Learning is impossible without resilience: that tendency to be ready, willing and able to lock onto learning – knowing how to work through difficulties when the pressure mounts or the going gets tough. Without a willingness to stay engaged research tells us that we tend to revert prematurely into defensive mode which, although it maintains our security it does nothing to increase mastery. Loss of resilience breeds a brittle and impatient attitude.
All these beliefs and anxieties can affect anyone. The massive disruption to life caused by COVID 19 will have affected all students in one way or another. So, regardless of a school’s home-learning offer or students’ learning attitudes before lockdown, all students will have been affected; they will be different on returning to school.
This resource is designed to help teachers to enable their students re-energise and secure those learning behaviours that contribute to being a Resilient learner.
The resource draws on ideas teachers have developed for building their students’ resilience. It offers you rapid access to classroom-focused material that will help to re-energise, revive and develop students’ emotional learning behaviours.
A simple framework for a wide range of activity
Re-energising Your Learners’ Resilience addresses four aspects of Resilience in students. For each of those aspects, it offers four practical packages of ideas and activities; the packages focus in turn on four aspects of teaching practice.
This four-by-four framework is presented in a simple grid, illustrated below.
Clicking on one of the sixteen yellow cells will take you into the corresponding package: there you will find five activities to choose from. The pattern of the five activities is consistent across all sixteen packages, so you will quickly become familiar with the approach.
The four aspects of Resilience are
Dealing with being stuck
Managing distractions, ensuring continuing engagement with learning.
Rising to challenge
Working towards goals
Aspects of teaching and classroom culture are described as
Things to give away:transferring responsibility for learning to students, offering them more control
Things to say: using language that helps pupils understand learning as a process rather than a performance, and take more control of their own learning
Things to do every day: examples of the kind of classroom routines and activities that will nurture resilient learners
Things to display:the look and feel of a classroom, its walls and reward systems, that can serve to strengthen students’ resilience in learning.
How the resource is designed.
Take a closer look at the framework for re-energising you learners’ resilience
The framework also gives hints about monitoring what you are doing and how students are reacting and changing.
Possible changes in classroom practice (green cells at the bottom) summarise the sort of things you will be doing. Worth checking now and then.
What you want learners to be like (blue cells on the right) summarise the sort of changes you will want to look out for in your learners over the next few months.
Get Started
Click on the link in any yellow cell to find 5 related classroom activities.
This resource is for teachers who are joining schools involved in developing students’ learning power.
It offers teachers new to the school:
information about the power of learning behaviours and how they grow;
guidance on teacher talk, lesson design and classroom cultures to help strengthen learning habits;
tools to enable teachers to assess and amend their classroom culture and teaching styles;
a tool to enable teachers to analyse their students’ learning behaviours.
This will enable you, as a new teacher, to ease into growing the learning power culture of the school and enable you to ensure your students continue their development as learning powered learners.
Or, put another way, this resource will help you to:
put your students’ learning behaviours (not attainment) front and centre in the school’s approach to improving learning;
use some basic tools and techniques to raise students’ awareness of how they can take control and build their learning behaviours;
understand and apply the teaching approaches needed to strengthen learning behaviours;
explore, estimate and record students’ growth in learning behaviours and the impact on their learning.
2.The content of this resource
Looking through each numbered section will lead you through the basic story of introducing learning power, but content in the toggle boxes adds deeper, richer information that you could return to later.
Each section deals with a key aspect of understanding, introducing and testing the approach.
The first three sections look at learning itself
Section 1 What makes a difference in learning?…introduces and explores the meaning, purpose and attributes of learning power.
Section 2 Up close and personal with learning…invites you to look at yourself and a couple of students through the lens of learning behaviours.
Section 3 Finding learning characteristics…explains how you, and the school, can gather evidence to profile students’ learning characters and use this as a basis for selecting appropriate activities. Material in this section should be used after discussion with the school.
The next three sections encourage you to try things out
Section 4Shift classroom culture…explores how your classroom practice can encourage the growth of learning behaviours.
Section 5 Start with the basics…explains the first ‘must do’ aspects of learning activities that strengthen learning behaviours.
Section 6 A catalogue of ideas…offers a range of practical classroom solutions that are directly linked to phases of learning behaviours and blend into your teaching.
The final section shows you how to assess forimpact
Section 7 What is the impact?…suggests how to assess the impact of your interventions on your classroom culture, students learning and their attainment. This section will be appropriate at the end of your first year
3. Resourcing your learning journey
As we all know it’s difficult to blend in and absorb the culture and practices of a school that’s new to you. This is just as true for experienced teachers as it is for new entrants just starting out. And this blending into the culture is particularly tricky if the ‘new school’ has an approach to learning that’s somewhat different to what you’re familiar with.
3a. This online induction resource:
is to help explain as clearly as possible what the school is basing its culture on and how this affects classroom practice;
is to offer you enough background information to help stimulate your own questions about the approach;
is to offer you observation tools to help you spot aspects of the approach in various classrooms;
however it is not a substitute for the deeper online courses ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ and/or ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘ that staff have be working through.
3b. Further in-school support
Although it will differ in every school you will find further support along the lines of:
occasional twilight meetings with new staff to discuss aspects of this resource;
possibly a more formal ‘induction session’ involving several staff to kick start the process;
an opportunity to join a Professional Learning Team to support you and other new colleagues (if numbers allow);
being assigned an experienced mentor / coach to guide you through how you might translate these materials into practice.
Once you have experienced this short introductory programme, you should be enabled to join the professional learning teams who are exploring the full ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ programmes.
3c. Professional Learning Teams
Changing working practices is hard and delicate work. Research shows it works best when you can meet in a safe professional environment in which to explore and plan how you could change, and then share and probe the triumphs, tribulations and outcomes of the classroom experiments. Research into teacher learning communities by Dylan Wiliam, of Assessment for Learning (AfL) fame, describes such teams as:
a small group of teachers who meet together regularly;
to deepen their understanding of an approach;
to commit to trying out new things;
to reflect on and share their experiments with each other.
Teacher learning communities are the engines of teacher development. As such it’s likely that this structured system forms the backbone of your new school’s support.
3d. The subsequent online courses
There are two phases for introducing and developing learning power. The Phase 1 course Playing the Learning Power game introduces the ideas of learning power and homes in on 4 foundational learning dispositions that encourage students to be disposed to Persevere, to Question critically, to Collaborate effectively and to Revise their thinking. This course usually takes a school a year to complete.
Phase 2 The Professional Learning Power Game offers deeper material, covers all the learning behaviours and takes at least two years to complete. Schools that have had the greatest success with the approach are the ones that have supported staff through Professional Learning Teams.
4. The where from of this approach to learning
The approach to learning explored here comes from the vision of twenty-first century education and the new sciences of learning that underpin it. It starts from first principles: that we now know an individual’s ability isn’t fixed; that the brain is like a muscle; that its intelligence grows with exercise. Selling this idea to learners brings, in itself, far more enthusiasm for engaging with the potential delights of learning, helping students to become more independent, more reflective, and better able to plan and evaluate their own learning. This, as John Hattie’s research has shown, is a better way of boosting students’ attainment than more drilling in the subject-matter.
The great strength of this approach is that there is already a wealth of tried and tested strategies that teachers can introduce immediately to begin to transform the learning experience of their students, and give them a language with which to think about the process of learning. You can boost the development of students’ confidence, capacity and appetite for learning itself.
This resource affords teachers an insight into the skills and attitudes their students use when learning… and how to fix them.
Helping your new teachers access and benefit from Coming on board
This short resource is the companion to Welcome to…Coming on board, a 7 section, self-study induction pack for teachers new to your school.
This resource offers you, as a senior leader, a description of the self-study pack for new teachers and some suggestions for ways to support and ease those teachers into the learning powered culture of your school.
As you will know, teachers often find it difficult to absorb the culture and practices of a school that’s new to them. This is as true for experienced teachers as it is for new entrants who are just starting out and it’s particularly so if the ‘new school’ has an approach to learning that may be somewhat different to what they are familiar.
The purpose of this introductory programme is to:
furnish teachers with a considered broad brush outline of the approach;
offer particular practical support to teachers new to a school during their first term;
but it is not a substitute for ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ or ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘;
indeed, we would recommend that once new teachers have experienced this short introductory programme, they should be enabled to join the professional learning teams who are exploring the full ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ programmes.
1. What does the Coming on board pack contain?
The Coming on board resource pack has two bits and two functions:
an introductory resource for teachers new to any school that is working through, or has already completed aspects of a learning power programme. e.g. ‘Playing the LearningPower Game‘ and/or ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘;
a supportive resource for senior leaders responsible for the induction of new teachers (i.e. what you are reading now).
For teachers:
1 online quick read unit titled ‘Coming on board, an introductory read’. This offers an overview of the key ideas about building better learners, supple learning minds and classroom cultures;
1 online unit called ‘Welcome to…Coming on board’, made up of 7 sections which provide a quick start on understanding the nature of learning power and the classroom culture that enables learning power to flourish.
For leaders responsible for induction (this unit):
advice on how the 7 sections might best be tackled;
training materials to help you to introduce ‘The Supple Learning Mind’ and ‘Learning-Friendly Classroom Cultures’ (should you wish to do so).
