students are like

1. What A-level students are like

2. Why me? Blame Professor Slater!

3. Who am I? • Colin Bashford Head of Science, Hitchin Boys’ School • Specialism is Physics • PGCE 2002-3 at UH (Aldenham Campus)

4. Link Governor at the school • What A-level students can and can’t do? • What expectations are realistic for new undergraduates?

5. My objective and hope You will leave with an: • appreciation of what an A-level student is • awareness of how they’ve been taught and how they learn

6. What I hope you’ll take away(outcomes) Some ideas of how you might adapt your teaching or support to your students to help them BECAUSE You have a better understanding of where they’ve come from.

7. Today’s plan will NOT be • Death by powerpoint..although it’s started that way! WILL be • A series of questions or statements to discuss and share our ideas

8. What is an A-level student like?

9. What does an A-level student know? Your first task: Thinking about your own subject, lecture course, seminar, lab session etc What is your minimum expectation of what your undergraduates can do?

10. What does an A-level student know? Where did those minimum expectations come from?

11. What does an A-level student know? • Your own experience? • Your own child’s experience? • Somewhere else?

12. What does an A-level student know? How do you know whether your students meet those expectations? Do you know? Could you find out?

13. Exam Boards AQA OCR Edexcel WJEC Northern Ireland Scottish Highers Specification OCR A or B……etc How you could find out?

14. Grades Module results How you could find out?

15. What does an A-level grade A, C or E actually mean? Your next task: Describe an A, C and E grade A-level student.

16. What does an A-level grade A, C or E actually mean? The answer is very subject specific BUT… in general you could expect:

17. What does an A-level grade A, C or E actually mean? A: recall lots of facts, describes and explains with correct technical terminology, confident, asks whenever they’re unsure and can apply their knowledge to a range of different contexts with ease or with a little prompt. Will read and watch a lot about the subject in general and can use and apply it in what they’re learning.

18. What does an A-level grade A, C or E actually mean? C: recall most of facts, describes and explains with technical terminology sometimes incorrectly but there is an underlying impression of knowledge and understanding, is a bit unsure of themselves and will ask for confirmation that what they are doing is correct before starting or carrying on, will often 2nd guess themselves.

19. What does an A-level grade A, C or E actually mean? E: recalls some facts, describes and explains with terminology that is often incorrectly used or inappropriate in the context. Will frequently get descriptions and explanations muddled up and contradict themselves. Will usually not ask for help nor confirmation that what they are doing is correct and so will not start unless you spot it and intervene and help them to get going.

20. Can you think of students you meet that fit these descriptions?

21. The BIG Question….. What can we do about it?

22. In schools we try and help by employing teaching strategies to support and enable. Easy to say but how? How are students taught and how do they learn? What are their expectations of the teachers?

23. What does a ‘good’ A-level lesson look like? • Your next task… If you had to deliver a 1 hour A-level lesson in your subject how might you structure it?

24. Starter: Question/statement to think about and discuss (might be a review of last lesson or a new topic to think about for this lesson) Students will do it in a small group and then.. Class discussion to pull all the ideas together. A ‘science’ lesson

25. New: Teacher will introduce the lesson and tell the students what they will learn and why and how they are going to learn it. Using a demonstration or photograph or animation that gets them thinking. The teacher will explain something new and in doing so use a whole class Q&A or a mixture of small groups and whole class. A ‘science’ lesson

26. Main: An opportunity for the students to reinforce the ‘new’ knowledge or find out something for themselves in a practical activity either in pairs or in a small group – rarely as an individual. A ‘science’ lesson

27. Plenary: An opportunity to review what has been found out for the teacher to ask questions and the students to ask questions too and finally to remind them of what they’ve just done and learnt. A ‘science’ lesson

28. What is a ‘good’ teacher? Your next task: What list of qualities would you come up with?

29. What is a ‘good’ teacher? What the students said: • Subject knowledge is good • Approachable • Explains clearly using analogies • Fair • Humour • Strict • Trust • Doesn’t give up on us • Challenges us • Makes us think • Explains things to us outside of the curriculum • Will happily admit when they don’t know or got it wrong.

30. So far, we’ve got…. • What our expectations of the students are and how we might know whether they are fair. • What a typical A-level lesson might be like • What the students think a good teacher is So now, what do they think makes a good lesson?

31. A ‘good’ lesson from a student’s point of view…. • Interesting – the context gets our attention and we know why it matters (not just..”because it will be in the exam”) • Challenging • Makes us think • Not a lecture/death by powerpoint • We get to do something • We understand what we are supposed to be learning • The teacher helps us • Explanations are clear • We get to talk to each other • We get a chance to think and ask questions • Not too fast but not too slow either

32. What they ‘don’t’ want… Being told to read and teach themselves – they lack the confidence to know if what they’re reading and noting down is correct and relevant. School lessons are now designed to signpost and guide and textbooks are written to the exam.

33. What they ‘do’ want… • Revision guides that give them all the answers concisely under one cover • Step-by-step instructions to follow (whether practical or a written answer – the questions need to be broken down into stages) • They are not practised in thinking and holding lots of information in their head at one time.

34. What can YOU expect? • Just because you’ve told them doesn’t mean they’ll remember it • If you don’t tell them it is important and to go away and learn it then they won’t • They will expect you to tell them what matters and what doesn’t…they won’t work it out for themselves • They expect to see ‘model’ answers

35. What can YOU expect? • ‘A’ grade student Will adapt • ‘C’ grade student Will struggle and either develop and adapt or give up • ‘E’ grade student Will probably not cope at all and will do nothing and submit nothing but will always have a reason

36. To finish….the end is nigh! Last bit of thinking and reflecting for you.. In your own subject, teaching, lecturing, seminars, lab sessions etc. • Can you identify these behaviours in some of your students? • Are your expectations of them reasonable or unreasonable based upon their experiences up to now?

37. The last slide (almost): To take away and Christmas Homework: Could you adapt your approach to help them? If so, what ONE thing could you do for the start of next term?

38. Definitely the last slide: • What are our expectations? • Where did we get them come from? • What can our students do and how can we find out? • What is their experience of learning in school? • How can we adapt to support them? THANK YOU and HAPPY CHRISTMAS.