Inset Day

1. Inset Day septembEr 2013

2. Back to the beginning … almost • Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam(Kings College, 1998) • A review of 250 research journals and publications from1988 to 1997 • All age groups 5-year-olds to university graduates • All subjects

3. Assessment for learning • Formative assessment, like summative assessment, is about gathering information relating to students’ learning but it is the point at which this information is gathered that makes it different.  • Formative assessment focuses on how a young person is learning as they undertake the task. The teacher is then more able to tune into the learner’s progress, picking up on emerging understandings and difficulties.  • Formative assessment provides teachers with information with which to modify or change the teaching and learning activities in which students are engaged. • This is Assessment for Learning (AfL)

4. How and why • I despair at the way AfL has been abused in classrooms. This is a classic case of teachers concentrating on how to do something without considering why they’re doing it. • I’ve seen all sorts of skilfully executed AfL practice which doesn’t have the slightest impact on students’ progress. I’ve seen teachers brandishing lolly sticks to ensure everyone participates in questioning; students assiduously applying mark schemes to each other’s work; all manner of fancy methods for getting students to articulate what they’ve just learned and blooms of post-it notes appearing around rooms full of all sorts of evidence which confirms that students have met the lesson’s objectives. • And none of it has made the slightest bit of difference to anyone. Why? Because all too often none of this potentially wonderful stuff makes it in to next lesson’s plan. Because the teacher (and therefore the students) have only the vaguest notion of why they are doing these things. Oh, they know that they’re supposed to do them because they’re mentioned on their observers’ checklists. • But beyond that?

5. How and why • I’m not blaming teachers for this – it’s an inevitable part of education’s obsession with quick fixes. If some boffin publishes research on a strategy that can potentially raise students’ attainment it’s a lot easier for someone to tell us what we should be doing rather than worrying us with why we should be doing it. Easier, but not better. Teacher training and INSET is all too often about training teachers how rather than encouraging us to ask why. Compliance is preferred. • David Didau: The Learning Spy

6. Beliefs about teaching • What is teaching? • Discussion: • How do children learn the stuff you teach? • How would you describe the process of teaching?

7. Beliefs about teaching • Knowledgeis shared by the teacher for the children to learn. • The children take this learning away so they develop their understanding. • How well the children learn this information depends on how good the teacher is at delivering this knowledge. • This is good teaching. • In your experience is this true? • The wealth of evidence shows that this ‘transmission’ model does not work.

8. Beliefs about teaching • Teaching is a process of interaction between the teacher and the child to develop each pupil’s power to incorporate new facts and ideas into his or her understanding.

9. Beliefs about learning • Do you believe: • Everyone has the ability/intelligence they are born with which means that some people can learn things easily and quickly and that others have difficulty learning things. • Ability/intelligence is made up of skills that can be learnt. Everyone can learn more effectively by clearing away, by sensitive handling, any obstacles like undiagnosed learning difficulties, lack of self confidence, personal circumstances etc…

10. Beliefs about learning • Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can't change very much.  • You can learn new things, but you can't really change how intelligent you are. • No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a bit. • You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.

11. Beliefs about learning • Professor Carol Dweck, Stanford University • Fixed mindset • I struggle with failure. Failing is evidence that I am failure; success is about being successful. I want to achieve without making too much effort; if I find something hard it means that I am not good enough. Successful people succeed without making too much effort. • The growth mindset • I enjoy learning new things and enjoy making effort. I am really motivated to have a go and I don’t worry too much about failing. I love experimenting, tinkering and trying out new ideas.

12. Beliefs about learning • We all know adults and children who fit into these two categories and we may have a ‘fixed’ view of them. • Dweck argues that we can all cultivate a growth mindset. • Pupils, and teachers, can be taught to see failure as progress and to be intrinsically motivated to learn. Dweck asserts that anyone can succeed. • She cites a huge amount of evidence that anyone, with the right attitude can succeed.

13. learning • So keeping this all in mind, what does this mean in the classroom? • Praise effort, not ability. If you say, “You’re really clever” you are fixing their view of how intelligent they are. Saying, “You really worked hard” reinforces the fact that the effort we make is the biggest factor in our likely success. It also shows that you value the process of learning over the end product • Have very high standards: don’t accept minimal effort and insist that pupils produce work that they can take pride in. Don’t accept excuses and don’t make any excuses for them. • Build a nurturing environment where it is safe to make mistakes and above all, don’t give up on the difficult ones; that’s what they’re expecting so prove them wrong. Know that they can achieve. • Useformative assessment to help students understand exactly what they need to do to be successful.

14. learning • Of course the reason why we should doing these things is so that we (and therefore our students) have a clear understanding of what was known before the lesson, what was learned during the lesson and what needs to be learned next lesson. • If we are not able to turn these classroom activities into information on which students can act in order to make progress then what’s the point? • David Didau: The Learning Spy

15. learning • We need to keep pupils (and us) focused on their learningand not their ability. This is the fundamental basis of AfL and all of the strategies it has spawned. • We will do this by reflecting on our practice to see if we can answer these questions. • Do we know what the pupils know before each lesson? • Do we know what was learned duringeach lesson? • How do we know what needs to be learned in the next lesson?

