In Constructing Learning you use rich, challenging activities.

Start lessons with a grapple task

A good grapple problem is challenging. It’s something that the students might have an idea about but might entail something they haven’t come across or done before. A good grapple task centres on learning that is just beyond the students’ reach/experience. They give students a chance to wrestle with the problem before they have been taught methods for tackling it. They are allowed to solve it in any way they want and in doing so they are discovering their own approaches and exposing their own tricky bits.

You could blend grapple tasks with Think Pair Share…giving time to think by themselves, share ideas with a partner before discussing it more widely. By using grapple tasks you are getting the students to:

• build resilience;
• develop problem solving skills;
• enhance collaboration and listening;
• cultivate ‘having a go’;
• lessen fear of mistakes.

Don’t forget to discuss which strategies were used, which were successful/effective and why.

Plan to get students stuck

Start some lessons with something like:

• ‘In this lesson I want to make sure that you do get stuck’.
• ‘When you get stuck take a look at the unsticking prompts on your table to see if these help you to get unstuck’.
• ‘Later we will spend a few minutes talking about what we learned from being stuck and decide which unsticking idea worked best.’

The explicit message is that students need to expect being stuck during any lesson. The implicit message is that being stuck is a good thing – something you want to see. Using this technique regularly means students come to accept being stuck as a natural part of learning. It begins to build their curiosity about the why and possible patterns to stuckness.

Teacher talk

Encourage students to become more interested in difficulty and develop strategies to deal with stuckness. Use phrases like:

• Have a go yourself. I think you can do this.
• Which of your friends might you ask?
• Have you looked at the stuck prompts?
• Well done for sticking at it by yourself.
• What have you already tried? What else might work?
• Which ideas on the stuck prompts might work here?
• There are some good ideas on the learning wall you could try

Think Pair Share

The basic building block of collaboration is pair work. Through brief and focused conversations, peers get the opportunity to voice their thoughts and start a dialogue about them.

TPS is a well-known strategy for ensuring that students build up to learning in a team.

One way of using this might be to;

Pose a question or problem, give students 1 minute to think individually about their own personal response; give 2 minutes in pairs to compare their first reactions with a partner; give fours 3 minutes to share their views in a group.

Use as a simple strategy to prepare students for working together in teams.

As an alternative, try Think/Link/Together which achieves the same outcomes.

Teacher talk

• Think about this question individually
• Pair up with a partner. Explain your answer and listen to your partner’s response.
• Share your answer (or your partner’s) if called upon.

This structure promotes the sort of talk and interaction needed for collaboration.

Strengthen students ability to help themselves by exploring the meaning of effort

Effort is a word that you probably use frequently, without giving it much thought. How might students decode this word and begin to act on it purposefully?

• Explore what is meant by ‘effort’ with your students, and discuss with them the ways in which they might apply it.
• Encourage students to come up with a definition of effort and specific examples of what it might look like in the classroom – for example by;
  • trying different strategies to solve a problem,
  • using a Visible Thinking Routine (VTR)
  • aiming to achieve challenging goals, or
  • using different un-sticking techniques when something is tricky.
  • paying attention to whoever is speaking.

Targeted Effort is now seen as a path to mastery. Students need to be aware of a connection between effort and improvement; that their effort is causing their improvement. This is why it is important to give effort meaning. Meaning often underpins motivation which in turn drives behaviour.

Targeted effort is effort that has direction and purpose. It is underpinned by clear guidance and the specific goal to be achieved.

What you are doing here is giving effort a size and direction. What students need to understand is that their effort has a size and a purpose.

Give students an idea of what effort looks like in practice.

• Demonstrate a task which you expect them to complete later in the lesson.
• Explain what you are doing, in terms of effort, as you go along.
• Your commentary might include:
  • referring to success criteria to plan and direct your actions
  • using an unsticking strategy when you come across something tricky
  • looking for feedback from the class on your efforts, and adjusting your course in the face of that feedback
  • reminding yourself to refocus when a distraction comes along.

