Extending and enriching the classroom based on university-style learning

Michael Slavinsky Teaching & Learning Director, The Brilliant Club@michaelslavbit.ly/lwaresearchers

Who am I?

• Lapsed French teacher.• Ex-head of MFL at London Academy, 2009 – 2011.• Teaching & Learning Director at The Brilliant Club

2011 – 2014.

Interested in:• Teaching subject literacy.• Conceptual understanding – what makes subjects, subjects?

How do The Brilliant Club and Researchers In Schools work with researchers?

• ITT Route in partnership with Challenge Partners, George Abbott SCITT, The Brilliant Club and Lampton School.

• Minimum 2 years• Programme Aims:

– To increase subject expertise– To promote research– To champion university access

• September 2014 launch

• Charity• Individual placements of

about a term each.• Programme Aims:

– Improve fair access to university

– Develop knowledge, skills and ambition for university progression

• Launched 2011

Extending and enriching the classroom, based on university-style learning

Simply put…

…making teaching and learning better by learning what we can from working with researchers.

Context: exam reform

“We are reforming the content of GCSEs to make them more challenging so pupils are better prepared for further academic or vocational study, or for work.”

“We are reforming A and AS levels to make sure they properly equip students for higher education.”

PolicyReforming qualifications and the curriculum to better prepare pupils for life after school

‘University style’What’s so special about researchers?

What researchers bring…• Deep and fluent subject

knowledge.• Pose and answer research

questions.• Conceptual understanding.

…what challenges students face

• Lack of prior knowledge.• Lower levels of literacy

within their subject.• No research experience.

Overcoming the challenges to bring university-style teaching and learning to your classroom.

I will explain what we do to structure university-style content for pupils for KS3-5.

I will suggest ways that you could embed elements of this practice within units of work that you, and your colleagues, design.

How do we make complex and difficult concepts accessible?

The pedagogic stuff1. Key enquiry question or

core concept2. Use of glossaries and use

of academic terminology3. Engaging in research

process4. Use of journals and

referencing5. Careful construction of

mark schemes

The cosmetic stuff1. Marks (1st, 2.1, ... or

Distinction, Merit, …)2. Course rationales3. Handbooks4. VLE

Would the stars float in the bath?

Density, orders of magnitude, circle geometry

Could you predict an aircraft failure?

Young’s modulus, Failure mechanisms

The mysterious case of Jay Parker

Pulmonary system, hereditary diseases, genetic

modifications

Can neuroscience help make Britain smarter?

Nervous system, specialised cells, memory types

The mathematics of infectious diseases:

modelling bird flu epidemicsDifferentiation, integration,

differential equations

From a lab bench to a hospital bed: how new drugs are discovered

Chirality, organic substrates, protein structures

The physics of mind reading: illuminating the

brain’s activityIR spectroscopy, brain

activity

Genetically modifying crops: an ongoing debate

Genetic modification, cell biology, ethics

Is personalised medicine the future to cancer

therapy?Nano-medicine, cell cycle,

DNA

Key enquiry question or core concept: examples

Key enquiry question or core concept: practice!

What was your favourite topic or module at university?

If you had to teach an aspect of it to your students in a unit of work, what key enquiry question would you set?

Pick a KS3/4/5 unit of work that you will teach next academic year.

What key enquiry question addresses the core concepts at the heart of this unit of work?

Use of glossaries and use of academic terminology: examples and discussion

Look through the Brilliant Club course handbooks provided and consider the glossaries designed by the PhD tutors.

• Why might these be useful?• How could this be embedded in your units of

work?

Why glossaries?

• Don’t dumb down!• Teach literacy in your subject.• Use key words for constructing quizzes and

tests.• Use key words for defining success criteria in

mark schemes.

Engaging in the research process: examples

Engaging in the research process: how could you embed this in your schemes of work?

Consider the worksheet. Would this be relevant or useful for you and your colleagues in designing a unit of work to include research?

Use of journals and academic referencing

Use of journals and academic referencing

What can you do embed this in your units of work?• British Library (only the photocopying will cost you)• Google Scholar and Google Books

• Sign up to Athens/JSTOR is expensive – can you get a LWA account?• Who is doing an PGCE/MA/PhD in your school?• Researchers In Schools trainees will be associates of KCL and will

have access to online journal articles

How can you teach your students to read journal articles? Here’s one approach used by Queen Mary University of London with their undergraduates.

How do we make complex and difficult concepts accessible?

The pedagogic stuff1. Key enquiry question2. Engaging in research

process3. Use of glossaries and use

of academic terminology4. Use of journals and

referencing5. Careful construction of

mark schemes

The cosmetic stuff1. Marks (1st, 2.1, ... or

Distinction, Merit, …)2. Course rationales3. Handbooks4. VLE

Our conferences

4th July – University Learning in Schools PhD researchers + teachers paired together to design units of work. bit.ly/freecpd

24th July – Inaugural ConferenceBringing together teachers, Widening Participation professionals and academics to work out what more can be done to help pupils progress to highly selective university. bit.ly/BrillWP14

Selected ReferencesOn deep conceptual understanding:A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension Richard C. Anderson and P .David Pearson, 1984 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED239236.pdf Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines Jan Meyer and Ray Land, 2003 http://www.colorado.edu/ftep/documents/ETLreport4-1.pdf Thinking Writing project at QMULhttp://www.thinkingwriting.qmul.ac.uk/Policy context:https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reforming-qualifications-and-the-curriculum-to-better-prepare-pupils-for-life-after-schoolwww.thebrilliantclub.orgwww.researchersinschools.org

All these resources can be found at: http://bit.ly/lwaresearchers