Sections Archive

Ideas for classroom practice

3. Ideas for classroom practice

Some ideas to encourage a learning-friendly culture that supports the three aspects of Relating for Learning.

For the aspects of Relating for Learning:

A couple of quick wins for Modelling the Learning Process to try immediately;
A big idea to shift classroom culture in relation to Modelling the Learning Process.
A couple of quick wins for Coaching Learners to try immediately;
A big idea to shift classroom culture in relation to Coaching learners;
A couple of quick wins for Devolving Responsibility to try immediately;
A big idea to shift classroom culture in relation to Devolving Responsibility.

1. Quick wins to Modelling the Learning Process.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

A powerful motivator

Telling your learners about some of your own real life problems becomes a powerful motivator and a useful tool for discussing alternative plans of actions.

One way to start off the week is to share with students one or two real life problems you had to deal with over the weekend. Your students will be fascinated. It helps them to see you as human and with problems and importantly that these problems could be shared and talked about.

Secondary

Pursuing your own goals

Share something that you personally are trying to achieve, and how you are going about achieving it. Talk about plans, milestones, stumbling blocks, resources, time frames etc.

The key ideas to get over are:

that success usually results from effort and following a planned course of action, and rarely happens ‘by accident’;
that by thinking ahead we can influence the future.

Primary

Modelling ‘how to’

Whatever the subject, modelling ‘how to’ is given added value when linked to the learning behaviours that make for successful performance. Take on the role of an intelligent novice and model performance at a slightly higher, more coherent and informed level than is characteristic of your students. Model your ‘think alouds’.

Try the following steps for whatever skill you are modelling;

introduce the skill e.g. how to find something in an index;
explain the skill, explaining why the information is important;
model the skill, showing how you do it;
review what you have done, ask students to tell you what you did;
reflect on the use of the skill, where else the skill can be applied.

Secondary

Modelling learning; showing what it means to be a learner

One of the first ways of surfacing learning, putting it on show, is to focus on how you are modelling being a good learner to students. Modelling is all the ways in which teachers demonstrate how they are a learner too; a confident finder outer.

Take your students behind the scenes of learning and share with them some of the uncertain thinking of learning.
Learning aloud is a good place to start: take pupils through how you would work out a problem. Modelling the thought processes (including emotional) that learners go through is important because a lot of the skill of learning only manifests itself in the inner world of the learner.
Expose the thinking, feeling and decision making of a learner-in-action to help students actually see and hear how learning works.

Ask yourself:

How much do I learn aloud– externalise my own exploratory thinking– in front of pupils?
How much could I reveal about my own learning projects with all their ups and downs?

2. A big idea to Model the Learning Process.

Primary and Secondary

The school as a learning organisation

You have decided that you want to develop your students as emotionally intelligent learners who are cognitively skilled, socially adept and strategically aware. However, this is unlikely to happen unless teachers themselves adopt these qualities, modelling and surfacing the behaviours they wish to instil in their students.

Similarly, teachers will find it difficult to do this unless, the school, as an organisation, does itself display these qualities. Thus in adopting a focus on learning the school needs to act in ways that:

ensures its own improvement as an organisation;
ensures its teachers grow as confident, interdependent, risk taking professionals, who in turn..
guide students to become self-regulating learners. It’s a cascade effect.

As John Hattie says in Visible Learning for Teachers:

“The remarkable feature of the evidence is that the greatest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers”

A Learning School is a school that:

is Emotionally Engaged:

Takes risks in pursuit of its long-term goals;
Is tenacious;
Is resilient and optimistic in the face of difficulty;
Maintains focus on what it sees as important;
Experiments and learns from its mistakes.

is cognitively skilled:

Is interested in and questions how things might be different;
Senses how things are inter-connected;
Is efficient and methodical;
Creates its own understandings for itself;
Makes enterprising, opportunistic use of what is available.

is socially adept:

Is inclusive;
Is led by a team that consults and coaches;
Values all contributions and contributors;
Is outward looking and networked with other schools / professionals;
Learns and functions as a team.

is strategically aware:

Has a vision and plan of action to achieve it;
Initiates;
Monitors, evaluates and and adapts;
Focuses the important rather than the urgent, and knows the difference;
Understands how it learns.

Ask yourself

How well does this describe your school?
What might your school need to do differently?
What might you need to do differently?

3. Quick wins to Coach learners.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Use the ‘support to continue’ technique: questions not answers

If students freeze when they are wrestling with something they find tricky, offer supportive questions not answers. A basic support to continue is ‘What might you do next?’, and when this has been done simply ask the question again.

To extend the ‘support to continue’ approach, try using phrases like:

What have you already tried? What else might work?
Why is this proving difficult? What is it that you can’t do?
What did you do last time?
I wonder what you did to move on?

Secondary

Letting students ‘get on with it’

Experiment with intervening only when absolutely necessary – stand back, listen and watch, and let the learning happen.

Teachers are constantly walking a tightrope – when/whether/how to intervene, how much support to offer, how much challenge to inject etc. It is in these ways that teachers scaffold the learning for their students, offering just the right balance of challenge and support to keep students working towards the edge of their comfort zone. But if teachers always scaffold learning in this way, when will students develop the skills required to manage their own learning for themselves?

Primary

Encouraging pupils to slow down, notice, and appraise strategies and steps.

Becoming curious about the strategies they are using. Try asking . .

Give it a go, you can always try another approach if that doesn’t work.
What could you do if it goes wrong?
What else might work?
Where will you seek help from?
Is this sufficiently challenging for you?
How are you planning to go about it?
Do you have any fall-back plans?

Secondary

From ‘I’m stuck ‘ To ‘I’m stuck because ..’

Encourage students to identify the cause of their stuckness. Move students from saying “I’m stuck” to ” I’m stuck because…” Naming the problem will often suggest a reasonable next step.

It’s also useful at this stage to insist that students can’t call themselves ‘stuck’ unless they have tried to apply at least 1 solution.

In the early stages this is a strategy for becoming unstuck, but over time as students’ internalise and use ‘I’m stuck because‘ it develops into a self-coaching strategy.

4. A big idea to Coach learners.

Primary and Secondary

Coaching approaches

“Expert tutors often do not help very much. They hang back, letting the student manage as much as possible. And when things go awry, rather than help directly they raise questions: ‘Could you explain this step again? How did you… ?’” (Mark Lepper)

When we are curious we are genuinely interested in learning. Curiosity lies at the heart of coaching, hence coaches are effective listeners and ask questions to open dialogue without sounding like an interrogation. Coaching aims to enable people to see what they are doing more clearly and discover their own ways to improve. A coaching approach:

helps people to explore their challenges, problems and goals
provides an objective view of peoples actions to enable them to see things as as they really are
enhances motivation and raises self esteem
builds curiosity and encourages learning

Above all, coaches resist offering solutions. Offering solutions does little to secure learning as the student hasn’t been allowed to confront and engage with the problem and find their way forward. Learning powered teachers adopt a coaching role.

Ask yourself:

What is the balance between telling and coaching in my classroom currently?

5. Quick wins to Devolve Responsibility.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Students monitoring their own learning climate.

A bit of laminated card and a clothes peg. Absorbed or Distracted? Too Easy or Too Hard? Stuck or Doing Fine? Interested or Bored?

The beginnings of moving the responsibility for monitoring towards the learner.

Secondary

Students monitoring their own work.

Share, or better still, agree with students the success criteria. Design a checklist for students to use to keep an eye on how it is going, to be used as an aide-memoire while working and as a final check before assessment.

Primary

Stuck Posters

Without strategies for getting unstuck, it is inevitable that students turn to you for help – “! can’t do it”!

Design and agree a stuck poster and insist that students try things from it before seeking help from you. It shifts responsibility for getting unstuck away fro you and towards the learner.

Secondary

Stuck Posters . . . need to ‘grow up’.

Older students should have a wider range of unsticking prompts than younger ones.

In case you are wondering, WWILLWIF stands for ‘What Will It Look Like When It’s Finished’ – visualising the end product in order to ‘see’ what needs doing.

6. A big idea to Devolve Responsibility.

Primary and Secondary

Devolving responsibility

Another important way of surfacing learning is to let students do more of it; to become more active in the learning process. Active learners are not only offered more opportunities to decide what to do, but are also actively learning through the explicit review of their own experience.

The focus on students’ activity is learning rather than performing, hence the teacher makes sure that:

there’s plenty of collaborative activity, since this helps students to see each other as resources (not rivals) for learning
students can make choices about what and how to learn (high levels of learner autonomy)
students experience failure as a necessary and useful part of learning (tolerating uncertainty, mess, error and initial failure)
students are given a chance to talk more – and adults talking less
students experience more open-ended activities – and create their own
students have more opportunity to spend longer on an activity, to feed their interest/engagement in it
students establish high-level goals for their own learning, based on challenge and quality feedback including their own
students have access to learning experiences that are under- rather than over engineered, with elements of ambiguity
students can decide on admissible outcomes

This shift to more learner involvement offers deep professional satisfaction and a new set of learning relationships.

Ask yourself:

How many of the above do I use in order to enable my students to become better learners?

How frequently do I offer such opportunities?

Primary and Secondary

What do you think?

Have you considered the importance of making learning a shared responsibility in order to avoid creating a dependency culture?
Which aspects of making learning a shared responsibility are already embedded in your classroom culture?
Which aspects might need attention?
To what extent does the balance of responsibility reinforce or undermine your commitment to building better learners?

Make a note of…

One thing you could easily do differently in your own classroom to further share responsibility for learning.
How you will monitor the impact of this change.

2. Ideas to practise

Practical ideas to encourage changing learning relationships.

Primary and Secondary

The ideas presented can, on the whole, be used in both primary and secondary phases with minor amendments.

In the early stages, devolving more responsibility to learners might simply include:

creating opportunities for students to ask more questions
offering students ways of getting themselves unstuck
giving students more responsibility for monitoring their own learning

Despite giving more responsibility to learners it still leaves you with plenty to do! Your role becomes one of modelling learning processes and styling your teaching as a learning coach.

1. Model the learning process.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Share your learning

Tell your learners about some of your own real life problems because it becomes a powerful motivator and a useful tool for discussing alternative plans of actions.

One way to start off the week is to share with students one or two real life problems you had to deal with over the weekend. Your students will be fascinated. It helps them to see you as human with problems and, importantly, that these problems could be shared and talked about.

Secondary

Share your own goals

Share, with students, something that you personally are trying to achieve, and how you are going about achieving it. Talk about plans, milestones, stumbling blocks, resources, time frames etc.

The key ideas to get over are:

that success usually results from effort and following a planned course of action, and rarely happens ‘by accident’;
that by thinking ahead we can influence the future.

Primary

Model ‘how to’

Try the following steps for whatever behaviour you are modelling;

introduce the behaviour e.g. how to find something in an index;
explain the behaviour, explaining why the information is important;
model the behaviour, showing how you do it;
review what you have done, ask students to tell you what you did;
reflect on the use of the behaviour, where else the behaviour can be applied.

Secondary

Show yourself as a practising subject specialist

Your students spend much of their time watching you teach a subject… be it Maths, or Science, or History or . . . .

But when do they get to see teachers being Mathematicians, or Scientists, or Historians, practising their subject specialism rather than purveying it; wrestling with it rather than effortlessly talking about it; making mistakes and working at the edge of their comfort zone rather than repeating things that were mastered long ago?

Inspire your students to become mathematicians, or scientists, or historians, by finding occasions when you can model this in real time;

learn alongside students
demonstrate the attitudes of a lifelong learner
make mistakes
talk through pros and cons of various actions
work at the edge of your comfort zone.

We have come across science teachers who always have an experiment of their own on the go; English teachers who write poetry alongside their students; Artists who undertake the same activities as their classes; Mathematicians who are publicly exploring taxing problems together etc.

Can you find opportunities to model yourself not as a subject teacher, but as a lifelong student of your subject?

2. Coach learners.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Use the ‘support to continue’ technique: questions not answers

To extend the ‘support to continue’ approach, try using phrases like:

What have you already tried? What else might work?
Why is this proving difficult? What is it that you can’t do?
What did you do last time?
I wonder what you did to move on?

Secondary

Let students ‘get on with it’

Experiment with intervening only when absolutely necessary – stand back, listen, watch, and let the learning happen.

You are constantly walking a tightrope – when/whether/how to intervene, how much support to offer, how much challenge to inject etc. How much do you scaffold the learning for your students, offering just the right balance of challenge and support? How do you keep students working at the edge of their comfort zone. But how can students develop the behaviours required to manage their own learning for themselves?

Experiment with responding only when they ask you a question or seek help, but first agree that each student can only seek help once in a given lesson. With younger students, give each a ‘help’ card, which you collect after they have ‘used’ it. It makes them more careful and strategic about when they seek ‘help’, and enables you to respond to genuine concerns, so resisting the temptation to ‘over help’.

Primary

Encourage students to slow down, notice, and appraise steps.

Becoming curious about the strategies they are using or might use. Try asking . .

Give it a go, you can always try another approach if that doesn’t work.
What could you do if it goes wrong?
What else might work?
How are other people trying to do this?
Have you seen something like this before? What did you do then?
Where will you seek help from?
How are you planning to go about it?
Do you have any fall-back plans?

Secondary

Have students identify the cause of stuckness

From ‘I’m stuck ‘ To ‘I’m stuck because ..’

Encourage students to identify the cause (why) of their stuckness. Move students from saying “I’m stuck” to ” I’m stuck because…” Naming the problem will often suggest a reasonable next step.

It’s also useful at this stage to insist that students can’t call themselves ‘stuck’ unless they have tried to apply at least 1 solution.

In the early stages this is a strategy for becoming unstuck, but over time as students internalise and use ‘I’m stuck because‘ it develops into a self-coaching strategy.

3. Devolve responsibility.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Have students monitor their own learning climate.

Use laminated card and a clothes peg. Print on Absorbed – Distracted or Too Easy – Too Hard or Stuck – Doing Fine? Interested – Bored. etc. Laminate and provide a peg.

Have students use them during lessons to help them monitor and become more conscious of their feelings about learning

This is just a small beginning in devolving the responsibility for learning towards the learners.

Secondary

Have students monitor their own work.

Share, or better still, agree with students the success criteria. Design a checklist for students to use to keep an eye on how it is going. Use as an aide-memoire while working and as a final check before teacher assessment.

Primary

Make stuck prompts public

Students need strategies for getting unstuck, without them it’s inevitable that they turn to you for help – “1 can’t do it”!

Design and agree a range of stuck prompts and insist that students try a couple of things before seeking help from elsewhere, or eventually from you. It shifts responsibility for getting unstuck away from you and towards the learner.

Secondary

Ensure stuck prompts . . . ‘grow up’.

Public stuck prompts should reflect the independence trajectory the school expects students to attain. Hence stuck prompts in primary year 3 will be different to those in year 6. In secondary schools the prompts might be subject specific but still show a sense of growth or progression. Older students should have a wider and deeper range of unsticking prompts than younger ones.

In case you are wondering, WWILLWIF stands for ‘What Will It Look Like When It’s Finished’ – visualising the end product in order to ‘see’ what needs doing.

Primary and Secondary

Offer choices about what to do and how to do it

Offer learners a wide range of choices.

Every time you are able to offer learners a choice their engagement is likely to increase and learners are increasingly inclined to set themselves a level of challenge that’s right for them. This doesn’t mean turning lock stock and barrel to child initiated learning overnight. It is possible to start with small-scale choices, fitting within current practices.

Choices in what to learn.

Which of this set of problems will you begin with?
Where in this text will you start reading?
Which story shall we read to the class at the end of the day?
What questions do you want to address in this topic?
Which aspect of this will you explore?

Choices in how to learn.

Which reading / learning place will you choose in the classroom?
Will you present your account to others?
How much shall we operate alone, in small groups, as a class?
What activities will help us learn this the best?
Which strategy will you choose?
When / where will you choose to do this?

Primary and Secondary

What do you think?

Have you considered the importance of making learning a shared responsibility in order to avoid creating a dependency culture?
Which aspects of making learning a shared responsibility are already embedded in your classroom culture?
Which aspects might need attention?
To what extent does the balance of responsibility reinforce or undermine your commitment to building better learners?

Make a note of…

One thing you could easily do differently in your own classroom to further share responsibility for learning.
How you will monitor the impact of this change.

1. What is . . . taking responsibility for their own learning?

The key idea

Relating for learning explores the changing roles and responsibilities of teachers and learners, where learning becomes a shared responsibility. Students are given more responsibility for their own learning, the role of the teacher changes from ‘the sage on the stage’ to ‘the guide by your side’; the role of the student moves from ‘passenger’ to ‘crew’ and ultimately ‘pilots of their own learning’.

In some classrooms, responsibility rests almost exclusively with the teacher. The teacher decides the what and how of learning, and does most of the questioning. The main focus is on student performance. Most tasks are undertaken individually. The teacher assumes responsibility for assessment and adopts a ‘fount of knowledge’ role. In such classrooms, students believe and accept that responsibility for learning lies with the teacher and become increasingly dependent on their teachers.

But does it have to be like this? What if learners are enabled to take responsibility for their own learning? How would classroom culture change?

The key features of this cultural shift are:

Responsibility for learning is gradually devolved to the students
Students are given more of a stake in the process of their own learning
The teacher becomes the learning coach; enabling students to find their own ways to improve
Collaborative activity helps students to see each other as resources for learning
Students being given choices about what and how to learn
Students talk more, adults talk less
Teachers model being a learner
Processes promote, enable and support the best of what we know about learning.

There are three aspects to the cultural shift:

Aspect 1. Modelling the learning process – the ways in which we show that we, too, are learners. It indicates a shift away from teachers being ‘all-knowing subject specialists’ to displaying uncertainty, to sharing their own learning stories, to learning ‘aloud’, to learning alongside students.

‘Through our modelling we have the opportunity to nurture the very attitudes, values and behaviours we want to see in our students’ Ron Richhart Creating Cultures of thinking.

Modelling to build a learning culture

The way we act in classrooms sends messages about what we think and value. The more we model the behaviours we wish to see in children, the more they will pick up on them. If you model patience, forgiveness, and openness to ideas this will begin to set the tone for the sort of classroom where developing learning power can flourish. Importantly it will make children feel safe and from this feeling of safety they will be able to take risks in learning.

Noticing and commenting on everyone’s strengths (not weaknesses), valuing everyone’s contributions, noticing and commenting on their use of learning behaviours all helps to get the balance between safety and challenge. Here you can dare to be a learner knowing no one will laugh at you if you get something wrong or you don’t know something.

Model being calm, orderly and and accessible and the classroom will become likewise.

Modelling to show what it means to be a learner

One of the more obvious ways of unpicking learning, putting it on show, is to model being a good learner to students. This type of modelling is about showing how you are a learner too; showing that you are a confident finder outer.

Take your students behind the scenes of learning and share with them some of the uncertain thinking of learning.
Learn aloud and take students through how you would or could work out a problem. Model the thought processes (including how you feel) that you as a learner go through. This is important because a lot of the skill of learning only manifests itself in the inner world of the learner.
Expose the thinking, feeling and decision making of a learner-in-action to help students actually see and hear how learning works. This thinking aloud will help students become aware of the thought processes they might have running through their head while learning.
Model your own fallibility in order to show it’s OK not to know.
Model that you willing to stick at problems; to research it; to spend time just thinking about it. You can do this by thinking out loud with the children when you are teaching by saying “I might be wrong about that.” ” I’m not to sure about that at the moment” ” I’ll have to come back to you about that”
Sharing your own experiences as a learner can be very powerful for boosting learning power in the classroom.. Students will be fascinated to hear you go through the same struggles as they do.

Ask yourself:

How much do I learn aloud– externalise my own exploratory thinking– in front of pupils?
How much could I reveal about my own learning projects with all their ups and downs?

Aspect 2. Coaching approaches – moving away from ‘telling’ whenever possible. It is one of the hardest of balancing acts: knowing when you can coach and when you have to tell requires the teacher to have a deep understanding of both the subject matter and the learner.

Coaching approaches

helps people to explore their challenges, problems and goals
provides an objective view of peoples actions to enable them to see things as as they really are
enhances motivation and raises self-esteem
builds curiosity and encourages learning

Ask yourself:

What is the balance between telling and coaching in my classroom currently?

Aspect 3: Devolving Responsibility – shifting the emphasis towards learners taking increasing responsibility for their own development. It involves a shift towards students asking more of the questions, monitoring their own learning, doing more of the work, making more choices, pursuing their own lines of enquiry.

Devolving responsibility

Another important way of bringing learning out of the shadows is to let students do more of it; to become more active in the learning process. Active learners are not only offered more opportunities to decide what to do, but are also actively learning through the explicit review of their own experience.

The focus is on how students are learning rather than how they perform, hence you will want to make sure that:

there’s plenty of collaborative activity, since this helps students to see each other as resources (not rivals) for learning
students can make choices about what and how to learn (high levels of learner autonomy)
students experience failure as a necessary and useful part of learning (tolerating uncertainty, mess, error and initial failure)
students are given a chance to talk more – and adults talking less
students experience more open-ended activities – and create their own
students have more opportunity to spend longer on an activity, to feed their interest/engagement in it
students establish high-level goals for their own learning, based on challenge and quality feedback including their own
students have access to learning experiences that are under- rather than over engineered, with elements of ambiguity
students can decide on admissible outcomes

This shift to more learner involvement offers deep professional satisfaction and a new set of learning relationships.

Ask yourself:

How many of the above do I use in order to enable my students to become better learners?
How frequently do I offer such opportunities?

Ask yourself:

To what extent do my students take responsibility for their own learning?

Now, move to section 2 to explore some quick wins that will help you to Model, Coach and Devolve in your classroom.

3. Moving my practice on

Teachers are in the habit forming business

As a teacher you are an influential character builder and so need to be mindful of how your classroom culture helps students to form, replace, re-form and strengthen their learning habits. Which aspects of your classroom culture are helpful in this respect, and which are perhaps less so? After all, if you are unable or unwilling to make changes to your classroom culture, learners are unlikely to change either!

What to stop and start

Here are a few ideas you might want to try. Take it steady, this way of teaching can be a big but exciting shift so it’s worth doing it slowly and thoughtfully.

