Essentially,
a good teaching and learning strategy is one which will allow the learners to
make good progress. ‘Outstanding’ T&L, despite the Ofsted
criteria changing 3 times in two years, has at its heart, ‘outstanding’
progress.
How is this
measured within the context of a classroom?
In the short term through lesson observations; a strategy used in a
lesson should demonstrate that clear progress has been made by most
learners. For this to happen the teacher
must know the target level or grade the learners are working towards; their
current attainment and which strategies are most likely to allow the learners
to move towards that target. In the medium
to long term, a good T&L strategy should be quantifiably evident in terms
of the achievement of the learners.
Examples
of Teaching Strategies
- · AFL
- · Co-operative learning
- · Differentiation
- · Embedding literacy, language and
numeracy
- · Experiential learning
- · Learning conversations
- · Modelling
- · Multi-sensory learning
- · Relating theory and practice
- · Using e-learning and technology
This is not
an exhaustive list! Good or excellent
practice will, of course, use a wide range of T&L strategies and be
targeted at the specific learners.
I will focus on two strategies, with specific examples:
- · Modelling: Yr11 unseen poetry; Yr7
Creative Writing
- · Experiential learning: Yr10 Great
Expectations; Yr9 WW1 poetry; Yr7 Shakespeare lesson
Modelling:
The
definition of modelling as a T&L strategy is:
Pre-selected
‘model’ answers – either written by the teacher or a student and held up as exemplars;
where the teacher demonstrates a model answer ‘live’ in front of the class
(sometimes taking suggestions from the class) and teacher-in-role. This is then used as a basis for learners to
apply to their own work.
There are
several benefits:
- · The learners are very clearly able to
see what it is that they are aiming for (particularly vital in English)
- · The learners can see the difference
between lesser-quality answers
- · Where the learners’ own work is used
as exemplars it not only visibly praises good work (and thereby raising the
self-esteem and sense of achievement of the individual) but also shows the
class that this is something that they can do (important to choose a range of
abilities for this)
- · (where the teacher demonstrates a
‘live’ model) the learners can see the process
of writing, evaluating work and revising/editing it (it is not, then, a
mysterious, magical event external to their capabilities).
This is an
application of Bloom’s taxonomy; the learner begins by remembering, then
applying and eventually creating their own analysis using the same techniques
as the model.
Example 1
– Yr11 Unseen Poetry
I use
modelling in various forms frequently in my teaching and it is a very powerful
tool to enable rapid and demonstrable learner progress. Yr11: middle ability, B/C targets, boy-heavy,
very good verbal analysis of texts, less successful in written analysis. Written analysis often lacked structure,
precision and precise use of terminology.
The topic was unseen poetry and the assessment would culminate in the GCSE Lit
poetry exam. This exam requires the
students to write a comparative essay about two poems from a collection we have
studied, then write an essay about an ‘unseen’ poem. We had been revising the collection of poems
and focusing on approaches to poetry (Form, Language, Imagery, Rhythm & Rhyme, Tone).
I had been explicitly teaching the skills analysis, rather than focusing
on the content of the poems (which we had studied in detail in Yr10). The idea was that this would enable the
students to apply these approaches to any poem.
The class
were divided into carefully differentiated groups of similar ability.
The first task of the lesson was a type of
modelling activity; I began the lesson with a memory challenge. I stood at the front of the room with a model
paragraph which I had written about an unseen poem, called up one member of
each group to come up to the front and read the paragraph and try to memorize as much of it as they could. They then
returned to their group and wrote down as much as they could remember. The second member of the group was then asked
to repeat the process, in 30sec bursts, for about 3mins. The groups then held up their versions of the
paragraph and we compared them to the original – the team that won (the first combination
number to the lock on the treasure chest) was the one that had the closest
approximation to the original.
We then
discussed what grade the paragraph was (they were spot on in identifying it as
a B) and why it was that grade. This was followed up by looking at two
further paragraphs (one was a C/D and one an A); the class came up with their
own grade descriptors based on these example paragraphs.
The third
task of the lesson was to read the unseen poem (about which all of the model
paragraphs had been written) and, in their differentiated groups, write a
B-grade paragraph about one aspect (FLIRT; again, differentiated). The results were fantastic; EVERY group
produced at least a B grade paragraph – one pair (with personal targets of B
and C) wrote an A* analysis. We joined
together each groups’ paragraph to create a whole essay on this unseen poem –
the essay was a B. This was so
successful because they had seen how to apply their knowledge of poetry
analysis in a structured form, using appropriate vocab, detailed language
analysis. The lesson was graded
‘outstanding’ because of the outstanding progress made by the learners.
