Effective Papers For learning

After a period of being AWOL from the #soloarmy, I returned to duty this week, introducing my classes to SOLO taxonomy for the first time this year. As detailed on a previous post, I dabbled with using SOLO to teach planning of ideas for writing in July, and felt things went pretty well; the writing the kids produced was impressive, I gained fluency in my understanding and explanation of the approach and I left the school year feeling satisfied that SOLO was a useful addition to my teaching. I also enjoyed the experience of learning from others via twitter / blogs; this was new to me, and I loved the fact that I was suddenly connected with so many colleagues who were actively helping me to improve. One thing that twitter will not provide, however, is cosy consensus. I was interested to witness in the summer what might be termed a 'solo-backlash', if that's not too impressive a term for what is essentially a few blokes fiddling around on their smartphones (and it seems to m...

An education-myth that has been thoroughly debunked over recent years is the view that IT is inherently engaging to young people. Many would argue that this has never been the case; I disagree, remembering the way that my pupils sat up with genuine interest when my first data projector was installed in 2001, and the tangible increase in concentration and attention engendered as I nonchalantly swept through some poorly-phrased lesson aims on my fledgling powerpoint. 'Well would you look at that,', they may have thought, 'Sir's board has got a scarf thing running down one side, and the letters are flying in from all directions! Look – there's another one!'. Exciting times indeed, although I recall with regret that approximately twelve minutes later, the novelty had worn off and we were back to normal, which is to say me hyper-actively prancing around at the front, trying to persuade groups of reluctant students to apply themselves to writing PEE paragraphs. Whilst...