Fabulous flu graphic in yesterday's Times

This caught my eye yesterday (someone was reading it at the newspaper stand in Waitrose, Abingdon, and it looked so interesting I just had to buy the paper).

The good news is it is also available as a PDF file from the Times web site where you can also read the related report: 'Britain is braced for mass school closures in the autumn'.

It's ideal for displaying on an interactive whiteboard and also prints out very clearly onto an A4 sheet. There's so much to absorb that it's hard to know where to look first...

but remember the great thing about PDF files is that you can zoom into particular bits. Once you have got the area you want to see lined up in the window (see screenshot, below left) you can print just the 'current view' onto an A4 sheet to make an instant worksheet (see screenshot of the Adobe Acrobat print dialogue box below right - you can click on this screen shot to zoom in if needed).



















Unfortunately a) it's almost the end of term and b) I'm teaching E1-2 at the moment so I don't think I'm going to get a chance to use the graphic in class. BUT if you do and want to share your ideas please leave a blog comment or email me via http://www.skillsworkshop.org/

Here's just a few starter ideas (for L1-L2) using the enlarged part of the graphic shown above:

Pictograms - look at the pictogram and read the surrounding text.

1. How many doses of flu vaccine does each syringe represent?
2. Why are there 12 syringes in the pictogram?
3. Explain why there are only 10 anti-viral drug icons.

For more ideas on using newspaper graphics in numeracy classes have a look at my Guardian Eyewitness - numeracy resource for film lovers post of last July.

Swine flu - literacy resources galore

In light of yesterday's news about the now pandemic status of swine flu anything that helps to spread accurate information and advice can only be a good thing.

So, unsurprisingly, swine flu resources are very popular on skillsworkshop.org this month (overtaken only by the Susan Boyle and Diversity resources!).

The latest, a set of 10 L1-L2 multiple choice reading comprehension questions (contributed by Elaine Slingsby) based on the Official UK Government leaflet, will be added to the site later today. (See large picture, right).

A further two resources (pictures below left and middle) have been available for the past month. One gives general teaching ideas for using the official leaflet with E2-L1 readers (3600 downloads since May 5th) and the second, contributed by Pam Benfold (Victoria, Australia), is a set of web research questions for L1-L2 learners (2100 downloads since May 10th).













I have also been informed of a useful simplified version of the UK leaflet (picture, above right) which looks ideal for reading work with E1-E2 learners (please note this is an ‘unoffical translation’). It's on a fascinating site, Simply Understand, run by Corinne Pritchard whose aim in life is to get rid of 'gobblydegook and jargon'.

What's in a Name?

A regular site user (thanks Ruth) has alerted me to the news that the DIUS (Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills) is no longer…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/education/8086233.stm

Further and higher education are now grouped with business under the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (headed by Lord Mandelson).

Ruth points out that just in this century the name has changed from the DfEE (Department for Education and Employment) to the DfES (Department for Education and Skills, 2001) to the DIUS (2007) and now to the DBIS. Previous to 1995 the name remained unchanged for 30 years (Department of Education and Science, 1964-1995).

She goes on to comment:
“The way it goes is: when it isn't working, change the name!”

Having just emerged from a year of heavy Harvard referencing (whilst studying for the Level 5 Numeracy Diploma) I have also noticed all these name changes. They were particularly evident in the references used in my first essay (The History and Developing Role of Mathematics / Numeracy) and my final presentation (Changes in the Mathematics / Numeracy Curriculum).

I will be sharing many of these references with site users later in the summer when I intend to set up a new section of Level 5 Numeracy links. These will mirror the existing Level 4-5 Literacy Links section I set up after my literacy studies in 2004-5.

Site down due to server problems - not available, not running ...

