Apr 30 2013
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Teaching and Learning

One Hundred Words in Science

IMAG0071

Exam season is upon us and I have lost count of the number of blog posts about revision lessons that I have seen. Some have been great, others not so! Every year I struggle with revision lessons. The aim is always to produce lessons that help pupils to assess their own knowledge and hopefully fill any gaps in knowledge they have about a particular topic. The key to revision lessons, like any normal lesson, is to ensure that it is the pupils doing all the hard work, not the teachers!

The one recent revision post that really stood out for me was one written by Kenny Pieper, an English teacher based in Scotland. His excellent post inspired the lesson I am about to describe and can be found here.

So, the starter of the lesson involved pupils completing a short quiz using the SOCRATIVE website. A live leader board was displayed on the IWB for pupils to keep track of their progress. Pupils were warned before the start of the quiz that those pupils who performed best in the quiz would be given ‘preferential treatment’ for the rest of the lesson. (For those who are familiar with Socrative, the quiz I used can be found by using the code SOC-1181401). This starter activity was a nice way to introduce an element of competition in to the lesson, and was also useful to obtain a quick snapshot of pupils’ current level of understanding.

For the next part of the lesson, pupils were introduced to the, ’100 words is all it takes’, concept described by Kenny in his post. I explained to pupils that each of the objectives from the Edexcel B1 unit specification had been written on a postcard and placed on the white board at the front of the class. Pupils were told that they would have the opportunity to pick one of the cards and then write exactly one hundred words to describe the knowledge needed to achieve that particular objective. Those pupils who were top of the leader board for the starter activity were given first choice and 30 seconds to pick their objectives. All other pupils had 5 seconds to pick their objectives and if they hadn’t picked one from the board when the time was up one would be picked for them! As Kenny describes in his post, a good buzz was created and pupils responded enthusiastically to the challenge.

The rest of the lesson was given over to pupils researching their objectives and planning their one hundred words. To add further challenge to the task pupils were not allowed to use the course textbooks, which are specifically designed to have the information for each objective clearly signed and laid out. I wanted pupils to make more of an effort to use the knowledge they already have and also to improve their research skills by having to use unfamiliar resources to find the information they needed.

Pupils found this lesson very difficult. Firstly, they had to think for themselves. Information was not handed to them, ‘on a plate’, and they had to actually THINK about what they were doing. Pupils also found the ’100 words’ rule very challenging. Some pupils thought they didn’t have enough to write, some pupils couldn’t imagine writing ONLY 100 words. It was a great opportunity to discuss with pupils the importance of being concise with their language in exams and to use key scientific terminology when describing various concepts.

By the end of the lesson we had a nice collection of postcards with some excellent scientific knowledge on them. Pupils had done all the hard work, and they demonstrated the progress they had made by completing the Socrative quiz again at the end of the lesson and improving on their scores. We are planning to scan the postcards and place them online so that they can be used as a revision resource for pupils.

Once again, thanks to Kenny Pieper for his excellent idea. Be sure to check out his blog for more great ideas: justtryingtobebetter.com IMAG0070

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Mar 26 2013
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Teaching and Learning

Back to the Drawing Board

It has been a while (nearly four months) since I last wrote a post on this blog. There have been two main reasons for my lack of blogging.

The first reason has been the birth of my first child. On 4th October 2012 our family welcomed a new member in the form of Luca Napolitano-Cremin. 5 months since his birth I am still finding my way through dirty nappies, sterilisers, bottles and sleepless nights. Fatherhood has been a revelation, and the greatest job I have ever undertaken. I am relishing every moment of my new role and honestly believe that it is helping me become a better teacher.

The second reason has been my move to a new school. I spent two years in my previous school. An Outstanding school by OFSTED’s standards and a place where, after taking a year out from teaching, I learnt how to love my job again. I learnt a huge amount in the two years I was there, but felt like I needed to move on for a different challenge and to prevent myself from simply coasting. My new school is a mixed comprehensive close to the centre of London. It is a good school that has made vast progress in the last 7-8 years and is constantly seeking to further improve.

