It's been a little while since the first session on the EES Practitioners course. I have been thinking about the day, about what I learnt and how this new learning will affect my knowledge, skills and practice however it hasn't been as easy as I expected to put my thoughts down on paper.
I guess I have faced -like all my learners in the Community- varied distractions from a personal and professional perspective hence here why here I am... putting pen to paper sort of speak ...not long before Session 2.
The first day on the course was challenging but also rewarding; at times it felt as if the test was on us -the practitioners- to see how we can apply and use essential employability skills which we aim to teach and assess in the future. I found it harder than expected to highlight steps we have taken to achieve the given task during the session and I know that as a team we all felt the same. Myself, Rhys and Julie formed the blue team and although we have different backgrounds and very strong personalities we quickly pulled together and used all our strengths combined to achieve the best possible outcome for our task. I was reminded once again (through the nature of our task) of the importance of engagement and accessibility of everything I do ; I teach in the community to adult learners, NEETs or potential NEETs on a weekly basis yet discussion, brainstorming and problem solving on the first day emphasized once again the specific requirements of these groups when learning for a better life.
How do I currently do things in my teaching? How do I asses learner work and incorporate EES maybe?
Thinking about this does not reveal an easy straightforward answer. Having mostly taught so far specific subjects (Psychology, Counselling, Admin skills etc.) I have often focused on subject related content and achieving the outcome of the Unit or course at the time. Teaching in the Community I quickly learnt that most of my learners needed support or even to acquire some essential skills before aiming to meet the course outcome hence why I have worked in a team with other professionals as well as often rethinking my lesson plans and learning aids in an entrepreneurial way to make learning relevant and accessible. Although I haven't yet targeted EES specifically as part of my planning and teaching, some of the ways these skills have been incorporated so far in my work are as follows:
- learners always complete ad Individual Learning Booklet where they have to identify goals and expectations from our course and how they expect to achieve these. We also look at step by step actions they can take every few weeks towards progress, identify their strengths as well as where they feel they need further help.
- plenty of classroom activities and discussion which would be evidenced and assessed based on how learners themselves record what happens (following suggestions from myself such as mind maps, bullet points etc.).
- Assignment briefs as summative assessment which require learners to complete their own research at home - this is often the only way I have been able to integrate digital literacy in our learning due to limited resources in class although on a few occasions we have used mobile phones too during the lesson.
I will continue to think about this and how implementing EES in my current work can be done effectively. Since the first session on the EES course I had one routine observation during my English GCSE class. Following the inspiration from Day 1 I had introduced a new worksheet for my learners aiming to give them more confidence in their skills as well as improve their knowledge of Psychology: they all have a 'New words' sheet where they record new words we learn each lesson or words they find easy to spell or use in sentences. We discuss these words and then learners have to complete a few sentences using them by the next lesson. Furthermore I asked them how could they remember a word or check it's meaning if they don't have the 'New words' sheet to hand; I was really pleased to see that they suggested using the index at the back of their books and they put this in practice during our lessons.
I am looking forward to Day 2 on the EES practitioners course and I am keen on learning more myself so I can offer more to my learners ;)
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