Links I mentioned:  The Wellbeing-Driven Productivity Podcast Notes by Martine Martine's Website Martine on Twitter 

Links I mentioned: <ul> <li><a href="https://anchor.fm/martineellis" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Wellbeing-Driven Productivity Podcast</a></li> <li><a href="https://notesbymartine.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Notes by Martine</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.martineellis.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Martine's Website</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Martine on Twitter</a></li> </ul>

An Update from Martine - April 2022

Hello, it's Martine here, I am recording this towards the end of June 2021 and I wanted to give you an idea of what's on the horizon for The Teaching Space - in particular, the podcast. Next year is the third and final year of my masters in education - my dissertation year. I know this is going to take up a lot of my energy and focus, but I am determined to reach the end. The reality of this is, of course, I need to refocus my priorities a bit. Podcasting is so much fun - I love doing it and I think I will always be a podcaster, but the reality is that it is incredibly time-consuming. Next year, I am going to take a break from my two weekly podcasting schedule and do something a bit different. I am going to focus on two things for The Teaching Space.   Writing   Informal audio   You might have noticed if you follow me on Twitter, that I have been working on my writing by doing the Ship 30 for 30 challenge. I plan to keep up the frequent production of short-form essays and will be publishing them in a variety of places including Twitter, Medium and my email newsletter. I'm going to experiment with informal audio over the summer - I am exploring Anchor and Racket to see what is the lowest friction. While it sounds like you might hear a bit less from me, in actual fact, I think you will see and hear more! So, here's what I'd like you to do if you want to keep up with what I am doing.   Follow me on Twitter: MartineGuernsey.   Subscribe to my email newsletter, The Teaching Space Extra.   Stay subscribed to the podcast in your favourite podcast app.   Join the community.   I'm planning a break over the summer, although I will still be writing on Twitter. Feel free to reach out by email if you have questions: hello@theteachingspace.com. Speak soon. Martine

Hello, it's Martine here, I am recording this towards the end of June 2021 and I wanted to give you an idea of what's on the horizon for The Teaching Space - in particular, the podcast. Next year is the third and final year of my masters in education - my dissertation year. I know this is going to take up a lot of my energy and focus, but I am determined to reach the end. The reality of this is, of course, I need to refocus my priorities a bit. Podcasting is so much fun - I love doing it and I think I will always be a podcaster, but the reality is that it is incredibly time-consuming. Next year, I am going to take a break from my two weekly podcasting schedule and do something a bit different. I am going to focus on two things for The Teaching Space. <ul> <li> Writing </li> <li> Informal audio </li> </ul> You might have noticed if you follow me on Twitter, that I have been working on my writing by doing the Ship 30 for 30 challenge. I plan to keep up the frequent production of short-form essays and will be publishing them in a variety of places including Twitter, Medium and my email newsletter. I'm going to experiment with informal audio over the summer - I am exploring Anchor and Racket to see what is the lowest friction. While it sounds like you might hear a bit less from me, in actual fact, I think you will see and hear more! So, here's what I'd like you to do if you want to keep up with what I am doing. <ul> <li> Follow me on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">MartineGuernsey</a>. </li> <li> Subscribe to my email newsletter, <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/tts-extra" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Space Extra</a>. </li> <li> Stay subscribed to the podcast in your favourite podcast app. </li> <li> Join the <a href="https://community.theteachingspace.com./" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community</a>. </li> </ul> I'm planning a break over the summer, although I will still be writing on Twitter. Feel free to reach out by email if you have questions: <a href="mailto:hello@theteachingspace.com">hello@theteachingspace.com</a>. Speak soon. Martine

What's Next for the Podcast?

Highlights  Notion has enabled me to conduct a yearly and monthly review consistently for the first time ever. I am also refining my weekly review process. This is the first time I have managed this behaviour consistently, and it is game changing. This is a personal review - but could easily apply to work and there is always some cross over. Undertaking personal reviews is enabling me to meet my goals. (01:13). On the subject of goals, that’s where it all starts, so I am going to walk you through my process. Annual review (03:09)  Review the year (screenshot). Consider your life buckets (e.g. health, work, business, personal life, travel, money etc) and use the plus, minus, next method to reflect. Identify your proudest achievement/s and biggest challenges. Set goals for next year and keep them visible (screenshot). You might like to set a theme or word for the year - mine is ONE.   Monthly review (07:50)  Now page - currently in Notion and template available. Now page template includes goals. Review: progress on my goals, achievements, what next, theme for the year update and currently reading. Share! Diary note for next month.   Weekly review (09:45)  Empty my quick capture inboxes (refer to episode 121). Inbox Zero. Plan for next week - calendar, tasks, exercise etc. Clear down tasks. Also an opportunity to plan meals. Don’t refer back to goals but perhaps I should.   Everything comes together in my Notion dashboard which works as well as it does thanks to Notion Mastery. Template available (11:13). Wrap up (12:33)  What do you do? Discuss in the community.    Helpful links  Plus, Minus, Next. Now page Notion template. Episode 121 Personal Knowledge Management for Teachers and Trainers.  Notion Mastery course. Notion dashboard video. The Teaching Space Community. 

Highlights <ul> <li>Notion has enabled me to conduct a yearly and monthly review consistently for the first time ever. I am also refining my weekly review process. This is the first time I have managed this behaviour consistently, and it is game changing. This is a personal review - but could easily apply to work and there is always some cross over. Undertaking personal reviews is enabling me to meet my goals. (01:13).</li> <li>On the subject of goals, that’s where it all starts, so I am going to walk you through my process.</li> <li>Annual review (03:09) <ul> <li>Review the year (screenshot).</li> <li>Consider your life buckets (e.g. health, work, business, personal life, travel, money etc) and use the plus, minus, next method to reflect.</li> <li>Identify your proudest achievement/s and biggest challenges.</li> <li>Set goals for next year and keep them visible (screenshot).</li> <li>You might like to set a theme or word for the year - mine is ONE.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Monthly review (07:50) <ul> <li>Now page - currently in Notion and template available.</li> <li>Now page template includes goals.</li> <li>Review: progress on my goals, achievements, what next, theme for the year update and currently reading.</li> <li>Share!</li> <li>Diary note for next month.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Weekly review (09:45) <ul> <li>Empty my quick capture inboxes (refer to episode 121).</li> <li>Inbox Zero.</li> <li>Plan for next week - calendar, tasks, exercise etc.</li> <li>Clear down tasks.</li> <li>Also an opportunity to plan meals.</li> <li>Don’t refer back to goals but perhaps I should.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Everything comes together in my Notion dashboard which works as well as it does thanks to Notion Mastery. Template available (11:13).</li> <li>Wrap up (12:33) <ul> <li>What do you do?</li> <li>Discuss in the community.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://nesslabs.com/plus-minus-next" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Plus, Minus, Next</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/shop/now-page" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Now page Notion template</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://theteachingspace.com/121" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 121 Personal Knowledge Management for Teachers and Trainers</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://mariepoulin.thrivecart.com/notion-mastery-course-office-hours/?affiliate=martine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Notion Mastery course</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://youtu.be/osV70cQg3HA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Notion dashboard video</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://theteachingspace.mn.co/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Space Community</a>.</li> </ul>

The Power of a Personal Weekly, Monthly and Annual Review

Highlights  What is personal knowledge management? (00:47). “Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is the practice of capturing the ideas and insights we encounter in our daily life, whether from personal experience, from books and articles, or from our work, and cultivating them over time to produce more creative, higher quality work” (Forte Labs, 2019). Ness Labs creator, Anne-Laure Le Cunff describes the 5 C’s of PKM as: creation, circulation, curation, collaboration and communities (Ness Labs, 2020). My interpretations of the 5 C’s (02:08):  creation: managing knowledge derived from learning allows the creation of new knowledge. circulation: that new knowledge can be circulated/shared. curation: it’s also a way to collect and curate things that make you think. collaboration: collecting information in this way can lead to collaboration. communities: you can share anything collected or created in communities (e.g. Twitter).   For me, PKM is about ensuring the content I consume is not wasted. How many times to you read or watch something and then forget it straight afterwards? (03:56). While I don’t expect to learn from everything I consume (ahem.. dog videos on TikTok), if I am consuming to learn and/or generate my own content afterwards, I want to increase my chance of retention. Furthermore, from an ethical standpoint, if someone’s work influences my thinking, I want to give credit. The best way to design a system for PKM is to draw it (I used Excalidraw) (05:28). Work out (07:18):  Input: where do you consume content? (Examples: YouTube, web, academic papers, reports, Kindle, Twitter etc). Also include ideas. Output: what do you want to achieve? (Examples: share notes, write blog posts/articles, write a dissertation, write a book, create a podcast etc).   I then divide my workflow into three levels (09:21):  Quick capture (temporary repository) Literature notes (notes taken while consuming content) Permanent notes (notes in my own words - usually atomic)   See diagram on show notes - loosely based on Zettelkasten. Tech stack (11:39):  Quick capture: Drafts, Highlights and Readwise (clear weekly) Literature notes: Notion (knowledge hub), Highlights and Readwise Permanent notes: Obsidian (public)   Obsidian is my digital garden (15:20). A Digital Garden is personal, but public learning space for live, interconnected notes. Or, more eloquently, “A digital garden is an online space at the intersection of a notebook and a blog, where digital gardeners share seeds of thoughts to be cultivated in public” (Le Cunff, 2020). Obsidian allows you to see connections between notes. Things planted in my digital garden might eventually become articles, podcasts etc (16:49). Wrap up: let’s discuss in the community! (17:12)  Helpful links  Martine’s Digital Garden Excalidraw for diagrams. Shower notepad. Notion Obsidian Readwise Drafts Highlights Zettelkasten method. Martine’s Twitter thread on this topic.  Notion Mastery course. The Teaching Space Community. 

Highlights <ul> <li>What is personal knowledge management? (00:47).</li> <li>“Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is the practice of capturing the ideas and insights we encounter in our daily life, whether from personal experience, from books and articles, or from our work, and cultivating them over time to produce more creative, higher quality work” (Forte Labs, 2019).</li> <li>Ness Labs creator, Anne-Laure Le Cunff describes the 5 C’s of PKM as: creation, circulation, curation, collaboration and communities (Ness Labs, 2020).</li> <li>My interpretations of the 5 C’s (02:08): <ul> <li>creation: managing knowledge derived from learning allows the creation of new knowledge.</li> <li>circulation: that new knowledge can be circulated/shared.</li> <li>curation: it’s also a way to collect and curate things that make you think.</li> <li>collaboration: collecting information in this way can lead to collaboration.</li> <li>communities: you can share anything collected or created in communities (e.g. Twitter).</li> </ul> </li> <li>For me, PKM is about ensuring the content I consume is not wasted. How many times to you read or watch something and then forget it straight afterwards? (03:56).</li> <li>While I don’t expect to learn from everything I consume (ahem.. dog videos on TikTok), if I am consuming to learn and/or generate my own content afterwards, I want to increase my chance of retention. Furthermore, from an ethical standpoint, if someone’s work influences my thinking, I want to give credit.</li> <li>The best way to design a system for PKM is to draw it (I used Excalidraw) (05:28).</li> <li>Work out (07:18): <ul> <li>Input: where do you consume content? (Examples: YouTube, web, academic papers, reports, Kindle, Twitter etc). Also include ideas.</li> <li>Output: what do you want to achieve? (Examples: share notes, write blog posts/articles, write a dissertation, write a book, create a podcast etc).</li> </ul> </li> <li>I then divide my workflow into three levels (09:21): <ul> <li>Quick capture (temporary repository)</li> <li>Literature notes (notes taken while consuming content)</li> <li>Permanent notes (notes in my own words - usually atomic)</li> </ul> </li> <li>See diagram on show notes - loosely based on Zettelkasten.</li> <li>Tech stack (11:39): <ul> <li>Quick capture: Drafts, Highlights and Readwise (clear weekly)</li> <li>Literature notes: Notion (knowledge hub), Highlights and Readwise</li> <li>Permanent notes: Obsidian (public)</li> </ul> </li> <li>Obsidian is my digital garden (15:20).</li> <li>A Digital Garden is personal, but public learning space for live, interconnected notes.</li> <li>Or, more eloquently, “A digital garden is an online space at the intersection of a notebook and a blog, where digital gardeners share seeds of thoughts to be cultivated in public” (Le Cunff, 2020).</li> <li>Obsidian allows you to see connections between notes. Things planted in my digital garden might eventually become articles, podcasts etc (16:49).</li> <li>Wrap up: let’s discuss in the community! (17:12)</li> </ul> Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://publish.obsidian.md/martine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Martine’s Digital Garden</a></li> <li><a href="https://excalidraw.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Excalidraw for diagrams</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://amzn.to/32fmi7n" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shower notepad</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://notion.so" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Notion</a></li> <li><a href="https://obsidian.md" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Obsidian</a></li> <li><a href="https://readwise.io/i/martine48" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Readwise</a></li> <li><a href="https://getdrafts.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Drafts</a></li> <li><a href="https://highlightsapp.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Highlights</a></li> <li><a href="https://zettelkasten.de/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Zettelkasten method</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey/status/1381612673520050177" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Martine’s Twitter thread on this topic</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://mariepoulin.thrivecart.com/notion-mastery-course-office-hours/?affiliate=martine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Notion Mastery course</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://theteachingspace.mn.co/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Space Community</a>.</li> </ul>

Personal Knowledge Management for Teachers and Trainers

This episode topic was requested by Ashely in The Teaching Space Community. She said: "I would love to hear about the most beneficial things you can have a student-teacher do before exiting the program and teaching on their own. This is my first time having a student-teacher." In this podcast I am going to focus on general advice for those mentoring trainee teachers or new trainers as I do not have expertise in sectors outside of corporate and FE. To try to give a rounded response to this topic request, I also chatted to my wider Twitter network and will share some of their suggestions. I am mindful that this is a massive area, so will not aim to cover everything in one short episode. Incidentally, if you would like to join our community and help shape the podcast in the future, visit community.theteachingspace.com. I'm going to split this episode into three sections. First I am going to share some of the helpful information I got from Twitter about mentoring trainee teachers. Then I will share some previous podcast episodes that I think will be helpful. Finally, I will share some tips from my own experience, having mentored several trainee teachers in FE and also candidates doing QTLS and ATS. Highlights From Twitter (03:06) Nikki on Twitter (@nikkitel) said: "I encourage them to consider their mental health from the outset and to understand that it’s ok to not know everything. I try to help them realise that if they don’t feel that they excel, it’s only for now. They don’t excel yet." This reminded me of Carol Dweck's "the power of yet". I completely agree with considering mental health from the outset - remember your oxygen mask. Andy on Twitter (@guruteaching) shared an article on the topic he wrote, which I will include in the show notes. One thing I loved about Andy's article is his point about showing your trainee how far they've come. Andy said: "Finally, it helps for our trainees to see not just where they are going, but also where they have been. It’s too easy for them to be uber-busy, planning lessons, dealing with behaviour incidents, giving feedback and learning new subject knowledge for tomorrow’s lesson. Sometimes, they simply can’t see the progress that they’re making. Set aside some time to step back with them and with a smile on your face, show them how they have grown since the beginning of the course." Chase on Twitter (@chasemitsuda) said it boils down to starting with empathy and share a great Brene Brown video that I will include in the show notes. He also said: "Also believing that we are all learners, and teachers who have just started their careers have so much to offer, including fresh perspectives." Finally, Jonathon on Twitter (@jonmedeiros) said, as mentors we can: "help foster curiosity, self reflection, and adjustment as natural and important skills."  Useful Podcast Episodes (07:27) I'm going to share and comment on a few recent episodes of the podcast that will help anyone mentoring trainees now in the future. Don't forget, you might need some professional development in order to fulfil the role of mentor effectively - some of these episodes will be helpful in this area. I'll mention episode numbers - all you need to put in your browser is theteachingspace.com followed by / and the episode number in digits. There are also links in the show notes. Following on from Nikki's wise mental health guidance mentioned a the start, it would be worth listening to my recent interview with Guernsey Mind's Chris Chamberlain (113). You could listen to help support your trainee better in this area - you could also recommend your trainee has a listen. My interview with Joanne Miles about coaching is a must-listen - it is episode 104. Mentoring and coaching are on a spectrum and you are likely to need to be a mentor some of the time and a coach at other times. Understanding the difference between both approaches is key in giving your trainee what they need from you. Episode 107 is an interview with Vanessa Mee who shares top tips for newly qualified teachers. Some of the tips Vanessa shares could easily apply to trainee teachers, such as time blocking, looking after yourself as a priority and planning to do less in the classroom (so the students do more). Episode 103 is about managing emails. Often, trainees become overwhelmed with the admin aspect of teaching, so being in a position to support and advise them in this aspect of their teacher role is essential. Similarly, episode 98 is my most recent time blocking episode - it is worth a listen so you can support your trainee to manage their time. My Tips (10:38)  Establish boundaries and expectations in the mentor/mentee relationship but also around work/study/life balance. Be available. Model, model, model. Facilitate. Encourage community participation. Encourage the use of research. Help them establish their teacher identity.  Helpful links  Carol Dweck's "The Power of Yet" TEDx talk Andy's article about mentoring trainee teachers Brene Brown video on empathy  Teachers and Mental Health - An Interview with Chris Chamberlain Exploring Coaching in Education and Training - An Interview with Joanne Miles Top Tips for Newly Qualified Teachers - An Interview with Vanessa Mee How to Stop Email Taking Over Your Life Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers Revisited A Teacher's Guide to EduTwitter 

This episode topic was requested by Ashely in The Teaching Space Community. She said: "I would love to hear about the most beneficial things you can have a student-teacher do before exiting the program and teaching on their own. This is my first time having a student-teacher." In this podcast I am going to focus on general advice for those mentoring trainee teachers or new trainers as I do not have expertise in sectors outside of corporate and FE. To try to give a rounded response to this topic request, I also chatted to my wider Twitter network and will share some of their suggestions. I am mindful that this is a massive area, so will not aim to cover everything in one short episode. Incidentally, if you would like to join our community and help shape the podcast in the future, visit <a href="https://community.theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community.theteachingspace.com</a>. I'm going to split this episode into three sections. First I am going to share some of the helpful information I got from Twitter about mentoring trainee teachers. Then I will share some previous podcast episodes that I think will be helpful. Finally, I will share some tips from my own experience, having mentored several trainee teachers in FE and also candidates doing QTLS and ATS. Highlights From Twitter (03:06) Nikki on Twitter (@<a href="https://twitter.com/nikkitel" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">nikkitel</a>) said: "I encourage them to consider their mental health from the outset and to understand that it’s ok to not know everything. I try to help them realise that if they don’t feel that they excel, it’s only for now. They don’t excel yet." This reminded me of Carol Dweck's "the power of yet". I completely agree with considering mental health from the outset - remember your oxygen mask. Andy on Twitter (@<a href="https://twitter.com/guruteaching" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">guruteaching</a>) shared an article on the topic he wrote, which I will include in the show notes. One thing I loved about Andy's article is his point about showing your trainee how far they've come. Andy said: "Finally, it helps for our trainees to see not just where they are going, but also where they have been. It’s too easy for them to be uber-busy, planning lessons, dealing with behaviour incidents, giving feedback and learning new subject knowledge for tomorrow’s lesson. Sometimes, they simply can’t see the progress that they’re making. Set aside some time to step back with them and with a smile on your face, show them how they have grown since the beginning of the course." Chase on Twitter (@<a href="https://twitter.com/chasemitsuda" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">chasemitsuda</a>) said it boils down to starting with empathy and share a great Brene Brown video that I will include in the show notes. He also said: "Also believing that we are all learners, and teachers who have just started their careers have so much to offer, including fresh perspectives." Finally, Jonathon on Twitter (@<a href="https://twitter.com/jonmedeiros" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">jonmedeiros</a>) said, as mentors we can: "help foster curiosity, self reflection, and adjustment as natural and important skills." Useful Podcast Episodes (07:27) I'm going to share and comment on a few recent episodes of the podcast that will help anyone mentoring trainees now in the future. Don't forget, you might need some professional development in order to fulfil the role of mentor effectively - some of these episodes will be helpful in this area. I'll mention episode numbers - all you need to put in your browser is <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a> followed by / and the episode number in digits. There are also links in the show notes. Following on from Nikki's wise mental health guidance mentioned a the start, it would be worth listening to my recent interview with Guernsey Mind's Chris Chamberlain (113). You could listen to help support your trainee better in this area - you could also recommend your trainee has a listen. My interview with Joanne Miles about coaching is a must-listen - it is episode 104. Mentoring and coaching are on a spectrum and you are likely to need to be a mentor some of the time and a coach at other times. Understanding the difference between both approaches is key in giving your trainee what they need from you. Episode 107 is an interview with Vanessa Mee who shares top tips for newly qualified teachers. Some of the tips Vanessa shares could easily apply to trainee teachers, such as time blocking, looking after yourself as a priority and planning to do less in the classroom (so the students do more). Episode 103 is about managing emails. Often, trainees become overwhelmed with the admin aspect of teaching, so being in a position to support and advise them in this aspect of their teacher role is essential. Similarly, episode 98 is my most recent time blocking episode - it is worth a listen so you can support your trainee to manage their time. My Tips (10:38) <ol> <li>Establish boundaries and expectations in the mentor/mentee relationship but also around work/study/life balance.</li> <li>Be available.</li> <li>Model, model, model.</li> <li>Facilitate.</li> <li>Encourage community participation.</li> <li>Encourage the use of research.</li> <li>Help them establish their teacher identity.</li> </ol> Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://youtu.be/J-swZaKN2Ic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Carol Dweck's "The Power of Yet" TEDx talk</a></li> <li><a href="https://hwrkmagazine.co.uk/archives/3647" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Andy's article about mentoring trainee teachers</a></li> <li><a href="https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brene Brown video on empathy</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/interview-chris-chamberlain" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Teachers and Mental Health - An Interview with Chris Chamberlain</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/interview-joanne-miles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Exploring Coaching in Education and Training - An Interview with Joanne Miles</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/interview-vanessa-mee" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Top Tips for Newly Qualified Teachers - An Interview with Vanessa Mee</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/timeblocking-revisited" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Stop Email Taking Over Your Life</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/timeblocking-revisited" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers Revisited</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/118" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Teacher's Guide to EduTwitter</a></li> </ul>

