Teach A Teacher is part unit of study, part conference. Hosted at HLYIS this year, the event featured students from ICHK, and teachers from JIS, HLYIS, ICHK and ESF Kindergardens.

The aim is for students to work in groups to prepare and deliver professional development sessions for teachers. Students develop their abilities in presentation, communication and collaboration. Teachers get to learn new skills, and see education from the other side of the desk:

“I could sense that the students loved the topics they taught and it showed in their enthusiasm. Made me think of how my students see me when I teach.” – Participating teacher

And students start to understand what life is like for their teachers.

“This activity helped the students to know a teacher’s role and what it is like for their teachers. The interaction between teachers and students was great.” - Participating teacher

During ICT classes, students spent time devising, naming, imagining and planning their sessions. They presented to each other, to themselves, and to a few teachers too. Their work was filmed and reviewed by themselves and their peers. Over 9 lessons of 70 minutes each, groups polished, improved, refined and rehearsed. They strove to be imaginative, creative, clear and professional. On the day, all were nervous, but at the same time they managed to channel their energy into doing a great job. At times, they modeled current best-practice in the classroom:

“I think this group of boys were exceptional in their preparation and communication. I loved how hands on it was and they let us learn by doing.”

Relieved to be finished, students commented on how happy they were, and how much they enjoyed their experience. But, as is the way with technology, not everything went to plan:

“I really enjoyed the Teach A Teacher event. I have experienced that being a teacher is not that easy, you need to plan out the lesson really carefully. I noticed that I should always plan about what would you need to do when you’re having technical difficulties.” – Charlie Yau, Year 7 Student

Asked how they found the experience of being taught by students, teachers reported the following:

“It was a very good learning experience both for students and teachers. I enjoyed it a lot.”

“Loved the fun aspect of the presenter that used the sword in place of a pointer!”

“Great! I learnt a lot and felt very comfortable with the students teaching me. The best thing about this is that I can ask silly questions and not be laughed at!”

This is an event which will definitely be repeated, and hopefully expanded, in 2014. Please feel free to email me if you wish to receive information about next year’s event, either to come as a learner, or to enter student teams from your school.

Teach A Teacher is a brand new student-led conference for teachers. The aim is to help teachers improve their ICT skills, whilst exposing students to a new classroom perspective. All schools are welcome, but places are limited. To register, email rparker@ichk.edu.hk. Click on the image below to see a larger version.

Session Details

The table below gives details of the material on offer at the Teach A Teacher conference:

Session 1 – 14:45-15:30

Session 2 – 15:35-16:20

A few years ago, just before I started teacher training, I began gathering teaching resources using Delicious. Up until that point I had encountered a huge amount of amazing digital content, but I could never put my finger on it when I needed it. Delicious gave me a neat solution to this problem, and started me on my way to being a connected teacher. This innovation was followed by blogging with WordPress, and more recently conversing with other teachers on Twitter, which has led to an explosion of further developments.

Recently I have been reflecting on the process I have been through, and how it has revolutionised my teaching. This lead to some opportunities to run CPD sessions for other teachers, one of which (HLYIS) I have recorded and shared below. The audio quality is terrible, but hopefully it will be useful for some. Feel free to get in touch (@rossdotparker on Twitter) if you have any questions or comments.

Finally, if you want to run these sessions yourself, the slideshow is available under a CC license for you to use:

• The Connected Teacher (Keynote)
• The Connected Teacher (PowerPoint, may have some formatting issues)

Edit: updated to better video quality video (29/05/2012)

Note: since attending this workshop I have developed some free, open source software for helping CAS Coordinators manage their job. The solution is a module for the Gibbon school platform, which is also freely available. Please visit www.thegibbon.org for more information. Feel free to email me (ross@rossparker.org) if you have any Gibbon/CAS questions.

Over the last three days I have been attending the DP CAS  (Category 1) Regional Workshop courtesy of the IBO’s Asia Pacific office. The course, presented by Cheryl Keegan, aims to prepare would-be coordinators to administrate the Creativity-Action-Service (CAS) component of the International Bachelaurette’s Diploma Programme. The workshop, which is part of a much bigger IB professional development event, is being hosted by RCHK, a member of the ESF family of schools. Including over 600 teachers, from dozens of countries, this event is probably the largest training event I have been part of. Rather than writing a full description of the course, which would be very long, I have decided just to provide the following list of key points and ideas.

