Planning Active Engagement

Snowball Actively involves all pupils in discussion and reduces feedback time  Think of a recent lesson you have taught or observed that you consider to be successful.  On post-its, list 5 elements that made the lesson successful.  In pairs, compare your chosen aspects and choose the ones that you both agree with.  In fours compare your answers. Now rank them in order of importance.

Objectives of the session By the end of this session you will:  have a wider repertoire of teaching strategies that engage and challenge pupils to use, adapt or inspire you to produce your own.

Active Engagement  People learn best when they are interested, involved and appropriately challenged by their work  Engagement is about promoting approaches to teaching and learning that demand pupils’ active participation  However, physical activity, such as performing a science experiment or drawing a poster, is not the same as mental effort or engagement

Activities are likely to engage pupils when:  they are trying to understand and make sense of material  they are relating ideas and information to previous knowledge and experience  they are not accepting new information uncritically  they are relating evidence to conclusions  they are examining the logic of arguments

Low Level Tasks:  Reinforcing or practice of a skill already learned  Copying form the board  Drawing and colouring in  Silent reading, listening, watching  Memorising – learning dates/vocabulary  Note taking with information supplied in a text book, worksheet or by the teacher  Looking up factual information High level Tasks:  Imaginative tasks  Collecting evidence, problem solving, deducing, reasoning, devising questions to be answered and finding answers  Application tasks - using knowledge gained in a new situation  Analysis tasks – finding out why, differentiating facts from hypotheses, finding problems, clarifying relationships  Synthesis tasks – reorganising ideas in a new statement, developing plans to test ideas, discovering relationships, proposing changes or improvements  Evaluation tasks – appraising, assessing, criticising against justified criteria Pollard 2014:284

Using images  Why? To allow pupils to fully engage with what they see.  What next? To allow pupils to begin to ask and answer questions, what has just happened? What is about to happen? What is this person thinking? How do I know?

What can you see? What can you infer? What would you like to know?

TASK:  The objective of this exercise is for you to be able to write a piece of descriptive writing about a mystery object.  In teams of 4, take it in turns to come to the front to view a photograph of the object. You have 10 seconds each to do this. On your return to the group you must draw what you have observed.  Now write down as many things as you can that describe the object around the picture.

What is it?  waterphone waterphone

Focused Listening Helps pupils to stay focused and alert during a lecture/video/demonstration/explanation.  Watch the short lesson of the Maths video. peer to peer assessment video from teacher TV.wmv  Split into 4 teams: Questioners – ask 2 questions about the material Agreers – identify something you agreed with & why Nay-sayers – identify something you disagreed with or found unhelpful Example givers – give some examples of how you could apply the material  How were the pupils actively engaged during the lesson?

Reasoning Manipulatives force pupils to reason and make decisions  The words are given by the teacher, pairs or groups manipulate the cards into different arrangements according to the task. Students have to discuss and give reasons for their choices. Label Match Group Rank Sequence Complete

Graphic organisers Encourage pupils to organise and explain their concepts  Representing knowledge and ideas in visual format is very powerful for gaining insight into pupils’ thinking and understanding about a topic.  Colour a segment of the circle to show the extent to which you agree with the statement: ‘Good teachers are born and not made’

Odd one out  Which is the odd one out and why? Beethoven Mozart Haydn

Problem solving Encourages pupils to think logically  Who owns the Ferrari? Who drinks the champagne? There are 5 houses in a row Each with a front door of a different colour Each lived in by a person of a different nationality Each likes a different drink Each keeps a different animal Each drives a different car Using the clues provided, in pairs work out the answers to the two questions above.

Answers House12345 Door colour YellowBlueRedIvoryGreen NationalityNorwegian Slovakian EnglishSpanishFrench Drink Champagne BeerMilkTeaCoffee CarSubaruBMW Mercedes LotusFerrari AnimalFoxHorseSnailsDogZebra

Working with text  Why? To increase pupils’ confidence, to allow them to acquire subject specific language skills, to give them a visual representation of their thinking.  What next? Creation of their own writing, use of ‘voice’ to explore meaning and increase their confidence in speaking as well as listening.

Hedgehogs Work in groups of 3 Read hand out on hedgehogs together and,  highlight text that gives you information about hedgehogs and waders in blue  highlight text that tells you about problems in pink  highlight text that tells you about solutions in yellow.

Hedgehogs Next in your groups agree an answer to each of these questions:  How did hedgehogs arrive on Uist?  What do hedgehogs feed on?  Why do wading birds come to Uist each year?  What is the problem?  What solutions are suggested?

Hedgehogs –extension activity  Join two groups together choose one of the three questions and discuss. At the end of the discussion each person should contribute a sentence about the questions written on a sticky note and then displayed on the board. 1. Why did the number of hedgehogs on Uist grow so quickly? 2. What problems might face a hedgehog that is moved from Uist to a garden in the south of England? 3. Suppose there is no eradication of hedgehogs on Uist. In 2020, what may be happening on Uist?

Physical activity adds variety to the lesson Recreating an image

TASK:  Choose one of the following activities to plan an interactive activity in your subject area.  Try it out on your group.

Task 1. Reasoning Manipulatives force pupils to reason and make decisions  The words are given by the teacher, pairs or groups manipulate the cards into different arrangements according to the task. Students have to discuss and give reasons for their choices. Label Match Group Rank Sequence Complete  Example: Grouping in History C _500k.wmvC _500k.wmv  Develop some examples for your own subject.

Task 2. Inquiry Questions  Questions can be: How to - according to experts, what is the best way? Titles - What do you think Ibsen’s play ‘A Doll’s House’ is all about? The way things work – What makes a car go? Outcomes – What do you think will happen? What is a black hole? Stimulate curiosity by encouraging speculation and is a strategy for activating prior knowledge Devise an inquiry question for a topic in your own subject

Task 3. Problem solving: examples include  Mysteries  Practical activities  Moral dilemmas  Inventions  Devise a problem solving activity in your own subject.

Task 4. Working with text  Why? To increase pupils’ confidence, to allow them to acquire subject specific language skills, to give them a visual representation of their thinking.  What next? Creation of their own writing, use of ‘voice’ to explore meaning and increase their confidence in speaking as well as listening.  Plan a text based activity in your subject.

Plenary  Watch the lesson video to see some of the strategies shared in this session in practice  What do all the activities we have looked at today have in common? What are the main strategies for creating active engagement? Follow up task:  Use the Leading in Learning booklets to help you to identify how you could use these strategies in your own subject.

Further Reading  DfES (2004) KS3 Strategy Pedagogy and Practice Unit 11: Active Engagement Techniques Crown Copyright: London  Ginnis, P. (2002) The Teacher’s Toolkit Carmarthen: Crown House Publishing  Silberman, M. Active Learning-101 strategies to teach any subject Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon  Smith, A. (1998) Accelerated learning in practice : brain-based methods for accelerating motivation and achievement Network Educational: Stafford