I have mostly been reading…

Image credit: RSS icon by Jurgen Appelo. CC Licensed on Flickr

Didn’t do this last week, but I thought I’d do another summary of some of the things I’ve highlighted in my Feedly account over the last couple of weeks. A fuller list of the blog posts I’ve tagged can be found at ihavemostlybeenreading.tumblr.com

Assessment without levels – the story so far

One of the features of BETT was the number of companies offering a solution to ‘life after levels’. What I really like about the model described by Shaun Allison here is the way that it links so fully into the culture of the school. Reporting progress was something we adopted a couple of years ago. For me the most interesting thing about this is the way it’s linked FROM a baseline measured by the school, rather than some kind of end of KS predicted level.

Moneyball for schools: can we use data like the Oakland A’s?

On a similar theme, Harry Fletcher Wood looks at some of the problems with data use as it currently works in many schools, and moots some ideas of how we can move forward.

Teaching to the test or gap analysis?

Hayley Earl shares her thoughts about what we do with the data from assessments when we’ve got it.

Only Connect

I love Only Connect, so I was really pleased to hear via the freetech4teachers blog that Russel Tarr has brought out a Connecting Wall generator on the excellent class tools.net site

Using Homework More Effectively

I really like this idea being developed by Kenny Piper for making homework more useful within the constraints of his school’s policy

Helping parents, help students, helps you.

This post from Kristian Still outlines some of the resources his school puts together for the parents of Yr 11 students. Another great idea for really useful parental engagement, and worth a read

Teaching students meta-cognition & self-regulation skills for the examination hall

A great post from the always excellent John Tomsett about sharing his thought processes while completing an exam paper with his students. A really interesting idea.

History Resource Cupboard

I hadn’t come across the History Resource Cupboard until this post from Ed Podesta. Well worth a look if you’re a history teacher

Marking, Feedback and ‘Closing the gap’ policy

I really liked this policy from Penyrheol School that shifts the ‘how to mark’ policies that many schools have to a ‘why we mark’ policy. Well worth a read.

Cliffhanger learning

Ewan on how sharing ‘what we will be learning’ doesn’t mean that they will, and can actually kill some of the drama and mystery that we can use to engage them and help them learn.