Evaluation through story-telling! – a tool for improving teaching

Does evaluation make any difference to improving teaching? Gina Sherwood describes her research among undergraduates, which indicates that a creative approach to evaluation through story-telling can be more fruitful.

The need for a more creative approach to evaluation

Collecting student evaluations are a feature of policy and practice within Higher Education (HE) in England and across the world. This article introduces a new way to capture undergraduate’s evaluation of their learning experiences through writing a story. The expected outcomes of student feedback are: to improve and develop teaching, to understand the current educational attainment of students, for quality assurance and human resources purposes (Hoon, Oliver, Szpakowska, & Newton, 2015; Seale, 2010; Stein Spiller, Terry, Harris, Deaker, & Kennedy, 2013). Currently the most popular way to capture this feedback is through questionnaires such as Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) and the national student survey (NSS) that not only inform current practice but also impact on the overall ranking of the institution (Ashwin, 2017; Lenton, 2015). This is more pertinent since the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) which grades a university’s standard of teaching as Bronze, Silver or Gold and the withdrawal of the student number cap which have led to the sector becoming more marketised.

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      string(5735) "structure, then they need the opportunity and time to make the changes. Year 4: Composition Objectives:Can adapt grammar, vocabulary, expression and structure to suit the type of writingExpresses time and place by using conjunctions, adverbials and prepositionsCan use subordinate clauses at the beginning or middle of a sentenceCan open paragraphs with effective key sentences to signpost meaningCan evoke character and setting using detail, vocabulary and expressionCan improve the structure and the sophistication of sentences during draftingIn Year 4 pupils are beginning to use their knowledge of the effect of grammar, sentence construction and vocabulary to operate as a writer deliberately influencing their reader, but they are experimenting with construction and in many cases, the writing will appear formulaic as they apply the words, phrases and expressions they have had pointed out to them.Choosing the genre for narrative writing, e.g. a ghost story or adventure on board a ship, etc., plays an important part in giving pupils the opportunity to select vocabulary that would be appropriate for the description they wish to include. Deciding how to end a story is often quite challenging for this age group as they often begin quite confidently setting the scene and introducing their characters. Teachers often focus on description and dialogue, but not on effective endings which can often be achieved with the use of a simple sentence. Books of short stories are a good source of story endings.The structure of a narrative can be expressed simply as:opening that usually includes a setting and introduces charactersa series of events that build upcomplication(s)resulting eventsresolution and endingThe aim is for them to internalise the basic structure and use it to organise their creative ideas when writing their own, original stories, rather than being constrained by having to imitate a particular style of story. Although this structure is evident in many stories, it can be adapted, modified or expanded.Each pupil as a writer needs to decide the intended impact of the story on the reader and the type of writing and language and structures that are likely to be able to achieve the effect. They know from their own experience as readers what they have enjoyed and why, and it can be useful to spend time reminding them about how their favourite authors have made them feel. Authors vary narrative structure by, for example, using time shifts or starting the story with an exciting incident. Stories in a particular genre often have distinctive structures, e.g. adventure stories often have a series of ‘cliff-hangers’ before the final resolution. Pupils’ awareness of more complex narrative structures in the stories they read is likely to be ahead of their development as writers.Year 5: Composition Objectives:Adapts style and structure to suit audience and purposeDemonstrates strategies for initiating, gathering ideas, shaping and improving writingWrites dialogue that is accurate and effectiveUses description effectively in storiesCan summarise longer passagesUses cohesive devices such as connectives and pronouns to secure sense within the textCan maintain consistency of tense, agreement and tonePupils can generate dialogue in stories quite easily and punctuate accurately. All too often, having learned the rule of ‘new speaker-new line’, pupils find themselves leaving the story behind and becoming locked into a play script format where they rely on the dialogue to tell the story. The first thing to do is to highlight reader awareness by asking them to read their story to themselves or another pupil and consider:Does the reader know where the characters are and what they are doing?Is the story moving along according to the plan?How much of the dialogue can be taken out? Which parts are important?This can be modelled in shared writing using an example of pupils’ work. The teacher can even set a limit on the number of lines of dialogue that can be written at any one time in order to prevent too much dialogue in the first instance.Shaping and improving writing is best done by demonstration where the teacher shows how to change vocabulary and sentence structure to improve a first attempt. In trying to make the invisible visible, using the technique of shared writing for more than scribing, teachers can demonstrate the thought process of a writer who reconsiders their choices and reflects on the effect. The teacher can use examples of pupils’ work and improve those or write a passage of their own that needs redrafting and stylistic improvement. Often, shared writing begins with a blank page and is about generating text, but as the pupils gain confidence they can be encouraged to modify and change. To be able to write successfully, pupils have to be constantly aware of the purpose of a piece of writing and who the audience is. As they get experience with different texts, they will become aware of the grammatical structures and formality required and particularly the need for conformity to the rules governing different non-fiction texts. Planning for extended writing across the curriculum subjects provides opportunities to transfer the skills.  Activities can include changing a written outcome in history or geography or science instead of just recording factual information, or using their knowledge to produce a report, an evaluation or a letter. 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Creative Teaching & Learning

