Administrator ' s Corner
HANDING OVER THE LEARNING SPACE
BY GRAHAM HORRIS
2 . Many core , learning and thinking skills , capabilities and dispositions are naturally visible . Can we see from a teacher ’ s planning and assessment which ones are being promoted in the lesson and are they visible in students ’ learning ?
3 . Effective teaching requires teachers ’ own mastery of these skills , including the use of effective questioning which makes students think and hypothesise , and gives them the scope to discuss with peers before responding . Can we see this effective questioning in action ?
My last two articles introduced ideas to help schools consider how well they prepare students for rapidly changing and unpredictable futures . I explored the need to shift the pedagogical status quo by thinking about how we teach students in light of what their futures might hold . By way of example , I questioned the wisdom of spending so many hours perfecting children ’ s handwriting now that it bears so little relevance to lifestyles in many parts of the world . And I suggested that great schools have done their futures planning and are now making the shift from ‘ learning about ’ to ‘ learning how and to ’, and I asserted that ‘ skill-free lessons are not lessons for the future at all ’.
I ’ m often asked what an inspector looks for when visiting a lesson . Of course , regarding students ’ skills , this should be similar to when school leaders evaluate lessons . We remember visiting lessons which ‘ wowed ’ us with the vibrancy , apparent spontaneity and total absorption of students in their learning . I can still picture such lessons going back over decades and they all had one thing in common - ‘ the learning space ’. This isn ’ t a physical space , but rather the cognitive space a lesson opens up so that students can develop skills themselves . This is when they develop , apply and consolidate the wide range of core , learning and thinking skills , are creative and innovative , and learn by trial and error . Some teachers feel that they lose control when making this space for students . Indeed , it does mean losing lock-step , textbook-driven control because the teacher takes full responsibility of planning for much more than knowledge transfer . It ’ s about planning flexible lessons that give students the space to learn at their own pace through individual ownership and responsibility for their own learning , and the scope to learn collaboratively . These approaches celebrate ‘ getting things wrong ’, knowing that this leads to truly effective learning . So , how do we recognise when the ‘ learning space ’ is live ? Let ’ s start by reflecting on a few questions .
1 . Mastery of core skills , thinking and learning skills including communication , creativity , ICT , change adeptness and self-drive , stems from regular practice across the curriculum . How effectively have we mapped these skills across the curriculum , and how well do our self-evaluation approaches , particularly lesson observations , evaluate these skills ?
4 . Less effective teaching crowds the learning space and gives students little room to think and develop skills . For example , a teacher might ask students to colour-in half a pizza to show they understand fractions . In this case , the teacher has used thinking skills to devise the solution . With a subtle but significant change in mindset , the same task could require students to devise the solution for themselves , simply by inviting them to create an original way of showing they understand the concept of fractions . Students would then have to use thinking skills themselves , rather than relying on the teacher having done the thinking for them .
5 . All too often our assessment systems measure the things that are easily measurable rather than the things that really matter . If skills really matter , how confident are we that our assessment approaches measure students ’ progress and mastery of them ? But growth in skills takes time . Do our assessment approaches recognise that , or do we still expect , unnecessarily , to measure micro steps in every lesson ?
Graham is an international specialist in transformational change . An experienced conference speaker , he is a freelance school-improvement consultant who also works with the International Futures Forum and British Council . He has designed , led and quality assured school inspection , review and improvement approaches in the Middle East and Europe , including as HM Assistant Chief Inspector in the UK .
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