Helping students practice academic writing :Connecting "Cause" and "Effect"

I have once again become very interested in student literacy. Especially in how it can deepen student thinking and develop their understanding of the content through deliberate practice. Science teachers (at least this one does) get very fustrated with students answer "it gets faster". What gets faster? Why does it get faster? So, for me, the ability to connect cause and effect either the through connectives or verbs is a key strategy for students to practice.

This worksheet is designed to firstly give the rules and some explained examples. The examples show how changing the position of the cause and effect and/or the  "connective" can change the emphasis from being placed on the cause to being focused upon the effect. Simply put whatever is found at the end of the senetnce will have the emphasis; placing the cause before the effect places the emphasis on the effect; and vice versa.  The student response "it gets faster" is fine in short questions but will very quickly become meaningless whem explaning ideas that have multiple steps or factors in play. The examples are also used to highlight the need to locate the action, another key skill in (more complex) scientific explanations. Students are asked to label the Cause, Effect and COnnective to encourage a little metacognition on the structure of sentences.

The worksheet is designed to increase the cognitive load throughout, allowing students to embed this skill. The first task merely asks the students to select an appropriate connective. It also sets up more examples students can refer to, by having this as such a clozed exercise students get to interact with more complex scientific examples.

The second task again reduces cognitive load by asking students consider where the emphasis is. Is this a sentence that highlights the casue or the effect taking place. Again this task helps provide a range of examples, and labouring the content. It is hoped that this activity will encourage student to metacognitively consider how they write.

The third task is bigger step up asking students to rewrite the sentences to change their emphasis. The support that makes this leap of faith manageable is that all the information they need is in the example they are working on and in the previous tasks.

Finally students have a few  questions to answer. To complete this they need to infer what the emphasis needs to be, and then structure an answer. Although the questions have novel situations, they content is the same as in previous tasks so that students can focus on writing this well. The questions increase in difficulty with questions 1 and 2 are simple and straightforward to answer as either the cause or effect is given, while questions 3 and 4 students will need to workout what will happen and then explain it. The examples in Task 1, which uses the language of resultant force should support them in completing this

The following are useful generic links, with examples:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=19204&section=5

https://www.learninghub.ac.nz/cause-and-effect-writing-structures/

If you would like a copy please click here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Iky47JvOhUfCb31bC-WnTmVphMJS4S8whEEqhxX_5WE/edit

An update on the Meta-cognitive wrapper. Why and How to use them.

The metacognitive wrapper in many ways is the perfect storm of a metacognitive strategy, in both its structure and procedure. It structure utilises prior knowledge, and engages both strategic thinking and motivation, while it’s procedure beginning before a task or lesson has begun allows students to gain some form of control over their thinking and emotions from the off, and then orchestrate their thinking over the duration of the lesson. The wrapper wraps around the lesson or task, ensuring that reflection occurs and that long term metacognitive behaviours are valued, promoted and developed.

Put simply a metacognitive wrapper is a task that is completed at the beginning and at the end of an activity or lesson, and is designed to help students plan or at the very least consider their thinking over a lesson. The integration of thinking and content and the opportunity for forethought have big impacts on learning ^[2] Studies have shown the metacognitive behaviour of self-questioning to have the biggest effect if carried out before the lesson, while slightly lower after the lesson and much lower during the lesson^[3]. Common sense would suggest that trying to be self-questioning during a lesson could be distracting to all but the most able learners. Echoing what we know about the types feedback most useful to beginner learners that complex feedback while learning can be overwhelming, and should be corrective in nature and focussed upon content knowledge. The wrapper caters for this by emphasising metacognition before and after the act of learning.

Wrappers tend to have a consistent of design although the components are not always equivocal, and some will not be useful for every task.

Designing the wrapper

1. Learning intention should be referenced.

A wrapper should firstly include a statement to make clear what the students are about to learn. This should be broad terms with only sufficient detail to make clear the types of ideas and thinking that may be useful.

2. Prior knowledge should be prompted.

The first question should always prompt useful content knowledge. It is preferable to phrase this speculatively as in:

“What might you already know about …? 

The “might” helps keep possibilities open early in the lesson granting opportunity to come back to these original thoughts, so that students can validate, dismiss or correct them or even become more confident in their own thinking. Although it must be noted that becoming less confident in their knowledge is just as valid a response, as they could either be unlearning a misconception, which is a difficult process or be questioning why they believe something rather just accepting something is right. That is to say, they can practice being metacognitive.

3. Student goal setting.

The third element is a target setting one that could be the visualisation of a success criteria or the setting of a self-reward for success. This could this be a way of tapping into the intrinsic learner motivation? Findlay and Cooper (Locus of control and academic achievement ) demonstrated that those students who are internally motivated perform better than those who delegate this responsibility. An alternative focus may be to ask about the usefulness of what is being is learned, as task value is a powerful metacognitive strategy (DeBoer)

What do you want to learn about “Electromagnets” today?

