Introduction to OER4Schools
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Homework
Last time, we asked you to practice using the LfL lenses when you are back in your own classroom settings, or even when you are watching others in the act of teaching and learning.
Discussion (11 min). We asked you to take time to use the LfL framework to think about the OER4Schools programme, your own learning and how you contributed to and were supported in your learning. Go round the group, and given an example of your own teaching, teaching you have witnessed, or other ideas about learning through the framework of the 5 LfL lenses. Once everybody has contributed something, spend some time discussing your observations.
Discussion (11 min). We asked you to undertake a 30-minute observation of student learning in a colleague’s classroom using the LfL lenses. Using the notes you made, go round, saying in turn how it went, and which lens you chose to observe. Remember to try to report what you did see, through the particular lens chosen. By doing this, the discussion can avoid problems of possible unhelpful critique of peer professional practices.
As we continue to discuss LfL in this session, it may be helpful to have a large sheet of paper with the five LfL principles in front of everybody, or perhaps get participants to have the LfL principles in front of them. You could also draw on the expanded list of LfL principles (with questions) from the last session.
Introduction to this session
The objectives for this session are to explore ways of talking with parents, other teachers, other schools, head teachers, school/college leadership team, inspectors, Ministry of Education officials, and other education stakeholders about new and exciting teaching and learning in your classroom and school. As a result you will be able to have more confident and effective conversations with those stakeholders. In this session, we also consider the role of pupils.
Interactive pedagogy and innovations in leadership and learning practices will be unfamiliar to many. A large part of being an effective change-maker, or simply a ‘master’ or ‘leading’ teacher is ensuring that new ways of thinking and doing are coupled with opportunities for discussing and reflecting upon change and what affects this change.
The OER4Schools resource and participating teachers themselves will almost certainly be introducing some ideas that are new to school and college leaders and community stakeholders. The ideas may even challenge national or regional educational policy, although they will be grounded in solid research evidence and classroom experience. It will take courage to explore new ideas that might not alway be consistent with conventional wisdom. But, innovation and change are part of growth and development in schools and at the centre of all learning experiences.
In this session we consider how to introduce, discuss and listen to feedback from the key partners in children’s learning, namely, their parents and family, school colleagues and administrators, and the wider education bureaucracy. With change come challenges and opportunities for cooperation and developing new ways of thinking, knowing, and learning.
Involving parents - the issues
In this part of the session, we are going to use the LfL framework (introduced in the previous session) in talking with parents.
Reading and discussion (11 min). (10 min) Read the following text, and then have a brief discussion as to how you see possible roles for parents. You might consider the roles of parents in supporting children’s learning, in supporting the school, or in supporting interactive methods of teaching?
Make sure that you have read this text in advance of the session. In the discussion that follows reading the text, make sure that participants understand how important parents are in their children’s education. What happens at school is only one factor in a child’s education, and whatever support parents give (or don’t give) is of key importance!
Parents at the heart of children’s learning.
Parental involvement in their child’s education at school is a known predictor of future academic success. Developments in pedagogies as you have explored over the course of this professional learning resource are second only in importance to consistent, positive parental involvement in a child’s education. With this in mind, engaging parents in the school community and their own child’s daily education is a top priority of any leading teacher.
Convincing parents to come to the school and take an active interest in the everyday goings-on in the school and the learning of their child is not easy. It is important to remember that many parents might not have had a positive school experience, or might be intimidated by the school environment – particularly if they believe they might be asked to contribute to school and the learning process in a way that is outside of their comfort zone.
The first priority is to ensure parents and other key education stakeholders feel welcome and that their presence if valued in its own right. Navigating ways of expanding participation by individual parents is something you will explore through this session. You will explore the utility of the Leadership for Learning framework as an instrument for organising your thoughts, and will also explore ways of communicating to parents the learning process and their child’s individual learning in an understandable and meaningful way.
Getting parents involved is easier said than done!
Leadership for Learning applied to talking to parents. We are now going to explore meaningful ways of interacting with parents, such that we begin to promote
- increased parents’ presence in the school and
- a willingness to move towards increased support for their child’s learning in and out of school hours.
One of the barriers to effective parents’ meetings, is the teacher’s ability to communicate effectively, ensuring both an open and honest conversation about their child’s learning that includes both positive and issues arising. A good way of ensuring that we professionalise these often very personal conversations is to discuss the process and content of the learning, and not the child him/herself. How can we do this? We can use the LfL framework as a starting point.