Look first at the Stop/avoid ideas. Some of these are far from trivial but it’s best to try to remove them before starting on the Start/do more of, Start slowly and Experiment with ideas.

What do you think?

Which of the ideas appealed to you most?
Can you see ways of incorporating these into your classroom?
Which would make the biggest difference to your students?
Which would make your life easier?

Make a note of…

Ideas that you want to try and the impact you hope they will have on your classroom culture and on your students.

4. Developing my talking for learning

Talking about learning

One of the key elements in collaborative learning is the promotion of dialogue. Dialogue in which learners explain things to each other enhances understanding. As learners become more adept in talking themselves through problems and contexts, their “outer speech” develops, and so does their “inner speech”, giving greater power of self direction.

If you have not been used to talking about learning try opening a discussion about learning itself. What it is, how it feels, what it’s for etc. Here are some starters to think about:

What is learning about?
What is it not?
When is it best?
Where is it best?
What helps your learning?
What steps do you take in learning?
How does it feel?
What surprises have you found?
What hinders learning?
What do you learn for?
What do you do with your learning?

3. Ideas for classroom practice – ORIGINAL

3. Ideas for classroom practice

Some ideas to encourage a learning-friendly culture that supports the three aspects of Talking for Learning.

For the aspects of Talking for Learning:

A couple of quick wins for Exploring Learning as a Process to try immediately;
A big idea to shift classroom culture in relation to Exploring Learning as a Process.
A couple of quick wins for Creating a Language for Learning to try immediately;
A big idea to shift classroom culture in relation to Creating a Language for Learning.
A couple of quick wins for Nudging Learning Forward to try immediately;
A big idea to shift classroom culture in relation to Nudging Learning Forward.

1. Quick wins to Explore Learning as a Process.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Individual Scrapbook

Students are encouraged to think about themselves as learners in all contexts — inside and outside of school time. This youngster has reflected on her ballet skills and how she had used her learning power to help her to improve.

Secondary

Explore ‘What do good learners do?’

Open up a discussion about ‘what good learners do’.

If you have already been engaging with students about the ‘how’ of learning, you should hear the way you talk about learning reflected back to you – they should be beginning to use the school’s chosen language for learning.

Be prepared to be surprised at how limited student perceptions may be if you have yet to broach these issues. Limitations will include the lack of a language to discuss learning beyond things like ‘try hard’, and some may still hang on to ideas like ‘do things quickly’ or ‘get things right’.

Build a class display about the attributes of an effective learner, and use it as a nudge to reflect on the process of learning.

Primary

Here’s an interesting story from Nayland Primary school in Suffolk.

We use circle time to discuss our learning each week and to positively identify children who have done well. Initially the children who were seen as being traditionally successful were selected; good students as opposed to good learners. However, as discussion gradually changed through modelling from the teacher, the children began to realise that just because someone didn’t get it ‘right’ didn’t mean they weren’t a good learner. We talked about Karl who had really persevered with his learning in a science investigation by repeating the test when it had gone wrong. We also thought about Sophie who had imitated the process her friend had used to solve a Maths problem, showing that copying how it had been done was fine. The children now value how they learn and are beginning to take greater notice of how others learn too.

Secondary

Reflecting on the learning behaviours that are being used.

Use the rating wheel, which is written in student-speak, to encourage reflection on the learning behaviours that are being enabled. Colour in a lot of the ‘spoke’ if it has been used a lot, colour in little if the behaviour has been used rarely / fleetingly.

Use at the end of a lesson, or in tutor time to reflect on the previous day /week of learning?
Download, copy, laminate and use alongside the traditional mini whiteboard?
Put a copy in student planners?

2. A big idea to Explore Learning as a Process.

Primary and Secondary

Exploring learning as a process

Deep talk about learning is what sets learning powered classrooms apart. Learning and how it works isn’t just talked about at the beginning of a term or year but is embedded in the everyday conversations of the classroom.

Conversations will include noticing things about learning:

What do we mean when we say learning?
When and where is it best?
What helps you to do it?
How does it feel? What hinders your learning?

It goes on into encouraging pupils to talk about their learning:

What made it so good?
What did you contribute?
How did you make sense of that?

And later learners can be enabled to become meta-learners with questions such as:

How do you plan to go about learning?
How will you monitor how it’s going?
How can you review how your learning has gone?

All the while a general interest in learning can be kept fresh by references to media reports and articles about the brain and the mind…. visualisation in sport coaching, or what happens to learning in Alzheimer’s Disease, or how babies learn to talk.

Learning as a process is brought to life by making it the subject of conversations.

Ask yourself:

How much do you talk with pupils about the process (not content) of learning itself?

3. Quick wins to Create a Language for Learning.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Hooks: puppets invested with learning habits

Create one puppet for each of the psychological domains. Help pupils to understand the learning capacities (like Noticing or Collaborating or Persevering) that they are endowed with. It may well be that these characters start with only a few capacities that are added to as they progress.

Add bags containing well-done stickers to each puppet and it becomes a Nudging learning forward strategy.

Secondary

Use icons as an aide-memoire for learning behaviours

You could simply ‘borrow’ these, but much better to get students to design and agree their own as a means of developing a conversation about the meaning of learning and growing your own learning language.

Having got your own set of icons, how will you use them to remind students of how they need to be / are learning?

Primary

Encourage talk about learning behaviours by turning fiction characters into learning heroes

A popular way to introduce capacities is to consider the learning behaviours of characters they know. You could look at characters from children’s books through the lens of learning power – which learning powers does the cat possess in Room on the Broom?

Secondary

Using famous characters to link effective learning behaviours and success in the wider world.

Help students to make links between famous characters they know and the learning behaviours that they possess.

The famous character might be a prominent sporting hero, someone from TV, a politician, a character being studied in a novel, a well-known person from History . . .

The point is to help students to understand how their learning behaviours are linked to the success of the chosen character.

4. A big idea to Create the Language for Learning.

Primary and Secondary

Creating a language for learning

Building Learning Power is all about being able to:

name
recognise
talk about using
select for use when appropriate
become skilled in using
evaluate the effect of

students’ learning habits

Using and extending the language adds breadth and depth to how teachers and learners talk about, understand and improve learning.

Emotional language – how we feel
The first aspect of the language framework is about helping students to lock onto learning; to resist distraction; to become absorbed and to stay engaged despite the ebb and flow of learning.
Learning behaviours include; absorption, managing distraction, attentive noticing, perseverance.

Cognitive language – how we think
The second aspect of the learning powered mind is about being able to draw on a wide range of learning methods or ways of thinking.
Learning behaviours include; questioning, making links, imagination, reasoning, capitalising.

Social language – how we relate
The next aspect of the supple learning mind is about being able to make use of relationships in the pursuit of learning.
Learning behaviours include; inter-dependence, collaboration, empathy and attentive listening, imitation.

Strategic language – how we manage our learning
The fourth aspect of a supple learning mind is about building the ability to be reflective, to manage the learning process, to think profitably about learning and ourselves as learners; to become meta-learners.
Learning behaviours include; planning, revising or refining, distilling, meta-learning.

Use of the language becomes essential in what people notice about learning. When used abundantly it makes learning visible and public.

Ask yourself:

Would using and extending this language framework be useful in my classroom?

5. Quick wins to Nudge Learning Forward.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Written Feedback

Here are a couple of examples of written feedback which name the types of learning behaviours being used. Using learning language enables teachers to be more precise about the sort of learning effort a student has used. Beneficially this means the teacher has noticed more precisely how students are learning.

Here, Miss Delaney tells Thomas he is a brilliant imitator. She has noticed that he was successful because of his skill at Imitation, is making him aware of this, and praising him for it.

And here, feedback helps Matthew to understand how his ‘super reasoning skills’ helped to assure success. The teacher is intentionally linking learning behaviours and curricular success.

Secondary

Oral feedback

Looking out for it, catching them doing it, talking about it and nudging them forward is the name of the game.

For example, if you were wanting to help students to evaluate progress towards a goal, you might use phrases like:

Do you think that’s coming along well.
Have you checked your emerging outcome against your original goals?
Are you still on track?
What would make you change track?
Did you have to amend your goals part way through? Why was that?
What are you going to do about . . . . . ?
Do you think there’s anything you could have done better, differently?
How might you get better at that? What would be a better/alternative way of doing it?
Are you satisfied with how it is going?

But what prompts / nudges would you use in relation the effectiveness of a team? Or to the quality of the questions being generated? Or the extent to which the work was sufficiently challenging?

To what extent do we need to ‘plan’ our informal oral feedback?

Primary

Supportive marking comments

If developing learning is to be as important as successfully acquiring knowledge and skills, feedback needs to reflect this.

Well done – you thought carefully about what you were wanting to achieve and followed your plan.

This was difficult, but you gave it a really good go. Well done for not taking the easy way out!

I like the way you took up the challenges today. I can see you really enjoyed it.

Secondary

Use feedback to link learning behaviours to curriculum success.

What we feel is sufficiently important to give written feedback on speaks volumes about what we believe is important. Does your feedback adequately reflect you commitment to building better learners?

Your well-reasoned argument is well researched and convincing. A couple of other sources would be useful.

I want you to look critically at this piece of work. Is it good ? Is it good enough ? How could it be even better ?

Are you happy that this meets the standards that you have set for yourself? Does it accomplish what you intended ? How would you assess the piece against your own criteria ?

6. A big idea to Nudge Learning Forward.

Primary and Secondary

Nudging learning forward

Prompting learning

The language of learning can help teachers to think about how they might talk in a way that helps to cultivate the learning behaviours and help students to gain a better personalised understanding of content.

Teachers can turn each of the learning behaviours into sets of casual prompts or nudges to move students along in learning. For example, to nudge curiosity/questioning: “What’s odd about that? What does that make you wonder? What do you want to find out? How else could you do that?”
Teachers’ classroom talk is all focused on the process and experience of learning itself. Sometimes teacher comments encourage students to pay attention to how they are learning. Teacher comments ask them to slow down and notice and appraise the strategies and steps they are using along the way. E.g. “What would have made this easier for you? Where else could you use that?” This helps students to become more reflective and thoughtful about their own learning.

Promoting self-talk

Since we want young people to turn out to be robust confident learners we have to talk with them in terms of a growth mindset.

Teachers develop their students’ interest in the learnable skills and strategies.
Teacher comments focus on effort, habit and disposition, focusing students on how to get better by looking for ways to try harder or differently.
Students are steered away from carving the world into things they are ‘good at’ or ‘not good at’.

Feedback prompts

In the learning centred classroom feedback can be seen at three levels. Notice that all the prompts ask rather than tell.

Task-Level Feedback Prompts (adapted from Nuckles et al, 2009)

• Does this answer meet the success criteria? • Is this right? • Could you elaborate on this answer? • What aspect of your response to this assignment are you pleased with/unhappy about? • What other information do you need to meet the criteria? • What’s the sticking point in this task?

Process-Level Feedback Prompts (adapted from Nuckles et al, 2009)

• What strategies are you using? • Are there more efficient strategies you could use? • What other Qs could you ask about this task? • Do you grasp the concept underpinning this task? • Have you done anything similar to this before?

Self-Regulation-Level Feedback prompts (adapted from Nuckles et al, 2009)

• What would be the best way of checking your work? • How could you reflect on these answers? • What happened when you …? • How can you account for …? • What learning goals have you achieved? • How have your ideas changed? • What aspect of this work could you now teach to others?

Ask yourself:

What proportion of my feedback is on the same lines as the examples above?

What would happen if I started using feedback like this?

Primary and Secondary

What do you think?

Have you considered the importance of what we talk about and how we talk about it in determining classroom culture?
Which aspects of talking about the process of learning are already embedded in your classroom culture?
Which aspects might need attention?
To what extent does classroom discourse reinforce or undermine your commitment to building better learners?

Make a note of…

One thing you could easily do differently in your own classroom to focus talk on the process of learning.
How you will monitor the impact of this change.

2. Ideas to practise

Practical ideas to encourage Talking for Learning.

Primary and Secondary

The ideas presented can, on the whole, be used in both primary and secondary phases with minor amendments.

The early stages of introducing a learning language might simply include:

using a range of physical ‘hooks’ to help students remember the learning behaviours being introduced;
mentioning use of learning behaviours in your written feedback;
starting to use the word ‘learning’ rather than ‘work’ for classroom activity;
fostering learning dialogue in groups;
having students relate their learning stories.

1. Explore Learning as a Process.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Change perceptions about ‘good’ learning

Use circle time to discuss learning each week and to positively identify children who have done well. Initially students who are seen as being traditionally successful are likely to be selected; good students as opposed to good learners. However, as you introduce learning behaviours the discussion will gradually change as the children begin to realise that just because someone doesn’t get it ‘right’ doesn’t mean they aren’t a good learner. The talk will shift to students who had really persevered with, for example, a science investigation by repeating the test when it had gone wrong, or those who had imitated the process a friend had used to solve a Maths problem, showing that copying how it had been done was fine. The children come to value how they learn and begin to take greater notice of how others learn too.

Secondary

Explore understanding of ‘good’ learning.

Open up a discussion about ‘what good learners do?‘

If you have already engaged students in the ‘how’ of learning, you should be hearing the way you have talked about learning reflected back to you – they should be beginning to use the school’s chosen language for learning.

Build a class display about the attributes of an effective learner, and use it to nudge students to reflect on the process of learning.

Primary

Explore key aspects of a learning process.

Capture learning stories

Encourage students to think and talk about themselves as learners in all contexts — inside and outside of school time. This youngster has reflected on her ballet skills and how she had used her learning power behaviours to help her to improve.

Secondary

Explore key aspects of a learning process.

Reflect on the learning behaviours being used.

Use a learning behaviour rating wheel that is written in student-speak, to support reflection on the learning behaviours being used. Students colour in the learning behaviour ‘sectors” to indicate which have been used a lot or a little.

Use at the end of a lesson, or in tutor time to reflect on the previous day /week of learning?
Download, copy, laminate and use alongside the traditional mini whiteboard?
Put a copy in student planners?

Primary

Explore key aspects of a learning process.

Encourage students to maintain focus and manage distraction.

For example, build up students’ understanding of being distracted:

How did you keep going?
What could we do when we feel we are losing focus?
What sorts of things distract you most?
When are friends a distraction – or a source of inspiration?
What sorts of learning environment might be appropriate for different types of learning?
What internal distractions might we have? (tiredness, emotions, hunger, failure).
How could you let us know if we are distracting you?
You’re doing well with avoiding that distraction.

Secondary

Explore key aspects of the learning process

Slow answering down.

Give students the opportunity to articulate their thinking before answering. Try:

30 seconds silent thinking before taking any answers.
Brainstorm in pairs first for 2-3 mins.
Write some thoughts down before answering.
Discuss with a neighbour first.

Primary

Improve key aspects of the learning process.

Pose questions rather than give answers.

When students become stuck it’s more productive to ask them questions rather than to provide answers. The advantage of asking questions over telling is that you are in a better position to monitor how students are learning when they are doing the explaining. Ask students:

how they might check their answers
why they think they are right or wrong.
to work with each other on this to encourage a learning community rather than just teacher-student dialogues.

Secondary

Explore key aspects of the learning process

Discuss what makes a good question.

Use this to show the difference between open and closed questions. Follow up with students coming up with questions on a topic and then decide which is best.

Invert the question. Invert the question to elicit explicit reasoning.

Is Germany a democracy? becomes What does it mean for a country to be a democracy?

Primary and Secondary

Work versus Learning

From:

Work

Using the word work to describe classroom activity.

For example “Get on with your work” or “Have you finished your work” or Where is your homework?

To:

Learning

Using the word learning to describe classroom activity.

For example “How is your learning coming along?” or “Is this piece of learning finished” or Home learning

Teachers have traditionally talked much more about ‘work’ than they have about ‘learning’. One study carried out in London schools in 2002 compared the frequency of use of these two words, and found that ‘work’ was used 98% of the time, and ‘learning’ only 2%.

Research has found that when classroom activity is called learning or ‘play’ groups find the activity more pleasurable than when it’s referred to as ‘work’. Students also become much more locked on to it, their minds wander much less, they are more imaginative, and they learn more from the activity.

Now there is nothing wrong with the word ‘work’ but it doesn’t invite you to get interested in the activity itself. You will be pleasantly surprised at the effect on your students if you talk less about ‘work’ and more about the process of learning itself.

2. Create a Language for Learning.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Invest toys or puppets with learning habits

Help students to understand the learning behaviours (like Noticing or Collaborating or Persevering) by having toys that are endowed with the behaviours. It may well be that you start with only a few behaviours / soft toys which are added to over time.

The toys help students make ready links between the behaviour and the toys. However, these will work even better if the toy…animal. bird, fish etc… is in nature invested with the characteristics of that learning behaviour. Don’t just work with alliterations like…cat and capitalising. Better to have an Emperor Penguin to represent Interdependence…and why would that be?

Secondary

Use Clip Art icons as an aide-memoire for learning behaviours

Having agreed a set of icons, think about how you could use them to remind students of how they need to be / are learning.

Primary

Extend talk about learning behaviours… turn fictional characters into learning heroes

click to enlarge

A popular way to extend familiarity with learning behaviours is to consider the learning behaviours of well-known fictional characters. Look at characters from children’s books through the lens of learning power – which learning powers does the cat possess in Room on the Broom or the fox in Fantastic Mr Fox and so forth.

Secondary

Extend understanding of learning behaviours…link them to understanding famous characters.

Help students to make links between familiar famous characters and the learning behaviours that they may have possessed.

The famous character might be a prominent sporting hero, someone from TV, a politician, a character being studied in a novel, a well-known person from History . . .

The point is to help students to understand how the learning behaviours are linked and contribute to the success of the chosen character.

Primary and Secondary

Turn pessimistic to optimistic student talk.

From:

Pessimistic student talk

‘I can never understand what my teacher is going on about’, or ‘Maths is always too hard for me’

To:

Optimistic student talk

‘I am finding it really hard to understand this today; maybe I should look back at what I did last time.’

‘I know I can get stressed when I have to calculate angles, so I’ll look at my checklist to remind me how I get started.’

Words like ‘never’ and ‘always’ can be damaging to learners. When students say ‘I can never understand what my teacher is going on about’, or ‘Maths is always too hard for me’, it suggests a pessimistic view of learning that’s unlikely to cultivate persistence and if it goes on it assumes the status of something that is permanent and unalterable. If ‘always’ or ‘never’ become sentences to fail for ever they breed a kind of learned helplessness. Keep a look out for such perceptions and help students to re-frame them.

3. Nudge Learning Forward.

Quick wins to get you going.

Primary

Point out learning behaviours being used.

In written feedback

Examples of written feedback that name the types of learning behaviours being used. Using the learning language enables you to be more precise about the sort of learning effort a student has used. Beneficially this means that you notice more precisely how students are learning.

click to enlarge

Here, Miss Delaney tells Thomas he is a brilliant imitator. She has noticed that he successfully used his Imitation ‘muscle’ to draw like Van Gogh. She is making him aware of this, and praising him for it.

click to enlarge

Here, feedback helps Matthew to understand how his ‘super reasoning skills’ helped to assure success. The teacher is intentionally linking these learning behaviours and curricular success.

Secondary

Point out learning behaviours being used.

In Oral feedback

Looking out for learning behaviour, noticing students doing it, talking about it and nudging them forward is the name of the game.

For example, if you were wanting to help students to evaluate progress towards a goal, you might use phrases like:

Do you think that’s coming along well.
Have you checked your emerging outcome against your original goals?
Are you still on track?
What would make you change tack?
Did you have to amend your goals part way through? Why was that?
What are you going to do about . . . . . ?
Do you think there’s anything you could have done better, differently?
How might you get better at that? What would be a better/alternative way of doing it?
Are you satisfied with how it is going?

But what prompts/nudges would you use in relation the effectiveness of a team? Or to the quality of the questions being generated? Or the extent to which the work was sufficiently challenging?

To what extent would you need to ‘plan’ your informal oral feedback?

Primary

Support the use of learning behaviours

Supportive marking comments

If developing learning is to be as important as successfully acquiring knowledge and skills, your feedback needs to reflect this.

Well done – you thought carefully about what you were wanting to achieve and followed your plan.

This was difficult, but you gave it a really good go. Well done for not taking the easy way out!

I like the way you took up the challenges today. I can see you really enjoyed it.

Secondary

Support the use of learning behaviours

Use feedback to link learning behaviours to curriculum success.

What you feel is sufficiently important to give written feedback on speaks volumes about what you believe is important. Does your feedback adequately reflect your commitment to building better learners?

Your well-reasoned argument is well researched and convincing. A couple of other sources would be useful.

I want you to look critically at this piece of learning. Does it meet the criteria? Is it good enough for you? How could it be even better?

Are you happy that this meets the standards that you have set for yourself? Does it accomplish what you intended? How would you assess the piece against your own criteria?

Primary

Nudge learning behaviours forward

Help students to learn how to share their ideas with others.

When developing students’ inclination to share their ideas ask:

What do you think?
Tell your friend what you are thinking?
What do you know about this?
Tell us about . . .
Who would like to tell us . . . .
What does xxx think
Say what you think

Secondary

Nudge learning behaviours forward

Encourage students to look for precise ways of proceeding.

Focus on sorting, sifting, probing questioning behaviours

Sorting/sifting
- Which parts of this data are worth keeping?
- Will this information shed light on any of my questions?
- Is this information reliable?
- How much of this information do I need to retain?
Probing
- What should we ask to get to the bottom of it?
- What is at the heart of this?
- Can we clear away everything that is not necessary?
- How can we separate the critical from the unimportant?

What do you think?

Have you considered the importance of what we talk about and how we talk about it in determining classroom culture?
Which aspects of talking about the process of learning are already embedded in your classroom culture?
Which aspects might need attention?
To what extent does classroom discourse reinforce or undermine your commitment to building better learners?

Make a note of…

One thing you could easily do differently in your own classroom to focus talk on the process of learning.
How you will monitor the impact of this change.

