather be teaching.

Yeah. I was at some training and we were presented with lots of very good, practical activities that could be used in class. I can't remenber now what the training was for or what the activities were. One participant asked basically because of time constraints it would be great if they were readily available for those present to use in class instead of having to spend ages preparing them.

A positive reply would have been fantastic. It would have made the day worthwhile. But of course.

In fairness to the presenters the activities, which were well laminated and well presented, would have taken lots of time to prepare. And if they were going to give one to each participant then that would have required even more preparation on their part. And more for their next group.

Still though. I don't know how much resources they have (?) but I can guarantee it's more than I can tap into.

evolving_doors

Notice how they get us to suggest and brainstorm in groups to create 'units of learning' at inservices... and then keep what we've created. They're getting us to do the NCCAs job.

Pulling various learning outcomes out of a hat from different elements and then creating some wonderful organic lesson is difficult and doesn't suit many teachers. It's like throwing Katie Taylor into a ring and telling her she's an MMA fighter now. Most teachers are used to going discretely by topic/chapter (not saying that's the best way either).

I can see where it's headed though. They'll be getting different subject teams together to create cross curricular units of learning. It's very noble and aspirational and other countries do it (some schools in Ireland have a cross curricular project timetabled).
But just like team teaching, if they don't give you serious time for planning and collaboration then it'll fall on it's ar5e.
No doubt they'll pump money into pilot schools and declare it a resounding success.

bobbyss

I'm not sure if that's the case really - keeping what's been created. Maybe our efforts (my efforts certainly) end up in the bin as opposed to the lap of the NCCA?

But I hate these training days. The tripods with scribble notes on them. The yellow stickers. The 'reporting back'. Hate all that. I do feel uncomfortable. I react poorly to being given something to do with a group of colleagues whom I don't know within a timeframe.

It's not the way I would prefer to spend a day training. I would much prefer to be given stuff instead of being in a group and having to work it out. Too much like work. Why spend, for example, time at a training day making up learning outcomes? Nowadays textbooks have these.

But if any good comes from training days for me, it's a reminder of how some students feel in class when they too feel under pressure. I am reminded never to let a student feel as I feel at a training day. Isn't there an old saying that you remember a teacher not for what you learned but for how you were made to feel. I think the same applies to training days.

evolving_doors wrote:

Notice how they get us to suggest and brainstorm in groups to create 'units of learning' at inservices... and then keep what we've created. They're getting us to do the NCCAs job.

evolving_doors wrote:

Pulling various learning outcomes out of a hat from different elements and then creating some wonderful organic lesson is difficult and doesn't suit many teachers. It's like throwing Katie Taylor into a ring and telling her she's an MMA fighter now. Most teachers are used to going discretely by topic/chapter (not saying that's the best way either).

evolving_doors wrote:

I can see where it's headed though. They'll be getting different subject teams together to create cross curricular units of learning. It's very noble and aspirational and other countries do it (some schools in Ireland have a cross curricular project timetabled). But just like team teaching, if they don't give you serious time for planning and collaboration then it'll fall on it's ar5e. No doubt they'll pump money into pilot schools and declare it a resounding success.

amacca

bobbyss wrote: »

In fairness to the presenters the activities, which were well laminated and well presented, would have taken lots of time to prepare. And if they were going to give one to each participant then that would have required even more preparation on their part. And more for their next group.

Still though. I don't know how much resources they have (?) but I can guarantee it's more than I can tap into.

Do as I say rather than I do eh?

amacca

bobbyss wrote: »

But I hate these training days. The tripods with scribble notes on them. The yellow stickers. The 'reporting back'. Hate all that. I do feel uncomfortable. I react poorly to being given something to do with a group of colleagues whom I don't know within a timeframe.

Ah the old flipchart with brainstormed Keywords from polite teachers and then discussion with nice summary at the end........chancers

also such utter bollocks...its like they've watched the office, liked the cut of Ricky Gervais's gib and read a couple of middle management "guru" books and thought thats an ideal way to demoralise a group of graduates and crush their spirits so they'll churn out the soup du jour of mindfulness, positivity, well being and whatever the hell else were horsing out to them to fill the vacuum where education/academic endeavour used to be....

Life is too short to argue with the mind numbing spirit crushing sheer mundane mediocrity of it...let them destroy the thing then maybe they will build it back up again with some standards when things like that become fashionable again.

byhookorbycrook

Far easier to deal with a few docile teachers than 30+ lively students ... those who can, teach ....

doc_17

And all this “unpack the learning outcomes” makes me want to vomit.

evolving_doors

doc_17 wrote: »

And all this “unpack the learning outcomes” makes me want to vomit.

Maybe we're just not getting the hint. i.e. the NCCA tell teachers to unpack the learning themselves, so we're supposed to tell students to 'unpack it themselves too'.:pac:
Delegating seems to be the way to go with this new wave of educational management.