Starting in a new school has proved very challenging. The last six months have made me feel that I have really been coasting along on a wave of, ‘good enough’ for the last couple of years! Although I am proud of what I have achieved in the six years that I have been teaching, I feel that there are still a few basic aspects of my teaching that I need to perfect.

My first target for improvement is my use of formative assessment. I can look back at nearly all of the observations I have had since I was an NQT, and the one thing that has prevented me from moving from Good to Outstanding has been my use of techniques to judge pupil progress during a lesson. I have struggled for a while to have a bank of simple activities that can be used in most lessons to judge pupil progress. I have been developing my use of SOLO taxonomy (see older posts here) as a means to solve this issue. Despite plenty of work on SOLO, I feel that I haven’t quite got there yet with fully embedding these ideas in to my lessons and so I will be working on that between now and the summer ready for full implementation in September.

Marking has always been a thorny issue for me too. Like many teachers, I have often spent hours marking a class set of books, only to realise that pupils have paid little to no attention to what I have written. This experience can be soul destroying and is often I find done not to help pupils learn, but to satisfy the wants of parents and senior management. Despite this experience, I am fully aware that formative feedback, or even feed-forward, is important for pupils’ learning. With this in mind I am trying to employ the following strategies:

  • Highlighting activities that are present in schemes of work that lend themselves to marking within the lesson or once books have been taken in. By doing this I can avoid wasting time reading through notes pupils have taken down from the board or during discussions with me and focus on work that has required the application of knowledge.
  • Using a stamper in class that has three different messages: 1) Learning objective achieved 2) Learning objectives not yet achieved 3) Verbal feedback given. I am hoping to be able to have discussions with a number of pupils each lesson about their work. Before each lesson I will plan what piece of work I will focus on and provide pupils with feedback about that piece of work. I will use the stamper as a signal that a discussion has taken place. I will also ask pupils to write next to where I have stamped the ‘feedforward’ advice that we have discussed together. Pupils can then take steps to act on this advice.
  • Green It Up – I spotted this idea on Twitter some time ago and unfortunately cannot remember who the idea came from so apologies for not referencing the said person here. I have bought a supply of green pens for my classes so that when they respond to the feedback/forward I write in their books they do so using green pens (the colour green, as far as I am aware, doesn’t have any significance apart from it is easy to distinguish from their normal notes and my marking!). By having their responses in green it is easy for any observer, myself, parents and the pupils themselves to see that a dialogue has taken place about the work. The fact that this dialogue is easy to see will, I hope, encourage pupils to interact more with the feedback I provide.

These are three straightforward strategies that I hope will be easy to implement and improve pupils’ learning in my lessons. The aim is to start using these after the Easter holidays and assess any impact just before the summer holidays.

As always with any post I write, I would love to receive any feedback from people and would also be interested in any other strategies people have effectively used for marking and engaging pupils in feedback. I look forward to hearing from you all!

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Oct 20 2012
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Teaching and Learning

Letter to a Friend

One of the best, and worse, things about studying for my MA Education is the amount of reading I have to complete. Whenever I take the time to read something that is not related to education, I feel guilty.

‘Shouldn’t I be reading something for work?’

My MA reading has been a blessing though, as it has led to the discovery of some exciting ideas that I hope to develop in my classroom.

One of these ideas has been the concept of the ‘Letter to a Friend’ (L2F). ‘Letter to a Friend’ was used by Keith Trigwell and Michael Prosser to assess students at the end of a unit of study. In their work, Trigwell and Prosser used the letters written by their first year nursing students to assess their depth of understanding of the unit. (Trigwell & Prosser, 1991).

I decided to start using an adapted version of the L2F idea as a means to judge progress across a topic.