Preparing for a discussion with a parent
Leadership for Learning provides an excellent framework for structuring discussions about learning with parents.
Let’s consider for a moment the 5 principles:
- Focus on learning
- Conditions for learning
- Learning dialogue
- Shared leadership
- Mutual accountability
Now imagine how you might structure a discussion about a pupil’s learning using these 5 principles. In this section we are watching to videos, to practise the application of these principles. In the next section, we will then draw on these observations to have a discussion with a parent.
Video (11 min). Viewing a video with focus on Leadership for Learning. Watch the following short video in which we can look out for and then discuss the five LfL principles. Pay particular attention to the how the children engage in learning, and how the teacher interacts with the children. Use a sheet of paper divided into five sections, each labeled with an LfL principle. As you watch the video make notes in each respective section of your observation sheet. These will be your guide for discussing the child’s learning strengths and areas that might benefit from additional attention.
VIDEO
Mini-blackboards group work
Groupwork using mini-blackboards: group of 5 recording under their own category of ‘animals with no legs’ and interacting as a group
Video/Eness vertebrates 6.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/Eness_vertebrates_6.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Eness Vertebrates folder. Duration: 3:43 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox)(Series: Eness Vertebrates, episode 06)(Transcript available here or via YouTube captions.)
VIDEO
Group presentation
Group presentation: teacher detects error and asks for input from children to verify (rather than ‘telling’); she corrects error with input from class.
Video/Eness vertebrates 8.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/Eness_vertebrates_8.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Eness Vertebrates folder. Duration: 7:03 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox)(Series: Eness Vertebrates, episode 08)
Discuss in pairs (11 min). Now turn to a partner and discuss your notes, being careful to structure your discussions using the five LfL principles, and avoiding talking about global issues regarding a child’s learning behaviours.
Note: You might find that you can also discuss the absence of learning behaviours within the five LfL principles on your observation sheet. Again, noting that your discussion is about the absence of the specific type of learning behaviour, not the child him/herself.
Example: You might notice that a child was not engaged in what might be identified as learning behaviours that indicate LfL Principle 4, Shared Leadership. If this is the case, try articulating this in the following way: “While a child has demonstrated a consistent focus on her learning and contributes to creating positive conditions for learning through sharing resources and cooperation as discussed, there is room for her to increase her role in promoting shared leadership with her peers in class.”
Discuss as a group (11 min). What did you find in your discussion of the clip? Was it difficult to limit your discussion to only those issues that were identified by the LfL principles? If so, why do you think this might be? Consider also how you might communicate some of your observations to a parent - we will come back to this in the next section.
Optional reflection (11 min). You have seen these videos before, at the beginning of the programme - now we are asking you to look back at them, having completed almost all the programme. You might want to reflect on how you see these videos differently now, through the LfL lenses, or because of the fact that you have participated in this programme.
Involving parents - role play
You have now reminded yourself of the five LfL principles, and also started to discuss how you might relate some of your observations to a parent. Let us now try putting some of this theory into practice through the following role plays. In this role play, one person is the teacher, one person is the parent. (The other teachers watch and listen.) The parent asks the teacher about “interactive teaching” and “use of ICT”, and why the children are no longer writing as much in their books.
Whole group brainstorm (11 min). As a group, do a brainstorm about what parents might say to a teacher, what they might want to know, or what they might complain about, or what they might praise.
Some things that could be mentioned here:
- A parent is concerned about exams.
- A parent complains that their child does not write enough in their book.
- A parent says that sometimes their child is no longer following what the parent suggests, but often starts a discussion (e.g. what clothes to wear to school).
If possible, relate some issues back to the videos watched in the previous section. Maybe you can draw something out of the videos, that contributes to this brainstorm.
With each of these items (and any other items raise), see whether you can draw out one or more LfL principle that relate to the question.
Role play in pairs (11 min). Break into pairs, assign roles (“teacher”, “parent”), and do a role play for 5 minutes. The person playing the parent asks questions or raises concerns (based on the brainstorm you have just done), and the teacher tries to answer those question, or discuss the issue. Then swap roles.
Limit the time to 5 minutes.
Discussion (11 min). Come back together as a group. Discuss the role plays. How did it go? How did you address the parents’ suggestions and concerns? How did this relate to Leadership for Learning? Make note of any particular points that you could use in the future when discussing with parents.
