Course over // Back to Work

It's been one week since I returned to work. Mounds of marking and the joyous cries of my students welcomed me back. There is a certain familiarity and even (dare I say it?) comfort to my workplace. It's satisfying.

I learnt so much on the course. When my cheekier students asked me what I learnt, I didn't want to tell them 'how to identify symptoms of dyslexia, ADHD, autism and other learning disabilities... that you have.' But it's true: our school has handfuls of students with learning disabilities. And now I feel equipped.

In particular, I've been made aware of the importance of adopting multi-sensory approaches to teaching and using differentiation. It means more creative planning and being less 'greedy' with setting goals for each lesson, but then the learning becomes more brain-friendly and things will go in and stay in more easily.

Other ideas like using alternative methods for assessment will not be so effective in an academic school such as mine. I can ask the students to respond verbally and use drawings instead of writing to prove their comprehension of a reading passage, but that's simply no good in an exam that demands written responses.

And kung fu punctuation is not going to happen. I think my students wouldn't stop laughing.

I really appreciate the fact that the course instructor, Mr. Neil MacKay, specified that we should take a pick and mix approach to all he had taught us. Certainly, that is how I will conduct a review of the two files' worth of materials this Easter.