Top Tips for Mentoring a Trainee Teacher

Elizabeth Hutchinson

Highlights  Introducing Elizabeth Hutchinson (01:03). Elizabeth shares some recent PD that had a big impact on her (03:00). Organising PD is great PD (05:58). Elizabeth talks about her own approach to PD previously and now (08:46). The Twitter chat that started everything… Library Staff Love Learning (11:00). Martine talks about how the podcast helps her PD (19:04). The changing landscape of PD - creating your own opportunities (20:28). On Clubhouse (21:03). The challenges of leading your own PD - find your focus, find the time (22:50). The benefits of finding your own PD - finding your purpose, opening doors and finding your clan (28:42). On career paths…. (34:30). Workload and PD - bite-sized PD (36:25). Logging your PD (46:46). Final thoughts (51:43). Find Elizabeth online (52:29).  Thanks Thanks to Elizabeth for returning to the show and being an awesome guest. Helpful links  Elizabeth’s website Elizabeth on Twitter Episode 13 Why it’s Time to Get to Know Your School Librarian, An Interview With Elizabeth Hutchinson CILIP Martine’s interview with Professor Matt O’Leary Clubhouse Library Staff Love Learning Create Positive Habits That Stick (podcast) 

Highlights <ul> <li>Introducing Elizabeth Hutchinson (01:03).</li> <li>Elizabeth shares some recent PD that had a big impact on her (03:00).</li> <li>Organising PD is great PD (05:58).</li> <li>Elizabeth talks about her own approach to PD previously and now (08:46).</li> <li>The Twitter chat that started everything… Library Staff Love Learning (11:00).</li> <li>Martine talks about how the podcast helps her PD (19:04).</li> <li>The changing landscape of PD - creating your own opportunities (20:28).</li> <li>On Clubhouse (21:03).</li> <li>The challenges of leading your own PD - find your focus, find the time (22:50).</li> <li>The benefits of finding your own PD - finding your purpose, opening doors and finding your clan (28:42).</li> <li>On career paths…. (34:30).</li> <li>Workload and PD - bite-sized PD (36:25).</li> <li>Logging your PD (46:46).</li> <li>Final thoughts (51:43).</li> <li>Find Elizabeth online (52:29).</li> </ul> Thanks Thanks to Elizabeth for returning to the show and being an awesome guest. Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://www.elizabethahutchinson.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Elizabeth’s website</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/Elizabethutch" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Elizabeth on Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/elizabeth-hutchinson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 13 Why it’s Time to Get to Know Your School Librarian, An Interview With Elizabeth Hutchinson</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.cilip.org.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CILIP</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/interview-matt-oleary" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Martine’s interview with Professor Matt O’Leary</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.joinclubhouse.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clubhouse</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.elizabethahutchinson.com/schoollibrariescpd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Library Staff Love Learning</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/positive-habits" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Create Positive Habits That Stick</a> (podcast)</li> </ul>

Leading Your Own Professional Development An Interview with Elizabeth Hutchinson

Thanks to Daniela, who is a member of The Teaching Space Community, for suggesting this episode topic. You can join the community at community.theteachingspace.com. This topic has been influenced by my own experience as well a number of articles I read on the topic. I will link to the articles in the show notes which you will find at theteachingspace.com/118. This episode will focus on teachers using Twitter for their own purposes rather than using it with students. Highlights What is EduTwitter? (02:50)  Educators on Twitter who generally use EduTwitter as a hashtag.  Positives (03:43)  It's a great way to connect with people from all over the world working in similar, or entirely different areas of education to you. Building your network in this way can lead to job offers! (Remember AJ from episode 114?) You can engage in interesting, topical discussions, get help, advice and help. You can stay current by knowing what is being discussed in education right now. It's an easy way to find links to interesting articles, podcasts, research, events etc. Event hashtags are fab. It's free PD (although often we forget to log it). It's a great way to try publishing content e.g. tweetstorms.  Negatives (08.27)  Twitter is a 'social' media platform - invariably you will end up using it for work purposes during social time. This is a boundary that needs consideration. If you are tweeting professionally, you need to consider your employer's viewpoint. On self-promotion. Discussions can turn nasty... not often, but they can.  EduTwitter Wellbeing Strategies (11:43)  It's all about boundaries. Think about how and when you will engage in Twitter conversation. Who will you be? Is yours a teaching only feed or a mix? Think twice before participating in certain discussions e.g. isolation booths, 'prog' v 'trad' teachers, certain behaviour topics etc. If you are going to participate and disagree, try to 'attack' arguments rather than the people making them (see Greg Ashman's article). Carefully curate your feed, consider your 'bubble' - don't just follow your sector or people who look at sound like you. Find hashtags of interest and check those and also use them. Participate in Twitter chats. Remember people often only show their 'best bits'. If you need a break, remove the app from your phone. Don't be afraid to unfollow people. Mute words. Be human.  Final Thoughts (20:33) Treat Twitter as a community but ensure your boundaries are in place. And give me a follow if you're there or joining: MartineGuernsey. Helpful links  AJ's story (podcast episode 114)  A Beginner's Guide to EduTwitter  The Magic That is EduTwitter and Online CPD  The Golden Rule of EduTwitter  How to mute words on Twitter  Twitter 101: How to Start Your Own Teacher Twitter Account Martine on Twitter 

Thanks to Daniela, who is a member of The Teaching Space Community, for suggesting this episode topic. You can join the community at <a href="https://community.theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community.theteachingspace.com</a>. This topic has been influenced by my own experience as well a number of articles I read on the topic. I will link to the articles in the show notes which you will find at <a href="https://theteachingspace.com/118" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/118</a>. This episode will focus on teachers using Twitter for their own purposes rather than using it with students. Highlights What is EduTwitter? (02:50) <ul> <li>Educators on Twitter who generally use EduTwitter as a hashtag.</li> </ul> Positives (03:43) <ul> <li>It's a great way to connect with people from all over the world working in similar, or entirely different areas of education to you.</li> <li>Building your network in this way can lead to job offers! (Remember AJ from episode 114?)</li> <li>You can engage in interesting, topical discussions, get help, advice and help.</li> <li>You can stay current by knowing what is being discussed in education right now.</li> <li>It's an easy way to find links to interesting articles, podcasts, research, events etc.</li> <li>Event hashtags are fab.</li> <li>It's free PD (although often we forget to log it).</li> <li>It's a great way to try publishing content e.g. tweetstorms.</li> </ul> Negatives (08.27) <ul> <li>Twitter is a 'social' media platform - invariably you will end up using it for work purposes during social time. This is a boundary that needs consideration.</li> <li>If you are tweeting professionally, you need to consider your employer's viewpoint.</li> <li>On self-promotion.</li> <li>Discussions can turn nasty... not often, but they can.</li> </ul> EduTwitter Wellbeing Strategies (11:43) <ul> <li>It's all about boundaries. Think about how and when you will engage in Twitter conversation. Who will you be? Is yours a teaching only feed or a mix?</li> <li>Think twice before participating in certain discussions e.g. isolation booths, 'prog' v 'trad' teachers, certain behaviour topics etc.</li> <li>If you are going to participate and disagree, try to 'attack' arguments rather than the people making them (see Greg Ashman's article).</li> <li>Carefully curate your feed, consider your 'bubble' - don't just follow your sector or people who look at sound like you.</li> <li>Find hashtags of interest and check those and also use them.</li> <li>Participate in Twitter chats.</li> <li>Remember people often only show their 'best bits'.</li> <li>If you need a break, remove the app from your phone.</li> <li>Don't be afraid to unfollow people.</li> <li>Mute words.</li> <li>Be human.</li> </ul> Final Thoughts (20:33) Treat Twitter as a community but ensure your boundaries are in place. And give me a follow if you're there or joining: <a href="https://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">MartineGuernsey</a>. Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://theteachingspace.com/114" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AJ's story (podcast episode 114)</a></li> <li><a href="https://blueskyteacher.wordpress.com/2019/06/24/a-beginners-guide-to-edutwitter/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> A Beginner's Guide to EduTwitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.trueeducationpartnerships.com/schools/the-magic-that-is-edutwitter-and-online-cpd/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The Magic That is EduTwitter and Online CPD</a></li> <li><a href="https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/the-golden-rule-of-edutwitter/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The Golden Rule of EduTwitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/19/21144097/twitter-mute-tweets-word-name-tag-how-to-settings-phone-desktop" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> How to mute words on Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/twitter-101-how-start-your-own-teacher-twitter-account" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Twitter 101: How to Start Your Own Teacher Twitter Account</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Martine on Twitter</a></li> </ul>

A Teacher's Guide to EduTwitter

Highlights  Introducing Parm (00:40). Why Parm thinks teacher wellbeing is at an all-time low (02:22). Martine on boundaries (04:00). Switching to online teaching (05:30). Teachers as perfectionists (06:15). The unseen pressure on women due to Covid (07:10). Living alone on an island and working in education (08:40). The stress epidemic (09:30). Unique challenges in teaching (10:30). Guernsey and Ofsted (14:55). The pressure of always being "on" (16:20). Dropping standards just a tiny bit (17:10). Parm on presenteeism (19:20). Trust, professionalism and the need for a culture of flexibility (24:00). How leadership is changing (25:40). The need for flexibility in leadership (28:01). Could the pandemic help flexible working become more accepted? (28:45). Zoom fatigue... a few tips (29:57). Asynchronous versus synchronous learning online (31:27). Ways to prioritise and increase our wellbeing (33:00). Being able to talk about your mental health is a strength (36:45). Be mindful of the impact of Covid when you deal with colleagues (43:30). About WomenEd (44:38).  Thanks Thanks to Parm for being such an interesting and generous guest. Helpful links  WomenEd Victoria College, Jersey Parm on Twitter WomenEd on Twitter Podcast: You Need to Stop Being a Perfectionist Teacher Right Now Podcast: Could it be That You Need to Drop Your Standards? High Challenge, Low Threat by Mary Myatt  Leading ethically (ASCL) Podcast:  Teachers and Mental Health - Interview with Chris Chamberlain Podcast: Managing Worry for Teachers and Trainers 

Highlights <ul> <li>Introducing Parm (00:40).</li> <li>Why Parm thinks teacher wellbeing is at an all-time low (02:22).</li> <li>Martine on boundaries (04:00).</li> <li>Switching to online teaching (05:30).</li> <li>Teachers as perfectionists (06:15).</li> <li>The unseen pressure on women due to Covid (07:10).</li> <li>Living alone on an island and working in education (08:40).</li> <li>The stress epidemic (09:30).</li> <li>Unique challenges in teaching (10:30).</li> <li>Guernsey and Ofsted (14:55).</li> <li>The pressure of always being "on" (16:20).</li> <li>Dropping standards just a tiny bit (17:10).</li> <li>Parm on presenteeism (19:20).</li> <li>Trust, professionalism and the need for a culture of flexibility (24:00).</li> <li>How leadership is changing (25:40).</li> <li>The need for flexibility in leadership (28:01).</li> <li>Could the pandemic help flexible working become more accepted? (28:45).</li> <li>Zoom fatigue... a few tips (29:57).</li> <li>Asynchronous versus synchronous learning online (31:27).</li> <li>Ways to prioritise and increase our wellbeing (33:00).</li> <li>Being able to talk about your mental health is a strength (36:45).</li> <li>Be mindful of the impact of Covid when you deal with colleagues (43:30).</li> <li>About WomenEd (44:38).</li> </ul> Thanks Thanks to Parm for being such an interesting and generous guest. Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://www.womened.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">WomenEd</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.victoriacollege.je/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Victoria College, Jersey</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/ParmPlummer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Parm on Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/WomenEd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">WomenEd on Twitter</a></li> <li>Podcast: <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/perfectionism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">You Need to Stop Being a Perfectionist Teacher Right Now</a></li> <li>Podcast: <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/evaluating-standards" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Could it be That You Need to Drop Your Standards?</a></li> <li><a href="https://amzn.to/3b1FNFN" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">High Challenge, Low Threat by Mary Myatt</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.ascl.org.uk/Help-and-Advice/Leadership-and-governance/Strategic-planning/Framework-for-ethical-leadership-in-education" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Leading ethically (ASCL)</a></li> <li>Podcast: <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/interview-chris-chamberlain" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Teachers and Mental Health - Interview with Chris Chamberlain</a></li> <li>Podcast: <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/managing-worry" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Managing Worry for Teachers and Trainers</a></li> </ul>

Talking Teacher Wellbeing An Interview with Parm Plummer

Highlights Introduction  In my teaching practice I am always aware of the need for my learners to regularly engage with material I am teaching them to embed it in their long-term memory. It’s also important they practice retrieval in order to remember (00:40). Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve in under 2 minutes (01:17). Something I have realised while studying my master’s in education is that I don’t pay enough attention to this with my own learning - particularly with what I read. So I did some research and tried a few techniques to help me remember what I read. I will share my approach in this episode (01:55).  Materials in Focus  This episode focuses non-fiction rather than fiction, and ‘real books’ rather than audiobooks (03:10). 12 non-fiction book target for 2021 (04:32 ).  How I Remember What I Read  Highlighting is great but not enough - highlights must be revisited (05:57). Add annotations to highlights - what does this highlight mean, why did you highlight it and how is the idea interesting or useful to you? (08:04). Send highlights to Readwise and use spaced repetition via email (09:55). Use a tool like Notion to manage your notes, annotations and highlights. For example I have: (10:27)  A reading database (each entry includes author details, progress etc and for academic reading the original PDF, annotated PDF and bibliographic details). A Readwise database (linked to my notes and reading databases). A notes database.   Write a book summary (11:25). Consider a three sentence summary in the style of James Clear (11:57). Summary (12:58).  Helpful links  Readwise  How to use Readwise with Notion Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve James Clear’s three sentence book summaries 

Highlights Introduction <ul> <li>In my teaching practice I am always aware of the need for my learners to regularly engage with material I am teaching them to embed it in their long-term memory. It’s also important they practice retrieval in order to remember (00:40).</li> <li>Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve in under 2 minutes (01:17).</li> <li>Something I have realised while studying my master’s in education is that I don’t pay enough attention to this with my own learning - particularly with what I read. So I did some research and tried a few techniques to help me remember what I read. I will share my approach in this episode (01:55).</li> </ul> Materials in Focus <ul> <li>This episode focuses non-fiction rather than fiction, and ‘real books’ rather than audiobooks (03:10).</li> <li>12 non-fiction book target for 2021 (04:32 ).</li> </ul> How I Remember What I Read <ul> <li>Highlighting is great but not enough - highlights must be revisited (05:57).</li> <li>Add annotations to highlights - what does this highlight mean, why did you highlight it and how is the idea interesting or useful to you? (08:04).</li> <li>Send highlights to Readwise and use spaced repetition via email (09:55).</li> <li>Use a tool like Notion to manage your notes, annotations and highlights. For example I have: (10:27) <ul> <li>A reading database (each entry includes author details, progress etc and for academic reading the original PDF, annotated PDF and bibliographic details).</li> <li>A Readwise database (linked to my notes and reading databases).</li> <li>A notes database.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Write a book summary (11:25).</li> <li>Consider a three sentence summary in the style of James Clear (11:57).</li> <li>Summary (12:58).</li> </ul> Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://readwise.io/i/martine48" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Readwise</a></li> <li><a href="https://help.readwise.io/article/46-how-does-the-readwise-to-notion-export-integration-work" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> How to use Readwise with Notion</a></li> <li><a href="[https:/youtu.be/SCsQHe-NpaM]" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve</a></li> <li><a href="https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">James Clear’s three sentence book summaries</a></li> </ul>

How to Remember What You Read

Highlights Introduction  Making decisions uses considerable mental energy which is limited (00:42 ). Decision fatigue is real (00:52). Educators make a lot of decisions - some significant - so it is definitely worth looking at ways to minimise the number of small decisions we make daily, to reserve energy for the big ones (01:42).  Small Decisions  Time for a brain dump (01:58). List the small decisions you have to make every day. Examples (02:19):  What to eat for lunch/dinner. When to each lunch/dinner. What time to wake up and go to bed. What to do at the gym. What to wear to go to the gym. What to wear to work.    What Can You Automate, Delegate or Eliminate?  Automate: make automatic, or at least systematised (03:10). Delegate: perhaps to a partner, family member, friend or professional service provider (03:31). Eliminate: get rid of completely! (03:48)  Automate  Fully automatic: social media, direct debits, comment bank (05:19). Systematised: podcast workflow (Notion template), shopping list (Bring), The Teaching Space Extra (08:00).  Delegate  Gardening, cleaning and meal planning (Hello Fresh) - I fully acknowledge my privilege in being able to do this (10:33). Skill swap with friends or family - just ask! I now have a new podcast interview editor… (12:03).  Eliminate  To eliminate decisions entirely, form habits (e.g. gym every day etc). Check out habits podcast episode theteachingspace.com/49, as well as James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits (13:34). Examples: wake up time (see the sleep episode theteachingspace.com/109), clothing (like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama!) (14:22). Community example: Bob’s robot mower and mulcher (16:05).  Postpone?  Sometimes it is better to postpone (16:45).  Over to You  What about you? Let’s chat in the community (17:15 ).  Helpful links  The Teaching Space Community Readwise 5 Ways Teachers Can Mark Faster and Smarter and 5 More Ways Teachers Can Mark Faster and Smarter (podcast episodes) Create Positive Habits That Stick (podcast episode) How to Sleep Better An Interview with Daniel White (podcast episode) Atomic Habits by James Clear Notion template for podcasters Bring app The Teaching Space Extra 

Highlights Introduction <ul> <li>Making decisions uses considerable mental energy which is limited (00:42 ).</li> <li>Decision fatigue is real (00:52).</li> <li>Educators make a lot of decisions - some significant - so it is definitely worth looking at ways to minimise the number of small decisions we make daily, to reserve energy for the big ones (01:42).</li> </ul> Small Decisions <ul> <li>Time for a brain dump (01:58).</li> <li>List the small decisions you have to make every day. Examples (02:19): <ul> <li>What to eat for lunch/dinner.</li> <li>When to each lunch/dinner.</li> <li>What time to wake up and go to bed.</li> <li>What to do at the gym.</li> <li>What to wear to go to the gym.</li> <li>What to wear to work.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> What Can You Automate, Delegate or Eliminate? <ul> <li>Automate: make automatic, or at least systematised (03:10).</li> <li>Delegate: perhaps to a partner, family member, friend or professional service provider (03:31).</li> <li>Eliminate: get rid of completely! (03:48)</li> </ul> Automate <ul> <li>Fully automatic: social media, direct debits, comment bank (05:19).</li> <li>Systematised: podcast workflow (Notion template), shopping list (Bring), The Teaching Space Extra (08:00).</li> </ul> Delegate <ul> <li>Gardening, cleaning and meal planning (Hello Fresh) - I fully acknowledge my privilege in being able to do this (10:33).</li> <li>Skill swap with friends or family - just ask! I now have a new podcast interview editor… (12:03).</li> </ul> Eliminate <ul> <li>To eliminate decisions entirely, form habits (e.g. gym every day etc). Check out habits podcast episode <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/49" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/49</a>, as well as James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits (13:34).</li> <li>Examples: wake up time (see the sleep episode <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/109" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/109</a>), clothing (like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama!) (14:22).</li> <li>Community example: Bob’s robot mower and mulcher (16:05).</li> </ul> Postpone? <ul> <li>Sometimes it is better to postpone (16:45).</li> </ul> Over to You <ul> <li>What about you? Let’s chat in the community (17:15 ).</li> </ul> Helpful links <ul> <li><a href="https://theteachingspace.mn.co/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Space Community</a></li> <li><a href="https://readwise.io/i/martine48" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Readwise</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/mark-smarter" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">5 Ways Teachers Can Mark Faster and Smarter</a> and <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/mark-smarter-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">5 More Ways Teachers Can Mark Faster and Smarter</a> (podcast episodes)</li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/positive-habits" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Create Positive Habits That Stick</a> (podcast episode)</li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/interview-daniel-white" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Sleep Better An Interview with Daniel White</a> (podcast episode)</li> <li><a href="https://amzn.to/3aSFmxU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Atomic Habits by James Clear</a></li> <li><a href="https://gum.co/notion-pod" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Notion template for podcasters</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.getbring.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bring app</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/tts-extra" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Space Extra</a></li> </ul>

How Teachers and Trainers Can Avoid Decision Fatigue

A podcast for teachers and trainers who want to love their jobs and be amazing teachers without sacrificing their own time, mental health and wellbeing.

I loved the recommendations on teaching online and how to convert from in-person to virtual. Thank you!

Thank you for all the useful resources and lessons learned!

This podcast hit the nail on the head.  It addressed the main fears most teachers have about the iCloud.

