www.taolearn.com

Teaching is the canny art of

intellectual temptation

- Jerome Bruner

Teaching involves putting children into

difficult situations out of which they can

only get by thinking

John Heron

What are the characteristics of these children?

curious

interested

adventurous

courageous

good skills

good learners?

self-motivated

self-managed

self-directed

self-regulated

autonomous

independent

lifelong learners?

Are the children in your school like this?

Why do you think it is that the longer children

stay in school

- the less curious they are?

- the less questions they ask?

The most motivating learning .....

..... is always self-regulated

Some facts:

6 billion cell phones in the world

85% of new phones are web enabled

2 billion broadband subscriptions

255 million websites

150 million blogs

8 trillion text messages sent in 2011

107 trillion emails 89% of which are spam

Youtube 48 hours uploaded every minute

3 billion videos viewed every day

What if .....

every piece of subject matter was available to your students on the internet, and

they all had access to internet linked tablets, and

they all had access to high speed broadband all day....

What would teaching look like then?

In an SRL classroom teachers would:

Teach learning skills not content

Pose questions, outline problems, set challenges,

give clear measurable objectives

Put students into small groups

Enable them to connect to the best subject based

internet resources

Get out of the way

In an SRL Classroom what would children need to be able to do?

They would need to have all the skills of Self-Regulated Learning they would need excellent learning skills

Including the skills of how to .....

set learning goals

plan out their study

ask good questions

generate motivation and perseverance

process information effectively sift, sort, compare, verify, try out different ways to learn

work to deadlines

reflect on their achievement both process and content

make changes to their learning processes where necessary

These are all skills learning skills

Do your students have all these skills?

They know how to learn but do they know how to study?

73% of university students report difficulties preparing

for an exam

most tertiary students have been found to have weak or

ineffective strategies for processing information both in

the classroom and in their own study

when making notes from lectures or from text most

students miss 60 - 70% of the key points

- good note making is positively correlated with

academic achievement

- material omitted from notes has only a 5 - 15%

chance of being recalled

Even when they have good notes many students still have

great difficulty organising the information they have

collected.

52% admit that their notes are disorganised

61% report having trouble sequencing the ideas to make

coherent sense

Even given well organised, well structured notes with

summaries provided:

two thirds of students at the secondary level study for

tests purely by rereading their notes

more than half of them do that reading the day before

the test or exam

around 12% of students do nothing more than recopy

their notes verbatim

50% use passive repetition of key points as their single

study technique.

The direct teaching of learning skills is still an uncommon topic in most school programmes

Only 20% of teachers believe that teaching students how

to learn is a priority

only 17% of students report that teachers actively help

them learn or improve their study skills

Learning Skills

Are a combination of

cognitive

metacognitive and

affective

processes, skills, techniques and strategies

Cognitive skills - active information processing and retrieval strategies study skills

Organising, transforming and summarising information

Using structural writing planners

Timetabling and time management

Note making in class and for studying

Memory techniques

Idea generation, metaphorical thinking

Questioning

Calibrating own learning preferences

Affective skills - enabling the student to gain some control over mood, motivation and attitude

Persistence and perseverance

Focus and concentration, overcoming distractions

Self-motivation

Mindfulness

Reducing anxiety

Delaying gratification

Managing impulsiveness and anger

Developing resilience

Metacognitive skills monitoring the deployment of

cognitive and affective skills

Reflecting on the success of processes used, skills

practiced and the understanding and retention of

content

Being prepared to change ineffective strategies,

learn new skills

Learning Skills in the UK

2007 DfE research - Learning Skills And the Development

of Learning Capability concluded:

The results suggest that the development of learning skills

and capabilities should be embedded in the curriculum,

as well as being taught explicitly to pupils.

2008 QCA - A Framework of personal, learning and thinking

skills that are essential to success in learning, life and work:

Independent enquirers

Creative thinkers

Reflective learners

Team workers

Self-managers

Effective participators

2011 - QCA is disbanded and its functions absorbed by DfE

1997 - Singapore MOE Teach Less Learn More

Remember Why We Teach more for the learner to excite passion for understanding for the test of life

and less to rush through the syllabus out of fear of failure to dispense information only for a life of tests

Learning Skills - in the USA

EIC - Elementary Integrated Curriculum Framework core curriculum adopted by 46 states (2011)

Academic Success Skills: Collaboration Effort/Motivation/Persistence Intellectual Risk Taking Metacognition

Creative Thinking Skills: Elaboration Flexibility Fluency Originality

Critical Thinking Skills: Analysis Evaluation Synthesis

NZ Curriculum Five Key Competencies

Thinking

Using language, symbols and text

Managing self

Relating to others

Participating and contributing

Poland, Belgium, Italy, Korea, Mexico, the Slovak Republic,

Spain, and Turkey all have developed similar necessary

learning skill sets for students

Learning Skills - in the IB The Learner Profile all IB learners strive to be:

