Wider reading for Easter and beyond!

Below are some interesting articles you may want to peruse!

Visually attractive posters for Blooms taxonomy - easy display!

The need for research in education methodology

Differentiation from KEGS

Supporting ADHD students (TES)

A range of ideas from the Derbyshire TeachMeet



Hopefully there's something here to prompt a learning conversation with a colleague!

Over this half-term, the Learning Lunch slot will aim to focus on three core aspects:
1. Making and demonstrating outstanding progress
2. Effective starters and plenaries
3. Twitter for teachers and students

...as well as keeping up the momentum on effective feedback for students, feedback from students and anything else that grabs our fancy! The target date for the second newsletter to go out is March 25th...

In the meantime, please do your own reserach on any of the above, or peruse some of the links below which have ideas for good practice!

Feedback:

Getting on top of marking (The Goldfish Bowl)

Making Feedback Count: Closing The Gap (HeadGuruTeacher)

Questioning and Oral Feedback (Hunting English)

Outstanding Progress:

Unlucking the Power of Progress (MsFindlater)

Proving Pupil Progress (ideas)

Differentiation:

Great Lessons: Differentiation (HeadGuruTeacher)

Opening Doors:

Walk On Through

Differentiation: without it, they're not learning!

Differentiation is one of those areas that many fret about again and again; in observations, it can trip you up either because you forget to demonstrate it, or because it's shrouded in so much mystery that we think it's an unattainable holy grail.

The truth?

Differentiation is at the heart of what we do - making sure that children learn, and that the learning is pitched appropriately for the individuals to ensure that they progress from their own starting point. Differentiation is about ensuring appropriate pitch and challenge; put simply, a good teacher knows that all children are different in terms of ability and learning, and so plans for each child to be able to access learning and continue to make progress, knowing that one size does not always fit all.


So.


What can that mean in practice? Harking back to GTP years, tick all 4 types of differentiation (resource, support, task or outcome)?


No. Use your common sense.


Begin with the planning. A simple starting point is the 'must/should/could' or 'all/most/some'. It can be criticised as a 'cop-out' (lazy students might 'opt-out' of what are effectively extension tasks) - but lazy students can ALWAYS opt out of extension work - it's the teacher's job to motivate them. The point of this approach is that. like learning objectives, it shows students that you have planned for different abilities and, if nothing else, reminds you to think about different learning.

Providing more support for the weakest (writing frames, more detailed worksheets, word banks, glossaries) is more obvious differentiation for an observer; but forget the observer, the point is that if it helps the students access the learning (and stops you needing to intervene so much), it's time well spent. It's also often a sign of a considered literacy practitioner. If you have comprehensive schemes of learning in place, the time you would otherwise have spent planning a lesson can be spent instead tailoring the exercises to the individuals in your classroom.

Other forms of support are the mixed-ability pairings/groupings, whereby the most able support the less able (though over-reliance can lead to the most-able not maximising their own learning, so variety of groupings remains key during a lesson or sequence of lessons).

Differentiating the task is just another form of must/should/could: try C-grade/B-grade/A-grade to guide students as to what they need to achieve.

The ultimate 'cop-out' when training was the much reviled 'differentiation by outcome': in other words, just see what they come out with. There is a strong argument for this in more discursive subjects; in fact, often the more experienced the practitioner, the more this strategy becomes a backbone of the learning (see, for example, Learning Spy who reviles must/should/could). The point is that most of you achieve this if you differentiate your questioning; if you use Pose Pause Pounce Bounce; if you are intervening constantly, nudging students in the right direction; if you use hinge questions to check understanding throughout the lesson, and flex the lesson accordingly; if you set differentiated targets through your marking and feedback, so that students know you understand what level they're at; if students have student-friendly criteria accessible, so that they can plot their own path to success; if you DEMONSTRATE to observers, yourself and, most importantly, the students, that you value their learning as individuals, and that (to coin the phrase) every child matters.

But to play the observation game - have the seating plan, use it to show you know your students are different, and plan for it.

Learning Spy's views

Tried and tested strategies