foolfillment: the blog

Another day, not much to write about here unfortunately. I’m tending towards only writing when there I have some insights, as this series of posts have been a bit of a dull diary recently.

I have nothing of note to write about today, other than to say that somedays you just can’t win with certain individuals. There was one pupil who is a good worker but always has a bit of a chat. Today though he was in hyperdrive and nothing I, or the other teacher, could say to make him behave better, in the end being sent to work on his own next door. There must be better solutions. It wasn’t too bad here because he at least has a good grasp of what he is doing, when it is a pupil who is playing up because he doesn’t engage with the work it is a harder problem to solve.

Not much to do today! A third year class first off, started making dovetail joints for a box. I took the quite small class through making out four dovetails. In a 50 minute period it’s amazing how little I seem to achieve. I knew I would struggle to get them all morked out but we got there by the end, there was a long time getting some of them to use the tools properly - is there a good way of showing pupils how to use a rule? So many put the rule down however it lands and just look for the 20mm (or whatever number) mark without looking for where the 0 is, there is the same struggle getting them to hold the stock of the marking gauge against the wood before marking with the spur.

Also had a 4th year class working on their folios. Next up I’m given my crit lesson to another 4th year class. I’ve made a few changes to it so we’ll see what happens. Not got any copies of the homework sheet so many run out of material, but I can just do the old chalk and talk for a while.

As I prmoised, this is a post about the assessed lesson I had on Thursday.

First of all I’ll explain that I got a Grade B. I know that’s about all of you want to know - formative assessment? Throw that out the window, just get a mark written down.

There is of course more, the grade is little more than something to take forward so that the Uni can award a level of degree - that’s what uni’s all about, the categorising of students in to one of three levels or failures. Great Stuff. The problem being that all people talk about afterwards is what grade you get, nobody cares what you did well or not so well. Thankfully though, the tutors always give a long session of feedback and discussion about all aspects of how the lesson went. The grade is just a throw away comment at the end.

Perhaps a little background, I was taking an S4 class for a lesson on the Design Process, Aesthetics in particular. This is a hard topic to get a good lesson on because most of the kids - in any school - just want to make things, they don’t want to waste time thinking about how to make them look good.

So, I took the lesson, it went pretty well, the kids were behaving absolutely perfectly - and that was what made me come undone. Which is odd, usually you’d want them to have impecable behaviour. Problem was, this was totally unexpected and meant that the class worked well and completed all the tasks they were given - they cleaned me out of extra work. Darned inconsiderate of them really!

What was good about it? There must have been a lot I suppose, I got a B after all and most of the criteria were marked towards the top end of the scale. I got them in and settled, gave them a little intro. Tried doing some quiet thinking time with them and got reasonable answers from them. All was going well and they took to the task well.

What was bad? A few things weren’t as good as they could have been, I meant to draw their attention to the aims of the leson at the start but forgot. I gave them a task that was rather open ended and with no time focus on it - I would have been better served if I had started them on the first bit and given them 10 minutes, say, to do it then moved on. I relied on oral descriptions for some of the terms where it would have been not much time at all to introduce some form of graphical representation of them. When it got to the point where there was 20 minutes left and most of them were finishing up, I handed out a homework sheet, I could have grabbed the chance to talk through that, explain in more detail the content of it - and some of it needs extra explanation - and used the time for them to work on that.

These things fall into a couple of different categories I suppose: Things I could have foreseen and planned around; things that it takes a few years experience to get good at. The bit about spending time on homework I didn’t think up - that was pointed out to me by the tutor so that falls into the latter category. The bit about reliying on oral explanations is definitely in the former, I could easily have spent mroe time explaining colour choice with some pictures but I just didn’t think of it because I was too focussed on moving them onto the task.

What now? I relax! I can get on with the business of teaching other classes. The crit situation creates a totally false environment and everyone can tell. It isn’t a tru display of hwo you teach. Having said that, it shows very clearly that if you put the effort in to a good lesson and prepare thoroughly then the kids notice and respond positively to that. If you come in and make up something on the hoof then they react in the opposite way. Doing things on the hoof might work for teachers with a few years under their belt and a bank of lessons they know work, but for an NQT or student then this doesn’t work.
It’s given me lots to think about which is good, and it is a reassurance that I’m not totally hopeless, but for now I just want to do something other than think crit crit crit all the time. Time to relax.

