A Leap Of Faith

For the last 15 years, Anne Knock has had the opportunity to visit many schools in different parts of the world. Her professional focus is the future of learning and learning environments: she helps facilitate a rethink of the design of schools, and in so doing reconsider the practice of teaching, leading a 21st century mindset in education. Here she explains how she feels that shift will push us towards team teaching and what that means for the learning spaces in which they teach.

To flick through the pages of this magazine or visit the numerous ‘best schools of the future’ websites, one thing is clear, we aren’t seeing photographs of classroom boxes along corridors, with desks in rows and diligent children facing their teacher who is positioned at the front, as exemplars of forward-thinking education. Instead, the images of learning environments today are more likely to resemble a modern workplace, a home or a social hub, which may be indoors, outdoors, or a combination of both.

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      string(288) "Giving pupils a real-world dilemma to explore and solve together can bring to life even the dreariest of secondary science topics. Here Ed Walsh illustrates the power of the problem with the intriguing question: Was the reintroduction of wolves a good thing for Yellowstone National Park?"
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      string(322) "... tomotivate and teach.If you’re teaching in an enlightened schoolwhere this is not an issue, great; in otherinstances, there may be more of a leap offaith. So be it. Good teachers take risks andthey often pay off. They always leave us wiser.Problem-based learning offers a differentapproach, but ..."
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      string(5617) "CreativeApproaches18Volume5.4nCreativeTeaching&LearningGiving pupils a real-world dilemma to explore and solve together can bringto life even the dreariest of secondary science topics. Here Ed Walshillustrates the power of the problem with the intriguing question: Was thereintroduction of wolves a good thing for Yellowstone National Park?The wolves ofYellowstoneProblem-based learning in scienceOne of the challenges facing scienceeducat ion, especia l ly in thesecondary phase, is that lessonssometimes risk giving students theanswers to questions they haven’t yet asked.In other words, a teacher may feel that theyshould try and reconcile the areas of personalinterest of students with the demands of afairly daunting exam specification.Students may quite genuinely be interestedin a number of phenomena, but it would benaïve to imagine that these can be seamlesslyaligned with all of the content of a typicalGCSE course. Inevitably, some topics willlend themselves better to attracting studentinterest than others; some will be intrinsicallyappealing to 15-year-olds, some can be madeinteresting, and others may tax even themost resourceful teachers in their efforts tomake them engaging. The content is, after all,determined on the basis of future utility andthe laying of foundations for higher or furthereducation.It is, therefore, entirely necessary to findapproaches that reconcile the need to coverless than engaging curriculum content with19Volume5.4nCreativeTeaching&LearningCreativeApproachesthe need to ensure pupils are hooked in andmotivated to learn.An unconventional approachOne of the ways to engage pupils in contentwith which they may not be particularlyenamoured is to explore and develop the useof problem-based learning. This approachoffers a particular way of involving studentsin developing ideas and understanding, andprovides an alternative to much of the