Teacher Conference 2009 - Geoff Petty

The three resounding things that struck me with this day were as follows:

1. Visual Organisers. I have always maintained that visual organisers help (force) students to make sense of a complex topic. This may be because I am myself a visual thinker, or it could be as a result of my graphic design degree (erring on the information graphics side of things). Whatever it is, flowcharts, venn diagrams, same and different etc. all force students to make decisions in order to assimilate complex topics. I watch with interest those who err towards discursive texts - usually no conclusion is formed from these and it does not easily allow the reader to form an opinion or learn something new, until they themselves use a graphic organiser to make sense of what's going on. But perhaps this is something to do with our own learning styles?

2. Red Herrings. As a lead EV, I am often involved in training EVs to write clear and articulate reports. At Edexcel, I have a reputation for writing very good, concise reports. In order to do the training, we normally include 2 very good reports, 2 satisfactory (but could benefit from some 'tweaks') and 1 fairly grim one, and get the EVs to feedback. Clearly, they ALWAYS pick up on the poor reports - even when the originator is in the room! The red herring approach works well in this way. I used the same method for the PFD team, when training them to do IV.

3. Sarah and Sandra's approach to reflective practice. Again, linked to 2, above, getting students to scrutinise and feedback on other reflective journals, some good, some mediocre and some bad, will allow them to form a well seated view about what's good and what's bad. It is when a learner is faced with the 'blank sheet of paper' that the learning block can set in. Backing this up with Kolb's theory of learning was excellent, since what they found in terms of best practice had some credence!