Apologies to all site users but the site has been down all day. I have no idea when it will be available again but fingers crossed it will be up and running soon.
The problem is with my hosting company 4U Hosting (4UH Ltd) and is out of my control. It does happen occasionally although not normally for such a long period of time.
Please excuse the strange repetitive nature of my English but I am trying to include as many 'down' / 'not running' / 'unavailable' synonyms as possible in this post so that site users typing 'skillsworkshop down' or 'skillsworkshop not running' or 'skillsworkshop not working' will find this blog in their Google search results.
Please don't email me on my skillsworkshop.org email to tell me as that is down too! You can, however, send messages via this blog.

Practitioner research from LSDA Northern Ireland

There's an absolutely fascinating collection of 'perspectives on engagement in learning' available from the RaPAL site.

I am engrossed in working for my Level 5 Numeracy Diploma but this document has made me think seriously and optimistically about literacy again - the first time for quite a while.

So far, I've only fully read one article (of nine) but will be attempting to get a hard copy so I can sneak some quick browses from the comfort of my armchair.

Ever on the look out for resources, my eye was drawn to the appendix of research paper 1, 'Exploring text messaging from the perspective of the young people who use it', (Pamela McDowell). I love the idea of 'translating' from one form of text to another. Just wish I had time to produce something like this for my group of teenage Entry Level literacy students - but the Numeracy Diploma keeps calling!

I then backtracked and read Pamela's paper. It is full of eye-opening facts including a list of situations when young people would consider switching their phones to 'silent'; 'off' does not seem to be an option except during air travel.

All nine papers are related to such everyday topics or real-life classroom situations. If you skim the contents page (click picture left for an enlargement) I guarantee you will get pulled in.

Each paper ingeniously concludes with comments and reflections from the author / researcher. These have convinced me that getting involved in action research is not as difficult as I thought. Maybe after the numeracy diploma?

Can't Read Can't Write - a review in Reflect

I can't believe it's almost three months since I wrote about the July issue of Reflect magazine.

The latest October 08 issue arrived at my house last weekend: I was delighted to see and read Rachel O’Dowd’s review of the Channel 4 Can't Read Can't Write programme that upset and disturbed so many Skills for Life tutors over the summer. It's a well balanced and thoughtful critique and you can read it yourself as Reflect is available on line (pages 25-26) at the NRDC site.

I was also interested to discover that Linda Worden, one of Beadle's students in the C4 programme, now has her own web site through which she is available for 'appearances and interviews'. These include the recent National Skills for Life conference in Birmingham (and the one in York tomorrow).

If you missed the programme see my two earlier posts of July 10 08 and July 29 08 for some background.

Film industry numeracy resource - is it RICH or poor?

I've now had a chance to try out the Guardian film industry pullout that I wrote about on July 22nd. If you keep reading you'll also be able to locate a new Level 2 place value worksheet that I created last week to accompany it (can also be used independently). However, due to embarking upon the Level 5 numeracy diploma, I've now decided it might not be as good as I thought it was!

Level 2 place value session
The main topic of my recent Level 2 session was large numbers (i.e. place value) and I began with one of my favourite 'large number' sites, David Levine's world population clock at http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop which can be used as a prompt for all kinds of questioning and board work. I recommend pausing it by selecting today's date (or maybe one of your student's birth dates?) if you are going to ask students to translate the digits into words - otherwise the whirring last few digits can be very off-putting.

I also wanted (in order to tick the 'equality and diversity' box on the lesson plan) to use a more complicated population clock http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf (different countries, statistics for males and females, etc.) but unfortunately the numbers were too small for clear display on the smartboard so I had to move swiftly on to the film industry poster.

It was obviously not my day for using the smartboard. Again, I had visibility problems: the PDF did not display as clearly as I had hoped and only the large graphics and figures were readable. Fortunately I had printed off an A3 version and we made do with a couple of A3 photocopies (and the original newspaper) shared around the class. (I'm lucky enough to have an old A3 printer at home; don't bother trying to print it on A4 - you won't be able to read it.)

Most of my questioning was based on interpreting the data in the large pie chart or on asking volunteers to write numbers on the poster as whole numbers (e.g. writing 54.2 billion as 54,200,000,000). At this stage, if your students require further input you might find the Level 2 place value chart useful. You can find it on the Level 2 number section of skillsworkshop.

