Working with a group - what's your teaching role?

There's been some whole class input, perhaps, and now pupils are working in groups.  You're working with one of these groups.  What should you be doing?

Fundamentally you’re accountable for the pupils’ progress during this activity (TS2).  Note: the important thing isn’t that the pupils complete the activity they’ve been set – there's no Teachers' Standard that requires you to ensure that pupils complete activities.  The significant thing is that pupils make progress: by the end of a successful lesson pupils will have acquired something (a skill, knowledge, understanding) which they didn't have at the start.   If the activity is driven by the learning outcome then completion of the activity and making progress are one and the same thing.  But if the activity is just a filler - an apparently related task that pupils spend 20-25 minutes doing in the middle of the lesson that doesn’t in itself contribute to progress – then you'll need to adjust the activity as you teach it in order to secure progress (and then make sure that subsequent planned activities are intrinsically linked to pupil progress).  If you think your only role is to ensure task completion, you’re thinking of yourself as a task manager.  You’re not a task manager, you’re a teacher.  So teach.

Accurate and productive use of assessment is central to your teaching role (TS6).  Make sure that when you work with a group you have the means to record what you observe, and use this information to monitor progress, set targets, and plan subsequent lessons. 

The further suggestions below assume that the activity is fundamentally of  value, i.e. the activity contributes to pupil progress.  The character of each intervention (left-hand column) will depends on your personal approach, your choice of words, tone, gesture, balance of listening and talking, use of resources, etc. There are, for example, as many ways of making the activity more challenging as there are shades of grey.  The middle column links the intervention to the Teachers' Standards.  The right-hand column suggests a more pupil-centred approach to the intervention with a further asterisked link to the Teachers' Standards.

What if...

All the pupils know what’s required and are doing it or 

one/some/all of the pupils complete the task/activity very quickly?

One/some/all of the pupils don’t know what to do?

One/some/all of the pupils are disengaged?

There's insufficient time for one/some/all pupils to complete the activity?

The activity requires collaboration but the pupils aren’t collaborating?

"How did that go?" - starting to evaluate lessons

You get to the end of an observed lesson and the observer asks, "How did that go?"  What are you supposed to say?  Where do you start?*

Basically the observer is asking for an evaluation.  He or she wants you to give your (informed) opinion on your own strengths and areas for development in relation to what has just taken place. This fits with Teachers' Standard 8 - you're being asked to demonstrate that you can take responsibility for improving teaching.  But there are lots of different ways of approaching this, different angles to consider.  Here's one:

Evaluating learning and teaching 
When asked "How did that go?" you could talk about these two elements separately.  For example you could comment on the extent to which the children you were teaching made progress - this is evaluating learning - and you would need to link this evaluation to evidence.  If your response to the observer's question were "All the children made progress" then the observer's follow-up should be "How do you know?"  (You need to think about this when you plan your lesson - How will you know at the end of the lesson that the children have made progress?)

You could comment on the extent to which your teaching was effective.  The complication with this is that if the children haven't made progress the conclusion should be that your teaching wasn't effective.  However well thought out your plan, however well prepared and well resourced your lesson, if the children haven't made progress, if you haven't made a positive impact on their learning, this was an unsuccessful lesson.  Having said that, after an unsuccessful lesson, if you can pinpoint what it was that didn't work, you can turn this experience around.  Thinking about and identifying what didn't work gives you a clear platform for improving teaching (see, again, Teachers' Standard 8).

Frankly, learning and teaching are inseparable.   If you felt that your teaching had been effective but that the children had made no evident progress, then there's an opportunity for you to dissect your teaching - Why didn't the approach I used have the impact that I'd anticipated? If you felt that you hadn't taught the lesson effectively but that the children had made progress, then there's a different kind of opportunity - What am I doing unwittingly that is resulting in evident pupil progress?

And your evaluation can be framed entirely positively.  Children made progress.  The teaching was effective.  But always be ready to respond to follow-up questions from the observer.  "Did all children make the progress you'd anticipated?  Were all children appropriately challenged?  How do you know?"

*These suggestions also work if you're starting to complete written lesson evaluations.

Beginning with the end: planning for learning

When we plan to do stuff it might make sense to start at the beginning.  Building a house, for example: lay foundations, build walls, add wooden bits, stick roof on top.

But really we start with a vision (this is how we want the house to be) and plan steps that lead toward that vision.

