An example of a critique.

My students in year 7 are currently working on a project where they have to analyse a basket of food items through the eyes of different characters for example a vegan, an althlete or a mum on a budget. They researched food items in a pre selected "basket" and found the nutrients, food miles and chemicals used in their production or manufacture, as well as creating character profiles for each of the "analysts".
After this research they were requested to make some art work based on this research and we then critiqued it around these questions. This was their first exposure to this technique and the feedback norms, which are find are encouraging a rigorous dialogue in the classroom.

1.Hard on content, soft on people.
2.Step up, step back.
3.Feedback must be kind, helpful and specific.

Next we began writing scripts for these characters, and these audio clips are from their second attempt at critqiuing each others work.
I requested them to make brief presentations with around 25 minutes to prepare. To guide them I modelled the kind of thinking required on an exerpt of work and set guiding questions. My students are increasingly aware of SOLO taxonomy and are beginning to refer to it, again I modelled this before they began.

Essential questions were set to encourage high quality feedback. Which are given below.

It is most pleasing to hear the students use them and make specific reference to them in their presentations, which helps them focus on the content and provide specific feedback. I feel the structure of a presentation also encourages all students to contribute too and also assist in getting the balance between student and teacher feedback. One of the great strengths of critqiues is that they help build a community of learners, where every student is aware of what the others are learning and are able to provide help to one another. This is true student voice in action,and it's all about learning.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/350706-an-example-of-student-critique-presntation

A teacher running a session must be confident in using wait time before and after students have spoken, resisting the temptation to jump in with an answer. I personally find note making helps keep my mouth shut and helps me go beyond the feedback that student have themselves given.

Here is an example of the students written feedback followed by an audio boo of them discussing the work. I conclude the presentation asking if the feedback was useful, and giving feedback on the feedback itself. Students need training in doing this, although for only their second attempt this is really rather good feedback.

The next audio boo is from a student who has just received some peer feedback which was very positive. She feels as though the feedback was not helpful enough, which allows me to reinforce the norms and prompt for some of the things that I thought she could do. This students is extremely talented, I think it was great for her peers to see her request guidance, it sends a clear message that success is not something that you have its something that you work towards. http://audioboo.fm/boos/350762-was-that-useful-feedback

The final AudioBoo is the students who have just given this feedback responding to the question "what have you learned by giving this feedback?". It is essential that critqiues are seen as being beneficial to everyone. This is often missed in peer feedback, the people who benefit most are the ones who give the feedback. Again listen for teacher wait time, which has students adding to what they have previously said and others actually joining in. It is a most effective technique.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/350767-what-have-you-learned-by-giving-feedback

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

Supporting the limitations of a web 2.0 tool- A Wrapper activity

Etherpad is probably the best web 2.0 tool for the classroom, with the addition of the Time slider function. This allows a skillful teacher to debrief the process taking place afore their very eyes. Most Web 2.0 tools do not have this essential focus on the process, and are merely presentation tools for content. Infact it may be argued that they make new content to distract from the process of learning.

For years teachers have sent students off to work as groups, "work together to make a poster" and provided that the students got the job done have assumed that collaboration has taken place. In fact the product has been such a focus that it has over riden the collaboration. In the real world the fact that some students can produce a poster is not useful or remotely interesting, but if they can genuinely support each other in a learning community, then they can head off and be successful anywhere.

So how can a teacher go beyond just debriefing the process and hand over some control of this metcognition to students? . Metacognition is vitally important, unfortunately overlooked component of learning, too often masked by content or the medium. Effective learning involves planning and goal-setting, monitoring one's progress, and adapting as needed. All of these activities are metacognitive in nature. By teaching students these skills - all of which can be learned - we can improve student learning.This is an example of a "wrapper" activity that is issued at the start of the activity and returned to at the end.

I had put the key questions of the lessons onto an etherpad document, and set up a wallwisher to run concurrently with it. The Wallwisher was focussed purely on the process, while the etherpad was solely content.

The focus of the Wallwisher was collaboration, which I broke down into the following categories to help the students define how they collaborated. The students were challenged to provide examples of how they helped others learn, using these categories.

1. Where they corrected someones work.

2.Where they questioned someones ideas.

3.Where they contributed an idea.

4. Where they have built upon or expanded upon someone thinking.

5. Where they have supported someone elses idea.

After the completion of the task the students returned to the wallwisher and added their examples and classified them under the correct catogory. They found this difficult and spent most time trying to figure out who they had supported during the lesson, so at the very least they did relflect on the process and not just the content. By doing this before using the Time lIne function the students were able to respond to this with things like " What I was trying to say here was" and "yeah, I couldn't think of the right word, until you typed it in!"