I then used my new worksheet to check and consolidate individual skills. The PDF version is available here or you can click the picture left for a quick thumbnail preview (don't look for it on skillsworkshop as I haven't yet had time to list it - it will appear there during October).

Having now marked 14 worksheets I can report that, as suspected, the extension question caused the most difficulties. In most cases the initial subtraction was OK but there was a lot of difficulty translating the answer of 0.11bn to millions, the most common answer being 11 million rather than 110 million. Another unpopular question asked 'How are the actors listed?' (The answer was 'alphabetically').

However, I was pleasantly reassured by the grasp of maths terminology and symbols: descending and ascending order, greater than and less than - no problems!

Level 5 Numeracy Diploma
In an effort to balance up my numeracy and literacy teaching qualifications (currently weighted towards literacy) I've just started working towards the Level 5 Additional Diploma in Teaching Mathematics in the Lifelong Learning Sector (commonly known as an ADTLLS).

I've really enjoyed the first two sessions but the bad news (for me, not necessarily for you!) is that last week's learning has left me a little deflated. We were introduced to the RICH task concept and now I'm not at all happy with my film industry worksheet. You can read about rich mathematical tasks on the NRICH web site. To borrow another phrase from this site I think my worksheet needs HOTting up. HOTS is an acronym for high order thinking skills and again you can read more about it on NRICH.

However, despite my smartboard display problems I've decided that all is not lost. My introductory warm-up, firing questions and attempting to promote discussion based on the poster and the world population statistics, might not have been very RICH but I don't think it was excessively poor. There's no time left today to get into a discussion about what makes a task or resource RICH. However this thought is now always going to be in my head. The film industry resource is aimed at Level 2 but I'm also very interested in applying RICH and HOTS to my Entry 1 numeracy class. I feel that this may prove to be even more of a challenge.

And I haven't given up on the film poster yet: the original has been sent to the Resources Dept for A2 laminating and will be resurfacing later in the year for work on percentages and representing data.

The poster is still available on the Guardian site as a PDF file.

Worksheet Genius for instant Entry and preEntry resources

I've just added a wonderful new link to the 'Other sites with printable resources' links page. This page lists about 200 sites that provide printable literacy and/or numeracy worksheets.

Worksheet Genius creates instant randomized worksheets. It's the work of a generous Midlands teacher, Simon Currigan, and all worksheets are completely free - no strings attached! Like Wordle, it's a Java based application - so you may need to speak nicely to your college IT staff and get Java installed on the machines you use in your office or classroom.

For Entry level spelling and phonics there are masses of word lists (or add your own) that can be used for flashcards, bingo games, word searches and much more. Other word lists cover common spelling rules such as -ed endings, take off the 'y', prefixes, etc.

The phonics sheets come with pictures - the clip art is aimed at children but most is also suitable for adults. If you don't like the clip-art/words that appear on your screen, simply click the 'Apply genius' button to make a brand new sheet. You can also create mixed up sentences, anagrams and really useful slide shows which are perfect for instant Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check work if you select the 'add a blank slide between each word' option. Note that the clip art can also be downloaded and used independently - very handy if you want to create your own linked materials.

The numeracy options are just as good. The abacus style place value sheet (top right) is one of my favourites and is earmarked for my Entry 2 numeracy group.

Again, each type of numeracy worksheet can be fully customised: clocks can be set from 1 hour to 1 minute intervals; subtraction can be horizontal or vertical, with or without carrying; and so on.

For preEntry milestone 8 you could use 'count and colour' (up to 12 items) or picture versions of adding on 1, 2 or 3.

Several options are also suitable beyond Entry level: percentages, division with or without remainders, long multiplication, etc.

If you have any specific ideas for using Worksheet Genius with you literacy and numeracy classes please leave your ideas as a blog comment or contact me by email via http://www.skillsworkshop.org/

I can't describe everything here so do please take a look.