Or

How will you know that you are being successful today?

Or

Why is it important that we understand why “earth quakes” happen?

4. Prompting Strategic thinking.

Students will benefit from help in working out concrete ways of engaging with the learning task.  This may be structuring their thinking or how they could go about completing the task. For example:

What steps will you need to take to complete this task?

or

What ways of thinking might help you solve this problem?

5.Affective control: Learner attributes.

The final element to a wrapper is to focus on a learner attribute such as motivation or being resourceful. This is often the quickest win for the students and for the teacher.

How motivated are you today?

or

How resilient are you feeling today?

Finally prepare the end part of the wrapper by changing the tense of the questions. So What do you already know about…?” turns into “Was the knowledge you had useful?”, or “How might you plan your work to ensure quality?” turns into “did your plan help you structure your work in a high quality way? The premise here is to allow them to recognise changes: in what they know,: in  how confident are they in this knowledge In how to go about solving this kind of problem, after all change is learning.

Procedure for using a wrapper.

The process of using a metacognitive wrapper is a simple one, albeit with nuance. It starts with

1.Student individual thinking time.

Have the questions selected available at the start of the lesson. You may need to introduce the lesson topic, the purpose of these questions and to make clear the idea that it is OK to be wrong at this point in time, but little more. Allow the students 4 or 5 minutes to ponder and note down their ideas.

2. Whole class response.

Randomly select a few responses for each of the posed questions and record upon the board thereby make their thinking visible. Make a point after the initial trawl of asking if anyone has something to add. There is no need to judge any responses as right or wrong at this point even if their response is a negative one such as "I'm not motivated today ", as they have already engaged in the type of thinking you require. The important part here is that we communicate through the procedure that “your motivation matters and it is your responsibility.” However, be aware of bandwagon jumping with negative comments. Peer culture is very strong, and if you find yourself with growing negativity and students playing to the crowd. If so, challenge it by making it clear what the culture for learning needs to be like for their success. This may not happen overnight, but must start somewhere. Why not here? The students are voicing opinion of their schooling, they are engaged in what you want them to be engaged in.

Seeking multiple responses provides the students with a palette of choices they can make. Simple phrases like “You can steal any of the ideas you hear.” encourages students to begin to reflect on best methods of working and make active choices.

3.The lesson or the task.

Although the procedure does not require the teacher to actively promote metacognitive thinking, you will be sensitised to how the students are going about the learning process. alongside the teacher led conversations of a classroom, you will have opportunity prompt some individual students in controlling their metacognition. The language of choice and the use of ambiguous responses to their questions, such as “could be”, encourages student ownership of the problem at hand, and therefore gain some experience in utilising their metacognition. Some students will require highly structured choices, as in “you can either do A, B or C” while others will be able to respond to “So what are your options here?” Ultimately the students must make the decision of what they do next.

4. Individual reflection.

Using the end wrapper questions, once again a moment to reflect and prepare responses. Ask the student to note down their responses.

5. Whole class debrief.

Again, selected at random, although through the discourse of the lesson you may want to highlight particular students who may have been successful (or not) in controlling their thinking, changing their minds, getting unstuck or being resilient. There is no need to record their responses as what important here is the conversation that debriefs their process. You are likely to hear are stories of improvement and by highlighting these attributes within a specific learning activity helps makes them more visible to all learners. Each part of this review is important: the content, the strategies, the feelings, the attributes, as all are intertwined in the experiences of the students (Nuthall)

The motivation to engage is a vital part of the process, so I tend to use this as one of the prompts more often than not. The conversations around motivation are always interesting and often highlight its fluctuating nature as the lesson ebbs and flows, but how if we are aware of it we can begin to learn how to control it. It is best summarised by an anecdote from a first-year teacher following a training session. He had a busy day, a full teaching day, coursework marking with a looming deadline, a lunchtime mentor meeting and then an afterschool training session on the charms of metacognition. He said as much as we started. All I could do was to thank him for his response and for being there. The session went well and we concluded by going back to the wrapper task. He could not wait to respond to this. At first, he accused (in the best sort of way) me of “tricking him into being motivated”, We revisited the original questions and as we did the conversation became centred around who had made it important. He responded “it was me, I made it important, I was tired and had didn’t want to be here, but I realised that my motivation was important and I had to find a way of being motivated”. The focus became how he as learner had taken control of his thinking and actions. he had become metacognitive. Learners often just need the chance to catch themselves doing it, if I had challenged the unmotivated response of the teacher or of students then I could prevent any chance of this experience and realisation taking place. In essence, the teacher needs mechanisms to keep themselves out of the way to allow students to practice self-monitoring while completing tasks and learning. So, the next step in increasing student self-regulation and metacognition is to increase student control.

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[1] https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/metacognition/teaching_metacognition.html Accessed 29/07/17

[2] Hattie, Biggs and Purdie 1996: Effects of Learning Skills Interventions on Student Learning: A Meta-Analysis

[3] Huang 1991: A Meta-analysis of Student Self-questioning strategies

Defining self-regulation and metacognition.

