March update

I did profile Colleen earlier this month and without wanting to breach confidentiality will say - she did all the right things. It was refreshing to observe such clear-cut examples of good teaching practice. One thing it demonstrated is that these strategies are observable.

The following week I met with Susan in Atherton and we talked through a number of issues. One outcome was that we decided on some more changes to the sheets, to incorporate some of the practices I observed.

For example, the flow sheet now includes a space to note or list the variety of methods and materials used. There is now a "teaching strategies" section in the frequency sheet, which includes a couple of the things formerly in the "positive supportive strategies" section like "link/reference to industry", as well as new ones like "giving examples" and "summarising".

To really tidy this up, I need to go back to the descriptors document and update that.

The challenging thing now is to keep some momentum going with the team. I don't think anybody apart from Susan has done any profiles lately (or at all this year). I need to confirm with Susan when we are going to run microskills workshops with H&CC and up in the Tablelands. And perhaps see if Colleen wants to co-facilitate one with T&H. Douglas seems too snowed under at the moment to think about doing the planned RATEP one. I need to catch up with John about the database and I haven't heard from Peter for some time.

Can't do much before next week though. But I know I will need to do a lot of individual following up.