Appendix 7.3 - A workshop for school leaders
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Values at your school
Whole class dialogue (30 min) on school values
“Talking points” are deliberately thought-provoking statements for discussion and reasoning in small groups. Research shows that using these is an effective strategy to promote conceptual learning in a target area because
- it helps to structure the group task yet keeps the discussion open-ended. This is because pupils discuss the points but are free to contribute their own understanding /opinion about the point. In other words, the task is well-defined as well as interactive!
- it helps pupils to discuss different aspects of a concept by providing cues and a focus for discussion.
Discuss the following talking points and how true you think they are in the context of your school. For each item give both (a) reasons for your views and (b) concrete examples of how you implement this. For instance, regarding “Everyone in the school has a voice that is heard”, give examples of how children make input. Also give examples of how you are not implementing this. For instance, you could list ways in which you do not (yet) involve children in decision making and how you might do in future.
In our school:
- Some children or teachers are not treated fairly and do not feel part of a community.
- Everyone in the school has a voice that is heard – senior leaders and administrators, classroom teachers and children themselves share decision making in the school and take responsibility for learning.
- It is important that teachers learn from children.
- We sort out problems by listening to each other and finding solutions together. We speak up when we see that something is wrong.
(Adapted from Index for inclusion, p. 27, Figure 3)
Barriers, resources and support
Whole class brainstorm (30 min) on barriers and support Brainstorm about the following questions regarding barriers, resources and support.
- What barriers to learning and participation arise within the school and its communities (including who they affect)?
- How can barriers to learning and participation be minimised?
- Are any additional resources needed to support learning and participation? If so how can these be mobilised and deployed?
(Adapted from Index for inclusion, p. 40, Figure 12)
Leadership for Learning activities
The following text gives the five Leadership for Learning principles, see Leadership for Learning for more information. The principles with questions are given here, so that you can use them with the five exercises below. Do not read them in detail now, but skip to the next exercise.
1. Focus on Learning
- Everyone is a learner. Are students the only learners in our school? How about the teachers? Parents? Headteachers?
- Learning relies on the effective interplay of social, emotional and cognitive processes. Do we think about what learning is about? Is it about memorising and applying certain facts? Managing emotions? Being able to make friends with one another? Making good decisions?
- The efficacy of learning is highly sensitive to context and to the differing ways in which people learn. Are we aware about the differences in ways which people learn and to what extent their background (e.g. family, age, interests) will influence the way they learn?
- The capacity for leadership arises out of powerful learning experiences. Who are some of the most influential teachers in our lives? When did we encounter such teachers and why did they create such powerful learning experiences for ourselves? How can we do the same for others?
- Opportunities for leadership enhance learning. Are we given the opportunities to make decisions on our learning?
2. Conditions for Learning
- Cultures nurture the learning of everyone. What kind of background (e.g. families, age, interests) would be most helpful to support learning?
- Everyone has opportunities to reflect on the nature, skills and processes of learning. Are there opportunities for everyone to reflect on the nature, skills and processes involved in learning? What are they?
- Physical and social spaces stimulate and celebrate learning. Are the physical facilities and other forms of support (e.g. community and family support) able to support learning? What are these facilities and forms of support?
- Safe and secure environments enable everyone to take risks, cope with failure and respond positively to challenges. Are we providing a safe environment for learners to take risks, cope with failure and respond positively to challenges? How are we doing that?
- Tools and strategies are used to enhance thinking about learning and the practice of teaching. Are we updating ourselves and reflecting on the various tools and strategies to enhance the way we teach and learn? How are we doing that?
3. Learning Dialogue
- Practice made explicit, discussable and transferable. Do we have the language to talk about learning so that we can discuss and reflect on it more fruitfully? How do we do that?
- Active, collegial inquiry focussing on the link between learning and leadership. Do we discuss and find out how we can take the lead to decide what learning should be like in our school (and not just be directed by the authority)? How can we go about doing that?
