Teacher Geek E-Book

Rachel Jones

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

What can you do with a pack of marshmallows and some tinfoil? Create innovative, engaging learning opportunities; if you embrace the teacher geek mentality. What was your best lesson like? Rachel Jones thinks that her best lessons have happened when she's been brave enough to wonder, 'What might happen if ...?' and done something a bit different. That is what Teacher Geek is all about: making the most of the resources you have at your disposal, and shaking up your thinking about what will inspire, engage and motivate learners. A teacher geek will look to exploit all potential learning opportunities, and be comfortable with taking risks by working with resources from outside their subject area. You have nothing to lose by trying a few new ideas out in your classroom. What is more, a little teacher geek thinking can make lesson planning a whole lot easier. Here Rachel shows you how to blend edu-geeky analogue and digital teaching techniques, and offers suggestions on how to inspire your students, revitalise your practice, and gain the rapt attention of your class. Teacher Geek shows you how to turn your passion as an educator into real results in your classroom. It is all about celebrating a real love of teaching and learning. It doesn't matter whether you have access to the latest technology, or whatever else you have at your disposal, it is all about creativity, confidence and celebrating achievement. And - let's face it - there is more to life than worksheets. Suitable for all teachers.

Leseprobe

PRAISEFORTEACHERGEEK

A thoroughly enjoyable read that prompts any teacher to trust themselves and challenge their students. Every chapter seeks to support the reader and breeds confidence in a profession that so often questions itself. Practical, informative, enjoyable; what’s not to like?

Daniel Edwards, director of digital learning, Stephen Perse Foundation

Rachel Jones is one of the most respected teachers on Twitter and in the world of educational blogging. This book shows just why that respect is deserved: it is practical, grounded, warm and human. The book, in fact, is Rachel!

Rachel celebrates the ‘teacher geek’ whose passion and enthusiasm for their subject, and for learning (both their own and others’), motivates and inspires them. She shows how to ‘create sparks of interest that light the fires of learning’, sometimes through the use of ICT, sometimes by using what you can pick up in the charity or pound shop.

Rachel’s advice is to be brave, take risks and tweak and adapt resources (including our environment, images, sound and music) creatively so that they serve as a ‘hook for learning’. By being flexible and imaginative we can put a new spin on things, think differently and adopt a new perspective, while still being ourselves. This book will make a difference to teachers.

Jill Berry, education consultant, former head teacher

I love this book and I want to do everything that Rachel Jones describes. I want my graph theory class to build graphs out of marshmallows and BBQ skewers and we’ll do that. Amidst all the pressures that teachers face, of marking and administration and everything else that we do, it’s easy to forget the fun we can and should have as teachers. Reading Rachel’s book reminded me of the fun of being a student and of the fun that I can have as a teacher. Within a short space of time, my copy will be dog eared and sticky-noted with lots of marginal notes describing the things that have worked for me and the things I want to try next.

Dr James W. Anderson, associate dean, University of Southampton

From vibrators to vibratos (yes, you read that right), Rachel takes the reader on a fascinating tour of her pedagogic world in this how-to guide with a difference. Be you an ‘analogue geek’ or a ‘digital geek’ teacher, there’s plenty here for you to think about, try and learn to enhance your classroom practice. Although some of the ideas in the book are not for the faint-hearted or those teaching within a highly regimented school (get out while you still can), each chapter brings gifts for the beginner geek.

This is a permission-giving book whose core message is ‘recapture your classroom’. It won’t be to everyone’s taste and nor should it be. But if you’ve ever discerned the inner desire to draw on desks or wondered wistfully what it would be like to write on windows, this is most definitely the book for you.

Keven Bartle, head teacher, Canons High School

This book is for my family, who had to put up with me being the worst teenager ever. This book is also for my boys, Finley and Frazer, who make every day an adventure. Finally, this book is for the boy, Matt, who makes me think a lot but smile more.