• A classic test of creativity from psychologist Ellis Paul Torrance, way back in the sixties, as a way to administer a more creatively inclined IQ test.

• Give students images similar to those above and ask them to finish the picture.

• Discuss and explore the results for;

  • rich imagery

  • implied narrative

  • humour or

  • fantasy.

An interesting and thought provoking lesson starter.

Mind Maps

• 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.

Teacher Talk

• What is the central ‘idea’?
• What are the big ideas around that?
• How are these connected?
• What other ideas spring to mind?
• Where is it best to place them?
• Why/how are they connected?

In other words . . .

To help students to link new learning to their existing understandings, encourage them to paraphrase or summarise what they have learned. Ask questions like ‘How does this change what you were thinking?’ to encourage them to reflect on how previous understandings may need to be adjusted in light of new learning.

Teacher Talk

• What have you just discovered?
• So, put simply . . . .
• How could you summarise that idea?
• What I think you are saying is ‘. . . . . . ‘

Lesson types

All teachers design activities to help their students to access and understand the content of the lesson. These activities lie at the heart of lesson planning, linking what is to be learned with how it will be learned. While it is impossible to list all such activities, it is possible to discern some different types of activities, to identify some overarching categories or groups of activities.

Our list of activity types run from highly teacher-focused activities at the bottom that demand little more than attentive listening from the learner, through to ‘Finding’ type activities at the top that depend on both high levels of learner independence where learners are capable of accessing the content with minimal direct instruction. The activities that you choose will be critical to how students will learn how to learn and their love of learning itself.

See, Think, Wonder

[The ‘See’ part invites careful noticing, the ‘Think’ part invites a combination of Reasoning and Imagining, while the ‘Wonder’ part activates Questioning.]

• Invite students to make an observation about an object (artwork, image, artefact) or topic. Follow up with what they think might be going on. Encourage backing up their interpretation with reasons.
• Ask students to think about what this makes them wonder about the object or topic.
• The routine works best when a student responds by using the three stems together at the same time, i.e., “I see…, I think…, I wonder…”. If not you need to scaffold each response with a follow-up question for the next stem.

This routine encourages careful observations and thoughtful interpretations. It helps stimulate curiosity and sets the stage for inquiry. Use it at the beginning of a new unit to motivate student interest. Try it with an object that connects to a topic during the unit of study. Use the routine with an interesting object near the end of a unit to encourage students to further apply their new knowledge and ideas.

Go to the Visible Thinking Websitefor more examples and information about visible thinking routines.

To download See Think Wonder from the Visible Thinking Website as a pdf:

Teacher talk

• What are you looking at here?
• What do you see?
• Have you met this before?
• Does it remind you of anything?
• Ask yourself…could it be an xxx
• Why is that like…

The task is to solve a mystery.

• Form groups of around 6/7 students.
• One group member to observe the activity, the others combine to solve the mystery.
• Distribute the 33 information cards equally between the group.
• They may share this information orally, but they may not show their cards to other participants.
• One person can act as scribe for the group if they wish.
• They have 20 mins to finish the task.

They need to decide:

• what was stolen
• how it was stolen
• who the thief was
• what the thief’s motive was
• when the crime took place

When the task has been completed, discuss the process with the help of the observers.

A few thoughts about the Summer Shenanigans Mystery:

• This mystery will be appropriate for older students only. It is offered as an example of how an Assembling type activity could be constructed;
• While the information cards are sufficient to solve the mystery, the inclusion of ‘red herrings’ in relation to a missing dog and a ‘lost’ ring mean that students have to judge the relevance of the information presented. It is what lifts it from being a Manipulating task into an Assembling task;
• Observe the groups as they work through the challenge. Reflect on how a relatively simple activity can stimulate / require such a wide range of learning behaviours.