I asked pupils to write two letters per topic; one before the start of the topic, and one at the end. Before we started the topic as a class, I showed pupils a quick video that served as an introduction to some of the concepts/questions that we will be studying. I created the video by collecting appropriate clips from YouTube and stitching them together using video editing software. I then asked pupils to write a letter to a friend (real or imaginary!) that described what knowledge they already had about the concepts/questions that were going to be studied. I marked the letter using SOLO taxonomy and gave pupils back the letter and feedback to refer to throughout the topic. Pupils were also asked to write another letter at the end of the topic, this time detailing how their knowledge of the topic had developed. This ‘end-of-topic’ letter was again marked using SOLO taxonomy.

Although the primary objective of the ‘L2F’ task is to assess progress across a topic, the task also provides an opportunity for pupils to practise writing in extended prose. These literacy opportunities can be difficult to come by, especially in my subject, Science. When providing feedback to pupils there was equal importance placed on getting the Science right and having correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. With the introduction of the extended writing questions in the Science GCSE exams, the L2F task is an important opportunity for pupils to really hone their literacy skills.

I used the L2F strategy for two units with a Year 10 Triple Science GCSE class. On the whole I found it to be an incredibly useful experience.

A major advantage of the strategy was that the ‘start-of-topic’ letter enabled me to identify pupil misconceptions about particular scientific concepts. This really informed my planning for the rest of the unit.

The letters were also a useful revision resource for pupils. Pupils valued the letters as immediate and detailed indicators of the progress that they had made throughout the unit.

The videos I made and showed pupils before the topic began where useful in engaging pupils with the subject knowledge. They provided an opportunity to demonstrate the wider relevance of the topic to pupils.

Upon reflection  I felt that there were a number of issues with the L2F strategy that need to be addressed before I start using it with more classes.

  1. The marking load with this strategy is very heavy. The ‘end-of-topic’ letter often coincided with the topic summative assessment which served to further increase the work.
  2. The task itself did take time for pupils to complete. Depending on the circumstances at the time, I tried to plan the task so that the pupils completed the letters for homework. This was not always possible, and some pupils did find it difficult to complete their letters during class time.

Despite the issues described, I do believe that the advantages of this strategy mean that it warrants further exploration. I intend on using the strategy with more of my classes, however there are some areas that I would like to develop/improve further:

  • I would like to make this strategy one that requires minimum effort, from a teachers perspective,  but has maximum impact. As a result I know the issues surrounding the marking of the letters need to be addressed. I would like to develop the use of peer assessment with this strategy, but this will require pupils to be trained in the art of providing positive and informative feedback! This wont get rid of the marking issue and so I will need to investigate this further.
  • By using this strategy with more classes, especially with mixed ability KS3 (Years 7-9) classes, I will need to think carefully about differentiation. Many pupils will find the idea of writing an extended piece of prose incredibly daunting. I will be considering the use of writing frames for some pupils and I will need to investigate further strategies that ensure the task is accessible to all.
  • I would like to explore the possibility of pupils using blogs to write their letters. I would like to investigate how the use of blogging could affect pupil engagement with the task. I would also anticipate that by using commenting facilities on blogs, pupils could assess each others work and understanding of the scientific concepts.
  • Finally, I would like to work with the English department in my school to see how the Letter to a Friend strategy could be improved. There will be a wealth of expertise available in the department that I haven’t made use of yet, and it would be stupid of me not to tap in to that. As a Science teacher I am not incredibly comfortable when it comes to teaching literacy skills, and so working with the English department could really help to improve my confidence.

I have presented the above ideas to various people, most recently at the York Tweetup (#YorkTU – the presentation used can be seen below) and have received some positive comments, but I am really keen to hear from more people who think that they can offer some feedback – positive or otherwise!

References:

Trigwell, K. & Prosser, M. (1991) Relating approaches to study and quality of learning outcomes at the course level, The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 61 pp. 265-275.

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Jun 25 2012
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Teaching and Learning

The Compton ASE TeachMeet

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a TeachMeet at the school in which I currently work. It was a TeachMeet with a twist – an exclusive event limited to Science teachers! We had a small but engaged crowd attend, and there were representatives from StemNet and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Despite the difficulties in publicising the event, and in attracting presenters and lurkers, it was fantastic to see a buzz of conversation at the end of the night. Everyone involved hopefully left with at least one worthwhile idea they would like to use in their own classrooms.

