ACERT Conference 21 March 2015

Demand High: Are we challenging the full learning potential our students ?

Adrian Underhill

Related links:demandhighelt.wordpress.comfacebook.com/demandhighelt

What is Demand-High?

Are my learners capable of more? Are we “covering material” rather than focusing on

the potential for deep learning? Do we attend to the task rather than to the learning? Do I rely on the task do the teaching? Would they learn more if I demanded more? How could I do that? Could I tweak what I do to meet each student at

their learning edge?

Demand High involves…

Using any activity to challenge each student at their own learning edge

Making doable demands

Differential responses rather than differential tasks

DH is a teacher quality rather than a resources quality

A place to start Demand High is…

in the oral phase “Checking the answers”when students are sharing their responsesduring an activity

aloud,with each other

or with the whole class

Four low demand ‘traps’ in this oral phase:

Ping PongExtinguish T question with only one St response

Rubber stampingSaying good when it isn’t

Famous last wordsTeacher saying it last ….instead of upgrading

The pointless drillMechanical repetition without practice

Upgrade v Correction

An upgrade: improves whatever is offered (mistake or not) into the best the student can do at that moment.

A correction: makes something ‘wrong’ into something ‘correct’

What’s an upgrade:

1. You don’t need a mistake to do an upgrade: If there’s a ‘mistake’ - the upgrade includes it.If there’s no ‘mistake’ - we still upgrade.

2. Everybody gets a personal upgrade, taking them from what they just did … to the next better, quicker, clearer, more interesting, DO-ABLE version…

3. In this way we remove the ceiling,

Upgrades are not new …

But taken together, and for this purpose, they can open up an interesting direction

Here are some examples…

Upgrades 1: Simply collect different responses

Who has another one / something different? What do you think? What did she say? Did you hear him? Listen to the differences

Is that the same as his? So how many different ones have we got?

Upgrades 2: What upgrades can the class offer

Is that Ok? Do you want to change it? Are there any mistakes in that? Yes? What? Who likes this one? Do you want to change it? Can you write yours / hers on the board? Ok let’s put these different ones on the board… OK, now one of them is correct…which one?

Upgrades 3: Micro technique for self upgrade

Pause (gesture… St thinks…) “Is that OK?” (invitation to review?) “Could you say it again?” (opportunity to ‘hear self’) “Say it very slowly…” (To prevent blurting) “Do you want to change anything?”

Upgrades 4: Multiple ‘do-able demands’

To St A: How many words …?To St B: Say it faster C Slower and more clearly, D Where is the stress?E Yes, now join the words together …F You need another word… G Take a word out…H Say it with interest!

Upgrades 4: Continued

I Whisper it, J Make it a question, K Change it!L Change one word M Look at your pronunciationN That’s correct, but now In English!O All of you…find another way to say the same thing…

Options: individual; 121 ITG; whole group

Inner Workbench: Pre-installed DH facility

The inner ear to work on a model given by the teacher

Inner voice to create and rehearse a spoken response

In-depth observation of the form of the utterance

Further Demand High Interventions

Finger correction: Word order to fluency

Fat grammar 1: Substituting words

Fat grammar 2: Playing with word order

Demand High tips

Employ 121 in a group

Mistakes ARE the syllabus

Treat mistakes like friends – revisit them

Practice without repetition

ACERT Conference 21 March 2015

Demand High: Are we challenging the full learning potential our students ?

Thank you!

Adrian Underhill

Related links:demandhighelt.wordpress.comfacebook.com/demandhighelt