Zara Sahota(AUEA)

REPORT

Improving Teaching and Learning

The development journey of Mrs Zara Sahota, Head of Maths at Aston University Engineering Academy in the UK, into professional noticing.

Zara Sahota (Aston University Engineering Academy - UK) | Report

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1. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/utc-becomes-first-school-with-cameras-in-every-classroom

Mrs Zara Sahota, Head of Maths, worked remotely with ONVU Learning’s Teacher Development Lead, Dr Sean Warren. Zara quickly identified an issue she wanted to address:

“I had two middle set Y11 groups who were really frustrating me as I believed in them, but I just wasn’t getting anywhere. The prospect of teaching them several times a week brought a sense of dread. They are comparable in terms of mathematical ability and grades, and their behaviour is similar. Both groups have got their personalities – students who are capable of being a bit rowdy. I wanted to use the project to address the underlying dynamics.”

Mrs Sahota was provided with an opportunity to evaluate the impact of approaches on the selected experimental group over a four-month period (November 2018-February 2019). Inadvertently, the timetable had also afforded her the chance to compare the Focus Group with a comparative cohort, who were not subject to video review, remote coaching or advocated strategies (Control Group).

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Aston University Engineering Academy

In July 2018, Aston University Engineering Academy (AUEA) in Birmingham, the UK, became the first school in the country to install state-of-the-art cameras in all its classrooms. The wholesale deployment of ONVU Learning’s discreet 360-degree solution, Lessonvu, received much media attention1. Ensuing coverage acknowledged the over-riding purpose - to enable and support staff to improve Teaching and Learning, whilst raising predictable and legitimate concerns about privacy and surveillance in an era of high accountability. This report documents the experience of a teacher who was keen to be at the forefront of the initiative.

Disheartenend

The sense of urgency and focus was due to feedback, which caused Mrs Sahota a degree of dissonance:

“Just before we started the Project, we did a student voice survey. It emerged that the class climate was really having a detrimental effect on a small group of girls. They wrote about other students ‘hijacking’ the lesson through negative attention. This fresh perspective took me by surprise, as they really didn’t let on when chatting to me. I realised retrospectively that on these informal occasions we rarely spoke about maths specifically. Because of their politeness and friendliness, they didn’t let on about their negative feelings of having to contend with the antics of prominent boys who were impeding their progress.”

Reviewing the footage caused further dissonance and critical self-reflection:

“In my previous school I used formative methods such as mini-whiteboards and flashcards as routine. These would allow me to constantly check and monitor students’ evolving comprehension. Moving to this school and then going on maternity leave, I somehow lost the habit. When I returned, little things like that were not at the forefront of my mind.

I had more time to plan back then. I now have more responsibility, and even though I have more frees, they are often taken up with other duties. I wasn’t aware that it was even an issue until I watched the clip. I had got used to teaching without them and before my eyes I saw that I had started to become a teacher that I used to observe in my old school. This teacher used to cause me great frustration. I have become that teacher which is crazy. After watching that first video I remember feeling a bit deflated and going home to my husband and saying, I can’t believe I’ve turned into that person!”

Mrs Sahota gave permission for her remote coach to review her lesson. Consistent with ONVU Learning’s Align Methodology, a 15-minute segment was chosen to provide a boundary for subsequent dialogue. In addition, Dr Warren selected a random student to illuminate the nuances and subtleties - which often elude the teacher in the midst of teaching a lesson. The colleagues then shared screens to explore if any new insights emerged from the exploration.

Zara Sahota (Aston University Engineering Academy - UK) | Report

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2 & 3.. Not their real names.

autonomy amongst her learners. The Focus Group is defined by cooperation and collaboration, as “students feel increasingly comfortable, that they can ask each other for help and it’s ok to get stuck on stuff.”

“I have made my intentions for each phase more explicit and openly talked about how their use of traffic lights shows up on the camera and will help me to think about planning and meeting their needs. This opened up dialogue with the class and I have noticed a shift in their work ethic. This has made the environment far more positive and now the off-task behaviour is rare.”

The Focus Group became more and more open to communicating this state at critical moments, as Zara illustrates:

“Today I was talking about rearranging formula and I changed the question, just a little tweak, and then suddenly many of them went to orange. I thought ‘ok’, so lots are not sure at this precise point, so what could it be? Oh - it looks different, but is not mathematically different, so I addressed it then and there with everyone. It would have been so easy to have done the exercise without traffic lights and not picked up on the extent that it confused them. I would have probably forged on with the explanation assuming all had ‘got it’, because I felt I had explained it clearly. I dare say that evidence of misconceptions would have emerged during the exercises, or later when I marked their work.”

“I have done more to reflect and improve my own practice than I have done since I first started training and I love it! Deliberately setting weekly time aside to look back at what has happened keeps it fresh in my mind. This makes me think about approaching things differently as I go into other lessons. The impact of this is that when ‘in the moment’ I think, is there a different way?”

Distractions

One of the methods used for communicating was the Lessonvu Timeline. Dr Warren would annotate Mrs Sahota’s clip with descriptive comments and leave questions for contemplation.

The process of noticing and realising aspects of practice retrospectively, enhances the teacher’s capacity to be alert and aware when back in the classroom. Referring to that initial focus, Zara reflects:

“Before I watched it, I was in this bubble. I didn’t really notice that (John)2 was really passive with everything. Although his book was neat and he was really good at keeping everything presentable, he wasn’t really doing very much. On the surface he looked all right - quite busy but he wasn’t really learning very much as he had become quite skilful at avoiding things. I wasn’t aware of that at the time, but it was clearly evident in the footage. That was last term. Even today, I became aware that he was doing the avoiding thing and so I moved more towards the back of the room. I didn’t approach him directly (as it gets his back up), but I spoke to the person next to him and John sat up. He then asked if he could go to the toilet and I said, ‘Ask again when you’ve done these questions’, whereas before I would have let him go because I trusted him.”