- Coherence through sharing of values, understandings and practices. Do we discuss and share the values and understanding of the ways we learn and teach? What are they?
- Factors that inhibit and promote learning are examined and addressed. Do we examine and address the factors that inhibit and promote learning? What are they?
- Link between leadership and learning is a concern for everyone. Do we prioritise the link between leadership and learning? What kind of concerns about learning do we raise and act upon?
- Different perspectives explored through networking with researchers and practitioners. Do we network with researchers and other practitioners to explore different perspectives of learning and leadership? How do we do that?
4. Shared Leadership
- Structures support participation in developing learning communities. Are there ways we can participate in learning or be involved in starting learning communities within the school?
- Shared leadership symbolised in day-to-day flow of activities. Can we see leadership being shared by various colleagues and students in the day-to-day flow of activities in the school? What is that like?
- Everyone encouraged to take a lead as appropriate to task and context. Do we take the initiative to take a lead in various learning or research projects in accordance with what we are interested in and capable of? What kind of projects or research can we embark on?
- Everyone’s experience and expertise is valued and drawn upon as resources. Do we draw on everyone’s experience and expertise and value all of them as important resources to support learning? How do we do that?
- Collaborative activity across boundaries of subject, role and status are valued and promoted. Do we value and promote collaborative activities across subject, levels and roles within the school?
5. Mutual Accountability
- Systematic approach to self-evaluation embedded at every level. Is there a systematic approach to self-evaluation that is evident in all aspects of our work?
- Focus on evidence and its congruence with core values. Is there a focus on documentation of teaching and learning that would be consistent with our beliefs on the values of education?
- Shared approach to internal accountability is a precondition of external accountability. Do we take the initiative to be accountable to ourselves in ensuring the quality of teaching and learning, rather than be dependent on an external authority?
- National policies recast in accordance with school's core values. Do we critically examine the national policies and how they are relevant with the school’s core values?
- Choosing how to tell own story while taking account of political realities. Do we maintain an individual stance of our own views of teaching and learning, while being very cognisant of the political realities that we are living in?
- Continuing focus on sustainability, succession and leaving a legacy. Do we try to look forward towards the future, on how we can sustain our current efforts and be able to leave a legacy for our future generations?
Focus on Learning
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Focus on Learning Read the text below, in conjunction with the questions for "Focus on Learning" above, and then do the activity below.
The first principle is ‘a focus on learning’. The two key words are ‘focus’ and ‘learning’. To focus means to pay close attention to, to select what is important and to keep it in the foreground. Those who exercise leadership have at times to pay attention to things other than learning. Managing a school requires attention to a host of priorities and it is easy to be distracted by constant demands and other peoples’ urgencies. However, while a focus on learning always remains in the background of thinking, whenever possible it has to be brought into the foreground. It comes into the foreground when leadership is able to discriminate between the important and the urgent and knows where the priorities lie. (Adapted from "Leadership for learning: concepts, principles and practice", John MacBeath, April 2010, http://www.leadershipforlearning.org.uk)
Same-task group work (15 min) on looking at school issues. Now consider a number of issues at your school. What issues have recently arisen? What issues have been discussed in recent teacher meetings? Perhaps brainstorm and make a list of them, or write them on small cards. Now decide how how these issues relate to "Focus on Learning", and regarding "Focus on Learning" decide whether they are important and/or urgent. Go through some of the issues you came up with, and place them into these categories:
| Important and urgent | Important but not urgent |
| Urgent but not important | Not urgent, and not important |
You could write this out on a piece of paper, and if you made cards above, they could be placed into this grid. Does everybody agree on where the cards are placed? Remember that we are looking at the issues through the lens of "Focus on Learning", so when we say that something is "important and urgent" we mean "important and urgent with regard to learning at the school".
Conditions for Learning
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Conditions for Learning Read the text below, in conjunction with the questions for "Conditions on Learning" above.