2. Start with some gentle ‘holiday reading’
Developing students’ learning power involves engaging your students consciously with the ideas and processes of their own learning in the knowledge that learning itself is learnable. It sounds enticing but how to do it is far from obvious. Hence it’s important to offer new staff a considered route to understanding the basics such as: What is learning power? Why we need it. What are the essential ideas, values and practicalities of building students’ learning power?
An online overview:
‘Coming on board, an introductory read‘ offers seven glimpses of learning power that capture the essence of why, what and how. Through 7 big questions teachers can explore the purpose and meaning of learning power before making a start on putting it into practice;
This might usefully be introduced as essential ‘holiday reading’ before the teacher joins your school at the start of a term.
This introductory unit offers:
an overview of the key ideas;
background research on dispositional learning;
the two interlinking frameworks that underpin building better learners;
examples of how the two frameworks work in practice.
It’s wise to ensure this is the first unit that new teachers engage with because it sets the scene for the substantial online unit titled ‘Welcome to… Coming on board’.
However if senior leaders would rather introduce these ideas themselves, there are materials in section 5d (below) to support you in doing so.
You could send the link to incoming teachers if you have been unable to set up their Learning Power account prior to them taking up post.
3. Coming on board. The self-study pack to support teachers new to the school.
The Coming on board resource is available to schools that have already begun working on Phase 1 ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ and/or Phase 2 ‘The Professional Learning Game’ and want to provide specialised induction activities for teachers joining the school. The resource is designed as a self-study pack but with aspects that will help new teachers to join an established professional learning team after a couple of months.
Here’s a rundown of the sections
Section 1 What makes a difference in learning?…introduces and explores the meaning, purpose and attributes of learning power.
Section 2 Up close and personal with learning…invites teachers to look at themselves and a couple of students through the lens of learning behaviours.
Section 3 Finding learning characteristics…explains how a teacher, and the school, can gather evidence to profile students’ learning characters and use this as a basis for selecting appropriate activities. Material in this section should be completed in full after discussion with the school. See 4.3 below.
Section 4Shift classroom culture…explores how teachers’ classroom practice can encourage the growth of learning behaviours.
Section 5 Start with the basics…explains the first ‘must do’ aspects of learning activities that strengthen learning behaviours.
Section 6 A catalogue of ideas…offers a range of practical classroom solutions that are directly linked to phases of learning behaviours to blend into their teaching.
Section 7 What is the impact?…suggests how to assess the impact of their interventions on their classroom culture, students learning and their attainment. This material should be considered during induction but acted on at the end of the educational year.
4. The substantial 7 section unit, ‘Welcome to…Coming on board’.
While each section could easily take teachers a couple of weeks to read, digest and act on, some sections are more action packed than others. Hence we hope the unit will fit comfortably into half a term and prepare new teachers to join the school’s existing professional learning communities fairly quickly.
Section 1 – ‘What makes a difference in learning?’
Section 1 introduces the key ideas of learning power. It looks at The Supple Learning Mind, explores its origins and rationale.
The section takes a whistle stop tour through the what and why of learning power. It’s an approach to learning that looks at the building blocks of learning, what they are, the part they play and why they matter. The basic learning behaviour framework, known as the supple learning mind, itemises the high value learning behaviours most of which will be broken down in detail in section 2 to become learning journeys in their own right.
Section 2 – ‘Up close and personal with learning’.
Section 2 invites teachers to consider their own learning behaviours through the lens of learning power, and begins the process of thinking about the learning behaviours of the students they teach. Here for the first time the level of detail about learning behaviours is uncovered to enable teachers to:
discover and understand the learning behaviour features of students;
learn about the possible learning behaviour differences of students;
become familiar with students’ growth in learning power behaviours;
feel confident to introduce students to their own learning behaviours;
adapt their teaching so as to strengthen growth in learning behaviours;
monitor and evaluate their own practice and the subsequent growth in students’ learning behaviours.
Having got the idea by looking at themselves as a learner they are invited to look at just a couple of their students; a low and a high attaining student. This gives them a glimpse into what it is that makes the difference in how students approach and achieve in learning
The slimmed down learning power growth chart
Section 3 – ‘Finding learning characteristics’
EDIT HERE
Section 3 invites teachers to complete a learning profile for each member of their class and to reflect on what these profiles might be telling them about sub-groups of learners. This is one of the best ways for teachers to really understand learning power in their students.
Although this section, on the preparation of learning profiles for the class or group, logically fits here in the sequence of topics, the timing might not coincide with the school’s collection of this data. Senior leaders will need to inform new staff when the school intends to schedule the collection of students’ learning profiles. New staff might use this section to best advantage by looking at it carefully in the induction period, but complete all the student profiles when they are required to by the school.
Student profiles
Section 4 – ‘Shifting your classroom culture’
If we want students to become better learners we first need to offer them more opportunities to use and cultivate their learning powers. This obvious truth often involves shifting the culture of the classroom so that it systematically cultivates the positive learning habits and attitudes of young people. ‘Culture’ is about all the little habits, routines and practices that implicitly convey ‘what we believe and value round here’; where, hour by hour, day by day, term by term students experience the values and practices that are embodied in the school.
Section 4 introduces the idea of classroom culture and how it can help, or hinder, learning power. It looks at the 4 aspects of classroom culture – Relating, Talking, Constructing and Celebrating – and introduces the ideas around teacher’s progression in making classroom culture happen.
Section 5 – ‘Starting with the basics’
Fostering students’ learning dispositions is a wide ranging and multifarious business. However, there are a few straightforward things teachers can do to start engaging their students in developing their learning dispositions.
EDIT AND CHECK HERE AFTER SECTION 5 IS UPDATED IN SEC UNIT
Section 5 identifies 11 basic strategies or ‘quick wins’ that can underpin classrooms where learning power can flourish. It invites teachers to consider changing their practice to incorporate one or more of these quick-start basics. Its premise is that small changes in teaching practice can create big changes in learners.
While all the suggestions are fairly standard your school may already have particular ways of interpreting them. We have suggested it would be wise to check which of the 11 ideas are common features of classrooms and whether the school has some common formats that they should follow (e.g. Learning mats no 11). They will also need to know which learning behaviours students are already familiar with as they’ve already been introduced throughout the school.
Section 6 – A catalogue of ideas: Decide where to start.
Section 6 is a substantial section and is obviously worthy of several weeks of study. The catalogue offers teaching ideas in the 12 learning behaviours, organised by phase of learner development. It invites teachers to look at the learner profiles created in Section 3, to seek and implement teaching ideas relating to a chosen learning behaviour at an appropriate level for their learners.
While it is not expected that teachers will access ideas for all 12 learning behaviours, they should be encouraged to explore beyond one behaviour. Maybe it would be an idea to challenge them to look at one from each of the 4 domains of learning – Emotional, Cognitive, Social, Strategic.
Section 7 – ‘What is the impact?’
Section 7 is a nod to the future. There is no expectation that the small-scale changes made during the hurly burly of the first term in a new school will have resulted in measurable changes in such a short period of time. It illustrates the direction of travel and could be returned to at the end of teachers’ first year of engagement.
However, it would be good to end with a less formal opportunity to review the impact of the first 6 sections of the unit. Why not conclude the term using the visible thinking routine ‘Connect, Extend, Challenge’?
Invite your new teachers to discuss 3 questions:
How are the online materials connected to what they already knew?
How have the online materials extended their thinking?
What challenges do they now face, what questions are they asking themselves?
5. Issues to be considered by leaders
As mentioned at the outset, teachers often find it difficult to absorb the culture and practices of a school that’s new to them. This is particularly so if the ‘new school’ has an approach to learning that may be somewhat different to what they are familiar. The purpose of the introductory programme is to support teachers new to a school during their first term. However, it is not a substitute for ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ or ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘ and we recommend that once new teachers have experienced this short introductory programme, they should be enabled to join the professional learning teams who are exploring the full ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ programmes.
5a. Supporting the introductory programme
Things to think about:
how and when might you find time to support new colleagues to work through these materials;
whether you need to have the occasional twilight meeting with new staff?
whether you need, say, an ‘induction afternoon’ to kick start the process?
whether it might be a good idea to support new colleagues to form their own new Professional Learning Community (if numbers allow);
and/or whether each new colleague should be assigned an experienced mentor / coach to guide them through translating these materials into practice.
5b. Ongoing support for new teachers . . .
Two aspects to think about:
How you will support them during the first half term (6/7 weeks) using these materials;
How you will support them thereafter.
Active support. Think about. . .
Establishing a cycle of read / act / reflect so that the 7 sections can be covered appropriately.
Build in meetings to share ideas and reflect on the key messages to:
explore how teachers found the materials and
critically, how they intend to alter their practice;
explore teachers’ experiences of and thoughts about the changes they have made.
Decide who will lead these review meetings, when they will be held etc.
After they have made a solid start…
you won’t want them to continue working at this overview level indefinitely
offer them access to either
the full Phase 1 ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ materials to help them expand their teaching repertoire or
to Phase 2 ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘ if the school has got that far
enable them to move from being ‘a new teacher’ to working with the appropriate Professional Learning Team.
To do this:
contact TLO and ask for new teachers to be given access to either Phase 1 or Phase 2 materials, whichever the school is currently working with.
0117 937 8080
[note – deleting ex members of staff and inserting new ones is done at no cost to the school].
