http://www.scelframework.com/

The Scottish College for Educational Leadership have produced a framework that is

“…intended to support improvements in Scottish education by developing high performing leaders equipped to tackle the significant task of leading and managing in challenging and changing time”

http://differentiationiseasy.com

Blog with ideas on improving the differentiation in your lessons and comment on related issues of pupil needs written by a teacher currently work as an ASD inclusion teacher in a mainstream secondary school.

http://whatmotivateslearning.com

‘What motivates learning?’ is a question that has as many answers as there are people and situations. The aim of this resource is to support such self reflection with a series of tools which you can access [on the site].

http://www.literacyshed.com

Run by @redgierob:

The Literacy Shed is home to a wealth of visual resources that we have collected over 10 years to provide high quality resources that can be used in stand alone literacy lessons, can form the basis for a whole Literacy unit or can support literacy units that you already have in place.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/improving-schools-through-design-thinking-thomas-riddle

Improving Schools Through Design Thinking

Blog post introducing key ideas within design thinking. It is part of the mammoth edutopia site that itself has many resources for teachers

Gert Biesta: Good Education in an Age of Measurement. Video of a talk given in 2013.

The Learning Spy puts Learning Styles to the sword.

The Science of Learning – Radio Interview

What does research say about how students learn best? Deans for Impact, a group of deans from schools of education around the country, has united to make sure future teachers are armed with information about what works in the classroom as they begin their careers. Last fall Deans for Impact released a document called The Science of Learning. It’s a guidebook for teachers, meant to provoke discussion of the following six questions:
* How do students understand new ideas?
* How do students learn and retain new information?
* How do students solve problems?
* How does learning transfer to new situations in or outside of the classroom?
* What motivates children to learn?
* What are common misconceptions about how students think and learn?

This week on the podcast, ARW senior correspondent Emily Hanford speaks with Benjamin Riley, founder and executive director of Deans for Impact.

The Deans for Impact report itself can be found here.

It is essential reading for teachers.

 
Visible Learning Resources

“Visible Learningplus is a professional development program for teachers that explores how evidence can be used to create innovation in the learning environment. Our work is focused on John Hattie’s research and the principles of Visible Learning and visible teaching.”

CPD and InSet Doesn’t Need to Be Boring

“The UK training industry is big business. The private market is worth around £3 billion and there’s 12,300 providers. But how much of it does any good?”

 
Work/Life Balance

Hints from a headteacher on how to ensure work doesn’t take over your life!

Class Teaching Blog

Some hints and tips on effective questioning.

“PT Social Studies in a High School in Fife. Tweets about Education, IT/Tech, Politics and Football. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

I’m not and never have been unidimensional.

Just like you I have a wide variety of interests, likes and dislikes and these are reflected in my tweets though not yet in my blog.

It seems strange that so many Twitter accounts are relatively restricted to one main topic of conversation. Stranger still that many assume that others too will be likewise.

The division is perhaps between those who separate their ‘personal’ from their ‘work’ accounts and those of us who have only one account. I have seen advice to teachers relating to Twitter use that suggests to do the former. I disagree.

An account for an institution will necessarily have a stricter focus, but do others have to be similarly bound?

To me it adds colour and personality to an account I follow when a tweet is posted that relates to art or football or something else. In this way we see another side to those we follow and they too become multidimensional.

The continuing #teacher5aday tweets are showing many educators in a new light. They are sharing the ways in which they are gaining a work-life balance, to encourage others to do so.

Far from being in an echo chamber I’ve broadened my outlook on so many things because I follow folks from well-outside my direct interests.

I’ve now been on Twitter for 7 years and I’ve changed in that time. I’m more tolerant though still at times impatient. I see a bigger picture but often view it through a small screen.

Whilst originally I’d be quite happy to toast a Barça victory by insulting Madridistas, I am now quite likely to retweet attempts by Madridistas to set up a supporters’ club.

Happy as I am as the Klopp era continues, this is probably the best goal scored in Merseyside in some time.

Same goes with political connections. I follow leaders as well as ‘ordinary’ members of a variety of parties and groups. Regardless of my own affiliation I recognise that our politics would be better and our society stronger if our parliament featured a more diverse membership.

So, providing it’s not something that could see you in hot water at work or with a regulatory body, isn’t it time to gain another dimension?

Maybe time to amend that bio or, just use one of the following:

“Tweets in a personal capacity.”
“Tweets are my own views and not of my employers.”

(Based upon the link packs posted by Swiss Miss)

This is the first in what I hope is a series of informative and helpful sets of links relating to education, learning and teaching. Some are links to sets of further resources or information, whilst others are links to blogposts/articles that may be of interest.

MyGTCS – Research

Huntington School Learning Hub

http://www.huntingtonlearninghub.com/resources/

“The following resources are a collection of both original teaching and learning resources, made by the brilliant teaching staff from Huntington School, alongside some interesting and useful articles and resources for teachers, written by well respected educationalists.”

Incidentally, Huntington’s headteacher John Tomsett has an excellent blog at: https://johntomsett.com

How Measurement Fails Doctors and Teachers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/how-measurement-fails-doctors-and-teachers.html?ref=opinion&_r=1

Robert M. Wachter is a professor and the interim chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of “The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age.” 

“TWO of our most vital industries, health care and education, have become increasingly subjected to metrics and measurements. Of course, we need to hold professionals accountable. But the focus on numbers has gone too far. We’re hitting the targets, but missing the point.”

Dylan Wiliam on assessment (from @vanweringh)

http://thinkedu.net/blog/dylanwiliam/

Notes and comments from a talk given last year by Dylan Wiliam. Contains pictures of slides.

Dylan’s own website has all of his talks/presentations too.

John Hattie and the magical power of prediction

http://www.learningspy.co.uk/research/john-hattie-and-the-magical-power-of-prediction/

The ‘Learning Spy’ takes aim at John Hattie’s ‘effect size’ for pupils’ self-reporting grades. Also links to a deeper dig at Hattie’s use of ‘effect size’ more generally.

Leadership development resources for headteachers, senior and middle leaders (National College of Teaching and Leadership)

https://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/?q=node/611

On this page you will find a variety of collections and resources to help headteachers, senior leaders and middle leaders develop their leadership skills further. These resources have been collected from the National College of Teaching and Leadership’s archive.

These learning materials were designed for use in schools and early years settings. They have been gathered into topic based collections for easy use and contain enough content to make them very useful for in-school CPD or self –directed learning.

No more highlighting – Improving learning with effective techniques.

http://jamiedavies.co/no-more-highlighting-improving-learning-with-effective-techniques-575.php

Jamie Davies reflects on research from Dunlovsky et al, on what actually constitutes effective learning/revision by pupils. Exemplifies the concept of ‘Spaced Learning’.