1. What is … talking about the ‘how’ of learning?

The key idea

Talking about learning is about the sort of language content and style that enhances learning, making learning the object of conversation. The way we express ourselves in the classroom creates a powerful linguistic environment that teaches young people the best of what we know about learning. The language of learning helps students to discuss, understand, and become conscious of using and improving their learning behaviours.

In many classrooms, talk is almost exclusively about the content of what will be, is being, or has been, learned. Talk about ‘how’ that learning could happen, is happening, has happened and could happen better, adds a further dimension to classroom discourse; a dimension that shifts the classroom culture to a embrace both the what and the how of learning. By focusing on the how students are enabled to take far greater control of their learning.

The key features of this cultural shift are:

The process of learning, rather than learning performance, becomes the object of conversation.
The gradual introduction of a learning language helps students to become conscious of using their learning behaviours.
Using and extending the breadth and depth of the learning language helps learners to talk about, understand and improve how they learn.
Encouraging learners to notice things about how they are learning, talking about their learning process and assessing how their learning is going means learners become meta-learners.

There are three main aspects to this cultural language shift:

Aspect 1: Exploring learning as a process – the ways in which you enable learners to explore and reflect on the process of learning. It’s a shift away from talking about the ‘what’ of learning and broadens classroom discourse to include conversations about the process of learning, the ‘how’ of learning.

Exploring learning as a process

Conversations will include noticing things about learning:

What do we mean when we say learning?
When and where is it best?
What helps you to do it?
How does it feel? What hinders your learning?

It goes on into encouraging students to talk about their learning:

What made it so good?
What did you contribute?
How did you make sense of that?

And later learners can be nudged towards becoming meta-learners with questions such as:

How do you plan to go about learning?
How will you monitor how it’s going?
How can you review how your learning has gone?

All the while a general interest in learning can be kept fresh by references to media reports and articles about the brain and the mind…. visualisation in sport coaching, or what happens to learning in Alzheimer’s Disease, or how babies learn to talk…

Learning as a process is brought to life by making it the subject of conversations.

Ask yourself:

How much do you talk with your students about the process (not content) of learning itself?

Which of the ideas above might you start using in your classroom?

Aspect 2: Creating a language for learning – helping learners to understand and use a language of sufficient precision and subtlety that enables them to describe, discuss and understand the learning process. The learning language begins with naming the learning behaviours of the four strands of a supple learning mind. (emotional, cognitive, social and strategic) It moves on to exploring what these are, when we use them, how we might get better at using them and how we can become a better learner.

Creating a language for learning

click to enlarge

Building a language of learning will enable your students to:

name
recognise
talk about using
select for use when appropriate
become skilled in using
evaluate the effect of using their learning habits

Using and extending the language of learning adds breadth and depth to how you and your learners talk about, understand and improve learning.

Cognitive language – how we think
The second aspect of the supple learning mind is about being able to draw on and use a wide range of learning methods or ways of thinking.
Learning behaviours include; questioning, making links, imagination, reasoning, capitalising.

Use of the language becomes essential in what people notice about learning. Using it abundantly makes learning visible and public.

Important Note:

Your learning language needs to operate at the very least at the depth of the 17 learning behaviours shown in coloured font above. Over time it will develop to ensure the superficial level of ‘being resilient’ or ‘being resourceful’ or ‘keep on trying’ will become subtle enough for learners to gain an understanding of learning as a process. See section 2 for ideas

Ask yourself:

Would using and extending this language framework be useful in my classroom?

Which of the four strands (emotional, cognitive, social, strategic.) would be a good place to start?

Aspect 3: Nudging learning forward – offering feedback, both written and oral, to help learners to improve as learners. This is about how we catch learners actually learning, alert them to it, remind them about it, suggest how they might get better at it. Nudging the learning process broadens feedback to include the learning behaviours employed as well as content.

Prompting learning

The language of learning can help you to think about how you might talk in a way that helps to cultivate the learning behaviours and help students to gain a better personalised understanding of content.

You can turn each of the learning behaviours into sets of casual prompts or nudges to move students along in learning. For example, to nudge curiosity/questioning:
- “What’s odd about that?
- What does that make you wonder?
- What do you want to find out?
- How else could you do that?”
Where your classroom talk is all focused on the process and the experience of learning itself your comments should encourage students to pay attention to how they are learning. Your comments could ask them to slow down and notice and appraise the strategies and steps they are using along the way:
- “What would have made this easier for you?
- Where else could you use that?”
- What’s making you do it that way?
This helps students to become more reflective and thoughtful about their own learning.

Promoting self-talk

Since you want young people to turn out to be robust confident learners you have to talk with them in terms of a growth mindset.

You develop your students’ interest in the learnable behaviours and strategies.
Your comments focus on effort, habit and disposition, focusing students on how to get better by looking for ways to try harder or differently.
You steer students away from carving the world into things they are ‘good at’ or ‘not good at’ since developing learning behaviours will help them to become better learners.

Feedback prompts

In the learning centred classroom feedback can be seen at three levels. Notice that all the prompts ask rather than tell.

Task-Level Feedback Prompts (adapted from Nuckles et al, 2009)

Does this answer meet the success criteria?
Is this right?
Could you elaborate on this answer?
What aspect of your response to this assignment are you pleased with/unhappy about?
What other information do you need to meet the criteria?
What’s the sticking point in this task?

Process-Level Feedback Prompts (adapted from Nuckles et al, 2009)

What strategies are you using?
Are there more efficient strategies you could use?
What other questions could you ask about this task?
Do you grasp the concept underpinning this task?
Have you done anything similar to this before?

Self-Regulation-Level Feedback prompts (adapted from Nuckles et al, 2009)

What would be the best way of checking your work?
How could you reflect on these answers?
What happened when you …?
How can you account for …?
What learning goals have you achieved?
How have your ideas changed?
What aspect of this work could you now teach to others?

Ask yourself:

What proportion of my feedback is on the same lines as the examples above?

Which of these types of feedback could I start with?

Ask yourself:

How well do my students talk about the ‘how’ of learning?
What could I do to get this going?

Now, move to section 2 to explore some quick wins that will help you to Explore, Create and Nudge in your classroom.

Section

Section 5: Team reflection and planning

Team Reflection and Planning

Section 5. Team Reflection and Planning

Team working practices…

Essentially, Professional Learning Teams are small groups of teachers who meet together regularly (usually monthly) to deepen their understanding of learning. The purpose is to improve your students as learners by how you surface the learning process in your teaching.

The team will learn and develop by:

discussing and unpacking the online information;
planning how to make use of it in your classrooms;
questioning and probing your classroom experiments.

The delicate, hard work of changing practice requires a safe professional environment in which to explore and understand both triumphs and tribulations. These short guidelines may be helpful in setting a climate for the team itself.

Download button needed

Session agenda, objectives, working practices

This team session is your first one so it will be worthwhile spending the first part of the meeting considering the purpose and working guidelines for the team.

Session agenda

Agreeing objectives and agenda (5 mins)
Considering working practices (15 mins)
Re-capping the on-line materials (15 mins)
Deciding what’s to be done (15 mins)
Personal Action Planning (20 mins)
Evaluating the meeting process (5 mins)

1. Session objectives: What do we want to achieve? (5 mins)

Feel confident about working as a team
Feel able to apply the on-line materials in the classroom
Decide the strategic cultural issues that everyone needs to apply in their classroom
Plan some do-able shifts in classroom practice

2. Consider the working practices of the team (15 mins)

Purposes of the group
Format of the sessions
Ground rules for working
Expectations of outcomes

Re-capping online materials

3. Recapping on-line materials: What did we think of the materials? (15 mins)

Thoughts about:

The progression from teacher focused cultures to learning focused cultures
Culture review tool 1 ( three panels)
Where most classroom cultures operate in relation to Culture Review 1
The Learning Culture Tool 2.
Things that are in place, things that need attention now/soon, things that will take longer to establish. i.e. things you recorded on the Learning Culture Review sheet
Ideas for beginning the shift to a learning culture ….activities and routines.
Ideas we can use immediately.

Planning strategic changes in practice

4. Planning strategic change: What do we all need to do? (15 mins)

Decide

Which ideas should we all adopt as whole school strategies?
How the progression towards a learning culture might be built across the school. ie which of the four aspects of culture need most attention at whole school level. Relating, Talking, Constructing, Celebrating.

Personal action planning

5. Personal action planning: What am I going to do? (20 mins)

Consider

How you want to strengthen your classroom culture to become more learning friendly?
What you are going to do to bring this about?
Develop an enquiry question.

Think of it like this:

If I do XXXX will it improve/develop/enhance YYYY?

This is the crunch question. Your classroom culture is unlikely to change unless you change!

Capture your learning enquiry as a question

DEVELOPING-AN-ENQUIRY-QUESTION-CULTURE.PDF.

Put an enquiry plan together

PERSONAL-ACTION-PLAN-CULTURE.PDF

Things you might want to look out for that result from your classroom experiment:

an improvement in how students engage with learning
growing understanding of what learning is about.
recognition of their role in the learning process
showing less stress or worry about learning generally
increased focus when working with other students
reduced reliance on teacher support
greater confidence in themselves
improvement in their belief about themselves as learners (growth mindset)
others you may have observed…

Evaluate team session

6. Evaluate team session: How did we do as a team? ( 5 mins )

Did we achieve our objectives?
Are we comfortable with what we are trying to achieve?
Any concerns at this point?
Next meeting date and time.

Section 4: Bridging the gap in teaching

Bridging the gap in teaching

The diagram above offers glimpses of the difference between traditional good teaching and teaching that enables learners to become better learners throughout their lives. Read on to find out more about bridging this gap.

Making the shift from traditional good teaching to teaching for learning power.

Developing students as learning powered learners is a long term innovation. It requires more than reading a BLP book or At a Glance card, having a ‘stuck’ poster, displaying a picture of the Supple Learning Mind, using a visible thinking routine or two, adding ‘yet’ to ‘I can’t do it’. Even the traditional Inservice training day can only scratch the surface. This is because the approach has implications not just for student learning, but for staff learning too. Teachers’ habits as learners have to become part of the picture – how they go about changing is as relevant as what changes they want to bring about. This isn’t just about teachers knowing more about teaching, it’s about teaching differently.

So, what does this ‘teaching differently’ look like?

Basically, as a teacher you are going to become more forensic about learning, talking about the learning behaviours, stretching them through activities you offer, modelling them, and valuing them as you see learners using and developing them.

Look at the statements and work out:

how often you try to help students develop such behaviours by the way that you teach at present;
how many of your students display these behaviours in the classroom (without knowing it).

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Having completed the quiz ask yourself:

From the left hand column:

Which behaviours did you denote OFTEN?
Which do you RARELY attend to?
Which psychological domain receives most attention? (emotional, cognitive, social, strategic)
What might this reveal about your teaching?
Key Question: How do you know if/how students are improving in these behaviours?

From the right hand column:

Which behaviour was most difficult to assign students to? i.e. the things you may not know about your students.
What patterns are emerging?
Is there a link between what you do and how students are as learners?
What is this making you wonder?

A subtle shift in practice. How subtle is subtle? Where am I now?

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This tool shows just some of the small, yet profound, shifts teachers make when they are surfacing learning.

Statements in the left-hand column are about conventional ‘good’ teaching. Those in the right-hand column show the subtle shift to developing students’ learning behaviours.

Estimate where you tend to function along the scale.

Ponder on the statements and estimate which of the statements you are already working on
Which others might you find it easy to try?
Are these shifts the ones you want to make?
Do they fit with your views of good teaching and learning?
Are you willing to change your professional habits?

Making subtle shifts in practice takes a big effort in unlearning.

When teachers want different outcomes for their students it actually involves them in changing their teaching habits. It’s not simply about knowing about new techniques, it is about doing what you do differently. That’s much harder. It involves changes to:

what you know – knowledge;
what you believe – feelings or attitudes;
what you can do – your skills;
what you actually do – putting it all into practice.

So changing how you teach is a delicate, complex process……...that’s why it’s hard!

And the hardest thing isn’t getting new ideas into teachers’ heads

It’s getting the old ones out…….that’s why it takes time and effort.

It takes time and practice to undo old habits and become graceful at new ones……that’s why we have based our learning programmes on research into how adults learn and the professional value of teacher learning communities. You will find out more about this in the next section.

Section 3: Some first step ideas to get you started

Section 3. Some first step ideas to get you started. Look for ideas to strengthen your learner/learning classroom culture.

In the ‘More Ideas’ sections we offer some relatively small and practical ideas that you could try over the next few weeks to ready your classroom culture for learning. If your culture is already tending to learning friendly these little starters will be too easy, already well embedded in your classroom culture.

Section 2: Learning friendly cultures

Learning friendly cultures: Lots of little shifts. Find out about the four big dimensions of culture and use the culture tool to estimate the sorts of shift your classroom culture would benefit from.

Section 1: Learning Cultures – a big shift?

Section 1. Learning cultures. A big shift ?

Section 1. Learning cultures. A big shift? Unpick the meaning of classroom cultures, what they might consist of and the big shifts that may be needed to develop better learning. Use the culture tool to estimate where your classroom culture is now.

Section 4: Team reflection and planning Copy

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If you want to read again the notes on Professional Learning Teams, click on the view notes tab in this box

Professional Learning Teams: what and how

The purpose of these meetings is for the team to act as a teacher learning community or Professional Learning Team: a small group of teachers who meet together regularly to deepen their understanding of building better learners, commit to trying out new things, reflect on and share their experiments with each other. Such learning communities are the engines of teacher development. They work best with 6-8 teachers with similar subjects or age groups, and who meet for about an hour regularly over a period of a couple of years.

The group question and probe each other’s summaries of their experiments in order to encourage analysis and deeper reflection. They use questions such as ‘What do you think is getting in the way? What would make this even better?
How could this technique be modified to make it work for you? What do you think made that happen? In this way they support each other in changing and developing their practice.

Some guidelines for team reflection sessions

Everyone is expected to report back on their classroom experiments
Coaching questions and probes of colleagues’ classroom experiments encourage deeper reflection.
The group is careful to follow their agreed ground rules which might include;
- No group member can ‘pass’
- Listen between the lines when it’s not your turn
- Actively discuss everyone’s input
- Constructive criticism – developmental not judgemental
- Everyone fully engaged in the group
  •What is said is confidential to the group
  • Respect others’ views and encourage others’ ideas
- No-put downs
- Maintain an open mind

What-Why-How-of-PLT.pdf

Session agenda

If this team session is your first one in Stepping Stones, miss out item 2.

1. Session objectives

What do we want to achieve? ( 5 mins)

2. Sharing classroom experiments

How did our experiments go? ( 20 mins)

the changes in practice you tried
how students reacted
what you learned
what next as a result

Probe

what was getting in the way?
what seemed difficult?
what would make it easier?
what made it work particularly well?
why it was successful?
changes in your behaviour

Impact

Avoidance of…..
Improvements in……
Increases in…….
Little of no changes in…

3. Recapping on-line materials

What did we think of the materials? ( 15 mins)

Reactions to

The Me Learning grid
Where pupils are secure
Where the pupils could be secure when they leave for secondary school
Classroom culture ideas
Activities and talk ideas

4. Planning what to do

What do we need to do next? ( 10 mins )

Decide

Which ideas should we all adopt as a school strategy?
How the progression of Me Learning should be built across the school. ie how the phases of Me Learning might play out against key stages and even year groups.

5. Personal action planning

What am I going to do? ( 20 mins )

5a.Consider

how you want your pupils to improve/develop/enhance their approach to Me Learning?
what you are going to do to bring this about?
develop your enquiry question.

Think of it like this…

If I do XXXX will it improve/develop/enhance YYYY

This is the crunch question. Your pupils are unlikely to change unless you change!

Capture your learning enquiry as a question

Developing-an-enquiry-question-Revising-Me-Learning.pdf

5b.Put a short enquiry plan together

Personal-Action-Plan-Me-Learning.pdf

5c.Improvement indicators to consider for Me Learning

motivated to get on with learning
increasingly able to plan their own learning
willingness to seek information/ideas from others
better able to link ideas/information together
more able to talk about how they are learning
better able monitor what they are doing
increasingly able to self-regulate their learning behaviours
increasingly interdependent
others you may have observed…

Or if you want to be more specific you could use the indicators from the progression grid

Download grid as a pdf

6. Evaluate team session

How did we do as a team? ( 5 mins )

Did we achieve our objectives?
Are we comfortable with what we are trying to achieve?
Any concerns at this point?
Next meeting date and time.

Section 3: Blending Meta Learning with content Copy

So far, you have:

Looked at your pupils through the lens of the Meta Learning learning chart
Gained a sense of what becoming better at Meta Learning looks like
Explored a range of ideas and activities that will help to engage pupils with Meta Learning

Now we look closely at how to blend improving pupils’ Meta Learning into the content you have to teach.

A. The principles behind any learning powered lesson

B. Big questions to ask about lesson design

C. Lesson planning in action…an exemplar Meta Learning focused task

Learning habits form through use and practice, but desirable habits survive and flourish better if pupils are aware of them, realise their value and strive to improve them. The curriculum through its lessons provides the rich and varied occasions for exercising learning habits.

A. The principles behind any learning powered lesson

Think of yourself as a learning power coach, helping your pupils to help themselves to develop their learning habits. Hence your lessons are much more likely to contain challenges and activities that get your pupils thinking and learning for themselves. You encourage pupils to explore challenging questions, problems or assertions and become observers of their own learning. You step back from telling and heavy scaffolding and instead try to mobilise your pupils’ learning behaviours. You are organising learning to let them take the stain.

Open Me

The SIX principles that lie behind teaching for learning power

1: Visible learning…Surfacing learning

You make it clear to pupils which learning habits and processes they are using. You try to make every aspect of the learning process as visible as possible through the language you use and through the words and images you display on the walls.

For example:

Rethink displays to illustrate work in progress

Collect and display work at different stages of development, with arrows and notes highlighting changes and their impact. Refer to these to encourage pupils to review and amend their work. Provide guidelines with questions they can ask themselves or each other at different stages in the process. Show that you do not expect perfection at a first attempt!

2: Dual focus teaching…blending content and process

You design activities that combine the dual objectives of ‘what’ will be learned and ‘how’ it will be learned. You make sure pupils know that the content they are learning is a way of giving their minds a useful workout. (The content is the vehicle for learning)

For example:

Embed learning how to learn into every lesson

Frequently include the following questions when talking with pupils:

how did you go about finding that out?
how would you explain that to someone else?
what did you do to help you read that new/unfamiliar word?
what made you persist/give up on that task?
why do you think this is too difficult/easy for you?
and so on

3: Emotional engagement…Capturing attention

Your lessons are designed to intrigue your pupils. Pupils don’t put in the effort unless their energy and attention are captured by what they are doing. You capture your pupils’ emotional engagement by giving them more of a stake in the process of learning.

For example:

Establish Reflecting as a classroom routine

Going for Three:

Begin each lesson with ‘Tell me Three . .

things we learned last lesson
ways we learned last lesson
things we still need to find out
things you hope to achieve today’.

End each lesson with ‘Tell me Three . .

things we learned today
learning skills we used today
things we need to do next lesson
ways you could become a more effective learner’ etc.

Ensure that pupils tell you three. Do not lapse into doing it for them!

4: Handling uncertainty…Challenge

You have realised from your own life that what is engaging tends to be what is challenging. Since you see education as a preparation for a learning life, you help pupils to learn how to handle increasing degrees of complexity and uncertainty.

For example:

Develop a project around ‘the best place to learn’.

Discuss the best conditions for learning.
What would the building/room need to have in it and why?
What time of day?
Quiet or with music?
Curl up on chairs or desk and table?
A little and often or long labs of time?
With other people or alone?

Use this type of discussion to broaden the pupils’ views of good learning. Later discussions could include long and short term memory, spacing content, retrieval practice, desirable difficulties, interleaving content, self-testing and so forth. Make a display of ‘the best place to learn’ or ‘the best conditions for learning’.

5: Relationships…Working together

Learning is both a sociable and a solitary activity, and you offer your pupils opportunities to experience both. You develop interdependent learners who know how to handle themselves in collaborative groups and able to move around in the social space of learning to best effect.

For example:

Formulate-Share-Listen-Create

A development of Think Pair Share is called `Formulate-Share-Listen-Create’ (Johnson et al., 1991). The important addition here is to ask learners to create something collaboratively after the earlier steps have been followed through. Ask pupils to;

Formulate your answer to the question individually.
Share your answer with your partner.
Listen carefully to your partner’s answer.
Note similarities and differences in your answers.
Create a new answer that incorporates the best of the ideas.
Be prepared to present your answer if called upon.

6: Reflection and responsibility…Taking charge

You understand that pupils have to learn how to manage and organise their own learning and that the way to do this is by giving them increasingly demanding opportunities to do so. You orchestrate pupils taking charge of their learning by expecting them to plan what they do, distil meaning from it, and revise it accordingly.

For example:

Learning mats to monitor meta learning

As learners we need to gain an accurate sense of ourselves. Eventually this means being able to take our own learning strengths and weaknesses into account when weighing up a learning challenge or project. Pupils need lots of practice in thinking and talking about themselves as growing learners. Prompt the use of and reflection on Meta Learning.

A checklist for lesson planning based on these six principles.

Does the lesson plan:

Make it clear to pupils which learning behaviours are being activated?
Match and blend the learning behaviour with content?
Include a tactic to captivate pupils’ attention?
Have sufficiently challenging learning activities to sustain interest for all?
Offer choice on how pupils could interact on these tasks?
Embed aspects of planning, reflecting and revising for content and process?

What do you think?

Which of these six principles are a regular feature of your planning?
What do you make of principle 2? Is it the most tricky of the six? The following section B is mostly about this aspect of planning.
Look at the checklist in the green box above this one: Do your lesson plans capture these six aspects of an effective learning experience?

Make a note of…

Which of the six principles might need to be given greater prominence in your planning.

B. Big questions to ask about lesson design.

What we teach and how we teach it (the enacted curriculum) are intertwined and offer teachers a lot of freedom. It is here that you can start applying a learning power filter and deploy a unique combination of content and learning tasks.

Open Me

Prelude

In conventional lessons where the teacher remains the focus of attention and the initiator of all activity, and where the epistemic dimension (the conditions for acquiring knowledge) is not acknowledged, pupils gain habits of compliance and dependence, rather than curiosity and self-reliance.