Hilda Taba (part 2), Wordle, and numeracy

In one of my earlier posts (Aug 16, 2008) on Wordle I said:

"I reckon this idea could be adapted for numeracy: sorting out maths vocabulary words; ranking measures in order of size; sorting measures into length, weight or capacity; sorting shapes (well, names of shapes) according to properties; etc."

Well, site-contributor Dave Norgate has speedily proved my point: he's created a set of numeracy Wordles that does everything I wished for and more! There are four Wordles in his resource – covering 2D shapes, maths vocabulary, odd and even numbers, and metric units. Dave has also very kindly provided fill-in charts for two word clouds: one provides a structure for straightforward sorting (maths vocabulary); the other demands sorting followed by ordering (metric units).

Linking this back to my previous discussion regarding Hilda Taba - you might like to think of a Wordle cloud as the collection of data (the first stage or strategy in her model) and Dave's blank charts as the next stage where data is organised so that students can visualise and attain concepts.

The number of ‘phases’ in each stage seems to have been extended since Taba’s work was published in 1971. It varies with each source that I look at (see references at the end this post). Here’s my attempt at a summary – but I make no claim to expertise in learning theory.

Stage 1 (three phases)
Concept formation – collecting data through class brainstorming (maybe into Wordle - see below!), individual lists, answers to questions, etc. 3 phases: list, group, label.

Stage 2
Attaining concepts - organising data using: whiteboard, smartboard, flip chart, fill-in tables, handout, Wordle (more on this below), etc.

Stage 3 (I’m not sure how many phases!)
Develop generalisations, compare, explain, apply principles (predicting).

Anyway – I must wander back to some practical uses of Wordle…

Of course you don’t have to start at Stage 1 - phase 1 (listing) to make use of Taba’s model. All the existing (as of Sept 6th 08) Wordle resources on www.skillsworkshop.org provide pre-collected data in a word cloud; the words or numbers in the cloud may also be partially grouped. Examples of these include (all kindly contributed by Dave N):
Sorting nouns and verbs (and then listing alphabetically)
Identifying misspelt words
Identifying 2D shapes
Sorting odd and even numbers

In all these cases you are starting at Taba’s Stage 1 - phase 2 or 3. However, you could (assuming you have a PC, data projector and Internet access to Wordle) collect the data live in-class and start at Stage 1 - phase 1.

This can be done through brainstorming and/or careful questioning. Before you start you’ll need a clear objective. What concept do you want students to grasp? It could be naming the properties of 2D shapes, distinguishing between odd and even numbers, recognising metric measures and selecting appropriate units, etc. The questioning is crucial if you want to avoid too many stray words or groups in your Wordle. You’ve got to get the balance right: to prevent a wild goose chase you'll need to elicit plenty of relevant data (words) that allow learners to make connections and ‘get’ (attain) the concept.

I recommend enlisting a willing student to type-in the words – or, even better, pass a wireless keyboard around. If accurate spelling is a prerequisite for your Wordle – get the students to type into a Word document (with spellchecker turned on) and then paste the list into Wordle at the end of the brainstorming session. This also keeps Wordle a secret until the last minute – assuming your students haven’t seen it before!

Now, a great feature of Wordle is that, when using it live, you can delete words one by one from your cloud by right-clicking on them. You can use this to facilitate Taba’s crucial middle stage 2 and whittle your data down to one group.

For example, if you were creating a cloud similar to Dave’s (right) you could firstly delete (or ask students to delete) all the words that are not names of shapes or objects (e.g. addition, weigh, perimeter). This could be followed (amidst much discussion about properties, etc.) by deleting all the names of 3D shapes (for example) until you’re eventually left with a set of 2D shapes. If your group is working at Level 1 or 2 - keep going! The possibilities are endless - ask the students how they could regroup and classify what's left. Perhaps they'll suggest deleting those with more than four sides, or those with only one pair of parallel lines.

Of course, I’m not saying that Wordle is the answer to everything! For more advanced grouping and ordering you may well have to stick to the traditional whiteboard, fill-in table, matrix or chart method – although maybe you could have more than one Wordle going on at once!

