The Teaching Space

Links I mentioned:

The Wellbeing-Driven Productivity Podcast
Notes by Martine
Martine's Website
Martine on Twitter

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

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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.

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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.

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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) 1. Establish boundaries and expectations in the mentor/mentee relationship but also around work/study/life balance. 2. Be available. 3. Model, model, model. 4. Facilitate. 5. Encourage community participation. 6. Encourage the use of research. 7. 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

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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)

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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

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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

High Challenge, Low Threat: How the Best Leaders Find the Balance

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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

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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

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

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Highlights * Introducing AJ Smith (00:40). * On AJ's switch from secondary to primary (01:16). * On my switch from finance to education (08:00). * How I "met" AJ... spoiler - it's YouTube (10:05). * Starting to talk about Notion (10:53). * One trust place for everything (12:50). * Productivity challenges for teachers (13:24). * Finding the Notion community (20:45). * What is Notion? (22:47). * AJ's Notion setup (24:00). * Using Notion to improve your mental health (28:53). * How using Notion makes you a better person (!) (32:42). * The quick capture/inbox concept (35:20). * The second brain (38:20). * Is there a danger that we will collect too much information? (43:30). * Curate with an action attached (46:11). * AJ on YouTube (47:00).

Thanks Thanks to AJ for being such an interesting and engaging guest.

Helpful links * AJ on Twitter * Martine on Twitter * AJ's blog * AJ on YouTube * How AJ uses Notion as a Teacher Planner (YouTube video) * Notion Mastery course * Martine's Notion templates * David Allen, GTD * Comparative judgement * Notion

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Highlights * Introducing Chris Chamberlain (00:44). * About Guernsey Mind (01:50). * How can teachers improve their mental health or seek help? (05:10). * Self care and self management is a priority (05:21). * Emails - are you a 24-hour service? (06:10). * Work is not called pleasure! (07:22). * On sleep (08:18). * Setting boundaries and self-management (11:50). * Learning to say no (14:21). * We are not perfect (17:00). * Reflect on mistakes (17:20). * Sharing experiences (17:55). * Admitting you are struggling is a strength (20:19). * What do you do if you have a colleague studying with their mental health? (22:45). + Practice empathy. + Are you OK? + Actively listen. + Remember everyone is different. + Signpost to Samaritans, employee assistance, line manager (if appropriate) local Mind charity or GP. * Signs of anxiety (23:40). * Final thoughts (29:23). + Find out more about mental health. * Find Chris online (34:38).

Thanks Thanks to my generous guest, Chris Chamberlain.

Helpful links * Email Chris: chris.chamberlain@guernseymind.org.gg * Chris on Linkedin * Guernsey Mind * UK Mind * Podcast episode about sleep (an interview with Daniel White) * Podcast episode about saying ‘no’ * Mental Health First Aid

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Highlights * Introducing Craig (00:53). * Trust-based observation key questions (03:54). * More on trust-based lesson observations (05:14). * Professional conversations and instructional coaching (08:47). * Matt O’Leary on observations (10:08). * Martine asks Craig if senior leadership observers experience a conflict of interest (quality assurance versus supportive quality improvement) (11:01). * Other aspects of teaching that can be evaluated (15:50). * Martine asks Craig how observers keep their teaching practice current (16:32). * Professional development communities (20:17). * The problem with traditional goal setting (23:08). * Just one thing… (25:29). * Peers working together and owning professional development (26:11). * Pandemic thoughts and Mississippi case study (30:38). * Wrap up - where to get Craig’s book and find him online (33:40).

Thanks Thank you so much to Craig Randall for being a charming and informative guest on the podcast.

Helpful links * Trust-Based Observations (by Craig Randall on Amazon UK) * Trust-Based Observations (by Craig Randall on Amazon.com) * Craig’s website: trustbased.com * Email: craig@trustbased.com * Martine’s podcast interview with Professor Matt O’Leary

Trust-Based Observations: Maximizing Teaching and Learning Growth

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Episode 111 of The Teaching Space Podcast features my master’s study toolkit (how we love a toolkit episode!)

Highlights * Introduction (00:32). * Year one toolkit (01:48). + Bookshelf by Vital Source + GoodNotes + Microsoft OneNote + Cite This For Me + Google Calendar + Microsoft Word * Year two toolkit (06:23). + The same: reader access, Cite This For Me, Google Calendar, assignments in Microsoft Word + Different: PDF annotation in iAnnotate, Notion for notes, new keyboard for iPad. * Reasons for change (09:29). * Wrap up (15:00)

Helpful links * Master’s Degree in Education, Leadership and Management, Open University * Episode 110: 12 Tips for Preparing to Study a Master's Degree in Your Spare * Discuss this episode in The Teaching Space Community. * Bookshelf by Vital Source * GoodNotes * Cite The For Me * iAnnotate * Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro * Rusty and Monica - Notion for Academics

Apple Magic Keyboard for 12.9-inch iPad Pro (Previous Version) - Arabic

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Episode 110 of The Teaching Space Podcast shares 12 tips for preparing to study a master’s degree in your spare time.

Highlights * Introduction (00:29). * Tip 1: refresh your study skills (03:23). * Tip 2: use your calendar or wall planner (04:44). * Tip 3: find out if you are entitled to any study days? (05:40). * Tip 4: time block your study time (07:02). * Tip 5: start early (08:15). * Ad break (08:47). * Tip 6: decide on your toolkit - more in the next episode (09:01). * Tip 7: consider your support mechanisms (10:21) * Tip 8: keep a PDP (12:30). * Tip 9: keep a reflective learning journal (12:58). * Tip 10: log everything you read (13:58). * Tip 11: get a study buddy (14:39). * Tip 12: set and log your goals (15:53). * Wrap up (16:42).

Helpful links * Episode 80: On Being a Student Again * Open University, Master’s in Education * Episode 62: Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers * Episode 98: Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers Revisited * Martine on Twitter * Join The Teaching Space Community

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Episode 109 of The Teaching Space Podcast is an interview with sleep specialist, Daniel White, who has some great advice to help teachers and trainers sleep better.

Highlights * Introducing Daniel (00:50). * On burnout (01:48). * Why sleep matters (03:06). * What happens to your brain when you are awake (05:34). * How can teachers and trainers learn to sleep better? (06:30). * Become aware first - recognise the need to improve (06:43). * About circadian rhythm (07:56). * Caveman Dan! (09:00). * Light exposure (12:15). * Addictive blue light (19:38). * Avoid blue light in the evening using blue light blocking glasses (20:16). * Adjust your tech to reduce blue light (23:56). * Think about your house lighting (25:22). * Early daytime light exposure is important (27:09). * Seasonal affective disorder (31:38). * How food affects sleep (35:50). * How alcohol affects sleep (37:24). * How we sleep (38:32). * Final thought: boundaries (43:21). * Find Daniel online - links below (45:33). * Martine’s wrap up (48:28).

Thanks Thanks to Daniel White for being such a generous guest.

Helpful links * Daniel’s website * Sleep Better Live Better course * Sleep Better Live Better store * Why Light Is Just As Important As Food and How To Hack Your Smartphone, PC or Laptop For Better Sleep * Why We Sleep by Professor Matthew Walker * Daniel on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn * Audible offer * Iris and Flux (for your computer) * Martine on Voxer * Email Martine * Join The Teaching Space Community

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

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Highlights * These changes are shared without agenda and with the intention of encouraging you to reflect on whether you need or want to make changes. If it’s not the right time for you to listen to this podcast episode then that’s OK. It’s also OK if you don’t want or need to make changes, or if you do not have the capacity (01:26). * I used summer break to introduce some of these changes and establish habits. Six weeks seemed long enough for me to confidently start identifying as a healthier person (02:15). * My definition of healthy: anti-diet, pro-movement, comparison-free, and a strong emphasis on mental health (03:34). * Change 1: daily exercise (indoor and outdoor cycling) (04:21). * Change 2: one weekly exercise session with others (nordic walking) (07:40). * Change 3: a little competition (Strava and Apple Activity app) (09:07). * Change 4: intermittent fasting (16:8, no calorie counting, two meals) (11:02). * Change 5: working towards no blue light at bed time (mobile in office, no social media on iPad, aiming to move iPad soon). Also establishing better routines around bed time (12:04). * Change 6: reducing the booze intake (helped by alcohol free beer and gin) (13:30).

Wrap Up (16:37)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Another way to become a healthier teacher is to improve your relationship with technology (as alluded to in episode 106). To help with this, you might like to check out my online course, Achieve Inbox Zero. You can find it at theteachingspace.com/shop.

Helpful Links * Recommended books on habit formation: + Atomic Habits by James Clear + The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg * Episode 100 An Interview with Oliver Caviglioli * Peloton app * The Laid Back Guide To Intermittent Fasting by Kayla Cox * Strava app (Apple and Android) * How to run a competition on Apple Activity app * Episode 106 How to Establish a Healthier Relationship with Social Media * Seedlip non-alcoholic spirits * Achieve Inbox Zero course

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

The Laid Back Guide To Intermittent Fasting: How I Lost Over 80 Pounds and Kept It Off Eating Whatever I Wanted

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Highlights * Introducing Vanessa Mee (00:53). * Vanessa’s journey into teaching (01:52). * Transitioning from working in the UK to Guernsey (04:13) * The type of trainee teachers Vanessa works with (06:16). * How a trainee’s experience of education affects them (08:16). * Tip: time block your week and also focus on big picture planning (10:00). * Tip: personalise your space and build relationships with your students (12:10). * Vanessa on Imposter Syndrome (13:15). * Tip: continue research, reading and experimentation (16:05). * Tip: maintain links with industry (17:36). * Tip: do less (teacher/student activity ratio) (19:30). * Tip: look after yourself as a priority (23:10). * Tip: become part of your school/college community (24:10). * Mentoring trainee teachers (25:35).

Wrap Up (26:55)

If you are a trainee teacher or a newly qualified teacher or trainer in any sector of education, why not pop over to The Teaching Space community - I’ll see you there.

Helpful Links * Guernsey College of Further Education * South Cheshire College * Sir David Collins * Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers (podcast episode) * Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers Revisited (podcast episode) * QTLS

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Highlights Your Relationship with Social Media (02:10)

Is your relationship with social media unhealthy? Only you know the answer to this - I encourage honest reflection here.
Endless scrolling and finding yourself on your mobile without realising… sound familiar?
How many hours a day do you spend on your phone looking at social media?
If you were not doing this, what could you be doing?
Creating relationships online can affect offline relationships.
Your communication skills can suffer.

What Can You Do? (06:25)

Notifications off.
Reduce screen time - check your statistics.
Charge your phone overnight in another room (get an alarm clock!)
Mute, unfollow, unfriend, block…
Recognise accounts that cause you stress.
Select people to follow carefully.
Think about what you share and when to comment.
Take a break.
Take apps off your phone - temporarily or permanently.
Schedule social media time.
Create a cut-off time.
Phone your friends.
Stop comparing - remember social media is a snapshot.
Post later.
Use blocking tools.

Wrap Up (16:00)

If you are currently working on improving your relationship with technology generally, you might like to check out my online course, Achieve Inbox Zero. You can find it at theteachingspace.com/shop.

Helpful Links * Martine on Twitter * Martine on Pinterest * Podcast Episode 103 - How to Stop Email Taking Over Your Life * Drafts app (where I draft social media messages sometimes - Apple only) * How to check your screen time on different devices * Achieve Inbox Zero online course

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This episode is kindly sponsored by Subject Leaders.

Highlights * About Professor Matt O’Leary (01:15). * What Matt first became interested in observations (01:55). * Different types of observations and reasons for them (05:47). * Matt’s most recent research into observations (09:43). * How Martine’s College executes observations - The ONE THING (16:43). * Matt’s thoughts on The ONE THING (19:36). * About unseen observation (22:29). * Unseen observations while teaching online (27:35). * Existing research on professional learning (32:40). * The future of observation(43:30). * Where to find Matt online (46:39).

Thanks Thanks so much to Matt O’Leary for coming on the show and thanks also go to this episode’s sponsor, Subject Leaders.

Helpful Links * Birmingham City University * Matt’s latest research on Research Gate * Matt O’Leary on Twitter * Matt O’Leary on Linkedin * Matt on academia.edu * Matt’s book “Classroom Observation” on Routledge and Amazon * Guernsey College of Further Education

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This episode is kindly sponsored by Loop - find out more about Loop by going to loophq.io/theteachingspace.

Highlights * About Joanne (00:45) * What is coaching? (01:51) * What are some of the different types of coaching? (03:33) * The spectrum of approaches to coaching (05:40) * What is the difference between teaching and coaching? (06:35) * Tips for using coaching with students (09:52)

+ Tip 1: plan your questions (10:45)
+ Tip 2: identify the opportunities to ask coaching questions (13:26)
+ Tip 3: recognise that you, as a coach, are constantly developing a skill (15:57)

Top tips for using coaching with colleagues and peers (21:00)
- Tip 1: clarity the purpose of and approach to the conversation (21:15)
- Tip 2: prepare yourself physically and mentally for your coaching conversation (23:21)
- Tip 3: follow up and keep momentum (26:06)
- The coaching skillset (28:51)
- Find Joanne online - links below (35:21)

Wrap Up (36:18)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to discuss coaching further, a great place to do this would be in The Teaching Space community. Visit community.theteachingspace.com to sign up for free.

Thanks to Joanne for her time and for being an excellent podcast guest. Thanks also to Loop for sponsoring this episode.

Helpful Links * Episode 8 of The Teaching Space podcast: What is the Difference Between Teaching and Coaching? * Professor Rachel Lofthouse (articles, research etc) * Professor Rachel Lofthouse on Twitter * Audible free audiobook and 30-day trial * Joanne on Twitter: @JoanneMiles2 * Joanne’s website: joannemilesconsulting.wordpress.com * jmilesconsulting@gmail.com * Loop - episode sponsor

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This episode is kindly sponsored by Loop - find out more about Loop by going to loophq.io/theteachingspace.

Highlights * Create boundaries (03:44) around email such as: + Time (when do you manage your emails?) (04:00) + Access (where do you manage emails?) (06:20) + Notifications (09:43) + Length (five sentences)(11:55) * Decide who is in control (13:23). * Manage the expectations of those around you (15:41). * Select the right tool for the job; your inbox is a temporary home, not a to-do list or filing cabinet (17:00).

Wrap Up (19:34)

If you are interested in achieving inbox zero either search The Teaching Space website or check out: https://www.theteachingspace.com/shop/achieve-inbox-zero

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Highlights * About Mark (01:05). * What the word “teacherpreneur” means to Mark (03:41). * Martine explains that no one is expected to be a teacherpreneur - being a teacher is a huge job - this is an approach that might suit some (04:19). * How Mark developed his portfolio career (05:23). * How being a teacherpreneur is an alternative career direction in education (06:34). * Examples of “dipping your toe in the water” of being a teacherpreneur (07:58). * Working with others to recognise your unique skills and systems (08:45). * Solving problems for others could be a product or service (10:45). * A word of caution if you are an employed person (11:53). * Martine and Mark’s experience of being employed and stepping into “teacherpreneur-ism” (!)(12:47). * The challenges teachepreneurs can face (15:23). * Mark’s approach to managing time (18:18). * The importance of using a calendar as part of your productivity toolkit (21:22). * Parkinson’s Law (23:00). * Martine’s summer break exercise routine (23:27). * Top tips for teachers considering starting a side hustle (24:12). * Solving problems through your side hustle (28:20). * The aspirin and vitamin concept (29:08). * About Mark’s podcast - Education on Fire (30:47). * Where to find Mark online (32:58).

Wrap Up (33:20)

Thanks for tuning in. Do check out Mark’s podcast, Education on Fire, and also pop into The Teaching Space Community to discuss the episode.

Helpful Links * Mark’s podcast, Education on Fire * Teachers Pay Teachers * Angela Watson’s 40 Hour Teacher Work Week

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Highlights Welcome (00:18)

Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast. Thanks for joining me for episode 101; the first episode of season three.

In today’s episode I will look back on season two and highlight the “best bits” as well as explaining to you the plan for season three which is largely based on feedback from you, my listeners.

Season Two Best Bits (02:35)

The first episode was 15 December 2017. There were no “seasons” then. Season two spanned episodes 64 to 100, so I called episodes one to 63 season one.

Season two’s best bits included:

Episode 65: Using Batching to be a Productive Teacher or Trainer (using podcast planning and marking as an example).
Episode 66: The Power of Sticky Notes (including the history of the humble sticky note and seven ways you can use them in your classroom).
Episode 67: Seven Ways to Simplify Your Life Outside Work (including wardrobe, paying bills, meals, batching, saying no, calendar planning and household chores).
Episode 75: 5 More Ways Teachers and Trainers Can Improve Presentations (a follow up to episode 45, exploring branding, presentation purpose, notes, grid design and bullets).
Episode 78: One Teacher's Journey to Productivity: An Interview with Justin Hockey (fellow teacher and productivity nerd).
Episode 82: Four Methods for Formative Assessment (including discussion and questioning, quizzes, peer assessment and coded feedback).
Episode 88: How I Read and Take Notes on a Journal Article (sharing my method and tools, refined during the first year of my master’s study).
Episode 89: Mind Maps for Teachers, Trainers and Students (exploring what mind maps are and how to create them by hand and digitally).
Episode 92: How I Run an Online Class (a COVID crisis inspired episode sharing my approach and tools).
Episode 100: An Interview with Oliver Caviglioli (the finale to season two - a fun and interesting interview with a real-life education rockstar!)

Episode locations are: theteachingspace.com/episode number in digits (e.g. theteachingspace.com/101).

Plan for Season Three (10:42)

Towards the end of season two I sent a questionnaire to my email newsletter subscribers asking for feedback on the podcast to shape season three. Off the back of that, I am trying a new approach. Here are the headlines:

Longer episodes, once a fortnight, no break for holidays except summer.
More interviews.
More video.
Change to music.
Brief, but time-stamped show notes.
Live shows… maybe.

Wrap Up (15:15)

Please subscribe to receive The Teaching Space Extra, my weekly email newsletter: https://www.theteachingspace.com/tts-extra

Helpful Links * Episode 65: Using Batching to be a Productive Teacher or Trainer * Episode 66: The Power of Sticky Notes * Episode 67: Seven Ways to Simplify Your Life Outside Work * Episode 75: 5 More Ways Teachers and Trainers Can Improve Presentations * Episode 78: One Teacher's Journey to Productivity: An Interview with Justin Hockey * Episode 82: Four Methods for Formative Assessment * Episode 88: How I Read and Take Notes on a Journal Article * Episode 89: Mind Maps for Teachers, Trainers and Students * Episode 92: How I Run an Online Class * Episode 100: An Interview with Oliver Caviglioli

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To read a full transcript of this interview, go to theteachingspace.com/100.

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Episode 99 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores five methods for recording verbal feedback to students.

Introduction As we know, feedback is an essential tool for formative assessment, and verbal feedback can be particularly powerful. However, sometimes, it is just not possible to provide verbal feedback at the right time. However, there are a variety of tools available that help you record verbal feedback and share it after the fact.

Except for the first suggestion, you will need a pair of headphones with a mic attached to use these tools (or a separate pair of headphones and a mic). Your school or college will hopefully be able to provide these.

Phone App Depending on your students and your organisation's safeguarding and e-safety policies, one of the most accessible tools for recording feedback is a mobile phone. Most mobiles have a native audio recording app.

If you use yours, you can share the audio with the student afterwards (this is a little clunky as you will have to get it off your phone and into a storage area such as Google Drive so you can generate a link to the audio for the student). Or, you can allow your student to record the feedback on their phone. I appreciate this will not work in all situations, but if it is acceptable, getting the student to do this could encourage them to take ownership of their learning. The downside is that you do not have a copy of the feedback, but you could record it yourself as well, or use a transcription app while recording.

Loom I won't spend too much time on Loom because if you have been listening to the show for a while, you will know I am a big fan of this free, screen recording tool. Recording your screen is a great way to give verbal feedback on any screen-based work, for example, a written assignment.

Turnitin Voice Comments If your organisation uses Turnitin, then there is a voice comment tool built in to their Feedback Studio. Several colleagues of mine have been using it effectively. What they tend to do is take a comment bank approach to general comments (Turnitin calls these QuickMarks) and give an overall voice comment at the top of the assignment.

Kaizena Kaizena is an easy to use Google Docs and Slides add-on that enables you to leave voice comments on students’ work. Its limitation is that you can only use it on Docs and Slides, but it does work seamlessly with these formats. If you are used to marking work via Google Classroom and leaving comments, then you will likely be able to work Kaizena out in minutes. It is worth a look.

Vocaroo Vocaroo is my my favourite tool of all. Please don't be put off by the terrible website. Vocaroo does one thing incredibly well. It allows you to record a voice comment in two clicks and generate a link to that comment straight away. You can then paste the link anywhere you want. It's basically Loom, but for audio. Brilliant!

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com.

The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com.

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.

Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join me for the next episode.

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Episode 98 of The Teaching Space Podcast revisits time blocking and why it is an essential strategy for teachers and trainers.

Introduction Episode 62 of the podcast introduced the idea of time blocking. Here’s how I described it in that episode:

"There are probably lots of different definitions, but for me, it is planning every single 15-minute block of my day (this includes rest, breaks etc.). Every. Single. Thing. Goes. On. The. Calendar."

The idea being that if something is on the calendar, it gets done.

I went on to explain my Google Calendar approach (if you have not listened to the episode, it would be a great idea to do so, to get a feel for what I was doing then and what I am doing now).

Incidentally, time blocking can be done using a paper calendar very easily, so please don't be put off by my regular references to Google Calendar. Also, if you use Outlook, it is easy to use colour coding to differentiate between time blocks and other specifically scheduled activities.

Not Just a Strategy for When You are Busy In the past, I tended to use time blocking when I was at my busiest. It was the only way I could get everything done and stay on top of my workload. However, I have now changed that approach, and I time block my day regardless of how busy I am. If I don't have a lot on, I will schedule relaxation, exercise, professional reading… whatever is appropriate. The entire day is blocked, including relaxation time in the evening and meal breaks.

One of the benefits of time blocking every day is that it helps establish routine. For example, morning and evening routines (encompassing when you wake up and go to bed) can be set to reoccur if you are using a digital calendar.

You can also schedule batching as your timetable allows (see episode 65).

Simplified Calendars One change I have made since the last podcast is that I have simplified my Google Calendar setup. Side note: the great thing about Google Calendar is you can have multiple calendars that show events in different colours, but you view them all overlaid in one calendar, and you can toggle each one on and off.

Previously my calendars were:

External appointments
Internal appointments
Events
Get stuff done (this is for tasks)
The Teaching Space
Martine Makes
Health

Now they are:

Events and appointments
Martine Makes
Planning
Tasks and study
The Teaching Space

I also have the 'reminders' calendar enabled, but not 'tasks'.

INSERT CALENDAR 1 SCREENSHOT

This simplified approach is far easier for me. Events and appointments are my default calendar, which makes sense as these are the things I schedule most often. However, the important addition is 'planning'.

My Planning Calendar Rather than time blocking in each of the above categories, I time block my entire day in the planning calendar so that I can see my ideal day, however, things like appointments are still visible. This is helpful because if I had a 30-minute appointment at noon offsite, I could create a time block of one hour to include 15 minutes either side for travel. This gives me a far more accurate picture of my day. There is a basic (non-teaching) example in the show notes.

See theteachingspace.com/98 for images.

Your Blocks Another slight adjustment is that I don't block in 15-minute increments now. My minimum is 30 minutes, and even then I prefer to time block an hour at a time, to buy a little breathing space. If something takes less time than expected, I will use what's left for checking emails (although it is better to block that time, of course).

Test Your Planning The next logical step for time blocking is to try tracking your time with a tool like Toggl to see if what you are planning works out in reality. I've not taken things to this stage yet, but you never know. It might be an interesting experiment.

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. I'd be interested to hear about your approach to planning your day.

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.

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Episode 97 of The Teaching Space Podcast shares three fantastic Chrome extensions for teachers and trainers.

Introduction Oh I love a useful Chrome extension (when I remember they are there!) On the off chance you have never used a Chrome extension, I'll give you Google Chrome's definition:

"Extensions are small software programs that customize the browsing experience. They enable users to tailor Chrome functionality and behavior to individual needs or preferences. They are built on web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

An extension must fulfill a single purpose that is narrowly defined and easy to understand. A single extension can include multiple components and a range of functionality, as long as everything contributes towards a common purpose."

(What are extensions? - Google Chrome, 2020)

Here are three of my favourites which have been getting a lot of use, lately. They are Toby, Loom and Grammarly.

Toby I have just started using Toby, and I think it could be a game-changing Chrome extension for me - certainly in supporting my podcast workflow, but I can see it being useful in many work contexts too.

"Toby is better than bookmarks, it levels up your Chrome browser. Toby is a visual workspace that lives on every new tab. Add new tabs by dragging and dropping your browser tabs into collections or save a whole session in just one-click. Access all of your collections on any desktop with automatic sync. Use tags to organize your collections or create notes for your to-dos" (Toby for Chrome, 2020).

So, going back to the podcasting workflow, when I am ready to publish a podcast, in one click I can have all of the browser tabs open I need (e.g. hosting website, my website and all social media platform sites). While it might only save seconds, seconds add up.

Loom I wrote a blog post about Loom in the very early days of starting The Teaching Space podcast, and I am still a massive fan.

Loom is a Chrome extension which enables you to record your screen and share a link to the video in just a few clicks (usually just one click to record, one-click to finish). You don't need to download the video or think about where you are going to host it. Loom takes care of all of that. A link to your video is automatically generated and placed on your clipboard, ready to be pasted wherever you like (email, Google Classroom, etc.).

At the time of writing, Loom Pro is free for teachers. It was made free in response to the COVID-19 crisis and looks like it is going to stay that way.

I find Loom extremely useful when a colleague or student needs me to explain something technical (e.g. screen-based), and we are not in the same room. It is also great for recording presentations and giving students feedback on an assignment.

Grammarly Finally, Grammarly saves me from making spelling, punctuation and grammar errors every single day and is available as a Chrome extension. The bonus of having Grammarly in your browser is that you can use it virtually everywhere.

I recently "treated" myself to the paid version of Grammarly as I have some large writing projects coming up. However, the free version is excellent and sufficient for most. Compare plans here.

Grammarly is also available as a Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer extension so very versatile. It works with MS Word, Outlook and Google Docs and other native apps for Windows and macOS. I have also recently installed the Grammarly keyboard on my iPhone, which is fantastic. One unexpected bonus is an emoji search option!

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

References Toby for Chrome (2020) Chrome.Google.Com, [Online]. Available at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/toby-for-chrome/hddnkoipeenegfoeaoibdmnaalmgkpip?hl=en (Accessed 12 April 2020).

What are extensions? - Google Chrome (2020) Developer.Chrome.Com, [Online]. Available at https://developer.chrome.com/extensions (Accessed 11 April 2020).

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Episode 96 of The Teaching Space Podcast is a review of my current productivity toolkit in 2020.

Introduction I make no secret that I love productivity tools and change my setup from time-to-time. This episode is a follow on to episode 59. In that episode I mentioned five apps: Todoist, Google Calendar, Notion, Forest and Ulysses. I will start by updating you on where I am with these apps, and then share additions to my toolkit.

Todoist This is the biggest change - I no longer use Todoist as my task manager. I switched to TickTick some time ago; right after I interviewed Francesco D’Alessio actually. He highlighted some elements of TickTick that I might like. He was right, and I have been a TickTick fan ever since!

Initially I joined TickTick because I liked their calendar view. Ironically, I don't use that anymore, and their features are quite similar to Todoist. If you are unsure about which to choose between the two, they are both very solid task management apps. This review appears current and balanced. There's just one inaccuracy I spotted - I can use emojis in TickTick. I like the feel of TickTick and will be using it for the foreseeable future.

Google Calendar I continue to be a massive fan of Google Calendar. I have recently streamlined my approach to using multiple calendars and time blocking and am very happy with it. I plan to revisit this topic in a future podcast. Other than streamlining, the other change I have made in this area is I use an app to view my Google Calendar (also my emails) when on desktop. The app is Boxy Suite. I managed to get a special deal on it through AppSumo. While it is not an essential addition to my toolkit, it's a "nice to have".

Notion I am still using Notion and love it as a concept. It's the hub of my podcast and video production; it makes collaboration with my virtual assistant seamless. If I wrote blog posts regularly I would handle them through Notion too. I continue to do my big picture planning in Notion which include things like annual and quarterly targets. As a task manager, Notion never quite worked for me. Looking back on podcast episode 59, it seems I am using Notion in a similar way to how I was then.

Forest Forest is one of my favourite focus apps and stops me using my mobile when I need to be in focus mode. It’s a gamified Pomodoro timer, essentially. While I still use Forest, I should probably use it more often than I do!

Ulysses Back in episode 83 I reviewed three note-taking apps as I wanted to see I was missing anything, being a Ulysses user. The apps I reviewed were SimpleNote, OneNote and Bear. Bear and OneNote came out on top. I used Bear for a while but ended up finding the document organisation structure confusing and limiting (most people love it, for me, it just did not work). I went back to Ulysses and, with the help of a Shawn Blanc course (The Sweet Setup), I am using it well. My only bugbear is I wish I could use Ulysses on my PC at work. However, splitting work and non-work writing has its benefits. I have enjoyed using OneNote for my Open University study and continue to rate it highly.

What’s New? * Drafts is my quick capture writing ‘bucket’ as explained in episode 91. * I have reluctantly started using WhatsApp for some communication. * MindNode is now a really important part of my toolkit for mind-mapping as explained in episode 89. * In combination with OneNote for my OU study I have been using GoodNotes for organising and annotating PDFs. I explain this more in episode 88. * Noisli is now a firm favourite to help me focus, as discussed in episode 95.

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. I'd love to hear about your productivity tool preferences.

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.

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Episode 95 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores three noise-cancelling apps and websites.

Introduction I am sensitive to noise and get distracted easily by sounds. This, of course, can have a massive effect on my productivity and focus. Over the years, I have realised the importance of carrying headphones with me everywhere. Currently I am enjoying Apple’s latest invention - AirPods Pro. Of course, the only downside of earbuds is that my hair hides them! Sometimes you want people to know that you are in focus mode. That's where over-ear headphones are great. They send a message. I am yet to find a pair of over-ear headphones with sufficient noise cancellation - if you can recommend anything, please let me know. Ideally, I want something that folds up so it can live in my bag.

As well as regularly using headphones, I also play music or sounds to help me focus. In this episode, I am going to share three options with you.

Noisli * Name: Noisli * Link: https://www.noisli.com/ * About: Focusses specifically on masking background sounds (or, equally, beating silence) using sounds such as rain, thunder or cafe chatter. Noisli is available on Web, as a Chrome Extension and on mobile for iOS and Android. You can synchronise your favourite Combos across apps. * Features: Sounds (which can be combined), curated playlists, timer and a distraction-free text editor. * Pricing structure: Freemium (Free version offers plenty to get you started ). Pro is $10 a month billed yearly, and there is a Business option for teams starting at $24 per month billed yearly (two staff members). * Comments: Straightforward to use with a beautiful, calm interface. I love the ability to create combos, and the timer is useful. After you have been using it a while, you start hearing the sound loops, so there is the temptation to upgrade to access more sounds. The app and Chrome extension are fab.

Brain.fm * Name: Brain.fm * Link: https://www.brain.fm/ * About: According to their website ‘Our science-first approach creates music that sounds different–and affects your brain differently–than any other music’. * Features: Music rather than sounds. Split into three categories: focus, relax and sleep. App available for iOS and Android. Timer option. * Pricing structure: Freemium (you can try five sessions for free). Thereafter, you will pay $6.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. * Comments: Simple interface (if a little brightly coloured) enough options but not overwhelming. It works.

YouTube * Name: YouTube * Link: https://www.youtube.com/ * About: This is your free option; there is a plethora of free tracks available on YouTube, just search ‘concentration music’ or ‘focus music’ and try a few out. * Features: Consider setting up a YouTube playlist to save your favourite tracks. * Pricing structure: totally free (unless YouTube Premium is an option in your country). * Comments: This is the perfect no budget option. It is worth spending some time researching YouTubers you like and curating that playlist. Be creative when searching, for example, if you are studying try ‘study music’ or ‘study sounds’. Other options are ‘white noise’ and ‘brown noise’. Don’t forget - if you have a music subscription like Amazon Music, for example, you can search for all of these terms there too.

What Did I Think? YouTube is, of course, a great place to start with zero cost or risk. The downsides include adverts and the need for an internet connection.

With Noisli and Brain.fm, you aren't comparing apples to apples. The choice between the two comes down to personal preference. For me, I prefer sounds over music so I will be opting for Noisli. The free option is excellent, so you can get a feel for how it works for you and perhaps stick with that. Noisli also offers a 50% discount for students and teachers, you can find out more here at noisli.com/education. However, Noisli doesn't have sleep specific options included in the free option (Pro has a specific sleep playlist). Noisli is the most expensive option. Brain.fm is a good price, has good variety and covers different needs. All in all, it's a great allrounder. They both work, but in my opinion, they do different things for different people.

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please do so in The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. I'd love to hear how you deal with distractions and whether you have tried out any of the tools I mentioned.

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.

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Episode 94 of The Teaching Space Podcast shares three tips for an organised Google Classroom.

Introduction I wouldn't usually focus on a single tool that you might or might use for a podcast; however, I think the ideas behind these tips can apply to other tools in a more general sense, so I hope they are helpful. I am dealing with some concepts that will likely be communicated better visually so please pop over to the show notes to see some annotated screenshots: theteachingspace.com/94.

Tip One: Organise Your Classwork Area Your Classwork area is where all your resources for lessons are stored, along with assignments and tasks. This area must be straightforward for students to navigate. Here are some tips:

Decide on your structure in advance (weeks, units, lessons?) and use topics as headers.
Use capital letters consistently for visual consistency.
Name topics and containers for resources consistently (e.g. UNIT 301 > SESSION 1 > HOMEWORK).
Use emoji to group elements together.

Tip Two: Tidy Up the Stream The Stream is the hub of communication. By default, when the teacher posts a resource in the Classwork area, there is a notification in the Stream. These notifications can clutter the Stream. You can change this, though. On your Classwork page, click the settings' cog' and change the settings as follows:

General > Classwork on the stream > Hide notifications

In addition to this, it is easy to move a post to the top of the Stream. You could move a ground rules or expectations post to the top, for example.

Create and post a message then click the three little dots at the top right and select MOVE TO TOP.

Tip Three: Notifications Finally, I only found this out recently - you have complete control over the notifications you get from Google Classroom.

On the main page where you see all your classes, click the hamburger menu at the top left-hand side of the screen to access settings.

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

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Episode 93 of The Teaching Space Podcast looks at what makes a successful video conference call.

Introduction This episode has been inspired by the recent increase in video calls I've experienced as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. While I certainly don't profess to be an expert video call host or participant, I realised early on that I'd had a bit more experience than some in this area. I thought it would be useful to compile and share some top tips for a successful call.

I'll start with general tips then focus on a few student-specific issues. Please remember, I teach adults, but I will touch briefly on general child protection issues

Tools This is not an episode about tools but it would be remiss not to mention The Big Three I’ve used lately, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Because my experience is mostly with Google, I’m not going to do a comparison as it would be biased. I just have a few things to mention though:

Google recently increased access to their premium Meet options allowing users to record and have more control over aspects of the call. This upgrade has been a game-changer for me - utterly essential - if they decide to downgrade, it might prevent me using the tool for educational purposes in the future. Recording calls and having a record of the chat is essential to me. Fingers crossed they keep the feature as part of the free G Suite for Education package as I do not see my organisation paying for it.

It looks like Microsoft has done something similar with Teams although I am less familiar with what the upgrade entails.

This article explains more.

Zoom is something I have used more in a business capacity. It's an excellent tool with similar features to the other two, however, it has been subject to negative press recently over security concerns. Google 'Zoom-bombing' and decide for yourself.

General Video Call Tips and Etiquette 1. Set expectations at the start if you are hosting, for example, participants on mute but can ‘raise their hand to speak’ in the chat, questions in chat etc. 2. Be prepared - especially if you are hosting. Usual meeting rules apply e.g. agenda, minutes, give notice etc. 3. Where possible, have someone hosting the meeting/session and someone monitoring the chat and communicating with the host. 4. If you want to record the call, ask permission of all participants (ask them to consent or decline in chat). 5. Wear headphones to avoid feedback issues. 6. Arrive early to check your headphones, mic and other technology are working (applies to host and attendees). 7. Mute your mic on arrival. 8. Dress appropriately (audience and context matter here). 9. Try to look into the camera. 10. Give some thought to light and framing. 11. Make full use of the chat function. 12. Consider your background (especially when working from home). Teams has a blur background function. 13. Make best efforts to get to know the platform before your first call (YouTube/Google it). 14. Don’t multi-task. 15. Please don’t eat!

Calls with Students There is some extra consideration needed when undertaking calls with students, especially children and vulnerable adults. Follow your organisation's recommendations as they will be working to comply with the relevant child protection policy and legislation. Generally, recommendations are likely to fall into these areas:

Consideration to the location of each individual on the call and possible recommendations for cameras being turned off.
Restrictions around recording and sharing recorded calls.
Access to technology.
Supervision on calls.
Use of School/College email address for communication.
Staff/student number ratio.

There will also be behaviour management considerations, for example, understanding who has control over muting and leaving/joining the call. There is lots of platform-specific guidance on this available online. Also, the level of interaction on the call will relate directly to the size of the group. For larger groups, consider a flipped approach as explained in the previous episode and smaller tutorial groups if possible.

Wrap Up And that's it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you'd like to share, please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com. I'd love to know about your experience of video calls in an education setting.

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.

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Episode 92 of The Teaching Space Podcast is about my approach to running an online class.

Introduction I am recording this episode in April 2020 while Guernsey is locked down in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Because I bulk record my episodes, you will be listening to this in the future. I hope that life has got back to some semblance of normal now, but I suspect things won't ever be the same again. This episode, and the next few that follow, are inspired by my personal experience of teaching classes remotely from my office at home.

Context It's essential I am clear on my context, because with it, comes some privilege - particularly concerning the resources I can access.

What I don't want to happen is for you to listen to this and think "this is how I need to work now" because it might not be right for you. Anything I share on the podcast must be considered in your context (students, workload, subject, resources etc) before you decided to try things out. One of the main points of this show is to help you achieve work/life balance, so, for example, if I explain my approach and it is too labour intensive for your context or plain wrong - that is ok. I share ideas in the spirit that it "might help or inspire someone".

My context in a nutshell:

I teach adults (initial teacher trainees, trainee assessors and trainee quality assurers).
While my courses have some practical elements, there is also a lot of theory, which lends itself well to SOME online delivery.
I have a dual role, so teach fewer hours than most full-time teachers (half of my role is professional development and promoting scholarly activity).
I have a genuine interest in technology for learning and lots of experience in this area - I also have access to decent tech tools and bandwidth (at home!)

What follows is based on the first online session I delivered from home during the crisis - subsequent sessions followed a similar format.

Rationale I was keen to limit teaching (as in, delivering content) live online because I find it utterly exhausting and I was not sure it was right for my students. Also, as adults, I can assume a degree of independence in their approach to studying; also, they all pay to come on my courses, so their motivation is usually high.

My Approach I opted for a flipped approach.

My in-person sessions are usually three hours long, so I asked students to keep the time slot free and check-in before the scheduled start time to pick up instructions via Google Classroom.

I shared an instructions post on the stream and copied those instructions to the classwork area too, where the session's resources are shared.

Below is a screenshot of the Classwork area of my Google Classroom showing the first session I delivered in this format. You will see there are video and text chat documents in there too - these are from our Google Meet session and were added afterwards. I will explain this shortly.

This session is usually 18.00 - 21.00, so this is what I planned:

18.00 - 19.00: students watch video of delivery in their own time and make notes.
19.00 - 20.00: gather online in a Google Meet for a planned discussion activity.
20.00 (or after): complete quiz homework.

Let’s break this down.