In developing learning power, teachers are making conscious choices about which habits to introduce and stretch and how best to couple these with content so that lessons become more interesting and challenging. Through such overt coupling of content and specific types of process, pupils come to know, understand and take control of their learning behaviours – they knowingly use and develop the whole range of learning behaviours.

All lessons function on two levels, they have twin intentions. On the one hand there is content to be acquired, and on the other there are learning behaviours to be exercised in pursuit of this content. The factor that differentiates a standard lesson that effectively ‘delivers the content’ from a learning powered lesson is that the teacher has to think, in advance, about:

the learning behaviours that are necessary for successful content acquisition;
the design of activities /tasks that will stimulate these behaviours;
how learners could reflect on and evaluate their use of these behaviours.

In designing such lessons you have to dare to think differently and flip round your usual lesson design thinking.

A turn-around in lesson design

Think in two dimensions at once – the content dimension and the learning behaviour dimension. It means turning your thinking around – from teaching to learning.

Or put another way

Think to yourself;

what content?
using which learning behaviour(s)?
via an activity to stretch both?

Lesson design questions… one by one

Here the general rules of lesson design have been related to the learning behaviour…Meta Learning.

Stage 1. What content do pupils need to learn?

What content has to be learned? …..Think outcomes.

Use standard lesson planning tools:
- What are pupils going to be able to do/learn?…think objectives
- How will they know if they been successful?… think success criteria
While keeping an obvious eye on
- What do they already know?….think previous learning.

Stage 2. How will they best learn it?

Using which learning behaviours?

This is the new bit

Not the usual second step but nonetheless a vital second step where the aim is to weave content acquisition with learning behaviours. The content is the vehicle for exercising the learning behaviours and the learning behaviours accelerate the content acquisition.

Using which learning behaviours?…Think types of learning behaviours

Which learning behaviour(s) will help these pupils get closer to understanding this content?…think learning behaviour charts.
Which aspect of, say, Meta Learning, lends itself to achieving these outcomes?…think progression columns.
How skilled are these pupils in using this learning behaviour …think progression phases/rows

Say something like this to yourself .…My pupils need to achieve xxx. At this stage we could get closer to this content by using Meta Learning. Most of my pupils are able to use xxx phase (e.g. respond/blue) Meta Learning approaches confidently.

Stage 3. What type of task/activity will stretch the learning?

Which type of task…Think types of task.

Pick up your thinking from stage 2;

My pupils need to achieve xxx. At this stage we could get closer to this content by using Meta Learning. Most of my pupils would be able to use xxx phase (e.g. blue/responds phase) Meta Learning approaches confidently.

And now think about the sort of task/activity you might develop/design so as to:

orchestrate a problem-solving activity to enable pupils’ understanding of xyz content without telling them;
intrigue them with something that is open to several interpretations;
stimulate their curiosity;
grab their attention…visually and aurally;
allow them to stay stuck before asking them how they are thinking;
offer a nudge to get them thinking differently that doesn’t give the answer away;
leave it as a problem hanging in the air to which we will return later;
make links between the challenge, and what and how we are learning in this lesson.

The challenge isn’t about the inherent complexity of the subject matter but about how the content is orchestrated to encourage pupils to use their learning habits to resource their solution.

Think…what/how much information/content do I need to give/reveal? At what point? In what form? To what end?

Say something like this to yourself .…

my pupils need to achieve xxx.
at this point we could get closer to this content by using Meta Learning.
most of my pupils are able to use xxx phase (e.g. respond/blue phase) Meta Learning approaches confidently.
What type of task would stretch their Meta Learning but assist them with the content…without me just telling them!

To summarise…the heart of the lesson

It’s the question ‘using which learning behaviours?’ that causes you to think differently about the lesson planning.

You ask – as always – what are the anticipated objectives/intentions?
The verbs in your resulting objectives will give you clues about the types of task/methodology that will get pupils there and the sorts of learning behaviours your pupils will need to contribute to this learning endeavour.

You are designing the task in a way that requires pupils to contribute their learning ‘powers’ / behaviours. The tasks you design will hook into their learning ‘powers’ and help them to improve them.

Say something like this to yourself:

I am going to think content, learning behaviour and task together:

Meta Learning will help pupils to better access the content;
The aspect of Meta Learning (column) and phase (row) that would fit best is (for example) Ask myself “What do I need to know? How am I going to come to know it?”(‘Talking about my learning’ column, Blue phase).
The type of task/activity that would best stretch both content and learning behaviour, intrigue, challenge, bring people together and give responsibility to pupils is………
Think….what information do I need to reveal/give, in what form, at what point, and what do I want pupils to do with it?

What do you think?

What strikes you about this way of planning with learning behaviours in mind?
Where are the potential stumbling blocks?
How will you decide which learning behaviour(s) you are going to foreground in your objectives?

Consider a lesson you are about to teach…

What is the content?
Which learning behaviour(s), if missing, would make accessing the content very difficult / impossible?
How could you blend reference to this learning behaviour(s) into the learning objectives?
Can you design a task that will help pupils to access the content and exercise the key learning behaviour(s) you have identified?

C. Lesson planning in action – an exemplar, Meta Learning focused, task.

Where lessons in other units have been designed to blend content with a learning behaviour, here the lesson content is about understanding the learning process itself. How do we design tasks that intentionally activate / stretch a wide range of learning behaviours and enable learners to reflect on how and how well they have used those behaviours?

We cover this in three ways:

Section 1 shows the phases of a lesson where a range of learning behaviours are activated in different Episodes of the lesson and subsequently reflected on and discussed;
Section 2 considers a simple lesson plan template that can be used for any lesson and distils the Meta Learning( learning about learning) lesson into this format;
Section 3 invites you to extend your thinking about the lesson and how to help pupils to become increasingly skilful, self-aware, self-regulating learners.

Open Me

1. Activating and stretching a wide range of learning behaviours in a single lesson.

[NB: This lesson is unusual in that it sets out to activate different learning behaviours in the different Episodes of the lesson. Whereas lessons in other units focus on one learning behaviour, while accepting that others would ‘bubble up’ as the lesson unfolded, here we intentionally spread the net in order to activate a wide range of behaviours on which to reflect. The key part of the lesson comes in Episode 7 – the first 6 Episodes are simply setting up a range of learning behaviours that can be reflected upon in Episode 7.]

Resources needed for each pupil:

A copy of the Snow Scene: Resource

And 2 copies of the Rating Wheel:

[Download using arrow on grey bar at the bottom]

Overview of lesson plan:

INSERT IMAGE

Episode 1 – How might we set about solving the Mystery Accident?

INSERT IMAGE

What is happening here?

In this Episode, pupils become familiar with the Mystery Accident and think about the kinds of questions that they will need to answer and how they might go about working out what has happened. It requires pupils to:

frame their own questions;
think ahead to plan how they might go about finding out.

None of this will be possible without the ability to notice detail, the learning behaviour that so frequently triggers a range of cognitive learning behaviours.

Resist the temptation to gather answers and speculations at this stage – that comes in subsequent Episodes.

Use the visible thinking routine Think / Puzzle / Explore to achieve three things:

‘What do you Think you know about this?’ encourages pupils to make links with prior experience;
‘What is Puzzling you?’ encourages the generation of a range of questions and lines of enquiry;
‘How might you Explore this?’ encourages pupils to begin to plan how they might tackle the problem in order to answer their questions.

Consider how you might collect their ‘questions’ for reference in later Episodes.

Episode 2 – How many people and animals are involved?

INSERT SLIDE

What is happening here?

Ask – How many people and animals are involved?

Essentially this is a Noticing activity in order to arrive at a list of characters.

You will need to work the following sorts of thing out in advance.

Some characters we can be certain of – there is a man and a dog (the headline says so), there is a cyclist (we can see the tracks in the snow), there is an old lady (we can see her), and someone must be driving the ambulance.

And then there are the footprints coming in from the left of the image along the pavement – they indicate another person. Ditto the footprints around the phone box. [Accept all answers without comment at this stage, but at some point in the upcoming Episodes pupils will need to consider whether all of these characters are different people]

And finally – the dog runs off to chase something. Usually people assume this to be a cat, but all we really know about this animal is that it can climb trees, and that dogs are inclined to chase it. A cat may be the most likely suspect, but a squirrel also fits the bill. Whichever suggestion you get, use the ‘Could Be’ approach to deepen thinking and open up other possibilities.

[So – a maximum of 6 people and 2 animals – old woman, the person who helps out, the person by phone box, the cyclist, the injured man, the ambulance driver, plus the dog and the tree climbing animal.]

Episode 3 – Where does the story begin?

INSERT SLIDE

What is happening here?

Where does the story begin?

This is a focusing activity in which pupils use their reasoning skills to decide where the action begins.

Use ‘What makes you say that?‘ to encourage pupils to explain their reasoning.

In terms of the hit and run, the answer is bottom right of the image – the man walking his dog on a snowy morning.

Ask the supplementary question: What can the man and dog see as they first enter the scene? The question is deceptively simple, but it helps pupils to visualise the scene before the accident and to realise that the ambulance and some of the characters have yet to arrive at the scene.

[But there are other possibilities – the person at the phone box could have been first on the scene long before the man with dog arrived; the person arriving from the left might have come into view around the same time as the man and dog.]

Episode 4- Can you tell the story, from beginning to end?

INSERT SLIDE

What is happening here?

Can you tell the story, from beginning to end?

This is where pupils use a range of learning behaviours to collect and combine evidence to sequence the events into a plausible story line. Begin by asking; ‘How long do you think you will need for this?’ – it is a quick way to get them thinking ahead and planning what needs doing. During the sharing ideas across the class phase, pupils will have to listen carefully to the ideas of others, contribute their own explanations and be prepared to revise their ideas in light of others’ contributions.

[Hints #1:

Some pupils will be able to do this for themselves and you need to offer nothing further to nudge them towards producing a story line.

If some need help, use some or more of:

Is the cyclist riding left to right, or right to left? How do you know?
Where is the dog?
Where does the ambulance stop?
Who is the person who comes in from the left of the image? What do they do? What might explain their footprint pattern?
Where does the old lady put the chair?]

[Hints #2

To stretch those groups who arrive at a solution quickly, ask if their story explains (not all in one go, obviously!):

Who is the ‘good samaritan? (We do not know this for certain. A helpful passer-by? Paramedic?)
Why does the good samaritan ‘bunny-hop’ from the scene of the accident across the road when helping the victim? (They do not, they are walking one step at a time supporting the injured man)
What are the man’s injuries? (Left leg / ankle – because samaritan supports on left side)
Was the dog free before the accident, or freed by the accident? (Before – look at the lead making marks in the snow as dog runs off. This is rarely noticed without a hint of some kind, or at the very least being asked the question)
Does the ambulance driver get out? (No footprints near where ambulance stops – can they explain this?)
Who has been at the phone box? (If they say it was someone else who phoned for ambulance, ask why they not go over to help at the scene of accident? If it was the cyclist, ask why did they do it?)
Where is everybody? (Old lady aside, everybody has left the scene. Samaritan must get in the ambulance – why?)
Does your story address all of the questions we generated in Episode 1?]

Episode 5- Imagine you are a reporter . . .

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What is happening here?

Imagine you are a reporter . . .

Thus far pupils have been looking at and trying to assemble the available evidence into a credible story line.

Pupils are to imagine that they are a reporter who has been sent to interview one of the people in the story. (They can choose any one of the six people)

Here we are asking pupils to plan the three questions that they would ask, and then to use their empathy skills to answer those questions from someone else’s perspective. The restriction to three questions make this a distilling activity, and the swapping of questions opens up the possibility of unexpected responses.

End the Episode by discussing any questions that received a surprising response.

It sets the scene for Episode 6.

Episode 6- Can you write the headline and first paragraph of your newspaper report?

INSERT SLIDE

What is happening here?

Can you write the headline and first paragraph of your newspaper report?

A distilling and creative activity. Important information only goes in the headline and first paragraph of a newspaper report – how would they construct that headline and first paragraph to convey the key information, as they see it?

Write the Headline / paragraph in pairs. Move to and share in 4’s. Pairs who have read a report that they really like nominate it to be read out to the whole class.

Conclude with discussion about identifying and linking the characteristics that these reports had in common.

Episode 7- Which learning behaviours did you use in solving this mystery?

INSERT SLIDE

What is happening here?

Which learning behaviours did you use in solving this mystery?

This is the key part of this lesson. It is the opportunity for pupils to think back over the previous 6 Episodes and reflect on how they behaved as learners in tackling the challenges – it is where Meta Learning comes to the fore.

As individuals, pupils fill in the Rating Wheel as follows:

Consider the sector at 1 o’clock – ‘Did I ask lots of questions?’
If the pupil believes that they had asked lots of questions, they shade / colour in all or most of the sector. If a few questions it might be coloured only half way. If they never asked any questions, they will leave the sector blank;
Repeat for all of the other sectors.

They will end up with a ‘picture’ of the learning behaviours that they believe they used, something like this:

Move pupils into pairs to compare and contrast, explain their reasons for colouring as they did, and to adjust their colouring in light of the conversation if they wish.

Probe their thinking by asking at which Episodes in the lesson they did particular learning behaviours.

Then broaden the discussion to thinking about the past week of learning – how would they colour in the wheel if they were considering all of their lessons over the past day / week?

And finally:

Ask… ‘Which of these learning behaviours do you consider to be a personal strength?’

Ask… ‘Which do you consider to be in need of further development?

Ask … ‘How might you go about this?’

[Depending on their depth of understanding, they may need a great deal of support to answer ‘How might you go about this?’

The idea of If/Then targets may help here.

See the introduction to If/Then targets in the unit ‘Engage pupils in Achieving Goals’. For examples of If/Then targets for each learning behaviour, look in Section 2 of any unit titled ‘Putting xxx into learning’ – the suggested If/Thens are the last entry in all of the ‘More Ideas to Try’ section.]

INSERT DOWNLOAD OF LESSON PPT HERE

What do you think?

How would your pupils react to this challenge?
Would they be sufficiently self-aware as learners to be able to colour in the rating wheel?
How much scaffolding and support would they need?
How will you help them to arrive at a personal learning development target, an If/Then that addresses one of their perceived weaknesses?

Make a note of…

A class you might try this with.
How you might build on this lesson and use the Rating Wheel to keep reflection on learning and the resulting meta-cognitive talk a regular feature of your classroom.

2 Using a lesson plan template to distil this lesson.

Given that there are hundreds of lesson plan formats we will use a few different types of planning tools over the course of these units. This one is a simple streamlined useable tool that includes:

What you do (teacher action);
What pupils do (pupil action);
What the learning behaviours being called upon are (learning behaviours);
What you say (learning talk) to nudge the learning behaviour along.

The format is divided into episodes to show the change of purpose, action and use of learning behaviour across the course of the lesson.

INSERT BLANK GRID HERE – GENERIC

Download a blank lesson plan as a MS Word document: Lesson Planning Grid [.DOC 33KB]

If we now populate the template with the episodes explored in section 2 above, we get the completed lesson plan. . .

INSERT COMPLETED PLAN HERE

What do you think?

What are your first reactions to this lesson plan template?
Does planning for four aspects – teacher action, pupil action, learning behaviours, teacher talk – seem useful?
How does sequencing the lesson as ‘episodes’ help or hinder planning?

Make a note of…

The extent to which your existing planning template enables you to think about lessons in this way.
What you would like / need to add to it.

3 Extend your thinking about the lesson and how to help pupils to become increasingly skilful, self-aware, self-regulating learners.

The problem with the Rating Wheel used in Episode 7 is that it tends to capture whether the learning behaviour has been used, but fails to capture how well it has been used – i.e. frequency rather than skilfulness.

To capture skilfulness, we would need to dig in much more deeply. For example, if we wished to explore skilfulness in Meta Learning, we could use a Rating Wheel like this:

We have built this Rating Wheel from the progression grid so that the learning behaviours become increasingly more skilful as you move clockwise from 12 o’clock. This wheel has been designed for a learner who is already fairly skilled at Meta Learning.

For a less skilful learner, we might use a wheel like this:

The higher order skills on the first wheel (from 6 to 12 o’clock) have been removed, the skills from 12 to 6 o’clock have moved clockwise to be replaced by skills more likely to be seen in younger, less skilful learners. Again, the Wheel is read clockwise from 12 o’clock.

What do you think?

Which of the skills on these wheels are secure in your learners?
Which ones might need attention?
How might you use the wheels to monitor the growth of skilfulness in Meta Learning?
(Why) would you need to put the wheels into ‘pupil’ speak’?
Key Question – could you use, for example, the Collaboration progression chart to produce your own Collaboration Wheel(s) in the same style?

Make a note of…

The learning behaviour progression charts that you (and your school) could really do with using to create your own rating wheels.

Section 2: Building Meta Learning friendly classroom cultures Copy

Teachers as habit formers

As teachers we are in the habit-forming business. What we say, what we display on classroom walls, what we celebrate, praise or dismiss, what we model or how we design learning activities will all influence the ways in which pupils learn, perform and behave. Classroom cultures have a huge influence on pupils’ learning as you will remember from the Culture unit.

Five big shifts to get you started. Ask yourself – how might you:

Enable learners to lead plenaries and review points;
Encourage learners to discuss the learning process;
Use display to celebrate learning in progress and the processes used;
Create opportunities for students to co-construct learning with you;
Shift responsibility for learning to learners.

Now look at the Learning Chart sections below where you will find plenty more ideas to try.

Section 1: Meta Learning and how it develops Copy

1a) What do we mean by Me-Learning or Meta Learning?

Meta-learning involves drawing out of your learning experience a more general, explicit understanding of the process of learning, and specific knowledge about yourself as a learner. Let’s take these two aspects of meta-learning in turn.

There is a wealth of research which shows that good learners know a lot about learning.

They possess a vocabulary for talking about the process of learning itself, and are able to articulate how learning works.

Good readers, even quite young ones, are often able tell you half-a-dozen things they can do when they come across an unfamiliar word: they sound it out, break it down into bits, re-read the previous sentence, read on to see if the meaning becomes clear, look at the picture and think about it, and so on. And so, more generally, for good learners. The more able they are to talk about their learning, the more likely they are to be able to apply their knowledge to new domains too: meta-learning increases generalisation.

And good learners also need an accurate sense of themselves as learners. Being a good learner means being able to take your own strengths and weaknesses into account as you are weighing up a learning challenge, or deciding on a course of ‘professional development.’

The skills and dispositions of meta-learning can be cultivated simply by a teacher’s persistent use of questions such as ‘How did you go about finding that out?’ or ‘How would you go about teaching that to other people?’

Extract from Building Learning Power by Guy Claxton 2oo2

1b) What does being a good Me-Learner involve?

We have given meta learning the friendly title of Me-Learning. Becoming a Me-learner; being able to assess the effectiveness of your own learning process and regulate it for greater success, is made up of several strands; How you become and stay motivated and plan your learning, how you build and organise your ideas; how you learn with and from others; how you manage your learning environment and how you monitor your learning process itself in order to improve. When looked at from these diverse angles, growing meta learning moves well beyond encouraging a student to ‘think about it’.

The progression chart is made up of sections from several of the other learning behaviours that you will have come across previously. Here they are drawn together to reflect a person’s self knowledge about their learning. The chart below captures of the constituent parts of building the habit of Me-Learning

Our progression chart for Me-Learning has 6 components:

Download grid as a pdf

1c) Unpicking the columns; what contributes to Me-Learning?

The grid columns are things that might combine to make up the skills and attitudes of Me- Learning.

Overview
1) Motivation and planning
2) Building and organising ideas
3) Learning from others
4) Managing learning environment
5) Self talk
6) Monitor and evaluate

Overview of the grid

John Biggs (1985) is credited with creating and defining the concept of Meta learning His conception is framed around the ideas of “being aware of and taking control of one’s own learning”. Implicit within this conception are the ideas that people need to have a knowledge of how they learn; have the motivation to be proactive in managing themselves in this way; have the capacity to be able to regulate their learning.The chart intertwines these important contributors to growing in the habit of Me-Learning; how we act in a progressive manner with other people and with available social, physical and intellectual resources learning how to learn.

“The knowledge worker needs one thing only: to learn how to learn”
The great business guru Peter F Drucker

Take a closer look at what each column of the chart is about.

How I get motivated and plan my learning.

What we do to get started on learning

Proactive leaners get involved in thinking about learning before they start. This involves analysing a task and wondering if they are motivated enough to make a start. We are unlikely to engage in tasks or set goals and make a plan if we aren’t interested in them. We are also likely to think about whether we have the necessary ‘means to learn’. Do we have the skill and the will and will it be worthwhile for us? As we go along we gain added motivation from seeing our ‘knowing’ about the subject grow from engaging in the process. When we bump into difficulties we have strategies to help us keep going through the inevitable hard slog bits. We can work through a process of dissatisfaction to satisfaction as understanding emerges.

How I build and organise my ideas.

How do I work with ideas?

The next contributory factor in Me-Learning has to do with gathering and using information. What sort of information is needed and where does it come from? How does it fit with what I already know about and how can I retell the ‘story’ of this differently so that I’m incorporating the new ideas with the older ones. How could I distill and refine this new thinking into words or pictures or a recipe or a diagram so that I can make sense of it and other people can too.

How I learn with and from others

Me-learners know how to learn from others, not necessarily face to face or in teams but more and more through distributed electronic contact. They share their hypotheses with others, they pose questions and absorb others’ perspectives. This becomes an iterative process in gaining new ways of knowing and new insights until the learner is happy to craft their ideas and thoughts for the desired outcome.

How I manage my learning environment.

Getting comfortable for learning

The effective Me-learner understands that the learning environment needs structuring in order to optimise their learning effort. Some will be content with a computer, others will need acres of space and lots of paper and pens. Some like it hot, some work best in the small hours. They will be cognisant of their physical surroundings and their emotional state. They learn how to manage distractions, how to channel their emotional energy positively and how and when to break state.

In other words, they learn how to regulate their environment just as much they are regulating other aspects of the learning process.