Thanks to Cheryl for running a comprehensive and thoughtful workshop, and for letting me reproduce some of her work here verbatim.

What is CAS? Why is CAS Important?

• CAS is the philosophy of the IBDP put into practice through engagement in activities that are based in creativity, action and service. It is a chance to solidify learning through practice.
• The IBDP is extremely tough, thorough and challenging, and CAS aims to offer a counterpoint to rigorous intellectual pursuit. It is about balance.
• Often students focus on a small number of activities or sports: CAS aims to challenge students to try new and different things, and thus challenge them to adapt, reflect, grow and develop.
• CAS cannot be a token: even though it is not graded (students must complete it though), it is a key part of the what IBDP offers. It sets the DP apart from other educational systems.
• Refreshingly, CAS does not aim to be standardised or homogenised: it is about challenging students in relation to themselves, rather than to an external standard.
• Failure in a CAS activity is acceptable: it is more important to learn from experiences than to always succeed.
• As a selling point, CAS makes students stand out in the activity process. It is also the single biggest reason that students fail the IBDP (which can cause problems with and pressure from parents and administrators).

CAS Roles

• Coordinator – school staff with overall responsibility for CAS. Must produce a CAS programme that fits the needs and stage of the school and students, whilst meeting the IBO’s requirements.
• Advisor- school staff who work with students in guiding them to completing the CAS requirements
  • In a small CAS environment, this is ofter the coordinator, but once there are more than 50 students it becomes hard to manage alone.
• Supervisor- someone who is responsible for observing and monitoring students undertaking an activity, who is:
  • An adult
  • Not a family member of the student
    • It is best to apply this rule 100% across the board, to avoid disputes

CAS Guide

The CAS Guide is the IBO’s official documentation for the CAS program.

CAS Booklet

The CAS Booklet is a booklet (paper or electronic) produced by the CAS Coordinator for students, colleagues and parents to set the tone and rules for a school’s CAS programme. The guide should be clear, unambiguous, prepared in advance and publisised so that it can be used to educate and mediate disputes.

CAS Aims & Outcomes

CAS has 4 aims, and a total of 8 outcomes through which students are assessed in their efforts to work towards the aims. It is assumed that all students will work at different levels, and that they need to be assessed against their own starting point. The aim is growth and development, rather than hitting arbitrary targets. This represents a change, from the previous approach which involved counting hours of participation.

The outcomes should ideally not be shared with the students from the beginning, but rather should be allowed to “creep up” on them. This ensures students are seeking genuine experiences, rather than trying to tick particular boxes. It is largely up to the school to determine what is “enough” in terms of meeting the outcomes. Ultimately, this comes down the CAS Coordinator, who must set the tone and rigor of their school’s program. How can these standards be set and maintained?

It is important to note that the effort to meet the CAS outcomes must be over the entire course of the IBDP, not just at single points within it.

What is an Activity? Where do Activities Come From?

The largest concern with CAS is which activities are permitted in each of the three categories, and how these opportunities are created. There is a common misconception that the CAS Coordinator is responsible for running all extra-curricular activities. In reality, the Coordinator is responsible for finding and vetting enough service activities (which can be more risky), but creativity and action should be taken care of by other staff. Activities can (should?) be student initiated, but vetting is still required to protect students, staff and the school.

Each student needs to undertake a range of activities, which should be collectively undertaken through the IBDP. Only half of a single area’s requirements can be met through one activity. There is no hour-based counting, although a minimum of 150 hours are recommended, in order to suggest parity with a standard-level subject.

When deciding which activities are and are not CAS, there are few hard and fast rules: instead Coordinators should look to follow the spirit of the IB’s learn profile and of CAS (real, challenge, learning, try new things, reflection, serving, leadership, health, wellbeing, initiative). That said, the following rules should be applied:

• Creativity
  • Students need to be learning and thinking creatively.
• Action
  • Students should be working physically (i.e. sweating).
• Service
  • Student should receive no payment or reward.
  • Service should not be in-school unless it is meaningful and unavoidable. However, good service can involve sharing the school site with  less well resourced groups that are brought in. This can include orphanages, elderly homes, etc.
  • If the recipient organisation (school, NGO, etc.) can afford to pay for the service, it is not service (although it can be used as creativity.

