Professional learning: An introduction –practice activities menu
Internalise expertise
Select three of the following nine activities to submit to your leadership mentor.
Choose an activity based on your areas of interest and the results of the diagnostic review undertaken at the start of the course.
Implementation
Activity 1: Reliable data
In the scenario in the self-study pack lesson Make the right choices on what to implement, Dash explained how she used a range of internal and external data sources and benchmarked school data to against the national average to ensure she could confidently diagnose a need for implementation.
What can you learn from the case study about using a robust diagnostic process?
How can you ensure the reliability of data and evidence you use to inform your own implementation project?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Activity 2: Prioritising the key ingredients
The EEF's 'School's guide to implementation' includes guidance on identifying and prioritising the 'active ingredients' of a project. Read the guidance, paying attention to section e. Use the active ingredients to anchor the implementation process.
What key learning can you take away from the guidance?
How will you apply what you have learned to help you identify and prioritise the key ingredients of a project?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF Implementation theme - Active Ingredients
Activity 3: Supporting implementation through professional development
The EEF's 'School's guide to implementation' includes guidance on supporting implementation with professional development. Read the guidance, paying attention to the recommendation to reinforce initial training with expert follow-on support. Consider the implications of this for implementation activity in your school.
How will you apply what you have learned to your own activity to improve the quality of teaching?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF Implementation theme - Professional Development
How pupils learn
Activity 4: Sharing important ideas about the way pupils learn
Read Deans for Impact's 'The science of learning' and pay attention to the cognitive principles.
How could you communicate these principles and their implications for teaching to your colleagues? (For example, analysing artefacts, learning walks, team-teaching, sharing research and reading)
Make a note of ways you could model the use of these principles and create a list of potential examples to share with colleagues. Why are these useful?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Deans for Impact (2015) The science of learning
Activity 5: Supporting teachers to sequence effectively
In the self-study pack lesson Support colleagues to help pupils learn, Emma Geall and Jo Turner discuss their approach to supporting teachers to sequence effectively. The strategies included setting expectations, providing scaffolds and holding collaborative planning sessions.
What aspects of the approaches could be applied in your own school? Why?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Activity 6: Worked examples
Coe et al.'s. 'Great teaching toolkit' (2020) reviewed the evidence of the impact of using worked examples. They found that the use of worked examples can be helpful in introducing new ideas, but evidence suggests that worked examples are not as effective for more advanced pupils with a secure knowledge of a subject. In this case, activities which encourage pupils to think hard and apply existing knowledge to new contexts, questioning and problem solving, are more effective.
What are the implications of this research for supporting teaching practice in your school?
How can you support teachers to make appropriate and effective use of worked examples? For example, what activities, artefacts and examples could you use to help colleagues understand how to use worked examples effectively?
Submit a summary of your reflection to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Coe, R., Rauch, C. J., Kime, S., & Singleton, D. (2020) Great teaching toolkit: Evidence review
Subject and curriculum
Activity 7: Developing subject knowledge
Evidence highlights the importance of subject-specific knowledge of what to teach and how to teach it. In the practice piece in the self-study pack lesson, Supporting curriculum design and sequencing, Sarah Bailey explained how she worked with her local maths hub to help develop teachers' subject knowledge at her school.
Talk to subject leads in your school to identify organisations that could help develop teachers' subject knowledge. Make a list of contacts and resources. Why are these useful and how can they help improve teacher subject knowledge?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
Activity 8: Primary literacy
The evidence suggests that phonics programmes are more effective than whole language approaches, but effective phonics techniques are usually embedded in a rich literacy environment for early readers and are only one part of a successful literacy strategy. Read the EEF guidance on supporting literacy development in key stage 1.
What are the implications for supporting literacy development in your school?
Make a note of the recommendations you would like to implement or areas of practice that could be improved. Why have you chosen these areas?
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF (2020) Improving literacy in key stage 1
Activity 9: Secondary literacy
The evidence supports the need to develop disciplinary literacy and focus on teaching reading comprehension for older pupils. Read the EEF guidance on supporting literacy development in secondary schools.
What are the implications for supporting literacy development in your school?
Make a note of the recommendations you would like to implement or areas of practice that could be improved. Why have you chosen these areas?
Submit a summary of your reflection to your leadership mentor (maximum 200 words).
EEF (2020) Improving literacy in secondary schools