Teaching & Learning Magazine - Easter Edition

Welcome to Philips High School’S Teaching and Learning Magazine – March 2013

- Sharing ideas with teachers!

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‌And Relax!!

The Easter holidays are nearly here, two weeks of rest and relaxation await! You certainly deserve the break, considering it has been an odd 10 week term - starting with an Ofsted inspection, dealing with the changes in weather, snow one minute, rain another and snow again!!! Finally, dealing with the relentless colds, sniffles and coughs that brighten up our day and get passed from pupil to teacher and back to teacher again!! This really has been a challenging term!! But we have survived and can slowly start to see the sunshine of the Summer term approaching.

So, here’s to a happy Easter, lots of chocolate and a few wellearned treats!

Have an enjoyable and restful two weeks off!! You really do deserve it.

I hope you get a chance to read the magazine this month.

There are some interesting articles in here to read whilst devouring a Cream Egg or two maybe?!?

Happy reading!

Thanks,

EPl

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Contents

1)

Building anticipation… How to get kids to look forward to your lessons without dumbing down!

Page 4

2)

Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, Reflective.

Page 6

3)

Making Feedback Count: “Close the Gap”

Page 9

4)

Parents – You Get 7 out of 10!

Page 14

5)

Web-based Version of Blooms Taxonomy (30+ digital tools ) Page 16

6)

Top Ten Group Work Strategies

7)

How effective learning hinges on good questioning.

Page 25

8)

Great Lessons: Agility

Page 19

Page 27

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Building anticipation… How to get kids to look forward to your lessons without dumbing down!

One of the banes of every teachers’ life is that endless, whining chorus of, “Can we do something fun today?” The correct answer to this pitiful plea is of course that learning is always fun and that today’s lesson, along with every other lesson, will contain the gift of knowledge. What could be more fun than that?

But this isn’t what they mean or what they want, is it? Sometimes, especially at the end of term, they’re less subtle and straight for the jugular by asking if they can watch a film. (And they’re not clamouring for Herzog or Kieślowski, are they? What they want, naturally enough, is Pixar or superheroes.) Yes, I tell them, of course you can. When you get home you may watch films to your heart’s content. Why would I waste this precious opportunity to expand your horizons by showing you something that you have already seen?

Surely, our job, at least in part, is to expand students’ cultural capital?

A recent lesson with my Year 11 class neatly illustrates these issues.

Having sat their English Language exam earlier in the day, Year 11 felt that they deserved a ‘fun lesson’. Knowing that being allowed to watch films is utterly verboten they opted for a somewhat more disingenuous request: ‘Can we have a quiz?’ But this isn’t what they mean either. What they mean is, bless ‘em, “Can we have a lesson off?”

Although they groaned theatrically at having to commence studying Julius Caesar, they are, largely, a biddable lot and were happy enough, once their complaints were duly registered to get on with it. But it did make me think. What I should have done was to have lured them, á la Hywel Roberts, into learning despite themselves.

Today we were looking at Caesar’s dilemma in Act 2 scene 2 where he has to decide whether to heed Calpurnia’s warnings and stay at home or follow the advice of the devious Decius Brutus and toddle off to the Senate to get stabbed. Now this wasn’t a situation I felt that many of my students would recognise so I decided to focus on the familiar and liven it all up with some upbeat music.

So, this is what I confronted them with:

No one asked whether they could have a fun lesson.

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Why? Because they were having fun.

After a couple of minutes of this I could, frankly, have followed up with pretty much anything but, not wanting to waste all this anticipation, we moved straight into discussing the language and structure of the scene using The Ultimate Teaching Technique and had one of those lessons where everyone feels disappointed by the bell. Well, I did anyway. And they were discussing Shakespeare’s language! Like it mattered!

Building anticipation is, you’ll be pleased to hear, dead easy. It really doesn’t take much effort at all. While there are all sorts of techniques, Hywel, the master of accidental learning suggests: 5. Change norms (move furniture or rooms) 4. Place a ‘teaser’ poster on the door e.g. Plague Here 3. Dress up 2. Music 1. Fascinators: pics/sounds/objects that stop ‘em in their tracks.

Of these I regularly use 4, 2 and 1, with music being my personal favourite. All I have to think is, what is the sound track to today’s lesson?

And, at the end of the lesson, what is the EastEnders moment?

You see? Engagement doesn’t have to be a dirty word and there is never an argument in favour teaching The Simpsons instead of Macbeth! All it takes is pre-empting the ‘fun lesson’ question by working out what you’ll put on your spoon to help the medicine go down.

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Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, Reflective Posted by #headguruteacher

Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, Reflective Context and Motivation I’m feeling relieved, smug and virtuous because I’ve just marked some books. It feels good because a) it was overdue and, hence, was having that ‘albatross’ effect; b) for a change I am looking forward to going into my class tomorrow without feeling guilty and most importantly c) because I feel like I’ve renewed a connection with my students’ learning in a way that is hard to do any other way; I’ve done something worthwhile which always feels good.

To be absolutely clear, I am a Dylan Wiliam devotee; you won’t catch me doing marking slavishly because someone tells me I should or because it looks good; I only do marking if I think I need to – and this only if I think it will make a difference. I expect my staff to have the same attitude. I’m convinced that a lot of marking is a waste of time and that, the best feedback is immediate, ephemeral and in the moment and that peer and self-assessment are every bit as important as traditional marking. (I even get my students to take the books in to mark them as part of our co-construction process described here.) However, this blog is written in the context that a) I’m not on the defensive having actually done some marking and b) we’ve just had a mock-inspection where my eyes opened to the view that teacher marking in books can play a crucial role in supplementing all that goes on during class teaching, to the teacher’s benefit as well as the students’.

