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Creative Thinking for Effective Teaching 1
Merseyside and Cheshire GTP Consortium
Creative Thinking for Effective Teaching
Steve Padget
23rd April 2010
Creative Thinking for Effective Teaching 2
Think First
Contents
Think First – Plan of the day.......................................................................................................3 Preamble – The influence of Vygotsky .....................................................................................4 Key thinking skills – diagram ......................................................................................................6 Today’ objectives ..........................................................................................................................6 Thinking skills - Practical approaches .......................................................................................7 The thinking skills matrix ............................................................................................................9 Debriefing: A vital skill to develop ......................................................................................... 11 What did students learn from the debriefing process? ..................................................... 12 What the teacher did that helped students learn .............................................................. 12 Learning from thinking.............................................................................................................. 13 Edward de Bono’s CoRT1 Techniques ................................................................................. 15 The importance of questions and of the language of thought ......................................... 16 Thinking Hats .............................................................................................................................. 17 The Den - Activity ..................................................................................................................... 18
Setting the Scene ................................................................................................................... 18 Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats in Mind Map form......................................................... 19 The Question is … ? ................................................................................................................. 20 Crazy Words .............................................................................................................................. 21 LogoVisual thinking – the core process................................................................................ 22 Paradise Island - The Plan......................................................................................................... 23
Structure of the afternoon.................................................................................................. 24 Today’s lesson objectives: ................................................................................................... 25 This is what you are going to do ....................................................................................... 25
Selected Reading List................................................................................................................. 26
Creative Thinking for Effective Teaching 3
Think First – Plan of the day
9.00
Thinking Skills: An Introduction
Think Links Thinking in the NC Infusion Classroom activities The language of thought The thinking culture Mind maps CoRT1 Geography Links
10.00
Problem solving with De Bono’s hats.
‘The Den’
10.40
11.00
Mini exercises from the Beacon Pack
‘That is the question…?’ ‘Crazy words’
11.30
Introduction to LVT – the core process.
‘What makes a thinking classroom?’
12.00 13.00
Paradise Island
Simulation designed to demonstrate the use of LVT in the context of a problem solving exercise, referencing the Global Dimension.
15.15
Evaluation and disperse
Creative Thinking for Effective Teaching 4
Preamble – The influence of Vygotsky
The argument There is an inextricable link between thinking and language. To promote the one is to promote the other. Therefore as we can influence the effective use of language in our classrooms, we can influence thinking and therefore learning. Constructivist philosophy that says that:
1. Learning is an active process. Learning is not the passive acceptance of the knowledge that is ‘out there’.
2. People learn as they learn. They construct meaning and systems of meaning
3. The crucial action of constructing meaning of mental – activities which engage
the mind as well as the hand are needed for learning to take place.
4. Learning involves language – learning and language are inextricably entwined
5. Learning is a social activity. Learning is intimately associated with our connections to others.
6. Learning is contextual. This is the corollary of the idea that learning is active
and social.
7. One needs knowledge to learn. Prior knowledge provides the structures on which to build new knowledge.
8. It takes time to learn. Learning is not instantaneous. Ideas need to be
revisited and pondered.
9. Motivation is the key component. We need to know the reason why we are doing something.
It is useful to look at the way Vygotsky linked language, thought and social setting and how that link could influence what we are trying to do in the classroom.
1. Word meanings evolve during childhood.
2. Human learning is characterised by the relationship between
a. spontaneous concepts – things that we arrive at based on our own experiences and
b. non-spontaneous concepts, ideas taken from others (notably teachers).
Creative Thinking for Effective Teaching 5
3. Vygotsky believed that mastery of the written language – learning to read and write - had a profound effect upon the achievement of abstract thinking.