Thanks if you’ve read this far, feel free to comment about your own experiences or advice. As usual for here this post is more a cathartic exercise for me than something interesting for the readers but any responses are hugely appreciated because they add to the whole exercise.

Well today was the crit. lots to talk about, so I’ll write about it separately.

Other classes were a graphics class - photocopier out of action so running out of material to give them; a second year class working on finishing a wood piece; another second year class working on a metla coat hook; and the 5th year pcsw class. Not much to say today - all my thoughts were on the crit.

First two periods off - time to get things sorted for crit (I think they are now) and some wrangling over how you draw sections in thirs angle projection - there were three of us totally confused for a while, all thinking slightly different things. All sorted now though apart from one little thing with Inventor but that can be sorted I’m sure.
First class was the 3rd year GC class, had a little chat with them about sectioning objects. As usual some of them really know what it’s all about, most of the rest know the ir stuff too but aren’t as forthcomng with answers. Let them continue with their drawings and discovered one pupils who really has not got the hang of it at all - I tried to explain the drawing by taking it back to just an ordinary orthographic before any cuts have been made, this didn’t work, so I simplified it a little more, this didn’t work. In the end I went right back to the stage of drawing cubes and steps from different angles and built it up with them. Unfortunately I just know that next time they come they’ll not be able to remember how to do the drawing. It’s is made worse because of the 3 periods a week this pupil misses 1 for some out of school activity and often isn’t in for both the other 2 periods.

1st year after that, I really enjoy this class, they are really good fun to teach. Making a trowel (the one that is everywhere, I’m sure you know the one) at the moment so they are pretty excited to be in the workshop. I’ve been laying it on thick about how they have to be safe otherwise they’ll end up losing fingers or arms or eyes.

After lunch I got to take a second year class through the start of a model - marking out a through housing joint. This was left up to me by the PT and I’m really glad he did - I’ve been settling into taking a back seat in too many classes and need to get back ito gear with actually teaching them - just me and them. It was a pretty tough challenge - a full class of 20 kids in a tiny workshop just after lunch. Getting their attention and explaining everything I needed was difficult but on the whole this class are pretty good so I think I coped fairly well.

Last period was S5/6 PCS, slowly getting along with the mirror frame model.

2nd year first, I didn’t do much. This isn’t an exciting class for a student to teach - they just get on with things. Would be a dream class if theyr were my own though.
then 5th year for two periods of PCS. This class aren’t really a bad lot but they take some getting going. There’s been a bit of a change over the time I’ve been there, earlier there were kids who went through loads of wood because they were too hasty, and aggressive with it and didn’t really care - this caused a fair bit of disruption but now those ones just come in and sit doing next to nothing - this doesn’t bother me, they aren’t causing any harm, they are going to be leaving after Christmas and don’t want to be there. If this was my own class I would maybe be trying to gee them on a bit - it is pretty possible fomr them to have completed some of the models befre they leave and at least that way they get some credit for having been in the class, this is more than can be said for some other subjects they will be in.

3rd year - the class who were hard work yesterday - for a KU period next up. Wrapping up the idea of 5th-95the percentiles. While the terminology won’t have stuck with most of them they seem to have grasped the idea of designing for either tall or short people and why.
4th year last period. This worried me a lot. This is the class I have for my crit. I felt like I hardly knew them, today they weren’t the class I have been in with, it was as though they’d been replaced by noisier, more aggresive, less able kids who wouldn’t think twice about wrecking a crit if they knew it was going on. Is this just nerves or are they really behaving differently? They weren’t behaving as well as usual anyway because three of tehm have been promised referrals and this is mighty unusual. Is it just a Tuesday afternoon thing though as their usual teacher seemed to be telling me. I’m concerned that I won’t be able to teach the lesson I want to. We’ll see - I’ve got until Thursday to get myself in order.