How to Cure the Teacher's Fear of the Cloud

The Teaching Space

Podcast Episode 24 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello, it's Martine here, and welcome to Episode 24 of The Teaching Space podcast. Today I'd like to talk about how I use Asana to manage my teaching workload. Asana and Trello Actually, I'm not just going to talk about my teaching workload. I use Asana to manage my entire life. I use it in combination with some other apps, but ultimately Asana is the hub of everything. So I've tried pretty much every task and project management tool out there. After lots of trial and error, I settled on Asana. But I must give an extra special runner-up style shout-out to Trello. Trello is a really good project management tool. I think Asana is a little bit more complex, but also a bit more powerful. So if you're looking for something slightly more simple then go with Trello, it's very visual and does similar things but in a different way. Asana - A Brief Overview In this episode I want to talk about a few of the principles I use to manage both my teaching and home workload, even though Asana is my tool of choice, these principles could be applied to any project management tool quite easily. But I will just tell you a bit about Asana in case you've wondered what it is and how it works. This is a very brief overview. You can find Asana at Asana.com;it is a web and app-based freemium project management. When I say freemium I mean there is a free version and you can pay to get additional features. Have to say, the free version is excellent. The paid version has some nice features, but they are the sort of features that might appeal to somebody with a large team of staff and a large business. So for a teacher or trainer, even if you are self-employed, the free version of Asana is likely to do the vast majority of things you need. For example, I work with a virtual assistant. and she's part of one of my Asana projects for the podcast, and I assign a task to her via Asana in that way.  Virtual and Physical Workspaces So you can, with the free version, work with a team if you want to. You can set up multiple workspaces with Asana. So I have a workspace set up for home and that covers everything from my meal planning to my business activities that I do when I'm not in my day job, my teaching job, and then I have a different workspace for my teaching job. For me, those two separate really nicely. They're about my physical location, so when I'm physically at home I'm doing things that are like meal planning and doing the podcast and that sort of thing, and then when I'm physically in my day job office, I use my other workspace. I hope that makes sense. I don't think I explained that particularly well. But my workspaces are essentially based on my physical location. You might find it works better for you to have just one workspace, and I can totally understand that, because if you have one workspace you can get a very big picture overview of what your commitments are. Asana's Organisation  Depending on how your Asana is set up, everything is separated into projects, tasks, and sub-tasks. If you have an email address that's your own domain, for example, I have @theteachingspace.com, so my email address is hello@theteachingspace.com. If you have that setup you can get an extra layer of organization, which is teams. So it goes: teams, projects, tasks, sub-tasks. You can't see this, but while recording the audio I'm doing some quite vigorous hand gestures just to really explain to you what I mean. Calendar Integration  As I mentioned just before, one of the great things about Asana is, you can work with colleagues, staff, whatever your setup is, and delegating tasks is nice and easy. Asana also integrates with your Google calendar. That integration isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but I do have a workaround, which I'll mention to you in a moment.  You can also view your tasks within Asana in a calendar view, which again, can be nice and helpful. For me, the best view on Asana is called My Tasks, and what that is is an overview of all your projects, and your tasks are pulled in to that particular view with due dates, and you can reorganize them in there. That's the thing that I am constantly looking at. So that's my very brief overview of Asana. I understand it's quite a visual thing. You can find the video at theteachingspace.com/24. My Seven Tips  These are my seven tips for managing your workload through Asana or an alternative project management tool. 1. Everything Goes In Asana If something's not in Asana, it doesn't exist, it does not happen. One of the main reasons people fail with project manage tools is they simply don't use them properly. If you don't put every task you have to do into your project management tool, things aren't going to work properly. A question I'm often asked, and it's related to this principle, is, "What do I do with events? Do I put events into my project management tool?" The answer is no, all of my events, meetings, appointments, that sort of thing, they go into my Google Calendar. If there is work to be done in preparation for those events, then I will create a project or a task, whatever's appropriate, in Asana, and I will tie in the due date to the date of my appointment. But my rule of thumb is, events go in Google Calendar, tasks go in Asana. 2. Always Have Asana Open To Update And Check Always have Asana or your web based project management platform open in your browser, constantly update and check it. In the same way that if you don't book your tasks into your project management tool, if you're not checking it regularly and ticking things off, it's not going to work. It should be the place that you go first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and you're constantly checking in throughout the day. 3. Use My Tasks To Organise Your Day Number three is an Asana specific one, use the My Tasks view to organize your day and to overview what you've got coming up in the near future and the distant future. This is an underutilized view in Asana by a lot of users. So if you already do use it, check out My Tasks and make sure you're using it in the most efficient way possible. 4. Create Workflows and Templates For Frequently Repeated Processes. This is going to work for any project management tool. I used to do this in Trello, I do this in Asana. I'm going to give you an example. When I create a podcast episode there are lots and lots of different steps, and some of those steps are done by me and some of them are done by my virtual assistant. So what I do is I create a long list broken up into subheadings of each task that needs to be done, and every time I'm dealing with a podcast episode, I copy and paste that process into a new task. This saves so much time. So be thinking about whether there are any processes that you repeat that could benefit from having a workflow or a template like this. 5. Facebook Groups Number five is a little bit controversial, but bear with me. There are lots of Facebook groups dedicated to specific project management tools and techniques. It's a great idea to join some of these in order to get tips and tricks on how to use your chosen tool as effectively as possible. 6. Say "No" More Often By having all of your tasks in your project management tool, you have a really good idea of what needs to be done today, over the next week, and in the future, and you should have a good idea of how long these things are going to take. Because they're all in one place, when someone asks you to do something and you can see you simply don't have time, it becomes a lot easier to say no. Practice with me now, come on, "No." It is a word I don't say often enough, but I'm working on that, I am learning. That is definitely a benefit of using a tool like Asana. 7.  Use Asana or Your Project Management Tool of Choice With Other Tools Trello is a great example, it integrates beautifully with other tools. Asana I'm currently using in conjunction with HourStack, which you'll find a hourstack.io. HourStack enables me to use the time blocking technique for managing my workload. I'm trialing it at the moment. It is a paid product, it's about $6 a month, something like that, but I'll make sure there's a link on the show notes, if you would like to check it out. So integrate your project management tool with other tools to make it even more powerful. Your Project Management Tools I'm really interested to hear from you if you use Asana or if you use a different project management tool, or if you don't use a project management tool but you really want to. I'm giving serious thought to putting a course together aimed at teachers and trainers probably about Asana, but I do have the experience of Trello as well, so that's an option too. But if it's something you might be interested in, then drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you. Probably the easiest place to chat to me is in our Facebook group, that's The Teaching Space Staff Room, it would be great to see you in there. Wrap Up Right, that's all from me today. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. Before I go, pretty please could I ask you to consider leaving a positive review on iTunes about the podcast? Because what that does is, it enables more teachers and trainers to find The Teaching Space podcast, and I would be forever grateful. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you'll join me next time.

Podcast Episode 24 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello, it's Martine here, and welcome to Episode 24 of The Teaching Space podcast. Today I'd like to talk about how I use Asana to manage my teaching workload. Asana and Trello Actually, I'm not just going to talk about my teaching workload. I use Asana to manage my entire life. I use it in combination with some other apps, but ultimately Asana is the hub of everything. So I've tried pretty much every task and project management tool out there. After lots of trial and error, I settled on Asana. But I must give an extra special runner-up style shout-out to Trello. Trello is a really good project management tool. I think Asana is a little bit more complex, but also a bit more powerful. So if you're looking for something slightly more simple then go with Trello, it's very visual and does similar things but in a different way. Asana - A Brief Overview In this episode I want to talk about a few of the principles I use to manage both my teaching and home workload, even though Asana is my tool of choice, these principles could be applied to any project management tool quite easily. But I will just tell you a bit about Asana in case you've wondered what it is and how it works. This is a very brief overview. You can find Asana at <a href="http://Asana.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Asana.com</a>;it is a web and app-based freemium project management. When I say freemium I mean there is a free version and you can pay to get additional features. Have to say, the free version is excellent. The paid version has some nice features, but they are the sort of features that might appeal to somebody with a large team of staff and a large business. So for a teacher or trainer, even if you are self-employed, the free version of Asana is likely to do the vast majority of things you need. For example, I work with a virtual assistant. and she's part of one of my Asana projects for the podcast, and I assign a task to her via Asana in that way.  Virtual and Physical Workspaces So you can, with the free version, work with a team if you want to. You can set up multiple workspaces with Asana. So I have a workspace set up for home and that covers everything from my meal planning to my business activities that I do when I'm not in my day job, my teaching job, and then I have a different workspace for my teaching job. For me, those two separate really nicely. They're about my physical location, so when I'm physically at home I'm doing things that are like meal planning and doing the podcast and that sort of thing, and then when I'm physically in my day job office, I use my other workspace. I hope that makes sense. I don't think I explained that particularly well. But my workspaces are essentially based on my physical location. You might find it works better for you to have just one workspace, and I can totally understand that, because if you have one workspace you can get a very big picture overview of what your commitments are. Asana's Organisation  Depending on how your Asana is set up, everything is separated into projects, tasks, and sub-tasks. If you have an email address that's your own domain, for example, I have @theteachingspace.com, so my email address is hello@theteachingspace.com. If you have that setup you can get an extra layer of organization, which is teams. So it goes: teams, projects, tasks, sub-tasks. You can't see this, but while recording the audio I'm doing some quite vigorous hand gestures just to really explain to you what I mean. Calendar Integration  As I mentioned just before, one of the great things about Asana is, you can work with colleagues, staff, whatever your setup is, and delegating tasks is nice and easy. Asana also integrates with your Google calendar. That integration isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but I do have a workaround, which I'll mention to you in a moment.  You can also view your tasks within Asana in a calendar view, which again, can be nice and helpful. For me, the best view on Asana is called My Tasks, and what that is is an overview of all your projects, and your tasks are pulled in to that particular view with due dates, and you can reorganize them in there. That's the thing that I am constantly looking at. So that's my very brief overview of Asana. I understand it's quite a visual thing. You can find the video at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/24" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/24</a>. My Seven Tips  These are my seven tips for managing your workload through Asana or an alternative project management tool. 1. Everything Goes In Asana If something's not in Asana, it doesn't exist, it does not happen. One of the main reasons people fail with project manage tools is they simply don't use them properly. If you don't put every task you have to do into your project management tool, things aren't going to work properly. A question I'm often asked, and it's related to this principle, is, "What do I do with events? Do I put events into my project management tool?" The answer is no, all of my events, meetings, appointments, that sort of thing, they go into my Google Calendar. If there is work to be done in preparation for those events, then I will create a project or a task, whatever's appropriate, in Asana, and I will tie in the due date to the date of my appointment. But my rule of thumb is, events go in Google Calendar, tasks go in Asana. 2. Always Have Asana Open To Update And Check Always have Asana or your web based project management platform open in your browser, constantly update and check it. In the same way that if you don't book your tasks into your project management tool, if you're not checking it regularly and ticking things off, it's not going to work. It should be the place that you go first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and you're constantly checking in throughout the day. 3. Use My Tasks To Organise Your Day Number three is an Asana specific one, use the My Tasks view to organize your day and to overview what you've got coming up in the near future and the distant future. This is an underutilized view in Asana by a lot of users. So if you already do use it, check out My Tasks and make sure you're using it in the most efficient way possible. 4. Create Workflows and Templates For Frequently Repeated Processes. This is going to work for any project management tool. I used to do this in Trello, I do this in Asana. I'm going to give you an example. When I create a podcast episode there are lots and lots of different steps, and some of those steps are done by me and some of them are done by my virtual assistant. So what I do is I create a long list broken up into subheadings of each task that needs to be done, and every time I'm dealing with a podcast episode, I copy and paste that process into a new task. This saves so much time. So be thinking about whether there are any processes that you repeat that could benefit from having a workflow or a template like this. 5. Facebook Groups Number five is a little bit controversial, but bear with me. There are lots of Facebook groups dedicated to specific project management tools and techniques. It's a great idea to join some of these in order to get tips and tricks on how to use your chosen tool as effectively as possible. 6. Say "No" More Often By having all of your tasks in your project management tool, you have a really good idea of what needs to be done today, over the next week, and in the future, and you should have a good idea of how long these things are going to take. Because they're all in one place, when someone asks you to do something and you can see you simply don't have time, it becomes a lot easier to say no. Practice with me now, come on, "No." It is a word I don't say often enough, but I'm working on that, I am learning. That is definitely a benefit of using a tool like Asana. 7.  Use Asana or Your Project Management Tool of Choice With Other Tools Trello is a great example, it integrates beautifully with other tools. Asana I'm currently using in conjunction with HourStack, which you'll find a <a href="http://hourstack.io" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hourstack.io</a>. HourStack enables me to use the time blocking technique for managing my workload. I'm trialing it at the moment. It is a paid product, it's about $6 a month, something like that, but I'll make sure there's a link on the show notes, if you would like to check it out. So integrate your project management tool with other tools to make it even more powerful. Your Project Management Tools I'm really interested to hear from you if you use Asana or if you use a different project management tool, or if you don't use a project management tool but you really want to. I'm giving serious thought to putting a course together aimed at teachers and trainers probably about Asana, but I do have the experience of Trello as well, so that's an option too. But if it's something you might be interested in, then drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you. Probably the easiest place to chat to me is in our Facebook group, that's The Teaching Space Staff Room, it would be great to see you in there. Wrap Up Right, that's all from me today. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. Before I go, pretty please could I ask you to consider leaving a positive review on iTunes about the podcast? Because what that does is, it enables more teachers and trainers to find The Teaching Space podcast, and I would be forever grateful. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you'll join me next time.

Managing Your Teaching Workload With Asana

Louise Misselke

Helping Lower Level Learners to Thrive: an Interview with Louise Misselke

Episode 21 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the use of exit tickets for assessment and evaluation with learners.  Podcast Episode 21 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello, it's Martine here. Welcome to Episode 21 of The Teaching Space podcast. It's great to have you with me. Today's episode is called Excellent Exit Tickets For Assessment And Evaluation. What's an Exit Ticket? So what's an exit ticket? Well, typically it's a short assessment or evaluation activity that your students would complete before they leave the classroom. Often it will be a slip of paper which might be pre-printed to look like a ticket, or could be just a scrap of paper from your shredding bin. It could be an online exit ticket. You might use a Google Form or a Padlet or something similar. Whatever you use, the idea behind an exit ticket is that your student will complete it before they leave the session, and if they don't complete it they don't leave the session. That's the idea, at any rate. I've found that exit tickets tend to be used with young children, but I only teach adults and have had some success using them. So perhaps rethink how you're using exit tickets. They can definitely work with older learners. Some examples of exit tickets can be found on theteachingspace.com/21 Exit Tickets for Formative Assessment There are lots of ways to use an exit ticket. Personally, I find they're most useful for formative assessment. Here are some ideas on how you could use an exit ticket for formative assessment. To Answer a Question You might ask one important question from the session. So your learner has to write the answer to the question on the ticket before they leave. That's a really good way to gauge whether the main point in the session has been understood. To Summarize The Session Alternatively, you could ask your learners on the exit ticket to summarize the key points of the session. If you do this, it might be a good idea to put some bullet points, maybe three bullet points on there, so they know the sort of level of detail you're asking them to go into. Big Learning Moment and What They Need Help With  One of my favourites is to ask learners to explain one key takeaway from the session, their big learning moment that they had, and one thing that they're still a little bit hazy about and need a little bit more help with. I should add that when you do this it's really essential that you go through the exit tickets when everyone's left and make a big list of anything that learners are still hazy about, and then you follow that up. Otherwise there's not much point in doing the exit ticket exercise. Exit Tickets as Reflective Tools If you're encouraging a culture of reflection in your class, then why not use an exit ticket as a reflective tool. You can prompt your learners in the direction you'd like them to reflect. This works really well. Don't forget that you can incorporate stretch and challenge into the use of exit tickets, because not everybody needs to have the same ticket. If you've got some learners who have achieved mastery in the session and need to be stretched a little further, then give them a more challenging exit ticket, there are definite opportunities for differentiation within the use of exit tickets. Exit Tickets for Evaluation They're not just an assessment tool though. You can use exit tickets for evaluation; you can use them to check the quality of your session. I find that pre-printed exit tickets work best for this purpose. You might have a "What went well? Even better if ..." type exit ticket. So you might have WWW and then EBI on a different line, and ask for some feedback in that way. If you're dealing with young learners, then maybe a smiley face type scale could be an alternative. Using Prompts While it's perfectly fine to just use a blank sheet of paper for your exit ticket, I've found that prompts tend to give you a better quality of response. So the sort of prompts you could include on your exit ticket might be: "Write one thing you learned today." Or, "Write one thing you'd like more help to understand." These prompts also work really well in the first person. So you might have something like: "Today I enjoyed ..." "Today I found it confusing when ..." Or, "Please explain more about ..." How Do You Make an Exit Ticket? Let's talk about how you make an exit ticket. I think there are three options here. 1. Verbal Exit Ticket You could take the path of least resistance and simply have a verbal exit ticket. This would work best with younger learners, I think. So you would stand at the door to your classroom, you would issue a question to the group, give them some thinking time, get them to line up at the door, and answer the question on the way out. So that would be your simple option for a verbal exit ticket. 2. Paper Exit Ticket The mid-level option would be a paper exit ticket. It could be a scrap of plain paper, you put a question on the board and they write the answer. Or you could take the next step up and have a pre-printed ticket with prompts, and that would be what I recommend in the first instance, because I think it's best for the learner. These pre-printed exit tickets could be created in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. What I've found is the easiest thing to do is just to create a table, a two column table, questions on the left and space for an answer on the right. That works very nicely. 3. Online Exit Ticket If you want to take a tech approach, then I highly recommend using Google Forms. But this is really only going to work if your learners are on a computer at the end of the session. You know, if they've put their technology away or they're not allowed to use mobile phones for whatever reason, this isn't going to be the best format. Certainly for my adult learners I've found that Google Forms work really well. If you create a QR code with the link to the Google Form that makes things even easier as well. I like to get my learners using their devices, scanning the code, completing the exit ticket, and then going. If it's appropriate, with a Google Form you can have the responses in a Google sheet on your board as people leave. It might not be appropriate to share what everyone else is putting in the exit ticket, but you never know, it might be. My Preference Now, I have a confession to make, even though I am a very tech-orientated teacher, I am a Google certified trainer so I love Google tools, the best way to do exit tickets, in my opinion, is the pre-printed slip. It's nice and easy. You've made it once, you can print it as many times as you like. It's very quick for you to see the responses. I really like a pre-printed exit ticket. Template Exit Ticket With this in mind, I have a little gift for you. I have a template exit ticket that you're very welcome to use in your classroom. Here will find links to two options for the exit ticket, I've got a PDF version, which you can simply print out, I've also got a Google Doc template version for you. So when you click on the link what's going to happen is, Google will ask you if you want to make a copy of my template document, and you will answer, "Yes", and it will save in your Google Drive. Pop over to theteachingspace.com/21 to grab these. So you've got a PDF option and you've got a Google Doc template option. You don't have to opt-in to any newsletter or anything like that to get these freebies. They are just there for you to use. Wrap Up I'd love to know your thoughts on exit tickets and whether you have a chance to try out my templates that I've provided. The best way to chat about this sort of thing is to join The Teaching Space Staff Room, that's our closed Facebook group, I'll pop a link in the show notes for you. Right, that's all from me today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and I hope you'll join me next time.

Episode 21 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the use of exit tickets for assessment and evaluation with learners.  Podcast Episode 21 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello, it's Martine here. Welcome to Episode 21 of The Teaching Space podcast. It's great to have you with me. Today's episode is called Excellent Exit Tickets For Assessment And Evaluation. What's an Exit Ticket? So what's an exit ticket? Well, typically it's a short assessment or evaluation activity that your students would complete before they leave the classroom. Often it will be a slip of paper which might be pre-printed to look like a ticket, or could be just a scrap of paper from your shredding bin. It could be an online exit ticket. You might use a Google Form or a Padlet or something similar. Whatever you use, the idea behind an exit ticket is that your student will complete it before they leave the session, and if they don't complete it they don't leave the session. That's the idea, at any rate. I've found that exit tickets tend to be used with young children, but I only teach adults and have had some success using them. So perhaps rethink how you're using exit tickets. They can definitely work with older learners. Some examples of exit tickets can be found on <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/21" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/21</a> Exit Tickets for Formative Assessment There are lots of ways to use an exit ticket. Personally, I find they're most useful for formative assessment. Here are some ideas on how you could use an exit ticket for formative assessment. To Answer a Question You might ask one important question from the session. So your learner has to write the answer to the question on the ticket before they leave. That's a really good way to gauge whether the main point in the session has been understood. To Summarize The Session Alternatively, you could ask your learners on the exit ticket to summarize the key points of the session. If you do this, it might be a good idea to put some bullet points, maybe three bullet points on there, so they know the sort of level of detail you're asking them to go into. Big Learning Moment and What They Need Help With  One of my favourites is to ask learners to explain one key takeaway from the session, their big learning moment that they had, and one thing that they're still a little bit hazy about and need a little bit more help with. I should add that when you do this it's really essential that you go through the exit tickets when everyone's left and make a big list of anything that learners are still hazy about, and then you follow that up. Otherwise there's not much point in doing the exit ticket exercise. Exit Tickets as Reflective Tools If you're encouraging a culture of reflection in your class, then why not use an exit ticket as a reflective tool. You can prompt your learners in the direction you'd like them to reflect. This works really well. Don't forget that you can incorporate stretch and challenge into the use of exit tickets, because not everybody needs to have the same ticket. If you've got some learners who have achieved mastery in the session and need to be stretched a little further, then give them a more challenging exit ticket, there are definite opportunities for differentiation within the use of exit tickets. Exit Tickets for Evaluation They're not just an assessment tool though. You can use exit tickets for evaluation; you can use them to check the quality of your session. I find that pre-printed exit tickets work best for this purpose. You might have a "What went well? Even better if ..." type exit ticket. So you might have WWW and then EBI on a different line, and ask for some feedback in that way. If you're dealing with young learners, then maybe a smiley face type scale could be an alternative. Using Prompts While it's perfectly fine to just use a blank sheet of paper for your exit ticket, I've found that prompts tend to give you a better quality of response. So the sort of prompts you could include on your exit ticket might be: "Write one thing you learned today." Or, "Write one thing you'd like more help to understand." These prompts also work really well in the first person. So you might have something like: "Today I enjoyed ..." "Today I found it confusing when ..." Or, "Please explain more about ..." How Do You Make an Exit Ticket? Let's talk about how you make an exit ticket. I think there are three options here. 1. Verbal Exit Ticket You could take the path of least resistance and simply have a verbal exit ticket. This would work best with younger learners, I think. So you would stand at the door to your classroom, you would issue a question to the group, give them some thinking time, get them to line up at the door, and answer the question on the way out. So that would be your simple option for a verbal exit ticket. 2. Paper Exit Ticket The mid-level option would be a paper exit ticket. It could be a scrap of plain paper, you put a question on the board and they write the answer. Or you could take the next step up and have a pre-printed ticket with prompts, and that would be what I recommend in the first instance, because I think it's best for the learner. These pre-printed exit tickets could be created in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. What I've found is the easiest thing to do is just to create a table, a two column table, questions on the left and space for an answer on the right. That works very nicely. 3. Online Exit Ticket If you want to take a tech approach, then I highly recommend using Google Forms. But this is really only going to work if your learners are on a computer at the end of the session. You know, if they've put their technology away or they're not allowed to use mobile phones for whatever reason, this isn't going to be the best format. Certainly for my adult learners I've found that Google Forms work really well. If you create a QR code with the link to the Google Form that makes things even easier as well. I like to get my learners using their devices, scanning the code, completing the exit ticket, and then going. If it's appropriate, with a Google Form you can have the responses in a Google sheet on your board as people leave. It might not be appropriate to share what everyone else is putting in the exit ticket, but you never know, it might be. My Preference Now, I have a confession to make, even though I am a very tech-orientated teacher, I am a Google certified trainer so I love Google tools, the best way to do exit tickets, in my opinion, is the pre-printed slip. It's nice and easy. You've made it once, you can print it as many times as you like. It's very quick for you to see the responses. I really like a pre-printed exit ticket. Template Exit Ticket With this in mind, I have a little gift for you. I have a template exit ticket that you're very welcome to use in your classroom. Here will find links to two options for the exit ticket, I've got a PDF version, which you can simply print out, I've also got a Google Doc template version for you. So when you click on the link what's going to happen is, Google will ask you if you want to make a copy of my template document, and you will answer, "Yes", and it will save in your Google Drive. Pop over to <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/21" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/21</a> to grab these. So you've got a PDF option and you've got a Google Doc template option. You don't have to opt-in to any newsletter or anything like that to get these freebies. They are just there for you to use. Wrap Up I'd love to know your thoughts on exit tickets and whether you have a chance to try out my templates that I've provided. The best way to chat about this sort of thing is to join The Teaching Space Staff Room, that's our closed Facebook group, I'll pop a link in the show notes for you. Right, that's all from me today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and I hope you'll join me next time.