Self-regulation and metacognition share a complex relationship:  both are useful in short term learning and both can be considered long term education goals. Those of us who have strong mechanisms for self-regulation and self-control learn more with less effort, enjoy learning more and go onto live happier and productive lives 

Student academic outcomes are also positively influenced by the use of metacognitive strategies, while good self-regulation is a strong predictor of academic achievement throughout school, for instance preschool children who are good self-regulation are more likely to be more proficient at Maths and reading. Therefore, both self-regulation and metacognition must be viewed as a boon to learning content and not merely an addition. In fact, there can be are “enormous” consequences for ours students in both academic endeavours and in social relationships if they fail to develop robust self-regulatory skills.

Thankfully, self-regulation is a learnable skill, and as such requires practice and feedback as would learning content knowledge. And so…

The next section is about the role of metacognition in the acquisition of declarative and procedural knowledge.

Right now, you are probably thinking along one of three lines:

1.       Great, that sounds really interesting, or

2.       Great, that sounds awfully difficult: or

3.       Great, I already know something about that!

Instinctively, at the very inception of learning our metacognitive monitoring process kicks in. In retrospect, you will recognise all of these thoughts from your experience as a learner, but recognising them and controlling and using them are different matters. For instance, thinking that this section will be difficult could lead to the decision to go off to make a nice cup of tea, and thereby avoiding the effort you think is needed to read this. Alternately, it may be the spur to concentrate, to make sure that you get it. Self-regulation and metacognitive thinking are clearly wrapped up with motivation and its subsequent decision making

Self-regulation.

Self-regulated learning is our ability to understand and control our learning environment, and involves goal setting, selecting strategies and monitor our progress. The following diagram neatly summarises self-regulation. (adapted from Schraw et al 1996)

The simplest, and perhaps most potent definition of self-regulation is our “ability to inhibit automatic responses” This requires control over our emotions, the ability to focus and refocus our attention onto tasks and on our longer- term goals. When this is in place we can then choose the right cognitive process that will help us best complete the task. 

Metacognition.

Metacognition is perhaps the most intriguing part of self-regulation for teachers, as having well developed metacognitive strategies are “the distinguishing quality between good and poor learners” It is quite often given the prosaic thinking about our thinking tagline, that undersells its value. Metacognition simply means “beyond knowing”, inferring that it is about what we know, what we do not know, and the thinking that monitors and controls the learning process. In a sense, it involves us becoming the audience to our own performance. Flavell, the originator of modern educational views of metacognition neatly summated it as “a critical analysis of thought”, in which our knowledge about our own cognitive processes and products (or indeed anything related to them), are seen as something that can be used to regulate and orchestrate these processes. Thus, leaving us with a noble definition for metacognition as the abilities of individuals to adjust their cognitive activity in order to promote more effective comprehension.

Flavell’s model of metacognition helps to define what is useful in practical classroom terms. In Flavell’s model both cognitive and metacognitive processes interact to form our metacognitive knowledge about ourselves, the task at hand and potential useful strategies. The cognitive goals set the context for the thinking to be undertaken and are also the end point. 

Planning a lesson - notes on the process part 2- task design

To begin the detail planning I have started with the first student activity considering it as almost an “end point”, from which I can then work backwards to my input and the starter activity. I think about the exam question (formative assessment in action)  that foxed my students and wonder if this exam question will provide a useful start point guiding how complex to make this task.


I start Googling some information using searches such as " Vitamin A nutrient data" and stumble upon a useful website, although the website as  a whole is  too complex for students to access,  the tabulated data looks just about what I need for my students to be able to access. I decide to edit the tables only, so that students are not overwhelmed by the webpages.




At this point here I begin to consider group size and the number of tasks they will need for the whole class? What does the content knowledge suggest? The  information the students are going to be looking at is beyond the national curriculum but is important in the context of the project. I decide as a class we need to look at a minimum for class Vitamin A B C D and K Minerals Calcium, Iron, and macronutrients fibre and  protein. I will review this later. Should I include carbohydrates and magnesium?


I copy and paste the data from the website and edit it to remove some information and change the titles so that it is familiar to the students. Eg %DV is changed to %RDA or recommended daily amounts. I want this large quantity of data to look kind of familiar.

DATA RESOURCE FOR STUDENTS (in development)

I start writing some questions and come to a sequence of question types.  The first question is the easiest and is there to familiarise the students with the contents of the table. The next question as the students to then find some data and processes it. I notice that some of these are in nice round figures and start to think is this useful for differentiation. Does it match the tables that have less nutrients listed?. I now have two ways of manipulating the resources to make it easier or more difficult for the students to use. I'll wait till I'm almost done to make any drastic alterations to the resources.


The task begins to replicate exam question structure, which is good as it encourages and practices data processing. A thought of "How can I get them to question the data and interpret themselves?" appears in my head.  May be this is for a subsequent lesson.

