Welcome to Philips High School’S Teaching and Learning Magazine – February 2017 - Sharing ideas with teachers! 1
Contents Page 1) What is Outstanding Teaching & Learning?
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2) Ditch Revision: Teach it Well
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3) 10 Marking & Feedback Strategies
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4) Pick ‘n’ Mix Plenary
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5) http://www.cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.co.uk/
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6) 10 Easy Ways To Demonstrate Progress In a Lesson Page 7 7) The Scourge of Classroom Disruption
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8) Planning for Challenge
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Ditch revision. Teach it well. Standard January 9, 2016 7 Comments Uncategorized Today during my form time silent reading I read this . It’s not the first thing I’ve read about spaced learning or interleaving but it got me thinking again about how subjects structure their GCSE course. Option 1 – Should we race through content to leave lots of time for ‘revision’? Or Option 2 – take time over topics with little/no time for revision? Or Option 3 – plan the content following the spaced learning model? I’ve long been a hater of the word ‘revision’, mostly because it usually means ‘groans’ from students and doing extra work e.g extra revision session after school or God forbid in the holidays. Most teachers and students don’t actually know what effective revision is and people confuse learning something you didn’t know with going over something you already know; both seemed to be classed as ‘revision’. If you as a teacher are relying on a student doing a large amount of ‘revising’ to remember things are you doing them a disservice in now you’ve taught them? Why don’t we ditch revision and focus on embedding learning in a more logical, structured way? And if you think that option 3 would take longer than the other two options, might this prove otherwise? I know that there are teachers/schools that are working on a spaced learning model and those that ban all ‘revision’ sessions out of lesson time but reading this has reminded me of how effective it might be to choose option 3. In particular this diagram was interesting:
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http://willthalheimer.typepad.com/files/spacing_learning_over_time_2006.pdf It made me think about the length of the gap to leave between the spacing. The forgetting curve (Ebbinghaus 1885) that has been shared many times shows how repetition early on impacts memory but this reminds us that widely spaced repetition is also important;getting students to recall in the next couple of lessons and then using widely spaced repetition in a longer time frame. This is the time of year where leaders and year 11 teachers suddenly start to feel an urgency around year 11s’ learning. But is it actually too late? Revision sessions that ‘catch up’ to learn unlearnt content may be a waste of time. The best use of time would be to ‘test test test’ but for some it’s not seen as revision. Too many people don’t check the learning at the point something is taught; leaving it to the last couple of months probably won’t work. This model (option 3) requires the hard work to be done throughout key stage 4. What are you doing NOW for year 9/10 GCSE students that means they can remember, long term? Do you know what they remember since September? So, if we design our GCSE course to the greatest benefit for long term memory, can we ditch anything ever referred to as ‘revision’ including Easter revision and ‘catch up sessions’ and just call it ‘effective learning’? Or is your school too scared not to do these things? There’s a fine line focussing on real learning and focussing on making ourselves feel better by ‘doing’ something. https://missdcoxblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/ditch-revision-teach-it-well/ Why not try some of the following:
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Pick ‘n’ mix Plenary to encourage pupils to engage through choice!
This is an excellent website – there are a lot of ideas in here...well worth a look...I love the request a selfie idea.... http://www.cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.co.uk/
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This post is a result of my two minute presentation that I recently gave at the Teachmeet at Acklam Grange School in Middlesbrough. It is one of those things that student teachers ask me all the time. How can I show progress quickly when I am being observed? I think that sometimes, people tend to over think this, as progress can be shown in a lesson very easily. So here are my ten easy ways to do this: 1. Progress Clocks are very simple. Students are issued with a template of a blank clock. The clock face is divided into four, each quarter represents twenty minutes of the lesson. The first part is to find out what the students know about a topic. This could be a completely new topic or one that you taught last lesson and are going to expand upon. The clock is revisited throughout the lesson and used a mini plenary check. Students use this alongside success criteria so they can see themselves how much progress they are making and what they need to do to achieve the next level. 2. Mini Mysteries are used when you want the students to learn independently and demonstrate progress. In History, we use evidence packs that allow the pupils to work together in groups – good for differentiation. They are also provided with a key question. For example, “What was happening at Grafeneck Asylum?”