Next time I think I'll make a conscious effort to ensure that the Wallwisher is genuinely concurrent, so that the process is more to the fore.

My Learning Agenda

With the new term beckoning, and a summer of pondering, I have finalised what my learning agenda for my classroom will contain. This will be the purpose of all the pedagogical decisions I make. this year. I have based it upon two things. Firstly, where I want my students to be at the end of the year in terms of them as learners, not as what they have learned but how they learn. Secondly, I have considered where my students currently are, I am fortunate enough to already know over half my classes for the next year.

I am Au courant that the agenda I set must be manageable and actually improve my teaching/ creation of learning opportunities and develop my students as learners. I am confident that I am not creating extra work for myself bur in fact making my job easier.

So here are my priorities, which may change over the discourse of the academic year. ( and so they should if need be!)

1. Develop independence of students during enquiry based learning tasks.
2. Develop quality work, through quality feedback using the SOLO taxonomy.
3. Plan all new lessons and Enquiries based around Blooms Four learning dimensions.
4. Increase reflection in Sixth from students.

So what strategies am I planning to use to achieve each one.

Developing independence

What I really mean by this is ownership. Ownership of the learning and ownership of the learning strategies employed in doing so. To do this I will make clear every time the class is using a strategy, giving it a name to aid the development of a shared learning vocabulary. Each strategy will be displayed, labelled, annotated and classified as part of the reflective and meta cognitive process.

So when we get to work in a more independent environment (such as during enquiries)the students will find it second nature to choose to use a tool or a strategy to help them, rather than being passive learners they will seek and organise knowledge. If this happens currently, its lineage invariably involves me. I want to be increasingly out of these decisions.

Isaac Newton provides suitable inspiration for this one. When asked who made his telescope and where he got his tools he responded by saying " If I had (..) other people to make my tools for me, I had never made anything of it." This is exactly what I want my students to appreciate.

Developing quality work

The SOLO Taxonomy is based upon how students use knowledge and encourages students to apply and link concepts. Consequently, students operating at the upper reaches of the taxonomy are producing high quality work that not only has breadth but depth too.

My day to day assessment and feedback will not only focus on the content but look to assess the use of their knowledge. I have constructed a large wall display to place these qualities at the heart of my classroom and assist in making the language of the taxonomy part of everyday dialogues. I have planned an introductory activity and a self assessment opportunity in the first week that utilises the taxonomy. I have also planned large assessment tasks for the second week back that is based on the SOLO taxonomy which has specific content attached to each level, so that the taxonomy will also be seen with a subject specific context. I am aiming to do this regularly, as I can see the quality of my feedback improving too.

Research into the impact of the SOLO taxonomy demonstrates that it not only affects academic success but also the meta cognitive too. Students are more aware of their learning and how to improve. I want this for my students.

Planning using Blooms Learning Dimensions

Nothing fancy here, just a statement of principle. The balance that the four learning dimensions of factual, conceptual, procedural and meta cognitive knowledge will give to the curriculum of my classroom is just irresistible. It just make sense. Hattie ranks meta cognitive strategies as the 13th most effective "strategy" relating to achievement. This is clearly something I can do something about by planning to teach how and when to do it and not just giving students meta cognitive tasks. This will not just happen, I need to plan the development of these skills.

Increasing Reflection

As far as I am concerned Sixth form students do not regularly sit back and reflect upon what they are doing and why. Our school also dedicates a lot of the Sixth form curriculum time to independent study, although difficult to set up, manage and to make effective it does have a hugely positive impact on student success. (Hattie quotes its at around d= +0.75.) So the pedagogical purpose of prioritising reflection is to indirectly improve the students ability to learn independently.

Now, as a self confessed and very proud and cognisant Luddite, I am embarrassed (a little) to admit that I am intending to use Blogging to encourage this reflection. Although lets make this clear, with all the Web 2.0 shenanigans going on in education at the moment, that Blogging is not in fact the tool being used here. It is merely a way of making the student thinking visible, it is presentational. It allows me, an educator, to make a decision on what support, guidance or task my students do next. So, with this in mind I have planned strategies such as PEELS reading log to actually develop and engage my students in meaningful reflection. It is essential that students do not blog in superficial way or just write what they think I want. They need to learn how to do this. This is why teacher knowledge of pedagogy and teachers having a purpose to their teaching is much more important that teachers knowledge of Web 2.0 applications.