Concept Map#1

Hm. Very frustrating. Maybe it was just too hot in my greenhouse-like classroom this afternoon with the winter sun magnified by the expansive windows and barely any breeze bustling through the window to refresh our brains. I also feel that older students are more resistant to new methods. Maybe this isn't fair to say. Maybe I have to try harder to sell a new idea to them as they are used to a certain way of doing things. Maybe also I didn't organise it as clearly and simply as was needed for things to make sense to them. But I felt as if this was not much of a useful exercise to them. Some students didn't even bother to come up with any ideas at all about the poems in the first place which meant that then trying to compare them was pointless. I think perhaps I am moving too fast for some of them. Assuming that it is understood and moving on without consolidation. Afraid of boring them. But I think this is an important point. If I assume kids have a mental framework on which to hang new information but for them it is like a foreign language, then clearly more time needs to be spent building up their basic understanding of the poems we are dealing with. Perhaps I am rushing them too quickly to analysis. It's interesting how seriously one has to take the weather and time of day! It really has such an effect on one's capacity to concentrate. I want to try this again with this class, but first I think I need to do the questionnaire I intended on doing to find out their perceptions of themselves as learners and of how teaching should be and of the different methods I have tried - an initial response test. Although, maybe this is taking liberties at all to experiment with year 11 when the focus needs to be to get them through the exams. I guess I should ask John's permission?

Symbolic Stories#1

Tried this technique with years 8 and 9. Introducing it by asking who liked doodling went down well as virtually the entire class in both cases put their hands up. It seemed to work well in terms of keeping students apparently quietly focused on listening out for what was happening. I feel that I came up against the same issue as was identified in the training session. Should one focus on the content that the students are listening out for or dedicate time to the process. I didn't want to focus on process as I had my 'objectives' in mind. But would this perhaps have helped people use the tool more effectively in future? For example if I had of enabled them to discuss how they put their symbolic stories together and what worked the best to enable the best listening. If I had dedicated the time to doing this, maybe this would have helped the students to understand their own way of learning and listening and to make choices about how to approach the task the next time. The reasons for my doubts are that certain students seemed to get stuck literally on their symbols, such that when asked to go over them and use this to explain what they remembered from listening, they simply told me what each picture was, eg you said 'breast' so I drew a woman's breasts - nevermind that the breast in question was that of Richard III opening up his shirt to offer Anne his bare chest to stick the knife in and thus avenge the husband Richard murdered. This also drew me back to recalling the comments of one of my fellow-students on Saturday, who felt that it was too difficult to listen attentively at the same time as focusing on drawing things that would make sense in the recall part of the activity. A question that strikes me also is how to assess the understanding of material gained from the symbols? Does this lie solely in letting the students feedback their ideas and explain what their pictures represent? Hm. I feel as if there is more to say and unravel but for now my mind is a blank.