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Teaching and learning Gem #35 – Ted and the Peppercorns (or telling a story)

This idea comes from Suzanne East, who I saw teach a great Year 12 Biology lesson this week. She told the story of when her son, Ted, dropped an entire box of peppercorns. To add extra impact, she proceeded to enact this with a large box of beads. Needless to say, they spread everywhere, much to the shock of the students. Of course, my summary of this lacks the real humour and panache with which this unfolded. However, this story was the starting point of much debate about whether or not this story acted as a reasonable model for the process of diffusion, or not. Their discussion was filled with scientific terminology and deep thought.

Suzanne’s anecdote about Ted used the principle that learning about complex ideas is itself a bit like understanding a story. Stories are not just for literary narratives but can be used to illustrate even the most complex and abstract concepts (e.g., math and science).

I really liked the process of Suzanne’s storytelling, because apart from being memorable, personal and fun, as a teaching and learning technique storytelling can:

  • Organise information, developing a student’s schema and clear network of ideas;
  • Incorporate cause and effect, helping students to consider causal links and thus aid memory;
  • Have impact and therefore facilitate remembering;
  • Enhance discussion and debate;
  • Promote problem posing and problem solving.

Here is a screenshot from Tom Sherrington’s blog ‘Great Teaching. The Power of Stories’ about this:

Tom Sherrington goes on to link to a video by Brian Cox, who is a master storyteller when he is explaining the workings of the universe. He weaves narratives, rather than starting with facts… just like Suzanne at the start of her lesson.

What stories could you tell?

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Friday Gem #28 – exam/assessment wrappers

Spring Focus: Metacognition – students driving their own learning through reflection

 

Teaching and learning Gem #28 – exam/assessment wrapper

Lots of us are promoting metacognition in the self-reflective reviews we are setting for students following the Spring Assessments. By reflecting on their own performance, we are encouraging students to think about their skills/understanding and become self-regulated learners.

I’m aware that for self-reflection to work, students need to take it seriously, realise its impact rather than pay lip-service to it. We can help them do this in the way we approach this sort of task. Additionally, the first minute of this video is great at helping students realise that self-reflection is an important part of life for all sorts of people: it’s not just something that happens in the classroom. 

Right now, there is lots of great practice going on around the school, so I thought I’d share five different approaches from five departments to give a flavour:

  1. Flipgrid for powerful, verbal self-reflection (Claire Baty)

Claire used Flipgrid as a way for students to send her a video of their self-reflection. This was quick to set up and powerful in its impact. Using a moderated Flpgrid board meant that students couldn’t see each other’s video reflections, so it felt like a personal one-to-one discussion with their teacher. Claire could then easily video a response back to the student using the platform. Claire says, “I am convinced that verbalising their self-reflection helps students to clarify their ideas and take on board their own advice more readily. I think they give more thought to something they have to say out loud than they would if I’d just asked them to jot down their ideas on OneNote.” Here were her instructions posted on Flipgrid.


NB: on a technical note, if you set up a moderated board and then want students to rewatch their video submission and see any video feedback from the teacher, they need to go to my.flipgrid.com Watch out for a video about this from Claire.

  1. Redrafting with students noting why they are redrafting (Judith Parker)

Giving students the time to redraft is an invaluable metacognitive process. This is a slow/deep activity and cannot be rattled off quickly – it’s worth the lesson or homework time in gold. Judith asked students to engage with their assessment responses and think carefully about how to improve their own work. She increased the metacognitive challenge by asking student to note down why they have chosen to redraft a particular section. Making their thought processes clear to themselves helps them drive their own learning.

 

  1. Students categorising the questions into skill type and reviewing their performance in these different skills (Clare Roper)

This is one part of a self-reflection worksheet that students complete on OneNote. By identifying and categorising the skills in each question, Clare is asking students to think in a structured way about strengths and to identify for themselves next steps in their learning. Spotting patterns in their performance makes clear to students how to approach further learning, and helps them see the sorts of skills they need to employ in future assessments/tests.   

 

  1. Microsoft Forms for targeted reflection on specific skills/questions (Suzy Pett)

A questionnaire of focussed, self-reflection questions can be created using Microsoft Forms. Of course, these questions could easily be completed by students in OneNote, too.

  1. And here is another example of a self-review for students at KS3 (Steph Harel)

I really like this metacognitive question on the below worksheet, “If you could go back in time before the assessment due date, what advice would you give yourself.” Encouraging a ‘self-dialogue’ is really valuable: the more students can ‘talk’ to themselves about what they are doing, the better.

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Steph Harel, explores the journal article ‘Developing enquiry through questioning’

Steph Harel, Acting Head of Geography at WHS, explores the journal article ‘Developing enquiry through questioning’

Wood, P. (2006) Developing enquiry through questioning. Teaching Geography, 31(2), 76-78.

“Any student wising to develop their capacity to enquire geographically requires a clear capacity to question” (Wood, 2006; p. 78).

Many classrooms, and even national strategies, focus on teachers as the main questioners; however, if students are to develop an independence in their work they must gain experiences which allow an opportunity to play a central role in framing questions of interest.

