wrt whole school change: The best model I have seen was one which rather than trying to change everyone consciously articulated that the teaching body consisted of innovators and status quo-ists at the ends and then went about actively supporting the innovators (and applying some quality control measures to their innovations). This was actually articulated in the school plan! It thus neatly avoided the issue of endless and fruitless discussion trying to change everyone.

Given the reluctance of our government (unlike Finland) to improve teacher quality (expensive) then schools admins need to think outside the trapezium, as above

I recall writing a small program on the PDP-11 to solve some chemistry calculations back in the early 1980’s at Uni to quickly chew through a mass of chemistry calculations instead of grinding away at a programmable calculator or slide ruler as my colleagues were. They had missed the point of how and why we can use computers. Whilst I can excuse them, I find it hard to excuse others for making the same mistake today.

When I taught in a middle class school it was easy to be a creative constructionist teacher. But the same methods did not work in a Disadvantaged school because the students knew far less to begin with. This is partly but not entirely a question of social class since some middle class students have specific learning issues which require much patience and careful one to one teaching to communicate concepts that seem basic to the teacher

Also without going into further detail the Dan Willingham book does address the basic / higher level issues to good effect

Be interested to see any lineRider (or Geogebra) samples you get going.

cheers

Rob

Thanks for sharing

however, i do not include progression points …
(while i do have a progression point version, that was one of the things i have removed from this version, as being ‘not quite finished’ etc ….)

Sounds fantastic. Many thanks Leonie Dangerfield