I have included below the three main presentations delivered on the night:

‘An NQT’s Wishlist’ was delivered by S. Groves & C. Davis. This was a great presentation from two excellent teachers coming to the end of their NQT year. It gave plenty of food for thought and is definitely a presentation that is going to be widely shared:

J. Hancock delivered a brilliant presentation giving an introduction to the rewards/sanctions system Class Dojo:

The beginning of the evening was kicked of by yours truly. I delivered a short introduction to SOLO Taxonomy…

I would thoroughly recommend teachers either attend or host a TeachMeet. Whether it be subject-specific or a general TeachMeet, they are great opportunities to pick up new ideas and network with like-minded colleagues. To find out more information about TeachMeets visit the TeachMeets Website.

Thank you to Frances Evans from the ASE (francesevans@ase.org.uk) for her help in organising and hosting the ASE TeachMeet at The Compton School.

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May 29 2012
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Teaching and Learning

GCSE Science – How to write good answers to 6 mark questions!

The recent changes to specifications have meant that many pupils studying GCSE Science have had to come to a shocking realisation. To achieve good marks they will have to write more than a sentence for many of the questions and bullet points will be a big no-no!

Panic swept across Science departments across the country. How do we teach our pupils to write? All of a sudden Science teachers were leaving their prep rooms during break and searching out the habitat of the English teachers. English teachers were fast becoming our new best friends – or so we hoped!

Personally, I have found it a struggle to help my GCSE pupils use the skills they have developed in their English lessons, in their Science lessons. This struggle prompted me to attend a ‘Literacy in Science’ session at the recent ASE London Conference. The session was led by Julia Leewood, Assessment/Science consultant in Camden, and Alison Pyle, Camden’s Literacy Consultant. The session discussed much more than just how to do well in extended writing questions in Science, but that is the part of the session I will focus on here.

Julia and Alison provided us with detailed notes and explanations of how the skills needed to answer the new six mark questions could be introduced to pupils. A lesson plan was provided and example questions and model answers were discussed. The session was delivered in the same format that the lesson should be delivered to a KS4 class, and this really helped to consolidate the ideas and the structure that were being presented. Although there wasn’t much time to go through everything, by the end of the session you were left with such a clear picture that you wondered why you haven’t been doing it that way from day one!

After the session I adapted what I had learnt from Julia and Alison and delivered the lesson to my Year 10 triple-scientists. I haven’t yet been able to see what effect the lesson has had on their ability to answer 6 mark questions, however many pupils did remark after the lesson that the structures discussed did seem very straightforward. They commented that their thoughts would be a lot more organised when they have to answer 6 mark questions in the future.

Below is the PowerPoint used with my Year 10s.

There are also links here to…

The Lesson Plan

The Model Answer

Peer Assessment Guidance Sheet (Success Criteria)

All of the above work has been adapted from the fantastic resources provided by Julia and Alison so many thanks for their excellent training.

To contact Julia or Alison use the information below:

Julia Leewood – Science & Assessment

Alison Pyle – Secondary Literacy

School Improvement Service

020 7974 1623

schoolimprovement@camden.gov.uk

http://www.camdensis.org

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May 09 2012
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Teaching and Learning

Displays For Learning

We plan many things to ensure that for the time that a class is in front of us learning can occur. We plan the questions that we will ask to probe pupils’ understanding. We plan activities, seating plans, starters and plenaries. We try to plan as much as we can so that we can provide the best learning experience that we can for the pupils in our care. At the beginning of my career there was one aspect of the learning experience that I very rarely planned or even considered at all; the environment in which that learning experience took place.