Although students must be challenged, the challenge must be appropriate (not too extreme), and it is important to remember that different students are challenged by different things in different ways.

Balance of C, A & S

The three areas do not have to be undertaken in equal measure, but should be balanced according to the needs and previous experiences of each individual students. The IBO would prefer a greater focus on the service element, and this is the area that students need to make sure they really meet.

Local, National, International

There is a common misconception that CAS service needs to be international, but this is not the case. A good balance is lots of local service, less national and a little international. Sometimes, when international travel is not possible, people can be brought in to the school to give a taste of it.

Resourcing

The quality of a CAS programme depends on the resources (money, time, etc) made available to run it. This can cause issues with administrators. The IBO says that schools must (for authorisation) demonstrate a commitment to CAS from all members of the school community.

Responsibilities of the School

From Cheryl’s documentation:

• Schools provide appropriate resources and staff to support the delivery of an appropriate and varied CAS programme. This means enough money to allow you to arrange transport, and enough money to pay teachers to do service as well as sport and creativity – what else?
• Students have opportunities to choose their own CAS activities and to undertake activities in a local and international context as appropriate. This means that that the programme must be wide enough for students to have choices and that every activity cannot be mandatory – how?
• Students have appropriate opportunities to reflect on their CAS experiences guided by teacher advisors who provide appropriate feedback. This means that the CAS programme must provide options for students to reflect and must guide them until they are reaching a reasonable level of reflection – how?

Also:

• Teach students the skills required for reflection, so that it can be meaningful. Reflection is the way to achieve change!
• Record all student progress (student reflections, interview notes, etc), and keep documentation to help mediate disputes. This documentation needs to be kept for 18 months after the cohort has completed there exams.

Responsibilities of the Student

From Cheryl’s documentation:

• To fulfill the IB programme standards, students need the chance to choose their own CAS activities in a local, national or international context. They need to “own” their personal CAS programmes. With guidance from mentors and advisors they should also initiate activities where appropriate. They are required to:
• Self-review at the beginning of their CAS experience and set personal goals for what they hope to achieve through their CAS programme.
• Take part in a range of activities, including at least one project, some of which they have initiated themselves
• Plan, do and reflect (plan activities, carry them out and reflect on what they have learned)
• Undertake at least one interim review and a final review with their CAS advisor
• Keep records of their activities and achievements, including a list of the principal activities undertaken
• Show evidence of achievement of the eight CAS learning outcomes

Also:

• Goals must be real, and they should be difficult (e.g. something the student has not done before).
• Student evidence must be predominantly reflective and written. Multimedia can be used as an adjunct, but cannot be the core.

Setting Up & Running CAS – Checklist

From Cheryl’s documentation:

• RANGE AND DIVERSITY OF ACTIVITIES
  • vary in length
  • none should be trivial
  • ongoing relationships with local organizations
  • major, concentrated, one-off activities
  • activities which satisfy a state or other award scheme qualification
  • NOT
    • part of subjects, EE or TOK
    • routine practice by music or dance subject people
• Projects, themes, concepts
  • at least one involving teamwork, integrating two or more of C,A,S, of significant duration
  • perhaps along the lines of an IB identified theme
  • www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
  • global issues search
  • JF Richard’s twenty global problems (R ’02)
• Creativity
  • Personal challenge – task must extend the student
  • A music, dance or art activity outside the DP
• Action (in the DP IS physical)
  • Setting goals, planning and reflecting on achievements
  • Individual and team sports
  • Non-sporting or competitive
  • Physical as part of service
• Service
  • Have learning benefits
  • Prior identification of needs, consultation with community or individual (and students is possible)
  • Service learning linked to a subject, but as an extension CANNOT COUNT TWICE,
  • should be student initiated
  • NOT
    • Mundane, repetitive, with no responsibility
• Political activity
  • Can be if safe and appropriate
• Religious activity
  • Secular objectives
  • NOT
    • Devotion
• Proselytizing

Running A CAS Programme – Timeline

From Cheryl’s documentation:

