The trial training happened back in November (December?) last year. I was very ably assisted by Susan and we managed to get through everything in the two days. Many improvements were identified, as would be expected, and the teachers involved - Ann, Anne, Mary, Robin and Sarah-Jane - contributed some great ideas and the benefit of their experience.
Robin and Susan have both contributed by allowing videos of their teaching to be made, as did Claire. I still need to encourage people a bit more strongly to get out and do some observations.
Also had a thought, that I could send out weekly or fortnightly good teaching encouragers, based on the items on the flow and frequency sheets - eg greeting students; linking material to what was previously learned and/or to students' experiences, etc.
This could link in with the reading I'm doing currently for the MLM - have finally delved into Bloom's Taxonomy (the original, but condensed) and discovered Cyrs, who approaches the Taxonomy concepts from a very practical perspective.
Getting back to the update - I visited Mount Isa early this year and ran a workshop on the micro-skills. It was really inspiring to be there and to hear about the energetic and innovative ways a lot of teachers out there are meeting their challenges. There is a great partnership between the TAFE and the mines, to fast-track 70 apprentices through two years of training to get them into the mines in a productive capacity quicker. I'm hoping to get back out there to do some observations.
The Brisbane training didn't go ahead in March due to Cyclone Larry interfering with travel plans. It has been rescheduled for May 22-23.
In the meantime John has helped out by assigning two of his Diploma of IT students, Natasha and Shirley, to do an assessable project developing a database to capture quantitative data from observations. They have quite quickly grasped the basic concepts and principles of TROPIC, and this week will show me what shape the database is taking.
For my final project in the MLM (Master of Learning Management, Central QLD Uni), I am doing an evaluation of the implementation of the TROPIC program across the different institutes. I'm using Kirkpatrick's 4-level evaluation as a model, and for my methodology will be surveying all the participants in the training followed by 3 case studies of teachers involved in the implementation.
That's about it. I have done 3 observations so far this year, each one together with a video recording of the lesson.
Oh, one other thing - Mary and I are going to attend a symposium on workplace learning in Brisbane early in May. We will look from there at implementing some teacher development around workplace learning (with help from Trish and support from Professional Practices Unit, and maybe Reframing the Future funding). It would be good to link this in with TROPIC and see how we can apply and/or adapt the observation tools and processes.
Main thing to focus on now - getting some more activity happening with those who did the training.
