Using ICT tools to reflect on your own teaching
It has been really interesting reading the tips that have come through during the November challenge. Something that seems to be coming through strongly from those that have contributed so far is that teachers applying for jobs would be in a stronger position if they could show evidence in a digital form of their own critical reflection on their teaching practice.
I have been doing some thinking around this recently in relation to the Registered Teacher Critieria. As Digi Advisors, we have put together a wiki showing ideas on how to meet each of the criterion through e-learning practices. However, something that I think is really interesting is how digital tools can be used to collect and collate that evidence. We have put some of these ideas together on a page on the wiki:
http://registeredteachercriteria.wikispaces.com/Gathering+the+evidence
Here is a quick summary of some of the ideas that there are examples of on the wiki page:
- Teachers use a reflective blog and put the number of the criterion as a tag (called a label in Blogger) on posts that they believe provides evidence towards that criterion. You will then be able to filter posts via that tag when organising this evidence later.
- Teachers use an online version of the self-reflection tool that is available on the Teachers Council website and use this to record their progress against the criteria. This can then easily be shared with the appropriate people within the school who are supporting you. The Digi Advisors have created an version of this as a Google spreadsheet which anyone with a Google account can copy (link on the wiki page).
- Teachers use other tools such as a wiki to document their work towards the criteria and again can choose to just share it with key people in the school or make it public.
- Teachers can use a portfolio tool such as 'My Portfolio' to create themselves a professional portfolio that includes a section on their progress against the criteria.
These are just a few ideas to start the ball rolling. Have you got any more thoughts on how teachers can use digital tools to talk to their progress against the criteria or to show prospective employees evidence of reflective practice?
Comments
Hi Suzie,
I'm finding using blogging as a method to gather evidence on the Graduating Teacher Standards has been a really interesting process not just for myself but by the amount of incoming searches I'm getting on the GTS. This shows to me that there is a need for more evidence to be available to help the learning of others but nobody has taken up the challenge of creating it.
Stephanie
That is why it is fantastic to have people like yourself Stephanie that are blazing the trail. There is such potential for the use of etools as part of this process so it is great to have models of how others are doing this.