Staff Meeting: Learning Intentions and Success Criteria within the context of the Good Lesson

On Thursday, after school, I attended a staff meeting at the school that I am currently at; it was entitled "Learning Intentions and Success Criteria within the context of the Good Lesson".  The following are notes from that presentation:

5 Components of a Good Lesson:

1. Connect the learning
2. Learning Outcomes and Success Criteria
3. Active Learning
4. Demonstrate Understanding
5. Review and Recall

This pyramid shows how we learn best

Students need to understand the context of their learning, why it is relevant.  (Why it is important to learn and how it is significant).  Students must see how important learning is across the curriculum, and how skills can be applied in a variety of subjects.

The teacher needs to believe in the learning intentions and success criteria.

Often times success criteria can be confused with the learning intentions. 

The learning intentions are the What and the Why?  It is what you want students to know and what they should be able to do as a result of the learning.  It is focused on the learning itself and not on whatever activity is used to support or demonstrate the learning.  It should also be shared right at the beginning of the lesson.  We need to decontextualise so that learning can cross contexts and be made a transferrable skill.  Can use the following template for expressing Learning Intentions:  "We are learning to.... This is because....".  These intentions should be expressed in pupil friendly language, and should be revisited/reiterated throughout the lesson and activity.  Learning intentions should be open-ended, not too specific, for example: write a set of instructions, create a poster, collect and organise data, persuasive writing, etc. 

***I realised that, as a supply teacher, I too need to prepare a laminated template for learning intentions, using the "We are learning to.... This is because...." format, that I can bring with me into classrooms and use for each lesson that I am teaching, as it is important to communicate these ideas with the students at the beginning of each lesson.  I often will say the learning intention during my lesson, but posting it up for students to be able to refer back to throughout the lesson enables them to take some responsibility for their own learning and stay focused.

The success criteria is what is used to assess what has been learned; "steps required to achieve the learning intentions and to what standard" (GOGLASGOW, 2010).  The success criteria must be linked to the learning intentions, and must be specific to the activity.  They should be discussed, understood, and agreed upon by the pupils prior to doing the activity.  Provides a scaffolding and focus for students while engaged in the activity, and as a basis for effective feedback and peer/self-assessment after the activity and lesson.

Semantics and overthinking can complicate success criteria.  You do not want to look for too many success criteria for each  activity and lesson, keep it focused on a limited few. 

***I found this a very good thing to cover, as the line between learning intention and success criteria have always been a little fuzzy for me, and it was handy to do an exercise taking a learning intention and coming up with examples of success criteria, and vice versa.  I have a better sense of how to move from one ot the other, and what the difference is between them.  It was also good for me as I usually am too specific and overthink what I am looking for as success criteria; I am really going to try now not to complicate it and keep it simple and clear.

The plenary is a recap of what has been learned during the lesson and activity, it is meant to summarise the lesson and underline what has been accomplished.  It can be as quick as a one minute activity or last upto 15 minutes.  For the children, it should focus on what was really important learning during the lesson and activity as opposed to what was the most recent point that may have been learned.  For the teacher, the plenary will provide some instant feedback and enables you to be able to make adjustments to forward plans (what areas need more attention and what the students already know and what skills they already possess). 

During the presentation, we were given a handout containing the powerpoint slides as well as a handout containing plenary examples. 

***I was made aware of some very useful resources on the Glasgow Intranet for Glasgow City Employees, now I just need to figure out how to access these resources when I am not at a Glasgow school so I can further familiarise myself with things I have available to me to use in the classrooms and keep up-to-date with things that are happening within the council that may affect me as a supply teacher. 

Dragonfly: Storytelling & Story Acting for Early Years Children

Yesterday, April 18th, after work I was invited to attend a CPD session that was occuring at the school I am currently supplying at.  It was presented by Citizens Learning & TAG, and was entitled: Dragonfly:  Storytelling & Story Acting for Early Years Children.  The Introduction of their handout pack summarises the concept as "an intensive EY project that uses creative arts to empower the child.  The aims of Dragonfly are to place the child at the heart of his or her own learning and enhance the classroom community, making it a community where the children listen and speak freely" by putting "play, storytelling and story acting at the heart of each classroom".

