Professor David Hargreaves

1. Personalising learning Professor David Hargreaves EMB, Hong Kong, 13 September 2005

2. English education policy 1979-2005 Education reform Act 1988 National curriculum,testing and inspection The Thatcher years: 1979-1997 The slow transition from individualism to centralism The Blair years: 1997-2005 The slow transition from centralism to lateralism

3. low trust centralism competition choice diversity system excellence personal excellence innovation networks collaboration lateralism high trust Labour education policy EXCELLENCE! EQUITY!

4. 1 out of 10 from Downing Street to classroom reality Peter Hyman Vintage, 2005

5. Approach to strategy School Government Momentum Empowerment broad goals ‘initiatives’ to avoid drift Partnership Conflict radical policy decisions support Consistency Novelty fresh ideas focus

6. Personalising learning Personalised learning demands that every aspect of teaching and support is designed around a pupil’s needs… David Miliband, September 2003 The challenge is to meet more needs of more students more fully than was possible/desirable in the past.

7. Transformation is: significant, systematic and sustained change that results in high levels of achievement for all students in all settings Brian Caldwell

8. Transformation is the transition from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century educational imaginary

9. A social imaginary Charles Taylor ‘...the inescapable idea of moral order… how we ought to live together in society. …the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between themselves and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met… the common understanding that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy.’

10. The 19C educational imaginary • schoolsprepare students for their fixed station in life • intelligence is mono-dimensional, fixed and innate • schooling limited for the majority • school is a place with clear, rigid boundaries • roles are sharply defined and segregated • schools and teachers are autonomous units • education is producer-led • school is designed and organised like a factory • schools become similar to one another over time

11. The 21C educational imaginary • students’ identities and destinies are fluid • multiple intelligences are plastic and learnable • education is lifelong, formal and informal • education is unconstrained by time and place • roles are blurred and overlapping • schools and teachers are embedded in networks • education is user-led (but who exactly are they?) • schools are designed for personalisation • schools become different from one another over time

12. The PL gateways are the path to transformation

13. The nine interconnected gateways to PL: the conferences and the pamphlets Student voice Design&Organisation Assessment for Learning  Workforce reform Learning to learn Mentoring&Coaching New technologies Advice&guidance Curriculum

14. Personalising learning means meeting more needs of more students than ever before. PL is the path to the transformation that is the educational imaginary of the twenty-first century

15. Three types of challenge Adaptive challenge Cultural challenge Technical challenge

16. Emerging features in development All gateways are still under construction No school is advanced in every gateway Some gateways are better developed than others The gateways interact in complex ways Every gateway can be a radical innovation

17. Gateway commonalities - their interactive effects 1. Engagement - with learning & the school 2. Responsibility - for learning & behaviour 3. Independence in learning- meta-cognitive control 4. Confidence - articulate point of view & present an argument/suggestion; interpersonal skills 5. Maturity in relationships- more open and honest with greater mutual respect 6. Co-construction of education- in the design of teaching, learning, assessment, school life Note the sequence!

18. Questions What are our 19th century and our 21st century imaginaries? How are we making the transition? Is this approach to personalising learning relevant to our situation?

19. The Assessment for Learning gateway

20. The multiple purposes of assessment include: Assessment for recording Assessment for reporting Assessment for selection Assessment for learning

21. Assessment for learning is the process of identifying what the learner has or has not achieved in order to plan the next steps in learning It is the process by which the teacher provides feedback to learners on their performance in such a way that either the teacher adjusts the teaching in order to help students learn more effectively or learners change their approach to the learning task or both of these

22. Through assessment for learning, the learner… a • comes to hold a concept of performance similar to that • held by the teacher i.e. develops the notion of a standard • monitors the quality of his/her own performance i.e. can compare own performance with the standard • sees how the quality of performance can be improved i.e.engages in the action that closes the gap between own performance and the standard

23. Asking questions Normal impact of Q-and-A sessions Question - answer - evaluation Question - no answer - move to another student Increase teacher wait time Force student thinking time Bounce the questioning ‘Phone a friend

24. Marking work Normal impact of marking/grading Ignore comments Compare with peers Comments only - no marks or grades Assessment by peers • explicit mark schemes and grade criteria • examples of work meeting range of criteria • traffic lights • peer tutoring Student self-assessment

25. Assessment for learning • leads to higher test scores • enhances meta-cognition and aids learning to learn

26. Questions Should we adopt AfL? If so, how should we do it? What problems might we encounter and how would we overcome them?

27. The Student Voice gateway

28. Student voice How students come to have a greater say and more active role in the construction of their education i.e. how they are taught and how they learn

29. Versions of student voice 1. School councils and school governance 2. Students as sources of useful data 3. Students as researchers 4. Student co-constructors of education

30. Questions Do you think there is a role for student voice in improving our schools? If so, what action should we take?

31. The Learning to Learn gateway

32. Learning to learn means reflecting on one’s learning and intentionally applying the results of one’s reflection to further learning.

33. L2L - 0ne approach • making learning an object of attention • making learning an object of conversation • making learning an object of reflection • making learning an object of learning

34. L2L: a second approach Remembering - is able to recall Resilience - has habit of persistence with difficulty Resourcefulness - uses variety of learning strategies Reflection - thinks about learning and development of oneself as a learner Reciprocity - is able to learn with other people

35. All schemes have meta-cognition in common Meta-cognition is the capacity to monitor, evaluate, control and change how one thinks and learns.

36. L2L involves: • understanding the demands that a learning task makes • knowing about intellectual processes and how they work • generating and considering strategies to cope with the task • getting better at choosing the strategies that are the most appropriate for the task • monitoring and evaluating the subsequent learning behaviour through feedback on the extent to which the chosen strategies have led to success with the task. from About Learning

37. Independent learners… • become aware of the difference between memorising and understanding material, and realise that these require different mental strategies (“can I remember this? is this something I need to remember? have I really grasped what this is about? could I explain it to another person?” ) • recognise which parts of the material are difficult and demand more attention (“this bit is easy, but I need to spend more time on that bit”) • question or test themselves that they are understanding the material (“how am I doing? does it make sense to me?”) • learn when it’s appropriate to seek help from the teacher (“I’m stuck and the several strategies I’ve tried aren’t working, and I don’t get the help I need from other sources I’ve tried, so I must turn to the teacher”).

38. Two forms of engagement The teacher chooses the learning objectives; directs the ways students engage with tasks;determines the timing and duration of tasks; decides the outcomes of learning; provides the evaluations of learning and learners. = dependent engagement in learning The learner chooses the purpose of the learning; selects the content; decides the modes and timing of the engagement; determines the outcomes; evaluates the extent of success in learning. = independent engagement in learning

39. How might we ensure continuity and progression in learning to learn?

40. About Learningwww.demos.co.uk

41. Questions Do you think more could and should be done to promote independent learning in students at all levels? If so, what action should we take?