The frist two classes on a Monday are good fun at the moment. A second year then a first year. Both nice keen classes. Some woodwork done in the first period then some metalwork in the second. 3rd period was metal work with 3rd years, simply marking out shape of a blade for a fish slice. I had a hard time getting their attention, the room is part of an openplan workshop (crazy idea) and the class in other half were fairly noisy so there were lots of distractions for this easily distracted class. Got there in the end though.
Next up I took the chance of a 4th year class to test run my crit lesson. It didn’t go very well but it wasn’t a disaster. If it had been the crit I think I would have been graded as competant, it may possibly have got a B. IT is hard to tell of course. It certainly wasn’t an A, I am really struggling to find a way to make this an excellent lesson. To find a way to make this lesson stand out above the rest.

I had some other classes that day but they weren’t worth writing home about - 3rd year graphics continuing with sections and 5th PCS.

Thursday is the busy day, I started off with a new topic for my third year graphics class - sections. Using Inventor I showed them an object that another teacher had dreamed up - hte orthographic views wouldn’t tell you exactly what the object looked like in real life and were slightly ambiguous which led nicely to showing the usefulness of sectioned drawings. A lot of them seemed to grasp it straight away but others seem like they need more time to understand what the different orthographic view represent in the first place - before any cuts.
I took a fourth year class on the same topic later in the day, this is a really good class and they got the hang of it straight away, most anyway.
I also had a nice 2nd year class, this is the class that had been getting cover material who I took through marking out their wood last week, now that their teacher is back he’s taken them on to the next stage - actually cutting it out.
Also had PCS where I started them on the mirror frame, the sheets are for the wrong level though and don’t show the correct joint so I had to change what Iwas saying very quickly and then try to get them back to the right thing. This was a poor lesson in terms of teaching, I really should have prepared better but I hadn’t actually expected to be in with them today.
Finished off the day with 1st years, they’re a nice crowd and I can get on with them really well. In my last placement the PT said that when you first start teaching the seniors are pretty daunting and the first years are great, but once you;’ve seen them grow up over the 4/5/6 years then you can still get on with them in the much the same way you did when they were first years. I hope this is true.

First teaching day of the week, it seems like along time ago now but that’s possibly because I didn’t do much teaching, I was in a few of the usualy classes giving help to individual pupils most of the time.

That was a good day! ?rd year graphics first off, most of the class are getting to the stage where the ask for help out of habit and when I go to help they tell me exactly what they are going to do and it’s the right thing. Easy. Start on something different next week, maybe sectional drawings.
Then S2, thisis a class that have been copying out of books for too long while their usual teacher has been off. The main problem is that I can’t teach them practical work unless there’s a qualified tech teacher there, but today I hedged my bets that the teacher would be back next week and started them marking out their material. I managed to spin out the lesson so that they were occupied the whole time and were doing something more relevant than other periods. It was pretty satisfying to be able to come into a class and just teach it without having to have spent a long time preparig and just wing it. Obviously not the best practice when I’m going to be getting crits but it is more like the real teaching world.

Then S2 after break, unfortunately the PT was called away for personal reasons and missed the lesson but I was able to get them started on written work that they had started on Tuesday - again I couldn’t teach them any practical things.
Next period I had off to prepare for things so I made up a sheet of six isometric cubes and made a sample sheet of them rendered in different materials.

After lunch it was a joyous S4 class in the library. These are a buch of kids who have sat and done next to nothing on their folio for about three weeks. The other class is far ahead. I tried being a bit more authoritative with them this time, there are a group of about 4 who talk constantly so I tried standing right by them at the start and jumping straigh in when one of them talked, it had no effect whatsoever, the one I would be talking to would just answer back or try to justify their shouting or occasionally be quiet while the others just carried on talking. It was infuriating, the other teacher doesn’t have much luck with them either - it’s a constant stream of low level interruptions.
I got to finish off the week with S1 graphics though and that was fun. I started off by reminding them of all the different things toremember while rendering and got them to render one of the cubes in pencil with different sides darker or lighter depending on the light direction - they managed very well. I got as far as doing an aluminium block and some started a piece of pine when I was reminded that we onl;y had a couple of minutes left. There was a little difficulty getting them to stand around the table so everyone could see each time but with a little pestering they got the hang of it.