How can you focus on learning when conditions are so bad that simply getting children, and teachers to school is both urgent and important? How can you focus on learning when the priority is to find and manage accommodation, space, resources and contingencies of food, health, weather, and respond to unexpected crises? How can you focus on learning when you have a hundred or more children in a class? How can you focus on learning when many teaching staff have little background knowledge of pedagogy?
The physical conditions for learning vary widely in Ghanaian schools, in cities suburbs, villages and rural areas. Demands, expectations and resourcing also vary widely. The principle, however, remains the same. Leadership in every circumstance has to try to optimise the physical, social and emotional conditions which hinder learning, and has to try and seek out the ‘wiggle room’ for creating a greater learning focus. In this respect the force field tool can be used to analyse what helps and hinders and what may be possible. (Adapted from "Leadership for learning: concepts, principles and practice", John MacBeath, April 2010, http://www.leadershipforlearning.org.uk)
Same-task group work (15 min) with force-field analysis. Use the "force-field analysis" technique to look at the conditions for learning. Leaning on a metaphor from physics, force-field analysis is a useful technique for looking at facilitating and constraining forces. Identify the issue, then write down three things that help on the left, and three things that hinder on the right.
| --> | <-- | |
| Help | The Issue | Hinder |
| --> | <-- |
The technique can be extended by
- (a) initially listing all the factors that help and hinder, then identifying the three most important of each,
- (b) showing the strength of the forces by assigning a score to each, from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong).
The next stage is to consider what can be done to
- Add momentum to and capitalise on the favourable forces
- Minimise or overcome the obstacles.
Options for action can be considered in how effective they will be in shifting the balance in favour of the positive forces. (Adapted from the "Blue Book" of the Leadership for Learning project.)
Learning Dialogue
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Learning Dialogue Read the text below, in conjunction with the questions for "Learning Dialogue" above.
The force field can be used by any individual to think through the forces acting against you and the assets you have, or the potential assets still unexploited. Even in the most dire of circumstances the best resources are likely to be people. The force field comes into its own as a tool, a ‘tin opener’ for opening up the dialogue, for extending and challenging the status quo, for trying to think ‘outside the box’. It may reveal the hidden resources of staff or of children which have remained untapped and uncelebrated.
"Your school is a place for children to learn. If they do not learn much, you have not fulfilled your first priority. How can you, as headteacher, make sure that the children in your school are learning something new every day?" (Headteachers’ Handbook, Ghana Education Service) (Adapted from "Leadership for learning: concepts, principles and practice", John MacBeath, April 2010, http://www.leadershipforlearning.org.uk)
Same-task group work (15 min) with force-field analysis. Use the force-field analysis to determine the things that support or hinder learning dialogue.
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Shared Leadership Read the text below, in conjunction with the questions for "Shared Leadership" above.
When there is a dialogue around the need to ensure that children are learning something new every day learning can become the first priority. When there is dialogue around securing resources and managing change, the capacity for hidden leadership can come to the fore. ‘This thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone’. It is said that a burden shared is a burden halved. It is also said that 1 and 1 can make 3, that is, my idea and your idea when put together can produce a third idea which neither of us had thought of. Another popular saying which strikes the same note - ‘All of us is better than one of us’ – is a more folksy way of describing the technical term ‘synergy’ which means ‘energy with’. Ghanaian leaders expend a lot of energy sometimes just to stand still but can replenish and even gain energy through working collaboratively with trusted others.
(Adapted from "Leadership for learning: concepts, principles and practice", John MacBeath, April 2010, http://www.leadershipforlearning.org.uk)
Whole group dialogue (15 min) on command, consultation, consensus. Discuss the meaning of command, consultation, consensus, and give examples how these occur in the day-to-day activities of the school. Now imagine a pie. It can be divided into three quadrants to represent the balance of three decision-making processes in your school, district office or circuit supervision. What percentage of those decisions are Command, Consultation, or Consensus?
Materials on consensus-based decision making can be found here: http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/consensus If there is a strong interest in consensus-based decision making, the materials could be used.