16. what the pupils know before each lesson? • Look at your planning for tomorrow’s lesson and make notes on how you know what the pupils already know about this particular aspect of learning. • If you don’t know the answer make a note of where you could find this information?

17. what the pupils know before each lesson? • MARKING IS AN ACT OF LOVE… • Let’s assume we all understand and agree that giving quality feedback to students is the most important thing teachers can do. • Here is an example of quality feedback • Let’s also agree that while other forms of feedback may be equally valuable, marking books is one of the most important and effective ways of ensuring that students are getting clear, timely feedback on how well they are making progress.

18. what the pupils know before each lesson? • DIFFERENTIATION • You could argue that marking pupils’ work is the only really effective way of differentiating lessons. • In the ideal world – detailed marking of everything! • In the real world, every time you carry out detailed marking, you should plan guided sessions for the children to act on this feedback. This will ensure detailed differentiation for this lesson without having to plan activities.ActionEnsure that the learning for each ability group is highlighted. (This ought to be related to the most recent marking/feedback/ APP target)

19. what is learned duringeach lesson? • FIRST TEN MINUTES OF A LESSON • Geoff PettyEvidence Based Teaching: A Practical Approach (2006) • John Hattie Visible Learning (2008) • Their research shows that the first 10 minutes of the lesson can have a massive impact on learning and progress. Most important to: • Set learning intentions that are not outcome based but focus on what will be learned • Use questioning to recall prior learning • Action: • Add two questions at start of tomorrows lesson that will require children to recall prior learning on this particular area of learning.

20. what is learned during each lesson? • THE LEARNING OBJECTIVE • Why do we have a learning objective? Discuss…

21. what is learned during each lesson? • An integral part of AfL • Dylan Wiliam says that the learning objective opens up a discourse about learning and that pupils need to know where they’re supposed to be headed if they’re going to have a chance of getting there. • Learning objectives are important for two reasons. • They ensure that teachers are clear about the purpose of the lesson before they begin thinking about all the fun activities they want to fit in to the lesson. • They provide a very useful signpost against which progress can be checked.

22. what is learned during each lesson? • Learning objectives. Finding ways to make the complexities of learning concrete and clear to learners is a challenge. How do we make these objectives purposeful and meaningful? • Activity • Rewrite tomorrow’s LI to include a SO THAT…

23. what is learned during each lesson? • This discourse about learning is based on breaking the learning objective down in smaller steps. Success criteria, WMAG, WIN… • Pupils need to be actively involved in breaking the learning intention down into these smaller steps. • Discussion • How will you ensure that the LI for each lesson accurately describes what the children will have learned by the end of the lesson? • How will you record who has learned what? • How will this information be used to plan the next day’s lesson? • How will you record how the children will assess their own learning against these criteria?

24. what is learned during each lesson? • MODELLING • Name the skill"Today I am going to show you how to combine sentences to make more interesting and complex statements." • State the purpose: "It's important as a writer to be able to construct sentences that aren't repetitive or choppy. Sentence combining is one way to make sure your sentences read more smoothly." • Explain when the strategy or skill is used. "After I have written a passage, I reread it to see if I have choppy sentences or if I am repeating information unnecessarily. When I notice that's occurred, I look for ways to combine sentences.” • Demonstrate how the skill, strategy, or task is completed. "I'm going to show you three short, choppy sentences. Let's look first at information that we can cross out because it is repetitive. Then I'm going to combine those three sentences into one longer and more interesting sentence." • Alert learners about errors to avoid. "I have to be careful not to cut out too much information, so that I don't lose the meaning. I also need to watch out for sentences that become too long. A reader can lose the meaning of a sentence that's too long." • Access the use of the skill. "Now I'm going to reread my new sentence to see if it makes sense."

25. what is learned during each lesson? • ASKING QUESTIONS • Some children actively participate in lessons because they know that they’ll learn more, there are those who don’t. • By allowing some students not to participate we’re making the achievement gap bigger.

26. what is learned during each lesson? • ASKING QUESTIONS • How do you choose? Use this? • How long do I have to wait? • What questions?

27. what is learned during each lesson? • What questions? • An example: What is alliteration? • …. drearygame of guesswhat is in the teachers head.

28. what is learned during each lesson? • Hinge Questions (Dylan Wiliam) • An interesting diagnostic tool which provides instant information on pupils’ understanding and allows you to make on the spot decisions about the direction of your teaching without wasting anybody’s time. • A hinge question is based on the important concept in a lesson that requires an answer that demonstrates understanding not just recall. • The question should come half way through the lesson. • Every pupil must respond to the question within 2 minutes. • You must be able to collect and interpret the responses from all pupils in 30 seconds • You need to be clear on how many pupils you need to get the right answer in advance. 20-80% depending on how important the question is.

29. what is learned during each lesson? • Hinge Questions • No time to get children to explain their answers. The point here is to check understanding so you can work out whether you need to recap, change direction or just get a move on. • Questions must be multiple choice • Must have mini whiteboards.

30. what is learned during each lesson? • Hinge Questions – examples • Action • Add a hinge question to Tuesday’s planning.

31. what needs to be learned in the next lesson? • Look at your planning for tomorrow’s lesson and make notes on how you will ensure that you use your knowledge of what the pupils learned in this lesson so that you can plan the next lesson.

32. checklist • Available on blog