Getting the 'talk' going with new learners...

This week we have been exploring Matariki in LS2. With Kiri taking the role of lead teacher, my role has been to work with our group of learners who find many aspects of learning a challenge (not my focus group). I absolutely loved this opportunity to make a stronger connection with these students as we explored the topic at their pace. The scaffolds I had used to generate conversation with my more able learners worked equally as well with this group. The only difference was that I needed to prompt and encourage a little bit more. 

When I introduced the topic I asked, 'What do you already know about Matariki?' To sum this up, I started with a blank sheet and ended with a blank sheet. No one felt confident enough to offer their opinion. To get around this I suggested we read the text 'Celebrating Matariki' then try to answer the question again. 

I knew I needed to scaffold this further and hook them in, so I gave each person a vivid and asked them to write down any words they thought were important, any facts they thought were interesting or any questions they had on our shared thinking page. I explained that we were going to learn about Matariki together so we could help each other, but if that was going to be successful we would need to have lots of learning conversations. 

I used my 'steal' (the link is below) from observing Matt Goodwin, to help us unpack this text. The initial silence I had been met with earlier quickly disappeared as they raced to be the first to share their thinking or define new words. 

Click here to access this activity

After reading and talking about this text, we looked at our thinking sheet and set about finding the '20 most important words' in the information. It was really interesting to sit back after showing them how to identify if we had recorded the words more than once, and listen to the dialogic discussion evolve. Even more interesting to me was the fact that there were no longer any passengers on this learning journey, everyone was actively involved. I modelled how to find information in the text to support their responses. It is apparently, a lot of fun to 'race' to find the words by reading with quick eyes (skimming and scanning).

Once we had identified our important words, I introduced them to our summary scaffold. We then needed to reduce that list of 20 words to a smaller list of 6 words. I was amazed to see that there was no hesitation with this challenge. Our final task was to use the 6 words we had decided were most important and write them in sentences to summarise the facts in the text. This part needed a lot of teacher support, but that is the reality of working with learners who find learning a challenge.

Just before we finished I asked them again what they knew about Matariki. This time everyone had something to contribute and I accepted every response. I did, however, have to help one learner reword what they were trying to say as they had got a bit mixed up. Experience told me here that positive praise would keep the confidence growing and the talk going.

Over the next few days we referred back to this learning and built on it. Each time I noticed these learners were quiet participants at the start of each task, but were confidently sharing their thinking at the end. I did not simplify the framework in any way. What I did do was scaffold my language of instruction. A point that highlights how knowing your learners enables you to empower them.  

The DLO's above show how we added building blocks to this task to help strengthen our connections to a new topic. Over the last few days, together we have used learning conversations to explore the strategies of activating prior knowledge, skimming and scanning, questioning, making connections, summarising, finding information and evaluating at their level, and at their pace. 

The power of silence...

Today I set my learners the task of creating a shared response to the question, 'What can we do about the litter problem in schools?' We used my twist on the ESOL strategy consensus to help us do this. My learners were asked to draw their shapes then add their own response to the question in the portion directly in front of them. Once this was done they used their very creative ways to decide how they would formulate their shared response as my twist was that they were not allowed to speak to each other. 

I observed ticks appearing to show agreement, a 1/2 mark to show some agreement, question marks to show uncertainty, crosses to show disagreement, circle joined with lines to highlight repetition, hand signals, crossing out, arrows and even signatures to denote agreed and disagreed points. Shared responses were then co-constructed alongside pats on the back, smiles and lots of thumbs up. This was an extremely powerful learning opportunity as it showed first hand why we need to be able to have our Learning Space 2 (LS2) famous learning conversations.

During our sharing time I asked for feedback on the task. One usually quiet participant told me it would have been much easier if they were allowed to use our talking frames because it would have helped him know he was using the right words to show he disagreed with some of the opinions in his group. Another student pointed out that they used the summary strategy to identify the important words, then from there, use those words to write their shared opinion. The feedback was fantastic and showed real connections had been made to why talking about our learning is so important.

How Austin helped Room 5

Sharing Austin's Butterfly with my MIT focus group helped them make real connections to the power of feedback. The students were amazed at the transformation of Austin's initial image to his final drawing. This clip allowed them to see how using 'the eyes of a scientist' his peers were able to guide him through six drafts. Our challenge was to notice what the feedback looked like. 

What we did:

Ideas were recorded on whiteboards independently then shared with a partner. The objective behind the 'list sharing' being to compare lists and merge ideas into one list. This allowed a further two opportunities to connect to the feedback. Once all lists were compiled we shared as a group. By doing this we were able to co-construct the success criteria that would guide our own feedback skills.

We think feedback is:

• Information that supports the learning
• Kind and positive
• Helps people realise and see their errors
• Critical (but not mean)
• Detailed and specific
• Useful - should have a purpose

From our success criteria we derived our learning intention:

• LI: To give useful, specific feedback 

This lesson was observed by our literacy facilitator who asked if they had the opportunity to make a decision about their learning during that lesson and if it was successful.

Student 1: Yes I did because I got to help decide what our Learning Intention was and what that would look like. It will help me to help my critical friend by getting them to see their mistakes in a kind way.

Student 2: Yes because we set our own success criteria. It was fun learning about how Austin changed his simple butterfly into a detailed picture. I think I will think about this when I'm helping my critical friend because it will help me look at my own work too.

What's next?

I need to provide real situations that will allow for specific feedback to be noticed and given. This will allow the students to see how the feedback helped them make changes. To move learning to the next level I will need to provide time for the students who receive feedback to explain in their own words why they were given this advice.