Excellent Exit Tickets for Assessment and Evaluation

Episode 74 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the visual note taking skill of sketchnoting. Introduction In today’s episode we’re exploring my new favourite thing: sketchnoting. I am excited about this topic because it seems to combine all of my worlds: education, writing, reading, learning, technology and drawing. I’m still a sketchnoting novice, but hopefully, for the purpose of this podcast anyway, my enthusiasm makes up for my lack of skill. What are Sketchnotes? According to sketchnote-love.com: ”Sketchnotes (sketch + notes) are visual notes, so more than just the regular text notes we all are used to take. When sketchnoting you enhance your regular notes with visual elements such as small drawings, frames, arrows, letterings etc. In the end you get notes with benefits. They help you to visualize and structure contents of any kind and help you to treasure information.” I love the idea of “notes with benefits”! Here’s an example of my first sketchnote; it’s from a talk I saw by Daisy Christodoulou deliver at the ResearchED National Conference 2019 (listen to my podcast about the event here). Why are Sketchnotes Useful for Educators? There is vast array of research available to explain why combining words and images helps support memory and learning. You won’t find a better starting point than Kathy Schrock of Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything. It includes links to research papers, books and videos. In short, thought, sketchnoting uses both the verbal and visual input channels to your memory so increases the likelihood of taking in and retaining information. Your whole mind is engaged. This is the basic premise of dual coding theory. If you are listening to a talk, for example, you go from being a passive participant to an active one if you are doodling what you hear. Sketchnoting helps you concentrate and remember what you heard. This is of course, useful for students, but my focus for today’s episode is us: the teachers and trainers (I’d like to explore how our students could use sketchnotes in a future episode). If you are super keen to explore this now though check out Doug Neill’s course: Sketchnoting in the Classroom. Why might WE find sketchnoting useful? Quite simply, it’s for our professional development. You could sketchnote at conferences or while listening to education podcasts or reading books. TED talk videos are ideal sketchnote material while you are still learning the skill as they are short and you can pause them! I have found the app Blinkist invaluable for the same reason. Incidentally, if you fancy sketchnoting an episode of The Teaching Space podcast then please do! If you email me the sketchnote or share it with me on social media I will send you a free copy of my book, The Productive Teacher. That’s how I think sketchnoting can help teachers and trainers. Here’s an example of a sketchnote I did after listening to Daniel T. Willingham’s book “Why Don’t Students Like School?” via Blinkist. But I Can’t Draw I am predicting the number one barrier to teachers or trainers trying to sketchnote is this statement… “I can’t draw”. No problem. According to Mike Rohde sketchnoting is about “ideas not art”. If you have ideas, you can sketchnote. Rohde makes the point that: ”Kids draw to express ideas. They don’t worry about how perfect their drawings are, as long as their ideas are conveyed.” So why not give it a try? Resources  Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything: Sketchnote Resources The Sketchnote Handbook by Mike Rohde The Sketchnote Workbook by Mike Rohde Verbal to Visual with Doug Neill (check out his courses)  Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either:  Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post. Posting in our Facebook group: TTS Staff Room. Posting on Twitter (I’m @MartineGuernsey if you want to mention me). Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: theteachingspace.com. Leaving me a voicemail on Voxer where I’m theteachingspace.  The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 74 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the visual note taking skill of sketchnoting. Introduction In today’s episode we’re exploring my new favourite thing: sketchnoting. I am excited about this topic because it seems to combine all of my worlds: education, writing, reading, learning, technology and drawing. I’m still a sketchnoting novice, but hopefully, for the purpose of this podcast anyway, my enthusiasm makes up for my lack of skill. What are Sketchnotes? According to <a href="http://sketchnote-love.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sketchnote-love.com</a>: ”Sketchnotes (sketch + notes) are visual notes, so more than just the regular text notes we all are used to take. When sketchnoting you enhance your regular notes with visual elements such as small drawings, frames, arrows, letterings etc. In the end you get notes with benefits. They help you to visualize and structure contents of any kind and help you to treasure information.” I love the idea of “notes with benefits”! <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/74" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here’s an example</a> of my first sketchnote; it’s from a talk I saw by Daisy Christodoulou deliver at the ResearchED National Conference 2019 (<a href="http://theteachingspace.com/73" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">listen to my podcast about the event here</a>). Why are Sketchnotes Useful for Educators? There is vast array of research available to explain why combining words and images helps support memory and learning. You won’t find a better starting point than <a href="https://www.schrockguide.net/sketchnoting.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kathy Schrock of Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything</a>. It includes links to research papers, books and videos. In short, thought, sketchnoting uses both the verbal and visual input channels to your memory so increases the likelihood of taking in and retaining information. Your whole mind is engaged. This is the basic premise of dual coding theory. If you are listening to a talk, for example, you go from being a passive participant to an active one if you are doodling what you hear. Sketchnoting helps you concentrate and remember what you heard. This is of course, useful for students, but my focus for today’s episode is us: the teachers and trainers (I’d like to explore how our students could use sketchnotes in a future episode). If you are super keen to explore this now though check out Doug Neill’s course: <a href="https://www.verbaltovisual.com/sketchnoting-in-the-classroom/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sketchnoting in the Classroom</a>. Why might WE find sketchnoting useful? Quite simply, it’s for our professional development. You could sketchnote at conferences or while listening to education podcasts or reading books. TED talk videos are ideal sketchnote material while you are still learning the skill as they are short and you can pause them! I have found the app Blinkist invaluable for the same reason. Incidentally, if you fancy sketchnoting an episode of The Teaching Space podcast then please do! If you email me the sketchnote or share it with me on social media I will send you a free copy of my book, <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Productive Teacher</a>. That’s how I think sketchnoting can help teachers and trainers. <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/74" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here’s an example</a> of a sketchnote I did after listening to Daniel T. Willingham’s book “Why Don’t Students Like School?” via <a href="https://www.blinkist.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blinkist</a>. But I Can’t Draw I am predicting the number one barrier to teachers or trainers trying to sketchnote is this statement… “I can’t draw”. No problem. According to Mike Rohde sketchnoting is about “ideas not art”. If you have ideas, you can sketchnote. Rohde makes the point that: ”Kids draw to express ideas. They don’t worry about how perfect their drawings are, as long as their ideas are conveyed.” So why not give it a try? Resources <ul> <li><a href="https://www.schrockguide.net/sketchnoting.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything: Sketchnote Resources</a></li> <li><a href="https://amzn.to/2Oq0Qai" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sketchnote Handbook by Mike Rohde</a></li> <li><a href="https://amzn.to/2VmCSya" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sketchnote Workbook by Mike Rohde</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.verbaltovisual.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Verbal to Visual with Doug Neill (check out his courses)</a></li> </ul> Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post.</li> <li>Posting in our Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ttsstaffroom/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TTS Staff Room</a>.</li> <li>Posting on Twitter (I’m <a href="http://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@MartineGuernsey</a> if you want to mention me).</li> <li>Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>.</li> <li>Leaving me a voicemail on <a href="https://web.voxer.com/theteachingspace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Voxer</a> where I’m theteachingspace.</li> </ol> The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

A Brief Introduction to Sketchnoting for Teachers and Trainers

Episode 69 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores different ways to start your teaching sessions. Introduction We’re going back to teaching basics today and focussing on starter activities. For the benefit of any new teachers or trainers listening, a starter activity is a short activity at the start of the session which engages your learners as soon as they arrive. It sets the tone of the session. Why are Starter Activities a Good Idea? One of the main benefits of using a starter activity is that done well, it can ensure learners arrive in your training room and settle into work-mode quicky and easily. This applies to learners of all ages, incidentally! It is also a good way to get learners excited about what is about to happen in the session to come. You can really “hook” learners in with a good starter activity. Starters can also be used to recap on what you covered in the last session. But Do They Work? In drafting the outline for this show I did wonder if perhaps starter activities were a bit “passé”. I could not find significant evidence to suggest this. Based on my own experience, starter activities can work extremely well, however, there is an art to picking the right type of activity. It’s essential to know your learners and select something to meet their needs. In most cases, you should also select an activity related to your teaching topic, otherwise, depending on the age of your learners, it might feel childish or like a waste or time. Also, stick to your session plan when timing your starter activity. It is easy to get carried away and use up a quarter or half of your session on a starter! Starter Activity Concepts and Resources I’m conscious that this podcast attracts listeners from a wide variety of backgrounds - this means you could be teaching any age group. So coming up with a list of starter activities you can use today is a little challenging! Instead, what I thought I’d do, is share a few starter activity concepts which you can adapt to suit your learners.  Anagrams: use keywords related to your subject area (although do consider the needs of learners with dyslexia). Here’s an anagram generator. “Pub” quiz: questions could related to the previous session. Perhaps split learners into teams and use buzzers. Kahoot is a fun, online quiz tool if you prefer a digital option. Even my adult learners love a Kahoot starter activity! Who Am I? I mentioned this activity in episode 66 The Power of Sticky Notes - it makes a great starter. Don’t just use people though, perhaps use keywords from the previous session. Recap activity: one of my favourite plenaries is to choose a learner and ask them to tell the group their main takeaway from the session. They then get to chose someone else to do the same. This can also work as a starter activity if learners need to remember an aspect of the previous session. Bingo: using the standard layout of a bingo card, you can create a whole host of starter activities which can get learners answering questions, collaborating and talking about the session topic rather than the weekend. One minute/30 second recap: learners could work individually, in pairs or small teams. Challenge them to come up with a one minute or 30 second recap of the last session which they can deliver verbally or in a way which suits their needs. Pictionary: a team activity requiring a learner to select a card with a keyword from the previous session on and draw it. Team members have to guess the word.  I’d love to hear how you use starter activities - please let me know. Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either:  Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Buying my book, The Productive Teacher, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at theprodutiveteacherbook.com). Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace.  … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either:  Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post. Posting in our Facebook group: TTS Staff Room. Posting on Twitter (I’m @MartineGuernsey if you want to mention me). Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: theteachingspace.com.  The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 69 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores different ways to start your teaching sessions. Introduction We’re going back to teaching basics today and focussing on starter activities. For the benefit of any new teachers or trainers listening, a starter activity is a short activity at the start of the session which engages your learners as soon as they arrive. It sets the tone of the session. Why are Starter Activities a Good Idea? One of the main benefits of using a starter activity is that done well, it can ensure learners arrive in your training room and settle into work-mode quicky and easily. This applies to learners of all ages, incidentally! It is also a good way to get learners excited about what is about to happen in the session to come. You can really “hook” learners in with a good starter activity. Starters can also be used to recap on what you covered in the last session. But Do They Work? In drafting the outline for this show I did wonder if perhaps starter activities were a bit “passé”. I could not find significant evidence to suggest this. Based on my own experience, starter activities can work extremely well, however, there is an art to picking the right type of activity. It’s essential to know your learners and select something to meet their needs. In most cases, you should also select an activity related to your teaching topic, otherwise, depending on the age of your learners, it might feel childish or like a waste or time. Also, stick to your session plan when timing your starter activity. It is easy to get carried away and use up a quarter or half of your session on a starter! Starter Activity Concepts and Resources I’m conscious that this podcast attracts listeners from a wide variety of backgrounds - this means you could be teaching any age group. So coming up with a list of starter activities you can use today is a little challenging! Instead, what I thought I’d do, is share a few starter activity concepts which you can adapt to suit your learners. <ol> <li>Anagrams: use keywords related to your subject area (although do consider the needs of learners with dyslexia). <a href="https://wordsmith.org/anagram/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here’s an anagram generator</a>.</li> <li>“Pub” quiz: questions could related to the previous session. Perhaps split learners into teams and use buzzers. <a href="https://kahoot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kahoot</a> is a fun, online quiz tool if you prefer a digital option. Even my adult learners love a Kahoot starter activity!</li> <li>Who Am I? I mentioned this activity in <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/66" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">episode 66 The Power of Sticky Notes</a> - it makes a great starter. Don’t just use people though, perhaps use keywords from the previous session.</li> <li>Recap activity: one of my favourite plenaries is to choose a learner and ask them to tell the group their main takeaway from the session. They then get to chose someone else to do the same. This can also work as a starter activity if learners need to remember an aspect of the previous session.</li> <li>Bingo: using the standard layout of a bingo card, you can create a whole host of starter activities which can get learners answering questions, collaborating and talking about the session topic rather than the weekend.</li> <li>One minute/30 second recap: learners could work individually, in pairs or small teams. Challenge them to come up with a one minute or 30 second recap of the last session which they can deliver verbally or in a way which suits their needs.</li> <li>Pictionary: a team activity requiring a learner to select a card with a keyword from the previous session on and draw it. Team members have to guess the word.</li> </ol> I’d love to hear how you use starter activities - please let me know. Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.</li> <li>Buying my book, <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Productive Teacher</a>, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theprodutiveteacherbook.com</a>).</li> <li>Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at <a>ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>.</li> </ol> … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post.</li> <li>Posting in our Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ttsstaffroom/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TTS Staff Room</a>.</li> <li>Posting on Twitter (I’m <a href="http://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@MartineGuernsey</a> if you want to mention me).</li> <li>Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>.</li> </ol> The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Effective Starter Activities

Episode 68 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores a reluctant teacher’s experience of meditation. Introduction So, guess what? The “one teacher” named in the title is me and up until about six weeks ago, my general attitude towards meditation was something akin to: it’s a bit “woo-woo” and it’s for “other people”. I should have called this episode “One Reluctant, Anti-Woo-Woo Teacher’s Experience with Meditation” actually; it would have been more accurate. Let’s unpick this a little. Based on a gut feeling, I had decided that meditation wasn’t for me. Actually, that’s not strictly true (I am being a little hard on myself). I’d tried meditation a couple of times in various yoga classes. It was really hard. Based on that, and my gut, I decided it wasn’t for me. Yikes, that’s even worse. So I decided to try again. What is Meditation? Before we delve into my recent meditation experience, let’s take a step back and clarify what meditation is and isn’t. I have two definitions for you. The first is from The Cambridge Dictionary: “Meditation is the act of giving your attention to only one thing, either as a religions activity or as a way of becoming calm and relaxed”. The second is from Headspace (more on Headspace later): ”Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings. You’re learning to observe them without judgment. And eventually, you may start to better understand them as well.” Honestly, the first definition is really the sort of thing that put me off the practice initially. However, the second definition is interesting. It sounds do-able and beneficial. If you’re anything like me, I suggest you focus on the second definition. Bigger picture though; I am learning meditation is different things to different people. And that’s OK. Why Now? There are two main reasons why I decided to give meditation another try. The first was that it’s just not cool to discount something entirely based on a (not even particularly strong) gut feeling and the fact that it is hard. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that meditation helps lots of people. The second reason is more personal. I’m an anxious person; I have struggled with anxiety for most of my life. This might come as a surprise to you given how I present and what I do for a living. I have learned strategies for managing my anxiety and for the most part I deal with it well. A recent (positive) medication change, however, disrupted my coping strategies somewhat, so I needed to explore some new ones. Hello, meditation. What Did I Do? As you know, I’m a tech gal, so of course, I researched apps to help me learn to meditate. I settled on Headspace because the app appeared friendly and accessible. I took one of their introductory courses which require you to meditate for just a few minutes at a time. Yes - just a few minutes per meditation. There’s a meditation myth busted, right there. You don’t need to meditate for hours on end. A few minutes is fine! The idea of doing something positive for my anxiety for just a few minutes a day is… well… do-able! The course’s meditations are basically just sitting (or my preference: lying down) quietly, breathing, focussing and listening. What’s not to enjoy? The app encourages you to meditate daily but doesn’t exactly tell you off if you don’t (another ✅ - I needed this to be gentle if I was going to return to it). What Did I Think? I actually rather liked it. And am still liking it. MOST importantly though, I managed to use meditation to bring myself down from an anxiety wobble. Research hat on: this shows me it can work. Will I Continue? Short answer - yes. I am not at the stage where it is a daily habit for me but I can see the benefit in building up a kind of “meditation muscle memory”. Honestly, that is probably my next step. What About You? Tell me what you think. At the very least perhaps consider why meditation could have value for educators. I’d love to hear from you. Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either:  Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Buying my book, The Productive Teacher, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at theprodutiveteacherbook.com). Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace.  … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either:  Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post. Posting in our Facebook group: TTS Staff Room. Posting on Twitter (I’m @MartineGuernsey if you want to mention me). Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: theteachingspace.com. Leaving me a voicemail on Voxer.  The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 68 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores a reluctant teacher’s experience of meditation. Introduction So, guess what? The “one teacher” named in the title is me and up until about six weeks ago, my general attitude towards meditation was something akin to: it’s a bit “woo-woo” and it’s for “other people”. I should have called this episode “One Reluctant, Anti-Woo-Woo Teacher’s Experience with Meditation” actually; it would have been more accurate. Let’s unpick this a little. Based on a gut feeling, I had decided that meditation wasn’t for me. Actually, that’s not strictly true (I am being a little hard on myself). I’d tried meditation a couple of times in various yoga classes. It was really hard. Based on that, and my gut, I decided it wasn’t for me. Yikes, that’s even worse. So I decided to try again. What is Meditation? Before we delve into my recent meditation experience, let’s take a step back and clarify what meditation is and isn’t. I have two definitions for you. The first is from The Cambridge Dictionary: “Meditation is the act of giving your attention to only one thing, either as a religions activity or as a way of becoming calm and relaxed”. The second is from Headspace (more on Headspace later): ”Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings. You’re learning to observe them without judgment. And eventually, you may start to better understand them as well.” Honestly, the first definition is really the sort of thing that put me off the practice initially. However, the second definition is interesting. It sounds do-able and beneficial. If you’re anything like me, I suggest you focus on the second definition. Bigger picture though; I am learning meditation is different things to different people. And that’s OK. Why Now? There are two main reasons why I decided to give meditation another try. The first was that it’s just not cool to discount something entirely based on a (not even particularly strong) gut feeling and the fact that it is hard. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that meditation helps lots of people. The second reason is more personal. I’m an anxious person; I have struggled with anxiety for most of my life. This might come as a surprise to you given how I present and what I do for a living. I have learned strategies for managing my anxiety and for the most part I deal with it well. A recent (positive) medication change, however, disrupted my coping strategies somewhat, so I needed to explore some new ones. Hello, meditation. What Did I Do? As you know, I’m a tech gal, so of course, I researched apps to help me learn to meditate. I settled on <a href="https://www.headspace.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Headspace</a> because the app appeared friendly and accessible. I took one of their introductory courses which require you to meditate for just a few minutes at a time. Yes - just a few minutes per meditation. There’s a meditation myth busted, right there. You don’t need to meditate for hours on end. A few minutes is fine! The idea of doing something positive for my anxiety for just a few minutes a day is… well… do-able! The course’s meditations are basically just sitting (or my preference: lying down) quietly, breathing, focussing and listening. What’s not to enjoy? The app encourages you to meditate daily but doesn’t exactly tell you off if you don’t (another ✅ - I needed this to be gentle if I was going to return to it). What Did I Think? I actually rather liked it. And am still liking it. MOST importantly though, I managed to use meditation to bring myself down from an anxiety wobble. Research hat on: this shows me it can work. Will I Continue? Short answer - yes. I am not at the stage where it is a daily habit for me but I can see the benefit in building up a kind of “meditation muscle memory”. Honestly, that is probably my next step. What About You? Tell me what you think. At the very least perhaps consider why meditation could have value for educators. I’d love to hear from you. Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.</li> <li>Buying my book, <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Productive Teacher</a>, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theprodutiveteacherbook.com</a>).</li> <li>Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at <a>ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>.</li> </ol> … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post.</li> <li>Posting in our Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ttsstaffroom/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TTS Staff Room</a>.</li> <li>Posting on Twitter (I’m <a href="http://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@MartineGuernsey</a> if you want to mention me).</li> <li>Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>.</li> <li>Leaving me a voicemail on <a href="https://web.voxer.com/theteachingspace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Voxer</a>.</li> </ol> The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

One Teacher’s Experience with Meditation

Episode 54 of The Teaching Space Podcast will help you learn to prioritise self-care even when you have no time. Teachers are so Busy Teachers are the busiest people I know (I wrote a book about it!) The vast majority of them are awful at prioritising themselves and self-care just doesn’t form part of their day. I understand why. Our job is all about our learners. They come first every single time. I get it. The problem is this: If you do not look after yourself, you are not best placed to look after anyone else. It’s just like when you are on an aircraft and they do the safety announcement. In the event of an emergency you are expected to put your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else with theirs. Now, I am not comparing teaching to a plane crash - I promise. But you take my point. If you need me to phrase it this way, I will: you have a professional responsibility to care for yourself. I don’t want you to do it because your job demands it. I want you to do it for you. If you have ever thought of self-care as selfish, you need to flip that. If you are concerned with giving your best to others, then NOT caring for yourself is selfish. A Bit Woo-Woo Until recently, I thought the concept of self-care was a bit woo-woo (a lot of my teacher colleagues seemingly agree). And if you are close to skipping this episode because you think I will force you to meditate - please don’t. The message is important. I should add, before we start, that I am coming at this episode from the perspective of someone who has only recently discovered the power of self-care. I am not an expert. What is Self-Care? I rather like Maria Baratta’s definition as seen on  Psychology Today: “Self care in essence is the mindful taking time to pay attention to you, not in a narcissistic way, but in a way that ensures that you are being cared for by you.” I like what she says about “you being cared for by you”. Self-care means different things to different people. For some, it’s exercise, for others it’s going to the dentist when you have a toothache (preferably before!) My self-care practice usually involves getting enough sleep (I need a lot), getting fresh air and flexing my creative muscles. How do I Make Time?  Don’t fill every slot of time on your calendar. Reassess your self-imposed deadlines and standards (episode 39). Adjust your morning and/or evening routines. Walk when you wouldn’t normally. 

