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Stretch and Challenge. What is stretch and challenge and what is it not? It is not just for the ‘gifted and talented’ It does not ignore differentiation , but differentiation is designed to help students access materials to participate in higher-order thinking – there is no glass ceiling!
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What is stretch and challenge and what is it not? • It is not just for the ‘gifted and talented’ • It does not ignore differentiation, but differentiation is designed to help students access materials to participate in higher-order thinking – there is no glass ceiling! • It is not a ‘quick fix’ – it needs to be thought about carefully throughout all lessons, it involves the culture of the classroom and the school as well as the activities • It is not easy – students should realise and take pride in the fact that real learning is hard work and will require lots of practice
What should Stretch and Challenge include? • Challenge! • Genuine challenge in terms of student thinking. Taxonomies such as Bloom’s or SOLO could be helpful in planning for this. • Tasks which require multiple levels of thinking and encourage students to make links between areas of learning (and subjects – very MYP!)
What should Stretch and Challenge include? • Metacognition • Giving students the opportunities to reflect on how they learn and how they can find things out for themselves. • Giving students the vocabulary and discussion time to reflect on and discuss their learning. • DIRT (Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time) – including extending learning.
What should Stretch and Challenge include? • Questioning • Avoid time to ‘sit back’ – team questioning and team discussion before answers could help, as could ‘bouncing’ the question to get students to add to quality of answers. • Refuse to accept answers until they have been ‘polished’ i.e. using academic language, key terms, providing examples etc. • Open rather than closed questions are most beneficial. ‘Thunks’ e.g. ‘What colour is Monday?’ or counterfactuals ‘What if Hitler had never been born?’ • Students should also form their own questions to answer.
What should Stretch and Challenge include? • Vocabulary building • Students need high levels of literacy to access the curriculum and academic excellence • Vocabulary should include subject specific terms e.g. lateral moraine, differential, oligarchy • It should also include vocabulary to enable them to access questions e.g. analyse, discuss, evaluate • Word banks, glossaries, use of thesaurus all good techniques; ‘posh up’ writing – challenge students to start simple and then make it as academic and formal as possible; give opportunities to correct spellings and choose alternative words
What should Stretch and Challenge include? • Independence • Students must be responsible for their own learning – to find things out, to put extra effort in • Spoon feeding, or ‘sitting back’ has to be challenged and lessons should be planned to avoid any opportunity • Group work, different roles, team competition, rewards for effort or going the extra mile • Resilience • Students must be taught to draft and re-draft work until it is the best it can be • Teachers should not accept anything less than a student’s best • Praise should be directed towards trying, experimenting, taking time, working hard etc. not ‘natural ability’ or easy praise ‘well done, you’ve underlined it with a ruler!’
Websites used for images and research http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/best-practice/stretch-and-challenge-in-your-classroom/ http://www.johnbiggs.com.au/academic/solo-taxonomy/ http://www.lovelearningideas.com/stretch-challenge/ http://www.queensu.ca/teachingandlearning/modules/students/24_metacognition.html https://slideplayer.com/slide/10419363/ https://www.theflippedclassroom.es/pbl-cbl-dbl-todo-tiene-que-ver-con-el-aprendizaje/
Further reading Robin Alexander, Towards Dialogic Teaching, (5th Edition, 2017, ISBN 978-0954694371) Michael Gershon, How to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom, (2015, 978-1517432010) Hodgkinson and Mercer (Eds.), Exploring Talk in School: Inspired by the work of Douglas Barnes, (2008, ISBN 978-1847873798) Debbie Light, Bloomsbury CPD Library: Stretch and Challenge (2017, 978-1472928405) Marzano and Pickering, Building Academic Vocabulary (2005, ISBN 978-1416602347) Torsten Payne, Stretch and Challenge for All: Practical Resources for Getting the Best out of every student (2017, 978-1785831591)
