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T h o u g h t s b y D a v i d H o w e l l s

Do you want to stimulate high order thinking, and great collaboration ? !Try Page 5 for some inspirational insight.

D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3

FOX’S THINKING TOOL: - A CUNNING PLAN

How often, when we need inspiration or fresh ideas, do we turn to our colleagues? Long gone, thankfully, are the days when teachers worked in isolation and when asking for help was sometimes regarded as a sign of weakness. Instead, we have found a common ground, sharing ideas and teaching strategies and working together to give our students the best education possible. We know that the most important thing to a young person’s success is the teacher in front of them.!

Hopefully our professional development programme, on a Wednesday afternoon, is helping to foster this approach as we get the opportunity to work together as a whole staff, in our

faculties and departments and within small groups as part of our action research projects. Together we are building a shared educational vision. Simple though it sounds, we believe our purpose is to make sure that all our students are learning.!

As we swap best practice and work to reach students in new ways, we are making a commitment to our own continuous personal improvement. Thanks to the power of collective intelligence and collaboration we are striving to become better teachers while saving precious planning time by sharing and exchanging ideas. In the words of Henry Ford, “if everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”  

!P1. Foreword! !

P2. Unlocking Creativity!

P3. Dartboard Evaluation!

P4. ‘Hello LO’!

P5. Cunning as a Fox!

P6. Improving Confidence!

P7. Spelling starters Part 3!

Questions, questions!!!

The beauty of sharing best practice - Ann-Marie Connor

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This issue

Pedagogy exchange - steeped in practice

PedEx is published termly !by All Hallows Catholic College !

Teaching & Learning Group.!!

Plants as machines - Unlocking creativity

While botany is an interesting, diverse and multifaceted discipline, I am certainly not the only teacher who feels that it seldom ranks as a favourite topic for many school children. A lesson which opens with any variation of 'Today we are going to learn about plants' is unlikely to be met with unanimous positivity. !!With this in mind I tried to envisage a more novel and interesting way to communicate the basic functions of a plant to my students. I then dimly recalled my former University mentor mentioning that he once compared a plant to a machine to his pupils or taught how a plant works as if it were a machine or something similar, and used this thought to devise the idea of the Solar Powered Sugar Making Machine.!!Once the pupils were sat down and ready, I told them that we would design a machine which makes sugar as a class. The first stage of design was to decide on a suitable power source which the pupils would (appear to) choose; I was pleased that the pupils focussed on renewable sources of energy themselves, and I let them go through various sources of energy and briefly addressed a couple of advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately I was going to choose the idea of solar power once it was

raised but gave the impression that the others were being genuinely considered; ''Water power would be good...but in England there aren't really enough suitable locations, so I think I'll go for Pupil Xs idea of solar power.’' Only as I finished adding the 6O2 did a pupil say 'like a plant?' I asked him; 'like a plant? or.....actually...,' to which the pupils then started to understand what I had done and realised that it was a plant all along, and

hurriedly explained this to the other pupils (which was very desirable) and started retracing their thinking to make everything add up. !

I found this lesson a very enjoyable one to teach and one which captivated the attention of the pupils. Certainly, they found designing a machine more interesting than being talked to about plants.!

(Mikail Shaikh)!

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An example of a sugar making machine design

Review!Reviewing is a critical element in the process of teaching and learning as it is at this point that teachers can challenge the students to make their learning explicit.  !

Although Review is the last of the elements of the cycle to be described, it should not be seen as coming only at the end of a lesson. !

It is useful to include different review opportunities throughout every lesson so that teachers and students can identify challenges and supports, and strengths and weaknesses. !

Review is a significant part of developing metacognitive awareness and we should seek to find every opportunity to push on the ‘learning to learn’ agenda. We should be mindful of the need to prepare our students for lifelong learning.!

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TEEP thoughtsBullseye! - Dartboard Evaluation

The evaluation dartboard is a quick and simple method for students to demonstrate their understanding of a lesson/topic. !

Traditionally I have used it at the end of a lesson but it can be used to review understanding throughout. !

Using post it notes students are asked to write their name and one piece of evidence which shows they have met the agreed learning outcomes.!

The nearer the bulls eye, the more confident a student is of having met the agreed learning outcomes, and the further they are away from the centre, the less confident a student is. !

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The dartboard therefore provides a visual snapshot of students’ understanding without the need for further analysis or work. !

The information gathered from the evaluation dartboard, together with carefully focused diagnostic questioning can be used to inform future planning by the teacher and by the student in the setting of their own formative targets.!

The photo below shows an example of the dartboard evaluation in action.!

(Joseph Keane)!

‘Hello LO’: Mr Hyde mishap, Learning Objective challengeThe students wrote down the title ‘Violent language in Chapter 4 of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.’ I didn’t add an LO, as I normally would.!

I then started with asking the Set 1 Year 10 group to discuss, in pairs, what an LO was and why we have them. I was gratified to hear one of the class say, ‘we did this in the first lesson in Year 7,’ so I told him he would obviously be an expert then. The c l a s s p r o v e d t h e i r expertise by giving me a number of reasons why not only they, but myself as a teacher, would find LOs useful. I then asked them if there were any disadvantages with them, which they were able to offer some suggestions.!