Video of Delivery I had a presentation and session plan already prepared for this session. I pared it down and stripped out the activities to the bare minimum of input, knowing that a fair bit could be covered in a discussion afterwards. I then screen recorded my presentation delivery (not my face, just my screen). I use a tool called Screenflow for Mac as it is a tool I already own and I like the editing interface. There is no need to spend too much time on the recording aspect. I did edit but only because I could. However, you could do just as good a job using a free tool such as Loom, and there is no need to edit anything.

I posted the video to my YouTube channel as unlisted, meaning that only people with the link can view the video. With Loom, there is no need for this step as a link to your video is generated automatically.

Videos ended up being around 30 minutes long, leave the students a further 30 minutes to make notes and revisit sections as needed.

Discussion Activity This was the live element of the session. My students joined a Google Meet (I did a practice run beforehand to establish protocols for this new set up - I will tell you about that in next week's episode when we will focus on video conferencing). I had one absence for this first session (again, adults).

I'd written a list of questions and discussion topics based on the criteria for the session. I steered the group through those questions.

The session and chat were recorded and shared in the Google Classroom afterwards. Google has extended its Meet services to include recording and other advanced features to support teachers during the COVID-19 crisis. I'll expand on this in the next episode.

Homework I set a Quizizz for homework that students could do straight after the session if they wanted, directly tied to the criteria of the session, as a formative assessment.

How Did it Go? That first one went well, and subsequent sessions have been similar. My initial teacher trainees have found the experience useful as they have been able to reflect on the differences between teaching and learning online compared to in-person.

I enjoyed the challenge, but it is not something I would want to do every week. The preparation is incredibly time-consuming, and I missed the activities we do in sessions. You cannot replicate them online. Furthermore, when you teach teaching, there's a lot of modelling practice that happens, and you cannot replicate that online either.

The experience has been fascinating. I have always thought that online or flipped learning has a place, but for me and my subject area, it would only be a percentage of the curriculum.

Wrap Up And that’s it. I’d really love to hear about your experience of teaching online. Please drop into The Teaching Space Community to chat: community.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.

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Episode 91 of The Teaching Space Podcast explains my number one productivity tip for teachers and trainers.

Introduction Let’s talk about the biggest challenge facing teachers today - too much to do and not enough time. There is so much information in a teacher’s head at any one time, it is amazing anything gets done. I wish this wasn’t the case, but I strongly believe it is. It is one of the reasons I started this podcast. While I wish I could go to the root of the problem and fix it (that’s a topic for another podcast) what I would like to do in this episode is share just one tip to help you keep on top of that enormous workload. And it is a good tip, I promise. Perhaps, I will throw in some bonus resources too if we have time… let’s see!

The Solution While this will not solve all of your problems, it is, I believe, the starting point for being a productive teacher. Full disclosure, it is not entirely my idea. I stole it from David Allen, creator of the Getting Things Done productivity method (definitely worth a read, by the way!)

A typical teacher has information coming at them from all directions - let’s call it input. For example, emails, text messages, meetings and phone calls with line managers, students, parents, colleagues… They’re likely asking for something or sharing information, or giving instructions. This doesn’t even take into account input from your personal life, but there will be plenty of that. Even seemingly ‘fun’ things like reading books or articles or social media; it’s all input. There are also ideas floating around your head, questions you need to ask, tasks you need to complete, appointments you need to attend. It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed at times.

The problem with all of this input is that it tends to end up in different places. From sticky notes to paper lists, to digital lists, to the back of your hand… it’s everywhere. Spreading things in this way means that invariably something gets missed or lost.

My top productivity tip is to have one trusted place to capture everything. Think of it as a bucket. Get everything out of your head and into one bucket, then life will be easier. Things don’t live in the bucket, they get filtered into their rightful home. But they all start in the bucket.

Your bucket might be a small notepad that lives in your pocket (it needs to be with you or close by at all times). For many of us, our bucket is our phone. The problem with phones, however, is that they have lots of apps. Which app is your bucket? Is it a notes app or an audio app? What suits your needs best?

For me, it’s a simple app called Drafts. It is one of the few apps on my phone that does not sit in a folder, so it is easy to access. It’s a text app with a difference - every time you open the app a new document or note is created and saved automatically. You do not have to think about where to save the note and what to call it. I put random ideas in here, quotes, thoughts, questions, to-do items … anything that needs a temporary home before I put it in its real bucket. The only thing I do not do this with is appointments - they have their own, easily accessible bucket: my Google Calendar. That’s because if I am booking an appointment I will need to check my availability and the only way I can do that is by looking at my calendar.

Drafts gets cleared at the end of each day all being well. To-do items go to my task manager in TickTick and other items get filed in the same way. For example, if I have had a podcast idea, that topic gets moved into my podcast planning board in Notion.

The idea of your initial trusted bucket is that you don’t have to spend time deciding where to ‘file’ information. For example, to add a to-do item to my task manager I have to consider which category it belongs to (e.g. personal, work, podcast) and then assign a due date. If it goes in my trusted bucket first, I can deal with these details when I can allocate time to them (for example as part of my end of day routine). Things do not get missed.

What do you think? Do you need a bucket?

Bonus Tips * Getting Started with Productivity Apps and Tools * Seven Ways to Simplify Your Life Outside Work * Using Batching to be a Productive Teacher or Trainer * Time Blocking for Teachers and Trainers * Martine’s Current Productivity App Setup * Productivity Tools for Teachers and Trainers: An Interview With Francesco D’Alessio * The Productive Teacher * How Keyboard Shortcuts Can Improve Your Life * How to Drastically Cut the Time You Spend Writing Emails * How to Use a To-Do List Properly * How to Achieve Inbox Zero (The Podcast Edition) * Why Meal Planning is Essential for Teachers and Trainers * 7 Reasons Why All Teachers Should Use Google Calendar

Wrap Up And that’s it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.theteachingspace.com.

The show notes for this episode include any links I’ve mentioned; you can find them at theteachingspace.com.

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.

Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

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Episode 90 of The Teaching Space Podcast attempts to answer this question: should I start a teaching blog?

Introduction I’m often asked where I get ideas for podcast episodes (which, 90 episodes in, is a fair question!) My favourite episodes are those that answer questions I am asked. This episode is one of those.

A colleague asked me if they should start a teaching blog; I have recorded this response. The short answer is YES as more voices are needed in the online teaching community. We lack diversity. My colleague, of course, works in further education, so this is an area in particular that would benefit from more voices. But I would encourage anyone who thinks they might have something to say to start writing (notice I am not saying ‘start a blog’ yet!)

This episode will look at writing in a more general sense before digging into blogging so there will be something for everyone.

It All Starts With Writing One of my favourite business podcasts is the Seanwes podcast; I have listened for years. One of Sean’s mantras (he has a few!) is ‘it all starts with writing’. And he’s right. So much of what I do starts with writing, for example:

Lesson or course planning
Creating resources
Podcast episodes
Presentations
Social media messages
Email newsletters

Let’s face it - most communication these days starts with writing!

This is just one of the reasons writing is important. Before you decide whether or not you want to start a blog, I would suggest it is more important to establish a writing habit. Here’s some content on this topic from Sean.

By writing regularly, you can develop your technical writing skills of course, but also your voice. The more you write, the more you have to say (this podcast is a case in point).

As a teacher, writing allows me to participate in current education discussions, for example, through social media. It allows me to access a far wider community of teaching professionals than my immediate colleagues. It can be reflective, sometimes therapeutic, and always developmental. Remember, I am just talking about writing at the moment. You don’t have to share everything you write.

Writing has created opportunities for me such as speaking at events and writing for other publications. I was able to publish my first book, The Productive Teacher, over a year ago: this was a lifelong ambition for me.

Finally, writing allows me to give something back to the teaching community that I am so proud to be a part of.

Are There Any Downsides? I honestly cannot think of any downsides to simply writing (not necessarily for publication). I guess it ‘takes time’, but time well spent really cannot be called a downside.

If you are writing for a blog (or podcast), for example, there is the challenge of coming up with content ideas. But as I explained previously, writing generates ideas. One of the best ways to come up with content ideas is to listen to the challenges members of your community face and see if you can help them with your writing.

One important thing to consider - and this should not be thought of as a downside - is that your employer is comfortable with what you intend to publish. For example, if you start a blog, it might be that you are required to make it clear on the blog that your opinions are your own and not those of your employer. This might also apply to social media. I’d like to think that most employers would encourage you to engage professionally in the wider teaching community.

Also, not everyone will agree with your view. Be ready for that. Know how much you plan to share and where you boundaries are.

Finally, there is the consideration of cost (again, a consideration, not a downside). You can start writing for free and you can publish a blog for free. You can also spend money if you want to. More on that in a moment.

How to Get Started You’ve decided you have something to say. You’ve started writing regularly and feel ready to share it with the world. How do you get started? This is a very quick and dirty guide.

Here’s a thought: it might be that you don’t start a blog straight away. Perhaps start on social media. Twitter is a great platform for teachers and trainers and, trust me, crafting the perfect tweet takes considerable skill. You can spread longer messages too by using threaded tweets. Instagram is also an interesting platform. It is image focussed, of course, but there is lots of space for you to write something meaningful underneath that image.

If you’re ready to go all-in on your teaching blog, social media will come in handy for sharing your message after you’ve written a blog post, so I would recommend starting a Twitter account connected to your blog as a minimum. After that, you need to choose a blogging platform.

There is an overwhelming range of blogging platforms to choose from and I have tried most of them. If I was starting a free blog from scratch today, I’d probably opt for Blogger or Wordpress.com in the first instance but I would also share my articles to Medium. I have heard some great things about Wix but have personally never used it.

If you have a little budget to spend on your blog I would recommend you go for Squarespace and purchase your own domain (for me, that is theteachingspace.com as opposed to theteachingspace.squarespace.com). The Squarespace platform will enable you to create a beautiful website including a blog with limited technical skills. Unless you are super-tech savvy I would not recommend Wordpress.org.

Once you have built your blog, the next step is to commit to a regular publishing schedule. ‘People don’t notice announcements, they notice consistency’ is another of Sean’s mantras that I love. Make sure your schedule is realistic and fits in with your other life commitments. I recommend batching your content creation.

Finally, you need to tell people your blog is there. Use social media (perhaps a social media scheduling tool - don’t just share your work once) and start an email list (MailChimp is recommended). Share your work.

Wrap Up And that’s it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

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Episode 89 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the use of mind maps for teachers, trainers and students.

Introduction There’s a lot of buzz about graphic organisers at the moment (also known as concept maps and knowledge organisers). And rightly so, they are an amazing way for students and teachers alike to chunk up aspects of a subject and make connections between themes and ideas. If you Google ‘graphic organisers’ you’ll find a range of templates from simple to complex. Oliver Caviglioli has some great templates and examples.

I’d like to go back to basics on this particular theme and focus on the one graphic organiser layout I know you will have used at one point before: the mind map.

What is a Mind Map? It’s a map of information. You start with a central topic or theme and then you branch out into a map that looks like a cross between a spider’s web and a train map. I have planned this podcast episode using a mind map - check out the show notes to see it.

A mind map is a visual or graphic way of ‘chunking up’ and organising information, ideas and/or knowledge for a variety of different reasons. It is like an outline, but not linear; with a mind map can make connections between ideas. Tony Buzan refers to this approach as ‘radiant thinking’.

Why Use a Mind Map? There are lots of different reasons. I tend to use them for planning (for example, this podcast episode, see the mind map below) but they can do so much more.

Mind maps are a great way for students to take notes in a lesson or plan a project or assignment. Teachers can use mind maps in the same way for professional learning and development. Mind maps can be used for event planning, goal setting and making notes on books you read.

How do I Make a Mind Map? I’ll use the example of planning this podcast episode.

I started by putting my main theme in the centre of the page: ‘mind map podcast episode’. I then created several branches out from that theme to cover the main sections of the topic, these were:

What is a mind map?
Why use a mind map?
How do I make a mind map?
What tools do I need?
Why does mind mapping work?

Writing these first level sections (known as nodes or parent nodes) worked well as questions for this episode as I am trying to solve a problem.

I then created branches from each parent node (these are known as child nodes, and those on the same level are sibling nodes) to break down the answer to each question.

You’ll see in the show notes that the node called ‘why use a mind map?’ has two child nodes and then each child node has further child nodes.

Let’s talk tools.

What Tools do I Need? There are a variety of different ways to make a mind map, the most obvious being pen and paper or a whiteboard. While I am normally a tech gal, I can certainly see the advantages of being hands on when mind mapping. That being said, if, like me, you love an app, then I can recommend Coggle and Mind Node; both have freemium pricing models. At the moment, I am using Mind Node.

Why Does Mind Mapping Work? Mind mapping helps you make connections between ideas - in a learning environment this will hopefully be the creation of connections between existing knowledge and new knowledge. Also, mind mapping allows you to break complex ideas down into smaller chunks, this makes things easier to understand.

Wrap Up And that’s it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

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Here's a word for word transcript of the episode:

Introduction

Hello. It's Martine here. Welcome to the Teaching Space podcast. This is a special episode. It doesn't have a number so hopefully that won't be too confusing when it comes to looking at your list of episodes. I wanted to record a special episode today and the date is Friday, the 3rd of April. I'll be releasing this episode today as well. I don't normally tell you the date that I'm recording because I bulk record my episodes and make no apology for that. It's a very efficient way for me to work. The plus side is it means that I'm able to get out a weekly podcast episode to you during term time. The downside of course is that when something major happens, it's often quite hard for me to give a timely comment, certainly through the medium of the podcast because I'm usually a month or six weeks ahead of myself.

Why I am Recording Today

However, we are living in very strange times and I thought it would be rude of me not to perhaps just record a little audio message in response to what is happening with regard to the COVID crisis and the experiences that a lot of teachers are going through at the moment. I don't speak for every single teacher. I can only share my own experience, but I think what I can do is hopefully reassure you that you are doing your best at the moment. I know you are and I'm going to kind of dig into that a little bit in a moment. That's the plan, at any rate. It's not scripted, today's episode. I've not put any music on it because it is very much a special episode. That's the reason I'm talking to you today and releasing something quickly. There won't be any show notes, although I might upload a transcript at a later date. That remains to be seen. I'll decide on that later.

You are Doing Your Best

As I said, the main reason for wanting to record something is to reassure you that you are doing great. You are doing your best and I know you are because I follow a lot of you on Twitter and I see what you're up to and I think one of the biggest challenges that I've experienced both personally and in talking to other teachers on social media and I was going to say face to face then. I don't mean face to face, you know what I mean. But there's a real sense amongst some people that they want to do more and they're really pushing themselves to do more. But actually I think it needs to be the other way around in a way. Certainly from a teaching and learning perspective, we need to lower some expectations and I'm going to dig into that again in a second.

Follow the Rules - Save Lives

But you need to remember, I need to remember, we all need to remember that actually the massive thing that you are doing at the moment, the massive difference you're making is staying at home and following hygiene rules and social distancing. These things, following the rules are making a huge difference. In fact they're saving lives and sometimes we just need someone else to remind us that that's doing loads and that's fantastic and we should be happy that we're doing that.

Guernsey Update

I'll just do a very quick update on Guernsey in case you're interested. Guernsey's a very small island, our population's 63,000 or something like that and we have in the region of a 110 cases of the virus at the moment. And as I said, I'm recording on the third of April. We've had two deaths, I'm sad to say. If you think about the numbers of people who live on the island and compare that sort of ratio to the UK, I guess it looks like we're doing very well. We locked down the island and closed our borders and had a strict lockdown policy very early. We've been in lockdown for a week and I'm very proud of the way my island's government has responded to this situation. And hopefully we will benefit from that and I appreciate I'm a lot better off and we are a lot better off than many other parts of the world and for that I'm really grateful. I also feel really privileged that my employer supported the fact that I have an underlying health concern, which means I'm mildly auto immune or immunocompromised. I don't know what the correct terminology is, forgive me. But because of that I was allowed to work from home quite early on in the process, in the situation. I feel very privileged to be in that situation because a lot of people aren't. But I need to remind myself and as you need to remind yourself, that you are doing your best currently in a very difficult situation. Staying home means to saving lives.

Things I Learned Last Week

I think one of the biggest things I wanted to share with you is something that I sent out to my email list last weekend. Last weekend I was at the point where I'd had a week of experiencing a different way of working and I shared with my email list eight things I learned last week and I also popped them on Twitter as a threaded tweet and I wanted to reshare those with you now via the podcast but also elaborate on them a little bit because I've reflected on them since and I have more thoughts and I'm hoping this might be of some use, so let's do it.

Thing 1

The first thing I learned last week and has been reinforced this week is that managing a video conference involving more than three people is quite a skill. I found that setting ground rules or expectations at the start of the video conference has been essential. Things like letting people know when you expect them to mute their mikes and how they should indicate that they want to speak and things like that. We've been doing online tutorials and staff meetings and things like that via Google Hangouts Meet, which has been really effective. We've also been experimenting with Microsoft Teams and both options have a chat facility. I've often been using the chat and getting people to indicate when they want to speak in the chat. The best case scenario, and I appreciate this is not always something that can happen, is if you've got one person hosting and one person monitoring the chat and those two people talk and that makes for quite an efficient to set up, in my opinion.

Also if you're using Google Hangouts Meet, you might have noticed that if your organisation is using G Suite for Education, they've given you a free upgrade and you're now able to record Google Hangouts and as the host you have some control over muting people, so I've certainly found that really, really useful. I'm running a couple of courses online and so being able to record a group tutorial when I've done a flipped learning type situation, having the recording and sharing it via Google Classroom has been excellent. I've also done this with some CPD sessions we've been running.

Thing 2

Number two, super important and I'm so guilty of getting this wrong in week one, even though it's tempting to skip breaks when you're working at home, it is important you don't. You know what? Is more important that you don't get breaks when you're working from home. Set an alarm on your phone to remind you to go for breaks. Your mental health will thank you for it. I'm pleased to report that this week I've done much better with my breaks. In fact, I've been really careful to make sure I schedule a one hour dog walk either over lunch or a bit later in the afternoon and that's when I can kind of get my fresh air and exercise and that has paid dividends.

Thing 3

Number three, removing your work email app from your phone is a very good idea, especially when the office is just a few metres away. If you are working from home, this becomes really important. I for years didn't have emails on my phone from work and I don't quite know how that app crept up on me. It just ended up on my phone. I never checked it regularly because it was hidden. It was deeply hidden in a folder and I only ever checked it every now and again when, say for example I was out and about on a work meeting or something like that. I don't advocate putting your work emails on your phone, just full stop. However, I ended up doing it, going against what I promote just because it was convenient at the time and I never deleted it anyway. I've now deleted it and it will not ever be on my phone again and I really recommend if you do have, for example the Outlook or Gmail app on your phone and you see your work emails regularly, it is a good idea to distance, particularly when working from home.

I should clarify that all of these things that I learned are relating to in the main working from home and I do appreciate that you might be listening to this thinking, well I don't have the privilege of working from home. I am on the frontline and for that I am so grateful that you are doing that. And I'm sorry that you don't have the privilege of working from home and I fully recognise that that is a privilege I have.

Thing 4

Number four, teaching online is not a replacement for teaching in person. It's really important that you lower your expectations of what is achievable and I know that's not easy, particularly if you're being pressured by leadership to just carry on as normal. It isn't possible. It's not a direct replacement for in person teaching. If you are able to please lower your expectations, manage the expectations of your learners and if applicable, their parents. If you are in a leadership role and you're listening to this, please support your teachers, support your trainers to lower expectations.

Thing 5

Number five, preparing online teaching sessions takes a lot longer than preparing in person teaching sessions. This very much relates to number four. I personally have taken the approach of doing any online teaching that I'm expected to do as a flipped approach and I'm again, in a position of privilege that I'm technically skilled and it's easy for me to record a video of what I might have delivered as input in my sessions. If you're thinking, you know what? I'd really like to do that, but I don't know how. There are far less sophisticated tools that can help you. I use something called ScreenFlow. It's quite an expensive tool which I managed to get a special deal on and I use it to record my tutorial videos on YouTube, but you don't have to use this. If you want to try a flipped learning approach where you rather than deliver live, you prerecord your delivery and then have a live Google Hangout to discuss the input that you'd given by video than something like Loom is ideal.

You don't have to give a perfect delivery. It doesn't have to be edited because you don't edit your performance in class, now do you? Just do the very best you can with the tools that you've got. It does take longer to prepare online teaching and learning and that is why expectations need to be lowered.

Thing 6

Number six, it's okay to limit your consumption of news and social media right now. In fact, it's probably very healthy. If you're in WhatsApp groups that you find a bit triggering because of what they're talking about then leave the WhatsApp group. If you're finding Facebook or Twitter is just too much, take the app off your phone. That's okay. Just know when you're being triggered by too much information, whether it is related to the coronavirus or not. Be aware and do something about it. I read a really good article which I will try and link to at a later date when I do some show notes and it was all about how there's a load of sort of productivity stuff going around at the moment in terms of Twitter and blog articles and podcasts and things like that about how everyone's got all this free time and they're being so super productive. It is okay to ignore all of that.

We are in a crisis situation. Who's productive in a crisis for Heaven's sake? Ignore it all. You don't have to be that productive person right now. If all you can manage is getting up and doing some emails and maybe putting one session together, that is going to have to be enough. You don't have to exercise every day and in two weeks become a top athlete and get everything for the rest of the academic year done in a week. Be realistic and be kind to yourself.

Thing 7

This one might make you smile because you know I'm a tech girl. I love all the tech. Number seven, now is not the time to try to learn all of the tech tools. Pick one that does what you need. Watch a tutorial and use it. Don't look at this time as an opportunity to do all the professional development. It isn't the time. You're not focused in the way that you need to be. You have a problem, speak to a colleague, get a recommendation, find a solution, learn it, implement it. Tell your students you're trying something new. Hopefully they will be supportive and just do the very best you can.

Thing 8

Finally, number eight, fresh air and gentle exercise can alleviate most minor irritations and frustrations. You know what? Something really good has come out of the past, how long has it been now? Do you know what? I don't even know what day it is to be fair, but something good has come out of this situation for me personally and that is that I am getting out outside every single day and I'm exercising by walking my dog. I'm enjoying the fresh air. I'm relishing being outside and clearing my head, and in just a week or so I've noticed an improvement to my fitness. I just feel so much better and that's a major win for me and I'm claiming that. I'm taking it. I'm not saying, just to go back to my previous point about not having to be uber productive right now, I'm not saying you should do that. That's not something that is a priority for you, but for me it's been a benefit to my mental health without a doubt.

Wrap Up

And that's it. Like I said, it's a special episode. There's no music. I'm probably not going to edit hardly at all, so you'll have strange background noises and ums and ahs and all sorts of strange things. I just wanted to get on the podcast in real time and tell you, you are doing okay. You are doing the best you can in a very difficult situation. I've got your back. Look me up on Twitter if you want to have a chat in real time, you'll find me on there, Martine Guernsey. If you're avoiding social media, then you can email me hello@theteachingspace.com.

Don't forget there's the Teaching Space community if you want to chat in a different format so you can find the community if you just go to community.theteachingspace.com. It's really easy to join. There's a nice, nice group of people in there. We'd love to have you. After this episode airs, there will be a break for two weeks because I don't record over school holidays and we're off for a couple of weeks. If things continue like this though, you never know. You might get another special episode from me. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Goodbye.

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Episode 88 of The Teaching Space Podcast explains my method for reading and taking notes on a journal article.

Introduction At the time of recording, I am about half way through my first year of a Master’s in Education (listen to episode 80 if you would like to hear more about this). Something I really struggled with at the start, but is now starting to get a little easier, is reading and making notes on journal articles. In this episode, I will share my approach. This might well be something I make a video about in the future if anyone would be interested.

This episode is a follow up to episode 83 where I share some of my favourite note taking apps.

Definitely check out the show notes for this episode.

Tools I Use * iPad Pro * Apple Pencil * GoodNotes app for iPad and desktop * OneNote (on desktop usually, but sometimes the iPad app)

Document Storage All PDF documents are added to my GoodNotes app for reading on my iPad. We also have a digital textbook for the course; I download extracts from that as PDFs and add to GoodNotes and are organised in folders.

Skim and Scan Once documents are on my iPad I will usually skim and scan them to check they are worth reading in depth. BBC Skillswise has worksheets explaining skimming and scanning. When I know I want to read something in detail, I grab my Apple Pencil.

Highlighting and Making Notes on the Document Typically, I will be asked to read a document with a few questions in mind. If I am not, I will make up my own questions or areas of focus based on my skim and scan.

In GoodNotes, I can copy and paste or type my questions or areas of focus in a text box on the first page of the document (see image below). I have GoodNotes set so when I do this, the text is on a pale pink background; it looks a bit like a sticky note. Having the text on a specific coloured background makes it eye-catching.

Insert ‘pink box image’ here

I then colour code the questions with different highlighter pen colours by putting a coloured blob next to each (see above). I love pastel coloured highlighters; one thing that is great about GoodNotes is you can set the highlighter colours yourself (see the doodle below for my favourite colours).

See show notes on theteachingspace.com.

Here’s a quick video explaining how to customise highlighter pen colours in GoodNotes.

See show notes on theteachingspace.com.

I then highlight key sections of text and sometimes make notes in the margin if needed (see below):

See show notes on theteachingspace.com.

Making Notes If more detailed notes are required I will move to my desktop and split my screen between the GoodNotes desktop app and OneNote. You will see from the screenshot below that my reflective learning journal on OneNote is the home of notes like this.

See show notes on theteachingspace.com.

Wrap Up And that’s it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

Apple (Apple) Genuine Apple Pencil 2?Apple Pencil (2?ND Generation) mu8??F2j/A

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Episode 87 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores yoga as a tool for wellbeing for teachers and trainers.

Introduction Honestly, I have been unsure about recording this episode because there has, in the past, been negative chat in the community about educational organisations introducing a yoga initiative as a bit of a coverup for other issues. For example ‘workloads are too high; let’s put on a yoga class’… type thing. That’s not what this episode is about. And for the avoidance of doubt, I don’t think yoga should be classed as a form of compulsory professional development or used as a sticking plaster ☺️

My perspective is simply this: yoga, for some, is a great tool for building not only physical strength, but mental strength. It’s had a really positive effect on me so I thought I’d share it with you.

What is Yoga There are lots of different definitions of yoga, but I’ve opted for this practical one from the NHS website:

‘Yoga is an ancient form of exercise that focuses on strength, flexibility and breathing to boost physical and mental wellbeing. The main components of yoga are postures (a series of movements designed to increase strength and flexibility) and breathing. The practice originated in India about 5,000 years ago and has been adapted in other countries in a variety of ways.’

Yoga for many is a spiritual practice rather than a form of exercise. I don’t class myself as particularly spiritual so I focus on the physical element. That being said, there are very few times in my week when I actually have a moment when my mind is empty - yoga does that for me. If that’s being spiritual, I’ll take it!

Why Yoga? This podcast aims to help teachers and trainers work towards achieving a work/life balance. Teachers and trainers are some of the busiest people I know and as such, we need activities focussed on our bodies and minds more than many. As I just mentioned, yoga helps me empty my head - for that reason alone, it is perfect for teachers. I’m not saying it will do the same for you, but it’s something to try.

Incidentally, if yoga is not for you then it is still worth exploring meditation.

What I Look for in a Yoga Class I’m fussy and that’s ok when you search for the right yoga class - it’s about you and your needs.

Something that is really important to me, for example, is that the class is inclusive - particularly in relation to bigger bodies. It’s hard to put a finger on what that looks like but it might mean people with larger bodies attend. It might mean blocks and straps are available to borrow and their use is encouraged. I don’t like chanting; I don’t like a class that feels too serious. I like to be able to arrive early and hide in a corner. And, along the same lines, I like to be able to book online (introvert!)

I attend a couple of classes a week but my favourite is on a Sunday morning as it really sets me up for the week to come; timing is important.

Home Practice If you’re totally new to yoga and feel intimidated by the idea of attending a class, then you could consider practising at home. While I do a little home practice, generally I need the motivation of a class to attend, but everyone is different.

For home practice I highly recommend Yoga With Adriene. She has lots of free videos on YouTube as well as a subscription-based app. There are also channels sharing yoga practice aimed at people with limited mobility and bigger bodies.

Yoga Kit To practice yoga, you need a mat. That’s it. I like a few other props too, including a bolster, blocks, a strap and an eye pillow, but you don’t need them to get started. An eye pillow is lovely for relaxation and a bolster is great under my legs when I am lying down to support my back. Here are my favourites:

Yoga mat (home)
Yoga mat (class)
Yoga mat bag
Blocks
Strap
Bolster
Eye pillow

Wrap Up And that’s it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

Dusky Leaf Cubist Yoga Bag - Canvas Yoga Mat Bag for Large Yoga Mats

Luxury Cork Yoga Mat - Non Slip, Soft, Sweat Resistant. Thicker, Longer, and Wider for More Comfort and Support. Tough Enough for Hot Yoga. Optional Built-in Pose Alignment Lines (80" x 26" x 6.5mm)

Sethruki Yogamatters Rectangular Bolster

Sustain Really Non-Slip - Even with Sweat | Cork Yoga mat Natural Rubber with Carrying Strap | Ideal as an Exercise mat, Yoga Mat, Sports mat, Fitness mat, Exercise mat & Yoga mat | from

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Episode 86 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores 5 more ways teachers can mark faster and smarter.

Introduction This episode is a follow up to podcast episode 6 in which we looked at:

Feedback abbreviations
Feedback database
Rubrics
Peer and self-assessment
Video feedback
Work Less Than Your Students The idea of marking so you work less than your students is inspired by a blog post I read on Teacher Toolkit. It’s not a tool as such, it is more of a mindset, and will, of course, be dictated by your students’ specific needs. However, ask yourself honestly, do you do too much when you mark?

Any example could be as simple as correcting spellings. Rather than correct them, perhaps highlight the word in a specific colour and ensure the student knows that colour means ‘spelling error, please correct’. You might have a colour code. It might be you highlight a paragraph, rather than the word, so the student works harder.

On a similar theme (bear in mind I teach adults), when I receive a typed assignment that has clearly not been spellchecked, I return it to the learner unmarked, asking that spellcheck be applied. My role is not to proofread their work (certainly not at the level I teach). I would likely take a different approach if my student has dyslexia, but still, the onus is on them to do more work than me.

Google Classroom Comment Bank In episode 6 I talked about creating a feedback comment database containing sample feedback text which you could copy and paste then personalise (an important step). This works well for frequently used formative comments.

Since recording that episode, Google Classroom introduced a comment bank. I found a great video showing you how to efficiently use this tool (unfortunately the audio is not great but the content is spot on).

The concept of using the comment bank appeals to me, however, I had found that the Google comment bank required a few too many clicks to be efficient… until I worked out you could access comments immediately using a hashtag. Game changer. I intend to start building a comment bank now.

Turnitin Quick Marks I mentioned Turnitin in the last episode, and since that time I have been exploring the built-in feedback studio.

Turnitin Quick Marks combine feedback codes with a comment bank. When you add a quick mark (e.g. SPAG) a comment is also included, for example ‘there is a spelling, punctuation or grammar error in this sentence, please review and correct’.

Here are some resources from the Turnitin support section:

Instructor Quick Start Guide to Feedback Studio

Student Quick Start Guide to Feedback Studio

Quick Marks Article

Assignment Walk-Throughs In episode 6, I suggested using the Chrome extension Loom to demonstrate the digital marking process for a student. Perhaps a more time-efficient way to reduce marking is to flip this idea. Create short assignment walk-throughs on Loom to guide your student through the assignment. You could highlight command words in the brief for example, or indicate how word count might be split. By providing a screencast, students could go back to the video to check details if they forget.
Live Marking Finally, can you do some live marking in class? I know it might sound controversial. If your students work on paper and need formative feedback, surely it is more useful to provide some feedback sitting next to them while they are still working? This video about live marking summarises the process well.

Wrap Up And that’s it. If you have any questions about this episode or comments you’d like to share please join The Teaching Space Community: community.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.

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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.

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Episode 84 of The Teaching Space Podcast is about TickTick and why it's a helpful tool for teachers and trainers.

Introduction In the last episode, I shared my love of note-taking apps... today's episode is about to-do list apps! Actually, it’s about one app in particular: TickTick. I’ve tested a lot of apps to manage my tasks including:

Asana (I have a podcast about this)
Workflowy
Trello
Notion
ClickUp (for about 10 minutes)
Todoist
Wunderlist (now Microsoft To Do)

I am currently using TickTick, following Francesco's recommendation in episode 56 of the podcast. Almost 30 episodes later, I’m still using TickTick, so that’s probably a good sign!

What is Tick Tick? Tick Tick is fundamentally a task manager. It encourages you to 'get to-dos out of your mind, and get them done in less time’.

I think it’s more of a project management tool (although not as sophisticated as Asana or ClickUp) as you can group lists under headings/folders. For example, in the screenshot below, you will see I have a group called ‘Master’s’ and underneath that, I have two separate lists, one for ‘study’ and one for ‘professional reading’. Each list can contain different tasks with different deadlines. Each task can have a small list of to-do items which can be checked off.

SCREENSHOT 1

What are TickTick’s Main Features? TickTick has lists comprised of tasks. Lists can be grouped into folders as shown above (folder > lists > tasks).

Tasks (one-off and recurring) can be scheduled including reminders and locations. One of my favourite features of Tick Tick (also available in Todoist) is smart date parsing. This means that if you include a date and time in your task (e.g. ‘take dog to groomers tomorrow at 10am’) TickTick will automatically schedule and parse the information into a reminder. Another useful feature of TickTick is that you can add tasks through voice input. You can also send emails directly to TickTick to turn them into tasks. Remember your inbox is not your to-do list (see the inbox zero episode).

Another of my favourite features of TickTick is the different ways you can view your tasks. While most apps (like Todoist) will have a ‘today, next 7 days, inbox’ view of tasks, TickTick also features a calendar view (below). You can sync this calendar with your Google Calendar too. Incidentally, Todoist and TickTick are very similar apps, but it was the calendar feature, plus the ability to group lists, that made me switch from Todoist to TickTick.

Today, Next 7 Days, Inbox View SCREENSHOT 2

Calendar View SCREENSHOT 3

While I don’t tend to use them much, TickTick also includes smart lists, tags and priority setting. The app also has a built-in Pomodoro timer and a white noise maker.

Finally, you can gamify your task competition in the app if that's your bag and access detailed statistics. The gamification bit is not of interest to me, but it could be to your students.

Can I Use TickTick? TickTick is available for Mac, Android phone and tablet, iPhone and iPad, Windows, web and Apple Watch. It is also available as a Chrome and Firefox extension. So yes, you can use TickTick. So can your students.

How Much is TickTick? TickTick is free but to enjoy the most advanced features you need to upgrade. This will cost $27.99 a year and is well worth it in my opinion.

How is TickTick Useful for Teachers and Trainers? Of course, any task or project management app is likely to make you a more productive teacher (listen to me talking about this on the Tools They Use podcast). However, these features in particular make TickTick a great choice for busy teachers and trainers:

Calendar view (handy if you are in the Google eco-system at work and home but not necessary)
Grouping lists - you can manage work tasks and home tasks with the same tool but keep them separate
Web access - handy if your organisation does not allow you to download apps to your work computer
Quick task entry with smart date parsing

Wrap Up That’s it for today - I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you give TickTick a try, or if you already use it, please 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 episo

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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.

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.

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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 > Pair > 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.

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.

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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.

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.

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Episode 80 of The Teaching Space Podcast is about being a Master's student while working full-time in further education.

Introduction I believe there’s no better way to improve your teaching than to be a student as often as possible. It’s probably a good thing I hold this view as (a) part of my day job is leading professional development at my local FE college, and (b) I started studying for a Master’s in Education with the Open University in October 2019. In today’s episode, I want to tell you all about my first few months of Master’s study. If you are considering furthering your education in a similar way, then this episode might be a good starting point. If you are not, I still hope the episode is a timely reminder of what it’s like to be a student.

My Education Background Because I work in FE there is no requirement for me to be a graduate. I have, of course, achieved my level 5 Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (known as DTLLS), followed by QTLS status (Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills status) and most recently, ATS (Advanced Teacher Status). But, due to personal circumstances at the time, I never took the traditional ‘degree route’ into teaching. While I regretted not going to university and doing a degree from time-to-time, it never seemed to negatively impact my pre-teaching career progression. To be honest, it never really affected my career in education either.

However, as I mentioned earlier, my job current role is professional development lead, I am also expected to promote scholarly activity, as well as managing our teacher education provision. I felt a little unsure where to start in terms of promoting scholarly activity, so I began investigating degree courses with the Open University. After a few chats with my (very supportive) principal, who is currently working towards a PhD, I decided to find out whether the OU might accept me on a Master’s course. It turns out, they would.

Master’s Choice I started a Master’s in Education in October 2019. There were various pathways available with the OU but I opted for leadership and management. This is not an obvious choice for me as I recognise that the higher in the organisation you go (e.g. faculty director, vice principal, principal) the less teaching you do, and I love teaching. That being said, I am in a leadership role and it was the only pathway to include the subject of professional development, so I decided to go for it. I am also interested in the role of ‘teacher as leader’.

In terms of universities, the OU was recommended by my government department (the body to whom I would apply for funding) so it seemed sensible to go with them. I was lucky enough to receive some funding support for the £9000 + fees (paid a year at a time so approximately £3000 a year).

Being an OU Student It has only been a few months but so far, I am very impressed with the OU’s internet portal and, in particular, their online library. The course is very structured. You know exactly what you need to achieve every week. My tutor is accessible and the interaction with my classmates via our online forums is great. The workload is high. I’d guess around 15 hours a week, but I am managing through a combination of a few early mornings a week and some time at the weekend. I think I am spending the most time reading and trying to decipher challenging academic journal articles.

I’ve taken one study day already (my employer is very supportive of my professional development) and passed one assignment. The feedback from my tutor was detailed and supportive. I’ll have another assignment due over the next couple of months.

In the interests of full transparency, downsides of studying with the OU are that it is a lot of work. The reading is TOUGH. As a non-graduate I am also struck with imposter syndrome regularly (although this is all on me, not the OU!) I think all of this will get easier though.

My Top Study Tips My top three tips for teachers and trainers studying while working would be:

Find a study buddy - I am lucky enough to have a colleague studying the same Master’s degree (although a different pathway). We meet regularly to keep each other accountable. We also…
Set goals. My study buddy and I do this via WhatsApp and again, it is a good way to stay accountable.
Plan your study but leave room for experimentation and flexibility. I thought I would be someone who did all of her study before work, leaving weekends free, but actually, I tried it and it did not work for me. I only really have an hour and 15 minutes in the morning to study (I don’t want to get up any earlier) so this did not allow me enough time. At the moment, a few mornings a week and a chunk of time at the weekend is suiting me better.

Wrap Up What about you? Are you studying at the moment? If so, what and how? I’d love to hear from you. Please listen to the end to hear about a new way to chat about podcast episodes.

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.

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Episode 79 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores ways teachers and trainers can manage worry.

Introduction Today it’s personal! When I started this podcast back in 2017 I didn’t have plans to talk about myself a great deal. I knew I wanted to help teachers and trainers try to achieve their version of work/life balance, but of course, there was a personal reason for that. Without talking about myself explicitly, it was still about me. I was in a position to share some useful strategies I had learned due to my own experience.

Today I’d like to share a bit more of my story and also show you how I am still learning new strategies and don’t plan to stop.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder One of the main reasons I have worked so hard on creating a work/life balance for myself and also being as productive as possible is because I have anxiety.

Specifically, I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder (“GAD”) which is described by the NHS as “a long-term condition that causes you to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event”. While lots of different things trigger my anxiety, one of the worst is not being in control. You can imagine the effect an excessive workload and complete absence of work/life balance had on my anxiety.

Medical Management While my anxiety has been managed medically for years, I decided, in close consultation with my doctor, that I wanted to come off anti-depressants about six months ago. Obviously, I was anxious about it (go figure!) as I’d had several “failed attempts” in the past. I gave it a try and it did not go well, but rather than take the path of least resistance I went back to my doctor and asked for additional help. She arranged for me to receive cognitive behavioural therapy (“CBT”).

Before I go on, just in case this needs clarifying:

I am not for or against anti-depressants; they were a medical intervention that worked for me at a difficult time. My choice to come off them was entirely mine - I am not suggesting anyone should go on them or come off them.
Also, I am not a medical professional, what I share in this episode is just about me and my experience.
Please see your doctor if you are anxious or require medication, or want to come off your medication.