contentin a particular topic being ‘delivered from thefront’. It means that students can encounterconcepts in a way that is less conventionalthan some lessons.Of course, we need to be realistic about theintroduction of this. If students are used to beingtaught in a fairly didactic way, (and especially ifthey feel comfortable with that), woe betide theteacher who is seen to try and take too much ofa holiday from the process of content delivery.If students are looking to progress and needgrades, they may be suspicious of what theymight perceive as significant deviations. Evenif they are not so concerned about outcomes,other stakeholders may be. Apart from anythingCreativeApproaches20Volume5.4nCreativeTeaching&Learningelse, a group of pupils who feel that ‘the reinshave gone slack’, and that the purpose has goneout of the course, may become hard work tomotivate and teach.If you’re teaching in an enlightened schoolwhere this is not an issue, great; in otherinstances, there may be more of a leap offaith. So be it. Good teachers take risks andthey often pay off. They always leave us wiser.Problem-based learning offers a differentapproach, but all involved need to know thatit is a different means to the same end – thatof mastering both processes and concepts.What is problem-based learning?Problem-based learning casts pupils ina different role. The starting point is thepresentation of a problem to the students, andthe focus is their resolution of this problem.The approach has been used in a wide rangeof different contexts and, in fact, started inmedical training. This reveals from the outseta key feature – that of placing learning in areal-life context to provide a focus and offer apurpose. In problem-based learning, studentsuse ideas, processes and concepts to resolvea situation. In so doing, they not only havea context and a purpose (an answer to theage-old question and riposte of ‘Sir, whyare we learning about this?’ and ‘Becauseit’s on the specification’), but also have theopportunity to develop a range of problem-solving skills, collaborative approaches andlearning strategies.The role of the teacher therefore partlychanges. A good problem is one whichstudents will understand and have masteredsome of the relevant ideas and skills, but notall of them. Although there is a premium uponstudent-based learning, they may lack the skillsto know how to approach a problem; they maynot know what to do when they don’t knowwhat to do, and so the role of the teacherin monitoring, supporting and challenging iscrucial.Another key feature of problem-basedlearning is that there is no obvious right orwrong answer. The problem is not ‘what isthe correct response?’ (or, worse, ‘what is theidea in the teacher’s mind?’) but rather, ‘whatis a good (and justifiable) response?’. Similarly,the approach isn’t counterposed to directinstruction; there may be points when formalexposition forms part of the learning activity.Problem-based learning is another tool in thetoolkit, not a cuckoo that tries to squeeze outother and equally valid approaches.So how does problem-basedlearning work?To illustrate the power of problem-basedlearning, the remainder of this article will explorean example enquiry on the reintroduction ofwolves into Yellowstone National Park. Thisoccurred some years ago now, was the sourceof some controversy and debate at the time,and remains so in some quarters. Behind theimmediate question is a larger issue abouthuman impact on the environment, and therights and responsibilities we may decideto exercise in relation to nature. Wolves,indigenous to the area for many years, hadpreviously been eradicated from the"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