We have been reading ’Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, so I said that I had a problem. As I was writing

the lesson objective, I drank a potion and was overtaken by Mr Hyde, which resulted in a destroyed LO. They would have to work out which objective from a list of alternatives was the correct one. I then gave

them a list of alternative LOs-some very similar to each other. In pairs, they had to work out which was the correct one, based on what we have been doing in class and what skills we have been working on in the lesson.!

Once the students had discussed, we had a challenge where I read out each LO and if they thought it was the correct one, they had to stand up. This could also be done with whiteboards or post-its. Despite a few exceptions, the class chose the correct one. I then asked where they thought I got some of the wording of the LO from-they correctly answered that it was from the GCSE mark scheme. !

We then moved on to discuss how they would achieve this LO in the lesson. From this point we moved onto the ‘Present New Information’ activity. !

This activity was successful, not only in getting students to revise the point of a LO, but to think about what they have been doing in the previous lessons, the skills they have been learning and what the next steps are. The fun ‘Mr Hyde’ inspired activity tied it all nicely together. (Tony Hart)

Fox’s Thinking Tool - guaranteed to boost student thinking & collaboration skillsI have found Fox’s a really useful tool to allow students to carry out independent research and then share it collaboratively; it works really well as a ‘Construct’ task. !

It’s quick, low-tech and students are quickly engaged by it. The tool is designed to help students to think convergently, arrive at key learning points and then think divergently to apply the new knowledge and/or understanding. The research task is set by the teacher and students divide up the task and each prepares 2 ‘wedges’, one focused on fact and one focused on opinion/thoughts about the facts. Groups construct a ‘doughnut’ from their ‘wedges’ and then identify similarities between what is written and then agree 4 or 5 bullet points in the centre of the wedge. This central information can then be used to answer a subsequent or ‘big’ question, in which students think divergently.!

One of the problems I first encountered with it is that students are concerned that they don’t have their own copies. You can either photocopy the finished product or set them an exam question which requires them to use information from all sections in ‘Apply’ to ensure that all

students have all the information. !

Be really strict with the timings as otherwise it can take a very long time.!

(David Howells)

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!Fox’s Thinking Tool promotes

Effective Teacher and Effective Learner Behaviours, Thinking for Learning & Collaborative Skills

Year 12 ‘doughnuts’ from a Sociology research task

Reviewing progress: The Confidence Score

I have found it very useful to use a simple but effective mini-review / review, allowing students and teachers to quickly ascertain an individual lesson's impact on preparing for an exam.! !At the start of the lesson, perhaps just after discussing assessment / success criteria, students are asked to write a number 1-10 which measures their confidence in sitting the exam or assessment.  For example; I normally ask, "If you were to sit the assessment right now, how confident would you feel in meeting your target grade or higher?"! !Towards the end of the lesson (or as a review) I then ask the same question.  The students write down the difference between the numbers, which then becomes their confidence score.  i.e. 5/10 at the start and 7/10 at the end is a score of +2.! !This can be adapted further by asking students to use the assessment criteria to give reasons / evidence for their score.  For example; a +2 would require a student to either share a task or key word or share a solution to a problem etc with the class in order to demonstrate their progress.  Students could write their score and evidence on a post-it and share it anonymously or through Q+A etc.  Similarly, a student with a negative confidence score, such as -1 would have to prove where their learning journey has gone wrong within the lesson.  Which part of the lesson i.e a certain task, made that student feel confused or change their way of thinking about a particular topic?! !This usually works best with higher ability students as they are usually better at self-reflection.  One way to differentiate for lower ability students could perhaps involve the use of images or colours which are linked to a particular level of skill from the criteria  i.e. a card sort.! !! !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! (Nathan Mallon)!

The new Ofsted framework places heightened emphasis on the importance of literacy skills being addressed across the curriculum. One way to do this is through active teaching of spelling in lessons, particularly spelling of key words related to your subject. This is also a handy way to recap terminology at the beginning of the lesson. Here are a few spelling

games you can use to ‘hook’ students into learning…!

Give them letters that spell different key words on coloured card – they have to organise into the words. This could be done against the clock to create extra challenge. Students could each hold a card and physically move around to spell a word if you want to make it even more active! (See the image of Year 7 doing this)!

Detectives - show part of a word with some letters blanked out – they have to fill in the missing letters. !

e.g. e_te___i_e (enterprise)!

(Emma Stebbings)

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“It’s not enough to know what works, you need to know why.”

Geoff Petty!Educationalist

!Buzz groups of up 4 students 1 well thought out lesson plan

A hint of humour to enhance student comfort Several heaped tbsp of feedback !

Students work in small groups to answer a thought provoking question. Teacher asks each group in turn to contribute part of the answer. A volunteer answers for their group. !

Ring the changes, by having the teacher nominate the student in each group who will give their answer.

Ingredients

Why don’t you be a contributor to the next issue? Think about an aspect of your practice that you would like to share with colleagues. Then think about making the linkage to the underpinning elements or stage in the Learning Cycle explicit. All contributions gratefully received.

Interactive Teaching: Questioning

Super spelling starters - Part 3