It wasn’t until I started working in my current school, just under two years ago, that I discovered the delights of creating displays. The school where I work, a  converter academy in North London, has a fairly strict policy with regards to classroom and corridor displays:

  • Displays MUST be changed at least once a year – normally in time for open evening every October.
  • Displays SHOULD NOT contain pupils work.
  • Displays should be linked to particular areas of the curriculum. Displays should be focused on particular elements of the subject or pedagogy.
Displays are checked by SLT every year and amendments can be ‘suggested’. There are also prizes given to departments and individuals who produce the most creative, innovative and interesting displays.
Above is a picture of the first display I created. It took up one of the spots on the Science department corridor. It took me HOURS to think of an idea, plan, draw put the display up. It may seem incredibly silly but I was so incredibly proud of the display. My very first! I even managed to sneak in a picture of one of my idols – Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam.
Like all displays in the school, the purpose of the display wasn’t just to brighten up the corridor, but to help pupils learn. With my ‘Energy is Everywhere’ display pupils had to find an example of each energy transfer from the fairground scene pictured.
Having talked to many teacher friends about the display policy in my school, many often reel back in horror at the thought of spending so much time creating displays and being under so much pressure to create high quality displays. At the beginning of the academic year there are plenty of grumbles about the hours that staff have to spend preparing and putting up displays. Of all the things a teacher has to do in September, sometimes stapling large pieces of coloured card to the wall doesn’t seem the best use of your time. I have however grown to love the process of designing, preparing and putting up displays.
 Below are some of the displays that I have created this year.
This display has two purposes. It is placed at the front of the room. The section where you can see the word REVISION is the ‘Keywords’ part of the display. A word goes on the board every lesson. The word can be used in many ways. Sometimes, as a plenary, pupils are asked to define the word. They can be asked to write a summary of what they have learnt making sure they include the keyword in their summary. Sometimes pupils themselves decide what the keyword of the lesson has been. The aim is to, in a small way, highlight the importance of literacy in our learning.
The traffic light colours are glued on to boxes which have been fixed on to the wall. I use these often to gauge pupils understanding. Each pupil in my classes has a lollipop stick with their name on. I use the sticks as part of the ‘hands-down’ approach I often take with questioning in lessons. Sometimes I will give pupils their sticks before they leave the class, and they place their stick in the box that best represents how well they feel they have achieved the learning objectives. I can then use their feedback to plan the next lesson.
The ‘Science Wordsearch’ display contains individual letter cards that are fixed on to the wall using velcro. The letters can be taken off and moved in to different positions. They can also be used with the keyword section of the display described above. I use this display in revision lessons to highlight topic keywords. Pupils have sometimes built their own wordsearch to test their colleagues.
Below is a picture of our ‘Science Question time’ display. This was designed as an engaging way for pupils to think about Science outside of normal lesson time (registration/tutor time etc.). There are a number of questions on the display including, ‘ Will we ever have an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter has?’. The answers to each question has to be found in various random areas of the classroom.

Above is the display I am most proud of, partly because it drives much of what I am working on in my own practice at the moment. The SOLO display was inspired by blog posts written by Tait Coles. It is a constant visual reminder to pupils of the principles underpinning the taxonomy. It also attracts the attention of other teachers who don’t have knowledge of SOLO and is a good way to get people ‘hooked in’ to the SOLO ‘army’!
I love the creativity of the process of making displays. Most of all I love the fact that every year I will work hard to try to make my laboratory a welcoming, inspiring and productive learning environment. I truly believe that the displays I have created help, in a small way, to improve the learning that places place in my lessons.
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Mar 06 2012
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Teaching and Learning

Helping Pupils Become Their Own Teachers

I have recently been reading John Hattie’s fantastic book, ‘Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning’. I am only half-way through at the moment but I know it will be one of those books that I dip in to constantly. Reading the book, one of the key messages that really stood out for me was the idea that, ‘…the greatest effects on learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers’.

With those words in mind, I have been working with a Year 8 Maths class that I teach and  trialled some of the ideas developed by the PLC group I have been working with this year (see previous post about Developing Independent Learners).

The first strategy I introduced to pupils was the idea of ‘C3B4ME’. Before pupils stick their hands up during a lesson and exclaim, ‘Sir, I’m stuck!’, they are being encouraged to see three of their classmates for help. The idea of this is to encourage pupils to become more resilient and resourceful.