LINK TO STUDENT TASK (developing)

It is at this point that I notice the data about each food listed is in cups and ounces. What nonsense, so I have to convert these. Luckily the replace function in word allows me to do this fairly quickly.  Despite this being a chore it is worth while as if I left it as unfamiliar units then students working memory would quickly be used working out this new information, instead of processing what I wanted them to.  


The next question is another data handling exercise, but this time it is using different parts of the table to get an answer. These tasks seem to be increasing in complexity.
The next question ( and probably the penultimate one ) asks the students to use a different source of information to find out something factual, this time about the deficiency symptoms of different nutrients. A simple comprehension exercise that will then lead to a more in depth look at one of the learning outcomes. I now need to find a resource that will allow the students to look at the deficiency symptoms using data and in more detail.


I have yet thought about the procedure or how to organise the students in this exercise, I have been mainly focused on the content knowledge/ skill within the exercise, and how to differentiate.


I've just found this great table, which organises the information from a different angle than I have been. So instead of organising the information from a Vitamin and Mineral point of view it has been done from a organ point of view. This reminds of Nuthalls rule  " If you hit the same information in the three or four different ways then learning will take place". For this reason alone I am going to use this resource. It will be an additional resource to use on the fourth question.


As I tried to another question on a different aspect of these micronutrients, I quickly realised that this would take away from the focus of this activity, and that the information I wanted them to interrogate would be perfect for me to model my thinking around. I ditch the idea.  Keep it simple for complex results.


Next time I will continue planning, working backwards from my input and to the starter activity.  I may have a ponder on how to run this activity in the class.

How I plan lessons- Notes on the process.

I sat down to plan a lesson this morning, I decided to record my thoughts as I got going, I was hoping to find where the information about content knowledge, previous experiences, student prior learning was used in this process. This took about 10 minutes to give a loose scaffold, which is highlighted in yellow.  My thoughts are in yellow. Follow up posts will continue to detail the development of this lesson, the design of the resources and activities and how the lesson went.






Learning Intentions[D1] 

I always start here.

What do you want the students to gain?

Already having thoughts about the possible  activities – and/ or what I want students to be like during the lesson?

Some of these outcomes I want all the students get this session, some of the other will be built upon over time, and it is therefore ok if the group gets it.

Practice data handling, graphing skills and use of tables[D2]

Added the graphing skills and tables  while reflecting on what I want students to be like.

Spot correlations in data

Consider if it is causation or correlation

Review macro and micronutrients.

Describe the role of various vitamins and minerals in the body.

Define a deficiency symptom.

 

Bellwork/Starter task

Possible some matching activity to introduce new information about deficiency symptoms, some vitamins and minerals and to connect to previously learned information [D3] 

I'm think macro and micronutrients and their role in the body, this builds on a previous lesson and student research.

New Information.

Possible comparison of two diets, model thinking, data and a table[D4]  and some deficiency symptoms. Teacher gives definition. Is there any international data? [D5] 

  D4 The data and the table must come before correlations. Increasing complexity throughout the session.

D5 A context emerges, can I frame a big question to encapsulate the learning within this lesson? eg Why have 1 billion people got rickets? This reminds me of a previously planned lesson using epidemiology data to look at microbes? What were the draw backs and successes in that plan? Jigsaw task worked really well to establish a broad idea of the problem, lots of practice with data. Poor on teacher modelling "how to extract data", make data in consistent form might be a solution? Spent a lot of time in small groups doing this.

Construct task

A jigsaw task[D6] , with tables of data[D7] 

D6 Broaden knowledge within group, while all students practice the skill of extracting data from the table

D7 Recent test showed that the year 7 students don’t know where to begin with these. The end of the jigsaw should give me some information if they are getting the skill. What should I do if they don't- the resources I make for this should help me decide this.

New information two[D8] 

Starting to think that I need to start to put some meat on the bones, some of the fine details will emerge. I can check that I am “hitting” what I want to and make sure that nothing is being missed.

What are correlations use the  ice cream and sunburn to show difference between causation and correlation.

Then into a specific dietary one.

Activity 2[D9] 

Decide to crack on with overview. Thinking I need some way of making the graphing data interactive, pondering human graphs or something with tech, I kind of like the idea of data being vibrant and dynamic. How will I know they get this? Need to make a decision on how they learn this...

But what……..[D10]

Need to look at what is available. The resources for this session are going to have to tailor made.

 

What about differentiation.

 

What about reading? Should I keep this strictly data centred, instinct says yes, within this scheme of learning are many other literacy based tasks.


On with some research then......

