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Professional Development  |
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Trevor works as a consultant and Critical Friend with schools and organisations to provide professional support and development in a number of aspects that include:
Inquiry Learning and Information Literacy, Thinking, Questioning, Student Questioning Skills, Teacher Questioning Skills, Vision Development and Review, Belief Driven Practice, ICT, Curriculum Review and Implementation, Key Competencies, Principal and Deputy Principle Mentoring, Staff Observations and Appraisals, Principal Appraisals, Principal Appointments, Critical Friending
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Information Literacy |
A number of options or combination of options are available to schools including:
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| Thinking |
Facilitating thinking is a serious change that must impact on every aspect of our teaching practice and because it is more than just an optional extra that can be bolted on, we need to be able to answer questions like:
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Questioning: The driving force of classroom thinking for teacher and pupils.
Questioning is a tool that is central to thinking and learning. De Bono even says that 'questioning is the engine-house of thinking'. Thinking is also the central core aspect of learning, because there is no learning without thinking. We have known for a long time that questioning is important. in this focussed approach to questions we will look at factors like:
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| Student Questioning Skills |
Pupil Questioning Skills:
Questioning is a vital a learning and thinking skill. The workshop will introduce participants to a rubric of questioning skills which is being used in a number of schools. Along with the rubric will given a range of classroom strategies to improve pupils questioning skills, a working definition of an effective questioner, and the means for school wide assessment and tracking of questioning skills. Some schools are now into their second year of implementing this approach and there are substantial gains being evidenced school-wide in pupil’s questioning skills. Participants will gain experience in using the rubric and evaluating questions and will also be shown data demonstrating the impact this approach in schools. |
| Teacher Questioning Skills | When it is used well, questioning is a powerful tool for teachers, however many teachers use questions poorly as they play a game with their pupils of ‘guess what is in the teacher’s head’. When teachers use questions as a tool to challenge, provoke, probe, and draw reflective reasoned responses from students they impact powerfully on thinking and learning. This section offers teachers strategies and frameworks to assist them in asking powerful questions. |
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Vision development and review |
There is much research that points to the empowering value of a focussed school vision that is corporately owned and is then used to drive school action and decisions. It is too easy for schools to fall into the situation where the school vision is just words on a piece of paper that has little impact on the daily life of a school. I can help with a process that renews/reviews the school vision brings it back to life so that it is corporately owned implement a structure that allows the vision to drive the school schools who have gone through this process have found it brings increased understanding to staff, ownership and engagement with aspects like curriculum and assessment, it also helps schools to work much smarter in terms of their main goals. |
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Belief driven Practice |
Professor Nuthall says that for many teachers and schools there is a big gap between what they know and believe about effective learning/teaching and the actualities of daily practice. This approach takes schools through a process of:
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ICT is a tool to enhance learning and teaching. It is not the magic ingredient that will turn a poor learning experience into a great one. In fact PL + ICT = EPL (Poor Learning plus ICT equals Expensive Poor learning). the magic ingredient is the teacher. However ICT is a wonderful tool in the hands of any good teacher. Let's take a serious look at ICT and see if we can do better in terms of using this tool to do a better job of achieving the vision and goals we have for our students.
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and Implementation |
I have been working with schools over the last three years, as part of their change processes, to start moving towards implementing aspects of the new draft curriculum. as we come close to this curriculum being gazetted many of these schools are all prepared and ready with visions, school based curriculum, programmes, assessments, and review processes all in place and functioning that are fully targeted towards the Key Competencies and the new curriculum. The new curriculum can be a drudgery of work, or have little impact on the school, or it can be gateway to exciting changes that will impact hugely on our students for their future. A lot of hard work has already been done by some schools and I have a wide range of resources that can help schools in this process. They won't be a gift, because each school still has to work through a number of issues and then use the resources to assist them as they work out how to 'engage and motivate' their own students (P26 Draft curriculum) and meet the future learning needs of their own student now. |
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As New Zealand schools look towards implementation of the Key Competencies there is the growing realisation that because each Competency is a complex composition of skills, attitudes, values, and understandings they are extremely difficult to assess. One approach to solving this issue is to identify the skills, attitudes/values and understandings explicit in each competency. Once this has been done the school needs to decide which aspects will be assessed. A number of schools have settled on the following approach to implement meaningful and useful assessment developed from the competencies. During each year teachers will
This seems to be a workable approach. How is your school approaching the issue of complex competencies. Do you want some help?
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| Principal, Deputy Principal Mentoring | In these busy and demanding roles
people often need someone, from outside their own school and
professional circle who:
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Staff Observations and Appraisals |
There are times when schools are serious about implementing change and challenging existing practice that it can be very useful to have an outside person to carry out classroom observations and personal appraisals. Negotiate the specific aspects to be examined, approve the observation sheets that will be used , and then have assistance to analyse the results and establish ongoing actions.
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Principal Appraisals |
Principals have complex roles that are combinations of leadership, management and supervision. The goal is to carry out rigorous professional appraisals that target the realistic merge of these three aspects and all the related issues in a manner that is constructive and looks towards professional improvement.
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Principal Appointments |
Finding the right principal who will come into our school, come on board with our vision, and help us to achieve that vision through strong leadership and competent management is a big challenge to many schools. Assistance is available for this process.
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I am often asked to work with schools, or groups of schools, as a Critical Friend over a 2 or 3 year period to assist in implementing a number of the above aspects. As a Critical Friend come with 'cold eyes' and 'warm heart'. The first part of the role provides critical eyes that will look at the designated aspects and pose challenges to the leadership team and the school staff. Alongside this comes a person who has experience teaching a wide range of class levels, and in school leadership. The other part of the role provides someone who comes alongside the school team to help them formulate their responses to the challenges provided. The goal will be to thoroughly embed the chosen aspects into the school, this means that we will address a wide range of applicable issues such as:
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