[For information – The answer to the mystery:

• The painting by Artisimisso was stolen by Mr Handsome, who took it with him when he left the party at 9.50.
• He took the painting because he was a kleptomaniac. [Or is there perhaps another motive?]
• We cannot know for certain how he took the painting!]

Provide tasks that are designed to offer low, medium and high challenge (or cool, spicy, hot.) Allow students to decide on the level of challenge that they wish to undertake, and use it as an opportunity to encourage them to aim high.

• Use the Nando’s Peri-ometer as a visual aid to support the ranking of tasks by level of challenge, and allow students to select the level of challenge that they wish to undertake.

Teacher talk

• What level of challenge have you chosen?
• What made you select that one?
• How does achieving this challenge make you feel?
• What could you do to make that challenge harder for yourself?
• Why do you think this challenge is trickier than that one?
• I can see from your working out that you have chosen the right challenge for you. Not too difficult and not to easy!

A science teacher described one of the enquiries thus:

“I’ve got my kids to do the experiment where they make salt from rock salt for years. Thus far I would tell them all they need to know to be successful, demonstrate the experiment to the whole class, and then ask them to repeat the experiment exactly as I had done it. It gave me control, took care of safety issues, and was as boring as it can get! Why, if you have just seen someone else do the experiment, would anyone be motivated to repeat it for themselves?

I explored my rationale for teaching in this way, and realised that, control aside, I believed that it enabled me to ‘deliver the course’, to ‘make sure’ they all had the revision notes they need, and to ‘convince myself’ that I had taught it well so that they simply must have learned it well. On reflection, this strategy was failing on all counts. Either I would have to re-double my efforts and ‘teach’ even more/better, or maybe there was another way . . . .

With trepidation, I went in with a lump of rock salt and a bowl of salt, and set them the challenge ‘I want you to find out how to make this (salt) from that (rock salt)’. I then sat down, refused to answer any further questions or offer guidance – and it was agony for someone so used to being the font of information in the classroom!

(I admit to making a couple of interventions relating to the safe use of Bunsen burners, but that aside I just let them get on with it.)

What a revelation! They all devised ways to make salt; they discovered the science behind it; they needed minimal external control; and I got a bit of a rest.

The students reported increased enjoyment levels, I reported reduced stress levels, and tests revealed a deeper scientific understanding than was previously the case.

My kids are challenging and frequently disruptive, so much so that mainstream schooling cannot handle them. How amazing that I gained more control and they achieved deeper learning when I stopped teaching for control and started letting them learn.

I realised that these kids need challenge and engagement, not control and instruction. I was afraid this change of approach would slow content learning down, but I was wrong. The learning was deeper and faster because they had done it for themselves, rather than observed it through the eyes of a science teacher. My kids were being scientists, not learning science.”

A To Do list to help students create their own plans for seeking and engaging with challenge:

• What’s the goal?
• What are the success criteria?
• What is the timeframe?
• Gather information about the tasks
• Link new information to what I already know
• Where am I expecting difficulties – blocks and obstacles?
• Are there any dependencies? If this….then that….
• Use the expert knowledge of others to help distil and refine my ideas
• Review where I’ve got to and check my thinking against the original success criteria
• Evaluate emerging outcomes against my expectations
• Amend the plan or goal if necessary
• Hand in on time!

Teacher talk

• What do you want to have at the end?
• How do you want to express that as a goal
• Is that going to be possible?
• Is your goal SMART?

Abduction / Inferential Reasoning

A ‘Finding’ type activity that blends Inferential Reasoning and Noticing.

These two photographs were taken at different times, but which one was taken first? What time elapsed between the first and the second one?

We don’t have sufficient information to make a definitive answer, but there are lots of clues to signpost the way. In order to answer as best we can, we need to look very carefully to identify subtle differences and infer what they might mean.

Teacher talk

• What do we know?
• What do we have to infer?
• Who can come up with the most convincing line of argument to support their hypothesis?
• Can we agree, on the balance of the available evidence, the time that has elapsed?