Government and head teachers: Role play
There are other opportunities for discussion in school, for instance other colleagues might be curious about interactive teaching. You may also be talking with senior teachers, headteachers, or government inspectors. As in the discussion with parents, the Leadership for Learning principles can provide a good framework for discussion with other teachers, headteachers, and inspectors.
Whole group brainstorm (11 min). As a group, do a brainstorm about what another teacher, headteacher, or government inspector might notice about your class? What might they be concerned about? See whether you can come up with a broad range of questions or issues another teacher, headteacher, or government inspector might raise. As these issues are brought up, see whether you can related them to the LfL principles.
Here are some possible scenarios to illustrate what we hope the participants would come up with:
- Teacher goes to a different school - how do they convince the headteacher to try interactive teaching? (OR: A new teacher comes to CBS - what do you tell them about interactive teaching?)
- Inspector …. “You need to do pace groups – in Zambia, we do pace groups!” - what do you say? Perhaps you can remind the participants of the “banana group” in Agness’ class who kept going off to sit in other groups (Unit 3.3.2), and of the incident of some of Judith’s pupils laughing at the group who got all wrong answers in a maths lesson (3.3.3).
- Headteacher says to you that “writing on the board is better, because children then remember”, so you should not do so much interactive teaching.
With each of these items (and any other items raise), see whether you can draw out one or more LfL principle that relate to the question.
Role play in pairs (11 min). Break into groups of 2, do another set of role plays, as above, but now with one person being the teacher, the other one being another teacher, a headteacher, or an “inspector”. The person playing the other teacher / headteacher / inspector asks questions or raises concerns (based on the brainstorm you have just done), and you try to answer those question, or discuss the issue. Do a role play for 5 minutes. Then swap roles.
Limit the time to 5 minutes.
Discussion (11 min). Come back together as a group. Discuss the role play. How did it go? How did you address the the concerns that came up? What were the suggestions and concerns? How did this relate to Leadership for Learning? Be explicit about which LfL principle a particular point relates to.
In the discussion issues around payment and transparency might come up. Often we dwell so much on money and not work, e.g. trying to attend workshops just to gain money, but putting work as a second priority. This could apply to people at all levels, and indeed corruption is a big disease in many countries.
As a facilitator, you may want to steer the discussion towards what this means for the participants. How does it affect their lives, and the life of the school? Transparency is related to “inclusion”, which in turn means involving parents (PTA) and students (students’ association). More “transparency” for instance means that those groups have insight into finances, and can therefore flag up if there are problems. You could discuss with the participants where they see issues, and what could be done to increase transparency and inclusion.
However, as usual, set a time limit for discussion, say 10 mins in this case.
Using ICT
Throughout this programme, we have talked about the role of ICT in interactive teaching. We now look at how you can communicate the role of ICT in interactive teaching to others.
Role play performance (11 min). Choose two people to perform a role play in front of everybody. The theme for the role play is the use of ICT at the school. One of you is the teacher, the other person a parent or an inspector. Here are two ideas that you can explore in the role play:
- The parent asks: “I hear you have ICT at this school. Does that mean that your students learn the parts of the computer and how to operate a computer? That sounds very useful for their future life.”
- The parent asks: “Can you show me an activity that you have done with the students, using a computer?” (You might want to both sit down in front of a computer, where the teacher explains the recently used Geogebra activity on polygons to the parent.)
In your role play, remember to draw on LfL principles to help structure the discussion; in particular, focus on learning!
Once two people have performed this role play, see whether the important issues have been raised. If not, then repeat the role play again, picking two different people.
Important elements that you should look out for:
- Are your participants clear that ICT is for promoting interactive teaching and learning – the LfL lens “focus on learning”, not to learn about computers, or the parts of the computer?
- Make the role play concrete. It would be good if an actual application like Geogebra was used in explaining points to the parent.
- Where the teacher explains the Geogebra activity on polygons to the parent, be careful that this does not turn into a description of Geogebra and what it can do. Instead, the discussion should be about how Geogebra is used to promote learning, group work, etc. Again, see whether you can encourage reference to the LfL principles. (For instance, linking group work to shared accountability.)
Whole group discussion (11 min). Discuss the role play. Discuss in particular whether the parent or inspector were convince about the use of ICT, and what sort of message they have taken away from this.
Involving students
The Leadership for Learning principles apply to everybody, including the students. For instance, students taking responsibility for their own learning does not just mean that they learn a piece of information in a lesson. It means students taking responsibility for ensuring that they really understand, and that peers have understood. You may remember we introduced this as a criterion for successful groupwork in Unit 3, emerging from Slavin’s research. Moreover it also includes students taking appropriate responsibility for the learning environment and for the school as a whole (and in particular for learning at the school).