The second strategy I have trialled has been to have ‘Masterminds’ for every lesson. The Mastermind is one pupil that takes on the role of a teaching assistant during the lesson. We started out by having one Mastermind per lesson. This pupil would complete the same work as everyone else but they would complete their work on a large whiteboard at one side of the classroom. During the lesson pupils were free to go to the Mastermind and have a look at their work. They would discuss with the Mastermind how they achieved the answer that they had written on the board, and could look at the Mastermind’s working out.

Finally, I have begun using the Wallwisher site with my classes. I am hoping to be able to use this site as an opportunity for pupils to ask the questions they don’t feel like they
I trialled both of these strategies for two lessons. At the end of the second lesson I asked pupil to share their views on how these ideas had impacted upon their learning.

The table below summarises their views:

WWW

EBI

The Mastermind because A was very helpful

More time

Having a Mastermind, C3B4ME, 5R’s Wallwisher

The Mastermind didn’t really explain the answer deep enough for me to get the hang of it.

We had a lot of help.

Two Masterminds would be better.

I learnt new things.

The Mastermind could walk around.

The Mastermind helped a lot.

There was more different questions e.g. on a different topic to help us.

I liked C3B4ME because 3 different people helped us understand the work.

Be a bit quicker.

It was good when we had A doing the work on the board so we can go and ask him how he did the working out.

It was too easy.

We got the work done

Make a game at the end of the lesson.

Mastermind was good

We could have had two Masterminds.

C3B4ME really worked well.

We worked in groups or on the computers.

I found it helpful when I asked 3 people before Sir because KJ helped me.

C3B4ME was okay but some people don’t give the right answer or did not help.

I understood the lesson and I was working well. It was very easy and calm.

To work more independently.

The Mastermind and C3B4ME.

It was explained more.

I thought C3B4ME was helpful most of the lesson.

Easier to get the answer than show the working out.

Mastermind, C3B4ME, Wallwisher.

We could have two Masterminds.

Having the Mastermind because it is helpful and easier to ask them for help and see how they did it.

If I had finished the work.

I found it helpful to go and talk to the Mastermind.

If at the end of the lesson we played a game to see if we remember what we learnt.

I found it very easy because I saw my friends and we all worked together and when we got something wrong we helped each other.

Do my working out at the same time not after.

I learnt how to convert imperial to metric and the reverse.

It wasn’t clear about the units, times and divide.

People can ask questions and can ask the person near to them and stay calm.

To work independently.

I found it helpful to learn from other people, study groups.

If I had finished all my work.

The lesson was good because it was really easy and I had loads of people ask me questions and I had my own group.

Could have explained conversions better.

The Mastermind. Helping people. I learnt new things.

More examples.

I learnt about metric conversions.

The Mastermind, Wallwisher, and C3B4ME.

WWW – Mastermind

EBI – Mastermind

You can help other people and they can spot the Mastermind’s mistakes.

You don’t get as much work done as usual and you have to keep on stopping.

As you can see from the summary above, some interesting points were raised by pupils after this first trial. One positive point emphasised by pupils was that they felt that they were being given more help during these lessons. Some pupils also enjoyed helping others during the lesson and thrived in the role of helper. It seemed that although there was one pupil working as the official Mastermind of the lesson, unofficial Mastermind’s sprang up in different groups around the class.

Another encouraging point raised by some pupils was that the lesson was ‘calm’. The development of a calm learning environment was a consequence that I had not anticipated when starting this work.

There could be many reasons why pupils felt calmer in these lessons. Receiving help and talking with others during the lesson could help pupils realise that everyone in the class has difficulties from time to time, and that it is rare for people to understand everything that they come across the first time they see it. The fact that pupils also don’t have to wait for the teacher to give them help could also reduce the amount of time they may spend sitting in ‘isolation’ and struggling with the work. Whatever the reason for our new-found ‘zen-ness’ (!) it can surely only be a good thing. It would be interesting to investigate this impact of the work further.