So, this is my current assessment of what marking should be like if we are to maximise its impact: Marking should be selective:

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Teachers in general spend too many hours marking. I have had countless teachers come to see me over the years, stressed out and close to tears because they feel crushed by it. Marking 25 essays or a set of maths books with 50 or 200 sums in each is a massive task. I have long felt that this can’t be sustainable or entirely effective and was heartened to read Dylan Wiliam’s views on this. He suggests that the total time spent by teachers on marking costs taxpayers £billions for very little benefit, making it the most expensive PR exercise in history. Given limited time in the space between the working day and family life, where do priorities lie?

Time spent marking is time not spent planning lessons; I’d suggest a lot of ‘slavish marking’ time would be better spent preparing better lessons – more learning options, more subtle differentiation and so on.

To counter that, as described above and below, marking is undoubtedly important; it has its place as one of many feedback strategies. It is the only form of feedback parents see, that remains in the hands of students at all times and serves as a reference point for further work.

Teacher feedback helps build trust and confidence in the overarching feedback regime that may include a high volume of peer and self assessment. It is also evident to me that, after a too-long gap between marking events, there is a deterioration in my students’ work; presentation slips and details become lost; they get sloppy. It is a saw-tooth effect with each marking period giving them a fresh jolt of standard-setting.

So, clearly, there is a balance to be struck to achieve the optimum time-efficient, impact-toeffort ratio. Regular, selective marking is the key; identify the key points of your marking cycle so student and parents know what to expect; highlight the link to other set-piece formal assessments and keep it in proportion.

(It is interesting to note that at Wuxi No 1 High School, our partner school in China, teachers set and mark homework for every class they teach every single day. But here is the difference….drum roll…they only teach two or three 45 minute lessons in a 9 hour day! The rest is for preparation and marking! Different world. ) Marking should be formative: For me, it almost goes without saying that ‘marking’ means giving formative comments and no grades. However, this is in the context of a process where other assessments with specific grades are given at intervals –eg tests, criteria-referenced assignments and so on. The issue with grades is well-documented but I still find teachers who can’t drop the nonsense of A/B+, with no reference point. Numerical marks based on a clear are fine but arbitrary grading really should have died out by now.

If Afl matters, which it does, teacher-marking is a good place to model it and deliver it. As one element in the AfL armoury, really good formative marking is key, focusing on what is going well and what specifically needs improving and how. So much marking is not formative – it just does not deal with the process of how to improve. This is the key reason why so much marking is a waste of time – it does not lead to improvement and merely seeks to satisfy perceived demand. A few ticks will keep ‘em happy?! However, even with really effective formative comments, again selectivity is important. Too often you might find a piece of work covered in red pen…. Where to start? What to focus on? It is better to highlight some key things that can be worked on and improved rather than slicing error-strewn work to pieces. Some effective strategies include: ‘Star and a wish’ or www and ebi (what went well/even better if) / success criteria tailored to specific tasks on pre-printed sheets/ highlighting error locations but not correcting them / 7

identifying selected spelling and grammar errors/ giving precise pointers to achieve improvements with a requirement for the student to redraft the same work again.

Crucially, especially if any length of time has passed, any marking has to be done on the basis that it will be acted on….which helps with selecting what and how much to mark.

Extended retrospective marking can be utterly pointless if a student is never going to act on the comments.

Marking needs to be effective: Once we have cracked the business of getting really good formative, grade-free comments into students’ work, the next step is ensure that they act on the comments. The feedback loop needs to be closed. Imagine the skateboarding scenario where a skateboarder gets tons of feedback from his peers but then waits until the following week to try it out! It doesn’t happen… they have another go straight away. This means that time has to be built into the learning cycle where teacher comments are acted on, otherwise, once again, it is a waste of time. At KEGS, in various different subject areas, we have talked about this issue. It means re-drafting essays, doing corrections in maths and languages and re-plotting the graph; it means putting an emphasis on securing immediate improvement rather making a to-do list for improvements that might be made at some point in the future.

A fundamental paradox of marking – one that I find helps crystallise an efficient response – is this: the students who need the most help and the most feedback, are those who are least able to engage with written comments in order to secure improvement; the students who need the least help are those best able to engage with written comments. Even with extensive written feedback, there is a need to explain it verbally to some students – otherwise they simply won’t know what to do. Here, the marking is really just generating the key points for a discussion.

Marking should be a reflective process: Aside from the specific bits of feedback I can give to my students, the main effect of marking their books is that I feel I have sharper view of what their individual and collective strengths and weaknesses are. I can plan ahead more effectively . After a lot of in-class peer and self assessment, it is interesting to me to discover that some students’ work is much better or worse as presented in their books relative to their in-class responses. In other words, the ephemeral, in-the-now exchanges don’t always give the full picture eg. Some common misconceptions have emerged that I hadn’t been aware of before. So, as a result of this marking episode I have made some notes that will shape the direction of the learning journey we are embarking on.

Finally, having been through the recent inspection process, I feel that marking is a really good way to show what our approach to learning is all about; of showing what I am up to with my students: that they are making progress over time, that I am individualising planning for differentiation, trying to develop literacy skills and giving good formative feedback.

During a lesson observation by OfSTED or anyone else, it is tough to put all of this together in a half-lesson package. However, if you can supplement what is on show in a particular lesson segment with evidence that it is all going on in the students’ work, that is a big help.

The final reason for making an effort with marking is this: students tell us that they like it.

There is a real danger of peer-assessment fatigue; it builds resentment and presents a challenge to our credibility. One student of ours recently complained: ‘just once in a while, 8

I’d like someone who knows more than I do to tell me how well I’m doing!’ The key reason I am looking forward to giving my books out tomorrow is that my students will really appreciate it. I will then make them struggle through my comments to make the corrections…. when they will appreciate it a little less but, hey, that’s the job!

