Growing your child’s learning character
The purpose of this series of resources is to help you to build and strengthen your child’s learning character. Learning character is about those attitudes, inclinations, values and skills that, when used with increasing competence and confidence across many learning opportunities, become learning habits; they are characteristics of successful lifelong learners.
These resources are not trying to turn you into your child’s teacher nor lay the groundwork for home schooling……
A quick look at learning itself
Learning is an interesting process that goes on in people’s brains. We used to think that ‘intelligence’ was fixed at birth so there seemed little point in trying to cultivate it. But now research has shown that learning is learnable and we are realising that there are some energies or powers that can be used to shape how we learn. Learning how to learn involves more than skills, it involves peoples’ attitudes, their dispositions, values, interests and beliefs as well. So, this approach is about helping children to help themselves to be disposed to persist, or to be inclined to question and be curious, to be able to collaborate harmoniously and learn well with other people, to be open to new ideas, or to manage their learning effectively.
The good thing is that these dispositions, inherent in all of us, are not fixed at birth. They can be developed by all of us regardless of ‘ability’, social background or age. They have a significant impact on how you learn and your progress through life. Extending our learning power has no limits.
The hidden aspect of learning
What if some of the girls you knew tended to believe that ‘Maths isn’t for girls’ or some other children you knew thought that ‘If you can’t solve it in a minute, you can’t solve it at all’ or even that ‘Bright people never have to try’. All these erroneous ideas cause children to be disposed to give up easily, or to feel stupid, or to disengage. You might think of ‘dispositions’ as indicators of the degree to which one is disposed to make use of a skill or knowledge.
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.
When you use this learning habit, you …
- are not afraid of not knowing
- are curious about things and people
- like to get below the surface of things and come up with your own conclusions
- often wonder why
- play with ideas, asking “How come?” and “What if?”
Your supple learning mind
The explanations and activities in this online unit aim to help you, as a parent, to make a start on:
- introducing your child to one of the key learning behaviours;
- using the language of learning effectively with your child;
- trying some activities in your family life;
- developing your child’s confidence and skill to grow their own questioning habits.
The notes below will be amended when we have finished shaping the whole module
Ideas in this module is likely to take you into a new way of thinking about learning. The notes below will help you gain a coherent feel for how the material fits together and apply in your classroom practice.
Take it slowly and try to avoid any inclination to skim through the whole resource.
Spend about 15 mins on each of the 5 steps below; sufficient time to both read, think about and note down your learning.
Start with section 1.
Read – ‘What is . . . ?’
Maybe go over it again because there may well be some features of this behaviour that you haven’t met before.
Spot the Questioners in a class you know well and fill in the names of your learners.
Ask yourself:
Which of my learners appear to do all / most of these things already?
Which of my learners don’t appear to exhibit any of these positive learning behaviours?
What you’re discovering.
Make a note of your musings ready for discussion at the Professional Learning Team meeting.
Now go to section 3.
Carefully read ‘Understand how Questioning grows’, this is likely to be brand new information
Take time to find out how the phases of growth work (see toggle box)
Focus on the class you know well and think about where they might fit on this trajectory
Think through the questions shown below the trajectory but don’t assume higher achievers will automatically be further up the trajectory than lower achievers
Ask yourself the hard question – could my learners make progress up this trajectory this year?
If yes, how might I help make this happen?
If no, what might I do to make learners more secure at their current stage?
Make a note of your musings ready for discussion at the Professional Learning Team meeting.
Now go to section 2.
Get a sense of what is meant by classroom culture and look at the diagram that shows some aspects of culture that encourage and enable Questioning to flourish. . . ‘
Think about your own classroom culture:
which of these aspects are a regular feature in your own classroom?
which might you consider introducing into your classroom?
which sound interesting but you do not understand what they might look like in practice?
Make a note of your musings ready for discussion at the Professional Learning Team meeting.
You’ve now looked at the nature of the learning behaviour, considered how it might grow, and looked at features the classroom culture that supports it.
Now turn to section 4 to explore some teaching ideas that could be used to build these behaviours in your own classroom.
Read through section 4 – Ideas to Practise
look at both the primary and secondary columns because many of the ideas can be amended to fit different ages
Which of these ideas might fit your needs or simply appeal to you?
Which do you already use?
Which might work well in your own classroom?
Make a note of your musings ready for discussion at the Professional Learning Team meeting.
Section 5 Develop your talk
Take a look at a few statements you could use to nudge the behaviour. Using this language can be a big shift for many teachers because what you are doing here is talking in a way that will nudge the use of a particular learning behaviour. This is intentional and precise learning language.
Ask yourself:
How much do you currently talk about the process of learning, as opposed to the outcomes of learning?
Have you ever considered, in advance, how you might talk about the process of learning, or do you tend to just ‘trust yourself to say the right thing at the right time’?
Might you need to make a conscious decision to prepare in advance the language that you use?
Which of the suggested phrases/comments would best resonate with your students and fit with any of the teaching ideas you might try from section 4?
Make a note of your musings ready for discussion at the Professional Learning Team meeting.
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