4. Speech in infancy is the direct antecedent of thinking at a later stage.
Quote p260 James Britton’s piece in Brindley, S ed 1994 (OUP) ‘Teaching English’ Shared social behaviour is the beginning stage of thinking. Learning tasks are accomplished better in a social context where learners lend consciousness to one another that enables them to achieve things that they would not be able to if left to themselves. As teachers we have the power to open up the ZPD, zone of proximal development - this is an area of ability that one’s prior achievements have prepared one – but awaits assisted performance for its realisation. * ZPD is an area that is inhabited by the learner and the teacher. What impact does the whole of language acquisition have upon the learner? Equipment to learn, equipment to think, thinking power – can be taught – predispositions. A transmission theory of learning will not do James Britton, Douglas Barnes and Harold Rosen in the book ‘Language, the Learner and the School’, very influential educationalists of the time, saw that teachers’ understanding of the primacy of language, in whatever discipline they might be teaching, was essential if they were to teach effectively. These motivating teachers were building on the influence of the work of Lev Vygotsky as championed by Jerome Bruner and Alexander Luria. This work emphasised the role of spoken language in the learning process. The Bullock Report – ‘A Language for Life’ was the first document to coin the phrase ‘language across the curriculum’ when it described the need for schools to move forward across the curriculum to be more effective in their understanding of the need to promote language as part of their role irrespective of their primary subject discipline. ‘Language Across the Curriculum’ is the title of chapter 12 of the Bullock Report (1974). “When we consider the working day in a secondary school the neglect of pupil talk as a valuable means of learning stands out sharply.” (Ch 12, 12.5. p 189). The full text of this can be founds at: http://www.dg.dial.pipex.com/documents/docs1/bullock.shtml the bits to read are chapter 12 and p528-9 in the ‘Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations’
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Key thinking skills – diagram
Today’ objectives
• To look carefully at the key components of the thinking skills agenda
• To spend time considering the implications of this and its impact upon the way we approach learning and teaching.
• To become familiar with the way the above will inform the way we conceive, plan and deliver our lessons.
• To look in depth at a range of practical approaches that can be used in class to develop the
• thinking skills of the pupils.
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Thinking skills – as identified in the National Curriculum
Information processing Finding relevant information Sorting/classifying/sequencing information Comparing/contrasting information Identifying and analysing relationships Reasoning Giving reasons for opinions/actions Inferring Making deductions Making informed judgements/decisions Using precise language to reason Enquiry Asking questions Defining questions for enquiry Planning research Predicting outcomes
Anticipating consequences Drawing conclusions Creative thinking Generating ideas Developing ideas Hypothesising Applying imagination Seeking innovative alternatives Evaluation Developing evaluation criteria Applying evaluation criteria Judging the value of information and ideas Refer to ‘Leading in Learning’ Exemplifications exist for all secondary subjects - DfES 0049-200
Thinking skills - Practical approaches
Advance Organisers Analogies Audience and Purpose Classifying Collective Memory Fortune Lines
Living Sources Mysteries Odd One Out Reading Images and 5Ws Relational Diagrams Summarising
An extremely good resource can be found at : http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/home/learningandwork/educationandachievement/cpd/cpd-teaching/cpd-teaching-thinkingskills.htm
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Questioning techniques
The nature and range of teacher questioning can also help to develop thinking skills and understanding. Questions that seek clarification include: Can you explain that? What do you mean by...? Can you give me an example of...? How does that help us? Does anyone have a question to ask? Questions that look for reasons and evidence include: Why do you think that? How do we know that? What are your reasons? What evidence do you have? Questions that explore alternatives include: Can you put that another way? Is there another point of view? What if someone were to suggest that...? What might someone who disagrees say? What difference is there between those points of view? Questions that consider implications and consequences include: What might happen if...? What might be the consequence of that? Does that agree with what we said earlier? How can we tell if it’s true? Questions that pull things together include: Where have we got to? Can anyone summarise so far? How does that connect to...? Are we any closer to solving the problem?