When I deliver CPD sessions about marking I often use the line that if you are only doing marking to satisfy your head of department, stop! This does not mean that you should not do any marking at all! It just means that your marking should be selective, effective, reflective and formative! *******

Making Feedback Count: “Close the Gap” Posted by headguruteacher

Recently I have been looking again at the issue of marking. It is a hugely important source of feedback provided that we keep the volume of marking in proportion to the level of impact it can have in improving learning outcomes. I’ve discussed this in a much-read earlier post: Marking in Perspective: Selective, Formative, Effective, Reflective. At a whole school level at KEGS and in my own department, a key objective for the year is to devise approaches to marking that deliver maximum impact for all to see – that ‘progress over time’ issue. What does marking look like when it is clearly securing improvement and progress in learning?

Marking time again. But will they close the gap?

To help with our search I was fortunate to be able to arrange a visit to the wonderful Saffron Walden County High School, a thriving, dynamic school in NW Essex that recently received an astonishing OfSTED report: Outstanding in every detail. It is a school where teaching and learning and professional dialogue take centre stage and there is a palpable spirit of collaborative working. I’d heard they had an excellent ‘whole school approach’ to assessment and marking so I was delighted to be invited by the Headteacher, John Hartley, to attend a twilight CPD session preceded by an hour spent dropping in on a few lessons. He described the whole school approach to marking and feedback very simply: It is called ‘closing the gap’. All that is common is the concept; the theme; the mantra – that students need to close the gap between the work they have done originally and a higher level of work 9

suggested by the feedback they receive. In other words, ‘closing the gap’ means ‘acting on feedback’. The mechanism for doing this is open to interpretation. Sounds simple enough but it was hugely impressive to see in action.

The cycle of learning and feedback – with a gap!

On our walkabout I dropped in on a Y9 Art lesson where the GCSE course was starting; a couple of Y8 English lessons, a Y7 German lesson and a Y9 History lesson among others.

The phrase ‘close the gap’ was being used liberally. In Art, students were closing the gap acting on the feedback written on post-its, both peer-marked and teacher marked; in English, students were re-drafting sections of their work, closing the gap by trying to build in the grammatical and stylistic content from their feedback. As a short-hand for the whole process of acting on feedback, closing the gap seemed well understood by the students.

The twilight CPD session revealed that this initiative was still being developed. The structure of the session was itself a model of exemplary staff CPD: one of several sessions running across the year that staff opt into from a menu of choices; food and drink provided beforehand, staff-led, small groups, interactive, mixing quality input with sharing and discussion – brilliant really. The core of the session was that five tables showcased the marking approaches used in a particular department; we then rotated around to talk to each 10

subject specialist. Here the ‘whole school approach’ came clear. Far from being some kind of straight-jacket diktat, there was complete freedom to develop the ‘closing the gap’ concept and the methods were all very different. What they had in common was they focused on recording student responses to feedback; the gap-closing was as important as the marking.

Closing the gap in Art as a project progresses In English, the teacher showed us an old exercise book – from a couple of years ago. Her marking was thorough – page after page of comment, later developing a www/ebi approach; comprehensive teacher feedback. But…. no student response. None – except the ephemeral hit and hope kind. In her current students’ books the teacher comments were shorter and the students were obliged to respond straight away. This had crystallized mini dialogues in the books and there were re-drafted paragraphs emerging where the students had attempted to address the issues raised in their feedback straight away. Gaps were being closed.

Comparing the two approaches, without any doubt, this new strong emphasis and insistence that comments must be acted upon was powerful.

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Closing the gap in Geography Around the room, further examples followed. A grid system for Art recording teacher feedback and student action, A4 feedback sheets stuck in books in Science with a large box where students had to record their gap-closing work, Maths books where students were making attempts to identify and correct errors in response to teacher feedback, Humanities books where 6/8 mark answers had to be re-drafted taking account of teacher feedback on previous attempts; DT projects where feedback and self assessment were recorded and dated logging progress as the project proceeded through stages. In every case closing the gap appeared to be making an impact and the teachers all seemed to feel that it had helped 12

them re-focus their marking so that comments were actionable and the overall volume realistic.

For sure, this approach makes the learning more visible to an external observer and we will be trying to emulate this approach in my own department at KEGS. Our book reviews have

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shown us that, without doubt, the most impressive marking is marking that has been acted upon. John and I agree that we’d rather see a few small steps of clear progress built on simple marking rather than screes of comments that students don’t appear to have read!

UPDATE: Here is another great resource via SWCHS giving ideas for transferring responsibility to students as part of the closing the gap process. This comes via Nathan Cole – Deputy Head at the fabulous Wilson’s School – and the Teaching and Learning team at Wilson’s. Nathan was formerly a History teacher at Saffron Walden. I think this is genius.

Parents – You Get 7 out of 10! http://uksecondaryeducation.blog.com/?p=97&preview=true When was the last time you were told how you’re doing at work? Was it during a monthly review meeting? Perhaps it was during a performance management meeting? Maybe it was during an annual appraisal? Either way, I’m sure you were told exactly what you’re doing well, what you need to do to improve and by when. Hopeful you weren’t just presented with a tick (or even worse, a cross) in a red pen. So, you’re being given every opportunity to improve your overall performance and being told exactly how to make progress. Lucky you!

It’s interesting then that there are students ‘out there’ in our schools, nationally and internationally, where this opportunity to improve simply isn’t being provided, or isn’t provided consistently. Unfortunately, a significant group of our students are being kept in the dark about their progress and frequently only given crude scores, or ticks and crosses. This archaic approach to marking, or providing feedback as I would prefer we call it, is simply letting our students down. Much has been written about topics like marking and the issue of homework. It was almost debated to death in the mid to late 1990’s. At that time, there was a groundswell of change ahead in schools and teachers across the UK in particular began to drown in a sea of bureaucracy and red tape. Fifteen years on we’re no further forward. We’re stuck. We’ve not made any progress.

It’s a well know and well written about fact that providing feedback to students is intrinsically linked to pupil progress. Why then is so little made of this with parents? While it’s true that parents rightly demand quality (and too often extremes in quantity), when it comes to marking, more and more parents are beginning to demand more information too.

