My next inquiry has come from my own reflections from my feedback session for my READING OBSERVATION. The children now understand what they are learning, why they are learning it and how they be successful with this learning. Also as part of my own self appraisal, I have realised that I need to focus on my lessons having a beginning, middle and an end.
This is part of my research into improving my teaching - I found a blog with the title
Top 10 Evidence Based Teaching Strategies for Those Who Care About Student Results.
This unpacked is what I need to do to in my class. Number 6 particularly struck a chord with me - Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and it is the breakfast served by extraordinary teachers around the world.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 1 : Clear Lesson Goals
I need to be clear about what I want my students to learn during each lesson. The research says that such clarity effect on student results is 32% greater than the effect of holding high expectations for every student (and holding high expectations has a sizeable effect). "If you cannot quickly and easily state what you want your students to know and be able to do at the end of a given lesson, the goal of your lesson will be unclear." Clear lesson goals will help me (and my children) to focus every other aspect of the lesson and on what matters most.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 2 : Show & Tell
Start my lessons with show and tell. Put simply, telling involves sharing information or knowledge with my students while showing involves modelling how to do something. I need to be clear about what I want my students to know and be able to do by the end of the lesson, I need to tell them what they need to know and show them how to do the tasks I want them to be able to do. Concise lesson goals!
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 3 : Questioning to Check for Understanding
Use questions to check for understanding during the lesson. Making sure to check for understanding before moving onto the next part of the lesson. By using techniques such as random questioning of group, children showing answers on whiteboards and think-pair-share will help me to check for understanding before moving on from the show and tell part of the lesson, and thinking about what other questions I could possibly ask within the lesson.
Evidenced Based Teaching 4 : Summarise New Learning In A Graphical Way
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 6 : Provide Your Students With Feedback
Giving feedback involves letting my children know how they have performed on a particular task along with next steps to help them improve. Unlike praise, which focuses on the student rather than the task, feedback provides a tangible understanding of what they did well, of where they are at, and of how they can improve. In John Hattie’s view, any teachers who seriously want to boost their children’s results should start by giving them dollops and dollops of feedback.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 7 : Be Flexible About How Long It Takes to Learn
The idea that given enough time, every student can learn is not as revolutionary as it sounds. It underpins the way we teach martial arts, swimming and dancing. It is also the central premise behind mastery learning, a technique that has the same effect on student results as socio-economic status and other aspects of home life. By adopting mastery learning, I need to differentiate in a different way. I can keep the learning intentions (WALT) the same, but varying the time I give each child a chance to succeed. This could be a struggle with the time framework for timetables and weeks but very much worth thinking about.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 8 : Get Students Working Together (in productive ways)
Encouraging productive group work within the class. When working in groups, my children tend to rely on the child they believe is most willing and able to the task at hand. Psychologists call this phenomenon social loafing. To increase the productivity of my groups, I need to be more selective about the tasks I assign and the individual roles for each group member and ensure each group member personally responsible for one step in the task.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 9 : Teach Strategies Not Just Content
By explicitly teaching the children how to use the relevant strategies. There are strategies underpinning the effective execution of many tasks that I ask my children to do at school. And, just as with content, I need to tell students about these strategies, to show them how to use them and to give them guided practice before asking them to use them independently.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 10 : Nurture Meta-Cognition
Meta-cognition involves thinking about your options, your choices and your results – and it has an even larger effect on children's results than teaching strategies. By using meta-cognition my children need to think about what strategies they could use before choosing one, and think about how effective their choice was (after reflecting on their success or lack thereof) before continuing with or changing their chosen strategy. The Teacher Support Materials with the School Journals have a mega-cognition aspect of each possible learning experience.
Hopefully by actioning some of these aspects I can encourage the reflective practice for my children.
This is part of my research into improving my teaching - I found a blog with the title
Top 10 Evidence Based Teaching Strategies for Those Who Care About Student Results.