5d. Support materials for leaders
The Coming on board online unit forms a self-study pack for teachers new to the school. However if senior leaders would prefer to take a more hands-on approach and launch the key ideas themselves, we have gathered some materials and slide presentations you may find useful. There is nothing here that you have not already met during your own engagement with ‘Playing the Learning Power Game‘, but they are clustered here for convenience.
Introducing classroom culture
Downloads to the right:
A powerpoint presentation about classroom cultures – download it and edit it to create your own introductory session;
Guidance notes will support your delivery;
A resource book for teachers to accompany the ppt.
This resource is for teachers who are joining schools involved in developing students’ learning power.
It offers teachers new to the school;
information about the power of learning behaviours and how they grow
guidance on teacher talk, lesson design and classroom cultures to help strengthen learning habits
tools to enable teachers to assess and amend their classroom culture and teaching styles
a tool to enable teachers to analyse their students’ learning behaviours
This will enable you, as a new teacher, to ease into growing the learning power culture of the school and enable you to ensure your students continue their development as learning powered learners.
Or, put another way, this resource will help you to;
put your students’ learning behaviours (not attainment) front and centre in the school’s approach to improving learning,
use some basic tools and techniques to raise students’ awareness of how they can take control and build their learning behaviours,
understand and apply the teaching approaches needed to strengthen learning behaviours,
explore, estimate and record students’ growth in learning behaviours and the impact on their learning.
2.The content of this resource
Looking through each numbered section will lead you through the basic story of introducing learning power, but content in the toggle boxes adds deeper, richer information that you could return to later.
Each section deals with a key aspect of understanding, introducing and testing the approach.
The first three sections look at learning itself
Section 1 What makes a difference in learning?…introduces and explores the meaning, purpose and attributes of learning power.
Section 2 Up close and personal with learning…invites you to look at yourself and a couple of students through the lens of learning behaviours.
Section 3 Finding learning characteristics…explains how you, and the school, can gather evidence to profile students’ learning characters and use this as a basis for selecting appropriate activities. Material in this section should be used after discussion with the school.
The next three sections encourage you to try things out
Section 4Shift classroom culture…explores how your classroom practice can encourage the growth of learning behaviours.
Section 5 Start with the basics…explains the first ‘must do’ aspects of learning activities that strengthen learning behaviours.
Section 6 A catalogue of ideas…offers a range of practical classroom solutions that are directly linked to phases of learning behaviours and blend into your teaching.
The final section shows you how to assess forimpact
Section 7 What is the impact?…suggests how to assess the impact of your interventions on your classroom culture, students learning and their attainment. This section will be appropriate at the end of your first year
3. Resourcing your learning journey
As we all know it’s difficult to blend in and absorb the culture and practices of a school that’s new to you. This is just as true for experienced teachers as it is for new entrants just starting out. And this blending into the culture is particularly tricky if the ‘new school’ has an approach to learning that’s somewhat different to what you’re familiar with.
3a. This online induction resource
is to help explain as clearly as possible what the school is basing its culture on and how this affects classroom practice
is to offer you enough background information to help stimulate your own questions about the approach
is to offer you observation tools to help you spot aspects of the approach in various classrooms
however it is not a substitute for the deeper online courses ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ and/or ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘ that staff have be working through
3b. Further in-school support:
Although it will differ in every school you will find further support along the lines of:
occasional twilight meetings with new staff to discuss aspects of this resource
possibly a more formal ‘induction session’ involving several staff to kick start the process
an opportunity to join a Professional Learning Team to support you and other new colleagues (if numbers allow)
being assigned an experienced mentor / coach to guide you through how you might translate these materials into practice.
Once you have experienced this short introductory programme, you should be enabled to join the professional learning teams who are exploring the full ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ programmes.
3c. Professional Learning Teams
Changing working practices is hard and delicate work. Research shows it works best when you can meet in a safe professional environment in which to explore and plan how you could change, and then share and probe the triumphs, tribulations and outcomes of the classroom experiments. Research into teacher learning communities by Dylan Wiliam, of Assessment for Learning (AfL) fame, describes such teams as:
a small group of teachers who meet together regularly
to deepen their understanding of an approach,
to commit to trying out new things,
to reflect on and share their experiments with each other.
Teacher learning communities are the engines of teacher development. As such it’s likely that this structured system forms the backbone of your new school’s support.
3d. The subsequent online courses
There are two phases for introducing and developing learning power. The Phase 1 course Playing the Learning Power game introduces the ideas of learning power and homes in on 4 foundational learning dispositions that encourage students to be disposed to Persevere, to Question critically, to Collaborate effectively and to Revise their thinking. This course usually takes a school a year to complete.
Phase 2 The Professional Learning Power Game offers deeper material, covers all the learning behaviours and takes at least two years to complete. Schools that have had the greatest success with the approach are the ones that have supported staff through Professional Learning Teams.
4. The where from of this approach to learning
The approach to learning explored here comes from the vision of twenty-first century education and the new sciences of learning that underpin it. It starts from first principles: that we now know an individual’s ability isn’t fixed; that the brain is like a muscle; that its intelligence grows with exercise. Selling this idea to learners brings, in itself, far more enthusiasm for engaging with the potential delights of learning, helping students to become more independent, more reflective, and better able to plan and evaluate their own learning. This, as John Hattie’s research has shown, is a better way of boosting students’ attainment than more drilling in the subject-matter.
The great strength of this approach is that there is already a wealth of tried and tested strategies that teachers can introduce immediately to begin to transform the learning experience of their students, and give them a language with which to think about the process of learning. You can boost the development of students’ confidence, capacity and appetite for learning itself.
This resource affords teachers an insight into the skills and attitudes their students use when learning… and how to fix them.
This resource is for you because as a teacher who’s joining this school you will need to know about our approach to learning. Building students’ learning power is an approach to learning that aims to encourage and develop students learning dispositions and skills in order to strengthen their learning character.
The resource offers you, as a new teacher;
information about the power of learning behaviours and how they grow
guidance on teacher talk, lesson design and classroom cultures to help strengthen learning habits
tools to enable you to assess and amend your classroom culture and teaching style
a tool to enable you to analyse you students’ learning behaviours
This will enable you, as a new teacher, to ease into growing the learning power culture of the school and enable you to ensure your students continue their development as learning powered learners.
Or, put another way, this resource will help you to;
put your students’ learning behaviours (not attainment) front and centre in the school’s approach to improving learning,
use some basic tools and techniques to raise students’ awareness of how they can take control and build their learning behaviours,
understand and apply the teaching approaches needed to strengthen learning behaviours,
explore, estimate and record students’ growth in learning behaviours and the impact on their learning.
2.The content of this resource
Looking through each numbered section will lead you through the basic story of learning power, but content in the toggle boxes adds deeper, richer information that you could return to later.
Each section deals with a key aspect of understanding, introducing and testing the approach.
The first three sections look at learning itself
Section 1 What makes a difference in learning?…introduces and explores the meaning, purpose and attributes of learning power.
Section 2 Up close and personal with learning…invites you to look at yourself and some students through the lens of learning behaviours.
Section 3 Finding learning characteristics…explains how you, and the school, gather evidence to profile students’ learning characters and use this as a basis for selecting appropriate activities. NB Read for information only. Material in this section should be acted on after discussion with the school.
The next three sections encourage you to try things out
Section 4Shift classroom culture…explores how your classroom practice can encourage the growth of learning behaviours.
Section 5 Start with the basics…explains the first ‘must do’ aspects of learning activities that strengthen learning behaviours.
Section 6 A catalogue of ideas…offers a range of practical classroom solutions that are directly linked to phases of learning behaviours and blend into your teaching.
The final section shows you how to assess forimpact
Section 7 What is the impact?…suggests how to assess the impact of your interventions on your classroom culture, students learning and their attainment. This section will be appropriate at the end of your first year
3. Resourcing your learning journey
We all know it’s difficult to blend in and absorb the culture and practices of a school that’s new to you and it’s just as true for experienced teachers as it is for new entrants just starting out. But blending into the culture is particularly tricky if the ‘new school’ has an approach to learning that’s somewhat different to what you’re familiar with.
3a. This online induction resource
is to help explain as clearly as possible what the school is basing its culture on and how this affects classroom practice
is to offer you enough background information to help stimulate your own questions about the approach
is to offer you observation tools to help you spot aspects of the approach in various classrooms
however it is not a substitute for the deeper online courses ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ and/or ‘The Professional Learning Power Game‘ that staff have been working through
3b. Further in-school support:
Although it will differ in every school you will find further support along the lines of:
occasional twilight meetings with other new staff to discuss aspects of this resource
possibly a more formal ‘induction session’ involving several staff to kick start the process
an opportunity to join a Professional Learning Team to support you and other new colleagues (if numbers allow)
being assigned an experienced mentor / coach to guide you through how you might translate these materials into practice.
Once you have experienced this short introductory programme, you’ll be able to join one of the professional learning teams who are exploring the full ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’ programmes.
3c. Professional Learning Teams
Changing working practices is hard and delicate work. Research shows it works best when you can meet in a safe professional environment in which to explore and plan how you could change, and then share and probe the triumphs, tribulations and outcomes of the classroom experiments. Research into teacher learning communities by Dylan Wiliam, of Assessment for Learning (AfL) fame, describes such teams as:
a small group of teachers who meet together regularly
to deepen their understanding of an approach,
to commit to trying out new things,
to reflect on and share their experiments with each other.