I’ll leave you to think about Stage 3 and its generalisations and predictions...

References
Photo
http://imet.csus.edu/classic/tools_and_curriculum/images/TABA.JPG
I'm guessing this was taken in the 1950s – Taba was born in 1902

Taba, H., Durkin, M. C., Fraenkel, J. R., & NcNaughton, A. H. (1971). A teacher's handbook to elementary social studies: An inductive approach (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Chapter 5 is available online at http://imet.csus.edu/classic/fundamentals/inductive/taba_handbook.htm (I’m not sure if this is a summary or the entire chapter as unfortunately I have not read the original – out of print – I’d love to see it though!).

There's also good clear coverage of Taba's model in Teaching Young Adults (Gill Turner, Joe Harkin, Trevor Dawn) RoutledgeFalmer 2001 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-Young-Adults-Post-compulsory-Education/dp/0415222842
This book uses a useful egg timer depiction. I'd better not reproduce it here because of copyright issues but if you search for the book in http://books.google.com/books you can preview various pages including the egg timer page 46.
The book also includes an extended Taba model (page 47). This extended version is great for planning: it's full of imperatives for learning objectives. For example, Stage 1-phase 1 not only suggests list but also collect, find, choose, bring, underline, highlight and tick. It also relates Taba's model to the Kolb / experiential learning cycle (page 48 - also viewable via Google books).

Do better qualified SfL teachers teach better?

Reflect magazine is published three times a year and is always a good read. The latest July 08 issue was delivered to my house about a month ago but I've only just finished browsing.

There are 17 articles. Seven are grouped together as a special report on family and community learning; the remainder range from 'E-learning in Uganda' to a well argued, down-to-earth plea from a Skills for Life tutor (more on this in a later post).

This is a VERY interesting question and the answers might not be what you're expecting...

To be honest, I found it very hard to tease out exactly what the results were but here's my nutshell version:

• Better qualified (generic - e.g. Cert Ed, PGCE) SfL teachers enable learners to make more progress.


• Numeracy learners make more progress if their teacher also has A level mathematics or beyond. In contrast, the progress of Literacy and ESOL learners is not markedly improved if their teacher has an English qualification beyond GCSE.


• Students’ enjoyment of numeracy is higher if the teacher also has a maths degree or postgraduate qualification but beware: these teachers are also related to a decrease in learners' confidence about numeracy skills.
  

This doesn’t surprise me - I've met high level mathematicians who just cannot get back to ground level (but I’ve met others who can and do!). As a test try this: ask someone with a maths PhD what a fraction is (I’ve tried this myself with someone I know well…).

However, I am rather confused by the results of this research. I would have thought that confidence and progress in numeracy work hand in hand so am not sure what the ideal is here…

Maybe a teacher with AS level maths – who knows!

I should point out that this research is ongoing and the authors, Olga Cara and Augustin de Coulon, welcome feedback and comments.

You can read Reflect online at the NRDC (National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy) site http://www.nrdc.org.uk/
(Select the 'publications' tab). The magazine can be read as individual on-line articles or as a single, large PDF file. You can also subscribe and receive free printed versions.

Freebies from NIACE / Basic Skills Agency

I've been updating my links pages - a mammoth task that is only tackled once a year. There are three links pages (each with 200+ links) on skillsworkshop - and, thankfully, now just one of them left to check.

The Basic Skills Agency merged with NIACE (National Institute for Adult Continuing Education) sometime ago. This morning, whilst editing and removing the dead links to these sites, I was inadvertently diverted and sidetracked (you know how it happens!) into taking a look at some of the 'old' BSA resources. Now archived, these resources can be reached via the NIACE site and purchased online with a credit card (or by phone if you want to be invoiced).

Don't miss out on the free PDF downloads that are scattered amongst their more pricey cousins. To find these, select the 'Free downloads only' button in the 'Product search' area. Tip: no not select 'Resources from England' or you will miss out on many resources that are published in English and Welsh (within one document) including most of the resources I'm about to mention...

