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LEARNING TEAMS UPDATE:
Powys Day Two Feedback 29 June, 2006
1. Separating the Learning Objective from the Context
Early Years/KS1 Teachers found it difficult at first to separate the L.O. from Context…now focusing more on key skills which can be transferred to other subjects. One school had a new head so the planning changed: this gave a good focus for the school as L.O.s were very woolly. The L.O. is now on the whiteboard at the start of lessons and children refer to it continually. Children are able to refer back to prior learning from one lesson to another – transferring skills. Anecdote: For nursery they have a character, Jack the dog, who introduces the L.O. and S.C. with ‘Can you…..?’ and ‘You’ve got to…..’
KS2A Success in learning was achieved in a shorter time because children were now clear about what was expected of them. They now concentrate on the skills to be learnt as opposed to the task. There is less fear of failure: children are more willing to have a go. Lessons are more focused and children can tell you what they are learning. One teacher told how her children say they don’t want to miss school as they would miss out too much learning.
KS2B/Special Was not always easy to separate LO from context but it helps children understand what they are learning and how they should learn it. It gives children the focus and ability to transfer skills to other contexts. Special Ed needed child speak built in like “I will remember…” Special Ed need more visual or symbolic reminders. Writing it down helps LSAs stay on task, too. Improves differentiation as there is the same L.O. with different contexts so all children can access the L.O. Anecdote: One teacher asked the children what they thought about the L.O. and one child said that it’s great because ‘When you go to the loo when you come back you remember what you were doing.’
Years 5/6 Children are transferring skills from one subject to another. One teacher did estimation and measuring with angles then later with capacity. Because they had done estimation and measuring before they were not scared to do it in a new context. They are building on key skills and making links with other learning. The children have gained confidence, are more happy and motivated and not scared to try something new. Learning is accelerated because you don’t have to reteach concepts.
Secondary Teachers start with a wider range of focus now. Brought in cross curricular links. Within English, one L.O. was to express empathy in an English literature essay. Children were clear on the way forward and outcome and they weren’t bogged down with facts, figures and events as had happened before. In another school they focused on writing a biography rather than the life of Mohammed. Impact: in one school 80% of KS4 increased their grades by at least one. This was due to the whole new process. Anecdote: KS 4 English – pupil said the way they were being taught now was like a weather forecast starting with the whole country and then going to a local area.
2. Success Criteria issues
Early Years/KS1 Children had lots of input into making success criteria posters. Once they were up children constantly referred to them and because very aware of them and are now able to self evaluate. One teacher began by using her own examples of success criteria which she invited the children to ‘correct’ and the children enjoyed correcting them. This helped the teacher to focus and helped children concentrate on the skills and the task. Pupils have achieved more quickly, thinking, reducing careless mistakes. Pupils know what you want them to do and are naturally peer assessing. Anecdote: self assessing moved on to work with peers: the TA and teacher set up a role play where the teacher had a piece of work and the TA assessed it in a negative way and the children were aghast & saw how upset the teacher was with such negative feedback. They then discussed how to assess each other’s work more effectively. The children can now do this and do not always have to go to the teacher for feedback. All is assessed against the SC set in the class. They improve their work based on feedback from their TPs.
KS2A Teachers found that the children became more focused, empowered and self evaluative. Much more active in their learning and know how they will achieve their learning with confidence and safety. Talking partners is an effective way of establishing success criteria. Biggest area of improvement is self esteem because all are able to achieve something. Anecdote: YR6, towards end of session they swap work and identify three areas where the SC have been met and one area for improvement then they help each other with suggestions. To have one of your peers say something good about your work is a powerful tool, especially for lower achievers.
KS2B/Special Found that success criteria link with personal targets. Children can take ownership of the SC and it stops the teacher having to always go through it everything. They have target cards and children mark off SC as they go through the work. It focuses teachers’ marking. It takes more of the teacher’s time, however, as more planning is involved. Special children need language like “What makes my work good?” rather than “SC.” . Special: found it hard to get the children to understand what success is. Anecdote: trying to get children to use SC throughout the lesson, together they came up with a system to self mark – two stars if they got it, one if they were a bit unsure, a question mark if they did not get it.