Composing Coherently Inspiring Independence in Writing

10 Oct 2018

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      string(5629) "ago is suddenly anything but. Two years ago, in a school hall in Camden, a ten-year-old spat out the line “…peace? I hate the word. As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee” with such vicious intent that the whole room leaned forward, eager to see what was about to happen.What next?In each borough we work with approximately five schools. Each school is then responsible for one act within that year’s play, and they will then work with their director to create a seven-minute version of the events within their section. For this, they have a further six devising and rehearsal workshops that are spread out across Summer Term 1. Finally, all the schools in each borough will come together for one day to create a festival, in which their individual segments will be stitched together to form a single, unique version of the play.These days are inspiring and emotion-filled. Each section is kept deliberately short so that the emphasis can be placed on producing something of real quality. Directors are chosen not only for their skill in working within educational settings, but for their artistic ambition and creativity, and almost all also work as professional theatre-makers: we have actors, directors, choreographers and others who create puppetry performances. All are experts at collaborating with children, helping them to realise their ideas and to harness their energy. This creates marvellously diverse performances: at one festival this year, children used their gymnastic skills to make it seem as if the Witches were truly levitating above the heads of Banquo and Macbeth. At another, the insomnia that plagues the central characters was represented by a stage covered in pillows and a dormitory of sleepless children. I have seen a blood-red staircase glowing in the dark, up which Macbeth climbed to assassinate Duncan, and have witnessed Banquo appear from the folds of a tablecloth. I heard beautiful a capella singing and a mournful brass ensemble who had written their own lament. The list is long, and all delivered by children between the ages of 7 and 11. So now, why?I think/hope I’ve already answered the question ‘why Shakespeare?’, but I also feel the need to respond to the question: why work in this way? Why put drama in such a central position in the learning model that we promote?The project is not about performanceI’ve sometimes described what we do as a ‘stealth writing project’, and it is this that lies at the heart our project. This is the first article I have ever written, and, I confess, I have not found it easy. I felt somewhat paralysed with anxiety about how to approach this and stared for almost an hour at the blank page in front of me, as a creeping, sweaty fear that I would not be able to fill it started to grip me. It’s exactly this fear that many children feel when they sit down to write in school, and that we set out to alleviate. Before the festival, before rehearsals, before the initial workshop or even the storytelling performance, something else happens which is more important: we meet with and train all the class teachers who are going to participate in the project, showing them how to use our drama sessions and the play itself as a stimulus for their planning for that term. We provide guidance on how they can begin to incorporate drama techniques into their own teaching, support them with a set of outstanding lesson plans and resources that cover not just literacy, but also art, design and technology, and even science and maths, and we put them together in borough planning clusters so that they can share ideas and support each other. Our stated aim is that teachers, for the term that they are doing the project, should base as much of their children’s learning around the play as they can. We believe that drama is a vital, key tool for learning and that once children have imagined themselves as characters, have visualised settings, enacted the dilemmas faced by the characters they are embodying, then they are filled with the content they need in order to write, to such an extent that the fear to which I alluded is almost irrelevant, and, instead, words pour out. This is not fanciful. Here is a small selection of comments from recent evaluation documents attesting to this: “We saw a big improvement in the quality of their writing as they all became emotionally involved with the play… It was overwhelming to see the impact the project had on the children,” Year 4 Teachers, Montpelier School, Ealing.“Children, some of who may have had perceptions of ‘low ability’, were producing in-depth, sustained learning both at home and at school,” Deputy Head, St Michael’s  Camden.“Writing progress was excellent – over half the class exceeded expectation (i.e. made 6 or more APS over the year) with an overall APS average gain of 4.8,” Head, Soho Parish School, Westminster.The Primary Shakespeare Company came about sixteen years ago when Holy Trinity and St Silas, the school in which I teach and where Neil was the music specialist, presented many of the challenges typical of inner city primaries at that time: it was part of an Education Action Zone, with a high percentage of children entitled to FSM and a large number of EAL beginners, and levels of pupil achievement and attainment were low. What it had in its favour was a visionary new head, Annie Williams, a drama graduate who declared that anything that could be taught through the arts would be taught through the arts and anything that couldn’t – well,"
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Arts-Based Learning