CONTENTS

Title PageDedicationForeword by Doug LemovAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. OLD FOR NEW: beyond charity shop thinking2. IT’S YOUR LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: make it mean something3. READING IMAGES: what do pictures say?4. SOUND WAVES: retune your ears5. MEND AND MAKE: (or why you always need plastic cups, tinfoil and marshmallows in your classroom)6. SHARING LEARNING: life is too short for worksheets7. WORDS: play with them, have fun with them, master them8. DIGITISE, ENERGISE, but for goodness’ sake stop calling yourself a 21st century practitionerConclusionResourcesCopyright

Foreword by Doug Lemov

A few years ago I watched a teacher step into an anxiety dream. She was interviewing for a job at a school and had been asked to teach a sample lesson. I was spending the day with the principal and so joined him to observe the lesson. Her topic was the water cycle and she had prepped a few slides and a short video, I think, on her laptop to get things rolling. I say, ‘I think’ because the projector and her laptop wouldn’t sync or the bulb didn’t work. I don’t remember which, exactly, but the tech did as the tech sometimes does – which is to say it did not work. So really, who knows what she’d planned. But there she stood, as if in a bad dream in front of 30 or so 11-year-olds, not to mention the school’s principal and a few fellow teachers, with 30 minutes in which to win a job and her lesson plan melting faster than butter in the sun.

But of course, she was a teacher and when it comes to crises, a teacher is used to that sort of thing. Hardly a day goes by when a teacher does not have to adapt what she is doing to the absurd, the froward, the unpredictable, the inspired, or the serendipitous. The mere non-functionality of a slide show was, frankly, just another day at work. She picked up a water bottle off the desk, crumpled a sheet of paper – that was the cloud, obviously – and proceeded to model the water cycle. I still don’t know what was on that laptop of hers, but it couldn’t have been much better than the impromptu demo and discussion she pulled off.

I thought of that teacher when I started reading this book because Rachel Jones delights in the problem-solving aspects of the classroom. Problem solving is one of the most developed and least acknowledged skills of the typical teacher and it’s a skill Rachel embraces, celebrates even. But Rachel is not a typical teacher. She is a teacher who likes to relish the possibilities. As we say of some of our most accomplished teachers, the ones who seem to rise above when things look trickiest, she loves trouble. She wants to open your eyes to the world of solutions and opportunities that exist in the humble settings of your classroom, achieved by your unexpected decision to write on the floor, say. Or to redesign your discussion. To plan a slide show. Or to ditch the slide show and make a cloud out of a piece of paper. In her vison, and more importantly in this book, the possibilities are endless.

And beyond the myriad ideas she proposes, maybe the most valuable thing is the irrepressible sense of optimism that pervades her book. And ethos of can-do. Whether or not every solution she proposes is for you, the practice of looking at problems as opportunities for creative solutions is rather exhilarating, and that is the killer app from this book. If you see it a certain way, problem solving is one of the best parts of the job. When you start to think that way you will be a teacher geek and there will be nothing you cannot conquer.

Doug Lemov, managing director, Uncommon Schools, author of Teach Like a Champion 2.0, Practice Perfect and Reading Reconsidered

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone at Crown House Publishing and Independent Thinking. You all rock a lot. I would also like to thank my school, King Edward VI in Southampton, for being supportive and encouraging. I would not have been able to write this book without the encouragement of my #nurture team and my friends, so thank you and massive love to all. In particular, @ChocoTzar has had the patience of a saint helping me. Thank you also to all my students, past and present, for shaping how I think and how I teach – it has been a real privilege to work with you all.

Introduction

The last thing you need is someone else telling you that what you do in your classroom isn’t right, isn’t good enough, or isn’t what Ofsted want. You don’t need me to tell you that your lesson lacks whizz or va va voom. I know what it feels like to rush from one end of a school to the other for a lesson mysteriously timetabled in a former cupboard where the atmosphere is anything less than inspiring. I know what it feels like to have a head of department (or member of senior management) who can’t see beyond the data or the most recent educational trend.

Here are some facts about the majority of teachers:

Teachers work hard. Really hard. Much to the bafflement of their friends and family, and probably everyone else who finishes work and then goes home with no more work to do.

Teaching can be the most rewarding job in the world but also the most draining. It can sometimes feel like it takes more effort than one of those mountainous ascents in the Tour de France.

Teachers’ self-worth is based on the outcomes of their students, yet at the same time we accept that in many cases we are fighting a tough battle.

Most teachers do a good job most of the time and an outstanding job some of the time. Most of us also teach lessons that we know are not good enough. But it doesn’t mean we give up trying.

Most schools lack the money to buy essentials, never mind much else, so teachers buy their own classroom tools. I sometimes wonder if teachers are actually keeping pound shops afloat (we should all certainly get share options).

All teachers have produced dreadful hand-outs, PowerPoints and other resources – the sort that we do not brag about on blogs or at TeachMeets.

All teachers sometimes feel they are not doing well enough. And that’s without the exam boards moving the boundaries.

