TLC Differentiation session 2

The aim of this session is to feedback on the differentiation techniques we have used and how they have closed the gap. Additionally, we wanted to look at using differentiation to stretch our more able pupils without resorting to giving 'more of the same' or 'busy work'.

Connect the learning

For the starter, we encouraged our groups to get into their groups and discuss what differentiation techniques they have tried and what impact they have had on learning.

This proved to be invaluable as colleagues were able to share and critique ideas. One good idea came from colleague who demonstrated how he used direct task differentiation with his A Level class to ensure he stretched the top pupils while supporting the bottom. This can be seen below

Share new information

For this section, we all researched new ways of differentiating using the website seen below. 

 This inspired staff to think about and use different ways of differentiating 

Search for meaning

We then discussed different ways we could use differentiation and encourage staff to research areas to stretch the more able pupils, in order to close the gap.

This activity resulted in some in depth discussions about ways in which staff at Rosset could effectively differentiate for the high achieves in order to give them the best possible chance they can to achieve, and exceed, their target levels. 

One colleges summerised the idea of differentiating as such:"education is a journey and all pupils reach their final destination, it's just the more able sometimes need to be pushed into taking a different path". 

Demonstrate understanding

For this section we introduced another website and asked colleagues to discuss ow could these ideas have impact  education and to critique and reflection upon how their use of differentiation could have more impact. Again, this sparked some really good discussions with colleagues commenting on how they planned on using new ideas and how they could reinvent tried and tested methods to further close the gap.

            http://www.slideshare.net/acoleman/differentiation-for-high-ability-learners-presentation

Review

To end the session, we asked staff to continue researching and implementing different ways if differentiating and to come to next session prepared to present their findings.

Overall the three TLC groups found the session useful as it provided an arena for the sharing and collaborating of ideas that could then be taken away and implement in their lessons.

A tour around the TLC's (TLC 2)

I am in the very fortunate position of being able to visit the different TLC's this year and see the high quality CPD that is happening within our Teacher Learning Communities @Rossett. The aim of these 'Tour of the TLC' blog posts is to give you a flavour of what's happening in our TLC's they obviously only show snapshots as I am only able to visit each TLC area (Differentiation, Feedback and Questioning) for about 20 minutes. Where possible I have tried to quote staff members and what they said. For a more thorough explanation see the individual blog posts for each area over the coming days.

The second TLC session aimed to allow staff to explain, amend and critique their experiences so far in developing the pedagogy surrounding their chosen area of either differentiation, feedback or questioning.

Differentiation

The first differentiation group that I visited had a very scholarly environment with staff focussing on developing their work looking at blogs and online material. The session felt like it had come straight out of a university programme. The second group I visited, later in the session, were looking at how these different blogs could be developed and implemented within their own teaching.

The first differentiation TLC's was focussed on the impact that some techniques could have and how these techniques could be personalised for the TLC members lessons. They moved on to think about how these techniques, researched on the web, could be developed to increase the impact within their own lessons.

In the second TLC staff were completing a Quiz-Quiz-Trade to discuss how they were progressing with their work on differentiation. It was obvious how much had already been done. It was also obvious how much the group wanted to continue to progress.

"Which groups are you most confident to differentiate for? " "I'm more confident differentiating for lower end and need to work to push the top end."

"What are the challenges when trying to differentiate?" 

"By the end of the course the students are really good at knowing what an A* answer looks like."

"One lesson today I didn't speak at all and just allowed the students to use a PowerPoint and work it out from there."

Feedback

I was really struck by the atmosphere in the TLC I visited on feedback. All the staff had a lot to say, were very enthusiastic, and had clearly used lots of feedback techniques. There was also a high level of collaboration and support.

Staff began by using a Kagan structure to explain their progress so far. Looking at what they have been focussing on since the last TLC. 

"I've been focussing on the quality of the feedback that my students give back to each other."

Staff then explained how much they have used different apps to give feedback. It was clear that all the staff had used a lot of the apps and they had clearly found them useful for feedback.

This was then closely linked to the OFSTED criteria. Which apps enable students to progress using efeedback? How could you. How have you? 

"Feedback that is of consistently high quality over a period of time can allow individually observed lessons to be judged higher than the actual lesson. OFSTED are not just looking for the feedback that occurs in the lesson they are watching."

"Socrative doesn't have targets attached but it is a great way of assessing understanding. Which can then inform future planning."