The wolves of Yellowstone: Problem-based learning in science

23 Jul 2015

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      string(364) "... justify in the short term. Suchchanges do not come easily, in almost all of the classroomsvisited, staff admitted that they had needed to take a ‘leap offaith’ when first implementing their plans.In classrooms where the development of a learningcommunity had been possible, children were provided withnumerous opportunities to develop ..."
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      string(5609) "independently.Opportunities were provided for children to ‘think through’a task before starting and to identify potential difficulties.They had developed a range of techniques for monitoringbehaviour, such as the use of a ‘pupil researcher’ whomonitored the children for short periods and identifiedpotential problems so that the class could work together todevelop strategies for improvement. Class ‘rules’ were a setof agreements decided by the children themselves.Although observations were not carried out in schoolnine, an interview was conductedwith a teacher who had adopted arange of thinking skills’ strategiesto address some long-standingdifficulties in his class. These strategiesincluded Philosophy for Children (P4C)collaborative learning and the useof learning diaries. A major part ofthe project included listening to theviews of pupils in his class and workingwith them to develop strategies forimprovement, not just in learningbut also in behaviour and socialrelationships.In some of the schools visited,staff mentioned the difficulty ofimplementing a holistic approachwhen colleagues did not sharetheir views or aspirations. This wasparticularly noticeable in the highschools and in primary schools whereparallel classes existed. Staff in theprimary schools visited were all (asyou would expect) very positive aboutthe strategies implemented in theirown classrooms and reported a rangeof benefits (improved relationships,work and behaviour for example). Insome schools the strategies had beenendorsed informally by colleagues(schools three, four and eight); inothers, test results, assessment data and school recordsdemonstrated the improvements (schools four and six).However, in one of the secondary schools, the inabilityto develop a holistic strategy had made the benefits lessevident and more difficult to justify in the short term. Suchchanges do not come easily, in almost all of the classroomsvisited, staff admitted that they had needed to take a ‘leap offaith’ when first implementing their plans.In classrooms where the development of a learningcommunity had been possible, children were provided withnumerous opportunities to develop their thinking skills.They were able to ‘plan, develop and reflect’ in a constantcycle across a wide range of contexts, practising and refiningthese skills on a day-to-day basis. If thinking skills weretaught only as a ‘bolt on’ to existing lessons, or only as asmall part of their learning, many of these rich opportunitieswould be missed completely. There might also be a realdanger that children will fail to see the relevance of thinkingskills to anything other than the lesson in which they weretaught.Essential For pupil participationReading conducted before carrying out the research hadhighlighted the importance of trust and respect in thedevelopment of good relationships between teachers andpupils and between the children themselves – relationshipsthat underpin effective learning . It also showed that72 Vol 3.3 n www.teachingtimes.comPrimary File Leadership ResourcesSchool Leadership Todaytrust and respect were essential features of pupil-voiceand participation in schools and that the development ofthinking skills appears to be inextricably linked to pupilparticipation.It was therefore not surprising tofind that trust, respect and pupil voicewere themes that emerged from thedata as it was collected. In seven outof the ten schools visited, data wasassigned to all three of these categoriesin the first stages of the data analysis.Although the nature of the datadiffered in places, it was clear that inclassrooms where the Thinking SkillsFramework had been implementedin a holistic way, trust, respect andpupil voice/participation were strongfeatures.A high level of trust betweenthe teacher and the children wasindicated in a number of ways, someof which have been addressed here;for example, children being trusted toplan their own learning and learningenvironment. In some schools thistrust was extended to other aspectsof school life that is usually tightlycontrolled by staff (Alderson 2008).In several of the participant schoolschildren selected, accessed andreturned the vast majority of resourcescompletely independently. Thiswas in complete contrast to my ownexperience where many resources,especially those perceived to be ofvalue, are either kept out of reachor require permission from an adultbefore use. In these schools, childrenwere also permitted to drink waterwithout permission and, in two schoolsthis was extended to the use of thetoilets during lesson time as reported in pupil interviews:“Independent work isn’t just about work; it’s about otherthings too, like being allowed to go to the toilet withoutasking. The teacher trusts us not to be silly and becauseof that we’re not.”(School seven)In several schools, children felt that their teacher trustedthem to solve problems:“Arguments are quite rare and the teacher trusts usto sort problems out ourselves and doesn’t alwaysnnnintervene.” (School four)“There’s some arguing (often between the girls) butthat’s normal for friends and it’s important to learn howto sort things out anyway.” (School seven)In most of the primary schools visited, the children had settheir own class rules; in a number of these schools, childrenalso decided on, and applied, their own sanctions for rulebreaking. In two schools (schools one and four), the childrenspecifically chose sanctions that were designed to improvethe problem or behaviour rather than take a punitiveapproach. It would seem that"
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Leadership

