Building the habit of Making Links.
Welcome to Building Powerful Learners Phase 2. This eight unit online programme will enable you as a teacher to expand your students’ use of learning behaviours.
The programme combines three types of action that will help you to experiment with, analyse and understand how to become more skilled in developing your students’ use of learning power.
1 Understand by using Read abouts…of which there are two types
- Essential Read …essential must read text.
- Extended Read …interesting, good to know, absorb when you can.
2 Analyse by using Find outs…tools to help you discover and analyse essential information
3 Experiment with Try outs…practical activities for you to try, check and perfect in your classroom
This unit explores the “how” of building making links.
- What are the key aspects of making links? (Essential Read about 1)
- How confident are my students now as link makers? (Find out 1)
- How could I embed building making links into my teaching? (Find out 2)
- What sort of approaches may be useful in making a start on this? (Try out 1 to 5)
- Estimate my students’ development using a detailed making links chart (Find out 3)
Structuring and using the ideas below with your students over the next month or so will enable them to extend the range of learning behaviours that they use consciously.
Essential Read about 1
Unpacking Making Links
Learning is about making connections – you will experience them through the ‘ah ha’ experience of seeing a connection between two previously isolated concepts, or the satisfaction of seeing the connection between an abstract idea and a ‘hands-on’ concrete experience. It’s how you make sense of the world.
To be a good link maker you need to keep stimulating your brain and enriching your experiences because through active learning you quite literally ‘build’ your own mind.
This is done in many ways;
- through having a repertoire of cognitive strategies;
- through the social process of constructing knowledge;
- by connecting experience and learning;
- through how you direct the work of learning, sometimes called meta-learning or simply reflection.
- at the heart of all this is your attitude to knowledge; whether it is bound up in rules and ‘is-language’, or whether you see knowledge as provisional, ever building and changing.
When looked at from these diverse angles growing link making moves well beyond encouraging a student to ‘look for a link’.
Understanding and making use of a widening range of links to satisfy our need to know what or why or how etc. is an important life skill which is arguably more important today than ever before. In negotiating an increasingly complex world our tendency to make links needs to be further sharpened and enhanced.
Extended Read about 1. Introducing Making links ⬇️
The learning behaviour known as making links
New ideas become meaningful to the extent that we can incorporate them within our own mental webs of associations and significances. When the patterns of relationship to be discovered are rather complex or subtle, business guru Peter Senge calls it ‘systems thinking’. Good learners get pleasure from seeing how things fit together. They are interested in the big picture, and how new learning expands it.
Good learners can make all kinds of different links. They can link together this lesson’s physics topic with what they were doing in maths last week. They can look for links to their own goals and interests, to discover the relevance of the new learning to their own lives. They find links to their own real-life experience—using new ideas or theories to make sense of past impressions. They weave new events into their developing autobiographical story relating them to their sense of self. They can connect new learning with their own opinions and beliefs, so that they come out not just knowing something new, but looking at the world in a different way. And—very importantly for creativity—they may look for analogies in their own memory that give them a handle on a complicated new domain. ‘What’s it like?’ they ask themselves.
Extract from Building Learning Power by Guy Claxton.
Making Links is about how you understand and make meaning of the world. Your brain develops schema (plural, schemata): this is a cognitive structure that organises collections of bits of information that build together to form a concept of something. This working structure changes and grows throughout life.
Each new event, filtered by perception, is organised and connected to the existing structure to create meaning. We as teachers cannot transfer our own knowledge ready-made to students. They remember what they understand – what they have connected in their own schemata. When a schema is very sparse for a particular subject, connections are hard to find and make.
Teachers should always be helping children to make the connections that lead to deeper understanding. We can help students to become effective learners through cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies to gain insight into the how of learning. But to make connections more easily across different disciplines, or linking the obvious with the more obscure, we need to get beyond being bound by early rules and conventions and view our knowledge system as open and flexible, allowing all manner of possibilities. It is in this way that our minds truly grow.
“ Moment by moment throughout our lifetime, our brains hum with the work of making meaning: weaving together many thousands of threads of information into all manner of thoughts, feelings, memories and ideas.” Daniel Tammet
Re-find out 1
Focus on the link makers in your class.
The Link Making progression chart should give you a fairly clear view of the link making behaviours and how your students do, and do not, currently exhibit them
- The majority of students may well display a similar set of positive behaviours (ie the majority may be in the purple or blue phase)
- You will also be conscious of some students who still lack positive behaviours (ie they are still firmly rooted in the grey/lacks phase of the progression chart)
- But some students will appear to have made general progress even in learning behaviours not spotlighted earlier.
