Empowering Inclusion Through Collaborative Scaffolding in Science Education

1. Collaborative Learning Scaffolding Talk Empowering Inclusion in Science Stuart Scott stuart.scott@collaborativelearning.org www.collaborativelearning.org/hertsscience.html

2. Brain Research • Up to age of 11 brain is 150% more active in acquiring language. • The act of talking and thinking increases the number of connections and cells that build the brain. • Talk fuels brain development. Research summed up in Robin Alexander’s “Towards Dialogic Teaching; Rethinking Classroom Talk”

3. Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit the “Which” guide to spending Pupil Premium • Ranks strategies and interventions by impact, strength. of research evidence and cost. • Funds research related to specific themes. • Provides links to agencies and websites that promote each theme. Collaborative learning Metacognition Oral Intervention Oral Feedback All about talk – all high rated strategies

4. Victoria Murphy: EAL Research Review 2016 EEF fundedStrong evidence that EAL pupils can make the most progress overall and that there is an enormous untapped potential. Some suggestions for intervention: • Increasing quality of verbal interaction • Improving subject specific vocabulary • Embedding multi word phrases and idioms All pupils benefit from these strategies

5. Linking research and practice Growth of study centres e.g. Learning without Limits, Oracy at Cambridge, Lesson Study, Collaborative Enquiry (see our Links Page!) Does your school have a framework which supports evidence based practice and/or ways in which new strategies for improving progress are observed and tested? Would your school be interested in using “lesson study” or “collaborative enquiry” to achieve this?

6. Graphic/Visual Organisers/Key Visuals Learning needs Language needs • A graphic/visual organiser or key visual is a diagrammatic way of organising and presenting an idea. It is not a photograph nor illustration. • Examples social needs

7. Visual Organisers for Classifying

8. Presentational talk • Exploratory talk • Symmetrical talk • Asymmetrical talk

10. Classroom Practice • Build on prior knowledge • Move from concrete to abstract • Ensure everyone works with everyone else • Extend social language into curriculum language • Provide motivating ways to go over the same thing more than once

11. Practical Strategy Summaries I will spend the rest of the session letting you try out collaborative activities. The subsequent slides provide summaries of the most popular ones and these slides are posted on the dedicated webpage so that you can refer to them later or show them to colleagues. www.collaborativelearning.org/hertsscience.html

12. Let Me Introduce How does it work? • Pupils find one person with the same colour card • Each one reads out their card which begins “I am..” • The pair finds another pair – now they introduce their partner so it is no longer “I am” and has become “This is …… they….” in students own words.

13. Let Me Introduce Why does it work? • Opportunities to deliver curriculum content • Practice in reading > reading aloud. • Process of listen>understand/think> construct speech in own words. Develops co-construction of new ideas. • Communication and interaction is integral. • Students work with many others. • Possible application across many topics/subjects.

14. Sorting cards onto a visual organiser.Why it works • Opportunities to explore vocabulary • Practice in explaining concepts • Opportunities to expand mental models • Visual organisers structure thinking • You can reinforce the organisers with games like Connect Four.

15. Barrier games • Barrier games are games where one person (or pair) has half the information and the other person (or pair) has the other half. • Complete information sets can be obtained by asking questions or by passing on information. Familiar informal examples would be battleships. The deduction game “20 questions” is also related.

16. Barrier Games Why do they work? • Opportunities to deliver curriculum content • Practice in reading or interpreting data. • Practice in questioning • Communication and interaction is integral. • All students must participate • Possible application across many topics/subjects.

17. Clue cards to make experts • In this variation pupils work as a group. Each person has some information which is essential. • The group then work together to complete a joint task. Examples “Indus Valley“”The Wilsons”“What Can You Grow?”

18. Information gaps / Expert groups Pupils work in a group to understand some information. They are then regrouped to work with pupils who have learnt something else. Each new group should have a complete set of information by the end. Jigsawing a term used to describe the grouping and regrouping.

19. Information gaps / Expert groups /Jigsawing • Why do they work? • Opportunities to read/ listen/ talk • All pupils must participate • Learning is carried and recalled to support embedding • Opportunities to differentiate • Easy to organise • All pupils have their own set of complete information to support subject knowledge tasks.

20. Understand language conscious pedagogy and examine ways to improve classroom dialogue

21. Everything you have seen today! www.collaborativelearning.org/hertsscience.html