Thursday 25 June 2015

Morale

It's that time of year when the outside world expects us to be winding down. Perhaps people keep mentioning gained time. Maybe you have lots, maybe you have none. Either way as we hurtle towards the end of term I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that the 'to do' list keeps getting longer. There are so many things you feel you need to tie up or resolve before the summer term. Every day seems to bring a new project, task or item that requires attention, interaction or a solution.

What I am essentially wondering is how people maintain morale? Do you celebrate the end of term with colleagues or your department? Do your school put on an end of year meal to reward staff for hard-work? Please share your experiences!

Sunday 7 June 2015

Exam pressure and revision techniques

Who is more stressed and worried during this period?!

The inevitable articles will start as we near the results days in August that this year's exams were easier than ever. That we will see more and more students getting the top grades, implying that teaching standards have dropped and students are not working as hard. This isn't fair on anyone, having seen the amount of work that students are putting in and the stress that it is causing them, it belittles the work that us, parents and students are putting in.

Every year we teach students not only the content that they need, the exam techniques and skills but also the ways in which to revise. There was a fascinating article from the BBC about different revision techniques and the success or hindrance that some can play.

Highlighting
As someone who loves their stationery and nothing more than colour-coding both their notes and work I've been a fan of highlighting when working. The BBC article, linked above, raises some interesting findings about this approach. That upon reading actually make a lot of sense; the idea that highlighting sections or sentences at a time means you are only focusing on one concept or issue at a time. Rather than building the bigger picture or connecting concepts, which for many subjects is essential.

Making summary points
This is an interesting one with Professor Dunlovsky suggesting that summaries do not help that much. Stating that students who re-visit and re-read learn as much as those who are making summaries as they read. This is an interesting finding, I found (or thought) that when I was at university this was something that helped me. Although I did make summary notes as I went along, as well as part of my revision.

Memory aids/mnemonics
Useful but with a caveat that they are only really of benefit for short bits of information, like remembering the order of the planets or colours of the rainbow. Rather than being of use for longer passages. This is perhaps not surprising. What was surprising was the suggestion in the research that this approach didn't work for subjects like Physics or Maths. I remember at school being taught a number of mnemonics for both these subjects, although as with other things I revised the concepts and tested them out as part of my revision, so perhaps it was that they played more of a role, rather than the mnemonic. Which brings me nicely on to the findings about what worked well.

The successful approaches
This is based upon the research as discussed in the article and I do appreciate that individuals may still find different techniques work well for them. Spreading out revision over a longer period of time and testing yourself regularly were found to be the most effective. This is not surprising, giving yourself more time enables you to review, check and test your understanding in the hope of cementing it fully before the exam. I am sure I am not alone in suggesting that students start revising before May! Planning ahead and revising your subjects over time, acknowledging that you have possibly at GCSE 10 subjects to revise and balancing your time, rather than trying to revise Biology in one block before moving on to Chemistry is the sensible approach. This ensures you are doing little and often rather than trying to 'cram'.

As we are well under way in the exam season there is still time to work on revision! Whilst research has identified the statistically more beneficial approaches, any revision is better than none!

Monday 1 June 2015

Last term....(marking and musings)

So, the last term of the academic year looms. I'm struggling to get my head around how the year has gone so fast. It's been an enjoyable year, in which I think since returning from maternity leave I've found a huge energy for my job. I've found myself reading more around the subject, re-visiting teaching books and material that I hadn't read for a while. Twitter and this blog seemed like the next step, in order to engage further with the way I teach.

The area I think I have developed the greatest interest, in terms of reading and research, has been marking and assessment. The more I learn, the more I think I took for granted and assumed about my marking and feedback. Making sure that every comment, point, tick or symbol was not only useful but informative. There is also then the tricky balance of praise and progress. No-one (or perhaps it is just me!) really likes being told what isn't great and needs improving, even if that actually helps you, it can still sting.

If we consider that students could have 4-5 other classes in a day that is potentially a lot of constructive comments and structured progress and development! Whilst it is extremely useful and supports/structures progress it could get draining and demoralising for students, particularly those that already have lower self-esteem. That is why it is crucial to structure progress comments
  • in a clear manner that won't confuse the message or your aims
  • in a positive way, to ensure not only that students engage with the feedback but that they feel confident about their ability to progress in the subject
  • linking to a specific area; be that use of evidence, spelling or ability to explain an argument for example
  • if possible including a question (more about this in a minute)

I've found including a question as part of my feedback has been beneficial, it provides a clear and defined task as part of the feedback as well as directing focus to a specific area. Next blog post will focus on how praise is used in marking and feedback.