A Pedagogic Focus

Recently, I've met up with many people in the post-16 teacher –training community (which strictly speaking, is 'andragogy' rather than 'pedagogy' I think!) , and had a particularly interesting time last Friday at the Pibwrlwyd campus of Coleg Sir Gar where I met up with their second year group. I recorded some of their comments - definitely woth listening to!
More pedagogy was to come at a JISC-run event in Birmingham last Tuesday, looking at the London Pedagogy Planner and Phoebe - another planning tool. Both planners could have effective roles in planning courses and sessions, but I thought that Phoebe would be more relevant to teaching practitioners, and especially teaching trainees, because it is incorporates a large amount of pedagogical guidance. Both planners are still in development, but existing versions are available for download, and the development teams involved (from IOE, London, and University of Oxford respectively) are happy to receive feedback.

[photo is of Victoria Square, as you can tell by the figure of her late Majesty!]

Many Meetings!

There seem to have been loads of meetings of one sort or another over the past couple of weeks. On 21st Feb we had the ILT Champions meeting at Newtown – some interesting presentations, including one on the subject of e-assessment from Allan Perry of WJEC. This is still at an early stage for WJEC – they have 2 pilots running at GCE level (business & ICT) with first assessment Jan 09. Allan raised some important issues about e-assessment including: the fact that question-writing is a completely different process from the usual examination paper; the comparability of paper-based back-up exams, especially when the online version had video, animations etc as a key component (though currently, paper and online exams look exactly the same); lack of hardware; problems with large cohorts eg. need for large question banks. Overall, though, they are pleased with progress and especially with the positive response from learners.
On 22nd Feb, I attended a meeting of Fforwm ITT (Initial Teacher Training) network. Issues discussed included the TQFW, mentoring, finding, minimum core – and on the last subject, I gave some of the ILT Champions’ feedback about the ICT part of this.
Monday, 25th February was a busy day, with Lis and I meeting up with staff from the School of Education at Swansea Metropolitan University in the morning, and then going on to the WAG building at Bedwas that afternoon to meet up with Christine Major and Michelle Sayers, LLUK, about RSC Wales’ role in the SSA (sector skills agreement) currently being drawn up.
Then on the 26th we had a team meeting! Best lunch of all the recent meetings, and good to see Karl too!

(couldn't find an appropriate picture on this PC, so red kites will have to do -usually see a couple in Mid-Wales on my visits)