2. What does effective assessment and feedback look like?
Practical ideas to put into practice in the classroom
Think, pair, share: 5,3,1: write a definition of something individually, then talk to your partner and write five words about your definitions, then three and finally one word that summarises everything.
Provide the same information to all the students, but in a different way (ie. different leveled texts.
Secret picture: teams of 5 where one person draws what the other people in the team see from a picture the teacher holds.
Odd one out: if you don’t say the criteria, all students can be right.
Mix it up: vary the outcomes by using crafts, legos, play dough, display, posters... draw the learning, shape the learning, freeze the learning, act it out, make models, wear masks...
Provide students with different tasks and ask students to choose their own tasks rather than giving it to them, so they choose the extra hot, hot, medium, plain. How can you challenge yourself? Why are you choosing this one, do you think is too easy for you? Let’s start here first before you move on to this other task.
Cooperative learning techniques: secret roles to students in envelopes (some of them will be ignoramus, they don’t understanding; midwife: they produce the work; summariser: they summarise the task to the class and dissenter).
Differentiate by obstacles: give a task and set a timer (write sentences with the following words), reduce the amount of words, don’t use any words from the list, stretch the more able student...
Stickability: to make sure students remember things from one lesson to another: use stories, use emotions, say you will never remember this...
Differentiate using scaffolding techniques: word mats, visual instructions, check lists, did you include the key words, writing frames...
• Cole, R, (2008) Educating Everybody’s Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies For Diverse Learners, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, previews available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107003.aspx
• Lowe , H and T, Turner, (2009) Pupil Grouping, Progression and Differentiation, in Capel, S, M, Leask and T, Turner, Learning to Teach in the Secondary School, 5th edition, Routledge, pp. 157 – 172 London Gifted and Talented, (2009), Teachertools – Differentiation, http://teachertools.londongt.org/index.php?page=differentiation (accessed 19th November 2013).
Montesa-Andrés, José & Garrigos-Simon, Fernando & Narangajavana, Yeamduan. (2014). A Proposal for Using Lego Serious Play in Education. Innovation and Teaching Technologies: New Directions in Research, Practice and Policy, pp.99-107
6. Primary: Drama for learning and Mantle of the Expert
Drama Strategies
Storytelling (Not using a text, telling the story to the group. The groups can become part of the story as well).
Carousel (Groups come to life one after another as a sequence)
Still Image (Depicting a character)
Freeze Frame (Freeze a key moment of existing action)
Thought-tracking (Thoughts of characters shared in an instance)
Spot-lighting (Small groups come to life just for a moment)
Teacher in Role (TIR: teacher adopts a role and addresses the group, in turn the group can respond in role as well)
Polished Improvisation (The group has time to create a rehearsed scene)
Spontaneous Improvisation (The group respond in role in the moment, with no planning)
Sound-scapes (A setting is created through group sounds)
Forum Theatre (Re-playing the action, audience changing course of events)
3 Frame Play (Capture the essential part of a story in 3 or 4 images)
Collective drawing (A depiction of a place/person is created through iconography)
Role on the wall (Outline of a character is drawn with adjectives describing the character written by the group)
Mantle of the Expert (Imagine we are a group of experts with a task to fulfill)
Mantle of The Expert has developed over the past 30 years to now be a form of teaching in its own right and can be used to contextualise the curriculum
7. Why, when and where can new technologies enhance learning?
During the lunch of an in-service training course I was running, I overheard a conversation between two teachers. They were commenting favourably on the morning sessions, but one said, ‘But it didn’t seem to have much to do with differentiation.’ This was a bit worrying as the theme of the course was ‘differentiation and inclusion’. This perplexed me, as it was clear to me that the day was tackling these issues but to two experienced teachers it was clearly not. This led me into deeper reflection about differentiation: what do we actually mean by it and how can we achieve it when teaching … ?
Differentiation is part of the inclusion agenda. In its broadest sense, inclusion involves addressing cultural diversity and treating an individual with respect but it is also about meeting the needs of individual pupils so that they are allowed to learn. This is where inclusion, differentiation and special educational needs meet. It is about allowing all pupils to participate in the learning going on in the lesson. No pupil should feel excluded from learning either as a result of the topic or the nature of work set. As Price says, ‘it is about access to the curriculum and to learning for all.’ The key word is access. I have been amazed by the work pupils can produce as long as they can get into the work at the ‘ground floor’.
In the past, differentiation has commonly been seen as pitching the lesson at the middle of a group, giving the weaker pupils easier material and the more able some form of extension exercise. Alternatively, it is sometimes assumed that ‘lower-ability’ pupils cannot deal with too much information so they are given a slimmed down curriculum which somehow wants them to understand complex issues on the basis of less information, when quite often they need more information to make something intelligible. The result can be pupils at the lower end of the ability range lacking the knowledge they need to make sense of something. Although these strategies do have a place in teaching, there is much more we can do. In my experience the following principles are far more successful in allowing pupils of all abilities to succeed: 1. Make the work engaging. 2. Make the work accessible but challenging. 3. Decide where you want to place the obstacles. Harris (2005: 5)
Cole, R, (2008) Educating Everybody’s Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies For Diverse Learners, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, previews available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107003.aspx
Lowe , H and T, Turner, (2009) Pupil Grouping, Progression and Differentiation, in Capel, S, M, Leask and T, Turner, Learning to Teach in the Secondary School, 5th edition, Routledge, pp. 157 – 172 London Gifted and Talented, (2009), Teachertools – Differentiation, http://teachertools.londongt.org/index.php?page=differentiation (accessed 19th November 2013).
Cole, R, (2008) Educating Everybody’s Chjkjkildren: Diverse Teaching Strategies For Diverse Learners, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, previews available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107003.aspx
Your Assessment For Day 10we will challenge you to prepare a group poster presentation which captures your reflections and aspirations for transforming pedagogy and practice in your own setting.
It should draw explicitly upon your learning across the course, reference some of the recommended reading or viewing we provide and relate to your current contexts. You should identify which practices or issues resonate with your professional situation and development and where possible set out the ways you will wish to introduce new ideas back in your schools.
You will be given 5 minutes to present your poster to your peers as well as the assessment team. Alongside this all participants will have the opportunity to view and question the content of each group.
In groups of 3 prepare a 2D or 3D poster/diorama which captures your learning on our professional development course. It should illustrate:
Some (not all) key learning points from the course which have resonated with you (collectively).
How these might relate or apply to your professional contexts in Bilingual Schools in Madrid
Reference some scholarship or theoretical models (from inputs or further reading or viewing)
Acknowledge and educate us about potential challenges
We will be looking for (Success Criteria): Creativity, accuracy, research informed thinking, contextual references, applied understanding and breadth
You must use no more than 10 words but can use pictures, stick women/men, numbers, symbols, anything else. Each group will have a “tablecloth”, pens and other ingredients