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Establishing Pedagogical purposes

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

This in a sentence is what pedagogical purposes are all about. The benefits are clear, greater teacher clarity, improved student teacher relationships and improved metacognitive thinking by students. These feature prominently on Hattie's table of effect sizes in positions eighth, eleventh and thirteenth respectively. The following quote from Ruth Deakin Crick bears this out and eloquently highlights the benefit with having a clear learning agenda and the sharing of pedagogical purposes.

there is evidence that the key themes which form the necessary conditions for building learning power in classrooms include the quality of the relationships between teaches and learners, the quality of dialogue in which listening to the ‘other’ is central to questioning and debate, the development of a locally owned language for naming these processes, student choice and voice, and resequencing the content of the curriculum, which involves problematizing’ and ‘contextualizing’ the content so as to create  challenge and meaningfulness  Deakin- Crick et al 2002.

 For me there are three ways of quickly establishing a culture of sharing pedagogical purposes in our classrooms. I think the enquiry based and Project based learning may be a more comprehensive way of doing this. However, the three strategies can be categorised as,

1. Using specific tasks to stimulate a discussion around the act of learning.
2. Stating and debriefing the pedagogical purpose of each "task"
3. Increasing the number of metacognitive strategies used.

A splendid example of a task being used to stimulate discussion is the PEEL projects "Dirty trick" strategy (a full description of the strategy can be found on their website). Whereby students are asked to copy a set of notes, which are filled with errors and general nonsense.I like to distract them form this by titling them "Everything you need to know about..." and the like. Here's an example with living rocks that they never notice!

An example of Dirty Trick

Responses can be quite emotive- so use sparingly

I only use this sparingly as students could feel cheated, I love this example as it shows this student cares about what they learn. . If like me you spend a long time building up trusting relationships you wouldn't want to use it inappropriately, so a brief task of no more than 5 minutes is best. However, it does open up discussion about active and passive learning and responsibility. The students tend check and question information before they make notes and some even start to challenge the information I present. I always throw in a few silly ideas into the following lesson to check that they are questioning the information.


Increasingly, my lesson plans that I write that others use  highlight the strategy being used and how to debrief it. This helps turn a complete this task/ worksheet style of approach to developing student knowledge of possible strategies they could choose to use when working on a project or in a more independent way. The debrief of each of these tasks is vital. I normally ask the following questions.

1. How did you go about using this tool?
2. What was difficult about using it?
3. What does it allow you to do? or Why would you use it again?
4. Where would you use it again?

Question 3 and 4 are obviously there to facilitate transfer of the tool or way of thinking.

This AudioBoo highlights how readily students take to this, I love how they try to persuade doubters to the value, and is a chance for them to show how much they enjoy and care for learning. These students had just used a Whole Part Map for the first time. I think it also shows how it is necessary for the teaching of learning strategies to have a content/ real learning basis.



I always find this table useful in analysing the tools I use during my teaching.


Developed by Jill Flack.(PEEL)

 The final way of establishing pedagogical purpose with students is to increase metacognition. This can be inextricably linked to the debrief above. Although, I find that specific tasks as render positive results too. A favourite are the metacognitive wrapper tasks asked at the start of a session to prime the kind of thinking wanted (including content) and at the end to see how that metacognition had changed or improved their thinking. Again spending a small quantity of time discussing these often brings out generic strategies that some students use, allowing others to mimic their style of working.

A lot of these strategies can be framed through the use of SOLO taxonomy. It has a clear pedagogical purpose, to highlight what high quality learning woudl look like and providing structure and guidance to get there. The shared language mentioned in the quaote from Ruth Deakin Crick, is clear and unambiguous and readily picked up by students. And, through the clever linking of specific tools to the levels will add another dimension to the student debrief on the tool by asking "Where on SOLO taxonomy does this tool help you think at?".

So why should we share pedagogical purposes with students? This is succinctly summarised in the closing quotation.

‘Effective teaching … should aim to help individuals and groups to develop the
intellectual, 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

Metacognitive wrappers based around Marzano's 8 C's of engament.

This is an attempt at personalising the start point of a learning experience. I have planned a choice of four different metacognitive wrappers. These have been designed around the four classification of Robert Marzanos learning styles ( from On excellence in teaching"").
The students will arrive and "best fit " themselves to a category. I have intentionally dropped the labels, although this may be a mistake, to keep the start of the lesson as simple as possible for the students.
I have tried to simplify Marzanos language for year 7 students and phrased them as questions to invite self reflection. I will record their preferred style for future reference and use.
















Once selected the students will have Metacognitive wrapper for their prefered style. These have been designed to meet the assigned C's of engagement. The basic format of these wrappers are to get the students to think about the content of the lesson and also about a strategy that will facilitate their learning. I have attempted to match these thoughts with their particluar C. I don't think these are perfect yet. Any suggestions to improve them are welcome.

1. Mastery learners who are driven by success and are engaged predominately by Competition and Challenge

















2. Interpersonal learners who are driven by relationships and are engaged by Cooperation and Connections.
















3. Understanding learners are driven by the need to make sense of things and are engaged by Curiosity and Controversy.














4. Self Expressive learners who are driven by origionality and are engaged by Choice and Creativity.















I will update this post after I have used them with some student reponses, and when I have overcame the Nuthallian problem of what success will look like in this lesson.