Requests about a child’s ‘ranking’ are becoming more and more common. “Her grades are getting worse, she’s fallen behind”, “his scores aren’t as good as last terms” and “what percentage in the next test does he need to go up a set?” all put an unbelievable pressure on our teachers, the students and eventually the school. They also pose a very good question – what is the purpose of marking and who should it be for?

School leaders obsess about this topic. On one hand, we demand that quality feedback is provided to students, giving them every opportunity to improve. ‘Give them the information they need to improve and they will’ is one of our many mantras. The problem is that parents have become obsessed with the same words as ‘us’, but they have a very different interpretation of these. ‘Progress’ to many parents can only take the form of a straight line graph. Anything else simply isn’t good enough.

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“…but that’s not what learning looks like, Mrs Thompson” “His scores aren’t as good as last terms, what are your teachers doing?” is becoming an all too frequently heard phrase. It wasn’t long ago that teachers were bemoaning the lack of contact between schools and home. We seem to have the opposite problem today.

If you ask the experts – the kids (and I hope you do), they will tell you very articulately what they want. They want their learning to be taken in regularly (but not too often), and then to be told honestly and clearly what their teacher thought. Make no mistake, they’ll get a second opinion from their friends (peer marking) and then finally come to their own conclusion (self assessment). They are demanding to know what they need to do to improve!

Let me put some more questions to you. What does B+ mean? What does 17/20 mean? What does ‘well done’ mean? What does ‘try harder’ mean? It means nothing to a child and everything to a parent. We have on our hands an intergalactic clash of ideals. Remind me, who are we marking books for again?

A number of schools have already taken steps to drastically alter or amend their assessment and marking policies to try and tackle this, but they’re still missing the point. Some schools have even banned altogether combinations of numbers and letters, liberating teachers in my view to simply tell the students what they need to do to improve. It’s time now for a job to be done on the parents. An ‘average’ parent today will have a completely different perspective on all the roles and functions of modern schools. Parents struggle hugely to understand the real meaning of ‘progress’ and of course the value and purpose of feedback or ‘marking’ as they like to call it.

“The books haven’t been marked for weeks” “we don’t use them very often. We use electronic files, folders and a range of online media” “But the books haven’t been marked” “…but formative and summative feedback has been provided regularly to Billy throughout the term on all his learning” “He says he doesn’t understand” “His written, reflective evaluations suggest he does. He’s making good progress” “…but the books haven’t been marked…”

And so the cycle continues…

It’s worth asking the question again– What is the purpose of marking?

Is it to provide feedback to parents on the amount of time teachers are looking at children’s books? Is it to justify the salary and the 10 weeks holiday a year or is it something else?

Teachers – keep it simple. Tell the kids what they need to do to improve and they will.

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Web-based Version of Blooms Taxonomy (30+ digital tools ) http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/01/web-based-version-of-blooms-taxonomy30.html?m=1 One of the main objectives underlying our work as 21st century teachers and educators is to use technology to create innovative, creative, and engaging learning environments for our students.The focus now has been shifted from whether or not to use technology to how to use this technology to improve teaching and learning. When we talk about improvement here we mainly refer to the higher order thinking skills ( HOTS ).

Blooms Taxonomy is the first thing that comes to mind when talking about HOTS, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has been investing a lot of time and effort in writing tutorials, guides and sharing infographics about this taxonomy and I am really so glad many teachers are using my posts as a springboard from which to start indepth research into Bloooms Taxonomy.

To help teachers tap into the best of Blooms Taxonomy, I have started a series of posts that cover a plethora of apps and web tools that relate to this taxonomy. Just a couple of days ago we published The New Version of Blooms Taxonomy for iPad and today we are providing you with another new version of Blooms Taxonomy but this time for web based tools. Check them out below and share with us your suggestions.

1- Creating

      

Story Kit, Comic Life iMovie, GoAnimate.com, SonicPics Fotobabble Sock Puppet.

2- Evaluating

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    

Google Docs Poll Everywhere Socrative BrainPOP Today’s Meet.

3- Analyzing

     

Corkboard.me Poll Everywhere SurveyMonkey.com Study Blue Keynote Stickyboard.

4- Applying

   

ScreenChomp SonicPics QuickVoice Fotobabble 17

  

Keynote Podomatic Skype

5- Understanding

     

PowerPoint Google Blogs Fotobabble Bit.ly Twitter neu.Annotate

6- Remembering

    

Pages Google Docs Study Blue Bit.ly Wordle

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Top Ten Group Work Strategies #HuntingEnglish

If I am continually vexed by any one question in education it is ‘how can we enhance student motivation?‘ Of course, I do not have the answer, and if there is one it is multi-faceted, complex and, frankly, not going to be solved in this blog post! From my position as a classroom teacher, I am always on the look out for those strategies that create a state when students are motivated and in their element, where they work furiously without even realising they are doing so, without realising the clock is ticking down to the end of the lesson. There is no better compliment than when students question how long there is left and express genuine surprise at how fast time has passed, and that they have actually enjoyed that lesson!

My, admittedly non-scientific, observations are that many of the times students are in ‘flow‘, or their element, in my lessons is when they are collaborating in group work. Why is this then? I believe that we are obviously social beings and we naturally learn in such groups (not always effectively it must be said), but that, more importantly, when working in a group we are able to correct, support, encourage, question and develop ideas much more effectively.

The power of the group, guided by the expertise of the teacher, accelerates learning, makes it richer and demands a learning consensus that can push people beyond their habitual assumptions.

Don’t get me wrong, there are pitfalls and obstacles to group work. This constructivist approach should build upon expert teacher led pedagogy – ensuring that students have a good grounding in the relevant knowledge before undertaking in-depth group work. Group work can also be beset by issues in many nuanced forms: whether it is subtle intellectual bullying, where the student who shouts loudest prevails; or the encouragement of mediocrity and laziness, as students let others do all the work; or simply by poor, distracting behaviour.

