Exciting news

On Wednesday I received positive news of a job offer from an interview I had had in January this year. I will not be posting full details as I do not want to spook it. However, I have been offered a project management position, initially part-time unpaid, which will lead to a full-time remunerated position. This is quite exciting for me as I have not had full-time employment for over five years now although I have worked part-time on various activities since being made redundant in 2005.

I have been reviewing the company client portfolio in preparation for meetings scheduled during the next few weeks. I have also been reviewing the company project management system and writing briefing articles within it to help gain familiarity with the company systems.

I have still not been offered a census postition, despite completing applications for five roles and progressing through to telephone interview stage on three of them. I have also not heard from the ATQ Assessor role position. My application was offered for short-listing last Wednesday. Still, ...

... every day, in every way, I am getting better and better

Update: I did not get short-listed for the ATQ role on this occasion. Too bad for them and an opportunity for someone else to benefit from my experience.

Le pièce de résistance ...

Aircraft flight control system^†

... or just a load of crock? We shall see. In any event, the micro-teach part of the PTLLS course looms even nearer.

We were given our groups and dates for the micro-teach sessions yesterday. There are two groups with eight students per group. Four students from each group present their topics in week 1 and four in week 2. I am in group 1 in session 2. My own presentation is at 17:40–18:10 on 28 March in room B002. Whilst I do not know what topics everyone is presenting I do know we will have the pleasure of a session on mask-making (Debbie), be taught how to sing (Vikki), make some pottery (Jenny) and bath a baby (Karen).

I previously comitted to teach on one of four topics according to voting on my blog here. Voting has been fast and furious with a total of six people bothering to vote. Four voted for the successful take-off and landing topic so that is what my session will be.

My experimental lessons on my unsuspecting friends have revealed some timing and skill issues in the practical part of my session. The sample take-off phase has been performed well by my guinea-pigs. The landing phase has had very mixed results. I had originally thought I could help anyone land from 800 feet. Indeed I can but not without significant help from me which tended to leave the subject dispirited. The issue I have is that my friends, none of whom have any flying experience, all had difficulty maintaining direction. I have run out of experimental subjects so I have to make a decision.

Short-final Cambridge runway 23.^‡
Same view from 800'

I have thus reduced the height to 400 feet from which a successful landing will then occur. Hopefully, the student will not drift too far from the correct glide-path in this shorter time. The problem may of course be my teaching and not the student. I may be over-emphasising the need for good speed control without emphasising enough the need for good directional control.

This is a contrived teaching session anyway. In real-life, a student will have experienced a lot more ground and air lessons before being taught to land. The effects of controls for example would be an early lesson where the student learns that the ailerons are used to turn. We use left and right joystick movement in our simulator. In Thom (1997) the effect of controls is lesson 4a whilst powered approach and landing is lesson 13a. What was a surprise to all my guinea-pigs was that, in order to turn, the stick is not held in the direction desired. Rather the stick is moved briefly in the required direction and then returned to the centre once a bank has been established. To stop the turn, the stick is moved in the opposite direction briefly then returned to the centre. This is all counterintuitive and very difficult to get across in a five minute lesson.

I therefore have my work cut out here.

^†Animation 2006 Piotr Jaworski
^‡Simulation. Note the airspeed (70 knots), altitude (430 feet above mean sea level; approx. 400 feet above ground level) and on glide-path and on glide-slope. The airport buildings are to our right

Further reading
Thom Trevor, 1997. Flying Training. The air pilots manual. Volume 1. Airlife.
Langewiesche Wolfgang, 1944. Stick and Rudder. An explanation of the art of flying. McGraw-Hill.

Every day in every way ...

Hey! I told you no tongues

My mother, rest her soul, encouraged me to repeat to myself daily "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better". In today's PTLLS lesson, I learned what that phrase really means. It is a manifestation of psychologist Martin Seligman's teachings on optimism. Seligman's research showed that optimists are successful. We were informed that optimism is learned behaviour and that if we can encourage optimism in our students it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I thought today's image was distinctly appropriate. Today is of course Valentine's Day. It also seems appropriate if we consider that the male green parakeet is the eternal optimist.

We also discussed diversity and equality by enumerating words that might represent barriers to our students. Our group considered such barriers as age, race, language, sexuality, disability (physical and mental), beliefs, financial, background (social), prior education, health and peer pressure. Maslow's hierarchy of needs cropped up again, this time as a barrier to learning. For example, hunger prevents learning.

Marva Collins, as a successful and inspirational teacher of the under-privileged, was briefly examined. An overtly optimistic educator, Marva believes that "there is a brilliant child locked inside every student". Derek Paravicini was mentioned to illustrate the point that intelligence is not just measured by IQ tests. He is a severely disabled autistic savant who is an exceedingly gifted musician .