Method, Madness and Meaning Shakespeare and Play

17 Jul 2018

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      string(5722) "create the environment of the coastal cave by puttingup labels that direct our imaginations and stick them around the room. Here aresome of the labels the children created:Cold stone, Snakehole, Litter, Dead stuff, Driftwood, A smashed photo frame,Old fishing nets, A lobster potSigning the space gives children the visualclues to building their imaginative view of thecontext. It also enables us to step in and outof the context as appropriate; it’s a lurkingresource that can be referred to and usedduring other learning. As you can see from thelist above, there are many opportunities forexploring the children’s ideas. A couple of theideas themselves offer us potential stories andnarratives that would be well worth pursuing,the smashed photo frame for example, buttime was pressurising so I needed to moveon.Following the starter and the signing,I ‘protected’ the children into a story byessentially saying the following to them:“I’m going to tell you a story. It’s not a real story. But it isreal in my head and it’s going to be real until lunchtime.But it’s just a story. Is that okay? A real made-up story. It’s the story ofSelkie Cave.”Most children understand the conventions of a story and these children wereno different. The story I told was about the cave by the sea I had discoveredwhilst on a ramble around a small island off the Scottish coast. I asked them toimagine we were all in the cave. We walked through it (them in their heads, memoving around the room) and I asked them to provide a soundscape for me towalk through. Now I thought I’d need to explain this but they did it straight away:the crunches and creaks of my footsteps were offered without trepidation, soas I walked I decided to conduct the volume of the soundscape being providedto avoid the danger of it turning into cacophonic chaos. I did this by holding outmy hand palm down as I walked. When I raised my hand higher, the childrenincreased the volume of the soundscape; when I lowered it, they quietened. Itwas during a quiet moment later in the morning that we found the source of thedead crabs and fish bones: a Selkie. It had shed its skin and left it on the groundto be returned to later. We watched the Selkie leave.Hot seatingPrior to this turning point we had spoken to the man who lived near the cave,who had seen the Selkie before. We’d ‘hotseated’ him after I’d given the childrenplenty of time to write down appropriate questions to ask, and after we’d signedup what we thought the man would look like. They said he:had a big white bushy beardhad a wooden legspoke softlywore an eye patchnnnnHywel on a school visit33Volume3.2nCreativeTeaching&LearningCreativeapproacheslaughed a lotdidn’t like the mainlandloved the seawas wrinklyAgain, the children offer offshoots to the centralSelkie narrative that may well be worth pursuing,how did he lose his leg? for example.So the Selkie leaves. Its skin lies on the groundin front of us. We learned much from the manwho lived by the cave (and whom I represented,surrounded by an archway of sticky note signs),the main thing being that he who holds theSelkie skin will have good fortune and it willalso be worth a lot of money. He told us that theSelkie is a precious thing and must be protectedat all costs. He also said that there were peoplewho would destroy the Selkie to get their handson its skin. He added that the Selkie knew all the secrets of the sea.(I wonder what the secrets of the sea actually are? Another sessionmaybe…)The Selkie skin is represented by my jacket which I’ve thrown on the floor inthe space between the back table and the fire exit. We understand the beauty ofthe Selkie but we also know the potential value of the skin.The benefits of positive tensionThis is the dilemma which takes children to the edge of their seat and creates anauthentic tension within the learning. This sort of learning cannot be summed upin a text book (or perhaps an article for a magazine), but exists in the moment.The children become characters in the shared narrative and as a result they find iteasier to articulate their thoughts and opinions. The story, with its healthy learningtension, turning points and air of the fantastical, becomes a distancing tool thatworks to support engagement. The curriculum needs to rehearse children forreal life and this is why stories that resonate with children can really help. Storiesalso offer many opportunities for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development,for example, cause and consequence, right and wrong, responsibility and rights,difference and understanding. For this class, and this school, looking at how wecan marry the established curriculum to creative classroom practice is the startof the journey.So, have a look at what you need to deliver next half term and ask yourself‘Where are the stories?’ You could keep your class on the edge of their seats.Hywel Roberts is an associate of Independent Thinking. Visit his websiteat: www.createlearninspire.co.uk.Hywel’s book Oops! Helping Children Learn Accidentally (ed. Ian Gilbert)was published in April 2012 and can be ordered online.nnnnKnowledge trails1) I want to tell you a story – the benefits of storytelling go beyond improving reading and writing skills. Here welook at the impact on the broader curriculum spectrum.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctl_2_1_i_want_to_tell_you_a_story.htm2) Telling stories – reading stories provides a base for enquiry-led learning. This article looks closely at the benefitsof the ‘Learning to Learn’ programme."
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Edge-of-the-seat-learning

