Learners taking responsibility

[Charlainesi]

Thought I’d start the ball rolling and use the format suggested by Fearghal Kelly so here goes….
– what do you want to achieve?
I would like pupils who are proactive in their learning and are willing to take risks and make connections and progress their skills in all their learning

– why do you want to achieve it?
The experience for most pupils in education makes little or no effort made to help pupils increase their skills in a coherent and visible way. Pupils need skills to survive in the world beyond school and I would like to provide opportunities for pupils to discuss how they learn and the skills needed for learning for life.

– what would success look like from the pupils’ perspective?
Pupils will have a better understanding of themselves as a learner and can use all learning opportunities to progress their skills and be able to discuss their skills in a meaningful way

– what difficulties might you encounter?
My sustainability, make sure that I am explicit in highlighting skills and content and do not get bogged down by trying to get through the content at the expense of the skills. Keeping pupils motivated and setting expectations that pupils are responsible for themselves and will not be allowed to be passive learners

– what would help address these difficulties?
Being part of a group where I have to collaborate will keep this at the top of my head and also getting support from colleagues in the dept (also think about making this an agenda item for Faculty meeting so that as part of sharing practice)

what am I doing now?
I am looking at building skills progression into courses and making the skills explicit and then hanging the content on the skills. At the moment I have the usual LO and SC but have highlighted key skills and key words to try to help pupils look at both the skills and the content as two entities that when linked complete the learning circle.
I am also using learning logs to allow pupils to reflect on their learning but also use this formatively for similar tasks in the future

[Helene O’Shea]

Since I have been working on that with my year 10 this year, can I also suggest reinforcing the idea of a Growth Mindset with students? I used a simple slide stolen from a post from @pekabelo ‘s blog, which contrasts Fixed and Growth Mindsets. I had that slide up for several successive lessons then only the Growth mindset half; this was then coupled with a good look at what engagement means, such as the school redrafted a document spelling out the descriptors for engagement grades. It’s a bit dense but I have reduced it to a quick arrow/pyramid that I point a few students to when needed in class.
The engagement criteria encompass the ideas of being responsible, pro-active and having a growth mindset.

I’m not sure this make much sense at this time of night but would love to discuss this further.
Helene

[Drew Burrett]

I just had a look at @pekabelo’s blog post as mentioned above by Helene – http://deeplearning.edublogs.org/2012/09/30/seeing-effort-as-the-path-to-mastery/#.UOav0-qHyvS

The slide mentioned is definitely where I’ll be starting with my classes.

A wee twitter chat between myself and Fearghal took me to the Centre for Confidence website which has lots of material on the use of Dweck’s ‘Mindsets’ – http://www.centreforconfidence.co.uk/projects.php?p=cGlkPTU4

Drew

[Charlainesi]

Thought I would share how far I have got with building opportunities for pupils to regularly reflect on their own learning.
Working with a colleague, we are trying to integrate simple reflection questions into learning, pupils record these in their reflection log and use the answers to chart their progress and produce next steps for themselves.

At the starts of the new timetable I used the L.A.M.B. (Learning and Motivation Baseline review) to allow pupils to reflect on previous learning experiences and also to allow us to have a 1:1 learning conversation in the first few weeks.

L.A.M.B. (Learning and Motivation Baseline review)
• Your Motivation:
• Your past efforts:
• Your approach to learning:
• Your teachers:
• Good vs bad learning
• Summary:
One to Three things you can do to improve how you study
One to Three things you can do when you get stuck
One to Three things you can do to stay positive and motivated in Chemistry

One of the first co op tasks is to produce a safety video and the reflection used focuses on social skills.

Reflection
How well did I do in this task?

Not very well OK Good Awesome

What role did I take in the team??

What skills do i have that helped my team?

What will I try to do better next time?

This is the standard format I have used this session I have tried to keep it simple and familiar for pupils.

Self reflection
How well did I do today?

Not very well OK Good Awesome

Did you use all the keywords?

How will you do better next time?

Group work
Group Reflection
How well did I do today?

Not very well OK Good Awesome

Did everyone carry out their role?

What advice would you give yourself to improve your group work?

Self reflection of practical work

Self Reflection
How well did I do today?
Not very well OK Good Awesome

How was my practical work?
Not very well OK Good Awesome

How was my write up?
Not very well OK Good Awesome

What can I do better next time?

Reflection against success criteria;
for practical investigations

Reflection
SOLUBILITY
How did I do today
Not very well OK Good Awesome

Next steps
Aim
Variables
Method
Results
Conclusion
Evaluation

for a concept map
Use the success criteria to evaluate your concept map
In your reflection log give yourself 3 stars and 3 wishes

to show progression
What I now know about ….

Using a pyramid
I have used this for investigations that last at least one week, this allows pupils to reflect on a bigger piece of work and set targets for the next investigation.

Reflection
1 target
2 achievements
3 skills
4 rate your learning (1-4)

All of the techniques have been useful, however they become powerful if they are used not just to reflect on today’s learning but also for pupil to chart their progress and start to use these reflections to improve their learning.

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