Also see "hand signals" below.
Mutual Accountability
Observing, thinking, reflecting (10 min): Mutual accountability Read the text below, in conjunction with the questions for "Mutual Accountability" above.
When leadership is shared so is accountability. Those in leadership positions (‘where the buck stops’ as Harry Truman said) are, in some sense, accountable for every action taken, every decision made. Nine times out of ten decisions are never explained or accounted for as that would paralyse initiatives whether in the headteacher’s office, the teacher’s classroom, the regional headquarters or the Ministry. But where there is an ongoing dialogue and when there is shared leadership, decisions can be reviewed in retrospect and discussed in prospect, so that what one is accountable for, and to whom, and in what way is open to discussion. This strengthens a sense of ownership of staff, creates a feeling of reciprocity and is in itself an important source of professional development. (Adapted from "Leadership for learning: concepts, principles and practice", John MacBeath, April 2010, http://www.leadershipforlearning.org.uk)
Whole class dialogue (15 min) with questions starters Use the 'question starters' below, to investigate scenarios that have various degrees of shared accountability.
Activities and techniques for teacher meetings
Question starts
Dialogue (30 min) using question starts Question starts are explained below. Use question starts to initiate some discussion to explore a topic in the teacher meeting.
Question Starts (A Visible Thinking routine) - A routine for creating thought-provoking questions
Brainstorm a list of at least 12 questions about the topic, concept or object. Use these question-starts to help you think of interesting questions:
- Why...?
- How would it be different if...?
- What are the reasons...?
- Suppose that...?
- What if...?
- What if we knew...?
- What is the purpose of...?
- What would change if...?
Review the brainstormed list and star the questions that seem most interesting. Then, select one or more of the starred questions to discuss for a few moments.
Reflect: What new ideas do you have about the topic, concept or object that you didn't have before?
(Adapted from the "Blue Book" of the Leadership for Learning project.)
Increasing participation through handsignals
Read the text below about hand signals. Through hand signals, communication and participation in teachers meetings will be increased. Introduce and explain the hand signals in a teachers' meeting. Practice it for a few weeks, until it becomes second nature.
Handsignals can make meetings run more smoothly and help the facilitator see emerging agreements. Three simple signals should suffice:
- Raise a hand when you wish to contribute to the discussion with a general point.
- Raise both hands if your point is a direct response to the current discussion. This allows you to jump to the head of the queue, so use it wisely and discourage overuse!
- Silent applause - when you hear an opinion that you agree with, wave a hand with your fingers pointing upwards. This saves a lot of time as people don't need to chip in to say "I'd just like to add that I agree with..."
(c.f. Facilitation)
Critical incident analysis
Dialogue (30 min): Resolve an issue at school using critical incident analysis. The idea of critical incident analysis is explained below. Read the technique below, and use it to resolve an issue in a teacher meeting using the technique.
Critical Incident Analysis is a way of analysing a recent event significant event in order to examine it in detail and learn from the experience.
The group of people involved sit in a circle and firstly go back over the incident in descriptive detail. The aim is to recall the event in terms of what happened, the context, the key players, what preceded and what followed. Everyone will have different perceptions, recollections and angles. This is an important aspect of the exercise and should be recorded in some way. It may hold the key to the way in which people respond, allocate responsibility and decide on a course of action.
- Suspend judgement. Don’t allocate blame.
- Don’t argue for your construction of the event. Listen to others
- Describe from an objective, disinterested, viewpoint what happened.
- Try to remember the conditions – eg time of day, the weather (was it raining? hot? etc), preceding events
- Who was involved?
- What did different people do? And not do?
- What was said?
Having agreed, as far as possible, what happened, now reflect on questions such as:
- What might have been done differently?
- What were the possible options? (allow for wild ideas)
- Who held the options?
- Why were they not used? (still avoiding blame or judgement)
- What have we learned from the incident?
- What might we do differently next time?
(Adapted from the "Blue Book" of the Leadership for Learning project.)
