Saturday 11th March 2017
So What?
-When we give students choice about the activity or who to work with, . . . choice the effect typically is to slow learning down dramatically. Whats going on? They pick the easy option . .
-We do so much based on - Habit, tradition, and ?
--How much curling teaching is going on? How many of us plan lessons/learning where there are no glitches
-Whats wrong with mistakes? - Growth mindset encourages and applauds mistakes.
-Which route do I take? . . . Dont link challenge with making things difficult?
-Easy is boring, Challenging is interesting’ - It gives them opportunity to learn.
- Key Competencies - unpack with the kids . . .
Curling versus Foafoy - how do we gett that balance - we need to keep kids wobbling without them falling off, we need to keep kids wobbling and comforable wobbling
-We learn most when we are right on the edge of our comfort zone . . . but not so far that they are right out of comfort zone.
-We need to be right at the edge. We want a bit of excitement . . .
- ‘You’re finding this easy, lets make it more interesting . . .’
‘We set the culture in our school’ ‘We set the culture in our classroom’
-With primary children talk about the brain as if it is a muscle. . .we need to work out the body and the brain . . .
How often do my children go home absolutely drained they’ve worked so hard. . . .
‘I’m going to give you Super super interesting challenges that I bet none of you will be able to do’
Momentary failure is ok, long term failure is not good
Plan desirable difficulties
-If the lesson is challenging the children will have more questions as they leave as opposed to when they came in.
-Playing with ideas . . . is the idea
Lego means play well in the danish language
-In your class . . . there are no silly stupid questions - its playing with ideas’
Code ‘When CHALLENGE is working brilliantly . . . ‘ see slides sheet
SOLO
Pre - know nothing about it
Uni - know one or two things about it
Multi - know alot of things about it surface level learning
Relational - Use the knowledge to understand how each aspect relates to each other -the links/crossover.
Ext Ab - I can apply and create - (Relating and applying) Real world application in regard to the water cycle . . . where is the best place to build a house
Robots can’t replace tchr questioning, connections, feedback . . .in your culture. . . Tchrs are good at moving kids from knowing to understanding
Preview club - for kids who don’t have resources at home
Make homework preview instead of review - let parents know so at school we can get onto the relational and extended abstract level.
Let the kids know. . . about all this . . . .those who have done the multilevel stuff, can go to the challenge table straight away - those of you who are at the unistructural level you’ll be at this table to get more information.
0.01% - success of homework
Reading Champion of the day! Get the others to ask questions. . .
Your homework is to come up with three really good questions about poems.
Are you moving up the continuum? . . . its not a competition, its all about ‘are you better than where you were’
The Learning Pit
-transformational learning use it
-The topic should be a concept not a fact - we start with what we know then unpack what we don’t know ‘Should we always tell the truth’
-Let’s Play Well!
-We might be in the pit for a lesson, a week. The older the kids are the long we try to leave them in the pit. Every question doesn’t need to have an answer.
- Get kids in the pit and questioning . . . very relevant
-What should we do about global warming? -what do we say to people who are grieving? -Leave kids in the pit but realise sometimes there is no answer! Although its great when kids come out of the pit and have a eureka moment! Eureka means ‘I found it’
-Who’s in the pit? - Who thinks they are now out of the pit? Those groups get together - group out of the pit drag the others out . . . those kids in the pit, drag those out of it back in. Use the pit to pair kids up.
-Replace tests - unless you give them a pretest. The only score to praise is the progress score NOT achievement.
We value and celebrate progress not acheivement
- Art work: the process and feedback from a mate!
-Ground rules in the pit: respect, collaboration, contributing, cooperation. Be critical of all ideas.
Achievement / Progress
- Brilliant swimming, reading, . . . not swimmer, reader. . .
When Challenge is working brilliantly
N - nailed it C - close L - long way off
Ethos
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There is an atmosphere of exuberant discovery
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Impact
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Challenge stimulates curiosity and leads to students asking high quality questions
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Student Attitudes
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Students talk positively about challenge (e.g. mistakes are part of challenge; easy is boring etc) and look forward to/ expect to be challenged
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Impact
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It is noticeable that challenge is helping students to reach or exceed their goals
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Staff role model
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Staff are positive role models, showing that they also enjoy and learn from challenge
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Impact
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Challenge moves students onto their next stage of learning (as described by the SOLO taxonomy)
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School Systems
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Systems are in place to facilitate high quality challenge (e.g. breakthrough sessions, teaching target models etc)
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Meta-cognition
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Students can identify an example of being challenged. In recent lessons and the positive outcome it led to
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Pedagogy
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Staff make good use of questioning and individualising techniques to support and challenge all pupils
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Meta-cognition
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The language of challenge is used and shared by all (e.g. “I’m in the pit” or “I’m wobbling”
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What do we know already - Preview - e.g.show them the Water Cycle so they can see it
Make connections - help children to move from knowing to understanding contextually
How much of our time is spent teaching knowledge.
Effect size of homework - 0.01
Make homework Preview not Review - once a week.
They can make progress with this - spending a few moments with those you know may struggle, to give them the heads up so they can be successful. Those who get it correct, can go to the challenge table first.
How can we make this work?
Preview - whole lesson is going to be based around what they have learnt.
Preview - making progress on our learning continuum - it is not who knows more, preparing not cheating.
Create a culture of: Why wouldn’t you go and do that? Give yourself a leg up.
Starting at the surface - ending higher than where you started
“I’m in the pit” It means leave me alone I’m working through it
How are they moving around questioning them?
Lots of learning stations around the room, not rows, desks, clusters, rows.
Wellington is the capital of NZ - fact
What is a capital city? - concept - needs unpacking
What is food? - concept
The Learning Pit - use it so that they use their thinking skills
Concept - generating the ideas
Conflict - two ideas that are in conflict with each other - bottom of the pit, may be here for a while. It may be 10 minutes, it may be a lesson, it may be all week.Questioning - what is right? Every question does not have an answer? It may be different for everyone. Sometimes you never get a resolution and that is okay.
Construct - coming out of the pit - Eureka moment! It means I found it! Not someone else, teacher!! You won’t get that Eureka moment if you haven’t struggled to get there. It makes the challenge worthwhile.
Thinking Skills required:
Ability grouping - in the top groups and bottom groups they ask less questions - top think if they ask they might not seem as good, lowest group - people might think they are even dumber
Mixed ability - creates questioning between the group. Create a culture of asking questions.
10/10 - great if he worked hard to get their. Getting it done.
Get rid of tests and replace them with…
Don’t give a test to a child unless you give them the pretest - give them practice, then show them the right answers, so that they can mark it themselves and know how many they know and what they need to learn. This is so you can ramp up the challenge for the children, otherwise what is the point.
Find out what they know to begin with.
Growth Mindset - praise is focussed on progress
Art - let’s put up twice as much, the starting point and photos of progress and the finishing point side by side. It shows we value progress.
Picture - feedback from peer - finished product
Celebrate progress
Ground Rules
How to put your views across persuasively
Multiple Intelligences - many different ways to learn
We are not all the same
Fixed Mindset - That’s how I was born
Growth Mindset - That’s what I have developed
What matters is that they are making progress
The culture in our class has to emphasise progress.
Achievement and Progress Impact
Do we know where our kids are?
Put them in the quadrant. So what? Where do the children sit in this quadrant.
Growth Mindset
The story behind the talents
Learning/ feedback/ effort
Mindset is not about genetics
Carol Dweck
Notes taken at the conference - some excellent ideas and an enjoyable day spent considering and learning about new ideas.