Teacher learning communities are seen as the engines of teacher development. As such it’s likely that this structured system forms the backbone of your new school’s support.
3d. The subsequent online courses
There are two phases for introducing and developing learning power. The Phase 1 course Playing the Learning Power Game introduces the ideas of learning power and homes in on 4 foundational learning dispositions that encourage students to be disposed to Persevere, to Question critically, to Collaborate effectively and to Revise their thinking. This course usually takes a school a year to complete.
Phase 2 The Professional Learning Power Game offers deeper material, covers all the learning behaviours and takes, at the very least, two years to complete. Schools that have had the greatest success with the approach are the ones that have supported staff by using Professional Learning Teams.
4. The where from of this approach to learning
The approach to learning that the school is learning to use comes from a vision of twenty-first century education that uses the new sciences of learning that underpin it. It starts from first principles: that we now know an individual’s ability isn’t fixed; that the brain is like a muscle; that its intelligence grows with exercise. Selling this idea to learners brings, in itself, far more enthusiasm for engaging with the potential delights of learning, helping students to become more independent, more reflective, and better able to plan and evaluate their own learning. This, as John Hattie’s research has shown, is a better way of boosting students’ attainment than more drilling in the subject-matter.
The great strength of this approach is that there is already a wealth of tried and tested strategies that teachers can introduce immediately to begin to transform the learning experience of their students, and give them a language with which to think about the process of learning. You can boost the development of students’ confidence, capacity and appetite for learning itself.
This introductory resource offers you, as a new teacher in the school, an insight into the skills and attitudes your students use when learning… and how you can fix them.
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.
There are four units dealing with shifting to a learning friendly classroom culture:
enabling students to take responsibility for their own learning [This unit]
enabling students to develop a language of learning
enabling students to consciously practise and improve the process of learning
enabling students to celebrate and value their learning behaviours
Find out what this unit is about
‘Enabling students to . . .develop a language of learning.
This unit focuses on – talking about the ‘how’ of learning.
The format of the unit will be familiar to you if you have worked through other units in this suite:
Section 1 explores what we mean by ‘talking about the ‘how’ of learning’, details the three aspects of it, and offers some further background reading in the ‘Read More’ sections;
Section 2 offers some quick wins to practise;
Section 3 suggests things to stop doing, things to start doing etc. as in other units.
Background information
This short section explains the frameworks that underpin this suite of online units. It outlines the basic values, ideas and research that inform all the practical ‘how to’ ideas for use in classrooms. It’s an essential read if you are new to these units but skip it if you are familiar with its content.
The frameworks that lie behind this suite of online units.
Building Powerful Learners puts at the heart of education the development of psychological characteristics that are judged to be of the highest value in young people growing up in a turbulent and increasingly complex world. There are two main parts to the approach:
A: a model of a learner and learning, in terms of a set of characteristics that work together to make a person a highly capable learner; we use ‘learning power’ to describe the effect. [Supple Learning Mind]
B: a view of the kind of pedagogy that will nurture and strengthen the learning characteristics in young people.[Teachers’ Palette]
These are bound together by the fundamental idea that ‘learning is a learnable craft’
A: What’s the Supple Learning Mind?
Click to enlarge
The Supple Learning Mind framework of high value learning characteristics, originally conceived and researched by Professor Guy Claxton, reveals learning as a complex process that isn’t just about thinking and having a good memory; it includes how we feel, how we think, how we learn with and from others and how we manage the process of learning. It offers the beginnings of a learning language that helps teachers think about how learning behaviours enable students to grow as learners and tackle the curriculum more profitably.
Each domain of learning…social, cognitive, social and strategic… clusters together the high value learning behaviours that best make that domain work well. For example the social domain is made up of interdependence, collaboration, listening and empathy and imitation.
click to enlarge
B: What’s the Teachers’ Palette?
click to enlarge
The Teachers’ Palette offers an overview of aspects of a learning friendly culture that combine to create the seedbed for building powerful learners. It includes the types of teacher action that create the conditions necessary for such learning to become habituated – how teachers relate to students, the language teachers use, the types of tasks teachers design, and the things that teachers truly value.
The teachers’ palette diagram below distils the key teacher behaviours associated with a learning friendly culture.
click to enlarge
In Summary: The Supple Mind indicates the learning behaviours that we want learners to acquire, and the Palette indicates the classroom culture within which these behaviours can thrive.
What effect does the approach have on students?
Schools that are able to combine a demanding content curriculum with a focused approach to building students’ learning characteristics can expect learners who are:
Committed to learning for life, able to learn, un-learn and re-learn and so thrive in uncertain times
Emotionally engaged and willing to learn with enthusiasm and commitment
Cognitively skilled, curious, logical and creative thinkers able to build a web of understanding for themselves
Socially adept, able to balance sociability and self-reliance
Strategically aware, interested in and able to manage their own learning
Independent, self-confident, self-aware, reflective and self-regulating
Ready, willing, and able to fulfil their potential
Ready to play a full role in the learning communities of today and tomorrow.
You’re not currently enrolled in this unit and can’t access the sections of the unit below. Please contact us if you have any questions about accessing this unit.
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.
There are four units dealing with shifting to a learning friendly classroom culture:
enabling students to take responsibility for their own learning [This unit}
enabling students to develop a language of learning
enabling students to consciously practise and improve the process of learning
enabling students to celebrate and value their learning behaviours
Find out what this unit is about
Enabling students to . . . take responsibility for their own learning.
This unit focuses on just one aspect of classroom culture – taking responsibility for their own learning.
The format of the unit will be familiar to you if you have worked through modules in this suite:
Section 1 explores what we mean by‘taking responsibility for their own learning’, details the three aspects of it, and offers some further background reading in the ‘Read More’ sections;
Section 2 offers some quick wins to practise;
Section 3 suggests things to stop doing, things to start doing etc. as in other modules.
Background information
This short section explains the frameworks that underpin this suite of online units. It outlines the basic values, ideas and research that inform all the practical ‘how to’ ideas for use in classrooms. It’s an essential read if you are new to these units but skip it if you are familiar with its content.
The frameworks that lie behind this suite of online units.
Building Powerful Learners puts at the heart of education the development of psychological characteristics that are judged to be of the highest value in young people growing up in a turbulent and increasingly complex world. There are two main parts to the approach:
A: a model of a learner and learning, in terms of a set of characteristics that work together to make a person a highly capable learner; we use ‘learning power’ to describe the effect. [Supple Learning Mind]
B: a view of the kind of pedagogy that will nurture and strengthen the learning characteristics in young people.[Teachers’ Palette]
These are bound together by the fundamental idea that ‘learning is a learnable craft’
A: What’s the Supple Learning Mind?
The Supple Learning Mind framework of high value learning characteristics, originally conceived and researched by Professor Guy Claxton, reveals learning as a complex process that isn’t just about thinking and having a good memory; it includes how we feel, how we think, how we learn with and from others and how we manage the process of learning. It offers the beginnings of a learning language that helps teachers think about how learning behaviours enable students to grow as learners and tackle the curriculum more profitably.
Each domain of learning…social, cognitive, social and strategic… clusters together the high value learning behaviours that best make that domain work well. For example the social domain is made up of interdependence, collaboration, listening and empathy and imitation.
B: What’s the Teachers’ Palette?
The Teachers’ Palette offers an overview of aspects of a learning friendly culture that combine to create the seedbed for building powerful learners. It includes the types of teacher action that create the conditions necessary for such learning to become habituated – how teachers relate to students, the language teachers use, the types of tasks teachers design, and the things that teachers truly value.
The teachers’ palette diagram below distils the key teacher behaviours associated with a learning friendly culture.
In Summary: The Supple Mind indicates the learning behaviours that we want learners to acquire, and the Palette indicates the classroom culture within which these behaviours can thrive.
What effect does the approach have on students?
Schools that are able to combine a demanding content curriculum with a focused approach to building students’ learning characteristics can expect learners who are:
Committed to learning for life, able to learn, un-learn and re-learn and so thrive in uncertain times
Emotionally engaged and willing to learn with enthusiasm and commitment
Cognitively skilled, curious, logical and creative thinkers able to build a web of understanding for themselves
Socially adept, able to balance sociability and self-reliance
Strategically aware, interested in and able to manage their own learning
Independent, self-confident, self-aware, reflective and self-regulating
Ready, willing, and able to fulfil their potential
Ready to play a full role in the learning communities of today and tomorrow.
You’re not currently enrolled in this unit and can’t access the sections of the unit below. Please contact us if you have any questions about accessing this unit.
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.
There are four units dealing with shifting to a learning friendly classroom culture:
enabling students to take responsibility for their own learning
enabling students to develop a language of learning
enabling students to consciously practise and improve the process of learning [This unit]
enabling students to celebrate and value their learning behaviours
Find out what this unit is about
‘Enabling your learners to consciously practise and improve the process of learning.
This unit focuses on just one aspect of classroom culture – consciously practise and improve the process of learning
The format of the unit will be familiar to you if you have worked through other units in this suite:
Section 1 explores what we mean by ‘consciously practise and improve the process of learning’, details the three aspects of it, and offers some further background reading in the ‘Read More’ sections;
Section 2 offers some quick wins to practise;
Section 3 suggests things to stop doing, things to start doing etc. as in other units.