Years 5/6 Children have generated their own SC and are taking charge of their learning with has led to increased motivation. They are far more independent learners now. Children are becoming confident in saying what they don’t understand and now work well at unpicking their work. They are more reflective. They look up to see if they have met the SC. Minimalistic approach problem ….S talked later about the importance of discussing quality via contrasting examples of products before the children start to work. Anecdotes: Reviewing SC – if the class has generated a SC, they look at it again later on and see how they would modify it and they come up with things neither the teacher nor they had thought about the first time through –they are more conscious of doing other things in this process. What you get back from the children is interesting in terms of the SC. Things work on different levels with different children and it is an instant assessment opportunity for the teacher. YR 5 maths challenging lower achieving group: it was useful to refer back to the SC from the day before. Children became more enthusiastic and less aggressive about seeing what they had not achieved and addressing it.
Secondary Yr 7 history – began the lesson by explaining SC, used in conjunction with Talking Partners. They were working on an extended piece of writing. They researched well and showed increased motivation to complete the task because there was a framework in which to work. In PE the children were shown on video a piece of moderated work and asked why it was a success and how it met criteria. Working with partners they assessed their own work against this. Areas have been overlapping in lessons now that teachers have separated the LO from the context, working with others, etc. Impact on learning has been tremendous. Children work independently. It has helped with differentiation because students can instantly identify what is causing their particular problems. Learning has become more active rather than passive. Grades have increased in several subjects especially in course work where there was a checklist to go through. Anecdote: a student came up to a teacher of 16 years experience and said “English used to be crap with you but it’s alright now!” 3. Unit Coverage (making sure children know how each learning objective fits the unit coverage)
Early Years/KS1 The foundation phase includes and is promoting children to develop their own learning with teachers providing opportunity for them to take this forward. Teachers looked at how ideas are being developed with children: putting up a sheet at the beginning of a topic, then doing an evaluation at the end of what they liked. Teacher led displays are on the wall of what would be covered. Children were asked ‘What else do YOU want to know?’ One teacher uses a traffic light system at the beginning of a topic and then again at the end:
Red: knew nothing Amber: knew a little Green: Knew it all When the coverage was put up the children liked seeing the link from week to week of where the learning was going. Boys seem to be more motivated to find out things in areas they previously had not been motivated to do. Planning and differentiation. are improved.
KS2A Teachers use different colours for what we already know and what we want to know. Finding out what they already know tends to cover many of the objectives that you have in mind. Finding out what they want to learn leads to them having a purpose to research and gives them ownership. Long term effects on the whole school – we sometimes underestimate children and this allows more able children to be challenged.
KS2B/Special Brainstorming was used and worked well, the half term before you do the teaching/planning. Children come up with ideas, and it can be a little tricky covering those, keeping in your mind the key objectives you want to cover. Sometimes you can tell them these will be covered later on. Children generate super ideas and the impact is that children are better able to make links. Teachers really need to plan topics wisely so that children can contribute to them.
Years 5/6 One of the more difficult ones dealt with. Some looked at upcoming areas of study and posted questions on the wall for children to think about and do research on. Some used pictorials, flow charts and mind maps. One of the main sticking points is time. Unit coverage planning in foundation subjects is difficult to find time to plan for things the children want to investigate in addition to the existing compulsory schemes of work (or programs of study) that might exist. But this depends on the school. Some have guidelines. There is a new skills-based curriculum coming to Wales in 2008 that might help ease the clogged-up stage schools are now at.
Secondary Teachers felt they had not covered this very much. Some examples of project work have been done this way – an environment project: pupils did the research on these issues without too much prompting, info then feedback orally, then this was used in a newspaper article to be assessed. The idea was that pupils came up with the idea for the project then used it as an assessment tool. Pupils felt they had the ownership and some kind of methodology to present it.