CBT According to the NHS website, CBT is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave.

CBT is not for everyone. It has not cured me; I am still pretty anxious. However, it has helped me learn some strategies for managing my anxiety. It has put me more in control of how I react to situations.

I’d like to share some of the strategies that are working for me (these are very much from a non-professional’s perspective; the language is mine).

Classifying Your Worries This strategy relies on you being able to spot a worry when it is happening. A good way to learn how to do this is by logging worries. I found a great app called Worry Watch to do this.

When you notice a worry, ask yourself: is it practical or hypothetical? (“Practical” meaning a worry that is affecting you right now and has a practical solution; “hypothetical” meaning a type of worry about something in the future that there might not be a solution for).
If your worry is practical, then apply problem-solving strategies.
- What is the worry?
- What is the problem?
- What are all the solutions? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- What is the best solution?
- Make a plan.
- Put the plan into action.
- Review.
If the worry is hypothetical, then let it go (or defer the worry to a later time).

Prioritising Self-Care and Positive Thoughts Without a doubt, my incidents of anxiety are reduced when I make time for self-care and positive thoughts. I have scientifically proven it to myself!

My self-care activities are going to the gym (who even am I?) and knitting. I also enjoy cooking (when not under pressure) and walking my dog. When I skip these activities I feel bad.

On the positive thoughts side of things, at the risk of sounding a bit “woo”, I recommend an app called 3 Good Things. It’s a super-simple, free happiness journal which prompts you to note three good things that happened that day. It forces you to spend just a few moments thinking positive.

54321 Finally, when I am in the midst of full-on anxiety feelings I use the 54321 method. Here’s how to do it:

Name five things you can see in the room with you.
Name four things you can feel.
Name three things you can hear right now.
Name two things you can smell right now.
Name one good thing about yourself.

I stop, breath and go through the steps above. Usually, I get them all mixed up but I am not sure it matters. The process is about distracting yourself from your worry. Weirdly, it works (don’t ask me how!)

Wrap Up That’s it from me today. If this episode helps one person then it’s worth the mild discomfort of getting personal.

Please feel free to reach out if this episode has resonated with you - it’s always lovely to hear from listeners. And, as I mentioned earlier, if you are struggling with anxiety, the best person to talk to is your doctor.

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.

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Introduction Hello and welcome to the Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me.

Martine: Today, I have a guest on the show and we're going to be talking productivity. Rather than have a big intro, I'm going to hand straight over to my guest, Justin Hockey. Justin, welcome to the show.

Justin: Thank you, Martine. It's great to be here.

Martine: I'm so pleased to have you on. Could you tell me, I'm going to get you to introduce yourself if that's okay, who are you and what in the world do you do? And where in the world do you do it?

Justin: That's a great question. With modern technology, anywhere in the world is just about possible. So my name is Justin and I'm a music teacher. I've been working in various countries around the world teaching music. India, Australia, and now South Korea, so that's where I am right now in South Korea. I teach at an international school. I'm also married and with a child. So that adds into the productivity mix, as I'm sure many of your listeners will also experience or know of.

Martine: Let's talk about productivity, because you and I both have a common interest in being the most productive people we can be. You said you're a music teacher. What is it about the role of a teacher that makes productivity such a challenge?

Justin: Gosh. I mean, I've had some notes about this. I wrote down three things to prompt me: people, processes, and products. People, I mean, as a teacher in any setting you're dealing with people, obviously your colleagues and supervisors, or bosses, or heads, depending on whether it's a further education setting or a school. For me, I'm at a school, and currently a junior school, or what some parts of the world call an elementary school or a primary school. So, I have over 300 students I see each week. And so, dealing with that many moving parts, people as it were, is a challenge. And then there's all the processes that go with that in terms of routines that are meant to happen but of course, in most schools no one week is the same as the next exactly. And particularly this time of the year when we're recording it, it's coming up to Christmas.

And then I said the word product, which is not necessarily perhaps the best word. But I guess the outputs. What are we trying to achieve? We're not manufacturing devices or selling products in a store. We're shaping people's lives, and whether that's shaping adults' lives, young adults' lives or children's lives, that's something which in some senses is a never-ending job. So, it's very easy to, as a teacher in any setting, to feel like the work is never done. Because in a sense, it never is. There's always more to be done, and people can quite quickly burn out or become overwhelmed. And I know for myself and many of the listeners, we've been there and experienced those challenges. And so I'm excited about sharing some of my insights and journey so far. But obviously, like teaching itself, it's almost like a never-ending process of learning to be more productive. Like climbing a mountain, the higher you get, the more you realise is ahead of you and how far you've come.

Martine: You alluded to the fact that you have some strategies that you use. I'd like to kind of attack this from two angles. Initially, if we talk about the sort of general approaches and resources and things like that, and then go specifically into productivity apps and tools. So, if we start general and then sort of drill down into the detail, that would be great. So tell us what you do.

Justin: Great. What I thought I would do is approach this through three people that I've come across. These are not people I've met in person, but they're all ... Well, certainly one of them is a teacher herself, and the other two are people that I've seen referenced in productivity generally. So, the first one I'll start with is Angela Watson, and for a long time she was an instructional coach and teacher in the United States, and now she runs her website. She's got a number of brands, or a number of websites I should say. But I guess the key one is the 40 Hour Work Week Club for teachers where she essentially says, "As a teacher, it is possible to cut down your work week to 40 hours." And I signed up to her email list and blog and podcast at least five years ago, and she still offers this course as well as a number of other services online, which tens of thousands of teachers have signed up for and gained a lot out of. But four of the key things I gained from her are batching, lists, using the calendar and mindset. I mean, there's obviously other things that go with that, but I'll just touch briefly on each of those.

Batching was such a ground-breaking concept to me. The idea that as a teacher, or any worker really, you've got a bunch of tasks that need to be done, and some of those tasks are actually similar to each other. So, for example, you might have a whole bunch of planning that needs to be done, or you might have a whole bunch of physically moving things around your workspace that needs to be done. And rather than trying to do a little bit here and a little bit there, if you can arrange your schedule or arrange your time such that you are batching these tasks, grouping these tasks together, you tend to get them done better during that time because you're not scattering your attention across days or weeks or even months. And you're also, by the fact of thinking through what types of tasks you need to get done, that tends to force you to think more carefully about what you're doing, and when you're doing it, and even perhaps why you're doing it.

Martine: I think that batching was a big game changer for me in terms of how I deal with marking. I think marking is one of those really, really good examples of where batching can just make you far more efficient, because I really have to get into a zone when I'm marking assignments and things like that. And it takes me a long time to get into the flow. So, if I end up doing a bit of assignment marking here and there, I never actually get into the flow of it at all. So, one of the things I always batch is assignment marking.

Justin: That's exactly it. Marking, writing reports is a big one which I'm in the middle of. Anything dare I say tedious. But also, whether it's involving other people or things yourself, batching is certainly a great way to start approaching things. And if there's nothing else that listeners go away with, that would be something, one I would say if you haven't tried it, start looking at how you can group your tasks or processes together so that you're not scattering your attention and time across things like that. Another big thing that Angela Watson talks about is making lists. And this really comes into the question of apps. It's like, well, there are great apps out there. But at the end of the day, you need to have some sort of centralised list of tasks and projects and goals that you have, whether it is on an app, whether it is in an analogue form such as a diary or a notebook, or even a combination system, a hybrid. But somewhere to create lists. And then thirdly, calendar. Some system, again, of having a calendar, whether it's Google Calendar, a notebook, or again, a combination.

And the fourth aspect that Angela Watson has brought up time and time again and has in fact written a whole book about recently is mindset. Because productivity, at the end of the day, shouldn't be just about getting more things done faster. Anyone who's been in the game long enough will realise you don't just want to be working faster, because you end up like a hamster on a wheel. But thinking about, hang on, what's this all for? What kind of mindset am I going into this with? A sense of dare I say sort of abundance or scarcity? Scarcity in the sense of, "Oh, there's not enough time to do everything, I'll never get everything done, and I'll just frantically try and put out all the fires." Or, of a sense of abundance, of saying, "I as a teacher am able to make choices about what's most important for my teaching, for my professional life and even my personal life. Because of course, you can't really divorce or separate your personal life from your teaching life. Those two are inextricably linked. So that's Angela Watson and some of her things there. Before I go into the other two, I thought maybe perhaps you have any questions or comments on that, Martine?

Martine: Yeah. I wanted to say that I'm a big fan of Angela Watson's work. I don't know if you know this, Justin, but I actually did the 40 Hour Teacher Work Week a couple of years ago, and it was a real-

Justin: No, that's news.

Martine: ... yeah, it was a real source of inspiration to me, and I really enjoy Angela's podcast too. And I will make sure I link to all of that information on the show notes, because I think it can bring lots of value to any listeners to the podcast. So yeah, totally agree with you, I'm a big fan. I also liked the point that you made when you were talking about to-do lists and calendars and things like that, getting focused on the process and not kind of getting into the apps first or the tools first, just having a calendar in any format. Just go analogue first to get used to what the tool is for. And then start thinking, "Actually, could I use this app? Could I use this tool?" Just start with the I want to say kind of productivity concept, and then look at the tools afterwards. Because you've got to get used to using a list and using a calendar. And those things are sort of at the foundation in my opinion of being more productive. So, I think that's really, really good advice.

Justin: It is great. And just as teachers, I mean, I'm sitting here thinking, yes, I want my students, I teach music, I want them to be able to use composition software or digital keyboards. But at the end of the day, if we don't have what in music, we call musicianship skills, in other words, being able to think musically without tools, devices, or even instruments believe it or not, then we sort of miss something somewhere. And I think productivity is quite similar to what you said about understanding the concept of the calendar in terms of physically having a calendar, or physically having a to do list puts into perspective what tool or what app you're going to use. Yeah. That's a great thought cycle there.

Martine: I like an app as much as the next person. And I kind of get a bit of shiny object syndrome if a new app comes out. I'm like, "I really want to try that. Apparently, this new thing's really good." But it's important to stop, work out what you actually, what the foundation you need to look at is first, and then get into the apps. So great point.

Justin: Excellent point, Martine. And you used a keyword there, stop. Which, you and I haven't talked about this next person yet, but Michael Hyatt is the next person I'm going to talk about.

Martine: Love Michael Hyatt. Great minds.

Justin: Yes, indeed. Michael Hyatt has written a number of books. And for those listeners that don't know who he is, amongst other things, he's been a former CEO of one of the major book publishers in the United States, and for the last almost 10 years now he's been running his own company. Which, amongst other things, focuses on productivity and helping people to succeed in life and be more productive, but being productive in the right areas. And I took one of his courses about two years ago. I signed up for the Free to Focus course, which is now also being turned into a book. And just think of the title, Free to Focus. He talked about productivity, that I mentioned earlier in fact, productivity not being a hamster wheel that we want to get on necessarily, but rather a question of other priorities.

I mean, Michael Hyatt was the one who really clued me into this idea of freedom. We want the freedom to be productive and the freedom to focus, but not for the pursuit of just endless work. But rather freedom to achieve what we want to achieve, and then freedom to then go on and live our lives in a satisfying and successful way. So that's one big thing for Michael Hyatt, Free to Focus. He's also done a number of other books, and in some cases courses. Your Best Year Ever is about goal setting. Which, as he says, Free to Focus is about the day to day and week to week productivity, nuts and bolts. They think, "Oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed by to-do lists, and students, and emails and all of those things." That's like being stuck with the trees.

But then if you want to look at the forest for a moment, his Best Year Ever course and book, and of course there's many other people who do this, looking at the goals you have for the months of the year and even for the year. Setting yearly goals is such a valuable thing to be able to do. And then he says even ... We talked about the trees, and then there's the forest, but perhaps you can look at the whole national park if you like, if want to use that picture. He's written a book called Living Forward, which is about writing a life plan. Which, until I'd come across the concept, I mean, who thinks of writing a plan for their life? Most of us are busy writing plans for our lessons or our semester curriculum, whatever it is. But he does talk about a life plan.

And if you can, or when you can, make the time to really stop and do that. And it's a process. You don't just do it once and think, "Yeah, tick that box. I don't have to ever think about that again." But thinking of how I came onto this and how you prompted me on this is stop. So, within the Free to Focus productivity system, he's got three steps really. And Step One is Stop. Step Two is Cut. And Step Three is Activate. So, stop is really a process of actually hitting pause on everything and saying, "What am I actually doing this for?" Which, can bring in the question of, "What are your life goals? What are your yearly goals? Or what are your quarterly goals?" So, taking that time to stop. And then secondly, the idea of cutting. Because once you've paused even just for five minutes to say, "Well, hang on. What do I need to get done today, let alone this week, this month, or this life?"

Being able to perhaps eliminate in fact within the cut step, I think from memory here, the first thing he says is eliminate. “There are some things on our to do lists, that don't actually need to be there. And if we can't eliminate them, perhaps we can delegate them to other people. Or if we can't delegate them to other people, we can automate them.” In other words, we can set up a system, a process, or in some cases and Apple tool to actually do that for us. And certainly, with social media posting or depending on the kind of teaching you do, there might be things that you can delegate to other people or to apps or processes. And then the third stage he talks about is activating. Which, is the actual process of going out and executing your to do list. So that's Michael Hyatt. And then there's one more person I'll talk about. But I'm sure you've got some thoughts on Michael Hyatt too, Martine.

Martine: Yeah. I do like Michael Hyatt. I think he's got a lot of good stuff to say about productivity. I found it interesting when you were talking about the life plan. And part of me was thinking, "I haven't even got a lesson plan for tomorrow, let alone a life plan." I'm kidding, I do have a lesson plan for tomorrow.

Justin: Where are your priorities?

Martine: Absolutely. But I think personally that's kind of a next step for me, so I might check out his book. Again, I'll make sure this link's in the show notes to all of those books. I'm very good at having a yearly plan, breaking that down into quarterly goals and things like that. But going further than a year is kind of scary sometimes isn't it. So, your point about it being a work in progress is something that you don't just set and that's that. It's a really good one. So yeah, thanks for the book recommendation, I'll be looking into that.

Justin: Most welcome. So next, we've talked about Angela Watson, who herself is a teacher, and Michael Hyatt who comes from the corporate and business world. And the third person I want to talk about is Cal Newport. Funnily enough, I guess you could label him as a teacher. Cal Newport, for those who don't know him, is a professor of computer science at one of the big universities in the United States. And amongst other books, he's written perhaps the most relevant book here to our discussion is Deep Work. The concept of deep work, which links to batching. Having the time and space, and most importantly attention and focus to execute or to really work deeply on things. Now, this may be in terms of research, or it might be in terms of preparation, even marking and report writing. Those are all deep work type tasks that, if we can eliminate distractions, minimise disruptions, having the time and space to do deep work, which could be something as short as the famed Pomodoro Technique of 25 minutes of blocked out time, everything from 25 minutes through to half a day to even a day. (Check out Episode 12 on the Pomodoro Technique)

I mean, in the book Deep Work, Cal Newport talks about people who take whole weeks or months to do things. But of course, they are not your bread and butter teachers typically. Some of them are ... Adam Grant is one famous example he gives. And Adam Grant is an author, and I think he's certainly in one of the big US colleges. He's a professor, and he still teaches students. But he's arranged his schedule such that he does have chunks of time, several days of the week where he can just focus on his research for example. I could rave on and on about Cal Newport. I'll just mention one other book he's written called Digital Minimalism. And it's a book that came out back in February of this year, 2019. And he really pushes deep into this idea of if we're trying to execute on deep work, if we're trying to eliminate distractions and interruptions, what does that look like in a digital world?

And Cal Newport himself famously has never had social media accounts, no Twitter and no Facebook. And yet, he's been extraordinarily productive with putting out research papers and acquiring a significant teaching post at a university. So Deep Work and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, well worth investing in for anyone who's trying to get their heads around the overwhelm as it were of being a teacher, or indeed anyone else in the 21st century.

Martine: I read Deep Work quite a few years ago, and I think I'm due for a reread actually. But you just reminded me of possibly one of the biggest shocks to the system for me when I went into teaching just over 10 years ago. I came from a corporate background, and I think the biggest shock was not having any stretches of time to try to get into that state of deep work. I was always just snatching a quarter of an hour here and there between sessions. Having a one-hour lunch break suddenly became quite an attractive stretch of time where I could be doing some deep work. So, I think going from corporate to teaching, that was the biggest change. The fact that we, as teachers, often don't have a whole day or a half a day where we can just get our heads into something. So, I think I'm due a reread on Deep Work. I loved Digital Minimalism, it really challenged me.

Justin: Oh yeah. And I was just reading it today, Digital Minimalism, thinking, "Gosh, I really need to get back into this idea of trimming, of cutting, or even detoxing from a whole bunch of digital input." Yeah. That's a thing with this, it's a journey of learning and in some cases relearning or revisiting these concepts and ideas.

Martine: There are some great recommendations there, Justin. Let's start moving towards tools and apps, because we're both big fans of tools and apps. Talk to me about your current productivity toolkit.

Justin: Sure. I will start again with Michael Hyatt. Forgive me for banging that drum. But Michael Hyatt has, interestingly enough, he was really into his digital tools and still is. And in fact, I think I found you, Martine, because Michael Hyatt and yourself or certainly someone who knows you are on a Facebook group for Notion, which I will mention shortly.

Martine: That's right. Yeah.

Justin: So, you have him to blame for that. But Michael Hyatt, he put out, he created I should say basically a diary, a planner. Because he had been using digital tools and apps, and still does. But he reached a stage about three, four years ago when he realised to achieve this deep focus state and be really strategic and plan, he needed to be going back to analogue tools, so pen and paper. So long story short, he created the Full Focus Planner. And because I've been following Michael Hyatt, I saw sort of the early pre-release material and was one of the first users to sign up for the Full Focus Planner. So, I still carry that around. It's been really interesting, because I can see in analogue form, I don't have to go through apps, or apps that I might have used and stopped using. But I can pick up my now close to eight quarterly planners that I have and flick through them and see days and weeks where I've been very almost religiously following the system that he has in terms of making a list and using the calendar, and scheduling the day, and reflecting on the day.

And then there will be days, dare I even say weeks or two here and there where I barely scratched the planner with my plan. Yeah. That's just an interesting self-reflective point for me. But that's certainly one tool I could recommend, is the Full Focus Planner. And if you're not using the Full Focus Planner, it doesn't just have to be that one. Anyone I think these days who's questioning this idea or exploring this idea of productivity needs to think about the time to be switching off from digital and using analogue or working out what balance and what hybrid system if you like of using analogue and digital tools.

So, with that I'll go onto digital tools. I mean, gosh, most of the major ones certainly that I've seen you talk about I've seen you use at one time or another. So, Asana, been there, done that. Todoist, I was using that for quite a while. Trello, I think Trello I actually started using more frequently because you had mentioned it, Martine, and enjoyed that for quite a while. Google Keep was another one I started to go onto. But if I'm really honest, none of those at the moment I'm using. I still have the accounts for some of them. But in the last certainly 30 days, six weeks, I haven't really used those. I've been really getting into WorkFlowy. And again, Martine, this is something you had put me onto. And the thing I love about WorkFlowy is that it is just so simple. In fact, some of the reviews and some of the people who mentioned it said it's almost like you sign up for it and think, "Is this thing broken? Am I missing something?" Because it looks so simple, or it is so simple.

And yet, the more you use it, the more you realise it's powerful. And certainly, that's my approach. And I think this a key thing. Whichever app, or whichever tool you're using, digital or analogue, and this is a perspective I have as a music teacher, is, it's an instrument that you're learning to use. And you will get better at it the more you use it. And you may reach a stage where you think, "Well, actually this is really not the tool for me to use in my setting, or at this point in my life, or at this point in the year," or whatever it is. And that's fine. But look, for me, WorkFlowy is certainly the tool I've been using the most lately. And I have two accounts, one for work and one for home, and then can share the dots, or the documents as it were. And just quickly for those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, WorkFlowy essentially is ... I mentioned dots because you open it up and you just see these bullet points. And then you can create your own bullet points.

But the killer feature as it were of WorkFlowy is you click on the bullet point and it opens up that bullet point as a whole new screen, or document I should say. And so you can then add more bullet points, click on those bullet points and have further levels. So, as they describe it themselves, it's an infinite level of ... levels if you like of being able to go into this mega document you're creating. And then hashtags, that's the one that's really started to make me realise that it's a quite powerful tool if you understand the hashtags. And then just being able to check off the check lists. So that's some of the tools and apps I've tried in the past, and WorkFlowy that I'm still using.

Notion. Notion, again, look, I was using it for quite a while and I thought, "Wow, this is amazing." I'd actually transitioned to Notion from Evernote. Now, I still have an Evernote account, and still click things nowhere near as much as I used to, but I still click things on Evernote. And Notion at the same time seemed like a great alternative to Evernote. And there seemed to be this quite geeky, and I use that in the best sense, community of people saying, "Look, Notion's amazing. Look at all the things you can do, and look, here's something." The capacity to create notebooks and templates and share them with others is incredible. And I'm not ruling out using Notion myself in the future. But look, as a music teacher working with hundreds of kids every week and juggling all sorts of things I thought, "Look, I don't want to get caught up on spending so much time on the tool that I don't actually achieve the things that I'm setting out to do. Which, is get a whole bunch of things done for us." Which, is why WorkFlowy, for me, is the best digital tool I've got at the moment.

Martine: That's such a good point. And the way that you've compared WorkFlowy to Notion, I can really relate to what you're saying having used both tools, and I'm a fan of both tools for different reason. Notion has so much potential. At the moment I'm using it as what I would call a personal wiki. And all my aims and goals and that sort of life planning piece that I haven't quite done yet, that will all be in Notion, because that's the sort of thing I can spend some time on, and I can lay it out in a really nice way. And Notion is really, really good for that. But when it comes to things like quick capture of information, or the kind of web clipping that you describe that you do within Evernote, Notion's not quite there yet because it's a massive, flexible tool that could be lots and lots of different things.

And as such, it doesn't do everything as quickly as perhaps you want it to. That's my kind of overriding sense of where Notion is currently. And you're so right when you say, "The Notion geek crew," who I do count myself as part of in a very, very lovely way. We're always changing our Notion setups and finding new and exciting ways to do things. But actually, sometimes by spending all that time on that, you're not being terribly productive in other areas. So, I think you make some really good points there. And I miss WorkFlowy. I'm not using WorkFlowy for anything at the moment. I love WorkFlowy. You described it really well.

I don't know if you've come across my good friend, Frank Degenaar. He does a lot of WorkFlowy tutorials and things like that, and he's written a book on WorkFlowy.

Justin: I think I have. In fact, did he interview you on his podcast, or the other way around?

Martine: He did.

Justin: Yes. And I'm pretty sure that's how I came across you, Martine, was Michael Hyatt was raving about Notion. And he mentioned there's a Notion group, so I looked at the Notion group. And then there was your friend, Frank. And then there was a link to your podcast. And I thought, "Goodness me, there's actually a teacher out there talking about productivity." So, the rest is history.

Martine: Isn't it funny how these happen? I love that. Frank's book's excellent. It's called ... I always get the title wrong, but it's something like Do Way, Way More With WorkFlowy. And he's got like a WorkFlowy academy going and all sorts of things. He's a good contact.

Justin: Brilliant.

Martine: But it's great that you're using WorkFlowy in such a good way by the sounds of things.

Justin: Yeah. If I could just talk about literally work flow, I mean, it's quite funny how they created that name. And I was looking at Google ... My school, my organisation uses Google Docs. That's the other thing. With Notion I thought, "Notion's wonderful, but when I'm trying to create something that I'm going to use with my colleagues, then really Google Docs is where it's at for better or worse."

Martine: Yes, me too. I'm in the same situation.

Justin: And Gmail. So, with Gmail, Inbox Zero, I remember coming across this years ago, Inbox Zero. And I was like, "Oh my goodness, I can empty my inbox, and wow, this is amazing." And look, I don't get it done every day or even every week sometimes. But certainly, in the last two weeks, to pick an example, in the last two weeks I've hit Inbox Zero probably about 50% of the time. And my current process or workflow of that is looking at what's in my inbox. And if it's not something I can do straight away or snooze and forward, in fact there's something called Follow Up Then. This is another web service. Follow Up Then, where you forward an email to for example tomorrow@followupthen.com, and then it shoots that email back to you, snoozes the email then sends it back to you at the right time.

Anyway, so if I've got something like a task that needs to happen next week, and I'm not going to forward it on to myself in a week's time I'll put it into WorkFlowy. So WorkFlowy sort of becomes the ... In fact, there's a section in my WorkFlowy called Dumping Ground or something, words to that effect where I just dump in all the tasks out of my inbox. So, then my inbox is clear, and then I can go into the tasks, prioritise them, move them around, allocate time horizons or dates. "This needs to happen this week, or today, or tomorrow, or next week." So that's I guess part of my work flow with WorkFlowy and email.

Martine: Your WorkFlowy work flow. That's brilliant. And thanks for highlighting, the snooze function on Gmail is an absolute life saver for me. We don't use Gmail in my work environment unfortunately. We are a G Suite for Education college. But for some reason, we're still using Outlook for emails, which is deeply frustrating to me. Because obviously, the Google tools all play beautifully together. But that aside, I use Gmail for all of my personal stuff. And I do pretty much get to Inbox Zero every week, but it is with the help of the snooze tool. So, for those who aren't using Gmail, then that service that you mentioned just before, I'll link to that in the show notes, because it's essentially a non-Gmail version of the snooze tool by the sounds of things.

Justin: It certainly is, yeah. The snooze tool on Gmail, in fact, I think it kind of snuck up on me. I didn't even realise the snooze tool was there. I've been using this other service called Follow Up Then and then realised, "Hang on a minute. Gmail actually does this anyway." Although, the slight difference is in there are some things that the snooze is good for, and other things which Follow Up Then is better for in my opinion. And the best way to discover that is to actually go out and try it yourself. And one other quick one on email is something called Boomerang, which one of my colleagues put me onto. And Boomerang is wonderful. If you're up at some odd hour of the day or night, and you want to send an email to someone or even a group of people, but you don't want to email them at 3:00 in the morning or 11:00 at night, the weekend, you can use Boomerang to basically have the email held and then sent out at a later date or time. So, Boomerang is another one I've been using for email.

Martine: There's a good list of tools and the apps there for us to have a little play with I think, Justin.

Justin: For sure.

Martine: Amazing. Is there anything else you would like to mention as part of this interview about teacher productivity?

Justin: Just, I was thinking Martine, I'm no guru at this. And if anything, I'm having to relearn all of these things. So, I've shared a number of tools and people and resources with your listeners. But honestly, there are some of these things I need to go back and revisit. So, it's a journey. So, for anyone who's out there and maybe you've never heard of any of this before and you're just starting out, or you've tried all of these things, or tried some of these things. And maybe you reached a point of not feeling that all of them work necessarily. The keyword I can say there, key encouragement is, look, it's a journey. And what will work for some people won't work for others. But some things will work at different times for us. And as teachers, as educators, gosh, our work can seem like a never-ending process.

But look, a podcast like yours, Martine, and reaching out to people, productivity is all wonderfully great. But at the end of the day, if we're missing out on better human relationships, whether that's at work in terms of the students and colleagues we work with or in our personal lives, then something's missing. So that's a second aspect there. And one other thought I'm just going to throw in there knowing you've been to a Research Ed Conference, I'm very jealous by the way, for anyone who's listening, they're just about to ... April 2020 they're hosting one in Shanghai, and I'm hoping I can get to that one. So, for the listeners who don't know, Research Ed is a conference run by teachers for teachers looking at research based or research informed practises in education.

And the tie that I think I spotted there with productivity is the gentleman Joe Kirby. Joe Kirby, I don't know if he still works at the school, but the school is called Michaela Community School in London. And he's written an amazing blog, which I'll send to you, Martine, and you can share with the listeners called Hornets and Butterflies. And he addresses I guess this question of productivity from the point of view of, is what we're actually the most effective thing to be doing? So, hornets being the high effort low impact things that we do in schools, or in institutions of education. And the butterflies are the low effort, high impact things that we do in schools.

And so this springs up what for some people are quite controversial things about, "How much marking should we do? And how much feedback, or what kinds of feedback should we do?" And a whole bunch of other workload related issues, which ultimately tie back into productivity. Because as I've said, as we've said, you can be as productive as anything. But if you're not actually focused on the right things that fit into a bigger picture, then you need to at some point pause and look at where it's all heading. So, there's a few other things I thought I should share with everyone.

Martine: It is. I will look forward to reading that article and know a little bit about the Michaela School. So, I'll find that really interesting to read. And as you suggest, I'll share it in the show notes so the listeners can have a look. April 2020 is going to be a really good part of the year, because that's when the Guernsey Research Ed is happening, and I've got a recap episode from when I went to the national conference back in September 2019. So, I will make sure I link to that in the show notes too. But you're going to have such a good time if you can go. You'll really, really enjoy it. (Check out the Episode here)

Wrap Up Justin, thanks so much for coming on the show. I have one final question for you, and it's an important one. Where can people find you online?

Justin: Great. The central location I guess for my online presence is my website, which, justinhockey.com. It's hockey as in same as the sport, H-O-C-K-E-Y, justinhockey.com. I'm also on Twitter, with a rather awkward user name, which is linked on my website. So, I'll just leave it at that. But yeah, that's my main online presence. And I've got a sometime blog, a blog that I sometimes write on that. And certainly, there's at least on article on there so far about productivity and some of the tools we've described today.

Martine: That's brilliant. Thanks again, Justin, it's been a pleasure having you on the show.

Justin: Likewise, and thank you so much, Martine.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

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Episode 77 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores setting up a professional development library… anywhere!

Introduction Today’s episode is will be short and practical. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was an episode in its own right! However, based on the success of this particular initiative, I decided it was too good not to share.

So, here’s the issue: through conversations with teaching colleagues, I became aware that only a small number seemed to be reading for professional development (with the exception being our trainee teachers and those studying at Master’s and PhD level).

I’ve not yet come up with a definitive reason why - and it is beyond the scope of this episode - but it could be anything from lack of interest or incentive to not realising reading could be classed as professional development.

Whatever the reason, I decided one possible solution could be to make professional reading more (physically) accessible. We have some great books about teaching and learning in the library but we never see teaching colleagues there. This is probably because it feels more like a student space. Perhaps the answer was to take the books (and journals) out of the library and to the people!

My Inspiration Full disclosure - setting up a professional development library is not a new idea. While I had recognised “the problem” my inspiration for the solution came from a talk I saw at the ResearchEd National Conference back in September 2019. You can listen to my recap episode at theteachingspace.com/73. Thank you to Joanne Jukes, Joanne Tiplady and Louise Lewis for the inspiration (follow them on Twitter!)

Collaboration There was only one person I need to talk to about this idea - my librarian (Learning and Information Services Manager), Rachel. Thankfully, we share an office, so that was easy.

I am extremely lucky to have Rachel as a resource. She is first and foremost a LISM but she is also a qualified teacher in FE, so she has a clear understanding of some of the challenges I face in my professional development role.

At first, Rachel was a little concerned about removing books from the library as she has systems in place for lending. This was totally understandable. However, our library facilities aren’t always staffed and there is a sign-out sheet system in place for these times. Moving books out of the library, under the sign-out sheet system, posed no increased risk. Furthermore, the creation of “mini-libraries” would likely result in increased loans.

Rachel was on board.

Challenge One major challenge we needed to consider was the fact that our College is spread over three campuses. We decided to set up a separate “mini-library” on each campus and ensure the curated book selection was the same, to ensure fairness.

Making a Plan So Rachel worked on a plan to create three mini-libraries. We wanted to start small and low key, so we curated a collection of five books about teaching and learning and a few copies of BERA (British Education Research Association journal). We also included an academic poster.

We agreed it would be good to refresh the books once a term (with the flexibility to change that frequency as needed). For our first book collection we selected:

Visible Learning for Teachers by John Hattie
Dual Coding for Teachers by Oliver Caviglioli
Just Great Teaching by Ross Morrison McGill
What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong? by David Didau
Embedded Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction (Poster by Oliver Caviglioli)

We created a spreadsheet to note our current and future collections.

Then it was time for a “campus tour” to identify the best locations for our books - staff rooms seemed to make sense. Once the locations were agreed, we decided on a date to “go live” (two weeks later).

Rachel assembled the books and sign out sheets, I made posters and took charge of “marketing!” (Ahem… when I say “marketing” I mean that I mentioned the libraries in my weekly professional development email newsletter and tweeted about the libraries a bit!)

Going Live Our libraries went live on a Monday morning. We chatted with lots of colleagues about the libraries during the set up process and the reception was great. I tweeted all morning about the initiative and received a sponsored book collection offer!

Success? At the time of recording the libraries have been running for over 6 weeks and lots of people have borrowed and returned books. My aim was to encourage colleagues to access professional development books - this has worked. I have yet to run the numbers but it’s clear that people like the libraries and they are being used purely based on sign out sheets. I will run statistics when we refresh the collection. I suspect we will need to refresh the collections more regularly to keep interest high.

What Now? We have so many ideas! Here are a few:

Journal club
Book competitions
Staff recommendations/curated collections
Reviews

Ultimately we need to ensure the collections are carefully curated; books should be current (with some classic teaching and learning texts) and relevant. We plan to avoid subject specialisms and focus on teaching and learning.

What do you think? Is this something that could work in your organisation? Let me know, I would love to hear from 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 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.

What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong?

Embedded Formative Assessment (Strategies for Classroom Formative Assessment That Drives Student Engagement and Learning) (New Art and Science of Teaching)

Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning

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Episode 76 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the topic of helping lower level learners to thrive.

Introduction Hello and welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me. Today I have a guest on the show and, I think, rather than me tell you all about her, I'm going to ask her to do that bit herself. Hello, Louise. How are you?

Louise: Hello, I'm good. Thank you.

Martine: Welcome to the show. Would you like to introduce yourself to The Teaching Space Podcast listeners? Tell us who you are, what you do, and most importantly, where in the world are you?

Louise: Yeah, okay. My name's Louise Misselke and I'm the Principal of the College of Further Education in Guernsey, which is a general FE college. At the moment, I'm sitting in my home looking at a blustery gale outside.

Martine: Yes, that makes two of us because actually we're both based in Guernsey and actually, Louise and I work together, which is one of the reasons I knew she'd be a good guest on the show.

It’s really horrible out there, isn't it? There's probably going to be a bit of a windy noise in the background. So listeners, if you hear anything a bit peculiar, that it's just the weather.

The reason I have asked Louise to come on the show today is that we are going to chat about helping lower level learners to thrive in further education, in particular. Today, we're going to be talking about an ongoing study that you're working on with Dr. Liz Atkins from the University of Derby.

The title of today's show is Helping Lower Level Learners to Thrive and I'd really like to dig into this study and what you've discovered and all of that good stuff.

Louise: Okay.

Martine: Would you be kind enough to provide a bit of background on the study in kind of the Guernsey College context?

Louise: Yes, yes. I'll talk about the Guernsey College context and then, I'll talk a little bit about the background of the study.

As I said, we're a general further education college, so we have students aged 16 to 19, but also, we have adult learners and apprentices as well, all studying technical, professional or vocational education. Every year, we get a number of students who come to us who have largely been unsuccessful at school, so they come to the college at 16.

Now, when I say they've largely been unsuccessful, this could be for a whole variety of reasons. It could be for social emotional reasons, it could be because they've got very complex lives, it could be that they've had health issues during their school years or it could be that they just didn't fit in school and, for a whole host of reasons, haven't been successful. They exit school without any qualifications at 16 or with a suite of qualifications with very low grades and progressed to the college. We have had a variety of different models for supporting these students with the goal of trying to get them to progress on to further courses at the college, either full time or through an apprenticeship with limited success in the past.

Around 2015/16, I went to a conference where I saw Dr. Liz speaking about her research around the level one learners. I had a chat to her and talked about the possibility of us collaborating on a piece of research really to see if we changed the curriculum offer on our approach, whether that would actually provide a better service to our students because what was happening was students were becoming disengaged and exiting the course early or not achieving and we weren't really doing the best by our students.

Now, if I think about level one students in general, if you look across the UK and in England, so these are students who, as I said, often have very complex lives, but not always. They're often socially excluded, they're invisible in terms of policy, they have often had a negative previous education experience, often characterised as problematic, between 30 and 50% of them usually become NEET, which means Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Often their progression is characterised by periods of employment in low skills, low value employment and periods of unemployment and usually work is not secure. Often they're only able to access low status, low value programmes and the curriculum that's offered in England for level one, currently and historically, has been a very dry curriculum with little aspirations and actually has very little value in the market place.

The group of students that we were having in Guernsey College was no different, really, to the groups of students that Liz had done her research about in the UK. They come with everything that I've described and actually the curriculum that was available for us in Guernsey but also for colleagues in the UK, generally, is a very dry, low value curriculum offer.

We had a lot of discussion about what we can do in Guernsey and because through Liz's extensive research, she sort of had hypothesised what would be really useful for students in this group. We developed a curriculum together and have been monitoring and evaluating, through research process, its effectiveness over the last... Well, we're in our third year now.

One of the reasons we thought it would be really useful to do the piece of research here was because we are an island and students, particularly these sorts of students, often don't leave and so, it's easier, in many ways, to look at their long-term progress to see if what we've actually provided for them has had an impact on their own self belief, their aspirations, their career progression and pathway, and whether its had that positive impact.

Martine: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can see that sort of following their journey would be far more straightforward on a very tiny island as we are.

Louise: What we did was we looked at the curriculum and looked at how the curriculum needed to change in order to engage the students because we did have quite a high dropout rate. What were we doing that was not really good enough for them? We weren't engaging them, keeping them inspired and so on. How could we do that and how could we create a curriculum that actually allowed them to have a meaningful experience with high value that they could then go on to meet their own goals and aspirations? Because, often these students, first of all, they're not unintelligent, which is a common misconception about level one students and number two, they absolutely have aspirations for their place in the world, but often, sometimes because of their complexity in their life or their experience in school, if it hasn't been a positive one, they've missed out on a huge amount of careers information, advice and guidance, which would allow them to understand the stepping stones they need to take to realise their aspirations.

We recognise that the curriculum has to be really, really engaging, that we had to build in really clear and visible careers advice, information and guidance. English and maths, obviously, is of critical importance. We know, don't we, that if we ask any sort of employers what one of the most critical things that they will talk about is the need for English and math skills, literacy and numeracy skills. But the other thing that is really, really important for this group is to provide them with some ways of gaining social and cultural capital to understand their place in the world and that powerful knowledge that comes from social and cultural capital building because, often, these students might have missed out on those aspects throughout their earlier years.

Martine: That cultural capital comment is really interesting. I don't want to keep going back to the fact that Guernsey is different to the UK, but actually, we don't live in, for example, a particularly multicultural society.

Louise: No.

Martine: Actually, from a kind of life experience perspective, I can really see how in particular our level one learners could be missing out on lots and lots of important experience, that certainly, when you get into the workplace, is absolutely essential.

Louise: Yeah.

Martine: That's a really interesting point.

Louise: Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

If I talk about the offer, the curriculum offer, and then, I'll talk about the research that sort of wrapped around it, the curriculum offer, as I said, is it's composed of a core vocational offer. We felt it was very important that the students still had the opportunity to attain qualifications because for feelings of self-worth and self-belief, actually being able to achieve something is really, really important. We offer them a curriculum of a vocational qualification in the area they particularly want to, so students can apply to us and do a programme in sports and public services, for example, or in health and early years, for example.

Then, there are the English and maths elements which are essential. Then there's the really visible careers information, advice and guidance. And when I say it's really visible, what is important with these students is for them to realise where they are and where they want go and actually map that out. It sounds like a really basic thing. What we've done here is not a golden... It's not something fantastical that's never been done before, but we have displays of what the students' careers aspirations are and the stepping stones that they need to take to get there.

We also include work experience and that's really interesting because work experience and work placement was something that we, before we did the project that we were really challenged by often because the students had bought with them such challenges that we, as an organisation, felt that we couldn't place them with some of our employers. That, on reflection, is really wrong because we were denying those students an opportunity and actually what we've discovered through the project is work experience is one of the most useful elements for the students in terms of really developing their concepts of self-worth and self-belief, but also those relationships with employers and realising that they can make a positive contribution to society, has been essential.