Background information
This short section explains the frameworks that underpin this suite of online units. It outlines the basic values, ideas and research that inform all the practical ‘how to’ ideas for use in classrooms. It’s an essential read if you are new to these units but skip it if you are familiar with its content.
The frameworks that lie behind this suite of online units.
Building Powerful Learners puts at the heart of education the development of psychological characteristics that are judged to be of the highest value in young people growing up in a turbulent and increasingly complex world. There are two main parts to the approach:
A: a model of a learner and learning, in terms of a set of characteristics that work together to make a person a highly capable learner; we use ‘learning power’ to describe the effect. [Supple Learning Mind]
B: a view of the kind of pedagogy that will nurture and strengthen the learning characteristics in young people.[Teachers’ Palette]
These are bound together by the fundamental idea that ‘learning is a learnable craft’
A: What’s the Supple Learning Mind?
The Supple Learning Mind framework of high value learning characteristics, originally conceived and researched by Professor Guy Claxton, reveals learning as a complex process that isn’t just about thinking and having a good memory; it includes how we feel, how we think, how we learn with and from others and how we manage the process of learning. It offers the beginnings of a learning language that helps teachers think about how learning behaviours enable students to grow as learners and tackle the curriculum more profitably.
Each domain of learning…social, cognitive, social and strategic… clusters together the high value learning behaviours that best make that domain work well. For example the social domain is made up of interdependence, collaboration, listening and empathy and imitation.
B: What’s the Teachers’ Palette?
The Teachers’ Palette offers an overview of aspects of a learning friendly culture that combine to create the seedbed for building powerful learners. It includes the types of teacher action that create the conditions necessary for such learning to become habituated – how teachers relate to students, the language teachers use, the types of tasks teachers design, and the things that teachers truly value.
The teachers’ palette diagram below distils the key teacher behaviours associated with a learning friendly culture.
In Summary: The Supple Mind indicates the learning behaviours that we want learners to acquire, and the Palette indicates the classroom culture within which these behaviours can thrive.
What effect does the approach have on students?
Schools that are able to combine a demanding content curriculum with a focused approach to building students’ learning characteristics can expect learners who are:
Committed to learning for life, able to learn, un-learn and re-learn and so thrive in uncertain times
Emotionally engaged and willing to learn with enthusiasm and commitment
Cognitively skilled, curious, logical and creative thinkers able to build a web of understanding for themselves
Socially adept, able to balance sociability and self-reliance
Strategically aware, interested in and able to manage their own learning
Independent, self-confident, self-aware, reflective and self-regulating
Ready, willing, and able to fulfil their potential
Ready to play a full role in the learning communities of today and tomorrow.
You’re not currently enrolled in this unit and can’t access the sections of the unit below. Please contact us if you have any questions about accessing this unit.
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.
There are four units dealing with shifting to a learning friendly classroom culture:
enabling students to take responsibility for their own learning
enabling students to develop a language of learning
enabling students to consciously practise and improve the process of learning
enabling students to celebrate and value their learning behaviours [This unit]
Find out what this unit is about
‘Enabling students to celebrate and value their learning behaviours.
This unit focuses on just one aspect of classroom culture – celebrating and valuing learning behaviours.
The format of the unit will be familiar to you if you have work through other units in this induction pack:
Section 1 explores what we mean by ‘celebrating and valuing learning’, details the three aspects of it, and offers some further background reading in the ‘Read More’ sections;
Section 2 offers some quick wins to practise;
Section 3 offers you a short cut to making your plan of action, with advice on things to stop doing, things that are worth starting quickly and things you could take your time over doing.
Background information
This short section explains the frameworks that underpin this Induction pack of online units. It outlines the basic values, ideas and research that inform all the practical ‘how to’ ideas for use in classrooms. It’s an essential read if you are new to these units but skip it if you are familiar with its content.
Building Powerful Learners puts at the heart of education the development of psychological characteristics that are judged to be of the highest value in young people growing up in a turbulent and increasingly complex world. There are two main parts to the approach:
A: a model of a learner and learning, in terms of a set of characteristics that work together to make a person a highly capable learner; we use ‘learning power’ to describe the effect. [Supple Learning Mind]
B: a view of the kind of pedagogy that will nurture and strengthen the learning characteristics in young people.[Teachers’ Palette]
These are bound together by the fundamental idea that ‘learning is a learnable craft’
A: What’s the Supple Learning Mind?
The Supple Learning Mind framework of high value learning characteristics, originally conceived and researched by Professor Guy Claxton, reveals learning as a complex process that isn’t just about thinking and having a good memory; it includes how we feel, how we think, how we learn with and from others and how we manage the process of learning. It offers the beginnings of a learning language that helps teachers think about how learning behaviours enable students to grow as learners and tackle the curriculum more profitably.
Each domain of learning…social, cognitive, social and strategic… clusters together the high value learning behaviours that best make that domain work well. For example the social domain is made up of interdependence, collaboration, listening and empathy and imitation.
B: What’s the Teachers’ Palette?
The Teachers’ Palette offers an overview of aspects of a learning friendly culture that combine to create the seedbed for building powerful learners. It includes the types of teacher action that create the conditions necessary for such learning to become habituated – how teachers relate to students, the language teachers use, the types of tasks teachers design, and the things that teachers truly value.
The teachers’ palette diagram below distils the key teacher behaviours associated with a learning friendly culture.
In Summary: The Supple Mind indicates the learning behaviours that we want learners to acquire, and the Palette indicates the classroom culture within which these behaviours can thrive.
What effect does the approach have on students?
Schools that are able to combine a demanding content curriculum with a focused approach to building students’ learning characteristics can expect learners who are:
Committed to learning for life, able to learn, un-learn and re-learn and so thrive in uncertain times
Emotionally engaged and willing to learn with enthusiasm and commitment
Cognitively skilled, curious, logical and creative thinkers able to build a web of understanding for themselves
Socially adept, able to balance sociability and self-reliance
Strategically aware, interested in and able to manage their own learning
Independent, self-confident, self-aware, reflective and self-regulating
Ready, willing, and able to fulfil their potential
Ready to play a full role in the learning communities of today and tomorrow.
monitor how things are going and change tack if necessary;
mull over and draw out useful lessons from experience;
talk about and understand how you learn and how you are improving as a learner.
The activities, think pieces and questions in this online unit aim to help teachers make a start on:
introducing your students to one of the four domains of learning;
using the language of learning effectively with your students;
designing the use of learning behaviours into the way you teach;
developing the confidence and skill in helping your students to grow their learning habits.
The purpose of building your students’ Learning Power is to facilitate the growth of high value psychological characteristics and strengthen their learning characters. These skills, attitudes and values, when used with increasing competence and confidence across many learning opportunities, become learning habits; the characteristics of successful lifelong learners.
tolerate feelings of apprehension, frustration or confusion without getting upset;
recognise that learning can be a struggle;
become immersed and engrossed in what you are doing;
are aware of possible sources of distraction and purposefully try to minimise them;
notice carefully and are patient, knowing that details may take time to emerge.
The activities, think pieces and questions in this online unit aim to help teachers make a start on:
introducing your students to one of the four domains of learning;
using the language of learning effectively with your students;
designing the use of learning behaviours into the way you teach;
developing the confidence and skill to help your students grow their learning habits.
The purpose of building your students’ Learning Power is to facilitate the growth of high value psychological characteristics and strengthen their learning characters. These skills, attitudes and values, when used with increasing competence and confidence across many learning opportunities, become learning habits; the characteristics of successful lifelong learners.
are curious and like to get below the surface of things and come up with your own conclusions;
look for connections between new experiences or ideas and what you already know;
engage in disciplined thinking and create logical arguments;
let your mind explore and play with possibilities and ideas;
make intelligent use of all kinds of strategies and things to aid learning.
The activities, think pieces and questions in this module aims to help you make a start on:
introducing your students to one of the four domains of learning;
using the language of learning effectively with your students;
designing the use of learning behaviours into the way you teach;
developing the confidence and behaviour in helping your students to grow their learning habits.
The purpose of building your students’ Learning Power is to facilitate the growth of high value psychological characteristics and strengthen their learning character. These behaviours, attitudes and values, when used with increasing competence and confidence across many learning opportunities, become learning habits; the characteristics of successful lifelong learners.
The school you have recently joined is on an intriguing journey to develop their students’ learning power. What you are reading now is the first unit of an induction programme titled Coming on board that’s designed to help you understand and ease into the school’s learning power culture. The other eight modules of Coming on board are explained in brief after 7 glimpses of learning power below.
This unit aims to give you a quick overview of learning power by exploring seven questions that capture the essence of why, what and how.
What is learning power? Why do we need it? What are the essential ideas, values and practicalities of building students’ learning power?
7 Big Questions…
to explore the purpose and meaning of learning power before making a start on putting it into practice.
Developing students’ learning power involves engaging your students consciously with the ideas and processes of their own learning in the knowledge that learning itself is learnable.
Glimpse 1: Why do we need to bother developing students’ learning power?
