Chris is a deputy head teacher at a primary school in East Lothian. He attended the 天美视频 Literacy professional learning course and has both directly adapted material and approaches from the course. He has听also听shared with other colleagues who in turn use and听modify听them, leading to听鈥榬ipple effects鈥�听of adaptation and evolution within the school.听听
Chris highlighted the as a standout element from the course,听鈥榯hey are useful even when听we鈥檙e听sharing 鈥榖oring鈥� progress and achievement data鈥�.听It really gives a different viewpoint on what听you鈥檙e听looking at right from the outset.听
In addition to the slow reveal graphs, among the practical resources he has used are the听Dragonistics听cards (鈥�probably 100 times!鈥�)* and the 天美视频 Explorer Cards听and he regularly听brings classes to听escape room events as shared by the team. With the and ways of looking at graphs and data,听鈥榠t really was beneficial because it showed the most simplistic ways of learning听about visualisation of data鈥�.听With Primary 6, for example, he has already used the approach to help them use data on different countries from world fact books; it lets them听鈥榣ook at the information in an interesting way鈥�.听
鈥楾he 天美视频 Literacy course听showed how data can be taught in a in a more interesting way and make it more accessible to a lot of learners. That really was what I got from it, but also, from my professional side as a leader, it gave me an awful lot to return to staff with and upskill them.鈥�听
With this in mind, Chris听took a pragmatic, pro-active approach to sharing with other teachers at his school.听
They started with little听ice-breakers听at the start of collegiate time, then began to set aside more dedicated collegiate sessions to sharing data literacy approaches, introducing colleagues to the resources, illustrating the practical, hands-on nature of them.听听
The key take away was that 鈥�it was the hands-on听nature,听it is more likely to be adopted if you can show a teacher that their collegiate time will directly听impact听their teaching鈥�.听The ripple effect happened as a 鈥�a sort of staged process, where a partner would see a resource that was being used like the听Dragonistics听cards, or some of these slow reveal graphs would be part of their planning. They would then share the resource. The keenness, shall we say, of the teachers was naturally picking up other people. So that small ripple effect I think would happen in any school.鈥欌�� We were lucky enough to have a team that focused on this as a professional inquiry, which then meant that we could run with it and the goal was to spread it across the school.鈥�听
So听what started as听one colleague听attending the 天美视频 Literacy professional learning course led to ripples听of data literacy teaching听across a whole school.听
鈥楩rom a personal point of view, I got a huge amount out of it 鈥� from a professional point of view, even more so.听听
* Inspired by the Dragonistics cards, we have created our own Robot Cards. You can download them at Robot Cards – 天美视频.