Then, wrapped around all of that, is an enrichment programme. Things like taking the students out for dinner, going to the cinema, going to the theatre. They've had an off-island trip and that's really important because some of these students have never been off the island.

The teaching team took them to UK, which is really important because some of these students have never been to the UK or actually off Guernsey before and they went to an activity centre for a week and also went to Thorpe Park, which was pretty amazing for all of them.

The curriculum is delivered through project, so it's a project based delivery model, which again is not rocket science. It's been around in education and talked about and actually there's a huge amount of research evidence that says it's really effective. But this is the key, I think, that keeps those students engaged because they do a series of projects and through that, they attain their vocational curriculum, their maths and English, they get the work experience, they get the careers, information and guidance and also the enrichment through those series of projects.

That's the curriculum. One of the other things that we're very lucky, another element that the students experience is time in the Forest School. We're very lucky to have a highly qualified member of staff who is trained in for a school. The students go have that on their timetable every week and go and build fires and cook pizzas in the new pizza oven that's being built out in a sort of woodland area, which which they really, really love.

Martine: It sounds like so much fun. Sorry to interrupt you. Could you just explain in a bit more detail what the Forest School thing is because some of my listeners might not be familiar with that and I think it's an exciting concept?

Louise: The concept of Forest School is really outdoor learning and our lecturer is a trainer for Forest School practitioners. It commonly happens in the primary area where teachers are trained in Forest School abilities to enable them to take younger children outside to learn and play. Things that our students do in this context is learn how to build a fire. They've done some cooking outside as well. But for primary age children, it is learning outside and that's the concept of the Forest School.

Martine: Sounds wonderful.

Louise: Yes, it is. The sorts of projects that the students have been engaged with, they organised an event for equality and diversity for the whole college. That was great because they had the media in and were being interviewed by the radio and the TV, actually, so that was really exciting. They organised, last Christmas, a Christmas community craft event where the students invited older people from one of the residential homes in and also invited children from a local preschool in and they did Christmas crafts together. The students organised the whole event and then, obviously evaluated it afterwards, which was part of the qualification that they were doing.

Some of the enrichment things I've talked about. They've been to the cinema, they'd been out for a meal, they've been to listen to some lectures where speakers are over on the island. All sorts of different things, which are sort of broadening horizons.

Work placement, as I said, has been really, really important. In fact, one of the students attained an apprenticeship through going on their workplace with an employer, which was a really successful outcome for that young person.

That's been the curriculum. Now, the research, we're very, very lucky and fortunate to have been sponsored to do the research by a local company, Rothschild's and Co, who have a really significant corporate social responsibility programme to support young people in these sorts of circumstances. It was a perfect fit and they've sponsored the research over the last three years. We're in our third year now.

The research that has happened is we took students from the year '16, '17, we had 39 students enrolled in total. Just to give a profile of those students, 11 had been supported by the youth commission, which is the youth service charity locally, 6 of them had experienced a family breakup, 2 did not live with the birth family, 6 had seen or experienced domestic violence, 7 stated that they had no one to talk to, 3 of those students had self-harmed, 3 had a family member who were involved with the police, 2 were supported by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, 3 of the students had social workers and 8 of the students suffered from anxiety. It gives you an idea of the sorts of challenges that these young people are faced with in their lives.

The research really focused on research for social justice, not socially just research and focused on looking at gathering information about a smaller cohort of those students. We actually took a sample of 12 students and they were given structured interviews at the start of their programme during their programme and at the end of their programme. Then, they've been followed up subsequently over the last couple of years with similar interviews, really looking at whether they feel that they've achieved what they wanted to achieve, whether the course and the qualification helped their progression, what are they doing there now and how do they know, has the course supported to get them to where they are now.

We've been able to follow students during that time and, of course, since '16, '17, we've had other students enrolling on the programme and every year we've taken a small cohort, a small sample to follow them. Not only have we got the first cohort that we're following, we've got the subsequent years cohorts as well.

In terms of outcomes, what we've seen is if I talk about the percentage becoming NEET, which is Not in Education, Employment, or Training, before we started the programme, about 30% of the cohort were becoming NEET. Now, we're on about 18%. Whilst it's not good enough, because it's still 18%, it has decreased quite significantly. The dropout-

Martine: Yeah. That is a significant improvement.

Louise: Yes. The dropout rate, so the attrition rate has dropped significantly. We were losing probably about 40% of the students before we changed the curriculum. That's increased. I mean, that's dropped significantly. That would be the wrong way, wouldn't it?

Martine: Absolutely.

Louise: Yeah. The retention has improved dramatically. Our overall retention last year was something like 92%.

Martine: Wow.

Louise: That's had a massive impact on the students' attainment as well. Progression is massively improved. Students are doing the programme with us and then, progressing on to other courses within the college, which is absolutely fantastic because it means that they're working towards meeting their goals and aspirations either as full-time students and quite a number of them have managed to achieve an apprenticeship which, of course, is aiming for them to achieve their professional goals and aspirations.

But, I think, some of the most profound findings are the stories about how students have progressed and I'm quite happy to give you an example of one of the stories if that would be useful.

Martine: Yeah, that would be lovely. Please do.

Louise: The names of the students have been changed to give them gender neutral names in the research because we're a really small community and anybody that lives in a small community knows that it's really easy to identify anyone. Even if you just think that you're not using their name and their details, because we're a small community, you have to be really careful because people do know each other. Through the research, we've given them neutral names and also referred to them as he or she, so that their gender isn't specific.

This is a case about Hero, who enrolled onto the programme in 2017 with a really difficult history. Very poor attendance at school, a history of self-harm, had been ejected from the family home due to disapproval of her or his sexuality and was currently sleeping on Auntie's sofa, was abusing drugs and alcohol and was also engaging in risky sexual behaviours, really lacked confidence in their ability to succeed in education or work. During the course, he/she really enjoyed the Forest School, taking part in games, activities, which developed personal confidence and working as a member of a team, fully felt accepted at college and proudly wore the college hoodie and promoted opportunities around the college to other people.

This group had an off island trip to Herm, which was a residential trip, which is a little island off the coast of Guernsey. Initially, Hero was really reluctant to go to Herm as they'd never been on a residential trip before, but really enjoyed this and really felt part of the group.

We have a annual summer ball at the end of the summer term for all of our students and Hero really didn't want to go to the summer ball but eventually did and had an amazing time. Passed the level one programme with a distinction, passed GCSE maths with a significant credential in terms of further education and employment and has been working part-time for the last six months during the course, managed to attain a part-time job.

This student progressed onto a level two programme and continues to develop self-confidence and work placement, most importantly, no longer uses drugs and reduced alcohol intake and is no longer engaging in risk taking behaviour. That was Hero. Quite-

Martine: What a success story.

Louise: Yeah, a really, really profound success story. There's so many of them. One student who attained an apprenticeship went on a work placement and attained an apprenticeship. The employer said that the student's attitude to work and confidence was so good that could he have some more students from that group, please.

Martine: That's wonderful.

Louise: That really, really, really is good. The students are feeling proud of their achievements and rightly so, they should be. I think, that's so important, isn't it? Because often, these students are people who will have never passed anything necessarily or achieved something. To be able to come to college, stay and then achieve and go onto the next steps is really, really important.

Martine: Well, I love hearing the statistics and the data as much as the next person, but it really is so heartwarming and surreal when you hear a story like that and the effect that such a positive education experience has had on this individual's life is incredible, really.

Louise: Yes, it is. It is. Some very positive employment outcomes for students. The research is showing significant social and personal benefits, particularly in the most vulnerable students. The benefit of the project-based approach and the work related experience has been invaluable, particularly in terms of the progression that those students have now been able to secure. If they've gone into an apprenticeship, then it's a secure apprenticeship. They haven't dropped out. Significant improved retention and a smaller proportion of those students becoming NEET.

We've still got some work to do, so we're in the third year, final year, although we've been talking about extending the study for a further two years. We've made some tweaks to the curriculum delivery as we go based on our learning from the previous years. This year, we've tweaked it quite a bit, where the students are going to be achieving qualifications in the first term and then more in the second and more in the third. But fundamentally, at the heart, is a project-based curriculum with a vocational qualification, with all that enrichment wrapped around to confer the social and cultural capital with the maths and English and with the careers advice, information and guidance.

Martine: That's fantastic. Thank you so much for explaining that, Louise, and also giving that additional context of a real life story because it makes such a difference and actually, the listeners of the podcast are from a wide variety of education backgrounds, but just kind of having that overview of why this is working and how it's working is really fascinating.

Louise: It is.

Martine: Thank you for that.

Louise: That's okay.

Martine: Is there anything you would like to add to everything that you've explained?

Louise: I think, the most important thing about what we've done here is it's not rocket science. There's a huge amount of research, isn't there, around delivering learning and knowledge through projects being really successful and that's what we've done here.

We have got the benefit of having the research around it, which clearly demonstrates how well it's working. The other thing, I think, for any of your listeners that are further education, it hasn't really cost us any more than a UK college would be able to spend on level one students. It's not a really costly way of delivering a curriculum and supporting that learning because all the projects are things that are naturally occurring in the community and we've just tapped into that.

Martine: That's a really good point actually, Louise, because I think there is a misconception that Guernsey is such an affluent island, that we have all the funding available to do anything we want and that's not the case at all.

Louise: No, no.

Martine: A really valid point that this new approach to working with lower level learners has not cost the organisation or then, perhaps, it would've done doing it the old way as it were, so that's a great point.

Wrap Up Martine: Louise, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Louise: You're welcome.

Martine: It's highly likely that people might want to ask you a question or two-

Louise: Yes, yes.

Martine: ... about this exciting project. If that is the case, where can people find you online? What's the best way to say hello?

Louise: Either Twitter, I'm louisemisselke or people could email me at the college, which is louisem@gcfe.net.

Martine: That's wonderful and I will make sure there's links to your Twitter account and also the email address on the show notes for the episode.

Louise: Great. One more thing, I should have said, if anyone wants to ask Liz Atkins, the Professor from University of Derby, she also is available on Twitter, which is drlizatkins, I think. She has got an inaugural lecture at the University of Derby, which is very prestigious, coming up in November, where she is talking about our study.

Martine: Amazing. Well, again, I'll make sure that information is on the show notes. By the time this episode goes out, I suspect that will have happened. If there are links to sort of a recap of that lecture or any information about it, again, I'll pop that in, so people can access it.

Louise: Great.

Martine: Fantastic. Thanks again.

Louise: That's okay.

Martine: Thanks for coming on the show!

Louise: All right then.

Martine: I hope you'll come back again.

Louise: All right.

Martine: Thanks.

Louise: Have a good day.

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Episode 75 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores five more ways teachers and trainers can improve their presentation slides.

Introduction In episode 45 of The Teaching Space Podcast I explored ten ways teachers and trainers could improve their presentation slides. I recommend you listen to the episode or read the show notes. As a short recap, I covered this:

Use a consistent design
Use images carefully
Pay attention to fonts
Avoid text heavy slides
Try shortlinks
Embed video
Keep animation minimal
Use audience participation
Use QR codes to share slides
Try GIFs

My main professional development focus this year is how I use slides (and handouts) to support learning; there’s some dual coding theory to explore here. I’ve already learned so much through reading and experimentation that I thought a follow-up episode might be in order. So, here it is.

Five More Ways to Improve Your Presentations 1. Branding This one could be controversial! Some time ago, my College introduced slide templates featuring the organisation’s logo and social media icons and handles. The intentions were good. I understand the benefits of consistent presentation to the outside world (wearing my corporate hat). Another benefit was that for some colleagues, decision fatigue was reduced, along with the use of distracting fonts…

Without questioning, I started using the templates. I also spent time switching old presentations I still used over to the new format.

Then I attended Oliver Caviglioli’s talk at the ReserachEd National Conference in September and he prompted some questions:

Is a logo really needed on all slides? Do my learners need reminding where they are?
Do I want my learners to interrupt their learning to follow the organisation on social media?

The answer is no.

Marking guru, Seth Godin, recommends no more than six words per slide:

“No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.”

I’m not quite there yet, but working towards this goal. The reason I bring it up, though, is that the words used in our logo and social media handles totalled far more than six. The words, and indeed the images, were superfluous and distracting.

Purpose What is a slide deck for? It is not a teleprompter for the teacher or trainer. Be honest, do you use your slides this way? I did. That’s why they were so wordy!

Your slides should support and enhance the learning process. Fewer words - more images. Dual coding theory makes an excellent case for this approach, as mentioned briefly in episode 74.

If you have wordy slides and insist on reading the words out to your learners, you will likely encounter split-attention effect. This is when your learners are required to split their attention between, for example, reading information from a slide and listening to you read the information out at the same time. This results in increased cognitive load and is likely to have a negative effect on learning as information does not enter working, and ultimately long-term memory.

Presentation Notes “But Martine, I want my learners to take away more than a set of slides with just a few words and pictures on…” I hear you and agree some learners will want more after the session.

Why not create presentation notes as a separate (but beautifully formatted) document? You can use them in the session and learners can take them away afterwards.

You could argue that “speaker’s notes” in PowerPoint or Google Slides serve this purpose, however, if your learners follow along with your presentation digitally, they could access your speaker’s notes and become distracted. Speaker’s notes have limited formatting options too.

Grid System When deciding on your slide layout, consider using an invisible grid to align everything. PowerPoint and Keynote have this feature built in. You can add gridlines manually in Google Slides.

A grid allows you to create visual consistency, which is pleasing to the eye. Do vary the pattern though, to create interest. According to Oliver Caviglioli:

”Alignment is very important in bringing order and harmony to how the information is presented.”

No Bullets I’m challenging myself to stop using bullet points on slides. Bullets are usually a sign of slides being used a prompt for the teacher or trainer.

Seth Godin reminds as that “slides are free”. Rather than having, say, six points on one slide, six slides could be used. That would equate to one point per slide (you’d not need a bullet point in that case would you?) A short, punchy sentence would suffice. Or even, shock horror, just a picture.

Again, I’m not there yet with this approach. But I am keeping it in mind when I produce a slide deck and I’m seeing positive reactions.

Wrap Up I hoped you enjoyed this episode; I also hope it challenge your practice. I am certainly not an expert in this area, however, I am really enjoying exploring it and experimenting. I’d love to know about your experience too.

Sources:

Blog post from Seth Godin: Really Bad PowerPoint
Blog post from Seth Godin: Words on Slides
Dual Coding with Teachers: The Course by Oliver Caviglioli - Slides
Dual Coding with Teachers: The Book by OIiver Caviglioli
Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
Slideology by Nancy Duarte

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.

PresentationZen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

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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)

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.

Sketchnote Handbook, The: the illustrated guide to visual note taking

Sketchnote Workbook, The: Advanced techniques for taking visual notes you can use anywhere

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Episode 73 of The Teaching Space Podcast shares clips from my visit to the ResearchED National Conference in London earlier this year.

Links and Resources This episode features a selection of recordings I made on my mobile phone (please excuse the quality) while attending the ResearchED National Conference in September 2019.

Here are some of the people and resources I mentioned:

ResearchED
ResearchED Guernsey event
Daisy Christodoulou on Twitter
Seven Myths About Education by Daisy Christodoulou
Sam Pullan on Twitter
CPD ladies on Twitter: Joanne Jukes, Joanne Tiplady and Louise Lewis
Oliver Caviglioli on Twitter
Dual Coding for Teachers by Oliver Caviglioli

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.

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Episode 72 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the skill of public speaking and why it is relevant to teachers and trainers.

Introduction Today’s episode is based on a blog post I wrote a few years back on public speaking. I really wanted to make an audio version; so here it is.

Before I launch into this topic, I want to say this: teaching is SO MUCH MORE than public speaking.

I don't believe good public speakers necessarily make good teachers. In fact, often, they're terrible. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning; not to talk ALL THE TIME.

However, I do believe that improving your public speaking skills can have a positive and powerful effect on your teaching, but probably not for the reason you think.

I mean, yes, working on your speaking skills focuses you on communicating clearly. That's important.

But the most positive outcome is this: you appear confident. While you may not feel confident on the inside, you project confidence to everyone around you. This will elevate your teaching to a higher level.

In business, we call it relationship marketing. You aim to project yourself in such a way that prospective customers will begin to know, like and trust you.

Teaching isn't that different really. You want your learners to know, like and trust you so you have the opportunity to create a learning environment in which they thrive and have the best chance of success.

What follows are my thoughts on how to improve your public speaking if you are faced with the terrifying task of giving a speech or talk.

Public Speaking is Terrifying Every single time I talk to a group of people I experience the same feelings: fear, anxiety and an overwhelming desire to be sick. Even preparing to podcast (ahem… that’s basically talking to myself) gives me butterflies.

But I love it.

And apparently, I look like I love it too. After a talk, people often ask, "Were you nervous?" My immediate reply is always, "Yes, terrified". My response surprises them.

Despite the fact that I find public speaking nerve-wracking, I love it, and I can present in a confident, capable way.

How is That Possible? With careful preparation, as well as the use of specific routines, I can reduce my fear to a manageable level. I have learned to re-frame my nerves positively.

We learn stress and anxiety are bad, and more often than not, they are.

But pre-performance nerves, whether you are a speaker, athlete, teacher, or actor, can be an asset. You just need to know how to transform those nerves from negative to positive.

A Bit of Biology It’s useful to understand what happens to our bodies when we are nervous. It’s all about the brain. Your brain has one important job - to keep you alive. It makes your organs work and keeps you safe.

When you are in a potentially dangerous situation, for example, standing in front of a group of people, preparing to speak, you experience the feeling of fear.

In response to your fear, your brain releases adrenaline and other stress hormones such as cortisol in preparation for a “fight or flight” response. Adrenaline super-charges you so that you’ve got extra energy and power for fight or flight. It’s amazing - you can even see and hear better.

The more fearful you are, the greater the adrenaline surge.

How Does This Help Me? If you perceive a situation to be utterly terrifying, there is going to be a lot of adrenaline shooting through your body. A bit of adrenaline is good. Too much adrenaline is going to make you feel awful (heart thumping, sweating, panic… you’ll be opting for “flight" any moment).

The brain does not know what you are scared of - it only knows your emotional reaction to the thing that scares you. If you are feeling terrified, it’s going flood your body with adrenaline. If you are only mildly scared, less adrenaline is needed. That’s the key.

If you can make the prospect of speaking in public seem less scary, your body will not produce as much adrenaline. You can do this through practice, careful preparation and routine.

The second thing we can do is carefully manage the remaining adrenaline and use it positively.

Here are some strategies to help before, during, and after your public speaking engagement.

Before Become A Better Speaker If you know you are a good public speaker, your feeling of confidence will dramatically reduce your fear.

The more public speaking you do, the more confident you become. You’ll still feel some nerves - this is healthy. Anyone who walks into a public speaking gig with no nerves at all is cocky. Cocky people aren’t engaging. They are irritating.

If you are new to public speaking you need to practice, but not necessarily in front of others at this stage. That comes later.

One of the best ways to improve your public speaking is to record yourself and listen back. Video is better than audio, but let’s take one step at a time. It’s going to make you cringe but do it anyway.

Listen out for:

Verbal fillers: for example, “umm” and “err”. We use fillers because gaps in speech make us uncomfortable. Also, they buy us "thinking time". Verbal fillers can irritate your audience. After a while, it’s all they can hear. They focus on counting the number of times you say “like” and ignore your actual message completely. Try to minimise your use of verbal fillers and instead, just pause. A pause can be incredibly engaging. Popular TED speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, demonstrates this beautifully. He’s also got fantastic comic timing - if you want to see a master public speaker at work, watch as much Sir Ken as much as you can. (Incidentally, I am aware I used some verbal fillers on this podcast; “so” is a favourite. I’m aiming for a very conversational style for the show, and as such, I leave fillers in so it sounds natural. This advice is about formal public speaking where different standards apply.)
Pace: the excess adrenaline caused by fear makes everything move a bit more quickly. In a traditional “fight or flight” situation, it would be your legs or fists moving fast. When you are giving a talk, it will be your breathing and speech that speed up. Public speaking is very different to conversing with just one person. You need to remember your audience is made up of lots of different individuals. Perhaps some speak English as a second language or are not familiar with your accent. You want to speak to be understood by all, so you must speak more slowly than normal. It will feel odd, but re-record yourself speaking more slowly and listen. Also, practice pausing.
Mouth sounds: microphones pick up the (utterly gross) sound a dry mouth makes. Nerves will make your mouth dry. Drink water before giving your speech (not too much - remember the effects adrenaline can have on your bladder) and if possible, have water available during your talk.

Once you’ve practised alone, it’s time to bring in some trusted friends for feedback. Your family are either going to be too kind or too harsh when it comes to giving feedback (I learned that one the hard way!) Find trusted friends who will provide genuine, constructive feedback. Ask them to identify what you are doing well, and your areas for improvement.

Know Your Audience You cannot prepare for a public speaking engagement without understanding who your audience are. Ask yourself these key questions:

Why are they there?
What are their expectations of you?

You could take this exercise a step further and “design” your typical audience member. Give them a name, appearance, age, employment history, religious and political views. Then prepare a talk just for them.

Structure Public speaking starts with writing. Many of the rules for crafting a compelling story apply to writing a speech. For example:

Ensure your talk as a beginning, middle and end. If appropriate, recap regularly and sum up at the end.
Outline your topics first using headings or keywords - then build your sentences.
Engage your audience from the start. Ask questions. Interact.
Use the rule of three to reinforce points (for example “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”).
Show don’t tell - use examples and stories to illustrate your point. It will be far more memorable.
Write the speech from start to finish and read it out loud, record it and get feedback.

Cue Cards Of course, you don’t want to read your speech word for word on the day. If you do, you will not get a chance to engage with your audience. It’s boring watching someone speak to you with their face buried in a pile of notes.

Your speech needs to be distilled down to discrete cue cards. Here are some tips for creating cue cards:

Use a sentence or heading, to sum up the topic of each card.
Include keywords to jog your memory.
Type your cue cards if there is any chance you won’t be able to read your handwriting on the day.
Colour code your cue cards if your speech includes key themes.
Number your cards.
Write on one side of each card only.
Include approximate timings on your cards.
Use plenty of white space.
Think about answers to likely questions and put them on relevant cards.

Power Posing And Routine In Amy Cuddy’s popular TED talk, and later in her book “Presence”, she explores the effect positive body language can have on the mind. Cuddy advocates a “fake it till you make it” approach to confidence. If you look and sound confident - you will be more confident. Use the power of body language to melt nerves away.

It might sound like a load of old bunkum, but what have you got to lose? Try holding a Wonder Woman style pose (stand straight, hands on hips, chin up) for a few minutes before you make a speech.

Use your posing time to centre your body and mind and then go for it. Your power pose, combined with some deep breathing and quiet time, might just stem the flow of excess adrenaline and allow you to turn those butterflies into an asset.

I’d recommend turning a chain of activities like this into a habit. Routines are calming and can ground you before stepping into the unknown.

During Once you’ve started to speak, you won’t have the mental capacity to remember long and complicated coping strategies. Here are just a few simple things you can do:

If it’s appropriate, have water with you. You can take a sip to fix a dry mouth, or at any point, if you lose your train of thought or need a moment to centre yourself, take a sip.
Wear breathable, comfortable clothes, where possible. Don’t wear a colour that will show up an attack of stress sweating. If you are on a stage with lighting, it will be warm - bear that in mind.
Think about your physical status. I have a fantastic book called Teach Yourself The Clinton Factor by David Gillespie and Mark Warren which explores the power of status. Regardless of your feelings for ex-American President Bill Clinton, he was an incredibly charismatic communicator. Think about your physicality when presenting to a group of people on a scale of one to ten (one being small, quiet and ineffectual; ten being over the top, loud and dictatorial). Imagine this not only in terms of physical status (stance, hand gestures, eye contact and facial expression) but also vocal tone and vocabulary. One of the reasons President Clinton was popular with so many different types of people (despite, ahem… some significant misdemeanours) was he always pitched his presentation between five and seven. He was sufficiently “presidential” but also “normal” and subsequently very engaging. Can you use this when you give a speech?
You must make eye contact with people when presenting or speaking to them. Don’t single out one person - share your eye contact with the room.
Write the word “breathe” on every cue card. You might forget! Excess adrenaline makes you breath more quickly. Slowing your breathing down will calm you, make you feel better and slow your pace.

After Take a moment to reflect on what you’ve just achieved. Take note of what your body feels like now the fear has gone. I suspect it will feel pretty good. That’s why I love public speaking.

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.

Teach Yourself the Clinton Factor: Communicating with Charisma

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Episode 71 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how to get started with productivity apps and tools.

Introduction If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while you will know I love a good productivity app! If a new one comes out I will be first in line to try it. However, the massive range of tools and apps available can be overwhelming, particularly if you are just starting your journey to becoming a productive teacher.

Even if you’ve been working on improving your productivity for some time, it’s easy to focus on apps and forget the productivity strategies you need behind them. So that’s what we’re looking at today. We’re going back to basics.

The Productivity Trifecta I suggest the following tools are needed for improved productivity:

Calendar
To-do list
Project management

A calendar is essential - without having one safe place to note times and dates of events and meetings, you’re going to struggle. A calendar can also be used to time block (see episode 62 of The Teaching Space podcast).

All tasks you need to achieve, both personal and professional need to come out of your head and into a trusted place - this is likely to be a to-do list. David Allen explores this idea of “a trusted place” in his Getting Things Done methodology. This isn’t just a productivity necessity - it’s a positive mental health practice.

As projects are made up tasks, you might need to go a step further and have a system to manage projects. It might be that you have one tool that integrates date, task and project management. Or you might prefer different tools for each. That’s what we will explore next.

Analogue or Digital? Before we talk tools, we “could” get into the analogue versus digital discussion… but let’s not! You absolutely must work in a way that suits your needs, regardless of trends or peer pressure!

I’m a digital gal but that does not mean digital is better, it is just right for me.

If you are comfortable and happiest with paper then perhaps look at the Bullet Journal. If I was a paper person, it would definitely be the approach that interests me most, not least because you can manage tasks, projects and dates in one trusted place. You can also design your Bullet Journal exactly how you want it.

Let’s not forget the fabulous Filofax either. While it isn’t quite as flexible as the Bullet Journal, you can still customise a Filofax with different sections and cover the Productivity Trifecta with ease.

Apps and Tools Allow me to talk digital for a few moments. Here are some tools and apps I like:

Calendar
- Google Calendar for EVERYTHING (check out episode 62 to find out more about how I use Google Calendar)
- Integrated calendars in certain to-do list or project management tools such as TickTick or Asana
- Calendly
To-do list
- TickTick (I use it as a simple project management tool)
- Todoist
- Workflowy
Project management
- Asana
- Trello
- Notion

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.

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Episode 70 of The Teaching Space Podcast is an interview with Oli Bailey-Davies discussing the use and impact of plenaries.

Introduction Hello and welcome to the Teaching Space podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me. In today's episode I am excited to bring you an interview. I'm going to hand straight over to Oli and ask him to introduce himself to you, explain who he is, what he does and where he is in the world.

Martine: Hello Oli.

Oli: Hi, Martine. How are you?

Martine: I'm well, thank you for joining me.

Oli: Thank you for having me. Yeah, so I'm Oli. I'm a lecturer at the College of FE in Guernsey and I'm also the Artistic Director of a professional theatre company that's based at the college that I teach at as well.

Martine: And what are we going to be talking about today and why?

Oli: Today we have the exciting task of talking about plenaries and the impact of them on your students and on your classroom, I guess. And part of the reason I guess why you asked me to get involved in this is our college has just started a new observation kind of model, where we were asked to specifically think of one thing that we could impact our teaching or our students. We focused on that as part of our observation cycle. Mine was plenaries because I've always, since doing my teacher training sort of struggled with the concept of plenaries, especially in the performing arts context. I tend to stick them into my lesson plan and then never get to them.

Yeah. So I decided to focus on effective plenaries rather than tokenistic plenaries.

Martine: I'm excited to hear more about that. Bearing in mind the listeners to The Teaching Space Podcast will come from a variety of backgrounds, some will know what plenaries are and use them all the time. Whereas for some it might be kind of a newish concept, particularly people who are just embarking on teacher education for example. So could you just explain what a plenary is exactly, and why it's a good idea?

Oli: Sure. Plenaries are the sort of final task I guess of your session and they are a way of reviewing the learning to gauge, I guess students' understanding of the session. So it’s that kind of final task that you put in to summarise or review the whole session.

Martine: So in some respects it's a bit of formative assessment. It's a bit of recapping, it's a bit of summing up, all kind of amalgamated into one final activity.

Oli: Sure. It's almost like the umbrella of the sessions going, what did I want them to know? Have they understood it? What have I missed, or what haven't they got? I think it's a really good way, especially for teachers to ... I think it's almost more effective as a practitioner to be able to go, did I do my job today? Was I good at what I did? Or did they completely miss the point? I think sometimes you can do a whole session and you can really be like, "Oh my god, this is brilliant, this is amazing." And then you get to the final bit and they like they really didn't understand what I was trying to get to.

I guess in performing arts especially, sometimes we work perhaps in metaphors more, or concepts. We're sort of trying to ... We try and encourage people down a path, or down a journey, rather than saying here are a series of information that you must be able to remember by the end of this session. So sometimes what you think they've understood isn't actually what they've taken from your session.

Martine: I quite like the idea of using a plenary for both assessment, as in checking for learning, but also using it as a bit of an evaluation as well, in terms of working out the quality of what occurred in that lesson, in terms of your performance, and how you made that learning happen and things. So I think the idea of it kind of traversing those two aspects of teaching and learning is a really important point.

Oli: Yeah. And I think to me really, I think I'd almost personally put it that it's a reflection for me almost more than for the learners. I find looking at the sort of the effective of plenaries it's about saying, well have they got it? And if they haven't, then maybe you have to be a bit flexible and you go, okay, right next session I'm going to have to change my style to task. I'm going to do a review of my previous learning. Or maybe I'm going to have to do that whole session again in a completely different way, because they have fundamentally not got the key thing that I thought I was delivering perfectly.

Again, like within performing arts as a context, our lesson plans and our schemes of work have to be really flexible. Because you never know what's going to come up. Or you may plan to say block 10 pages, but you might get stuck on the first page. That's a whole session just on one page of text. So you have to be able to flex and wiggle your schemes to fit. I think the plenary is a really good way of checking in and going, "Have I done what I needed to do today?" Yes or no, and then and then from that, that will affect the next day or the next session or whenever you see them again.

I think self-reflection for staff is one of the most important parts of our development and also the biggest impact for students because you have to sort of not be the master of everything all the time and be prepared to be wrong.

Martine: Your point about self-reflection being so important for teachers is absolutely bang on and actually it's really valuable for students too. So if we can model that to them through our practice, I mean that sends a really powerful message. I get what you're saying about the need for fluidity within your sessions and kind of being able to adapt your scheme of work, that makes a lot of sense. But I guess if you're using say a starter activity and a plenary, it really marks the beginning and the end of the session as well. So where there could be a complete lack of structure, it creates a little bit of structure as well. Is that a benefit you've noticed as well or is that just me making things up?

Oli: Yeah, so I always choose a starter activity like when we play warm up drama warmup games, but I choose the games really specifically to show the skill that I need them to use that session. So it may look like an irrelevant game, but actually it's a really clear, well thought out plan. Although maybe not everybody would see it. So perhaps a game where they're learning a sequence or a pattern, but they have to use words and movement. Then we're going into blockings. It's like, okay, well you have to remember words and blocking and we warmed up your brain to remember muscle memory and spoken memory. So therefore it is a really underpinned theory to the silly game that we play at the start.

But what I've always struggled with is how to then mirror that at the end. The plenaries then have always become ... It's a ticket to leave, or it's one of the kind of the standard education games or activities that would kind of suggest. But it's never felt necessarily vocationally appropriate.

That's where I struggled, felt that I struggled with plenaries. But I also always, always, always run out of time. I get really overexcited and kind of like, we're like really focused on what's happening. And then suddenly, we sort of teach in two-hour blocks, that time has just disappeared. I barely look up at the clock.

Yeah, so I've always run out of time on my sessions and then would upload to Google Drive, or Google Classroom, the plenary task. It would tend to then blur into maybe a bit of sort of homework in a way. Or like a development tasks, going, "Maybe look at this." Or, "Can you comment on this?" Or often it was a sort of a review and comment on the work. So watch this video clip and then tell me two things that you may improve for next session. Or set yourself a target. Or whatever it is that I need them to do.

But again, it always sort of felt tokenistic and like I was trying to fulfil some kind of educational model that I must put in, otherwise I'm not an effective teacher. Whereas it didn't feel like it was necessarily doing the job that a plenary should, of kind of really being in that moment of assessing, or reviewing the learning of the session. Also to give me an understanding. I didn't feel like I was grabbing all of the best bits of the plenary.

Martine: With that in mind, you researched this as part of your college's or our college's professional development scheme, and there was an observation and things like that. What did you find out? What did you learn? Where are you now with plenaries?

Oli: So I think the main thing I learned, or the main thing I took from it was that I was doing really good plenaries, but I just wasn't calling it a plenary. That plenaries aren't necessarily some dark arts of education. That they are something that we naturally do, and we probably instinctively know how to do it. We don't necessarily have to carve out this additional task. Because if you are teaching, especially in a scaffolding approach, you're naturally taking away that support. Then by the end the students tend to have something that is a bit freer where they get to demonstrate their learning. That actually is your plenary. So we always, if I'm say directing a show, and I'm working on a scene, I'll go through the blocking, we'll talk about character choices. We'll look at moments that could be developed or ideas or thoughts. They try things out in three or four different ways. And I'd give them feedback and it's a very reciprocal process.

Then at the end of that moment, we would then put it all together and run it. Then I'd put a plenary task on the end to do something else. And it's like, well actually that run, that is the plenary task, because they they're showing me what they've learned, what they've remembered, and they're also demonstrating what I need to do next to help them improve.

Martine: That's such a great takeaway. So what you're saying is you actually were doing plenaries already. They were serving their purpose. They were part of your teaching and learning plan from the beginning. It was almost a case of putting a label on it. That's so interesting and a great reflection on your part, definitely.

Oli: It's definitely the thing of like, you know, we have, or I tend to favor the sort of the five minute lesson plan sort of structure. It visually works for me a bit better to have a bit more of a kind of a creative page in front of me when I'm thinking about planning my lesson. But you tend to have like certain amount of boxes for your tasks. Say there are five boxes and you're like, "Right, I must split my class into five. I'm going to do my starter task, and then I'm going to do my kind of introduction, and then I'm going to do an activity. Then I'm going to do activity two. Then I'm going to do my plenary." I don't know, I kind of sometimes go, sometimes my lesson is one task, but it's just a really big task that naturally flows from something that gets you into it, doing the activity and reviewing it.

For me, it's learning how to break that down into boxes, I guess, to be able to compartmentalise each section. I could theorise my practice loads and have so many tasks and reflection points and feedback points and peer reviews, and all these things that happen naturally. Or I could get on with my job. So that's, I think, the biggest takeaway I've had is going, if I need to now articulate in a really detailed way, my lesson structure, it's all there. But ultimately I also feel much more confident in going, I've done a plenary because we have reviewed the learning of this session, and I've seen what the students have taken away from it. What they've been able to apply straight away, and sort of looking at the development metacognition, and their ownership of the learning.

Most of my plenary tasks are much more meaningful because the students own it, rather than sort of arbitrarily filling in a form or a, I don't know, you know, sticking a post it on a wall. They've actually just gone, "No, I've done it. I've got it." Or, "I haven't got that bit, I need to work on that."

Martine: There's so much good stuff in there. I mean, when is it ever a good thing that we do something in order to tick a box? That really sounds like what we were doing, you know, I don't know, 24 months ago in terms of the old approach to lesson observations. Where it was performance management and you had to ... You know how lesson observations used to be, there was a formula to get an outstanding lesson observation. You have a starter activity, you have a plenary, you make sure there's plenty of assessment for learning, you don't do a lot of teacher talk, etc, etc. When is that ever good?

Oli Yeah, no, I think that's the thing. It definitely feels like, and I guess this ... Maybe it's an old school approach to kind of the fear of Ofsted, where you have to go through all these things, and there's a certain formula to do a perfect lesson. But I think also there's that thing of going, the perfect lesson is the lesson that needs to be taught. This is what they need right now, and this is how I need to do it. Of course you can be developed, and somebody can give you pointers and guidance on ideas, of how you could improve. But really I think especially in sort of creative subjects, where you just go, this is just what needs to happen right now.

I remember I was being observed, I had my formal lesson observation, and we were lighting the show. It just had to happen, it was the only day I could get into the theatre. The only day I could have the technicians. And that was the time that I was given for my observation.

My lesson plan was like literally one thing of going, I will sit with a technician and we will light the whole show from beginning to end, and the students will stand on stage and move when I tell them to. It was very old school chalk and talk, because they had to be pretty much silent. Do not say anything, until I ask you something, and do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you. Because that's the nature of vocation, what plotting the lighting run is. The observer was ... I just sat there sort of apologising in advance, going, "I'm really sorry, be as honest as you want to be honest, but this is ..." I kind of explained the situation.

I got really brilliant feedback and he really highlighted how independent the learners were. How they had ownership of all of their work. They knew exactly what was doing. We were working completely vocationally. We were working in symmetry. The students knew what I wanted them to do. They were able to adapt, they were resilient, they were resourceful. It was like, "Oh yeah, all that stuff is there and it does demonstrate teaching and it definitely demonstrates learning." But because working in the vocation environment, sometimes you feel like maybe you're not doing the perfect teacher job. And you feel that you should, you know, put more bells and whistles on it. Like there was no maths, I didn't ask them to count to eight whilst walking in time to the music.

Martine: And you didn't use an iPad. There was no iPad use.

Oli: There was no iPad use, there was just a lot of me shouting. That was pretty much it. But that again, that I professionally know and there's a point where, as a performer, you become a self-moving piece of furniture. It's “I don't need your opinion. I don't need you to tell me what the problem is. I need you to stand there so I can make sure the lights are on you, and that the technician can do their job. Right now your ego is not needed, thank you very much.”

Martine: If your learners don't learn that, then they are not going to be good actors who get hired, ultimately.

Oli: That's a really important thing. I mean we very much teach the importance of respecting your technicians. That's a big part of the industry, is, you know, sound and light are people who get given very little time to do their job. But ultimately they can mess you up on stage because if you annoy your lighting technician, they will turn your lights off before you finish speaking. Or they will not turn it on quick enough. There's lots of many ways that other people can mess you up whilst you're the one in front of the audience. So you have to really, I teach a lot of like, as an actor you are only one part of this production. It just happens to be that you're the one that gets all the glory. But really understanding the whole process is a valuable thing for our learning. But also just being able to be ... For somebody, an observer to come in and reflect back to you, that actually I've worked for 12 weeks on this production. I teach company as my core thing. That we're teamwork, I guess, and kind of more educational speak. But that they are there as a company of actors. They are there to work together and they are there as a collective, and that their individual ego isn't being serviced.

We get a lot of stars, or wannabe stars, and it's very difficult sometimes to put them in a box and go, "You're part of a bigger thing now, this isn't about you, this is about everybody." But that learning was then reflected back as a sort of almost towards the end of the process. It's like a summative way of showing that their professionalism is demonstrated more in that moment than it necessarily is when they're performing, because the professional attitude is just to be able to go, okay, this is what needs to happen and I need to do that now.

Martine: Going back to the observation process where you were doing this tech rehearsal and actually your observer was able to kind of highlight so many aspects of good practice there. I also think we need to give a nod to the experience of that observer, because clearly they weren't coming into your lesson with that kind of tick box approach. Where they wanted to see this, this, this, this, this and this. They obviously had a lot of experience and recognised good teaching and learning when they saw it.

Oli: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I feel at our college we are very lucky to have a very ... I guess because we're a vocational college, we have a really diverse teaching staff, who come from many different walks of life. Not many of them are educationalists, first and foremost, they come from industry and they come with lots of different perspectives. It's really nice, I think, at college when you get to go to areas that are completely different to what you would teach in. So you have zero opinion on kind of the content of the teaching. I have no idea whether or not that's how you effectively weld something together. But all I'm looking at is the delivery, the structure, the support, the information and the kind of environment. So I'm not going to go, "Well if it was me, I would ..." I was going to try and talk about welding then, you know, "I would do it slightly differently. I would hold it at this angle."

