Professional Development: Summer 2022: Connected Curriculum

Teaching & Learning sessions this term:

Friday 29 April at 13:25-14:00 – BAFS 

Thursday 19 May at 13:35-14:10 – Library Meetings Room

Tuesday 21 June at 16:30-17.15 – BAFS 

Suggested Reading:

Accessible online:

Rosenshine's Principles of Instructions

Cognitive Load Theory - Sweller et al

Improving Students' Learning - Dunlosky

The Science of Learning - Deans for Impact

From the library:

Robinson. 2013. Trivium 21C 378.012

Hattie and Yates. 2009. Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn 371.102 HAT

Brown, Roediger and McDaniel. 2014. Make It Stick 370.1523

Paul Dix. 2017. When the Adults Change, Everything Changes 371.102

Ron Berger. 2003. An Ethic of Excellence 371.102 BER

Michael Fullan. 2017. Deep Learning 370.1523

Doug Lemov. 2021. Teach Like a Champion 3.0 371.102

#28

 Circulate.

 “Break the plane and move past the imaginary barrier and out among the desks and rows.”

 Consider:

• Moving around in the first five minutes of your lessons, not just when you sense poor behaviour (though it’s great for correcting low level distractions)
• Showing you care by praising students, helping with any mistakes specifically, and asking whether you can share outstanding work with the class
• Subtly inviting those you have diagnosed as needing extra support to a separate table for a “double dose” explanation
• How you could break the plane and remain sitting – moving your desk to a different location in the room, or asking students to visit your seat to allow for personalised conversations on their work

For a brief overview of this strategy, have a look here, or alternatively have a look at the full published version in Doug Lemov's Teach like a Champion 3.0.

#27

Delay gratification.

“Experiencing competence boosts motivation.” (Collins et al. 2016)

Consider:

• Whether the two sub-headings above are contradictory…
• How you can deliberately model and teach skills of success before students practice them under pressure
• Training students to make their ‘inside commentator’ healthier and more resilient – what would I say to a friend if x ‘failure’ or ‘success’ happened?
• Having students repeat back to you what success would look like for a given task, rather than just asking “OK, do you all get it?”. Model this using teacher- and student-made exemplars
• Feeding back comments, not grades, on as many assessments as possible, and make low-stakes assessment practice more commonplace – then praising students precisely

For the full article inspiring this post (thanks to Iain Simpson!), click here.

#26

Foxes or Hedgehogs?

“Foxes are those individuals who are drawn to infinite variety and hedgehogs are drawn to a coherent system which does one thing well.” (Berlin 1953, referenced by Robinson 2019)

Consider:

• Is one preferable to the other?
• A school contains multitudes (as Walt Whitman put it) – how can we reflect this in our curricula?
• Tapping into subjective student experiences by encouraging collaboration of ideas in your classroom
• Exposing students to the variety in our subject areas when designing the Connected Curriculum – left/right; calming/terrifying; basics/challenge
• How we can create curriculum resources that help students make meaning of the variety they study – not just a student-led pick n’ mix, but a deliberate plan of action