Investigating primary thinking skills

18 May 2015

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      string(5615) "stuck on your head or a bucket on your foot?6. Would you rather live on a space station or live on the Moon?7. What is your most embarrassing moment?8. What do you dream about when you are asleep?9. Would you rather be an apple or a banana?10. Would you like to be 3cm taller or 3cm smaller?11. What is your favourite LEGO piece and why?12. Describe yourself in no more than 10 words.13. Why do all minifigures have a hole in their heads?14. You are castaway on a mythical desert island and you are allowed to take with you three pieces of music,three books and three luxury items. What do you choose and why?15. What does noise look like? Can you draw a noise and describe it?16. What would happen of you swallowed a rainbow?17. Would you rather be fire or water?18. You ate a whole plate of alphabet spaghetti and burped up some words. What were the words?19. What colour is Wednesday and why?20. Which is heavier – a dream or a nightmare? How much do they weigh?21. If you read a book in a bookshop are you stealing?22. What does gravity sound like?23. What does yellow taste, smell and sound like?24. Would you rather be a number or a letter?25. What would your reflection say back to you if it could speak?101Volume6.4&7.1nCreativeTeaching&LearningLearningStoriesThe minifigs work as a catalyst for thinking, communicating more effectively,engaging imaginations more readily and for approaching their writing withincreased confidence and commitment. The LEGO Movie led to a shortageof LEGO products in 2014 and it is easy to see why; people love minifigures.They are iconic, they are special and they can inspire children to write. Whynot help them help you inspire children’s writing and see where it takes them?Minifigures and learning conversationsBeyond using minifigures as learning prompts and interviewees they can be usedas talk partners to supersize learning conversations. By giving the minifiguresa voice where learning is shared then understanding can really open up like asecret garden. What minifigures can do then is raise the talking and thinkingquotient of learners.As a teacher you could have a minifigures whisper in your ear that s/hedoesn’t understand something and you then get the class or an individual tohelp. The minifigure can appear to the children as being lost, unsure, needingsupport; being vulnerable. Children will identify with this vulnerability becausethey themselves may share the same feelings of uncertainty about a new ideaor concept and they may start to ‘feel’ for the minifigure and be keen to help.This helps strip away the shyness or embarrassment that some children mayfeel. If a minfigure gets something ‘wrong’ then children don’t lose face andthey can learn without fear.You could of course have four minifigures share the learning betweenthemselves for children to comment on. The idea is to have four minifigures eachwith a different opinion about something and you could present their opinionsas speech or thought bubbles on the interactive whiteboard next to a photo ofeach. For example, you might decide to focus on a common misconception andset the stage with four minifigures debating an idea.‘Multiplying always makes a number bigger’Minifigure 1: If I multiply 7 by 6 then that makes 42 so this statement is true.Minifigure 2: What happens if you multiply by a fraction?Minifigure 3: If you multiply by 1 then the number stays the same.Minifigure 4: I multiplied by 0 and I ended up with nothing.When you have four different inputs like this the focus of the lesson is onunderstanding and that understanding has to be a collaborative effort. Childrenbegin to see that this is a team effort to help not just the minifigures butthemselves. During a discussion of what the minifgures think you can open upthe debate to showcase particular examples, such as multiplying by negativenumbers, proper fractions or improper fractions. Minifigures can listen to whatchildren have to say and they can feedback and share further ideas or act asprompts to further thinking by disagreeing or playing devil’s advocate.It’s worth remembering that misconception does not equal wrong thinking.A misconception is merely an idea in embryo or a local generalisation and isreally a natural stage of development. In all cases, minifigures can kick-start alearning conversation, help to sustain a discussion and encourage exploratorytalk through creative, critical and constructive exchanges. What minifigures cando is to get children to take notice, listen to their ideas and encourage them toshare and explain their ideas to build understanding. Learning gains are relatedto the degree which children give help to or seek help from each other and theminifigures.Using minifigures as social actors with a voice and feelings makes them realLearningStories102Volume6.4&7.1nCreativeTeaching&Learningactive participants in the learning process. If you take a leap of faith and usethem don’t be surprised to find yourself and the children asking more thinkingquestions and covering more cognitive ground. They may help you think aboutthings from a minifigure’s viewpoint and reconsider the children’s point of view.It can be quite daunting using minifigures for the first time as there are noready-made scripts to follow and anything you do say has to be planned to acertain degree as part of preparation for the lesson but children themselves actas the real drivers of dialogue. How they react is everything as it guides yournext steps in learning. Conversations cannot be planned and this means a lot ofthinking on"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Enter the LEGO figurines!

