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Briefing for the first Study Days

Welcome to the Study Days for the PCE programme!

 We hope you will enjoy them and find them more than worth the effort required to attend on a Saturday. Last year was the first time we offered Study Days rather than the former one-off residential event; we listened and learned a lot from feedback on those initial tries, and we hope we have produced something even better for this year.

In particular we have responded to requests for the initial topics, and this year they are;

• Managing classroom behaviour, and
• Developing subject-specific resources

How the first day works

(See the programme included in your pack.)

After coffee and registration, the first event will be a plenary session with Sue Cowley on Positive Behaviour Management; there is more information about Sue at the end of these notes. Her session will be full of guidance and ideas which you will be able to apply to your own practice no matter whom or what you teach; indeed, we expect you to take some of those ideas and apply them between this Study Day and the next, when you will report back on them to your Interest Group.

Lunch is 12-1 pm, and will be available in the Campus Centre and the Hub, in the form of a luxury packed lunch, with a meat-free option available.

During the lunch period, the Student Consultative Group will meet in room P1.20 (up the main stairs in the main block, first on the left on the first floor) at 12.20 (to give members time to pick up their lunches). If you are a student representative, please remember to make sure that your report is submitted in advance so that we can make most effective use of the time available. The Group concentrates on Programme-wide issues, rather than Centre-specific matters.

The rest of the day is spent in Interest Groups.

Procedure for Interest Groups

The task of the Interest Groups is to enable you to learn from each other how to improve learning and teaching in your practice, in your discipline, subject or learner group.

Your major resources will be the experience and expertise, and shared background understandings originating from practice, which each of you brings to the group.

Your major obstacle is likely to be the unfamiliarity of the group. The tasks set, therefore, need to be explicit enough to provide a re-assuring structure. Tutors will visit the groups to help kick things off, but they will not stay for the whole time, so the work you do together will be all yours.

Constituting the Interest Groups themselves

The groups have been constituted according to the information on your forms. In some cases these have resulted in numbers too large to function as an Interest Group. Those groups have been identified on the participant list, and they will meet briefly at the start of the group session, with a tutor, in order to subdivide into Interest Groups of more manageable size. So, for example, this year the “Health and Social Care” representation includes enough people for at least three Interest Groups; there are many ways in which these might be constituted but it is more effectively done face to face than through ever more complex forms.

So your agenda will be;

1. Introductions
2. Reviewing ideas from the plenary
3. Developing learning resources   

Introductions

The first thing you have to do is to get to know each other. Allow three minutes each and stick to it; for most groups even that will add up to half-an-hour or so.

• Name
• Centre
• Teaching duties
• Subjects
• Levels
• Course structures (work-based, full or part-time, etc.)

We suggest that two people are appointed as a Chair to direct the agenda and keep you all on time , and as a rapporteur, to draft a brief report and post it on BREO within a week of the Study Day (see below for details).

You will have talked about the Plenary material over lunch, no doubt, but sharing key themes in the Interest Group will come naturally. Just do not let it go on too long; you will need at least an hour for the learning resources task—more if your group is large.

Developing Learning Resources

Keep these notes to remind you what you need to do as you work on the task between now and the next Study Day.

This is preparation for the next Study Day, when you will spend all your time in the Interest Group, basically doing a “show and tell” about a learning resource.

1. This should be a learner-centred activity or exercise, not for example a powerpoint presentation or a handout. It is about promoting active learning.
2. It should be subject- or setting-specific. Not so specific that other people in the group will not be able to use or adapt it, but it should engage with a challenge characteristic of what members of your group teach.
3. Particularly where several members of your Interest Group are working to a shared syllabus, you should identify what requirements or outcomes are addressed, and how the resource fits alongside other elements of the curriculum. In fact, “an exercise to address how we teach…” is probably the best way to define what you are going to work on, rather than jumping straight to the form of the exercise/ activity/ etc.
4. So think about these aspects at this first meeting. Each member of the group, either alone or in collaboration with no more than two other people needs to commit by the end of that meeting to what they are going to bring to the next one. A note needs to be made of which each person is going to do, so that it can be posted on BREO by the rapporteur.
5. Between this meeting and the next your task is to develop and try out your resource, so that you can show and tell about at the next meeting, with an evaluation of its effectiveness, sharing how it might be further improved. Share your ideas on BREO.
6. Don’t just try it out yourself; share it with two other members of the group so they can try it out too and report back. This way everybody gets at least three practical learning resources for the investment of developing just one; a brilliant deal!
7. Remember that these ideas and resulting resources can feed into your submissions for modules 6 and/or 8.
8. You may recognise that 5 above is a simple description of the action-research process; if you are not familiar with this, ask a tutor about it, because it is very likely to be helpful in your efforts.

Tutors will visit groups periodically, and can be called upon when required; they will be based in the Hub; they will visit in the final stages of the afternoon to help pull things together, address any outstanding questions, and collect your evaluations.

Notes about Practical Resources

We shall be using almost every teaching room on the campus for these events, and naturally they vary in their equipment. Furthermore, there will be no  technicians on hand to work with the groups. So keep it simple.

There are limited copying facilities in the library, but they need to be paid for. If you need to use handouts within the groups, bring multiple copies with you. For reports of what you have done, post them on BREO for members to print out for themselves later.

Bring your own lap-top if you need one, but remember that the university accepts no responsibility for loss or damage.

Most rooms have data projectors, but not built-in computers, so you can’t rely on data sticks. Some rooms have Smart-type boards, but don’t rely on them because there are several versions and the technology might not be compatible with your software. So keep it simple!

Groups will be supplied with standard basic equipment such as marker pens, flip charts and blu-tac (to be returned at the end of the day, please).

If you have a kitchen timer, bring it with you! It can objectively measure how long each person is taking over their introductions.

Oh, and keep it simple.

About our speaker, Sue Cowley

Sue Cowley is an experienced teacher and subject co-ordinator, whose specialisms are in English and Drama.  She has taught in a wide range of primary and secondary schools in the UK and overseas.

Sue is the best selling author of numerous teaching books, including ‘Getting the Buggers to Behave’, ‘The Guerilla Guide to Teaching’ and ‘How to Survive your First Year in Teaching’.  She also writes regular articles on behaviour management for the TES.

Sue has provided INSET for schools and colleges around the UK.  She has also given presentations for the NUT and the GTCE, for Fast track teachers, for students at Cambridge University, and to a number of deputy and head teacher conferences. She has spent the last four years devising and developing her ‘Positive Behaviour Management’ course, adapting the programme so that it best suits the specific needs of staff.

The primary aim of Sue’s ‘Positive Behaviour Management’ course is to give staff practical, realistic and honest advice about better ways of managing younger learners’ behaviour.  She also hopes to encourage teachers and other staff to try new approaches and feel more inspired about their professional role.

Download this document in Acrobat format

Download the Study Day Programme in Acrobat format