Another issue is ‘group think’ miscomprehension – indeed, how does prejudice flourish if not in social groups? Yet, this failure is often great for learning as long as the teacher can illuminate the error of their ways. Of course, no teaching strategy is foolproof and plain good teaching should remedy many of the potential ills of group work, just as good teaching can make more traditional teacher-led ‘direct instruction’ wholly engaging and effective.

I am intrigued by the idea of ‘social scaffolding‘ (Vygotsky) – the concept that most of our learning is undertaken in group situations, where we learn through dialogue and debate with others, not simply by listening to that voice in our head! That being said, I am not talking 19

teachers out of a classroom here. The role of the teacher in devising and planning a successful group task takes skill, rigour and utter clarity and precision. Students need to be clear about a whole host of things: from their role, to the purpose of the task and the parameters of expected outcomes to name but a few. Teachers need to keep groups on track, intervene appropriately to improve learning and regularly regain student focus. Teachers have a pivotal role in guiding the group work at every stage. Group work certainly isn’t the lazy option: it takes skill in the planning and the execution, and sometimes, despite our best laid plans, it still fails. That shouldn’t put us off – aren’t all teaching and learning strategies subject to such risks?

If I was to define a simple and straight-forward basis for the rules for group work it would be: - Have clearly defined tasks, with sharp timings and with the appropriate tools organised - Have clearly defined group roles - Have clear ground rules for talk, listening and fair allocation of workload etc.

- Target your support and interventions throughout the task, but make them interdependent of one another, not dependent upon you - Always be prepared to curtail group work if students don’t follow your high expectations.

So here it is, my entirely subjective top ten strategies for group work that I believe to be effective (ideas for which I must thank a multitude of sources): 1. ‘Think-pair-share’ and ‘Think-pair-square’.

Well, no-one said this top ten had to be original! This strategy is one of those techniques that we employ so readily that we can almost forget about it, it is simply so automatic for most teachers; yet, because of that we can easily forget it in our planning. We need to use it regularly because it is the very best of scaffolded learning; it almost always facilitates better quality feedback by allowing proper thinking time and for students to sound out their ideas and receive instantaneous feedback from peers. ‘Think-pair-square’ adds a touch of added flavour, involving linking two pairs together (to form the ‘square’ to share their ideas before whole class feedback). Once more, it is about adding depth to ideas, stimulating debate and collaborative thinking. I defer to this blog post by @headguruteacher for the skinny on ‘Think-pair-share’.

2. Snowballing or the Jigsaw method Similar to the ‘square’ approach mentioned in ‘Think-Pair-Square’, the ‘snowballing’ activity is another simple but very effective way of building upon ideas by starting with small groups and expanding the groups in a structured way. As the metaphor of the snowball suggests, you can begin with an individual response to a question; followed by then pairing up students up; then creating a four and so on. It does allow for quick, flexible group work that doesn’t necessarily require much planning, but does keep shaping viewpoints and challenging ‘answers’ is a constructive fashion.

The ‘jigsaw method’ is slightly more intricate. David Didau describes here how it is the “ultimate teaching method”, but that it benefits greatly from careful planning. Put simply, when researching a topic, like the causes of the Second World War, each member of a group is allocated an area for which they need to become the ‘expert‘, such as ‘the impact of the Treaty of Versailles’, or ‘issues with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary’ for example. With 20

five or six ‘Home‘ groups identified, the ‘experts‘ then leave that group to come together to pool their expertise on the one topic; they question one another and combine research, ideas and their knowledge. Then each ‘expert‘ returns to their ‘home‘ group to share their findings.

It is a skilful way of varying group dynamics as well as scaffolding learning.

3. Debating (using clear rules) As you probably know, our own inspiring leader, Michael Gove, was the President of the Oxford Union. Clearly, these ancient skills of rhetoric and debate have seen him rise to dizzying heights. Perhaps we need to teach debating with great skill if we are to produce citizens who can debate with the best of them…and with Michael Gove! The premise of a debate, and its value in enriching the learning of logic, developing understanding and the simultaneous sharpening and opening our minds, is quite obvious so I will not elaborate. If you are ever stuck for a debate topic then this website will be of great use: http://idebate.org/debatabase. The Oxford rules model is an essential model for the classroom in my view. It provides a clear structure and even a level of formality which is important, provide coherence and greater clarity to the debate. The rules, familiar steps though they are for many, are as follows: Four speakers in each team (for and against the motion) First speaker introduces all the ideas that team has generated Second speaker outlines two or three more ideas in some depth Third speaker outlines two or three ideas in some depth Fourth speaker criticises the points made by the other team Each individual speaker has two minutes to speak (or more of course), with protected time of thirty seconds at the beginning or the end The rest of the team is the ‘Floor‘ and can interject at any time by calling out ‘Point of Information‘ and standing. The speaker can accept or reject an interjection.

You may wish to have the other groups work as feedback observers on the debate being undertaking (a little like Socratic circles – number 8). This has the benefit of keeping the whole class engaged and actively listening to the debate.

4. Project Based Learning/Problem Based Learning I have to admit I have only ever undertaken project style work on a small scale, but in the last year I have been startled by the quality of work I have observed in project based learning across the world. The principals of Project Based Learning are key: such as identifying real audiences and purposes for student work (a key factor in enhancing motivation); promoting interdependent student work, often subtly guided by the teacher at most stages; letting students undertake roles and manage the attendant challenges that arise; learning is most often integrated and spans subject areas; and students constructing their own questions and knowledge. Truly the best guide is to survey these great examples: http://www.hightechhigh.org/schools/HTHI/ The curriculum here is founded upon the PBL model. http://brookfieldcyclingproject.blogspot.co.uk/ A brilliant PE based PBL. http://deeplearning.edublogs.org/2012/12/02/meet-the-ancestors/ A great Art centred project.

‘Problem based learning’ is clearly related to the project model, but it explicitly starts with a problem to be solved. It is based primarily upon the model from medicine – think Dr House (although he is hardly a team player!). David Didau sagely recommends that the teacher, or 21

students in collaboration, find a specifically local problem – this raises the stakes of the task.