14 Mar 2017

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      string(5611) "solutions to a challenge. No longer passive recipients of learning, theywere much more engaged and motivated to learn.Alan McLean makes the link between motivation, feedback and promoting amastery attitude to learning in his book, ‘Motivating Every Learner’. He writes:‘Feedback provides information that lets pupils know how they are doing. It isthe motivation power-tool yet the least well used … Motivating teachers praisepupil effort and how they tackle their work and so make pupils feel they areresponsible for success. They stress individual rather than normative progress.They avoid loading their feedback with approval or disapproval and downplaytheir evaluative role by letting pupils rate themselves as much as possible’.This endorsed what we were discovering within the school. As teachers’ useof growth mindset language and effective feedback became embedded withinthe school, we decided to stop giving external rewards (stickers) to motivateour learners. We wanted our learners to learn for the sense of achievement andnot the promise of a sticker! Children accepted this very quickly indeed and ithas had no adverse effect on their willingness to undertake and persevere witha challenging activity.Approach to participationAlongside our work on promoting the growth mindset, we began to focusmore on how children learn at staff meetings. All teachers took on a personalaction research project to complement this work with a view to increasingpupil engagement and participation. Staff meeting time was set aside to15Volume3.3nCreativeTeaching&LearningTeachingApproachesdiscuss findings, share successes and offer suggestions as to how ideas couldbe developed further. Early successful initiatives included using random talkpartners to increase the amount of pupil talk, a ‘no hands up’ policy to preventsocial domination of a few confident children and later, we adopted a wholeschool policy of using lolly sticks with children’s names on them to decide whoanswered questions. This had the benefit of ensuring that all children expectto be involved in, and contribute to, the lesson. It promoted a more discursiveapproach to learning as children were often offering tentative answers toquestions when they were unsure of the answer. Having already establisheda culture where it was okay to make and learn from mistakes, this meant thatlearning became a more social and interactive process.Changes to Curriculum: Child Initiated LearningWe had identified that learning was initially very teacher directed and our childrenwere passive recipients of learning. We noted that our most independent,engaged and motivated learners were those in the Early Years Foundation Stageand wanted to emulate the most successful features of their curriculum in KeyStage One. We took a leap of faith that our results across the curriculum wouldimprove if children had more opportunities to lead their own learning, followtheir interests and practice essential skills in contexts which motivated them.We therefore committed to providing regular sessions of child initiated learningin all year groups for extended periods of time each day.We agreed a set of guiding principles over a series of staff meetings, whichhave evolved and been refined over time. Our Child Initiated Learning sessionsare about an hour and a half in length and expectations are slightly different foreach year group. Year R children have absolute free choice to lead their ownlearning, but once in Year 1 and 2, they are expected to link their learning toa topic related interest, albeit through art, music, writing, science, maths etc.Children in Year 2 build further on their ability to be independent learners, as theyalso have to account for how they spend their time and share their outcomeswith the class in various forms. Within these boundaries, children have choiceand control over their learning and they are encouraged to make decisions aboutwhat they will do, how they will do it, the resources and equipment they willuse and their intended outcome. The sessions are designed to give childrentime to reflect and draw on their growing knowledge and skills, apply them toa range of different contexts and make connections between different areasand aspects of their learning.We have found that our children are highly motivated when they initiate theirown learning and are learning about something, which is important to them andthey find enjoyable. They work with confidence, persevere for long periods oftime and often work at levels far higher than those sometimes identified in theplanned curriculum. Providing enough time for children to develop their ideas isan essential feature of this approach so that children are not interrupted beforethey have achieved what they have set out to do and can evaluate, refine and feelsatisfied with their achievements. Children also have the opportunity to revisitand improve their learning outcomes over a period of days if they need to.Our Role as TeachersGiving children more choice in their learning requires a different sort of planningand organisation in order to provide for and extend learning. An excellentunderstanding of the curriculum and progression in key skills is needed sothat adults have high expectations of what the children can and should achieveduring child initiated sessions. All adults need to make sure that skills taughtin more formal sessions of the curriculum are transferred and built on in childinitiated learning and that further modelling and demonstrating, questioning andfeedback from an adult reinforces this prior"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

"Yes Miss, we'd love a challenge!"