. Students then have to come up with an answer and complete a concept map to show their thinking. This allows them to share their ideas with the rest of the group. Based on what is then discussed in the class, groups are given the opportunity to change their original judgment. The answer is revealed and students have to connect the event to their prior learning. I usually do this in the form of a piece of extended writing. 3. Three Tiers of Progress. This is a visual way for the students to see the progress that they are making in the lesson. It can be a display board in the classroom or simply a template displayed on a power point slide. The board is divided into three horizontal columns, each column containing the title “Novice, Apprentice and Expert”.Students either have small pictures of themselves or just their name and move themselves into the category that best suits them at that particular time in the lesson. Students should be using the success criteria in the lesson to move themselves higher up the tiers – the aim is to become an expert in the topic by the end of the lesson. 4. Progress Checker. This can be a laminated card that can be issued at any point during the lesson. It contains statements that allow students to comment on their progress at different points of the lesson. Examples of statements are “I feel confident about my progress in this lesson because….”, “The thing that I have found most difficult in this lesson so far is …..”. Statements can be adapted for any subject. Students complete the statements in their book so there is evidence of clear progress. 5. Are you making progress this lesson? This is best done with a smaller class or where you have the advantage of having a teaching assistant with you. It simply involves giving a red, amber or green dot with a marker pen in the student’s book against a statement that they have made. It is an excellent way to start the lesson. In History, I use it with the bell activity which is usually the key question. The coloured dot 7
represents correct knowledge – red means totally incorrect, amber, some of it is right but it needs improving and green is correct. Students are obviously aiming towards the green dot somewhere during the lesson to show that they now fully understand. 6. Mr Wrong Paragraphs. Students are given paragraphs that contain deliberate mistakes. This task is used to check understanding of knowledge or for spotting literacy errors. However, I often use it as a combination of the two as there is so much emphasis placed on improving literacy in every subject. This could be used to check for understanding of knowledge or used for spotting literacy errors (or a combination of the two). 7. Enquiry Based Learning or KWL Charts. These are similar to the progress clocks in that they check what the students already know, what they would like to know by the end of the lesson and what they have learnt during the lesson. They need to be used in conjunction with the lesson objectives so that the right questions can be asked. 8. Tactical Titles. What can be easier than having the student write a title in their book such as, ‘What I know now’, ‘Pre-assessment’, ‘Draft 1’, ‘First attempt’? Students complete the relevant information under each title. The more they are used throughout their books, it becomes very easy to see that progress over time has been demonstrated. 9. Exit Tickets. Most teachers will have used these in one way or another. Some use postit notes for a student to write down what they have learnt during the lesson. Mine are a printed ticket for each students that are handed out towards the end of the lesson. They contain the titles, “Three things that I have learnt, Two questions that I would like to ask and one final reflection”. Exit tickets help with the planning of the following lesson as you can get a good idea of which aspects of the lesson the students did not fully understand. 10. Marking and Feedback . I know – this is what we all hate the most! Detailed marking is time consuming but I truly believe it is the best way for students to make progress. I use the system of including an empty yellow box after a piece of written work. I give feedback in the form of “What went well” and “Even better if ” comments. It is the responsibility of the student to act upon the comments given and make the improvements in the highlighted yellow box. The box also highlights the progress that the student has made. Students act upon their feedback at the beginning of the next lesson. We call this “DIRT” time – dedicated improvement and reflection time. So there you have it. Ten easy ways to show progress in a lesson. I would expect that there are many more which we do on an everyday basis without even thinking about it. Why don’t you add to my list?
http://ukedchat.com/2015/03/13/10-easy-ways-to-demonstrate-progress-in-a-lesson-byagshistory/?utm_source=ReviveOldPost&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOld Post
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The Scourge of Classroom Disruption Health officials suggest that we’re on the verge of eradicating polio once and for all, joining smallpox and rinderpest on the list of diseases that have been consigned to history. In education we’ve consigned our own evils to the dustbin of history. Before 1870 it was mainly rich kids and religious kids who received a formal education. The Education Act paved the way for public education for all. More recently we’ve eradicated the evil of corporal punishment in schools. Yet the scourge of classroom disruption continues to plague our schools. A recent YouGov survey suggests that we lose 38 school days per year to poor behaviour, with one in five teachers admitting that they selectively ignore it. A 2014 ATL study claimed that 40% of teachers have considered leaving the profession because of the poor behaviour of students. In the same year an NASUWT survey concluded that 69% of teachers think that the problem of poor behaviour is widespread.