4. Talking Partners/Wait time/No hands up
Early Years/KS1 Agreed that TPs was very successful and children love it. It enables them to stay on task Modelled good and bad TPs first. Competent children learned to be patient and shy ones learned to be confident. Children are all happy to work with anyone. Good for English as a second language. Speaking and listening skills have improved. Good for the teacher to stand back and observe and listen to discover things about the children and their interrelationships. Anecdote: Being able to listen to the children means you hear interesting concepts – when in TPs you find out things the children would not necessarily say to the teacher: Yrs 1 & 2 talking about spacemen and working on questions for a visitor from the European space agency…Child 1: ‘Where does the moon come from?’ Child 2: ‘It comes out of the earth’s tummy.’
KS2A Some felt that with younger children they needed to work on how to listen to their partners and to learn how to give feedback on what the partner said. Using whiteboards as a tool reinforced this. Children learnt that it is OK to be wrong. With others they tried random partners but found some behaviour problems. Lower achievers are better able to shine and others see they have something good to contribute. All are on task. Anecdote: school trip…several schools at the site – a presenter threw out a question to see who could answer quickest – one school threw up their hands immediately to answer so got the points – but her school lost the points because they all went into TPs to discuss it first(!)
KS2B/Special Teachers modelled good and bad talking partners. One class brought a list of protocol that was agreed by the children (listen to each other, treat partner’s ideas with respect etc.). Talked about difficulties with children who have special/behavioural needs as they find it hard to talk to other children – neither child should lose out. Sometimes an adult as a TP is good if the child cannot communicate through speech as the adult understands the grunts or whatever the child uses to communicate. In terms of how random partners are organised, change possibly on a weekly basis. Sometimes a slightly negative thing is when a high achieving child sits with a low achieving child and the higher achiever feels they are not getting a lot out of it. Social aspects were improved generally. All tried to give the whole class a chance to feedback having done TPs…teachers need to be skilled to avoid too much repetition and too lengthy feedback – getting children to avoid saying things that others have said. Anecdote: One teacher tried TPs with a YR 5 class she was covering for a day. The class was reading a book and predicted what would happen in the next chapter and it worked well. Children were disappointed they only had two minutes to talk.
Years 5/6 Positive impact on learning and the social context. Teachers successfully combined TPs with thinking time and no hands up. At first a few children had difficulties when placed with someone they had not been with before. Children are now more confident. Those who already were confident are better able to take a backseat and listen to others. Children can change each other’s minds. They know that it’s OK to be wrong and they use mistakes to work from. Socially it has become accepted as part of the classroom culture. Classroom dynamics have improved overall. Discussion on how they think TPs work yields good responses. Last week one school had five inspectors in school and they commented that the TPs they observed were great as they got to hear what the children actually thought about things.
Secondary This is now a central feature of lessons. It used to be an issue that students were somewhat embarrassed to give answers for fear they might be wrong. At first it was problematic due to long wait time but this was overcome by use of whiteboards. Feedback now all inclusive, no pressure on any one child. They all think all the time. Whiteboard to answer TP questions ensures privacy between teacher and pupil in cases where the student was previously reluctant to give an answer. Yr 7 science – random partners – children enjoyed this as TPs are all inclusive and non-judgemental. Closed and open questions have a valuable part to play. Quiet children do not get lost. Anecdote: use of playing cards to sort out TPs…children respect the card better than a folded piece of paper.
5. Questioning strategies (range of answers, statements, right and wrong, opposing standpoint, starting from the answer)
Early Years/KS1 Need to plan for effective questions and put it in the planning.
Impact on learning: got children to think about investigations. Used a lot at this level anyway as a part of good practice – not a new thing. We don’t usually split into these five categories. KS2A
Impact on learning: engages everybody, develops thinking skills, teaches that it’s OK to think differently to others and teaches respect.
KS2B/Special An area not yet fully developed
Years 5/6
Secondary
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