Sample activities
Examples of interactive teaching in Zambia
Sample activities
Do a range of sample activities (in the sections below), that illustrate how the workshop progresses.
Workshop participants take turns in facilitating the activity, and after each activity there is a reflection on how this went. You may not need to do all of the following activities or all parts of the activities, but only do those which participants find most challenging.
Many African teachers aspire to be interactive teachers. Yet, interactive teaching is not common in the African classroom. However, it can work in this context!
The following clip shows Eness, a teacher in a community school near Lusaka interacting with a Grade 3 class. Watch the clip of her class discussion about Is a bat a bird?
Observing, thinking, reflecting (5 min): Watch a video of a whole class discussion.
Watch video:
VIDEO
Whole class discussion
Whole class discussion of ‘Is a bat a bird?' Teacher sets unresolved problem as homework
Video/Eness vertebrates 12.mp4, https://oer.opendeved.net/wiki/Video/Eness_vertebrates_12.mp4,This video is available on your memory stick in the video/Eness Vertebrates folder. Duration: 4:19 watch on YouTube, local play / download options / download from dropbox)(Series: Eness Vertebrates, episode 12)(Transcript available here or via YouTube captions.)
(Clip shows whole class discussion of ‘is a bat a bird?', set unresolved problem as homework)
Whole class dialogue (10 min): Whole group discussion on the whole class discussion video.
- What have you noticed?
- How are the learners taught?
- How do you think they will react to the homework task?
- Is this classroom different from yours?
- What is interactive teaching?
Issues to discuss
- Noisy but productive - A classroom can be noisy and productive at the same time
- interactive = inter-action (with view to sense making; i.e. purpose of inter-action is to make sense)
- Children making sense of ideas for themselves, developing their own classifications, relating to what they already know...
- Teacher not telling answer, asking students to investigate for themselves
Facilitator needs to know how to deal with criticisms (such as too noisy, too much chaos, not productive)
The road is long. But it can be done!
Whole class dialogue (10 min) on the previous activity Because we have done the above activity as part of this facilitators workshop, now come back together as a group and discuss how the activity went. You could e.g. use PMI to say some plusses, minuses, and interesting things. What would you do the same? What would you do differently? What questions can you ask, to find out whether the activity was conducted in an interactive way?
Whole Group (11 min). In this activity called “PMI” - “Positives, Minuses, Interesting” there are no correct answers.The PMI involves considering the positive, negative and interesting points related to a specific scenario. It was originally developed by Edward de Bono, father of the “thinking skills” movement. It encourages learners to look at both sides of a situation and also to be creative when considering the interesting possibilities.
Possible responses:
- P (positives): the plant could move to where there is more light or water
- M (minusses): the plant would waste energy by moving
- I (interesting): We have to be sensitive and aware of plants walking on the roads and in our houses.
For further examples, navigate to: http://www.azteachscience.co.uk/resources/continuing-professional-development/bright-ideas-in-primary-science.aspx
Introducing cumulative talk - creating a story together
Cumulative talk is talk in which all participants agree and add to the previous talk (or sentence).
Cumulative talk (10 min): Creating a story together All the participants get up to rearrange the seating. Arrange the group in a horse-shoe seating arrangement(a) if there is room. If not choose another arrangement allowing participants to see each other. Facilitator starts a story by saying one sentence. All participants then contribute to the story by adding sentences.
A good story would:
- be contextually appropriate: for example, use common names of characters and a setting familiar to participants.
- have a theme relevant for participants such as education (girl-child receiving schooling later supports family), importance of forests and wild-life (saving a snake later becomes useful for invention of new medicine), treatment of diseases (steps taken by a family to treat an ill person) etc.,
- be short and have few characters, and
- have a problem which is collectively resolved in the end.
For instance, you could create a story about welcoming a new child to the school, perhaps a child with an impairment or some kind. Tthe facilitator starts by saying: "The other day, I heard my neighbours talking about whether their child should be starting school, because their child has difficulty walking, and they were not sure whether children like that should go to school." (Relates to Index for Inclusion, A1.1 Everyone is welcomed.)