The future…and learning
Building Learning Power—BLP for short—is an attempt to focus schools on preparing young people better for an uncertain future. Schools today need to be educating not just for exam results but for lifelong learning. To thrive in the twenty-first century, it’s not enough to leave school with a clutch of examination certificates. Students need to have learnt how to be tenacious and resourceful, imaginative and logical, self-disciplined and self-aware, collaborative and inquisitive as learners.
‘Students throughout the world need now to reach higher levels of achievement, not only to find fulfilling work but also to empower themselves to thrive in an increasingly complex world’ – Dylan Wiliam
Employment requires being able to enhance and transfer knowledge and to operate collaboratively
The capacity to learn and adapt needs to be lifelong because change is a permanent state, and the pace of change is moving much more rapidly
Learning habits have strong effects on educational attainment but have additional effects on important life outcomes beyond their effects on schooling.
The core purpose of education is to prepare young people for life after school; to get them ready, as Art Costa, an American educator with similar views, says, ‘not just for a life of tests, but for the tests of life’. This means helping them build up the mental, emotional, and social resources to enjoy challenge and cope well with uncertainty and complexity. If you strip away political dogma, the evidence is overwhelming that this aim is not currently being achieved for very many students. Of course, this has to be done in a way that also develops literacy and numeracy, and gets young people the best test results possible. That is the challenge that BLP schools and teachers are willing to take up.
Glimpse 2: What’s different about learning power?
We now think of learning…
… not as a performance but of being an interesting process going on in children’s brains. When we all believed that ‘intelligence’ was fixed at birth there seemed little point in trying to cultivate it. Now we know just how learnable learning is we are realising that there’s a place for developing how we learn. Research uncovered some dimensions or energies or powers that can be used to shape how we learn. They could shape, for example, the growth of our resilience in learning, our learning relationships, our thinking behaviours and how we manage our learning.
Underlying this approach is a recognition that learning how to learn involves more than skills, it involves students’ attitudes, values, interests and beliefs as well. It’s about helping students to help themselves to be disposed to persist, to question and be curious, to collaborate harmoniously and to be open to new ideas.
” I can’t think of anything more worth learning than learning to learn. It’s like having money in the bank at compound interest” David Perkins. Project Zero, Harvard University
Glimpse 3: Which learning behaviours are we seeking to establish?
The Supple Learning Mind
The Supple Learning Mind framework was conceived and researched by Professor Guy Claxton. It captures the key psychological characteristics that are judged to be of the highest value in helping students to learn and thrive in a complex world. The framework clusters these characteristics into four domains of learning:
The Emotional domain of learning (sometimes described as Resilience)
The Cognitive domain of learning (sometimes described as Resourcefulness)
The Social domain of learning (sometimes described as Reciprocity)
The Strategic domain of learning (sometimes described as Reflectiveness)
The supple learning mind, four domains of learning, seventeen learning characteristics
Model 1. The Supple Learning Mind framework of high value learning behaviours
A rich framework for learning
The Supple Learning Mind framework embraces each of the domains of learning and these are shown in its four parts:
The Emotional domain of learning (sometimes described as Resilience)
The Cognitive domain of learning (sometimes described as Resourcefulness)
The Social domain of learning (sometimes described as Reciprocity)
The Strategic domain of learning (sometimes described as Reflectiveness)
This learning framework shows that learning isn’t just about having a good memory; it includes how we feel, how we think, how we learn with others and how we manage the process of learning. It shows that learning is a complex process. Furthermore it provides a language that helps teachers to think about how they cultivate each of the learning behaviours and helps students to gain a better personalised understanding of how they learn content.
Each domain clusters together the high value learning behaviours that best make that domain work well. For example the social domain is made up of the learning behaviours of interdependence, collaboration, listening and empathy and imitation.
Glimpse 4: What small changes make a big difference?
Small changes: big difference
Teachers are influential habit formers. The way they orchestrate and guide learning influences the ways in which students perform and behave. So they need to be mindful of how they help students to form, replace, re-form and strengthen their learning habits. The approach encourages teachers to think about:
Things to give away: transferring responsibility for learning to students, offering them more control
Things to say: using language that helps pupils understand and talk about learning as a process, enabling them to take more control of their own learning
Things to do every day: the kind of classroom routines and activities that will nurture more independent learners
Things to display: the look and feel of a classroom, its walls and reward systems, that can serve to strengthen students’ learning.
Model 2. The Teachers’ Palette. A Transforming Culture
Making learning power work involves transforming the culture of the classroom. A common language for learning is adopted; staff shift responsibility for learning to students and model learning by sharing their own difficulties, frustrations and triumphs; students come to understand themselves as growing learners and consciously improve their learning habits; teachers assume the role of learning-power coach, offering students interesting, real and challenging activities to enable them to create their own knowledge and stretch their learning habits. Underpinning this is the obvious reality that students will only change their behaviours once their teachers have changed theirs’.
The culture of the classroom is determined by how teachers are, the relationships that exist between the teacher and the learners, the ways in which the teacher talks and what the teacher talks about, the extent to which teaching is designed to ensure both content acquisition and the development of learning behaviours, and the often subliminal messages about what the teacher really thinks is important.
These 4 aspects of culture – Relating, Talking, Constructing and Celebrating – form the basis of The Teachers’ Palette, the second of two key models in Building Learning Power.
Glimpse 5: Are there any fast track tactics?
Understanding Visible Thinking Routines
VTRs are simple routines that apply across a wide range of subjects and contexts, and which require students to think in a variety of different ways. They are used so regularly by teachers that they become woven into the fabric of the classroom culture and progressively hard-wired into the thinking practices of students. They are ways in which different ways of thinking can become routine in classrooms. They become part of the learning culture.
To be effective such routines need to be;
Direct, guide, support, encourage thinking
Short, memorable with few steps
Used over and over again
Useful in a variety of contexts
Facilitate connections, generating ideas, using knowledge
Teacher talk
Why is that?
What evidence can you give to support that?
Do you have good reasons for…?
How do you mean?
Glimpse 6: What sort of language nudges learning habits?
Discussing and nudging the learning process
The questions opposite illustrate the kinds of things that teachers can encourage students to pay attention to. Instead of skipping quickly on to ‘the right answer’, students are asked to slow down and notice and appraise the strategies and steps they are using along the way. This helps them to become more reflective and thoughtful about their own learning. They are being encouraged to explore and compare different strategies for making progress. This helps them become more flexible and resourceful in the face of difficulty, and to get into the habit of looking for alternative ways of proceeding if their first tack turns out not to work. They are being encouraged to develop the habit of thinking for themselves about what helpful knowledge or strategies they might already possess that could help them out in this situation, and thus to become more independent and resourceful.This is meta-cognition and self-regulation in action.
Glimpse 7: What does progression in learning habits look like?
Building the powers to learn
The whole point of building learning power is to do just that, to build the learning behaviours, not just name them. The diagram alongside – Learning: Poles Apart – offers an outline view of this journey. It’s about building students’ emotional learning habits, their cognitive/thinking habits, their social learning habits and their ability to manage their learning process itself.
The reluctant learner on the left and the learning powered learner on the right. It’s a long but exciting journey.
There are three key facets to the progression of learning behaviours – firstly the frequency/how often the behaviour is being used; secondly the range/scope of contexts in which it is used; and thirdly the skilfulness with which it is employed.
There are 8 further units in this Coming on board induction package.
You are free to give them a skim read if you wish, but your new school may well suggest that you take around a term to do them full justice – ie about a fortnight each to study, to reflect on, to discuss the contents, and to consider how you might introduce changes into your classroom.
There is no prescribed order of these units, but we would suggest that it might be best to begin with the culture units before moving on to the learning behaviour units.
See Glimpse #4 above:
There are four culture units, one for each aspect of the Teachers’ Palette, Relating, Talking, Constructing and Celebrating.
See Glimpse #3 above:
There are four learning behaviour units, one for each domain of the Supple Learning Mind, Emotional, Cognitive, Social and Strategic.
are able to work effectively as part of a pair or team;
listen attentively to others;
know when it is best to work alone and when it is best to work with others;
try to understand others’ points of view;
notice how others do things.
The activities, think pieces and questions in this online unit aim to help you make a start on:
introducing your students to one of the four domains of learning;
using the language of learning effectively with your students;
designing the use of learning behaviours into the way you teach;
developing the confidence and behaviours in helping your students to grow their learning habits.
The purpose of building your students’ Learning Power is to facilitate the growth of high value psychological characteristics and strengthen their learning characters. These behaviours, attitudes and values, when used with increasing competence and confidence across many learning opportunities, become learning habits; the characteristics of successful lifelong learners.
make the most of the up-coming staff training about building your students’ learning power
come to the training having done a bit of preparatory thinking
feel prepared to become engaged in and enjoy our first online training session
be confident to take on the post session tasks that you need to try out before session 2 (see 3 below)
find out more about the programme you will be taking part in over the coming 12 months (see 5 below)
1a.Pre-session preparation: the basic research.
The slide below summarises the blend of research that has contributed to the development of dispositional learning.
Shaped by research
Several strands of research have strongly influenced the development of Building Learning Power.
Professor Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow, a state of focused attention in which one is wholly engaged in learning has been important in developing aspects of BLP.
Lauren Resnick has been a pioneer in advocating the central importance of habits of mind as the core component of what it is to be intelligent.
