Cassie’s Laws

What is participation and learning? That’s the question I asked myself whilst driving down to Camelon last night for a twilight on the subject. Although I knew what it was I wasn’t able to translate my thoughts into a form that someone else would understand.

The CPD session was in the world cafe format, this really helped me as it meant I could talk about my ideas in a small group as opposed to the normal size of audience. Soon I realised that I use the theories involved in pupil participation within my own classroom everyday without even thinking about it.

Through  the blog I am able to get indirect and informal evaluations of lessons through the comments left by children in the class.

Another way I try to involve children is through our suggestion box and our worry box.

I also try to encourage honest opinions from children about lessons and we discuss things that went well and things that didn’t. When discussing this I realised that this was in fact a barrier to participation and learning as some children are not honest about how they feel. It tends to be the children that sit in the class and absorb everything you say as though they are a sponge. At first I had to spend a lot of time explaining that it was ok to say if they did not like something. I found that quite often they were writing or saying what they thought I wanted to hear and what they thought they should say.

Overall it was a really good course and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Well, after getting a bit of a shake last night I decided it was time to post again.

I know it does sound like a bad excuse but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to work on this. Between the two blogs I think of the CShore blog as being the most important and I devote more of my time to it. Margaret said that I should concentrate on this as well so here goes.

I’ve been really lucky this year in that my school are really keen to use ICT in the classroom. I have come across a few hurdles but on the whole everything’s been fine. The only problem I have really had has been trying to explain my ideas to others. Often I can’t explain to others what is in my head and I feel like I have to really sell my ideas when I am seeking approval to run with them. However, as the year has went on I have become more confident. I have decided that I will now, within reason, try things out for myself in hope that it all goes to plan and then show others the results rather than try to explain them beforehand.

Margaret gave me a really good idea last night, yet another one! We have recently started to use Thinking Hats within the school and it is yet another thing to fit into the curriculum. I was thinking of it in a bit of a negative sense as it takes away the tiny bit of flexibility I had left within my timetable. The part that I wanted to use to explore ICT amongst other things. However, Margaret suggested a way to link it to ICT. I had not thought of doing that and although it sounds really obvious I think when you are in the middle of everything it’s often hard to see a way out.

I’ve been feeling like I’m fighting an uphill battle lately but having the change to talk last night really helped. I got a bit of a row and was basically told to stop being so negative about everything. So, that’s my plan!

Off to work out my plan of action for Thinking Hats.