Behaviour Management by numbers

There is a big difference between behaviour management and behaviour "response" and I think this little vignette illustrates it.
Today we differentiated our three science classes by giving our students the choice of five different enquiries to pursue. I was working with a our weaker students on two different investigations. I was always going to be busy, but, today I got to the point of being too busy. I felt as though I was having no impact at all, keeping some on task, supporting others and extend others too. I was getting a bit frustrated and a few bits of poor behaviour were evident.
Thankfully I managed to curb my frustration and gathered the students together. I asked them what they were finding difficult? And compiled a list that ranged from access issues, attitude to learning or motivation and on taskness. All the things I had noticed. I then asked them what help they needed to overcome these problems. Too my surprise they generated solution to the problems that involved themselves or their peers, I was not included! It was great to see them (finally) acknowledge the need for responsibility in their learning.
So I asked them to give themselves a score out of ten for the responsibility shown in the first twenty minutes. They average out at around five. I then asked them if they used their strategies where they would be? This produced a score of about nine and a half. I allowed them to aspire to better.
So it was great to see over the next 45 minutes the transformation in the classroom. This would not have happened if I had of let my frustration rule the situation.We regularly went back to our arbitary responsibility score as it ebbed and flowed, and it never went below 7.5. Although abitary this strategy has allowed students to self monitior a learner attribute and to manage the situation (almost) by themselves.I got the productive classroom my efforts deserved and less fustrated!

This lesson has reminded me that students are absolutely aware of the expectations we have for them and they do respond to having responsibility. We just have to have a little trust in them.


Sent from my iPhone

Sharing the pedagogical purpose- student discussions

These excerpts are from a lesson where the students were introduced to a couple of new learning tools. I make a point of introducing each tool we use with a brief overview of what the tool is and then how to use it, modelling how to do it and thinking out loud about the decisions i make while using it.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/225372-students-talking-about-whole-part-maps

http://audioboo.fm/boos/225531-students-describe-using-a-moving-on-map

Just like any content learning, some students struggle with learning the tools and think associated with them,. This is why discussions like these are so important. My voice is fairly sparse throughout as I tend use lots of wait time after a student has stopped talking, which prompts further discussion from them or their colleagues. It is evident in these Audioboos, that other students jump in at these points and share their knowledge of the tool. so, the resulting discussions are full of the difficulties and benefits of using these tools. The main thing though is that these tools become their tools as opposed to tasks the teacher has asked them to do. This is a key way in which we can increase the independence of students. It is essential that teachers hear these discussion's as it will frame, future differentiation and support for these students.

The tools themselves are the thinking tool- the whole part or brace map, for connecting important information and the PEEL strategy of a moving on map. The moving on map is entirely constructed by the ideas of the students, who are incidentally eleven years old. A colleague happened to be passing through my classroom as we constructed this and remarked on the sophistication of the student ideas. The other thing that struck my colleague was the usefulness of "boxing" in each step which added to the clarity of what the students had to do.

Metacognitive Wrappers

Metacognitive wrappers on Prezi

All a metacognitive wrapper is a task that is completed at the beginning and at the end of an activity or lesson, that is designed to help students plan or at the very least consider their thinking over a lesson. The positioning of these tasks is importan, firstly the integration of teaching thinking skills in real content is well documented in John Hattie's Visible Learning. He also highlights a couple of studies that back up the wrapper nature. Lavery states that strategies aimed at forethought and that encourage evaluation have the biggest impacts on learning. While Huang when studying the metacognitive behaviour of self questioning measured the biggest effect before the lesson, and slightly lower after the lesson. It was much lower during the lesson. Common sense would suggest that trying to be self questioning during a lesson could be distracting to all but the most able learners.

I always field a few responses and record them on the board, and thereby make their thinking visisble. There is no need to sanction any responses as right or wrong at this point. I stumbled across these a while back, and instantly saw their use in engagement and in the development of true metacognition. It is essential that student metacognition goes beyond just thinking about their thinking and actually facilitates them being able to control their thinking.

So what prompts or questions are useful, through trial and error I arrived at the kinds of things to ask, and have recently began to discover the research that explains why this strategy works. I always make a point of making it absolutely clear what they are about to learn. This gives the gives the scope to ask something about what they might already know? I purposefully leave it as might as this makes all ideas to be valid, at least at the beginning of a session. I think it is important not to close any thinking avenues in the first five minutes of a lesson! It also gives students the chance to come back to their original ideas at the end and see if it has changed, have they added new knowledge, modified an existing idea or become more confident about what they knew. (Although becoming less confident in their knowledge is just as valid a response, as they could either be unlearning a misconception, which is a difficult process or be questioning why they believe something rather just accepting something is right.)

The phrasing of the questions is vital, it must embody the kind of thinking you require of them and phrased in such away that its sounds mutable or learnable. So adding phrases like at this point in time or today, are useful signals.