Episode 54 of The Teaching Space Podcast will help you learn to prioritise self-care even when you have no time. Teachers are so Busy Teachers are the busiest people I know (<a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I wrote a book about it!</a>) The vast majority of them are awful at prioritising themselves and self-care just doesn’t form part of their day. I understand why. Our job is all about our learners. They come first every single time. I get it. The problem is this: If you do not look after yourself, you are not best placed to look after anyone else. It’s just like when you are on an aircraft and they do the safety announcement. In the event of an emergency you are expected to put your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else with theirs. Now, I am not comparing teaching to a plane crash - I promise. But you take my point. If you need me to phrase it this way, I will: you have a professional responsibility to care for yourself. I don’t want you to do it because your job demands it. I want you to do it for you. If you have ever thought of self-care as selfish, you need to flip that. If you are concerned with giving your best to others, then NOT caring for yourself is selfish. A Bit Woo-Woo Until recently, I thought the concept of self-care was a bit woo-woo (a lot of my teacher colleagues seemingly agree). And if you are close to skipping this episode because you think I will force you to meditate - please don’t. The message is important. I should add, before we start, that I am coming at this episode from the perspective of someone who has only recently discovered the power of self-care. I am not an expert. What is Self-Care? I rather like Maria Baratta’s definition as seen on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/skinny-revisited/201805/self-care-101" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Psychology Today</a>: “Self care in essence is the mindful taking time to pay attention to you, not in a narcissistic way, but in a way that ensures that you are being cared for by you.” I like what she says about “you being cared for by you”. Self-care means different things to different people. For some, it’s exercise, for others it’s going to the dentist when you have a toothache (preferably before!) My self-care practice usually involves getting enough sleep (I need a lot), getting fresh air and flexing my creative muscles. How do I Make Time? <ol> <li>Don’t fill every slot of time on your calendar.</li> <li>Reassess your self-imposed deadlines and standards (<a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/evaluating-standards" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">episode 39</a>).</li> <li>Adjust your morning and/or evening routines.</li> <li>Walk when you wouldn’t normally.</li> </ol>

How to Prioritise Self-Care When You Have No Time

Episode 83 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores three note-taking apps for teachers and trainers. Introduction As a child, I was obsessed with notepads. As an adult, I am obsessed with note-taking apps. I’ve been trying out three ‘new to me’ apps lately so I thought I’d share my findings with you. These are not intended to be detailed reviews by the way - I want to give you just enough information to decide whether you want to try these tools out. You’ll note (pardon the pun) that Evernote is conspicuous by its absence. I’ve tried Evernote several times in the past, and for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on, it just never seems to be the right fit for me, despite that fact that LOTS of people love it. Evernote does many things fairly well but doesn’t seem to me to do anything REALLY well. Three Note-taking Apps OneNote I think this one will surprise a few of you. OneNote is a Microsoft app and I am a dedicated Apple girl. However, I am studying with the Open University and they use Office 365. I need a suitable place for my reflective learning journal, study notes and professional development plan. They recommended OneNote so I thought I would give it a try. Here’s what you need to know about OneNote and a few things I like (this is a non-exhaustive list):  It’s part of Microsoft Office 365 It’s a digital notebook and allows you to have multiple notebooks It’s easily accessible on all platforms and includes apps Collaboration is easy It handles typed and written (with a stylus) text well You can include voice notes There’s a class notebook option (I have not used this) It looks like a notebook with fancy dividers You can link between notes  SimpleNote SimpleNote is described as ‘the simplest way to keep notes’. It is light, clean and free. It is available for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux. Here’s what you need to know and a few things I like (this is a non-exhaustive list):  It includes seamless syncing across all devices Tagging of notes is intuitive There are collaboration options (sharing lists, publishing notes online etc) Great backup Markdown support It’s free! As well as having lots of apps it is a web-based tool (so few note-taking apps are, so this was a real plus point for me)  Bear Bear is the Apple option. I’ve just started using Bear for outlining podcast episodes, newsletters and articles as I’d become a little frustrated with how Ulysses handles links (amongst other things). Incidentally, I still rate Ulysses highly, but will likely only use it in the future for long-form writing (for example, when I tackle my second book). Here’s what you need to know about Bear and a few things I like (this is a non-exhaustive list):  Bear is beautiful It has an interesting hash-tagging approach to organising your notes (very intuitive to me and allows nested organisation) It supports markup You can export to HTML (useful for me when preparing show notes) It includes to-do functionality Focus mode is an option Cross-linking notes is supported It handles images well (useful for blog posts, newsletters etc) There is a free option but otherwise, it is subscription-based (Bear Pro is $14.99 a year with a one-month free trial and you need Bear Pro to sync across ALL Devices)  The Winner? I’m going to cheat and choose two. I am currently using OneNote for all my OU work, but outside of that, it is Bear. I thought it would be SimpleNote, due to the web access element. This is because I use Microsoft/PC at work and a Mac at home (all my personal devices are Apple too). But Bear has more flexibility in terms of export options, how it handles images, and note organisation. I am considering using OneNote at work actually, but for now, I tend to jot down notes in a Google Doc, as needed. Wrap Up What about you? What are your favourite note-taking tools? Let me know; I would love to hear from you. Support the Show If you have enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the show by making a small donation towards the running costs on my Ko-fi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace. Alternatively, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whether you listen to the show. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about this episode or thoughts you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. At the time of recording, the community is free to join. It’s just launched so I’m very keen to get some members in there to test it out and give me some feedback. The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 83 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores three note-taking apps for teachers and trainers. Introduction As a child, I was obsessed with notepads. As an adult, I am obsessed with note-taking apps. I’ve been trying out three ‘new to me’ apps lately so I thought I’d share my findings with you. These are not intended to be detailed reviews by the way - I want to give you just enough information to decide whether you want to try these tools out. You’ll note (pardon the pun) that <a href="https://evernote.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Evernote</a> is conspicuous by its absence. I’ve tried Evernote several times in the past, and for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on, it just never seems to be the right fit for me, despite that fact that LOTS of people love it. Evernote does many things fairly well but doesn’t seem to me to do anything REALLY well. Three Note-taking Apps OneNote I think this one will surprise a few of you. <a href="https://www.onenote.com/?404&amp;public=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">OneNote</a> is a Microsoft app and I am a dedicated Apple girl. However, I am studying with the Open University and they use Office 365. I need a suitable place for my reflective learning journal, study notes and professional development plan. They recommended OneNote so I thought I would give it a try. Here’s what you need to know about OneNote and a few things I like (this is a non-exhaustive list): <ul> <li>It’s part of Microsoft Office 365</li> <li>It’s a digital notebook and allows you to have multiple notebooks</li> <li>It’s easily accessible on all platforms and includes apps</li> <li>Collaboration is easy</li> <li>It handles typed and written (with a stylus) text well</li> <li>You can include voice notes</li> <li>There’s a class notebook option (I have not used this)</li> <li>It looks like a notebook with fancy dividers</li> <li>You can link between notes</li> </ul> SimpleNote <a href="https://simplenote.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SimpleNote</a> is described as ‘the simplest way to keep notes’. It is light, clean and free. It is available for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux. Here’s what you need to know and a few things I like (this is a non-exhaustive list): <ul> <li>It includes seamless syncing across all devices</li> <li>Tagging of notes is intuitive</li> <li>There are collaboration options (sharing lists, publishing notes online etc)</li> <li>Great backup</li> <li>Markdown support</li> <li>It’s free!</li> <li>As well as having lots of apps it is a web-based tool (so few note-taking apps are, so this was a real plus point for me)</li> </ul> Bear <a href="https://bear.app/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bear</a> is the Apple option. I’ve just started using Bear for outlining podcast episodes, newsletters and articles as I’d become a little frustrated with how <a href="https://ulysses.app/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulysses</a> handles links (amongst other things). Incidentally, I still rate Ulysses highly, but will likely only use it in the future for long-form writing (for example, when I tackle my second book). Here’s what you need to know about Bear and a few things I like (this is a non-exhaustive list): <ul> <li>Bear is beautiful</li> <li>It has an interesting hash-tagging approach to organising your notes (very intuitive to me and allows nested organisation)</li> <li>It supports markup</li> <li>You can export to HTML (useful for me when preparing show notes)</li> <li>It includes to-do functionality</li> <li>Focus mode is an option</li> <li>Cross-linking notes is supported</li> <li>It handles images well (useful for blog posts, newsletters etc)</li> <li>There is a free option but otherwise, it is subscription-based (Bear Pro is $14.99 a year with a one-month free trial and you need Bear Pro to sync across ALL Devices)</li> </ul> The Winner? I’m going to cheat and choose two. I am currently using OneNote for all my OU work, but outside of that, it is Bear. I thought it would be SimpleNote, due to the web access element. This is because I use Microsoft/PC at work and a Mac at home (all my personal devices are Apple too). But Bear has more flexibility in terms of export options, how it handles images, and note organisation. I am considering using OneNote at work actually, but for now, I tend to jot down notes in a Google Doc, as needed. Wrap Up What about you? What are your favourite note-taking tools? Let me know; I would love to hear from you. Support the Show If you have enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the show by making a small donation towards the running costs on my Ko-fi page which you can find at <a href="http://ko-fi.com/theteachingspace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>. Alternatively, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whether you listen to the show. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about this episode or thoughts you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: <a href="http://community.theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community.theteachingspace.com</a>. At the time of recording, the community is free to join. It’s just launched so I’m very keen to get some members in there to test it out and give me some feedback. The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Three Note Taking Apps for Teachers and Trainers

Episode 25 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how powerful a morning routine can be for teachers. Podcast Episode 25 Transcript  Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.  Hello. It's Martine here and welcome to Episode 25 of The Teaching Space Podcast. Today we're talking about the power of a morning routine for teachers. Now, I'm not talking about the morning routine that happens with your learners in your classroom. I'm talking about you. Today's episode is all about you. The routine that happens from the moment you wake up until you arrive in your classroom. Today's episode, I repeat, is all about you. Backstory I'll give you a bit of backstory. Up until fairly recently, my morning routine was nonexistent. There was nothing resembling a routine for me in the mornings. I'd get up at different times every day. Sometimes I'd have breakfast, sometimes not. Sometimes I'd go to work early and do emails; sometimes I'd arrive exactly on time and start my day in a completely different way. There was no consistency. For many people, this is absolutely fine. But I started to realise it wasn't okay. When I made the decision to start going to the gym regularly, I looked at my day and tried to work out when I could fit going to the gym in and I really couldn't work it out. I had a little bit of an inkling that the morning would be the best possible time for me but I wasn't sure, so I needed some help. What Inspired Me  It was at this point I read "168 Hours" by Laura Vanderkam. You absolutely have to read this book. The significance of the 168 number is that's how many hours you have in an entire week.  After reading this book, I did something called a time study. It's something that the author encourages you to do. So, for an entire week, I logged what I did every 15 minutes. I had a spreadsheet sectioned up into 15 minute chunks, and I logged everything I did. Then I analysed how I spent my time. The biggest thing for me was identifying how much time I was wasting in the morning. It was this exercise that made me realise I could fit in going to the gym in the morning and a routine would be the thing to really help me with that.  My Morning Routine I'd now like to tell you what my morning routine looks like and I should let you know, full disclosure here, I've been doing this for a few months now. I think a few months is probably long enough to establish a habit. I am definitely not the guru of morning routines. However, I have experienced many benefits from establishing this routine, and that's why I want to share it with you because I believe all teachers and trainers could benefit from having a morning routine. This is how my mine goes. Wake Up! I wake up at 6:00 a.m. Often I actually wake up five minutes or so before my alarm, and that's one of the things that made me realise that my routine is now sticking. As soon as I get up, I take my medication with a large glass of water because I want to be hydrated for going to the gym later. I have coffee. I will usually have a breakfast bar, something very quick and easy to eat that's going to give me a little bit of an energy boost for the gym. I steer clear of the high sugar breakfast bars. I go for something quite natural. Journal Time Then, I can't believe I'm going to say this; I'm really not this girl, I write in my journal. I use Day One app, and I've talked about this on the podcast before. (You can find a link to the previous podcast episode on journalling here.)  But I spend probably three minutes writing in my journal. I just have a couple of prompts. I set an intention or a goal for the day. I record how I'm feeling. I know it sounds really [woo-woo 00:04:35], but it's a really nice part of my routine. I do that. It takes no time at all because I use a tool called text expander, so I type in a little code and my prompts just come up automatically, so that's a top tip there. I write in my journal. Gym and Me Time Then I drive to the gym and I arrive at the gym just after 6:30 a.m. It opens at 6:30, so I'm there within 10 minutes of it opening. I do 30 minutes cardio and some stretching.  Now, this was a bit of a big thing for me to work out. Going to the gym doesn't mean you have to spend an hour there. In my head, I'd just come up with this thing that if you go to the gym, you've got to spend an hour there for it to be worthwhile. Well, I go to the gym every weekday, so 30 minutes is all right.  I should also add one of the reasons I only do 30 minutes is I have a bad back, I have a couple of slipped discs, so I have to be really careful with what I do. But 30 minutes of cardio every day and some stretching and probably some sit-ups and things like that and some back strengthening exercises, that's a heck of a lot more than I've been doing beforehand. I've been doing nothing beforehand, so 30 minutes is a big deal. If you can only go to the gym and do 20 minutes, that's totally fine as well. It's a really important thing to do for yourself.  The gym isn't for everyone. The point of this episode is not to bang on about the gym. It's about having a little bit of time for yourself and doing something that is a healthy practice. Remember, of course, going to the gym was one of the things that sparked me into working out a morning routine for myself.  Time For Work I get home by 7:30 at the latest. At that point, I have a shower, I get ready. Because I'm a wonderful wife to my husband, I tend to bring him a cup of fresh coffee. Then I travel to work and I'm at work by 8:30 at the latest. I officially start at 9:00. 8:30 gives me plenty of time to get ready for my day. That's my morning routine.  What Are The Benefits Of A Morning Routine? But I know what you want to find out. What are the benefits of having a morning routine? Why is having a morning routine such a powerful thing for teachers? I can really only speak for myself, but let me tell you a bit about the benefits I've experienced.  Time To Think Going to the gym every weekday, for me, has been a big deal. I have a back injury and I've noticed improvements in my pain levels through exercise. It's also wonderful me time. I have my headphones on, so I'm usually listening to a book or listening to a podcast or sometimes I'll go completely headphone-less, usually, to be fair, when the Bluetooth isn't connecting or they've run out of charge, but then it's just thinking time, and that is really important, too. I find the thinking time a bit more difficult, but I'm working on that. If, like me, you struggle with the motivation to exercise, get it done in the morning. It is more likely to get done. So, getting my exercise out of the way in the morning is definitely a benefit of having a morning routine. Increased Energy Levels I've also noticed, and this benefit kicked in very quickly, that I had way more energy throughout the day, and I didn't expect this. I know they say exercise releases endorphins and all that jazz, but I just didn't really believe it. But I definitely have more energy when I've exercised in the morning.  Consistent Sleeping Pattern I'm also observing a more consistent bedtime because I know I'm up at 6:00 a.m., so I'm always in bed before 10:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m.? That would be weird. 10:00 p.m. I'm sleeping better and I'm finding the journaling process, the fact that its part of my routine, is doing wonderful things for my mental health. I feel really good about noting something in my journal every day.  Better At My Job! Do you know what? The upshot of all of this? I think having a morning routine is making me better at my job. I think I'm really focused on achieving good things and it's making me a better teacher. Gosh, does that sound cheesy? Well, it's true. I really believe it. That's why I think having a morning routine can be a really powerful practice for teachers.  What About You? Tell me about you. What do your mornings look like? Are they what mine used to be or do you want to get a morning routine? Tell me. I'd love to hear from you. One of the best things you can do is join our Facebook group and we'll have a chat in there. So, hop over to Facebook and join The Teaching Space Staff Room. Wrap Up While I'm asking you to do things, because I'm cheeky, if you can find the time, I would love it if you left a positive review on iTunes for the podcast because it will make The Teaching Space podcast easier for teachers and trainers to find and listen to.  Thank you so much. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I hope you'll tune in next time.

Episode 25 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how powerful a morning routine can be for teachers. Podcast Episode 25 Transcript  Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.  Hello. It's Martine here and welcome to Episode 25 of The Teaching Space Podcast. Today we're talking about the power of a morning routine for teachers. Now, I'm not talking about the morning routine that happens with your learners in your classroom. I'm talking about you. Today's episode is all about you. The routine that happens from the moment you wake up until you arrive in your classroom. Today's episode, I repeat, is all about you. Backstory I'll give you a bit of backstory. Up until fairly recently, my morning routine was nonexistent. There was nothing resembling a routine for me in the mornings. I'd get up at different times every day. Sometimes I'd have breakfast, sometimes not. Sometimes I'd go to work early and do emails; sometimes I'd arrive exactly on time and start my day in a completely different way. There was no consistency. For many people, this is absolutely fine. But I started to realise it wasn't okay. When I made the decision to start going to the gym regularly, I looked at my day and tried to work out when I could fit going to the gym in and I really couldn't work it out. I had a little bit of an inkling that the morning would be the best possible time for me but I wasn't sure, so I needed some help. What Inspired Me  It was at this point I read "168 Hours" by Laura Vanderkam. You absolutely have to read this book. The significance of the 168 number is that's how many hours you have in an entire week.  After reading this book, I did something called a time study. It's something that the author encourages you to do. So, for an entire week, I logged what I did every 15 minutes. I had a spreadsheet sectioned up into 15 minute chunks, and I logged everything I did. Then I analysed how I spent my time. The biggest thing for me was identifying how much time I was wasting in the morning. It was this exercise that made me realise I could fit in going to the gym in the morning and a routine would be the thing to really help me with that.  My Morning Routine I'd now like to tell you what my morning routine looks like and I should let you know, full disclosure here, I've been doing this for a few months now. I think a few months is probably long enough to establish a habit. I am definitely not the guru of morning routines. However, I have experienced many benefits from establishing this routine, and that's why I want to share it with you because I believe all teachers and trainers could benefit from having a morning routine. This is how my mine goes. Wake Up! I wake up at 6:00 a.m. Often I actually wake up five minutes or so before my alarm, and that's one of the things that made me realise that my routine is now sticking. As soon as I get up, I take my medication with a large glass of water because I want to be hydrated for going to the gym later. I have coffee. I will usually have a breakfast bar, something very quick and easy to eat that's going to give me a little bit of an energy boost for the gym. I steer clear of the high sugar breakfast bars. I go for something quite natural. Journal Time Then, I can't believe I'm going to say this; I'm really not this girl, I write in my journal. I use Day One app, and I've talked about this on the podcast before. (You can find a link to the previous podcast episode on journalling here.)  But I spend probably three minutes writing in my journal. I just have a couple of prompts. I set an intention or a goal for the day. I record how I'm feeling. I know it sounds really [woo-woo 00:04:35], but it's a really nice part of my routine. I do that. It takes no time at all because I use a tool called text expander, so I type in a little code and my prompts just come up automatically, so that's a top tip there. I write in my journal. Gym and Me Time Then I drive to the gym and I arrive at the gym just after 6:30 a.m. It opens at 6:30, so I'm there within 10 minutes of it opening. I do 30 minutes cardio and some stretching.  Now, this was a bit of a big thing for me to work out. Going to the gym doesn't mean you have to spend an hour there. In my head, I'd just come up with this thing that if you go to the gym, you've got to spend an hour there for it to be worthwhile. Well, I go to the gym every weekday, so 30 minutes is all right.  I should also add one of the reasons I only do 30 minutes is I have a bad back, I have a couple of slipped discs, so I have to be really careful with what I do. But 30 minutes of cardio every day and some stretching and probably some sit-ups and things like that and some back strengthening exercises, that's a heck of a lot more than I've been doing beforehand. I've been doing nothing beforehand, so 30 minutes is a big deal. If you can only go to the gym and do 20 minutes, that's totally fine as well. It's a really important thing to do for yourself.  The gym isn't for everyone. The point of this episode is not to bang on about the gym. It's about having a little bit of time for yourself and doing something that is a healthy practice. Remember, of course, going to the gym was one of the things that sparked me into working out a morning routine for myself.  Time For Work I get home by 7:30 at the latest. At that point, I have a shower, I get ready. Because I'm a wonderful wife to my husband, I tend to bring him a cup of fresh coffee. Then I travel to work and I'm at work by 8:30 at the latest. I officially start at 9:00. 8:30 gives me plenty of time to get ready for my day. That's my morning routine.  What Are The Benefits Of A Morning Routine? But I know what you want to find out. What are the benefits of having a morning routine? Why is having a morning routine such a powerful thing for teachers? I can really only speak for myself, but let me tell you a bit about the benefits I've experienced.  Time To Think Going to the gym every weekday, for me, has been a big deal. I have a back injury and I've noticed improvements in my pain levels through exercise. It's also wonderful me time. I have my headphones on, so I'm usually listening to a book or listening to a podcast or sometimes I'll go completely headphone-less, usually, to be fair, when the Bluetooth isn't connecting or they've run out of charge, but then it's just thinking time, and that is really important, too. I find the thinking time a bit more difficult, but I'm working on that. If, like me, you struggle with the motivation to exercise, get it done in the morning. It is more likely to get done. So, getting my exercise out of the way in the morning is definitely a benefit of having a morning routine. Increased Energy Levels I've also noticed, and this benefit kicked in very quickly, that I had way more energy throughout the day, and I didn't expect this. I know they say exercise releases endorphins and all that jazz, but I just didn't really believe it. But I definitely have more energy when I've exercised in the morning.  Consistent Sleeping Pattern I'm also observing a more consistent bedtime because I know I'm up at 6:00 a.m., so I'm always in bed before 10:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m.? That would be weird. 10:00 p.m. I'm sleeping better and I'm finding the journaling process, the fact that its part of my routine, is doing wonderful things for my mental health. I feel really good about noting something in my journal every day.  Better At My Job! Do you know what? The upshot of all of this? I think having a morning routine is making me better at my job. I think I'm really focused on achieving good things and it's making me a better teacher. Gosh, does that sound cheesy? Well, it's true. I really believe it. That's why I think having a morning routine can be a really powerful practice for teachers.  What About You? Tell me about you. What do your mornings look like? Are they what mine used to be or do you want to get a morning routine? Tell me. I'd love to hear from you. One of the best things you can do is join our Facebook group and we'll have a chat in there. So, hop over to Facebook and join The Teaching Space Staff Room. Wrap Up While I'm asking you to do things, because I'm cheeky, if you can find the time, I would love it if you left a positive review on iTunes for the podcast because it will make The Teaching Space podcast easier for teachers and trainers to find and listen to.  Thank you so much. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I hope you'll tune in next time.