Critical thinking
An increasing number of schools are developing critical thinking skills. This involves helping learners to develop skills associated with logical reasoning, the evaluation and the application of judgement and the ability to recognise bias and distinguish fact from opinion. Critical thinking also embraces the ability to justify ideas and actions, being able to set out reasons for and against choosing, deciding or believing something, preparing arguments and arriving at a balanced conclusion. Some schools, however, believe that critical thinking can only be nurtured within a learning environment that is based upon positive attitudes, self-confidence, open-mindedness, a willingness to take risks and to submit personal views to the challenge of others. Self-confidence is the positive belief in ourselves and in our abilities. It is the conviction that if we try out new things and take on fresh challenges, we are more likely than not to succeed. Self-confident learners are usually resilient and usually more likely to persevere with a problem. The ability to persist, however, is closely related to how well we cope with difficulties and deal with frustrations. When learners are asked to come up with suggestions and possibilities and explore alternatives, there is always going to be a risk that they will make a mistake. Even from an early age some pupils can become locked into the ‘mistakes mean I’m useless’ view. As a result they find it hard to own up to difficulties or to venture an opinion.
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The thinking skills matrix
Strong link
Can link
Less likely to link
STRATEGIES
NATIONAL CURRICULUM
THINKING SKILLS
Advanced
Organiser
Analogies
Audience &
Purpose
Classifying
Collective Mem
ory
Fortune Lines
Living So
urces
Mysteries
Odd one Out
Reading Im
ages &
5W
's
Relational D
iagram
s
Summarising
locate and collect relevant information
sort and classify
sequence
compare and contrast
Information processing
analyse part/whole relationships give reasons for opinions and actions
draw inferences and make deductions
explain what they think
Reasoning
make informed judgements and decisions
ask relevant questions
pose and define problems
plan what to do and how to research
predict outcomes and anticipate consequences
Enquiry
test conclusions and improve ideas
generate and extend ideas
suggest hypotheses
apply imagination
Creative Thinking
look for alternative, innovative outcomes
evaluate information
judge the value of what they read, hear and do
Evaluation
develop criteria for judging the value of work or ideas
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A rough guide to teaching a 'thinking skills' style lesson
The stages in a thinking skills lesson A 'thinking skills lesson has a definite 'shape' based on the series of distinctive activities of which it is comprised. 1. A cognitive ice-breaker This is important and should relate to the rest of the T.S. lesson, establish attention and some intentions, and provide clues as to what is going to happen next. 2. Introduction to the activity Explicit reference here to ideas and experiences talked about before and seeing the connection of those with what is going to happen next. 3. Task definition/clarification/exploration Students become clear what they will be doing in groups and how. This clarity may take 10-15 minutes to emerge through the 'noise' of other ideas and notions. 4. The group activity Teacher support here should focus mainly on supporting group dynamics – e.g. if necessary, promoting sufficient ambiguity and enabling space for competing thoughts to be articulated, enabling active roles for students (i.e. are all listening? asking each other questions? offering opinions? suggesting explanations?) or setting up more specific intra-group roles of challenger (with reasons), scribe, observer, etc. Investigating time in getting groups to work well pays real dividends in the medium and long terms. The other main teacher role is simply to listen to what groups are saying, with a view to the next stage. 5. Summary discussion This is stage-managed by the teacher, who circulated the groups earlier for critical issues, is well-informed as to where each one will be coming from and has considered how to make best use of group outcomes. At this stage it is important to accept contributions in an open manner, the teacher manages the process and people, feeding in different people's views and steers the discussion to achieve the best/highest level of consensus. Inevitably at this stage, the student's contributions will focus upon matters of content. 6. De-briefing This is very important and must not be squeezed out by time pressures. The purpose of this stage is to ask the groups to reflect upon how they went about the task. What strategies did the students deploy? How effective did their own learning appear to be? 7. Bridging/transfer Bridging offers the opportunity for the students to transfer their specific learning to more general, comparable or analogous situations. This may be in terms of related
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skills, concepts, attitudes or values across the temporal scale. By doing so, valuable opportunities to makes links and connections to other subjects and the wider world often arise. Debriefing: A vital skill to develop Debriefing is the part of teaching thinking lessons that teachers most often find difficult and therefore leave out. I think this is because the debriefing (frequently referred to as 'the talk at the end of the lesson' by the uninitiated) can be very different from what goes on in a lot of classrooms. The activities themselves can make good but to really develop students' thinking and cognitive development the debriefing is crucial. It is in the debriefing session that students consolidate their learning and transfer it to other contexts. The following list is by no means exhaustive but four possible strands to debriefing include:
• getting students to explain their answer or solution at length;
• asking students about their mental processes as they did a task or tackled a problem;
• asking students about the patterns in reasoning that they employed, or which emerged in discussion (these two constitute thinking about thinking or metacognition);
• draw the attention of students to other contexts where the same reasoning is valuable. These may be to other topics in geography, in other subjects or in their everyday lives. This is termed 'bridging' and the intention is to get them to transfer their learning from the geography lesson to other contexts (Leat, 1998).