I don't know that, I haven't got that specialist information. But I can stay that instruction was really clear, that was a really supported ... I can see there was development, you know, those are the things. And so my observer was somebody who does have, I think quite often observed the performing arts area, and always really says ... Has said that they always enjoy sort of coming in and seeing a world that is completely far away from what they exist in normally. Actually that kind of that distance helps you to remove your own opinion or preconceived idea, and you just observe what's going on.

Martine: Absolutely, and I have to say, that is probably the best part of my job, because as a teacher trainer and assessor trainer, I get to see the most incredible teaching and learning happen. Not so long ago I was working with the local police force, and I was watching a firearms trainer assess other police officers shooting. It was such a privilege to be able to be in someone else's environment, and be allowed in. I think as teachers we can learn so much from watching other teachers in different environments. Ultimately, it is just teaching and learning. To make the connection with plenaries, it's much more of a concept than a specific set of games or tools or activities. It's about embracing the concept and making it work for your environment really, isn't it?

Oli: I think so, and I think, you know, you can go online and you can find a hundred effective plenary tasks, or the best plenary activities there are, or buy this and we'll give you loads of plenaries. But really it's working out what is the most effective for you as an individual, but also for the session that you're teaching. A ticket to leave, I keep using that one because it the one I remember the most from teacher training was like okay that's a good one to use, because it's sort of tangible. But that's not always going to be the most effective thing to use. I always worry about students feeling a sense of, "Oh okay, why am I doing this?" If it feels irrelevant then, they're not going to get anything from it, and they're just going to write down anything. I also think plenaries have always felt to me like they're the last five minutes of a session.

The last five minutes of the sessions are, you know, that as are people leaving, you know, really to me the other thing I took away is I tend to do my plenary, the activity really is, is probably three quarters of the way through the session. It's almost like you need a plenary and then an end task, like a fun thing to finish, or a don't forget. Or you know, parish notices, by the way, next week can you bring this in? Whereas it all tended to get very muddled on top of each other. Fill this in, do this, don't forget to do that. Somebody uploaded this, go for that. Can you make sure you stack the chairs away. Okay, bye. And it's like, what just happened? Nothing happened. Nothing was effective, nothing was learned, or no space was given to the reflective nature, I guess, of the plenary.

For the students to be able to go, okay, what have I taken away? What do I need? What did I get? Have I got a question? Like now is the time to ask the question. It's like going, I don't want you to sort of next week come back in and go, "Oh yeah, I forgot to ask at the end of last session, what was this?" It's like, no, ask me at that time. Ask me at that moment, so that we can nail it, or we can make a plan.

Martine: That's such a good point. That's such a good point about not having to have your plenary right at the very end. You know, why are you doing a plenary right at the very end? Because the books say you should. That's a really important takeaway that you've got to make it work for your learners and your topic.

Oli: I think also when I started teaching, or started my teacher training, I realized that I try and fit in a lot into my sessions. Or I want them to really kind of grasp loads of things from every single session, and it's like 20 different takeaways. Actually kind of go, okay, well, no I need to dilute that down. I need to be ... This session I'm really just going to focus on these two or three things. Then your plenary is going, did they get those two or three things? Are they ready for more? That sense of being able to sort of take a litmus test. Go, "Okay, cool. Where were we up to? Okay, we're up to here. Yeah, I can give these people more." Or that person's flying, I'm going to ask them to really work on these two or three things. That person has got no idea what day of the week it is, I need to pull this right back. Being able to gauge where each individual learner is up to means that your plenaries have to be purposeful, and not just like say, "Oh, the books tell me I must, in the last five minutes, do something. Quick, here's a post it note and a felt tip, draw your emotion. Slap it on."

Martine: Could you offer some advice or maybe any kind of resources to the listeners who are wanting to maybe investigate plenaries further, do a little bit of research, see how they could focus on that element of their practice?

Oli: So the best sort of resource that I found that really sort of helped me develop is the How to Teach range by Phil Beadle, I think his name is. There is a book called The Book of Plenary. That's a really good resource for understanding sort of the purpose of plenaries, I guess. Then there are loads of like ... The Teacher Toolkit is a really good place to sort of start. They've got links to the resource plenary resources. My advice really is take the structure of any of the activities, and work out how to adapt it to your session. Even if it's like for giving it a theme or kind of redesigning it slightly. I also think sometimes when as teachers you kind of go, I want to find the resource that I can just download, and just do, and then that's just done. It's the path of least resistance.

I think sometimes just taking five minutes to go, okay, well how could I just slightly re-imagine that, or make it work for what I'm teaching, would be really effective. So if you're on a topic, again, I'll go back to ticket to leave, which is just saying to somebody, "Write down two things that you've learned from this session, or two things that you're going to do. Or a task, something you must remember for next week." Or whatever. Can you fit that into your theme or your topic? How do you adapt things? Really, to me, I think, you know, primary school teachers to me are the absolute pinnacle of teaching pedagogy, really. Because they do this all the time. Constantly just adapt and mix up what they normally do to fit their topic, to fit their theme. Whether it's dinosaurs or Egypt, or whatever other topics there are.

They adapt their resources, and they just spend that time ... A friend of mine, we used to meet up in the evenings, and she used to arrive with pages and pages of laminated stuff that you'd be sitting chatting, and she's still cutting out her laminated things for the next day, because she's like, "I just need these resources, and I've got no time to make them." And primary school teachers to me seem to have, they just have that gift of going, "Here's an idea, and here's how I'm going to change it to fit what I'm doing." They probably use the same resource every term, or every topic, but they just twist it, and then they adapt it. That's something I think teaching older students, you get a bit lazy about. We go, well that's just that, you have it, and there's nothing you can do with it.

So my advice is definitely looking at making it meaningful. If your students needed to have learnt a series of 10 things, then the plenary needs to be, do you know these 10 things. Not don't deal in metaphors, and if a metaphor is not right, tell me, do you know this? If they need to be tested, test them, but maybe try and find a, I don't know, a fun way of testing them. You know, a physical Bingo, where everyone stands up, sits down, when you say a word, what's the definition? Loads of game shows have structures that work for education. Jeopardy is a great one where they give you the definition, you have to say what is the dah, dah, dah.

But yeah, if you need to test them, test them, but be explicit about it. If it's a gauging of where they're up to, then that can be a really diverse and fun way of doing it.

Martine: Oli that's great advice. Thank you so much. Any resources you've mentioned I will make sure I pop a link in the show notes to them, so people can access them easily. Before we wrap things up, I have one final question for you, and that is where can people find you online?

Oli: So I'm on Twitter as myself as OliGsy. That's where I tend to sort of interact the most with education stuff, information. But I'm also, I am the artistic director of a theatre company called TinWhistleProductions.com, where we run corporate training using improvisation and drama techniques.

Martine: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. It's been a real pleasure and I hope you'll come back again soon.

The Book of Plenary: Here Endeth the Lesson . . . (How to Teach (Independent Thinking))

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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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 1. Idea generation/gathering 2. Plenary/reflection: for example, one thing you have learned from today’s lesson 3. Who am I? game/ice breaker 4. Build graphs 5. Assignment planning: for example, to help learners structure their writing. 6. Marking up books 7. 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 1. Google Jamboard 2. Answergarden 3. Padlet 4. Stormboard 5. 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.

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What is Batching? (This section is adapted from my book, The Productive Teacher).

According to business productivity expert, Michael Hyatt, batching, or batch processing is the grouping of similar tasks that require similar resources to streamline their completion.

You probably batch tasks already. For example, cleaning or making freezer meals.

Why is Batching a Good Idea? Batching is the extreme opposite of multitasking. To understand why batching works, it’s worth remembering why multitasking doesn’t.

Multitasking, or more accurately, task switching, is not a productive way to work. Our brains are simply not wired to multi-task and need to focus on one thing at a time. Every time you are distracted by another task (the task switch) it takes time and energy. Doing this constantly will drain you and stress you out.

Focussing on one task means you are not task switching and allows you to get into a state of flow. Flow is an amazing state to be in because you work better and faster.

Batching for Teachers and Trainers One of the biggest productivity challenges teachers face is that they rarely have long stretches of uninterrupted time outside of the classroom to do work. It’s usually short bursts of time. Getting into a state of flow quickly, therefore, is essential. Choosing to batch aspects of your work, for example marking or dealing with emails, even for short periods, can be a game -changer.

Step by Step Batching 1. When/how often are you going to batch? 2. What will you batch? How many things are you batching? 3. Prepare to batch and get it on your calendar. 4. Do it! 5. Protect your batch times.

Example 1 While this might not be the most relatable example, please look at the process behind it.

To plan my podcast batching I use Google Sheets and my to-do list app, TickTick. Here is a snapshot of my podcast batch recording plan:

Screenshots 1 and 2

You can see I have scheduled episodes for the year on my Google Sheet and in TickTick and I have also marked out ’recording weeks’.

I can comfortably write four episodes in a day and record them the day after. In my TickTick you can see an example of a batch recording task showing four episodes.

Screenshot 3

My batch times (writing in one day, recording in another) are scheduled on my Google Calendar. Whereas I mark out the weeks on my Google Sheet, I select specific days in my calendar. This works because I only record when I am off work on holiday so usually it is a minimum of a week off.

Example 2 This is a more relatable but less specific example:

When I am at work I schedule batch marking sessions. These are not the same weekly slots as my marking workload differs week-by-week. But as soon as I know I have marking to do (this should be well in advance of work being handed in!) I review how much I will have against my calendar for the week. I select my batch marking slots by working out roughly how long each paper should take to mark.

Technically, as I know when assignments are issued and due, I should be able to plan my batch marking for the year… but the reality is a little different, as I am sure you understand. For me, week-by-week batch planning works OK in this context. The key thing is to plan the batching and schedule it. Then you need to protect your schedule.

(Top tip: if others have access to your calendar and tend to book meetings in your gaps, call your batching time block ASSESSMENT - it sends a clear message that meetings are not to be scheduled in that slot).

Helpful Tools and Strategies Using the marking example, here are some strategies I use to support batching:

Minimise distractions:
- Work in an alternative location
- Block the internet (unless you are marking online) using a tool like Freedom
- Use focus apps like Forest to stop you mindlessly scrolling on your mobile when you should be marking
Treat your batching time as if it is a really important meeting
Experiment with the Pomodoro Technique.

Over to You Do you already use batching or is it a new concept to you? Let me know your thoughts; 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 do 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/65.

Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

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Episode 64 of The Teaching Space Podcast shares a new approach to lesson observations.

Welcome Welcome to season two of The Teaching Space Podcast. I have decided to start classing each academic year’s worth of episodes as a season to make it easier to keep track of where we are with the show.

I started recording the podcast back in December 2017, so I am classing the episodes between then and June 2018 (episode 27) as season 0. Episodes 28 to 63 (the last academic year) were season one. So that means today’s episode marks the start of season two.

I wanted to kick the new season off with a meaty episode, that’s why I’ve chosen lesson observations. If you’re listening and thinking “this doesn’t apply to me as I am not in a school environment”, keep listening. Remember, I am not in a school environment either. You’ll find I am going to talk more about professional development than anything else.

Background I work in the further education and skills sector. Like most Colleges, in recent history, our approach to lesson observations has been something like this:

One lesson observation a year
Observer is a member of the lesson observation team
Lesson observations are graded against criteria
They are judgemental, as opposed to developmental
Managers (middle and senior) carry out additional learning walks

The rationale behind this approach, like most observation schemes, was performance management, loosely framed as professional development. You could argue there is a degree of developmental focus in there, as if someone was not performing in a certain area, they could access various CPD opportunities. But, when it comes down to it, performance was being measured against criteria.

This is how most observation schemes are structured, to the best of my knowledge. In most cases, observations would be carried out by managers rather than peers (as in our case). On the face of it, we appear to be a little ahead of the game, using peers instead of managers. However, should a peer have a responsibility for contributing to the performance management of another peer? Probably not.

Research Added to this, current research demonstrates that traditional, graded observations do not work. If you are interested in reading more about this I highly recommend anything by Matt O’ Leary, in particular his book, Classroom Observation (which I think is being updated at the moment). I have just downloaded his more recent book, Reclaiming Observations, which I am looking forward to getting stuck into.

Some of the reasons these observations are not effective are:

They are a snapshot of teaching practice
They cause teachers unnecessary stress
There is a formula for achieving an outstanding lesson observation

As such, lesson observations are not a good measure of performance and rarely contribute to a teacher’s professional development.

ONE THING We decided to redesign the entire professional development cycle for teachers at my organisation. We wanted to:

Redefine the role of lesson observation as a tool for professional development only - performance management would be handled outside of this process
Avoid causing teachers undue stress and needlessly adding to their workload
Place ownership of professional development with the teacher
Create a culture of professional trust
Encourage collaboration with peers, reflective practice and scholarly activity
Place teaching and learning at the heart of professional development.

So the “ONE THING” was born. Broadly speaking, it looks like this:

Start of the academic year: teachers self-assess their practice against the ETF Professional Standards for Teachers and Trainers in the UK. In discussion with peers, they choose their ONE THING - an aspect of their professional practice to focus on developing for the academic year.
Teachers research their ONE THING with peers and experiment in their classroom.
Observed activity happens (not always classroom-based):
- Pre-meeting to discuss the focus of the observation (ONE THING)
- Observed activity happens
- Post-observation discussion to explore next steps and developmental/research opportunities
Observation is conducted by a peer, is:
- Non-judgemental
- Ungraded
- Focussed on the ONE THING
- Driven by the teacher
End of the academic year: self-assessment is repeated.

How Did it Go? The short answer is: extremely well based on the questionnaire and focus group feedback from lecturers. On the questionnaire, 100% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed the ONE THING process benefited their teaching practice.

There are things we are going to change for next year, for example, our communication strategy and our ONE THING vocabulary. The phrase “ONE THING” has stuck well but some of the role names within the process have not, for example, there was a lack of clarity on the role of the “buddy” and the role of the “peer”. While we’d simplified the observation paperwork dramatically, we know we can simplify it further.

Over to You I’d like to take our observation research further and find out your experience of similar processes. Feel free to email me on hello@theteachingspace.com or pop into our Facebook Group (TTS Staff Room) and share your story.

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/64.

Thanks for listening and I hope you’ll join me for the next episode.

Reclaiming Lesson Observation: Supporting excellence in teacher learning

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Episode 63 of The Teaching Space Podcast outlines a simple strategy to help teachers and trainers plan a relaxing but productive summer break.

Visualise First, think about where you want to be, both personally and professionally, by the end of the summer. Write it down.
List Next, list all of the steps you need to take to achieve that overall aim.
Highlight Grab a highlighter pen and mark out your top priorities. This will be helpful when you start mapping out what you will do when later on.
Balance Check This is the most important part of the process. Check that what you are planning is balanced. Your requirements will be different to mine, but for example, I would be ensuring my plan is balanced between:
rest/health
home improvements
friends and family
personal projects

Where tasks don’t contribute to a decent balance, and are not a priority, strike them off.

Plan Now grab your calendar and plan out each week’s to-do list.

Housekeeping This is the last podcast for my academic year - I will be taking a break over summer. The next episode will go live on Friday 30 August 2019 so if you are not currently subscribed to the show, I recommend you do so. I’ll still be active in our Facebook group during my break, so feel free to come and hang out over there. I’ll also still check in with you by email if you are are signed up to receive The Teaching Space Extra.

All that remains to be said is thank you for your support during this season of the show. If you enjoy The Teaching Space podcast or blog please consider contributing to the monthly running costs over on my Ko-fi page. You can find this at ko-fi.com/theteachingspace.

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Episode 62 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores time blocking as a productivity strategy.

When You’re Really Busy When I am really busy and there's potential for, what I like to refer to as "a wobble", I do three things:

I stop (and usually grab a cuppa).
I ensure my list is totally up-to-date (in other words, that everything I need to do is on my list - if I don't know what I need to do when, I cannot get things done).
I time block my days.

What is Time Blocking? There are probably lots of different definitions, but for me, it is planning every single 15 minute block of my day (this includes rest, breaks etc). Every. Single. Thing. Goes. On. The. Calendar.

Seriously.

Stuff on the calendar gets prioritised. It gets done.

My Calendar Setup I use Google Calendar. Did you know you can set up multiple Google Calendars under one email address? I do this to categories and easily colour code my activities. It’s also helpful to be able to toggle certain categories/calendars on and off. My calendar list looks something like this:

External appointments
Internal appointments
Events
Get stuff done (this is for tasks)
The Teaching Space
Martine Makes
Health

I also have access to my husband’s calendars.

Why Does it Work? Simple maths - you’ll get to see if there actually are not enough hours in the day! You have to be more realistic when setting deadlines too.

Another helpful aspect of time blocking is if your calendar is accessible by others who want to book meetings with you, they can see when you really do have space!

You can batch work in time blocks to increase efficiency. Read The Productive Teacher book for more on batching.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, things on the calendar are priorities. They get done.

Time Blocking Resources * Get More Done With Calendar Blocking by Amy Landino (video) * A Quick Guide to Time Blocking by Kelsey Jones (article) * Timeboxing: Elon Musk's Time Management Method by Thomas Frank (video) * The Truth About Time Blocking (Or: How I Learned to Love Compartmentalization) by Juliana Casale (article) * Deep Habits: The Importance of Planning Every Minute of Your Work Day by Cal Newport (article)

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Introduction Today’s podcast topic is something a little different. Quite a few people have asked me what goes into making a weekly podcast, so today, I am pulling back the curtain!

General Organisation I work full time so it’s necessary for me to bulk record podcast episodes during my breaks, otherwise I’d spend a considerable chunk of my weekend on podcasting. Over the past year, this has worked extremely well for me. The only downside is that I can’t react as quickly as I’d like to current topics as I’ve usually got 6 weeks' worth of content already created. But this is a minor disadvantage.

I map out my podcast planning in Notion on a Kanban-style board (very similar to Trello’s set up). My main columns are:

To be recorded
In progress
Queued
Published
Misc

I have a virtual assistant, Tilly, who collaborates with me on this board.

Ideas Under my ‘To be recorded’ column in Notion, I have a card for each episode (containing the episode number and due date). When I come up with an idea for an episode, I add it to a card as a working title. I flesh out the details later.

Pre-recording Bearing in mind I create podcast episodes in bulk (3 to 6 at a time) the planning/writing aspect happens in bulk too.

I spend the most time writing episodes, as the notes I create to record from become the show notes. Because of this, they have to follow a certain format and be reasonably error free. I write episode notes in Notion and format them in a particular way. I have a standard checklist which gets copied then pasted into each episode for Tilly and I to follow. That way, nothing gets missed and we have a consistent approach to each episode.

Once I’ve written the notes and ensured there is a call to action, I run everything through ProWritingAid. Then it is time to record.

Recording and Editing Episodes are recorded fairly quickly with minimal editing. I use the previous episode as a template so my opening and closing elements are already there. This works well because episodes are usually the same length. You can find details of my tech setup here.

The audio is published in draft with my hosting company and I download an MP3 version to extract a trailer clip if audio.

Then it’s over to Tilly.

Post-production Tilly creates social media images for the episode in Canva and adds them to Notion. She also creates the episode artwork. She prepares video clips for social media using an amazing tool called Headliner. She checks and formats the show notes, as per our checklist.

Tilly then hops over to the episode on my hosting platform and checks and edits everything over there. Everything remains in draft.

She then moves the card in Notion to “Queued” so I know it is ready to go.

Publication and Sharing On the day the podcast is due to go live, I publish it with my host and on my blog so the show notes are live. This then gets pushed out to podcast apps like Apple Podcasts etc. I set up a URL redirect so the episode is easy to find. After that, I share the episode to all my social platforms, using the collateral Tilly created. I also schedule a month’s worth of tweets about the episode using Amplifr.

I keep a database of pre-written tweets so Tilly can reshare episodes with the relevant images at a later date.

And that’s it!

Wrap up That’s all from me today, before I go, I have one small ask. Please sign up for my weekly email newsletter, The Teaching Space Extra. It includes access to my free resource library, as well as lots of great reading recommendations and information about productivity, teaching and tech. Hop over to theteachingspace.com/tts-extra to sign up.

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Episode 60 of The Teaching Space Podcast delves into active reading.

Introduction Last year I read 100 books. I know. It’s a crazy number and it’s not something I’m planning to repeat any time soon (I chat about this in episode 47).

While I have run no official statistical analysis on my 2018 reading list (surprised?) I’d estimate 90% were audiobooks. I’m a huge fan of audiobooks, but one downside for me, is I don’t fully absorb everything I hear. While this is usually OK for fiction, it’s sometimes problematic for non-fiction, particularly if I’m reading for professional reasons (e.g. study).

This has lead me to explore active reading, and that’s what I will talk to you about today.

What is Active Reading? According to the Open University website, active reading is “reading something with a determination to understand and evaluate it for its relevance to your needs”.

When I’m listening to an audiobook or a podcast, I’m listening but I am definitely not evaluating at a high level. The closest I come to evaluating is deciding whether or not I like the narrator’s voice (can I listen to it for 10 hours?!)

There’s a big difference between the passive way I consume audiobooks and the definition of active reading.

How to Make Your Reading Active 1. Highlight and annotate important passages of the book (I do this on the second pass because you don’t always know what is important on the first read). Highlight selectively. 2. Build an alternative index (I read about this in an article written by Shawn Blanc, but I believe the concept came from Maria Popova from Brain Pickings). It’s a personalised index based on your own ideas. 3. Split screen approach: this is what I am experimenting with at the moment. I read on my iPad and have the Kindle app open on the left, and my note-taking app open on the right. I read for, then make notes.

SQ3R (Source)

SKIM through the text quickly to get an overall impression.
QUESTION. If you are reading it for a particular purpose (for example, to answer an assignment), ask yourself how it helps. Also ask questions of the text: Who? What? Where? When? How?
READ. Read the text in a focused, and fairly speedy way.
REMEMBER. Test your memory - but don’t worry if you can’t remember much.
REVIEW. Read the text in more detail, taking notes. Use your own words.

What About Those Audiobooks? I’m not giving up audiobooks any time soon; I love them. But I have decided to focus on using them for fiction only. I need to be more active when reading non-fiction.

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Episode 59 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores my current productivity app setup.

Introduction Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I LOVE a productivity app. You’ll have heard me geeking out on this subject in episode 56 of the podcast when I interviewed Francesco D’Alessio.

I want to point out that my setup changes regularly. While I do try to make most of my podcast content pretty evergreen (in other words, it does not date too much) this episode probably will date. I will likely record an updated version in the future.

Martine’s Top Five Productivity Apps Ok, so here are my current five favourite productivity apps, in no particular order:

Todoist I’ve probably used every task management app out there but right now, I am thrilled with Todoist. It’s powerful enough to manage complex projects with lots of different tasks due on different dates, but it’s also sufficiently lightweight to work as a idea inbox. If I get a random idea at an odd moment, it’s easy to just dump it in my Todoist inbox and file it later.

The best feature of Todoist for me is its integration with Google Calendar. It allows me to time block my day particularly well.

I have a paid subscription to Todoist, but the free version is great.

Google Calendar It won’t surprise you then that Google Calendar is next on my list. I just use the regular Google Calendar app. Everything goes in there - if it is not in Google Calendar, it is not happening.

My husband and I would really struggle to make our schedules match from time-to-time without Google Calendar’s help.

Google calendar is free.

Notion Notion is my life and business hub. It’s like my own internal intranet. My favourite thing about Notion is you can make it into anything you want. It’s a blank canvas. This can be quite intimidating for people who aren’t entirely clear what they want from the tool, but for me, it’s great. As I mentioned earlier, I have used a lot of productivity apps, so I know exactly what I need from them. I have built what I need in Notion.

I use Notion for high level planning and collaborative projects. For example, I use a Kanban style setup in Notion with my VA to manage the podcast.

You might wonder why I still use Todoist, if Notion is so great. Well, that would be a good thing to wonder! Notion is still a young company and they are making updates all the time. One thing I’m hoping they will improve is how Notion handles task management. For me, there are just a few too many steps involved. Hence the need for Todoist. What I’m hoping is there will soon be an integration between Notion and Todoist - then I get everything I need in one place.

Notion is has a limited free option which is great for experimentation and getting to know the tool. I have the paid version of Notion.

Forest Forest is a cross-platform focus app. I tend to use it on my mobile device, but I noticed there is a free Chrome extension which I will definitely give a try.

The premise of the app is you set an amount of time to focus, e.g. 30 minutes, and you start the app. Over the 30 minutes, the app plants a virtual tree. If you interrupt the planting process by picking up your phone and navigating away from the app (to check Facebook, for example) the tree dies. The idea is to create a forest with no dead trees.

Forest is great for fans of the Pomodoro Technique (listen to episode 12 of the podcast for more on this).

I love gamifying focus time, and it gets even better when you compete against your friends and colleagues.

Forest costs $1.99.

Ulysses Finally, my writing app of choice is Ulysses. I consider this a productivity tool as it’s a minimal, yet powerful app that helps me get focussed on my writing.

Ulysses is great for long-form writing, for example, I wrote my book, The Productive Teacher, in Ulysses. But I am also finding it useful for writing notes when I’m reading something on Kindle. I can use the split screen function on my iPad and have the Kindle app on one side and Ulysses on the other.

There’s a learning curve with Ulysses - for starters, you write in markdown, which takes getting used to. I recommend Sean Blanc’s Learn Ulysses course.

Ulysses is a subscription based app.

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Episode 58 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores Monday morning anxiety.

Introduction Back in March I wrote an email to my TTS Extra subscribers about Monday morning anxiety. I was surprised that so many people responded to it, so I thought it would be a good idea to record a podcast episode on the topic.

What is Monday Morning Anxiety? I guess for some, it is technically Sunday Night Anxiety.

For me it’s a sinking feeling in my stomach, a mixed sensation of anxiety, anticipation and worry about the week to come. Ahem... I also have physical symptoms, but you need not know about those!

The thing is, I’m happy, I love my job and manage my stress levels extremely well. But Monday morning anxiety is something I have struggled with for over 30 years and it won’t quit. It’s definitely got to the stage where it is far more physical than mental, but even so, it’s there and it is a pain.

That being said, I have developed a few strategies to manage it.

How I Manage MMA One of the most important strategies I use is switching off from work at the weekend. I don’t check emails and I don’t mark or plan. The closest I get to working at the weekend is professional reading or study (for example, working on my Advanced Teacher Status portfolio). My weekend priorities are recharging my batteries, hanging out with my people, being outdoors and enjoying my creative hobbies. Check out The Productive Teacher book for more on this.

Another strategy I rely on is planning my Monday on Friday. I review my calendar and organise my to-do list. Often it’s The Unknown that increases my anxiety.

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Goodness, I am so ‘on brand’ for a teacher educator! Your basic needs must be met if you stand a chance of reaching self-actualisation (a.k.a getting through the week!) I meal plan and grocery shop every Sunday. Having meals organised for at least five days removes an element of stress from my life and helps me manage my energy. I am quite convinced meal planning on a Sunday helps reduce my anxiety on a Monday. I even recorded a meal planning podcast episode (check out episode 32).

Planning and organisation is definitely at the heart of my approach to anxiety management.

Create Positive Habits Many of the strategies I mentioned above have become habits. If you are interested in learning more about establishing positive habits then you should definitely listen to episode 49 of the podcast, Create Positive Habits That Stick and read the book I mention in it.

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Episode 57 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores imposter syndrome.

What is it?

“The imposter syndrome is a psychological term referring to a pattern of behavior where people doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent, often internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.” (Psychology Today, 2018).

My Recent Experience I experience imposter syndrome ALL THE TIME. This often comes as a surprise to people as I present as an extroverted person positive about their broad skill set. I’m actually an introvert (I get my energy from being quiet and on my own). I have a broad set of skills, but as a result, I usually feel I lack expertise in anything; "jack of all trades, master of none".

I recently signed up for a series of lunchtime lectures on conducting research because it’s something I’m interested in, but know little about. At the start of the first session, the lecturer asked us all to explain why we came to the session. I was in a room full of Master’s and PhD students... I’m not working towards, nor do I have a Master’s or a PhD... so why was I there? Did I have a right to be there? Serious imposter syndrome alert.

Ironically, it turned out I was also the only person in the room who had published anything. While my book, The Productive Teacher, might not be based my own officially documented academic research, it’s mine, and it’s published. I have also written multiple articles for industry journals. So on this occasion, I was ok. But it doesn’t always work out that well for me. Can you relate?

Imposter Syndrome Triggers You’ll notice the title of this episode refers to “managing” imposter syndrome. Unfortunately, you probably cannot make it disappear. However, I believe you can manage it if you know the situations that trigger you. Here are examples you might relate to:

Lesson observations
Returning to teaching after a break
Talking to parents about their children or employers about their staff
Attending courses
Job interviews
Working with a new group of learners
Teaching a new topic
Social media

Strategies for Managing Imposter Syndrome Here are a few ways you can try to manage imposter syndrome:

Recognise it’s normal: teachers and trainers are front and centre in a group of people, it’s natural to feel like an imposter sometimes. Recognise that and stop judging yourself. Place a hard limit on negative self talk.
Temporary social media ban: if social media triggers your imposter syndrome, stop. Unfollow those who trigger you and stop overloading yourself with input.
Reframe your feelings as reflection: I sometimes thing imposter syndrome is reflection gone wrong. Reflection is good - negative self-talk is bad. Go back to basics. Use Rolfe (What? So What? Now What?)
Be honest with students: while I don’t advocate you telling your students you are a total fraud and don’t deserve to be there, you can often be more honest than you think. If you are tackling a new (to you) topic, approach it with your learners in a more collaborative way. Empower them to teach you. The results might surprise you. Use this approach with care.
Confide: finally, talk to a trusted colleague. You’ll likely discover that EVERYONE feels the same as you at some point. It helps - honest.

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Episode 56 of The Teaching Space Podcast discusses some tools for productivity in an interview with Francesco D’Alessio.

Introduction Hello and welcome to the Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me.

Martine: Today I am thrilled to bring you an interview with productivity expert Francesco D'Alessio. Francesco, welcome to the show.

Francesco: Hello, Martine. Yeah, good to be here. I'm very excited.

Martine: Not as excited as me. I'm a bit of a fan girl. I can't lie. I've been listening to your show for a while and following you on YouTube and things like that so it's a real pleasure to have you here. Could I ask you to introduce yourself to the Teaching Space listeners?

Francesco: Yeah, I know that, it's great you've been following for a while and obviously I've seen you in the community so much helping others, which is amazing.

Martine: Doing my best.

Francesco: Definitely. Yeah, no, for the viewers out there, my name's Francesco. I run a YouTube channel called Keep Productive which is essentially helping people to find the right tools for their needs, whether that's work or life. It's a very fun pursuit and very recent pursuit of mine.

Martine: Excellent. Productivity is your thing, really, isn't it?

Francesco: Yeah, apps and software.

Martine: Apps and software. How did this interest in productivity start?

Francesco: It's probably quite a weird thing for a 24-year-old to be this interested in, right?

Martine: No, definitely, no I think it's great. You're never too young to be into productivity.

Francesco: That's it. Yeah, I think my sort of passion came ... I was in school. I think I was about 15 or 16. It was just before year, I think I was in year 12 and I had sadly failed all of my grades that year, minus Italian, but I'm figuring by the name I should have passed that one right?

My AS levels were sort out the door which was a bit of a shame. Then I had the opportunity, like many year 12 students do, is to repeat the year which I was a bit annoyed about but after speaking with my mum she was like, "You need to get organised this summer and really got on it." I ended up reading a book that I'll probably end up mentioning a couple of times called Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Martine: One of my favourites.

Francesco: It's a classic, isn't it?

Martine: Definitely.

Francesco: I read that one and obviously with that book came all of the other useful software like Evernote and a couple more at the time. I came back to school and I started doing well in my grades and all in this sort of outside world of that. I ended up weirdly teaching some of my teachers about the productivity apps.

Martine: Amazing.

Francesco: I felt like I had a knack for teaching other people about how to use software. It sort of spiralled form there, I'd say. We've been working on the channel for about four, five years now and it's been growing ever since. Our goal really is to review as many softwares as we can and make sure we cover them in the most honest way, I guess, to help people find the best one that meets their needs.

Martine: Have you always been into technology in a kind of a general sense? Are you quite a tech-y sort of a guy?

Francesco: Oh, yeah, 100%. I follow all the tech stuff up so obviously that's probably where we clashed on Notion right?

Martine: Yeah, totally. Totally. I'm an early adopter of many many tools and apps and things like that. So, yeah, I can totally understand that.

It all started in school for you. That's super interesting. I love the idea of you teaching your teachers how to do certain productivity things. There's nothing like instilling confidence in a learner by getting them to teach you something. That's fab.

Francesco: Yeah, and obviously they found a lot of benefit from those apps as well so it was really good to see.

Martine: As you know, my listeners tend to be teachers or trainers. We face some quite unique productivity challenges. For example, often we end up trying to do administrative type work, in other words, the work that we're not doing in the classroom during short bursts of time between sessions. The main part of the job is being in front of the class and teaching but then we've got these little gaps in which to do our non-teaching work, so from a productivity point of view…that's really tricky.

We've also got constant interruptions, too many meetings. Oh my goodness. I've never worked in an environment where meetings are so loved.

These are just a few of the challenges that my listeners will be facing as teachers and trainers. We just wondered, bearing in mind that kind of set up, whether you have any tips or tools or anything that you recommend to busy teachers and trainers out there?

Francesco: Yeah, sure. I've got a few notes in front of me that I'd like to cover. Some of them are some useful methodologies I think would work and also some recommended tools.

Yeah, and as you said, teachers are… When I was in school and at least after school with a lot of my friends going into teaching they always seem to be quite timed for teachers. It's sad to see but obviously it's such an immersive job and it's such a passionate job that everyone wants to get very emotionally involved because they want to help the children so very much. It's a very noble pursuit definitely.

I think methods are probably the backbone of productivity in general although I don't know all the methods and I tend to bring in experts to talk about that. I normally recommend a lot of good stuff that's helped myself and other people. I would say the first process that I recommend is going back to the Getting Things Done bye David Allen.

Martine: Yes, definitely.

Francesco: It's a fantastic book. What I quite like about it is it will teach you a way of processing anything new and that's quite beneficial for all types of work. Whether it's admin work or ad hoc work it actually can be scaled to any situation. What I recommend doing is grabbing a copy of GTD or listening to it at least on apps like Audible because it will give you a framework that then you can then apply to the admin side of stuff.

Martine: I totally endorse that recommendation I must admit. One of the best things I took away from David Allen's book was the idea of just having one trusted place to keep everything. The idea that you don't have things all over the place in different apps and different locations in your office and things. That one trusted place thing for me was a massive takeaway.

Francesco: Yeah, 100%. I can imagine that you kept quite strict with it and once you've kept that sort of rigidity to GTD I think it can be so beneficial like not storing things in different places and making sure to capture things in a specific way, organising it and then clarifying it. It can really help, really help.

Then I would say like you mentioned those short bursts of times that sometimes can be interrupted or sometimes can actually be uninterrupted but more likely interrupted. The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo, is a really fantastic one and that's a very simple method of 25 minute timers and then a five minute break and having that cycle repeat itself. [Check out Episode 12 for more on this]

The goal behind this is you're wiring into that 25 minutes work without being distracted by other stuff. You've got one task or two tasks in hand that you'll be doing back to back and it's a real point, an opportunity for you focus. There's some great Pomodoro timer apps out there but you could just start by using your timer on your iPhone or Android phone. I highly recommend it to, from teachers to professionals to students because they all seem to find a lot of value from it.

Martine: I think it's a great point about using it with students. I use it personally when I'm marking because I do have a tendency to get a bit distracted when I'm marking and having that enforced time block helps me zone right into what I'm supposed to be doing and I get into a state of flow a lot more easily and a lot more quickly. I think for marking it's brilliant but I love the idea of encouraging students to use it. Generally, they've all got a phone in their back pocket so they've got that timer available. You can encourage them to put headphones in to get themselves really sort of zoning in on their work and I just think that's a really good tool for students. So a top tip there for sure.

Francesco: Yeah, definitely. The app that I would recommend for students as well is an app called Forest.

Martine: Oh, I love Forest. It's one of my favourites.

Francesco: It's so good isn't it?

Martine: Yeah, really good. Do you want to explain a little bit about what Forest is because I love it.

Francesco: It's such a friendly application. Any of the students can download it for IOS and Android, I believe. The concept is you set a timer. It can be 25 minutes, 40 minutes, however long you want your students to focus. At that time, it starts planting a tree over those 25 minutes. If the student decides, "I'm going to go over to SnapChat or Instagram," the tree dies if you don't get back to it within, it's a couple of seconds. The goal is they've got to create a tree and over time build a forest. I think it's a really healthy way to stop using your phone. Obviously you can set a timer and then forget about the timer and jump on your phone or go on your laptop or something and that's quite a nice way in making sure you're focusing.

Martine: The gamification of focus. I absolutely love it.

Francesco: Yes.

Martine: One of the things that's really helped me with Forest, because I am a competitive sort. I can't lie. I've got a group of people that I follow and who follow me on Forest and we kind of compete to see who can have the best forest.

Francesco: Oh I love it, yeah.

Martine: This is what I do in my time.

Francesco: It's a great app.

Martine: Yeah it really is. I highly recommend it. I will make sure that I link to it in the show notes so people can refer to any of the apps that you mention.

Francesco: I'll tell you my final sort of methodology or book is a book called, How to be a Productivity Ninja, by Graham Allcott. The reason I recommend this is it's actually a really beneficial for e-mail and admin. Although GTD's a very good framework this has like, it's packed full. It's a fairly meaty book and it's packed full of how to process e-mail, how to reduce stress when you're doing admin tasks. It's got a lot of good advice that can be used across the board. I can't recommend that book enough.

Martine: Fantastic. Again, I'll make sure there's a link to that in the show notes. Those are your top methodologies or approaches to productivity. What about specific tools? Have you got any of those that you'd like to recommend?

Francesco: Yeah, sure. I typically recommend three types of apps and I try to say that people should have these core apps at least and that's a to do list app, a calendar App and a note taking app. A to do list app really for your upcoming tasks, actionable stuff you need to get done. A calendar for obviously meetings and events and things like that. Then a note taker for all of that information that you're gathering. Of course it depends on, you know, you can't obviously store information so you'll have to check with your department's, what access you have of course.

The to do list app site to start with, I always recommend two ones that I think are really strong. That's Todoist and TickTick.

Martine: Okay. Todoist I use actually and I can definitely say it's a great app. Personally with that one I like that it integrates with Google Calender.

What's TickTick, did you say? I've not come across that one before.

Francesco: It's all one word, TickTick. It's very similar to Todoist in a sense but what people like slightly more than Todoist in some ways, is it has a calendar ability inside it so if you wanted to plot all of your stuff in a calendar you can do it. That's something that Todoist doesn't have just yet.

Martine: That's super interesting, particularly if you like to time block your day, bearing in mind that teachers tend to work to a timetable, then actually that could be really useful.

Francesco: Yes, 100%. I think that's why I tend to recommend it. It's a very beautiful application. The good news is they've only recently added a Pomodoro timer to it so I guess it even adds even more to it, right?

Martine: That sounds like that it's really worth a look actually. I'm thinking to myself, "No, I've committed to Todoist. I can't change yet again."

Francesco: Todoist, I'm still user of that and I love it. I think it's such a good application for determining ... I think it's better at a cleaner interface and making sure that you've got a list in front of you. You can organise stuff based on time which is quite lovely. I think that's a great application all around, so there's no need to switch.

Martine: No, I mustn't, I really mustn't, but I do have a bit of a passion for to do lists apps in particular so I'm going to stay loyal to Todoist for at least the next month or so. One thing I like in particular about Todoist is the ability to kind of look at what the next week looks like, how may tasks that you've got coming up, for me to do a bit of foreword planning I find that particularly helpful. That and the integration with Google Calendar as I mentioned. So two good recommendations there.