Example 2
– Yr7 Creative Writing
This class
were a top set: end of KS3 targets were L6a, L7 and 3 L8s. We were nearing the end of a unit on
descriptive writing and I had embedded Pie Corbett’s writing techniques (which
includes the use of ‘mentor’ texts – a form of modelling) throughout the unit
of work. One area of development for the
whole class was the use of sentences structure for effect. Differentiated groups were given ‘mentor
texts’ – exemplars of previous pupils’ work at the level for which they were
aiming. These texts were carefully
chosen as ones that exemplified use of sentence structure.
I left the
room and returned as the ‘Sentence Chef’ – complete with chef’s hat, a pot with
different sentence types and advanced punctuation, and a silly French
accent. The class were provided with
sentence ‘recipe cards’ and were asked to re-write and improve a paragraph of
their HW (some descriptive writing).
Again, the results were outstanding, and as part of the plenary I
displayed much improved work of the pupils on the visualiser, and we discussed
as a class why they had improved and the effect specific sentence types had on
the reader.
Experiential
Multi-sensory learning:
Definition: learning
from experience
Appeals to
all senses: visiual, aural, kinaesthetic, seeking to make learning
experiential.
‘Individuals
create knowledge from experience rather than just from received instruction.
Conflicts, disagreements and differences drive the learning process as learners
move between modes of action, reflection, feeling and thinking. Different
learning styles reflect learning preferences that can change with situation.
Learning is a holistic process and results from synergetic interactions with
the environment, with people making choices about which parts of the
environment to engage with (Kolb and Kolb 2009a).’
Benefits:
The primary
benefit of experiential learning is that of engagement; this is when a lesson
goes beyond a white board or a worksheet.
Appeals to a range of learning styles and, more importantly, is much
more likely to be remembered by the student.
It is particularly suited to students who may struggle with texts – e.g.
dyslexics.
Kolb:
·
concrete experience,
·
observation of and reflection on that experience,
·
formation of abstract concepts based upon the reflection,
·
testing the new concepts
Example 1
The lesson objectives were framed as questions:
•
What facts do I know about Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre?
•
Why these facts are important when writing about a play? And how can I
write about them?
Yr7 mixed,
middle ability (ranging from 4c to 5a); first lesson of new unit on
Shakespeare, looking at the openings of various Shakespeare plays and leading
to an assessment of an essay on how the opening of Hamlet can is dramatic. The lesson was structured around an inquiry
question: how can a play’s opening create wonder? Began with a clip from Slava Snow show (very
physical, multi-sensual, interactive with the audience); and asking the pupils
to apply this question to it. WE then
discussed the LOs (focus on AF7, historical context) and looked at two examples
of writing about the historical context of theatre in Shakespearean England –
one was L4, the other L5 and we discussed the difference between them.
Drawing on
the pupils’ previous knowledge, we listed what they already knew about the
Globe theatre in Elizabethan times. This
was reinforced by watching a short clip from a BBC resource on the Globe
theatre. Having established some key
facts about theatre in Shakespeare’s time, the differentiated groups were given
a prop and a line from the opening of a Shakespeare play. Their task was to design the staging for the
opening of the play, as if they were directing the play in Shakespeare’s time. They could draw on the expert opinion of
Shakespeare himself (my in role) during the task.
The energy
and creativity this task generated was palpable. At the end of the lesson the pupils wrote a
few sentences to describe the decisions they had made about the staging of
their play and we judged them according to the pupil-friendly criteria on their
APP grids. I taught this lesson during
an Ofsted subject inspection and it was judged outstanding.
Example 2
– Yr10 Great Expectations
For GCSE
Literature CA; difficult Yr10 class, middle ability (B/C targets); assessment was
an essay comparing Miss Havisham and Capulet.
Focus of the lesson was to explore how Miss Havisham was presented in
the novel. The classroom was rearranged
and decorated in an approximation of her chamber, complete with a rotting
cake! I was in role for the duration of
the lesson, in which the class investigated the text, looking for language and
imagery that was used to create this character.
I wanted the students to feel like Pip or Estella. During the lesson the students wrote
questions for Miss Havisham on post-it notes and I answered them in role. The level of engagement with the text in this
lesson was outstanding; their assessment on this topic was the best CW they had
completed and the students still refer to that lesson, over a year later.
Conclusion
All of these
examples demonstrate the effectiveness of these two T&L strategies. They do not, of course, work in isolation,
but in concordance with a number of other strategies that are embedded in good
teaching practice. An effective T&L
strategy is one that enables a learner to make good progress, yes, but learning
is always contextual – dependent on the class, subject, topic, assessment, time
of day, individual learners etc.
Ultimately,
a good T&L strategy is a flexible one that can be used in a range of
different learning environments and still produce results.