All in all a very interesting lesson.

Update: It appears that the auto-suggestive mantra "Every day, in every way, ..." was invented by Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie not my mother. It is now known as a Couéism. I so wanted to believe it was my mother.

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better

Fenland on Friday talk

Anglo-Saxon pendant*

The Fenland on Friday's talk Little Thetford: Two square miles of history at the Ely library went well, or at least seemed to. We got the timing almost perfect — 83 slides in 50 minutes. Apparently my nerves did not show through although I was certainly feeling nervous. The room was at capacity — fifty.

There were interesting questions raised at the end. Mike Petty put forward the theory that Hereward the Wake may have fought the Normans along our Bronze Age causeway. I was able to show I had no evidence for this theory as all the artifacts found in that area are Bronze Age in origin. I had not covered Hereward during the talk as to me he is more of a legend than fact. I was able to discuss him as I had edited the Wikipedia article on him. I have also edited Wikipedia's entry on Gesta Herewardi — mainly a hatchet job as I recall, removing hearsay and unattributed text from it.

I was asked about the Little Thetford catchwater drain which I had not included in the presentation. I was however able to explain that I thought it was completed in around 1867. I have since determined it was cut "... about the year 1838 ...  costing £2,500 ..." (MacKay 1908 p. 352). I described the route as entering from Grunty Fen from the south-west then around the south and east of the village until passing north outside the village boundary to enter the River Great Ouse by gravity at the Braham Dock drain. The Little Thetford parish web site interactive map shows the route more graphically than I can describe it.

Dugdales 1662 pre-drainage map of
the Great Level. Top is south

Look at Grunty Fen, erm I mean Red Fen, now and consider what the Reverend Bentham (1778 p. 8) had to say "It is probable that no improvements can or ever will be made of this waste, unless the proprietors shall agree among themselves to inclose and divide it; ...". Grunty Fen was enclosed between 1857–1861 under the second annual Inclosure Act 1857 20 & 21 Victoria c. 20.


 

• For pre-mid 17th century draining in general see Dugdale, W. (1662) The history of imbanking and drayning of divers fenns and marshes: both in forein parts, and in this kingdom; and of the improvements thereby. Extracted from records, manuscripts, and other authentick testimonies, by William Dugdale Esquire, Norroy King of Arms. Alice Warren. About 500 printed copies of this work were destroyed in the Great Fire of London and not republished until 1772 by Charles Nalson Cole. Dugdale's work was succeeded by Samuel Wells's two-volume History of the Drainage of the Great Level of the Fens (1828±30).
• For Grunty Fen pre-draining see Bentham, J. (1778) Considerations and Reflections on the Present State of the Fens, &c. J Teulon.
• For enclosure and draining in Grunty Fen see MacKay, T., Ed., (1908) The reminiscences of Albert Pell: sometime M.P. for South Leicestershire. J Murray. pp. 350–355

See also Little Thetford: Two square miles of history.

*Found in a ploughed field near the site of the Roman road Akeman Street one mile west of Little Thetford. Described by Lethbridge, T.C. 1953. Jewelled Saxon pendant from the Isle of Ely. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 46, 1-3.

Still green

Greener than a green thing*

Summary of my green activity to-date

• Using an E·on energy monitor
• Uploading energy monitor data to Google Powermeter
• Targetting to save nearly £200 from my yearly electricity bill
• Targetting to use around 3,000 kW·h per year from more than 4,600 kW·h per year. The UK national average is 4,800 kW·h per year
• Arranged for cavity-wall insulation from the Mark Group via E·on to be installed
• Calculated the carbon footprint of my wife and I as 10 tonnes of CO₂ per year which is the UK national average per person!

Just in case any climate change septicssceptics are reading this blog. The green phase I am going through is to save money. I have not suddenly gone all environmental.

See also the 26 January 2011 Everything's gone green* entry of this blog.

*Photo © 2006 John McCullough. "Greener than a green thing" is a similar silly simile to what Blackadder's Baldrick would say. I cannot find the actual quote so my apologies to Tony Robinson

Little Thetford: Two square miles of history

Little Thetford ferry c. 1905¹

I have done all the preparation I can for my talk at Ely library between 10:30 and noon on Friday 11 February 2011. Bob Young and I have prepared all the powerpoint slides; all 85 of them. I have practiced the timing, which is roughly 45–50 minutes as required by the organiser, Mike Petty. This leaves time for his own announcements and any questions after our talk. A similar talk was given by Bob Young and Peter Hoare at the Ely & District Archaeological Society. I provided most of the slides for that talk. I have changed the slides for this coming talk to reflect more of the Wikipedia research that was done and to remove some of the heavy detail.