Clearly, in Mathematics, real problem based learning can be a central way to approach mathematical challenges in a collaborative way; in Science or Philosophy, the options to tackle ethical and scientific problems are endless. There is criticism of this approach – that students struggle with the ‘cognitive load’ without more of a working memory. Ideally, this learning approach follows some high quality direct instruction, and teacher led worked examples, to ensure that students have effective models to work from and some of the aforementioned working memory.

5. Group Presentations I would ideally label this strategy: ‘questions, questions, questions‘ as it is all about creating, and modelling, a culture of enquiry by asking students questions about a given topic, rather than didactically telling them the answer – then helping shape their research. The teacher leads with a ‘big question‘; then it is taken on by groups who (given materials, such as books, magazines, essays, iPads, laptops, or access to the library or an ICT suite etc.) have to interrogate the question, forming their own sub-set of questions about the question/ topic.

They then source and research the key information, before finally agreeing to the answers to the questions they had themselves formed. The crucial aspect about presentations is giving students enough time to make the presentation worthwhile, as well as allocating clear roles.

High quality presentations take time to plan, research and execute. Personally, I find the timekeeper role a waste of time (I can do that for free!), but other roles, such as leader, designer and scribe etc. have value. Also, the teaching needs to be carefully planned so the entire presentation is not reliant solely upon any one person or piece of technology.

Developing a shared understanding of the outcome and the different parameters of the presentation is key: including features like banning text on PowerPoints; or making it an expectation that there is some element of audience participation; to agreeing what subject specific language should be included. The devil is in the detail!

6. ‘Devise the Display’ I have a troubled relationship with displays! I very rarely devise my own display as I think displays become wallpaper far too soon considering the effort taken to provide them – like newspapers, they become unused within days. I much prefer a ‘working wall‘, that can be constantly changed or updated (or a ‘learning continuum’ for an entire topic when can be periodically added to each lesson). That being said, I do think there is real high quality learning potential in the process of students devising and creating wall displays. It is great formative feedback to devise a wall display once you are well under way a topic. It makes the students identify and prioritise the key elements of their knowledge and the skills they are honing.

I find the most valuable learning is actually during the design ideas stage.You can ‘snowball’ design ideas with the students; beginning individually, before getting groups to decide collaboratively on their design; then having a whole class vote. I do include stipulations for what they must include, such as always including worked examples. Then, the sometimes chaotic, but enjoyable activity it to create the display. I always aim for the ‘60 Minute Makeover‘ approach – quick and less painful (it also makes you less precious about the finer details)! I think they also learn a whole host of valuable skills involving team work, empathy and not to annoy me by breaking our wall staplers! I think it is then important to not let any display fester and waste, but to pull it down and start afresh with a new topic. I know this strategy does put some people off, because it can be like organised chaos, but if everyone has 22

a clear role and responsibility the results can be amazing. [Warning - some designs can look like they have been produced by Keith Richards on a spectacular acid trip!]

7. Gallery Critique This stems from the outstanding work of on Berger. Both a teacher and a craftsman himself, Berger explains the value of critique as rich feedback in his brilliant book ‘The Ethic of Excellence‘. It can be used during the draft/main process or as a summative task. This strategy does have some specific protocols students should follow. The work of the whole group should be displayed in a gallery style for a short time. Students are expected to first undertake a short silent viewing (making notes to reflect is also useful here). The students make comments on the work – post it notes being ideal for this stage. Then the next step is a group discussion of ‘what they noticed‘ in particular, with debate and discussion encouraged – of course, the feedback should be both kind and constructive. The next step for discussion is talking about ‘what they liked‘, evaluating the work. The final stage has the teacher synthesise viewpoints and express their own; before ensuring students make notes and reflect upon useful observations for making improvements.

8. Socratic Talk I have spoken about this strategy before. What is key is that like the debating rules above, a clear and defined structure is in place, particularly with ‘Socratic circles‘ which embeds feedback and debate in a seamless way. It takes some skill in teaching students how to talk in this fashion, but once taught, it can become a crucial tool in the repertoire. In my experience, some of the most sensitive insights have emerged from this strategy and the listening skills encouraged are paramount and have an ongoing positive impact. It also allows for every student to have a role and quality feedback becomes an expectation.

9. Talking Triads Another simple, but highly effective strategy. It is a strategy that gets people to explore a chosen topic, but with a really rigorous analysis of ideas and views. The triad comprises of a speaker, a questioner and a recorder/analyst. You can prepare questions, or you can get the questioner and the analyst to prepare questions whilst the speaker prepares or reflects upon potential answers. This can be done in front of the class as a gallery of sorts, or you can have all triads working simultaneously. If they do work simultaneously, then a nice addition is to raise your hand next to a particular triad, which signals for other groups to stop and listen whilst that specific triad continues, allowing for some quality listening opportunities.

10. Mastery Modelling This involves a form of formative assessment from students, whereat the teacher gives a group a series of models, both exemplar models and lesser models, including some with common errors that students would likely identify. The students need to do a critical appraisal of the these models as a group and identify their summary assessment of the models first, before then devising and presenting a ‘mastery model’ that is a composite exemplar model of work. This strategy works in pretty much every subject, with the subject being either an essay, a piece of art, or a mathematical problem. This presentation should include an explicit focus upon the steps taken leading to create the ‘mastery model‘ during the feedback – this unveils the process required for mastery for the whole class.

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A great research paper that analyses group work and its importance: ‘Toward a social pedagogy of classroom group work’

By Peter Blatchford, Peter Kutnick, Ed Baines, and Maurice Galton An excellent National Strategies booklet from back in the day when the DfE was interested in pedagogy. I particularly like the ‘different grouping criteria’/'size of grouping’ tables: Pedagogy and Practice: Teaching and Learning in Secondary Schools Unit 10: Group work Nice step by step guide to the implementation and the delivery of group work ‘Implementing Group Work in the Classroom‘

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How effective learning hinges on good questioning.