Conductor of the Orchestra

As Mrs Sahota reintroduced mini-whiteboards and traffic light flash cards back into her practice, evidence of the effect was captured by the ever available Lessonvu camera. The adoption of the strategy from one lad had an unexpected, and disproportionate, impact on the whole group:

“Jude3 can be quite detached and is kind of cool. Some of his peers are a bit wary of him. Yet, he turned from green to orange in the middle of my explanation. I think judging by their faces a lot of his peers were surprised. I tentatively invited another lad (on green) to support him. I would never have paired them up, but it was justified and Jude accepted him saying, ‘Aw, come here and explain it to me’. The cards gave permission – the nature of the interaction was framed by maths as opposed to degrees of coolness – it acted as a buffer. It was really nice to see in that little moment that he helped him whilst I carried on with everyone else. Before I would have gone straight over to him and told him myself and kept everyone else waiting. Then inevitably some get off task and I’m left firefighting. All the class notice when ‘the cool one’ is turning over his card – it’s like, ‘Ok – he’s doing it…’”

She laughs, “They can’t believe he’s turned into an utter maths geek.”

Mrs Sahota reveals that the incident is symbolic of the whole intervention group. She draws on clips to illustrate students are increasingly becoming learning resources for each other. She makes claims for greater trust and

Zara Sahota (Aston University Engineering Academy - UK) | Report

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One reoccurring entry caught the teacher’s attention:

“I noticed that you put on my timeline comments whenever I was ‘diverted’. This included times when colleagues come into my room. I’d never realised just how much time I am constantly being interrupted by a stream of short discussions about subsidiary issues. Of more concern was how unaware I was that students drift off task during these moments. Subsequently, I am keen to minimise how often colleagues inadvertently divert me from the core purpose of teaching and learning - when you become aware you realise that can be non-stop!”

Impact

The conversation around evidence of impact revolved around three aspects:

• The comparative performance between the Focus Group (FG) and the Control Group (CG);• The comparative academic outcomes between the Focus Group and the Control Group; • The well-being of the teacher.

Performance

Mrs Sahota points out:

“The FG’s attitude to being stuck is it’s solvable and they are cooperative; they are more open to talking about being stuck and helping each other.

The CG’s attitude to being stuck is very negative. They seem to be in a rut and are competitive - they still bite at each other if someone gets something wrong - it’s not as comfortable. They are not open to helping each other.

As I have said, both classes contain interesting personalities, but the FG have reined it in. I don’t have to ask for quiet. It feels as though we are pulling in the same direction whereas the other group are still ‘pulling and pushing’.

I recently requested footage of the other group (CG) and could only watch a few minutes because I didn’t like it [laughs]. The beginning of the clips showed a clear contrast between the two groups as they enter the room and carry out routines. This is the primary focus now. I am aware that some students are beginning to get intolerant of those who distract. I have observed that I stand – wait – and look stern – conscious that the images don’t quite reveal that I am getting more and more frustrated in my head!”

Academic Outcomes

“Having just added scores from their most recent mocks, it is apparent in the spread-sheet data that the Focus Group have made clear progress towards their aspirational targets. This includes the ‘cool’ lad, who has made a massive jump from ‘U’ to a ‘3’. And he is

not the only one. Many have maintained their grade despite recently taking on a more difficult paper. I am pleased to say that the girls who motivated me to use the project to tackle the issues raised, have also made expected progress in the subject. They have seen for themselves that the group dynamic has changed, it would be interesting to get another Student Voice done.

Unfortunately, too many of the CG haven’t made progress. In fact, lots of them have gone backwards, even getting ‘U’ s!

Now that I am confident and secure about introducing and embedding the strategies used with the Focus Group, I have started to implement what I have learned with them. In my experience, too much, too soon is a mistake. For example, I have footage which shows when first using the Flash cards with my Focus group I just failed miserably with them. But after examining the footage with Dr Warren I realised that I didn’t explain how to use them properly. They ended up just been an extra thing on the table which was confusing for them and for me.

“Since speaking with Sean, I have realised that in the past I used them more as a replacement for hands up, which is why I went into that mode again. So - now I feel like I am reprogramming myself to use them differently - they represent what my students are thinking as I am teaching. This is why it has not had the quick success I anticipated.”

So, I am going to methodically introduce them stage by stage: mini whiteboards, then traffic lights - even if it is just for one task at a time. Their extended use will be conditional on using them well so that they fulfil their purpose: to communicate and raise awareness about what they are thinking as the lesson unfolds.

This project has been an investment. Beyond this term, I will apply these approaches to my Y10s going forward so I can address issues much earlier. ONVU Learning’s Lessonvu and Align Methodology will continue to provide me with a lens to ask insightful questions as I routinely look back on episodes within my lessons.”

Teacher Well-Being

“At the end of our collaborative project, I can say that I am 100% different when in front of the two groups. With the initial Focus Group - it feels calmer; I feel calmer.”

Thank you [Sean], I feel like this project has been a wonderful teacher therapy session! I actually get to focus and improve, then see the impact in class. Having more focused students, eager to learn, is the most rewarding thing ever and has me hooked!”

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Visit www.onvulearning.com/evidence for more partner school reports and case studies.

Zara Sahota (Aston University Engineering Academy - UK) | Report

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