Learning Team Meetings

The last two days have seen the running of the four learning teams at school.
In the English/SOSE/RE Year 8 group we discussed successful research tasks in our classes. We decided to trial the Success Analysis protocol as one of the teachers spoke about researching the Roman and Greek ancient cultures. The protocol went well and the group stuck to the process stocially. In the end we used it again with another teacher to talk about a quick research task her class did comparing many religious charities.
Then the Science/Maths/IT Year 8 group met in the afternoon and were a little more difficult to contain. The first presenter took a long time to get through his presentation - not that there was a problem with this but other people were chafing at the bit to say something. Whilst the rest of the group were reflecting on his presentation, he was also very keen to join the conversation but held back. In the end the free-for-all conversation that followed was quite a contrast - although interestingly, people seemed much more polite in there interactions.
This morning the the English/SOSE/RE Year 9 group met and our focus was on identifying what an "A" was in our subjects. The presenter spoke brilliantly on developing the different skills needed to write poetry and the scaffolding she developed to achieve this. In the end, the students could reflect back on their work and the obvious improvements they made in their poems. We did not use the protocol with this group but have decided to use it next time.
Finally, in the afternoon it was the turn of the the Science/Maths/IT Year 9 group. Again, the group found it difficult to keep to the protocol - at one stage, one member could not help herself and took the discussion on a tangent that suited her. Eventually we got back on task and I think benefited on the discussion about using Generic Rubrics to help us review student achievement in Maths and Science. This included Rubrics on Research skills, orals, practicals, test results and movie reviews. We decided to trial one of them and bring back our results for the next meeting.
Very useful technique for these groups.