Talking about my learning

The voice of self-awareness

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves as we learn. The statements capture what someone in each phase of the chart might be thinking. Students may use some of these phrases when talking with you, or in writing from time to time, but mostly self-talk goes on inside their heads. We have shown a small flavour of self-talk thoughts that teachers can encourage students to imitate. Some relate to setting learning goals, others to talking through which learning methods or resources might be useful, and others to monitoring and evaluating the learning being used. All such self-talk is important in building a Me-Learning habit.

In fact all the statements across the chart have been couched in self-talk to emphasise the full nature of the meta-learning capacity/behaviour/habit.

How I monitor and evaluate my learning.

Keeping an eye on the how of learning.

The last constituent of Me Learning has to do with how we self-observe how our learning is going as well as the conditions that surround and influence it. Self-monitoring enables you to adjust how you are doing things and whether it is effective enough to achieve the goal; there is a causal link. It’s the goal that’s important and keeps you going. This means that even though you might have to alter your environment, or take account of some negative feelings, or clarify more information… all these encourage further effort to improve, in order to reach your goals.

What do you think?

What have you learned about Me-Learning from these descriptions?
What have you had confirmed?
What surprised you?
How have your views changed?

Make a note of…

Any ideas for practical classroom experiments that these descriptions have triggered
Which column your students are most secure in.

1d) Unpicking the rows; getting better at Me-Learning.

Of course, the development of Me-Learning doesn’t grow neatly up each column or evenly across the phases in the grid. The five broad phases of dispositional growth (purple – orange) are affective ways in which people may be inclined to behave: we call this inclination ‘mindedness’.

Here is our interpretation of how Me Learning might grow.

Overview
Lacks
Receives
Responds
Values
Organises
Embodies

Meaning behind the phases

The phases are drawn from Bloom’s taxonomy of the affective domain.

Phase ‘Receives’ (purple) is about doing something because you are told or expected to.

Phase ‘Responds’ (blue) is about gaining interest and doing things more willingly.

Phase ‘Values’ (green) is a key phase since the student now sees the value of behaving in this way. It’s a win for them; to behave like this is in their interest. It’s in this phase that the behaviour becomes more secure.

Phase ‘Organises’ (yellow) is the phase in which the student capitalises on this ‘in their interest’ behaviour and gets themselves organised to use it positively.

Phase ‘Embodies’ (orange), known as ‘characterised’ in the original taxonomy. In this phase the student has made this behaviour their own. It has become part of their character; they can’t not do it and they have become highly skilled in doing it.

We urge you to see this progression as long term. Some phases will take years for people to work through; some will never be worked through. None of the phases are inevitable. There is a lifetime of development captured here. Nevertheless, the role of a teacher or parent should surely be to encourage and enable this journey.

Lacks: Minded to ‘just do things’

In this ‘Lacks’ (grey) phase, students are not necessarily aware of learning, they are just doing things. They have no language to talk about learning and the word learning itself is hardly part of their repertoire. Self-reflection of any sort is unlikely to figure in their lives.

Receives: Minded to be interested in learning .

In the Receives (purple) phase, students are aware of what interests them and how to find information. They know that some surroundings are better than others for learning and that they can learn from other people. They are showing an interest in learning and enjoy finding out about lots of things.

Responds: Minded to have a sense of direction in learning.

In the Responds (blue) phase, students have the developed the skill of knowing what they want to achieve and be motivated to do so. They can visualise the broad direction they want to go in, call on others to guide their thinking and make a realistic plan based on their learning strengths. This phase is a big step up from the one before; it requires a broad range of skills which are undertaken consciously. (eg visualising, being aware of their learning skills, goal setting, outline planning, choosing surroundings.

Values: Minded to enjoy their learning effort.

In the Values ( green) phase, students are aware of how their learning is growing and they are careful to capture this new awareness in in drafts or models or trial artefacts.They are moulding their environment to meet their needs and their enthusiasm helps them to keep going and manage distractions. They are using a wide variety of learning methods and value the opportunity to discuss things with others. They are consciously aware of keeping all these elements on track.

Organises: Minded to refine what they are learning to meet their goals

In the Organises (yellow) phase, Me-Learning has become a skilful habit. Reviewing progress now turns to evaluating the emerging outcomes and adapting the learning process to make sure the goal is achieved and get through difficult times with well-paced downtime. In some cases, students may question the original goal in this phase and take action on another path. They use knowledgeable experts to help refine their thinking.

Embodies: Minded to self-regulate all aspects of their learning process

In the Embodies ( orange) phase, students know themselves well as learners ; their learning strengths (their questioning, imagining, reasoning, noticing, listening, linking skills); how to motivate themselves; how to search for ideas and blend them into understanding; how to work purposefully with others and tweak their learning environment for comfort. They self-regulate themselves as learners to accomplish their self-determined goals.

What do you think?

What has struck you about the act of Me-Learning having read the descriptions above?
Which phase do you operate in?
What makes you say that?

Make a note of…

What you might do to assist your students to make headway in their Me-Learning behaviour.
Any practical ideas the text has triggered.

Preparation for the Learning Team meeting

Where are my pupils now?

Take a look at the Meta Learning progression chart in your Learning Diary or
Download CHART to colour in here
Colour in the cells where you think your pupils are secure.
Some will barely be on the chart while others may be quite a way up. Neat straight lines of secure classes are rare. But looking at your class in this way should give you an idea of what you need to work on.
Draw a red line across the chart to denote where you think most of the school’s pupils could and should reach by the time they leave.
Please take the results of these tasks with you to the Professional Learning Team session shown in Section 4

Section 3: Blending questioning with content

So far, you have:

Looked at your students through the lens of the Questioning progression chart
Gained a sense of what becoming better at Questioning looks like
Explored a range of ideas and activities that will help to engage students with Questioning

Now we look closely at how to blend improving students’ questioning into the content you have to teach.

A. The principles behind any learning powered lesson

B. Big questions to ask about lesson design

C. Lesson planning in action…an exemplar questioning focused task

Learning habits form through use and practice, but desirable habits survive and flourish better if students are aware of them, realise their value and strive to improve them. The curriculum through its lessons provides the rich and varied occasions for exercising learning habits.

A. The principles behind any learning powered lesson

Think of yourself as a learning power coach, helping your students to help themselves to develop their learning habits. Hence your lessons are much more likely to contain challenges and activities that get your students thinking and learning for themselves. You encourage students to explore challenging questions, problems or assertions and become observers of their own learning. You step back from telling and heavy scaffolding and instead try to mobilise your students’ learning behaviours. You are organising learning to let them take the strain.

Open Me

The SIX principles that lie behind teaching for learning power

1: Visible learning…Surfacing learning

You make it clear to students which learning habits and processes they are using. You try to make every aspect of the learning process as visible as possible through the language you use and through the words and images you display on the walls.

For example:

Use displays of exploratory questions such as:

We are thinking about the different effects of closed and open questions:

What kind of answers do closed questions give us?
What kind of answers do open questions give us?
When might we use a closed question?
What are closed questions useful for?
When might we use open questions?
What are open questions useful for?
Can you change a closed question into an open question?

2: Dual focus teaching…blending content and process

You design activities that combine the dual objectives of ‘what’ will be learned and ‘how’ it will be learned. You make sure students know that the content they are learning is a way of giving their minds a useful workout. (The content is the vehicle for learning)

For example:

Put the ‘how’ before the ‘what’ in constructing objectives or intentions.

Research shows that objectives relating to ‘understanding xxxxx’ or ‘knowing yyyyy’ are less likely to motivate a learner to make the effort than those that start with some indication of the sort of ‘effort’ or way of doing something

For example: We are going to…

…work as a team to decide why…….
…use open questions to design……
…conjure up your imagination to ….

3: Emotional engagement…Capturing attention

Your lessons are designed to intrigue your students. Students don’t put in the effort unless their energy and attention are captured by what they are doing. You capture your students’ emotional engagement by giving them more of a stake in the process of learning.

For example:

Give students opportunities to design projects

At the start of a class project…. write a series of questions on separate pieces of cards and give each group a set of the cards to share equally. Students then decide:

the best order for the questions in order to do the project well;
whether they need all the questions or if some are irrelevant in the context;
whether there are any missing questions and if so, what they might be;
and later, what they have learnt about questions from this.

Thus students are given a real stake and sense of involvement in the process of learning both immediately and into the future of the project.

4: Handling uncertainty…Challenge

You have realised from your own life that what is engaging tends to be what is challenging. Since you see education as a preparation for a learning life, you help students to learn how to handle increasing degrees of complexity and uncertainty.

For example:

Use the ‘support to continue‘ technique: questions not answers.

If students freeze when something is tricky, offer supportive questions not answers. A basic support to continue is ‘What might you do next?’, and when this has been done simply ask the question again. To extend the ‘support to continue’ approach, try using phrases like:

What have you already tried? What else might work?;
Why is this proving difficult? What is it that you can’t do?;
What did you do last time? I wonder what you did to move on?.

5: Relationships…Working together

Learning is both a sociable and a solitary activity, and you offer your students opportunities to experience both. You develop interdependent learners who know how to handle themselves in collaborative groups and able to move around in the social space of learning to best effect.

For example:

Use Think, Pair, Share – purposefully

Offer students a problem or question which is more substantial than simple recall.

Think – Allow plenty of individual think time to engage with the issue.
Pair – Students then try out their ideas, (discuss, clarify, challenge) with a ‘Learning Partner’.
Share – The pair share with another pair, and subsequently with the whole class to arrive at a range of possible answers. They come to know and shape their views by collaborating with others.

Use as a simple strategy to prepare students for working together in teams, having first thought it through for themselves (Think), checked their ideas out with a talk partner (Pair), before moving on to contributing to a group (Share). At each point students are exposed to the views of others which encourages them to revise and refine their initial thinking.

6: Reflection and responsibility…Taking charge

You understand that students have to learn how to manage and organise their own learning and that the way to do this is by giving them increasingly demanding opportunities to do so. You orchestrate students taking charge of their learning by expecting them to plan what they do, distil meaning from it, and revise it accordingly.

For example:

Use learning prompt mats . .

at the start of this process to prompt the use of and reflection on questioning.

A checklist for lesson planning based on these six principles.

Does the lesson plan:

Make it clear to students which learning behaviours are being activated?
Match and blend the learning behaviour with content?
Include a tactic to captivate students’ attention?
Have sufficiently challenging learning activities to sustain interest for all?
Offer choice on how students could interact on these tasks?
Embed aspects of planning, reflecting and revising for content and process?

What do you think?

Which of these six principles are a regular feature of your planning?
What do you make of principle 2? Is it the most tricky of the six? The following section B is mostly about this aspect of planning.
Look at the checklist in the green box above this one: Do your lesson plans capture these six aspects of an effective learning experience?

Make a note of…

Which of the six principles might need to be given greater prominence in your planning.

B. Big questions to ask about lesson design.

Skim or leave this section if you have met it in other units because… the section applies to any learning behaviour. i.e. not specific to Questioning.

Open Me

Prelude

In conventional lessons where the teacher remains the focus of attention and the initiator of all activity, and where the epistemic dimension (the conditions for acquiring knowledge) is not acknowledged, students gain habits of compliance and dependence, rather than curiosity and self-reliance.

In developing learning power, teachers are making conscious choices about which habits to introduce and stretch and how best to couple these with content so that lessons become more interesting and challenging. Through such overt coupling of content and specific types of process, students come to know, understand and take control of their learning behaviours – they knowingly use and develop the whole range of learning behaviours.

the learning behaviours that are necessary for successful content acquisition;
the design of activities /tasks that will stimulate these behaviours;
how learners could reflect on and evaluate their use of these behaviours.

In designing such lessons you have to dare to think differently and flip round your usual lesson design thinking.

A turn-around in lesson design

Think in two dimensions at once – the content dimension and the learning behaviour dimension. It means turning your thinking around – from teaching to learning.

Or put another way

Think to yourself;

what content?
using which learning behaviour(s)?
via an activity to stretch both?

Lesson design questions… one by one

Here the general rules of lesson design have been related to the learning behaviour…questioning.

Stage 1. What content do students need to learn?

What content has to be learned? …..Think outcomes.

Use standard lesson planning tools:
- What are students going to be able to do/learn?…think objectives
- How will they know if they been successful?… think success criteria
While keeping an obvious eye on
- What do they already know?….think previous learning.

Stage 2. How will they best learn it?

Using which learning behaviours?

This is the new bit

Using which learning behaviours?…Think types of learning behaviours

Which learning behaviour(s) will help these students get closer to understanding this content?…think learning behaviour charts.
Which aspect of, say, questioning, lends itself to achieving these outcomes?…think progression columns.
How skilled are these students in using this learning behaviour …think progression phases/rows

Say something like this to yourself .…My students need to achieve xxx. At this stage we could get closer to this content by using questioning. Most of my students are able to use xxx phase (e.g. respond/blue) questioning approaches confidently.

Stage 3. What type of task/activity will stretch the learning?

Which type of task…Think types of task.

Pick up your thinking from stage 2;

My students need to achieve xxx. At this stage we could get closer to this content by using questioning. Most of my students would be able to use xxx phase (e.g. blue/responds phase) questioning approaches confidently.

And now think about the sort of task/activity you might develop/design so as to:

orchestrate a problem-solving activity to enable students’ understanding of xyz content without telling them;
intrigue them with something that is open to several interpretations;
stimulate their curiosity;
grab their attention…visually and aurally;
allow them to stay stuck before I ask them how they are thinking;
offer as a nudge to get them thinking differently that doesn’t give the answer away;
leave it as a problem hanging in the air to which we will return later;
make links between the challenge, and what and how we are learning in this lesson.

The challenge isn’t about the inherent complexity of the subject matter but about how the content is orchestrated to encourage students to use their learning habits to resource their solution.

Think…what/how much information/content do I need to give/reveal? At what point? In what form? To what end?

Say something like this to yourself .…

my students need to achieve xxx.
at this point we could get closer to this content by using questioning.
most of my students are able to use xxx phase (e.g. respond/blue phase) questioning approaches confidently.
What type of task would stretch their questioning but assist them with the content…without me just telling them!

To summarise…the heart of the lesson

It’s the question ‘using which learning behaviours?’ that causes you to think differently about the lesson planning.

You ask – as always – what are the anticipated objectives/intentions?
The verbs in your resulting objectives will give you clues about the types of task/methodology that will get students there and the sorts of learning behaviours your students will need to contribute to this learning endeavour.

You are designing the task in a way that requires students to contribute their learning ‘powers’ / behaviours. The tasks you design will hook into their learning ‘powers’ and help them to improve them.

Say something like this to yourself:

I am going to think content, learning behaviour and task together:

Questioning will help students to better access the content;
The aspect of questioning (column) and phase (row) that would fit best is (for example) using open and closed questioning;
The type of task/activity that would best stretch both content and learning behaviour, intrigue, challenge, bring people together and give responsibility to students is………
Think….what information do I need to reveal/give, in what form, at what point, and what do I want students to do with it?

What do you think?

What strikes you about this way of planning with learning behaviours in mind?
Where are the potential stumbling blocks?
How will you decide which learning behaviour(s) you are going to foreground in your objectives?

Consider a lesson you are about to teach…

What is the content?
Which learning behaviour(s), if missing, would make accessing the content very difficult / impossible?
How could you blend reference to this learning behaviour(s) into the learning objectives?
Can you design a task that will help students to access the content and exercise the key learning behaviour(s) you have identified?

C. Lesson planning in action – an exemplar, questioning focused, task.

How do we design tasks that stretch Questioning and assist students to approach the content more productively? We cover this in four ways:

1 describes the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) used in the lesson;
2 shows the phases of a lesson where questioning is the driving behaviour;
3 considers a simple lesson plan template that can be used for any lesson and distils the QFT lesson into this format;
4 invites you to extend your thinking about the QFT technique into other aspects of the curriculum.

Open Me

1. A description of the Question Formulation Technique

The intriguing technique used in the lesson has been developed by the Right Question Institute over several years. The technique puts students into the driving seat of asking their own questions. It helps students to learn how to produce their own questions, improve them, and think how best to use them. During this process students practice divergent and convergent thinking and metacognition (thinking about thinking). When students know how to ask their own questions, they take greater ownership of their learning, have deeper comprehension and make new connections and discoveries on their own.

The teacher begins the technique with a sharp enough hook to start the students’ questioning process. In brief the process goes like this.

The RQI’s Question Formulation Technique

Stage 1: Produce Your Own Questions
Stage 2: Improve Your Questions
Stage 3: Prioritise Your Questions

Stage 1: Produce your Questions

Four essential rules for producing your own questions:

Ask as many questions as you can;
Do not stop to discuss, judge or answer the questions;
Write down every question exactly as it is stated;
Change any statement into a question.

Stage 2: Improve Your Questions

Categorise the questions as closed – or open-ended:

Working together, categorise your questions as either closed (C) or open (O);
Agree if any of your open questions would be better if they were closed, and if any of your closed questions would be better if they were open;
Change any of the questions from one type to another in light of the above discussion.

Stage 3: Prioritise the Questions

Choose your three most important questions:
Why did you choose these three as the most important?

Next Steps

How are you going to use your questions?

Source: rightquestion.org

You can find out a lots more about this by going to https://rightquestion.org/resources/field/education/

The book Make Just One Change: Teach students to ask their own questions, is a very readable comprehensive discussion and analysis of how to use the QFT.

The lesson described in Section 2 of this module (Beyond Green) uses this technique to stimulate creative writing.

To read more about the Question Formulation Technique:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Just-One-Change-Questions/dp/1612500994

2. The Question Formulation Technique used in a lesson.

Look through the lesson below. It uses the rigorous Question Formulation Technique (QFT) process to stimulate creative writing.

We observed this lesson being delivered by a Yr 5 teacher at Blakesley Hall Primary School in Birmingham. We had never witnessed questioning being ‘taught’ like this before and the questions students generated using this method were very impressive!

The objective of the lesson was to…. work together, using imagination and QFT , generate questions to inspire and stimulate a piece of creative writing.

Notice how, despite the focus on learners creating their own questions, other learning behaviours ‘bubble up’ as the lesson proceeds. It reminds us that learning behaviours don’t function in isolation, that an effective learner not only has a wide range of learning behaviours to call on but also the flexibility to move seamlessly from one to another as required.

Now let’s look at the lesson episode by episode.

Episode 1

Teacher action

Student Action

Learning behaviours

Teacher talk

Present students, in groups of 4/5, with an image in the centre of a large piece of paper. Invite them to ask as many questions as they can about the image, following the rules in the student action box.

In groups of 6-7 generate as many as possible questions, using the rules:

a) Ask as many questions as you can;
b) Do not stop to answer/discuss the questions;
c) Write the question exactly as it is stated;
d) Change any statements into questions;

Listening, imagining, questioning

Divergent thinking challenge.

Following a structured process (managing distraction)

Guide students through the rules, but don’t offer suggestions, comments of approval etc.. Encourage rapid production of questions

What’s happening here?

Time: Ten minutes. Resource: An interesting picture secured to a large sheet of sugar paper. 1 per table. This is the Question Focus.

Teacher action: Invite students to generate questions about the picture. Explain the rules.

Student action: The students have to generate their own questions using the following rules:

Produce their own questions;
As many as they can;
Don’t stop, don’t judge, don’t answer the questions;
Write each one exactly as stated;
Change any statement into a question.

Learning behaviours:

Questioning, divergent thinking, keeping to a structured process.

Teacher talk: Not to get involved. Not to be drawn into students’ discussions. Not to influence. Simply guide students through the rules.

Episode 2

Teacher action	Student Action	Learning behaviours	Teacher talk
Invite students to categorise their questions into open (O) and closed (C). Explain types if necessary. Lead discussion re advantage/role of both.	Improving Questions. Students categorise questions as closed or open through discussion	Making Links; Collaboration	What are the advantages of closed questions? Ditto open questions? What do closed/open questions do? Ditto open?

What’s happening here?

The point here is to classify and improve the questions.

Students are asked to categorise questions into open and closed – causing discussion. The teacher may need to introduce a definition of closed and open questions. Closed – can only be answered with yes or no or one word. Open – require an explanation and cannot be answered with yes or no or one word.

The teacher then leads a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of questions. This causes students to think of the role and purpose of questions.

Episode 3

Teacher action	Student Action	Learning behaviours	Teacher talk
Invite students to change at least one question from closed to open and vice versa.	Review their questions and discuss what happens when you re-frame them. Identify whether they need to re-frame others.	Making links. Reasoning, compare and contrast. Convergent thinking.	What happens when you change that question? What different sorts of information will it give you now? Which of your questions might need changing?

What’s happening here?

The point here is to appreciate how changing a question makes a difference to the information it yields.

Here the teacher invites students to change at least one open question into a closed question and vice versa. This causes students to consider how manipulating the wording of the question can block or yield certain information. The discovery of the nature of questions allows them to think about the enquiry process in a new way. As students work on changing the form of a question they think about what they will find out, how it meets their needs. In other words they begin to think convergently.

Episode 4

Teacher action	Student Action	Learning behaviours	Teacher talk
Share the objectives of the lesson and what the questions are for. Challenge students to identify 4 or 5 questions. .	Prioritising questions. Discuss and agree on their most useful questions for making a story.	Distilling. Identifying appropriate questions.	Which of these questions are most useful? Which, if answered, would best guide your story?

What’s happening here?

The point here is to look at the relative merits of questions.

Students are asked to prioritise their questions for the job in hand. This stage is linked to the objectives of the lesson. Prioritisation will differ according to the lesson plan in mind, the nature of the enquiry; the purpose of using QFT.

This causes students to compare their questions and assess which will be most helpful. They also begin to sequence the questions; which would need to be answered first before others could be even considered. Looking at the sequential nature of the questions – in this case for a story – that offers a possible storyline. Used in a different context this episode gives rise to a more focused enquiry.

Episode 5

Teacher action

Student Action

Learning behaviours

Teacher talk

Invite students to use their questions (and the answers that they create) as a stimulus for a piece of creative writing. Use Story Mountain as planning tool.

Story to be written in next lesson.

Using the questions. Work together to place their top questions on the Story Mountain planning tool (Introduction, Build Up, Problem, Resolution, Ending).

