The team at London Met hope you've been engaging well with the new format of the PDJ (Professional Development Journal) mentor meeting agenda, in particular the linked learning discussions.
We've developed a programme in which mentors and trainees have a short reading or video clip each week to support them in linking learning conversations to the core content framework (CCF).
This has been designed to support trainees' developing understanding, create a starting point for a professional discussion and aid target setting and assessment. We hope you enjoy the discussions and the focus on relating research-based theory to classroom practices.
If you're uncertain about leading a discussion of this nature, you might find this suggested format helpful:
- Joint reading/viewing of linked learning materials either before or during the session
- Discussion to reach a shared understanding
- Discussion of contextual relevance and implications
- Discussion of implications for individual practice and specific actions
A focus for the trainees in their second placement will be behaviour management. This will tie in closely to their focus on good practice for managing the classroom effectively within the school’s systems and policies and also enable them to understand how to promote positive behaviours for learning within their classes.
The university tutor team has been running twilight sessions throughout each placement, in which trainees are facilitated to come together online to share their thoughts about the learning and critically engage with the sessions completed.
Scenario-based learning (SBL)
We've been working over the last two years with York University to roll out a scenario-based learning (SBL) project that focuses on behaviour.
The SBL project engages trainees through an online platform with a series of realistic school scenarios. Trainees are asked to either read or watch a particular scenario and then rate the appropriateness of a set of given responses to deal with the scenario, as well as write a rationale for their decision.
One of the major strengths they'll gain from this is that they're then able to view the responses and rationales of expert teachers, which they can compare with their own. They're given tailored feedback based on how closely aligned their decision-making was with that of the experienced teachers.
