Inset Day

A whole plethora of advice was offered to us throughout workshops on Inset Day. As a pupil I always wondered what these days were about and now I finally know!

Feedback
I chose this as the first workshop to attend, as I have found myself spending far too long marking books!
There was a significant emphasis placed on self-assessment and peer assessment  and I felt one of the most effective ways to do this was by use of the rubistar matrix website that we were introduced to:

Plenaries

Another area in which I feel my teaching is weak - I often run out of time or can't think of an appropriate plenary. However, the idea of mini plenaries suited my teaching style very well, so I will use them in the future.

My Name! and The Role of Assessment

This morning's curriculum session saw one of the lead developers of GeoGebra come in and show us just a smidgen of the things it can do - amazing! One of the things we did was create functions to make our names, woohoo! Here is my attempt: http://www.geogebratube.org/student/m23067. Many more examples can be found on GeoGebra Tube.

This afternoon's PDP was on The Role of Assessment; both summative and formative assessment were discussed.

• secondary schools are being accused of "teaching to the test"
• "how do you spell catalyst" - "doesn't matter, you'll get the marks anyway"
• techniques for making the student responsible for their own development
• verbal feedback stamps: "Sir said..."