Literacy
'KS3 Text Type posters' is a set of 2 x 5 A4 posters (English/Welsh) - as depicted at the top of this page (click on this picture for a larger view). Great for classroom display or for passing around and general discussion. Aimed at secondary school students but perfectly OK for adults (Entry 3 upwards). There are also two related booklets for teachers, rather ungrammatically entitled: 'How to teach Information Text' and 'How to teach Instruction and Explanation text'.

Numeracy
'How to measure at KS3' is another good one for teachers. Common problems and misunderstandings are discussed and there are useful resource sheets such as this one (right) relating common objects to metric measures.


Last but not least is the 'Help yourself' maths pack - 20 pages of facts, clear explanations and questions for learners to improve and then check their understanding.

Note that if you don't have the facilities or the desire to print out glossy colour copies, most of the free downloadable resources can also be ordered online. The postage is fairly reasonable - especially if you are ordering many items (e.g. 1 item £1.50, up to 4 items £2.00, up to 10 items £3.50, etc.).

This is just a taster - there are many more freebies in the BSA archive.
If you discover any gems do share them by leaving a blog comment or emailing me via the site. ... likewise if you find any dead links on the skillsworkshop links pages!

Links pages

Useful links for tutors - professional development, teaching and learning, good books and software, government agencies and departments (inc. links to the on-line interactive curricula and resources), learning difficulties and disabilities, study skills, and more.
Printable resources for adult basic skills - our most popular links page (approx 2000 visits per week). Lists other resource sites with free printable resources suitable for adults. These are arranged under 6 categories: realia sites for good examples of real-life texts, educational clip art and web graphics, pre-entry, literacy and numeracy, literacy only, numeracy only, and ESOL.
Embedding ILT (information & learning technology): interactive sites for adult basic skills tutors and students - hundreds of links arranged under: general computer skills and accessibility issues, pre-entry, literacy and numeracy, literacy only, numeracy only, and ESOL.

Wordle and Hilda Taba

I'm delighted to say that, since my earlier post on Using Wordle in the Classroom, I've received some new resource ideas from site-contributor Dave Norgate.





Find all the prepositions.










Sort the words into two columns - correctly spelt and misspelt.

These ideas will be appearing on the site sometime next week - complete with instructions, answer sheets and curriculum links.

I really like the idea of 'sorting' in the second picture (and 'listing' in the first). It brings back distant PGCE memories of Hilda Taba and her 'concept development model'.

Of course you could give your learners either of the pictures above with no instructions.

Why?

Well - this gets them thinking about the words (and the concepts). If they come up with the sorting or listing ideas themselves they'll be more engaged and have ownership of the resource.

Here's a few questions you could ask if needed.

These questions were inspired by information on this site http://www.lovinlearning.org/heroes/concept_attainment_Taba.htm

• What do you notice about these words?
• Do any of these words seem to belong together?
• Why would you group these words together?
• What would you call the groups?
• Could some of the words belong in other groups?
• Can you suggest other words that you could add to these groups?
• Can you make your own Wordle pictures?
• What if....

I reckon this idea could be adapted for numeracy: sorting out maths vocabulary words; ranking measures in order of size; sorting measures into length, weight or capacity; sorting shapes (well, names of shapes) according to properties; etc.

For more on Taba:
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Taba_teaching_strategy_model
http://imet.csus.edu/classic/fundamentals/inductive/taba_handbook.htm
http://www.unf.edu/~jbosnick/jb/3324concfor.pdf
The PDF above can also be located from this menu page:
http://www.unf.edu/~jbosnick/jb/3324notes.htm (select Concept Formation)

There's also good clear coverage of Taba's model in Teaching Young Adults (Gill Turner, Joe Harkin, Trevor Dawn) RoutledgeFalmer 2001 (one of my PGCE set books). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-Young-Adults-Post-compulsory-Education/dp/0415222842

I’m sure there are lots more possibilities so I'll finish by repeating my request from the previous Wordle post: if you have any Wordle ideas you’d like to share please get in touch or leave a comment.