The chart alongside shows how noticing grows. Column 1 identifies the 6 phases of development, column 2 describes how the skills and behaviours may grow over time, column 3 shows the self-talk; what students may quietly say/explain to themselves at each phase of development.
A word of warning.
While you may be tempted to focus your efforts on the majority for greatest impact, you’ll need to take care not to do so at the expense of your ‘grey’ students, as these are your potential underachievers in the future.
What to look for.
In Try Outs 1 to 5, look out for teaching ideas that you think will have the greatest impact on your particular group of learners. Don’t attempt to try all of the ideas – better to do a few thoroughly than to adopt a scattergun approach.
Growing making links; a trajectory of developing behaviours, skills, attitudes and self-talk
Which phase have most of your students reached now?
Find out 2
How much does my classroom culture encourage Making Links?
Culture is the curriculum of the classroom, frequently hidden from the external observer, but always all too evident to learners. It is the minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day way that learners come to understand their role as a learner. Culture is the enacted values of the teacher, not the espoused ones – it is the shadow that the teacher casts in the classroom in terms of what they do do and what they do not do, what they say and do not say, what they believe and do not believe, what they value and do not value.
Here is a selection of features that might begin to shape the emotional climate of your classroom to encourage making links.
Download and print a copy.
Reflect on your current classroom culture.
It’s worth noting that the list is made up of the four action types you first met in the Teachers’ Palette (Unit 2);
- ways of giving students more responsibility for their learning
- the sort of language you might use to stimulate linking
- ideas for constructing lessons to build linking
- ways of celebrating linking
Ask yourself which of the features of the linking-friendly classroom are:
- already a consistent feature of your classroom?
- an occasional feature of your classroom?
- rarely evident in your classroom?
Which of these features are you interested in developing further?
At this point it might be worth having an informal chat with some of your colleagues. Is anyone already making progress with one of the features you would like to work on? Do you have any consistent features that others might learn from? Take your completed sheet to discuss at the meeting at the end of this unit.
Try out 1
A range of little culture shifts
Have a think about your current classroom culture in relation to Making Links.
Begin with the ‘stop/avoid’ box – if any of these teaching behaviours are still in evidence in your classroom it would be worth thinking through how they can be eliminated, since failure to do so will undermine the changes you are hoping to achieve for your learners
Then cast your eye over the other 3 boxes. Which ideas appeal to you? Which do you think will have the greatest impact on your students?
Now seek out teaching ideas below in Try Outs 2/3/4/5 that you can use to move your classroom culture forward.
Try Out 2 focuses on ideas for moving responsibility for making links towards learners (Relating);
Try Out 3 focuses on developing a learning language for making links (Talking);
Try Out 4 focuses on how lessons/activities can be designed to activate and develop link making (Constructing);
Try Out 5 focuses on how making links can be recognised/ rewarded / praised / celebrated (Celebrating).
Try out 2
Extend students’ responsibilities in order to build making links.
Build awareness of making links
Odd One Out.
For younger students.
- Encourage the students to find an odd one out and perhaps go on to invent a reason or story about how/why the odd one could be made to ‘fit’.
- Start with a row of 5 pictures. Four that can be linked together easily but one doesn’t fit readily with the others.
- Spend plenty of time discussing why the pictures fit together and what the links are.
- It’s fine if the students can think of different ways to link them as long as they can explain their rationale.
- Praise and reward the ‘making links’ bit of the activity rather than focusing on getting it right.
- Extend the activity and assess their understanding by inviting students to devise their own row of pictures which they swop with other students.
- Join in yourself and model your link making by thinking aloud.
Two more ideas for extending students' responsibilities. ⬇️
Odd One Out
For older students,
Identify four ‘things’ related to different subject areas – this could be
- 4 images,
- 4 words,
- 4 techniques,
- anything else that links to the subject and/or what students are currently learning about.
Invite them to identify the odd one out, and to explain why they think this.
When you can, construct lists where it is possible to justify that each of the items are, in fact, the odd one out.
Reconnecting with prior learning
Many students find it difficult to relate what they are doing / learning to what they have done / learned in the past. Begin lessons with an invitation for students to tell you what they were doing in the previous lesson so that they re-connect for themselves. Be prepared to nudge or remind them if they are struggling to do this. Resist the temptation to tell them what they did last lesson – it is they who need to make the link, not you!
Try out 3
Build making links into the learning language
Teacher talk – as a learning coach
Here is a range of things you could say to nudge link making. When you use this kind of language you are talking as a learning coach, encouraging students to think for themselves.
10 ideas to ensure your students do the thinking for themselves
- What do you know already that might help?
- Can you say how . . is like . . .?