The Power of a Morning Routine for Teachers

Podcast Episode 27 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello and welcome to Episode 27 of The Teaching Space Podcast. This show is all about books. I will be sharing five amazing books teachers will love. I recorded a similar episode right at the start of the podcast which was Episode 3. You'll find that here. Summer Break Before I start recommending books, however, I have a little bit of housekeeping to share with you. The Teachings Space is a term time only podcast and I am just about to start my summer break. So this will be the last episode until Friday the 7th of September, 2018. So there's going to be a bit of a break but do not fret. Over the summer break, I am going to be doing some very exciting research and prep for the next lot of episodes when we start the new academic year. I'm also going to be spending plenty of time in The Teaching Space Facebook group. I'm planning to do lots of live videos and also launch a couple of challenges. These will have a productivity theme and also be kind of focused on having a really good year come September. In addition to that, I will still be very much active on Twitter and Instagram, so please do give me a follow over there. Okay, that's your housekeeping, let's crack on with the episode. The Books I'm going to share five amazing books teachers will love. You will find links to each of these books on Amazon here in the show notes. Fair warning, there isn't a traditional teaching book on this list. Controversially, they are all about you. We spend our entire careers focused on our learners and rightly so, but we do have to remember to look after ourselves too. These books are about productivity, success, health and well-being. (1) How To Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind By Dana K. White Dana blogs at aslobcomesclean.com. I love the strapline to this blog, it's reality-based cleaning and organising. Through her self-described de-slobification process, she has learnt what it takes to bring a home out of disaster status, which habits make the biggest and most lasting impact and how to keep clutter under control. Now, why have I chosen this book? Well, teachers are the busiest people I know and it's very easy to let the home management aspect of life slide when you're super busy at work. I have used this book to help me keep my home under control so I thought it'd be a really good one to recommend to you. My top takeaway from this book was The Container concept and I mentioned this in Episode 26. The idea behind it is that everything has a container and your staff should fit into the designated container. If it does not, you need to get rid of stuff. One in, one out. She goes into a lot more detail in the book and also in her other book, Decluttering at the Speed of Life. So, both of these books, in fact, are highly recommended. (2) What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast By Laura Vanderkam. This is a powerful book about high productivity from best-selling author Laura Vanderkam. She blends stories of fascinating people with cutting-edge scientific research to show us how to maximise our valuable mornings, make the most out of our working hours and enjoy the results with deeply satisfying weekends. My top takeaway from this book was the fact that I waste my early mornings and I made some major changes to my morning routine off the back of this book. And also reading this got me to read Laura Vanderkam's other book, 168 Hours. (3) 168 Hours By Laura Vanderkam.  It's no coincidence then that recommendation number three of this list is 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam. That magic number, 168 refers to the number of hours you have in the week. The book is all about where time really goes and how we can use it better. My top takeaway from this book was that I did a time study. This essentially means keeping track of every 15 minutes of your day and noting down what you're doing in each 15-minute block. And I learned so much from this process. It was off the back of the time study that I created a really good productive morning routine, which includes going to the gym and getting loads of stuff done. (4) The 5 Second Rule By Mel Robbins.  Let me tell you about the book. According to Robbins, it takes just five seconds to become more confident, break the habit of procrastination and self-doubt, beat fear and uncertainty, stop worrying and feel happier and share your ideas with courage. The 5 Second Rule is a simple one-size-fits-all solution to the problem we all face and that is that we hold ourselves back. My top takeaway from this book was interesting actually because I thought it was going to be just far too woo-woo for me. But Mel Robbins's narration on the audiobook is excellent. She just doesn't have that, how can I put this, woo-woo tone to her voice at all. She's very, very motivating and sounds like somebody you could really enjoy a drink with. I got the fundamental message from Mel Robbins that quick decisions are good in lots of different scenarios. Action is key and that's what I took away from The 5 Second Rule. (5) The Four Pillar Plan By Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. This book is about the fact that everyday health revolves around Dr. Chatterjee's four pillars. These pillars are relaxation, food, sleep and movement. By making small achievable changes in each of these key areas, you can create and maintain good health and avoid illness. My top takeaway from this book was balance. There are four pillars and you need to spend time on each of them. It's no good saying, I am just going to focus on food now or I'm just going to focus on exercise. That's not okay. The fact that there are four pillars means you have to spend time in each of the pillars. And so that was a really big takeaway for me. And this book is highly recommended, in particular the audiobook is excellent. They Are Books Focused on You! And there you have it, five amazing books that teachers will love that aren't about teaching at all. These books as I said at the start are focused on you. Your productivity, your success, your health and your well-being. I really hope you enjoyed hearing about those five books and that you might give one a try. Hop over to theteachingspace.com/27 to grab links to each of these books. Wrap Up And that brings me to the end of the show. As I said, I will be taking a break over summer and will be back at my microphone on Friday the 7th of September, 2018. Please come and join the Facebook group, which is called The Teaching Space Staff Roomso we can hang out over the summer. You can join in some challenges, you can participate in some live video chats. Let's have some fun on Facebook, it would be great to see you there. Also, don't forget we have 27 episodes for your listening pleasure. Do re-listen to the back catalogue if that's something you'd like to do. Also, hop over to theteachingspace.com/blog as I hopefully will be sharing some blog posts over the summer as well. Thank you so much for tuning in and I hope you'll join me for the next episode in September.

Podcast Episode 27 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello and welcome to Episode 27 of The Teaching Space Podcast. This show is all about books. I will be sharing five amazing books teachers will love. I recorded a similar episode right at the start of the podcast which was Episode 3. You'll find that <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/books-for-teachers" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. Summer Break Before I start recommending books, however, I have a little bit of housekeeping to share with you. The Teachings Space is a term time only podcast and I am just about to start my summer break. So this will be the last episode until Friday the 7th of September, 2018. So there's going to be a bit of a break but do not fret. Over the summer break, I am going to be doing some very exciting research and prep for the next lot of episodes when we start the new academic year. I'm also going to be spending plenty of time in The Teaching Space Facebook group. I'm planning to do lots of live videos and also launch a couple of challenges. These will have a productivity theme and also be kind of focused on having a really good year come September. In addition to that, I will still be very much active on Twitter and Instagram, so please do give me a follow over there. Okay, that's your housekeeping, let's crack on with the episode. The Books I'm going to share five amazing books teachers will love. You will find links to each of these books on Amazon here in the show notes. Fair warning, there isn't a traditional teaching book on this list. Controversially, they are all about you. We spend our entire careers focused on our learners and rightly so, but we do have to remember to look after ourselves too. These books are about productivity, success, health and well-being. (1) <a href="https://amzn.to/2ITQLAS" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">How To Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind By Dana K. White</a> Dana blogs at <a href="https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">aslobcomesclean.com</a>. I love the strapline to this blog, it's reality-based cleaning and organising. Through her self-described de-slobification process, she has learnt what it takes to bring a home out of disaster status, which habits make the biggest and most lasting impact and how to keep clutter under control. Now, why have I chosen this book? Well, teachers are the busiest people I know and it's very easy to let the home management aspect of life slide when you're super busy at work. I have used this book to help me keep my home under control so I thought it'd be a really good one to recommend to you. My top takeaway from this book was The Container concept and I mentioned this in <a href="https://theteachingspace.squarespace.com/blog/digitaldeclutter" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 26</a>. The idea behind it is that everything has a container and your staff should fit into the designated container. If it does not, you need to get rid of stuff. One in, one out. She goes into a lot more detail in the book and also in her other book, <a href="https://amzn.to/2snYLyM" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Decluttering at the Speed of Life</a>. So, both of these books, in fact, are highly recommended. (2) <a href="https://amzn.to/2snHqGa" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast By Laura Vanderkam</a>. This is a powerful book about high productivity from best-selling author Laura Vanderkam. She blends stories of fascinating people with cutting-edge scientific research to show us how to maximise our valuable mornings, make the most out of our working hours and enjoy the results with deeply satisfying weekends. My top takeaway from this book was the fact that I waste my early mornings and I made some major changes to my morning routine off the back of this book. And also reading this got me to read Laura Vanderkam's other book, 168 Hours. (3) <a href="https://amzn.to/2L4IBSK" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">168 Hours By Laura Vanderkam</a>.  It's no coincidence then that recommendation number three of this list is 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam. That magic number, 168 refers to the number of hours you have in the week. The book is all about where time really goes and how we can use it better. My top takeaway from this book was that I did a time study. This essentially means keeping track of every 15 minutes of your day and noting down what you're doing in each 15-minute block. And I learned so much from this process. It was off the back of the time study that I created a really good productive morning routine, which includes going to the gym and getting loads of stuff done. (4) <a href="https://amzn.to/2LHkOt0" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">The 5 Second Rule By Mel Robbins</a>.  Let me tell you about the book. According to Robbins, it takes just five seconds to become more confident, break the habit of procrastination and self-doubt, beat fear and uncertainty, stop worrying and feel happier and share your ideas with courage. The 5 Second Rule is a simple one-size-fits-all solution to the problem we all face and that is that we hold ourselves back. My top takeaway from this book was interesting actually because I thought it was going to be just far too woo-woo for me. But Mel Robbins's narration on the audiobook is excellent. She just doesn't have that, how can I put this, woo-woo tone to her voice at all. She's very, very motivating and sounds like somebody you could really enjoy a drink with. I got the fundamental message from Mel Robbins that quick decisions are good in lots of different scenarios. Action is key and that's what I took away from The 5 Second Rule. (5) <a href="https://amzn.to/2L3gvqV" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">The Four Pillar Plan By Dr. Rangan Chatterjee</a>. This book is about the fact that everyday health revolves around Dr. Chatterjee's four pillars. These pillars are relaxation, food, sleep and movement. By making small achievable changes in each of these key areas, you can create and maintain good health and avoid illness. My top takeaway from this book was balance. There are four pillars and you need to spend time on each of them. It's no good saying, I am just going to focus on food now or I'm just going to focus on exercise. That's not okay. The fact that there are four pillars means you have to spend time in each of the pillars. And so that was a really big takeaway for me. And this book is highly recommended, in particular the audiobook is excellent. They Are Books Focused on You! And there you have it, five amazing books that teachers will love that aren't about teaching at all. These books as I said at the start are focused on you. Your productivity, your success, your health and your well-being. I really hope you enjoyed hearing about those five books and that you might give one a try. Hop over to <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/27" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/27</a> to grab links to each of these books. Wrap Up And that brings me to the end of the show. As I said, I will be taking a break over summer and will be back at my microphone on Friday the 7th of September, 2018. Please come and join the Facebook group, which is called <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ttsstaffroom" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Space Staff Room</a>so we can hang out over the summer. You can join in some challenges, you can participate in some live video chats. Let's have some fun on Facebook, it would be great to see you there. Also, don't forget we have 27 episodes for your listening pleasure. Do re-listen to the back catalogue if that's something you'd like to do. Also, hop over to <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/blog</a> as I hopefully will be sharing some blog posts over the summer as well. Thank you so much for tuning in and I hope you'll join me for the next episode in September.

5 Amazing Books Teachers Will Love

Episode 36 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores why establishing boundaries with learners is essential in educational situations. Introduction In today's episode we're talking boundaries.  I like to think of boundaries as positive limits. They aren’t huge walls with barbed wire on the top. They are a protective measures. Boundaries can relate relationships, physical elements and emotions. This week it's about your learners. The next episode will be all about your colleagues. Why are Boundaries Needed? There are lots of reasons but as this is a ten-minute episode let’s highlight three:  Each party in the learning relationship understands their role. This also translates well to real life so you are modelling expected behaviour, regardless of the age group you teach. Boundaries define the limits of your role as a teacher - this profoundly influences your workload and ultimately your mental health. Safeguarding reasons (age and location dependent as laws are different). In Guernsey we are bound by the Children Law and so this means learners under 18 are classed as children. One ramification of the law is that if a teacher thinks a child is at risk, they have a duty to report it. Boundaries play an important role in making this clear.  The Teaching Space Podcast is all about YOU, your health and well-being. So this episode will focus on the second reason for setting boundaries I mentioned - setting expectations regarding your role as a teacher. How to Establish Boundaries The suggestions I will make work best with older children and adult learners, however, if you teach younger learners, use your experience to adapt these:  Boundaries not rules: rules are often negative, boundaries are positive. For example “do not come and see me in the staff room between 12 and 1 pm” is better explained as “I will be available from X to X am and X and X pm to help you - please come and see me”. Both are clear. In the same way, talk about consequences rather than punishments. This is helpful when preparing younger learners for adulthood and the workplace. Discuss and negotiate: this is effective when working with post-16 learners. Again, don’t talk about rules, say boundaries, or in this case the word expectations might be better. Some things will be negotiable. For example, in an FE environment, when breaks happen, or when they use mobile devices. Learners are more likely to adhere to established expectations/boundaries if they are involved in devising them. Expectations exercise: with my 16-19 and adult learners we always go through an expectations exercise at the start of a course. I split the group in half (or smaller groups as needed). Half of the group are to act as the learners (themselves) and the other half are to pretend to be the teaching team. This relates to the course they are just starting. Using a flip chart and pens each group lists out their expectations of the other party. We then get together, have a group discussion (learner-led but teacher coached), refine the expectations and publish them in an appropriate place. As the learners have devised the rules/expectations, they are far more likely to adhere to them. Group contract: this can become a group contract which all learners sign - you need to sign it too, the expectations are not just for the learners. They will have expectations of you - things like how you deliver feedback, how quickly you turn work around and your punctuality and attitude.  Wrap Up This would be a great topic to discuss in our Facebook group - please pop over and join us! If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you.

Episode 36 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores why establishing boundaries with learners is essential in educational situations. Introduction In today's episode we're talking boundaries.  I like to think of boundaries as positive limits. They aren’t huge walls with barbed wire on the top. They are a protective measures. Boundaries can relate relationships, physical elements and emotions. This week it's about your learners. The next episode will be all about your colleagues. Why are Boundaries Needed? There are lots of reasons but as this is a ten-minute episode let’s highlight three: <ul> <li>Each party in the learning relationship understands their role. This also translates well to real life so you are modelling expected behaviour, regardless of the age group you teach.</li> <li>Boundaries define the limits of your role as a teacher - this profoundly influences your workload and ultimately your mental health.</li> <li>Safeguarding reasons (age and location dependent as laws are different). In Guernsey we are bound by the Children Law and so this means learners under 18 are classed as children. One ramification of the law is that if a teacher thinks a child is at risk, they have a duty to report it. Boundaries play an important role in making this clear.</li> </ul> The Teaching Space Podcast is all about YOU, your health and well-being. So this episode will focus on the second reason for setting boundaries I mentioned - setting expectations regarding your role as a teacher. How to Establish Boundaries The suggestions I will make work best with older children and adult learners, however, if you teach younger learners, use your experience to adapt these: <ul> <li>Boundaries not rules: rules are often negative, boundaries are positive. For example “do not come and see me in the staff room between 12 and 1 pm” is better explained as “I will be available from X to X am and X and X pm to help you - please come and see me”. Both are clear. In the same way, talk about consequences rather than punishments. This is helpful when preparing younger learners for adulthood and the workplace.</li> <li>Discuss and negotiate: this is effective when working with post-16 learners. Again, don’t talk about rules, say boundaries, or in this case the word expectations might be better. Some things will be negotiable. For example, in an FE environment, when breaks happen, or when they use mobile devices. Learners are more likely to adhere to established expectations/boundaries if they are involved in devising them.</li> <li>Expectations exercise: with my 16-19 and adult learners we always go through an expectations exercise at the start of a course. I split the group in half (or smaller groups as needed). Half of the group are to act as the learners (themselves) and the other half are to pretend to be the teaching team. This relates to the course they are just starting. Using a flip chart and pens each group lists out their expectations of the other party. We then get together, have a group discussion (learner-led but teacher coached), refine the expectations and publish them in an appropriate place. As the learners have devised the rules/expectations, they are far more likely to adhere to them.</li> <li>Group contract: this can become a group contract which all learners sign - you need to sign it too, the expectations are not just for the learners. They will have expectations of you - things like how you deliver feedback, how quickly you turn work around and your punctuality and attitude.</li> </ul> Wrap Up This would be a great topic to discuss in our Facebook group - please pop over and join us! If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you.

Why Setting Boundaries With Your Learners is Essential and How to do it

Episode 82 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores four methods for formative assessment. Introduction It’s another back to basics episode today. We’re exploring a few of my favourite formative assessment methods. Formative Versus Summative Assessment As a little ‘revision’ let’s distinguish between formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment is known as ‘assessment for learning'. It is consists of informal assessment methods, usually devised by the teacher or trainer, to check learning is happening during the teaching session. It is designed to generate feedback on progress and ultimately is a way to check that learners are ready for their summative assessment. We will be exploring some formative assessment methods in this episode. Summative assessment is known as ‘assessment of learning'. It is generally formal and often created by an awarding organisation, but not always. It occurs at the end of a course or unit of learning to check whether sufficient learning has happened to award a qualification, certificate or credits. The assessment is measured against set assessment criteria. Summative assessment methods include exams, assignments, practical activities and professional discussions. Methods Versus Tools I believe there is a distinction to be made between ‘methods' and 'tools' when it comes to assessment. Think about methods first. A method is a general approach to assessing such as observation of practice. A tool is something supporting that method such as recording something you observe on your mobile device. Questioning is a method, question cards are a tool. Focus on methods before tools to ensure you are picking the right approach. This episode is ‘method’ focussed but I will also share some tools for you to explore. Four Formative Assessment Methods Discussion and Questioning I work with adult learners and they love discussion. It's a great way, particularly when combined with effective questioning, to check for learning. However, one of the downsides to using discussion for formative assessment is that some learners might not get a look in. Discussions can be dominated by just a few learners. One way you can use questioning to involve more learners in discussion is the ‘pose, pause, pounce, bounce’ method. You can create smaller groups for discussions, then ask learners to number themselves and pick a number at random to decide who reports back to the group. Think &gt; Pair &gt; Share is another more inclusive method for questioning and discussion. The app Equity Maps is an interesting approach to tracking (and recording if needed) your group’s participation in discussion. Quiz A quiz is a lower-stakes version of a test. I tend to use quizzes to check what people have remembered from a previous session. My sessions are usually a week apart and often a week is long enough for learners to have forgotten certain details. I’m therefore using a quiz as a form of retrieval practice. I’ve tried lots of different quiz tools with my learners. Because they are trainee teachers I make a point of testing tools with them and getting feedback. They teach a wide range of learners so I can try out things that are not always age appropriate for them, but might be for their learners. In terms of tech tools, up until recently, I used Kahoot, conscious that it divided opinion. I always added the timer to questions and the ‘fastest finger first’ approach always led to an interesting discussion about whether it was an accurate formative assessment tool or not. More recently, I have discovered Quizizz. Quizizz solves a lot of Kahoot’s problems (for my learners). For starters, you can participate without having to read quiz questions off the main board/screen. Also, questions can be mixed up for each learner. A non-tech alternative quiz tool would be a set of mini-whiteboards. If you don’t have a budget then  consider making your own. A low-tech alternative, requiring only one device, is Plickers. Peer Assessment Peer assessment is a fantastic formative assessment method, although there are a few things it is important to remember before you introduce it to your group:  Learners should be giving each other feedback as opposed to grading each other’s work. Learners must be taught how to give constructive feedback - don't just assume they know what to do.  The ladder of feedback can be a useful way to approach peer feedback. Learners will need an understanding of any criteria to consider or what 'good looks like’. A model answer or rubric can be helpful here. You might need to pair learners strategically.  A peer assessment roundabout can work well - this is where learners are in groups of four and pass each other’s work around to check. Also, consider introducing a self-assessment stage before you get to peer assessment. Coded Feedback I’m exploring coded feedback this year because I spend an unsustainable amount of time writing formative feedback on assignments. I give learners formative feedback on their written work via comments in Google Classroom. Using codes is a new approach for me so I cannot report on its effectiveness yet - this might be something I dedicate a whole episode to in the future! I have created a simple code by analysing feedback I have frequently given on previous assignments. I have distinguished between comments that require action and comments that do not, in my coding. I’ll report back on progress. Incidentally, if this is not for you and you already use Google Classroom, there is a comment bank facility built in. I find too many clicks are required for this to be time-efficient. Wrap Up I hope today’s episode has been helpful. If you'd like more of these ‘back to basics’ episodes then please let me know. Equally, if it is not your thing, it would be good to hear from you. I want to create the episodes you want to hear. Support the Show If you have enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the show by making a small donation towards the running costs on my Ko-fi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace. Alternatively, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whether you listen to the show. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about this episode or thoughts you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. At the time of recording, the community is free to join. It’s just launched so I’m very keen to get some members in there to test it out and give me some feedback. The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 82 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores four methods for formative assessment. Introduction It’s another back to basics episode today. We’re exploring a few of my favourite formative assessment methods. Formative Versus Summative Assessment As a little ‘revision’ let’s distinguish between formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment is known as ‘assessment for learning'. It is consists of informal assessment methods, usually devised by the teacher or trainer, to check learning is happening during the teaching session. It is designed to generate feedback on progress and ultimately is a way to check that learners are ready for their summative assessment. We will be exploring some formative assessment methods in this episode. Summative assessment is known as ‘assessment of learning'. It is generally formal and often created by an awarding organisation, but not always. It occurs at the end of a course or unit of learning to check whether sufficient learning has happened to award a qualification, certificate or credits. The assessment is measured against set assessment criteria. Summative assessment methods include exams, assignments, practical activities and professional discussions. Methods Versus Tools I believe there is a distinction to be made between ‘methods' and 'tools' when it comes to assessment. Think about methods first. A method is a general approach to assessing such as observation of practice. A tool is something supporting that method such as recording something you observe on your mobile device. Questioning is a method, question cards are a tool. Focus on methods before tools to ensure you are picking the right approach. This episode is ‘method’ focussed but I will also share some tools for you to explore. Four Formative Assessment Methods Discussion and Questioning I work with adult learners and they love discussion. It's a great way, particularly when combined with effective questioning, to check for learning. However, one of the downsides to using discussion for formative assessment is that some learners might not get a look in. Discussions can be dominated by just a few learners. One way you can use questioning to involve more learners in discussion is the ‘<a href="https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2011/11/04/pose-pause-bounce-pounce/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pose, pause, pounce, bounce</a>’ method. You can create smaller groups for discussions, then ask learners to number themselves and pick a number at random to decide who reports back to the group. <a href="https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/think-pair-share" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Think &gt; Pair &gt; Share</a> is another more inclusive method for questioning and discussion. The app <a href="https://equitymaps.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Equity Maps</a> is an interesting approach to tracking (and recording if needed) your group’s participation in discussion. Quiz A quiz is a lower-stakes version of a test. I tend to use quizzes to check what people have remembered from a previous session. My sessions are usually a week apart and often a week is long enough for learners to have forgotten certain details. I’m therefore using a quiz as a form of <a href="https://www.retrievalpractice.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">retrieval practice</a>. I’ve tried lots of different quiz tools with my learners. Because they are trainee teachers I make a point of testing tools with them and getting feedback. They teach a wide range of learners so I can try out things that are not always age appropriate for them, but might be for their learners. In terms of tech tools, up until recently, I used <a href="https://kahoot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kahoot</a>, conscious that it divided opinion. I always added the timer to questions and the ‘fastest finger first’ approach always led to an interesting discussion about whether it was an accurate formative assessment tool or not. More recently, I have discovered <a href="https://quizizz.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Quizizz</a>. Quizizz solves a lot of Kahoot’s problems (for my learners). For starters, you can participate without having to read quiz questions off the main board/screen. Also, questions can be mixed up for each learner. A non-tech alternative quiz tool would be a set of mini-whiteboards. If you don’t have a budget then <a href="https://theartofeducation.edu/2011/03/25/make-your-own-mini-whiteboards/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> consider making your own</a>. A low-tech alternative, requiring only one device, is <a href="https://get.plickers.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Plickers</a>. Peer Assessment Peer assessment is a fantastic formative assessment method, although there are a few things it is important to remember before you introduce it to your group: <ul> <li>Learners should be giving each other feedback as opposed to grading each other’s work.</li> <li>Learners must be taught how to give constructive feedback - don't just assume they know what to do. <a href="https://petershomeroom.weebly.com/class-updates/learning-without-walls" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The ladder of feedback</a> can be a useful way to approach peer feedback.</li> <li>Learners will need an understanding of any criteria to consider or what 'good looks like’. A model answer or rubric can be helpful here.</li> <li>You might need to pair learners strategically.</li> </ul> A peer assessment roundabout can work well - this is where learners are in groups of four and pass each other’s work around to check. Also, consider introducing a self-assessment stage before you get to peer assessment. Coded Feedback I’m exploring coded feedback this year because I spend an unsustainable amount of time writing formative feedback on assignments. I give learners formative feedback on their written work via comments in Google Classroom. Using codes is a new approach for me so I cannot report on its effectiveness yet - this might be something I dedicate a whole episode to in the future! I have created a simple code by analysing feedback I have frequently given on previous assignments. I have distinguished between comments that require action and comments that do not, in my coding. I’ll report back on progress. Incidentally, if this is not for you and you already use Google Classroom, there is a comment bank facility built in. I find too many clicks are required for this to be time-efficient. Wrap Up I hope today’s episode has been helpful. If you'd like more of these ‘back to basics’ episodes then please let me know. Equally, if it is not your thing, it would be good to hear from you. I want to create the episodes you want to hear. Support the Show If you have enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the show by making a small donation towards the running costs on my Ko-fi page which you can find at <a href="http://ko-fi.com/theteachingspace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>. Alternatively, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whether you listen to the show. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about this episode or thoughts you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: <a href="http://community.theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community.theteachingspace.com</a>. At the time of recording, the community is free to join. It’s just launched so I’m very keen to get some members in there to test it out and give me some feedback. The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Four Methods for Formative Assessment