The following is a summary of the TTA research project Debriefing: Pupils' learning and teacher planning. In this project four geography teachers made reciprocal visits in which debriefed lessons were videotaped. A group of students were interviews after the lesson. Distinctive characteristics of the debriefing process
• High numbers of open and pseudo open questions asked by the teacher;
• Teacher making frequent reference to learning skills and overarching concepts;
• Students giving lengthy responses to teacher questions (studies have shown that the average answer length given by students is under two seconds);
• Connections made by teacher and sometimes by students between the learning outcomes and other (transfer) contexts;
• Teacher use of analogies or parallels to facilitate understanding and help bridging;
• Students receive evaluative feedback on their reasoning both from the teacher and other students;
• Teacher summarising discussion and learning for students;
• Animated discussion; and
• Thinking, learning, transfer and purpose discussed.
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What did students learn from the debriefing process? Geography: All groups said that they had learned either geographical content or skills in the lessons. Learning skills: Students made reference to improving their ability to take in, handle and process information in the pursuit of problem solving. Social skills: In some lessons students reported improved social and co-operative skills. Literacy: In several instances in interviews students pinpointed that the debriefing episodes had informed either their writing in that lesson or their approach to writing. Wider learning: Some students identified wider transferable significance in what they had learned. (this has developed over time.) What the teacher did that helped students learn Stimulating teaching. The use of challenging and stimulating teaching thinking activities underpinned the debriefing process. These were a prerequisite because they gave students a focus fir discussion.
• Managing discussion. Students explicitly emphasised the value of discussion, both in small groups and in the whole class debriefing episodes.
• Facilitating feedback. A particular feature of discussion is the extent to which it provides feedback to individuals, on their thoughts and explanations. They value this for helping to improve their work.
• Caring for groups and individuals. The debriefing process is an integral part of the lesson and its success depends on the attention the teacher gives to the groups and individuals throughout the lesson. This care helps to persuade the students that the purpose of the lesson is to encourage them to think and to share that thinking. It provides them with confidence.
• Explaining oneself. Many students mentioned that they were asked to expand in their first few words, to explain themselves fully or say 'a bit more'. This process helped them to clarify and articulate their thinking.
• Making connections. This is potentially one of the most powerful tools of the debriefing. The teachers are offering analogies or parallels in the context of students' everyday lives which help them understand the geography and its wider significance.
• Communicating the purpose of learning. The debriefing helps students see the point of the lesson. This may be in very direct terms such as
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examinations, or in terms of life skills, or most generally in terms of understanding the world.
• Providing learning strategies. Many of the strategies used in the lessons (such as Mysteries, 5W, Concept Mapping or Venn diagrams were recognised by students as generic strategies that can be used in other concepts.
• Making students ask questions. Students are encourages to ask questions, either of the teacher or of other students and this was seen as helping them to develop a greater sensitivity as to what makes a good question.
Learning from thinking Student outcomes 'How to group things effectively. How to discover important causes.' 'We have done a lot of group work and a lot of work which didn't seem like geography to begin with. As we did more work, however, it was easier to relate it to geography.' 'They have been more interesting and because of the way the lesson was set out it has been easier to take in and remember information.' 'They have been more "hands on" rather than a course based around textbooks. They have been easier to relate to and therefore easier to learn from.' 'I can talk in front of class and have found that I can work better in groups.' 'I have learned about trigger and background factors.' 'Also we have learnt how to investigate more thoroughly and see all factors in the case, so we can appreciate both sides of the story.'
Tips for successful debriefing (plenaries)
• Plan the debriefing process *(using a template).
• Identify appropriate questions.
• Include language for thinking about thinking – metacognition.
• Consider both the 'big picture' and the 'chunks' in learning.
