Last month Olchfa was visited by Leighton Andrews, Minister for Education in the Welsh Government, as part of a visit to Swansea to see how technology is being used in teaching and learning. As part of that visit, he dropped in to my room for a few minutes to see the kind of things we’ve […]
Reboot reflection – mid point
I’ve got a while pile of half finished blog posts I had hoped to finish during half term week, but with the failure of the school servers at county halls, it’s knocked out our access to Google Apps as well, so I can’t get to them! Instead, I’ve spent a bit of time reflecting on […]
50 question challenge
I’ve been playing around with some of the opportunities for collaborate learning through Google Docs. I created this revision lesson for Yr 12 to fulfil several criteria. Firstly I wanted a student led overview lesson. Secondly I wanted that lesson to give me some feedback on areas of misunderstanding. Thirdly I wanted to be able to […]
Things I need to remind myself of from time to time
As I start to ask around I start to think I might be more out on a limb with this project based thing that I had thought. Here’s the thinking that got me out on that branch. 1. I can’t possibly teach them everything. History is too big! 2. Therefore it’s more important that they […]
Idea: Immersion Wall
One of the key things for me as I move towards a more project based approach is to try and get the student immersed in the period we’re studying a little more. So this week I tried an introductory lesson to Elizabeth I – had a massive pile of textbooks in the middle of the room, and […]
Rebooting Review – Term One
This year I’ve been trying to ‘reboot’ my teaching with a more project / inquiry based approach. This is another of those posts I’ve been meaning to write since the Oct half term, and in fact several draft existed, but I rejected either for being overly naval gazing or too glib. Now, with a little […]
Oh my life. It works!
I introduced my year 8 class to their first PBL style project on Friday – we’re going to be working together to build a museum style exhibition on life in Tudor Wales. I started by explaining that I was going on a mystery holiday and wanted some help as I could ask 5 questions to […]
Rebooting my teaching – index
My original plan had been to drip feed these posts out. Originally last week, then next. But who am I kidding? Something will happen and I’ll be sat here next week with them still in draft. So, they’re all out, and linked in below, as well as some other resources I’m building as I go. This post […]
Rebooting my teaching: What?
For this next post exploring my plans to reboot my teaching I thought I’d try and put a bit more flesh on the bones of some of things I’m going to try out this year. The first thing to say is all of this is liable to change based on feedback and experience. These are […]
Rebooting my teaching – How?
In the last post I looked at the background to the reasons to my decision to reboot my teaching. In this one I’m going to explain a little more about how I’m going to be changing my teaching.The first thing to accept is that as grand as I may be making this out to be […]