24 Jul 2012

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      string(4863) "and give their opinion. The important issue for the teacher or practitioner isthat of creating an ethos which always encourages children to support their opinionswith a rational argument.Addressing broader needsAddressing the broader communication needs of those vulnerable tounderachievement will go some way towards changing their achievement trajectories.The Read On. Get On. campaign, launched by Save the Children, proposes that everychild will be able to read by age 11. The campaign is supportive of developing thehome learning environment (i.e. encouraging parents and carers to read with theirchildren).This is reflective of the Achieving Early programme, developed by Achievement forAll, which has enabled settings to better engage parents and carers in developing thehome communication environment. Evidence from an evaluation of the pilot showedthat much can be gained when settings develop workshops for both staff and parentsand carers which focus on speech and language development.http://readongeton.org.uk/88Vol 7.3School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comPrimaryFileSpeechandlanguageskillsKnowledge trails1. Developing skills for communication and learning – Valerie Rose outlines what WayfieldCommunity Primary School are doing to develop children’s basic communication and languageskills.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/developing-skills-for-communication-and-learning2. Incorporating literacy into imaginative play – Sue Lyle makes early literacy fun with a classhunt for signs, symbols and letters, which spilled over into role play and storytelling activities inclass.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/incorporation-literacy-into-imaginative-play3. Championing communication skills – Many schools are finding new ways to developchildren’s speech and language skills in order to make sure they get the most out of learning.Jean Gross reports.library.teachingtimes.com/articles/slt_championing_communication_skillsReferences1. Rose, J. (2006) Independent review of the teaching of early reading: Final report. Nottingham: Departmentfor Education and Skills. Available at: dera.ioe.ac.uk/5551/2/report.pdf [Accessed 9 March 2016].2. Hart, B. and Risley, T. (1995) Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children.Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.3. Blanden, J. and Mackin, S. (2010) Intergenerational inequality in early years assessments: MillenniumCohort Study Briefing 13. London: Institute of Education. Available at: www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/library-media/documents/briefing13_web(2).pdf [Accessed 9 March 2016].4. Department for Education (2015) Special educational needs: an analysis and summary of data sources.[online] Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/sen-analysis-and-summary-of-data-sources[Accessed 9 March 2016].5. Allen, G. (2011) Early intervention: The next steps. [online] Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-intervention-the-next-steps–2 [Accessed 9 March 2016].6. Ofsted (2014) Are you ready? Good practice in school readiness. [online] Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/are-you-ready-good-practice-in-school-readiness [Accessed 9 March 2016].7. Botting, N. and Conti-Ramsden, G. (2000) Social and behavioural difficulties in children with languageimpairment. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, vol. 16(2), pp.105-120.8. Ofsted (2014) Op cit.9. Clark, A. and Moss, P. (2001) Listening to young children: the Mosaic approach. London: National Children’sBureau.10. Roberts, H. (2000) Listening to children and hearing them. In: Christensen, P. and James, A. (eds.) Researchwith children: Perspectives and practices. London: Falmer Press.11. Coleyshaw, L., Whitmarsh, J., Jopling, M. and Hadfield, M. (2012) Listening to children’s perspectives:Improving the quality of provision in early years settings. [online] Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/listening-to-childrens-perspectives-improving-the-quality-of-provision-in-early-years-settings[Accessed 9 March 2016].12. Whitebread, D. and Coltman, P. (eds.) (2003) Teaching and learning in the early years. London: Routledge.Sonia Blandford is founder and CEO of award-winning charity Achievement forAll, and an honorary professor at the University of Warwick. Previously, she held anumber of leadership and teaching professions at secondary schools around thecountry.Catherine Knowles is a researcher, also at Achievement for All, and a visitingfellow for the University of Warwick. Her research areas include evaluation,inclusive education, SEN, values education, teacher professional development andearly years.This article has been adapted from Sonia and Catherine’s forthcoming book, Developingprofessional practice 0-7 (2nd edition), to be published in June 2016 by"
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Leadership

Encouraging confident communication

29 Mar 2016