Let me just record this somewhere before my fresh impression erodes away. I attended the AFL training this afternoon from the costly consultants we had engaged. Frankly, I was expecting more value from the 3 hour session we went through. Towards the end, when we were each asked to pen down what we had learnt using the Know-What-Learn approach, I was really having some difficulty for a while, pondering over what we have not already known.
I am not saying that the trainers are ineffective or uninteresting, to be fair, everything was well prepared and the facilitation of activities was good and well-paced. The consultants are encouraging and appear confident and purposeful in their delivery. Everything in fact went without a glitch. However, I am just not very convinced about what is the net gain from the exposure this afternoon.
It would perhaps be better if the consultants can observe what our lessons are like in real life situation and give us feedback about our performance gaps in AFL as classroom teachers. They can give us an evaluation about our processes and approaches and comment on our current strengths and weaknesses to make recommendations on what are the 'next steps' we should adopt, preferably customised to each subject area and context. Units can come together and discuss about these suggested 'next steps' and consider their adoption.
If scheduling does not allow for that to happen, perhaps sample video recordings of some kind can be made available to them to be evaluated. It is quite difficult to form a deeper understanding of how we can improve in this area in terms of classroom practice without a professional assessment of our present gaps, and this, I am sure, is within the contribution our consultants can offer. I will share my thoughts concerning this with our SSD.
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2 comments:
Deep insight, and even deeper learning must have taken place when you are able to see beyond what was delivered.
What is new about the techniques and strategies that was taught? Not much, I believe. What is new is likely the deeper insights you now have about the need for further comsltancy. The idea of them observing and critiquing our practices is excellent. And it can be done, with a slightly deeper pocket ;)
Take a team and ask for it.
Ah yes, your question of "shouldn't there be more?" is often asked by pupils too, and equally often ignored.
In a class of 40 or less, each pupil comes in with different levels of K-W-L, the challenge is for us to take cognizant of these differences and redesign our originally planned instruction to meet their needs.
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