• Building a new CAS programme takes time. It involves making contact with appropriate partners and deciding that some activities are no longer valuable. It also involves following student initiatives which lead in new directions. Starting out:
  • Step 1- consult the Handbook of Procedures for the Diploma Programme to ensure the requirements related to monitoring and reporting are met. Also to ensure that sufficient resources are available before the CAS programme commences.  A condition of the Diploma Programme Authorisation is that schools demonstrate a commitment to CAS from all members of the school community. The school therefore must provide the budget, time, staffing and resources necessary to run a successful CAS programme. CAS is central to the Diploma programme and its organization and resourcing must not be left solely to students. Asking students to raise funds to provide a CAS budget is not appropriate. Check the New CAS Guide (p15) for human, staff and partners, students, parents, in-school and out-of-school resources.
  • Step 2 -Make information available to students
  • Step 3 – ensure sufficient contact time
  • Step 4 – monitoring of programme in place – refelction and interview
  • Step 5 – record of personal CAS upon completion – Individual Student Completion form
  • Step 6 – school review CAS programme as necessary.

Online Resources

• IBO EPals
• IBO OCC (requires school or temporary login)
• MangeBac

Personal Reflection

Over the last three days, my understanding of what CAS is and is not has shifted noticablbly. Despite, or perhaps becuase of, a long involvement with CAS from the ICT support side, I had believed that CAS was intrinsicly tied up with the running of after school activities. Consequently, I had underestimated the aspects to do with personal challenge, change and service. I was thus reluctant to take on the CAS Coordinator role, believing it to be relatively mundane. I now realise that it is challenging and potentially reward, offering a chance to work with students in a new way.

On return to school, I will instigate dialog to ensure that my taking on the CAS Coordinator role does not mean I also end up running C & A activities. As time permits in the course of the coming months, I will put in to place some of the structures needed to prepare our school, staff and students for the arrival of the IBDP’s CAS in 2012. My aim is to grow a service culture within our school, with the dual aims of helping our students grow whilst helping to solve real problems of value.

Yesterday morning I attended a breakfast meeting hosted by Apple Hong Kong’s education team. The main event was a presentation by Stephanie Hamilton, one of Apple’s education specialists from Cupertino. It seems her role is mainly to travel the world and advocate the use of (Apple) technology in the classroom.

Whilst much of the material was not new to me, I found Stephanie to be a good presenter, and she backed up many of the ideas with research with which I was not familiar. I can away feeling there were a few things I would like to implement right away, although ironically these were not technology-based but instead related to classroom environment and rules.

The following is a summary of what I felt to be some of the important points from Stephanie’s presentation:

• Teachers often fail to help students because they praise achievement not effort (Drive by Daniel Pink): technology can help to overcome this, and is often why students find technology-based learning more rewarding.
• Change in schools (such as introducing technology) often does not succeed because of a failure to deal with a complex interplay of logic, emotion and environment (Switch by Dan & Chip Heath)
• Traditionally, most teachers have been taught to use technology to do the same things that they do without it. To be really effective, teachers need to use the technology to achieve things they could not do without it. This point was illustrated using Ruben R. Puentedura’s Technology Implementation Continuum, in which we move from Enhancement (aka evolution) to Transformation (aka revolution), through the four steps listed below. If you can get teachers to Redefinition, where they cannot teach the lessons they want without technology, then you have achieved real change!
  • Substitution
  • Augmentation
  • Modification
  • Redefinition
• Does teaching in general succeed in teaching understanding, or simply factoids?
• There is a wealth of resources available online at iTunes U (I wonder, is it licenced to allow remix?).
• “When you lock things down so tight, you might as well not do the technology” (a great quote direct from Stephanie), and something I have long agreed with. This makes it harder for ICT administrators, teachers and students, and is often enough to turn people off. In relation to this, Stephanie talked about the cross over of business-based technology values (stability, control, cost, efficiency) into a learning (which should favour exploration and innovation).
• Challenge-Based Learning is an initiative derived from Apple’s own research, and suggests that students learn more when they are challenged to solve real-world problems.
• David Thornburg’s approach to having a variety of learning spaces:
  • Campfire: traditional space in which students face or surround teacher;
  • Watering Hole: a space where students can share knowledge and collaborate with each other on a less formal basis;
  • Cave: a place for introspection and reflection;
  • Mountaintop: a space for presenting work to others
• During the meeting I realised the following two things in relation to my own teaching:
• I participate in meetings whilst working on my laptop: some of this is related to the meeting, some not. How can I deal with students who want to and are able to work in this way? How can I allow multitasking, headphones, independent learning and self expression in my classroom, whilst still getting my messages across in enough detail?
• How can I remodel my learning spaces to allow for more effective learning.

