Image credit: Pete Sanderson
Wow – what a packed day. My head is buzzing with stuff, so following a stroll / hike back to the hotel with Alessio and Pete (pausing for a beer en-route) I want to try and make some sense of today before heading out for the evening meal. What follows may or may not be coherent. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.
Opening Keynote – Ewan McIntosh
As with the last time I saw Ewan, there’s something about watching him talk and explain ideas that make sense from stuff I’ve read several times before, but hasn’t clicked in the same way.
Key ideas
You need a (big, hairy) objective, some strategies to get there, and some tactics to realise those, especially when things start to go, not wrong, but differently to how you expected.
Five stages (?), Three processes – Mindset, Skill set, Toolset
This is something I need to come back to and think more deeply about.
Definitely something here for those involved in curriculum reform in Wales
Useful link: Notosh lab
Session 1 – Bill Lord – Developing a primary school curriculum you’ll be proud to put your name to
Loads here – key takeaways
If you’re prone to having too many ideas, get a laminated cloud in a cupboard and post them their first. Bring out the survivors slowly! (Love this!!!)
Need a clear view on why you are developing a curriculum (links here to Ewan’s session earlier), and route it in your locality – we tend to ignore it, but it has a big effect on shaping us.
Do stuff, even when the risk assessment might be off-putting – the value is there.
Good experiences cost. Where will the money come from? Does it represent a better investment than in something you’re already paying for (including staff?!?!)
Stuff to look up
Will Ryan – Inspirational teachers, inspirational learners
Session 2 – Ewan McIntosh (again!)
Synthesis
Not many notes from this session as were too busy doing it.
We need to find a way of building this into the curriculum
WG should really be using these strategies in developing the new Curriculum for Wales
Session 3 – Chris Mayoh – Digital Leaders
Confirmed to me that this is a really important thing for schools to do.
Empowers learners (lost count of the number of times CM said ‘This is just cool…’ or similar!)
Helps teachers use tech better.
Loads of good ideas
Session 4 – My session
Presentation is here. It may not make a lot of sense if you weren’t there, I’ll blog about it in more soon!
Loads of great ideas shared, problems discussed and (hopefully) a few solutions suggested.
Few things for me to reflect on
Many teachers still not using Twitter for CPD, and seemingly quite reluctant to start doing so?
Doing works better than telling in a workshop like this
One teacher, one class, one tool seemed to go down quite well as an approach to do adopt – I need to start finding the holes in this! (Future blog post)
General thoughts
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That will have to do. More tomorrow!