If this sounds familiar then I want you to know that you are not alone. You could have a chat in any staffroom up or down the country and find a sense of camaraderie. For every teacher who wins a teaching award there are millions who would never even consider nominating himself or herself. And for every education blogger there are thousands who think they have nothing of value to say.

So stop. Stop now.

There is nothing wrong with what you are doing, but by making a few minor tweaks you could make your life a whole lot easier and gain the rapt attention of your class. I think that the best teachers are ‘geeks’. Not in the derogatory sense that the word has been used in the past, but in the sense that we celebrate our enthusiasm for our subjects and for learning. Teacher geeks are a unique breed. They get excited over new stationery, they enjoy learning new things and, most importantly, they enjoy passing on their passion to the learners in their classroom. Being a ‘geek teacher’ is all about celebrating a real love of teaching and learning, with a slight leaning towards embedding using IT in lessons. This book shows you how to blend edu-geeky analogue and digital teaching techniques, alongside suggestions on how to inspire your students and revitalise your practice. So edu-geeks unite. Let’s make our lessons better and make the geek, chic.

Passion is a hallmark of being a geek teacher, and part of that passion is about seeing those you teach do well and achieve.

Passion is a hallmark of being a geek teacher, and part of that passion is about seeing those you teach do well and achieve. Goodness knows it is almost impossible to measure learning or progress, but for me there is some weight in that feeling of achievement when your lesson is going well. Dare I say it, lessons should be engaging. They should create sparks of interest that light the flames of learning, so that when the bell goes at the end of the lesson you can still hear your students buzzing about what they have learned as they walk down the corridor. This isn’t going to happen in every lesson, but when it does it is pure magic and something to be treasured. Remember that progress looks different for every learner. For some even picking up a pen and writing a few lines can be monumental; for others you might be constantly running around to find more challenging work and struggling to keep pace with their appetite for learning. Being a geek teacher is about having the patience to make learning accessible and challenging for all, and sparking an interest in every child.

You are the teacher to every child in your classroom, and the juggling act required to make learning accessible as well as challenging means you need to be adaptable, flexible and willing to take risks in developing your practice. It is not good enough to hand out the same worksheets year after year. You are asking your learners to take a massive risk in trusting you and opening themselves up to potential failure. As the grown-up in the room, you need to role model what positive risk taking looks like and deal with failure in a way that will help the learners to see it as part of the learning process. Being a geek teacher is all about seeing your students as individuals, and helping them to achieve their potential and, importantly, being comfortable with being a learner yourself.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying out a few new ideas in your classroom. The best lesson I’ve ever learned is always to have a plan B up your sleeve. This applies especially when using technology or when you are reliant on forces you cannot control. A back-up plan means there will always be meaningful learning in our classrooms, but we will also earn the respect of those we teach because we have their interests at the forefront of our planning.

You need to be consistent, fair and present.

We are all at the mercy of serendipity sometimes. You can’t expect a class to react to something in the same way they did the day, the week or the term before. A group that once loved role play might now quake at the idea. A class that worked well in groups might not if it’s near lunchtime and their tummies are rumbling. Children can be volatile and unpredictable, but one thing needs to be constant – and that is you. You need to be consistent, fair and present. The students need to see that you care and are invested in them. If we can agree on that then we are on the same metaphorical page.

So, are you feeling brave?

In this book I want to show you how to use techniques or technologies that you may already use, but in an original way. Put a new spin on things. Think a little differently. Be yourself but from a new perspective. To do this I would like you to think about these points when you are planning, in the classroom or even marking:

It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. By this I don’t mean do something ridiculous that will get you suspended or featured in the local press. If you are trying something new remember you are a competent professional – you don’t always need to seek approval from those around or above you.

Pursue new activities in your classroom. Be OK with taking risks and be brave enough to call it when they are not working out.

Seek out opportunities to work with others and try to say yes as often as possible to prospects that come your way. Teach this open-mindedness to your students too.

Use technology where appropriate. Accept that it won’t always work and be comfortable with your students being more skilled than you.

Don’t accept the view that good pedagogy is constrained by subject or age. Some of the most inspiring teaching practice I have seen has been in the primary phase, but it adapts perfectly well for use in secondary and beyond.

Be yourself. Share some of yourself with your class. You are not a teaching robot; you are a human being. Know your learners and plan with them at the centre of everything.

Chapter 1

OLD FOR NEW

beyond charity shop thinking

IN THIS CHAPTER:

Rethinking your classroom – swapping old for new.

Using traditional analogue teaching methods in unusual ways.