Advance Organiser…Helping your learners to Imagine

The programme the school is about to embark on is a careful blend of:

1. online learning sessions….that faithfully disseminate the researched content for building better learners;
2. professional learning team sessions …… that provide sustained, meaningful assistance; learning with and from colleagues;
3. trying things out for yourselves in classrooms……because “learning by doing” is integral to the development of expertise and expertise cannot be developed quickly. It can only be developed if you have ample opportunity for practice, reflection, and adjustment.

This trio of learning opportunities gives you time, practice and support to undo old habits and become graceful at new ones.

Start with section 1.

• Read – ‘What is imagining?’
• Go over it again because there may well be some features of this behaviour that you haven’t met before.
• Take time to think about the learning behaviours in a class you know well and fill in the names of the 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 am I discovering?

Then skip to section 3.

• Carefully read ‘Understand how imagination grows’, this is likely to be new to you.
• Take time to find out how the phases of growth work (see toggle box in that section).
• Focus on the class you know well and think about where your pupils 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 over the next year?
• If yes, look out for helpful ideas to make it happen as you work through the content.
• If no, look out for ideas that could make learners more secure at their current stage.

Now turn back to section 2.

• Get a sense of what is meant by classroom culture and look at the diagram showing some aspects of culture that enables imagining 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’re not sure what some of the phrases might look like in practice?

You’ve now looked at the nature of the learning behaviour (imagining), considered how it might grow, and looked at features of 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?

Section 5 Develop your talk

You’ll find about 10 statements here that you could use to nudge imagining. Using this language can be a big shift for many teachers because what you’re doing here is talking in a way that will nudge the use of imagining. In other words you’re using 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?

Making it all make sense for you

From your big collection of features about imagination ask yourself;

• which subject area would be a safe place to start?
• could the ideas I’m toying with be useful in another subject?
• which subject would I be cautious about using imagining in?
• what aspect of imagining would I want pupils to reflect on after using it (see learning mat).
• would it be possible to design a lesson or project using all the features shown on the learning mat?

They are safe forums in which to;

• kick around ideas from the online content,
• unpack it’s meaning when it’s unclear,
• consider what’s do-able and appropriate for your students
• make plans for what and how you might incorporate the ideas into your practice
• share and unpack what you have tried in the classroom
• relate your triumphs and tribulations
• reflect on what you hope you might do differently

Such learning communities provide a time and place where you’ll hear real-life classroom stories from colleagues. These stories provide local reassurances that the ideas work, that they can be tweaked, that pupils in our school benefit from them. It’s the support you need to take such risks.

A tight agenda to scaffold and focus change

Session agendas follow these stages

1. Agreeing objectives and agenda (5mins)
2. Sharing learning enquiries (20mins)
3. Re-capping the on-line materials (15mins)
4. Deciding what’s to be done (15mins)
5. Personal Action Planning (20mins)
6. Evaluating the meeting process (5mins)

The flow of the meeting moves from ‘settling down'(1) to ‘how have you been doing?'(2) to ‘what did we learn online that we can use?'(3&4) to ‘ what am I planning to do next?'(5) to ‘how did our meeting go?'(6). It’s a logical flow that scaffolds the work of the team.

In the first meeting agenda item 2 is replaced with discussing the role and function of the team, how it will operate and drawing up its ground rules. Here’s a short paper about this.

Enquiry questions and plans

Please download yourself a copy of the Enquiry question and the Enquiry plan and bring them to the meeting.

Enquiry questions

Why start with a question? Because this is an enquiry, you want to find out if something will change (student behaviour) if you change something specific.

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

Enquiry plans

The learning enquiry plan creates a record of what will be done and as such is an important document. It represents a promise to do it and this promise keeps the plan as a priority in your mind.

The plan should also record what you will watch out for over the next few weeks. What you’ll monitor how you change your practice and what you’ll monitor about changes in your pupils. When you note such changes it motivates you to carry on since the change is almost always positive.

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