Questioning

In the questioning TLC, members were sharing their own experiences as I walked in. I was impressed with how open the group was and how different members were collaborating and jumping on the back of an idea to explain how they could use it in their subject. The atmosphere was excellent and all the group had obviously used the activites and had a real enthusiasm for the different questioning techniques.

"A bowler asks the question and if the batter can answer it they could move to first base and then at first base they try to answer the question and so on and so forth. They all tried to think of the hardest question possible to win the game as the class are split into two sides who take it in turns to 'bat' and 'bowl'."

"In science we have a bomb which we then pass around, you can only pass the bomb if they get the question correct the one who is left with it when it goes off loses."

"Quiz-Quiz-Trade works really well, even if it does take a bit of preparing. Good plenary to remember the research in the lesson."

"Boys love student markers and an element of competition which this can bring in."

"Flo just remind me about student markers?" "It's about commenting on what is on the board. They can add a new point or comment on an existing point." "Great as a plenary," "I've used it as a starter, great for recall."

"There is a PowerPoint on TES about splat which I can share with you."

"Just a sec, I've got to write that down!"

Great to see how people were drawing out the pros and cons and developing ideas.

Reflections

All the TLC groups that I visited, despite being very different, had really positive atmospheres which  exhibited collaboration, enthusiasm and a desire to improve amongst the staff. It was clear to me that all the staff @Rossett have been trying to improve their pedagogy around their chosen theme. It was also clear that all are open to new ideas and our TLC's are providing the vehicle to allow this collaboration.

David West

TLC session 1- Feedback

The first TLC meeting was very successful and we received lots of positive feedback as well as useful suggestions for future meetings. TLC members enjoyed the opportunity to shared ideas and said that the atmosphere was relaxed and fun, which enabled them to openly discuss and share ideas and experiences freely. They liked the fact that there was a mixture of activities, both written and practical and felt that there was lots of ideas shared, with a focus on oral feedback.

One suggestion that we received, which we will ensure to act on in future TLC sessions, was that the TLC members would like more examples/models of Ofsted related techniques, in order to enable staff to provide outstanding feedback to pupils. As TLC leaders, we felt this was a great suggestion and will definitely plan future sessions with this suggestion in mind.

 

Closing the Gap with Feedback

Overview of the Aim for the Year: Feedback

Currently, there is a need at Rossett to consider how and why we give feedback in order to ensure it is being used effectively by both staff and students. Our aim for this academic year is to research various methods of ‘closing the gap’ between giving students feedback and them acting upon it in order to gain knowledge and understanding of what it is they could improve on. This should over time allow our students to become more responsible for improving their work, thus raising expectations and standards across the board. Students will become more resilient to meet these increasing standards and be able to reflect more effectively on their work, what they aim to achieve and how they will reach this goal.

In order to create this culture within the school, we aim to research, discuss and implement various strategies with our TLC groups that will suit individuals and faculties in order to improve their feedback to students and share good practice cross-curricularly. This will incorporate many different types of feedback, including written, oral, peer, self and e-feedback. We plan to deliver sessions with practical elements that staff can have a go at and demonstrate their own understanding of how these methods of feedback can work for them in ‘closing the gap’ for their students. 

Questioning -(Amanda , Flo and Dan)

Overview
what are we already doing? (sharing forum)
Exploration of new and shared strategies for questioning and its effectiveness.

As the staff came into the room they were handed matchsticks and given a pile of post it notes and resources that would be use during lessons for evidence of questioning participation. i.e the match sticks would be taken each time someone asks a good question or answers one, for a higher level question they may have 2 sticks taken away ..... works well with ensuring 6th form participation and staff liked this . Post it notes used for various things however in this session one of the most useful things was that they listed 3 questions they had for me at the beginning of the session and they then  changed their priority status, refined them and deleted as appropriate until they finally handed in at the end what hadnt been answered for them within the session.....this ended up being only 3 questions form a possible 30+ . these can be used in any lesson for any subject area and is low level planning for high impact evidence

Connect the learning
recapped and had forum discussion for strategies which staff practice and find effective, as a follow on from this I decided to collect everyones favourite and thier instructions of how it works so that we can build up a bank for all staff to dip into for ideas.
used kagan rally and round robin here to collect ideas.