Hands up who likes asking questions?

Questioning is an essential part of helping students to make progress but only if it causes thinking or elicits evidence that informs our teaching. And the thing with asking questions is that while there are some kids who know how to make the system work for them and actively participate in lessons because that they way they’ll learn more, there are those who don’t.

Dylan Wiliam claims that the students who are sufficiently engaged to put up their hands and answer everything we ask them are “actually getting smarter. Their IQs actually go up.”

Now, I can’t vouch for the research on this but if it’s true, by allowing some students not to participate we’re making the achievement gap bigger. Not good.

Just in case you don’t already know how to suck eggs grandma, a solution to this is some sort of randomised name generator. You can go low tech by writing kids’ names onto lolly sticks á la Prof W, or you can experiment with various free web-based teaching tools like Triptico.

But the poor students’ problems aren’t over yet. Once we’ve got them to actually answer a question we rarely give them enough time to think. We’ve known for ages that if you allow more time for students to reply to your questions, more thoughtful answers will be proffered up in response. Typically we only allow 1 second for students to answer a question. With this kind of pressure it’s no wonder that 75% of students avoid risking potential humiliation.

Ideally we should allows something in the region of 4 seconds thinking time if we want give students a real opportunity to consider and deliberate. Now that could be 4 seconds of tumbleweed or you could give the students the chance to discuss possible answers and maybe even jot a few possibilities down. Sometimes giving them a specific number of answers to come up with (5 is my favourite) means that when ask students for their answer they’ll have at least something to contribute.

But what sort of questions should we be asking? Questions like ‘What is alliteration?’ are just playing another dreary round of Guess What’s In The Teacher’s Head. And nobody ever learned much from that. No matter what you do, the best you can expect is for a random sample of students to tell you what they think you want to hear while everyone else zones out.

Now comes the point at which you’ll notice the razor sharp pun in the post title: hinge questions are a fascinating diagnostic tool which provide data on students’ understanding and allow you to make on the spot decisions about the direction of your teaching without wasting anybody’s time.

Now, I’m relatively new to these hinge thingys and feel I probably should have known about them ages ago. But, as with so many other things, I didn’t. A spot of internet research yielded disappointing results: there’s precious little out there and what there is takes a good bit tenacity to turn in to something readily understandable. Basically what I found was a couple of posts from the inimitable Darren Mead and a transcript of a Dylan Wiliam speech. Happily however, if your hinge questions are related to joinery then you’re in luck!

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- A hinge question is based on the important concept in a lesson that is critical for students to understand before you move on in the lesson.

- The question should fall about midway during the lesson.

- Every student must respond to the question within two minutes.

- You must be able to collect and interpret the responses from all students in 30 seconds - You need to be clear on how many students you need to get the right answer in advance – 20-80% depending on how important the question is (thanks to Jason Buell for this).

This means you won’t have time to get kids to explain their answers. This feels unnatural for an English teacher – we always want to know why, but the point here is to check understanding, work out whether you need to recap or change direction and then get a move on.

To make this work you’ll need make the questions multiple choice and have access to an essential piece of English teaching kit: a set of mini whiteboards.

Here’s a couple of examples:

This second example highlights the importance of asking the right question. What would happen if instead the question was: Which of these is an example of personification? I’ll tell you what would happen: we’d end up bogged down in a teacher lead discussion in which everyone, except for the keeners are the front, is thoroughly bored.

A good hinge question needs a lot of careful planning but I’ve gotta tell you, I’m really impressed with the results. There’s no hiding with the mini white board there to expose every teensy misapprehension so that I can swoop, falcon-like, and restore the beatific smile of understanding to even the most perennially confused child.

http://learningspy.co.uk/2012/02/04/how-effective-learning-hinges-on-good-questioning/

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Great Lessons: Agility POSTED BY HEADGURUTEACHER ⋅ FEBRUARY 20, 2013

I spent a while thinking of one word that could capture the spirit of this post.

AGILITY. It does the job. It’s all about the ability to adapt, to change course, to respond, to deal with multiple simultaneous demands, to keep up with all the individual students’ journeys, to be spontaneous and flexible and to think on your feet. ‘Thinking on your feet’ is a hugely important teacher skill and in any Great Lesson, you are likely to see this in action.

I think it is safe to say that most of my lessons don’t go according to plan. Why? Because, in truth, the plan is usually highly skeletal.. just a rough outline of where we’ll start and where we are heading in general…but the details depend on what happens next. In an environment where I am challenging my students at a high level and trying hard to tease out their individual weak spots, I’m never exactly sure how students will respond or what questions they might ask… But as an agile teacher, I’m ready for anything. Sometimes, agility is needed to rescue a bad situation…like a goalkeeper pouncing…but mostly, agility is about seeking out the most engaging, most challenging path to keep the flow going…like an off-piste skier. This is the part of being a teacher that I love the most.

These examples illustrate the idea of being agile in various different contexts: 1. Contingent Planning Letting it ride: Y13 English One of the all-time most jaw-droppingly fabulous lessons I’ve ever seen was accompanied by the metaphorical shredding of a well-intentioned lesson plan. A Y13 27

English class had been given two weeks to read Marlowe’s Dr Faustus and their homework task had been to prepare short graphical presentations of the play’s key themes. Some had Good-Evil vs Time axes on a graph; others had complex mind maps, another was a Dramatic Tension timeline. The outpouring of ideas led to discussion and debate that showed students had progressed far further than expected. They were learning so much from each other, the teacher input wasn’t needed; she let it ride. The starter/ intros became the lesson.

Holding it back: Y12 Maths Here, in a well planned lesson with a clever sequence of incrementally more challenging operations with polynomials it became clear that a significant number of students were not entirely secure at the early stages. I’d been given a lesson plan but only half of it actually came off the page as the teacher opted to pause for consolidation…all except two pairs who were urged to plough on as they were doing well. It was an Outstanding lesson..largely because of the teacher’s agile responsiveness.