- What conclusions can you draw?
- Does the analogy… help us to get a handle on this?
- Now that you know… has it changed how you think about…?
- Can you see a link between what we did in… and what you do…?
- How can you apply what you know about xxx to this problem?
- Have you seen/done/felt something like this before?
- Do you need to re-think ‘X’ in light of ‘Y’?
- Can you link this information to what you know already?
Two more teacher talk ideas ⬇️
Talk and think about making links.
Encourage students to become intrigued:
My Grandma went shopping . . .
A traditional memory game with a twist.
Recommend group of no more than 12
- Start by saying “My grandma went shopping and she bought…” and name an item.
- Let students take turns but each time an item is added they have to explain how their item links to the one before.
- Encourage students to think of lots of different ways of linking items and reward their ingenuity.
- To take the learning a bit further, it can be useful to share a real shopping list with your children and discuss the links that help you when actually shopping.
- For example, perhaps you list all the fruit and vegetables first, if they are found in the first aisle etc. Or perhaps you list all the breakfast foods together…
Teacher talk to support the weakest link makers
Use language like this:
To help them to remember facts
- Can you make a note of this?
- How could you use a highlighter pen?
- How do / could you remember that?
- Can we find an easy way to remember that?
To consider past experiences
- What does this remind you of?
- Tell me about your trip to………
- Have you ever done anything like this before?
To help to see connections
- What might go with this one?
- You’ve met this sort of thing before. Can you remember xx?
- How could you fit this together?
- I wonder how this would fit?
- Let’s try to sort these out to see where they fit together.
- What do you know already that could help?
- What else do you know?
Try these If/Then targets to help students to move on:
- If I am doing something new, then I will ask myself what it reminds me of.
- If I come across something new, then I will ask myself how I am going to remember it.
Try out 4
Build making links into lesson design
It is through learning activities that learning behaviours get a workout. Their role is to enable your students to access and wrestle with information and ideas; to help them use and understand something; to ensure their effectiveness as a learner. The ‘right’ activity helps to make new concepts more concrete. The ‘right’ activity provides insights into new ideas and subject matter. The ‘right’ activities need to be carefully chosen and, critically, linked to the learning goal.
Connect, Extend, Challenge
This Visible Thinking Routine helps students make connections between new ideas and prior knowledge. It also encourages them to take stock of ongoing questions, puzzles and difficulties as they reflect on what they are learning.
Connect: How are the ideas and information presented connected to what you already know?
Extend: What new ideas did you get that extended or pushed your thinking in new directions?
Challenge: What is still challenging you or confusing for you to get your mind round? What questions, wondering or puzzles do you now have?
The natural place to use this routine is after students have learned something new. For example: after exploring a work of art, a theory, a method, a piece of evidence. Try it as a reflection during a lesson, after a longer project, or when completing a unit of study. The routine works just as well with the whole class, small groups or individually.
This is one of many visible thinking routines to be found on the visible thinking website.
Two more lesson design ideas ⬇️
An activity to highlight and strengthen Making Links
And or So
An activity to encourage students to make imaginative links between seemingly unconnected objects. Who can find the most novel / humorous / unexpected link? Are some objects not linked in any way at all?
Use to explore how most things can be linked together in some way, and how making the links helps us to remember things and maybe see things in new ways.
Learning Challenge Coaching Notes DIY
Match them up.
Offer students a set of cards that need to be matched up or linked in some way.
It might be:
- a set of pairs of cards like ‘It has been raining’ and ‘The river is flowing fast’ where the student is challenged to decide whether there Must be a connection between the two events, Could be a connection, or No possible connection;
- a problem to select a substance (metal, clay, wax, salt, ice, …) and a change (freezes, dissolves, melts, burns, …) and decide if the change is Reversible or Irreversible;
- a set of cards that students are required to match into pairs – it could be 5 graphs and 5 equations; 5 characters and 5 attitudes; 5 words and 5 definitions etc.
Try out 5
Build link making by celebrating it.
Self-monitoring link making in action.
Introducing a new learning behaviour each month or so is trickier than it seems.
- You might concentrate on it in say three or four lessons.
- You will bring it to the fore in your talk.
- How do you get students to pick up all the aspects of the behaviour?
- How do you ensure they see its usefulness in lessons in general.
- How do you ensure they absorb the use of the behaviour in how they learn.
A learning mat
Use a learning mat for making links to ensure students monitor their own use of the behaviour.
Learning mats are usually A4 laminated sheets that show various aspects of a learning habit. Keep them on desks/tables or as part of a wall display.
Students refer to them during lessons, using them as prompts about the finer aspects of a learning habit that is being stretched. This tool helps students to be able to join in meta-cognitive talk.