Making Links, collaborating to seek consensus.

Which bit of the story mountain will the answer to this question apply to? Are there bit(s) of the Story Mountain with no question attached? Can you find a question from your brainstorm to fill in any gap(s). How will you agree on the best questions?

What’s happening here?

The point here is to work out how best to use the questions informed by the prioritisation process.

In this case for a story. This is now more familiar territory. In this lesson the students began to arrange their questions on a Story Mountain planning tool.

The story was to be written during the next lesson.

Episode 6

Teacher action	Student Action	Learning behaviours	Teacher talk
Give students time to consider, individually, how they would answer their questions.	Students work individually to think up answers to their questions for writing their story later.	Imagination, planning, making links.	Close your eyes – what can you see? What are you feeling? What can you hear? Are your answers beginning to link together? How are you planning to begin and end your story? What would you, as the reader, like to know?

What’s happening here?

Episode 6 in this lesson was used to encourage students to think up/imagine answers to their questions in readiness for writing their story in the next lesson.

Episode 7

Teacher action	Student Action	Learning behaviours	Teacher talk
Reflection invite students to think about what and how they have learned…about questioning and about story content.	Students to reflect on the process. What they have learned, which was the most useful bit of learning for them.	Reflection, meta-cognition, divergent and convergent thinking.	What do you know now about questions that you didn’t know before. How might you use this again?

What’s happening here?

The point here is to reflect on the process of generating, improving and prioritising questions.

The teacher guides a discussion about what students have learned, how they have learned, what is different about what they know now than at the start of the lesson, how they can use what they know now in terms of content and questioning skills.

Here the students are engaged in thinking about their thinking and learning process – metacognition.

Lastly they might be asked to name the most important thing they learned.

What do you think?

Have you thought of a lesson as a blend of teacher actions, student actions, learning behaviours, and teacher talk before?
How could you use the QFT to advantage in your own classroom?

Make a note of…

Your initial reactions to the Question Formulation Technique.

A little more about this technique

There is much more detail and sophistication to this technique than we have been able to show here. It has multiple uses across the curriculum. It’s an ideal problem solving tool.

The technique provides:

A clear disciplined structure
Open space for different student and learning and talking styles
Respect for student ideas and ability to work together
High expectations that students can think at very high levels

It will take several go’s at it to begin to reap real benefits but such benefits are well worth the wait. In their book, Make just one change, Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana report that students themselves recognised three categories of change in themselves;

better understanding of content
increased confidence, becoming self-started, more engaged, take ownership of their learning.
developed lifelong thinking skills

We would urge you to buy their book, learn more about the process in detail and try the ideas with your students.

3 Using a lesson plan template to distil this lesson.

Given that there are hundreds of lesson plan formats we will use a few different types of planning tools over the course of these units. This one is a simple, streamlined, useable tool that includes:

What you do (teacher action);
What students do (student action);
What the learning behaviours being called upon are (learning behaviours);
What you say (learning talk) to nudge the learning behaviour along.

The format is divided into episodes to show the change of purpose, action and use of learning behaviour across the course of the lesson.

Download a blank lesson plan as a MS Word document: Lesson Planning Grid [.DOC 33KB]

If we now populate the template with the episodes explored in section 2 above, we get the completed lesson plan. . .

What do you think?

What are your first reactions to this lesson plan template?
Does planning for four aspects – teacher action, student action, learning behaviours, teacher talk – seem useful?
How does sequencing the lesson as ‘episodes’ help or hinder planning?

Make a note of…

The extent to which your existing planning template enables you to think about lessons in this way.
What you would like / need to add to it.

4 Extend your thinking about this QFT technique

Here you will find an eclectic range of provocations to extend your thinking about when and how to use this technique.

Here are some images that the teacher may have used as her trigger.

Which of these images would you have chosen to put in the middle of the paper to trigger the Question Formulation Technique?

Of course, if you had been intending to do some creative writing entitled ‘A day at the beach’ you would have selected from other images.

But the Question Formulation Technique can be used well beyond creative writing . . .

What image / artefact / word / concept would you use if you were planning to use QFT in a module of work on:

The use of the semi-colon;
The artwork of Piet Mondrian;
Life in the Middle Ages;
Electricity;
Prime numbers.

And if you were going to use QFT, why would you use it?

What would you do with the questions that the students generate?
How might you use their questions to shape your planning?
To understand their misconceptions?
To give them ownership of what they are learning?
To focus their thinking?
To generate agreed success criteria for the module?

And, finally, A Challenge Question.

How could you adapt the Question Formulation Technique to intentionally develop questioning skills that are higher up the progression map for Questioning, like . . .

Question Funnels, or
Hypothetical Questions, or
Devil’s Advocate?

What do you think?

Where / when / why might you use the Question Formulation Technique?
How will you use the questions that are generated?
How will these questions inform your planning?
How will you ensure that the QFT is an integral part of the lesson, and not just a ‘catchy’ activity before the ‘serious’ work begins?

Make a note of…

Which class you might try the QFT with.
When you will try it.

Section 2: Building questioning friendly classroom cultures

Teachers as habit formers

As teachers we are in the habit-forming business. What we say, what we display on classroom walls, what we celebrate, praise or dismiss, what we model or how we design learning activities will all influence the ways in which students learn, perform and behave. Classroom cultures have a huge influence on students’ learning as you will remember from the Culture unit.

Five big shifts to get you started. How might you:

Value and praise good questions as well as good answers;
Make it safe for people to disagree…see it as an interesting situation from which to learn;
Put enquiry mindedness on display…share your enthusiasms, display unfinished lines of enquiry;
Develop open-end challenges;
Build your lessons from intriguing questions.

Now look at the Learning Chart sections below where you will find plenty more ideas to try.

Section 1: Questioning and how it develops

1.1 What is Questioning?

‘Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.’ So stated Socrates, considered by some to be ‘the father of questioning’. Even through nearly 2,500 years of human development and societal ‘progression’, those words still hold true. In growing the habit of questioning, it is important to acknowledge that questioning itself is rooted in curiosity, that great driver of engagement, of seeking, of asking, and asking again.

Good learners like to wonder about things. For them, it often really is a wonder-ful world. The phrases ‘How come?’ and ‘What if?’ are never far from their lips.

They value getting below the surface of things, and are less likely to accept uncritically what they are told. They like to come to their own conclusions. They are more willing to reveal their questions and uncertainties if they think it will help them learn.

Questioning can be as much non-verbal as it is verbal. Playing around with materials or ideas just to see what happens is a powerful way of asking questions. It is what artists and inventors spend a lot of their time doing. The inclination to ask questions flourishes when you are around people who are also asking questions, and who encourage and appreciate your questions too.

Extract from Building Learning Power. Guy Claxton 2002

What do you think? How well do you know your children as questioners?

Think of the pupils that you teach. Who amongst them is irrepressibly curious?
Which of your pupils are reticent in asking questions?
Why this might be?
Have you ever considered the quality of the questions that your pupils ask?

Make a note of...

How ‘good’ are they at asking questions?
Do they ask ‘good’ questions?
Your definition of a ‘good’ question?

A well-formed habit

Let’s dig a little deeper into questioning.
Effective questioners are motivated and not afraid to ask questions about the past, the present and to explore the future. They have an extensive range of question types and techniques at their disposal, which they use with discernment and sensitivity to occasion.

A well-formed questioning habit involves being ready, willing and able to

Not take things at face value
Be less likely to accept answers uncritically
Ask questions of oneself as well as of others
Dig beneath the surface
Get under the surface of things
Be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity
Not be afraid of the ‘don’t know’ state of mind
Be playful, yet systematic and analytical
Be socially aware of the impact that questions may have on others
Challenge others’ thinking
Understand and use different types of question for different purposes
Recognise that revealing their own uncertainties helps them learn.

What do you think?

Do you detect that your students are becoming increasingly like this as they move through your school?
How do you know? What makes you say that?
What do you currently do in school to develop an insatiable appetite to find out more?

Make a note of…

What you might be doing at the moment that inhibits curiosity?

1.2 How Questioning might build when we nurture it.

Being good at questioning isn’t something that switches on on good days and off on bad days. Questioning grows and builds when it’s nurtured and supported. Furthermore, being an effective questioner involves gaining control of a range of linked skills and emotions.

Cast your eye over the ‘big picture’ of growing Questioning below. Then move on to finding out what the columns (1.3) and the rows (1.4) are all about.

Download grid as a pdf

What do you think?

Do these big features of questioning make sense to you?
Can you think of any others?

Make a note of…

Things that you think might be missing from this big picture of questioning

1.3 Unpick the columns; what contributes to a readiness to Question?

The grid columns are things that might combine to make up the skills and attitudes of a Questioner.

Overview
1) Attentiveness
2) Search skills
3) Self-talk
4) Questioning to focus on depth and detail (convergent)
5) Questioning to open possibilities (divergent)
6) The art of asking questions of others

Overview of the grid

We tend to think of questioning as a common everyday skill that we all use and indeed it is. But questioning is rooted in curiosity and is therefore big driver of learning. But as with any learning behaviour it can wither and atrophy if left unattended. If children are made to feel stupid for asking questions, or told that questioning is cheeky, or that questioning is time wasting they are more than likely to give it up…it has little value to them. So this grid draws together all the aspects of learning that might contribute to questioning becoming a vital, well-honed skill for navigating life. It deals with the details of questioning skill but also touches on search skills and indeed how we ask questions of others such that it’s accepted and generously answered.

Take a closer look at what each column of the grid is about

1) Attentiveness

The first column is about how we actually attend to being curious; what is it that piques our curiosity and how we keep it going. In the early phases, this might involve looking carefully for the issues or details that our questions raise, using this information to go deeper, becoming fully involved/absorbed in a quest to uncover possibilities or answers. The more we ask, the more we find out, and the more curious we become to find out yet more. In the later phases we might become more picky about the information we are uncovering/seeking, making sure it is valid for our purposes. We become fascinated by both the big picture as well as the small details of an enquiry and seeking new experiences and information becomes a way of life.

2) Search skills

Being curious, finding things out, seeking information requires the ability to search effectively. This may start with asking questions of others or using a book index and library skills or reading a map. But these days searching rapidly embraces the internet and a whole new range of focused questioning skills come into play. Finding information may have become rapid and simple but discerning relevant, reliable and robust information calls for yet more new skills. How we seek, question and capitalise on a variety of resources, from books, to the internet, to physical tools is a vital aspect of any ‘finding out’ quest.

3) Self-talk

The voice of self awareness

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves as we learn. The statements capture what someone in each phase of the grid might be thinking. Students may use some of these phrases when talking with you, or in writing from time to time, but mostly self-talk goes on inside their heads. We have shown a small flavour of self-talk, thoughts that teachers can encourage students to imitate. How might we talk to ourselves in shaping our questioning behaviour. How does this talk move from the ‘need for help’, to enjoying the challenge of finding out, to taking a questioning approach to everything we do.

4) Questioning to focus on depth and detail (convergent)

In column four we get serious about types of questions and in this case the type of questions that are designed to seek more detail and depth. Here the questioning is more focused moving from simply knowing about closed questions and using them to find things out; to developing questions that will sift and filter information; to being about to use question frameworks purposefully; to being able to construct incisive and generative questions to probe the essence of something. In brief, how adept are we at posing questions that will uncover specific details and converge on and getting to the heart of the matter.

5) Questioning to open possibilities (divergent)

In column five we consider a different sort of questioning; that of opening possibilities (divergent). Here our questioning approach gets braver as we move from opening possibilities when prompted, probing for more expansive information, to asking ‘what if’ questions. This expansive questioning leads to exploring possibilities, thinking about things differently, stimulating new ideas, daring to be different, exploring hunches, being creative. It’s a line of questioning that leads us into the unknown.

6) The art of asking questions of others

The last column is about the aspect of asking questions of others. Questioning others, even through the lens of being curious, is a skilful business. It’s easy to upset people without realising it. It might be by using the wrong tone, or putting the emphasis in the wrong place. Building rapport with people is a really important aspect of being able to ask questions, and especially when, for one reason or another, the questions have to be tough. In the later phases of developing this skill we learn how to prepare a set of questions that will make an argument/case, or uncover a problem, or develop a story. (much as you may do in preparing a set of questions for guiding a lesson.) Eventually we become skilled enough to know just what sort of question to ask, in the right way, in the appropriate setting. Thus we have become sensitive to the potential impact of posing questions as much as to the quality of the question itself.

What do you think?

In what order do you think these skills might develop?
Will it be the same for all students?
Do you think these skills will develop ‘naturally’ as children mature?
Do we need to intervene in some way order to support the development?
Do you think that there are any missing skills? Where would you add them?

Make a note of . . . .

Skills you think happen naturally
Any skills you think are missing

1.4 Unpick the rows; getting better at Questioning

Of course the development of Questioning does not grow neatly up each column or evenly across the phases in the grid. The five broad phases of dispositional growth (purple – orange) are affective ways in which people may be inclined to behave: we call this inclination ‘mindedness’.

Here is our interpretation of how Questioning might grow.

Overview
Lacks
Receives
Responds
Values
Organises
Embodies

Meaning behind the phases

The phases are drawn from Bloom’s taxonomy of the affective domain.

Phase ‘Receives’ (purple) is about doing something because you are told or expected to.

Phase ‘Responds’ (blue) is about gaining interest and doing things more willingly.

Phase ‘Values’ (green) is a key phase since the student now sees the value of behaving in this way. It’s a win for them – to behave like this is in their interest. It’s in this phase that the behaviour becomes more secure.

Phase ‘Organises’ (yellow) is the phase in which the student capitalises on this ‘in their interest’ behaviour and gets themselves organised to use it positively.

We urge you to see this progression as long term. Some phases will take years for people to work through; some will never be worked through. None of the phases are inevitable. There is a lifetime of development captured here. Nevertheless the role of a teacher or parent should surely be to encourage and enable this journey.

Lacks: Minded to give up easily and be needy for support

In the lacks or grey phase there are a range of possible negative or controlling issues to overcome. Not all children will display all of these but these are the type of behaviours that need to be remedied. The first issue is that students need to feel that asking questions is the most important part of learning and not something to be afraid of. They need to be encouraged to find things out for themselves and to be interested in the answer as much as the question. Moving out of the lacks phase is the first stage of encouraging children to think and find things out for themselves. There are of course children who have a constant stream of questions and perhaps in this case they need help with looking at/caring more about the answers.

Receives: Minded to try out aspects of finding things out when required

In the Receives (purple) phase, students are shifting from perhaps a general lack of awareness of the role and power of questioning to trying out questioning because they are being required or encouraged or reminded to do so. Here they need help; to ask a ‘good’ question (i.e. generative, will get them somewhere); to become aware of what the questions uncover and whether it was sufficient/good enough/unexpected; to practise using open and closed questions and know what they are for, and to begin to use some simple search techniques.

Responds: Minded to be interested in things to better focus finding out.

In the Responds (blue) phase, students show more willingness to find things out and learn to focus their questioning efforts more effectively. They become very interested in and aware of the detail or meaning of what their questions reveal. Their search skills are becoming more specific and their convergent and divergent questioning are becoming more profitable. And alongside these closer questioning skills they can vary the tone and emphasis of their questioning in order to build rapport with others.

Values: Minded dig deeper into things and develop the search and questioning skills to match

In the Values (green) phase, students have really understood the value of the skill of asking questions. They like and are able to dig more deeply or expansively to satisfy their curiosity. With greater skill comes more risk taking and questioning that ventures into the unknown. This phase is about honing their detective skills.

Organises: Minded to ensure their curiosity and questioning skills pay off.

In the Organises (yellow) phase students organise themselves to keep on track. They have become highly skilled in various search skills, they know how to prepare the right sort of questions for pursuing their lines of enquiry. They are familiar with various question frameworks and their lines of enquiry may have become more risky or provocative.

Embodies: Minded to take a questioning approach to learning and life

In the Embodies (orange) phase people have become skilled and seasoned ‘finder-outers’. They are fully and skilfully absorbed in seeking new ideas or experiences and their questioning style and demeanour has become sensitive to any occasion. So while their curiosity would lead them to want to ask questions in almost any situation they know when and where and how not to.

Preparation for the Learning Team meeting

Where are my students now?

Take a look at the questioning progression chart in your Learning Diary or
Download grid to colour in here
Colour in the cells where you think your students are secure.
Some will barely be on the chart while others may be quite a way up. Neat straight lines of secure behaviours are rare. But looking at your students in this way should give you an idea of what you need to work on.
Draw a red line across the chart to denote where you think most of the school’s students could and should reach by the time they leave.
Please take the results of these tasks with you to the Professional Learning Team session shown in Section 4

Section 4: Team reflection and planning Copy

Info
View notes

If you want to read again the notes on Professional Learning Teams, click on the view notes tab in this box

Professional Learning Teams: what and how

Some guidelines for team reflection sessions

Everyone is expected to report back on their classroom experiments
Coaching questions and probes of colleagues’ classroom experiments encourage deeper reflection.
The group is careful to follow their agreed ground rules which might include;
- No group member can ‘pass’
- Listen between the lines when it’s not your turn
- Actively discuss everyone’s input
- Constructive criticism – developmental not judgemental
- Everyone fully engaged in the group
  •What is said is confidential to the group
  • Respect others’ views and encourage others’ ideas
- No-put downs
- Maintain an open mind

What-Why-How-of-PLT.pdf

Session agenda

If this team session is your first one in Stepping Stones, miss out item 2.

1. Session objectives

What do we want to achieve? ( 5 mins)

2. Sharing classroom experiments

How did our experiments go? ( 20 mins)

the changes in practice you tried
how students reacted
what you learned
what next as a result

Probe

what was getting in the way?
what seemed difficult?
what would make it easier?
what made it work particularly well?
why it was successful?
changes in your behaviour

Talk about impact

improvements in the ‘feel’ of the classroom
increased time on task
less low level disruption
more talk about learning
more enjoyment in learning
more/renewed interest in the subject
more harmony in the classroom
greater willingness to try, and try different ways
Avoidance of…..
Improvements in……
Increases in…….
Little of no change in…
Also…consider the behaviour-specific improvement indicators for the learning habit you were improving. (i.e. as shown for this behaviour in section 5c below)

3. Recapping on-line materials

What did we think of the materials? ( 15 mins)

Reactions to

The Listening grid
Where pupils are secure
Where the pupils could be secure when they leave for secondary school
Classroom culture ideas
Activities and talk ideas

4. Planning what to do

What do we need to do next? ( 10 mins )

Decide

Which ideas should we all adopt as a school strategy?
How the progression of Listening should be built across the school. ie how the phases of Listening might play out against key stages and even year groups.

5. Personal action planning

What am I going to do? ( 20 mins )

5a.Consider

how you want your pupils to improve/develop/enhance their approach to Listening?
what you are going to do to bring this about?
develop your enquiry question.

Think of it like this…

If I do XXXX will it improve/develop/enhance YYYY

This is the crunch question. Your pupils are unlikely to change unless you change!

Capture your learning enquiry as a question

Developing-an-enquiry-question-Listening.pdf

5b. Put a short enquiry plan together

Personal-Action-Plan-Listening.pdf

5c. Discuss which of these possible impacts on students have been observed;

improved turn taking
increased looking in order to listen
a willingness to listen ‘across the class’
realisation that peers have valuable opinions
inclination to listen for what is not being said
increased understanding of the emotions of the speaker
greater interest in the values / intentions of the speaker
increased ability to paraphrase / summarise what has been said
willingness to check that they have understood the speaker
greater empathy for others
others you may have observed…

Or if you want to be more specific you could use the indicators from the Progression grid.

Download grid as a pdf

6. Evaluate team session

How did we do as a team? ( 5 mins )

Did we achieve our objectives?
Are we comfortable with what we are trying to achieve?
Any concerns at this point?
Next meeting date and time.

Section 3: Blending Listening with content Copy

So far, you have:

Looked at your students through the lens of the Listening learning chart
Gained a sense of what becoming better at Listening looks like
Explored a range of ideas and activities that will help to engage students with Listening

Now we look closely at how to blend improving students’ listening into the content you have to teach.

A. The principles behind any learning powered lesson

B. Big questions to ask about lesson design

C. Lesson planning in action…an exemplar listening focused task

A. The principles behind any learning powered lesson

Open Me

The SIX principles that lie behind teaching for learning power

1: Visible learning…Surfacing learning

For example:

Use displays of exploratory questions such as:

We are thinking about the different effects of closed and open questions:

What kind of answers do closed questions give us?
What kind of answers do open questions give us?
When might we use a closed question?
What are closed questions useful for?
When might we use open questions?
What are open questions useful for?
Can you change a closed question into an open question?

2: Dual focus teaching…blending content and process

For example:

Put the ‘how’ before the ‘what’ in constructing objectives or intentions.

For example: We are going to…

…work as a team to decide why…….
…use open questions to design……
…conjure up your imagination to ….

3: Emotional engagement…Capturing attention

For example:

Give students opportunities to design projects

At the start of a class project…. write a series of questions on separate pieces of cards and give each group a set of the cards to share equally. Students then decide:

the best order for the questions in order to do the project well
whether they need all the questions or if some are irrelevant in the context
whether there are any missing questions and if so, what they might be
and later, what they have learnt about questions from this.

Thus students are given a real stake and sense of involvement in the process of learning both immediately and into the future of the project.

4: Handling uncertainty…Challenge

For example:

Use the ‘support to continue‘ technique: questions not answers.

What have you already tried? What else might work?
Why is this proving difficult? What is it that you can’t do?
What did you do last time? I wonder what you did to move on?

5: Relationships…Working together

For example:

Use Think, Pair, Share purposefully

Offer students a problem or question which is more substantial than simple recall.

Think – Allow plenty of individual think time to engage with the issue.
Pair – Students then try out their ideas, (discuss, clarify, challenge) with a ‘Learning Partner’.
Share – The pair share with another pair, and subsequently with the whole class to arrive at a range of possible answers. They come to know and shape their views by collaborating with others.

6: Reflection and responsibility…Taking charge

For example:

Use learning mats

at the start of this process to prompt the use of and reflection on listening.