Episode 66 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the power of sticky notes! Why Sticky Notes? My favourite non-digital teaching tool is, without a doubt, the humble sticky note. Despite running a mostly paperless classroom, I seem to be able to find a phenomenal number of uses for these magical squares of stationery goodness. In fact, I love them so much, I thought they deserved a dedicated podcast episode. Incidentally, I will probably use the terms “sticky note” and “post-it note” interchangeably in this episode - please know they mean the same thing. A Little History According to the  How Stuff Works website: “A Post-it note is a small piece of paper with a strip of low-tack adhesive on the back that allows it to be temporarily attached to documents, walls, computer monitors, and just about anything else. The idea for the Post-it note was conceived in 1974 by Arthur Fry as a way of holding bookmarks in his hymnal while singing in the church choir. He was aware of an adhesive accidentally developed in 1968 by fellow 3M employee Spencer Silver. No application for the lightly sticky stuff was apparent until Fry's idea. The 3M company was initially skeptical about the product's profitability, but in 1980, the product was introduced around the world. Today, Post-it notes are sold in more than 100 countries.”  Seven Ways to Use Paper Sticky Notes  Idea generation/gathering Plenary/reflection: for example, one thing you have learned from today’s lesson Who am I? game/ice breaker Build graphs Assignment planning: for example, to help learners structure their writing. Marking up books RAG (red, amber, green) rating: for example, learners could indicate whether then need more help with a topic.  More ideas from Post-it  here. Five Digital Alternatives to Sticky Notes  Google Jamboard Answergarden Padlet Stormboard Pinup  Bonus: Post-it scanning app Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either:  Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Buying my book, The Productive Teacher, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at theprodutiveteacherbook.com). Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace.  … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either:  Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post. Posting in our Facebook group: TTS Staff Room. Posting on Twitter (I’m @MartineGuernsey if you want to mention me). Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: theteachingspace.com.  The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com/66. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 66 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the power of sticky notes! Why Sticky Notes? My favourite non-digital teaching tool is, without a doubt, the humble sticky note. Despite running a mostly paperless classroom, I seem to be able to find a phenomenal number of uses for these magical squares of stationery goodness. In fact, I love them so much, I thought they deserved a dedicated podcast episode. Incidentally, I will probably use the terms “sticky note” and “post-it note” interchangeably in this episode - please know they mean the same thing. A Little History According to the <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/9-things-invented-or-discovered-by-accident4.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> How Stuff Works</a> website: “A Post-it note is a small piece of paper with a strip of low-tack adhesive on the back that allows it to be temporarily attached to documents, walls, computer monitors, and just about anything else. The idea for the Post-it note was conceived in 1974 by Arthur Fry as a way of holding bookmarks in his hymnal while singing in the church choir. He was aware of an adhesive accidentally developed in 1968 by fellow 3M employee Spencer Silver. No application for the lightly sticky stuff was apparent until Fry's idea. The 3M company was initially skeptical about the product's profitability, but in 1980, the product was introduced around the world. Today, Post-it notes are sold in more than 100 countries.” Seven Ways to Use Paper Sticky Notes <ol> <li>Idea generation/gathering</li> <li>Plenary/reflection: for example, one thing you have learned from today’s lesson</li> <li><a href="https://icebreakerideas.com/who-am-i-game/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Who am I?</a> game/ice breaker</li> <li>Build graphs</li> <li>Assignment planning: for example, to help learners structure their writing.</li> <li>Marking up books</li> <li>RAG (red, amber, green) rating: for example, learners could indicate whether then need more help with a topic.</li> </ol> More ideas from Post-it <a href="https://www.post-it.com/3M/en_US/post-it/ideas/study-featured/teachers/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> here</a>. Five Digital Alternatives to Sticky Notes <ol> <li><a href="https://youtu.be/6OTRZLNyIic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Jamboard</a></li> <li><a href="https://answergarden.ch/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Answergarden</a></li> <li><a href="https://padlet.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Padlet</a></li> <li><a href="https://stormboard.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stormboard</a></li> <li><a href="https://pinup.com/dIN8hjZtS5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pinup</a></li> </ol> Bonus: <a href="https://www.post-it.com/3M/en_US/post-it/ideas/app/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Post-it scanning app</a> Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.</li> <li>Buying my book, <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Productive Teacher</a>, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theprodutiveteacherbook.com</a>).</li> <li>Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at <a>ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>.</li> </ol> … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post.</li> <li>Posting in our Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ttsstaffroom/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TTS Staff Room</a>.</li> <li>Posting on Twitter (I’m <a href="http://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@MartineGuernsey</a> if you want to mention me).</li> <li>Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>.</li> </ol> The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/66" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/66</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

The Power of Sticky Notes

Episode 35 of The Teaching Space Podcast is all about how to use a to-do list PROPERLY!  Introduction We all know I like to geek out on productivity apps - this is not one of those episodes! Well, not entirely. In today’s show we are focusing on how to use a to-do list properly, regardless of the method you use. OK there might be a bit of app talk, but I will keep it to a minimum. Let’s get the app talk out the way first… Do you Need an App? No. Pen and paper works fine. But if you want an app, then there are lots of amazing ones on the market. App advantages:  The ability to re-order your list without re-writing it.  Cross-platform accessibility and portability. Backups.  Task or Project Manager? If you ARE going down the digital route: do you need a task management or project management app?  To understand your needs, analyse the work you need to organise.  At a guess: your work is probably project-based rather than task based. Example: if you have a pile of marking to do, the process has multiple tasks (each paper is a task). That means you have a project to complete. Which would suggest you need to go down the project management tool route. However, you might find a task manager gives you enough flexibility if you set it up to suit your needs. Test them out - see what you like. What Goes On the List? Everything. I repeat, everything. One of the main ways people fail at using a to-do list is they have tasks stored in multiple places. Examples: your head, your email inbox, sticky notes… One of the main benefits of using a list is that you have everything in one place. Get things out of your head and inbox and put them on the list. Once you have a clear idea on everything you need to do, you can start prioritising, planning and get organised. But What About My Calendar? Think of your calendar as your to-do list’s partner. Everything that has a scheduled time should go on your calendar (meetings and appointments). There is no need to put them on your to-do list, as long as you look at your calendar and your list when you plan your day. Consider allocating time to complete your tasks on your calendar. Why Can’t I Use my Email Inbox as a To Do List? SO MANY REASONS:  You are not in control of incoming items - if you inbox is your to-do list, anyone can add to it at any time. It's hard to see what the actual "to-do" item is without opening the email and spending time reading it. People rarely give their emails descriptive subjects. Your inbox is no longer an effective inbox - treating your email like a to-do list makes an inefficient to-do list, but it also creates an inefficient email inbox. Have a look at this: Inbox Zero blog post.   Ideas and Recommendations:  If you are using pen and paper, use a yellow legal pad. It will be easy to spot on your desk. Re-write it daily. Review your to-do list every day - either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Put EVERYTHING on it (I know I have said this before but it is so important it bears repeating!)  Digital Tools I Like:   Workflowy Wunderlist Trello Asana  A non-digital option is bullet journalling. Summary  Pick your tool. Everything goes in it except for events which are on your calendar.  Do not use your email inbox as a to-do list. Create a to-do list and calendar checking routine daily.   Wrap Up If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you.

Episode 35 of The Teaching Space Podcast is all about how to use a to-do list PROPERLY!  Introduction We all know I like to geek out on productivity apps - this is not one of those episodes! Well, not entirely. In today’s show we are focusing on how to use a to-do list properly, regardless of the method you use. OK there might be a bit of app talk, but I will keep it to a minimum. Let’s get the app talk out the way first… Do you Need an App? No. Pen and paper works fine. But if you want an app, then there are lots of amazing ones on the market. App advantages: <ul> <li>The ability to re-order your list without re-writing it. </li> <li>Cross-platform accessibility and portability.</li> <li>Backups.</li> </ul> Task or Project Manager? If you ARE going down the digital route: do you need a task management or project management app?  To understand your needs, analyse the work you need to organise.  At a guess: your work is probably project-based rather than task based. Example: if you have a pile of marking to do, the process has multiple tasks (each paper is a task). That means you have a project to complete. Which would suggest you need to go down the project management tool route. However, you might find a task manager gives you enough flexibility if you set it up to suit your needs. Test them out - see what you like. What Goes On the List? Everything. I repeat, everything. One of the main ways people fail at using a to-do list is they have tasks stored in multiple places. Examples: your head, your email inbox, sticky notes… One of the main benefits of using a list is that you have everything in one place. Get things out of your head and inbox and put them on the list. Once you have a clear idea on everything you need to do, you can start prioritising, planning and get organised. But What About My Calendar? Think of your calendar as your to-do list’s partner. Everything that has a scheduled time should go on your calendar (meetings and appointments). There is no need to put them on your to-do list, as long as you look at your calendar and your list when you plan your day. Consider allocating time to complete your tasks on your calendar. Why Can’t I Use my Email Inbox as a To Do List? SO MANY REASONS: <ul> <li>You are not in control of incoming items - if you inbox is your to-do list, anyone can add to it at any time.</li> <li>It's hard to see what the actual "to-do" item is without opening the email and spending time reading it. People rarely give their emails descriptive subjects.</li> <li>Your inbox is no longer an effective inbox - treating your email like a to-do list makes an inefficient to-do list, but it also creates an inefficient email inbox.</li> <li>Have a look at this: Inbox Zero blog post. </li> </ul> Ideas and Recommendations: <ul> <li>If you are using pen and paper, use a yellow legal pad. It will be easy to spot on your desk. Re-write it daily.</li> <li>Review your to-do list every day - either first thing in the morning or last thing at night.</li> <li>Put EVERYTHING on it (I know I have said this before but it is so important it bears repeating!)</li> </ul> Digital Tools I Like:  <ul> <li>Workflowy</li> <li>Wunderlist</li> <li>Trello</li> <li>Asana</li> </ul> A non-digital option is bullet journalling. Summary <ol> <li>Pick your tool.</li> <li>Everything goes in it except for events which are on your calendar. </li> <li>Do not use your email inbox as a to-do list.</li> <li>Create a to-do list and calendar checking routine daily. </li> </ol> Wrap Up If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you.

How to Use a To-Do List Properly 

Episode 81 of The Teaching Space Podcast goes 'back to basics' and revisits session planning. Introduction Some time ago I asked members of my Facebook group what type of podcast episodes they would like to see more of in the future and there were many votes for ‘back to basics’ topics. In response, we’re looking at session planning today. Initial Teacher Training One of the courses I most enjoy teaching is the Level 3 Award in Education and Training (formerly ‘PTLLS’). It’s an introduction to teaching/training and tends to attract a diverse range of learners. One part of the course they tend to enjoy exploring is session planning - some of what I share in this episode comes from that course. A lot of brand new teachers/trainers are initially surprised at how technical putting a decent session together can be. Observations As well as observing trainee teachers in my job, I’m also lucky enough to spend time observing experienced teachers. I’ve seen some magnificent sessions over the years. One of the most common areas for development I observe is planning. Regardless of your level of teaching experience, it is worth revisiting session planning. Disclaimer This is, of course, not the only way to session plan! Components of a Session Plan This is not an exhaustive list and should be adapted to suit your environment, learners, subject etc.  Aim: an overall statement of intent for the session Objectives: steps learners will take to meet aim (written using Bloom’s verbs) Assessment criteria being covered (might be written as objectives) Logistics information: when, where, how long? Learners’ needs (anonymised) Beginning, middle and end 70/30 Assessment: initial, formative, summative Resources checklist Plenary: wrap up/recap activity Timing, teacher activities, learner activities Functional skills Key questions Terminology Must/should/could: stretch  Templates available in The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. Wrap Up I hope today’s episode has been helpful. If you'd like more of these ‘back to basics’ episodes then please let me know. Equally, if it is not your thing, it would be good to hear from you. I want to create the episodes you want to hear. Support the Show If you have enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the show by making a small donation towards the running costs on my Ko-fi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace. Alternatively, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whether you listen to the show. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about this episode or thoughts you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. At the time of recording, the community is free to join. It’s just launched so I’m very keen to get some members in there to test it out and give me some feedback. The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 81 of The Teaching Space Podcast goes 'back to basics' and revisits session planning. Introduction Some time ago I asked members of my Facebook group what type of podcast episodes they would like to see more of in the future and there were many votes for ‘back to basics’ topics. In response, we’re looking at session planning today. Initial Teacher Training One of the courses I most enjoy teaching is the Level 3 Award in Education and Training (formerly ‘PTLLS’). It’s an introduction to teaching/training and tends to attract a diverse range of learners. One part of the course they tend to enjoy exploring is session planning - some of what I share in this episode comes from that course. A lot of brand new teachers/trainers are initially surprised at how technical putting a decent session together can be. Observations As well as observing trainee teachers in my job, I’m also lucky enough to spend time observing experienced teachers. I’ve seen some magnificent sessions over the years. One of the most common areas for development I observe is planning. Regardless of your level of teaching experience, it is worth revisiting session planning. Disclaimer This is, of course, not the only way to session plan! Components of a Session Plan This is not an exhaustive list and should be adapted to suit your environment, learners, subject etc. <ul> <li>Aim: an overall statement of intent for the session</li> <li>Objectives: steps learners will take to meet aim (written using <a href="https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bloom’s</a> verbs)</li> <li>Assessment criteria being covered (might be written as objectives)</li> <li>Logistics information: when, where, how long?</li> <li>Learners’ needs (anonymised)</li> <li>Beginning, middle and end</li> <li>70/30</li> <li>Assessment: initial, formative, summative</li> <li>Resources checklist</li> <li>Plenary: wrap up/recap activity</li> <li>Timing, teacher activities, learner activities</li> <li>Functional skills</li> <li>Key questions</li> <li>Terminology</li> <li>Must/should/could: stretch</li> </ul> Templates available in The Teaching Space Community: <a href="http://community.theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community.theteachingspace.com</a>. Wrap Up I hope today’s episode has been helpful. If you'd like more of these ‘back to basics’ episodes then please let me know. Equally, if it is not your thing, it would be good to hear from you. I want to create the episodes you want to hear. Support the Show If you have enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the show by making a small donation towards the running costs on my Ko-fi page which you can find at <a href="http://ko-fi.com/theteachingspace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>. Alternatively, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whether you listen to the show. Thank you. Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about this episode or thoughts you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: <a href="http://community.theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community.theteachingspace.com</a>. At the time of recording, the community is free to join. It’s just launched so I’m very keen to get some members in there to test it out and give me some feedback. The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

The Session Planning Episode

Introduction This episode includes a number of resources and links that I have posted below. Please excuse the audio quality, I recorded this episode on my phone! Links and Resources:   10 Things You Must do When Attending an Education Conference   Bett Show   Turnitin   Google Classroom   Teacher Toolkit   Teacher Toolkit on Twitter   Just Great Teaching by Ross Morrison McGill   Teacher Tapp app   Teacher Tapp on Twitter   Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Introduction This episode includes a number of resources and links that I have posted below. Please excuse the audio quality, I recorded this episode on my phone! Links and Resources: <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/education-conference" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10 Things You Must do When Attending an Education Conference</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://www.bettshow.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bett Show</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://www.turnitin.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turnitin</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://edu.google.com/products/classroom/?modal_active=none" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Classroom</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Teacher Toolkit</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://twitter.com/TeacherToolkit" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Teacher Toolkit on Twitter</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://amzn.to/2ukzomL" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Just Great Teaching by Ross Morrison McGill</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://teachertapp.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Teacher Tapp app</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://twitter.com/TeacherTapp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Teacher Tapp on Twitter</a> </li> </ul> Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Bett Show 2020 Recap