Facilitator can introduce the notion of Talk Rules during this activity if needed. Some examples are: “everybody listens when one person talks” because they have to add to that sentence, “respect others’ ideas” by adding to rather than changing their idea, “make sure everyone in the group understands”, “try to reach consensus in the end” – participants don’t need to actually come to agreement but the process of trying gets people to listen to each other. You may want to ask participants to generate their own examples of Talk Rules.
The activity we just did is example of “cumulative talk” where participants build on what the previous person has said (“cumulative talk” is one example of whole class dialogue).
Same-task group work (10 min) in pairs: Planning cumulative talk in the classroom Now pair up, and come up with ideas for cumulative talk in the classroom.
- Consider that when this activity is done in the classroom with pupils, themes should be chosen from the curriculum.
- Also consider that the seating arrangement can be modified according to teachers’ classrooms such that pupils see each other. Pupils can leave their tables and just move their chairs (or sit outside if the grounds are suitable).
As you are planning this activity, ask youself the following questions:
- Do your students find it easy to talk?
- How can you encourage students to talk?
- Are some students likely to laugh at other students contributions? How can you create safe environments that enable students to take risks?(Relates to: LfL, 2.4)
Whole class dialogue (10 min) on the previous activity Because we have done the above activity as part of this facilitators workshop, now come back together as a group and discuss how the activity went. You could e.g. use PMI to say some plusses, minuses, and interesting things. What would you do the same? What would you do differently? What questions can you ask, to find out whether the activity was conducted in an interactive way?
Reflecting on current questioning practice
The idea behind this activity is to make the need for this session explicit.
You will need mini-blackboards and something for display (blackboard/flipchart).
Choose some topics that they are teaching this week (from the curriculum), and display the topics (on blackboard or flipchart). Some examples are:
- the importance of water(Relates to Index for Inclusion, C1.2 ),
- living together(Relates to Index for Inclusion, C1.13 ),
- transport(Relates to Index for Inclusion, C1.5 ),
- types of fertilizers (organic and inorganic) and their advantages or disadvantages(Relates to Index for Inclusion, C1.1 ), e.g.
- uses of different parts of a plant(Relates to Index for Inclusion, C1.8 ), and
- health(Relates to Index for Inclusion, C1.6 ).
Same-task group work (5 min) in pairs: Coming up with some questions. Choose a topic from the board. Write five questions on mini-blackboards or paper that you normally ask/would ask the pupils in class?
Allow only about 3-5 minutes for this activity so that spontaneous questions are recorded.
After 3-5 minutes, explain the types of questions below and ask the other participants to suggest examples from their mini-blackboard that represent these types. Write these examples on the blackboard or flipchart or ask a volunteer participant to do so. Explain one type of question, ask the other participants for examples, record examples on the board and then mention second type.
Observing, thinking, reflecting (5 min) Facilitator talk on open and close questions. Briefly state what open and closed questions are.
Ensure that participants do not feel less motivated if their questions are more closed or surface type. To ensure this:
- Refrain from judging questions. Record questions factually without expressing any emotion.
- Mention that all types of questions have value and can be used for different purposes. Closed and surface questions are also important to some extent.
- Maintain positive body language by listening attentively.
Before the session, prepare the workshop room by marking OPEN on one side of the room and CLOSED on the other side. To keep it simple, draw a line on the floor with a chalk and write OPEN and CLOSED!
Game (5 min) on open and closed questions. Categorise your questions as closed and open questions. For each question, you move to the side of the room marked OPEN if their question is open or to the side marked CLOSED if their question is closed.
Make this activity interesting by asking participants to run to their side (OPEN or CLOSED) at the sound of clap and ask the participant who gets there first to clap for the second question, and so on.
Whole class dialogue (10 min): Reflecting on current practice. Where are you standing? Is your current practice of generating questions more open or more closed?
