Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Fishbowl Planning in a Nutshell


What is it?

Fishbowl Planning is a session led by teachers which uses a technique called fishbowling to initiate discussion about planning. Fishbowling is where a small group of teachers (perhaps 3 or 4) are given a planning scenario. They sit together in the centre of a larger group of teachers who watch the discussion. The fishbowls can either open or closed – in an open session a chair is left empty, a teacher who wants to ask a question must come and sit on that chair – in a closed session no questions can be asked and the observers have time to reflect on the discussion.


Fishbowl facilitators may identify opportunities to guide the discussion or decide to let the discussion follow its 'natural course'. If the discussion keeps returning to a particular theme - a 'time out' may be called. The power of the technique is in its ability to let teachers naturally and collaboratively develop planning skills and awareness.

What does it achieve?

- Engages discussion and develops skills about curriculum planning
- Identifies opportunities to engage learners and maximise creativity
- Identifies and encourage appropriate use of technology
- Allows teachers to lead and determine their own CPD needs

Monday, March 1, 2010

The Fishbowl - how did it go?

Overall the main motive for holding the fishbowl was increased use of appropriate ICT in schools. However if approached from an ICT perspective this seems to trigger, in perhaps the majority of teachers I meet, a range of emotions: insecurity; anxiety, guilt and sometimes aggression. The fishbowl was approached from the perspective of developing planning skills – all teachers can buy into this – they perceive this is what we do; we can be a part of this.

How did the Fishbowl go?

The main success was that there was a significant amount of quality discussion focused on the overall nature, structure and approach to planning. We got a little into some of the influences and information sources people use, we discussed how monitoring can impact choice of outcomes and we certainly discussed how it is important for school leaders to be part of the planning process.

An original aim was to develop better insight into how planning progresses from stage to stage. We got some sense of this but didn’t really get to produce any formed plans. The discussions tended to veer off onto general planning issues (these are valuable – just different to what I expected). I think I know why it was hard to get more detail.

When planning the fishbowl, I forgot the considerable conscious and sub-conscious ‘research’ time when contemplating a new topic. Most of this is unrecorded – apart I guess from a few scribbled notes or post-it notes. In the fishbowl I presented a topic – the ‘fish’ paused, looked for clarification, dried up a little and then sought more clarification about context, monitoring and other general issues. So next time I think that if I want detailed planning I need to present topic / theme scenarios to teachers before they come – this will give contemplation time and when they get together to plan we should see very different results.

I think that it is possible to have different types of fishbowl approaches – one could be for discussing overall planning approaches – another could be looking at the processes of detailed planning. There was some discussion of fishbowls for different audiences – such as trainee teachers, school leadership or local authority consultant. Certainly each audience would need quite different facilitation and support.

For me a striking feature of the discussion was the range of approaches people take when planning – I think I identified three main approaches (my guess many others):

• Outcome led – focus on identifying multimodal outcomes – the processes of the unit of work are fitted to achieve these outcomes
• Requirement led – start with NC or strategies to know what we need to do – then bolt on ICT / interaction afterwards
• Stimulus led – identify engaging stimulus for unit of work (book, film, audio, computer game) – have general planning overview - let learning develop – enable discovery and then have retrospective planning

I think what became most evident during the evening was something that I have been mulling over for some time. As a teacher I was used to a template driven, requirement led approach to planning. Overall I now think that it doesn’t matter at all what planning approach you have as long as the learning and teaching is engaging, interactive and achieves positive outcomes. To me teachers as planners are as different as pupils as learners. We often discuss how pupils learn differently – we haven’t really accepted that teachers as learners are very different and need to plan in a range of ways.

Template driven approaches have often homogenised planning – this has made monitoring easier for school leaders. However I think it has greatly stifled creativity. I am now seeing a few schools where the leaders allow a free approach to planning – they then use a range of monitoring approaches. Leon Cych mentioned a ‘viva style’ approach to monitoring – this sound great! Instead of school leaders taking away and discussing written plans behind closed doors – they could discuss approaches, celebrate success and develop trusting relationships to fully reveal impact of planning.