• Allow students thinking time.
• Allow students to talk at length – in groups.
• Makes sure students see the point of the lesson (not just 'what' but 'how').
• Don't over-plan – don't give them the answers.
• Consider possible transfer contexts.
• Pay attention to group talk – their comments provide good starting points for discussion.
• Don't settle for one word answers – ask students for their reasoning.
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Levels of integration/infusion of teaching thinking into a curriculum
Level of use Possible outcomes/implications
Level 0: No teaching thinking strategies used.
National curriculum possible not being delivered.
Level 1: Occasional ready-made strategies from books, etc., used.
Increased student interest in lessons. National curriculum beginning to be addressed.
Level 2: Many strategies used, most of which are ready made, some developed by dept.
Students beginning to listen and respond to each other and thinking beginning to be addressed.
Level 3: A lot of teaching thinking strategies designed by department and integrated into curriculum.
Debriefing process familiar and integral to students' learning. Activities may be suggested by students. Concepts (subject specific and generic) understood and transfer to other topics and curriculum areas beginning.
Level 4: Full consideration is given to subject specific and generic aims of lesson and IT activities are designed to meet these.
Students begin to be independent learners. Debriefing is integral to most/many lessons. A high degree of metacognition. Improved examination results and uptake.
Developing powerful learning environments
(What follows is based on Sullivan Palinscar, A. (1998) 'Social Constructivist Perspectives', Annual Review of Psychology, 49, pp. 345-75.) Recent work on thinking proposes that learning and understanding are often social rather than individual processes. In this view, much learning and higher order thinking is dependent on talk and social interaction. For example:
• Students whose teachers who modelled mental processes when they had difficulty understanding text recalled more from lessons and showed greater awareness of what they were learning.
• Groups can draw upon a larger collective memory.
• Explaining one's thinking to another leads to deeper cognitive processing.
• Groups co-construct understanding as they question, interpret, clarify, summarise, speculate and predict.
• One view of thought is that it is internalised discourse/talk. Roth (1996) researched fourth and fifth grade students doing open-ended technology problems. Facts, ways of using tools and problems spread easily through the classroom, driven by the students, ideas/intellectual practices spread less easily and were largely driven by the teacher. Cobb (1991) showed that it took five months to create a climate in which students persisted with problems, explained reasons and solutions to each other, listened to others' reasons and tried resolve contradictions.
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Taylor and Cox (1997) highlighted the importance of social relationships. O'Connor (1998), in a study of sixth grade mathematics found that the acceptance of an idea was often dependent on who said it (social status). Chan found with grades 9-13 that productive talk was associated with conflicting statements being discussed rather than ignored. Webb and Farrivar (1997) found in an experimental design that students did better where they were prepared through:
(a) activities that ensured that they knew each other, (b) being taught communication skills, i.e. norms for interaction, (c) being taught how to help one another while working, and (d) developing skills for generating explanations.
Cobb (1993) found that harmony in a group's relationship was not a good indicator of learning experiences.
Edward de Bono’s CoRT1 Techniques
CAF (ask pupils to consider all factors) C&S (ask pupils to think of the consequences and sequel) AGO (ask pupils to consider their aims, goals and objectives which need not be strictly classified into these categories) FIP (ask pupils to think of the first important priorities) APC (ask pupils to run through the alternatives, possibilities and choices) OPV (ask pupils to look at the task from other points of view)
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The importance of questions and of the language of thought How did you do that? How else could you have done that? Who did that in a different way What was hard about doing that? What could you do when you are stuck on that? How could you help someone else do that? What would have made that easier for you? How could I have taught that better? How could you make that harder for yourself?
What would happen if….? I’m puzzled, my question is.. Suppose.. Imagine.. Predict..
I couldn’t decide because…
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Thinking Hats
intuitive
Reality
informative
cautious
Positive and negative
constructive
creative
Alternative solutions
reflective
Red
This covers intuition, feelings and emotions and requires no justification. The feeling may be genuine and the logic spurious! It gives the thinker permission to put forward his or her feelings on the subject at the moment. ‘How do I feel about this right now?’
