1. Cameron Sayers, Jill Reilly & Veronica Parsons
Student of Mystery
From Viewing to Action
Cameron Sayers, Jill Reilly & Veronica Parsons
St Leonard’s College Professional Learning Team Triad 2015
What is a “Student of Mystery”?
The Ikea Effect: “What you make, you come to love”
Empowering Student X
The results of this triad fulfilled our aim to significantly and positively improve learning outcomes for Student X. She was able to learn about her learning and was very open to suggestions made for future improvement. Furthermore, she expressed gratitude for being noticed and felt she really benefited from the care and attention afforded to her. Our results were complicated by some personal issues outside our control: her parents separated and she was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. As teachers we became more aware of the onus on us to discover the ‘mysteries’ (differentiated instructional strategies) that will lead to developing the potential within every student. We believe that great teaching is about finding the pathway in each and every student to help them to express their own deep-seated intellience and then push it beyond their expectations.
Better for Student X to do 5 questions thoroughly, don’t rush them while others prefer the ‘race’.
Give ‘wind up’ time.
For Student X lacking in confidence, pair her up with a confident (not necessarily smart) student.
Avoid groups of 3 or odd numbered groups as Student X needed a ‘mutual’ face.
Don’t underestimate the power of peer group-need to move students around.
Take stress out of exams by giving frequent small tests in class.
Take electronic devices away where possible to encourage ‘guesstimation’.
Create a bond
Greet her by name as she enters the classroom or aim to interact with her at least once every lesson.
‘Students doing the work are the one’s doing the learning’.- Student X should be working for 80% of class time.
Student X is not an auditory learners, yet as teachers we spend most of our time talking.
The ‘student of mystery’ is a well established phenomenon in educational psychology in which students, for whatever reason, are not being successful moving their work forward (Hattie, 2012). There are students who are able to achieve, yet are not and there appears to be no observable reason for their lack of progress. Student X was identified by the three of us as a year 11 student who we all taught for 4 subjects between us covering English, Food Technology, Psychology and Unit ¾ Biology. Her reports consistently demonstrate a conscientious work ethic, outstanding engagement, attitude to learning and organisation yet her grade average was a B.
“The IKEA effect appears to be entirely the result of investing energy to complete a worthwhile project and then being able to stand back and admire its successful outcome. Simply working on a project, contributing to it without seeing it through to closure, does not appear to produce the effect at all.” (Hattie and Yates, 2013.)
Student X was encouraged to put effort into her note taking in class, summaries and in preparing questions for English. When she was challenged, wrestled with difficult concepts and was encouraged to think outside her comfort zone, her marks began to improve.
Data consisted of 3 scores from formal assessment tasks, tests and essays from each of the 3 subjects. Outliers were detected and deleted and her results were collated and analysed using the SPSS for Mac statistical package, version 14.0.
The mean for her results and standard deviation from the class mean were calculated. Multiple correlations were also performed to examine the relationship between performance and several other variables. The results found performance to be positively and significantly correlated to effort. A significant Pearson’s correlation (r=0.78, n=9, p<0.01, one tail) indicating that 53% of the variation in grades could be attributed to introduced learning strategies.
Rationale
What we found helped with Student X!
“There is only one way to get depth and that is in the daily workplace through learning in the setting in which you work” (Fullan, 2010).
Our ‘student of mystery’ triad captures a moment in time in Student X in this evolving collaboration as we attempted to engage in understanding of her learning and instructional needs with the overall goal of improving her grades.
Strategies: From Viewing to Action
We decided to adopt the Open to Learning Stance (Newman, 2010). This involved a willingness to observe, think and reflect during teaching and takes into consideration what Student X is thinking as well as barriers that may be impeding her learning. Student X was aware that we had selected her on the basis of commonality in teaching and as someone we were interested in improving her grades. She was very enthusiastic about this project and more importantly, willing to communicate her thinking.
We found this model allows us as teachers, after observing and documenting Student X to develop plans of actions, refine our thinking and moderate our suppositions.
We found it useful to record our reflections in Venn Diagrams
We each then modified our own teaching independently and tried various techniques.
Data was collected and analysed to see if value was added to Student X’s progress.
Conclusion
Collaborative teaching gives students the opportunity to witness and adjust to different learning styles.
Teacher’s can learn from each other’s approaches and learn to collaborate, each bringing their style to bear in working for common goals. This is claimed as an important learning opportunity by all members of this triad.
Acknowledgements
Jacqui Coker for the PL opportunity to work as a team