Episode 67 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores seven ways you can simplify your life outside work. Introduction While I keep my personal and professional lives separate, I cannot deny that having a simple, stress-free personal life makes me happier and more productive at work. Here are seven ways I have made my life outside work as simple as possible. Each of these strategies saves precious minutes and minimises stress. 1. Wardrobe Choices My college doesn’t have a specific dress code; teachers can dress to suit their vocational subject. I’m a teacher and assessor educator so I choose to dress on the smarter side of casual (for example, no jeans, but equally, no power suits!) While I don’t quite go as far as Steve Jobs and Barack Obama in the sense that I wear the same clothes every day, I do tend to opt for a type of uniform. I tend to wear a dress and cardigan. I’ll usually wear tights and boots in the winter and a closed-toe sandal with bare legs in the summer. I have a number of similar dresses featuring different patterns, which I rotate, and numerous smart cardigans in neutral colours so I can mix and match them with my dresses easily. My “uniform” definitely saves me time choosing what to wear in the morning and helps me avoid decision fatigue. 2. Paying for Things This might seem like an obvious one but I pay all of my bills online, where possible, by direct debit. If I cannot pay by direct debit I always make payments through the banking app on my mobile. I rarely receive paper bills or statements now so my shredder doesn’t get much use anymore. As an Apple Watch user, I also pay for everything on my watch; even the smallest amounts. While this only saves seconds, those seconds add up. 3. Meals In episode 31 of the podcast, I explored the benefits of meal planning. I still think meal planning saves a lot of time and stress in the long run; particularly if you have a variety of meals/recipes on rotation. However, sometimes, if I know I’m going to have a busy week, I might outsource my meal planning by using a service like Hello Fresh. Hello Fresh is the only recipe box delivery service available in Guernsey, but I know there are lots of other options worldwide. If you’ve not used a recipe box delivery service before, they’re amazing! While I would not want to use one every week, they can be a great help at certain times. Hello Fresh has an app, so you use the app to select the meals you want for the coming week (you have several choices but not so many that it is overwhelming). Then the ingredients and recipe cards arrive by post on your designated day. All you need to do is cook. 4. Batch Like a Boss If you’ve not had a chance to listen to episode 65 of the podcast yet, I recommend you do, as it is all about batching. The episode focusses more on batching at work, however, it is easy to use the batching technique at home. For example, you might batch certain household chores, like cooking or gardening. Personally, I try to batch errands and appointments - I like doing as much as possible in one trip. Batching is a great way to simplify your life. 5. Say “No” This is probably the most challenging strategy on the list but in some ways, the most important. If you want to simplify your life you must learn to say no. I’m not suggesting you become a hermit and ignore your friends and family, but sometimes, you need to prioritise your needs to keep things simple, and that might mean saying no. 6. Shared Calendars I’ve talked before about how my life is mapped out in Google Calendar - so is my husband’s. He has access to my calendar and vice versa. In episode 62 of the podcast (Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers) I explain my Google Calendar setup in a little more detail. Having shared, online calendars makes things really simple when, for example, we are trying to organise a dinner date; we can always see when each other is available. 7. Household Chores As mentioned above, batching is a great way to simplify your approach to household chores. Personally, I use a cleaning company to deal with the basic weekly cleaning of my home such as hoovering, dusting and bathrooms. Obviously, there is a significant cost associated with having a cleaner, however, for me, it is worth every penny when I consider the time and mental space it frees up. Even when I was working part-time, we adjusted out expenditure to ensure we could still afford a cleaning service. If you are keen to explore using a cleaning service that remember you don’t have to use them weekly. Perhaps a once a month deep clear could work for you. Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either:  Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Buying my book, The Productive Teacher, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at theprodutiveteacherbook.com). Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace.  … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you.  Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either:  Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post. Posting in our Facebook group: TTS Staff Room. Posting on Twitter (I’m @MartineGuernsey if you want to mention me). Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: theteachingspace.com.  The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com/67. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Episode 67 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores seven ways you can simplify your life outside work. Introduction While I keep my personal and professional lives separate, I cannot deny that having a simple, stress-free personal life makes me happier and more productive at work. Here are seven ways I have made my life outside work as simple as possible. Each of these strategies saves precious minutes and minimises stress. 1. Wardrobe Choices My college doesn’t have a specific dress code; teachers can dress to suit their vocational subject. I’m a teacher and assessor educator so I choose to dress on the smarter side of casual (for example, no jeans, but equally, no power suits!) While I don’t quite go as far as Steve Jobs and Barack Obama in the sense that I wear the same clothes every day, I do tend to opt for a type of uniform. I tend to wear a dress and cardigan. I’ll usually wear tights and boots in the winter and a closed-toe sandal with bare legs in the summer. I have a number of similar dresses featuring different patterns, which I rotate, and numerous smart cardigans in neutral colours so I can mix and match them with my dresses easily. My “uniform” definitely saves me time choosing what to wear in the morning and helps me avoid decision fatigue. 2. Paying for Things This might seem like an obvious one but I pay all of my bills online, where possible, by direct debit. If I cannot pay by direct debit I always make payments through the banking app on my mobile. I rarely receive paper bills or statements now so my shredder doesn’t get much use anymore. As an Apple Watch user, I also pay for everything on my watch; even the smallest amounts. While this only saves seconds, those seconds add up. 3. Meals In <a href="https://www.theteachingspace.com/blog/meal-planning" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">episode 31</a> of the podcast, I explored the benefits of meal planning. I still think meal planning saves a lot of time and stress in the long run; particularly if you have a variety of meals/recipes on rotation. However, sometimes, if I know I’m going to have a busy week, I might outsource my meal planning by using a service like <a href="https://www.hellofresh.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hello Fresh</a>. Hello Fresh is the only recipe box delivery service available in Guernsey, but I know there are lots of other options worldwide. If you’ve not used a recipe box delivery service before, they’re amazing! While I would not want to use one every week, they can be a great help at certain times. Hello Fresh has an app, so you use the app to select the meals you want for the coming week (you have several choices but not so many that it is overwhelming). Then the ingredients and recipe cards arrive by post on your designated day. All you need to do is cook. 4. Batch Like a Boss If you’ve not had a chance to listen to <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/65" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">episode 65</a> of the podcast yet, I recommend you do, as it is all about batching. The episode focusses more on batching at work, however, it is easy to use the batching technique at home. For example, you might batch certain household chores, like cooking or gardening. Personally, I try to batch errands and appointments - I like doing as much as possible in one trip. Batching is a great way to simplify your life. 5. Say “No” This is probably the most challenging strategy on the list but in some ways, the most important. If you want to simplify your life you must learn to say no. I’m not suggesting you become a hermit and ignore your friends and family, but sometimes, you need to prioritise your needs to keep things simple, and that might mean saying no. 6. Shared Calendars I’ve talked before about how my life is mapped out in Google Calendar - so is my husband’s. He has access to my calendar and vice versa. In episode 62 of the podcast (<a href="http://theteachingspace.com/62" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers</a>) I explain my Google Calendar setup in a little more detail. Having shared, online calendars makes things really simple when, for example, we are trying to organise a dinner date; we can always see when each other is available. 7. Household Chores As mentioned above, batching is a great way to simplify your approach to household chores. Personally, I use a cleaning company to deal with the basic weekly cleaning of my home such as hoovering, dusting and bathrooms. Obviously, there is a significant cost associated with having a cleaner, however, for me, it is worth every penny when I consider the time and mental space it frees up. Even when I was working part-time, we adjusted out expenditure to ensure we could still afford a cleaning service. If you are keen to explore using a cleaning service that remember you don’t have to use them weekly. Perhaps a once a month deep clear could work for you. Wrap Up Support the Show That’s it for today. Before I go I have a small request: if you enjoyed today’s episode, please support the show by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.</li> <li>Buying my book, <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Productive Teacher</a>, on Amazon or Kobo (find more information at <a href="http://theproductiveteacherbook.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theprodutiveteacherbook.com</a>).</li> <li>Making a small one-off, or monthly, financial contribution to the running costs of the show on my Kofi page which you can find at <a>ko-fi.com/theteachingspace</a>.</li> </ol> … or doing all three if you are feeling super generous! Any financial contributions go directly towards the running costs of the podcast so you are investing in future content. Thank you.  Questions? Comments? If you have any questions about the show or thoughts you’d like to share you can do so by either: <ol> <li>Leaving a comment on this episode’s show notes blog post.</li> <li>Posting in our Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/ttsstaffroom/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TTS Staff Room</a>.</li> <li>Posting on Twitter (I’m <a href="http://twitter.com/MartineGuernsey" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@MartineGuernsey</a> if you want to mention me).</li> <li>Contacting me via The Teaching Space website: <a href="http://theteachingspace.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com</a>.</li> </ol> The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/67" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/67</a>. Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Seven Ways to Simplify Your Life Outside Work

Episode 32 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the steps to take in order achieve Inbox Zero.  Here are the show notes for this episode. Introduction My blog post about achieving inbox zero is one of my most popular. It’s a long post though, so for those of you who prefer to consume my short podcasts, here you go. What is Inbox Zero?  Not just having an empty inbox. You can do that (delete all/declare email bankruptcy) but that’s faking it. It’s an email management process which leads to your inbox being empty most of the time. If you have a trusted process to deal with your emails, you stop worrying about them. You stop being controlled by them. You free up space in your brain to focus on other things.  The Problem With Email  It’s not always the best communication method. It creates an urge to respond. It generates more emails. It’s not a task manager. It’s always there.  The Big Clean Up  First step, clean up your inbox. Set up ARCHIVE/S sub-folder under your inbox (just one). Delete emails that are no longer needed. Drag emails into ARCHIVE/S if you might need to refer back to them later. It will leave you with emails requiring action in your inbox.  Make a List Your email inbox must not be your task manager because:  It’s impossible to prioritise. Anyone can add to it. You have to open the email to work out the required action. You end up with an inefficient email inbox AND an inefficient task manager.  Here’s what you need to do:  Chose your list making method.  Keep it simple. Start with pen and paper (perhaps a yellow notepad so it’s immediately visible on your desk) then consider an app if it works for you. I use Asana but I don’t recommend you start with it as you’d need to learn it. The idea behind this process is to implement it quickly to see results. Tasks in your email inbox which require action go on your list.  Email Management Workflow Set up two more sub-folders: REPLY and WAITING.  REPLY: emails that will take longer than two minutes to deal with go in this folder. For example, an email asking you for your opinion on something (this would require thought). WAITING: emails where you are waiting for a response, or you want to process later, go in this folder. For example, you have delegated a task and you are waiting for an update.  Remember: ARCHIVE is for emails that you don't need now but you might like to refer back to at a later date, go to this folder. Use the two-minute rule:   If you receive an email that takes less than two minutes to deal with, deal with it straight away. The idea with the two-minute rule is that it would take almost two minutes to process that email, so deal with it now.  Schedule email time. Act  Set up ARCHIVE/S sub-folder. Delete emails. Send emails to ARCHIVE/S. Set up REPLY and WAITING sub-folders. Add tasks in emails to your to-do list. File remaining emails in REPLY and WAITING. Apply the two-minute rule. Schedule email time.  Wrap Up If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you.  

Episode 32 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the steps to take in order achieve Inbox Zero.  Here are the show notes for this episode. Introduction My blog post about achieving inbox zero is one of my most popular. It’s a long post though, so for those of you who prefer to consume my short podcasts, here you go. What is Inbox Zero? <ul> <li>Not just having an empty inbox. You can do that (delete all/declare email bankruptcy) but that’s faking it.</li> <li>It’s an email management process which leads to your inbox being empty most of the time.</li> <li>If you have a trusted process to deal with your emails, you stop worrying about them. You stop being controlled by them. You free up space in your brain to focus on other things.</li> </ul> The Problem With Email <ul> <li>It’s not always the best communication method.</li> <li>It creates an urge to respond.</li> <li>It generates more emails.</li> <li>It’s not a task manager.</li> <li>It’s always there.</li> </ul> The Big Clean Up <ul> <li>First step, clean up your inbox.</li> <li>Set up ARCHIVE/S sub-folder under your inbox (just one).</li> <li>Delete emails that are no longer needed.</li> <li>Drag emails into ARCHIVE/S if you might need to refer back to them later.</li> <li>It will leave you with emails requiring action in your inbox.</li> </ul> Make a List Your email inbox must not be your task manager because: <ul> <li>It’s impossible to prioritise.</li> <li>Anyone can add to it.</li> <li>You have to open the email to work out the required action.</li> <li>You end up with an inefficient email inbox AND an inefficient task manager.</li> </ul> Here’s what you need to do: <ul> <li>Chose your list making method. </li> <li>Keep it simple.</li> <li>Start with pen and paper (perhaps a yellow notepad so it’s immediately visible on your desk) then consider an app if it works for you.</li> <li>I use Asana but I don’t recommend you start with it as you’d need to learn it. The idea behind this process is to implement it quickly to see results.</li> <li>Tasks in your email inbox which require action go on your list.</li> <li> Email Management Workflow Set up two more sub-folders: REPLY and WAITING. <ul> <li>REPLY: emails that will take longer than two minutes to deal with go in this folder. For example, an email asking you for your opinion on something (this would require thought).</li> <li>WAITING: emails where you are waiting for a response, or you want to process later, go in this folder. For example, you have delegated a task and you are waiting for an update.</li> </ul> Remember: ARCHIVE is for emails that you don't need now but you might like to refer back to at a later date, go to this folder. Use the two-minute rule:  <ul> <li>If you receive an email that takes less than two minutes to deal with, deal with it straight away.</li> <li>The idea with the two-minute rule is that it would take almost two minutes to process that email, so deal with it now.</li> </ul> Schedule email time. Act <ol> <li>Set up ARCHIVE/S sub-folder.</li> <li>Delete emails.</li> <li>Send emails to ARCHIVE/S.</li> <li>Set up REPLY and WAITING sub-folders.</li> <li>Add tasks in emails to your to-do list.</li> <li>File remaining emails in REPLY and WAITING.</li> <li>Apply the two-minute rule.</li> <li>Schedule email time.</li> </ol> Wrap Up If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you. </li> </ul>

How to Achieve Inbox Zero (The Podcast Edition)

Powerful Plenaries: An Interview with Oli Bailey-Davies

Episode 28 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how teachers can become Google certified and the positive effect this can have.  Podcast Episode 28 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello and welcome to Episode 28 of The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me. Today's episode is about How Teachers Can Become Google Certified. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll be aware that I am a Google certified trainer, and I think I've probably mentioned on the show in the past what a positive effect becoming a Google certified trainer has had on my practice and also my career. I've been working as an educational technology coach for a time now, and it's been a very, very positive experience. The Four Levels of Google Certification So in this episode, I'm going to take you through the four levels of Google certification. If this peaks your interest and you'd like to deep dive into it further, I really recommend you either read the interview I did with the Society for Education and Training, or you have a listen to it, because we did an audio version as well (find the link on the show notes at theteachingspace.com/28). So today's episode is going to be just kind of touching on the surface of the qualification levels. You can find out more in the Society for Education and Training interview.  Level One of Certification Let's get started then. The first level of certification you can achieve with Google is Google Certified Educator Level 1. Now, this qualification is designed for educators and classroom teachers who wish to demonstrate proficiency in using Google for educational tools, or rather, G Suite for Education tools. The Level 1 status indicates that an educator is able to successfully implement G Suite for Education into their teaching practice in order to enhance teaching and learning. How To Achieve Level One Certification Status To achieve your Level 1 Google Certified Educator status you need to successfully complete an exam; it's an online exam. You have a maximum of 180 minutes, and you're not allowed to have any breaks during that time, it's a continuous time slot. There's a fee of $10, and your qualification is valid for three years. You are required to re-certify after three years. In order to get yourself ready for this exam, Google has some fantastic online resources, so I recommend you go through the online resources and you take the exam after that. If you are already a competent G Suite for Education user, it might be that you feel you can go straight into the exam. I think there are some mock exam options available, so if it was me, and I was feeling confident, I'd probably do a mock first. With all of the G-suite qualifications, there are online training courses you can go through, and the training resources are free, it's just the exams you need to pay for. I actually paid for my Google exams out of my own pocket, and then I got them reimbursed by my college just via petty cash. Level Two of Certification Once you've got your Google Certified Educator Level 1 qualification, you can then move up to Level 2. The Level 2 status indicates that an educator is able to successfully integrate a wider range of G Suite for Education tools and other technologies in order to transform their teaching practice. Whereas the Level 1 qualification focuses on the basic G Suite for Education tools, Level 2 expands the range somewhat. Very similar to Level 1, you have a 180-minute exam with no pauses. The fee is slightly higher, it's $25, and again, like Level 1 it's valid for three years and you will need to re-certify after that time. Level Three: Google Certified Trainer The next level is a Google Certified Trainer, and this is the level that I hold. There's a big leap from Google Certified Educator Level 2 to Google Certified Trainer, and when I take you through the various things you have to do in order to achieve this status, you'll start to get a sense of this. Google Certified Trainers are passionate and driven educational professionals with a desire to help others transform classrooms with technology, and that's a really important point. Whereas Google Certified Educator Level 1 and Level 2 people are focused on their own classrooms and their own practice, becoming a Certified Trainer is expanding that to include other people. So you might be your school's go-to technologist, stellar classroom teacher, or an enterprising consultant, anyone is welcome to apply for membership in the program. What Do You Need To Do? So what do you need to do to become a Google Certified Trainer? Well, this is what I've done, and it worked, and I achieved this status. So you have to do six things. First, you need to complete the Certified Trainer course, that's a free online course. Then you have to do a skills assessment exam. Now, this is separate from any other exam; it's $15. You have to make sure you have achieved Google Certified Educator Level 1; you also have to achieve Google Certified Educator Level 2. You then need to produce a trainer video. This is a short video split into two parts. You have to do a little tutorial to show your Google skills, and you also have to do a piece to camera where you explain what makes you Google-y. That is not as easy as it sounds, take my word for it. After that there is a detailed application to complete, and this includes case studies and essentially evidence that you are really using your Google skills in a transformative way. Once you've achieved your Google Certified Trainer status you are required to re-certify every year. So whereas the Educator Level 1 and Level 2 qualifications are every three years, Google Certified Trainers have to re-certify every year, and you need to do an exam to re-certify. You also are required to log 12 training sessions related to G Suite for Education products, you log that on a specific platform they provide you with access to, and you have to supply some Google resources to a database which is shared with other Google Certified Trainers. It Is Worth It! Woo, it's quite hefty, isn't it? But it really is worth it if you fit into that bracket of your school's go-to technologist, or somebody who is in a professional development role working with other teachers and trainers to help them up their game in the technology for learning department. The Final Stage As I said, I'm a Google Certified Trainer. The final stage is to become a Google Certified Innovator, and that's what I'm headed towards next. It's very different to the three levels that I've just talked you through. It's designed for education thought leaders who create new and innovative projects using Google for education tools or rather G Suite for Education tools. There is an exam, and you need to go through the Innovation Academy. The application process is at set times during the year, and you have to work on a project. So it's very much a research and development type approach to G Suite for Education. You're coming up with something new and exciting. So that's Google Certified Innovator, I will keep you updated on my progress with that. Wrap Up And that's it. What do you think? If you are using G Suite for Education in your college or school, please consider doing your Level 1 or Level 2 Google Certified Educator qualifications as a minimum. It really has been transformative for me and for many of my colleagues. Right, that's it from me today, I hope you enjoyed the episode, and I hope you will tune in next time. Thanks for listening.

Episode 28 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how teachers can become Google certified and the positive effect this can have.  Podcast Episode 28 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello and welcome to Episode 28 of The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me. Today's episode is about How Teachers Can Become Google Certified. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll be aware that I am a Google certified trainer, and I think I've probably mentioned on the show in the past what a positive effect becoming a Google certified trainer has had on my practice and also my career. I've been working as an educational technology coach for a time now, and it's been a very, very positive experience. The Four Levels of Google Certification So in this episode, I'm going to take you through the four levels of Google certification. If this peaks your interest and you'd like to deep dive into it further, I really recommend you either read the interview I did with the Society for Education and Training, or you have a listen to it, because we did an audio version as well (find the link on the show notes at <a href="http://theteachingspace.com/28" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theteachingspace.com/28</a>). So today's episode is going to be just kind of touching on the surface of the qualification levels. You can find out more in the Society for Education and Training interview.  Level One of Certification Let's get started then. The first level of certification you can achieve with Google is Google Certified Educator Level 1. Now, this qualification is designed for educators and classroom teachers who wish to demonstrate proficiency in using Google for educational tools, or rather, G Suite for Education tools. The Level 1 status indicates that an educator is able to successfully implement G Suite for Education into their teaching practice in order to enhance teaching and learning. How To Achieve Level One Certification Status To achieve your Level 1 Google Certified Educator status you need to successfully complete an exam; it's an online exam. You have a maximum of 180 minutes, and you're not allowed to have any breaks during that time, it's a continuous time slot. There's a fee of $10, and your qualification is valid for three years. You are required to re-certify after three years. In order to get yourself ready for this exam, Google has some fantastic online resources, so I recommend you go through the online resources and you take the exam after that. If you are already a competent G Suite for Education user, it might be that you feel you can go straight into the exam. I think there are some mock exam options available, so if it was me, and I was feeling confident, I'd probably do a mock first. With all of the G-suite qualifications, there are online training courses you can go through, and the training resources are free, it's just the exams you need to pay for. I actually paid for my Google exams out of my own pocket, and then I got them reimbursed by my college just via petty cash. Level Two of Certification Once you've got your Google Certified Educator Level 1 qualification, you can then move up to Level 2. The Level 2 status indicates that an educator is able to successfully integrate a wider range of G Suite for Education tools and other technologies in order to transform their teaching practice. Whereas the Level 1 qualification focuses on the basic G Suite for Education tools, Level 2 expands the range somewhat. Very similar to Level 1, you have a 180-minute exam with no pauses. The fee is slightly higher, it's $25, and again, like Level 1 it's valid for three years and you will need to re-certify after that time. Level Three: Google Certified Trainer The next level is a Google Certified Trainer, and this is the level that I hold. There's a big leap from Google Certified Educator Level 2 to Google Certified Trainer, and when I take you through the various things you have to do in order to achieve this status, you'll start to get a sense of this. Google Certified Trainers are passionate and driven educational professionals with a desire to help others transform classrooms with technology, and that's a really important point. Whereas Google Certified Educator Level 1 and Level 2 people are focused on their own classrooms and their own practice, becoming a Certified Trainer is expanding that to include other people. So you might be your school's go-to technologist, stellar classroom teacher, or an enterprising consultant, anyone is welcome to apply for membership in the program. What Do You Need To Do? So what do you need to do to become a Google Certified Trainer? Well, this is what I've done, and it worked, and I achieved this status. So you have to do six things. First, you need to complete the Certified Trainer course, that's a free online course. Then you have to do a skills assessment exam. Now, this is separate from any other exam; it's $15. You have to make sure you have achieved Google Certified Educator Level 1; you also have to achieve Google Certified Educator Level 2. You then need to produce a trainer video. This is a short video split into two parts. You have to do a little tutorial to show your Google skills, and you also have to do a piece to camera where you explain what makes you Google-y. That is not as easy as it sounds, take my word for it. After that there is a detailed application to complete, and this includes case studies and essentially evidence that you are really using your Google skills in a transformative way. Once you've achieved your Google Certified Trainer status you are required to re-certify every year. So whereas the Educator Level 1 and Level 2 qualifications are every three years, Google Certified Trainers have to re-certify every year, and you need to do an exam to re-certify. You also are required to log 12 training sessions related to G Suite for Education products, you log that on a specific platform they provide you with access to, and you have to supply some Google resources to a database which is shared with other Google Certified Trainers. It Is Worth It! Woo, it's quite hefty, isn't it? But it really is worth it if you fit into that bracket of your school's go-to technologist, or somebody who is in a professional development role working with other teachers and trainers to help them up their game in the technology for learning department. The Final Stage As I said, I'm a Google Certified Trainer. The final stage is to become a Google Certified Innovator, and that's what I'm headed towards next. It's very different to the three levels that I've just talked you through. It's designed for education thought leaders who create new and innovative projects using Google for education tools or rather G Suite for Education tools. There is an exam, and you need to go through the Innovation Academy. The application process is at set times during the year, and you have to work on a project. So it's very much a research and development type approach to G Suite for Education. You're coming up with something new and exciting. So that's Google Certified Innovator, I will keep you updated on my progress with that. Wrap Up And that's it. What do you think? If you are using G Suite for Education in your college or school, please consider doing your Level 1 or Level 2 Google Certified Educator qualifications as a minimum. It really has been transformative for me and for many of my colleagues. Right, that's it from me today, I hope you enjoyed the episode, and I hope you will tune in next time. Thanks for listening.

How Teachers Can Become Google Certified

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