Vision: providing warmth and shelter, admitting light, exuding homely ambience.

It's the same with planning for learning.  Teachers' core product is learning, so teachers' lesson planning needs to start with a vision of what pupils will have learnt by the end of the lesson. 

What learning looks like is indicated by success criteria.




You need success criteria in order to judge whether the shift (in skills or understanding or knowledge) that you envisaged has actually taken place.  Success criteria can be expressed in terms of what pupils are doing, saying, writing, etc.: broadly, in terms of how they are behaving - behaving in the sense of human behaviour, rather than good/bad behaviour.  

Some examples:

At the end of a lesson on division, pupils will be using a new division method to find answers, checking their answers (and peers' answers), talking with confidence about the method they've used, articulating what they are struggling with, expressing the progress they have made in the lesson.

At the end of a history lesson on Florence Nightingale, pupils will be talking about Nightingale's life and work, describing significant events, making comparisons with their own experiences of health services, identifying and expressing the new understanding and knowledge they have gained in the lesson.

Once you know what you envisage pupils doing at the end of the lesson, think about the experiences/opportunities they'll need to get there successfully.  In the division lesson they'll need to practice, make errors (if they're not making errors it's not challenging enough), identify the errors and understand why they're happening, explain the method, think about the progress they're making.  In the Florence Nightingale lesson pupils will need to encounter resources which tell them about Nightingale's life (books, videos, images, objects), have opportunities to sequence events, make decisions about the relative importance of events, consider their own experience of hospitals, articulate their ideas, think about the progress they're making.

Then think about what input is required from you.  In the division lesson you'll need to get an idea of pupils' existing understanding (What do you know about division?), model the (new) method, discuss with the pupils how they can check their answers, clarify your expectations about collaboration and self- and peer-assessment, and encourage them to reflect on the progress they're making.  In the Nightingale lesson you'll need to identify what pupils already know (What can you tell me about Florence Nightingale?), discuss with pupils how they might find out more (using the resources you've provided), clarify your expectations (including what you want pupils to be able to present by the end of the lesson), and encourage them to reflect on the progress they're making.

In summary:

1. Identify the vision/ success criteria – how will you know that they’ve learnt what you wanted them to learn?	2. Identify what pupils will need to do achieve the learning you envisage	3.  Identify the input that you’ll need to provide (during the lesson intro and throughout the lesson)
At the end of the lesson pupils will be… using, checking, articulating, comparing, identifying, describing, etc.	Practice, make mistakes, identify the mistakes they’ve made, use/ encounter resources, compare, prioritise, explain, make decisions, think about progress, etc.	Identify existing understanding, model, manage discussions, clarify expectations, encourage reflection (on progress).

Planning this way round means you focus on pupil learning and progress.  Activity relates directly to learning.  Lessons won't become lectures. 

Why giving children stickers is intrinsically wrong

Why give a child a sticker?  The typical answer touches on motivation, positive praise, the acknowledgement of good behaviour or good work, the encouragement of non-compliant pupils to stick to rules or to stay on task.  Giving out stickers is accepted practice, not in all schools, but in lots of schools.  So why's this a problem?

Children's motivation to engage in learning should be intrinsic, driven by their own internal sense of enjoyment and fulfilment, by what Ryan and Deci describe as the "psychological needs for competence and autonomy".  Teachers fuel children's intrinsic motivation by providing high quality learning experiences (lessons, activities, resources), by offering a relevant and/or stimulating curriculum, and by fostering individual pupils' sense or understanding of their own progress.  When motivation is intrinsic, rewards are unnecessary.  Let me expand.

a) If the lesson/activity/resource is interesting, purposeful and challenges everyone at an appropriate level, then pupils will be motivated.  If you recognise and address the barriers that may impact upon individual pupils' engagement, then all pupils will be motivated.  You don't need stickers - the lesson is a reward in itself.   If, on the other hand, the lesson is dull, unchallenging, and/or involves the completion of mundane, dully repetitive and/or irrelevant tasks, you may feel the need to resort to stickers.  However, they don't represent a reward: they represent a point on a continuum that runs from apology at one end ("I'm sorry that activity was so mundane") to bribe at the other ("If you complete this mundane activity you'll get a sticker").