This unpacked is what I need to do to in my class. Number 6 particularly struck a chord with me - Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and it is the breakfast served by extraordinary teachers around the world.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 1 : Clear Lesson Goals
I need to be clear about what I want my students to learn during each lesson. The research says that such clarity effect on student results is 32% greater than the effect of holding high expectations for every student (and holding high expectations has a sizeable effect). "If you cannot quickly and easily state what you want your students to know and be able to do at the end of a given lesson, the goal of your lesson will be unclear." Clear lesson goals will help me (and my children) to focus every other aspect of the lesson and on what matters most.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 2 : Show & Tell
Start my lessons with show and tell. Put simply, telling involves sharing information or knowledge with my students while showing involves modelling how to do something. I need to be clear about what I want my students to know and be able to do by the end of the lesson, I need to tell them what they need to know and show them how to do the tasks I want them to be able to do. Concise lesson goals!
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 3 : Questioning to Check for Understanding
Use questions to check for understanding during the lesson. Making sure to check for understanding before moving onto the next part of the lesson. By using techniques such as random questioning of group, children showing answers on whiteboards and think-pair-share will help me to check for understanding before moving on from the show and tell part of the lesson, and thinking about what other questions I could possibly ask within the lesson.
Evidenced Based Teaching 4 : Summarise New Learning In A Graphical Way
Graphic organisers have their place to help my children to summarise what they have learned and to understand the connections between the aspects of what I have taught them. Studies show that it doesn’t seem to matter who makes the summary graphic, be it you or your students, provided the graphic is accurate. Discussing a graphic organiser is a way to finish off your show and tell. I can use this tip to help the children reflect on what has been taught throughout the lesson.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 5 : Plenty of Practice
Practice will help my children to retain the knowledge and skills that they have learned while also allowing me another opportunity to check for understanding. I must ensure that my students are practicing the right things. My children need to be practicing what they learnt during my modelling, that will hopefully reflect my lesson goals - WALTs. I need to be mindful that the practice is not about mindless busy work. Nor is it about giving them independent tasks that I haven’t previously modelled and taught. Finally, research shows that students do better when their teacher has them practice the same things over a spaced-out period of time.
Practice will help my children to retain the knowledge and skills that they have learned while also allowing me another opportunity to check for understanding. I must ensure that my students are practicing the right things. My children need to be practicing what they learnt during my modelling, that will hopefully reflect my lesson goals - WALTs. I need to be mindful that the practice is not about mindless busy work. Nor is it about giving them independent tasks that I haven’t previously modelled and taught. Finally, research shows that students do better when their teacher has them practice the same things over a spaced-out period of time.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 6 : Provide Your Students With Feedback
Giving feedback involves letting my children know how they have performed on a particular task along with next steps to help them improve. Unlike praise, which focuses on the student rather than the task, feedback provides a tangible understanding of what they did well, of where they are at, and of how they can improve. In John Hattie’s view, any teachers who seriously want to boost their children’s results should start by giving them dollops and dollops of feedback.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 7 : Be Flexible About How Long It Takes to Learn
The idea that given enough time, every student can learn is not as revolutionary as it sounds. It underpins the way we teach martial arts, swimming and dancing. It is also the central premise behind mastery learning, a technique that has the same effect on student results as socio-economic status and other aspects of home life. By adopting mastery learning, I need to differentiate in a different way. I can keep the learning intentions (WALT) the same, but varying the time I give each child a chance to succeed. This could be a struggle with the time framework for timetables and weeks but very much worth thinking about.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 8 : Get Students Working Together (in productive ways)
Encouraging productive group work within the class. When working in groups, my children tend to rely on the child they believe is most willing and able to the task at hand. Psychologists call this phenomenon social loafing. To increase the productivity of my groups, I need to be more selective about the tasks I assign and the individual roles for each group member and ensure each group member personally responsible for one step in the task.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 9 : Teach Strategies Not Just Content
By explicitly teaching the children how to use the relevant strategies. There are strategies underpinning the effective execution of many tasks that I ask my children to do at school. And, just as with content, I need to tell students about these strategies, to show them how to use them and to give them guided practice before asking them to use them independently.
Evidence Based Teaching Strategy 10 : Nurture Meta-Cognition
Meta-cognition involves thinking about your options, your choices and your results – and it has an even larger effect on children's results than teaching strategies. By using meta-cognition my children need to think about what strategies they could use before choosing one, and think about how effective their choice was (after reflecting on their success or lack thereof) before continuing with or changing their chosen strategy. The Teacher Support Materials with the School Journals have a mega-cognition aspect of each possible learning experience.
Hopefully by actioning some of these aspects I can encourage the reflective practice for my children.
