It seems wherever I go, I find people who are, what I call, ‘crazy-busy’ at work: Teachers and other staff who are on the go from the moment they arrive at school, who often miss out on meal and toilet breaks, and who work late, preparing for the next day. If you can relate to…
Report Writing and the 80/20 Rule
The 80 / 20 rule from the Italian mathematician, Pareto is relevant and applies to report writing. Pareto says it is important to identify the critical few and the trivial many. 80% of our time will be spent carefully writing and editing the reports on 20% of our students Some reports take longer to…
Setting Up For A Successful Year
Setting up and managing your classroom at the beginning of the year has a significant impact on your success and stress levels. Behaviour management guru, Bill Rogers emphasises the importance of the first meeting with a new class as the establishment phase in building a positive classroom environment. It is important to set the right…
Making A Personal Plan For A Successful 2018
What are You Going to Stop Doing? In planning for a great 2018 it is important to reflect on what has helped us in 2017 and what has hindered us. The research on the success of making New Year’s Resolutions isn’t compelling. Apparently 41% usually make New Year’s Resolutions and 42% absolutely never make them….
Cut Them Some Slack
We rarely know what is going on in other people’s lives. Whilst we might be frustrated by the behaviour of our students (and at times by our colleagues or boss) we rarely know all of the information about what is going on in their lives. We don’t necessarily know about health issues, financial issues or…
The Pygmalion Effect (Part 2) By Karen Boyles
In part 1, I highlighted that teachers’ expectations can dramatically affect students’ achievement. This uniquely human phenomenon is the Pygmalion Effect. Here is another example. If a student in your class scores significantly better on a test, than you would have predicted, would you look first at alternative reasons before admitting you had pre-judged this…
The Pygmalion Effect (Part 1) By Karen Boyles
Teachers’ expectations can dramatically affect students’ achievement. Really believing makes a difference. Teachers can create better student results by just believing in them. This is even truer with underachievers. If a teacher is told that her students are bright, the teacher will be more supportive, teach more difficult material, allow more ‘wait’ time for students…
A Picture Tells a Thousand Words
We often need to put images into our documents such as newsletters, reports or even in Powerpoint presentations to colleagues, students or parents. Using appropriate images provide powerful visuals to reinforce the written (or spoken depending on the format) words. As the old saying goes…A picture tells a thousand words that creates a memory that…
Technology is NOT a substitute for teaching (Part 2)
In part 1 last week, I described an activity utilising technology to present student research. Producing the movie took much longer than doing the research. Whilst the additional learning is beneficial, the problem here is two-fold. First, the actual subject-relevant learning portion of the assignment (research and writing) took up a tiny fraction of her…
Technology is NOT a substitute for teaching (Part 1)
Infusing education with technology is a wonderful idea. Classrooms with access to the internet and mobile devices have marvellous opportunities to make learning relevant to 21st Century students. Technology offers new ways to enable and encourage self-learning, engage students with content and build capability in vital workplace skills. However, as with every other educational strategy or…