3-Read Friday #004

Efficiency, observations, and ChatGTP

Here are three blog posts that I found interesting this week.

1. Rush by Jo Castelino

The opening section of this post perfectly describes what my lessons used to look like for the first 12 years of my career (and probably beyond, if I am honest). I would try to tick all the boxes of a good lesson - Do Now, prerequisite knowledge check, explanation, independent practice, plenary - but in my rush to fit everything in (and because my routines were ropey), the quality suffered and my students did not understand or retain as much as I hoped. Jo goes on to make some super practical suggestions about how we can become more efficient in our lessons, saving precious minutes that allow us to spend time on things that will make a difference to our students.

2. Deconstructing my lesson observation thought processes by Tom Sherrington

One of the things I am thinking about most at the moment is improving the way I support teachers through lesson observations and coaching. You might have heard my 2-hour deep dive with Adam Boxer where we discussed How to observe a lesson. This post from Tom adds some fantastic suggestions that I will be building into my practice going forward. I particularly like the idea of sitting down next to a student (instead of the busy, and no-doubt distracting, circulating I currently do), and the way of categorising areas of focus into curriculum, individual and collective.

3. If we are setting assessments that a robot can complete, what does that say about our assessments? by Daisy Christodoulou

I really enjoy Daisy and Chris’ No More Marking newsletter, and in particular their reflections on the implications of AI on the way we assess students. This post from February is brilliant for confronting (and dismantling!) the claim that if tools like ChatGPT can write quality essays and solve complex maths problems at the click of a button, then we need to radically change the type of assessments we give our students.

If you found this edition of 5-Read Friday useful, feel free to share it with colleagues. Also, you can check out all the back issues of my Eedi newsletter and Tips for Teachers newsletter here. But, most importantly of all, have a great weekend.

Craig