Some negative points that I will have to investigate include…

The Mastermind noted that they didn’t get as much work done as they usually would. This does not necessarily mean that the Mastermind is not learning, however I will have to pay careful attention to tracking the short-term progress of pupils who carry out the role of Mastermind.

After receiving the feedback described above, I have implemented a few changes to the strategies I have been using to develop the independent learning skills of pupils:

  • I have decided to employ two Masterminds per lesson instead of one. This follows on from suggestions made by pupils in their initial feedback.
  • Masterminds are now better prepared for their role by having an opportunity to use homework time to complete the work they will be helping the rest of the class with.
  • Masterminds no longer complete their work on a white-board so the rest of the class can see. Instead, the Mastermind pupils have the completed work in their books which they can take with them as they circulate the room helping individuals or groups of classmates.

I have decided to stick with the principle of these strategies that everyone will have an opportunity to be Mastermind. I also intend to continue my use of Wallwisher and see how this could be further developed.

As Hattie argues in ‘Visible Learning…’, it is incredibly important that we, as teachers, constantly evaluate the impact of our interventions…so expect an update on this work in the future!

John Hattie’s book, ‘Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximising Impact on Learners’ (2011) can be found here amongst other suppliers.

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Feb 24 2012
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SOLO Taxonomy

Going SOLO! (Part 2) – A Plea for Help.

So I have been ‘Going SOLO’ for a few months now. After introducing the concept to one class initially (see previous ‘Going SOLO!’ post) I have continued my reading and started to develop ideas as to how I will embed SOLO in to my schemes of work.

My exploration of SOLO taxonomy has coincided nicely with the start of the second year of the MA Education course. The second year of the course is entitled ‘Action Research for School Improvement’. I am keen to use my SOLO work as the basis for my action research. The provisional title of the research I am planning is:

‘An investigation into the impact of the use of SOLO taxonomy as a teaching and learning model on the learning experience of pupils’.

This is a deliberately broad title. I aim to focus on how the use of SOLO impacts on pupil engagement and pupil perception of their own ability. There are a number of aspects of the research I still need to investigate and plan but I hope to get underway soon!

So here comes the plea for help! Part of the research will involve looking at how SOLO can be used in subjects other than my own (Science!). I am looking for people who are either currently using SOLO taxonomy with one or more of their classes, or are thinking of introducing SOLO to a class. Once the final design of the research has been finalised, I would hope to work with a few other teachers on collecting some data. Anyone willing to offer some help will use SOLO in any way that they think is best with their own classes. For my research I would just need some information on how SOLO was introduced to pupils and how it is regularly used. I would also require pupils to complete questionnaires about their experiences of using SOLO.

I am hoping that this research could be refined and published at a later date so that the SOLO model can be used by more teachers. I really see this as a collaborative project with other teachers rather than MY work for my MA!

So…if you think you could help, or know of anyone else who would be interested, it would be great to hear from you. You can contact me via twitter (@sciteachcremin) or by emailing me: dwcremin@gmail.com.

For an introduction to SOLO check out the following AMAZING resources I have been using:

SOLO in English - Lisa Jane Ashes

SOLO expert! – Tait Coles

SOLO oracle – Pam Hook

 

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Jan 28 2012
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Teaching and Learning

Developing Independent Learners

As part of the work I have been doing as part of my PLC group (see this previous post about PLC’s) I have been thinking a lot recently about different strategies that could be used to help pupils become better independent learners.

The PLC group began our work by discussing what was meant by ‘independent learning’. Could you be an independent learner whilst working in a group? Could you seek help from other people and still be learning independently?

Pupils’ ideas of ‘independent learning’ seemed to very negative. When pupils were involved in discussions about independent learning they saw it as a solitary experience where no help could be sought at all. These views caused the group some concern but were also a stimulus for thinking about what outcomes we wanted to achieve.

After some research we decided to split our PLC group in to two; one group would look at a language that could be developed and used school-wide. This language should facilitate discussion in lessons, and beyond, about the skills needed to be independent learners. Having a universal language to describe these skills should also enable pupils to recognise that these skills can be employed in any subject or any form of learning that they do. The second group would be looking at practical strategies that can be used in the classroom to develop pupils’ learning.