Share new information
staff put post it notes on board of favourite questioning technique , other staff collected one they were not familiar with, this opened up a  discussion and also re demonstrated remembering things like no hands up questioning and the staff being aware they could call a friend for help etc ......

card sorting envelope exercise looking at How do questions promote learning?Questioning can fail because....and questioning suceeds when......

Searching for meaning

We then gave the group extended time  to look at 3 pieces of information on questioning
 a Pearl trees on the ipad , looking at formulation technique on  a website and a handout on moving from good to outstanding questioning

Demonstrate understanding
this covered formulating questions for the TLC leader and then deciding in trios on a focus to try out and feedback on in next TLC

Review
Game with post it notes .... If this is the answer what is th equestion?

TLC Differentiation (Nat. Mary, Bridget)

TLC session 1

The aim of this TLC session is to introduce and discuss differentiation and find out how staff members utilise this within a classroom setting.

Connect the learning

For the starter we asked the group to watch a video on bad teaching (focus of the video is lack of teaching and interaction with the students. This would the lead onto a discussion thinking about 'what type of thinking' you are. Pictures were also shown of different types of teachers from movies to prompt discuss and ideas.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAsTXtowZVQ

Share new information

We introduced the concept of differentiation within classes and asked staff to get into their new groups to discuss the following: What is it? What are you confident about? What would you like more support with? following this it was explained again to staff that lesson outcomes had now changed with lesson plans with All, Most and Some now not being used. This would be replaced with an outcome and a descriptive added on for students to work at a higher ability to gain the next grade.

Search for meaning

We then showed 4 QR codes on the projector and asked staff to use the links to research different blogs/articles on differentiation within lessons. Did they already use these methods? Were there any new approaches they could try?  

Demonstrate understanding

The TOASTER resource was then given to staff to look at the different types of differentiation (Task, Outcome, Assessment, Support, Target-setting, Expectations, Resources). Staff were asked to examine these and discuss any that they used or would like to try.

Review

Using Kagan structures staff were asked to use quiz quiz trade cards to discuss ideas they had gained from the session and share ideas. Each member of staff was then asked to set a target for themselves to look at trying out a new form of differentiation within lesson before the next meeting.

Overall all 3 TLC leaders found the groups very positive and keen to try new ideas for differentiation. A lot of ideas were shared with a focus being set on how to push more able pupils in the class to achieve higher while still having time for the less able students in the class. One of the main areas of concern were how to balance good differentiation with lessons that involved students revising or practising a routine skill, making sure Ofsted were happy, and that the most and least able students were differentiated for.

TLC 1 - Feedback (Kirsty, Mich and Mark)

TLC session 1 - An introduction to feedback

In our first TLC we aimed to introduce feedback and use a number of examples and group discussions to share what we already know and then set targets for what we would like to work on throughout the year.

Connect the learning

Our starter was to watch a Video showing a bad example -( lack of feedback and pushing someone to get it right without them knowing). This was to prompt discussion with the groups as to why the feedback was bad and what they could have done to improve their teaching strategies.

Share new information

We then introduced  the different types of feedback with the TLC to refresh their knowledge and thinking.

Types we will show examples of:

• Oral Feedback - youtube example of a PE lesson where short feedback is given to students to improve their technique.
• Written – Examples of students marked work from AFL with some feedback set in short targets to achieve 
•  Collaborative-Students working in groups to collectively give feedback on homework
•  Use of technology-Examples of apps used to assist with feedback.
• Peer feedback- peers comment on piece of work/video of a performance in PE 
•  Match up feedback and piece of work 

Search for meaning:

We then got our groups to fill in a sheet to assess what types of feedback they do already and how they can look to develop this throughout the year. This gave us as leaders the chance to gauge what stage people were at and how we can include feedback strategies in out next session.

• What techniques do you use?
• What don't you use?
• What could you try?
• With which groups could you try it with?
• Target setting ( to be completed later)

Demonstrate understanding: 

This part of the session gave staff the chance to try some different feedback strategies and allowed the opportunity to 'break the ice' with new staff etc.This is the part of the session where we felt staff enjoyed the mos through been able to interact with other staff and try new things.

• Match up feedback and work
• Explain everything feedback

• Oral feedback- juggling 
• Red hot chilli errors- Collaborative-group feedback on  typical errors following homework 

Review: 5 mins

 For the last part of the session we used some Kagan structure activities to summarize the session and then used a Socrative to get some feedback from staff. This also allowed the groups to set some small realistic targets for the year to allow them to develop feedback strategies within the classroom.