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CPD

August In-service training PowerPoint

Starters and Plenaries

April 2013

Sharing Good Practice Newsletter

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to another of our monthly newsletters. The focus for this month has been stimulated by some of the feedback from colleagues regarding the 5 year programme of resources for Recognising and Recording Achievement. I hope colleagues have found units 1 to 3 a useful set of learning tools. There has been some discussion of developing something similar for Learning to Learn and I would welcome feeedback about the following proposal (see page 4). I would also welcome discussuion with any colleagues who would like to be involved in developing these resources using the ‘Planning for Deep Learning - Teaching for Understanding’ approach that Carol-Ann, Alison, Claire and myself outlined last year.

Kyle is a 14-year-old from Cardiff. This is his story about why he goes to school:

“Why do I come to school? To develop my learning power, of course! They give us interesting things to explore that get harder and harder. In finding out how to grapple with them, we develop the ‘learning muscles’ and learning stamina that will enable us to get better at whatever we want, for the rest of our lives. People like scientists and historians have figured out special-purpose ways to learn: as we get older, we practice those, and think about how they might help us in everyday life. As powerful learners, we will be better able to learn new skills, solve new problems, have new ideas and make new friends. We know that learning itself is the one ability that will never go out of date — guaranteed — (unlike programming your iPod!). And learning power is learnable. No matter how so-called ‘bright’ you are, everyone can get better at learning. Even professors have learning difficulties! Oh, and by the way, as we become more powerful learners, so we naturally do better on examinations too! It’s a no-brainer, really.” (quoted from Guy Claxton).

In this article I outline the key ideas behind Building Learning Power, suggest some impacts and implications of such a tutorial resource and outline, in a little detail, a proposal for a set of learning tools for S1-S5 regarding Learning to Learn. The essential ideas behind this have been around for a long time:

‘The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that pupils take away from school,but their appetite to know and their capacity to learn.’ Sir Richard Livingstone, 1941

‘All skills will become obsolete except one, the skill of being able to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.’ Seymour Papert, 1998

‘One of the core functions of twenty-first century education is learning to learn in preparation for a lifetime of change.’ David Miliband, 2003

‘Pedagogy should at its best be about what teachers do that not only helps students to learnbut actively strengthens their capacity to learn.’ David Hargreaves, Learning for Life, 2004

‘Effective teaching ... should aim to help individuals and groups to develop theintellectual, personal and social resources that will enable them to ... flourish ... in a diverse and changing world.’ ESRC TLRP Evidence-informed principles for teaching and learning: No 1, March 2006

There is a widespread feeling that 21st Century life presents everyone, as they grow up, with high levels of challenge, complexity and individual responsibility. It is commonly said that we are in a century of choice, problem-solving and learning. And if young people are lacking the personal resources to thrive in such a context, then it is the job of education to strengthen their ability to be good choosers, skilful problem-solvers and powerful learners. My aspiration would be to develop resources for the tutor period (and other lessons?) that colleagues can develop and use to help young people cultivate the character traits and habits of mind that help expand young people’s capacity to learn, little by little, through a process of continuous infusion.In my view powerful learning takes place when:
 
Teacher:
  • Shares clear learning intentions
  • Includes challenging success criteria
  • Utilises a range of learning strategies
  • Knows when students are not progressing
  • Provides feedback
  • Visibly learns themselves
 So that students:
  • Understand learning intentions
  • Are challenged by success criteria
  • Develop a range of learning strategies
  • Know when they are not progressing
  • Seek feedback
  • Visibly teach themselves
I hope that, through the proposed learning to learn resources and activities, both teachers and pupils will have the chance to explore and experience ways in which the school as a whole, and its classrooms in particular, can become settings in which the various constituent elements of learning capacity are acknowledged, discussed, understood and systematically strengthened. My guiding question is, in the light of ‘building learning power’, what would it mean to organise your classroom and your pedagogy in such a way that every day, little by little, in the midst of the literacy task, the reasons for the First World War, or an experiment on magnets, your students were learning to learn more robustly, more broadly, and more flexibly and skilfully? Over time I would hope that there is a cultural change in these aspects of teaching and learning (Claxton, 2006, BERA):
 
·         Language — we all speak ‘learnish’
·         Activities — make learning both attractive and challenging
·         Split-screen thinking — the warp and weft of knowledge and understanding versus skills
·         Wild topics — rich, real, responsible
·         Transparency & involvement — students as epistemic co-workers
·         Transfer thinking — looking for wider relevance
·         Progression — stronger, broader, deeper ...
·         Modelling— walking the learning talk.
 
Cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology and sociocultural studies are all making important contributions in which we can help young people become more permeable to the valuable learning habits of those around them:
 
 
Resilient
Resourceful
Reflective
Reciprocal/Responsible
 
Curious
(proactive)
 
Questioning
(“How come?”)
 
Clear-thinking
(logical)
 
Collaborative
(team member)
 
Adventurous
(up for a challenge)
 
Open-minded
(‘negative
capability’)
 
Thoughtful
(Where else could I
use this?)
 
Independent
(can work alone)
 
Determined
(persistent)
 
Playful
(“Let’s try ...”)
 
Self-knowing
(own habits)
 
Open to feedback
 
Flexible
(trying other ways)
 
Imaginative
(could be ...)
 
Methodical
(strategic)
 
Attentive
(to others)
 
Observant
(details / patterns)
 
Integrating
(making links)
 
Opportunistic
(serendipity)
 
Empathic
(other people’s
shoes)
 
Focused
(distractions)
 
Intuitive
(reverie)
 
Self-evaluative
(“How’s it going?”)
 
Imitative
(contagious)
 
 
 
I would like to add a fifth ‘R’, Reasoning, which means making careful decisions; a reasoning learner can say which is better and why, considers all the evidence, chooses the best method and takes time.
 
I hope you will have a look at the proposal on the next page and I would welcome any feedback – it is very early days in my thought processes. What do colleagues think? Is there anything missing? Are the areas of focus appropriate? Do you have any activities and/or resources that would lend themselves to tutor lessons?
 
I would also welcome any feedback on the style of presentation and organisation of any resources, particularly compared to the ‘course’ on Recognising and Recording of Achievement. I hope any learning to learn ‘course’ will encapsulate the ideas behind Building Learning Power and the Teaching for Understanding approach which, in brief, can be summarised thus:
 
•      Centrality to discipline/subject – why important to learn this?
•      Potential to engage pupils – does this connect with real life?
•      Potential to engage me – using my knowledge/interest in this learning to develop pupil’s understanding
•      Resources – availability, technology, ‘wilder’ approaches
•      Connections – links to other curricular areas, to outside world, suitability for inter-disciplinary focus
•      Connections – to wider school life/community; to previous experience/learning; fit in with levels and lines of development (CfE)
•      Understanding goals – questions, initial performance, guided performance, culminating performance and AiFL
 
The ‘cycle of learning’ that pupils will continuously pass through can be explained through the diagram below:

S5 Independent Learning – Extended Project (much of this has been created already)

Learners are required, with appropriate supervision, to:

·         choose an area of interest

·         draft a title and aims of the project for formal approval by their tutor

·         plan, research and carry out the project

·         deliver a presentation to a specified audience

·         provide evidence of all stages of project development and production for assessment.

This substantial project will develop and extend from one or more of your study areas and/or from an area of personal interest or activity outside your main programme of study. It will be based on a topic chosen by the learner(s) and agreed as appropriate by their tutor.