Briefing for the first Year 1 Study Day

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

On singing in, you will receive a delegate pack. In it you will find a listing of Interest Groups. We have done our best to allocate you to a group which corresponds either to your own subject area or your particular practice setting, depending on your interests. Where there is more than one group in a particular area, we have tried to ensure that the members of each group come from as many different centres as possible; this is to encourage the sharing of diverse experiences within the group, and later back at your centres.

Each group is designated either “A” or “B”. This simply refers to the order in which events will run during the day; we have had to split the total group because there is no lecture theatre on campus big enough to accommodate the whole group at once.

So the schedule for “A” groups is;

10.30 am Campus Centre Theatre for Sue Cowley’s session on Positive Behaviour Management

12.00 pm Lunch

1.00 pm Interest Group meeting

2.30 pm Conclusion in Lecture Theatre

And for the “B” groups the other way round;

10.30 am Interest Group meeting

12.00 pm Lunch

1.00 pm Campus Centre Theatre for Sue Cowley’s session on Positive Behaviour Management followed by

2.30 pm Conclusion

Tea and Departure at 3 pm in both cases

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 and of the ideas. 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.

“A” groups and “B” groups will operate slightly differently in that the “B” groups will be meeting before the Behaviour Management session; they can therefore spend a little of their time preparing to get the most out of the session by sharing what their main concerns are in that area. (Members might find it useful to sit together for the session.)

The “A” groups on the other hand will meet for the first time after the plenary session, so they will no doubt want to spend half an hour or so reviewing it and identifying which ideas they want to take away and use.

So your agendas will be;

“A” groups

1. Introductions

2. Reviewing ideas from the plenary

3. Developing learning resources

“B” groups

1. Introductions

2. Developing learning resources

3. What we want to get out of the plenary

Introductions

In either case, when you do meet, the first thing you have to do is to get to know each other. Allow three minutes each and stick to it; even that will add up to half-an-hour or so.

Name
Centre
Job title and teaching duties

Including levels
Course structures
Work experience features 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).

So introductions and preparation for/reaction to the plenary session will between them account for up to an hour of your ninety minutes. The remainder of your time needs to be devoted to the topic for the next study day…

Developing Learning Resources

This is preparation for the next Study Day, when you will spend all your time in the Interest Group, basically sharing your experience of developing, using and evaluating a learning resource. Note;

This should be about a learner-centred activity or exercise, not for example a powerpoint presentation or a handout. It is about promoting active learning.
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.
Particularly where you 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.
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.
Between this meeting and the next your task is to develop and try out your resource, so that you can present and discuss it at the next meeting, with an evaluation of its effectiveness, sharing how it might be further improved. Share your ideas on BREO.
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!
Remember that these ideas and resulting resources can feed into your submissions for modules 6 and/or 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.

The closing Plenary session

The final half-hour of the day will be spent as whole “A” or “B” groupings. The “B” groups will have their plenary in the Campus Centre theatre following on from the presentation. The “A” group will meet in the main Lecture Theatre.

This plenary is a chance to;

Pick up on any major themes emerging from the groups, as identified by the visiting tutors,
Address any questions about the task to be undertaken in preparation for the next Study Day. Clearly it is important that everyone gets the same information about this, so this session will mainly be to receive the questions so that they can be answered via BREO, rather than (since this is early days of the model) to give verbal answers which may differ between the two meetings.
And to return the evaluation forms.

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 not be any 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 be compatible with your software. So keep it simple!
Groups will be supplied with standard equipments such as marker pens, flip charts and blu-tac (please make sure you return unused kit at the end of the day. Thanks).
If you have a kitchen timer, bring it with you! It can objectively measure how long each person is taking over their introductions (some mobiles have this facility too)

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.

In half a day, we can only get a taste of what Sue has to offer, but an initial glance at the evaluations from the first Year 2 day on 15 November give her the most positive response we have had to a plenary speaker in twelve years!

Student reps, remember the Consultative group which meets at 12.20--1pm in P 1.20