I have skimmed the pack that I received during the session, but made my own notes during the interacting workshop.  The workshop presented a few concepts:

• "Is there more?" concept - a story creating technique that can be used with children.  The idea is that a child is asked to tell an oral story, and the progress of the story is moved along by someone asking non-leading questions, such as "is there more?"  During this part of the workshop it was discussed that this is not the most natural question to ask nor would you consistently ask the same question repeatedly, and so we came up with some other non-leading questions that we felt might feel more natural. 
• "yeah, and...?"
• "what next?"
• "and then what happened?"
• "and then?"
• "anything else?"
• "Acting out" concept for storytelling - this concept was interesting as it uses the child's own stories as the script for the impromptu performances. ***YOU CAN ALSO USE PUBLISHED STORIES / WORKS, IF YOU SO CHOOSE. The child stars in their own writing, giving them more creative license over their creation, but also an opportunity to include their classmates.  Have class sit in a circle around a marked out "performance" area.  Ask for or select a child (or the child) to begin acting out as the story is read aloud. With each new character, key prop, etc that another child could "perform" go around the circle and give the next child in line a chance on stage.  Describe to them the part that they can play and give them the choice of getting up; however also let them know that if they decline this time, that they must wait until it has gone all the way around and returns to them before they would get another chance to get up on stage.  SOME KEY POINTS DISCUSSED IN OUR WORKSHOP ABOUT THIS CONCEPT:  Use caution with violence; you may have to set up some boundaries before you being the writing exercise.  You must also use discretion when it comes to censorship, as this exercise is supposed to give them a relatively safe place to express themselves (REMEMBER: "...making it a community where the children listen and speak freely"; you also do not want to discriminate when reading / "acting out" the works the children have written.  What we discussed in regard to censorship, especially after the writing rules you establish, was reading quickly through the parts that you do not want to emphasise and not really have students act these parts out, and then emphasise, act out and comment on the appropriate key parts.  Remember, this is supposed to be writing where the children can "speak freely", so censorship is sort of contradictory to the main purpose and goals of Dragonfly.

There was a lot of good ideas presented during this workshop about bringing writing and drama together, having a child orally storytell and you recording verbatim what they tell you (is a good idea for children with lower literacy, who have a lot that they want to say, but would be unable to write all down on their own), etc.  Another good idea that was presented was having older students (Upper Primary (UK) or Middle School (Canada)) lead sessions where they are carrying out these concepts with younger primary students, rather than it be a teacher-led activity.  This way an older student and younger student get one-on-one time with each other (developing and writing stories, etc), which would not necessarily be possible if sessions were always teacher-led.

BOOK NOTES: Cracking the Hard Class: Ch. 1

Cracking the Hard Class.  By Bill Rogers.  Paul Chapman Publishing, 2^nd ed.  ©2006.  ISBN: 1-4129-2356-5

This book is about “strategies for managing the harder than average class”

KEY POINTS FROM BOOK:  CHAPTER 1: “WHAT MAKES A CLASS ‘HARD’?”

Page 11:

·         Group noise, poor learning habits, resistance to normal classroom management and learning.

·         Hard classes ‘corporate’ behaviour can have a through-the-wall-effect on other classes

Page 12-16:

·         Classes can be considered ‘hard’ when the frequency and the intensity of the disruptive behaviour significantly affects the welfare of one or more teachers and any sense they may have of productive teaching and learning.

·         Another factor is duration.

·         Hard or difficult to manage behaviour may be selective just for one of two teachers, may be due to the curriculum, the teacher style, personality, management or discipline approaches, organisation and timetabling of classes (i.e. ability streaming), physical work areas, grouping of students, reputation, subject area and how it is taught, belief of the teacher that affects their perception of the class and hence the classes behaviour, lack of colleague/school support, closed-door syndrome, treatment of the entire class (i.e. whole class detentions – as good students will then begin to act out if this is how their good behaviour is rewarded), or it may be one student of groups of students acting out for various other reasons.