Whole class dialogue (10 min) on the previous activity Because we have done the above activity as part of this facilitators workshop, now come back together as a group and discuss how the activity went. You could e.g. use PMI to say some plusses, minuses, and interesting things. What would you do the same? What would you do differently? What questions can you ask, to find out whether the activity was conducted in an interactive way?
Developing my practice: Planning an activity
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Different-tasks group work (15 min): Planning in pairs for an activity with open-ended questions. In the activity template, plan for questioning as part of a lesson that participants will teach in the coming week; the questions will follow the ICT pictures activity. They should list some open and deep questions to ask in the class in order to challenge pupils and get them thinking! Try out some of the points mentioned in page 3 of the handout. Record specific questions on the template.
Ask participants to focus on the questioning part of the activity. Therefore ask participants to record on the template:
- Pictures and their use - What will they be used for? What is/are the purpose(s)?
- Questions to start the lesson?
- Questions while pupils are looking at the pictures? Clear explanation of task.
- Questions after looking at the pictures? Questions about pupils' thoughts that relate to objectives of the lesson? Questions that summarize pupils' learning?
For example, if the topic is clean water, participants can record:
- Pictures - sources of water that show clean and unclean water.
- Questions to start such as, look at the pictures and identify sources that are safe for drinking.
- Questions while pupils are looking at pictures such as, why is water from this source safe? how does the water get contaminated?
- Questions at the end such as, what can we do in our homes to ensure that the water we drink is clean? What are the effects of drinking unclean water?
They can complete the remaining plan later.
Whole class dialogue (10 min) on the previous activity Because we have done the above activity as part of this facilitators workshop, now come back together as a group and discuss how the activity went. You could e.g. use PMI to say some plusses, minuses, and interesting things. What would you do the same? What would you do differently? What questions can you ask, to find out whether the activity was conducted in an interactive way?
Talking points on statements about group work
“Talking points” are deliberately thought-provoking statements for discussion and reasoning in small groups. Research shows that using these is an effective strategy to promote conceptual learning in a target area because
- it helps to structure the group task yet keeps the discussion open-ended. This is because pupils discuss the points but are free to contribute their own understanding /opinion about the point. In other words, the task is well-defined as well as interactive!
- it helps pupils to discuss different aspects of a concept by providing cues for discussion.
- It helps to maintain the focus of discussion.
Whole class dialogue(a) with talking points(a) (15 min): Discussing statements about group work Discuss whether the following statements about group work (talking points) are ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘not sure’. Explain your reasoning. Tick (“V”) if your group agrees that they are true, cross (“X”) if your group agrees that they are false and question mark (“?”) if your group is not sure.
- Group work should finish in one lesson
- Groups should be formed with the same pupils every time
- Teacher should assist pupils for effective group work
- All pupils in the group should be active during group work
- Noise is not acceptable during group work
- Agreements and disagreements are inevitable during group work
- Mixed pace groups are better than same pace groups
- Group work should always promote competition amongst different groups
- Group work by pupils is free time for the teacher
- Effective group work needs planning and preparation by the teacher before the lesson
Discuss each talking point mentioned above. Each group should explain their stance on the point, giving their reasons.
Expect disagreements amongst groups about certain talking points. This is actually productive for the whole group as it promotes further discussion.
Encourage reasoning for all talking points. Get participants to explain why they agree or disagree with something?
Finally explain the concept of talking points: The above points stimulated participants discussion about group work. In the same way, you can use talking points in the classroom, e.g. when discussing a science topic.
Also remind the participants of the idea of "modelling": We use similar techniques in the workshops sessions to what we would use in the classroom.
Whole class dialogue (10 min) on the previous activity Because we have done the above activity as part of this facilitators workshop, now come back together as a group and discuss how the activity went. You could e.g. use PMI to say some plusses, minuses, and interesting things. What would you do the same? What would you do differently? What questions can you ask, to find out whether the activity was conducted in an interactive way?