C14 St George's church²

Am I nervous? I sure am. However, I do hope I can show the audience the passion I have for this local history subject. I live in a small village of 693 residents (2001 census) within a two-square mile area. The village is a cul-de-sac, so we do not get passing motor traffic; except for the navigationally challenged. Historically, two railways passed either side of the village; now there is one railway. We have two airfields and moorings for boats. One can therefore visit the village by almost any transport method desired. We have archaeological evidence of occupation since the Bronze-Age, with written evidence of settlement since the Anglo-Saxon times. The village may have had a pre-plague centre further south than the current location and we have participated in the coprolite-rush of the late 19 century. Historically we have had four churches with two remaining and seven public houses with none remaining.

Please do join us at the talk. Numbers are limited. Come early to avoid disappointment.

See also the village web site and Little Thetford on Wikipedia

¹Photo The Cambridgeshire Collection
²Photo © 2010 John McCullough

Feedback

Well done. Now get another one*

Our week five lesson on the PTLLS course was on the topic of assessment; the value of feedback. Now this is interesting. Whilst practicing my micro-teaching exercise on my wife this week she accused me of giving condescending praise. "Stop patronizing me!" she said. I had been spouting wallpaper phrases at her such as "Well done", "That was good", "Excellent". I should have been saying things like "Good but watch your speed", "You need to be more gentle with the control" or "Try to anticipate your next action earlier". I need to give more thought and practice in giving constructive, directed, personal or reflective praise.

We discussed summary assessment methods, such as grading, in comparison to the more powerful formative assessment methods such as continuous feedback. Lewis also touched on the value of summarising the lesson. This is something that has been drilled into me whilst being trained to train.

• Tell them what your are going to tell them
• Tell them
• Tell them what you told them

Those who disagree suggest that being repetitive is bad. They recommend that you be concise in your summary as the audience, erm your students, remember the last thing you said so make it count. Whatever method you prefer, I do like the simplicity of the above tell them mantra. It helps me structure my presentations, and I hope my teaching, into easily manageable chunks.

*Photo © 2006 John McCullough

Going greener

Incredible! The washing machine consumes electricity even when it is off. It is a two year old A+ washing machine. Turned off at the dial, I had assumed it uses no electricity; especially as there are no standby lights or anything. This is not the case. When I switched the machine off at the wall it saved 26 watts. That represents a saving to me of almost £30 per year. I have now saved a total of £276.47 per year of standby power – always-on equipment – since starting this exercise on 19 January.

My standby equipment consumes only 73 watts or 1.75 kilowatt hours per day now which is 227 watts less than when I started looking into this.

See also the 26 January 2011 Everything's gone green* entry of this blog.

Outline lesson plans

Reflecting*

This is work-in-progress and will change over time. As part of the PTLLS course, we have to prepare and teach a 30 minute lesson to our peers. I have committed to teaching one of the following topics according to the voting, see top right of this page. I set out below my present thoughts on the aims and the outcomes of each of the topics.

Introducing Wikipedia editing

• Aim – To Introduce new editors to Wikipedia
• Outcomes
  Students will register on Wikipedia
  Introduction to students own talk page
  Edit own talk page
  A brief introduction to Wikipedia help, including the topic notice-boards and be given the opportunity to ask a question on a topic of their interest
  Some Wikipedia rules will be covered such as reliable sourcing. Some students may feel confident enough to edit an article but there will not be time in this lesson to see if such edits stick as others, usually more established Wikipedians, may remove such edits
• Multiple computers will be used so each student has a chance to edit at least their own talk page

Little Thetford local history

• Aim – to introduce students to local history research
• Outcomes
  More of a presentation than a lesson. Intend to cover brief local history of Little Thetford
  Use of research tools
  How to locate and summarise sources
  How to reject unattributable hearsay
• Powerpoint presentation and discussion

A blog and how to create one

• Aim – to introduce students to blogging
• Outcomes
  Understand what a blog is compared to a website
  Use blogger as one of many tools to create a blog
  Understand some of the pre-planning that may be useful
  Introduction to templates
  How to load an image
  Create a blog
• Multiple computers will be used so each student has a chance to create a blog

Landing on rwy 23 at Cambridge

Successful take-off and landing

• Aim – to provide the student with an introduction to flying
• Outcomes
  Using MS Flight simulator, each student will take-off from Cambridge then land
  Understand take-off and landing speeds using the airspeed indicator
  Importance of gentle control movement
  Importance of wings level
  Importance of visual cues: horizon (take-off) and runway aspect (landing)
  Instructor will control power, flaps and correct attitude as necessary
  
• Five minute introductory powerpoint presentation demonstrating the techniques
• Special notes: The lesson will be constrained as we will be using only one simulator. Each student will have a successful take-off and landing with some help from the instructor; no one will crash! For this reason, numbers will be limited to a maximum of four. Students not flying will be encouraged to take notes

* Photo © 2006 John McCullough