·         “We build a working relationship from day one as we engage that natural readiness in our students”.

·         Students respond to a fair, reasonable, discipline within a teacher’s need to clarify rights, rules, and responsibilities. 

o   Teach – reasonable entry/exit routines, seat plans, rules for class discussions, simple cues for asking questions or getting teacher support, workable ‘noise’ levels, basic classroom agreements for learning and fair/respectful treatment of one another.

Page 17:

o   Follow-up and follow through early

·         Putting all the difficult and ‘reputation’ students into one class can result in:

o   No significant role modelling of reasonable social and on-task behaviour

o   Management of behaviour is more difficult as key  power brokerage / ‘hierarchal pegging’

o   Class gets a special reputation beyond any normative hard class

o   Unfair for teacher and students – perception of an ‘isolated’ mentality for both

o   Setting up such a class in the mainstream sends the message to students that we cannot you within the relative normality of a classroom setting.

o   Partial withdrawal would be more effective to give behavioural support, of key learning and behavioural skills, one-to-one or in small groups through dialogue, active teaching, role modelling, and rehearsal

Page 18:

·         Regular / normative classes subject difficult/hard students to the social pressure of their peers, sending the message that (reverse peer-pressure):

o   They are always welcome in our classes/school but not with behaviour that continually and significantly affects the rights of others

o   Your behaviour is your ‘choice’.  Our message “when you come into our school this is how we do things.  We can help you to make better, more effective choices.  These choices will help you with your learning, behaviour, and relationships at our school.”

o   YOYOB – “You Own Your Own Behaviour” – I don’t own it, your mates don’t own it, and your mum doesn’t own it.  YOU DO.  (Doesn’t deny the need to help, support, encourage students with their behaviour, but it enforces the idea that students are not merely victims)

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MY COMMENTS & REFLECTIONS:  When I read this: "Your behaviour is your ‘choice’" and “You Own Your Own Behaviour”, I was happily surprised. It is always nice to gain evidence of something you have always believed. I have always found myself telling my students "you are responsible for your own behaviour, as only you can control how you act and what you choose to do". One of my bggest pet peeves is when I ask students to justify their behaviour, to give me a good reason as to why they behaved a certain way, and they say "well s/he made me" or they attempt to explain by stating how their classmate was acting and therefore that is why THEY acted the way they did (which actually has no connection to their behaviour at all). I have to keep reminding them that I want to know why they decided that they should behave the way they did and was not asking for a description of what their classmate was doing at the time of their behaviour (i.e. so their classmate made a mistake and was getting a rubber from a friend is this a good reason that the student in question was talking out of turn and crawling about the floor?). After telling them that they are responsible for their own behaviour, I also let my students know that I plan the way we approach learning based on how responsible they behave; if they show me they are mature enough then I am able to plan activities that are more fun, free, and open for exploration as I know that they won't get as out of hand or as loud as if I plan the same activity for students who act out frequently and are hard to manage (as you may never get through the activity with these individuals and therefore not learn what needs to be learned).

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Page 18-21

·         Labels provide a useful summary; Global labels (All, Never, Always) are hindering when used for a whole class of an individual

·         Ways to deal more effectively/positively with difficult students:

o   After class chats, classroom meetings, conflict-resolution, problem solving with support, developing personal and individual behaviour plans

·         “Shouting a class down” – trains students – we don’t believe the class can settle and listen without the shouting.  Sends the wrong message – unsettling, unnerving, over excite, or entertain instead of having the intended outcome.

·         Non-verbal communication is just as important as our verbal – w=such as waiting, standing relaxed and just waiting (silent, casual, look at watch as appropriate but not overdone) then select appropriate words that convey your expectations (face this way and listening, settle down please and thank you, “I want everyone facing this way.  I want to see everyone listening with their eyes and their ears”), walking around and settle groups/individuals one at a time, bell, clapping rhythm (If you can hear my voice, clap once.  If you can hear my voice, clap twice.  Etc.), silent teacher with hand or finger cue, writing or drawing on board.