As a Teach First participant in 2003 I didn’t receive a huge amount of formal training, but much of what we did get was spent discussing how to get kids to behave. One ruddycheeked chap I trained with, who I haven’t seen since, suggested that all we had to do was leave our desk and walk around the classroom every now and then. But even if we weren’t explicitly discussing how to manage behaviour, we were mindful of the need to keep our kids engaged by using a range of activities, by making lessons relevant and by keeping our lessons pacy (lest kids should have time to remember that they’re in a classroom where they’re entitled to do whatever they want?). Thirteen years on I worry that plenty of teachers still plan their lessons with a question in their heads of ‘will this keep the kids engaged?’ rather than ‘will this help them learn what they need to know?’ The former question leads to activities such as creating a Facebook page for Henry VIII, or writing a Twitter argument between a Montague and a Capulet, 9
whereas the latter question might lead to proper analysis of Henry VIII’s manipulation of his image, or a structured response to Shakespeare’s use of imagery to reveal the discord between the warring families (‘where civil blood makes civil hands unclean’). Classroom disruption appears to be a global menace, not just an English problem. In Sweden, 38% of students reported that there is noise and disorder in most or every lesson (compared to the OECD average of 32%). Research in the US suggests that poor kids particularly suffer from classroom disruption: ‘high-poverty cla
ssrooms have four times the concentrations of academic, attention, and behaviour problems as low-poverty classrooms’ (Our Kids, Robert Putnam). Where classroom disruption exists in a school I think there’s a strong case for a headteacher and her leadership team to resist doing much else until it is tackled. From what we know about what makes good teaching, and what makes good learning, I see no excuse for classroom disruption. Removing disruption from our classrooms allows our teachers to teach and our students to learn. Earlier in the year a teacher at Swindon Academy told me that their behaviour system had ‘changed her life’ as it eliminated the daily stress that teachers face if they can’t be sure of calm, orderly classrooms. Conversely, at a wedding this summer I met a teacher who left the state sector to work in a private school so that she could actually teach. The good news about expunging disruptive behaviour is that we know how to do this:
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Communicate expectations with absolute clarity, creating a shared understanding of the behaviours required for the school to function effectively, particularly in the classroom. Teach these explicitly and give students a chance to practice these expected behaviours.
Reinforce expectations relentlessly, for example through a withdrawal system which means that students are removed from lessons after a single warning.
Repeat the above until classrooms are free from disruption, and ensure that these steps occur within a culture of love, respect and kindness.
Of course there’s a bit more to it. We’ll need to explain to pupils and parents why we’re taking this approach; our withdrawal room will take a hit for the first week or two; a small proportion of kids will really struggle with the new expectations and will need additional support; our teachers might need reassurance that they can still fill their rooms with love and personality. But none of these obstacles are insurmountable, and they are insignificant compared to the prize that awaits: a calm, orderly, purposeful learning environment in all of our classrooms, no matter which teacher stands before our kids. In addition to leading to better academic outcomes, especially for poor kids who are more likely to experience poor behaviour, eliminating classroom disruption would do wonders for the recruitment, retention, workload and well-being of our teachers. It might also help us win the grammar school debate. When parents express a preference for grammar schools they’re often expressing a preference for schools with good behaviour and orderly classrooms; schools in which they feel their children will be safe. There’s nothing stopping us creating these conditions in all of our schools.
The ‘disruption free lessons’ poster is from a school I work with in Sussex: Seahaven Academy. For anyone interested in improving behaviour in schools, I recommend With All Due Respect by Ronald G Morrish. If you want some more details about eliminating disruption from classrooms you could read my earlier blog HERE or contact me on twitter and I will send you some stuff. https://steveadcock81.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/the-scourge-of-classroomdisruption/ 11
Planning for Challenge Posted on January 31, 2017 by classteaching
At our INSET day yesterday, Andy Tharby talked about a framework teachers can use, when planning for high starting point students – content, thinking and shaping. You can read more about it here (and I strongly suggest you do, it’s an excellent post). To help teachers think about this when planning their lessons, or sequence of lessons, we have produced this simple planning sheet that they can use, should they want to:
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This is not a lesson plan – it simply allows teachers to jot down some ideas in response to the prompt questions, with a view to shaping their ideas around these the three themes. For some teachers this won’t be necessary, they will simply plan and teach along these lines intuitively – and that is fine. For others though, particularly if they are teaching a challenging topic or very bright students for the first time, it might be a useful prompt. We think they might also be useful for teachers to share and discuss at ‘Subject Planning & Development Sessions’ – a great opportunity for teachers to talk about and share ideas around how they are approaching teaching these students. A PDF copy can be downloaded here. Posted by Shaun Allison https://classteaching.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/planning-for-challenge/
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