Wood accurately argues that students need to develop their questioning skills if they are to act as autonomous enquirers. His valuable exploration into different ‘levels’ of questioning in Geography highlights meaningful ways in which to support students to develop their own capacity for independent questioning:

1. Simple questioning: Simple questioning games can be used to develop and sharpen students’ questioning skills. For example, when revising a physical geography topic, students are given a post-it note with a keyword written on it, which they stick to their foreheads. Students then pose each other ‘yes’ ‘no’ questions to decipher which process they have been allocated.

2. Questions to compare: Students are asked to develop questions which will produce a clear and detailed comparison. For example, students studying tectonic hazards might explore two case studies, one from an AC and one from an LIDC, and are asked to compare their volcanic eruptions by posing questions. Importantly, students then reflect on why they have chosen their questions.

3. Questions to enquire: Wood uses an example of a KS3 class, who recently completed a unit on agriculture. Students were prompted to consider the underlying patterns and processes they studied and asked to formulate five questions they would use to investigate the agriculture of India. For example, “How does landscape and climate affect farming in India”? I was particularly struck by Wood’s focus on the importance of recognising that enquiry questions can lead to ‘dead-end’ responses, and that learning and understanding is not a simple or linear process.

4. Questions to research: When students have developed a questioning capability, they can be given a large amount of autonomy in both framing and researching questions. Wood explores this idea in KS5 Geography teaching, with students studying the global economy. Students were offered a new context in which to explore the changing economic fortunes of two contrasting locations and the opportunity to decide on questions they felt were pertinent to ask. The process culminated in a written report, which demonstrated deep and critical understanding of the information researched.

As an educator, it is my belief that the geography classroom is an ideal environment for developing the use of self-questioning. I found huge value in Wood’s article, which argues that it is crucial that teachers not only learn how to pose their own questions to greatest effect, but also guide and support students in developing their own enquiries about the world around them. “By focusing on the student as questioner, we can help them become more active, reflective learners, and this can only help in developing active, critical classrooms where quality geography [my emphasis] can blossom” (Wood, 2006; p. 78).

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Teaching and learning Gem #20 – Popcorn Questions

This Friday Gem comes from Priscilla Abeelack who shared this idea with the Geography and Economics department.


  • The teacher starts by posing a question. At the end the teacher says “Popcorn + student name”
  • That student then responds fully and then asks another related/development question to take the discussion further. The student says “Popcorn + student name”
  • Or the student asks another question that is unrelated, for a good bit of interleaving!
  • And so on…until the whole class has been ‘popcorned’.
  • The teacher could start with something very ‘small’ and see how ‘wide’ the discussion goes, or vice versa; or the teacher could start on one topic, and see whether students can move to another topic through their questioning.
  • This would also be relevant for languages and other subjects to consolidate new vocabulary or terminologies. For example, ‘define …’, ‘what is the formula for …?’, ‘Explain one effect of …’, ‘Explain one cause of …’.

Popcorn questions is effective because:

  • It helps students create networks of ideas, proven to strengthen storage in long-term memory.
  • It could be useful in revisiting past material (interleaving!).
  • It requires students to really listen to each other and to respond appropriately.
  • It encourages a questioning mindset for students, identifying ways to develop and deepen discussion through asking questions.
  • It puts the responsibility on the students to shape the discussion – they are not reliant on the teachers.
  • It encourages students to take ownership of their learning and classroom experience.

 

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Friday Gem #15 – big questions with Oxplore

Autumn Focus: Questioning


Teaching and learning Gem #15 – big questions with Oxplore

 

This Friday Gem comes from Monique Nullens, who recommends this brilliant (and snazzy) website – Oxplore.org. The site is created by Oxford University and offers approaches to challenges and questions underpinned by the latest thinking and research.

  • It poses a plethora of big questions on socio/political/economic/scientific/cultural issues.
  • They are thorny and provoking.
  • For example, ‘Does fake news matter?’, ‘Are humans more important than plants?’, ‘Are Explosions always destructive?’, ‘Would it be better if we all spoke the same language?’
  • Importantly, the website is beautifully crafted, and the big questions are springboards to an astonishing range of engaging articles, videos, quotes, facts etc.

Check out the website…it will be a genuinely fascinating experience.

 

Asking big, open questions in class is effective because:

  • With such big questions, there are no right answers. It discourages perfectionism and ‘learning for the test’.
  • It helps students realise that they don’t have to get everything right first time. In fact, in ‘big discussions’, students can get things wrong, reassess and change direction. That’s part of the fun and the freedom of these types of discussions.
  • It encourages students to play around with ideas and to throw things into the discussion to see where they lead. You could contribute an idea big or small.
  • It encourages higher order, critical thinking that transcends subjects. It draws concepts/knowledge from across a spectrum of disciplines. These discussions epitomise our STEAM+.
  • To quote Dan Addis in his recent WimTeach article on scholarship: “we can encourage students to attack a problem from multiple angles, playing with the blurred lines between the subjects, and discovering links that were hidden to them before. Quite apart from the fact that this lateral thinking is a skill that will benefit them in whatever avenue they wish to pursue in later life, it is also fun and rewarding.” 

    Try out a ‘no right answer’ big question as a starter to set the tone for the sort of experimental engagement you’d like from students for the rest of the lesson.