inspiring learning

Inspiring learning

The “O” factorMike Hughes:

“Lessons are for Learning”

Network Educational Press

Ltd

The “O” factor“Oh God,

it’s Physics”

The “O” factor“Oh

good, it’s Physics”

Write down……

• The first 3 words that comes into your head when you see the following slide

LESSONS

“Lessons”

• 60 students

“Lessons”

• 60 students• 27 wrote “teachers” or “teaching”

“Lessons”

• 60 students• 27 wrote “teachers” or “teaching”• 20 - “boring”• 14 – “school’• 13 – “homework”

“Lessons”

• 60 students• 27 wrote “teachers” or “teaching”• 20 - “boring”• 14 – “school’• 13 – “homework”• 13 – “learning” or “learners”

“Lessons”

• 60 students• 27 wrote “teachers” or “teaching”• 20 - “boring”• 14 – “school’• 13 – “homework”• 13 – “learning” or “learners”• 2 wrote “thinking” and 1 wrote “new stuff”

“Lessons”

• 60 students• 27 wrote “teachers” or “teaching”• 20 - “boring”• 14 – “school’• 13 – “homework”• 13 – “learning” or “learners”• 2 wrote “thinking” and 1 wrote “new stuff”• (the same as those that wrote “suicide”,

“unmotivated” and “stress”)

Are things really this bad?

Follow a student for a day.

What’s happening in most lessons?

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Children answering questions

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Students copying notes

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Students “learning” something that they already know

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Children writing down things that they don’t understand.

“ - the earthquake was caused by movement along the subduction zone. Here the Cocos oceanic plate meets the Pacific plate –“

“What caused the earthquake in Mexico City?”

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Children writing down things that they don’t understand.

“ - the earthquake was caused by movement along the subduction zone. Here the Cocos oceanic plate meets the Pacific plate –“

“What caused the earthquake in Mexico City?”

“movement along the subduction zone”

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Children practising something that they can already do

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Students doing practical work without really knowing the purpose

What’s happening in most lessons?

• Students making models without a clear purpose

What’s happening in most lessons

• Even AFL!

Paul Black, Dylan Paul -

I’m informed they are appalled about the

way AFL has become an unimaginative and

rigid ‘recipe’

Self-audit

In each box is a list of commonly employed teaching strategies. Award each a mark out of ten depending on how frequently you use (or how often you see this in your school) the particular strategy in your teaching (10 = frequently, 1 = rarely). Try to use the full range of marks.

Self-audit

In the second column of your sheet, give each strategy a second mark out of ten, depending on how effectively it contributes to learning (10 = significent contribution to learning, 1 = minimal contribution to learning)

Self-audit

Plot your result on the scattergram that Simon is giving you. Consider your completed scattergram.

No National curriculum?

• A whole generation of teachers who are unused to creating their own schemes/curricula

Enjoyment

We know that children learn more when the lesson is interesting/memorable and when they are challenged to think, so we have to do whatever we can to make the lesson a “memorable” event.

Your time at school?

The ‘Hook’

Who can forget?

The lesson where the chemistry teacher illustrated an exothermic reaction by burning his socks in an alcohol/water/salt mixture and then putting them on again

Who can forget?

The lesson where the geography teacher illustrated coastal erosion by starting the lesson throwing a bucket of water at a heavily chalked blackboard

Who can forget?

The lesson where the physics teacher illustrated work and power by getting his class to pull his car across the car park using a giant Newton meter

Who can forget?

The lesson where the history teacher helped the class to recreate the trial of Charles I

Who can forget?

The lesson where the tutor invited a terminal ill cancer patient to talk about their regret at starting smoking at 13

Who can forget?

The lesson where the maths teacher illustrated the addition of negative numbers by staging a tennis by numbers game on the tennis courts

Who can forget?

The lesson where the music teacher played the opening to the Rite of Spring in a completely darkened room with lights that gradually came on to illustrate the dawn of spring.

Who can forget?

The lesson where the biology teacher had her class sit cross legged on their tables and taught them how to meditate by focusing on their breathing as an introduction to the lungs

Passionate teachers?

Teaching should be fun (the classroom part!). If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.

Ways to encourage creativity/thinking

Permission to fail

• ‘The Inner game of tennis’ – Tim Gallwey

Don’t do your usual

New classroom?

• My best Science lessons have been taught in an ordinary classroom not a Science lab. What could an English teacher do in a lab?!

New furniture arrangement?

“Thinking is so important”

(Edmund Blackadder)

Changing the form of information

Changing the form of information

• Draw the sentence

Draw the sentence• Draw the sentence• Food is ground into small pieces in the mouth.• Saliva helps the food to slide down the gullet.• The stomach mixes the food is with acid and pepsin.• The stomach squeezes food into the small intestine.• Bile from the liver is added along with enzymes from the pancreas.• In the small intestine the food molecules get small enough to pass into the

blood.• In the large intestine water is taken out of what is left of the food.• Faeces are stored in the rectum before being expelled through the anus.

