Great Lessons 1: Probing Introduction In all the talk of improving teaching and learning, sometimes – no often – there is too much talk about the model OfSTED lesson. Too often this leads teachers into thinking of idealised lessons than can only be turned out in special circumstances or that Outstanding lessons require us to devise an elaborate box of tricks to show off with. However, as I have said elsewhere,it is the 99% of lessons that are never observed that really matter. So, we need to focus on things that we do every day. Two related ideas: 1) It is the spirit of an idea that is important, not the letter. 2) In improving as teachers, we are not collecting tools, we seeking to change our habits… the things we do automatically every day. I am planning to create a series of short posts called Great Lessons that focus on aspects of routine practice – because lessons can be routinely outstanding. Probe probe probe…. Great Lessons 1: Probing Questions That’s interesting, what makes you say that? Please read them.
Questioning - Top Ten Strategies “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein Questioning is the very cornerstone of philosophy and education, ever since Socrates ( in our Western tradition) decided to annoy pretty much everyone by critiquing and harrying people with questions – it has been central to our development of thinking and our capacity to learn. Indeed, it is so integral to all that we do that it is often overlooked when developing pedagogy – but it as crucial to teaching as air is to breathing. Most research indicates that as much as 80% of classroom questioning is based on low order, factual recall questions. Effective questioning is key because it makes the thinking visible: it identifies prior knowledge; reasoning ability and the specific degree of student understanding – therefore it is the ultimate guide for formative progress. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Q1. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Added Extras: Like this: Like Loading...
The Myth of Progress Within Lessons « kevenbartle's Blog My heckles are risen so I need to post this and post it quick. Let me nail my colours to the mast here and make a bold, unequivocal statement: There is no such thing as progress within lessons. And let me make a second, equally bold and unequivocal statement to back it up: The main perpetuators of the myth of ‘progress within lessons’ are leadership teams within schools, not Ofsted. Right, now that we all know where we are let me explain further, and let me start with my evidence that it is NOT Ofsted asking for the mythical ‘progress within lessons’ by picking out some key quotes from the Inspection Handbook rewritten as recently as December 2012. “The most important role of teaching is to promote learning and to raise pupils’ achievement.” Nothing any of us wouldn’t agree with in that and no sign of the phrase ‘progress in lessons’ either. “The judgement on the quality of teaching must take account of evidence of pupils’ learning and progress over time. But here comes the confession.
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a parlor game based on the "six degrees of separation" concept, which posits that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. That idea eventually morphed into this parlor game, wherein movie buffs challenge each other to find the shortest path between an arbitrary actor and prolific Hollywood character actor Kevin Bacon. It rests on the assumption that any individual involved in the Hollywood, California, film industry can be linked through his or her film roles to Kevin Bacon within six steps. The game requires a group of players to try to connect any such individual to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible. It can also be described as a trivia game based on the concept of the small world phenomenon. In 2007, Bacon started a charitable organization named SixDegrees.org. History[edit] The headline of The Onion, a satirical newspaper, on October 30, 2002, was "Kevin Bacon Linked To Al-Qaeda".[7] Kevin Bacon
Why I think SOLO taxonomy will help my Year 13s | teach.it.better Now, readers, I am assuming you have heard of SOLO taxonomy. If you haven’t, I recommend you check out this website from Pam Hook, or this blog from David Didau, or this blog from Tait Coles. When you’ve done that come back again. I started to hear about SOLO taxonomy mid way through my second PGCE placement, when a bunch of people I follow on Twitter started talking about it. It wasn’t the time or the place to start trying it out, so I held fire, stewed on it, and kept thinking. I very much like the way that SOLO builds on itself to allow students to evaluate their own learning and points to where they need to get to, so I was looking out for an opportunity to try using the techniques in my own teaching. That opportunity came about with my A2 biology classes, two quite different classes with five students in one and 10 in the other, with a mixed bag of grades at AS level. SOLO linked to summary questions – students decided which levels of thinking the questions demanded. Like this:
Making best use of exam questions I have written before about Diagnostic Questions. A good diagnostic question can reveal a lot about a student’s thinking. Many of the questions we have written for the York Science Project have drawn on research evidence to provide the alternative answers that students might select. When preparing diagnostic questions for GCSE classes there are two other rich sources of alternative answers that have been given by students – the Mark Scheme and the Report to Centres. Here is an example. This question part of question 2 on the OCR GCSE Science Gateway B711/02 (higher tier paper) in June 2012. In the Report to Centres the Principal Examiner for the paper wrote : “Just less than half the candidates gained the mark…… The most common correct answer was dehydration. The mark scheme for the question was this: The guidance column in the mark scheme identifies some of the answers that candidates were writing and indicates markers whether or not to accept the answers.
