Getting started
I’ve tried to go right back to the most basic points in the NQT zone and tackle the questions that come up time and again from trainees and at CPD courses. But here I’d like to spell out some context. Times do change. The kinds of teaching advocated on this site have become much more commonplace in the last ten years or so. When I ran active learning courses in the late 80s or early 90s there was usually some resistance and little by way of ‘I’ve tried that and it works’ responses.
Now (2007) the atmosphere at courses is much more positive about the advantages of these techniques and there’s far more evidence of teachers using these techniques successfully. So remember, as a trainee or NQT, your introduction to active learning may well depend on the luck of the draw – what kind of department you are allocated to or get your first post in. If you don’t see any of the activities suggested on this site it doesn’t mean they don’t work - they may well be being used effectively in another school down the road.
That links to another key point – the extent of use of active learning is not related to the difficulty of class management. I know of schools where teachers use these techniques successfully with what can be termed highly ‘challenging’ students. It comes down to whether you, as an individual teacher, are prepared to push your comfort zones in order to meet your students’ needs more effectively – and the aim of this section is to take much of the risk out of pushing the frontiers of those comfort zones.
Finally my apologies for repetition – but if a point’s worth making, it’s usually worth making several times in different places in different ways. And anyway, educationalists call it ‘reinforcement’ these days, not repetition!