Draw the sentence• Draw the sentenceFreeze-Thaw weathering1. Rain water falls into a crack in some rocks.2. At night the water freezes and expands.3. This makes the crack larger.4. During the day the ice melts.5. The water falls deeper into the crack. 6. The water freezes again and widens the crack.7. This happens repeatedly.8. Eventually a piece of rock is broken away.

Draw the sentence• Draw the sentenceCauses of the Second World War1. Germany is defeated in the First World War.2. The treaty signed with the victorious nations is very tough on

Germany.3. Resentment builds amongst the German people.4. The Nazis take advantage of this resentment to build their

support.5. The victorious nations do not believe a world war will happen

again and do not re-arm.6. As the Nazis take power they gradually break agreements

made at the end of WWI.7. Germany rearms and threatens neighbouring states.8. The invasion of Poland starts WWII.

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• Impose a limit

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What would you tell your (imaginary) 8-year-old brother?

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What is the most important word/sentence?

In high mountainous areas, rain water can seep into the small cracks in a rock. At night-time the air gets very cold and the water freezes. When water freezes it expands making the crack wider. During the day the water melts and falls deeper into the now larger crack. This happens repeatedly, the crack gets bigger and bigger, and eventually a piece of rock is broken away from the mountain.

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• Writing their own questions

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• 5 answers/questions/solutions

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What if........

Friday 8th May 2009

The world has stopped spinning!

Possible consequences Our science correspondent reports * * * * * *

Our travel correspondent reports directly from the South Pole

Other news: * Simon Porter wins another Nobel Prize *Mr Rayner breaks world record! *Forest win again * BSH voted best school * Man Utd rubbish

Life on earth: Can it survive? Our team of experts assesses the long-term effects on life on earth * * * *

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What if........

- Hitler hadn’t declared war on the USSR?

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What if........

- Hitler hadn’t declared war on the USSR?- soil didn’t contain humus

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What if........

- Hitler hadn’t declared war on the USSR?- soil didn’t contain humus- there were acids but no alkalis

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• What if........

- Hitler hadn’t declared war on the USSR?- soil didn’t contain humus- there were acids but no alkalis- there were unlimited substitutions in soccer?

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• Prediction

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• Do 3 sums – Give them a sheet of 20, but ask them to do one hard one, one medium and one easy. Alternatively, get them to explain why they picked the hard one (“why is it hard?”). Their answer will tell you a great deal about their level of understanding.

Encouraging thinking/understanding

• Individual help and guidance

Plan for this to happen

Other ways to make your classes more fun

• Personalize worksheets

“Anna and Tom are getting married. They walk down the aisle of the church at a speed of 3 m/s and the aisle is 35 m long. How long do they take?”

Other ways to make your classes more fun

• Role plays

Other ways to make your classes more fun

• Circus of activities

A number of bases around the room with an activity/experiment/question on each. Give a set time to do the activity. On a signal they all change.

Other ways to make your classes more fun

• Competition

Other ways to make your classes more fun

• Humour

Other ways to make your classes more fun

• Use memorable images

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Establish the atmosphere.

Getting the children to start asking questions takes time and patience. Try the following, and give it time!

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Time-outs. • Call a two-minute time out during the lesson

so pupils can talk to the student next to them about anything they don’t understand. My partner Edward Hayes taught me more maths than my teacher!

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• What would Einstein have said?

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Pupils have to ask a question.

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Question wall/box.

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Ask the expert.

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Differentiation by asking questions.

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

• Encourage them to ask the questions you would normally ask.

How do we encourage the students to ASK questions?

Give them time to answer.

Differentiation

The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many

Differentiation

• Setting does not remove the need for this; even in setted classes there is often a wide range of abilities and aptitudes

My main weapons in the war on differentiation

• The Scattergun approach

My main weapons in the war on differentiation

• Let them choose

My main weapons in the war on differentiation

• “Differentiation means getting in amongst the buggers and giving them some help” (Martyn Long). This means finding activities that the children can work on independently whilst you circulate and help the low achievers and push the high achievers.

Meetings

• Teachers should come out of meetings better teachers - if this is not the case, don’t have them!

Meetings

• Start meetings off by taking it in turns to outline a particularly successful lesson you have taught.

Meetings

• Reflect on your own practices. Circulate lists of teaching strategies to remind your department what can be tried.

Meetings

• Plan lessons together.

Meetings

• Plan a lesson with a teacher from another department.

Some last thoughts

• Observe• Be observed

Some last thoughts

• Keep reminding yourself and the SLT at your school that the most important thing that happens in your school are LESSONS.

Stick this to your desk as a daily reminder

HOW IS THIS HELPING THEM LEARN?

This PowerPoint is available at

www.mrsimonporter.wikispaces.com

Or e mail to

sporter@thebritishschool.pl