5 Dec 2012

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      string(348) "... in the short term. Such changesdo not come easily, in almost all of the classrooms visited,staff admitted that they had needed to take a ‘leap of faith’when first implementing their plans.In classrooms where the development of a learningcommunity had been possible, children were providedwith numerous opportunities to ..."
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      string(5618) "techniques for monitoringbehaviour, such as the use of a ‘pupil researcher’ whomonitored the children for short periods and identifiedpotential problems so that the class could work togetherto develop strategies for improvement. Class ‘rules’ were aset of agreements decided by the children themselves.Although observations were not carried out in schoolnine, an interview was conducted with a teacher who hadadopted a range of thinking skills’ strategies to addresssome long-standing difficulties in his class. These strategiesincluded Philosophy for Children (P4C), collaborativelearning and the use of learning diaries. A major part ofthe project included listening to the views of pupils in hisclass and working with them to develop strategies forimprovement, not just in learning but also in behaviourand social relationships.In some of the schools visited, staff mentioned thedifficulty of implementing a holistic approach whencolleagues did not share their views or aspirations. Thiswas particularly noticeable in the high schools and inprimary schools where parallel classes existed. Staff in theprimary schools visited were all (as you would expect) verypositive about the strategies implemented in their ownclassrooms and reported a range of benefits (improvedrelationships, work and behaviour for example). In someschools the strategies had been endorsed informally bycolleagues (schools three, four and eight); in others, testresults, assessment data and school records demonstratedthe improvements (schools four and six). However, inone of the secondary schools, the inability to develop aholistic strategy had made the benefits less evident andmore difficult to justify in the short term. Such changesdo not come easily, in almost all of the classrooms visited,staff admitted that they had needed to take a ‘leap of faith’when first implementing their plans.In classrooms where the development of a learningcommunity had been possible, children were providedwith numerous opportunities to develop their thinkingskills. They were able to ‘plan, develop and reflect’ in aconstant cycle across a wide range of contexts, practisingand refining these skills on a day-to-day basis. If thinkingskills were taught only as a ‘bolt on’ to existing lessons,or only as a small part of their learning, many of theserich opportunities would be missed completely. Theremight also be a real danger that children will fail to seethe relevance of thinking skills to anything other than thelesson in which they were taught.Thinking Skills10 Creative Teaching & Learning n Volume 2.3Essential for pupil participationReading conducted before carrying out the research hadhighlighted the importance of trust and respect in thedevelopment of good relationships between teachers andpupils and between the children themselves – relationshipsthat underpin effective learning. It also showed that trustand respect were essential features of pupil-voice andparticipation in schools and that the development ofthinking skills appears to be inextricably linked to pupilparticipation.It was therefore not surprising to find that trust, respectand pupil voice were themes that emerged from the data asit was collected. In seven out of the ten schools visited, datawas assigned to all three of these categoriesin the first stages of the data analysis.Although the nature of the data differedin places, it was clear that in classroomswhere the Thinking Skills Framework hadbeen implemented in a holistic way, trust,respect and pupil voice/participation werestrong features.A high level of trust between theteacher and the children was indicatedin a number of ways, some of which havebeen addressed here; for example, childrenbeing trusted to plan their own learningand learning environment. In some schoolsthis trust was extended to other aspects ofschool life that is usually tightly controlledby staff (Alderson 2008). In several ofthe participant schools children selected,accessed and returned the vast majorityof resources completely independently.This was in complete contrast to myown experience where many resources,especially those perceived to be of value,are either kept out of reach or requirepermission from an adult before use. Inthese schools, children were also permittedto drink water without permission and, intwo schools this was extended to the useof the toilets during lesson time as reportedin pupil interviews:“Independent work isn’t just about work;it’s about other things too, like being allowed to go tothe toilet without asking. The teacher trusts us not to besilly and because of that we’re not.” (School seven)In several schools, children felt that their teacher trustedthem to solve problems:“Arguments are quite rare and the teacher trusts usto sort problems out ourselves and doesn’t alwaysintervene.” (School four)●●“There’s some arguing (often between the girls) butthat’s normal for friends and it’s important to learn howto sort things out anyway.” (School seven)In most of the primary schools visited, the children hadset their own class rules; in a number of these schools,children also decided on, and applied, their own sanctionsfor rule breaking. In two schools (schools one and four), thechildren specifically chose sanctions that were designedto improve the problem or behaviour rather than takea punitive approach. It would seem that restorativeapproaches are a way to manage behavior in effectivelearning communities.High levels of trust were also demonstrated between thechildren in many cases. One aspect that stood"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Investigating Primary thinking skills

10 Feb 2012

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