The next element is a target setting one that could be the visualisation of a success criteria, the setting of a self reward for success (could this be a way of tapping into the intrinsic learner motivation? Findlay and Cooper demonstrated that those students who are internally motivated perform better than those who delegate this responsibility). This element could equally be determined by the usefulness of what is being is learned.

Strategic thinking is an essential part, helping students structure not only their thinking but their work too. So getting students to plan out a step by step method on how to solve a problem or planning out an assignment are two of the top four in Hattie's list of most effective metacognitive strategies. In fact a properly planned wrapper will hit all four.

The final element to a wrapper is to focus on a learner attribute such as motivation or being resourceful in their learning is probably the quickest win for the students and for the teacher . Even if at the begin if they say "I'm not motivated today " they have already engaged in the type of thinking you require. I have been surprised by the consistency of improvement at the end of each session when returning to this question. By indicating these attributes within a specific learning activity adds importance to them and makes them visible. It makes them metacognitive.

So to conclude, learners must return to the task, I change the tense to things like Was the knowledge you had useful, or did your plan help you structure your work etc and I again discuss their responses, looking for and praising them controlling their thinking or changing their mind. As change is learning.

Metacognition of an Enquiry

Following on from my experience at Bristol. I have compiled all the recorded metacognitive thinking I did during this experience. In the hope of finding patterns in the thinking that one needs to do to be a successful enquirer, in order that I can provide tools and structures for my students. This is a work in progress. Any comments, analysis, ponderings are all gratefully recieved.
https://docs0.google.com/document/edit?id=1GIE1NPtznOTnNKs8_8yUDea2kBEftfOMlljjRJNzxBQ&hl=en&authkey=COm4r74L#

Debriefing tools for Enquiry Based Learning

I have compiled a list of ideas to help teachers get the most from the debrief of enquiry based/ experiential/ open ended learning activities. If you have any more I would love to here from you to add to this resource.

A brief guide to debriefing


The major responsibility for conducting successful enquiry based learning rests with the debriefing phase of the exercise. The debriefing is an important process designed to synergize, strengthen, and transfer learning from the experiential exercise. The most successful way of doing this is through non judgemental feedback

Developing the willingness to be debriefed

At the very start of the learning experience it is vital that an overview of what the session will look like is important for learner. This must be done and valued regularly. It must include and highlight both a reflection and debrief session: reflection should be a quiet individual time and debriefs will tend to be whole classes or at least large groups.
The agreement of success criteria at this point is invaluable, whether it is a skill or an attribute. This will encourage students to buy into the process, value the feedback and change their practices (ie learn)
The quality of debriefs is dependent on trust, so the better you know your students the better their response will be. Therefore plan to increase the intensity of them over an academic year.
Debriefs do not always occur at the end of session and short punchy “refocus” style one shouldbe planned in. It may also be beneficial to host responsive ones to change the direction ( whether it be a behavioural or content problem) , although it may be better in the long run to allow a mistake and its consequences manifest itself before intervening. A longer term view should therefore occasionally override a short term management issue.

Health warning

When debriefing ,especially when sharing data or feedback on performance the emotional state of the students and the emotional impact of this feedback should be considered. Emotion is an important feature of any learning experience, so this is not something to be avoided but use in a positive manner. Remember and highlight that you can probably learn more from mistakes is a way of addressing this educatively.

Questioning

Planning for debriefing cannot be reduced to a set of simple instructions. Trial and error and perseverance are necessary. It is important to think about the questions that you ask, encouraging pupils to give longer answers. Teachers need to plan the analogies, stories and contexts to be used to encourage transfer.
Teachers should also encourage students to ask the questions, so that overtime the proportion of teacher questions reduces. This may not become equivocal, as the teacher will always have the overview and purpose of the enquiry in mind.

Below I aim to exemplify useful questions that can be used to debrief an activity. These are not sequential and you may decide to focus on only one area of questioning? You students or at least their actions will inform of this. Each and every question could be proceeded by asking why? Or How? Although a simple “Go on” will add to the open ended nature of debrief, and allow students to think about their own learning and experience rather than answer a teacher question.

Content questions

The table includes a few (overlapping) questions to draw out the learning that has taken place. The teachers role is to a) check and challenge accuracy b) clarify and highlight key learning points c) connecting ideas together d) compile the learning for the class. “Flipcharting” the ideas can help make this learning visible to all. It may also provide a start point for the next session .for example highlighting misconceptions

What have you found out?
What fact has led you to learn more facts?
What’s been the most useful thing learned in developing your understanding?
What have you learned that you did not know before?
What facts can you now link together?
What’s the most important fact learned?
What have you learned that has changed how you think about this problem/ idea/ concept?
Did anyone find a similar thing?
Did anyone find something different?
Do you still think that’s right?
What questions do you still want to ask about the concept?
What have you seen? what does it tell you?

