Is my teaching effective?

Many teachers already think about their teaching and talk to colleagues about it too. You might think or tell someone that "My lesson went well" or "My students
didn't seem to understand" or "My students were so badly behaved today."

However, without more time spent focussing on or discussing what has happened, we may tend to jump to conclusions about why things are happening. We may only notice reactions of the louder students.

Reflective teaching therefore implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analysing our thoughts and observations, as well as those of our students, and then going on to making changes.

If a lesson went well we can describe it and think about why it was successful.
If the students didn't understand a language point we introduced we need to think about what we did and why it may have been unclear.

If students are misbehaving - what were they doing, when and why?

Beginning the process

1. Peer observation

Invite a colleague to come into your class to collect information about your lesson. This may be with a simple observation task or through note taking.

This will relate back to the area you have identified to reflect upon. For example, you might ask your colleague to focus on which students contribute most in the lesson, what different patterns of interaction occur or how you deal with errors.

2. Recording lessons

Video or audio recordings of lessons can provide very useful information for reflection. You may do things in class you are not aware of or there may be things happening in the class that as the teacher you do not normally see.

Audio recordings can be useful for considering aspects of teacher talk.

How much do you talk?

What about?

Are instructions and explanations clear?

How much time do you allocate to student talk?

How do you respond to student talk?

Video recordings can be useful in showing you aspects of your own behaviour.

Where do you stand?

Who do you speak to?

How do you come across to the students?

3. Student feedback

You can also ask your students what they think about what goes on in the classroom. Their opinions and perceptions can add a different and valuable perspective. This can be done with simple questionnaires or learning diaries for example.

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What to do next

Once you have some information recorded about what goes on in your classroom, what do you do?

Think, You may have noticed patterns occurring in your teaching through your observation. You may also have noticed things that you were previously unaware of. You may have been surprised by some of your students' feedback. You may already have ideas for changes to implement.

Talk Just by talking about what you have discovered - to a supportive colleague or even a friend - you may be able to come up with some ideas for how to do things differently.

If you have colleagues who also wish to develop their teaching using reflection as a tool, you can meet to discuss issues. Discussion can be based around
scenarios from your own classes.

Using a list of statements about teaching beliefs (for example, pairwork is a valuable activity in the language class or lexis is more important than grammar)

you can discuss which ones you agree or disagree with, and which ones are reflected in your own teaching giving evidence from your self-observation.

Read

You may decide that you need to find out more about a certain area. There are plenty of websites for teachers of English now where you can find useful teaching ideas, or more academic articles. There are also magazines for teachers where you can find articles on a wide range of topics.

Or if you have access to a library or bookshop, there are plenty of books for English language teachers. Ask Pose questions to websites or magazines to get ideas from other teachers. Or if you have a local teachers' association or other opportunities for in-service training,
ask for a session on an area that interests you.

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Courtesy:  http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk

Signs of a Successful School

A successful school also should have Vision and Mission just like every successful organization outside the education sector.

No matter the size of the school there must be a set out Vision and Mission for the school, it helps the organization to know what to do and what not to do.

A vision is who, what our school will be in the nearest future, it is usually very brief and straight forward, a short sentence for that matter.
(In football for example, it is the goal post that we see though we are at the center of the pitch)

A mission  statement tells the world how we intend to achieve this vision we said earlier, it is those things we do that will  help us achieve our vision/goal

(In football, it is the strategy we want to use to score a goal in the net, who are we passing the ball to, how many players, who will play the shot and the ball must be in the net.)

After doing all this:
Every member of the school must be aware of this, written boldly visible to both school members, visitors and the public.

Every one in the school must have a role to play, no one is just there doing nothing, remembered we are going somewhere

There should be a channel of authority - who authorize who on the task assigned to him/ her

Individuals/ Groups/Department are responsible for all the consequences of their actions either good or not too good

Everyone gets paid, appreciated, applauded for their little efforts in helping us achieve our goal at the appropriate time

All efforts are coordinated. We know when to do this and when not to do this

We put organizational interest/goals before our Personal interests.

We are work as a team, with the believe that we are all in this together.yearle

Have a founder's day to celebrate momentum and achievements and evaluate efforts yearly (You can check out my post on "Top Notch School Event")

When all this are present in our school, the top here we come!

6 Things with Planning

Planning is any essential element in any successful organization no matter the size of the organization.

For every plan to be successful make it go through these 6 stages in your school.

Pre- planning : This is preparing to plan, as funny as it sounds it involves looking into what will be needed for the planning process and making them available.
A condusive environment, what do we what to plan
Adjustment of resources and machinery necessary. All that is needed to plan materials and structures so as to have a feasible plan
Outline the planning procedure. How to get the resources. When to get the resources needed for this our plan.
Set up procedures for collection and analysis of information / data for every stage of planning

Planning: This is the actual planning, it includes diagnosing the project- What we want to  achieve at the end of the planning,
formulating Policies - these are the rules & guidelines to help us achieve this plan (it must be written out & made public).
establishing priorities - now which activity should come up first and which is next in a very rational manner.

carrying out feasibility studies - this is what to sell? how to sell? who to sell to? who to sell it? how much? what is the competition like? location of target market? how do we manipulate demand?

costing of the project - after doing all the above things, how much does each cost us,considering other necessary things that is peculiar to your plan, then we put all the cost together, it becomes the total cost of the plan.