Two more celebrating ideas ⬇️
Use display
Show connections between ideas, characters, objects that are being studied through the use of classroom wall displays. Refer to them and encourage students to add new connections as they emerge.
Update frequently with discussions like . .
- We have made an interesting grouping here – what could we add to it?
- From our learning today how could we reorganise this display?
- How else might we display that link?
- What makes you want to display it like that?
- Where might that fit better?
Use mind maps with more sophisticated link makers
- Use mind maps to encourage students to link and explain how information and ideas seem to be associated.
- Use mind mapping at the beginning, middle and end of a unit of study to show how links and understanding change as knowledge grows.
- Use a ‘thought shower mind map’ at the outset of a lesson to connect with prior learning and activate link making.
- Use at the end of a module of learning as a synthesising tool.
Find out 3
Build making links by considering it in greater depth
The chart alongside offers a deeper view of how Making Links may grow.
Column one is about how we retain and organise information or content; the ‘what’ of learning. It’s the nuts and bolts of how we construct meaning.
Column two is about how we make meaning by ‘learning by doing’ and learning with others.
Column three is about how we reflect on the action of learning itself.
Column four is about how we view what we know; how open we are to information and experiences.
Column five is about what we say to ourselves as we learn.
The last column is about the breadth of our link making. Whereas column one was more about storing knowledge, this column is about linking that knowledge together in a broad sense.
Take a look at the chart and see if you can plot where the majority of your students are now.
Which aspects do they find more tricky?
How has the chart helped you to understand the development of link making more fully?
Learning together meeting (for schools that have decided that all teachers study the same unit at the same time)
Suggested meeting agenda
- Decide what you want this meeting to achieve (5 mins)
- Discuss what you have found out about students’ use of making links (15 mins)
- Re-cap and reflect on the action you have each undertaken in your classrooms (20 mins)
- Consider issues that would be beneficial if implemented across the school (10 mins)
- Review how the meeting format went (5 mins)
Learning Team Meeting Agenda ⬇️
Item 1. Meeting Objectives. (5 mins)
Meeting objectives might include:
- discuss levels of link making displayed across the school
- share and learn from what we have each tried in our classrooms;
- feel confident about taking forward ideas from online materials into our practice;
- identify actions that would be more useful if everyone applied them in their practice;
Outcome. To have decided what the meeting should aim to achieve.
Item 2. Discussion about learning culture (15 mins)
Explore together your discoveries about your students as link makers;
- what did you find out about your students as link makers (Find out 1)
- are students improving as link makers with age? Moving from grey to purple to blue etc?
- where did we each estimate our classroom to be in terms of its culture Find out 2?
- what did we each learn from Find out 2.
- which 3 are the weakest features
- which 3 actions are our strongest
- what surprised or baffled you
- are there significant differences between year groups
Outcome. A clearer understanding of students as link makers and the extent to which our classroom cultures are set up to support and develop making links.
Item 3. Explore action using the initial Try outs (20 mins)
Share and discuss the action you each took in making a start on strengthening making links in classroom practice.
- Which of the suggestions did you each use?
- Any concerns about or difficulties in putting the Try outs into action.
- Which seemed the most valid or successful?
- How the Try Outs affected different age groups.
- Ways of implementing these that we can all learn from and adopt.
Outcome. A clear picture of our interest in and enthusiasm for amending classroom cultures to support learning to learn. A feel for which are proving to be most effective and why. Would any of these culture shifts call for action on current school wide policies?
Item 4. Learning from practice (10 mins)
In relation to all the shades of practice you have been trying out, sharing, mulling over and observing, think about them now in two ways;
1. personally and 2. school wide.
Which ideas/practice stand out as:
- things you want to start doing
- things you think you need to stop doing (that’s harder)
- things you want to keep doing
- things you want to do more often
- things you want to do less
Outcome.
- At this stage it’s essential to note ideas arising from this discussion using 2 pentagon diagrams;
- one for each team member personally and
- one for decisions/suggestions that are school wide.
- Ensure that your school/group wide pentagon is shared with senior leaders.
Item 5. Evaluate team session. (5 mins)
- Did we achieve our objectives?
- Are we comfortable with what we are trying to achieve so far?
- Any concerns at this point?
- Next meeting date and time.
Feedback proforma (for schools that have decided that teachers can study the units in any order)
To share your experiments with others and to enable senior leaders to maintain an overview of developments, please complete this proforma termly and hand it to the Building Powerful Learners coordinator.
To give you a flavour, an example of a completed proforma is in the Noticing unit. Click below to download and print a blank version for yourself.
Download a blank proforma
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