“Selling” SOLO Taxonomy to Staff « krystaljem On my Independence Teaching journey the next academic year is the move from encouraging my students within my own classroom to expanding independence whole school. With six school teacher training sessions based on encouraging our students to be independent and resilient learners; I really want to provide training that is not only interactive but shows the importance of this initiative for our students. I need to be able to transfer my passion for this topic to teachers: a breed that even by our own admittance can be resistant to change [especially as we are constantly being asked to change from one initiative to another by government, theorists and schools too!] But first I have a training session to run the first week back for ASTs and excellent teachers based on SOLO Taxonomy. Here is my plan for the session – any comments or improvements would be welcomed. This will be followed by and example. Each step I coupled with a student speak version of the steps and prompt questions.
The 20%: Questioning Part 2 | M J Bromley's Blog This is Part Two of a new 2-part blog exploring effective questioning in the classroom. Part One is available here.In a previous post I talked about the Pareto Principle. I suggested we should focus on improving the 20% of classroom strategies which research shows yield 80% of results. So far we have looked at the art of asking questions: at what type of question to ask and how to deal with the answer. Black et al, in Assessment for Learning: Putting it into Practice, advocate asking a ‘big question’ which could be “an open question, or a problem-solving task, which can set the scene for the lesson, either by evoking a broad-ranging discussion or by prompting small group discussions, so involving many students.” To improve the use of classroom dialogue, our classrooms have to become more interactive. We can learn from the way Japanese teachers conduct classroom discussions. Before we look in more detail at the types of questioning we can use, let’s take stock. 2. Other blogs: Like this:
Letting Students Lead the Learning Student-led independent learning is central to my beliefs as a teacher. I think it is vital to develop our young people into well-rounded, educated and future-ready people. I most certainly do not believe that this is all we need to do for success with our students, it is one element. For me, this element is a strong vein through my teaching and planning. I know that this has massive impact - I have seen it. I have sampled and developed many different student-led independent learning projects, initiatives and routines over the years. A number of years back, I stumbled across Jim Smith's 'The Lazy Teachers Handbook'. Love at First Sight: Reading about the dreamy class that Jim Smith talks of in his book, I wanted some of that! Courting: I attended a conference on how to create a literacy community where I witnessed some amazing students leading learning in their school. The Struggle: Our first lesson was upon us.
Questioning Toolkit Essential Questions These are questions which touch our hearts and souls. They are central to our lives. They help to define what it means to be human. Most important thought during our lives will center on such essential questions. What does it mean to be a good friend? If we were to draw a cluster diagram of the Questioning Toolkit, Essential Questions would be at the center of all the other types of questions. All the other questions and questioning skills serve the purpose of "casting light upon" or illuminating Essential Questions. Most Essential Questions are interdisciplinary in nature. Essential Questions probe the deepest issues confronting us . . . complex and baffling matters which elude simple answers: Life - Death - Marriage - Identity - Purpose - Betrayal - Honor - Integrity - Courage - Temptation - Faith - Leadership - Addiction - Invention - Inspiration. Essential Questions are at the heart of the search for Truth. Essential Questions offer the organizing focus for a unit.
Towards Co-constructed Learning: How to get it started. Having written about co-construction in our Learning Lessons publication (Vol 2/ Issue 8 and Vol 3/ Issue 3), also profiled in this post I was invited to run some CPD sessions in two schools and then to write a summary of the process. It is a fabulously enriching way to approach teaching and learning; here is my quick guide. The aims of co-construction are as follows: A summary of the co-construction process: A topic or unit of work is discussed with a class using strategies that elicit a detailed analysis of their prior knowledge – including areas of doubt and misconceptions.The class is then asked to volunteer ideas for key questions, areas of further study or enquiry.Guided by the teacher, the class discusses a logical sequence through these questions to generate an outline for a possible ‘scheme of work’.Student volunteers are then given ownership of different sections. A student-led teaching episode: Spreading the practice across the school: Like this: Like Loading...