Page 23-24:

·         Sometimes, with a hard class or individual, we must remind ourselves “I can lead, guide, engage, challenge, encourage, and (at times, when necessary) confront.  I cannot, simply, control others.”

·         Safety valve methods – send a student messenger to disruptive class, “borrowing” students for brief time out, “message in the office” code for teacher to take a break while another covers

o   Merely temporary relief, not a solution to the problem

BOOK NOTES: Cracking the Hard Class: Introduction

Cracking the Hard Class.  By Bill Rogers.  Paul Chapman Publishing, 2^nd ed.  ©2006.  ISBN: 1-4129-2356-5

This book is about “strategies for managing the harder than average class”

KEY POINTS FROM BOOK:  INTRODUCTION:

Page 4-5:

·         Behaviour  - “60, 30, 10 principle”

o   60% of students are co-operative, reasonable, and considerate

o   30% behave in attentionally annoying ways, which include clowning around, “notice me” behaviours, speaking out frequently, butting in, leaning back or rocking in chairs, making “silly” or inappropriate comments, being overly noise during class work time, wandering between seats, avoiding tasks and work, etc. 

o   10% are frequently challenging, through arguing or confronting teachers, refusing to listen or work, defiance, etc.  (This 10% can also include the socio-emotional behaviour disorders, including ADD, ADHD, ASB (Autism), etc. which still present significant challenges for class teachers).

·         There is a pattern in many hard to manage classes. You can see rapid deterioration in group behaviour, including students from the 60 percentile noted above.  Symptoms usually include group restlessness, inattention, inability to focus on tasks, speaking out, interrupting classmates and teacher by talking over them.

·         It is critical how we establish ourselves, the classroom, and the rules within that first meeting with a new class.

o   Are we perceived as confident of as indecisive, unsure, and non-assertive?

o   Are we able to clearly convey why we have gathered together as a class, in this location, for this subject/unit/lesson?

o   Are we enthusiastic and engaged in our teaching, with our subject matter, and with our students?

o   Is there evidence that we respect ALL of our students, even the hard to manage ones?

·         “Credibility is earned over time through effective teaching, leadership skill and [...] fundamental respect [...] balanced with commitment to dignity, respect welfare, and solid encouragement.”

Page 6 -7:

o   Can be earned “by proxy” – team teaching with colleague who already has credibility with students.

o   Should have a positive start with any new class that sounds and looks relaxed and natural, and that links your leadership to that of the previous teacher through classroom rights and responsibilities.

o   Even small issues should be thought through thoroughly.

Page 8:

·         AVOID EASY BLAME of teacher or students as it is a reaction and not a solution.  No one simple, single strategy can be used to change a hard class.  The hard class issue is more effectively addressed when a whole school approach is taken and it is not treated as an isolated incident.

Page 9:

·         John Embling states “schools can provide ‘badly distressed’ children with a safe environment for learning, for interacting with others, for finding some pastoral relief to the nightmare of their lives.  This means caring, humane environments, not jungles of violence and mayhem” (the Age, 2 June 1987, p 22)

·         Bad day syndrome (BDS) is caused by tiredness, frustration, irritation, and social injustice.  We need to be able to acknowledge, apologize when it is necessary, learn from it and move on.

First Post...! How Exciting!

I was not sure how to begin with my new blog.  I finally decided that I would begin by posting GLOW, Scotland's online education community; as this is where I got the idea to create a blog in the first place.  I have been doing CPD and thought that I needed a way of recording my thoughts and a place to make notes that is more environmentally friendly and at the same time inexpensive.  I have been working on many projects, including my family tree and my website and thought perhaps I could bring them together somehow.  I have not figured out how to incorporate my family tree as of yet, but since I am always trying to incorporate new technology into what I am doing I thought I would test out one of the resources I had discovered during my many CPD conferences, Blogger, and I would post a link to my new CPD blog on my website.  I thought this would be a good way to not only test the resource but also familiarise myself with it. I think I will keep this post short, so here are the links I have spoken about:

Glow - https://secure.glowscotland.org.uk/
Blogger - http://www.blogger.com/