Yellow
This is the logical and positive hat. It can be used in looking forward to the result of some proposed action or finding something of value in what has already happened. ‘Why will this work and how will it offer benefits?’
Black
Black hat thinking is logical; the hat of judgement and caution. Why does the suggestion not fit the facts, available experience, the system in use or the policy that is being followed?
Green This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, different and new ideas, provocation and ‘outside the box’ thinking. ‘How can this idea be modified to improve it? What different ways can achieve the same objective?’
White Covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. ‘What information do we have, what do we need and where can we get it?’ ‘Let’s drop the arguments and proposals and look at the database!’
Blue This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the thinking about the question (metacognition). ‘How have we been thinking so far and what types of thinking should we do more of?’
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Setting the Scene
A new car park is going to be built on a piece of waste ground near a residential area. In the group there are : 2 children who enjoy playing on the waste ground and have built a den with their friends. 2 residents who live on either side of the waste ground. 2 builders who are responsible for building the car park.
The Den - Activity
To discuss the building of a new car park from a variety of points of view.
Resources
• Document ‘Setting the Scene’ (below) and
• Six Thinking Hats.
Lesson
• Read Setting the Scene to the group.
• Decide in the group who will take the role of the children, builders and residents.
• Using Six Thinking Hats sheet as a guide and holding up appropriately coloured hat, discuss the situation, bearing in mind the role that has been chosen by each pupil and the mode of thinking represented by the hat. No longer than 5 minutes for each hat.
• To finish, create a still image involving all the characters that portrays their thinking about the situation.
• Allow each character to say one sentence to sum up their thoughts.
Thinking skills used
• Knowledge – Remember scenario and your role in it.
• Comprehension – Explain the situation in relation to your role.
• Application – Translate knowledge learnt in discussion to create still image.
• Analysis, evaluation and synthesis – Takes place during discussion, giving pupils opportunity to investigate, solve, evaluate, give an opinion, forecast and imagine.
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Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats in Mind Map form
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The Question is … ?
You are used to giving answers to questions set in a variety of ways. For some questions there is only one correct answer but on other occasions a number of responses are considered. This exercise reverses the normal process by giving you the answer. Try to give as many questions as possible to each of the answers which are listed below. These questions could be in simple written form or as a diagram, puzzle or problem. The answers 1. Blue 2. Twenty seven 3. The third desk from the window on the row nearest to the door 4. July 5. They both weigh the same 6. 3 hours 25 minutes 7. The oak tree 8. The guilty person was Robert 9. There would be two matches left 10. The battle of Hastings Work out responses for as many of these as you can in the most imaginative ways possible.
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Crazy Words
Some letters make the same sounds as others e. g ‘eigh’ makes the same sound as ‘a’. Can you work out what these words say? Write it here phyne ceakuruitie eighcorn buik neumearuikal phantactik oul suen oughbiedeyant uinphaumeightion urek tchurep oughpen boughm oughten hiejeyne dgeournal phutyour phieturd auphul
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LogoVisual thinking – the core process
The LVT Core Process uses hexagonal shapes that can be written on and displayed on a board for all the group to see. On these shapes each member of the group can write their many or several responses to the guiding question. Each member of the group has the opportunity to contribute either randomly or in turn until all thoughts have been written and displayed. At this point the discussion can begin as the group begins to organise the thoughts in order to construct a meaningful joint response to the guiding question. Focus: what do we want to know? Gather: what do we already know? Organise: what sense can we make of this? Understand: what (new) meanings have we made? Apply: what can we make of these new meanings? Guiding question:
What makes a thinking classroom?
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Paradise Island - The Plan Overview Through the use of a simulation game called ‘Paradise Island’ the pupils will be involved in work focusing on the following skills:
• thinking skills, using LVT techniques
• collaborative problem solving,
• drafting statements of position,
• open discussion in support of these statements
• single presentation to a group Resources used
1. LVT kit Classroom version for eight groups
2. ‘Paradise on the Brink’ pupil pack containing:
• Map of the island.
• Briefing sheet ‘Paradise on the Brink’.
• Newspaper cuttings demonstrating opinionated and biased writing.