A variety of approaches will lead to what Mark Berthelemy identified as continually reinventing the wheel. He’s right – we need to find ways of sharing our planning – somehow including our thoughts and reflections. Tom Barrett’s on the case – see his blog post about a Curriculum Catalyst.


How can we develop the technique?

I think I am now better prepared for any future fishbowls. I have a stock of scenarios, challenge statements and questions I could throw in to redirect the discussion.

I think it is worthwhile seeing how a range of groups could use the technique – it would also be very interesting to see how a mixed group of different practitioners (teacher, school leaders, primary / secondary and LA) would react!

Overall I think I have found the technique interesting because it is the first time I have experience an adult learning (andragogical) approach taken within teacher CPD. I’m not sure why this hasn’t occurred to me before – especially when considering my former career as an adult educator in the NHS. As a teacher I think I have largely experienced transmission of knowledge, some scance attempts at encouraging discussion but no real approaches aimed at engaging reflection and open, honest discussion.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Fishbowl – what we’re doing and why we’re doing it

On Thursday evening we’re holding our first Fishbowl session. We have a group of 15 teachers coming along to discuss planning honestly, openly and using a technique I haven’t used for this before. My co-conspirator is Mr BrainPop UK - Eylan Ezekiel.

What is the Fishbowl?

- the fishbowl will be a group of three or four teachers planning a topic or unit of work.- during the discussion, anyone sitting on one of the central chairs can speak, but no-one else can.- if someone wants to speak, they have to sit on one of the central chairs, even if it’s just to ask a question.- one of the central chairs is always kept free for this purpose.

The fishbowl will have a very simple focus – a real term plan or topic and the objective will be to map out the delivery of the curriculum and the preparation of associated resources.

During the session I hope to experiment with certain givens such as available ICT hardware and software, school plans and alike. This will change the discussion and the nature of questions from the fish watchers!

Why we’re doing it

The main reason for setting up this session was to encourage greater use of technology within schools. My focus was initially on developing the awareness of the potential of appropriate technology to create engaging learning environments. I now feel that appropriate use of technology should be just one part of designing engaging learning environments where learning is thematically developed and learners are encouraged to be self motivated and directed.

One of the advantages of my job is that I can visit a great range of schools and classrooms. I see many different styles and have the opportunity to informally discuss approaches to designing curriculum and learning. I see a range of wonderful classrooms and inspirational teachers. I also see a range of teachers who are attempting to develop ‘creative’ curricula – but openly say that they are lacking in both ideas and confidence to pull away from the influence of national strategies and QCA schemes of work.

As I visit schools I have time to reflect on my own classroom practice. I know that when I return to the classroom my practice must change – to be less discrete, less controlling and become more thematic, encouraging greater self direction and motivation. Obviously my year as an ICT consultant has greatly broadened and deepened my knowledge of how technology can impact on learning. However I am not so confident that I will effectively incorporate these ideas into my future practice.

When I actually sit down to plan a unit of work, a term, a week or a lesson – how will I build the classroom I want? Do I use the existing national curriculum or revised curriculum? How do the strategies influence my planning? Should I be totally thematic with all subjects or discrete with the core subjects? How do I maintain rigour and know that all pupils are progressing if I am not teaching discretely to the whole class?

To me the actual specific process of planning is central to how we can create engaging and innovative curricula. If I have the chance to watch teachers plan and then discuss openly and candidly what they are doing and thinking my practice will change.

My experience of staff meetings and INSET days has been listening to ‘experts’ telling me about what I should be doing and how I can ‘shoe-horn’ more initiatives into an already over full curriculum (I guess I am the supposed ‘expert’ at the moment). Opportunities to work in partnership with other teachers to develop planning and practice have been scarce. Even scarcer has been the opportunity to be honest and open within a supportive teacher led environment.

So – lets welcome the Fishbowl!

Overall I want to develop my own confidence as a teacher, I want an opportunity to be honest, to discuss openly with others and form a network of contacts that could support me when I get back to teaching.

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