Our ‘language group’ came across Guy Claxton’s ‘Building Learning Power’ model. [more info about BLP can be found here]. We decided that this was a very easy, very succinct model that we would trial with some of our classes. So far, the 5 R’s (adapted from Claxton’s 4 R’s and sourced from Cramlington Learning Village) have been introduced to one class – my Year 8 Maths class. My Year 8′s and I worked together on a lesson designed to introduce them to what the 5R’s meant, and most pupils seemed to have grasped the concept very well. [The lesson we used can be found here] It is still very early days and I don’t really intend on being able to assess any form of impact, significant or otherwise, until the summer term.

Our strategies group have come up with a central theme of ‘C3B4ME’. My colleagues in this group felt that there needed to be a few simple strategies that pupils and teachers could start using in all of their lessons. The idea of ‘C3B4ME’ is one that is familiar to many teachers – pupils need to seek help from 3 pupils before they speak to the teacher. This idea ties in with the ‘Resourceful’ section of the 5R’s as pupils have to develop their ability to utilise the resources, including the people, around. My colleagues have added a few twists to the ‘C3B4ME’ idea that are going to be trialled:

  • One pupil in the class will be chosen by the teacher to wear the ‘C3B4ME’ badge. This pupil will have a ‘teacher’ role during the lesson and pupils can work with that pupil on particular problems they may have during the lesson.
  • An ‘Oracle’ will be present within the classroom. The Oracle will very simply be a box that contains resources that pupils can use to help them with whatever learning is developing within that lesson.

Pupils will also be signposted to other sources of help such as:

  • The people they are sat next to.
  • Another adult in the room (a T.A etc.).
  • Their planners – pupils’ planners have extensive fact sheets, key language sheets etc.
  • Displays in the room.
Since starting the work, our PLC group has now developed a third strand. Having recently discovered SOLO Taxonomy (see earlier post), I have been trying to recruit as many people as possible to the ‘SOLO Army’! I delivered a brief presentation to staff at the school about my SOLO work and since then have had a number of people seem keen to try to implement the taxonomy in their own lessons. My HoD has recently introduced the taxonomy to one of his KS3 classes and he is keen to see how SOLO can be used to develop independence in his pupils.
 
We have a long way to go with our work, but I feel that so far we are on the right track. There are a HUGE number of questions we still need to ask ourselves:
  • How exactly can we judge the progress pupils make in developing their independent learning skills?
  • Do we need a similar rewards system to Cramlington Learning Village and various other schools around the country that is focused on the R’s?
  • Will the strategies and Building Learning Power language described above work for all departments?
  • How will staff take to the idea of Building Learning Power and could it be implemented across the curriculum?
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Jan 18 2012
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Ed Tech Creative Collective

Ed Tech Creative Collective

So, for some reason, despite having a seemingly never-ending list of things to do, I have decided to sign up to the Ed Tech Creative Collective project. Before telling you why I am a glutton for punishment, here is a bit of background about the collective…

The ETCC is a project being organised by Colin Maxwell (@camaxwell) a digital media lecturer at Carnegie College in Scotland. The idea of the project is to complete a number of ‘assignments’ that will help you to develop your creative use of digital technologies. A much better description of the objectives of the project can be found at the Ed Tech Creative Collective blog.

Back to the question as to why I have decided to take part in the project. I am greatly interested in the use of technology in education. As a teacher, I try many different tools and strategies to enhance learning in my lessons. I also try to mirror the learning behaviour I would like my pupils to develop. I regularly have conversations with my pupils about what they are learning in other subjects, and also discuss with pupils what I have learnt during the week. Pupils often teach me as much as I am able to teach them!

I felt that this project would be an excellent opportunity to develop my knowledge of the technology that is available out there, and also to develop my creative talents!

I am already late with the preliminary task (this blog post was meant to be written by 17th Jan!) but hopefully I can catch up, learn a few things and put these in to practice in the classroom. Will update the blog with the outcomes of the project as I go along!

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