• ‘Who is who on Paradise Island’, briefing
• sheet on the interest groups.
• Position papers for the interest groups.
• Submission sheet.
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Structure of the afternoon
Phase
Activity
Resources
1. Orientation:
o Pupils read materials and
become familiar with the scenario. Begin to get into role.
o Briefing sheets:
Material from the pupil packs
o Adults assist and provoke questions and discussion
2. Thinking through the problem within the group: What are the main points of the argument?
o In role begin to put
together the arguments for or against the oil production facility in the south of the island.
o Each group has to look
at all the points of view but will have a sticking point which cannot be moved away from.
o LVT Boards: six groups of
five pupils. o Adult support in using LVT
boards.
3. Talking through the problem in group:
o Creating a statement to
put before the government. Making sure all the group are fully briefed on their position. All pupils to have made an agreed notes sheet.
o Nominate spokesperson for the interest group
o Statement sheets:
Scaffolded to provide structure for statements for pupils who require this assistance.
o Personal notes to refer to
in debate.
4. Arguing the case for or against the proposed oil production facility
o Debate in open forum
the points that have been arrived at.
o Each group has a say, this can be presented in any way chosen.
o They then take questions from the floor
o Finally a vote is taken
o Pupils arranged in semi-
circle if space permits o Pupils asked to listen
carefully to arguments. o Have SL assessment
criteria to refer to (pupil friendly version)
o Adults make assessment in the same way
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Today’s lesson objectives:
• To look at the problem on the island and understand it from the point of view of your group.
• To work out a solution to the problem with the members of your group and draft a statement that explains that solution.
• To tell the class what your solution is and why you have arrived at that decision.
• To be prepared to defend your position.
This is what you are going to do
1. Look carefully at all the materials that you have in your pack and familiarise
yourself with the information contained in the various documents and a. discuss with members of the group the implications b. that can be drawn from this information. c. Then make sure you understand the position of your group and the
positions of the other groups.
2. Use the LVT board to plan your solution to the problem.
3. Draft an agreed statement (using the scaffold provided if you wish).
4. Present that agreed statement to the whole class. a. Defend your position against questioning from other groups. b. Ask other groups to defend their position.
5. Come up with a whole group solution?
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Selected Reading List
The following publications are brought to your attention as being some of the more important references on the subject of thinking and learning. Carol McGuinness, ACTS research (activating children’s thinking skills) and DfEE research report RR115 – ‘From thinking skills to thinking classrooms’ Edward de Bono, CoRT1 materials (www.atkeysolutions.co.uk) , and also ‘Six Thinking Hats’ Penguin Adey and Shayer, Cognitive Acceleration through Science Teaching described in ‘Really Raising Standards’, Routledge, 1994 Tony Buzan ‘Get Ahead’ , ‘Make the most of your mind’ , ‘Mind Maps for Kids’ and many others. Guy Claxton, in ‘Building Learning Power’ (www.guyclaxton.com/blp.htm) Talking Listening and Learning, Effective Talk in the Primary Classroom Myhill, Jones, Hopper, Open University Press, 2006 Language and Literacy in the Early Years Marian R. Whitehead, Sage, 2004 (3rd edn) Literacy and Learning Through Talk. Strategies for the Primary Classroom Roy Corden, Open University Press, 2000 Teaching English ed Susan Brindley, Open University Press, 1994 Towards Dialogic Teaching Robin Alexander, Dialogos, 2004 (4th edn) obtainable from www.robinalexander.org.uk Culture and Pedagogy. International Comparisons in Primary Education Robin Alexander, Blackwell, 2001 LogoVisual Thinking, a guide to making sense. Anthony Blake and John Varney, Centre for Management Creativity, www.changeandinnovation.com, 2004. www.logovisual.com for articles on the use of LVT in the classroom and the benefits across the age range and across the curriculum.
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Learning about Learning Learning and Teaching, Scotland 2007 (available as pdf from …) Questions worth Asking Carole Sullivan, Brighton and Hove AfL Project 2003. (Available as a pdf from … ) Bob Kizlik Thinking Skills Vocabulary and Definitions , 2010, at http://www.adprima.com/thinkskl.htm