Enquiry-based learning

Developing curiosity, independence, and transferable research skills is at the heart of ‘enquiry-based learning’. This intent can be explained as:

‘committed to creating a challenging environment where innovation and flexibility are celebrated. An approach to learning that focuses on student enquiry provides both teachers and students with an opportunity to think outside the normal confines of the curriculum. Teachers are encouraged to work collaboratively to break free from content-driven curriculum planning, and to focus on the skills that they would like their learners to develop.’

Here are some examples from schools we have worked with, where students in KS2/3 experienced several weeks each term when different curriculum areas come together to provide investigative work designed to generate a spirit of enquiry and experimentation.

The humanities come together for an eight-week block to explore issues of migration under the driving question: Why don’t people stay at home? Science, PE and Mathematics combined for a unit called A Question of Sport where students investigate the science and maths of certain sports. They experimented, for example, with the ways tennis would change if ball weight and racquet sizes changed. RE and Humanities came together to consider a wide range of disastrous events—a tsunami, the Holocaust, the crucifixion, and explore the question: Does every cloud have a silver lining? After two weeks of research, groups present their findings to their peers, parents and teachers.

These and other similar ideas are explored in chapter 6 of The Learning Powered School.

Engaging in Appreciative Inquiry

“Appreciative inquiry” in which people are invited to;

• inquire into their best experiences
• imagine what might be if more of these occurred
• innovate by identifying how to get more
• implement changes in this cycle.

Its four stages are Discover, Dream, Design, and Destiny (Do it). The AI model is normally used by organisations but could also apply to improving team learning. AI assumes that teams have many strengths which can be harnessed to meet new challenges. The trick, therefore, is to for the team to ask themselves;

• ‘What are we most proud of?’
• ‘What do we do best in terms of how we develop our learning?’ ‘
• What is it that we do that most helps to develop ourselves as a powerful team?’
• ‘What is the most empowering team quest we have undertaken recently?’

Rather than problematising issues, AI begins by trying to identify what happens when the team and individuals in it are working really well. This process could involve a series of interviews, the outputs of which are stories, pictures, and key-words describing things that are already going well in the desired direction of travel.

The only rule for such enquiry is that it has to begin by being wholly positive. For some people this is surprisingly difficult; it often tends to be easier to talk about problems than strengths. It’s not that people are forbidden to talk about what is not going well; rather, discussions are framed so that when they do move into a more critical mode they do so in a spirit of pride and optimism, having confirmed all the many good things they are already doing. And this can make a huge difference.

After ‘Discover’ you Dream: creating a wish-list of what the team would like to do (with current constraints removed). This frees people’s minds to think more creatively. After these first two stages, the team has an agenda for action and change that isn’t encumbered by the usual excuses for inaction. From here the team moves into familiar territory—Design, a key element of any development work, and Doing that is reflective and optimistic.

Appreciative inquiry could also be applied to any aspect of teachers’ professional practice or to school practice.

Going Deeper

Read more at:

or download as a pdf:

There are numerous ways of linking subjects and ideas together and how you do this will probably be linked to your students and locality. A project around ‘Where we are in the world’ might integrate art, design technology, local history, geography, literacy, ICT and drama, and develop a host of skills. It could involve students:

• Visiting places in the area round the school, taking photos and making sketches of what they see;
• Interviewing local people and carrying out research in the library, developing communication skills and writing up their findings;
• Discussing how the information they have gathered connects and so enhancing their understanding;
• Discussing how an abstract form, a sculpture, could connect with and represent their new knowledge, then designing and making the sculpture;
• Visiting a village in a rural community; interviewing residents, visiting the village school and drawing comparisons with their own.

Teacher Talk

• What have we found out about xxx school?
• How is the school different from our school?
• What are the similarities?
• What about their school lunches…
• How are their classrooms organised?