INSERT CORRECT MAT

A checklist for lesson planning based on these six principles.

Does the lesson plan:

Make it clear to students which learning behaviours are being activated?
Match and blend the learning behaviour with content?
Include a tactic to captivate students’ attention?
Have sufficiently challenging learning activities to sustain interest for all?
Offer choice on how students could interact on these tasks?
Embed aspects of planning, reflecting and revising for content and process?

What do you think?

Which of these six principles are a regular feature of your planning?
What do you make of principle 2? Is it the most tricky of the six? The following section B is mostly about this aspect of planning.
Look at the checklist in the green box above this one: Do your lesson plans capture these six aspects of an effective learning experience?

Make a note of…

Which of the six principles might need to be given greater prominence in your planning.

B. Big questions to ask about lesson design.

Open Me

Prelude

In conventional lessons where the teacher remains the focus of attention and the initiator of all activity, and where the epistemic dimension (the conditions for acquiring knowledge) is not acknowledged, students gain habits of compliance and dependence, rather than curiosity and self-reliance.

In developing learning power, teachers are making conscious choices about which habits to introduce and stretch and how best to couple these with content so that lessons become more interesting and challenging. Through such overt coupling of content and specific types of process, students come to know, understand and take control of their learning behaviours – they knowingly use and develop the whole range of learning behaviours.

the learning behaviours that are necessary for successful content acquisition;
the design of activities /tasks that will stimulate these behaviours;
how learners could reflect on and evaluate their use of these behaviours.

In designing such lessons you have to dare to think differently and flip round your usual lesson design thinking.

A turn-around in lesson design

Think in two dimensions at once – the content dimension and the learning behaviour dimension. It means turning your thinking around – from teaching to learning.

Or put another way

Think to yourself;

what content?
using which learning behaviour(s)?
via an activity to stretch both?

Lesson design questions… one by one

Here the general rules of lesson design have been related to the learning behaviour…listening.

Stage 1. What content do students need to learn?

What content has to be learned? …..Think outcomes.

Use standard lesson planning tools:
- What are students going to be able to do/learn?…think objectives
- How will they know if they been successful?… think success criteria
While keeping an obvious eye on
- What do they already know?….think previous learning.

Stage 2. How will they best learn it?

Using which learning behaviours?

This is the new bit

Using which learning behaviours?…Think types of learning behaviours

Which learning behaviour(s) will help these students get closer to understanding this content?…think learning behaviour charts.
Which aspect of, say, listening, lends itself to achieving these outcomes?…think progression columns.
How skilled are these students in using this learning behaviour …think progression phases/rows

Say something like this to yourself .…My students need to achieve xxx. At this stage we could get closer to this content by using listening. Most of my students are able to use xxx phase (e.g. respond/blue) listening approaches confidently.

Stage 3. What type of task/activity will stretch the learning?

Which type of task…Think types of task.

Pick up your thinking from stage 2;

My students need to achieve xxx. At this stage we could get closer to this content by using listening. Most of my students would be able to use xxx phase (e.g. blue/responds phase) listening approaches confidently.

And now think about the sort of task/activity you might develop/design so as to:

orchestrate a problem-solving activity to enable students’ understanding of xyz content without telling them;
intrigue them with something that is open to several interpretations;
stimulate their curiosity;
grab their attention…visually and aurally;
allow them to stay stuck before I ask them how they are thinking;
offer as a nudge to get them thinking differently that doesn’t give the answer away;
leave it as a problem hanging in the air to which we will return later;
make links between the challenge, and what and how we are learning in this lesson.

The challenge isn’t about the inherent complexity of the subject matter but about how the content is orchestrated to encourage students to use their learning habits to resource their solution.

Think…what/how much information/content do I need to give/reveal? At what point? In what form? To what end?

Say something like this to yourself .…

my students need to achieve xxx.
at this point we could get closer to this content by using listening.
most of my students are able to use xxx phase (e.g. respond/blue phase) listening approaches confidently.
What type of task would stretch their listening but assist them with the content…without me just telling them!

To summarise…the heart of the lesson

It’s the question ‘using which learning behaviours?’ that causes you to think differently about the lesson planning.

You ask – as always – what are the anticipated objectives/intentions?
The verbs in your resulting objectives will give you clues about the types of task/methodology that will get students there and the sorts of learning behaviours your students will need to contribute to this learning endeavour.

Say something like this to yourself:

I am going to think content, learning behaviour and task together:

Listening will help students to better access the content;
The aspect of listening (column) and phase (row) that would fit best is (for example) ‘Listens actively for intention, emotion and mixed messages’.
The type of task/activity that would best stretch both content and learning behaviour, intrigue, challenge, bring people together and give responsibility to students is………
Think….what information do I need to reveal/give, in what form, at what point, and what do I want students to do with it?

What do you think?

What strikes you about this way of planning with learning behaviours in mind?
Where are the potential stumbling blocks?
How will you decide which learning behaviour(s) you are going to foreground in your objectives?

Consider a lesson you are about to teach…

What is the content?
Which learning behaviour(s), if missing, would make accessing the content very difficult / impossible?
How could you blend reference to this learning behaviour(s) into the learning objectives?
Can you design a task that will help students to access the content and exercise the key learning behaviour(s) you have identified?

C. Lesson planning in action – how do we build Listening into lesson design?

This section differs from the same section in many other modules in that we do not offer a pre-prepared lesson based around, in this case, Listening. Rather we take you through the planning steps to produce such a lesson for yourself, based on content that you need to teach.

How do we design tasks that stretch Listening and assist students to approach the content more productively? We cover this in four ways:

1 Preliminary thinking about the lesson;
2 Planning the Episodes of the lesson;
3 Distilling the plan on to a single sheet of paper;
4 invites you to extend your thinking about Jigsaw Listening into other aspects of the curriculum.

Open Me

Preliminary thinking – Planning for a lesson that builds content understanding and exercises Listening as a key learning behaviour.

Let’s consider this by thinking through the three stages of lesson design in section B (above):

Stage 1. What content do students need to learn?
Stage 2. How will they best learn it?
Stage 3. What type of task/activity will stretch the learning?

Key ideas

Stage 1: What content has to be learned? …..Think outcomes.

Use standard lesson planning tools:
- What are students going to be able to do/learn?…think objectives
- How will they know if they been successful?… think success criteria
While keeping an obvious eye on
- What do they already know?….think previous learning.

Amplification

The content is usually prescribed in schemes of work, medium term plans etc.

While the ‘what’ of learning is frequently beyond the teacher’s immediate control, the ‘how’ of achieving it is much less tightly prescribed.

It is through the ‘how’ of learning that the teacher has the freedom to put their own stamp on the classroom.

Stage 2. How will they best learn it? Using which learning behaviours?…Think types of learning behaviours

Which learning behaviour(s) will help these students get closer to understanding this content?…think learning behaviour charts.
Which aspect of, say, listening, lends itself to achieving these outcomes?…think progression columns.
How skilled are these students in using this learning behaviour …think progression phases/rows.

The content itself sometimes dictates the required learning behaviours. If the content relates to problem solving, Reasoning will probably figure somewhere, whereas if the content relates to creative writing then Imagining is bound to figure. However, keep an eye on the activities and tasks you are thinking of planning – these activities will also require / exercise particular learning behaviours.

The most effectively planned lessons blend these two aspects:

There is a broad overlap between the behaviours required for learning the content and the learning behaviours activated by the tasks that are designed.

Stage 3 Which type of task…Think types of task.

Pick up your thinking from stages 1 and 2;

And now think about the sort of task/activity you might develop/design.

This is the heart of lesson planning.

The content is identified (stage 1);
The key learning behaviour, in this case Listening, is identified (stage 2);
You have considered how effectively your students listen by looking back to the progression grid for Listening (stage 3).

Now go to section 2 of this module and look at the teaching ideas in the phase(s) most appropriate for your students. Is there a teaching idea here that you could use in this lesson?

Putting it all together in preparation for building a lesson plan . .

After Stages 1,2 and 3 above . .

You have some content in mind

You realise that Listening will be a key learning behaviour necessary for getting to grips with this content

You have looked at the progression chart for Listening and at the linked teaching ideas and decided to use one of the Listening based activities.

[Suppose that having gone through the above, you decide that the activity you wish to use is based on Jigsaw Listening (which is the Purple to Blue phase in section 2 of this module):

Jigsaw listening

Form groups of students, each group tasked with listening for a different aspect of what is being said. After listening they agree as a group what they have heard. The groups then ‘jigsaw’ into new groupings each containing at least one member of the original groups, where they put together the different aspects that have been heard, finally returning to the original groups to consolidate their understandings.

and you have decided . .

The content, whatever it is, must require attentive listening – if it did not you would be in a different module from this one!

Your students will have to listen to something and learn from it, be it a You Tube clip, a TV programme, a presentation by a peer(s), or even yourself telling them something.

After considering your students’ listening skills, you have settled on using Jigsaw Listening as the central activity in the lesson. For this to be successful / necessary, the information to which they need to listen must be sufficiently complex that it is worth dividing up the listening tasks because no one person could listen for all aspects simultaneously.

In section 2 we look at how you might build Jigsaw Listening into a lesson plan.

2. Integrating Jigsaw Listening into a lesson

The teacher intends to present some information to students to which they will have to listen. By thinking about the listening skills of students, the teacher has made the decision to use Jigsaw Listening to help them to understand the spoken information.

Overview of lesson plan:

INSERT IMAGE

This can only be fully populated after the detailed planning of the next few Episodes is completed.

Episode 1 – Listening for different purposes

In this Episode, the teacher sets up the listening groups and students listen, in teams, to spoken information.

Questions to ask

Organising the groups – How many listening groups will you form?

Possible answers

It depends on how many different things you want students to listen out for. You could have groups listening out for any of the following:

Facts;
Opinions;
Main points;
The values / emotions / beliefs / intentions of the speaker;
The quality of the information presented;
Things that are not well understood / fully explained;
Things that are not said.

It depends a bit on how many students you have, what the spoken information contains, and how sophisticated your students’ listening skills are.

But it is an important decision that impacts on later Episodes when the groups ‘jigsaw’.

The number of things listened for by the first grouping determines the minimum group size of the rearranged groups.

Suppose you have 23 students, and you decide that there are 4 aspects that you want them to listen out for. The initial 4 listening groupings will be 3 sixes and a five.

The jigsawed groups must each have at least 4 members so that every group has at least one person from each of the 4 original listening groupings, so you could reconfigure into 3 sixes and a five, or 3 fives and 2 fours.

Alternatively, if you want 23 students to listen for 5 different aspects then the initial 5 groups will be 3 fives and 2 fours, with the jigsawed groups having a minimum of 5 members each -ie 3 sixes and a 5.

The point here is that you can’t leave this to chance and hope to sort the groups in the course of the lesson!

What will the teacher do?

Decide how many times students will be able to listen to the information. For the purposes of this lesson, we are going to plan for students having 2 opportunities to listen to the information;

Organise the groups;

Explain Jigsaw Listening;

Ready students for listening;

Play the listening clip.

What will students do?

Decide/Agree how they will record the things they are listening for;

Listen to the clip.

What will the teacher say?

This depends on the particular things that are being listened for. Teacher talk will focus around nudging effective listening behaviours. For example, to the group listening for emotions, the teacher might say ‘what does the tone of voice tell you?’, to the group listening for factual information ‘can you be sure that xxxx is a fact?’ etc.

Which learning behaviours will be activated?

Learners will plan how they intend to create a record of what they have heard and listen for a specific aspect of what is being said.

which leads to . . . .

INSERT IMAGE

Thinking now about your own lesson, could you complete the boxes and add in timings and detail?

Episode 2 – Checking out what we heard

In this Episode, students confer to agree what has been heard / missed, they listen to the clip for a second and final time, and finally agree what they will be taking to the jigsaw groups.

Questions to ask

What will the teacher do?

Possible answers

xxx

What will students do?

yyy

What will the teacher say?

zzzz

Which learning behaviours will be activated?

Learners share what they have and have not heard, agree what they still need to listen for, and finally distil what has been heard.

which leads to . . . .

INSERT SLIDE

Thinking now about your own lesson, could you complete the boxes and add in timings and detail?

Episode 3 – Putting it all together

In this Episode, groupings are reconfigured and students share and pool their perceptions of what has been heard.

Questions to ask

What will the teacher do?

Possible answers

xxx

What will students do?

yyy

What will the teacher say?

zzzz

Which learning behaviours will be activated?

Learners share their ideas with each other to build a consensus view of what has been heard.

which leads to . . . .

INSERT SLIDE

Thinking now about your own lesson, could you complete the boxes and add in timings and detail?

Episode 4 – Back to base

In this Episode, groupings are un-scrambled and the original groups reformed so that students can share, pool and further refine their perceptions of what has been heard.

Questions to ask

What will the teacher do?

Possible answers

xxx

What will students do?

yyy

What will the teacher say?

zzzz

Which learning behaviours will be activated?

Learners share their ideas with each other, further refine their thinking and distil what they have come to understand.

which leads to . . . .

INSERT SLIDE

Thinking now about your own lesson, could you complete the boxes and add in timings and detail?

And finally, we can return to and complete the overview slide . . .

INSERT COMPLETED OVERVIEW SLIDE

Would you like to have a go yourself at listening for different purposes before asking your students to do so?

Find a clip that is relevant to yourself and contains sufficient information that you probably need to listen a couple of times at least to get to grips with the content.

First, listen to it for key ideas. Then listen again for the opinions of the speaker. Then again for the values / beliefs of the speaker . . . . . .

Try this Ted Talk by Eduardo Briceno talking about Learning and Performance zones.

INSERT LINK TO BRICENO TED TALK

Section 2: Building Listening friendly classroom cultures Copy

Teachers as habit formers

Five big shifts to get you started. Ask yourself – how might you:

Model, discuss and critique the habits of Active Listening;
Create situations that require students to listen for various, different types of information;
Construct opportunities for students to view situations through others’ eyes;
Encourage students to keep an open mind, resisting the inclination to jump to conclusions on partial information;
Help students to listen ‘beyond the words’, to what is not being said, to the values, beliefs and emotions of the speaker.

Now look at the Learning Chart sections below where you will find plenty more ideas to try.

Section 1: Listening and how it develops Copy

1a) What do we mean by Listening?

Empathy and listening are core skills. We bracket them together because listening is the main medium through which empathy is generated and communicated. Students can quite readily be coached in the art of being a good listener, and can be given games and exercises that help them develop the ability to hear what someone else has said and, if necessary, play it back to them. Teachers sometimes complain that students will not listen, either to them or to each other; but the habit of listening can be cultivated in most classes inside a term. The most powerful way to do this is for the teachers to model good listening.
Extract from Building Learning Power. Guy Claxton 2002

1b) What does being a good Listener involve?

Understanding how to listen effectively is an essential skill that benefits everything from family life to business. It’s one of the most critical skills for working effectively in teams. Hearing and listening are different. Whereas hearing is a automatic and effortless process when sound waves strike the ear drum and cause vibrations in the brain, listening is about the brain giving those sounds meaning. It’s unnatural, and it requires effort. There’s all sorts of faulty listening. Sometimes we fake it or pretend to listen; sometimes we only respond to the remarks we are interested in and reject the rest. Sometimes we listen defensively and take innocent remarks as personal attacks. Or, we listen to collect information to use to attack the speaker, or we avoid particular topics, or we listen insensitively and can’t look beyond the words for other meanings, or we turn the conversation to ourselves. So, listening is indeed hard and requires effort. To be a good listener you need to be able to listen for information, listen to judge the quality of the information and listen empathetically to build a relationship and help solve a problem. When looked at from these diverse angles growing Listening moves well beyond encouraging a student to ‘do good listening’.

The Listening grid below takes account of the constituent parts of building the habit of being a good listener.

Our progression grid for Listening has 6 components:

Download grid as a pdf

1c) Unpicking the columns; what contributes to effective listening?

The grid columns are things that might combine to make up the skills and attitudes of an effective listener.

Overview
1) Conventional of listening
2) Self-talk
3) Informational listening to gain understanding
4) Critical listening, judge quality of idea
5) Empathetic listening. Help speaker

Overview of the grid

Listening is not just a communication action, it’s a human action. Successful listening has four stages. Firstly we have to pay attention to what is being said and then make sense of it. We have to respond to the speaker showing you care both verbally and non-verbally. And finally we have to remember the message. In trying to encapsulate this effortful skill the grid looks at the normal conventions of this social process and the growth of skills in the three key listening habits; informational listening; critical listening; empathetic listening. Most of these ideas are gleaned from the work of Stephen Covey,

“Seek first to understand…Then to be understood”. Stephen Covey 1997

Take a closer look at what each column of the grid is about

Conventions of listening

The social conventions of listening

How we move from the convention of taking turns when listening rather than hogging a conversation, to being curious and respecting the speaker. Moving on to listening actively and picking up intentions and emotions in the speaker and knowing how best to respond when people think differently, both from yourself and others, in a conversation

Self-talk

The voice of self-awareness

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves as we learn. The statements capture what someone in each phase of the grid would be thinking. Students may use some of these phrases when talking with you, or in writing from time to time, but mostly self-talk goes on inside their heads. We have shown a small flavour of self-talk thoughts that teachers can encourage students to imitate. Some relate to understanding the message while others relate to responding to the speaker. All such self-talk is important in building a listening habit.

Informational listening to gain understanding

Trying to understand ideas

The key here is to separate the message from the speaker, being open to finding the golden nugget of the message by looking for the big ideas and main points, asking questions to gain more information ( closed and open) and paraphrasing in your own words to check what was meant. And finally being able to listen between the lines, looking beyond the words to find meaning.

Critical listening

Judging the quality of ideas

This column is about judging the quality of the message and deciding whether to accept it or reject it. The first stage is to concentrate on listening. It’s important not to make a judgement too early, to separate the message from the speaker and to ignore information that may lead you to verbally attack the speaker. It’s important through sensitive questioning to evaluate the speaker’s credibility and check the source of the information. The conversation may then move on to examining the evidence and using reasoning skills before making a decision to accept or reject the argument/ information/idea. Finally being able to respond empathetically when rejecting an idea with your counter arguments.

Empathetic listening

Helping people to sort out problems

Empathetic listening is the first step to understanding someone. The goal here is to build a relationship or to help someone solve a problem. This style of listening demands you show the most respect for the other person’s point of view. The thrust of such conversation is to help the speaker draw conclusions for themselves. Your role is to question in order to sort out problems, offer supportive responses, prompt the speaker to make suggestions for themselves and paraphrase their words to check understanding. Having said that you will have to choose the best style to meet the other person’s likely reaction to your help. Some appreciate direct advice, others may want you to make a decision for them, some may be defensive and want to lash out and “kill the messenger”, while others can’t think through the problems even with sensitive probing and paraphrasing. This is the hardest listening skill and takes lots of practice.

What do you think?

What have you learned about Listening from these descriptions?
What have you had confirmed?
What surprised you?
How have your views changed?

Make a note of…

Any ideas for practical classroom experiments that these descriptions have triggered
Which column your students are most secure in.

1d) Unpicking the rows; getting better at Listening

Of course, the development of Listening doesn’t grow neatly up each column or evenly across the phases in the grid. The five broad phases of dispositional growth (purple – orange) are affective ways in which people may be inclined to behave: we call this inclination ‘mindedness’.

Here is our interpretation of how Revising might grow.

Overview
Lacks
Receives
Responds
Values
Organises
Embodies

Meaning behind the phases

The phases are drawn from Bloom’s taxonomy of the affective domain.

Phase ‘Receives’ (purple) is about doing something because you are told or expected to.

Phase ‘Responds’ (blue) is about gaining interest and doing things more willingly.

Phase ‘Organises’ (yellow) is the phase in which the student capitalises on this ‘in their interest’ behaviour and gets themselves organised to use it positively.

Phase ‘Embodies’ (orange), known as ‘characterised’ in the original taxonomy. In this phase, the student has made this behaviour their own. It has become part of their character; they can’t not do it and they have become highly skilled in doing it.

Lacks: Minded to talk rather than listen

In this ‘Lacks’ (grey) phase, students are not necessarily aware of listening even when told to listen. They tend to think listening is about hearing. They have no understanding of the fact that listening is a skill demanding a lot of effort.

Receives: Minded to show an interest in others’ talk

In the Receives (purple) phase, students are aware of how to behave when listening to someone else and are showing an interest in what people have to say. They might ask you to repeat something or ask you to say what you mean by something. They may want to know whether what is said is right and try to keep friends with people.

Responds: Minded to sort the message from the messenger

In the Responds(blue) phase, students have a genuine interest in what is being said. They want to know more, they can sort out what the speaker is saying and from this interest they don’t attempt to turn the conversation to themselves. They have learned the important skill of decoupling the information from the messenger

Values: Minded to listen to understand ideas and emotions

In the Values ( green) phase, students listen more deeply for both the message/idea and the emotions that might go with it. They are able to check what is being said through paraphrasing and check the quality of an idea by checking for evidence and reasoning questions. They are aware that the speaker must be treated civilly and can empathise with the person’s view without necessarily agreeing with it.

Organises: Minded to sensitively explore what the speaker is saying/conveying

In the Organises (yellow) phase, the listener can gently probe people’s problems and use open-ended questions skillfully to gain a better understanding of both the speaker and their ideas. The skill here is to remove the emotion out of critical listening but not to duck any tricky issues. It’s about keeping a conversation on an even keel despite differences of opinion or values.

Embodies: Minded to listen and respond empathetically

In the Embodies (orange) phase, students always maintain respect for the speaker. They can pick up nuances and read between the lines for what is really being conveyed. They always respond with sensitivity to the speaker while at the same time rejecting their ideas. They never put themselves in danger of being “lashed out at” by the speaker and are well equipped to offer advice in a way that will suit the needs of the other person.

What do you think?

What has struck you about the act of listening having read the descriptions above?
Which phase do you operate in?
What makes you say that?

Make a note of…

What you might do to assist your students to make headway in their listening behaviour.
Any practical ideas the text has triggered.

Preparation for the Learning Team meeting

Where are my pupils now?