Process /Learner skill question

What tools have been useful? How?
What was your most useful questions?
How did you go about reading the information?
Did you think of the questions first or did you allow the information to “guide” you? Do you think that was the most helpful?
How did you interact with the information?
What conversations helped you learn today?
What was the moment when you realised that you had learned something/ corrected your previous ideas?
Did anyone double check their work, see something missing and go back to correct it?How often did you reflect?
How did you attempt to join ideas together?
How (often) did you use the success criteria?
What strategies have been helpful? Eg drafting

But these can be more specific about a particular skill.

How did you set about...
How did thinking like that help you....
What made you decide that this skill was going to be helpful?
How would you get better at..

Or even Science specific.

How do you know your test was fair?
Why do you trust the data you have produced?
How do you know your data answers your question?
Was your data precise enough to be helpful?
Does the evidence support each
What assumptions have we made?

Learner attribute questions

How did you get unstuck?
How did you avoid/manage distractions?
How did you plan your work?
How did your motivation change over the session?
How did you respond to problems?
How did you get yourself interested in this work?
How did you manage your time?
How did your behaviour affect your own/ others performance?

Metacognition

Although a lot of the strategies and question here are metacognitive in nature, specific strategies will only enhance your students experience.
Specific questions that run along side a particular procedure or task, can facilitate this. For example while taking measurements asking How accurate are you being? How many decimal places have you recorded? Have you recorded the data accurately? Will train the students to do this greater confidence and accuracy?

Wrapper activities, ie those that you start and end the session with can be used for a wider range of tasks. So asking What knowledge might be useful?
• How motivated are you today?
• How might you work out things for yourself?
• How will you mentally link what you see and what you are learning throughout the lesson?

Will help set the students of in the right direction, rephrasing these at the end will help students visulaise the strategies used.

Teacher observation and record keeping

Teacher time should be split between supporting students and observing students. Observation should be intense and detailed notes should be kept for debrief purposes. These should include quotes, who was interacting with who and how. What resources where being used and how? What questions were being asked and who were they asked of. Collecting numerical data, also provides a reflective mirror for students to consider the learning taking place. So number of students on task, number of procedural questions asked, number of smiles/points/ nods of heads can reveal something useful to the students. The timing of the activity should also be recorded, as this will help contextualise the feedback. An occasional snapshop picture of what each individual is doing will also bring a different perspective. Likewise the use of video and photograph to capture behaviours and interactions are invaluable . Before and after feedback scenarios can be used to demonstrate the progress being made by the class.
This allows spontaneity and responsiveness to the situation unfolding around you, but also had grist to your mill when debriefing students. It also ensures that you feedback is non judgemental, an important emotional.
Classroom structures and procedures
It important that students are debriefed together, so arranging the furniture to facilitate the conversation will help. So a circle of chairs is the obvious answer. Ensure that all students are included is important, do not start the debriefing until they are quiet and included.
Ideally these will become self managing in some respects but teachers need a purpose to each debrief, although allow space for other ideas to come to the fore. Praise piggy backing on ideas, and encourage the use of protocols to manage this situation. For reticent students (or groups) you may occasionally want to take turns around the circle, allowing a 30 second think time after ask a question will reduce the stress of having to respond. Although I would not advertise it, accept a pass from students, expect them to contribute to the classroom community. Teachers therefore need to establish a No Put down Zone so that they are free to express their opinions.
The simple procedure of asking a question before nominating a student to respond, encourages all students to think and reflect and prepare to respond. All the usual good practice of wait time after a question has been asked and a student response should be utilise by the teacher and trained into the students.
Intervening without interrupting
Post it notes with either prompts or observations can be placed in front of students. These can reinforce or challenge behaviour ( in its widest sense).
Alternatively, hosting small meeting with groups of students will allow you to pass information on which is then disseminated by these students. This can be content or procedural.
Simply writing down quotes and displaying them in the class can provide ongoing feedback to the learners. Although you may want to discuss ways forward from this.
Ticking, crossing or smiley facing pre agreed success criteria can also provide ongoing feedback. By placing this in a prominent position students can quickly be sensitized to its use and the feedback being provided.
Reflective practices.
Teachers may want to set a selection of questions for students to respond to in writing on their own, before a debrief takes place. Students will therefore be better prepared to respond, and less likely to adhere to a response a peer has given.
Alternatively giving students a choice and encouraging extended writing can also be very productive.
1. Describe your experience of....
Now respond to at least 2 of these questions:
2. What thinking processes did you use?
3. Were you successful? Why?
4. What problems did you overcome? How did you do this?
5. Did you think creatively? How did you do this?
6. What skills have you developed over this challenge?
7. If you were to do this again what would you do differently?

Target setting questions

The final part of a debrief should look to move the students forward.
What’s the next step in this project?
What will you do differently next time?
What do you need to make this task easier?
How could you solve these problems?
What areas are you still finding difficult?
Do you need to redo any sections?
Do we need another point of view?