More to come on these developments in the near future!

This page provides support for those who attended the NSW CSTA presentation I ran with Peter Stidston, Chris Dam and Nirvan Gelda on the 26th of October, 2009.

Please use the comment facility below to ask any questions, or leave feedback. It would be very useful to me if you could fill out the feedback form.

Materials

• Presentation (ppt | pptx)
• In-Session Hands On Guide (doc | docx)
• A Drupal XAMPP Install Guide (doc | docx)

Links

• The Project
• Drupal
• XAMPP
• Portable Apps
• PeaZip
• How To Build A Drupal Site (a guide I created)
• Creating A Digital Hub: Website Creation For Teachers

Recently I have been fielding questions from pre-service teachers regarding setting up their own website to support teaching and learning. I usually point people to a wiki (www.wikispaces.com ) or blog (www.onsugar.com ) service as a starting point, and show them how to integrate content from other sites and services. The video below aims to answer such questions in a thorough, easy-to-follow manner, so that teachers can help themselves.

Prior to watching the video it is worth noting that it deals with the creation of a wiki , but that the same principles can be applied to a blog. Many people are unclear on the distinctions between these two types of website: in general, a wiki is a relatively unstructured site that can be easily contributed to by a number of users, whereas a blog is a chronoligcal journal maintained by a single users. If you wish to develop a site that you alone run and others read, then a blog may be a better choice. However, if you want to invite other teachers or students to collaborate, a wiki may be a better option. Some sites, such as this one, blend elements of the two, and there are other structures which, for simplicity’s sake, we will not consider here. Your choice now determines what you can and cannot do with your site in the future, so it is worth considering.

As part of a previous position I held at the Sha Tin College (part of the English School’s Foundation in Hong Kong) I developed and delivered a year-long CPD course to help teachers develop their ICT skills. The aim was to produce a challenging course that forced teachers to confront ICT in numerous ways, thus building confidence and competence. As it was all created under a Creative Commons license, it is available for anyone to use!

Introduction

A comprehensive ICT training course for teachers looking for a solid foundation and enhanced confidence. A maximum of 23 contact hours spread over an academic year, with the option of lunch time or after school learning.

The program leads to a Level 1 Certification, via assessment, and covers hardware and software basics, classroom technology, office software, Internet use and basic graphics.

Designed and run specifically for Sha Tin College. More information will be emailed to SC Teaching Staff.

Details

For more details view the Course Outline.

Materials

For self-lead learning, the materials are provided below. You might want to start and end by clicking on the mind map summary below:

Course Content

As part of a UWS “Interactive PowerPoint for Teaching” workshop I helped out at today, I was asked by quite a few people how to remove the background from a picture so that it could be integrated into a presentation more cleanly. I showed a few people some relatively simple tricks using free, open source software called Gimp. In order to make this information more widely available, I have put together a short guide on how this can be done. The guide can be downloaded here.

Of course, there are other (more powerful and complex) ways to do this, and it can be done using other applications. However, Gimp is free, and this method is pretty straightforward, making it accessible to almost all users.

This page refers to a CPD workshop I ran at the “Beginner’s Teachers Forum” at the University of Western Sydney School of Education.

Information for participants: through this workshop I hope to balance hands-on exercises, suggestions, theory and values, with the aim of helping you to better incorporate ICT into your classroom practice. Listed below you will find all of the resources that we will use in this session.

Feel free to leave feedback or questions in the comments section below,

Activities

• Go to Activity 1
• Download Activity 2

Today’s Presentation

Please feel free to view, edit, share and remix this work, according to the Creative Commons licence details specified on the last page.I will put up PowerPoint 2003 and OpenOffice versions soon.

• MS PowerPower 2007 vesion
• MS PowerPower 2003 vesion