1 Using Interactive Approaches to Teaching Literacy, Language and Numeracy

2 Aim To enable you to extend your range of group and interactive teaching techniques to support your learners’ literacy, language and numeracy skills development.

3 By the end of the session you will have: gained an understanding of some approaches to differentiation and how to use them effectively created ideas for interactive group activities and effective questioning techniques to use in embedded sessions continued… Outcomes

4 Outcomes continued developed a plan for an interactive activity for learners in an embedded session received feedback that will enable you to use interactive approaches effectively.

5 What is active learning and why does it work? “We learn by doing. Research shows that active learning is much better recalled, enjoyed and understood. Active methods require us to ‘make our own meaning’, that is, develop our own conceptualisations of what we are learning. During this process we physically make neural connections in our brain, the process we call learning. Passive methods such as listening do not require us to make these neural connections or conceptualisations.” (Petty, 2004)

National Training Laboratories, Maine. 6 Listening Practice by doing Teaching others, immediate use of learning Discussion group Demonstration Audio-visual Reading 5% 10% 20% 30% 50% 75% 90% Teaching methods and effective learning Learning retention

7 Characteristics of effective active learning Challenging goals Active learning towards these goals Feedback on the extent to which these goals have been met Constructivist teaching methods

Petty Constructivism Links that create understanding New learning Existing concepts, knowledge and experience

Bloom Bloom’s Taxonomy Evaluation Harder Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehension Knowledge Easier Developmental tasks e.g. Give strengths and weaknesses Give arguments for and against Suggest improvements Design a poster Mastery tasks for example: ‘Apply’ ‘State’ ‘Define’ ‘Explain’

Support materials for C&G Initial Certificate 10 Surface and deep learning Q1. What did Ted do last Saturday? Q2. What can you say about the mun and the firz? Q3. Do you need to understand the text to answer low-level questions? Q4. How effective were the mun’s actions? Q5. Why should culping be encouraged? Mun falls out of flee. On Saturdays Ted goes culping. Last Saturday he took God with him. The mun clizzed and the firz shad. When they arrived, Ted sulted God. God said, “Thank Spult,” then sulted Ted. Eventually they culped until the mun fell out of the flee.

11 Surface and deep learning 80% of 12 year olds can correctly divide 225 by 15. But only 40% can solve the problem: If a gardener has 225 bulbs to place equally in 15 flower beds, how many bulbs would be in each bed?

12 Differentiation “Differentiation is… the process of identifying, with each learner, the most effective strategies for achieving agreed targets.” (Weston, 1992)

13 Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to help differentiate and to achieve deep learning a.Everyone can learn more but motivation and rate of achievement varies. b. Teachers and instructional style make the difference. Consider: task, outcome, time allowed different learning preferences individual targets feedback.

14 Getting interactivity into direct instruction Direct instruction is a teacher-centred activity. The challenge is to intersperse input with learner interaction and feedback. Common characteristics of poor practice: there is no practice for learners there is no feedback some learners opt out some learners have poor concentration.

15 Getting interactivity into direct instruction Which questioning strategy works best? Consider: participation rate teacher’s feedback learner’s feedback learner comfort thinking time.

16 Reciprocal teaching… a.is an interactive, group activity using discussion and explanation b.teaches reading comprehension sub-skills c.makes reading strategies explicit: questioning summarising clarifying predicting.

17 Decisions, decisions Matching Match:question and answer problem and solution technical word and meaning parts and their function. ConstructivismA theory of learning stressing the role of personal meaning-making Y = 4x - 7x = (y + 7) 4

18 Decisions, decisions Grouping Group: agree, disagree, don’t know; sometimes true, always true, never true Classify items. Put some spurious cards in too! tree ratpen flute love write blue run sit talk

19 Decisions, decisions Ranking and sequencing Rank by time, order or by a ‘continuum’, for example. Put the cards in time order. Rank actions to create a database query. Rank by least and most: effective, important, useful, serious, and so on. 1/42/321/2 Turn off electricity Check ABC Ring 999