Professor Martin Seligman’s concept of ‘learned helplessness’ has done much to shape understanding of what it is to be resilient and resourceful in learning.
Art Costa’s work on ‘habits of mind’ (HoM) is the closest cousin to BLP, offering advice to teachers about structuring their teaching around a list of 16 ‘habits of mind.
1b. Pre-session preparation: a film to watch.
This short introductory video will help you to tune-in to the what, why and how of building powerful learners.
Although this video was made some years ago its messages remain true. Headteachers, teachers and students talk about the impact of changing the classroom culture to give students a more genuine role in the learning process. Take a few minutes to absorb the messages, it will help you tune into the training session.
1c.Pre-session preparation: a quiz to try
Questionnaire
The best place to start working on learning power is with yourself ,so this brief questionnaire is about what you believe about good learners. Mull over the statements and indicate whether you broadly agree or disagree with them.
Things to think about;
Think about how you teach in relation to each statement.
To what extent does your teaching style embody what you say about good learning?
Do you (sometimes) act as if you believed something different from what you say you believe?( This can be a bit uncomfortable!)
The at-a-distance training session is anything but just a lecture. It’s interactive in nature calling on you, as a participant, to engage in activities and discussions. The resource book captures the story of the session. It contains many of the presentation slides as well as important diagrams and interactive activities. It will act as a memory jogger into the future.
Resource book
Please download and print a copy of the Resource Book you will need for online session 1.
Bring the Resource Book with you to the session with your name on it…we have found people don’t like to lose their copy when they have carefully recorded information in it.
Session 1 Resource Book
2. How the session is organised
We hope you will find the session an interesting variety of interactive activities, quiet thinking time and interesting presentations. You will be invited to take part using all your relevant learning behaviours to help you come to grips with new idea on the familiar theme of teaching and learning.
Session objectives
Our first session is designed to achieve the following objectives;
become aware of key learning behaviours
use learning behaviours effectively
become aware of why learning behaviours are useful
gain an understanding of how behaviours grow
Session Timetable
x.00 Introduction and objectives
x.05 What do good learners do? Activity
x.25 The supple learning mind. Input
x.40 What do we do when we learn? Activity
x.05 Post session task 1 (complete for session 2)
x.10 Post session task 2 (complete for session 2)
x.20 Evaluation of session
Cheerio till session 2
3 Managing in session group tasks
During this first session there are 2 group activities.
The first involves you considering what your students think good learners do, and how this may differ from their own views of learning. (20 Mins including discussion)
The second involves you looking at comic book pictures, considering clues and and putting them into an order to make a credible storyline. This task is about you applying your own learning habits to reason and imagine a solution. (25 mins including sharing solutions and the patterns of habits used)
For each of these tasks please assign a member of the group to distil the findings and report back on behalf of the group.
Gathering group feedback
Activity 1 At the end of the activity please discuss and feedback on;
the sort of ideas your pupils have about what good learners do?
which 3 ideas are most prominent?
what might that imply?
why might children have these ideas?
what might cause/influence these beliefs?
as teachers, how are your beliefs about learning different?
what’s the standout difference?
why do pupils’ views differ from yours?
what else surprises the group?
how might teachers’ change things?
Activity 2 At the end of the activity please discuss and feedback on;
How the group observers have ‘coloured in’ the wheel showing learning behaviours they thought had been used
Compare this pattern with the one shown by the tutor
Which learning behaviour did you use most?
Which weren’t used at all?
Did people spot themselves using all the main ones?
Which ones do you think you missed?
Key question...if you were only able to allocate 2 behaviours to this activity which 2 would they be?
This rich discussion will serve to show the importance of understanding, using and developing learning behaviours.
5.Post session tasks
(To be done after session 1 and before session 2.)
The very best way to secure your learning after session 1 is to relate the ideas to your own students. By doing so you’ll begin to connect practically with what learning power is all about.
Post session task 1
Getting to know your students as learners
Use pages 10-13 in your Resource Book
Think about pupils you know well and fill names into the sheets. This will just help you to attach a real student’s behaviour to an abstract learning behaviour. It will make the behaviours come alive for you.
Copy these sheets and complete them again as you come to know your pupils better over the first few weeks of term. Keep an eye open for any changes in their behaviours.
Post session task 2
Becoming aware of how your curriculum supports learning power
Use page 14 in the Resource Book.
When planning your next few lessons use this wheel to remind you of facets of the foundational four learning behaviours. Look carefully at the words in each segment. They are descriptions of the aspects of the four behaviours.
Then, with lesson plans in hand, ask yourself ‘Where am I expecting/supporting students to’:
act/behave like this?
Do I just expect this behaviour without mentioning it?
Am I specifically planning its use into how learning is happening
Does the behaviour need supporting
Which of these behaviours do I seem to be expect or support frequently?
Which behaviours seem to be getting little or no use?
Why might this be?
Where do I need to place greater effort
Over time you will begin the design your curriculum such that you students will have ample opportunities to develop all the facets of important learning, character-building, behaviours.
Task 1
Task 2
6. An overview of the course that you will work your way through over the coming months – ‘Playing the Learning Power game‘.
The blended learning course contains all the key elements you will need to introduce the values and activities of building your students’ learning power.
The course has 7 sections:
What do we mean by learning power?
Classroom relationships
Talking about learning power
Designing learning powered lessons
Celebrating learning power
How are our classrooms and our learners developing?
have exactly the same structure in order to ease familiarity with the material and guard against getting lost. Each section deals with a key aspect of understanding learning power and has:
an introduction to what it is about … take particular note of the key points
part 1 aims to give you an idea of the sort of practice you are aiming for
part 2 highlights the main ideas of the section’s content
part 3 offers a few practical ideas to start things off
part 4 broaches the idea of redesigning your practice and invites you to make a plan
The content of the course
Section 1 What do we mean by learning power?
The underlying ideas, research and models
Here you will find:
the two interlinking models of building better learners
examples of how the models work in practice;
the four learning behaviours to make a start on
the essential aspects of classroom practice
links with educational research
encouragement to try things out with your learners
suggestions for how amendments to your teaching will help students to be better learners
Section 2 Classroom relationships
Important shifts in classroom roles
Here you will find:
examples of the sort of responsibilities you might devolve to learners
examples of different ways to be as a teacher
modelling the process of learning
acting as a coach; asking not telling
enabling greater learner responsibility
encouragement to try things out with your learners
suggestions of ways to plan to expand devolving responsibility to students
Section 3 Talking about learning power
How and when to talk ‘learnish’.
Here you will find:
examples of how learners can talk about learning
examples of different ways to talk about learning
nudging the process
offering feedback
encouraging reflective self-talk
encouragement to try things out with your learners
suggestions of ways to plan to expand your learning language
Section 4 Designing learning powered lessons
How to put dual-focused lessons together
Here you will find:
explanations of the three fundamentals of dual focused lessons
linking content and process
rich and challenging activities
building in reflection
a format to assist designing dual-focused lessons
an example maths lesson using the lesson design format
activities to help start this journey
examples from teachers in classrooms
Section 5 Celebrating learning power
What’s seen as important in learning friendly classrooms
Here you will find:
examples of how learners can celebrate their learning
examples of different ways to celebrate learning
in the growth of learning behaviours
in re-defining failure
in displays in the classroom
encouragement to try things out with your learners
suggestions of ways to plan to expand what you celebrate about learning
Section 6 How are our classrooms and learners developing?
Section 6a. How is my classroom culture developing?
What to look for and record about your classroom culture
Here participants will find:
Charts showing what the phases of teachers’ growth look like in relation to;
relating
talking
constructing
celebrating
with links to the anticipated outcomes for learners
ideas for developing further developing your classroom culture
in order to create increasingly learning-friendly classrooms
Section 6b. How are my learners developing?
What to look for and record about better learning
Here participants will find:
explanations of three aspects of progression – frequency, scope and skilfulness in use
Charts showing what the phases of growth look like in relation to;
perseverance
questioning
collaboration
revising
examples of things to try out with your learners
ways of tracking the growth of learning dispositions over time
suggestions of ways to plan to expand what you might track about learning
Section 7 Where now: where next?
Here you will find:
an opportunity to briefly reflect on what has been achieved across the school by taking on the blended learning programme ‘Playing the Learning Power Game’;
descriptions of a broader set of modules that make up the next phase of the programme.
brief explanations of why and how the next phase enables students to become better learners
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Questioning in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Questioning and how it develops. The Questioning Chart.Unpick the meaning of Questioning, how it develops over time and use the Questioning chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Questioning into classroom culture. Questioning activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a questioning friendly culture and build students’ questioning skills.
Blending questioning with content.Example dual focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of questioning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Questioning help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend about an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 15 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse through the suggested activities. Section 3 needs about 25 minutes of hard thinking and head scratching. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
You are now in ‘Putting Questioning into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Listening in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Listening and how it develops. The Listening progression chart.Unpick the meaning of Listening, how it develops over time and use the Listening chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Listening into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Listening friendly culture and build students’ Listening skills.
Blending Listening with content.Dual focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Listening claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Listening help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend more than an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes hard thinking and head scratching. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Making Links in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Making Links and how it develops. Progression Chart Unpick the meaning of Making Links, how it develops over time and use the Making Links chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Making Links into classroom culture. Classroom Activities Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Making Links friendly culture and build students’ Making Links skills.