Inquirers

Knowledgeable

Thinkers

Communicators

Principled

Open-minded

Caring

Risk-takers

Balanced

Reflective

Approaches To Learning - 7 Learning Skill clusters (potential)

Communication &

Collaboration

Self Management

Information & Media

Literacies

Critical Thinking

Creativity & Innovation

Reflection

Transfer

If the aim is to develop lifelong learners this can now be achieved by:

Focusing on teaching ATL skills rather than subject content

Allowing students to find the required subject content themselves using good quality internet resources

Enabling self-regulated learning to occur in the classroom

Using self-assessment of content, process and ATL skill development to develop full metacognitive awareness

SRL Exercise

1) Form subject groups

2) Form intra-subject groups of 3 people per group with one internet connected device per group

3) Connect to subject based websites

4) Evaluate each site for breadth, depth, delivery styles and Year level suitability

How do you teach learning skills?

Two books developed this year:

IB Skills - A guide for Teaching ATL Skills

IB Skills A students guide for Learning ATL

Skills

How do you assess learning skills?

By the successful understanding, retention, transfer and recall of content?

But does the successful passing of content based tests give any indication of the effectiveness or efficiency of the learning skills employed?

Framework of Skills Development

Level 1

Novice

- observation

Level 2

Learner

- emulation

Level 3

Practitioner

- demonstration

Level 4

Expert

- self-regulation

Observes others performing tasks and using the skill High levels of scaffolding from teacher needed

Copies others performance of the skill Medium level of scaffolding needed

Can demonstrate the skill on demand Minimal teacher scaffolding required

Can perform the skill without thinking Can teach others the skill No teacher scaffolding required

Developing Metacognitive Awareness

Regular self-assessment by students of :

Content - understanding of subject matter

ATL skills - progress towards mastery

Learning/teaching strategies - effectiveness

and efficiency

In an SRL classroom teachers would:

Teach learning skills not content

Pose questions, outline problems, set challenges,

give clear measurable objectives

Put students into small groups

Enable them to connect to the best subject based

internet resources

Get out of the way

But of course:

Students differ in the degree of self-regulation

they have the skills for

Teachers differ in the degree of self-regulation

they allow in the classroom

Regulatory styles of Students

High self-regulation skills

- student manages all aspects of own learning

- student thinking at a maximum, teacher involvement at a minimum

Intermediate self-regulation skills

- student manages much of own learning, asks the teacher questions, gets help occasionally

- students thinking engaged, teacher as guide and support

Low self-regulation skills

- student totally passive, needs to be taught everything, have all questions answered, helped through every step of learning

- student thinking at a minimum, teacher totally involved in all phases of student learning

Regulatory styles of Teachers

Strong teacher regulation

- teacher controls all information, answers all questions

- student thinking at a minimum, teacher as mental crutch

Shared regulation

- teacher provides skills training, problem statements, concepts

- students actively engage in finding information, solving problems

- students thinking engaged, teacher as guide and support

Loose teacher regulation

- teachers only functions are supplying the learning objectives and assessing their achievement

- student thinking at a maximum, teacher engagement at a minimum

De

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f St

ud

en

t Se

lf-r

egu

lati

on

Degree of Teacher Regulation of Learning

Strong

Shared

Loose

High Destructive friction

Destructive friction Congruence

Intermediate Destructive friction

Congruence Constructive friction

Low Congruence Constructive friction

Destructive friction

Shared Style - with provision

1) Assess for ability to self-regulate learning

2) Allow for 3 levels of self-regulation in every class

3) Groups of 3-4 with one computer + high speed internet

4) Work directly with the low SRL students teaching them

the appropriate learning skills

5) Help the intermediate SRL students where required

6) Allow the high self-regulated learners to work

independently

7) Pose problems, set challenges, give measurable

objectives, help them to ask the right questions

Must have provision for the highly self-regulated learner at all levels for all students to aspire to

What percentage of your lessons are available

to students as well structured and supported,

fully independent learning experiences?

Are you aware of all the websites that have

resources for your subject?

http://www.taolearn.com/students.php

http://www.taolearn.com/students.php

1999 Netherlands

nationwide innovation in secondary education

developing self-regulated learners

conclusions in 2010

good PD not available to support SRL

teachers found it difficult to stop teaching

transmission teaching still rules!

To develop Self-Regulated learners

Teachers must learn how to stop teaching and

allow learning to take place

Only by being allowed to practice the skills of

self-regulated learning will students become

self-regulated learners.

Three key strands of PD for SRL

Teach the teachers:

how to teach ATL skills within the context of their

subject based lessons

how to turn the classroom experience into guided

inquiry learning

how to help students to self-assess their content,

skills and strategy use through reflection

Developing Metacognitive Awareness

Self-assessment of :

Content understood/not understood

- what questions do you have?

ATL skills learnt/practiced

- progress towards mastery

Learning/teaching strategies experienced/employed

- effectiveness and efficiency