Differentiation ‘on the fly’ Despite the best laid plans some students shoot through. “Wow! You’ve nailed this already so….” You need something seriously challenging to throw at them. Or, in a way that takes you by surprise, one or more students are all at sea….you need to throw them a lifeline. Both things happened to me at the same time recently with a lesson on electrical circuits. Some were just stuck..could not make a circuit to match the diagram; meanwhile at the other end, I set others off to devise their own circuits to see what happened as they could work through the standard set at astonishing speed…who knew? I did also enlist their help to sort out the stuck people.

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Since my lessons rarely go according to plan, it also means I don’t plan too far ahead. I never follow a scheme of work as such…I see them as a set of possible ideas for possible lessons, but the flow of learning is shaped by what happens and this is often unpredictable. I used to work in a school where you could order a tray of equipment for Unit 3, Lesson 7a. I’m sorry, but after I’d finished, those trays were a bit of a jumble! An important lesson from this is that we need to think less about writing schemes of work and more about planning contingencies. I’ve seen a lot of finely timed lesson plans but really these are security blankets; stabilisers; an agile teacher doesn’t need them. Anything you write down can only ever be one of many possible paths; the confidence to abandon the plan is as important as the planning itself.

2. Responding to responses At a basic level, a routine probing Q&A session is a great test of agility. This is pedagogical sparring. Great teachers love it, taking students’ statements and questions and then returning more probing responses. With whole-class response methods, this is scaled up.

Now the juggling really starts. When we invested in mini whiteboards for every classroom a few years ago, one colleague remarked that she found it incredibly difficult to cope with all the responses. What if there are lots of errors? This is precisely why they are such great tools: they reveal what ALL your students are thinking, like it or not. Here you need to be agile in selecting and sampling responses quickly; the ones that help take the learning forward without getting bogged down, 29

avoiding turning a buzzy exchange into a thing of drudgery. The key is to focus on key learning points with repeat questions rather than tackle each and every variation.

Something similar happens after doing any in-class peer or self assessment. What have been the common answers and common difficulties? Are there any especially interesting alternatives? You need to flush this all out, making sure you tackle misconceptions, pick out a range of model answers and move everyone forward without double checking every single response. In an RE class of 30, there are 30 different ways to answer ‘Was it morally acceptable to kill Osama Bin Laden’. Agility sees you through….

3. Reacting to circumstances Lights out: My Y6 son came home from school buzzing recently. “We had the BEST lesson EVER”. They’d had a class discussion about ghosts, told some stories, explored the possibilities of UFOs and life on other planets….lots of engaging deep thinking on big existential questions. Why was it so special? Because they were sitting in the dark for over an hour after a power cut! So, no writing or reading….just talking and listening. The teacher had capitalised brilliantly, letting their imaginations fire off in all directions. If you have not yet read “Oops! Helping Children Learn Accidentally” by Hywel Roberts, then you should. He tackles this area brilliantly. Of course, this agile teacher had made the most of a real situation….but why wait when these fabulous ‘accidents’ could easily be made to happen!

Behaviour Management: The reality for a lot of teachers is that managing behaviour is a dominant issue, but it is a universal ever-present feature of all lessons. An agile teacher, teaching a Great Lesson, may well have all manner of behaviour issues to address but they do two things: Firstly, they address the issues…they don’t gloss over or ignore them.

Secondly, (in classic Bill Rogers style) they use the least intrusive strategy possible in order to keep learning on track. In great lessons the teacher does not hope for quiet, they insist; however, neither does the teacher stop everyone learning for a full blown show-down… Unless this is absolutely necessary.

Current affairs Finally, in Great Lessons an agile teacher will take any opportunity to make connections to current developments, scrapping the planned lesson if necessary.

Venus is transiting the sun, Higgs’ boson has been discovered, it is the anniversary 30

of a publication by Darwin or Shakespeare, the biggest prime number ever has been identified, Richard III has been found and verified with carbon dating, there has been a tsunami, a new work by Van Gogh has been discovered…or vandalised….. All these things are a reason to go right off at a tangent and bring learning into the real world. In fact, when these things happen, it is unforgivable not to.

4. Choices Sometimes the need for agility is more predictable, in situations where students are given choices. An example is where the mode of response is made very open: essay, video, blog, powerpoint, cartoon…. We adopt this approach for our Y7 British Museum project with fabulous results, but the teachers need to be flexible and openminded.

In some subjects, students have real choices to make as part of their assessment. In our A Level Physics course, students devise their own investigation; in our History and Pre-U ?Global Perspectives courses they choose their own area of study for the coursework; in Art or DT at GCSE and A level there is a high degree of student autonomy. The teacher’s agility and confidence often determines how far they are prepared to let the students go – which is either an enabling effect or a limiting one.

5. Going off piste A couple of years ago some Y9 students from a partner school spent a day at KEGS and produced a report of their observations. Some of the things they liked about our lessons were: The lessons tend to start straight away without lots of lining up and register taking Students do not have to copy objectives from the board every lesson

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The teachers often deviate from the lesson plan to tell stories or share their personal interests. ‘Our teachers never do this’ they said.

We hadn’t anticipated the last point but it is certainly a feature of lessons at my school. The students and teachers find great joy in the kind of spontaneity that allows anyone in the room to express their puzzlement, their curiosity or their sheer love of the subject. Recent diversions in my lessons have led us to consider the James May ‘milk first’ tea-making theory based on temperature gradient and specific heat capacity; how a bullet-proof vest works (following the input of a materials enthusiast in my class) and what might happen in terms of g-force if we could fly through the sun. Is it on the syllabus? Not exactly….but who cares?

Of course the very best reason to go off piste is when a student blows your mind with their work. Sometimes you just have to down tools, get in a huddle and marvel at what someone has done.

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