Francesco: Of course if you start using that GTD process both of those applications have what's called an inbox and that's essentially your task inbox for dumping all the stuff you haven't processed yet. It's a pretty neat experience.

Obviously calendar apps, I typically recommend people stay with Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, normally because I guess sometimes the calendars either G-suite or it could be Microsoft in some institutions. I guess it's up to that department or that school, right?

Martine: Absolutely. Interestingly, my college where I work, we are a G-suite for education establishment, however, and I don't know the reason why, I really must talk to IT support, we use Outlook for e-mail and calendar. It's really frustrating because we use Google docs and everything else is G-suite. The great thing about Google Calendar is that it talks to every other app in the suite so it almost feels like you're kind of, you don't have that seamless integration when you're doing a bit of Microsoft and a bit of Google. It's something I'm working on changing, put it that way.

Francesco: You're filtering in and working out how to get it changed?

Martine: I'm on it. I am absolutely on it.

You're a Google Calendar or an Apple Calendar or whatever the kind of native calendar to what your use is, that would be a recommendation?

Francesco: Yeah, I use Google Calendar but on my iPhone I have an app called Moleskine Timepage.

Martine: Ooh, interesting.

Francesco: It's a very nice app. It's a paid subscription app so I think it roughly works out at about $11.00 a year or something like this. It's just such a beautiful application. It helps to make everything look very attractive on the go at least. I would say the note taking side, obviously bringing together lots of information is really important. Of course a lot of teachers would be considering OneNote because that's obviously connected with Microsoft services but I would say Evernote is also a very strong option, especially for teachers that are looking to annotate pieces of work and be able to use the web clipper for deep research and just in general use some of the PDF abilities that Evernote has. Of course when it comes to note takers Notion sort of falls into that spectrum and that's obviously where our passions lie at the moment, isn't it?

Martine: Yeah, absolutely. That's certainly how I discovered you, Francesco and what you do is through Notion. I have mentioned Notion a few times on the podcast but I really struggle to actually explain what it is. I tend to say it's like a personal intranet and it can be pretty much whatever you want it to be and it kind of runs on data bases but maybe you can do a better job of describing it than I can.

Francesco: I think that's probably how I describe it. The way that I always say is it's like Lego building blocks. It's almost like that software you can create yourself. It's really weird because it's one of the ... I don't know whether you remember Evernote in its early days when it first launched. People were coming up with so many different uses and that was quite exciting. You had people using it to organise all of their work and even use it as their project manager to some extent.

When I'm getting e-mails about how people are using Notion it's very exciting. There's a chap who e-mailed me the other day saying he uses it to organise all of his heart data so that whenever he visits the doctors he has all of the heart monitoring information that they need to know. When I was with the Notion team last week they said people were using it to organise their bowling society.

Martine: Oh, that's so cool.

Francesco: And all of the scores that they made. Yeah, so all of these use cases are like wild. At the same time it's quite an exciting application for note-taking because they're slowing adding stuff to it that makes it a really strong platform.

Martine: Oh, that's really good to hear. I think probably one of the most creative uses I have for Notion, two of my favourites I think. I use it to manage the podcast, so from planning to writing out the notes, to sharing it with my VA so she does my social. I use it for complete podcast planning, but also for meal planning as well. That's one of my favourites too. I have a data base of recipes and I have a couple weeks set out like on a Kanban board. That really works quite nicely.

Francesco: Yeah, it does. That's, I think, quite an exciting use as well. A lot of people like it for ... it's one of those apps that actually blends work and life and not in like an intense way either. You could be planning your podcast but then jump over to your meal planner within seconds. It doesn't feel disconnected in any way.

Martine: I think that's a really interesting point because up until a good sort of year or so ago I was dead against mixing my day job stuff with my personal stuff when it came to productivity tools. I liked to have things totally separate. The reality is that those two things are very closely interlinked with my life, so now that I tend to look at everything through one lens I find it a lot better. I'm more productive.

Francesco: Yeah, definitely. I think what's quite nice about Notion is it is like that personal intranet you mentioned. It's almost like it's even more so a second brain because you can almost lay out your home page like your brain of all of the different aspects of your life. I use my Notion as a way to track finances, health. I use it with my wife to plan what rooms we're going to have in the house and travel. It's literally like a consortium of information that ... It's like my brain. I'm not sure whether I'd be able to go much further without it.

Martine: I love the idea of it being your external brain. That's a really good way to describe it. I think for me the one thing that I'd really like to see with Notion would be an integration with Todoist because I did try running my task management through Notion and there were just ... It's a brilliant tool but there were just a few too many clicks required for me to do task management in there so if there was an integration on the horizon I would be thrilled.

Francesco: Yeah, yes. I agree. I agree. Notion does 80% of what the majority of apps do but it doesn't do, for example, Todoist amazingly because it's not a task manager. It can do task management. It's a very strange experience but I can imagine they'll be adding to this and hopefully building on it. I'm sure we'll have all our fingers crossed, right?

Martine: Yeah. They're a very young company and from what I can tell they're very responsive to feedback. It's really interesting to see what they've got on the horizon.

Francesco: Yeah. I'm hoping to do ... Well, I was out there last week with the team, actually two weeks ago now, blimey. They are a very fast moving team. They seem to put updates out pretty regularly and it's quite exciting what's happening. I think it's all keep an eye on them.

Martine: Yeah, definitely. It's nice too, I was a reasonably early adopter with Notion. It's kind of exciting to see them developing. So yeah, we'll keep an eye out. Fantastic.

Francesco: Definitely, definitely. In terms of planning projects I think that's a good way as well. Obviously Ever Note and Notion do a good enough job of being able to store the data and manage that but if a teacher was looking for a way to maybe visually plan, I'd recommend checking out either Trello or Asana. They don't necessarily have to use Notion at the same time. They could use like Trello and Ever Note or Asana and Ever Note. They're both really good ways to visually organise because they've got that boards feature that helps you to plan visually.

Yeah, I wouldn't rule those out as a way to keep track of you and your department because if you want to share stuff with other people then you can assign tasks there pretty easily.

Martine: It's definitely a tool that works well for collaboration. I would say the same goes for Trello and Asana, as I've used both of those. If you want to collaborate with a team then all three of those options are good ones, Notion, Trello, Asana. They're great for collaborative work.

Francseco, is there anything else you would like to add to those amazing recommendations?

Francesco: No, the thing is ... What I recommend is just trying to read as many useful pieces and books about the busyness and time and trying to learn as much as you can because there's a lot of good conversations about mindfulness in the workplace blended with the actually busyness and the concept of it. I recommend trying to keep track on Apple News of all of those good articles.

There's another book I'd want to recommend now. Sorry. A good one is Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

Martine: I swear we read all the same books and play with all the same apps. We're separated at birth.

Francesco: Yeah, we need to ... We'll just be starting to share now stuff for e-mail. We'll just be like, "Have you read this one? Have you read this one?" There's so many good books out there at the moment. I think it's just about taking in how you can calm down in the workplace. I think more employers are actually understanding that that's a thing as well which is good news.

Martine: It's a big conversation in education at the moment, the work life balance approach and that's very much what I focus on with The Teaching Space. I want to help teachers be as brilliant at their job as they can be without having to take work home at the weekend. I think that Digital Minimalism book recommendation is a good one because it's all about balance. You and I love tech. We love apps. We love all that stuff but actually quiet time, fresh air and just tuning out from all that stuff is also incredibly important and very healthy.

Francesco: Yeah, definitely. The final recommendation is just subscribe to The Teaching Space because it is definitely one of the best podcasts for education.

Martine: Oh, you're very smooth, Francesco, very smooth. Well on that topic what I'd like to do is give you an opportunity to tell The Teaching Space listeners where they can find you on line.

Francesco: Oh, that's very kind. You can just type into YouTube KeepProductive. We've done plenty of Notion videos and we try to help you match up with the best apps. Again, we'll give you recommendations and if you want to pop me an e-mail directly francesco@keepproductive.com. I happily recommend apps, to hear obviously your needs and then we recommend apps so feel free to reach out to me.

Martine: That's very generous of you Francesco. Thank you for being on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Francesco: Thank you for having me. It's been really fun.

Further Listening Why not check out these episodes for more on productivity tools for teachers and trainers?

How to Stop being Distracted and Interrupted by People and Things
How to Use a To-Do List Properly
Managing Your Teaching Workload With Asana
Why The Pomodoro Technique is The Perfect Productivity Tool for Teachers
7 Books That Have Made Me A Better Teacher

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Episode 55 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores 10 ways to deal with negative colleagues.

We’ve All Been There Unless you work on your own, I am sure you can relate to the disruptive and wide-reaching effect a negative colleague can have on a team.

If I reflect on my experience, I can remember a particular colleague who could walk into a room and the overall mood and feeling would drop dramatically. She didn’t have to say anything. It was a superpower! I don’t know if it was her body-language or something even more subtle than that. You could just sense it.

Negativity is contagious and it can have a terrible effect on your mental health and wellbeing.

I’m not suggesting you transform into a superhuman constantly happy person. We all have off days. But what I would like to do is share some simple strategies to help you deal with negative colleagues in such a way that the impact on your mental health and well-being is minimal.

10 Ways to Deal With Negative Colleagues 1. Remember: the only person whose behaviour you can change is your own. 2. Avoid interacting with your negative colleague if you can. 3. Set boundaries (episode 37). 4. Don’t get drawn into office gossip and politics. 5. Encourage your colleague to seek HR or Union support as appropriate. 6. Seek out positive colleagues. 7. Don’t spend time over-analysing negative behaviour. 8. Remember: negative behaviour is usually about the person showing it - it’s not about you. 9. Prioritise self-care (episode 54). 10. Raise your game - be even more positive.

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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? 1. Don’t fill every slot of time on your calendar. 2. Reassess your self-imposed deadlines and standards (episode 39). 3. Adjust your morning and/or evening routines. 4. Walk when you wouldn’t normally.

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Hello and welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here, thank you so much for joining me. Today, I'm excited to bring you an interview with a very nice man called Andy Sammons.

Martine: Andy, welcome to the show.

Andy: Hi, nice to be on.

Martine: It's very nice to have you here. Why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Andy: I've been teaching for seven or eight years in secondary school as an English teacher. I've been a main scale teacher, worked towards being a lead teacher, a lead practitioner. I've coordinated from key stages three up to five, I've worked as a second in English, as well as now as a head of English. Everything was pretty much plain sailing for the first few years, it was fantastic.

It was only last academic year where things really got difficult for me, and that's what's let me down this path of focusing more on well-being and teacher psychology, and things like that. As a result of that, I decided to put my ideas down into a book, and luckily someone's been mad enough to take it up and publish it for me.

That's why I'm talking in this space and beginning to operate in this space as well because I am really interested in teachers' mental health and well-being.

Martine: Fantastic. Well, it's really nice to have you on the show. In today's episode we're going to be talking about poor mental health amongst teachers, and it's something that I'm really passionate about in terms of helping teachers improve their well-being, and their work-life balance. That's how we got chatting really because we have that in common, I think, don't we?

Andy: Yeah.

Martine: Tell me, what's going on with this wave of poor mental health that we seem to be seeing amongst teachers and trainers at the moment? Why is this happening?

Andy: I think it's an interesting question. I feel I'm in a pretty decent place to answer that because over the last seven years or so I think that the profession that I now see, and I am experiencing is completely different to the one I came into seven years ago or so, it really is. I think, not to blame the government completely about this, but it ties into austerity and the coalition government, and all the rest of it, if you think about a broader political and economic narrative.

I think when I spoke to Emma Keller about this for the book she said, we were talking about this seven years ago when we were all starting to go on strike over pay and pensions, and I suppose back then I was just too much in love with teaching to realize what was going on, but I think what we've seen is since then, the last seven years, a really so slow process of attrition, of wearing away, of accountability, of squeezing over funding, and that kind of divorce of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I think all of these things has now reared its head in manifest in the numbers leaving and the recruitment problems we're seeing.

What I think this happened is a lot of the underlying factors ... because teaching if you do it properly it's really quite a stressful job, at any level there's no escape from that, but I think what's happened is a number of the contextual factors have unearthed a lot of that stress, and have brought it to the surface a bit more.

I think the reason we're beginning to see the narrative now around even Ofsted mentioning now about work load and manageability, and even the new Ofsted framework, for example, about not just outcomes, but about the curriculum I think in some way indirectly or directly that's a response to what we're seeing to make the profession less toxic, I suppose, in lots of places. I think what we've got is we've got a combination of things, which are now slowly starting to come together and that's why we are starting to hear more about it than before. Actually, I think things feel like they're coming to a bit of a head at the moment.

Martine: I think even though I'm based in Guernsey in the Channel Islands and my government is different to your government, but my government is often influenced by the things that your government does, so I can certainly relate to what you're saying about everyone feeling a bit squeezed. Ultimately, the people in charge are wanting more for less, and the people that impacts on are the teachers because we do not want it to impact on our learners, so I know exactly what you're saying.

Andy: No. The other thing of course, is not to generalize too much, but I think people go into teaching because they have a love of either teaching young people, or they have a love of teaching or their subject itself. There's something intrinsically passion focused there, I think, for people to go into teaching and education.

I think if you're going to put such squeezed accountability measures on people, of course there should be accountability, but if you take it to the level that I think some places seem to be then I think that's misappropriating what accountability is for because actually if you want to improve your share price for a company that's a certain context that works for that context to generate a profit, but improving people's lives in the way that education is attempting to do and needs to do that's more nuanced than just an outcome in any way you measure just an outcome. I think what's happened, certainly, in the last 7/8 years or so is that this drive for measures, and this drive for proof is actually having a profoundly damaging effect on teachers, and the profession itself is well. That's my feeling on it.

Martine: Definitely. That's evidenced by the numbers of people leaving the profession very early on in their careers. It makes it so tragic when you say about that intrinsic motivation to help people, and to help young people and learners, and things like that. Then, for them to get into their dream job and go, "You know what? I just can't hack this, this is too much," that's just really tragic.

Andy: What you say there's really interesting actually because a lot of research I've been doing recently is that actually the people leaving the profession, age isn't a particular predictor of people leaving the profession, it's not so much young people, or old people. The real correlation is a lack of experience, so most people seem to be leaving within the first three years of starting teaching.

Martine: That doesn't surprise me.

Andy: Which is says something about, in terms of teacher training, the lack of actual meaningful support that's going on for those inexperienced teachers. I'll be honest, I'm happy to say I'm not sure if I would survive in teaching had I come into it in the last couple of years. I was lucky that I found myself in an incredible school for my first couple of years that just completely nurtured my joy of my subject, but also teaching itself. I feel so thankful for that because if I was just dumped into a difficult class and said, "Off you go son," that wouldn't have worked for me, and that's what we're doing to too many people nowadays, I think.

Martine: If I just reflect for a moment on when I went into teaching, I'm coming up to 10 years now teaching, and I'm in a different area to you I'm in further education, but I started teaching 16 to 19-year-olds. Prior to that I'd been working in a senior position in the financial sector, I was a director of a trust company, and the massive transition between that roll into teaching. I have never worked so hard in my life during that first year of teaching. I can vividly remember in the first week sitting in bed with my husband going, "What have I done? What have I done?!" It was such a shock.

I'm thankful that I had really supportive colleagues around me and, like you, I was with great organisations, and I'm with the same organisation. It's about having that support network, and the support from your employer, that certainly helps.

Andy: I think also a lot of the stress that we're talking about well, I noticed ... I’m married now and I've got a young boy, and what I found is that the stress has been appalling for me over the last year and a half since I've had children because your life is so much more pinched in terms of your time and resources, and all the rest of it. Whereas before my wife and I would just work into the evenings, and we'd have a bit of a chat, and we'd spend all that time together. Whereas now, because our resources, our time, and our energy, and our emotional resources are so much more squeezed because we've got children as well as our responsibility in our jobs I feel that that ‘unsustainability’ is there particularly for people who have got families that they're looking after and they've got commitments outside of work as well.

So if work is expanding it needs to go somewhere, it needs to fit that space and, ultimately, it's leading to people taking too much home, which is great in the short term for schools because it might mean better results, but in the long term it's catastrophic for not just schools, but the industry because people leave because they can't cope.

Martine: What it's forcing you to do, ultimately, is to try to do your job within the hours that are allocated to that job and people are struggling to do it. There's a fundamental problem there.

Andy: We're asking too much pf people who want to give the best of themselves, but they can't give the best of themselves, and as you say, in that sustainable way if they're not that person outside of school as well, if they're not that person outside of the building because, ultimately, we're in a room with people teaching and imparting knowledge, and that's not just about reading from a textbook. That's about being a human whose well rested and who understands the complexities of their subject, as well as human interaction. If you're too knackered to give yourself it doesn't work in whichever way you look at it, I don't think.

Martine: I know it's a bit of a cliche, but I often like to say about teachers' mental health and well-being is when you're on a plane and they do safety announcement and they're saying, "In the event of an emergency you need with your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else with theirs." That's the same as being in the classroom, if you're not looking after yourself and your well-being then you are not best placed to look after other people i.e. your students. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it really hits home to me, you got to look after yourself first.

Andy: I know we'll probably touch on this later, but there is a real misunderstanding about the metaphor of that putting on the oxygen mask. There is a real misunderstanding about what that entails I think, and that's that's a real danger, that's a real problem I think.

Martine: Let's talk about how we can improve well-being amongst teachers. It is not as simple as ... I saw this meme recently, it was about compulsory yoga. Teachers don't have time for compulsory yoga.

Andy: Let me go and buy my books instead.

Martine: Yeah exactly. It's entirely the wrong thing. It sounds like it's well-being personified, but it just isn't what the teachers need right now. What are your thoughts on improving well-being amongst teachers?

Andy: I think there's two things that we need to understand, both of which involve education around this actual term. As you've hit upon, well-being isn't an afternoon off every six weeks, or a yoga class, or bringing in someone to paint nails while there's a quiz going on in the next room. That's not what it is, and I think that represents, as you have alluded to, a profound misunderstanding about how we should look after ourselves. I think that's something that we need to get away from. I think that the key to that is understanding that whatever we understand by well-being should be deeply personal to the individual, and we need to understand about what makes a person, what makes you as a person well mentally, what is that? I think we need to encourage professionals, teachers to stand back and understand what those small things are that make a difference to us. Only when we can fully understand what it is that makes us feel well can we really begin to create space for ourselves around our stress to separate ourselves from our stressful thoughts, our negative thought, and things like that.

A silly little thing for me is coffee. It's silly, but it's not just drinking coffee, it's what's that represents. It's that time and that space to taste something, to be present in the moment, to engage with what's happening around me as I exist as a person in this moment. I know that sounds almost hippie-ish…

Martine: No, not at all.

Andy: I think it's about presence. When I was doing some work for the book, and I've done lots of reading around this, there was really sound evidence to suggest that we should, I don't if this is the right phrase, but we should sweat the small stuff. We should be bothered about having breakfast in the morning. We should be bothered about making sure we've got a drink when we're at work in the daytime. We should be bothered about carving time out, leaving at 4 o'clock one day a week if we can, if that doesn't create too much stress elsewhere to create that space to go to the gym, or for whatever it is for that person.

If well-being for one person looks like getting in at 6:30, so they can leave at 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock of a day then that's fine for that person, and I think part of the dialogue we need to improve in schools is about recognizing that in each other, and recognizing that that person goes home early, but that's fine. That's nothing to sneer at, that's to be commended because they're managing their work load in a different way.

Often our hackles go up when we don't see the hero teacher, and this cult of hero teacher that celebrates marking until 12. That's not funny, that's not heroic, and that's damaging actually for me, for the profession, and I think we need to try, and reclaim health for ourselves actually. If working until 12 ... to retract that a little bit I suppose, if working until 12 is what works for one person then that's fine, but that doesn't mean to say that's what everyone should be doing. I think that's what I mean by that.

Martine: I know exactly what you mean, yeah.

Andy: In a nutshell, I think we need to improve our education and our understanding about what it means to be well, and how we can do that, how can we achieve that.

Martine: I love what you said about focusing on the individual, and that it's not a one-size fits all approach. When you really unpick this it's mildly ironic that we, as teachers, forget that because what we do in our classrooms is before we even meet our students we identify their individual needs, and work out what they want to get from their education experience, and then work out how we're going to accommodate those needs. We know, as educators, it's not one-size fits all, but when it comes to ourselves suddenly we forget, which is just mildly ironic.

Andy: It's one of those things, I think everything about our world, particularly in the Western World is almost directly or indirectly designed to make us feel like we're not an evolved animal. We think we're somehow above the evolutionary chain in some way, and we think that ... I don't know, we think that we don't have to look after ourselves. As teachers, we don't have to worry about all that because we'll just do, and we'll never run out of energy.

Actually, there's fairly sound evidence, there's more than sound evidence about this in terms of making sure that we need to look after ourselves, and not just keep shutting the box on that, and about acknowledging about when our body and when our mind is telling us that things aren't okay.

The more we neglect that of ourselves, and we put our students first well, I would argue that actually if we keep putting our students first and neglecting ourselves we're actually doing, as you alluded to before, we're doing our students a disservice. Then, what we're doing is we're showing a complete misunderstanding about our own selves at the same time as well because if we don't listen to when our heart rate goes up, or when we're beginning to sweat because we feel anxious or we're feeling anger, or whatever, or even apathy about certain things if we don't acknowledge those thoughts and where they came from, and what caused them, and we keep neglecting to understand that we are an evolved entity then that's really damaging for your mental health, I think.

Martine: It is. Also, you're not setting a great example for your learners, are you?

Andy: No.

Martine: The students, obviously, play a role in all of this, and regardless of the age you teach students are intuitive things, and they will pick up on the fact that you aren't looking after yourself.

Andy: Students smell fear, can't they?

Martine: Oh they do. Oh they definitely did in that first week of work that I remembered earlier.

Andy: Absolutely. They do. I was a very middle-of-the-road student at school, but you can sense it a mile off when a teacher's not prepared, or when a teacher's not in control. As you say, one thing students are, all different students they can see that you are first and foremost a human, and the moment that you aren't credible with them in terms of ... and you don't show credibility and integrity in front of them then something goes off in that room straightaway. There is something out of kilter in that room straightaway, and I think that's dangerous.

Martine: Definitely.

Andy: At least for the learning anyway.

Martine: Yeah, it is for sure. How else do students fit into this equation of teacher well-being?

Andy: Well, I think that's a really interesting question. I'm really interested in this idea of compassion, and I think there's a difference here between being compassionate with people, and being sympathetic with people in this sense. What I mean by that is, rather than with our students being sympathetic with them and saying, "Oh, that's really rubbish or that must be really difficult," or something like that. I think in terms of well-being, I think, we need to model well-being with them. I think what that means is ... There's a really good analogy about this. If someone's in a well and they're upset sympathy would be shouting down saying, "Hey, that looks really rubbish down there, doesn't it? I'm really sorry that you're down there, that's rubbish."

Whereas compassion is about climbing down into that well with the person and saying, "Yeah, I can understand why that's difficult. I can understand whether it's emotion, whether it's something to do with the subject, I can understand that," and it's about going on that journey with the young people really.

I think it's about, first and foremost, what we touched on before, about modeling that honesty and integrity with regard to emotional intelligence, with regards to what it means to look after ourselves. I think it's really important that for silly things if you mention to the students that you're watching ... I'm a football fan so I'm watching the football tonight I'll mention that. I'll mention that I took my little boy to the park at the weekend. I think it's really important that students see that human side of you, and even if for whatever reason, the photocopier's blown up and you haven't got your resources, I think it's really good just to acknowledge it with the students, and just show that you're a real human.

I think we need to be human with our students, but I think in terms of more direct educational sense I think we need to educate our students more about well-being. I think that's a lot more difficult than you might expect because one of the downsides to what we've discussed about education, as we see it now, is that this obsession with outcomes, this obsession with league tables I think there's this creeping insidiousness about, if you can't measure it we're not bothered. Inadvertently, I think teachers pass that on to students.

It struck me because once I was listening to a teacher deliver a session on well-being about exam stress to their class, and this teacher's probably one of the most inspirational teachers of ever worked with, she's just phenomenal, but the session was just dry. There was nothing in it because I don't think she was passionate about it, about that particular topic, I don't think the students were passionate about it because I think the students thought, "Yeah, you don't really get it anyway. We have to go through the hell of these exams, you don't." I think there was a real disconnect and I think educating students about what well-being means, all the things we've talked about in the last half an hour or so, it's more difficult than just saying, "Make sure you have a drink, and make sure you chunk your revision up into 30 minute sections." I think we need to go back to the start with students too, and that means when they're younger educating them when they're younger about emotional literacy, about emotional well-being too.

I think to summarize there, I think there's two parts to it. I think, firstly, it's about modeling honesty and integrity with our students. Secondly, I do think there are some curriculum implications in terms of helping students understand what well-being means, but there needs to be a culture change because if you can't measure it, and it's not a result I think people aren't motivated by it, which is one of the unfortunate byproducts of our current education system.

Martine: Do you see change on the horizon in terms of the if you can't measure it it's not important type approach? You mentioned the new Ofsted framework, and things like that. Do you get a sense that there's going to be improvements in that area?

Andy: That's interesting because I get a sense from having a couple of conversations with people off the record, and speaking to people about this in and around the hierarchy of education, I do think that what we see with Ofsted and this new framework is there's a couple of really good people at the top of Ofsted at the minute, I think. I think Amanda Spielman and Sean Harford are banging the right drum from what I can understand by people who are around them, and people who have spoken to me about those particular individuals. I think that's really important, and so I think there's going to be change in that sense.

I'm not sure whether or not we're going to be looking much longer term before we see a real change beyond that though. What I can say, but I do feel is that this new framework definitely is a step in the right direction, and I think it'd be foolish to turn our noses up at this new framework because I think at least it is, from what I can see I know it's in the consultation phase, but what I can see is that it's acknowledging that it's about the richness of the curriculum rather than just the outcome. One of the things that I like as, certainly, a middle to senior leader is that when Ofsted are coming into the school I think as a middle leader you should be able to walk around with them and justify what's happening in the classroom in terms of the direction of the curriculum, what you're doing and why and the rationale.

Yes, I think baby steps would be the short version to that answer. Baby steps, but I think there needs to be a lot more done, and it takes a long time to unpick a culture.

When I was at school, if it was PSHE I didn't care, if it was general studies without something that was going to go on my UCAS form, I didn't care. I think there's a lot of that in schools nowadays, and that's what we need to turn round, I think, and that starts right from Primary whether or not that's on the agenda for change in the future I couldn't say.

Martine: It's a case of coming at it from all angles, isn't it?

Andy: I think so.

Martine: Whether you're senior leadership, whether you're one teacher starting this well-being journey, whether you are Ofsted. Whoever you are, it's coming at it from all angles, and that's the way we're, ultimately, going to achieve positive change.

Andy: The sad thing is that I'm not sure what's motivated the inspection framework change, but the fantastic book written by Becky Allen, The Teacher Gap really explores what's going on with teaching in terms of what we need for our students, and what we're providing them as a profession at the moment. Those hemorrhaging numbers are a problem. I think these hemorrhaging numbers in terms of profession, and not the numbers but the quality that we see in front of the students at every level, I think that's going to be felt for a good few years, unfortunately.

What we can do in the meantime is take ownership over our own well-being, and make sure that we are the best for our students in front of us everything every day, that's what I think we can do.

Martine: Definitely. One of the ways that people can make a start in the right direction is your book. Tell me about a bit about your book, Andy . Did you like that segue? That was beautifully timed wasn't it?

Andy: Yeah, that was fantastic. Yeah, that was beautiful. It's a bucket list of mine to write a book, and actually I've had a fairly difficult 2018. Actually, it was really difficult, and as part of my coming back from where I was emotionally I went through a form of therapy called compassion focused therapy. Effectively, what it does is it's an evolutionary psychology model that helps us to understand what motivates how we see the world. What is it that we see as threatening about the world, and how can we unpick that in order to be kinder and be more productive with ourselves? The source of helpful things we can say to ourselves rather than keep having these unhelpful voices in our minds almost, this critical voice.

Once I really began to emerge from how awful I was feeling in 2018 I began to think about well, actually does this model of compassion focused therapy about threats and drives and soothes, which you can find out more about in the book, does this apply to education as a whole? As a culture, as an educational culture have we become plagued by threats, have we become plagued by drive, drive, drive to get results and threats if you're going to lose your job, or whatever is going to happen if we don't get these results rather than actually being on the soothe drive axis? This axis where you feel safe, and you feel content, but actually you're able to go to work and feel passionate, and feel safe, and be the best version of yourself. I began to start with that model, and then branch off into all other kinds of psychology and things in the book.

What it is, is a bit of a frank disclosure of what happened with me before, in Chapter 2, it goes on to thinking about the wider education system and how it is, in some sense, it's almost wired for poor mental health. In the second half of the book it's much more practical, it's much more how we can see ourselves in schools in a much more healthier way and the relationships with our colleagues and students. Then, in Chapter 4 it's much more about practical methods to cut the work load and be well, but also be effective in the classroom. It's around the topic trip in terms of mental health in schools, and how we can be productive as best we can be. That's the book in a nutshell, if that's at all clear. I hope that's clear.

Martine: No, that sounds fantastic. Where can we get a hold of a copy of it? What's it called and where do we find it?

Andy: It's called The Compassionate Teacher and you can find it on Amazon, and you can also find my blog and there's a couple of excerpts from the book put up on the blog, and that's compassionteach.weebly.com, and you can find it on there. If you go through Amazon you'll be able to find a little bit about the book as well, and things like that, and that's going to be out on the 15th of March in paperback and Kindle as well, so I'm excited.

Martine: Congratulations on the book, that's quite an achievement. It's so good to hear you've come out the other side of not such a great year last year, and you've put all of your energy into something so positive helping other teachers who are struggling with their mental health. I think that's fantastic Andy, you must feel really good about it.

Andy: Yeah. It felt really great to start the year as it started, but then finish it towards the end of 2018 being able to put something together. Actually, the way the book shaped up it was quite cathartic disclosing everything that happened with me, and how the theoretical approach of compassion focused therapy help me. I think anyone who might want to buy it would be pleased to know it's not my autobiography. It's a disclosure about what happened with me, and then the model, but then it goes into a thorough, fully contextual understanding about education in this country, and all the rest of it.

I do sincerely hope it helps at least one person, if it does then it's not in time wasted. Even if it doesn't then all I wanted to do was add to the literature, add to the debate in some way. I'm thrilled that someone's actually said they'd like to publish it, and the final manuscript's gone in now, so it's just off to them to do it now.

Martine: Fantastic stuff. Andy, it's been a real pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me. Any final words to listeners of The Teaching Space Podcast?

Andy: I would say, be very clear about what your soothe is, be very clear about what things relax you, hold them close, make space for them because if you don't you'll pay it back somehow later, I think. I think it's really important to treasure the things that make you feel safe, and make you feel happy.

Wrap Up Massive thanks to Andy for the interview. Don’t forget to check out his book and whist you’re at it why not hop over to The Teaching Space Facebook page here.

The Compassionate Teacher: Why compassion should be at the heart of our schools

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Episode 52 of The Teaching Space Podcast investigates how to get teachers excited about professional development.

My Job Part of my day job role this year is heading up professional development for my College. When I took it on, I knew one challenge would to get (some) teachers excited about professional development. In this episode I will explore why teachers sometimes aren’t the most enthusiastic recipients of organised PD and what I’ve been (trying) to do to change that.

The “Why” Before The “Why” Before we look at the “why” in terms of why we need PD. Let’s be honest, we all know we need to do it, but let me re-frame the "why" for you in a slightly different way.

Would you be happy being operated on by a surgeon who uses 10-year-old methods? Would you be happy allowing a builder to work on your house if they had not updated their knowledge since their apprenticeship 20 years ago?

I think I know the answer. Surgeons and builders are professionals in the same way that teachers are. PD and professionalism go hand in hand.

Why the Sad Face? We know we have to do it, and we know why we have to do it. So, why do so many teachers turn their noses up at organised PD sessions? I’m talking INSET days and mandatory courses mostly, here.

Many reasons. Here are just a few:

Extrinsic motivation - they have to do it.
Sessions are boring and often mostly about sharing information.
Too busy.

How Can We Make Things Better? This list is a starting point - let’s chat more.

Teacher-led PD - what do they want and need?
Share information in other ways.
Model good teachers.
Rethink observations.
Peer collaboration.
Professional learning communities (episode 44).
Fun.

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Episode 51 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the difference between equality and equity and why, as educators, we must understand both.

Why This Episode? Why Now? My professional development focus for this year is equality and the promotion of diversity. I am focusing my research on trainee teachers as that’s they are the people I teach most. Working with people at the start of their teaching career might just have the most impact.

I have become increasingly frustrated with the idea that putting a token piece of clip art in a presentation featuring a person of colour who just happens to be a wheelchair user is enough - box ticked. It’s not enough. Where’s the conversation? Where’s the genuine understanding?

My starting point for exploring this theme is the language we use when we teach and learn. That’s where the idea for this episode came from.

I’m fully aware that you might feel this is going back to basics with teacher training, but I’m OK with that.

Definitions of Equality and Equity According to dictionary.com:

Equality is “the state or quality of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability".
Equity is “the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality".

To put this into an education context:

In an equal learning environment, all learners would be given the resources they need, such as books and technology. In an equitable learning environment, learners would also be given the support they need to achieve. This probably means the teacher is spending extra time with those learners who need it most. It might mean some learners have longer to complete assignments.

On the face of it, this does not appear equal, but it is equitable. What you are doing is creating an environment where all learners have equal access to success in learning. Equity is fair. It creates equality.

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Know Your Learners It’s important to understand the difference between these words, but it’s more important to know your learners. That’s how you will create equity in your learning environment.

When I work with trainee teachers, we spend a lot of time on the importance of initial assessment. Actually, they find out about it before they start the course because I put them through a rigorous initial assessment process. They have to submit free writing, complete an application form and reflect on their previous experiences of education. There is usually an interview too.

Later during the course we reflect on why this process is important and what it was for.

Over to You I am really interested to start a conversation about how we can be better at learning the language of equality, equity and diversity and putting positive processes into practice. How do you get to know your learners and assess their needs? Hop over to The Teaching Space Staff Room and let's chat.

Further listening/reading: episode 42.

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Introduction An extract from The Productive Teacher by Martine Ellis:

Teaching is the hardest job I’ve ever done.

You have to play the part of the expert (because teaching feels like acting sometimes) , even if you really don’t feel you deserve it. You have to know the answers, even when you don’t. You are in charge, even when you don’t want to be.

My journey into teaching wasn’t a traditional one.

I left school after my A levels and worked in a variety of industries from lending to recruitment. I settled in the finance sector because I found a company I really liked (this helped mask the fact that the job was dull). They recognised my potential and fast tracked me to a senior leadership position. I became a director at 29.

On the surface, everything looked great. I was earning a high salary, and I drove a convertible (and I wasn’t even 30). But things weren’t great. I wasn’t happy in my work. I felt that what I did wasn’t important.

The other problem was that no one really understood my work. Do you remember how nobody really knew what Chandler in Friends did? That was me. I used to work with international property developers so most people thought I was a timeshare salesperson!

(Alleged) timeshare sales to teaching? That seems like a leap, doesn’t it? Let’s rewind a little.

Way before I started full-time work, I was teaching. My stepmother was a dance teacher, so I learned to dance and ended up teaching for her. At every stage of my career I have trained staff, not because it was in my job description, but because it was something I did well and loved.

When I finally summoned the courage to admit that I wasn’t happy in my finance role, a few strange, seemingly unconnected things happened.

First strange thing: I filled out one of those irritating chain letter style questionnaires on Facebook. You know the ones; they ask loads of questions and then you need to copy and paste the questions and answers in your status and tag other friends to do the same… Anyway, I must have been bored at work that day because I completed the questionnaire.

One of the questions was something like “what job do you wish you did?” And without thinking, I typed “teacher”. A dear friend commented on my status with a simple question “well why not?” She made a good point!

Second strange thing: around the same time, I found out my local further education college was advertising a one-year maternity cover contract teaching office administration to 16 to 19-year-olds. Now, I’m not a girl who believes in fate or anything woo-woo like that, but it really felt like the universe was trying to send me a message.

In true ‘message from the universe’ style, the contact for the maternity contract advertisement was the sister of a close friend of mine. I called her to talk about the role and, shock horror, the deadline had passed a few days before. They allowed me to apply anyway (third strange thing) and, long story short, I got the job.

I’d like to say it was all plain sailing from that point onwards, but it really wasn’t. I had to take a considerable pay drop, which took some getting used to. My first week of teaching was hell. It was just so different. I’d gone from having the corner office with a stunning view of the ocean and a team of staff, to sitting in a cold, damp staffroom, so close to my colleagues we almost needed to work in a Mexican wave.

I started my new role on a Monday, and that Wednesday I can remember sitting in bed with my husband, in tears, saying over and over again, “what have I done?”

Once that first week was over, I had a stern word with myself. I leaned on my new colleagues and confided in them that I was struggling. They were amazing. I got to know my learners and, slowly but surely, I fell in love with my new profession.

I also started using the productivity tools and skills I’d learned in industry, while climbing the corporate ladder.

By the end of that first year, I knew I was in the right place. Thankfully, the college agreed with me and took me on as a full-time lecturer. My gamble paid off.

That was 2009.

Fast forward to today and I am now a teacher educator at the same college where I started my journey into teaching. I help others discover how amazing teaching can be and support their transition from industry to educator. I’m also a Google Certified Trainer and technology coach which means I support teaching colleagues with using technology in the classroom.

When I’m not teaching, I produce an education podcast, The Teaching Space. I also speak at events and train other organisations (often with a focus on Google products, but not always).

So why this book? Why now?

The role of the teacher is becoming more difficult every day. Budgets are being cut and teacher workloads are growing. Many teachers are leaving the profession and new teacher numbers are in decline.

Here are some worrying statistics about teacher wellbeing from the UK’s Education Support Partnership Annual Health Survey (2017):

75 percent of teachers have faced physical and mental health issues in the last two years because of their work.
50 percent said they had experienced depression, anxiety or panic attacks due to work.
64 percent would not feel confident in disclosing mental health problems or unmanageable stress to their employer.

Unsurprisingly, one of the main reasons given for this stress in the survey was the volume of work.

Teachers have an unusual work day structure. One of the biggest shocks for me on leaving the corporate world and going into teaching (aside from the dramatic decrease in disposable income and the tragic loss of my sports car) was working to a timetable.

Being in the classroom is great, but the time you have to complete non-teaching work is so limited. You try to snatch time between sessions but it’s never enough. Timetables never seem to allow for a stretch of a few uninterrupted hours. How is anyone supposed to do focused work by snatching 15 minutes here and there?

This unusual work day structure is one of the reasons teachers spend so much time working at home and during their holidays (which is not OK, by the way). It’s also why we fail miserably at achieving work/life balance...

But that’s where I, and this book, come in.

While I cannot inject a massive wad of cash into the global education system, I can help individual teachers.

Using my business, teaching and technology experience I can help individual teachers and trainers be more productive.

I can help you work smarter and faster, without compromising your personal and professional standards. I can do this because I have done it. I have achieved work/life balance.

You can do it too.

Here are my 10 proven productivity strategies.

P.S. I have kept this book deliberately short because I want you to read it twice. Once to absorb the information, then a second time to put these strategies into practice.

P.P.S. This book is written with teachers and trainers in the post-16, non-compulsory education and corporate training sectors in mind. That being said, the strategies can apply to anyone in a teaching role. Just bear in mind some of the terminology I have used might be slightly different in, for example, a primary school setting.  

Wrap Up I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Thanks for helping me get to episode 50 - I could not have done it without you.

Find out more about The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Introduction In last week’s episode (48 How to Start a Book Club for Educators) I mentioned my book club’s first title choice, Atomic Habits by James Clear. It was a great read and has inspired this episode.

While I will highlight my main takeaways from the book, I still recommend you read it as there is much more to it than what I will cover in ten minutes.

Before we start though, let’s consider why a teacher or trainer should think about the science of habit formation.

Why Should We Care About Habits?

“A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic” - James Clear

Let’s focus on you first: most forms of self-improvement start with establishing positive habits.