Group discussion (11 min). Discuss the five LfL principles in relation to the students. What might the LfL principles mean for students?
Here are two ideas that might come up.
Older students helping in lower grades. One idea is to involve students (from higher grades) in teaching and learning activities in lower grades. For instance a grade 8 student might help in a grade 5 class. Can you look at this from an LfL perspective? Consider the five LfL principles - how can they be related to this activity.
Pupils’ school council. Is there a “pupils’ council”, which represents the pupils?
- Is this student organisation involved in discussing teaching and learning? Or do they have a role more like “prefects” who help in controlling and order in school?
- Pupils sometimes do approach teachers, e.g. to raise the issue of there being too few books. As a teacher (and as a school), how do you deal with that?
- There are other issues where pupils may not be involved, and perhaps should not be involved. How do we decide what those are?
Another important way to involve students, is for teachers to see them as a “resource” for developing their own practice, e.g. by asking students for feedback.
Pupils need to “be sensitised” (need to learn and practise) how to handle matters that concern them. ... thus protocol need to be observed … Pupils need to be told that it’s their right to be heard and therefore need not to fear to make themselves heard. There is a background reading below, which gives details of UN Convention on Rights of the Child, article 12.
Some participants may question whether there is a minimum age for children to get involved in these sorts of activities. However, children’s voices should always be heard (in an age-appropriate way). The idea is that you have to start practising all of this at any age, so that you can progress your ability to contribute and make your voice heard as you progress through basic school and from basic school to high school to university, and to your work life.
UN Convention on Rights of the Child, Article 12, child friendly version: "Children have the right to say what they think should happen, when adults are making decisions that affect them, and to have their opinions taken into account."
UN Convention on Rights of the Child, Article 12, full version: “Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.”
With regard to primary education, one of the Cambridge Primary Review signpost recommendations (p. 510) is to "respect children's experience, voices and rights, and accept the UN Convention on Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as the framework for policy".
Discussion in pairs (11 min). In the homework, we will ask you to discuss the LfL principles with the pupils in your class. How would you do this? Can you draw on material from the previous and this session to draw something together?
Homework
'Part 1:' Pick a set of questions from the following table, e.g.
- Do all the children feel that they are looked upon by others as an equal member of the classroom community? Do they feel that their contributions are recognised and valued by their peers, as well as by their teacher?
When you next teach, bear this question in mind, and after the lesson reflect on it in your audio diary. (When you do the recording in your audio diary, state the questions first, and then your observations.)
| Building confidence and emotional security | Do all the children feel emotionally safe, comfortable and positive about their participation in learning activities? |
| Strengthening feelings of competence and control | Do their classroom experiences strengthen or restore all children’s feelings of competence and control? |
| Increasing enjoyment and purposefulness | Are classroom activities experienced by all children as interesting, enjoyable and purposeful? |
| Enhancing children’s identities as learners | Do all the children experience sustained success and achievement in their learning, and recognition of that achievement? |
| Increasing hope and confidence in the future | Do all the children recognize their own power to make a difference to their own future development? Do they develop constantly expanding conceptions of what is possible? Are they hopeful and confident for the future? |
| Increasing children’s sense of acceptance and belonging | Do all the children feel that they are looked upon by others as an equal member of the classroom community? Do they feel that their contributions are recognized and valued by their peers, as well as by their teacher? |
| Increasing children’s capacity to work as a learning community | Have all the children developed the skills they needed to work together constructively as a team? Do they accept responsibility for working effectively as a learning community? |
| Providing successful access by all children to whatever knowledge, understanding and skills are intended to be the focus of a lesson | Have all the children understood and engaged with the content and learning intentions of the lesson? Have they engaged in worthwhile learning in relation to these intentions? |
| Increasing relevance, enhancing meaning | Have all the children found the content and tasks of the lesson relevant to their lives and concerns? Has it created intellectual connections for them? Has it opened up new horizons and led to recognition of new meanings and relevances? |
| Enhancing thinking, reasoning, explaining | Have all the children been helped to think, to talk about their thinking, to reflect on their learning and what helps them to learn? |
You can print this content on a separate sheet here: OER4Schools/Using_questions_as_a_starting_point_for_monitoring_and_accountability .
'Part 2:' LfL discussion with students.
References
Alexander, R. (ed) (2010) Children, Their World, Their Education: Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review.' London: Routledge
