Thing 5 (cont): Reflective practice

I have completed my sessions with post 16 students - over 4 lessons and 3 weeks. I set outwith the objectives of  showing them
How to structure an effective resrearch strategy;
Introduce new resources that they may not be familiar with;
Plagiarism and referencing;
Structuring a report

I had introduced it with a PowerPoint and gave them a work book and tasks to do and used Herring's PLUS model to try and give them a structure to work round.

Planning before they sat down at a computer was not something they had really done before - breaking down their question into smaller subquestions and finding keywords. I used the 8Q model (http://www.teachingexpertise.com/e-bulletins/enquiry-tools-promoting-emotional-engagement-and-ownership-3593) to formulate questions and identify areas that they wanted to concentrate on and set parameters for their work. I find it fascinating how the majority of the students don't seem to do this before they sit down at a computer - that they jump on Google type in a search term and pick the first couple of entries they come across.

I introduced them to the e-resources we held and to subject gateways and then encouraged them to refer back to their questions as they searched for information.

Plagiarism and referencing is the most difficult area to cover in my opinion - how do you make it interesting? I recently discovered the University of Manchester's resources to support the EPQ which have proved to be a bonus and have tried some of their resources to some effect http://www.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/schoolsandcolleges/post-16/epq/support/.

Students were surprised that they were having to spend so long on the planning and locate stage when as  one student said - when can I start writing? For some it was a completely different way of working.

When I did the final session on structuring a report  and told them to start by writing their conclusion - I think that really turned everything on the head for them! I used DMU's HEAT toolkit which has some wonderful resources which can be used for all ages with some tweaking http://www.library.dmu.ac.uk/Support/Heat/ .They had never been shown how to work in this way before and I think that the process I took them though over the 3 weeks was totally alien for many of them.

Thinking over the sessions I feel that the jump from GCSE to Alevels is,  as many of us know, a much bigger jump than the students realise (till much later) and I also think that there is confusion between working independently and indepedent working - students can only carry our independent work when thay have been gven the skills to work indepedently and this in my view means taking them back to the basics. My current school is post 14 -19 so is somewhat of an exam factory -the  focus is on the end goal of passing the exams but we need to equip them with more skills than the ability to pass an exam, maybe equipping them with those skills will raise the attainment in the long term -but that means eating in to the time to focus on the syllabus - a catch-22 situation.

Thing 5: Reflective practice

I'm always aware that I need to reflect more in my job but using a blog to do this seemed too time consuming - having to set it up/update it and too public!

In my post I constantly tell students that they need to self-evaluate - reflect on what they've done and what they could have done to improve it and what they are going to do next time -  but I don't do it myself!

In September I started a Masters. My first assignment was a reflective essay on the work I had done at my previous school on the Extended Project Qualification with recommendations for what could be done at my current school. Writing that piece made me stop and think about the work I had done over the previous 5 years with students from KS3 to KS5. I realised that I had been constantly tweaking sessions expanding and reducing them to fit the available time and abilities of the students but I hadn't recorded it anywhere. I had looked at exam criteria for the EPQ, resources available, produced a toolkit to support students learning and record keeping so that they could reflect on what they had learnt - but I hadn't done any of this myself. The only physical evidence I had was the versions of the toolkit (now on version 5), two reports analysing two questionnaires that students had done and memories of discussions that I had had with the Director of Learning who was responsible for the EPQ. How much easier my life, and essay, would have been if I had taken time to record my thoughts on the toolkit, the successes and failures of the teaching tasks that I had done and to record student observations.

After half-term I start teaching year 12s for the first time in my new school, this is new for my school who have never had a Librarian that has done this before and will be a new experience for me in this school.

I have gone back to my toolkit to tweak it for the students who are going to be doing a 5 week research project. I have looked at the PowerPoint I have created and some of the tasks that I have used in the past to try teach students how to use e-resources and catalogues, how to reference and to try and teach them about plagiarism - always an exciting topic!

I have decided that I am going to use this blog to evaluate those sessions and see what worked well, what didn't and how I am going to improve those sessions. So watch this space.....

Thing 3: Branding
This is the thing I was most worried about - the reason being that it makes me feel as if I am a commodity or shop window and as a private person I found this the most difficult thing to deal with. Having read the article it did make me stop and think - I have hidden behind my blog title as I want to be anonymous. One of the other participants commented (kindly) on an earlier post I made that she had felt blogging was "navel-gazing" and to be honest I felt that to some degree but also felt who would want to read my thought on librarianship and school librianship in particular? I'm not afraid to speak up at meetings in face to face situations - but online seems to be another matter.
The idea of creating an online brand has worried me - yes I have a Linked in profile which I barely look at or update and after reading the post I am going to correct that! I suppose one of the things that 23 Things for CPD is trying to to do is make us all aware of how communication and career development is changing - it is more online than face to face. We communicate with other professionals through online groups because we don't find it easy to meet or be allowed to leave our bases due to cost or staffing implications and so online sharing of expertise is the way forward. I know that when I read emails from some fellow professionals on online groups I already have an image in my head of who this preson is from the tone of their emails and the topics of discussion - and this colours my view of them and who they are - do I read it or skip over it? A personal online brand is a far more powerful than any of us realise.
The questions:
Name used: I have hidden behind this - it isn't my nickname but something I did very quickly - more thought should probably have gone in to it!
Photograph: None as yet - still not dipping my toe in the water on that one
Professional/personal identity: I keep my professional and personal seperate yes I'm on facebook and share some librarianship things on there but not much. I tried to use twitter for my professional side but it kept being blocked by school and need to address this - I know that I am missing out on a lot of useful professional material. I have a Linked in presence which is badly in need of updating
Visual brand: I chose the generic background because I liked it - will I keep it I don't know.


If nothing else this particular Thing is making me realise that I need to get a handle on my online presence and blogging on it is making me stop and reflect on this and what I may need to do.

Thing 2 - Looking at other blogs
 Today I have taken some time to read other people's thoughts about why they have signed up to 23 Things and made some comments - a first for me! I find it quite difficult to do this because I wonder if people what to know what I think.
It has been really useful to read the comments because school librarianship in particular is very isolating and you often don't have people to bounce ideas off. Sitting here reading and writing is encouraging me to reflect on this process and making me realise blogging is another useful tool in sharing experience, clarifying practise and, hopefully, being able to see ways of utilising this in my day to day life.

23 things

I have taken the plunge and signed up to 23 things - which I intended to do last year but got waylaid.

Having started an MA this year that has required me to take a more reflective approach, I'm hoping that this blog will help me to do this.

I hope that this online course will allow me to become more familiar with sites that I have not used before. I'm particularly interested in the branding thing!