Plan Formulation: This is presenting a set of decisions we intend taking as regards our proposed plan in form of a proposal to the appropriate authorities and to provide a line of action to bring the plan into implementation.
It consists of
What is proposed?
Why is it proposed?
How to implement what is proposed? This is taking actions to implement, bring to reality what is planned.

Plan Elaboration:  After the approval of the plan. This is not implementation straight away but involves dividing the plan into specific and achievable duration of time. It involves dividing our plans into what we can achieve if all resources are available and all hands are on deck- dally, weekly, monthly, bimonthly, etc dependent of the size of the plan.

It is more or less like building a house for example we want to roof the duplex- how many carpenters do we need, how  many days will it take, how many how per day will be on roofing the building, etc

For a school, what to we want to achieve a smaller objective that is apart of the big objective, how many staff do we need, like our many days should this take, how many hours in a day should we allot to this, closing time, evaluation time of the day, salary/ wage structures, what we we have left after all this?

At the end of the day we know how long  in reality it will take us to achieve this plan


Plan Implementation: This is the core stage , because if all other process have been consider. If this is left undone it is all NOTHING. Here our  plan is been executed. All little efforts here now becomes very visible, the running of a para-organization has started. Structures are used to carry out tasks, administration of activities is very visible, keeping of records now is very visible.


Evaluation of plan: So now that we have started we need to keep a check on ourselves and the project. This can be done weekly or monthly.
What have we done so far?
Is this want we intend to achieve?
What is it that needs to be corrected?
What has been effective?
What has not been effective?
What challenges have we experienced so far?
How can we tackle them quickly?
Do we need re-oreintation?

Celebrate, Inspire and motivate your team with every little success made, it renews the energy

Effective and efficient planning isn't a day job

Team work keeps plans alive

Good planning = Good projects

We can do Better

Arise o, Compatriot
Nigeria's call Obey
To Serve our father's land
with love and strength and faith
The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain
To serve with heart and might....

That is a part of our National Anthem, it says "to serve our father's land with love" .... hmmmm, when we love someone or something we are ready to go the extra mile for the person and  that thing.

"The labour of our heroes past Shall never be in vain...." Hmmmm, some of our past leaders lost their blood and lives as they fought for the things we are now enjoying in Nigeria, so what is wrong with us this younger generation in position of authority to do the right thing......

What do you think our education sector will be on the next few years....

Will Nigerian education would have been better that people from overseas will fly in to study in Nigeria rather than what it is right now?

Will it be that only private schools will be up to the standards of the world?

When our very own government owned schools should be a role model.

We need to plan to achieve this with a stipulated day, month, week, year attached to our plans as deadline

I will suggest some solutions to some identified problems of Educational Planning in Nigeria.

The cart before the horse syndrome - This means doing the last thing first. Nigerians we need to always follow due process, and be patient and not boycott the laid down procedures. There ought to be a plan formulation, plan preparation, plan coordination, plan implementation, plan evaluation, etc should be done well efficiently by the appropriate authority dutifully. I would suggest that planning should be done by professional programs and project planners that are independent from external influences.

Unprogressive administrative Traditions: This involves  some subconscious administrative activities that has been in place for a long time in the system but so far it has not helped the system rather it has crippled it. It is high time we do away with irrelevant bureaucracy, nepotism, tribalism, flimsy conflicts, etc within our education system. We need to be re-oreientated on some administrative practices and their impacts on the education system and the economy at large, afterwards  we set up new rules practices and sanctions to inculcate and encourage the new the practices.

Weak Database: Hmmm, it is in our subconscious to always be untruthful with information especially with governmental parastatals, may be because we were once bitten now we are shy (smiles). But for how long do we want to continue like this? We don't have accurate data about all our schools both qualitative and quantitative data. We need to be wise and get information from other means that are connected to schools at different levels through banks, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Birth registrations, external examinations, etc. We need to re-orientate the general public we need to inculcate better values into our society. Wrong data equals wrong planning, wrong planning equals wrong results.

Lack of Public support: We Nigerians we need change right, we need to trust us one more and we will not disappoint you again, we need answers from you, understand your real needs we need your views, what you think, even ideas from you. Educational Planners should partner with reputable organizations, get social support, organize orientations through various available platforms- social Media, conduct online surveys, etc.

Politics: Politics and Education, hmmm we cannot separate politics from the educational system because education is a segment of our political system too. But we need to identify irrelevant and relevant politics in the educational system, in terms that will this politics help or deteriorate the educational system. Yes  we  know that the authorities that decides for our education system is our political systems. We need to evaluate so far has partisan politics help the sector or made it worse.... So far it has made it worse so we need to take a new turn. We can't keep doing the same thing and expect the same results, Nigeria!

Inadequate Resources: Resources like Professional Educational Planners, Professional Curriculum planners and writers, Excellent statisticians, etc. Currently in our Educational system we have so many square pegs in Round holes, people who really are qualified for the Education sector are in other sectors of the economy because this economy has not really made an impact and members of the sector are looked down on. Its high time we only accept round pegs on square holes, square pegs in square holes, Education Professionals in other sectors should please be return to this sector. Also, our personnel should be well motivated not just only those at the very peak of this education sector, all needed and relevant educational resources should be adequately provided at the right time. Our available resources should be judiciously used, not mismanaged.

Proper Implementation  : During implementation process there might be itch, but it is advisable to stick with the plans no matter what. We need People are don't easily change their minds to do this implementation.
It must be regularly inspected, evaluated to know if this is exactly what we took so long to plan.

Our Nigeria Education System can be better, if only we take other directions to aim at a better / same goal.