Blending Making Links with content.Dual Focus lesson ideas Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Making Links claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Making Links help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend more than an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse through. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
You are now in ‘Putting Making Links into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Reasoning in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Reasoning and how it develops. The Reasoning Chart. Unpick the meaning of Reasoning, how it develops over time and use the Reasoning chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Reasoning into classroom culture. Reasoning activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Reasoning friendly culture and build students’ Reasoning skills.
Blending Reasoning with content.Example dual-focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Reasoning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Reasoning help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend 50-75 mins on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 15 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes. Section 3 needs at least a 40 minutes of hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Imagining in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Imagining and how it develops. The imagining progression chart. Unpick the meaning of Imagining, how it develops over time and use the Imagining chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Imagining into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop an Imagining friendly culture and build students’ Imagining skills.
Blending Imagining with content. Example dual-focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Imagining claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Imagining help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend 75 mins on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least a 30 minutes of hard thinking and head scratching. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Planning in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Planning and how it develops. The Progression Chart.Unpick the meaning of Planning, how it develops over time and use the Planning chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Planning into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Planning friendly culture and build students’ Planning skills.
Blending Planning with content.Dual Focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Planning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Planning help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend a bit over an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about another 20 minutes to browse through. Section 3 needs at least a 30 minutes of hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Revising in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Revising and how it develops. The Revising Chart. Unpick the meaning of Revising, how it develops over time and use the Revising chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Revising into classroom culture. Revising activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Revising friendly culture and build students’ Revising skills.
Blending Revising with content. Dual Focused Lesson ideas. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Revising claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Revising help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend about an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 10 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Noticing in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Noticing and how it develops. NoticingProgression Chart. Unpick the meaning of Noticing, how it develops over time and use the Noticing chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Noticing into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Noticing friendly culture and build students’ Noticing skills.
Blending Noticing with content. Dual Focus lesson ideas. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Noticing claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Noticing help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend about an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least 20 minutes hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module. You are now in ‘Putting Noticing into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Resourcing Learning in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Resourcing Learning and how it develops. Progression Chart.Unpick the meaning of Resourcing Learning, how it develops over time and use the Resourcing Learning chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Resourcing Learning into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Resourcing Learning friendly culture and build students’ Resourcing Learning skills.
Blending Resourcing Learning with content.Dual focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Resourcing Learning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Resourcing Learning help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend over an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes of hard thinking and head scratching. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
You are now in ‘Putting Capitalising into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Collaboration in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Collaboration and how it develops. The Collaboration Chart. Unpick the meaning of Collaboration, how it develops over time and use the Collaboration chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Collaboration into classroom culture. Activities for Collaboration. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Collaboration friendly culture and build students’ Collaboration skills.
Blending Collaboration with content. Dual Focused Lesson ideas. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Collaboration claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Collaboration help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend 45-50 mins on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 10 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 might take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least 20 minutes of hard thinking . Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module.
You are now in ‘Putting Collaboration into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Meta Learning in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Meta Learning and how it develops. The Progression Chart. Unpick the meaning of Meta Learning, how it develops over time and use the Meta Learning chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Meta Learning into classroom culture. Classroom Activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Meta Learning friendly culture and build students’ Meta Learning skills.
Blending Meta Learning with content. Example dual focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Meta Learning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Meta Learning help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend over an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse through Section 3 needs at least a half an hour hard thinking and head-scratching. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module. You are now in ‘Putting Meta Learning into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Perseverance in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Perseverance and how it develops. Progression Chart Unpick the meaning of Perseverance, how it develops over time and use the Perseverance chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Perseverance into classroom culture. Classroom Activities Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Perseverance friendly culture and build students’ Perseverance skills.
Blending Perseverance with content.Dual Focus lesson ideas Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Perseverance claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Perseverancehelp you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend more than an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse through. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
Use the Green Navigation Bar below to find your way around the different sections of the module. You are now in ‘Putting Perseverance into Learning’
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Revising in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Revising and how it develops. The Revising Chart. Unpick the meaning of Revising, how it develops over time and use the Revising chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Revising into classroom culture. Revising activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Revising friendly culture and build students’ Revising skills.
Blending Revising with content. Dual Focused Lesson ideas. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Revising claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Revising help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend about an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 10 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes hard thinking. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
1. The LQF Induction Pack – 9 modules to support teachers, plus this module to support senior leaders.
This bundle of resources is only available to schools who have already begun working on ‘The Learning Quality Framework’ and who are seeking help with making a start on Principles 7 and 8.
What and who is the pack for?
This pack is designed to serve 2 functions:
As an introductory programme for teachers to make a sound start on LQF Principles 7 and 8;
As a support for senior leaders responsible for the LQF.
What does it contain?
For teachers:
1 online module, a quick read, introducing the key ideas about building better learners, the supple learning mind, and classroom culture;
4 online modules that focus on classroom culture;
4 online modules that focus on the domains of learning.
For senior leaders (this module):
advice on how and in what order the modules could / should be tackled;
training materials to help you to introduce ‘The Supple Learning Mind’ and ‘Learning-Friendly Classroom Cultures’ (should you wish to do so.)
2. For Information – The contents for teachers
There is an introductory module that offers an overview of learning power and learning-friendly classroom culture. Additionally there are modules that introduce teachers to 4 issues around classroom cultures and modules that introduce the 4 domains of learning.
The overview module is:
‘Getting started with learning power – an introductory read’
This could easily be used as a short read in advance of launching the LQF.
Why this particular module?
This module offers an overview of the key ideas:
background research on dispositional learning
the two interlinking frameworks that underpin building better learners
examples of how the two frameworks work in practice
Ensure that this is the first module that teachers engage with as it sets the scene for the other 8 modules. However if senior leaders would rather introduce these ideas themselves, there are materials in section 4 (below) to support you in doing so.
The 4 online culture modules are ‘Helping your learners to . . . :
take responsibility for their own learning
develop a language for learning
learn about learning
celebrate and value their learning behaviours
Why these particular modules?
These 4 online modules address the 4 aspects of classroom culture – Relating, Talking, Constructing and Celebrating.
The modules will support teachers to build a learning-friendly classroom culture, support indicators 7.1 and 8.1, and pave the way for the remainder of principles 7 and 8.
The 4 online overview modules are ‘Helping your learners to . . .:
engage with learning;
develop their thinking behaviours
develop their learning relationships
become reflective
Why these particular modules?
These are four overview modules to the 4 domains of learning in the Supple Learning Mind;
They are designed as a speedy way of introducing the 4 domains to teachers new to the ideas.
These are the key learning behaviours that will get the school off to a solid start in terms of building:
a sound language for learning that can be made visible to learners through classroom talk (indicators 7.2 and 8.2);
a range of learning behaviours that can be made visible to learners (indicators 7.3 and 8.3);
and that can be celebrated (indicators 7.4 and 8.4).
3. Issues to be considered by leaders
Begin by thinking about classroom culture as it currently is in your school. If you feel that classrooms are already well-placed in terms of LQF indicator thread 7.1 and that students are responding well (thread 8.1), you may care to begin with the 4 learning domain modules (Engaging, Thinking, Relationships, Reflection).
If there are a significant number classrooms that are heavily teacher-focused, we suggest you begin with the 4 culture-related modules.
The purpose of these modules
is to introduce the idea of classroom culture;
and to support teachers to understand and explore the 4 domains of learning and how they might be integrated into lessons;
so that progress is made on principles 7 and 8 of the Learning Quality Framework.
Consider:
how and when you might find time to support colleagues to work through these materials;
should these be twilight meetings?
do you need an ‘induction day’ to kick start the process?
4. Support materials for leaders
Here we have gathered some materials and powerpoints you may find useful in launching these ideas to colleagues.
Consider – would you prefer to begin with your new teachers looking at the 4 classroom culture modules, or at the 4 key learning behaviour modules? Either route has both advantages and disadvantages, and we would recommend doing one or the other.
But we would advise against starting out on all 8 modules at the same time!
Introducing the 4 culture modules
Downloads to the right:
A powerpoint presentation about classroom cultures – download it and edit it to create your introductory session;
Guidance notes to support your delivery;
A resource book for teachers to accompany the ppt.
This unit explores how you might build the habit of Resourcing Learning in your students.
Sections 1 – 4 look at;
Resourcing Learning and how it develops. Progression Chart.Unpick the meaning of Resourcing Learning, how it develops over time and use the Resourcing Learning chart to plot where your students are now.
Taking Resourcing Learning into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Resourcing Learning friendly culture and build students’ Resourcing Learning skills.
Blending Resourcing Learning with content.Dual focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Resourcing Learning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding.
Team reflection and planning. Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.
The resource materials in the Learning Diary: Resourcing Learning help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.
You will probably need to spend over an hour on sections 1-3. Section 1 may take about 20 minutes to get your head round. Section 2 should take you about 20 minutes to browse. Section 3 needs at least a 35 minutes of hard thinking and head scratching. Section 4 is a linked Professional Learning Team session which will have been organised to take place sometime after this on-line session, and should take about 75 minutes.
![BLP_Brain_Generic_no-Rs-[Converted]](https://www.buildinglearningpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/BLP_Brain_Generic_no-Rs-Converted.png)