If you’ve read my book, The Productive Teacher, or you have been listening to this podcast for a while, you know I place great importance on self-care for teachers and trainers. Teaching is an exhausting job at the best of times, frequently you are responsible for the welfare of other humans. You cannot possibly give this your best if you are not on top form. So self-care needs to be a priority.

Here are some examples of how you might use habits for self-care:

Bringing an exercise routine into your week.
Drinking more water.
Taking more breaks.

Each of these actions can become positive habits.

Now think about the people you teach. Could they benefit from understanding how to break bad habits and create positive ones? I suspect the answer is a resounding YES!

Book Highlights My main takeaways from Atomic Habits are:

Small changes build up over time and can create big results.
Positive habit formation is all about systems. If you have failed to establish a good habit in the past, chances are, you did nothing wrong. You just did not have the right system in place to give yourself the best chance of success.
Habit formation has four steps:
- Cue
- Craving
- Response
- Reward
- Example: you are walking to work and you smell coffee, you crave coffee, you pop into the nearest coffee shop and grab a coffee, you reward yourself with coffee and perhaps a cake! Walking to work becomes associated with coffee and cake.
To establish a good habit, make it:
- Obvious
- Easy
- Attractive
- Satisfying
To break a bad habit, make it:
- Invisible
- Difficult
- Unattractive
- Unsatisfying
Make habit formation about identify - who do you want to be?
- Example: you are not trying to give up smoking, you are not a smoker).
One of the easiest ways to form new, positive habits is to attach them to exiting habits. This is known as habit stacking.
- Formula: “After CURRENT HABIT, I will NEW HABIT.”
- Example (taken from the book): Exercise. After I take off my work shoes I will immediately change into my workout clothes.

Wrap Up I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Introduction In the last episode (47 How to Make Time to Read More) I mentioned setting up a professional development book club at my college. This week I will walk you through the process, step-by-step, hoping you might consider doing something similar.

Before we delve into the practical aspects of setting up a book club, let’s consider why it’s a good idea.

Why Set Up a Book Club? Towards the end of last year, I took on a new role at my college: CPD Manager and Scholarly Lead. One of my responsibilities is coordinating professional development for all staff (teaching and non-teaching). While I expected some resistance to PD activities, I was a little surprised at the level of resistance some colleagues demonstrated (this is will be covered in a future podcast episode).

For me, professional development is at the heart of the teaching profession. How can we be great teachers without loving learning?

Does any teacher or trainer genuinely think it’s OK to teach in exactly the same way they did 10 years ago and not try be better, or at least, current? Would you let a surgeon using 10-year old methods operate on you? I think probably not.

Reading can be a relatively low-friction gateway to professional development for some. It’s not for everyone, but given the rising popularity of audiobooks and the relatively low price of ebooks, it’s an accessible gateway. With this in mind, I started a book club for colleagues.

Before I started, here are some questions I asked myself:

Questions to Ask Yourself 1. Who is the book club for? My book club is for all staff - teaching and non-teaching. This felt important as so often, PD activities in colleges or schools feel aimed at teaching staff only.

If you are a freelance trainer, you might consider organising a book club for other people in a similar position to you.

What kind of books will you read? Considering my response to the first question, I’ve been very careful to choose a variety of personal and professional development titles. Some are education-based, but most focus on general personal development. For example, our first book choice was Atomic Habits by James Clear. I will talk a little more about that particular booking next week’s episode.

I have categorised each book choice to ensure variety.

Who will choose the books? I have collaborated with my college librarian to organise this book club so at the moment; we are choosing book titles. However, it is my aim that club members will eventually take on the responsibility. I want it to be their book club.
How will you advertise the book club? I send out a weekly email to colleagues called PD Weekly. I advertise the book club in this email, and on my own internal website. The website is a Google Site and I have a page for the book club. You can see a screenshot below.

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The page includes information about the club (e.g. who it is for and how frequently we read, meet etc). There’s also an emphasis on the fact that the club is low commitment. Staff can dip in and out when they want.

There’s an embedded Google Sheet which shows book choices, meeting dates, links to where to get the book, etc.

There is also a Google Group/Online discussion forum embedded on the site.

When and where will you meet? My college is spread across three campuses so the plan is to rotate locations. Generally, we are based in the library. We meet monthly - I’ll delve into date logistics in a moment.
How long will you give people to read the book? Actually this is one of the most important logistically bits to decide. Here’s what we do:
1st week of the month: announce book title
Last Thursday of the month: meet to discuss the book

This gives participants just under a month to read the book. Of course, sometimes things don’t work out that way with school holidays, so the schedule is adjusted to accommodate. All dates are share on the website.

What can you do to help people access the book? It’s important to remove as many barriers to participation as possible. Whereas some participants will want to buy their own copy of the book or like me, they might have Audible credits to use, others will not. As I mentioned earlier, I have collaborated with our college librarian to organise this book club, so she ensures there are copies of the book available in campus libraries. This has worked really well so far.

When you start your book club it is a good idea to plan your first six titles in advance. This is especially helpful if your librarian needs to order (and budget for) multiple book copies.

Will you meet face-to-face, online, or both? My club does both. The main club element is face-to-face, but those who cannot attend can share their thoughts on the book in our online forum.
Will you set discussion questions? If yes, when will these be released? So far, I’ve opted to keep this fairly simple and just issued one question when the book title is released. So, for example, with Atomic Habits, I asked, ‘what is one action you plan to take having read this book?’ This started the conversation going, and we branched off into different areas from there.

Think about how much structure you want the conversation to have. For some groups, a very structured conversation will work well - for example, six questions, one every 10 minutes, etc. For my group, one question was enough. This might change as time goes on.

However structured you make the discussion, I suggest someone (you perhaps) take the role of informal chairman. You can move the conversation along as needed and ensure all are involved and get a say.

Who will help you? If you can collaborate with a librarian then that works really well. If not, find a colleague or peer who would be happy to work with you on the project. It’s helpful to share the workload.

Wrap Up I hope you enjoyed this episode and it has inspired you to either start your own professional development book club or find one to join.

Please check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Here are the show notes for this episode.

Introduction Last year I managed to read over 100 books. That’s a crazy number, right?

This list comprised fiction (some complete trash) and non-fiction. I tend to read fiction for relaxation and non-fiction for personal and professional development. Reading is, to me, both relaxation and learning.

I happened to mention how many books I read last year to a few colleagues (in a completely non-bragging way, I promise) and many were a little stunned. Quite a few didn’t believe me! Many confessed they wanted to read more but just didn’t have the time. In response, I set up a book club for my colleagues.

This podcast episode will hopefully help too.

Here are my 14 tips to help you make time to read more.

Consume audiobooks - it’s not cheating!
Understand that it’s OK to leave a book unfinished.
Remember - there is no test at the end.
Start or join a book club.
Find a reading buddy.
Wake up early to read.
Go to bed early to read.
Keep a book in your bag.
Have two books on the go at the same time.
Make the most of your commute.
Try short stories/books.
Set reading goals and track your progress using an app like Streaks.
Set a daily reading reminder on your smartphone.
Read what you want, not what you should.

This episode was inspired by one of my favourite podcasts: seanwes.

Wrap Up I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Episode 46 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores 30 Edtech Tools taken from a blended learning session I ran recently.

Introduction This episode’s audio is taken from a video I created for a blended learning session called 30 Edtech Tools in 30 Minutes.

Below you will find links to all of the tools I mentioned, as well as a copy of the Google Slides presentation I used in the session.

Presentation Tools Used 1. Loom 2. Diigo 3. Emoji Copy 4. TES Teach with Blendspace 5. Quick, Draw! 6. Google Keep 7. Padlet 8. Noisli 9. Voice Typing in Google Docs 10. Just Press Record 11. QR Code Creator 12. Canva 13. Streaks 14. Wakelet 15. Edpuzzle 16. Pocket 17. Adobe Spark 18. Bit.ly 19. Google Forms/Quizzes 20. Answer Garden 21. Flipgrid 22. Insert Learning 23. Trello 24. Random Name Selector 25. Audible 26. TED-Ed 27. Google Hangouts 28. Rewordify 29. Day One 30. Giphy

Wrap Up I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Introduction In this episode we will explore ways teachers and trainers can improve their presentations (specifically, how they can improve their slides, we will save the communication aspect for another show).

This episode considers presentation slides as just one of a teacher or trainer’s teaching tools. If you use a presentation in every teaching session, or you are overly reliant on them, I encourage you to try a session without a presentation and see how it goes (after you’ve listened to this episode, of course!)

Consistent Design * Set up a master slide so your design is consistent.
Choose a colour scheme.
Aim to create a stylish, aesthetically pleasing document.
Careful Image Use * Do not use copyrighted image - especially those with watermarks!
Choose age-appropriate images.
Further reading:
- Free Photography Resources for Teachers and Trainers
- The Noun Project for Google Slides and Google Docs
Pay Attention to Fonts * Pick a readable font (I favour sans-serif - it’s easier to read and looks more modern).
If using a white background, opt for grey text to reduce “glare”.
Use a maximum of two fonts - one for headings and one for text.
Avoid underlining text as this can make it more difficult to read.
Avoid Text Heavy Slides * Your slide text should be a prompt.
Use speaker’s notes for more detailed text.
Use Shortlinks * To avoid cluttered slides shorten all links.
I recommend the link shortener Bitly but alternatives are available.
Embed Video * In Google Slides INSERT > VIDEO (direct link to YouTube).
Exiting the presentation looks clunky and wastes time.
Minimal Animation * I don’t use animation.
It wastes time and is distracting.
Use Audience Participation * If you use Google Slides, experiment with their audience participation tools.
Alternatively, use a back channel tool.
Further reading:
- Nine Classroom Backchannel Tools You Can Start Using Today
Use QR Codes to Share the Presentation * Instead of giving paper handouts consider sharing the presentation electronically (if your organisation has sufficient tech to do so).
Share using a shortlink and QR code.
My favourite QR code generator.
Use GIFs * Moving images can make slides more interesting and also inject a little fun into a dry subject.
GIFs can sometimes be a good replacement for video if you are demonstrating something simple e.g. a short series of mouse moves on a computer.
I use GIPHY for finding fun GIFs and Cloud App for creating my own GIFs.

Wrap Up I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Introduction In this episode we will explore professional learning communities, often referred to as PLCs.

What Professional Learning Communities ARE They are typically (note the word “typically”):

Groups of teachers or trainers, from the same organisation, gathering regularly to learn together and share good practice and ideas
Led by teachers, not senior leadership
Part of an organisation’s CPD schedule
Led by a teacher facilitator (although the facilitator could easily change every time of there is a standard agenda and process)
Planned well in advance with themes
Face-to-face (although there is no reason online wouldn’t work)

What Professional Learning Communities ARE NOT PLCs should not be (note the word “should”):

Moan fests
For Union related discussion
Negative
To gather data
Token CPD

Benefits of PLCs There are many benefits to PLCs. They can:

Empower teachers through the ownership of their CPD
Create a feeling of togetherness - this is important for teachers in need of support
Be a place for innovation and creative idea generation
Foster relationships between colleague
Create opportunities for peer observation, support and mentorship

Where They Go Wrong PLCs are an incredible tool. But they can and will go wrong. Here are problems to expect:

Teachers not having time to attend
Part-time staff not being in school at the time of the PLC
Deciding wether attendance should be compulsory or not
Perception of who drives/wants the PLC - if it is top down this is going to cause issues
No single point of contact and co-ordination
Poor communication
Poor procedures
Lack of understanding of the purpose of PLCs

What Now? Let’s chat in the Facebook group.

Questions to consider if your organisation has PLCs already:

Are they working?
What’s going well?
What isn’t?

Questions to consider if your organisation doesn’t have PLCs:

Could they work?
Could you pitch the idea?
Who is the right person to pitch to/co-ordinate?

Questions to consider of you are a solo trainer:

Could you join an online PLC/trainer community?
Could you start one?

The Teaching Space Staff Room Obviously I would love our Facebook group to more closely resemble a PLC, but I don’t think it’s likely for several reasons.

For starters, I don’t see Facebook as a professional platform. Also, it’s too easy to get distracted while you are there! The group (and this podcast) is for a wide variety of teachers and trainers. For a PLC to work, I think there needs to be a commonality, whether it’s the age group of your learners, your subject or the level your teach.

That being said, I believe members of my group and listeners to this podcast have one specific teaching related thing in common and that is the desire to be the best teacher you can without sacrificing weekends!

I would like to create some online PLCs but not on Facebook - let me know what you think about this.

Further Reading If the concept of PLCs is interesting to you, here are websites and articles with more information:

All Things PLC

PLCs - What The Are and Are Not

PLC Best Practices

Wrap Up If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast directory. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you. Also, check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Episode 43 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the benefits of using keyboard shortcuts to improve productivity.

Introduction This episode is one of those that probably works best in a written format. If you don’t normally visit the show notes for an episode, then I will insist you do so on this occasion (in the nicest way!)

What Are Keyboard Shortcuts? Keyboard shortcuts are a key or combination of keys providing quick access to a specific computer function. Even if you don’t use shortcuts often, the one you are most likely to be familiar with is copy and paste. These are CMD + C then CMD + V on a Mac and CTRL + C and CTRL + V on a PC.

Right Mouse Clicker Until recently, I wasn’t the person who used keyboard shortcuts (other than copy and paste options). I was a right mouse clicker. I used the right mouse button to access a shortcut menu.

However, there are lots of reasons (aside from the productivity ones) you should learn keyboard shortcuts.

Why Should You Use Keyboard Shortcuts? While using a shortcut might only save you a second or two that time adds up. Using a mouse for everything can lead to repetitive strain injury.

There are lots of keyboard shortcuts available to Mac, Windows and Google Docs users - besides those we will delve into ways you can create your own keyboard (and mobile device) based shortcuts.

How to Learn Shortcuts One of the best ways to learn keyboard shortcuts is to choose one shortcut, write it on a post-it note and stick it to your computer screen. Keep the post-it there until you have used and learned the shortcut off by heart. Then change it for another, and another.

This is another excellent thing to teach your own learners once you have mastered it yourself.

Mac Keyboard shortcuts on a Mac require you to hold down one or more modifier keys while pressing the last key of the shortcut. Your Mac modifier key symbols are:

Command ⌘
Shift ⇧
Option ⌥
Control ⌃
Caps Lock ⇪
Function Fn

Rather than read out a list of handy shortcuts please visit (and bookmark the following link): tts.fyi/mac-keyboard.

Windows Keyboard shortcuts on Windows computers work similarly to Mac. Often, it is a simple case of using the Control modifier key, instead of Command, but not always. There is also a set of shortcuts requiring you to use the Windows logo key.

Again, I have a handy link for you to check out and bookmark for a list of useful Windows shortcuts: tts.fyi/windows-keyboard.

Google If you use the G Suite, your keyboard shortcuts will, in most cases, be the same as above, dependent on the keyboard you use (Mac or PC). However, some might not work in all languages.

Here’s a nifty trick: to open a list of keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs, press Ctrl + / (Windows, Chrome OS) or ⌘ (command) + / (Mac).

Find out more about Google keyboard shortcuts here: tts.fyi/google-keyboard.

Create Your Own There is a variety of different ways to create your own keyboard shortcuts. My favourite method is using a tool called Text Expander which you can find at textexpander.com.

According to their website:

”TextExpander lets you instantly insert snippets of text from a repository of emails, boilerplate and other content, as you type – using a quick search or abbreviation.”

It’s useful for frequently used words and word combinations, but where it really comes into its own for teachers is for often used feedback comments and emails.

An example of how you could use Text Expander for emails would be if you were organising work experience for your group of 20 learners. While each email you send to prospective placement hosts will be different and personalised to the employer and learner, there will also be repeated aspects in relation to, for example, health and safety and child protection. It’s these sections of text that could be created in Text Expander.

One way Text Expander has saved me a great deal of time is replying to course enquiry emails. I have a standard response which thanks the person enquiring, includes links to the course leaflet and application form and explains what happens next. Prior to using text expander, I would type these emails from scratch.

Also, check out my new book, The Productive Teacher at theproductiveteacherbook.com.

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Episode 42 of The Teaching Space Podcast is an interview with Kate O’Sullivan discussing how we can be more inclusive.

Podcast Episode 42 Transcript Hello, and welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here, thank you so much for joining me. Today I am joined by a guest on the show.

It's my great pleasure to introduce you to Kate O'Sullivan. Rather than me try to reveal the very, very large number of layers to Kate and all the amazing things she does, I'm going to ask her to introduce herself to you.

Martine: So hello Kate, welcome to the show!

Kate: Hello Martine, thanks for having me.

Martine: It's my pleasure, tell us about you.

Kate: Okay-

Martine: That's a huge question. That's a massive question.

Kate: Okay let's see if I can do it because I always go blank the minute we ask people this don't you. Tell me about yourself. So yes I am Kate. I currently am living in Edinburgh. It is freezing, we had our first frost here today. I have a daughter and a girlfriend and I'm self-employed as a writer, kind of broadcaster and photographer.

And my thing is creating online and journalism. And I tend to cover a lot of topics around the area of sort intersectionality, identity, feminism, LGBT+ issues, social justice and kind of looking at opening up conversations that can be quite simple but also quite challenging. You know those ones when you start having a conversation perhaps if you're at a dinner party or something and you're chatting someone and suddenly find yourself in that conversation and think, "I am out of my depth here."

It tends to be those that I lean in towards, because I think a lot of us struggle with those and I think particularly with the political climate and so many changes happening around social policy, both home and abroad at the moment, there's a lot of people who are suddenly finding themselves realising that they have kind of almost blank spaces in their knowledge about other people and the communities and some of these policies that are changing.

I think it's quite an anxiety-provoking state for people, where they feel like they've failed in some way or they feel that maybe they're ignorant in some way. Or it can actually make us feel quite defensive. We can often sort of really feel like "well I'm a good person. I'm not racist. I'm not homophobic." And we can't always address sometimes the fact that a lot of these things crop up because that's the way we've been conditioned.

So I think I'm trying to host conversations and write articles about just making these things explicit, so we can see them and perhaps not feel so afraid to have conversations. That's kind of what I'm doing, which is quite a big aim and quite a broad aim. And also a very exact and minute aim all at once, is how I feel.

Martine: Multi-layered, definitely multi-layered. In some respects, education is at the heart of what you're trying to do by the sounds of things because you eluded to the fact that there's quite a lot of fear around saying the wrong thing in regard to certain topics.

And what you're trying to do, from what I understand, is kind of equip people with what they need to get rid of some of that fear. Would that be fair to say?

Kate: Yeah. I think it's sort of really balancing that line between personal growth to get yourself in sort of a confident place and to acknowledge that you're not going to know everything. And that you know, particularly when you're talking about systems of oppression, they're not ... they're not always obvious. It's not as simple as somebody used a really bad word against this person, and that makes them racist.

It can be quite layered and very institutional. And we're all subject to those. And sometimes it's really hard to see as a result.

So I think it's that kind of personal growth that sort of not feeling bad about that but feeling empowered to address it.

But then at the same time there's kind of that real much more community focus of are you being inclusive? Are you getting out of your bubble? Are you thinking about other people? And are you working emphatically with people?

And I think that's the word that kind of really has to drive so much of these conversations, is the word empathy. Because it's, that's such a skill that we, it's really hard to teach and learn. But it's so crucial I think to so many of these conversations going a lot easier and smoother I think.

Martine: That's such an important word. And actually one of the reasons for this conversation we're having, just to give you a little bit of background, I'm gonna steal the word empathy and take it. Its mine now. Take it to my initial teacher training students.

Because part of my sort of day job is to help people who are interested in perhaps making a move into teaching. Helping them kinda get ready for making that move. So we do, essentially an initial teacher training program targeted at people interested in post-16 education and adult education as well. And we do lots of stuff on equality and diversity. I mean, it really is the backbone to a qualification which is fantastic and right and essential.

But, I do sometimes feel certainly from the material that I use to deliver my topic that there is a tendency to be a bit tokenistic, you know.

I mean an appalling example would be, so if you're going to do a PowerPoint presentation in your session then make sure you have at least one black person, one person in a wheelchair, etc, etc. and it's just awful. It's so tokenistic and I see that quite a lot and I really want to see some change there. I'm not entirely sure where to start.

Kate: Yeah. I think that's where a lot of people are as well. And I think there's a lot of people who are trying with the best will in the world and sometimes that is the start. I'm fairly sure that's how I started. It was being particularly aware as a photographer saying "oh, we don't have a single model that looks like X, Y or Z." You know, whether it's her skin tone, whether it's her age, whether it was whether she was able bodied, whether they were cis-gendered.

You know, I think that's probably how most people start, because they're sort of aware that we've been sort of perpetuating an idea that is a very homogeneous looking resource quite often.

You know it's often a very white, very straight, very able bodied, very cis-gendered, very affluent quite often. You know working class narratives are often only presented as a tragedy. Particularly when it comes to literature.

I mean it's quite exhausting sometimes, what you have to draw from. I really feel that as a sort of literature graduate. Sometimes you just think God, the only things I sort of knew where the things like cares where it was just like gloom, doom and women were abused. You know, that was kind of the only narrative you could have if you were working class.

So I think you know, I think once you're at that stage where you're sort of aware of it, it can be very hard because you look up and realise that well I live in a bubble. And then we start saying things like "well I live in a very undiverse area," or "the resources I have are not very diverse," as if these things are easy to overcome. Of course you are. That is that institutional layering of oppression.

That is how you know, we have black girls that grow up thinking that white dolls are much more, attractive or better behaved. You know, there's a study that's been done over 40 years of young children playing with black versus white dolls. And sure enough, every single child chooses the white doll as the good doll. The white, the beautiful doll. The white doll who's loved more. Because that is a message that's come through across all media.

You know all their lives up to that point, these children are five. They do it again at six, seven, eight, nine and ten. It's one of those, to watch the videos kinda like one of those you know ... having to sort of you know, swallow hard kind of moments when you really realise what you're up against.

So then, it's sort of then, you realise that it's something, you have to really commit to inclusion. And it's something that, you're right, it can get tokenistic. And sometimes it's about really thinking about things.

So the example I used, the one to do with photography is like oh we don't have a model that looks like our community. Well that's great. But of course the other side of that is I cannot just say "oh, I've ticked that box. I've put this model in front. I've put a speechless, voiceless woman on the cover of something. Great. Job done." Because, am I hiring people who are doing the writing? Am I using things like copy editors and all these different steps in the process. And that's when you start moving beyond a sort of tokenism because it's intrinsic.

You’re sort of opening the door and saying “I am not going to be a gatekeeper here”. And in the classroom that would be things like, why do sourcing materials, or say talking to the community that surrounds you. Who can we see? Who can we use? Who is coming in and doing work experience? Who's being hired? Who am I referring to if I'm using a YouTube resource? You know, that sort of layering.

And you know, we're currently looking at some really depressing statistics around how much representation there is. You know, you're looking as little as one percent for some resources aimed young people of being B.A.M.E characters and that's really miserable. And as a result, it can't be just one character suddenly turns up.

We are gonna have to make a wholehearted effort to say it's not good enough. 50% of my curriculum needs to be representative. And it doesn't matter if 50% of my classroom doesn't look like that because this is about the young people in front of me being aware that this an issue. But also being aware that when they go forward, that's what they should be doing. Because perhaps they will be in an environment where 50% of their community looks like that.

It's sort of, we need to sometimes stop this "well our school isn't a very diverse school so we don't need to address that." What you've said to all those children in front of you is that it's not our responsibility to address inclusion and diversity or racism or homophobia or any of these things because it doesn't effect our community. It affects everybody.

And that becomes a kind of, we use the term sort of white supremacy around those kind of ideas because you are perpetuating a system that continues. That you benefit from.

Whether we like it or not. I get better treatment as a white skinned woman. And that is a privilege that I enjoy. So when I address anything when I'm a speaker at an event, then I always ask who else is involved. Who's hired behind the scenes? What's your marketing material like? Is one of the first questions I ask, because I really see that as my responsibility.

I've done a lot of work with events who've suddenly looked up and "oh we have not done enough on this." Like great, I can make these suggestions, I know some amazing people. It can be that small or that big a gesture.

Martine: I can really relate to what you say about people's response of "I don't live in a particularly culturally diverse place," because I live in Guernsey. It's a tiny, weeny island of 60 odd thousand people. And it is a default response. And I don't mean to criticise my fellow Guerns but it is something that I hear quite a bit.

And as you rightly point out, that means we have to work even harder to have this conversation and do this work, and do this research and just make it intrinsic. As you pointed out, and that's so important.

It is difficult for trainee teachers to know where to start. And you know I didn't want to sound negative about the tokenistic approach earlier, in so far as everyone's gotta start somewhere. And it's about awareness. And I get that. But it's about the next step is elevating it. Quite often, what I've done in the past is with my trainee teachers I've said, “you can start by doing this tokenistic approach, but what next? You tell me. Is it okay? Why is it not okay?” And we end up having a really interesting discussion about taking it that next level.

What I'd really like to think about, if this is okay with you Kate, is some practical steps that trainee teachers can take in order to make sure their learning environment is really properly inclusive. What'd you reckon? What can they start by doing?

Kate: I think there's certain terms that would be really helpful to get familiar with.

Because once we are okay with certain terms, and what they mean, we don't have to fear them in our environment.

Things like the fact that I said white supremacy. For a lot of people I can imagine they absolutely hate hearing that expression. It's a very normal expression that we need to normalise and say we live in a culture right now that values white skin. That has white values and that is absolutely institutional.

There are fantastic folks out there. Reni Eddo-Lodge did 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race.' She has a series of free podcasts attached to the book. And it's an audio book as well. So in terms of accessibility there's some great stuff that you don't have to buy the book in order to sort of understand the concept. And you know you've got audio as well, which helps for anybody that has access issues.

And I think she really sort of broke that down, particularly in the UK.

There's 'So You Want to Talk About Race,' which is this US version of in terms of you've got sort of a more international kind of background. It sometimes helps.

But I think once you sort of got to terms with that idea, understanding words like privilege and what that means it can be very very hard and can really get people's backs up to get this idea across. And it's something that really needs to be got across to young people who are gonna go and vote soon. They are part of the next generation that's gonna be shaping policy. And understanding that we don't all have the same starting blocks in life makes an enormous difference to how you go forward in presenting material when you're teaching. And how what you expect of your students as well.

So a really sort of basic way of understanding it is if you are white, if you are able bodied, neuro-typical, you have a reasonable, you're sort of within that body mass index that's considered healthy, rather than overweight, you are straight, you are cis-gendered.

All these things kind of add up. Means that you will have a slightly better start than somebody who does not present like that. And it means that your work will go harder, no one's denying that you’re not working hard but the privilege comes in when your starting block just is so much further along.

There's so many people, that just putting their name onto a CV immediately it takes in something into that interview, if it even gets to that stage. And there's a lot of research about people changing their names in order to get to an interview. And what happens at that stage.

So we've got privilege. We got white supremacy. And you know, terms that just strike fear. Understanding some of those can really change the way we go about finding resources, the way we talk to people and the way we encourage the young people that we're working with. Because, as I said, it's not necessarily just that we're representing them sometimes and showing them what it means to be seen.

I mean it would've made a huge difference to me as a 16 year old to have seen a better representation of the LGBT+ community. I grew up during Section 28 which was the really homophobic piece of policy that was put in by the Tory government that basically forbid any encouragement of a homosexual lifestyle. It meant that there was no resources. And it’s now just not there. It takes a long time to put those things in place. And to put teacher training in place. That we can be more inclusive in our approaches. That it just is there, it's just seen whereas that didn't exist for me.

So I think that I would really encourage people to have a look at that. Another thing that people get really hung up about is well, how do I do it because I'm a white woman? And what do I do when I want to talk about or you know, reference something? And I think this is educational but how do I know that I'm not stepping on toes? It's perhaps looking at the term cultural appropriation or cultural misappropriation.

And as a sort of a primer to it, the idea is that we are using something from a culture and we've removed the people from it.

So it might be something like, I have a background in primary education, I have done post-16 because I did special ed. But it would be things that you just have a lot of primary classes. You'd have like little teepees as like reading corners. That's great, but the teepee actually has a really strong cultural and spiritual purpose for indigenous community. And we've removed the people from that. So perhaps it isn't appropriate that we've put that in our very white colonial classrooms. And we've removed any kind of reference to it. And we can't say "oh well it's educational. It's important they see a teepee," if we’ve taken all the references around it that actually make it important and an educational or appreciative tool.

So I think the first step I really think is just getting comfortable with these terms that can often just make us really pull back. And perhaps not put things in for fear of getting it wrong.

And perhaps or we just like dig in our heels you know. I'm not a racist person. You know, I'm not homophobic. You know as somebody who only really came out very late in life.

You know it's only in my thirties that I started to question these feelings that I had. That's internalised homophobia. If I can be homophobic of myself, I'm fairly sure straight people can homophobic, you know. We right need to sort tie ourselves in knots at this idea of I am too good a person to let this happen. We all do it. We all make mistakes. And I do it all the time.

And it's really important at those times, we don't double down. If you get feedback from within our communities and our classroom. If we look at our materials and think, "oh wow this is very colonial, this geography topic I'm doing," or you know, whatever it is.

Don't double down. Think, okay, what is my next step? Sit with that discomfort.

And I think that is the kind of foundation that then will really help you go about looking for those resources. And asking around and talking in a way that you feel you can choose the right language. You're not bulldozing up to somebody. Because it's no one's job to educate you.

You know, you're not walking up to the South Asian woman and you know saying, “I really need to be more inclusive, can you tell me about this experience?” Let's pull back from that. But it does mean that I'm really aware of this and I'm glad you're here. Would you be interested in, and I'm really aware of my privileges.

Just changes the emphasis of the conversation that you're trying to have. And also, you know, dealing with the reaction of something. This is exhausting. I don't want to have this conversation. And not being upset by that but understanding for that person, they're living with that identity every day.

So I think, that would my biggest advice. Rather than go to this resource and it'll teach you how to do it. Or read this thing and you will be a better person. I don't think there is a thing that's going to fix it. But I do think working on ourselves and those hangups and where our bias starts and ends is possibly the best start ever.

Martine: I'd really like to ask you about your school experience. Cast your mind back. It's not that long ago-

Kate: It was. That's the sad thing, it was.

Martine: I think we're a similar age actually. I think so-

Kate: You're thinking it's not that long, and you'll have a goodness when you see it in black and white, right?

Martine: Absolutely. So cast your mind back. From an equality and diversity and inclusion perspective, is there something that you felt could've been done a lot better when you were in school?

Kate: Yeah. I think I was very lucky in a lot of ways that I had, we had a lot of student teachers at my high school. And then again at my college. That meant that not that somebody was sort of a more mature, sort of more experienced wasn't capable of, but we definitely had these student teachers who were really keen to kind of make things very relatable and be a lot more hands on. And they weren't as perhaps, frightened of topics that were seeing policy change.

So as I said, I was a child of Section 28 and it was completely forbidden for about I think it was almost two decades to even touch on a topic that related to homosexual experience.

So for a lot of teachers, they never had any training or background other than you will lose your job if you discuss this. And for some people that was kind of a relief because it didn't relate to their experience, they wouldn't put themselves in a position that they felt uncomfortable with. But for some people obviously, they really felt that they needed to talk to young people. Because they understood what it is to grow up with that stigma.

And so a lot of the time we sort of had this, in some ways I can, immediately spring to mind we had this great science teacher, she was our chemistry teacher. And our biology teacher was sick right during our sex education syllabus. Which she was like, "oh great I noticed how you timed that." And she made a really big joke of it. And she was really young. And she was like "okay take advantage of the fact that you have a young teacher and see how you can make her blush." Was kinda of her approach, which was amazing. And it took a lot of the shame out of that conversation.

Because I think particularly I think for sort of young people sort of ... I haven't quite seen it in my daughter yet, she's really young but I'm seeing the beginnings of that kind of shame response. Our bodies are something that is uncomfortable to talk about, or to be visible. And there's certain ways you behave. And you know things that are desirable and not desirable and that's the end of discussion. And I think that can be really limiting for young people. And it can be very dangerous.

When we start talking about healthy relationships. Healthy relationships with our bodies. Healthy relationships with each other. And before we even get onto those, you know the topic of intercourse.

So I think in some ways I was very lucky that that shame was removed. And I felt very at ease as a result.

But for me, I have grown up in a family that their attitude… we had a friend whose daughter was a lesbian and I can remember family members saying like it was this huge tragedy. Well she'll never have children. It's just awful. And they were trying to be really accepting like, oh we don't have a problem with her but gosh could you imagine having a daughter who'll never have children. Which of course is fundamentally untrue. It's just not true. And yet, that was the thing that struck me more than anything.

And I buried my feelings. To me that was, I can really pinpoint that oh, this is not okay the way I feel about girls. And I hadn't really explored very much but explored very little. And up to me I just didn't see, well you can be attracted to boys and girls and sexuality is fluid, no? Oh no, it's really not. Okay. We don't do that. And because it was completely lacking in school, there was no one to correct me anyway.

You know, all the sex education materials that we looked at were you know, there is a man, there is a woman. They have sex. A baby arrives. They raise it together. I mean, that's just erasing a ton of experience from single parent families, to IFV, to, there's so many things.

And of course, they were all white. They were often in the 70’s porn kinda thing. The guy often had like a mustache. Is what I remember really clearly and being quite traumatised by this.

Martine: Well that's gonna traumatise anybody.

Kate: Exactly, I was like where is this material coming from? Because I see people didn't often didn't want to sort of really tackle it. You know, who wants to sit and look through a pile of sex education resources, right? But it's really important.

And there's great places now doing really inclusive education. There's actually an organisation it's called amaze.org and they have, they focus on young people and it's fully inclusive. So they talk about things like coming out. And they talk about masturbation in a really sort of almost body neutral way. They're explicit but they don't assume gender is binary. And I just think it's extraordinarily forward thinking.

And so important because we know from so many people who've spoken up for the transgender community. Most people know. And they know very young. And the risks to mental health for people who cannot live authentically and cannot fully realise their potential, is devastating.

So those kind of resources, and it's also not keeping it just within sex education, it's looking around yet not talking in binary terms about gender and sexuality. And not reducing it just to the active sex. There's so much more that goes with that, that just was not visible.

You know, it wasn't in my English literature. It wasn't in my geography when we did sort of more social side of geography. It wasn't in sex-ed at all. It was forbidden from being there. And that needs to come right the way through education now.

It's, you know, there's been so much focus on I think it's become like, I think it's become the gender equivalent of being a plastic straw and the zero waste debate. But there's kind of you know, gender neutral bathrooms. Gender neutral toilets within schools are so important because it means that somebody doesn't have to, they're just there. It's just not a big deal. And somebody doesn't have to you know, wave their hand and signal "I need a different option here." It shouldn't be on the person who's still probably trying to figure themselves out. Let's be honest.

And there's been quite a focus on schools. Whether they should have them or not. Well actually, this, the law's already been changed that you can put them in and implement them. That changed quite a while ago. It's just taken a long time. And that's an example of how long policy takes to actually implement. That it's just not standard yet. You know, this is a couple years ago, this changed.

So, I think sometimes we can get really hung up on one aspect of making sure that everybody is included at the sort of cost of well where else am I doing it within this educational setting? You know, yes I am. I'm teaching chemistry or physics but there are times and we know this within classrooms where those discussions are gonna come up, or material that we're using, or something that we're looking at can lend itself to a much more inclusive conversation. It's kind of a, you're one part of a collective whole, aren't you?

And I think for me, it would've taken just one teacher. One teacher to maybe visibly be out or be sort of able to spot. You know, the signs of somebody who was really struggling with their identity. Or just to talk really frankly or just slide in you know, like a little reference.

We're still having it in, recently in the US there's somebody has been legally dismissed because they referred to their wife. And you know were like this is inappropriate behaviour. Yet I haven't seen anybody, any female teacher who's been fired because she referred to her husband.

Martine: Wow.

Kate: Just yeah. Exactly. You know, it's still very culturally relevant. And particularly around young people. People have a really hard time sort of separating sexual aspects of sexual identity and identity.

You know, the queer community we're all about like different style choices and you know subversiveness and there's so much more going on there and yet it is often reduced to well this is an act that I can't agree with so, done.

So if you're hosting conversations or just making it a gentle and safe environment and signaling that safety, you are possibly part of something that is gonna help someone live a much more authentic life.

And just not waste the time I did.

I wasted 20 years of bad relationships before I went "oh, I don't think I like men as partners. Well this is a revelation." And things changed. You know. That could've been avoided so long ago, by just having a more inclusive educational setting. I really believe that.

Martine: Gosh it's just such a massive reminder about the important role that teachers play in society. I mean, what a difference you can make.

Kate: It really is. And it's one of the things I feel so passionate about teachers you know, being given appropriate times to prepare these lessons to be, have their work properly valued, to be properly paid and have the time off, you know. And the first to kind of support schools you know. And if teachers make mistakes I'm like "do you know how much pressure this teacher's under to perform?"

I think it's really important that the support goes both ways. Because teachers are so powerful. They really are. Like, everyone can remember a good and a bad teacher, can't they?

Martine: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Wow. That sounds like another conversation for another podcast episode. Goodness me.

Wow. Kate there's so much good stuff there. Thank you very much. I told you listeners she has lots of layers and that's very positive. So thank you for such a thoughtful response to the topic of this episode. There's so much both trainee teachers and experienced teachers and trainers to think about. And what you've said.

Thank you very much.

Kate, where can people find you online? Because everyone's gonna wanna stalk you online now.

Kate: Very welcome to. I can be found as kateosullivan.org. That's my website. And you'll find links there onto my blog. And my podcast where I host interviews around these kind of topics. They just make the every day quite explicit sometimes. I think people really struggle with it otherwise.

I also have a Patreon community that's linked there. And the Patreon funds kinda everything that I do. It pays for all the podcasts. And I make sure everything's transcribed. And one of the reasons is for access, but also because I have teachers and things who often use them as material to teach from or to become part of their learning and education. And I do live broadcasts on there and some more podcasting. Some blogs. Some essays. With a view of just you know, people who want to invest a little bit more time they can then help substitute my pay so we can do it. It's kind of a crowd funding community, which I love.

And online, I'm trying to think, so I recently changed all of my media handles you see… I am Kateo_Sullivan. You can find me in most places. I'm a bit sweary on Twitter and less so on Instagram but still quite sweary.

Martine: I love that. Hashtag, a bit sweary.

Kate: A bit sweary. I kind of had this idea that you know, all language should be available to us, so we ought to use all of it.

Martine: So if people want to find you on social media presumably you've got some links on your website to all of those.

Kate: I do. It's all linked. If you go to kateosullivan.org you got links like all up the top for everything you might need. From the podcasts, to Instagram. Whatever floats ya boat.

Martine: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Kate: Thank you.

Wrap Up Huge thanks to Kate for a fantastic interview. It was a real pleasure to talk to her. Before we conclude the episode I have something exciting to tell you about. My first book The Productive Teacher is now available to purchase online. To find out more hop over to theproductiveteacherbook.com and you can grab your copy via that link.

Thanks for tuning in. I hope you’ll join me next time.

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Episode 41 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores some strategies to help teachers and trainers in saying “no”.

Introduction This is the show I promised you in episode 37 - we will be exploring strategies for saying “no”.

To avoid doubt we are focusing on saying “no” to colleagues when the right answer is “no” even though we feel like we should say “yes” and often do.

Why Should We Say “No” Sometimes? If you Google “say no motivational quotes” you’ll find a whole heap of Instagram-worthy cheesiness answering this question. Normally I steer clear of this sort of thing but actually I found a few (un-attributed) crackers:

Saying NO often means you can say YES to things that really matter.
Sometimes you need to say NO to others to say YES to yourself.

I thought these were so good I’ve made them into Instagram graphics for you to share as a reminder to yourself and others. Please free to use them in any way you like. You need not sign up to get them or anything - just right click and save the image.

Here are more quotes from famous people

Steve Jobs: “Focusing is about saying ‘no.’”
Warren Buffett: “We need to learn the slow ‘yes’ and the quick ‘no.’”
Tony Blair: “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is easy to say yes.”

Why is it SO Difficult? We are teachers and trainers. Our job is to help people and usually, saying no isn’t perceived as helpful. The trouble is that being selfless is not, in the long run, going to do you any good.

Most of us avoid conflict and ultimately we want to people please.