Take a look at the Listening progression chart in your Learning Diary or
Download grid to colour in here
correct download needed
Colour in the cells where you think your pupils are secure.
Some will barely be on the chart while others may be quite a way up. Neat straight lines of secure classes are rare. But looking at your class in this way should give you an idea of what you need to work on.
Draw a red line across the chart to denote where you think most of the school’s pupils could and should reach by the time they leave.
Please take the results of these tasks with you to the Professional Learning Team session shown in Section 4

Section 2: Building Collaboration friendly classroom cultures Copy

Teachers as habit formers

Five big shifts to get you started. Ask yourself – how might you:

Ensure high levels of inclusion, acceptance, affection, support, and trust to build group cohesion?
Create opportunities for students to resolve conflict and build consensus; helping controversy and conflict to be seen as a positive key to students’ involvement, the quality of decisions and the continuance of the group in good working condition?
Design group work activities to provide opportunities to experience different methods of decision-making?
Encourage students to extend the range of roles that they adopt when collaborating?
Help students to reflect on and evaluate their individual contribution to the group’s progress?

Now look at the Learning Chart sections below where you will find plenty more ideas to try.

Section 1: Collaboration and how it develops Copy

1a) What is Collaboration?

Pair work, group work or teamwork are frequent features of classroom practice across all age ranges. But what are the essential features of this way of learning? How can students improve their collaborative behaviours in order to achieve better results?

In this unit, we explore the subtleties of collaboration and the skills that make up teamwork. We consider a broad order in which such skills might be explained, orchestrated, commented on and celebrated by teachers in classrooms to ensure the progressive development of students as collaborative learners.

There are many ways to define collaboration. In a learning context we have come to understand collaboration as being able to manage yourself effectively in the give and take of a collaborative venture, having a range of interpersonal skills that enable you to work and learn with and from others, being willing and able to contribute constructively and with sensitivity, and adding to and drawing strength from the team itself.

At its least sophisticated, it is little more than being cooperative. At its most sophisticated and complex levels it goes beyond learning ‘in a team’ and becomes learning ‘as a team’. It is an invaluable life skill.

In short…

Collaboration: Having both the skills and the inclination to contribute positively to group work in order to learn productively with and from others.

What do you think?

Are you aware of pupils whose lack of social skills limits their ability to cooperate, let alone collaborate, with others?
Are you aware of pupils who regard group work as an opportunity to allow others do all the work? (the social loafers,)
Are you aware of pupils who are keen to do all of the work themselves to the exclusion of others? (the job hogs)

Make a note of…

Pupils who do not trust others to contribute effectively
Pupils who are reluctant to contribute to group work

What does a well-formed habit look like?

Effective collaborators are adept at learning with and from others. They help to: shape the ideas of the team; decide what needs to be done; contribute to getting the job done; keep an eye on how things are going; improve team performance through reflection.

At-a-glance Collaboration card [extract] – Click image to view full screen

Find out more about Collaboration:

A well-formed collaboration habit includes being ready willing and able to:

Work effectively with others towards agreed, common goals, acting flexibly in response to circumstances.
Adopt different roles and responsibilities in pursuit of agreed goals and the well-being of the team.
Hold and express opinions coherently, compromising and adapting when appropriate.
Seek to understand what others are saying; sharing, challenging, supporting and building on ideas.

What do you think?

Do your pupils become increasingly like this as they move through your school?
What makes you say that?
What do you currently do in school that encourages pupils to develop their social learning skills?
What might you be doing to inhibit collaborative learning?

Make a note of…

Things you do to support collaboration
Things you do that might hinder collaboration

1b) How Collaboration might build when we nurture it.

Being collaborative isn’t something that switches on on good days and off on bad days. Being a good collaborator grows and builds when it’s nurtured and supported. Furthermore, being collaborative involves gaining control of a range of linked skills and emotions. Take a look at how progression in Collaboration might grow across six contributory aspects.

Cast your eye over the ‘big picture’ of growing Collaboration below. Then move on to finding out what the columns (1.3) and the rows (1.4) are all about.

1c) Unpick the columns; what contributes to a readiness to Persevere?

The grid columns are things that might combine to make up the skills and attitudes of a Perseverer.

Overview
1) Social interaction
2) Building ideas
3) Working as a team
4) Self talk
5) Getting the job done
6) Reviewing action

Overview of the grid

Collaboration involves knowing how to learn with others, as part of a team, in situations where no one person knows all parts of the puzzle. This complicated yet essential learning habit develops in several different ways. First of all it hinges on social interaction; how well we get on together, whether we are patient with others and respect their views. Then how we are able to bounce off others to build ideas; making the most of several brains rather than one. Next, how we learn to be part of a team and to perform different roles when needed. Fourthly, how we talk to ourselves about learning with others, where our real understanding of the process is revealed. Fifthly, how we contribute to the process of actually getting things done. Not just being there but doing something helpful. And lastly how we contribute to improving team performance by evaluating not just outcomes but the process of getting there.

Take a closer look at what each column of the grid is about

Collaboration grid may 2016 -Collaboration grid Columns_Page_2

2) Building ideas

Just being good mates in a team doesn’t lead to success. Teams have to understand how to build ideas together; to draw on the ideas of others, to be able to graciously set aside ideas that wouldn’t work, to spark off others to ensure new and better ideas get an airing. And somehow, in all this ‘togetherness’ people are able to retain their independent judgement and avoid being drawn into group think. Teams share and build ideas together; growing and improving possible solutions in order to reach their goals

3) Working as a team

Working as a team is rather different to working in a team. It’s all about ‘teamness’ or ‘togetherness’. In order to work as a team people need to understand team roles, to find out what role they are particularly good at, to take on a range of roles when needed and eventually be willing to play any role in a team to ensure the goal is reached. Being able to work as a team is influenced by how our self-perception and confidence grow, how we learn to trust, how we recognise the need for each other.

4) Self talk

The voice of self awareness

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves as we learn. The statements capture what someone in each phase of the grid might be thinking. Students may use some of these phrases when talking with you, or in writing from time to time, but mostly self-talk goes on inside their heads. We have shown a small flavour of self-talk thoughts that teachers can encourage students to imitate. Some relate to standards, others to self-monitoring, or flexibility. All such self-talk is important in building a collaborating habit.

5) Getting the job done

How teams achieve their goals by using the well-known learning process of Plan Do Review. Good teams have people who know that the first job is to be clear about what the task is really about. They are skilled in considering/creating/agreeing realistic goals to be achieved and which everyone has bought in to. Then the team have to plan how they will achieve the goal, how they will monitor their progress and methodology and how they will make sure the job is well done.

6) Reviewing action

This aspect is about how teams learn how to improve. It’s the aspect of teamwork that is frequently left out altogether or given short shrift. But it’s the aspect of teamwork that helps teams build themselves into better teams. It includes evaluating how they performed as individuals in contributing to the work of the team and how/whether the team process worked to achieve the team goal. Importantly such reflection leads to serious re-planning of their ways of working. It’s meta learning at a team level. Good teams will be looking for what has become known as marginal gains, those little things can we do better/improve that will impact on the overall performance.

What do you think?

Do these contributory features of collaboration make sense to you?

Make a note of…

Things that you think might be missing from this big picture of collaboration

What do you think?

Do you think there’s an order in which these skills develop? Would it be the same order for every pupil?
Do you think these behaviours develop ‘naturally’ as children mature?
Do we need to intervene in order to support this positive development?

Make a note of…

Any behaviours you think develop naturally
Any behaviours you think may be missing from this picture of collaboration

1d) Unpick the rows; getting better at Collaborating.

Of course the development of collaboration doesn’t grow neatly up each column or even across the columns. However, it is possible to look at the grid another way and group cells together into five broad phases of dispositional growth. We have based this growth on Bloom’s taxonomy of the affective domain. By looking at the development of emotion and skill, the grid yields broad ways in which people may be inclined to behave: we call this inclination ‘mindedness’. Pupils may be:

Here is our interpretation of how Collaborating might grow.

Overview
Lacks
Receives
Responds
Values
Organises
Embodies

Meaning behind the phases

The phases are drawn from Bloom’s taxonomy of the affective domain.

Phase ‘Receives’ (purple) is about doing something because you are told or expected to.

Phase ‘Responds’ (blue) is about gaining interest and doing things more willingly.

Phase ‘Organises’ (yellow) is the phase in which the student capitalises on this ‘in their interest’ behaviour and gets themselves organised to use it positively.

We urge you to see this progression as long term. Some phases will take years for people to work through; some will never be worked through. None of the phases are inevitable. There is a lifetime of development captured here. Nevertheless the role of a teacher or parent should surely be to encourage and enable this journey.

Lacks:

In this ‘Lacks’ (grey) phase, pupils are often unsure of themselves in a group. They often learn and play alongside other children but collaborating together is far more tricky. Their social skill may not be conducive to working with others either tending to push themselves forward and take control or shying away and saying/contributing little. They have much learning and adapting to do before they are really ready to work in a collaborative team.

Receives: Minded to begin to collaborate with others

In the Receives (purple) phase, pupils are making a big leap from being wary of others, being unaware of social conventions or any of the advantages of working/learning with others. Here they are collaborating with others because they are required to. There is much to be done in this phase: social skills, sharing ideas, working out what needs doing, playing their part and even thinking about how they have contributed to the team.

Responds: Minded to be part of a team

In the Responds (blue) phase pupils are willing to develop their understanding of what being part of a team involves, agreeing goals together, trying out different roles, broadening social skills to opening up others.

Values: Minded to function flexibly as part of a team

In the Values (green) phase pupils see/appreciate the value of a team member and honing their skills in different roles, planning action more carefully, and being flexible in their own views for the sake of the team. Once this phase is secure pupils are likely to develop further skills by having opportunities to work in this way.

Organises: Minded to learn in and as a team

In the Organises (yellow) phase, pupils organise themselves to work as part of a team. They learn that skilful teams manage conflict and that conflict and controversy are positive keys to involvement and creativity; that high-performing teams frequently check their progress and adjust their practice to stay on track.

Embodies: Minded to see Collaborating as a way of being.

In the Embodies (orange) phase, being a skilled team player is what characterises the student. They work happily and skilfully in any team, confident in their social, task development, planning, reviewing, and team evaluation strategies. A valuable member of any team.

What do you think?

Which phase of collaboration mindedness do most of your pupils fit into? They may of course be developing in more than one phase at a time.
Are some in the grey zone ? – i.e. collaboration is missing altogether.

Make a note of…

The pupils who don’t appear to be mainly in the grey zone

Preparation for the Learning Team meeting

Where are my pupils now?

Take a look at the Collaboration progression chart in your Learning Diary or
Download chart to colour in here
Colour in the cells where you think your pupils are secure.
Some pupils will barely be on the chart while others may be quite a way up. Neat straight lines of secure classes are just about impossible. But looking at your class in this way should give you an idea of what you need to work on.
Draw a red line across the chart to denote where you think most of the school’s pupils could and should reach by the time they leave.
Please take the results of these tasks with you to the Professional Learning Team session shown in Section 4

Section 2: Building questioning friendly classroom cultures Copy

Teachers as habit formers

Five big culture shifts to get you started. Ask yourself – how might you:

Value and praise good questions as well as good answers?
Make it safe for people to disagree…see it as an interesting situation from which to learn?
Put enquiry mindedness on display…share your enthusiasms, display unfinished lines of enquiry?
Develop open-end challenges?
Build your lessons from intriguing questions?

Now look at the Learning Activity sections below where you will find plenty more ideas to try.

Section 1: Questioning and how it develops Copy

1.1 What is Questioning?

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.’ So stated Socrates, considered by some to be ‘the father of questioning’. Even through nearly 2,500 years of human development and societal ‘progression’, those words still hold true. In growing the habit of questioning, it is important to acknowledge that questioning itself is rooted in curiosity, that great driver of engagement, of seeking, of asking, and asking again.

‘Good learners like to wonder about things. For them, it often really is a wonder-ful world. The phrases ‘How come?’ and ‘What if?’ are never far from their lips.

Extract from Building Learning Power. Guy Claxton 2002

What do you think? How well do you know your children as questioners?

Think of the pupils that you teach:

Who amongst them is irrepressibly curious?
Which of your pupils are reticent in asking questions?
Why this might be?
Have you ever considered the quality of the questions that your pupils ask?

Make a note of...

How ‘good’ are they at asking questions?
Do they ask ‘good’ questions?
Your definition of a ‘good’ question?

A well-formed habit

A well-formed questioning habit involves being ready, willing and able to;

Not take things at face value
Be less likely to accept answers uncritically
Ask questions of oneself as well as of others
Get under the surface of things
Be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity
Not be afraid of the ‘don’t know’ state of mind
Be playful, yet systematic and analytical
Be socially aware of the impact that questions may have on others
Challenge others’ thinking
Understand and use different types of question for different purposes
Recognise that revealing their own uncertainties helps them learn.

What do you think?

Do you detect that your pupils are becoming increasingly curious as they move through your school?
How do you know? What makes you say that?
What do you currently do in school to develop an insatiable appetite to find out more?

Make a note of…

What you might be doing at the moment that inhibits curiosity?

1.2 How Questioning might build when we nurture it.

Being good at questioning isn’t something that switches on on good days and off on bad days but like all learning behaviours it is sensitive to the learning culture. Questioning grows and builds when it’s nurtured and supported where pupils also learn to gain control of a range of linked skills and emotions.

Cast your eye over the ‘big picture’ of growing Questioning below. Then move on to finding out what the columns (1.3) and the rows (1.4) are all about.

Download grid as a pdf

What do you think?

Do these big features of questioning make sense to you?
Can you think of any others?

Make a note of…

Things that you think might be missing from this big picture of questioning

1.3 Unpick the columns; what contributes to a readiness to Question?

The grid columns are things that might combine to make up the skills and attitudes of a Questioner.

Overview
1) Attentiveness
2) Search skills
3) Self-talk
4) Questioning to focus on depth and detail (convergent)
5) Questioning to open possibilities (divergent)
6) The art of asking questions of others

Overview of the grid

Take a closer look at what each column of the grid is about

1) Attentiveness

The first column is about how we actually attend to being curious; what is it that piques our curiosity and how we keep it going. In the early phases this might involve looking carefully for the issues or details that our questions raise, using this information to go deeper, becoming fully involved/absorbed in a quest to uncover possibilities or answers. The more we ask, the more we find out, and the more curious we become to find out yet more. In the later phases we might become more picky about the information we are uncovering/seeking, making sure it is valid for our purposes. We become fascinated by both the big picture as well as the small details of an enquiry and seeking new experiences and information becomes a way of life.

2) Search skills

3) Self-talk

The voice of self awareness

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves as we learn. The statements capture what someone in each phase of the grid might be thinking. Pupils may use some of these phrases when talking with you, or in writing from time to time, but mostly self-talk goes on inside their heads. We have shown a small flavour of self talk thoughts that teachers can encourage pupils to imitate. How might we talk to ourselves in shaping our questioning behaviour. How does this talk move from the ‘need for help’, to enjoying the challenge of finding out, to taking a questioning approach to everything we do.

4) Questioning to focus on depth and detail (convergent)

5) Questioning to open possibilities (divergent)

6) The art of asking questions of others

The last column is about the aspect of asking questions of others. Questioning others, even through the lens of being curious, is a skilful business. It’s easy to upset people without realising it. It might be by using the wrong tone, or putting the emphasis in the wrong place. Building rapport with people is a really important aspect of being able to ask questions. and especially when, for one reason or another, the questions have to be tough. In the later phases of developing this skill we learn how to prepare a set of questions that will make an argument/case, or uncover a problem, or develop a story. (much as you may do in preparing a set of questions for guiding a lesson. Eventually we become skilled enough to know just what sort of question to ask, in the right way, in the appropriate setting. Thus we have become sensitive to the potential impact of posing questions as much as to the quality of the question itself.

What do you think?

In what order do you think these skills might develop?
Will it be the same for all pupils?
Do you think these skills will develop ‘naturally’ as children mature?
Do we need to intervene in some way order to support the development?
Do you think that there are any missing skills? Where would you add them?

Make a note of . . . .

Skills you think happen naturally
Any skills you think are missing

1.4 Unpick the rows; getting better at Questioning

Here is our interpretation of how Questioning might grow.

Overview
Lacks
Receives
Responds
Values
Organises
Embodies

Meaning behind the phases

The phases are drawn from Bloom’s taxonomy of the affective domain.

Phase ‘Receives’ (purple) is about doing something because you are told or expected to.

Phase ‘Responds’ (blue) is about gaining interest and doing things more willingly.

Phase ‘Organises’ (yellow) is the phase in which the student capitalises on this ‘in their interest’ behaviour and gets themselves organised to use it positively.

We urge you to see this progression as long term. Some phases will take years for people to work through; some will never be worked through. None of the phases are inevitable. There is a lifetime of development captured here. Nevertheless the role of a teacher or parent should surely be to encourage and enable this journey.

Lacks: Minded to give up easily and be needy for support

In the lacks or grey phase there are a range of possible negative or controlling issues to overcome. Not all children will display all of these but these are the type of behaviours that need to be remedied. The first issue is that pupils need to feel that asking questions is the most important part of learning and not something to be afraid of. They need to be encouraged to find things out for themselves and to be interested in the answer as much as the question. Moving out of the lacks phase is the first stage of encouraging children to think and find things out for themselves. There are of course children who have a constant stream of questions and perhaps in this case they need help with looking at/caring more about the answers.

Receives: Minded to try out aspects of finding things out when required

In the Receives (purple) phase, pupils are shifting from perhaps a general lack of awareness of the role and power of questioning to trying out questioning because they are being required or encouraged or reminded to do so. Here they need help; to ask a ‘good’ question (i.e. generative, will get them somewhere); to become aware of what the questions uncover and whether it was sufficient/good enough/unexpected; to practise using open and closed questions and know what they are for, and to begin to use some simple search techniques.

Responds: Minded to be interested in things to better focus finding out.

In the Responds (blue) phase, pupils show more willingness to find things out and learn to focus their questioning efforts more effectively. They become very interested in and aware of the detail or meaning of what their questions reveal. Their search skills are becoming more specific and their convergent and divergent questioning are becoming more profitable. And alongside these closer questioning skills they can vary the tone and emphasis of their questioning in order to build rapport with others.

Values: Minded to dig deeper into things and develop the search and questioning skills to match

In the Values (green) phase, pupils come to really understand the value of the skill of asking questions. They like and are able to dig more deeply or expansively to satisfy their curiosity. With greater skill comes more risk taking with questioning that ventures into the unknown. This phase is about honing their detective skills.

Organises: Minded to ensure their curiosity and questioning skills pay off.

In the Organises (yellow) phase pupils organise themselves to keep on track. They have become highly skilled in various search skills, they know how to prepare the right sort of questions for pursuing their lines of enquiry. They are familiar with various question frameworks and their lines of enquiry may have become more risky or provocative.

Embodies: Minded to take a questioning approach to learning and life

Preparation for the Learning Team meeting

Where are my pupils now?

Take a look at the questioning progression chart in your Learning Diary or
Download grid to colour in here
Colour in the cells where you think your pupils are secure.
Some will barely be on the chart while others may be quite a way up. Neat straight lines of secure classes are rare. But looking at your class in this way should give you an idea of what you need to work on.
Draw a red line across the chart to denote where you think most of the school’s pupils could and should reach by the time they leave.
Please take the results of these tasks with you to the Professional Learning Team session shown in Section 4

Section 2: Building Revising friendly classroom cultures Copy

Teachers as habit formers

Five big shifts to get you started. Ask yourself – how might you:

Harness display to illustrate that first attempts are rarely the finished article;
Ensure that students act on your feedback and do things differently next time;
Encourage students to monitor how things are going, and change tack if necessary;
Encourage students to evaluate the extent to which they have met the required standards;
Deliberately create situations that require a change of mind.

Now look at the Learning Chart sections below where you will find plenty more ideas to try.

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3. Ideas for classroom practice

Some ideas to encourage a learning-friendly culture that supports the three aspects of Relating for Learning.

1. Quick wins to Modelling the Learning Process.

Primary

A powerful motivator

Secondary

Pursuing your own goals

Primary

Modelling ‘how to’

Secondary

Modelling learning; showing what it means to be a learner

2. A big idea to Model the Learning Process.

Primary and Secondary

The school as a learning organisation

is Emotionally Engaged:

is cognitively skilled:

is socially adept:

is strategically aware:

3. Quick wins to Coach learners.

Primary

Use the ‘support to continue’ technique: questions not answers

Secondary

Letting students ‘get on with it’

Primary

Encouraging pupils to slow down, notice, and appraise strategies and steps.

Becoming curious about the strategies they are using. Try asking . .

Secondary

From ‘I’m stuck ‘ To ‘I’m stuck because ..’

4. A big idea to Coach learners.

Primary and Secondary

Coaching approaches

5. Quick wins to Devolve Responsibility.

Primary

Students monitoring their own learning climate.

Secondary

Students monitoring their own work.

Primary

Stuck Posters

Secondary

Stuck Posters . . . need to ‘grow up’.

6. A big idea to Devolve Responsibility.

Primary and Secondary

Devolving responsibility

Primary and Secondary

What do you think?

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Practical ideas to encourage changing learning relationships.

Primary and Secondary

1. Model the learning process.

Primary

Share your learning

Secondary

Share your own goals

Primary

Model ‘how to’

Secondary

Show yourself as a practising subject specialist

2. Coach learners.

Primary

Use the ‘support to continue’ technique: questions not answers

Secondary

Let students ‘get on with it’

Primary

Encourage students to slow down, notice, and appraise steps.

<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyCJE2LOvtzag0v9ID20SWHZyjG0Lv95AL2f2oTyW3PBElWwddiA" alt="Image result for strategies" width="274" height="73" />

Becoming curious about the strategies they are using or might use. Try asking . .

Secondary

Have students identify the cause of stuckness

From ‘I’m stuck ‘ To ‘I’m stuck because ..’

3. Devolve responsibility.

Primary

Have students monitor their own learning climate.

Secondary

Have students monitor their own work.

Primary

Make stuck prompts public

Secondary

Ensure stuck prompts . . . ‘grow up’.

Make a note of…

Choices in what to learn.

Make a note of…

Make a note of…