b) If the curriculum is relevant and stimulating then pupils will be motivated.  This isn't about the National Curriculum, over which we have little control.  This is about the curriculum you offer the pupils in your class, the way you frame the National Curriculum in order to make it relevant.  If pupils understand how the curriculum is relevant to them or see the subject as stimulating, they'll be engaged (providing the lesson is interesting, purposeful and challenging).  You don't need stickers - the curriculum is a reward in itself.  If, on the other hand, the pupils are not able to see the relevance of what they're learning about or are unstimulated by the content, you may feel the need to resort to stickers.  See above - there's a pattern.

c) If pupils understand their own progress, can see that time in school is impacting on the development of new understanding or skills and have mechanisms to express this (all elements of Assessment for Learning), they will be motivated.  Why wouldn't this be so?  Picture the disengaged pupils in your class - how many of them can talk positively about the progress that they've made or are making?  Progress is its own reward - stickers are redundant.  ("You've learnt to do something you couldn't do before.  Well done - have a sticker."  It makes no sense.)  Pupils who are not making progress or who don't perceive or can't articulate progress will become disengaged.  You might resort to stickers in the hope....they don't notice they're not learning?

For lots of pupils stickers are part and parcel of how school works.  They come to accept the ubiquity of the sticker, and expect achievement or compliance to be rewarded. What makes it worse is that stickers (and other extrinsic rewards) undermine intrinsic motivation.  

Why homework needs more thinking

Picture this.  It's the end of Thursday or Friday afternoon and you're handing out a worksheet to each child to take home with maths or comprehension questions to complete or spellings to learn or class work to finish.  What's wrong with this?

The problem isn't about children spending insufficient time playing or the disruption to quality family time.  Homework was never intended to be something that helped families bond or enabled children to play more.  The problem with homework is that too often it has no effective impact on learning.  Why?

1) Homework provides opportunities for pupils to consolidate misunderstanding or to learn things wrongly.  This isn't the fault of parents/carers.  If you want a child to learn something, sort it out in school.  (Of course there's the stuff that children learn at home, from interacting with people and things outside school, but I'm talking about homework, set by teachers for children to do when they're not at school.)

2) Homework too often emphasises or extends the gap between high and low achievers.  Let's imagine you've set the same five multiplication problems as homework for all, the children who get it will complete successfully, the children who don't, won't.  (This is a problem with worksheets in general.)  

3) You have no way of accurately monitoring who did what.  Some parents/carers will complete the questions on behalf of their children - so the children won't have understood how to do it but you'll think they have.  And some parents/carers will complete the work incorrectly.

4) Some parents/carers are better equipped to support their children than others.  Often these will be the parents/carers of the most able pupils in your class.  So, again, homework will serve to widen the gap between the least and the most able child.

5) Homework creates unnecessary workload, particularly if you're expected to mark work which children (or parents/carers) complete at home.  This reduces your time to focus on learning and teaching in the classroom.

What's the solution?  Your school will have homework policy ("...parents and school working in partnership...regular homework...linked to the taught curriculum...") and Teachers' Standard 4 requires that you set homework to consolidate and extend the knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired.  The government have stepped back from telling schools how many hours of homework a 5-year old should do so there's nothing stopping you (within the bounds of the school homework policy) from deciding what to ask pupils to do.  So when you're setting homework, make it something that children can take ownership of, that doesn't contribute to widening the gap between more and less able, that allows you to check on misconceptions or misunderstandings, and that doesn't add to your marking workload.  How?

• Set tasks which don't  necessarily involve writing or recording on paper.  These could be "Think about..." activities, observation or physical/kinaesthetic activities.
• Link these tasks to lessons you'll be teaching in a couple of days, or next week.  Be clear with your pupils that the set task is in preparation for such-and-such lesson.
• Use the introduction of this lesson as an opportunity to hear children's contributions and adjust the homework tasks you set to ensure that all children can participate.

For example:  Think about why some people walk to work, others drive, and some cycle or use public transport (in preparation for a lesson on writing a balanced argument or a geography lesson on urban transport choices).  Or: Sit in as many different chairs as you can find (in preparation for a D&T or history project on furniture design).  Or Look for right angles around your home (in preparation for a lesson on the properties of shapes).

Preparing for interview: 10 tips

Frankly this doesn't explicitly articulate a philosophy.  But you may find it useful (and the suggestions are driven by a clear set of principles.)  The link should open a Prezi - you can install Prezi on Windows, Mac, iPhone, or iPad for free.  Preparing for interview: 10 tips