How to Say No One of the main purposes of The Teaching Space Podcast is to help you focus on YOU as we spend so much time focused on others.

Here are some suggested strategies for saying no:

Use the word “no”. Say it clearly. Leave no room for doubt. Don’t waffle. Say it straight away.
Try following your “no” with a “because”. That “because” can help the “no” be better understood.
Offer an alternative: “no I cannot do this for you but what I can do is…”
Acknowledge how the other person will feel when you say “no” but still say it. Empathise. Validate that person’s feelings. “You will be upset and disappointed but…”
Use the broken record technique. This is usually best deployed in a more heated discussion. You repeat your “no”. For example: “no, this simply cannot happen today, no, as I explained…”
Use your body language and your facial expression, to reinforce your “no”.
In our recent episode about setting boundaries with colleagues we talked about how to react when you are asked to do something you consider unreasonable. Rather than breaking down and saying “I am so stressed - I can’t cope with this on top of the million other things I have to do today”, explain “if I do this now then X will not get completed - what is your preference?” This is not a direct “no” but it is a useful strategy nevertheless.
In the same episode we covered the win-win technique. This is also a great “no” strategy with alternatives. Example: if a colleague asks “do you have a minute to talk about something?” and you are in a state of flow with marking, offer a response that offers two wins. “I’d love to talk to you. I can speak to you at 10am when I am on my break or at 4pm when I have finished teaching. What would you prefer?”

Just to be really clear, I am not recommending you say “no” to everything!

My Experience I’ve become good at instinctively knowing what to say “no” to and then using the appropriate strategy. That’s why I feel well placed to record this episode. As such, coming up with an example of my own experience has been tricky as they are my “normal”.

However, a broad example would be the year I decided I needed to say “no” to working full-time hours. This was for medical reasons and I used the consequences strategy to explain. I then negotiated different hours and the whole transaction was smooth and painless with everyone winning.

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Episode 40 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how dictation could help you cut time spent typing emails.

Introduction Did you listen to Episode 33? In it, I explained my secret method for working twice as fast as anyone else… touch-typing. Did you try it? Can you already type?

This episode is for those who are still struggling. It’s for those who already type at ANY speed. In short, it’s for anyone who needs to get words down quickly. So… anyone!

Today’s episode is all about dictation. I was going to call this episode How to be a Dictator, then I changed my mind!

Back in the Day In the offices of the 90’s and early 2000’s (I’m basing this on my own memory by the way), dictation was used regularly. Someone would speak into a dictaphone (they had mini tapes!) and dictate letters, notes… anything really. The tape would be sent to the secretary or secretarial pool and the audio would be transcribed.

As technology developed, people’s IT skills improved. The advent of email meant that many people developed typing skills, and you’d increasingly find people who previously would have dictated, typing their own emails and letters.

There are still some professions who use dictation, for example, doctors and lawyers. But they are in a minority as I outlined.

Why Did People Dictate? The main reason for dictating was and still is speed. However, if you use the “back in the day” example I mentioned above, it could take over 24 hours to receive anything back from a secretary, depending on their workload. That’s not fast. You can see why many people typed up their own correspondence and why touch typing is such a valuable skill.

But why am I telling you this?

Because speaking is still faster than typing and (thankfully) technology has moved on.

Dictation Today Dictation today is very different. There are lots of options:

Use a human transcription service. Record your audio (on your phone would seem simplest, no need to buy extra kit) and send it to a transcription service like Rev's business is transcription and they have super fast typists all over the world just waiting for you. They have turned short pieces of work around for me in less than an hour. Their prices are reasonable at $1 per minute.
Use machine transcription. Rev's sister company, Temi, uses advanced voice recognition software (there is no human involved) to transcribe your audio. Turnaround times are way faster than Rev and the cost is minimal at $0.10 a minute. They offer a free trial.
Use a dictation app: I love Just Press Record app - the accuracy is amazing.
Use voice typing in Google Docs: you can find this option under the TOOLS menu. This is also accurate.
Use the microphone icon on your iPhone to dictate texts, emails, etc.

My Experience I’ve tried all the options just outlined and they are great. The one I use most is the Just Press Record app. But I encourage my students to use Voice Typing in Google Docs regularly. Dictation takes getting used to as if you are using an app, you need to speak your punctuation. Just take your time, learn the commands and go for it. Remember, writing and editing are two separate activities. With this in mind, I have found NOT seeing the words forming on a screen in front of me helpful. That’s why I love the app option.

In Summary If you want to work more efficiently and spend less time typing, try dictation.

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Episode 39 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores why we may need to evaluate our self-imposed standards.

Introduction Shocking episode title? I hope so! Did I get your attention? Did you read it wrong? No - you did not.

In today’s episode we are talking about the standards you impose upon yourself, not those imposed by your organisation or profession.

It’s time to audit those standards if you are struggling to get everything done and must take work home in the evenings. If your work/life balance is out of whack - you need an audit.

As teachers, we are reflective practitioners. Evaluation is an essential part of the teaching, learning and assessment cycle. So let’s evaluate, or audit, our self-imposed standards.

Why do we Aim so High? Sweeping assumption: I think your standards are high. Why?

You are listening to a teaching podcast in your own time for personal and professional development.
You take your position as a role model seriously.

Areas Where Self-Imposed Standards Might be too High * Assessment * Planning * Working hours * Communication turnaround time * Is it OK to Lower Standards? No one WANTS to do it. But it is possible to adjust your standards so that no one notices. That’s the way to do it.

Identifying areas where standards can be lowered without a negative effect on learning, frees you up to do other things (incidentally, that might be self care, and that’s important and will ultimately make you a better teacher).

Ideas and Solutions + Are you assessing too much? What is the minimum amount of assessed work you are required to log per week? If it’s two pieces, why are you doing seven? Surely two in-depth assessment activities, combined with lots of in-class formative assessment (non-workload heavy) would be better? + Are you drowning in marking assignments? Do you have to mark all aspects of the assignment? Could you use peer assessment to pick up on spelling, punctuation and grammar, for example? Could you use self-assessment so learners check their work better before handing in? Why not design a checklist outlining the criteria you are assessing in learner appropriate language so they can mark their own work first? + Are you trying something new in every session? Well, don’t! It’s important to keep your sessions fresh and engaging, but limit yourself to one new thing a week or month. + Are you responding to emails within 24 hours? Are you checking your emails at the weekend? Well stop. You’ve trained the people who email you to expect a quick response, so that’s on you. But if you managed to do this, you can re-train them. Schedule email time (check out the Inbox Zero episode of the podcast) and put an explanation on your email auto-signature. + Are you making yourself too available? Define office hours - let everyone know your availability. Share your calendar. Encourage appointments. + Are you spending too much time making your classroom look perfect? Stop - delegate tasks to learners.

Wrap Up If you enjoyed the episode, then please consider leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast directory. This helps more teachers and trainers find the podcast when they search. Thank you.

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Episode 38 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores some strategies and ideas on how you can concentrate more and be distracted less.

Introduction One of the biggest challenges of being a teacher or trainer is that we have such small gaps of time between sessions to get non-teaching work done. As a result, we attract more interruptions than most! (Perhaps not “more”, it’s just they are condensed into a shorter space of time). We also have a tendency to get distracted easily (again, because we are required to get focussed quickly and we don’t have long).

Distractions and interruptions fall into two categories: people and things. I will tackle both together.

My Top Six Here are my top six workplace distractions and interruptions, and techniques for managing them.

People (Physical Interruptions) * When someone walks over to your desk to talk to you, stand up. This sends the message you don’t have time for a casual visit and will help them realise they need to get to their point quickly.
When interrupted, state immediately that you only have X minutes to talk.
Wear headphones (big ones, not tiny ear buds) so prospective interrupters can see you are working in a focussed state and they should only interrupt you if it’s necessary.
Work in an alternative location.

It’s important to note that if a learner is in need, you want them to come to you. The consequences of them not doing so could be disastrous.

Meetings * If you schedule a one hour meeting, it will take an hour, even if you could have successfully completed the meeting in just 20 minutes. This is an example of Parkinson’s Law.
Where possible, schedule short meetings and ensure they fit with your calendar. If you are a Google Calendar user, consider adjusting your settings so that your default meeting time as short as possible. Also, enable Speedy Meetings.
Is it necessary to meet at all? Can you make use of team collaboration software solutions such as Slack or Google Hangouts?
Check out Episode 23 of the podcast for more ideas.
People Noise * Use noise cancelling headphones. The noise cancelling benefits are fairly obvious, but if you work in a busy place where people often interrupt you, wearing headphones sends potential interrupters a visual cue you are concentrating.
Make more noise! Although it sounds counterintuitive introducing more noise into your environment can help. Research suggests that noise itself isn’t distracting, but unwanted speech noise is. This makes sense, doesn’t it? If you tune in to a conversation, you cannot help but try to listen to what is being said. This forces an unwanted task-switch. Adding a continuous, low-level ambient sound to an environment (such as white noise, which sounds similar to the sound of airflow) can help mask unwanted speech noise, making it much easier to ignore. My favourite app for this is called Noizio.
Brain Noise * If your busy brain is preventing you from single-tasking, get a whiteboard. Every time an idea or new to-do item pops into your head, write it on the whiteboard. You then won’t lose that thought and it can be dealt with later, allowing you to focus on the task in hand.
Brain noise prevents many people from concentrating for long periods of time, so why not use a timer define focus periods? Experiment with using the Pomodoro Technique (more in episode 12 of the podcast).
Email, Internet and Social Media * Close your email program.
Disable email notification across all devices.
Only answer emails at set times throughout the day (for example 10 am, 12 noon and 3 pm). Put these slots on your calendar; set alarms if you need to.
Mention your email answering time slots on your auto-signature or out of office message to manage people’s expectations.
Use an internet blocking app such as Freedom to block distracting websites for times when you need to focus.
Mobile Devices (Messages, Calls and Notifications) * Turn off all push notifications - “use” your mobile device, ensure it does not “use” you. I think I’ve mentioned this…!
Switch to flight safe mode when you want to focus on something other than your mobile device.
Move your mobile device out of your eye line.

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Episode 37 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores why establishing boundaries with colleagues is important and essential within working environments.

Introduction In the last episode we explored setting boundaries with learners. I explained:

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.

I found two great articles on this topic to help me prepare for this episode. You can find links to them in the show notes.

Why Are Boundaries Important? Having boundaries in place allows you to:

Navigate complex colleague relationships.
Protect yourself, specifically your role and responsibilities.
Preserve your mental health and emotional energy.
Uphold your own standards and values.
Be productive.

Examples of Personal Workplace Boundaries Some examples include:

Job description: what you are required to do.
Interpersonal: how you behave with others.
Personal: your work/life balance.

Why This Topic? This is a huge topic. It is impossible to cover all aspects of setting boundaries with colleagues in a short episode.

The purpose of this episode is simply to make you think. If you pick one thing from the episode to act on, then that is fantastic!

How to Set Boundaries With Colleagues Here are suggestions for establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries at work:

Decide on your boundaries (think about those which relate to your job role and responsibilities, your relationships with colleagues, your general behaviour and your work/life balance).
Document those boundaries in your journal and revisit them often.
Practice explaining your boundaries to people in a firm but positive way.
Know that colleagues at all levels will cross your boundaries at some point.
Use the win-win approach (this also works well as a behaviour management strategy with learners). Example: if a colleague asks “do you have a minute to talk about something?” and you are in a state of flow with marking, offer a response that offers two wins. “I’d love to talk to you. I can speak to you at 10am when I am on my break or at 4pm when I have finished teaching. What would you prefer?”
List people who drain your energy and don’t respect your boundaries. Where possible, have as little to do with them as you can.
When boundaries are crossed, try to avoid a personal or emotional response. For example, if your manager makes an unreasonable request, rather than breaking down and saying “I am so stressed - I can’t cope with this on top of the million other things I have to do today”, explain “If I do this now then X will not get completed - what is your preference?”
Learn to say no - future episode.

My Experience * Physical boundaries: I am easily distracted by noise and find it hard to get into a state of flow, so by using noise cancelling headphones I send a message to my colleagues I should only be interrupted if it is urgent. I have explained this to them before, and have not just assumed they will understand! * Personal boundaries: To maintain work/life balance I do not check my emails at the weekend and do not have my emails on my personal mobile device. My colleagues know this. My office hours are also clearly communicated on my email auto-signature and out of office message. * Professional boundaries: I have a specific social media presence related to teaching theteachingspace on Instagram and martineguernsey on Twitter). Both are professional, I keep my personal life, religious and political views to myself. My Facebook profile is locked down, although I am friends with some colleagues. I am careful what I post.

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.

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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.

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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 1. Pick your tool. 2. Everything goes in it except for events which are on your calendar. 3. Do not use your email inbox as a to-do list. 4. 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.

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Episode 34 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how audiobooks and podcasts can be helpful and perhaps are essential in CPD.

Here are the show notes for this episode.

Introduction I’ve been listening to podcasts and audiobooks since before they were mainstream.

Podcasts came first. I produced my first podcast almost 10 years ago, so I’d been listening to podcasts for a few years before that.

My first podcast listening experience was an amazing knitting podcast called Electric Sheep. Sadly, she is no longer podcasting. But the fact that I could listen to someone talking about knitting, and knit was amazing to me. The division of my attention was so much better than, say, watching TV and knitting.

I always loved the convenience of audio podcasts and that convinced me to try audiobooks.

A Word on Multi-Tasking If you’ve been listening to the show for a while you’ll know my position on multi-tasking. There’s no such thing! It’s called task switching. You will get more done if you focus on doing just one thing. But…

There are exceptions to the rule. The exceptions are when one activity involves very little thought. So, for example, walking and talking (you’ve been walking for years and it is a natural process for you which requires little thought). You can therefore focus on your talking.

Apply this to listening to audiobooks - if you combine the practice with something mindless e.g. going for a walk or doing housework, you can, in most cases, multi-task.

CPD in Your Own Time Because you are listening to this podcast, I will assume you are happy to do CPD in your own time.

It’s my belief that teachers should manage their own CPD because (most of the time) they know what their needs are. However, this has to be in complete partnership with their employer. Partnership is key.

The CPD I focus on in my time concerns productivity and pedagogy - by changing things up in the classroom my learners and I both enjoy things more and it improves outcomes.

How to Listen to Audiobooks My favourite way is through Audible. I have an Audible membership audible.co.uk and it’s convenient. I’ve been a member since 2011. I have an app on my phone. The app has a sleep timer which is handy. They have a no quibble return policy.

Try your local library - you might be able to borrow audiobooks for free.

Audiobook recommendations (Amazon links provided):

Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel T Willingham
How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price
What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam
168 Hours, You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam
How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind by Dana K White

How to Listen to Podcasts Because you are currently listening to a podcast I hope that you know what a podcast is and how to listen to one.

What you might not know is that there are alternative apps to the native one on your mobile device. Personally I like Overcast. You can add audio to it. It has a sleep timer, and the interface is intuitive.

Podcast recommendations:

The Cult of Pedagogy
Self Care for Teachers
Truth for Teachers

Managing Input The convenience of podcasts and audiobooks is incredible. There are minimal downsides. The only one I can think of is the possibility of getting overwhelmed with all the content you are consuming. You can overdo it!

Here’s how I suggest you avoid getting overwhelmed:

Be mindful. Take breaks. Have quiet time.
Use your e-reader or a physical book sometimes.
Don’t forget fiction!

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.

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Episode 33 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how touch-typing can help both teacher and learner to work much faster.

Introduction Learning to type was probably one of the best things I ever did and this applies to all roles in my life: student, adult, “corporate world me” and teacher.

It enables you to work more efficiently at the computer. You get more done thanks to increased speed and accuracy.

Touch-typing helps me every day with:

Writing my book.
Writing podcast outlines.
Writing feedback for learners.
Communicating by email.
Anything that involves communicating using the written word and a computer!

If you can already type, keep listening, because this is a skill you should pass on to your learners and colleagues.

What is Touch Typing? * Looking at your screen, not your fingers. * Using all (or most) of your fingers to type. * Technically, specific fingers activate specific keys (if you have been trained correctly).

Who Needs to Learn to Touch Type * Simple - everyone who uses a computer to get things done. * You - if you don’t already. * They should teach children to touch type as soon as they start Googling!

Who Should Teach Touch Typing * This is tricky because I am aware my listeners teach lots of different subjects and age groups. * But touch typing is a functional skill in the same way maths, English and ICT are. Typing comes under ICT. * While you might not have the curriculum space or capacity to teach touch typing, can you bring it into your teaching in other ways? Let’s discuss in our Facebook group.

How Can You Learn to Touch Type? Fair warning - if you have been typing in your own way for many years, it is VERY hard to slow down and unlearn it. But it’s worth it. This is one reason they should teach touch-typing as early in a child’s school experience as possible. But you can do it and it is worth it!

The best way:

Use an online programme.
Get through the bulk of the input as quickly as you can (learn your fingers and keys).
Make time for deliberate practice for at least 30 minutes a day.
Practice outside of this time every time you use your computer (this is the hardest bit).

Touch Typing Resources * Typing Club * BBC Dance Mat (for children) * The Typing Cat * Mavis Beacon * Kaz

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.

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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 1. Set up ARCHIVE/S sub-folder. 2. Delete emails. 3. Send emails to ARCHIVE/S. 4. Set up REPLY and WAITING sub-folders. 5. Add tasks in emails to your to-do list. 6. File remaining emails in REPLY and WAITING. 7. Apply the two-minute rule. 8. 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.

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Episode 31 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the benefits of Meal Planning for both Teachers and Trainers.

Podcast Episode 32 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

Hello and welcome to Episode 31 of The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here. Thank you so much for joining me today. This episode explores why meal planning is absolutely essential for teachers and trainers. I know it sounds really random, but do stick with me.

Summer Break Goals I'm recording this episode while I'm on my summer break and one of the many goals I'm trying to achieve during this time is to develop a meal planning routine.

You're still wondering what this has got to do with teaching, aren't you? Well, the first thing that goes out the window when I'm busy and I've got a heavy teaching schedule is my eating. My meals aren't good and my health, ultimately, gets affected.

If I'm busy, I'll end up popping to the supermarket on the way home and just picking up something quick and easy for dinner, rather than having a nutritious meal and this affects how much I sleep and, ultimately, how I perform in my day job as a teacher. So, that's the link that I'm making.

Taking Control As teachers, sometimes, we are so busy that we feel a little bit out of control and that's not something I'd comfortably admit in front of my students, but I'm sure you can relate.

If we can just grab control over this one thing, this meal planning routine, then the knock-on effects are going to be really positive.

I'm convinced that by nailing your meal planning, you can be pretty much better at everything, so I thought this would make quite an interesting podcast topic.

My Suggestions I'm going to share with you my approach to meal planning in the hope that it will be helpful for you. I am going to say it's focused on dinner preparation and I need to also add that I don't have children, so I am only organizing myself and my husband, so I do appreciate things can change, the bigger your family is.

However, I'm going to share what I do and, hopefully, it will be of some use.

1) Pick a Day I have six suggestions in total, so we'll start with number one: pick a day. Pick a day to plan your meals. For me, this is a Sunday. And, also, pick a day to do your grocery shopping. This, for me, is a Monday.

In the interest of forming a habit, ideally you will pick a specific time too and do this consistently.

You also might want to consider a day in the week to replenish your fresh items, like milk and bread. So there's no planning needed here. It's just, on a Thursday, for example, you nip to the supermarket and get the bits that you need to get, kind of thing.

2) Use Your Calendar Number two: use your calendar. Put these specific points in your week in your calendar. If after last week's episode, which was about Google Calendar, you are indeed a Google Calendar convert, I recommend you add a reminder. Add a new color code to these events in your Google Calendar as well.

Obviously, paper calendars are absolutely fine. Maybe get your highlighter pen out, so you can see the reminder really easily.

3) Get Your Systems in Place Number three: get your systems in place. This means your shopping list and your meal plan.

For my shopping list, I use an app called Bring! Bring! is a game changer. You can add your partner or family members to the list so they can contribute, as well. For example, if somebody uses the last toilet roll, it's their responsibility to add it to the Bring! app. This is fantastic.

For my meal plan, I simply use Google Calendar and I alluded to this in last week's episode, which you'll find at theteachingspace.com/30. So, for example, we normally eat dinner around seven, eight o'clock, something like that, so I'll pop an appointment in the calendar and I will have a note of what the meal is going to be and, often, I'll have a link to the recipe, if it's an online recipe.

If you're looking for a slightly more powerful meal planning and recipe manager type tool, then Paprika app is really worth a look. It is a paid app, but it's quite powerful and there's some great stuff going on there.

Clearly, pen and paper work perfectly well. My preference would be those nice magnetic pads that you can attach to your fridge door. I'd have a separate for a shopping list and a separate one for weekly meal plans.

Paperchase does some beautiful pads like this, so if you're in the UK, do pop to your local Paperchase and have a look or visit their website.

4) Identify Your Go-To Meals Number four: identify your go-to meals. Have a selection of go-to recipes or meals and have them accessible, so if you do all your planning online, on your computer, maybe have a Google Drive with a list of your recipes and links and things like that. Rotate those go-to meals.

You do not have to reinvent the wheel every time you produce dinner. If you want to keep your repertoire fresh, then maybe challenge yourself to try one new meal or one new recipe a week and, if that's a success, it can become a go-to meal.

5) Consider Batch Cooking Number five: consider batch cooking. When you're super busy, it's really helpful to have a stock of meals in your freezer. You can do this really easily by making a double quantity of things that are going to be okay in the freezer.

Also, try to make things occasionally that you can turn into lots of other meals. A great example would be a chili because this can only be a chili, it could be a filling for a jacket potato, or you could make it into nachos, or something like that.

6) Rinse, Repeat and Review Number six and this, to an extent, is the most important one: rinse, repeat, and review.By this, I mean try this for a week and then repeat and repeat and repeat, until it becomes a habit. Then, when things go wrong because they will, because we're all extremely busy people.

We're teachers and trainers. We have so much to do. Review why things have gone wrong. Try to identify the triggers that have disrupted your system and then put measures in place to prevent them happening in the future.

So, my most important point here is rinse, repeat, and review.

What Do You Do? That's what I do. That is how I am working on getting my meal planning nailed, so I feel much more organized in other aspects of my life.

What do you do? Do you plan your meals or are you more of a kind of "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of teacher? I would really love to know. I'd also like to start some conversation around other aspects of home life that, perhaps, we can work together to systematize.

I think this would be a great thing to talk about in our Facebook group, The Teaching Group Staff Room, so do hop over there and let's start some conversation.

Wrap Up Right, I think that's it from me for this episode, Number 31.

All that remains to be said is if you enjoyed this episode or any previous episode of The Teaching Space Podcast, then please consider leaving a positive iTunes review. I would be so very grateful.

Thanks for tuning in. See you next time.

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Episode 30 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the benefits of using Google Calendar for teachers.

Podcast Episode 30 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 30 of The Teaching Space Podcast. Today I will be sharing with you Seven Reasons Why All Teachers Should Use Google Calendar.

If you've been using Google Calendar for a while, you'll be aware that this year, it's had a bit of a makeover. I found a really good walk-through video on YouTube that I'll make sure I share in the show notes.

Actually if you don't normally look at the show notes, I'm going to really recommend you do it for this episode because I'm going to share lots of videos to help you understand the seven reasons I'm going to tell you in a second, a little better.

So do hop over to theteachingspace.com/30, it will be worth it, I promise.

Co-ordinating with Your Family/Partner Let's get started then. Number one, an amazing reason for using Google Calendar is to coordinate lives with your partner/family.

Because of the way Google shared calendars work, it is really easy for you to keep an eye on what your ... in my case husband, is up to. I mean that in a very positive, healthy way incidentally. We both have really busy lives so it's really important that we know who's home in the evening, who's looking after the dog at lunchtime. All those sorts of household things.

So one of the best reasons to use Google Calendar and this applies to anyone, teacher or not, is to coordinate with your partner or family, whatever suits your specific arrangement.

Arranging Appointments with Parents Number two, something a bit more teaching oriented now. Arranging appointments with parents.

So a good example is a parents evening. If you are a G-Suite for Education user, you will have access to a function called Appointment Slots. So you are able to offer up a number of slots to your parents and when one person takes a slot then it disappears so you can't end up double booking yourself. Which is so handy. I don't know about you but in the past parents evenings have taken an age to organise. So this is a fantastic function.

I found a great video on YouTube showing you how to use it, so please check out the show notes for that.

Just to reiterate, if you aren't a G-Suite for Education or indeed G-Suite for Business user, you will not have access to this tool.

Encouraging Speedy Meetings Number three, encouraging speedy meetings.

What you can do is if you go into your settings in Google Calendar you can tick 'Speedy Meetings'. And what this is is ... for example if your default meeting length is 30 minutes and you set up a 30 minute meeting, it will automatically adjust it to finish five minutes early. For longer meetings it will adjust your meeting length to finish 10 minutes early.

And over previous podcasts I've mentioned something called Parkinson's Law, in relation to meetings, that they expand to fill the time allotted to them. Well if you allot a little bit less than you think you need, this has got to be a good thing. So I really like Speedy Meetings.

Colour Coding Number four, colour coding, because well, colour coding, come on, we've known each other a while now, you know how I feel about colour coding. I find colour coding really useful.

In Google Calendar you can colour code various calendars, so for example shared calendars you have access to. But also events. So I really recommend that you setup some sort of key ... I'll give you an example, any red events in my calendar are urgent, they will get my attention straight away, that's just a small example.

If you perhaps teach different groups you might have one colour for group one, one colour for group two, one colour for group three, something like that. So at a glance, it makes it a lot easier for you to see what's going on on your calendar.

Automatically Adding Events From Gmail Number five, automatically adding events from Gmail. This is something you can adjust under settings.

What this means is if you use Gmail as your email provider and for example you book a flight, your Google Calendar will notice this and take the details from your email and put the flights in your Google Calendar. Isn't that amazing! It doesn't just work for flights, it works for other events as well.

So Google Calendar takes the info from Gmail and it adds what you've been talking about event wise to your calendar. I find that a bit scary, but I tell you what, it is so handy.

So definitely have a go with that. Obviously it only works if you use Google Calendar and Gmail.

Adding Hangouts to Appointments Number six, adding hangouts to appointments. Google Hangouts are brilliant, but sometimes they're a little bit complicated to arrange. I get a bit confused sometimes, which link I need to share with the person joining the hangout and all that sort of thing.

Now, you can add a hangout to a calendar appointment. So if you go into your Google Calendar and you setup an appointment and you invite someone to the appointment, you can add a Google Hangout directly to that appointment.

So rather than sharing a link just before the hangout's about to start, as long as you invited that person and they have accepted via their Google Calendar, both parties can go into the calendar, their Google Calendar, open the appointment and access the Google Hangout from in the appointment.

This is so useful, I use this all the time and I really recommend you give it a go. Again I found a great YouTube video you can watch below.

Organising Session Plans Number seven, organising session plans. Now I'll be honest, this reason wasn't on my original list, but while I was mooching around YouTube to find videos to illustrate the other six reasons, I came across this idea of using your Google Calendar to organise your session plans. And it was largely down to Alice Keeler, who's a brilliant Google Certified Innovator I think and she shares loads of Google resources.

There are two videos from Alice, part one and part two. And it demonstrates how if you create your session plans in Google Drive, you can attach your session plans to appointments in your Google Calendar. And it's a really nice visual, chronological way to stay organised.

This isn't something I've done before, but I am really tempted to do it because what you can do, is setup a separate calendar for each group that you teach and work like that. So I'm kind of excited about it and really interested in giving it a go when I get my next new group.

Are You Convinced? Have I convinced you yet, are you still not sure?

If you're on the fence then why not try using a Google Calendar for your own personal diary commitments. The app for IOS is excellent. I can't speak for the Android version as I don't have it, but the IOS app is brilliant. It's really easy to share your calendars with your partner, your family, that sort of thing.

Give it a go, maybe do some meal planning on your Google Calendar. Hold that thought because that's what I'm talking about next week. I thought this was a teaching podcast, I hear you shout. Do bear with me, next weeks podcast is going to be a good one.

Wrap Up Okay, I think that's it for me today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to hop over to Facebook and join our closed Facebook group, The Teaching Space Staffroom. It will be really nice to chat to you in there.

Also, if you are enjoying the podcast, then please consider leaving a positive iTunes review because it helps other teachers find The Teaching Space. I'd be really grateful too.

Thanks so much for tuning in, see you next week.

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Episode 29 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores how learners can and should use images legally in the content that they produce.

Podcast Episode 29 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

Hello, it's Martine here. Welcome to Episode 29 of The Teaching Space Podcast. Today we're talking about how to help learners use images online legally.

Let's start with the why and then move onto the how.

Why Is It Important? So, why is it important that we help learners use images online legally?

Now, more than ever, we are asking our learners to produce content, often as evidence for assessment, and this content could easily be online. For example, things like blogs, presentations, leaflets, posters, that sort of thing.

This type of content is usually enhanced by the use of images, so we should definitely be encouraging our learners to use images, but they need to use them correctly, in the same way that we teach our learners not to plagiarize. And with good reason, they need to use images in a legal way.

You could argue that your school or college is a closed environment, in other words, things are not likely to get onto the actual real-life internet, but I would counter that argument with the fact that we are trying to prepare our learners for the real world, so let's set them up with good habits and good practices now.

How Can We Help Our Learners? How do we go about helping our learners then?

The first thing I recommend is that you lead by example. You demonstrate best practice, ensure that your resources, your presentations, your handouts all show images that are attributed correctly. Images that don't have copyright, watermarks on. Lead by example.

Next, I would teach learners about image licensing and copyright as soon as is age appropriate. I really recommend getting very familiar with Creative Commons Licensing in particular. If you're looking for photography to use in presentations and other types of resources then this is definitely the way to go.

Creative Commons Licensing You can read up on Creative Commons licensing on their website, Creativecommons.org/licenses, and then transmit this information to your learners.

You could recommend your learners focus on using Creative Commons zero licensed images; this is like the lowest level of licensing and doesn't require users to attribute the work to the producer of the work, the photographer.

I think it's great when people are getting started, however, you might want to draw your learners' attention to other licenses, those that require users of images to attribute the work to the owner.

Bibliographies and Citations The reason I'm saying this is it gets them in a good habit of citing their sources, so if they're going to be moving on to writing lengthy assignments you can then start talking about bibliographies and citations, and things like that, so there's a really nice link.

This will be very dependent on the type of learners you work with, but be aware that there is this range of licensing options and there are different requirements. If you get nice and familiar with them you can help your learners cite their sources appropriately.

Photography Resources If you're on the lookout for some good free photography resources for teachers and trainers I've written a blog post on this very topic.

The websites that I share are mostly Creative Commons zero licensed images, but always check before you use any of the images from these websites. You want to be 100% sure. You might want to get into the habit of attributing the image to the photographer anyway, even if it's not a requirement. This is you leading by example, demonstration best practice to your learners.

You can find the link here.

Encourage Your Learners To Produce Their Own! While I do think it's really important to spend some time explaining copyright and image licensing to your learners, there is another option, and that is for you to empower your learners to make their own images, diagrams, illustrations, whatever it is they need for the piece of work they're producing.

I'm going to share some ideas with you on this topic now.

Doodling If your learners need diagrams to illustrate a point they're trying to make, then actually, creating doodles can be really effective, and it can get your learners to explore their creativity.

Particularly if it's in a not obviously creative subject, actually bringing in a bit of doodling, a bit of art can be a very positive thing and might help you engage with learners who aren't otherwise engaged in the subject.

Electronic Tools Obviously, pen and paper are fantastic. You can, if you need to, scan them. Tidy them up using various editing tools, and then pop them into whatever it is the learner's creating, a presentation, or a handout, or whatever.

Learners can also produce diagrams and doodles electronically; you can use tools like Google Drawing, Adobe Spark, or Canva.

Photography Don't forget the humble digital camera, or in this day and age I guess it's your mobile device. This is dependent on the age of your learners of course.

Encourage your learners to use their mobile devices to take photographs so that they can illustrate the work they are doing with their own photos. You might even get them to credit the photographs to themselves as they are indeed the photographer.

Using Google Image Search Correctly Another important skill to teach your learners in terms of using images legally is to get them using Google Image search in the correct way.

I've got a nice short video on my YouTube channel, which shows you how to do this. This is a video you can share with your learners and get them to look at independently.

So, as well as focusing on the Creative Commons licensing stuff, using Google Image search is a great way to find pictures that could be used in student work.

Buying Images My final suggestion is that you could consider buying images, but I don't know many schools and colleges that have enough budget available for this.

If it is something you want to look into then I recommend Depositphotos.com. Buying photos isn't cheap. However if you're interested in Deposit Photos I have a top tip for you. Join the email list for a website called APPSUMO.com, that's A.P.P.S.U.M.O., as they often have really interesting deals on things like stock photography.

I've picked up 100 credits for Depositphotos for a super cheap price on APPSUMO, so it's worth keeping an eye out.

Wrap Up Okay, that's it for today's episode. I'd be really interested to hear if helping learners use images legally is something that you've struggled with in the past. Or, is it something that perhaps your colleagues need to get their heads around?

If I'm being really honest I have seen quite a few teachers, often senior managers as well, delivering PowerPoint presentations or Google Slide presentations and they have included copyrighted images. I mean, there's a watermark across the entire image, and this is not good, we really can't have this going on.

Do let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your experience. You can do this in The Teaching Space Staffroom which is our Facebook group.

Please hop over to Facebook and find The Teaching Space Staffroom and ask to join. I would love to chat to you in there. Okay, right, that's it from me today.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you'll tune in next time.

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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.

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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.

Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff

The Four Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move and Sleep Your Way to a Longer, Healthier Life

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage

How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind: Dealing with Your House's Dirty Little Secrets

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Episode 26 of The Teaching Space Podcast helps you prepare for a digital declutter to boost your productivity.

Podcast Episode 26 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space podcast, coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

Hello, it's Martine here. Welcome to Episode 26 of The Teaching Space Podcast. In today's episode, I'm asking the question, do you need a digital declutter? I'm going to put myself out there and say I think you probably do. As such, in this episode, I plan to share some strategies to help you declutter and detox your digital space.

Clutter Let's get thinking about clutter. On the face of it, digital clutter seems very different from physical clutter. There's a great example of this on a blog I like to follow called The Minimalists. If you go to theminimalists.com/digital, you'll find this example. Let me share an extract with you.

Try to move 2,000 books to a new residence. Box up the physical books taking them off their shelves one by one, labelling each box with its appropriate label, self-help, literary fiction, Cambodian interpretive dance etc. Then, carry them to your vehicle, box by box, being careful not to drop them. Then, haul them to your new home. Carry them inside, carefully unpack each box and reshelve each individual book until every last book is sort of back where it was before you started this tedious exercise. Then, next time you move, grab your Kindle with all 2,000 titles instead, toss it in your bag and be on your way.

Using this great example and rationale, the fact that digital clutter is hidden makes it less of a problem, right? Maybe not. If you spend hours a day on your computer struggling to find the files you need, then it's not really hidden, is it? If you always have your email program open and feel overwhelmed every time you see your inbox, this is actually a rather intrusive issue.

An Infinite Amount of Space Don't get me wrong; I love having an almost infinite amount of space to store digital files. It's enabled me to pare down my book and music collection, keep a constant stream of photo and video memories and run a virtually paperless home office and classroom. I love that, but when it comes down to it, clutter is clutter. That's why I think the answer to the question, do you need a digital declutter, is a resounding yes.

The Container Concept Let me just share a quick side note on physical clutter. That's not what this episode is about, but I think this might be of interest anyway. Lately, I've been working on reducing the physical clutter in my home. I use Dana K. White's Container Concept. I'm going to talk about her book in our next episode, so make sure you tune in to Episode 27.

An example of this Container Concept is that I have one shelf available for cookbooks. That's the cookbook container, and I'm talking about physical cookbooks here. If I have more cookbooks than I can fit on the shelf, then the stuff, the cookbooks, have outgrown their container and that's not okay.

It is not a case of buying a bigger shelf. What I need to do is pare down the cookbooks, so that what remains are the ones that I really like and there is space on the shelf.

If I buy a new cookbook, I use the one in, one out rule. New one in, old one out. That is the Container Concept, and it is brilliant for physical clutter. Because, as I mentioned before, the spaces we have for digital clutter are so huge, you can't use the Container Concept.

What I've got for you are a number of suggestions, six in total, to help you make a start at having a digital declutter. Here we go.

Practice Inbox Zero I've mentioned Inbox Zero on several podcast episodes now I'm sure. Rather than take you through the entire process, please hop over to the blog and have a look at the lengthy blog post I've written all about Inbox Zero.

It isn't a myth. It is doable. Once you've spent a little bit of time setting yourself up for Inbox Zero, it doesn't take a lot of time to maintain it afterwards.

Hop over to theteachingspace.com, and you could use the search function at the bottom of the website and look for Inbox Zero.

If you're willing to put a bit of time into setting Inbox Zero up, I guarantee it will improve your life dramatically. You will be less stressed, you will have less clutter and you will be more productive, so do check out that blog post.

File Storage I'm just thinking about places such as Google Drive or your desktop or your computer's hard drive or Dropbox or anywhere you save digital files. Make sure you have a really well thought out folder structure and all of your files, your singular documents, are in folders.

If you have a structure where at the top level, you've got a few folders but lots and lots and lots of files, that's a little bit like having a physical filing cabinet and just throwing paper on the top of it. You need to file your digital files in folders in the same way that you would do that with physical paper and paper folders.

My main online document storage area is Google Drive. I've got my folders set up in such a way that I know exactly what goes where. I have them named very clearly. I also use Emoji to give myself a visual cue as to what goes in each folder, and they're colour-coded.

If you want to set your folders up in Google Drive so that they're colour-coded and have Emoji on them, then I have a video explaining how to do that on my YouTube channel. Be really, really structured with your folders and your files, and make sure you do your filing.

Rethink The Purpose of Your Desktop On Your Computer or Your Laptop It's not a dumping ground. Yes, I get that you can occasionally store things there because they're temporary. That is a quick and easy place to put them. You shouldn't have permanent files and folders there. That's not what it's for. Did you know you can have tools, like Hazel for Mac, to automate cleaning up your desktop?

I also use Hazel, incidentally, to clear out my downloads folder on my Mac. I think it's every 24 hours or so, Hazel goes in and just deletes everything from there. Using automation tools like this can be super helpful for digital decluttering.

Photos How many photos do you have on your mobile device right now? Is it 500, 3,000, 10,000? Have a look. Then, have a think about how many of those pictures you'd actually put in a physical photo album if that was something that you did. I reckon it would be a very small percentage.

This means there's a massive amount of digital clutter on your mobile device in the form of photos. I'd like you to rethink your camera roll.

If you start treating it as a photo album, you can delete the images that you don't want.

Say, you've taken a really nice landscape and it took about 30 attempts to get that final photo, that means you can delete 29 pictures. It's quick and easy to do that on your mobile. Treat your camera roll as a photo album, delete the pictures you don't need.

Social Media It's time to do a friend audit on Facebook. All of that input in your timeline is digital clutter. Look at Twitter, look at Instagram, there are mass unfollow apps you can use, many of which are free, to start reducing your social media clutter.
Let's Think About The Digital Clutter That is Email Newsletters Look at your inbox, how many have you got? Because you're going to be doing Inbox Zero, then hopefully you'll be able to start getting all of those email newsletters under control.

While you're getting ready to do that, I highly recommend Unroll.Me, which you can find at unroll.me. It's a mass unsubscribe system. It does several things. It allows you to unsubscribe quickly, but it also will roll up the newsletters you want to read into one daily digest.

If you don't fancy using this system, then another option is to set up a separate Gmail email account simply for subscribing to email newsletters. Then, you have a separate inbox so you can, for example, set yourself a diary note to check once a week in your newsletter inbox. That is a far better use of your time and will, ultimately, help you declutter all of those emails.

Wrap Up Of course, there is one email newsletter that you won't want to roll up and you won't want to have to go in a separate inbox, and that, friends, is The Teaching Space fortnightly newsletter. Sign up at theteachingspace.com/VIP.

Okay, folks, that's all from me today. I really hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope you'll tune in next time.

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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 Teaching Space: Recent Episodes

Martine Ellis